The Syndicate

Golden wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 10:24 pm

sprityo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:50 pm Oof hopefully I’m not working, my new schedule starts soon

24 hours of open btsc before the first round, no worries.

Btw inh - is it permitted to talk to someone individually who you have btsc with, or must all discussion has own in the chat with everyone present? Or will it change from one situation to the next?

When Open BTSC is permitted, players may PM anyone individually or collectively about the game. It works essentially the same as in Sherlock Mafia and Blue Velvet Mafia. When the game is in a state of Closed BTSC, players may only post in the thread. There are situational exceptions - for example, in Food Chain, once players are in their "environment" chatrooms, they may not communicate via BTSC or post in the thread. Also, in most Death Matches, the two elimination candidates cannot engage in BTSC with anyone else. The other players are not limited by this restriction.

The game will begin in 26 hours, at 7:00PM CST.

Most of the contestants are already media personalities in South Korea. They're comfortable on camera, and know the kind of show they're on, so they behave a little bit differently than say, your average cast of Survivor. The frenetic editing style, with the random words on screen and whatnot, was a little bit hard for me to adjust to, but I found that the flashy editing does help explain the complex course of each game, and each player's competing strategy. It's a way of communicating complicated situations to the audience without having to extensively rely on interviews and over-explanations. Although I do hate it when during dramatic moments, like a card being flipped or something pivotal being revealed, they replay the same footage like five times before revealing what happens. That's my only major quibble with the editing.

EdJou wrote: ↑Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:31 pm Oh thank Yahweh Satan!

Welcome to the site! Hopefully, this game will be a fun, albeit a tad chaotic, introduction to the weird world of competition we have here at The Syndicate.

So, EdJou, what are your impressions of The Genius as a show and as a competition?

Happy to report that The Genius Sign Up's have closed, and we now have our cast of 13 contestants. Of course, people interested in playing can still sign up as Surrogates.

The game will start Wednesday evening.

I'd advise the 13 contestants to begin reading up on the 12 Main Matches and start formulating strategies. In addition, BTSC is fully open during this pre-game phase. Feel free to PM each other about the game, for now at least.

Good luck.

With the addition of the wonderful Scotty and MP, and the sure to be wonderful EdJou, we now have only one remaining spot in the cast.

I'd advise anyone who is interested in this concept but cannot find the time to commit to playing the full game to sign up as a Surrogate. If a player is in a situation where they will not have regular access to their Internet during a Match, a Surrogate could play the Match for them, and then switch out when the player returns. This is kinda like being a short-term replacement.

M Plus 7 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 22, 2018 4:28 pm Needless to say, I'm already hooked and that's from watching a random episode out of order. So I'm pretty stoked to start from the beginning.

The show is more than a little bit addictive. I remember losing a weekend to the first two seasons when I found out about it.

M Plus 7 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:31 pm Alright, I probably shouldn't due to time restrictions, but this just looks too cool, especially since Annie and I started watching the TV show (love it!). I'm in.

Glad to have you on board! What are your thoughts on the show?

Spacedaisy wrote: ↑Sun Apr 15, 2018 10:09 pm Do we answer those questions in thread or PM you?

In thread, please.

1. Golden
2. Spacedaisy
3. Nutella
4. Dharmahelper
5. Long Con
6. Sprityo
7. Speedchuck
8. Lunalee
9. DisgruntledPorcupine
10. Scotty
11. M Plus 7
12. EdJou
13. Epignosis

The Genius is an intense test of game theory know-how, strategic adaptability, and social manipulation. 13 players start the game, and are gradually eliminated over the course of 12 rounds until only one is left: the objectively-chosen, unarguable Genius of The Syndicate. Each round consists of a Main Match, a large-scale original game that everyone plays, and a Death Match, which is a 1v1 strategic competition between the loser of the Main Match and a player of their choice. The loser of a Death Match is eliminated from the competition. Winners of Main Matches get Tokens of Life which protect them from being chosen for the Death Match.


In a way, The Genius is like 12 different games stitched together. Each individual Main Match functions differently from one another, and requires a bit of a learning curve. To a large degree, the extent of how well you’ll do in The Genius is decided on how quickly you’re able to both understand the rules of each Main Match and figure out a clever way to win while working inside of them. Different Main Matches cater to different types of gameplay. To consistently win, you have to be constantly changing up how you approach each Main Match. Complacency often equals elimination. To aid in your understanding of each Main Match, I’m giving everyone a bit of a head start. Even before the game begins, the rules of all 12 Main Matches will be publicly avaliable in the Main Match forum. I’d advise people to start studying up and formulating strategies ASAP. Warning: rules for future matches are subject to revisions and changes.


In most cases, the loser of the Main Match must choose a player without a Token of Life to play against in the Death Match. However, in certain specific cases, this will be handled differently. There are a total of seven games which will be used in the twelve Death Matches. Certain games will be repeated. The order of Death Matches, and the rules of each game are pre-chosen and currently confidential. The loser of each Death Match is eliminated, and the winner advances to the next round of the competition. The winner also receives possession of the loser’s Garnets.


Garnets are the currency of The Genius. The winners of each Main Match will recieve a certain number of Garnets. These Garnets can be traded and transfered at any time. To give someone a Garnet, all you need to do is PM me stating as much. You will have the opportunity to spend Garnets for advantages in both Main Matches and Death Matches. In certain situations, ties will be broken in favor of the player with the most Garnets. Garnets are both incredibly valuable and dangerous to have. Garnet hoarders make irrestible targets for Death Matches.


The degree to which BTSC is allowed depends on the game that is currently being played. Certain games empahsize BTSC communication while others strictly ban it. When a new game starts, I’d strongly advise that people check in the rules and descriptions to see whether or not BTSC is allowed before PM’ing another player. The general rule is that BTSC is allowed in most Main Matches, but banned for the competing players in Death Matches. There are exceptions in both of those cases, so I’d never take BTSC for granted in a game without checking first. For example, in Food Chain, the Round One Main Match, BTSC is allowed in the first day, but banned for the rest of the match. Alliances and secrets are not only encouraged, but necessary in order to excel at the game.


Here’s the tricky part of running and playing this game: it’s both long and time-intensive. Certain Main Matches are short, certain ones are long, and certain ones depend on the level of player activity. I’d estimate that Main Matches will take an average of 5 days each, and that Death Matches will take about 2 days each. My best guess for the length of this game is 12 weeks, which, granted, isn’t as long as some other games that have run on this site, *COUGH*CHICKACHICKA*COUGH*, but The Genius requires a degree of intense activity that could prove to be a problem for some players with, y’know, lives and stuff. Certain Main Matches have 12-hour long rounds which require an action from every player each round. Ditto with Death Matches. One Main Match (Elevator Game) and certain Death Matches will be played via chatroom. When these games occur, I’ll try and coordinate a time when everyone can be present. Chatroom matches will last about 2 hours or so. 5 of the Main Matches have a pre-determined schedule, while the other 6 have a “flexible schedule.” What this means is that for the game to progress, players need to submit actions. If they cannot do so, the game is paused until they do. This means that the length of these matches is entirely dependent on how active each individual player is. You can imagine how this could prove headache-inducing, so I’ve tried to come up with a system to compensate for this.


Since each individual match is seperate from one another, and there are no over-arcing secret identities, we can feature short-term game surrogates instead of long-term replacements. If you know that you’ll be traveling, or away from your computer for a certain period of time for the majority of a match, and you don’t wish to/cannot pre-submit your actions, you can be replaced for the duration of a match by a surrogate, who will play that match for you. Then, when you get back, you can play the next match, provided the surrogate didn’t accidentally get you eliminated. Not only does this prevent the game from stalling out due to busy players, it also allows for already-busy players who couldn’t commit to playing the game fully to try it out for a round. Eliminated players are also allowed to serve as surrogates. In the event that something occurs in a player’s life that prevents them from playing the game at all in the future, a long-term replacement will need to be found, but I’m hoping that this system can minimize the chances of that occuring.


The format of The Genius, as well as all of the Death Matches and all but one of the Main Matches, are adapted from a South Korean game show which ran for four seasons. Season One can be found on YouTube here, and you can download Seasons 2-4 via this link. You obviously don’t need to watch the show in order to play this game and do well, but I’d be lying if I said that it wouldn’t help you. Plus, it’s just a damn good show, in my opinion. If you like what you see here, definitely check it out.


This is fully optional, but I thought it would be interesting to try and include some “role-playing” opportunities in this thing. I’d like to offer the ability to send me updates on your experience in the game after each match. It’s a well-worn trope of the genre of shows that The Genius hails from, along with stuff like Survivor and The Mole, to have “confessionals” from each player explaining their gameplay and their point of view. You can be as curt or wordy as you want. For those in the Star Trek sim, this is highly similar to logs. After the winner is decided, I’ll compile a masterlist of everyone’s confessionals charting the course of the game.

To that end, I’d also like to offer a kind of preliminary set of questions that people can answer after signing up for The Genius. These are entirely optional, and will hopefully get you in the kind of mindset of what I’m going for here.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as:
Random fact about yourself:
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}:
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable”
Would you rather be feared or loved?
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?”