The Syndicate

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?”

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

So in

[mention]Long Con[/mention] [mention]DharmaHelper[/mention] [mention]Spacedaisy[/mention] [mention]Speedchuck[/mention] this one is soooo for you guys.

[mention]Scotty[/mention] [mention]Jaggedjimmyjay[/mention] too but I know you're trying not to overextend.

Possibly [mention]timmer[/mention] [mention]juliets[/mention] [mention]lunalee[/mention] [mention]dunya[/mention] as well

Anyone who is in to board gaming, watching survivor, or the strategic (but less the emotive) side of mafia will enjoy this.

It's basically mafia without a mafia team and with board games.

[mention]M Plus 7[/mention] [mention]Kylemii[/mention] [mention]Sloonei[/mention] [mention]sprityo[/mention] OK I'm done now.

I'm in.

Oops forgot [mention]nutella[/mention]

Do we answer those questions in thread or PM you?

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

In thread, please.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: Daisy
Random fact about yourself: I cannot whistle.
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Purple
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable” Probably Adaptable
Would you rather be feared or loved? Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” Because I love these kind of strategic games and I think I do a decent job of reading people in general, learning how they tick and using that to my advantage.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: nutella
Random fact about yourself: I went to the state level of the national geographic bee in 6th grade
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Teal
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable” Manipulative
Would you rather be feared or loved? Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” I'm excellent at solving puzzles

Oh was I supposed to actually like choose the literal color code? Oops. Allow me to redo that...

Preferred color is Purple

Oh man. The time constraint is real coming up but this sounds sooooo interesting. What INH talks about with the timed events make me slightly antsy. I want to be the best player I can but can not commit to having the time needed.

Oh man I dunno. This is a problem I ran into for challenges with Survivor in that finding times everyone is around can be a problem, at least on the host end and possibly the player end. I’m sure INH has a way of dealing with it but I think he’s a madman

Hmmmmm let me think on it

Fuck it

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: Sangmin
Random fact about yourself: I am descended from royalty
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Green
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: Adaptable
Would you rather be feared or loved? Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” People will want to work with me in main matches, I'll be reliable

Scotty wrote: ↑Sun Apr 15, 2018 10:31 pmOh man I dunno. This is a problem I ran into for challenges with Survivor in that finding times everyone is around can be a problem, at least on the host end and possibly the player end. I’m sure INH has a way of dealing with it but I think he’s a madman

Having hosted the mole, I did warn INH that this will be a time-intensive hell of a job for him.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: DH, DharmaHelper, King Negan if you're nasty.
Random fact about yourself: My favorite hamburger is swiss mushroom
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: White...wait no that sounds sketchy. Yellow.
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable”: Adaptable.
Would you rather be feared or loved? - Feared
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” - I don't "think" shit, bub.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: Machete Jones
Random fact about yourself: I've had 60 Laurentien pencil crayon names and numbers secured in my memory for most of my life. Unfortunately, they're discontinued and impossible to get now.
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Indigo
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: Adaptable
Would you rather be feared or loved? Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” That's my other nickname

Oh: Indigo

Also [mention]Quin[/mention]

Has this

What’s this*

I have no idea how to play but I’ll sign up

sprityo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:59 am I have no idea how to play but I’ll sign up

Kyunghoon right here.

???

Don't worry sprit, but I bet you'll have loads of fun. If you have some time, you should check out a couple of the episodes to give you an idea of what you're in for.

(I don't want to give spoilers as to why I called you Kyunghoon, but let's just say on day one of the game he was the one going 'I don't get it' - if you watch episode 1 season 1, perhaps you might be 'Sunggyu' instead).

This looks really cool. I'm probably in, because it'll be good for me to have something to do that isn't work, but I just have to make sure I'll have the time.

I have no idea what this is.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: Speedchuck
Random fact about yourself: I suffer from occasional bouts of barophobia. Google it.
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Whatever this is. I like colors I can't define.
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable” - Adaptable
Would you rather be feared or loved? - Loved.
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” - I've got an analytical mind, I'm decent at manipulating people, and I'm self-aware enough to make corrections if things start to go downhill. Oh, sorry, was that too up-front?

[mention]Enrique[/mention] pls

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

My current prediction is that I'd have the time to be a sub, but wouldn't be able to play this fully. That might change once I get situation into my next lot of work. We'll see.

Everyone's soooo adaptable. How lovely. Doesn't anyone want to be seen as manipulative or strategic? Except nutella. She's got gumption, I like her to win. I want to change mine to Strategic.

Long Con wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:48 pm Everyone's soooo adaptable. How lovely. Doesn't anyone want to be seen as manipulative or strategic? Except nutella. She's got gumption, I like her to win. I want to change mine to Strategic.

If I tell you I'm manipulating you, I'm bad at manipulating.

Long Con wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:48 pm Everyone's soooo adaptable. How lovely. Doesn't anyone want to be seen as manipulative or strategic? Except nutella. She's got gumption, I like her to win. I want to change mine to Strategic.

I once went through an exercise with a close friend. One of those "describe in one word or sentence" kind of things. At the time, he described me as "Amiable," or something like that.

But really, let's look at those three options.

Manipulative - It would take guts to pick manipulative. Not only are you trying to manipulate others, but you're telling them right off. Bold. It works, too. If you are a genuinely persuasive person (and we have a few of those on the syndicate; I don't think I'm one), then telling people that you are manipulating them won't make a difference. Heck, I even did that in my opener, but it gets trumped by my adaptable-ness.
Of course, manipulative people could pick one of the other two categories, especially adaptable, to make themselves look less threatening.

Strategic - Strategy works in a game of 1v1, or with evenly balanced teams. To come out ahead in the free-for-all that is life (or this game), any strategy would revolve around processes, not goals. And working with processes rather than goals makes you... adaptable. So some of our strategists might have picked adaptable as well. "No plan survives first contact..." as they say.

Adaptable - The only real choice, especially if you aren't familiar with the show or haven't scrutinized the rules.

[mention]Golden[/mention]'s tag didn't notify me.

anyway, I'd play if this starts after May 3rd.

Looks interesting but I am terrible at puzzles and work/have therapy every week day until 3:00 so the time commitment would be too hard I think.

dunya wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:41 pm @Golden's tag didn't notify me.

anyway, I'd play if this starts after May 3rd.

So just play and get a surrogate for the first game if it starts earlier!

Golden wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 3:14 pm

dunya wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:41 pm Golden's tag didn't notify me.

anyway, I'd play if this starts after May 3rd.

So just play and get a surrogate for the first game if it starts earlier!

ya but I was promised to Ancient Greece first so that's my priority. I might be a surrogate here.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: “Sprit” or “Sprityo” not anything else.
Random fact about yourself: I cut my wrist on accident with a pocket knife while trying to cut a hole in plywood for AP Physics.
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: a nice cyan. Not too bright but not too baby blue or neon.
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable”: Manipulative
Would you rather be feared or loved?: Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?”: because I’m the best.

Looks like Luna beat me to cyan when I wasn’t paying attention so my favorite color is gonna be #BACAFE

sprityo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:40 pm Looks like Luna beat me to cyan when I wasn’t paying attention so my favorite color is gonna be #BACAFE

Lol I hope you guys aren't going to post in those colors cause this one matches my screen color exactly so I can't even see it (I have the light background).

In!

[mention]Epignosis[/mention] [mention]Elohcin[/mention] you might enjoy this too.

I don't know that I have the time.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Apr 20, 2018 7:46 pm I don't know that I have the time.

You'd be really good at this.

I’m just itchingto sign up in some capacity...and it ain’t lice...I don’t think.

why dost thou tempt me with these heretic time vacuums

Scotty wrote: ↑Sat Apr 21, 2018 9:40 am I’m just itchingto sign up in some capacity...and it ain’t lice...I don’t think.

why dost thou tempt me with these heretic time vacuums

I think this one is much more within your control than a mafia game.

Fark.

Name that you’d like people to refer to you as: Scotty
Random fact about yourself: I say hello to and converse with every passing dog as if they are humans
Preferred color {CANNOT CHOSE THE SAME COLOR AS ANYONE ELSE}: Blood Orange
Pick one of the following words to describe yourself: “Manipulative, Strategic, Adaptable” strategic
Would you rather be feared or loved? Loved
Why do you think you can win “The Genius?” Because I’m hardly a genius, and I like to go against stereotype

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.