seriously I want to meet these Skydogs, Wignasty, and Hornsmaniac cats. They sound like hoopy froods that I want to party with!

Danny, you are sooooooo behind in posting.

Don't know who Danny is... since I don't go by that it must not be me. But I don't post here much anymore since I don't play well with the mods at times and I have a almost 2 year old at home now. :)

no. Danny is Danny. :)
DanGarion is Dan Garion
And

I haven't seen Danny post at all so I just figured you were talking to me... :)

You should hang with me then. Me and the mods are really TIGHT!

So a little bit more about me, because I was asked. I'm a professional astronaut, an engineer and scientist by trade. I voluntarily spent two years working on the ISS, mostly because I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. However, it looks like it was a twice in a lifetime opportunity as I'm now heading for Mars with all of you.

I voted Biodome, because I think this is a more important factor than setting up a true government at the moment. We can do that once everyone is settled. There's only 21 (22?) of us and I'm not worried about massive arguments breaking out and anarchy reigning on Mars. We have time. I still feel as if I would be the idea leader for our government. I can teach you things about space that most of the rest of you wouldn't know. I was the leader of my ISS mission and can be your leader on Mars. I can settle for being the engineer on this first project though. We need that biodome. We need it quick.

Not really a fantastic lot to go on really. As far as I can see all we really can make any informed decision on is the leader. The other roles are probably largely ability-related. I had a natural wariness of people pushing themselves to the forefront too much but based on my own goals I can see why they would want to.

I am tempted to vote fontisian as leader because I feel that, as a cutting-edge extraterrestial colony, we need a tall, honourable, sword-wielding woman in charge.

Surprised that Government is ahead of Biodome at the moment. I guess/hope it's a result of people being used to voting and whatnot in Werewolf games and wanting to make sure that we can all do that. But how much governing does 22 people need? Surely we need to ensure that we're able to survive self-sufficently more that than anything else. As such my votes will be landing on people voting for the biodome. Having said that I wonder if I'm the only one I find Grover's back-story to be a little bit too good to be true. But I was always a cynic. Still I suppose when you have the B Ark likes of a history professor and a retired politician you have to have some people who are actually pretty useful.

huh it's that close? okay then

Change one vote:
Leader-> CrimsonFox :)

Hi Narcizo
How's scotland treating you :)

then why didn't we vote for saldana?
(sorry couldn't resist :D )

I am not sure why the people making a case for the biodome are making it seem like it is the only viable option. And as Jag pointed out EF implied that all of the options are open to us and we aren't going to instantly die without one of them.

Hah. I will clarify, that I was Chief of Staff of Boston General. I know how to run an entire medical facility, manage doctors and get things built and running. I'm sure NTN and Chief are great at medicine, and it seems from the rules that we will have multiple people working on medical tasks when needed, so that will help. But I think I make best sense to lead the facility. Vote where you want though, I don't get any particular bonus by being in charge.

No, I only started the game wanting to be doctor because my role suggests I'd be the best at it. I do not get any benefit, and so I am hesitant to vote for those who say they do without knowing more about that.

Odd that you voted Font for leader right after saying this as she has came out and claimed having an ability that will be beneficial if she becomes the leader

Lol, science items was just my term... Trying not to quote exact statements from my PM in order to play by the rules. I have studied science all of my life... (that is all I have to go on at this point). I do think that it must be legit as my skill rating there is quite good. To me this states I can't really be a full whack job but we don't know what EF has in store for us. I think my scientific skill will help the scientific group either way as EF explained the connections but having high attributes in your key category should help the entire group I would think.

I see what you did there. Nicely played!

You are a college science student?

Poor Zinto...
People say NO to the C E O

This is why I chose DanGarion. I feel that Zinto is a corporate shark, out chiefly for his own interests and profit. That is not a leader we can trust.

Fair enough, however, in my own defense the biodome group felt like they were gaining momentum and that project could snowball into the majority before any other projects were discussed. An excessive statement for something other than the biodome felt appropriate.

Was the biome the best option at the time? Perhaps, but I would have rather seen all options discussed than having mindless consensus on one option.

I guess that is the price of being honest with your constituents :(

or maybe because the last time you were leader, you led all the engineers into no man's land to die ;)

There is almost no way that I am going to be voting CF or Font as our leader. Their previous job history just doesn't mesh with being the leader of a new colony.

I also don't know why we are just dismissing the idea that social will impact the leader role. It seems like one of the stats will have a big impact on all the roles.

To be fair that was a past life and I was controlled by some kind of spawn.

there are still a bunch of people who haven't told us what they are or what they want to run for too. So there's time to switch

wow...i am at a bit of a loss to understand why there are almost half the votes cast for people to fill positions before THE OTHER HALF of the people playing have even shown up and declared their roles...deadline is not until 2000 hours tonight, and the first post said the game started TODAY (hence, my arrival here today)

Well I was voting based on who has some votes already, so my options were limited. Reading her posts, I felt comfortable with her approach to things. Clearly there's some mechanics I don't know about yet and some of you do.

Just because someone is personable, doesn't make them a good leader.

I am dismissing it so far just because EF made a clear post about what the stats do, and I don't know why he wouldn't have said that in the post if it were true.

It's either whine about that now, or whine tonight about why a bunch of people never got a vote in. Pick your poison.

anxiousness, impatience, excitement...pick one of those

To be fair on EF's post none of the skills say anything about any of the elected positions. I don't think it is crazy to line up certain skills with certain jobs.

anyway, back on Earth, I was a city planner for a large metropolitan city. Got lots of experience designing and laying out cities and buildings, and would be happy to engineer our new home here.

as far as a mission goes, if we starve to death, it doesnt really matter what kind of government we have...in fact...i kind of wonder what we really need a centralized government for since there are only 21 of us...we need a president in order to handle 21 people?

Thank you. Surmised perfectly.

This is why the Biodome needs to be our top priority.

By the way I'm a chemist. It's difficult to tell but I would imagine that I'm either the best scientist on the mission or close to. I also have a bit of experience of running a small-scale facility. I'm not really sure if I should be up for the prime scientist position given my schedule however.

I don't agree. For instance the Medical skill clearly has an effect based on the Medical leader, and the same with science. It is not clear on Engineering because we don't know how plans are drawn up. Sheriff is not strictly related to a particular skill. And there is nothing under Social that hints that leaders will need it--we will have to find out what the votes are, but I wonder if it's actually worse to have a leader with high Social influencing our direction with their vote.

So should we be assuming that one of the purported colonists is a saboteur - a "Keep Mars Red" terrorist or something.

Yeah, it seems natural to link roles to skills 1:1 but there's not really anything to say that that's the case. I think leadership is all about the player commitment and judgement rather than anything else. Social looks like it might act as a tiebreaker or something.

This is the point I was trying to make earlier.We have people voting others into leadership roles, without any attempt to know more about their background. As far as we know, timmae may be a Freshman at Minneapolis Community College who won his 8th grade science fair 5 years ago for building a volcano, and therefore considers himself Bill Nye.

Besides being a farmer, I too have a strong science background. I've done intensive studying my whole life. And while I may not have a fancy college degree to back it up, I have the scientific knowledge to lead the Science group.

This is why I think that there is a stat (that it is probably social) that will help whoever is in the leadership role be successful. I think that it isn't so crazy that there will be dice roles using stats for everything we do. If not there is no reason to vote anyone as the leader other than someone for meta reasons. I would be all for Jag at that point.

I probably should have read this again before posting. If the belief is that stats are really not important for a leadership role than we should just vote for leaders based on meta reasons.

How critical do people feel about communications with earth? It seems like the first landing attempt went haywire... EF has mentioned communications a few times. Should the engineering team be ready to get that connection back up and running? Not quite as much of a need as food maybe but could be critical to survival.

Note: Not sure how much we should be/need to be micromanaging some of these aspects. If the solar collector is our day 1 task then maybe we don't need to talk about this yet.

I'm not really sure I get how you're interpreting that. I read it as saying "You should fill all the positions or you won't be as effective in the position that's vacant".

I'm not sure how important it is, but I'm not sure how important anything is at the moment. I think it might be useful in finding out the identity of the extra colonist but I tend to think that it's mostly flavour to show that we've isolated and we have to look after ourselves.

Okay I like those thoughts...

Scientist Narcizo
Engineer saldana

Seeing as there is a large discussion about who/why to vote into the leadership position, I will explain my personal rationalization. I may be over analyzing this, but as I said when I signed up, I'm new to this.

Zinto - A CEO is sent to colonize Mars? I have to assume you weren't a successful CEO or you wouldn't have abandoned your company or the Earth for that matter. So if that is true, I have to rule you out as leader of the colony.

Thomkal - Retired Military. While some former military members have made for excellent leaders on Earth, our small colony on Mars should not need your area of expertise. Definitely a viable candidate.

Fontisian - History Professor. Not really the career I think of for a leadership role. However, the background in history may help to prevent mistakes made by colonists in a similar situation back on Earth. Another viable candidate.

CrimsonFox - Auto Mechanic. No leadership experience on Earth, probably not the background I would look at to lead on Mars.

DanGarion - Motivational Speaker? - Not really certain what his past experience on Earth was, but could have a positive impact as leader. Just need more information to make an informed decision.

I agree. I just also took it to mean that leaders influence how well the workers work and I am assuming that different leaders will be able to influence workers better.

I retired a few years ago. This expedition was a perfect opportunity for me to experience something amazing during my retirement years

From page 1 items:

Communication Equipment - Allows communication with earth when working. Can receive important information from headquarters.


We don't know how important "important information" is, but it sounds...important? It seems we're going to have to make decisions about facilities to protect based on some of what EF has said.

Leader: Zinto
Scientist: timmae
Sherriff: JAG
Project: Science Research Facility

In the Spawn game, getting our research going was critical to our near victory. Had we started it earlier, we might've won. I think we'll need whatever products we might be able to obtain from this ASAP, plus it may give us flexibility in handling whatever difficulties we need to overcome, whereas the biodome is more limited in scope.

8 pages already! First day back at work after vacation so catching up as I can and I'll post some later on.

Oops, did I miss that from earlier in the thread? I was using your condensed list from page 6 as a reference.

Shoveler, thanks for summing up each Leader candidate. That is extremely helpful

+1...would be nice to have something similar for each role if anyone has the time

Docto: Autumn

Chief of staff at a large hospital sounds like pretty good qualifications.

Checking in. I am going to get caught up on everything and then start making some votes.

I believe the stats are important for all of the jobs. And I think that some of the better folks will be not in the obvious places.

It looks like the decision on Doctor will ride on what everyone feels is more important--running a facility or heavy trauma experience. I can't deny that Autumn is the better beauracrat and probably a more accredited doctor.

But, IMO, what really matters is our skills, within this gameset. And I know I see enough from the skill list I was given to figure what the likely range is for worst to best. Quoting the number is not allowed, so I won't, but I will only say this--if the range that these skill numbers suggests is what I think it is, I am very skilled in the medical field.

FYI, EF, Autumn has 5 votes now.

As for my background, it is not impressive (high school football coach), however I would gain some unknown benefits in the role which is why I'm making myself a candidate. I do have experience in leading and training which one would need as a head Sherriff.

I want you on the front lines, tending to the wounded. I would assume Autumn's stats are no worse than yours, and probably better suited for a leadership position.

Doctors

Autumn - Medical Chief of Staff - More of a physician administration position. May be ideal candidate for doctor, should have developed skills working as the liaison between physician staff and hospital administration.

Chief Rum - Emergency Room Physician - Jack of all trades physician. Broad knowledge, most likely specialized in general medicine rather than a surgical specialty. Another candidate for lead doctor.

ntndeacon - Emergency Medical Technician - First responder type, perfect for triage care. May not be ideal for the doctor.

Chief makes a good point. we don't know for sure what the high number is. We can only make an assumption. Assuming the high number that I suspect, I am also very skilled in the medical field.

BTW, I don't know Autumn's qualifications beyond what he says here, of course, but I would guess he is as qualified as a doctor as he is as a medical beauracrat. I don't want to mislead and make it seem like he's just a stuffy suit with excellent organizational skills. Based on the bio he has put forth, he may indeed be the most skilled medical professional on the mission.

As an EMT you cannot even write a prescription for what little medication we might have with us. Assuming of course that our drugs were provided by the US and therefore are under the authority of the DEA even here on Mars.

Sorry, but I think your background makes you a medical grunt. I'm not willing to go under the knife with an EMT at the helm.

Medical Chief of Staff implies they are both a very qualified physician in their field, and have the skill set to deal with the administrative side of the hospital business.

Two years, maybe you'll make a quality engineer some day!

I'm an MIT Professor of Engineering, and I'd be more than happy to lead the engineering efforts. My vast experience will be crucial to getting the Biodome up and running.

I am guessing if there are any medical tasks we can pick any one or more of us to do it, the leader will just be amplifying the success of our medical work. Same with many of the other positions. Sheriff and Leader seem like the ones that might work a bit differently, with perhaps Sheriff responsible for idnividually dealing with trouble.

I think that a biodome is a good start, but I highly recommend (naturally) that we get to work on a medical facility as soon as possible.

As we all know, we have a health rating, with a certain point value. That means there will be events that happen that will hurt some of us, but fall short of being actually dead. A medical facility will be critical to healing those players. Presumeably, hurt players will be much less effective in their respective tasks/responsibilities, and of course, at some low point, could even be completely out of commission as a result of their injuries.

Oh great, an MIT blowhard. Maybe you can wrangle up a D&D game here on Mars.

Yes and no. Perhaps I have watched too many hospital procedurals, but sometimes the medical chief of staff is just a reasonable doctor who was better at politics/moving up the ladder/etc.

I just wanted to say, given that impression, that I do not believe that to be the case with Autumn.

Those you can, do. Those you can't, teach.

I agree with your point on surgery, but I am pretty sure the ability to dispense care, including drugs, will be a lot more loose on a colony on Mars. Pretty much any qualified medical professional will almost be required to have the latitude to provide whatever health care they can provide in the kind of trauma situations we are likely to see.

Wow, botched that one..

you = who

But to argue Jackal's point about being ideal for the Biodome project. Yes, we're both engineers, but has he lived in space for an extended amount of time? I'm also an astronaut, I have the knowledge of what it takes to survive in a foreign atmosphere such as Mars. I've done space walks, I've worked on and designed equipment for use in space AND put it to the test.

Which brings us back to the overall concept of who should be the Doctor, not acting in the capacity as a medical professional, but in charge of the whole works.

Shoveler, you are making a mistake to only look at the titles. (or so I believe) And that isn't just in the Doctor race. It's pretty clear that I won't be the first choice for a doctor. I do have similar concerns for the head of a hospital coming to Mars that you have with a CEO. So, if if the Doctor race is still close this evening, I will be changing my vote, assuming I am still out of the race.

Hey, we'll certainly need people with experience to help put things together. The point of being the lead engineer is to plan the projects, to ensure that every last detail is accounted for. How many projects have you designed?

I'm looking forwards to working with you, however there are levels of complexity in design that practical experience alone cannot give you.

We don't exactly have much else to go off of at this point. Our skills are secret and not to be revealed, so I am disregarding the comments about people having what they believe are high skill sets as I don't believe that should have been mentioned.

So how else should we be evaluating each position? I don't know any of you as I have never participated in a WW game before. So my decisions are not at all influenced by how so and so did in a past game. All I can go off of is the past experience presented by each person's background.

I'm also a hell of a dungeon master, for the down time.

I went from Grover to Jackal, then back to Grover. :banghead:

who invited Howard Wolowitz...welcome aboard Fruit Loops! ;)