Lonely Hearts Club Merit Question.

[Ruslan Rynar]

From the description:

Host 20 or more events that do not have the required minimum attendance

• What is the required minimum attendance?
• And why was it set?

 

[Jaryd Kosari]

Mafia games count as an event. Mafia has a minimum number of required players (number varying by set up) in order to play effectively. If someone signs up to run a game but doesn't hit the minimum for signed up players and therefore cannot run the game, it counts toward this merit.

There are other forum / chat based games that have minimums to play as well, simply by how they're set up. (For example: You can't play Cards Against Humanity-esque games with only two players, so the absolute minimum sign ups would be 3, and the preferred minimum would probably be 4.)

I believe this merit was created to recognize that people wanted to host events (and did the work to prepare for them, which for Mafia isn’t an insignificant consideration), even if the events themselves were not successful.

 

[Ilverin Matriam]

" Each event must be open to all members and have a minimum of 5 attendees. " (reduced to 5 from 10)

I cannot say why and how this number was first introduced, maybe @Toral Delvar can tell us more. My first thought is "to incentivize" you to plan and host better/more interesting events? Also, the goal of events is to gather people together after all.

The virtual event merits were introduced in 2020 after people started gathering more online, we expected way more participation in those, so I am guessing that is where the initial 10 came from. Couple months back it was revised that the events do not gather such participation, so they were reduced to 5.

 

[Toral Delvar]

We wanted some minimum number as the idea was that these are supposed to benefit the community, and not just be for a couple of friends hanging out. We didn't really have much idea of how many people were likely to be attending, so figured we'd go with 10 then after a year or so, have a look at how often we had events, and how many people were attending. At that time, most events were getting fewer than 10, so wouldn't have been counted, but we felt that having them was still an important aspect, so reduced the number. 5 seemed reasonable, as it covered most events, but was not too low
But, it was also clear that people who had events that only had one or two other people attend were still putting in effort and that it seemed fair to recognise in some way. 20 was somewhat arbitrary, and is another that we felt we would revisit in time. For these events, there is no minimum attendance

 

[Adina al'Mari]

Mafia games count as an event. Mafia has a minimum number of required players (number varying by set up) in order to play effectively. If someone signs up to run a game but doesn't hit the minimum for signed up players and therefore cannot run the game, it counts toward this merit.

There are other forum / chat based games that have minimums to play as well, simply by how they're set up. (For example: You can't play Cards Against Humanity-esque games with only two players, so the absolute minimum sign ups would be 3, and the preferred minimum would probably be 4.)

I believe this merit was created to recognize that people wanted to host events (and did the work to prepare for them, which for Mafia isn’t an insignificant consideration), even if the events themselves were not successful.

This isn't quite right. As things stand at the moment, Events Participation- Virtual Event Merits, of which the Lonely Hearts is one of, are different than the one for running Mafia on the boards. VE merits, and the attendance numbers are applicable to Discord/off site virtual events. If the mafia games took place on Zoom or something, then it would apply.

A person who runs a Mafia game, like we used to have on the boards, however, would be eligible for Online Spirit- Gleeman's Merit. I would love to have mafia come back as a regular thing, but like so many other areas, it fell to the wayside because people stopped participating. (If you're reading this, and interested in Mafia type games on the boards, reach out to me and let's make a plan!)

Merits as a whole are on everyone's radar, and I know @Tree and the Community Council will be working on them to freshen up and clarify the system.

 

[Toral Delvar]

We did actually discuss how to recognised Mafia games if they move to zoom, as the ones on the board seemed to have died off, but as no one was recording any Mafia, it wasn't deemed something urgent and the plan was to get the community council to discuss them, as Adina said

 

[Thaddius al'Guy]

We did actually discuss how to recognised Mafia games if they move to zoom, as the ones on the board seemed to have died off, but as no one was recording any Mafia, it wasn't deemed something urgent and the plan was to get the community council to discuss them, as Adina said

Having done Mafia for a few years during the 2018-2021 era, I can tell you 6-8 players was average for a game. We did some Games as "mini" that were at the most 5 players. A Large game would have been as big as 10-12. Before 2018, I remember reviewing older games and sometimes 15 players was pretty much the average.