The Mole: Machinations

The Mole: Machinations is a reality TV game based primarily on The Mole, a reality TV series where contestants attempt to identify one of there own responsible for sabotaging the efforts of the group.

This quiet game took its time sliding through seven months, giving the players the time that they needed to sort out the information available and successfully hunt down the Mole. In the end, it was revealed that the Mole was GlindasBubble. During the Week 3 Execution, woundedwindow accepted a bribe to become the Mole, and was the Mole for the large majority of the game.

Game Elements as Explained by the Host
Inquisitorial Competition: The Inquisitor is a highly desirable position. Whoever wins this competition gets several advantages. First and foremost, they have the ability to nominate 4 players for Inquiry (see more in section on Inquiry). Basically, this is a source of accurate information that no other player will have access to (unless the Inquisitor chooses to divulge it). In The Mole, information is power. You can still be executed, even if you know who the Mole is, because most of the points on the quiz are about information that might only be accessed through Inquiry. Secondly, the Inquisitor gets a permanent one-point advantage on the Mole Quiz. Every time you win an Inquisitorial Competition, you get another extra credit point on the Mole Quiz, which stays for the rest of the game. Unlike the “Head of Household” in Big Brother, you are allowed to be Inquisitor as often as you win the challenge. You are allowed to win in consecutive weeks. In fact, there is a bonus to winning in consecutive weeks. For each week in a row that you win the competition, you get to add one more nominee. So, the second week you nominate 5, and then 6, etc. This only works for consecutive wins, so if you don’t win in the following week you start over at 4 nominees.

Inquiry: Being the subject of an Inquiry is very undesirable. First, your information will be shared with the Inquisitor (you won’t know what information they have). Secondly, there is a permanent one-point penalty to being nominated (this is the opposite of for winning the position of Inquisitor). As Inquisitor, when you receive Inquiry information, I will provide two lists of information to choose from, “Personal” and “Game”. For each nominee, you get one piece of information in each category. The only way to find out what specific pieces of information are available to choose from is to win an Inquisitorial Competition.

Power of Disinquiry Competition: The PoD is an interesting power. The winner of this prize can use it to remove any player, including themselves, from being nominated for Inquiry. This also erases the one-point penalty associated with being nominated. Unlike the “Power of Veto” in Big Brother, there is no replacement nominee. The number of nominees will decrease to 3 if it is used, so the Inquisitor will get less information. One exception to the rule is if the Inquisitor also wins the PoD. If that happens, they can choose to add another nominee, increasing the number of nominees to 5. There is no Mole Quiz bonus for winning the PoD.

Deals: I have a list of deals for each week in the game. I will use a random number generator to allocate who gets which deal each week. A deal is basically a trade-off. I will give you some reward if you give up something else. Sometimes, it has immediate use, like an Exemption. Others, like adding money to the Pot, have a long-term value. You may choose to take or not take the deal. Each deal comes with an associated alignment change, so if you choose something selfish, your alignment will drop.

The Pot: This is where money earned by the group is stored. I will not tell you what this money has the potential to do. All I will say is that while you may benefit in the short-term by subverting money from the Pot, you may regret its long-term impact.

Stash: Each player has their own “stash,” which is like a private bank account. This comes into play during deals, when you can sometimes “buy” a prize using stash money. Be warned: you can overdraw your stash to buy an expensive prize, if you are willing to live with the consequences. At the end of the week, each $1000 that you go in debt will count as a one-point penalty on a mole quiz.

Alignment: How “good” or “evil” your character is, based on your original identity and on deals. At the end of each week, I will find the average alignment of the players. If the average is +3, for example, all “good” players will receive a 1.5 point bonus, and all “evil” players will receive a 1.5 point penalty. It will not affect neutral players. Likewise, if the average is -2, evil players get a quiz bonus of 1 and good players get a penalty of one. It is wise to remain close to neutral so that you can more easily flip alignment as the rest of the group does.

Mole Quizzes: These are typically worth 100 points and 19 questions long. They may cover a variety of different aspects of the Mole’s identity, activities, and game-play. The higher your score, the more likely you will remain in the game.

Secret Prizes and Competitions: You have to be really paying attention and/or lucky to stumble upon these. Who knows? One may have already started.

Execution: After factoring Inquisitorial bonuses, Inquiry penalties, Deals, Alignment, and Identities into your Mole Quiz scores, the players (usually from 1-3 of them) with the lowest scores will be executed. In the event of a tie, the player with the slowest time is executed. If that is a tie, the player with the lowest quiz score, cumulative for all weeks, will be executed. If that is a tie, then the lowest score with just the raw quiz score will be executed. If that is a tie, then I will write another quiz.

Challenge Chart
"INQ" with an blue background indicates that the player won the title of "Inquisitor" for the week.

"INQ" with a teal background indicates that the player won the title of "Inquisitor" and a Power of Disinquiry for the week.

"SAFE" with a green background indicates that the player won but did not use a Power of Disinquiry for the week.

"DIS" with a green background indicates that the player removed themselves from nomination by winning the Power of Disinquiry for the week.

"NOM" with an orange background indicates that the player was Nominated for Inquiry for the week.

"NOM" with a red background indicates that the player was subject to a public Inquiry.

"SAFE" with a white background indicates that the player won nothing but wasn't nominated either.

A number with a red-violet background indicates that the player won one of the three tasks for the week.

Execution Chart
White indicates that the participant was safe as a result of the quiz.

Green indicates the participant won an exemption. Currently, only exemptions won through non-secret competitions are displayed.

Red indicates that the participant was executed for having the lowest quiz score with no exemption.

Yellow indicates that the Mole was eliminated.

Gray indicates that the participant voluntarily left the competition.