The Fourth Tournament of the Sanguine Ribbon Society is now officially open for signups! We had a phenomenal response to the previous tournament, and this one promises much excitement, thrills, and of course, bloodshed. So whether you are completely new to dueling or have enough Sanguine Ribbons to dress up as a Tomb Colonist for Hallowmas, I encourage you to sign up and test your mettle against the finest fighters in the Neath.
What is the Sanguine Ribbon Society (SRS)?
The SRS was created by Mike Hawk as a way to connect Fallen Londoners who are interested in Lethal Sparring Bouts and earning Sanguine Ribbons, and also for hosting tournaments such as this one. The SRS is purely player-run, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Failbetter Games. There are currently over 65 players in the SRS, and anyone can join simply by adding their profile information to the Leaderboard.
What are the rules?
The complete rules for the Fourth Tournament can be found on the rules page of the SRS document; please review them carefully before signing up.[/li][li]This will be a much more free-form contest than the previous tournament, with the choice of opponents being entirely up to participants. You’ll be awarded points when you win a Lethal Sparring Bout based on whether you attacked (challenged another participant) or defended (was challenged by someone else). You can only fight with a given opponent ONCE, and each participant must fight a number of lethal sparring bouts equal to HALF the number of participants (I might revise this number based on how many people sign up; if so, I’ll announce it, and any other changes, at the start of the tournament). There will also be a cut-off date, announced at the start of the tournament.
What can I win?
Fame, glory, and cash! The champion and the runner-up will both be entered into the Sanguine Hall of Fame, and will receive 420 and 210 First City Coins from the SRS Treasury, respectively. All prize money comes from generous donations.
How do I sign up?
First, you have to be a member of the Sanguine Ribbon Society. All you need to join is to have a Black Ribbon (which is required in Fallen London to participate in Lethal Sparring Bouts). If you’re not a member already, just head over to the Leaderboard page and add yourself to it, along with a link to your Fallen London character profile.[/li][li]In the ‘Applying for’ column of the Leaderboard, just type in ‘Yes’. Congratulations, you’re now officially signed up for the Fourth Tournament!
When does the tournament begin?
[The tournament can’t begin until there are enough participants, so right now there isn’t a fixed start date. I’ll make an official announcement both here and in the Failbetter forum announcing the official cut-off date for signups, and the tournament start date.][/li][li]UPDATE: signups for the tournament will now end at noon EDT on Friday Nov 9th (see post below), and the tournament will begin within a couple of days after that.[/li][li]UPDATE: Signups are now closed, and the tournament combat log and final ruleset are being finalized. I will post an update when the tournament officially starts.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome, and feel free to post here or contact me directly (either via PM or in-game) with any questions about the tournament or the SRS. Please note that the rules are subject to change prior to signup cut-off date; if there are changes, I will update the official Fourth Tournament rules page. For now, you can indicate your interest by signing up as described above, and keep an eye out here and/or on the Fallen London subreddit for the official start date announcement. Until then, keep your blades sharp and your wits sharper still. edited by James Sinclair on 10/18/2018 edited by James Sinclair on 11/9/2018
Hooray! I’ve been waiting for this so I can join in.
A couple of questions.
(1) Meta-type question: I - the player - have two alts. Can I join with both of them? Are there any special procedures surrounding this? (Eg. I - the player - cannot challenge one alt with the other alt?)
(2) Is anyone investigating how to avoid death on the new FL website?
I did a lethal bout while playing on the beta site (my opponent was on the old website) – I initiated the bout, lost it, but was unable to follow the strategy on the "How to stay alive?" page. ie. The game wouldn’t allow me to switch to the Messages tab and accept Wounds healing there without pressing the "Onward" button (a message popped up saying that I had a storylet that needed to be resolved). Drinking a Tincture of Vigour also didn’t work, as everything on the Possessions tab had an unclickable red border. So I had no choice but to press "Onward" and go into Death.
This was on the beta site, I haven’t tried lethal bouts since the website reboot, so this behaviour may have changed.
I’m willing to experiment with this to see if there’s a workaround on the new site as there was on the old site. edited by Vega on 10/7/2018
[quote=Vega]Hooray! I’ve been waiting for this so I can join in.
A couple of questions.
(1) Meta-type question: I - the player - have two alts. Can I join with both of them? Are there any special procedures surrounding this? (Eg. I - the player - cannot challenge one alt with the other alt?)
(2) Is anyone investigating how to avoid death on the new FL website?
I did a lethal bout while playing on the beta site (my opponent was on the old website) – I initiated the bout, lost it, but was unable to follow the strategy on the "How to stay alive?" page. ie. The game wouldn’t allow me to switch to the Messages tab and accept Wounds healing there without pressing the "Onward" button (a message popped up saying that I had a storylet that needed to be resolved). Drinking a Tincture of Vigour also didn’t work, as everything on the Possessions tab had an unclickable red border. So I had no choice but to press "Onward" and go into Death.
This was on the beta site, I haven’t tried lethal bouts since the website reboot, so this behaviour may have changed.
I’m willing to experiment with this to see if there’s a workaround on the new site as there was on the old site. edited by Vega on 10/7/2018[/quote]
Hey, I’m glad there are still people excited about the SRS.
I try to help my colleague James whenever I can, so I’ll bud in and answer this.
We’ve had a similar situation with xKiv’s characters a tournament back. Then I ruled only one character per person. Just choose the the one you like better and use only it, please. Unless James disagrees, of course, but I do believe this is fairer.
There used to be a bug on the beta that didn’t allow you to heal before you died. I found it a month back when I posted on the subreddit. Dov submitted the bug and it has now been fixed. You should be able to follow the "how to stay alive" instructions. :) If you are willing to experiment, however, please do so and let us know if the issue still persists.
An unfortunate occurrence with the leader board document. When making the attempt to inscribe my name into the column, my name doesn’t appear in the actual column. Yet it appears on the top of the page when the cell is highlighted. I am unsure of the problem, since I am certain that computers do not have a Gant colored font.
I conducted some lethal bouts between my alts today. I can confirm that the current "How to stay alive" instructions on the SRS spreadsheet do not work.
In both cases, when the "A sudden darkness!" storylet is triggered (where you click Go to dismiss that storylet and enter the Death location), it overrides all other possible actions until it’s dismissed. You can’t accept Wounds help on Messages tab: a pop-up appears saying "Warning! You’re currently in another event - you need to resolve it before beginning this one." On the Possessions tab, items have the unclickable red border.
More details…
* Receiving a duel offer, and losing:
Even if I open my browser and navigate to FL via, say - Fallen London - I’m not able to bypass the storylet trigger. The top banner and "Welcome to LOCATION, delicious friend!" still show the location I was previously in when I was killed, and the Bazaar is not out of bounds (I didn’t try to buy anything from it though). But as far as the game is concerned, I’m on the "A sudden darkness!" storylet and I can’t use any Wounds help or items until I dismiss the storylet.
(Side note: when you navigate to - Fallen London or another tab, and you have to login, the website does remember your URL and directs you back to /messages after logging in. But the game seems to understand that "A sudden darkness!" has already triggered, even if you didn’t land on the Story tab when you logged in.)
* Initiating the duel, and losing:
I tried following the steps on the SRS page, but I also can’t accept Wounds healing on Messages tab or drink a Tincture of Vigour on Possessions tab. When I navigate back to the Story tab, the website had automatically moved me off "A double death" storylet and to "A sudden darkness!" where I’m still faced with clicking Go to dismiss it.
It appears that when you access the new website, no matter which tab you land on, it immediately logs the outcome of the lethal bout and is just waiting for you to click Go and move into Death.
Are there any other things to try? The only thing I didn’t try is changing equipment. I believe that you can still change your equipment while on "A double death" and "A sudden darkness!" storylets, but I didn’t try it and I don’t have Wounds reducing equipment.
Hope this helps with doing lethal bouts on the new website. edited by Vega on 10/8/2018
I’ve just tried myself with two alts and had no problems avoiding death.
The idea has always been to go get help (via a pending heal offer or via items) before triggering "A sudden darkness". Once that it triggered, you’re dead. Until then you "only" have Wounds 8, which is treatable if you don’t click Onwards or go to the Story tab.
Update: It’s trickier:
Indeed, the behaviour has always been that once "A sudden darkness" is triggered then it’s too late. It’s still possible to avoid this if the other player has initiated the Bout, but the timing is impossible to know - basically, once they complete the bout, you can still heal yourself if you do it before next reloading the story tab, but you have no way to know when exactly they’ve triggered the end results.
If you’re the initiator, then it indeed seems that "A Double Death" is auto-triggered.
Second update:
Apparently, when in the result screen on the losing side ("A Double Death"), you can’t accept the new-style social actions (those with a "Respond" button), but you can still accept the old-style requests (those with "Accept"/"Reject" buttons). So if you have a (really) old heal request pending you can use those. If you have a modern heal request, you can’t while an action has not fully resolved.
It seems like if you initiate the duel and lose, Death is inevitable. You can’t deal with your Wounds in between getting the "A double death" result and moving to "A sudden darkness!"
But if you’re a duel recipient and lose, you can potentially escape death if you manage to get Wounds healing between your opponent playing "pin the ribbon" and your own Story tab reloading? In which case…
I’ve noticed that the Messages tab auto-reloads (spinning hat appears) every so often to update my social actions. Presumably it does this while I’m on other tabs. And if I access the Messages tab it doesn’t auto-reload but still shows the old state – until the auto-update rolls around. (I can force an update of the tab by manually reloading the browser page, or clicking the circling-arrows on top of the "Messages" subsection.) Perhaps, if I manage to squeeze in Wounds healing between my opponent playing "pin the ribbon" and my Messages tab auto-reloading… I could escape Death?
Very tricky to time. And I think this would only work if I was already sitting on the FL website, but won’t work if I reload the website or access it on a new browser window – because that act refreshes all the tabs and updates my Messages, which may kick me into "A sudden darkness!" right away.
IIRC, the Story and Message tabs on the old FL website don’t automatically reload unless you click on the tab (so the spinning hat appears) or manually reload the browser page; whereas the tabs on the new website are auto-reloading. So that could be why the escaping-Death workaround worked reliably on the old site. I think you can still escape Death on the new site but it may require precision timing.
This is all conjecture BTW. edited by Vega on 10/8/2018
I found it amusing that I could cheat death by accepting really old healing offers (with the simple “Accept” instead of “Respond”). Alas, those aren’t renewable :-)
Only one account in the tournament per participant, please.
For everyone who has chimed in with information on how this works with the newly updated site, you have my thanks. Unfortunately, it seems that avoiding a trip to visit the Boatman after a lethal sparring bout loss may now be unavoidable, or at least require some extremely difficult timing. This may result in the tournament being drawn out a bit longer than previous ones. I will factor this in when deciding on the tournament cut-off date (i.e., there should be plenty of time for everyone to get in the requisite number of sparring bouts, even with unexpected trips to see the Boatman). Please continue to experiment in the meantime. Hopefully someone will uncover an ingeniously sneaky way to avoid death after losing a sparring bout.
Thanks James, I’ve joined the Tournament with one alt. (The other one is available for Support, although giving Wounds help may not be so useful now…)
If there is no other workaround and the loser faces inevitable Death, those Horsehead Amulets become very useful. Wiki says they may be found on Forgotten Quarter archaeological expeditions. Although cost-benefit ratio is debatable… it may be more cost-effective to just spend actions leaving Death instead of spending them on uncertain Expeditions.
Since I want to stay active after the tournament is over might I ask what the difference between a ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ weight outfit is and if I should go about adding myself to the "outfits" part of the spreadsheet. edited by lukeskylicker on 10/9/2018
[quote=lukeskylicker]Since I want to stay active after the tournament is over might I ask what the difference between a ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ weight outfit is and if I should go about adding myself to the "outfits" part of the spreadsheet. edited by lukeskylicker on 10/9/2018[/quote]The fighting outfits page is from the previous tournament and will be deleted ASAP; there are no required fighting outfits for this tournament, so please disregard it. Sorry for any confusion it caused.
I’ve done so more trialling, and have found a way to avoid a trip into Death if you are a duel recipient, and lose.
It involves camping out on the Messages tab without manual reloading of the browser page, or moving off to other tabs, until Messages auto-reloads and announces that you’ve been killed by the duel giver. Then you either accept Wounds help from Messages, or move to the Possessions tab and drink a Tincture of Vigour to get below Wounds 8 (I tried both methods successfully). This way, the Story tab doesn’t seem to register your Wounds 8 and push you onto the unavoidable "A sudden darkness!" storylet which stops you from doing actions anywhere else.
If my experience in previous posts still holds, I don’t think this will work if you access Fallen London after you’ve been killed: you need to already have the Messages tab opened when you’re killed. And do not reload the browser window (because this seems to reload the entire site including the Story tab), but wait for Messages to auto-reload and update the social action list itself. As long as you don’t access Story between getting the kill notice and lowering your Wounds, "A sudden darkness!" should not auto-fire.
TL;DR - if you’re a duel recipient and you know you’ll be losing, camp out on the Messages tab without reloading your browser, until you get the kill notice, then accept Wounds help or drink a Tincture. Basically the same strategy as for the old website. (I think Death remains unavoidable if you initiated the duel and lost.)
I haven’t tried to buy a Tincture from the Bazaar tab after I’ve been killed and drink it right away. So it’s best to have Wounds help or Tinctures of Vigour on hand before entering a lethal duel.
[quote=Vega]TL;DR - if you’re a duel recipient and you know you’ll be losing, camp out on the Messages tab without reloading your browser, until you get the kill notice, then accept Wounds help or drink a Tincture. Basically the same strategy as for the old website. (I think Death remains unavoidable if you initiated the duel and lost.)[/quote] Good work, Vega! This technique may prove to be quite useful.
[quote=Reinol von Lorica ]Oh yeah, shouldn’t all the profile links be changed in the leaderboards?[/quote]Yes, for everyone except the newest Society members. I’ll take care of it before the tournament begins. Thanks for the reminder!
Hallowmas is confirmed as starting on either Oct 23 or 24 (the FBG blog says the 24th, Sunless Skies update I got says 23rd). It tends to be the most involved Neathy holiday event, so the tournament won’t start until Hallowmas is over (presumably, it lasts two weeks and ends by Wednesday, Nov 7th). Barring any changes in the Hallowmas schedule, signups for the tournament will now end at noon EDT on Friday Nov 9th, and the tournament will commence within two or three days after that. All participants will receive in-game letters announcing the start, and the official start announcement will also be posted in this forum and on the FL subreddit.
