Balancing Mutt Fights Discussion

Speaking from personal encounters with mutt insta's (69th, 70th, 73rd, 75th), I personally think mutts should operate on finale rules. In all 4 of those games, I believe dying to those mutts took away from both the storyline of my own tribute, along with the plots of my allies. Noah & Stevie's insta's both stand out for me this way, where I lost out on invested alliance dynamics that would have had more impact narratively than my respective mutt insta's.

I also think the mutt writer should be able decide their own target strategies - just that this should be communicated to the alliance & agreed upon on both sides. In my experience, attacking in initiative order is a good, agreeable default!

Personally, I feel like mutt fights are one of the only aspects of combat within the games that are currently balanced. Mutt fights almost act as a level playing field, especially on day 2 where every tribute is (usually) versus a mutt - there's no room for OOC dynamics to affect the outcomes of fights and I think that's something everyone here really struggles with, especially with larger friendship groups spanning between alliances and refusing to hit each other with a weapon (as we've seen in the bloodbath multiple times before). Mutt fights seem to offer the only way to dismantle that in a way that makes it fair for everyone: all tributes equally run the risk of killing their mutt or being killed by their mutt. The dice is the only thing these fights hinge on. And whilst that's never an easy thing to come to terms with, it's a whole lot easier than having to navigate through difficult OOC social structures and politics which can leave a person feeling a lot more discouraged than bad luck can. From personal experience, a bad dice roll is easier for me to accept than feeling unfairly wiped out because I'm not a very popular member of the site.

I also think there needs to be a focus on the IC aspect of mutts. Mutts have been designed by the Capitol with the sole intention to kill and make tributes lives' more difficult (mostly), so to erase the potential to instakill a tribute makes them seem way less threatening. And it begs the question: why would the Capitol design something like that? The Hunger Games are crafted to bring about the best television in Panem and deadly mutts are a part of that. I've died to some mutts which felt bad at the time, but now I look back and regret having such a defeatist perspective because it really limited how much I could've taken the opportunity to write something badass happening to my tribute to end their life (the 70th Cornucopia mutt, I am looking at you). Dying to a mutt opens so many doors to roleplay opportunities which aren't usually taken so I think we should allow more freedoms for mutt victims to interpret their death in a way that best promotes the most muse to all parties involved and encourages the victim's writer to continue writing their tribute until the very end. Perhaps more open dialogue between the mutt writer and the tribute writer - that way a cool way to bow out of the games can be orchestrated which can help move the focus from "I've been insta'd" to "look at this thing I did which I am proud of".

Another thing to consider is the length of the games. In the situation of a bloodbath having few to no deaths (which does happen quite often), the day 2 mutt fights are a good way for the GMs to get back on track with the site schedule and calendar. Getting rid of mutt instas runs the risk of all 24 tributes surviving into day 3. Whilst from an OOC perspective, I love that idea and want everyone to reach that stage, IC wise - it just isn't realistic. 23 tributes have to be dead by the end of the games, and dying to a mutt is just one of the harsh realities of being in the Hunger Games.

Removing mutt instas creates an entirely new problem, especially for tributes with victors. I don't believe it should be up to alliances to decide who gets targeted because it makes it unfair for people with victors to always "take one for the team" and suffer IC consequences just because OOC, they have already won. It leads to a situation where some members can continually skate through the games unscathed as their victor allies get picked off in the name of "fairness". Is it really fair to place limitations on someone's creativity just because they've already won? It places so many boundaries on the victor's tribute and their character development, especially if they are treated by their allies as a shield that gets them a free pass into the next games day. I know some victors are more than happy to do this for their friends, and good for you - but I don't think everyone is and I can completely understand why. I can imagine it feels like the victor's tribute isn't really a character at all and is just a mechanism that facilitates the fulfilment of another tribute's story.

I think there just needs to be more transparency on how mutts are going to attack and why. This can prevent the feeling of being 'targeted' as there is a conversation about why what's happening is happening: it allows the mutt's writer to explain that they are hitting X because they have considerably lower damage than their allies, or that they are steering clear of Y because they have way more damage than everyone else. I've always seen mutt fights as a way to evenly spread damage between an alliance - maybe a mutt attacking based on turn order is the best way to do this if starting damages are all even, but sometimes there is an obvious outlier and prioritising even damage spread is something that will best help the tributes all stay alive, kill the mutt and continue in their games endeavours. There is always a much smaller chance of a single mutt rolling an insta than a four person alliance rolling one - it's just the dice. Sometimes they can be your best friend, sometimes they suck. That's just how luck works.

While I have never been insta'd by a mutt, it's only happened from another tribute, but in my opinion mutt's should attack on a set initiative. Doing this, I think that some of the potential problems and grievances brought up can be fixed, not all, but some. Progress is progress, but I also do believe not every problem addressed on this site will be able to be fixed in a fair OOC and also realistic IC way. Everything should be kept as fair as possible but realistic to the Hunger Game's nature, as it is a deadly competition.

Firstly, mutt writers should not be able to choose their targets. Allowing them to choose their targets can create room for bias to take over and have an impact on who they choose to target. Locking them into a strict initiative (which can possibly be defined by the dice?) prevents bias from poisoning a fight. Not everyone on the site is going to get along and not everyone is going to be a perfect person at all times, so bias in one of the GMs is entirely possible and shouldn't be overlooked. While all site members, especially GMs, should be upheld to try and keep our community cordial and fair, it won't always happen. There needs to be measures in place to prevent it from ever occurring. Creating a locked attack initiative for mutt writers quashes both biases in writers and site members claiming that it had an influence on a particular fight. While in cases where one tribute has less damage than the rest, I do think it is fair to bypass the initiative and attack them first, then attack the rest by the set initiative order. This should be directly communicated to the alliance.

However, a tribute should not be attacked three times in a row by a mutt when there is still another tribute who has only been attacked once out of those three turns. Misses should count as a turn. Why should a tribute be punished for how the mutt's dice turned out? If we want to keep things fair, this needs to be fixed.

I also believe that mutt insta's should stay as they are now. Yes, they can take away from storylines and have a hindrance on a writer's plot, but that is the nature of the games. Every attack has the potential to be an insta. That's also another reason why mutt attacks should be in a set order because on the off chance a tribute does get insta'd by a mutt, it eliminates bias being the potential reason for that tribute's death. Dice is all about luck and bias should have no impact on mutt fights.