HistoryCast 1: 54th Hunger Games [10/31/15]

Since six years and 17 Games worth of history are both quite daunting — the staff and I have started putting together a podcast project, in an effort to help give members a rundown of the old Games on the site. In an informal discussion setting, a handful of the staff are discussing aspects of the old Games that were important or that stand out to them, whether it's mechanics, development, or other background.

We're taking this from the top and going in order.

sbeeg, Stare, and I sat down to talk about the 54th Games.

The cast is, in all, about an hour long and can be found here: ripred.net/historycasts/54th.mp3 - note that it contains occasional profanity. Whoops.

You can listen online or download it if you want (right click, save as..., etc)

My best effort at a transcript is below, with a few footnotes I added in after the fact:

G: ...we can play like the Capitol theme or something, the Caesar Flickerman theme, like, [trumpet noises] - I really don't know how it goes

S: [trumpet noises]

A: alright

G: Wait, you start, you're the head of the floating goat¹

A: The head of the floating goat, alright
A: Hello everybody, this is your favorite Overlord speaking, Aya. Um. We are goign to be talking about the 54th Hunger Games, the first on the site. During these Games, I participated as a tribute — Arbor Halt, who ended up winning somehow, despite... everything — other roles that I played during those Games were: sort of part of the conglomerate of Gamemakers that was the entire Staff of the time, and I've pretty much been here forever so I remember things - those are my credentials.

G: Hey! I'm GreenBeads. Otherwise known as Geebs. I... I'm on the site. I played as Windy Mathers, a tribute from District 4 in the 54th Hunger Games, and it was - the 54th was shortly after I joined, so I've been here for... awhile as well. And... full of weird trivia from these things that don't matter anywhere else.

S: I'm 10Stare, or Stare as I've come to be known, and I played Jestina Lelborn in the 54th. I'm in the same goat as Geebs over here, so I was a very new member when we first started the Games. I had no idea what I was doing, I joined like two weeks before, so I had no idea how I got reaped.

G: Randomized, that's how you were reaped!
A: Geebs bringing the logic!

A: You guys wanna launch into this, or?
S: Sure
G: How many years ago was this?
A: this was at the beginning of 2010, so... almost 6
G: Six years ago
A: yep.
G: Wow
A: feel old yet?
G: Oh how far we have come
S: It was right after I joined
G: It was right after I joined, too
A: It was, sadly, not right after I joined

G: It was my very first reaping
S: Weren't there a few games before that?
A: Yeah, um, we tried to do the 54th... 3 times, the third time - third time's the charm - but before the first one, we had done... two others that - we had barely had enough members and characters on the site, and of course, activity was not really there, so... we kinda... they sort of went the way that my threads kinda go, like, "Yeah this is definitely a thing!...nooooope it's dead it's very dead, alright let's kill it and start it again!"
S: Definitely because Geebs and I joined, we are the lucky charms obviously
A: Oh yeah, for sure
G: Uh, duh
A: Y'know, you're still here, site's still active, so I have no evidence to refute this
S: Exactly
G: I mean, yeah

G: I remember being so excited that I was reaped, but everyone in real life, like in school, just did not get it
S: They don't! They don't understand!
G: And that was when I took my vow of silence. I was like "no one can know, no one will understand"
S: It was crazy because i had one character and I got reaped, and that's like, unheard of today
G: Yeah
A: Oh yeah, for sure
A: I feel like back - back when this happened, if you had a couple characters, odds were you would be reaped within the first few games, I think, like, the pool was not what it is today
G: We also had a few inactive people in the 54th - the District 4 Male was inactive, and I remember being super sad about it, cause I wanted to do like, District Partner stuff, he just never came around
A: yeah he was like, one post maybe, or something
G: Yeah
A: He didn't have a last name either, and the member left, so I was like "alright, so your last name is 'no last name', but in Spanish" so we have Sylthis Sinnombre - this was back when I would name your characters, if you hadn't taken the initiative to do so²
G: Is that how Kale Forrest came about?
A: Yeah, Kale Forrest, I named him after the forest that he invented in the 55th
A: Well you know what, you gotta read the description of the arena before you run from an island into a forest filled with pine trees

S: Yep, yep, that's definitely a thing that should be done
A: It's important
G: That was so weird... Forest? Oh yes, the forest. All Games have forests, don't you know?
A: Yes, every arena is the 74th Arena, clearly
G: Duh
S: So much trippy stuff happened during the early games that I feel like just wouldn't happen today because I feel like everything's so professional now. But like back then we had tributes that died twice and all this crazy stuff that was happening.
A: Yeah, uh, wolf-taming was a big one
S: Yeah, wolf-taming
A: Yeah, oh you konw what's sort of kind of relatively starting from the beginning - interesting fact: I never actually wound up posting a reaping accepting thread - er, post - for Arbor. Like you can go to the boards, it doesn't exist. Cause I wasn't really around when the 54th started - that was during one of my spats of inactivity we had back in the day. And I came back like a week later and went "Oh, I was reaped, that was cool." And I sent a message to Tori³ who had kind of spearheaded the whole games and was like "heeeey so can I still do this thing?" and she was like "yeah, sure, nothing's happened yet"

S: You were still green then
G: oh yeah Coder Green
A: [audible blank stare of confusion]
S: You weren't red like Lulu
A: Oh yeah yeah yeah!
G: That coder Green⁴
S: that the first successful games were not run by you and Lulu - like, that just seems like something that was a given
A: Yeah, well - it was sort of really... weird cause we were kind of like collectively - past the point where Tori's like "hey let's do this thing!" after we'd hired her - we kind of all got on board with that - and we were kind of all like collectively running them, Tori mainly, but... then I ended up jumping in like "hey yeah, so combat should not be arbitrary, maybe?" and um, that sort of thing - did up the Anthems - as soon of it got going I got like, hyperfocused on it, like "yes let us do all the things" and then it kinda snowballed from there

G: One of the writing challenges you definitely had in the 54th was figuring out how you bruised someone with a spear...⁵
S: yep, that was an interesting one
G: like... so I hit you with the other end, that's what I did
A: not the pointy end! Have not been taking my lessons from Jon Snow.

S: You could be knocked unconscious too, and if you were knocked unconscious you were basically dead⁶
A: Yep, yeah that was the uh —
G: The person you fought like chose your fate, right?
A: Yeah, sorta
G: If you were knocked unconscious they were sort of like "well, I could kill you, or I could let you go" - which was cool, but could never work anymore? but it was cool

A: Yeah, I tried to um recreate that - I don't remember, I think it was the 64th? maybe it was the 68th, one of 'em - and it was a Random Event that was just like - yeah you got hit in the by something and it's like guess what? you're now at the mercy of everyone who you're threading with - but I dunno if they [the REs] didn't fire or... something, something terrible happened, probably

A: Yeah that was like the first not-an-insta-Insta, it's like, we were hinting at this thing. "Yeah you're definitely unconscious" - it's like pokemon, they just fainted, they're fiiine
G: I'm going to a pokemon tournament tomorrow, I'm super excited about it - that's off-topic but I'm super excited about it
A: sounds cool
G: I have a lot off feelings
S: Geebs, can we talk about how in the training center, you started a training thread that was like seven pages long?
G: okay, I just wanted to like talk to people, and then everyone was like "oh was this it? is this where we talk?" and then after the first page, I don't post anymore and I was like "oh, that's what that is" - everyone was like "oh, let's be friends, but not with you"
A: You can just hide in the cornucopia by yourself for the whole Games
G: I mean it worked pretty well, not gonna say it didn't - should've stayed there, honestly
A: Well it worked until everyone came to you for the Feast

S: Alliances were so bad - like, there wasn't like a limit on alliances, were there?
A: I dunno if there was like a hard limit - might've been five. I dunno if we specifically said "you can have five and no more!" or if we just kinda went with howevermany people grouped together - which was five. But - yeah - the rules were a lot more... nebulous... then

S: Someone tried to get into a thread with me and ally with me, but then I like disappeared for a couple of days, so I just like... back then I did that sometimes, I would disappear for a couple of days. And during those couple of days, someone ambushed our thread and killed the person I was going to ally with
A: Oh! was this on Day 1?
S: it might've been
A: Yeah, cause I remember after the - oh, we need to talk about the Bloodbath —
S: Oh, the bloodbath
G: Oh, no
A: After the Bloodbath, I remember hunting was basically just - everyone had dispersed to all corners of the arena, there was no movement logic or anything, it was just like "oh, nope, i'm over here - nope now I'm on the other end! I just did a week's worth of travel in..." ⁷
G: "Now I'm in the mountains!"
A: "Yeah, now I'm in the craters! Now I'm in the mountains!" — And I'm pretty sure there was one point where Quint, who played Archer Fields, the District 2 Male, and L, who was Oz [Myrrh] the District 1 Male, um, I think they just like said "hey, you wanna 1v1 me?" and then they just fought, and that was it, that was hunting, just "Hey, let's fight".
S: That was literally what happened, and I was in that thread, but I was just casually in the background - and no one acknowledged me at all
G: That was me - i was like "Quint, I wanna do a battle!" cause the Bloodbath was randomized, and I was like "I wanna do a thing" so we just fought, and I lost, and I was like "please don't kill me" so he was like "I'mma take your apple." and I was really salty about him taking my apple. Like, food and water - we needed to have food and water, and I was like "well, no one's attacking me, so I guess I should eat food" so I kept just buying peanut butter and eating ice, which I guess in hindsight, probably isn't very good.

S: Food was really inexpensive back then, but I guess, with the inflation that's been happening on the site —
G: I bought like three cans of peanut butter! And like bread, and just like... tons of stuff
A: Yeah, items... I feel like items were almost entirely 100% arbitrary. Because, it was, you didn't have like —
G: They were also mostly for like, inventing things.
A: Like "Oh, I have a hat! Which is good, because it's cold out! let me write about my hat!" yYeah but like, there weren't weapons - just one dice for weapons
G: I was throwing rocks for most of those games, just like, "Oh, she has a net and she filled it with rocks. And she throws rocks at people" - random person, throw a rock, then it was like "gashed face open" and I was like "oh shit!"
A: Pointy rock
G: That's a sharp rock!
S: Fights were interesting back then, they were very interesting

A: yeah... I dunno should we kinda go — oh you know what, you mentioned this but we didn't really touch on it - the way that the Bloodbath was done was randomly
S: yes
A: Which would totally not fly at any point past that - cause we didn't end up inventing combat as we know it today, like, until I think it was Day 2 we needed it for something - so you could roll dice for things, but it was kind of like "yeah, you cut his face open, he probably dies, go ahead and kill him, have fun"
S: yeah we judged, there wasn't the point system, like you could get a black eye but it wouldn't have a certain amount of damage points, it was just "oh, they have a black eye, fun fact"
G: then it got to a certain point where it was like "oh, you're probably dead, i dunno" - but the Bloodbath was so scary, it was almost like the night before it happened I was like, it was like in the book, you were like "oh my god I could die there's no way —" like there's a pretty good chance you're gonna die. I had a whole plan in case Windy died, I was like, she's gonna like steop off the thing too soon and it's gonna blow up and it's gonna be funny — not funny — it's gonna be heartbreaking!
A: funny
G: Then she didn't and I was like "woo!"
A: Yeah it was randomized - I'd built a little shitty tool - like one you'd find on ripred.net⁹ - that literally just like, handled all of that. You put in all the tributes' training scores, and whether or not they were going for their full bag of items and their small bag of items and um - if you... you would have worse odds the worse your training score was, and if you were staying in the bloodbath to get all your items you'd have worse odds, whatever — so it was
S: it also depended on District, I remember - it was, if you had a hire district you were more likely to be killed randomly in the bloodbath - that was in the equation somewhere
A: Oh, was it? Shit, no wonder why I was freaked out about it - i had a 3 from District 12 -
S: So low
G: just out of your hands, out of your control
A: it was just like "ah, oh well"
G: if I had a choice, I'd probably be like "okay, randomize it now" - I don't wanna deal with that bloodbath, jsut do it - if I die i'm dead, it's whatever
S: yeah the formula for the number of times that your tribtue was put into this randomizer was 12 + the district number - your training score. Ooh. That was how it worked.
A: ...yeah, it's a fucking miracle I made it through that thing.
G: Yeah! Yeah! How did that happen?
A: Okay, literally everything that happened in those games to me was the most improbable, so... especially winning
S: yeah and you could randomly choose, like, there were no assigned kilers so you could just be like "oh, well, I'm gonna say I killed that person that died in the bloodbath, so, why not?"¹⁰
A: Yeah especially since um - fights didn't even go to the full 40 damage until literally the feast, when we decided "Oh, everyone should have hitpoints instead of just going for an arbitrary period of time"
S: Yeah that made things interersting, for sure
A: Oh yeah definitely.

G: It was a good game for mutts
A: Good game for you killing mutts - that's every games, but
G: that's every games... I mean it's whatever, it's a talent [literal hairflip]
G: Tarzan was a good mutt, he was the first of his kind, he was a real groundbreaker. Like when they broke the ground to bury him
A: Rest in peace, poor Tarzan, you Pitfall Lizard, you left us too soon - and then, every subsequent games gets Pitfall Lizards now.
G: yessss!

G: I think we do need to talk about Flash, is that what his name was?
A: Yeah, Flash, we do need to talk about Flash
G: Flash the wolf
S: Especially because we just had a reincarnation of Flash, and very few members understood how significant it was
A: So the deal with Flash - I think before we get into that, it's kind of a little bit important to get a little background on how the anthems and fights and how that shit kind of was set up, um - cause when fights were set up, it was kind of like "hey, so, these three people from this alliance and these two from this alliance, why don't you guys go duke it out or whatever" - like it wouldn't be full alliance vs full alliance, like you'd see in Games after this one.
A: So on Day 2 it was Archer Fields from District 2, Jeremy Houser (District 3) and Arbor Halt (District 12) fighting Iris Brookside and Ruby Georges, districts 5 and 8 respectively - oh, seven? eight. Seven or eight ¹¹
S: Seven and a half!
A: yeah, seven and a half - I was actually just looking at the thread for that anthem - it was kind of hilarious because it turned into a two-page opinions-fest, people were like "hey, so like, three versus two isn't really fair" and - literally we'd cut down our alliance so that it would be less of a shitshow - but... it was... opinions were had. And, um - they ended up deciding that they had tamed a wolf - literally just found a wolf in the arena - made it theirs, it would attack with them
G: in the course of like a day, not even like a day, a morning
A: Which, is fine - I mean the 54th were kind of like "oh, obviously, everything kind of goes" - it's fine - it took us like the full length of the fight to be like "waaaait a minute, what the hell?" And I think we ended up calling Wolf Tears¹² into this to be our resident Wolf Expert - and asked like "they can't really do this with wolves can they?" and she'd said "oh yeah wolves would definitely not do that." So, um, yeah. Flash. Flash the Wolf
S: And then the whole fight wound up being redone, didn't it?
A: Um, no, actually - that was - we didn't end up redoing it - we counted the attacks made against the wolf against the girls, and um we ended up scoring it -
G: you attacked the wolf?
A: Yeah it was - strategy wasn't really a thing, so we were like "yeah, let's one-v-one individually all of them" - that makes sense
S: It was a simpler time
A: Yeah, nobody had any fucking clue what was going on. It was fine. We ended up going through and - this is what the Combat Version 0.1 was written for, like the tabling, scoring, like "oh, yeah, broken arm is 6 damage, deep gash is 8, or 8.5, depending on where it is" - that's what this was written for. Then we ended up going back through and tallying everything up in damages and went, oh, yeah, so obviously "you dead, you dead." And there it was.
A: I feel like I didn't talk about the wolf at all in that, but, that's the background.
S: The wolf was very significant
G: The wolf was a legend
A: What's that?
[awkward silence]
G: Hullo? Who are we expecting to talk right now?
A: Oh, sorry, I didn't hear - so I tried to indicate that uh

G: When I did the trap [in the Cornucopia] - some member, just a regular member, just posted in the thread and was like "Cool trap." - No coding, no anything, just "cool trap" And I think I was like "Can you delete that?" I was like "Thanks! But don't do it like that!"
A: Cool trap - I feel like the first couple Games, we got a lot of that, people wandering in, like "Yeah I'm gonna post in this thread, I'm in the bloodbath now. Me. It's where I belong." and that sort of thing.
G: We need like, caution tape, or red velvet ropes, like, "No entry beyond this point"
A: "Not for you"
G: Also I think about it to this day that that trap that I made would never work. half of it relies on hammering something into metal in the middle of a winter landscape. I look back and I go "Yeah, I really wish that would've worked... but I don't think it would" - it was like - oh, bandages, that can be used, right?

S: you remember how we had Teams back then? It was like, there were specific threads in Discussion - it was like Ship Teams, like Team Peeta and Team Gale, but instead it was like "Team Blue:" or "Team 13"
A: I think those were the alliance names, mostly
S: But there were threads in which you could take graphics and put them into your um
A: oh, yeah
S: into your um, signature, to show your support
G: Oh, yeaaaah!
G: Too many of those did not have photoshop
A: Microsoft paint!
S: I look at mine, and I am actually embarrased, like, it looks so bad
A: You know what, it's retro now, it's fine - microsoft paint-shopping is the new photoshop. And by paint-shop I mean paint, not paintshop or paintshop pro or whatever. Big block letters, black background, "Team Whoever"

S: We also - there was a bounty, I just noticed this
A: Huh
S: I assume this was after L's character [Oz] died - he put a bounty on Quint's head
A: Oh, I remember that! I don't think he ever paid up
G: There was - I don't remember the other person in the fight - but one of 'em died and they got soooo angry
A: When was this?
G: That was like the first, out of the bloodbath, like the first fight
A: Ohhhh
G: I think
A: It was probably L then - L with Oz - or Prenten - I think Prenten was a good sport, it was probably Oz then, he was a little... little bitter about that one - that was the one where i'm pretty sure it was just Quint and L were like "hey, let's 1v1" then L lost and was mad
S: Yep, I just hid in the trees during that fight
A: The original camouflage station
S: I was! I was just gone!
A: Ohhhh man, Stations weren't really a thing that we had then, either - it was just, we had a thread, with a list of them, and it was like "yeah, you can take these stations! just PM which you're taking" and what you'd get for that station, instead of like +1 if you're fighting with a sword or you can heal a little better or whatever, you would get... ahhh... like miniature essays of knowledge sent to your inbox - I wrote, I wrote a lot of them. They were basically the sparknotes versions of the Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide, just like, "yeah, I know these things! let me share my knowledge with you-slash-your-tribute." It was probably, a lot of it, like blatantly wrong, but eh, I didn't give a fuck.

S: well like, that's because, at the beginning of the 54th, we were all told that our chances of survival were based on our writing and like, what our tribtues found and what they did, moreso than the fights, I remember that specifically
A: Huh
S: But then the fighting came in, welp, that's how people died
A: "Yknow what, this other thing, this stabbing thing, is important too"
G: Yeah, stabbing's fun. Do y'all remember what you did in your Private Training session?
A: Yes, yeah, Private Training Session - Arbor made a fishing line and fishing hooks out of various plant materials and lit a fire. Got a three.
G: I think Windy climbed a rope. I dont' think she can do much, she can like, make a fishook, and i'm pretty sure her training score was like a three. She's climbing this rope, so dramatically, so much like, good writing happening, then you look back on it and you're like "ohhhh. oh nooo."
S: I believe that Jestina stabbed something? Because she was from the hunting district, that was back when District 9 was the hunting district¹³
A: yup
S: She legitimately just like threw a knife and stabbed something
A: nice
S: I don't remember what she scored, it was something surprisingly high

S: Jestina got a nine! she got a 9 for stabbing someone.
G: Hey, that was before you had to like, kill people to get like a really high score, like, you gotta jump through a few hoops
S: Some people actually posted reactions to the training scores in that thread
G: huh
A: oh
S: I posted the last one, it's "I can't believe Jestina got a 9! Yeah! exclamation point!" I was so new!
A: aww
G: how old were you? in uh, that time
S: Oh, that was, what.... five years ago?
A: January 2010
S: I believe I was... 14?
G: I think I was 14 too
A: I was 15, old - I was still old, by site standards, at that point
G: I always think that I was like... 12 but then I look back and I was like 14, like "oh"
A: "well that's embarassing"
S: We had a lot of people that were supposedly too young, because there was that age limit, but we were just like "shhhh"
A: COPPA's¹⁴ not a real thing, cmon, you're fine, you're safe here
S: that was funny, oh my, I was so young, so new
G: I remember looking at one of Photobooth's¹⁵ posts, and I was like "how do you make it so long!? I don't understand"

S: all the posts were so short, they were like, a paragraph long, if that
A: Yeah
G: yeah. Like halfway through the Games i realized you could make your text colors, and I was like "Yuhh. Blue. Cause she's from District 4, and blue's the color of water."
S: But we only had that selection, we didn't have that fancy selection of hex colors, we just had like blue, green, orange, like from that little dropdown
A: Yeah - well - you could do the custom hex codes but those almost always turned out worse than the blinding preset ones
S: And no one knew about them! We barely even knew about the dropdown
A: Back when posts were one color, size=2, blinding.
G: With none of those fancy-schmancy table things - you were lucky if you even had a face claim
A: If you were on the bleeding edge, you maybe bolded your text - er, your speech text. That was like, high-tech stuff. Top of the line.

A: You know, honestly, I feel like at least 70% of why I don't generally go back and read the 54th is because of the aesthetics - it's just, my retinas can't take it anymore
S: blinding, center aligned. Why did we think that center-aligning was a good idea?
A: It just makes it harder to read
G: It's important, it needs to go in the center
S: Geebs i feel so bad, you had a thread that was just you! It was just you threading with yourself!
G: Yeah, it got lonely - I'd just come on like once every Games day and be like "eating peanut butter again!"
S: These are all on the same day, within like an hour of each other
G: ooh.
S: We threaded with ourselves, that's what we did in the 54th. Other people didn't respond, so we just responded to ourselves
A: Six consecutive days of holing up in the Cornucopia, making traps and eating peanut butter
G: Preety much, pretty much - until some Mutts tried to fuck my shit!
A: Yeah, you showed them
G: boom!

S: you know who had super impressive aesthetics for the time period?
A: Kara?¹⁶
S: But Lulu - and Kara, yeah - but Lulu I'm looking at her posts for Jared, she had a full-on graphic at the top, a different color for text and speech. I remember thinking that was the coolest thing and that I'd never be able to do it
A: Look how far we've come
G: I dunno what you're talking about, I still can't do it. You get one color. One!
A: Graduated to white-table-black-text, just like, going back to Web 1.0 "this is literally just text on a background" and yknow, it's just like minimalist and lazy and it's beautiful
G: whenever I try to make a table it always ends up too big
A: The contrast is fine though, it's...

G: In the 54th all the code is broken though, so it's just... blinding but also all the code is just lost to the void
A: Oh, yeah, with the version 5¹⁷ switchover that fucked everything up
G: yeah, you can't see what the attacks are anymore, cause no one would write them cause it was just written on the thing¹⁸
A: oh, yeah yeah yeah - I actually, somewhere, on one of my computers, in some file, still have what those used to be? I should probably like... at least put up a reference thread for that or something, maybe? I keep forgetting that I have that - that one and the 55th, too, which would also be broken because it was also text then.
A: Um, oh - the Feast was really cool though, in 54th - like, nothing special about it, but just like, the way that it was, like - that's when we introduced like armor and first aid items - any useful item, actually, was introduced in the feast. Yeah, we got healing supplies, armor-y supplies, I guess weapons didn't really come until like the next Games. But yeah that's like, 2/3 of what you need - I guess water and shit, which we didn't really care about
G: nah, eat ice.

S: Actual victor quote right here: "Raaaaaaaagh!" - that was you, Aya
A: Yeah, oh, yeah, I distinctly rememeber that
S: Arbor charging into the feast
A: Yeah you know what, he wasn't subtle - subtletly...
S: Wasn't?
A: Yeah. It's fine. You don't need to be subtle.
S: No, not in the feast
A: well, yknow, if you can't see shit, and other people can see, you yell at them and maybe they'll get frightened and yell back, and then you know where they are and you can stab them - it's strategy!

G: Can we talk about that backstabbing moment, when you all just turned on Archer?
A: That - that was on Day 3 - and if I recall correctly, Thundy and Kara had said, "yeah, yknow what, kinda bored, let's shake things up a bit" and they were like - on the fence about whether or not they should bring me into this whole "hey, we should all just get together and stab Archer!" bit - and, um, that was a thing that we did, uh, like totally nerfed our alliance¹⁹, yknow, kill one of them, the other one runs away in terror, then it's just, yknow, little kid from District 12, blind, palling around with two scary girls who literally just murdered someone cause they were bored.

S: Those were interesting times
A: Yeah, yknow what, I feel like that's pretty realistic for Games and stuff
S: I just - I love that you did it because the Games were getting boring, so you guys are just like, meh, might as well just stab someone
A: that's how I remember it going down, anyway, that's kind of what filtered in through my - I'm pretty much like 90% oblivious to everything that's going on until someone specifically comes to me and says "hey so this is a thing, let's go, sure, why not?" but um, Thundy might be able to speak more about that about you ask her - I'm sure she'd love to. Good times.
S: hah, good times
A: yknow what, it was good times
G: good times - experiments. I don't know what would happen if you just threw tributes into the Games with so many not - not - not having as many rules as we do now
S: not nearly having as many rules
A: it's not really the rules so much as - the problem now it's people have sort of learned and got their shit together, knowledge-wise, so you've got "oh, yes, if we all attack one person, than this person will die faster." Like, common sense stuff, but it took us awhile to work it out. I guess that was part of what was so fun about the 54th was that nobody had any idea what was going on, so we sort of just threw shit at the wall and saw what stuck.
G: It was new, everyone was equally just "ehehehe idk what's happening" - like we were all new members, that's what made it fun

A: and it was such a learning process, from a running-things perspective too, there were so many times where we had to be like "oh! well maybe you shouldn't be able to tame a wolf!" or travel all the way across the arena three times in a day
S: But it worked! I mean the Games went on, and they are still considered an official Games
A: for whatever reason - oh, that's what I should've done, goddammit
G: Well like the first year of the Academy Awards were like, no one cared about anything, like, Rent got the first academy award, like, it's just kind of a mess - but now it's kind of a thing. But sometimes you gotta look at your roots to appreciate whatcha got now
A: yeah. Man, but if we'd said no these don't count, then that's... that' s six years of my life that I could've not been obligated to write Arbor posts.

S: how old is Arbor now?
A: 32
S: oh my
A: yep
G: getting up there
A: yep, it's almost time to kill him off of old age... or liver failure - waiting for it
G: yeah if it's like a liver condition
A: oh yeah, for sure

S: did we have any like relationships in those Games? like any romances or friendships that were super hardcore?
A: mmmm... oh, you know what, the District threes - Jeremy and - I'm gonna say this wrong - Ailia Goodnite, A-i-l-i-a —
S: yeah
G: Goodnite
A: yep! um - it was like, super, as far as I knew, one-sided and - Jeremy, his writer, was like "yeah this is gonna be a thing!" and then Ailia - and Kara, who had written her, was like "no, this is not going to be a thing" - just for the, up until he left our alliance he was just like "yeah i'll die for you or whatever" and she was like "...I'll keep that in mind" - and just like manipulating and stuff
G: Wasn't Ailia like the wee bitty - wasn't she like the youngest you could be?
A: I'm pretty sure
S: She had a super young face claim
A: Yeah. Well like everyone was the first few Games, cause this was before everyone realized "oh, if my characters are all 18, then I have a better chance of being reaped" - so

G: we had to put some kind of limit on it because people didn't want to be reaped
A: really?
G: yeah
A: what the fuuuuck?
G: I remember the median age of the site was younger - cause I was 14 I was like "I'm gonna make a 14-year-old, cause I dunno how 17-year-olds think!" I'm like - almost 21 now, like "I dunno how 14-year-olds think anymore"
A: Yeah I remember I was 14, and arbor was — nope, fuck, I was 15 and Arbor was 15, during the 54th and - I think it, ...I'm not adding anything to this, I'm just agreeing - agree to what you said.

S: I'm fairly sure Jestina was actually significantly older than me. I'm pretty sure she was 16 or 17.
A: That would've made her one of the oldest tributes, by far
G: I think Windy was a year older than me, like "oh, I'll make her Fifteen cause that's cool" - like that's so differnet from me now
S: honestly Jestina was just a version of Katniss that threw knives instead of bow-and-arrows
A: that's still cooler
S: that's pretty much what it was - and I was like "Ah, she's 16, 17, she's probably living on her own, getting her own food" like... she's old...
A: she's adulting, it's fine
S: exactly
G: #adulting
A: oh god

S: all of the characters handled the Games extremely well, like, looking through the reactions, everybody's just like "oh, yeah, this happened, okay cool"
G: It was whatever
S: like things weren't as deep as they are now - like now, if you kill a character, it's like a three-post super long reaction, but then it was like "yep I killed them, moving on"
A: well that's why I just always write sociopaths, it's easier
G: less clean-up, less guilt, don't wanna deal with it

S: I remember Jestina had like this big secret - but her big secret was that she killed two like, bear cubs, and everybody on the site was like "-gasp- she did what?" and it was like such a big deal, it was awful
A: Aww. That's like the most adorable sort of, Stare-sort-of, "this is a terrible thing!" secret
S: so bad, probably the worst thing that my character's ever done to be honest

G: Windy didn't kill anyone except for Tarzan, Tarzan was her only kill that Games
S: Jestina didn't kill anybody, not even a mutt I don't think
A: Arbor killed a fuckload of people
S: That's why you won, obviously
A: The whole Games were just like this massive fluke - it got down to the - not - to like the finale, which was Arbor, his district partner Blue, and Jared, Lulu's tribute, and I was just sitting there going into this just like, stroking my chin going "...shit! fuck! I'm going to win! shit! fuck!"
S: For whatever reason, Jestina asked Jared to kill Blue.
A: Yep, and that was a significant factor in that
G: I think everyone those games -
A: sorry, what was that?
G: Whenever a character would die they'd be like "avenge me! defeat the Capitol!"
S: I think it was because Blue was my ally for like a day, and then she abandoned me for this fight, and then Jared killed me and I was like "Yo, please kill my ally, because she like abandoned me"
A: I remember that

G: It's interesting to see the transition from the transition from the first few Games, then in the later games there being like a real intense like... Career mentality
A: yeah we very quickly became the Capitol, I guess, like... I dunno, I kind of have always had like this insatiable bloodlust for... it doesn't really matter who but just kill everyone all the time — tribute, tributes I swear! NSA, I promise!
G: Anything you want to admit right now, or take to the police?
A: uhhhh.... no? But - yeah, I feel like that first Games, everyone was like "yes! let us embody the spirit of the book and we will be — the Capitol is Bad, the Hunger Games are Bad!"
S: yeah there was just so much rebellion in those Games
A: yeah, which is fine - Rebellion is fine - Rebellion was the Hotness then - and then it was Gaymances, and continued to be Gaymances forever²⁰
S: I feel like Rebellion doesn't come up at all anymore, like, all the tributes subtly hate the Capitol, but not as much as the 54th tributes did
A: yeah
S: they hated the capitol
A: they hated the capitol with all the subtltly of a sledgehammer, it was just "oh, by the way, did you know that the Capitol is terrible and I hate them they should all go diiiie" - and it's like okay, cool, you do you

A: I'm glad we got away from that a little bit. It was nice to have this moment of um... what, like "yes, we are people, we recognize that the wanton slaughter of 23 adolescents is wrong" - and then move past it, with all the enthusiam
S: 54th is like our excuse, like, yeah, I cared once
G: It was like our disclaimer, like, "we know this is wrong, but... we're still gonna do it, though"
S: exactly, exactly
A: it's perfect

G: we could have a site that's the Hunger Games universe without the Hunger Games, but uh... what fun is that?
A: that's like the opposite of fun! I mean, threading in the Districts is great and all, but... killing things? you gotta have victors
S: what if your sib-trib can't be reaped?
A: yep, that would just be devistating, because where are you gonna get your feels?
S: Exactly
G: gotta get your intake of feels. your daily feels.
S: Hunger Games RPG: Serving Feels for 6 years now - or 7 now?
A: Seven.
S: Aya you know this, how long?
A: Seven years - in September — you made the banner, we had a celebration
S: oh yeah! I did make that banner, didn't I!
A: This was like a month ago - month and a half, I guess
S: whoops
A: long-ass time
S: we done good
A: yeah!

G: Have you ever thought about drawing names out of a hat?
A: Yes! I think I may have tried to do that for like the first 54th Games, when we only had like maybe 30, 40, 50 characters max on the site, but that was really annoying, and my handwriting's terrible, so I didn't do that anymore. Especially now that we've got a thousand or so - 700 or 800 in the Reaping, times... assume everyone's an average of like 16 or 17, so like 3,600 to 4,800 entries plus tessera - I don't have time
G: That's a mess
A: It would take me a month to just do the whole - and you know what would end up happening is I'd have them in 24 individual hats, and I would drop one and like slosh the names into the wrong bowl and it would just be a mess
G: The fact that you have 24 hats is very impressive
S: Yeah it actually is, to be honest
A: That would be impressive
S: 24 top hats? Just lined up?
G: ooh, fancy
A: nope, one top hat - but it's in Florida so it doesn't help me.
S: I can see how that would be problematic
A: yeah, slight problem
A: is there anything else noteworthy you guys can think of? Any other questions or cool shit to discuss?
S: I think we've covered most of the stuff that I can think of
G: I can't think of anything else
A: That sounds... sounds like we've got - I think we've pretty much covered it, hit the main points, I guess
G: Yeah I think so
S: We got the bloodbath, we got the wolf, we got the betrayal
A: Mutts, sort of
S: I think we got everything
A: Tarzan, Rest In Peace
S: Poor Tarzan

A: Alright, well, thank you guys very much for joining me
G: No problem!
A: Yep, have to drag you back for some of the other old games cause there's not really a lot of old relics from the past - and also you guys are great
S: Alrighty then
A: Alright!

---

FOOTNOTES:

[1] - The phrase "whatever floats your goat" had just prompted a discussion about the buoyancy of hoofed mammals, which we hadn't quite recovered from
[2] - Although even back then, if I could find you, I'd ask you to furnish one for your tribute if they were missing a surname. Not having last names was more common for characters back in the day.
[3] - Kale Forrest, the District 12 Male during the 55th Games
[4] - Tori was a librarian that we'd just taken on as a new staff member. She convinced us to give the Games another try (after our two previous attempts had fizzled off and died) and also is responsible for initializing an official Face Claim. Thanks, Tori!
[5] - Aya's initial role on the staff was "Coder" - which came with a neon green name.
[6] - There was only one dice roll for combat, which was used for all tributes, regardless of what they were fighting with
[7] - This was only rolled twice, once rolled by Zinnia Yaren against Colton Brax, once by Windy Mathers against Tarzan the Pitfall Lizard
[8] - There was an attempt to remedy this by adding time radiuses to the arena, but Aya's zealous love of trigonometry was not appreciated by the masses for another 16 games
[9] - This was before ripred.net existed, of course
[10] - Tributes who were still alive peacefully decided this amongst themselves
[11] - District Seven.
[12] - Former Global Moderator, won the 55th Games, GMed the 56th and 63rd Games
[13] - Since the site was before the books finished, our old district industries weren't completely up-to-date with the books. We revamped them during the First Ratmas (the end of the 56th) but didn't update them further when the Lionsgate ones were released when the movie came out.
[14] - COPPA, the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, is an american law that basically mandates that everyone on the internet must be 13 or have parent-or-guardian permission to sign up for things. A handful of members didn't quite meet the age limit, but they assured us they had parental permission so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[15] - Photobooth was an old moderator who fell out of activity back before the Games really kicked off.
[16] - Kara wrote Ailia Goodnite in the 54th Games and was in our inaugural group of RP Tutors.
[17] - between the 65th and 66th, Proboards pretty much forced an update from version 4 to version 5 of their forum software, which damaged a lot of previously-pretty posts, and fucked with the old-old dice a little bit.
[18] - There was a script that autoreplaced the combat dice numbers with the end result, but when we added multiple-weapon support in the 55th, it made everything fucktastically slow, so that was scrapped with the next rewrite of the combat system (for the 56th)
[19] - That alliance was initially D1f Zinnia Yaren [Thundy], D2m Archer Fields [Quint], D3f Ailia Goodnite [Kara], D3m Jeremy Houser [Rizzo], and D12m Arbor Halt [Aya]
[20] - I HAVE ZERO PROBLEM WITH THIS. PLEASE, ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE SHIPPING THESE THINGS.