The Mafia New Game Announcement & Sandbox Thread

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Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Additions that don't change the original alignment may be alright but add something extra might be alright, but I hate outright alignment changes. It can really mess with the game and town's strongest weapon of going back to look for connections. You don't know when someone changed and what that change did to them, so it makes things very difficult. A specific example I can only sorta remember is Ernie being town and changing to scum, but I could not believe that scum Ernie would behave a certain way D1 and D2, and I was right, since he wasn't scum then.

If you're going to have true alignment change it needs to be announced as a mechanic at the beginning of the game so town can adjust, but I still would prefer it not existing at all.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 18:31

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:41

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Captain Foo posted:

How would you feel about some sort of ambiguous mod announcement when it happened, perhaps tied into flavor? This would indicate that something happened to that player, but not necessarily what.

That may just bring suspicion onto a player where there was none before, which isn't fair to the team doing the alignment changing.

Although, unintentional,. I did sorta like the public cult that PMom and ANarc had Pummeling in Pimonia. I think it wasn't great in that game since it was a pro-town cult and the scum team got a little screwed, but having something like a public unkillable cult recruiter in the game might be an interesting mechanic, and then it's a race against time for town. Having no scum team but the recruit as an alternative to the nightkill would be interesting since the only deaths would be from lynches.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 18:49

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

EccoRaven posted:

I think that was Misery in Madriu actually. The main reason it turned into a hard situation for the scum though was the cult faction accidentally fullclaiming day 1 and the town accepting them wholeheartedly. I never anticipated that when designing the setup.

It was. I had both game threads open because I couldn't remember, and then said the wrong one.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 18:54

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Pinterest Mom posted:

There were like 8 scum in that 20ish player game, 5 scum and 3 in a second anti-cult faction. I don't think the setup was skewed in favour of the cult, especially given that, unbeknownst to us, if we tried to recruit scum three times the entire cult died.

I loved that game and I think it was a successful alignment-change setup.

You were part of the original cult and had full control of that mechanic though, and if we're talking about what is fun for the players, as someone who was on the other end of that, it was very frustrating as scum. We thought we were playing a very good game and had set ourselves up for victory, but the alignment changing being pro-town and accepted by town completely negated all of our effort otherwise.

If it was something we had known about at the beginning of the game we would have played very differently, but it seemed that by the time we figured out the setup of the game, it was too late to do anything about it because of the number of people who had been confirmed town by the cult. It felt like the setup beat us rather than the players.

So I feel it's a pretty good example of how having an alignment change that's not announced is something that is really bad for the overall experience.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 18:58

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Pinterest Mom posted:

Oh and also scum never tried to nk us until like N4, and by that time it was too late.

Because once again, we didn't understand what was happening. We didn't see the threat until it was too late to do anything about it.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 18:59

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

I don't really want to argue about that game in particular, but the question was asked how do people feel about alignment-changing, and I'm saying I don't like it, and citing that game as an example as to why. It was quite unfun to play against and as Lumpen said, it makes what happens before feel pointless and frustrates you if you're converted because why should I care about this alignment that I've now been forced into.

I think the only exceptions are when it is known at the beginning of the game so people can know what to expect, and then whether it is called mafia at that point is debatable.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 19:04

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

I just meant I don't want to argue about whether that game was balanced anymore. PMom thinks it was, I think it wasn't. I think like you said it's important to note whether players are having fun, and I dd not have fun, and it was primarily the result of that mechanic.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 19:12

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

EccoRaven posted:

So would the town be told "Captain Foo was visited by Hal Incandenza" the next day or something? And then if/when Hal dies and flips cult recruiter the town has their work cut out for them?

As the person who got recruited, that would feel terribly unfair.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 19:14

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Kumbamontu posted:

I think a single person being able to change their alignment is fine as long as they're made aware of the possibility in advance, but in general I think alignment changes en masse are not likely to be a good idea due to reasons already stated

An example role of one person changing alignments was the Chameleon role I used in Lizards Mafia, wherein Ernie would, upon being targeted by any role, PGO-kill the person who targeted him and steal their role and alignment

I think it worked out pretty well but it's a role that adds quite a bit of swing to a setup for sure

I think that would be a fun way to do it, since the person changing is fully aware of it at the beginning of the game.

It does still lead to situations where early game and late game could not match because of that alignment change, but with only one person being able to do that, it might be alright.

I'd only do that in a role madness game where lots of crazy poo poo was happening though.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 19:18

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

GUISSEPPE PIZZAPIE posted:

I have some role ideas that I think are cool but I'm probably never going to get around to running a game. It's too drat time consuming to do it right, you know?

You should co-mod with someone then.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 18:50

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

It depends on how much flavour you write. I find writing flavour to be the most time consuming process, but I like to write complex night action flavour that goes along with the story of the game from the point of view of the person doing the action. Like I've had trackers who have been repeatedly roleblocked slowly go insane over not being able to figure out why their equipment isn't working, flavourcops have vague visions that give them their information, scum teams all go somewhere together and then diverge to do their tasks before meeting up again. Then the day flavour will match the actions of the night flavour without giving away what actually happened. I really enjoy doing this, but it can be time consuming and creatively taxing since you can't really plan it in advance if you want it to follow the game, so I find that takes a lot of effort once the game gets going. If you just resolve actions as "success" or "so and so is town" and then flips are some jerk, jerk-aligned jerk was lynched D1 then obviously that only takes a couple of seconds.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 02:37

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Since my F11 ended so quickly, I'm sure there is room for another small newbie friendly game. I don't really have the time to run another one right now (I probably shouldn't have done that one, so it's a blessing it ended in record time), but the only two games in signups right now are Lumpen's Slack game which is experimental and the giant soldiers game, so I'm sure there's interest for something more standard.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 04:37

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

I wonder if there could be a postpone mechanic. If the majority of people don't feel confident enough to lynch anyone you could vote to postpone it to the next day, where now you have to lynch two people. Whether it'd be double plurality or just hammer, day continues until second hammer, I'm not sure. Also I'd probably limit it to just one per game. I dunno, just throwing ideas out.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 22:14

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

BottleKnight posted:

I feel like that's almost making lurking a pro-town move.

Yeah, since your options the next day will always be more informed I don't see why people wouldn't postpone D1 every time. There needs to be some penalty for it where you don't always want to use it, but it's still better than a completely blind lynch people don't really believe in.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 22:22

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Well first of all with even 14 people, that makes D2 LYLO.

If you make it true random and 2 scum are paired together, that drastically balances against scum, so you'd need to have a system where the 3 scum are randomly paired with 3 town and then remaining town is paired with each other. This balances pretty heavily towards scum since they can take out two town at night while town can only take out 1 scum per day. It feels like it would be hard to balance either way

I can see some interesting dynamics if say a cop was paired with a scum they could safely hold onto their results since they know they won't be nightkilled. You'd also need to figure out how doctors worked and who they saved.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 03:29

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Amoeba102 posted:

No Victory Buddies Asiina.

Hmm,

4 no scum pairs, 3 1 scum pairs. If you mis-execute, you're 2/3. then if you do execute you're 1/2, then 0/1 and scum win. It's D1 LYLO with 14 players.

Yeah, not talking about victory buddies, but that if you are paired with a scum you're not getting NK'd. If I'm a cop the first person I'm investigating is my lover. If they are scum I know I can safely hold onto that result because I'm not ever getting NK'd. Then if I'm ever in danger of getting lynched or if I find a second scum, I can reveal all my results at once. Even if town doesn't believe me they can lynch me and kill my scum-lover anyway which proves me right.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 03:45

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

If you put a death miller in your game you are a bad person.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 02:02

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

In Star Trek: TNG my Q role had a task where he had to mimic another player in the game and his goal was to have someone guess correctly. He tried to mimic Taste, but nobody guessed.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 02:17

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

It was One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and while fun to have a PR it was a disaster in terms of actually playing the game. The game only really took off once people abandoned their PRs.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 14:37

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Epsilon Plus posted:

What do you think the proper town/scum balance is for a Role Madness game? Does 4:1 sound awful? Too little or too much?

It can still be 3:1 but do worst case scenarios for both teams and if any can end before D2 then do some adjustments.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 15:32

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

Join Awards Show Mafia, a game for 11 players.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 07:52

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

This one was pretty great.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 18:16

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

KennyMan666 posted:

Of course there's mafia here, I should've known. Hi, I'm Kenny!

I played a bunch of Mafia on other, smaller forums back in the day, none of those specific mafia forums though, and a recent IRC conversation got me back in the mood for hosting a game, something I've done on several occasions in the past (and I tend to prefer hosting to playing). Tried to start it up on the related forum but no interest was to be had there. Guess I'll hang out with you guys instead.

So I've been checking some of the game threads and there's definitely some variances in how I'm used for things to work, but I'm studying the wiki so I should be fine. Biggest diff is definitely that votebot you have, I see how that can make things easier.

I'm seeing there's... a bunch of active games and some signups running now, so I assume it's a good idea to wait until some have ended before starting up one. Two questions related to that since I'm new here and can't find anything about it in the thread or on the wiki: What's around here considered the "limit" for how many games is a good idea to be on at once, and is there some kind of queue for prospective hosts (I see there used to be a queue on the wiki for large games but that was discontinued, so wondering if there's some informal queue nowadays)? Back when I used to play elsewhere we never had more than one game running at the same time to avoid fatigue, but those were far smaller communities than SA and so there was not much variance in the active playerbase between games. I will gladly wait my turn.

Another thing that I'm used to playing with but can't find any mention of on the wiki or in any of the completed game threads I've seen is clues to help out the townies, some kind of puzzle or riddle included in the day opening post that, when solved, points to the killer's identity (assuming there was a mafia kill). Usually one player would hold a "cluegiver" role, and once that guy's dead, no more clues for the town, giving the mafia an incentive to hunt down and kill them. There's been some contention about whether or not they're a good idea where I've played and if they're too easy they're definitely too much of a boon for the town. I've definitely been known to err on the side of "how was anyone ever supposed to figure this out" when I've made them for games I've hosted. Has something like that ever been a thing around these parts and I've just missed it? If/when I do host, I am planning on including it, and I figure that after the amount of games that's been played here, changing up the standard format a little isn't considered a bad thing.

Also, do only people with PMs play, or how are communications solved if there's players who don't? (things you only have to take into account on SomethingAwful...)

Welcome! For your first question, there's no queue. Usually when people have a setup ready they make a thread and announce that it's open for signups in this thread and the discussion thread. When there are a lot of games, sometimes signups can stay open for a week before it fills up, and sometimes games fill up in 20 minutes. I would suggest opening your game and being patient about it filling up. If it takes too long you can always close signups and try again in a few weeks. It's a fairly big community and most people play in more than one game at a time, so generally I suggest just going for it.

I've never heard of your cluegiver role, but maybe some of the people who have been here since the dawn of time might have heard of it. It seems very powerful for town, but if balanced properly could work. It does sound like it gives the game a bit of a different feel and more about puzzle solving than social mafia scumhunting, but role madness games turn into that all the time, so I don't think it would be poorly received. I'd make sure you inform your players up front in your signup post that this role will be used, since some people prefer more puzzle-based mafia games and some people really dislike it. That said, people are coming up with new roles all the time, so it's not against some purist code to include it.

Mostly people with PMs play, but you can always have people without PMs give an email with their signup and use that instead.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2016 23:26

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

The main reason I think there's no N0 here is that nobody wants to sign up for a game they'll never be able to play. Also if that happens to be one of your power roles, you have basically unbalanced your game before it even begins.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2016 01:02