Theme Test Market

[Locke Lamora]

I think that was just an exaggerated example to demonstrate how he envisaged the mechanic might play out, RC.

I'll take a look at your mini theme if you like.

[DemonHybrid]

I overpowered the Red side to make that more appealing to the mafia in that specific example only, so that they would definitely be more inclined to choose Red in order to explain the desire for certain people to choose a specific color. In the real game, both colors will be well balanced, but figured for ease of explanation in that example, I'd make one of the colors clearly the favorite for mafia.

As long as you guys get the idea, just know that I'd be balancing both colors, don't worry.

[DemonHybrid]

So, updated version of this, with updated full-game sample (much more balanced this time):

Let's say we have 12 people, mini theme (planning on making this a large theme game, not a mini). Again, format is Green PR/Red PR.

Mafia A has Goon/Roleblocker
Mafia B has Godfather/Goon
Mafia C has Roleblocker/Framer
Townie 1 has VT/VT
Townie 2 has VT/Cop
Townie 3 has Doctor/VT
Townie 4 has Tracker/Jailkeeper
5 has VT/Miller
6 has VT/VT
7 has Nurse/VT
8 has 1 shot dayvig/VT
9 has VT/VT

Game starts off on Night 0, PRs start off on red. Mafia chooses to kill Townie 6. He flips "Red Light Vanilla Townie, Green Light Vanilla Townie". Stoplight phase then comes after the flip. No one says a word; they just vote for who they think the stoplight should be by saying

Stoplight: X

. Let's say everyone votes townie 9 as the stoplight. Now, day starts, and everyone starts voting he won't care what color it is, so he might switch back and forth for the hell of it. Maybe someone's post restriction annoys him, whatever, but here's Townie 8 with an obvious desire to have the color Green at all times. People start wondering why Townie 8 wants it green and suspects him because of it. Maybe mafia has a day-role? A daycop, or a dayvig perhaps? They lynch him because of it. He flips "Green Light 1-shot Day Vigilante, Red Light Vanilla Townie".

In twilight, before the flip, the stoplight posts once more:

Color: Red

. So, the player list is this: Roleblocker, Goon, Framer, VT, Cop, VT, Jailkeeper, Miller, VT, VT.

Cop gets a guilty on the Miller, Jailkeeper and Roleblocker counter RB. Goon kills Townie 7. He flips "Green Light Nurse, Red Light Vanilla Townie". After the flip, again, no one says a word, and they vote for the stoplight.

Stoplight: X

. This time, they vote Townie 5 as the stoplight.....but the cop outs himself and says that Townie 5 is guilty. Everyone believes him and votes the stoplight to a lynch. Before he flips, the lynched stoplight goes

Color: Green

and the flips "Green Light VT, Red Light Town Miller".

Now the PRs for the night are Goon, Godfather, Roleblocker, VT, VT, Doctor, Tracker, VT. Mafia attempts to kill Townie 2 (Now a VT, but still with the knowledge of whatever investigations he has)...but wait! Townie 3 decides to protect Townie 2 after the miller flip! He's more use to us alive, he thinks to himself. Roleblocker blocks a VT, and the Tracker tracks the godfather, who went to kill the cop! Again, stoplight phase starts...but no flip. No one dies. They choose Townie 3 as the stoplight. Then day starts.

Tracker outs himself...why would Mafia B target the cop? They lynch Mafia B and Townie 3 says

Color: Green

to keep himself as the doctor. Mafia B flips "Green Light Mafia Godfather, Red Light Mafia Goon". Night starts, and they decide to kill Townie 3. The Roleblocker RBs the tracker. So, townie 3 flips "Green Light Doctor, Red Light VT". Ahh...so THAT'S why he wanted the light Green. They decided not to target Townie 2, taking the chance that he's only a VT on Green Light. Stoplight phase starts, and they choose Mafia A as the stoplight...uh oh.

Obviously he's going to want to keep it on Green now that Townie 3 is dead. But his buddy, Mafia C, slips up, and the town lynches him. Mafia A says

Color: Red

(as he wants his RB power) and Mafia C flips "Green Light Roleblocker, Red Light Framer". During the night...PRs are Roleblocker, VT, Cop, Jailkeeper, VT. Mafia A decides to kill the cop...but Jailkeeper decides to jailkeep the cop! Bad decision on the mafioso's part to choose Red for the night. Stoplight and Day phases start....stoplight doesn't matter, because the town put 2 and 2 together and decide to lynch Mafia A. Town win.

Obviously, it could have gone very badly for town. Very swingy, but everyone has full control of what goes on all game. It produces extremely fun results and forces people to use their brains instead of JUST relying on their roles.

[Far_Cry]

Sorry if for going off-topic here and not saying something on Demon's setup, but I have the following ideas that I would love to mod (note: I don't have much laid out in them.):

Team Fortress 2 (ooooh, am I excited to do this one)
Wolfenstein (note: this one will be based on the new 2009 game)
Oblivion (an old idea of mine.)
StarRisk, Ltd. (a book, info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Risk,_Ltd.)
Command & Conquer
Splinter Cell

These are just a few of my ideas, but there's no way I could possibly get them all down. Any of you interested in any of these?

[RedCoyote]

Far_Cry, I would love to play a TF2 themed game, especially if it had some neat, team-based mechanics to it. Keep me posted. Not really interested in any of the other ideas personally.

DH, thanks for breaking it down for me a little more. I understand what you're thinking now, and it sounds like a lot of fun. PM me if you decide to run it.

[DemonHybrid]

Far_Cry, I would love to play a TF2 themed game, especially if it had some neat, team-based mechanics to it. Keep me posted. Not really interested in any of the other ideas personally.

DH, thanks for breaking it down for me a little more. I understand what you're thinking now, and it sounds like a lot of fun. PM me if you decide to run it.

Will do. Do you want to co-mod it?

I'm thinking of testing it in a mini theme before I move onto bigger and better things.

[RedCoyote]

To be honest I'd be more interested in playing it than modding it, but I'd be happy to help out.

[DemonHybrid]

To be honest I'd be more interested in playing it than modding it, but I'd be happy to help out.

Oh no nononono, by all means then, play in it. It's going to be a while until I mod this, I still need to mod my normal first, but I have all my materials ready...just waiting for the queue to go by.

[Far_Cry]

Far_Cry, I would love to play a TF2 themed game, especially if it had some neat, team-based mechanics to it. Keep me posted. Not really interested in any of the other ideas personally.

Yes, TF2 was really one of my top ideas. It's probably going to take sometime, though, because I hope to include all classes, and have each player select a custom loadout for the class they get.

[Me=Weird]

That's a really neat idea, DH. I'd be willing to co-mod it with you.

You've also given me an idea.
What would people think of a game where each cycle, people get new roles? Obviously factions would stay the same, but say, D/N1, Somebody could be the cop, next cycle a bodyguard, then VT, etc.

[Mr. Flay]

There have been a game or two where you 'buy' night powers with points or karma or something, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one where they all just flip randomly.

You'd pretty much have to advertise it as such to avoid pissing people off, but it could work. Beware of the "Cop, then Vig" combo, that could get ugly fast.

[Me=Weird]

Well, I was thinking I would announce flips as "Cycle 1 whatever, cycle 2 whatever", but that might be a bit awkward.

Of course I would explain it, and for simplicity's sake, it would at least start off as a 9p, so I think the only killing roles would be the mafia anyway.


On DH's, if I understand it right, there's a extra phase each cycle after night before day, where they all vote on who the stoplight is, correct?

[DemonHybrid]

Yes.

[Narsis]

the issue with flipping roles is more then just a cop/vig combo. investigative roles themselves are significantly more powerful. think about it: a cop gets an innocent result, then switches and becomes a townie. now he can out his result without fear of being nk'd and the town losing a power role.

[DemonHybrid]

Are you talking about my game? Because you can NK the same person and still kill the same cop...he'd just be a townie at that point in time.

[Nobody Special]

I woke up this morning and this was rattling around in my brain:

SURPRISE!! Mafia

The Mod chooses a certain number of players, and begins the game. As the 72-hour mark is reached, these players are prodded. If they happen to see the thread and find out they're in the game before being prodded, they are welcome to request their Role PM.

As other non-players see the thread, they may sign up as replacements. (Non-players are welcome to communicate the existence of the game to players who haven't yet noticed.)

Due to the mini-limits currently in effect on the site, this would probably have to be Large Theme.

Bizarre, yes. But it sounds like fun (...for the Mod, at least).

[Mr. Flay]

I hated being dropped into Battle Mage's Mystery games - but since you'd have the option here, it doesn't sound TOO bad. Still, it's a bit more like an Invitational unless you've got some sort of neutral algorithm to pick players, so you'd have to go through mith.

[Nobody Special]

I'll bear that in mind, thanks. (It honestly hadn't occurred to me, either way. As I said, it was one of those early-morning bizarro things.)

[Locke Lamora]

For a while I've been thinking about running a second WWF/WWE game in the mould of Porkens' Royal Rumble BaM game from last year, possibly based around a Road to Wrestlemania type theme, an idea which Porkens has generously allowed me to steal but sadly doesn't have the time to work on himself. Now that I've finished my LL setup, I'd like to get working on this. I'm thinking it would be a Large Theme, utilising the same short post rules and using moves as votes, but the rest of the details still need a lot of fleshing out. I have no Large Theme modding experience whatsoever, so it would be handy to have someone on board who does for balance purposes, as well as some wrestling fans who could help more with the flavour side of the game and any BaM/fast-paced game fans would be helpful too. If anyone's interested in helping with the set-up or even just throwing a few ideas around, let me know!

[jimfinn]

Circle of Neighbors: The players in the game are assigned a number randomly from 1 to the number of players. Each player has two separate neighbor threads, one with the player one number higher, and the other with the player one number lower. The highest and lowest numbers are neighbors with each other. Neighbors may day or night talk as much as they like. This is designed to simulate a game of F2F mafia where players can whisper to the person next to them. Roles are assigned independently of order.

[Kitoari]

Where's an Egg Mafia:
5 Innocent Bystanders
1 Investigator
1 Investigator's Best Friend
1 Mafia-Ally Egg Thief
1 Mafia-Ally Two-Shot Killer

Here's how the game works: During the day, the town tries to lynch scum as normal. However, they can only lynch three times in a given game (more on this later). The town wins if the Egg Thief is lynched. During the night, the TSK decides if he knows who the investigator is and either doesn't act or shoots someone. Mafia-Allies win if the investigator is NK'd in this manner. The IBF tries to figure out if the mafia know who the investigator is, and if so may sacrifice himself.

Rules for other situations:
- The town runs out of bullets. The TSK may discuss with the Egg Thief who the investigator is, and use all their remaining kills. They lose if they do not hit the investigator. The Investigator's Best Friend cannot sacrifice himself in this stage.
- The TSK is killed or runs out of kills. The game now becomes nightless and the town may lynch without interruption. They lose if they do not hit the Egg Thief.

Obviously needs some fine-tuning but I think this could work.

[FakeGod]

I will eventually run a Count of Monte Cristo Mafia, a Large Theme Game with ~19 players.

[BlakAdder]

Has anyone here heard of or played Space Station 13? I'm not a frequent player, but I do play sometimes and the theme seems perfect for Mafia. It would probably be pretty PR-heavy but it could easily be balanced. I've seen a Theme setup before, can't recall the name, but the actions of the power roles were announced, each player publicly picked one, and they were secretly divided into factions as normal. I think it would fit perfectly with SS13. Interesting?

[edmund.angles]

Here's an idea, Witchhunt:
Salem, small town, looking for scummy people, sound familiar?
But were the people on the pyres actually evil?

Open setup:

50 % chance of:

Townies
Witches-evil (mafia)
Normal win conditions

50 % chance of:

Townies.
Wise-old-women (masons, death millers).
Random townies die every night (plague).
Each mason can protect one townie from plague.
When a plague-death is stopped the townie becomes immune but someone else dies.
Everyone wins on a "No Lynch" when all townies are immune.
The masons will know who is immune.
Everyone loses on a lynch when all townies are immune or when the last mason is lynched.

Two questions?
1. Can the setup be broken?
2. The no-mafia possibility is gold for the mafia - what mafia/townie ratio would rebalance?

[Fenhl]

@edmund.angles:

I would be interested in playing a round of The Plague, and this modified variant sounds cool. In face-to-face, there is in my experience no need for additional balancing, so a simple power role for town might be enough online.

There are a lot of setups/themes I could run when I have some modding experience on-site. I have modded at least one face-to-face game of each setup, but tweaking for online play is still in progress:

Quantum Mafia

Although I know of Quantum Mafia (QM) from other sources, its origin seems to be the creator of the puzzle Schrödinger's Wolves, according to this description page.
There is a finished game of QM here on MS, but it used slightly different mechanics and less special town roles than my version. In QM, more special roles mean that more scenarios can be sorted out per night, and that players flip earlier. This makes QM less confusing for all players, and additionally it increases the odds of a town win. (Without many special roles, scum won too often in Quantum Werewolf, and also won in the QM linked above, which is why I play QM with more special roles than only one cop.)

Time Travel Mafia

The origin of this variant seems to be the German Mafia website http://mafiaspiel.de. At least that is where I read about it. Again, I use slightly different mechanics.
It basically works like this: Most of the special roles have a time machine, and can use their actions in the past, present or future. With this technique, it is for example possible for the doctor to protect a player in a past night to effectively revive them. Also, performing actions in the past can cause time paradoxa, which can have a multitude of possible outcomes.

WARNING: Playing one of the above two Mafia variants can cause permanent brain damage. If you want more details, ask!