Mafiascum.net

For thousands of years, our Earth has been under the protection of an elite group of magical warriors known as the Crystal Gems. There was once a time that intergalactic war threatened to destroy the planet we call home. Nowadays, such perils seem like fiction, but for the remaining Crystal Gems and a young boy named Steven, these age-old threats loom ever closer.

Steven Universe is a 2013 American animated cartoon series that chronicles the ongoing struggle of Earth's defenders, a small group of magical alien women known as the Crystal Gems. While the show does include an ongoing plot that involves the fate of the universe, the focus of Steven Universe is on the day-to-day trials that the youngest Crystal Gem, Steven, must overcome. The show's colorful visual style and strong musical focus help to make Steven Universe stand out as one of the most beautiful animated shows of the decade. Despite being a cartoon aimed at a teenage market, Steven Universe maturely navigates themes of responsibility, depression, abuse, love, and conflicts on a scale from internal to galactic.

The goal of this Mafia game is to reproduce the delightful color of the world of Steven Universe while rendering both its lighter and darker themes into mafia mechanics that feel fulfilling. As of writing this, Season 3 of Steven Universe has finished airing--I hope to encapsulate the events of Season 2 and 3 within this game, as I see the two seasons as strong a pair as the previous halves of Season 1 were. I will be revisiting mechanics featured in my previous Steven Universe games, although there will be more focus on creating a succinct, fun game for everyone to enjoy. My goal for this game is to create a set of public mechanics that are simple to navigate, yet allow for strong role diversity and fun, engaged, rhetorically-focused play. I have a lot of love for the source material--I hope that my passion translates to this game and allows for players to engage in both the flavor and the game of mafia as a unified experience.

Steven Universe Mafia II will be a 25 player Large Theme featuring a handful of unique public mechanics that focus heavily in rhetorical engagement and flavor payoff. My previous game, Bloodborne Mafia, was a striking disappointment for me, largely due to how the over-complex mechanics were handled. I am hoping to create a set of mechanics in this game that are more concise and fun to engage with for everyone involved.

As a moderator with a deep passion for rhetoric, expect a game with mechanics that will always supplement the rhetoric of the game rather than the usual sort of roles that are supplemented by rhetoric. My games are typical Role Madness games--I like to give every player some sort of unique 'something' to play with in tandem with the actual game. I try to include very engaging public mechanics in order to retain player interest, which can be a difficult thing to do in the Large games that I like to run. Do not expect many, if any, 'vanilla' roles here.

'Varsoon Games' are typically characterized by heavy flavor, high quality moderation, and unpredictable yet satisfying mechanics. I am very cognizant of my moderator meta and I constantly keep even seasoned fans on their toes. I have achieved a Master's Degree in writing Fiction; I enjoy writing involved flavor that reflects the sensibilities of players and the game state while not revealing anything that would give a mechanical advantage. I also take Mafia very seriously; I spend over 8 hours a day with access to the site, always with a tab open, refreshing my games, re-reading them, and so on--even when I worked full time and went to college, I accomplished this endeavor. For me, Mafia is a labor of love and a full-time job. I want to deliver the quality experience that I came to love on this site. My games, hopefully, represent that.

As far as moderation goes, I see online Mafia moderation the same way I do moderating a face-to-face game with my friends. I am here to ensure all of my friends and guests have a fun time playing a game we all enjoy. That said, Mafia does get intense. Mafia is psychological. Mafia can feature very aggressive rhetoric. We lynch people here. I love those aspects of the game, and I want them to be in a game, although they will always run risk of ruining the experience for some players. I am far less draconic in my moderation than other moderators. I will always err on the side of the player. That said, I have no patience for players who do break the rules. Do not play my game if you are habitually in trouble with moderators and other players. I'll do everything I can to keep you in-game and having a fun time, but if you cross the line and it's clear you intentionally broke a rule, I will have no mercy in my judgment.

I do not enforce Blacklists, Wisdom of the Crowds, Wisdom of the One, or any similar requests to prohibit players from playing. The only players not welcome in my games are banned players. Do not ask me to prohibit a player from joining for personal reasons; I will never do so unless they currently have a ban or restriction. Everyone is welcome at my table. If you have a personal problem with a player, come to a happy agreement with them before creating drama in my signup thread or in my game. If you absolutely can't play with someone else, do not sign up for a game of mine if they are in the player list. If you do, I will allow you in, but don't think I'm going to shunt the other player because of your personal issues. I want everyone to get together and have fun here. I fully support even bitter rivals playing at the same table and learning to overcome their own differences in order to have fun with something we all enjoy.

The day phase will be referred to as the 'Exposition' phase.
The night phase will be referred to as the 'Climax' phase.
Each pair of Exposition and Climax phases are referred to as an 'Episode'.
Each fourth Episode is a special episode called a 'Season Finale'.

Each role will have access to unique, flavor-heavy 'Episode Events' that they can anonymously trigger in order to influence the Exposition of any given episode. Notably, each scum role will have a town-flavored event that they can trigger.
The Scum team will have factional Episode Events that will flavor and influence the Climax of each episode.
Episode Events will be denoted on rolecards with the following information;
-You will be told when you can activate your event or if it has a delayed activation.
-You will be told the priority of your event. In the instance that multiple Episode Events are triggered, only the highest priority Event happens.
--That said, some events will have a 'zero' priority, meaning they can always be triggered and will always take place and do not keep other Events from happening.
-You will be told the requirements for your event to be triggered.

Season Finales will allow for bigger, more influential events.
Nearly every role and mechanic of the game is more powerful during a Season Finale.


As a final note, all scum have guaranteed safe-claims and roles that fit the flavor of these fake-claims. Do not try to flavor-game this setup.
Scum all have had their flavor and roles finished before I crafted any of the town roles--I have built this setup around scum having effective, believable safe-claims.
Flavor-claims are not anywhere near the sort of town-clear that you might expect from other games.
Furthermore, I have given scum measures to punish players who are attempting to flavor-game the setup. Claim flavor at your own risk.
We are here to play mafia rendered under the flavor of Steven Universe--I will have no pity for anyone who takes the flavor as a means to attempt to outguess the moderator.

During each Climax phase, a player may submit (to the mod) the name of any one other player that they wish to form an Alliance with.
If two players pick each other in this fashion, they begin the next Episode in an Alliance.
Alliances grant an Exposition-chat only neighborhood between all members of the Alliance.
Furthermore, many roles will also gain unique abilities due to being in an Alliance.
If you ever end up in a different alliance, your previous one will end.
If your allied partner is killed or lynched, you will still retain the benefits of being in an Alliance for the remainder of the Episode.

During a Season Finale, Allied players can chat in their neighborhoods during the Climax phase.
During a Season Finale, players may submit an extra player to be allied with, allowing for three-player Alliances.

Allying with other players will always resolve independent of all other abilities.
Unless otherwise stated, no ability will normally interact with each player's ability to Ally.
There are mechanics in this game which directly influence Alliances, including abilities that may allow a player to access Alliance PTs they are not a part of.

Throughout the entirety of the game, a 'Stress Meter' will be posted and updated with each votecount.
The Stress Meter can fluctuate between 'Slice of Life' and 'Tragic Destiny.'
The Stress Meter begins the game in the direct middle of each of these categories. It can progress to +4 or -4 Stress.
At +4 Stress, or 'Tragic Destiny,' all players require one extra vote to lynch (except in LYLO) and all protective actions always succeed.
At -4 Stress, or 'Slice of Life,' all town players will require one less vote to lynch (except in LYLO) and all scum-sided actions will always succeed.
Many abilities will require the Stress meter to be at or above a certain mark in order to be used.

If a town player dies, the stress meter moves 1 rank towards 'Tragic Destiny.'
If a scum player dies, the stress meter moves 2 ranks towards 'Slice of Life.'

Generally, anti-town Episode Events and outcomes will move the stress meter towards 'Tragic Destiny.'
Pro-town Episode Events and outcomes will move the stress meter towards 'Slice of Life'.
This works to balance the swing of the setup, but also reflects the atmospheric ebb and flow of the show.

All of the roles in this game are public, and are listed in the OP. However, alignments are not. 16 players will be Humans and 5 will be Things, the scum of this game. There is a drafting process to determine who gets which role, described below.

At the beginning of the game, before the role draft, alignments will be randomly determined, then sent out. Players will send in their numbers for the draft along with confirming their alignment.

Everyone in the game sends in a number after receiving their alignment. The lowest number of which there is no duplicate gets to pick first in thread, then going up through all the non-duplicates. Then all of the pairs from lowest to highest, then the trios, etc.

For example, if I get 3, 4, 3, 1000, 3, 5, 5

The draft order would go
4, 1000, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3
with the order of the people inside the duplicates being determined by whoever sent in their number first.

After the lynch each day, but before night, there is a 24-hour phase called the Room Phase. During this time every player has the chance to send in the top three rooms they'd like to go to by PMing me.

At nighttime, there will be a PT created for every room in the game for players to discuss inside of. Various roles also interact with the rooms, this is described inside the respective rolecards.
A maximum of 1/3 of the living players may go to the same room. If there are more then that, the overflow will be send to the next room on their top three. If a player does not pick a room, they will be sent to the first unoccupied room on the list. If every room in a player's top three is filled, then they will go the first room on the room list that has a spot.

Scum have confirmed daychat.
As well, scum have 4 1-shot abilities that can be used factionally, but only under specific circumstances.

A 1-shot Strongman that may only be used on someone in the same room as the scum performing the kill that night
A 1-shot Ninja that may only be used on someone in the same room as the scum performing the kill that night
A 1-shot Roleblock that may only be used on someone in the same room as the scum performing the roleblock that night
A 1-shot Commute that may only be used if the scum using it is alone in a room