Mini 171: No Exit Mafia -- Game Over!

[Candice]

I'll be re-reading tomorrow at work during lunch. Be patient until then, please.

[Candice]

Well, I reread. I'm stumped. The only thing that really stood out to me was how MMCL waited until Tam voted to place his vote. I have a gut feeling that he would've voted me if Tam had. But there's absolutely no evidence that I can find that that's the case, and I am positively stumped as I really can't tell which one of you is scum.

[Tam]

Oi! Well, I hate to base my decision on this, but I'll go ahead and

vote Candice

While you seem really innocent right now, I keep getting back to the fact that it's either you or MMCL, and like I said before, if he wins as scum, he deserves it. (Plus, I get pie-so it's a win-win situation) He has seemed very protown this whole game. There are a few bits that stuck out, but only just slightly. As you mentioned, the fact that he waited to see what I did, and a few other spots I mentioned before. But on the whole, I think he's a good guy.

*crosses her fingers*

[MMCL]

In that case - I will

Vote: Candice

too ... her inferrence that I am scum is obviously not the case.

[MMCL]

In that case - I will

Vote: Candice

too ... her inferrence that I am scum is obviously not the case.

[Tam]

Oh good.

You can't know how happy I am to hear (see) you say that.

I liked you far too much to want to hate you for a few weeks.

[Yaw]

Final Vote Count:

Candice (2): Tam, MMCL

Not Voting: Candice

After a bit of conversation, Tam and MMCL both point at Candice. "Well, so much for posterity," says the Porter from the doorway. "MMCL was, in fact, the last person you were looking for. I expect you'll have a long time to talk this over."

With that he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him as he leads Drummer off to his new room. You hear the lock click shut for the last time...

Candice, Townie, identified Round 10

MMCL, Scum, wins...

or does he?

[Yaw]

Roles:

Scum:

Scum 1 (PeaceBringer):

You are Anthony, from Palermo, Sicily. You were born to a prominent mafia family, and spent your adolescence learning the family business in your spare time. With the backing of your family, you graduated from university with a business degree, coming home to serve as a direct advisor to your godfather.

In your early twenties you met and fell in love with Maria, eventually marrying her. You had two children with her, a boy and a girl.

You were competent as an advisor, never shying away from ordering or carrying out hits when you felt it necessary. When your godfather died, you were the one who succeeded him. Under your reign the family increased its holdings tenfold, setting up a virtual monopoly in the local cocaine market. Everything went well until a rival family had had enough, and set a bomb in your car.

You died at the age of 49. You are survived by two children: Valeria, who is 13, and Michael, who is 9.

For the purposes of this game, you are scum with MMCL and Mastermind of Sin.

Scum 2 (MMCL):

You are Laura, from Los Angeles, California. You grew up in a middle class family. When you were 17, your boyfriend at the time raped you while you were on a date. From that time forward, you swore revenge on all men.

You married your first husband just out of high school. He thought you loved him, but the real attraction was to his family’s riches. You lived with him for two years before you managed to slip an untraceable poison into his food.

This pattern continued several more times, marrying and knocking off several husbands for their wealth. Your fifth husband, Jacob, was an actor who was just starting to break into bigger roles. You thought him a docile idiot, but he proved much smarter than you anticipated, figuring out your plot and slipping some of your poison into your food first.

You died at the age of 36.

For the purposes of this game, you are scum with PeaceBringer and Mastermind of Sin.

Scum 3 (Mastermind of Sin):

You are Daniel, and you were born to a farming family outside Lira, Uganda. When you were 10, soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army broke into your home, forcing you to kill your parents and siblings, and taking you away with them into the wilderness.

Trained to be a soldier, you took part in many missions for the insurgents. You quickly lost track of the number of people you killed and captured. You were never attracted to the cause. Random havoc was enough for you.

Then one day you ran into a government ambush. You managed to kill some soldiers in the ensuing firefight before being shot.

You died at the age of 18. You may have some children as a result of raping various women, but you don’t know for sure and don’t care to find out.

For the purposes of this game, you are scum with PeaceBringer and MMCL.

Town:

Townie 1 (Dodgy):

You are Dale, and you grew up in the heart of Alabama. Your family has always been heavily involved in the Southern Baptist Church, and you threw yourself into it at a very early age. More than anything else, religion was your life. Even as a child you were attending protests outside abortion clinics, and as a teenager you were organizing them. With the support of your family and congregation you became a Minister, helping out at your family’s church until your predecessor retired.

The first few years were good ones. You got married to a beautiful woman named Angela. With your powerful sermons, church attendance increased dramatically. But slowly, problems started to appear.

Your opposition to abortion led you to participate anonymously in an anti-abortion website. You submitted the name and personal details of a local abortion doctor to the website, which was then posted along with details of abortion’s evil. The doctor turned up dead a week later. You have no idea who shot him in the head, but it didn’t stop you from celebrating with a little wine.

Parenting was much harder than you anticipated, as your children were never very obedient. You were trying to teach them right and wrong, and felt that they never listened, that they were in danger of going against God’s plan. Angela always seemed to be easier on the kids, which drove a wedge between you. Your competence and message in church never changed, but with your family life falling apart you took a mistress.

It stayed your secret for five years, but Angela somehow found out and confronted you with the information. You raged at her and denied it, terrified all the while that it would get out and ruin your reputation. With the argument over, you gathered up all the pills in the house and downed them at one go.

You died at the age of 43. You are survived by two children: John, who is 10, and Mary, 8. You had a third child, Jason, who is now 17, but when he came out as a homosexual recently you disowned him and threw him out of the house.

Townie 2 (jeep/Drummer):

You are Jeanne, and you grew up in Nice, France. You were always a very caring child, bringing home stray animals whenever you could. When you were 18, you met a philanthropist, Marc, who you fell in love with and married after a year of dating, even though he was ten years your senior. You left behind a scholarship to the Sorbonne to live with him in Marseilles, helping him with his work.

This began your years as a housewife. You enjoyed looking after things around the house at first, and enjoyed helping Marc out with his work. You were living with his extended family, so there was always something to be done. But over time you remained childless despite your efforts, and you began to worry that was driving Marc away from you.

You doubled your efforts to please him and his family. Marc began to complain that you were always around, but that did not deter you. Besides, you could point to his success as being a result of your own hard work that kept him available to put in more time. His work was even becoming recognized from as far away as Paris!

Which was the point when things began to turn sour. Marc was invited to run for office, and with his good name he was bound to win a seat and move to Paris. He would be spending most of his time away from you and his family, and that scared you. In response, you convinced him that his family could not manage in Marseilles without him, and he declined the offer.

Your relationship was never the same. You could sense that he resented you, but at the same time you had him convinced that he needed you, and any time he began to express himself you let loose with a long laundry list of everything you had done for him. It eventually proved too much for him, and one night he smothered you in your sleep.

You died at the age of 28.

Townie 3 (help im a bug):

You are Masahiro, from Osaka, Japan. A very high academic achiever as a child, you eventually worked your way through school to an MBA. You got a middle-management job straight out of school with a large automotive corporation. Promotion was relatively quick, as your personality and competence drove you straight to the top of the company.

Under your tenure, the company became known for several flashy technological advances. This made it a good stock pick for those in the know, leading to significant holdings in several major mutual funds. You found that the success was caused more by your marketing efforts than anything else, and focused your energy accordingly.

So when your development team came up with a new clean-burning engine, you promoted it relentlessly, even before it was off the drawing board. You promised to be at the leading edge of the environmental movement, and set a release date for the new line of cars far in advance of what your engineers said was possible. Somehow, there was a new engine system in the new line of cars by your due date, and it was released with much fanfare.

The engine didn’t perform up to specifications. Even in testing, it never had. Yet, even as reports began to pour in about serious problems, all reports from your office remained completely optimistic. Many listened to you and held on to their stocks as the price plummeted. You were fired soon afterwards.

Alone and bitter, you felt abused by the media, who you felt had caused the harm to you and your company. You contented yourself with stirring up trouble against them by releasing doctored photos anonymously, showing the reporters in various compromising situations. In fact, it was on a trip to a photo developer that you lost control of your car and crashed into a pole, killing you instantly.

You died at the age of 47.

Townie 4 (Tam):

You are Eliza, from Darwin, Australia. From as far back as you can remember, you have always been different from others. For one, you discovered early on that you liked women. You were also extraordinarily gifted at writing, excelling at expressing yourself through words beyond anyone else you knew.

During your university years, you had your first book of poetry published. It was a collection of what you now think of as trivial work, but it sold fairly well and garnered you some acclaim as an up-and-coming artist. At this time you also met and started a long-term relationship with Julie, in part because she was very supportive of your dreams of becoming a poet.

There was a problem, though. You didn’t feel that your first collection was very authentic. So for your second book you tried to be more daring, producing a collection of poems filled with doubts, and expressions of your feelings of difference from others. It was more successful than the last collection, but Julie started to worry about you.

Each new book had to challenge the last. Your poetry became more disturbed, and garnered more acclaim for it. You began to live in this broken world you had created through your work. Julie was frightened for your health, even as you started to cut yourself, leaving razor blades out as trophies of your individuality. You wanted her to help you, but also wanted to continue to be in need of help.

Tiptoeing around your neuroses proved too much for your relationship to stand. Julie left you. You stopped eating or leaving the house, reducing yourself to writing poetry and calling Julie to try to guilt her into coming back. In a few weeks you simply wasted away.

You died at the age of 34.

Townie 5 (Stewie):

You are Xiumei, from Wuhan, China. You spent your childhood in academics, eventually completing a degree in Philosophy at the local university. You met and married your husband, Yan, at this time.

The turning point in your life came when you met a practitioner of Falun Dafa. You were immediately attracted to the philosophy and practice, integrating it into your life. You also enjoyed speaking with other practitioners, and quickly became a member of the larger, underground community.

Of course, since Falun Dafa is persecuted in your nation, much discussion revolved around what to do about this issue. You believed it was necessary to actively defend yourselves. Others, however, preferred to try to stop the persecution through correcting misperceptions, which you did not think could work. You started an underground newspaper with some sympathizers to promote your point of view.

Although your newspaper was seen as valuable by the larger community in that it chronicled Chinese abuses against Falun Dafa practitioners in detail, it also caused a serious split in the community over the issue of active defense. A few of your followers took it upon themselves to set themselves alight in Tiananmen Square. The action was generally condemned, while you defended it. This further isolated you.

With the increase in disturbances, your paper came to the notice of Chinese authorities. You were arrested along with your staff, and beaten to death in prison.

You died at the age of 37. You are survived by your husband and one boy, Xintao, aged 11.

Townie 6 (KingEnigma/Candice):

You are Yusuf, a Muslim Hausa from Jos, Nigeria. You grew up a strong believer in Islam, and also became a small-scale industrialist in your home town. When you were 18, your family arranged you have you married to Safiyah, and together you had two boys, named Idris and Hafiz.

Life was mostly uneventful, although running the machinery business gave you a lot of stress. Still, you could see additional stressors beginning in the outside community. Jos was a predominantly Christian city in a Muslim Hausa area. Although it had been peaceful for a long time, Hausa in other areas were beginning to request Sharia Law in areas of the country where they had a majority. This made the Christians nervous.

Then the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 happened. The Christians became increasingly fearful of violence. The Muslims became increasingly irate at threats made by the Christian west towards Muslim countries. As tensions escalated, you wrote a letter to the editor of your local paper pleading for calm, and with both sides to be willing to set aside their own agendas for a larger peace. It fell on deaf ears.

Jos erupted in violence while you were at work. Hearing screams and gunfire from blocks away, you ran, abandoning your business, your pregnant wife and children. You have no idea what happened to them.

You did not get very far. You headed north, trying to leave the country through Kano, but Nigeria’s roadways are not safe. You were caught by armed bandits, who shot you when they did not believe your assertions that you were carrying nothing of value.

You died at the age of 29. You do not know if your family survived the violence in Jos, but if they had Idris would be 10 and Hafiz would be 7.

Townie 7 (Brian McQueso):

You are Manuel, from Caracas, Venezuela. You were born to a rich family, and your parents left you to yourself from a fairly early age. Which was fine with you – there was always lots to do.

School never interested you. It was a place to meet friends, and a place from which to play hooky. At 14 you spent your time hanging out most days smoking marijuana. It later proved to not be exciting enough, so you started cocaine. At 16 you began to use the money at your disposal to engage in sex with the local prostitutes.

Nobody tried to stop you as you got into heavier things. The authority figures around you either didn’t know or didn’t care. Your friends were into it as much as you were.

Then your friends procured a particularly strong batch of heroin. You overdosed, and never recovered.

You died at the age of 17.

Townie 8 (AndrewS):

You are Levi, from Eilat, Israel. As all Israelis, you joined the armed forces at 18. Unlike most, you enjoyed the army, choosing to serve full-time instead of just as a reservist.

You served with pride in the West Bank. After all, you were on the front lines protecting Israel from terrorists. And if you had to knock a few heads around to do it, so be it.

You quickly rose to the rank of Captain. Commanding troops in the West Bank was difficult, but you were good at it. You never lost anyone under your command in a firefight. Your time in the West Bank convinced you that everyone there was hostile, though, and you acted accordingly. Your orders frequently involved tearing down houses. You enjoyed acting out your pugilistic tendencies on some of the inhabitants.

This became known to your superiors, who had you reassigned to a desk job. You refused, angrily insisting you be given your old assignment back. When that failed, you marched into the West Bank on your own, quickly getting into a firefight that killed you.

You died at the age of 25.

Townie 9 (Vraak X):

You are Chaaya, from Kolkata, India. You were born to a poor family, and never had much in the way of schooling, outside of some instruction in Hinduism. Your family was still able to marry you off to Nirav when you were 16.

Life was difficult, but you didn’t let that worry you. You didn’t let much of anything worry you. You just took care of things around the house with the little money available to you.

Your first child was a boy, who you named Amrit. He developed a fever when he was three, but you figured it was just a passing sickness and only increased the amount of water you gave him. He died a few days later. Nirav was angry, claiming it was malaria and wondering how you could keep it from him and not get help.

So you kept as much as possible from him to prevent another outburst. Everything remained perfectly fine, as long as you never let yourself hear differently. Two stillbirths failed to pierce your bubble. Neither did Nirav’s accidental death from a car crash. You just continued to use the money you had available until it ran out. And without money, your time soon ran out as well.

You died at the age of 64.

[MMCL]

Tam - I think we need to talk

[Yaw]

Commentary:

Modquoting:

I remember PolarBoy mentioning somewhere that the modquoting rule wasn't that necessary -- after all, scum can always fake mod PMs. So when I was designing this game, I quickly realized that in a Mountainous-style game PB's statement should hold true, as there's only townies and scum. So I decided to remove the modquoting rule to test this.

In practice, this was a bad idea. The point of the modquoting rule has nothing to do with having excess information leak out. It's there to prevent mod idiosyncrasies from impacting on gameplay. Unfortunately, the scum weren't put in a position where the difficult part was faking stories (which they should be able to do in any mafia game). They were put into a situation where they had to imitate my spelling and grammar habits. In hindsight, this wasn't fair to them at all, and if I had to run this game again I would find another way to encourage the sharing of mod PM information. I thoroughly recommend that nobody remove the modquoting rule from their games again. (That said, it

was

worth testing once.)

Delayed Reveals:

While this game wasn't based on PolarBoy's "Broad Daylight" idea, once the theme came about it became a definite contributing factor. Delaying the lynch reveal served two purposes. The first was thematic -- No Exit is a play consisting of three characters confined to a room, and is set up in such a way that even the number seems deliberate. The second reason was as a way to get around the "quick lynch problem" PolarBoy identified. That is, if anyone in a game without nights is quick-lynched, and they turn out to be town, that influences the town to automatically lynch the person who placed the lynching vote the next day. This would lead to a string of quick-lynches, which is not what you want in a mafia game. Delaying the reveals was thus a way of slowing down the game to the point where players would have to carry out lynches more normally, because either they didn't know if the lynch victim was scum or town, or they did know but got a sudden glut of information they'd need to go back and analyze before carrying out a lynch. I'm not sure if this was entirely successful, but it did influence gameplay to a large extent.

Mafia Stories:

The fundamental basis for this game was a realization I made when modding Mafia Island Mini. In that game, set on a marooned ferry ship of various travellers, I was quite surprised when MeMe, as scum, claimed to be a hider. Now, MeMe is an excellent player, which is why it seemed odd to me that she'd claim something so out-of-context with the setting.

What I realized is that there are two ways to set up a Mafia game, and you really have to give the players a good idea which one you're using to give them a fair chance. The most common way is to place importance on the specific roles being used, and fill in any flavour elements around the edges. Players will assume this is what's being done. The other way is to place the theme first, then match roles to the thematic elements. The problem is that if you set up a game using the latter theory, and players assume the former, your scum don't stand a chance of winning. If they don't realize how important the storyline is to the game, they won't try to fit themselves into the storyline and will make roleclaims that are easy to identify as fake.

So this game was an attempt to create a game that was entirely storyline, in a way that it was clear what I was doing. I'm not going to claim that this was an ideal setup (though I did like how it turned out overall), but I do think that mods

must

be aware of both the thematic and role elements of games they create if they are to be balanced.

Mafia as Philosophy:

The other fun part about this game was the ability to create something as an homage to Sartre -- existentialism presented in the form of a Mafia game, as he presented existentialism in the form of the play No Exit. The simple fact is that this game was broken. It was deliberately designed in that way. The simplest way to think of this is just to think of the possibilities involved in the setup. If you do the math, you'll realize that

exactly the same thing

happens under a town sweep as happens under a scum sweep (all the scum in one room, the town members divided up into three other rooms). In this situation, what does it mean to win? If there's no way of actually winning, why are you playing? Combine this with the fact that each of the 12 characters was designed so that if they were all played as extentions of their personality, not one of them would get along with any of the other 11 (including the scum getting along with each other). The actual result of the game was irrelevant to the certain outcome of playing it -- each person would end up in a room with two others they could not stand.

This game was the Mafia equivalent of a Frosh week fake exam. It presented you with a new puzzle -- to figure out that the game was not actually worth playing. That's also partially the reason I never bothered with deadlines (besides the fact that thematically-speaking, you had an eternity to play). In this game, deciding not to play and deciding en masse to abandon was an acceptable outcome, and the result that could be termed a "win" in a larger sense than scum or town getting rid of all the people on the other side.

Characters:

Well, the scum were just examples of universally "horrible" people -- a crime boss, a serial killer, and a war criminal. I did enjoy the irony of having a mafia godfather forced to play Mafia in hell, though.

The other townies were based on unhealthy aspects of the nine Enneagram personalities. The personalities are normally identified by number, so you can just match them up in the list above (Townie 1 is a One, and so forth). Once I determined the number of townies involved, this was an easy way to ensure they'd all have unique experiences, as well as being thoroughly unable to get along -- they all want something that nobody else is in a position to even understand, much less give them. (If the theory is correct, one of those townies will be the darker side of you.) This does mean that none of them were evil, but they were all examples of being mentally unhealthy, to the point that for various reasons they'd do harm to others or themselves. This is an interesting topic in general (and there are many other sets of personality types, including Meyers-Briggs and True Colors), so this might encourage you to read things in this area, since there are lots of uses for the information.

Hope you all enjoyed the game.

[Tam]

Tam - I think we need to talk

*sniffs*

I'm not sure there's anything to talk about.

*goes to sulk in the corner*

Except, I like vanilla...or white chocolate...with either fresh berries in the middle or nothing at all. Just no gelatinous fillings.

[MMCL]

Good Game Yaw.

The game was broken from the start but the set-up is what interested me most. In a standard game, the mafia have the ability to influence the town by killing at night - eg should one of two townies arguing the day before, die at night, it will naturally lead the town to think the survivor did the kill and the fact that there is as much skill in picking kills as there is in lying the next day. We didn't have this here and that, for me, was the challenge. Stay under the radar - but stay whiter than white - or as my Yankee cousins might say: "LIE MY PANTS OFF".

It actually occured to me early on that the room contained people whose personalities were completely opposed. No-one in this group had any common ground in which to base anything approach a friendship. This was hell, and hell for the twelve was living with each other. That said, I had in my mind that the survivor in these cases is usually someone who is defenseless but extremely useful - either that or they are the first to go since Humans are (by design) stupid.

This notion came from the film CUBE (Sci Fi, low budget, 6 strangers awake in a giant rubiks cube which is always moving, except some of the rooms have booby traps - find your way out or die in the process...). In that film it is the retarded math genius who eventually escapes. NOTE TO SELF: MUST MAKE A CUBE MAFIA.
Thus, that is what I tried to do. Appear completely useful, but also non-threatening and a little bit submissive (ironically, completely against my character's personality!)

MoS was a sacrifice on my part. I do apologise to him for that. MoS - I AM TRULY SORRY.
However, I made a flash decision that his error, although slight and missed by most, was one that would be picked up eventually. With nothing else to go on at that time, it would seem the best way for the town to vote...
Thus, I decided to use it to my advantage. I think it was that lynch that provided me the 'pureness' to survive the rest of the game so in fact, he was key to the victory which I claim for all three scum in this case (Well done guys!)

Ironically, you should have listened to Dodgy. I was doing exactly what he was accusing me off. I had hitched onto Tam's innocence, and rode it all the way home. I had fully intended to try and get Tam, Dodgy and myself in the final and I think he may have realised this in the end. Dodgy was so clearly innocent to me (perhaps thats because I know him) that the fact everyone thought he was guilty must have been so infuriating for him - hence his reactions, which just fueled the fire against him and eventual self-kill. Again, i find that most ironic!

My suggestion would have been to keep the mod quoting rule but to ask players to act 'in character', and thus eliminate the 'if you know Yaw well, you can mimic his style' role claim by myself...
The gradual feel of characters would then have come out and Yaw could have provided strict sentences which could have been quoted (eg parts of each of our life stories).

A great experiment and lots of fun to play, with many edge-of-my-seat moments. My first scum win. Thanks guys, was lots of fun.

PS Tam - you should PM me - I gotta know where to send a cake...

[Dodgy]

Well played MMCL, you deserved the win.
Tam, why didn't you listen to me!
He had you hook line and sinker.
Frustrating but sometimes fun game.

[Tam]

Tam, why didn't you listen to me!
He had you hook line and sinker.

Heh, did I mention the blonde hair?

Really though, MMCL totally deserved to win. At the end though, when I expressed a little doubt about him...I think I kinda knew he was scummy but didn't want to admit that he'd fooled me so well...and then of course was the reaction I'd have gotten if I turned the votes around because I was scared he'd fooled me, and then been wrong. Really at the end there was some doubt and that's why I said I'd rather him win and make me look bad because he really did a good job of fooling us all. Obviously if I'd have pegged him I'd have voted him, it was only slight doubt. He did a superb job of looking innocent the whole game.

The absolute worst part though, is when he called me hunny and I let him. 99.9% of the time if a guy would have said that to me I'd have made some snide remark or slapped him or something...but I honestly took it totally different. Even when (who was it?) brought it up I dismissed it. I dunno man, I have a very weird picture of MMCL in my head.

It's somewhere between a Colonel Sanders reject and a mafia goon....ok, read that as 'a smooth as silk old'style country gentleman' and the 'type of mafia GF people adore and fear, not just fear'. I don't know why that made it ok for him to 'hunny' me, but for one reason or another I didn't mind it or think he'd done it out of DOWNRIGHT SCUMMINESS!!! (Did I mention, "GRRRRRRRRR!!")

Also, I would like to apologise to Vraak especially. It's odd how many of us took the 'you are accusing me of scumminess and I'm clearly innocent, so you must be evil!' mantra to heart. I did it myself, and I think it's interesting that we reacted that way to not having nights. Somehow that made everyone extra sneaky to others in that area or whatnot. We, sir, had a very bad case of that.

Oh, and Stewie- Sorry dude, you f'ing deserved it. I still don't see what was up your...oh nevermind. No hard feelings, but...well, I just still don't understand what bent you so bad.

Also, Yaw- This game was really fun...and maddening...and horrid torture...but it was overall a cool experience. Thanks for putting your creativity into it. My blonde brain doesn't comprehend bits like why our roles were such a big deal to you as far as how we didn't fit together. It sounded a very cool idea but I have to agree with Him, I'd have emphasized that to the players. It never even hit me that the people playing those roles would have hated being together there. I think some of it may have seeped into the game, however.

Oh, also, is it just me, or are those roles totally different from the ones the scum claimed? I think they totally redid their roles, and that was kind of a letdown to find out. I thought that was a very cool aspect of the game-that any role could have been the scum, and that they didn't have to alter it. But really if you look at those roles, they are EVIL bastards. If we all kept the same roles we would have caught them easy. (I can't help but think I've missed something here, but I had to ask.)

Anyhow, I may forgive him at some point, but for now...Dodgy, can you tell MMCL I said GRRRRRRRRRRRRR! and I'll pm him one day (after the left side of my face stops twitching)

[Tam]

Oh, and Dodgy, I wanted to throttle you when you suicided. I believed you innocent the whole time, and you did that and I was so pissed. I told people the whole time that I thought you were good, and I think they were starting to listen to me (because of that odd 'unotuchable' status mmcl and i seemed to share) and you had to go kill yourself.

I can, however, see how frustrating it was for you with everyone else accusing you.

Been there, done that. Shot the tour guide.

[Drummer]

Hey Yaw, how come you took me from the room instead of Candice in the ending game post? I was already gone I thought.

Well, like I said, MMCL deserves to win if he's scum.

BTW, I would never have copied Tam if I was mafia. That would have pointed me out too much(as it did).

Wow. You're right Yaw. You stuck me with Dodgy and Vraak. The two people who most got on my nerves. How about that? Cool idea. I guess this IS hell.

[Yaw]

I had you waiting outside during that last round, I thought. So the porter was taking you to the new room, and leaving the last three. That last round was entirely for posterity.

[Drummer]

Oh, I was just waiting outside. Cool. Or hot. Actually, not as hot as I had thought it would be here. Right?

[PeaceBringer]

well played MMCL-

I had hope to last one more round then I did but alas nice job on sniffing out. Whoever said I had the typo was wrong.

It was tough in terms of changing the stories and trying to figure out how to write it believeably.

[Tam]

Except that they weren't wrong. That was a typo.

[Drummer]

PB--Are you saying Yaw made a typing error?

[Norinel]

This game was the Mafia equivalent of a Frosh week fake exam. It presented you with a new puzzle -- to figure out that the game was not actually worth playing. That's also partially the reason I never bothered with deadlines (besides the fact that thematically-speaking, you had an eternity to play). In this game, deciding not to play and deciding en masse to abandon was an acceptable outcome, and the result that could be termed a "win" in a larger sense than scum or town getting rid of all the people on the other side.

The problem with this sort of thing (And I probably lump it in with those games where the people whose rolename includes "Mafia" are actually pro-town) is that the players will play it like a mafia game first, and

maybe

think about the twists when there's no obvious other move.

And did anyone ever call it Huis Clos?

[MMCL]

The problem was because my desire was to win was in the traditional sense, eg make it through to endgame and get a final townie vote, likewise - I expect the town guys were aiming to get lynch the final scum first.

We are set in our ways. =)

Although the idea of just voting people did seem like a steam-roller at first, it didn't really matter who went - we had to get the information to use. The fact that the information was actually useless is what makes it quite ironic, in the scheme of things. Perhaps if the goal of the game had been set differently then the way it was played might have changed too. EG Mafia win requires all three scum to be sent to the same room = very difficult, but then would have justified a helluva lot more tactics-wise.

Congrats go to Dodgy, I guess, he was the only player who actively abandoned it - even if his abandonment was for sheer frustration or otherwise.

[Tam]

Not to mention those of us who will endure hell itself (heh) to keep their committment to a game they've signed up for and started. There was at least once that I truly just wanted to quit but didn't want to hurt Yaw's feelings, basically. I mean, he's a great, creative mod, and I didn't want to leave enough to tell him I was ripping my hair out on this one. So I didn't make the breaking point, I guess. (This one didn't make me want out near as much as a few others have before. Don't get me wrong, there were moments, but overall it was still a fun game.)

Congrats Dodgy!

[Yaw]

PB--Are you saying Yaw made a typing error?

No, the typo wasn't mine. I'm too pedantic for that.

The problem with this sort of thing (And I probably lump it in with those games where the people whose rolename includes "Mafia" are actually pro-town) is that the players will play it like a mafia game first, and maybe think about the twists when there's no obvious other move.

Well, in the Frosh fake exams you generally start to question the basis for the exam as the questions they're giving you start moving further and further afield from what you were expected to know from high school. So there are some differences -- this game could actually be played as a legitimate mafia game, and had the extra level for those willing to look for it (and some people

did

; I can recall a couple of points at which KingEnigma asked what was really going on in a larger sense). The fake exams generally try to lead you bit by bit to the conclusion that the exam isn't worth writing, rather than leaving that information in the background. Mine involved live chickens.

And did anyone ever call it Huis Clos?

Unfortunately not. AndrewS did make it a point to read the play while the game was going on, but I'm not sure many of the players had even heard of it before. And I wasn't about to start adding in linguistic difficulties to what was already a very densely-packed setup.