Theme Test Market

[Yosarian2]

How would you fit in the Neutral/Neutral character?

Heh...how about the neutral/neutral character wins if he's still alive when the LG, the CG, the LE, and the CE characters are all dead? That is, when the only people left have "Neutral" in their alignment.

Of course, you'd have to make it a challenge for him to figure out, and if anyone else figured out what his role was he's be killed right away, especially if you make the "Extreme" alignments have strong rolls (LG=paladin, CE=psychopath, ect)

If done right, it'd be a little like the "rock, paper, scissors" mafia, but much more complicated, with more complicated strategy, and even MORE backstabbing then in the rock paper scissors version (LE guy tells LG guy that he's going for a "lawful" win, gets the LG guy to kill the CG guy, then LE guy kills LG guy for a "Evil" win...) So, yeah, you'd better mod a few normal games first, heh.

[Yosarian2]

Would people be interested in playing in an "undead mafia" as a mini theme game?

The idea is that there will a lot of mechanics that can bring dead people back to life or otherwise involve dead people in the game. A side effect of that is that people's roles will not be revealed upon death; however, their full role will be revealed once a person passes to the Other Side (and thus can not ever be raised from the dead), so the town will always have some information to go on.

Also, if anyone would be willing to review the game for me, or possibly be interested in being a co-mod (this being my first attempt to mod a game), please let me know.

[Yosarian2]

if I were playing to win, I'd do the minimum to not get lynched, not step out on a limb, not make myself a target, etc...

How do you think you'd act if the Mafia really did invade your town and lynch-mob justice was invoked?

...that said, the game may be overly prone to encouraging lurky behaviour. Obviously, due to the game's fundamental mechanics, the result of any deadlines would be No Lynch, Lights Out. Maybe, seeing as we're talking multiple lynches per day, a constant week's deadline (starting at the time of the most recent lynch) would be appropriate.

Except that nobody seems to like the mechanic.

ACtually, I was writing a game with pretty much that exact same mechanic, where basically , every day lasts a week, and the town can lynch as few or as many people as it chooses within that time period. That would punish lurky behavior, for sure, because the town has to really post a lot and move fast to get the best advantage out of that situation.

[Yosarian2]

Ok, so the "anyone who wants to can post" thing isn't really a good idea... but, here's another one that could become a good specialty game (i don't think it's too crazy... TOO crazy)

Heh...well, you could offer a certain number of spectator seats. If anyone watching the game wanted to participate, have them PM you, and then you'll give them a "ticket" to watch and post whatever they want, but only if they PM'd you for a ticket, and only up to, say, 15 people. People can join as spectators at any time in the game, even into the endgame, but only if all the "seats" have not already been sold. If no one want to participate, fine; if 15 people join randomally throughout the course of the game, that'd be fine too, or if all 15 seats get "sold" before the game even starts, that would work as well.

And perhaps have a few roles in the game who can kill any spectators who get too annoying/ who appear to be too preceptive.

[Yosarian2]

FYI doublevotes are only at night

Yeah, but it's still an easily confirmable role.

3 double voters=3 confirmed innocents.

3 cops will either wipe out the scum or confirm most of the rest of the town in a day or two. Everyone but the godfather'd be toast fast, and the scum godfather would still be found destroyed by the two town roleblockers.

The scum would have no chance of winning at all, almost no matter how badly the town played.

[Yosarian2]

What's the point of a gunsmith in an open role game like that, Adele?

The cool thing about gunsmith is that if the gunsmith says "Hey, Yos, you've got a gun, are you scum?" I can say "Nope, I do have a gun but that's because I'm a backup cop/vig/gun owning crazy loner/gunsmith." Leaves it much more open to debate then a normal cop role, which I think makes the role great. In an open role game like that, however, that wouldn't really work. I see the gunsmith in that setup as being basically a regular cop, with the only disadvantage being that he can't tell if the vig is scum or not.

[Yosarian2]

Has anyone ever heard of Harry Turtledove and his "Darkness" series?

The fantastical world where Derlavai fights a WWII-like war with dragons and leviathans and magic instead of airplanes and submarines and technology?

I'm thinking of someday maybe running a game based on the viewpoint charecters from the first two books.

Yeah, that was a pretty neat series. I don't really remember the characters individually too well, but sure, it'd sound like fun.

Hey, do I get to sacrifice huge numbers of innocent people in nightmarish magical rituals in order to nuke the enemy?

[Yosarian2]

I'm thinking about running a Mutually Assured Destruction mafia. Basically, everyone will represent a country, most of which have nuclear weapons, with a small scum group (the "rouge states"). There's a normal voting and lynching process, but anyone with nuclear weapons can nuke someone during the day, as a daykil. However, there are a few key facts here:

1. If you nuke someone, they'll have a chance to respond before they die, which means they might be able to nuke you back, if they choose to do so. (hence the "mutually assured distruction".

2. If too many nukes are used over the course of the game, the world goes into nuclear winter and everyone dies, which means that EVERYONE loses, both the town AND the scum.

3. The players in the game do not know how many nukes will cause nuclear winter.

So, LOGICALLY people probably shouldn't nuke each other TOO often, if at all, but will they? Will people be semi-rational and play it out like a normal mafia game without resorting to nuclear weapons (much), or will it play like Really Really Bad Idea Mafia and result in turning the entire world into a radioactive wasteland before the end of day 1?

I donno, but it'd be neat to see.

So, would be people be interested in playing that kind of game? I'd probably run it as a mini, at least at first. I'd also be interested in getting a co-mod, if anyone would be interested.

[Yosarian2]

In my next themed mini I am planning to run Voting Madness Mafia, and here are some basics on the mechanics:

1. During the night every player distribute certain amounts of votes to other players they choose
2. During the day the lynches will be based on the majority of total votes that are at large and not the majority of the number of players left in the game. This means some players will have more power than others in terms of deciding a lynch.
3. Players with multiple votes may vote for multiple people during the day.
4. One twist is that after the night is over the scum get to see all the vote distribution that happened during that night while all pro town players just know how many votes they themselves will have for the day.
5. The other twist is that during the day anybody can "bluff vote", which is claiming to use more votes than their actually max number of votes left. All the vote counts except the final vote count will be counting everyone's claimed voting, whether it's fake or real. So the vote count could be showing 54 votes on someone and that person still isn't lynched when it's 46 to lynch.
6. Everyone will have day or night abilities that manipulate or affect the vote distribution in some way.
7. Everything else such as scum nightkills, cop investigations, etc. remain standard.

How do you like this idea and do you see any room for improvement?

That does sound cool. I was considering doing something like that, a "crooked election mafia", but I figured I'd better get more practice doing NORMAL vote counts first, hehe.

I would suggest that a co-mod might be a good idea for a game like that; it might be a real headache to mod.

[Yosarian2]

Something that works well: have all townies be part of seperate Mason groups. They're still all working together, but they can work with a group.
.

Then...everyone would just claim day 1, claim who all their mason partners are, and the town would win.

[Yosarian2]

I wonder what it would be like to merge 2 games midway through.

It's been done; see Tri-City mafia.

[Yosarian2]

Cold-War Mafia

The player are a cell of American covert agents in 60's era Moscow. Russian counter-intelligence agents have infiltrated the cell and are eliminating the capitalistic dogs one by one.
At the beginning of each day "Mother" (the mod) issues cover identities to each agent (Generic Alts).
Players can post under either in the open (regular screen name) or undercover (alt screen name). Each player role and each cover identity will have unique powers.
Both players and alts vote for for a player name to lynch.
Player powers are night moves, alt powers are day moves.
Some alts may be able to PM other alts during the day.
Some players/alts may be able to investigate the history of who which cover was issued to each day.
Some alts may be able to "spoof" PM's to other alts during the day.
Some players/alts may be able to investigate alignment of a cover, or a player, or both, possibly with unknown sanity.
Some players or alts may be immune to the powers of other players or alts.
Some players will be able to PM other players at night.
Alts can out players to the Russian officials (mod kill) if (# of scum +1) alts post "

Agent XXXX 's cover is Comrade ZZZZ

linking the two correctly.
Players or alts can out themselves (mod kill) to the Russians by claiming

any

cover/ agent identity in thread. The Russians ain't stupid. Claiming a power will not blow a cover though.

Alts are never allowed to PM players or visa-versa.

Balance issues are an obvious concern. Players are not allowed to change the password of their issued alt for fear of mod kill. Mod "collects" all alts at the end of each day, changes the password

does not delete any saved, sent, or outbox/inbox PMs

and reissues the alts to different players at the beginning of each day.

That sounds really cool.

I guess that certain alts are "pro-town" alts that only pro-town players get, and some are "scum alts"? If so, then by investigating one alt a lot of players could be cleared over the course of the game(even without claiming, it's easy to make it obveous that the alt is you). Just a possible balance issue there.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, "parrellel universe mafia" does sound like a great idea. Seems like it'd be harder then usual for scum to win, as they've basically got double the chances of making mistakes that get them lynched in both universes, and you can have people confirmed innocent and the scum won't know who until the claimed, so whoever runs that needs to make sure they don't power up the town too much.

[Yosarian2]

Are there readers of the webcomic "sluggy freelance" around the forum who would be interested in being in a rather complex theme game based on the comic?

[Yosarian2]

I got a question for Kelly, what would happen if the votes were to all be private in a given open setup game ?

Secret voting was done in survivor mafia, and it was one of the reasons that game was painfully slow and inactive. I don't suggest it.

[Yosarian2]

Oh, hey, how about a "something positive" themed mafia?

Well, the problem with running it as a mafia game is there's a chance that terrible things might not happen to the main characters, which would totally ruin the whole point.

[Yosarian2]

What would you guys say to a Mafia game centered around Money? After all, IRL, crime syndicates rarely kill people for the sake of murder, and the public at large probably won't try to bring them down out of sheer benevolence. No, the real motivation for both actions is the same entity: Money!

In Fortune Hunter Mafia, each player has a set amount of money to start with. Players make money by staying alive, and even more money by making kills. The Mob collects the assets of their NK victims, while the assets of lynch victims go to the player casting the lynching vote. There's also a Fortune Hunter, who's out to kill everyone and take all the money in the town. At the end of the game, only the player with the most money wins.

So...everyone's a survivor/lyncher? No one really cares if the town wins, they just want to not get lynched, not get nightkilled, and hammer people?

I don't think that would go well, at all.

[Yosarian2]

Thanks guys.

I would love to play that. Unfortunately I am not very good at scum hunting so I am not sure I would be able to. I imagine the town would look at each post to investigate. Lord Gurgi, that is an excellent idea.

I think someone like Adel would do really well in it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be awesome for everyone.

actually I tend to avoid theme games with novel & exploitable mechanics because I got tired of being accused (by people I respect) of breaking the "spirit" of mafia.

[Yosarian2]

Would anyone be up for


"Barenaked Ladies Present

One Week Mafia

"

Days have six-day deadlines, with the night taking up however much of the week is left. (So if game goes to dl, one-day nights).

Players are randomly assigned a voting day. By the end of that day, they must vote or be modkilled. Votes only count if placed on the correct day. Once the day is over, they are immutable.

Day ends when one player has a majority. If no majority, there will be a plurality lynch at deadline,

providing there is no tie.

If there is a tie, there will be nl.

So for example, on day one, two players would be voting each day.

That's actually pretty cool. I like the idea.

It'd kind of suck if I forgot to check the game on the correct day and got modkilled, but eh, I'd play.