Theme Test Market

[Seacore]

Idea - A large game and a small game simultaneous. Small game works normally, large game lynches two people per day. One of those dies, the other is moved to the small game. Which is moved is determined somehow (not random). Players can only post in their game, but are obviously encouraged to read both.

Yes, it's not a very fleshed out idea. I'm not even sure if the two games would have the same scum. And even if so, would the scum have scum chat together (probably)

[Seacore]

Game that begins mountainous except that there are four categories, lets say "colours" of town players, and a single colour of scum.

Hey, lets call it "rainbow mafia" and the scum are "grey"

When one colour dies, it increases the 'power' of the remaining players of that colour. Providing them with PRs.
At first the PRs are weak, but the last remaining of a colour would have a great PR.
Should have a vague balancing effect.

[Seacore]

@DemonHybrid

We trialled something like this in Storm of Swords. Most of the game had the normal lynch mechanic, but one of the days resulted in two people being chosen, and then the town privated voted for which one of them would die. Our theme was that it was a duel, so that's similar to mortal kombat.

Here are the practicalities -
1. If all the votes are public it makes no difference to the game. Town will discuss. The deadline will loom near. Town will choose the scum/compromise. The second kombatant is meaningless because town will all vote for the first person. Therefore, same as a normal lynch.

2. If all the votes are private, both choosing and voting, then the game gets a little silly, so lets ignore that one.

3. If the choices are public, but the voting is private, with a smart town, will be no different to a normal lynch. Choice A will be the scummiest person. Choice B will be super obv town. Then all the town should, no matter what, vote for Choice A.

4. If the choices are private but the voting is public. This could get a bit more interesting. What you do, is you don't have a majority. At the start of the day you get everybody to privately choose a combatant, or two combatants. The choices are tallied and the two highest enter the arena. The voting for who wins then becomes public.
This still doesn't do much though. If town is dumb, it's incredibly scum powered, since scum will all vote for the same one or two people, and will never vote for themselves, therefore it's hard for them to die. However, smart town will declare who the combatants will be each day and follow those instructions. So it becomes just like the others.

Private votes that are revealed are almost identical to public votes (except in lylo). A compromise might be that private voting stays private, but the final numbers are revealed. That makes it a little harder for scum to never vote privately for each other.

Much of the above can change if players have PRs that interact with the 1v1 system. But I think at a point it crosses a line and stops being mafia.

[Seacore]

Restricting players from speaking is a bad idea. I can see what you're trying to do, but it encourages disengagement from the game for very little gain.

Perhaps, and I haven't completely thought this through, the players during D1 decide on a "roster" of fighting.
D1 = Player A v Player B
D2 = Player C v Player D
D3 = Player E v Player F

DX = Winner of D1 v Winner of D2

If your opponent is dead prior to your match, it is a bye and you win.

D1 would have to be much much longer than any subsequent days. And all votes SHOULD be able to be public, both for the roster building (which would unfortunately be complex) and for the kombats.

If this idea interests you, please let me know I'd be happy to work on it with you. If my idea doesn't interest you. I bags it for my next game.

[Seacore]

To make it clearer, because I've had a closer read at your idea.

In nearly all cases, the lynch for they day will have been decided by the time the first Kombatant has been chosen. And that Kombatant will be the lynch. Town know that scum are going to try and screw with the voting. So prior to the kombat starting, town will decide (using FOSs if necessary) who the lynch will be using whatever democratic methods they can. The 2nd kombatant will be unimportant. Only stupid town will vote for the 2nd kombatant whether it's public or private, regardless of who can talk, because the whole town had a hand in choosing the original decision, scum might have a stronger hand in the final decision.
Does that make sense? There will be NO NEED for spectators to be able to talk, the votes will be a formality by that point.

[Seacore]

Okay, so DH hasn't responded, and I think he's going a different direction with his game anyway.

So I'd like to discuss this idea as my next game. Some kind of pit fighting theme. Probably not based on any specific fiction since none leap to mind and I don't want to force it into anything.

Initial Thoughts:

16 players. 12 Town, 4 Scum

D0 - This will probably be 3 weeks long. Players discuss and vote on who will be paired with who in combat. When a simple majority has been reached on any match, that match is locked in. Example.

Vote: Player 1 v Player 8

. Eventually, all players will end up in matches. The order of the roster will be the order of the locked in fights.

N0 - Maybe no actions, I haven't decided yet. I'm leaning towards no actions, but QTs open.

D1 - First fight. Whatever the first match was takes place. All players, including those involved (but duh, as if they'd vote for themselves) vote for who is to die. Like a standard lynch, except only two options are available.

N1 - Normal night, with normal night actions

D2 - Rinse and repeat

DX - Winner of D1 fights winner of D2

DZ - Last two players fight.

Other rules:
If a player's opponent is dead prior to the start of the Day of their combat, they win by default and their fight is skipped. That Day, the next fight takes place instead (so the fight is skipped but not the Day)

There will be some standard roles. Doctors, Trackers etc. But maybe also some Pit fighting specific ones. Maybe a one off ability to throw dirt in somebody's face, lowering the vote threshold... stuff like that.

Help:
Okay, DZ is obviously the first problem to overcome - with two people left, some mechanism needs to be in place. Maybe for the final fight (if it gets that far) all the dead players come back and vote. Obviously this is a huge town advantage and I'd need to stack the numbers in scum's favour.
Or maybe 16 is the wrong number to start with, maybe I need to make the final fight a 3 way. Meaning it's a 24 player game (or 12, but that seems low) Hmmm, that seems like a good option. Any others?

What are some good pit fighting specific power roles?

Other thoughts?

[Seacore]

Actually, I just realised the issue the DZ. I wasn't factoring in the Night Kills.

The game will remain 16 players. The night before DZ, there will be 4 players left. 1 of which will likely be NK'd. Either way, the final day will be 3 or 4 players in the one combat. That works fine.

[Seacore]

I hates no reveal. Hates it.

[Seacore]

Some friends and I played with a game that was D&D based with alignments and classes. 9 players.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil
Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil

There were no scum, but each player wanted the three most opposing alignments to die. I think True Neutral needed 4 to die, which was fine because nobody wanted to kill them... Each alignment also had a class, the classes were known. They each had abilities.

It stopped being mafia at a point.

That point was right at the beginning.

[Seacore]

Would anyone be interested in a MMA/UFC mafia game?

I'd be interested in discussing my tournament mechanics with you in this context.

[Seacore]

An idea that I'd like to flesh out a little more, but I've got an idea for a game where everybody is an investigator.

Each player has a 3(?) digit code.

An investigation can find out either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd digit.
The players can submit 3 digits to the Mod.
The mod will then look up on a chart of the 1000 combinations of those digits whether that code registers as innocent or guilty. The mod then either publicly posts or emails all involved investigators.

Hmmm, thats a lot of combinations, maybe there will only be numbers 1-4 but 3 digits.

Dead players cannot be investigated and their codes are not revealed at death. Players do not know their own code.

The idea is to simulate that investigating somebody is not a once off thing. A team of people, or one person over several nights, can find somebody's guilt. However scum can put forward false information. If investigations are planned in thread, scum can also kill one of the investigators to stall the outcome.

Obviously needs fleshing out and balancing, but any thoughts?

[Seacore]

I'm thinking everybody is an investigator. Even scum, although they obviously might want to lie.

with 3 digits 1-4 as codes, that's 64 different combinations. That means only 15-20% of the numbers are actually taken, the others are just junk codes. The junk codes will also be innocent or guilty.

[Seacore]

I might just limit it to one request per player per day, and then give the results privately.

[Seacore]

That's 26 number requests Day 1. Some of which would be false, potentially.
Another 22 the next day
and 18 the day after.

Thats all the combinations. Although, agreed, I can just say no requests D1. but that only puts the problem off until D4.

Whereas if I say only 1 a day, that's 11 + 9 + 7 + 5 + 3, they'll never get all the combinations.

[Seacore]

Has a game ever been run similiar to the following

Town A and Town B
Mafia A and Mafia B.

Town A wins when Mafia A is eliminated
Town B wins when Mafia B is eliminated.
Mafia A wins when Town A cannot win
Mafia B wins when Town B cannot win

The inspiration was old style D&D alignments
Lawful Good and Chaotic Good are the two towns
Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil are the two scum.

[Seacore]

My first thoughts was that the game would be over, but I since decided that was terrible for about 8... 8.5 reasons.

So I'm leaning with they win and leave the game, like a lyncher who won. Same for scum who win.

I don't know if it'll work in practice, but I like the idea of the two towns working together, but then one may betray another at a point in time.

By this I mean:
It's in Town A's best interest to get Mafia B out of the game if they can. I mean, that's an extra NK that can hit them. Mafia A is the priority, but Mafia B is good too. So that makes them allies with Town B.
At least up until the point where they can throw Town B under the bus, let Mafia B win and remove them and their extra NK from the game.

Similiarly, the two mafias can try and work together, because more NKs is good. But there's always the risk of them hitting each other.
But if Town A is kicking ass and not dying, then Mafia B may want to kill the last member of Mafia A and remove all those townies from the game.

[Seacore]

Assuming that Town A would win and leave the game after lynching Mafia A, it'd be easier to distinguish who's Town A/B and who's Mafia A/B at that point.

It benefits both Town B and Mafia B, but mostly Mafia B.

You're correct. Mafia B go from knowing who is in their team to knowing who is the enemy. But that's not so much advantaging Mafia B as much as giving them the usual Mafia advantage.

The trick will be balancing it from the beginning, who it advantages most halfway through the game will depend on how people are playing.. which is mostly a good thing.

Anybody interested in writing this with me? I see it as a Large Theme.

[Seacore]

Howdy all,

My experimental two town game has just ended. I'd love people to have a look and weigh in on the set up.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21408