Theme Test Market

[totallynotmafia]

I was thinking of doing Mario Kart mafia as a mini theme (as far as I know I haven't seen it done, correct me if i'm wrong though), it may be easily broken though so I thought I'd see what people think about it here first (it wont be run any time soon, gotta finish my mini normal first).

I was thinking of two possible set-ups, both with 12 players:

The first would be everyone racing, only basic town and mafia, with no voting, lynching, or nights and players using items in order to eliminate each other. Instead of vote counts there would be a list of where everyone is coming in the race.

Mushrooms boost you up one place, can get in groups of 3.
Green shells can either be thrown forward or backwards and have a 50% chance of hitting the player either directly in front of you or behind you respectively (maybe groups of 3).
Red shells can be thrown forward for a 100% chance hit on the player directly in front of you or behind for a 50% chance (maybe groups of 3).
Boo steals an item from another player randomly
Gold mushrooms boost you to first place.
Bobombs can be thrown to kill any player in any place (maybe 50% chance).
Stars protect you from one kill.
Lightning destroys all other player's items.
Maybe blue shells which hit the player coming first (in which case players would probably have to be able to discard items, otherwise you'd be stuck with a blue shell if you didn't want to use it.)

Not totally sure on a timeline, but there would be a deadline of a certain amount of weeks until the race is over and in which the town have to eliminate the mafia by, with item boxes coming up maybe each week or every few days.

That's just my ideas for items at the moment, players coming near the front of the pack would have to either be more likely to get an item or more likely to get better items, as otherwise you may as well just sit at the back. Was thinking of making player specific special items like in mario kart double dash (eg toad and toadette get golden mushroom, wario and waluigi bobomb etc) and having a draft for characters at the beginning with the mafia chosen randomly.

The second possible set-up involves a grand prix of a certain amount of races with set deadlines where players get points depending where they place in each race. Town need to prevent mafia from getting a certain amount of points after the GP is finished. Players are not eliminated but simply bumped back a number of places if they are hit by items. In this set-up I'd probably use bananas as well as the shells as protection (wow that sounds bad), as well as hazards and short cuts on each course that can affect your position (such as thwomps on bowser's castle).

So what does everyone think, are both set-ups easily broken? Can anyone think of a better way to go about it entirely?The first could just be a massive bloodbath and be over really quick, the second may be more more fun and would mimic mario kart better but is probably the more easily broken setup of the two.

[totallynotmafia]

I was thinking that players in the front of the pack would be more likely to get items boxes (items are randomly picked, with a greater chance of getting the weaker items), and if I used the second setup players at the back of the pack might have more chance of getting the better items like in the game. Players would use the items in thread (eg

Fire: Red shell forward

) but items would be PMed to players so it's up to them to reveal what they have. The game would come down to individual item use, but the town still have to work as a team to eliminate the mafia (or stop them from winning in setup 2), so I figure everyone will still scum hunt and try and control who is killed etc. so in a way there will still be town consensus. I like the idea of the player coming last each lap being eliminated, but the problem with that I think is that neither town or mafia would want to be in last place so I think there would be less town consensus in that case and it may as well be an individual game.

[totallynotmafia]

I see what you mean, but surely neither town nor mafia would want to be in last place in the same way neither town nor mafia would want to get lynched? I don't think it would prevent the town from working towards a lynch target. There would still be an element of self-preservation but I think you have that in normal mafia games. As long as the items weren't overpowered to the point where one player could have completely change a lynch just by randomly grabbing a good item, I think the balance would be ok.

There are a lot of potentially interesting uses of the items for sure. Would there also be any benefit to winning the race? Depending on the size of the game, you could combine both: have 4 3-lap GPs and have some kind of points system as well as the player (or players) coming last getting eliminated. Perhaps you could do something like Chess Mafia, where the town could decide whether to try and eliminate the mafia (with special killing items) or win the cup, but if the town uses a kill then the mafia get a nightkill between cups too.

The difference is in a normal game of mafia if you're up for the lynch there's nothing (apart from talking) you can do to get out of it, whereas in this you could just use a mushroom to get out of last place thus avoiding elimination, and even if you're town this is the best option as you know it would prevent a mislynch, so everyone would be just scrambling to get out of last place. The thing I do like about your idea though is even if you do work out who the mafia is, you still have to work together to eliminate them (while the other scum are secretly trying to help them), so this might work with Ani's idea of the cop investigation as an item.

Maybe as well as the last player being eliminated each lap, racers could also vote for a lynch. There could be one item that reveals a racers allignment, but the catch is that any player whose allignment has been revealed cannot be lynched and can only be eliminated via last place. That way it can be easier to find the mafia, but harder to eliminate them if the town choose to do it this way, while still giving them the option to lynch. Perhaps unlike the other items, bobombs could be pmed privately, so the mafia have the opportunity to secretly help their outed buddies. If the town lynch, the scum get a NK. What do you think of this, could it be broken?