Theme Test Market

[Nancy Drew 39]

@Elbirn: I'd love to have a hand in that setup. Sounds like an awesome idea.

/out didn't realize hydra aren't allowed

I've thought about this a lot recently, and realized that all my problems with hydrae could be solved by effectively leveying a "post restriction" of sorts. If you really want to play in a hydra, it should be your goal to eliminate essentially anything that makes you different from a normal player, so as not to disrupt the game for others. That could possibly be achieved via any number of tactics: group PT where you all try to format/voice posts the same way before making them (this would imply no post "signing"), cohesive discussion between heads outside of the game, never in-thread, maaaybe only one person logs in and posts from the account and always from a different browser (that only has auto-login for the hydra itself) to eliminate as many opportunities as possible for an alt-slip?

There are options, but as it is, hydrae fundamentally change how players interact, and IMO the majority of the time they do so negatively. If you want to have a hydra in a game of mine (or a game I play in), I'd want it to be understood that it's your responsibility to minimize all of that. I understand that I can't expect that as a player, so I don't sign up for games with hydra and I /out if a hydra joins after me. It's just my personal preference, but as a mod I have an obligation to work with my values, IMO. If you feel like you'd enjoy that potential challenge, feel free to discuss your plan with me via PM and sign up with your hydra - this goes for all future games of mine as well, in case anybody reads my posts.

/derail

I've done an all-hydra game in the past (which went as well as you'd expect), but I'm throwing this out there if anybody's interested: a game with a Perfect Hydra or two. Think about it: hydrae who have to work to be a cohesive mind-melded mafia player on top of hunting Scum or pretending to hunt Scum... does that sound awful or appealing? I've never liked hydrae, and this isn't the place to go into that, but I'm trying to be open-minded here and see what we could discover about the phenomenon.

The whole point of hydraing is to make it easier on people with less time and your conception, actually requires even more work than that of a single player. Yes, you still maintain the advantage of 2 heads forming reads/play/whatever but otherwise, I see this as rather stifling.

[Nancy Drew 39]

You may see “the point” as “less work for me!” but my counterpoint is that it’s

more

work for others and that it fundamentally changes Mafia, often for the worse. If you don’t want to respond to those points, that’s fine, but it just means this isn’t the game for you. I’d argue being in a game with a hydra is stifling.

The most important thing in making accurate reads is to be able to disearn which head is speaking, especially if you’re a believer in meta, which I am. Perhaps, your idea makes more sense in an anonymous game then but needing to coordinate posts, makes them seem fake and rehearsed - something normally associated with scum behaviour.

You have a specific way of looking at hydras and while I do see the merits in your approach, I see even more problems then the more natural way, I propose. Your obsession with this idea of what constitutes the “perfect” hydra, is at the main root of the problem as I see it. Single players are very far from perfect, it seems unfair, unrealistic and suboptimal, to insist that hydras be.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Maybe instead of a team of traitors, have a team of undercover “traitorish” 3Ps?

[Nancy Drew 39]

I've long toyed with doing a series of games in what would be called Chaos Mode.

This would be a bastard style modification, for reasons that will become clear. It will also be extremely swingy and impossible to balance, but it might be fun:

Chaos Mode: The moderator begins with a list of any number of game states or status effects. The player base is not aware of the nature of these status effects. At the start of each day and each night, the moderator rolls a dice and announces the subsequent change to the gamestate. Some examples might be: "Everyone is Loved," "You all get a gun!" "Talk Like a Pirate!" "Explosions!" "A hot potato appears!" "No Night Nuesday!" "WTF now the dead can vote?!" And so on.

Furthermore, the first game I would run with this modification would probably be another I've long dreamed of running: "Oops! All Dreaming Gods." Every player is a dreaming god. Every player gets vague names of ten to twenty abilities. No player knows what their abilities do. Chaos Mode may illuminate their abilities to themselves, to others, to the thread at large, may cause them to swap abilities with other people, and so on.

For obvious reasons, the game would be very swingy and potentially unbalanced. I suppose I wouldn't suggest anyone join unless they hate themselves or just want to putz around in a really weird game.

Would there be interest?

If hydras are permitted, a very probable yes.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Would anybody be interested in a "Fusion" Upick?

Each player submits a single pick. Each player has their role become a fusion of some elements of their pick and of another players pick.

For some examples of fused roles

Spoiler:

Take a fusion of a Doctor and a Vengeful. They could prevent a random night kill the night after their elimination. If they are mafia-aligned it could instead make their teammates ninjas/godfathers the night after elimination (thus ""protecting"" them from investigation)

A fusion of a bus driver and a paranoid gun owner could be an ability to redirect players that visit them into visiting themselves (Like a mirror). This could work for either alignment.

A fusion of a Traffic Analyst and a Viglilante could kill the target only if they are in a PT.

I'd be hosting this in January most likely if there is interest

Sounds really cool Meg, I’d definitely be interested.

[Nancy Drew 39]

I want to mod a swinger’s version of the Free Love game I comodded originally with beeboy. It would be similar but with different flavour and that element added to it. It would also ideally involve people signing up as pairs.

I’m trying to first fully grasp the swingers’s aspect to it, which Ari laid out in a private thread and then attempt to explain it. Then I would hopefully get a comod to help mod it.

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.p ... &start=475

[Nancy Drew 39]

I want to mod a swinger’s version of the Free Love game I comodded originally with beeboy. It would be similar but with different flavour and that element added to it. It would also ideally involve people signing up as pairs.

I’m trying to first fully grasp the swingers’s aspect to it, which Ari laid out in a private thread and then attempt to explain it. Then I would hopefully get a comod to help mod it.

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.p ... &start=475

So, basically the game would differ from Free Love, because each pair has the option of “swinging” or switching lovers - could be nightly or only a specified number of times but both partners would have to bold the words “swing” in their respective PTs and two other players would also have to presumably do this. Only caveat would be you can never pair with anyone you left.

Thoughts?

[Nancy Drew 39]

Would anybody be interested in a Micro Secret Alt Theme game?

I think there’s definitely a demand for secret alt games on here.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Would anybody be interested in a Micro Secret Alt Theme game?

Are you able to inform the mod if there are players you don't want to play with? Because Secret Alt can result in some clashing otherwise.

Extremely unlikely in my experience because it’s SECRET alts and that very often changes one’s play.

[Nancy Drew 39]

I wasn’t intending to change yours or anyone’s mind, just to be clear.


Anyway, it’s of course your right but what I don’t understand is why if you did agree with my position it wouldn’t affect anything?

But that’s probably beyond the scope of this thread anyway. I understand protecting one’s safety but I was probably remiss in adequately failing to explain my point:


People in secret alt games have an obvious investment in not being alt outed, so yes, they are highly likely to modify their play expressly because of that. In fact, in many secret alt games, this is even a requirement and attempting to secret alt guess can get you force replaced.