Theme Test Market

[Adel]

I'm sure someone has thought of this before, but in case not:

Schoolyard Mafia

There are "goodie-goodie's" (townie) "evil meanies" (scum). There are only two factions in the game.

New mechanics:
1. Tag: The player who is "it" has 10 hours to post or will receive an additional vote added to the official count. Every additional 10 hours that pass will result in an additional vote. The player who is "it" can tag any other player "it" by posting

Tag: Player ZZZZZ

2. Musical Chairs: At a random moment the moderator will post "Music Stops!" The last player to post gets a vote added to the official count for the remainder of the day.
3. Quiet time: At a random moment the moderator may post "Quiet Time!" The first player to post an empty reply will get one vote subtracted from the official count. Quiet time ends a game of British Bulldog.
4. British Bulldogs. A random player is chosen at a random time to be the initial British Bulldog. That player can post ""One, two, three, British Bulldog!" when ever he chooses. The last player to post after a "One, two, three, British Bulldog!" post becomes the new British Bulldog and receives an additional vote added to his official count. British Bulldog ends when "Quiet Time" is announced.
5. Some roles will be able to "cheat" or "tattle" in unusual ways specified by role P.M.
6. During each day phase players will vote on which player they will no longer be friends with (lynch).
7. During each night phase a player may we his pants and will be ostracized from then on (NK).
To avoid the appearance of favoritism, random events occur at times determined before games start, and shared with co-mod. Mod and Co-mod will be from radically different time-zones as to not favor or favour one continent over another.

[Adel]

I'm concerned about '10 hours' being the limit, though. If I'm working an 8 hour day and have a 45 minute commute to and from work, it's possible that I won't even have a chance to post, even if I were to get on MafiaScum directly before and directly after work. I'd make it probably 18-24 hours. You may want to consider some kind of exception for people who post in Vacation/LimitedAccess, too.

I was just pulling numbers out of the air: the intention is to force players to check once in the morning and once at night, so 15 or 18 hours would work. For vacation & limited access "subs" could be used, a player could select his own replacement to replace for a limited amount of time, and to share the PM from the mod with. Huh, we could call the substitute players "Adults" who would win and lose with their specific "child". Parent and child can PM each other whenever, day and night, but the kid is the only one actually involved in the game. Adults can not post unless they are subbing for their child, and the switch has to be announced in thread X amount of time (two days?) beforehand. This way players could coordinate, so when real life happens a replacement isn't necessary. Wouldn't be cool to have a large game with nearly no replacements and very active posting?
I am nowhere near meeting the requirements or experience necessary to mod this, and I wouldn't even know where to begin with balance issues. If someone wants to take this idea and run with it, I would be love to assist in developing it, but it can't be my baby. The central theme to roles and mechanics is "what will make crafty mafia players behave like bratty little kids, who in real life are scummy scummy little creatures" I think it would be a fun project to work on.

[Adel]

Hey wait! I can co-mod it! Guess how many have GMT +8 time zones here?

Or mod it. Say, are you in Albany or Perth?


Just a guess.

[Adel]

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.

[Adel]

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.

I'm glad you like the idea. The alts would be alignment neutral.

[Adel]

Dæmon Mafia

For Greeks and Romans, dæmons ("replete with knowledge", "divine power", "fate" or "god") were not necessarily evil. Socrates claimed to have a daimonion, a small daemon, that warned him against mistakes but never told him what to do or coerced him into following it. He claimed that his daemon exhibited greater accuracy than any of the forms of divination practised at the time. The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: Eudaemons (also called Kalodaemons) and Kakodaemons, respectively. Eudaemons resembled the Abrahamic idea of the guardian angel; they watched over mortals to help keep them out of trouble. (Thus eudaemonia, originally the state of having a eudaemon, came to mean "well-being" or "happiness".) A comparable Roman genius accompanied a person or protected and haunted a place (genius loci).

24 players
12 are ICs
12 are raw newbies (less than 200 posts)

Only newbies can vote.
Each IC is a dæmon secretly tied to a specific newbie
If a newbie dies his dæmon dies as well
newbies have roles, dæmons do not
each newbie/dæmon pair is able to PM at night
each dæmon receives a copy of his newbie's role PM at the beginning of the game
dæmons have a post restriction so that they can only post in

italics

dæmons cannot be targeted by any role, lynched, or NK'd

all players know which dæmon is tied to which newbie

In terms of all other mechanics this will be a typical mafia game.

[Adel]

If each IC is secretly tied to a specific newbie, wouldn't it defeat the secrecy if all players knew which IC was tied to which newbie?

errr.... oops. Which way do you think would be better?

[Adel]

I think that is an excellent suggestion Nightson. I want to co-mod it with a much more experienced Mod as well. Any takers?

[Adel]

Someone -- two people -- need to mod parallel universe mafia, right quick.

I would be willing, if I am allowed. This idea is legit!

QFT

What a sweet idea!

[Adel]

Soylent Green Mafia

I love the potential flavor, what mechanics are you considering?

[Adel]

A twist: each townie knows who his doctor is.

[Adel]

A mas claim wold yield three confirmed townies, three outed docs, and six possible scum. Setup is very broken in favor of town.

[Adel]

I think we can make it work

Health Insurance Mafia:

12 players
2 Mafia Goons
1 Mafia Medical Saboteur
3 HMO doctors
6 HMO covered townies

Each doc can only protect two specific townies that are on his plan, and he doesn't know who those townies are. Each townie must request coverage from his doctor in thread in order to be covered. Fraudulent claims (requesting coverage from a different doctor) results in loss of coverage for the rest of the game. If the Mafia Medical Saboteur targets the correct doctor and the correct patient, the patient dies instead of being protected.

Balance might have to be tweaked, giving the mafia a second night kill would be one possibility.

[Adel]

Try it out in scumchat, or have someone else. I think there is a real chance of it being interesting even if the townies follow Kelly Chan's advice.

I'd call it something like "totally normal 18-person mafia", and get a list mod or whoever is necessary to approve it being in the New York section. If that didn't work I would make up a "cover theme" like "Cirque Du Soleil Mafia" and run it as a large theme game. I think a larger version would make for a more interesting game than a smaller version.

[Adel]

The scum would just crosskill each other out of existence since the town would be no further threat.

... leaving townies to win?

[Adel]

To me it sounds like a multi-player version of the prisoner's dilemma, where the choice has to be decided by consensus for each group. I'd place the town's chances of victory at about 25%, and equivalent to each of the three scum groups.
2 mafia group a
2 mafia group b
2 mafia group c
4 informed townies who know which players are in which mafia group.
Multiply the number of players by 2 to get a 20-player game.

I think it is a very interesting setup. It may even work as an open game, and without the bastard mod element, but I like the idea of bastard-mod games being in the open queue as well. Right-on: "the theme of my games requires it to pretend to be an open game, and be posted in the open queue." Is there any way that it could happen? If so than I propose that we start a "bastard mod workgroup" and design games in secret that will mess with all of the queue divisions and game types. Pretend to run a normal 14 player game, but actually divide the players into two group each playing a separate newbie game in the same thread: just ignore all unvotes and votes by players for people that are not in the same game. A night in one game is just treated as a pause by the other game even though all players will think they are observing all night.

[Adel]

The Departed/ Internal Affairs/ 無間道

All players alignments are "undetermined at the beginning of the game except for two townies and one scum. There would be 12 players.

original set-up as day 1 begins:

-player 1 is town

-player 2 is town and know player 1 is town and player 3 is either mafia or scum. He can pm
player 3 during the daytime.

-player 3 does not know if he is town or scum. He can pm player 2 during the night and player 4 during the day. If player 2 die first he will have the same alignment as player 2. If player 4 dies first he has the alignment opposite of player 4

-player 4 does not know if he is town or scum. He can pm player 3 during the night and player 5 during the day. If player 3 dies first he will have the same alignment as player 3. If player 5 dies first he has the alignment opposite of player 5.

...

-player 11 does not know if he is town or scum. He can pm player 10 during the night and player 12 during the day. If player 10 dies first he will have the same alignment as player 10. If player 12 dies first he has the alignment opposite of player 12.

-player 12 is mafia and knows that player 1 is town. He can pm player 11 during the night.


So there is a chain of dependency that runs from player 2 through to player 12. If a player whose alignment is undetermined dies then his alignment is randomly chosen. All players who know that they are mafia submit a choice for the NK. The target of the NK will be chosen by a clever mechanic that is unknown to all of the players. If no players know that they are mafia, but there are still players with "undetermined" something may or may not happen- town may win, someone may be randomly chosen, the players do not know.
When one of the players in the chain between players 2 and 12 dies, the chain connects again to fill in his place the moment the death scene is posted. So if player 4 is lynched, starting the following night player 5 will be able to PM player 3 and starting the next day player 3 will be able to PM player 5.

The town players will possibly win if all of the mafia are dead, and will definitely win if there are no players of "undetermined" alignment and all of the mafia are dead.

The "undetermined" players have undeterminedwin conditions.

The mafia wins if there are no players of "undetermined" or town alignment left alive.

The players not knowing all of the mechanics is part of the flavor.

[Adel]

Some mechanics are hidden, and theme games can also be open: it is the open games that cannot be themed.

[Adel]

@Adel-if the first two people to die are player 5 and 6, what are there alignments? (More importantly, what are players 4 and 7 alignments?)

It would work like this:

1. player 5 dies. His alignment is randomly determined in secret. The mod flips a coin or whatever and gets "town" as the result.
2. player 4's alignment becomes mafia, and he is notified by PM. Player 6 becomes town, and is notified by PM. Player 4 can now PM player 6 during the day and player 6 can PM player 4 during the night. Players 4 and 6 now know each other's alignment.
3. Player 6 dies.
4. Player 7 becomes town and is notified by PM. Player 4 can now PM player 7 during the day and player 6 can PM player 7 during the night. Players 4 and 6 now know each other's alignment.

For balance I'd consider making play 2 a cop (with town, mafia, and inclusive being the investigation results), and maybe making player 12 a Godfather who yields an "inclusive" investigation result. Or just adding a 13th player who is a Godfather or a goon.

[Adel]

Oh and a day 1 mass claim would result in the 12th player getting killed but would not necessarily end the game.

[Adel]

It would be like the movie though, and I think it would be interesting, the odds are better of a player ending up town, but they are not definite. A couple of savvy players should be able to choose their alignment during the course of play. The game may require banning disclosing who a players PM contacts are by making it a mod-killable offense.

[Adel]

Genocidal Maniac Mafia

Play your favorite ache-villain of all time!

Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pot Pol, Genghis Khan, Kambanda and many more to choose from!

[Adel]

Genocidal Maniac Mafia should be my first theme game as mod, so look for it in about five months.
I'm thinking about making deaths only reveal alignment but not role, or throwing something else in that is a little funky but isn't a really novel or creative mechanic.

[Adel]

I read it. You are so my idol right now. What do you think of my Cold War Mafia idea earlier in this thread?

[Adel]

Sweet. It will have to be after I've modded a few games though. I don't want to use my best idea for the game where I make all of my newbie mod mistakes. It would be fantastic working with you on it. I'd be willing to make the town be Russians who are moles in the US government during the McCarthy era.
I'll send you a PM when I am ready to start seriously working on it. In November or October.

[Adel]

Is this still a themed mafia game?

I'm working on a game that has a biased bastard mod. It would also be nightless, with secret daytime powers. All players will be members of one of the scum groups. Instead of being the mod, the person who runs the game is known as the Goddess. All players are allowed to PM the other members of their group at any time during the game, possibly even after they are dead.

The Chosen People

All players are member of one of the tribes. There is more than one tribe. One tribe is the favorite of the Goddess, and she will issue commandments that give them special favor. The Chosen people may not know that they are chosen. One tribe will be known as the "Atheists". Players are encouraged to PM the Goddess during signups if there is a particular name or flavor of tribe they wish to be a member of.

Rather than lynching each other, players in this game stone each other.

The game will end when the Goddess losses interest. This will occur when none of her Chosen People are alive or when they are the only ones left alive. If the end of game is caused by all of the Chosen people dying, then the tribe(s) left with the greatest number of players alive win.

[Adel]

I was afraid it wasn't even going to be mafia anymore.

[Adel]

The Chosen people may not known that they are the Chosen People. The is the possibility that there isn't an uninformed minority. I could PM you with the details, if you wouldn't mind advising me. I would appreciate it.

[Adel]

What is a smalltown setup? I thought someone else was working on a Heroes setup, but I can't remember who.

i am also auto-/in for any Heroes theme game. I so want to be Angela (Big Bad Momma) Petrelli!

[Adel]

Seol: I now remember that

you

were the person talking about making a heroes theme game before. Sorry about that.

I like the smalltown format, i also like that scrubs was 12 pages so i could read all of it quickly.

Could heroes work as both Smalltown and No Reveal, so that role (powers) would be revealed but alignment would not be?

[Adel]

would anyone be interested in a game drawing flavor from Forbidden Zone?

[Adel]

I'm thinking about a large

Alien

theme game.

All role PMs would be posted on the first page. Many of the townies would have a one-shot or two-shot vig ability, most scum (Aliens) would start out as Facehuggers, and Adult aliens would require more than one successful vig or lynch to die.

A possible role PM

You are a nasty Alien with players XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ. You are an Alien Facehugger. Once per game you may post "Hug: (target player)" which will immediately end the day. During any subsequent day or twilight period (after the first) you may post "Burst!" which will result in the death of the hugged player and immediately end the day. After a successful Burst! post you will receive the Juvenile Alien role PM, and assume that role. You win when only Aliens remain in the ship.

each Juvenile Alien would have a NK, and Adult Aliens would have a NK and be really hard to kill.

Balance issues will be tricky, and I would prefer to collaborate with a more experienced mod in designing and running the game.

[Adel]

i'm working on my first theme game, which should start in about three months.

I'm thinking about calling it

Adel's Nightmare Mafia

fairytale wonderland | horrible nightmare | psychotic break
fairytale wonderland | horrible nightmare | psychotic break
fairytale wonderland | horrible nightmare | psychotic break
fairytale wonderland | horrible nightmare | psychotic break

it is like a game of mafia played through a fun-house mirror during a lunar eclipse a couple of hours after eating handfuls of weird purple mushroom you found in a cow pasture

it is like the dreams of Dorothy while she was collapsed in the poppy field while she was in the Land of OZ

^{what is a game played within a dream of a dream like?}

all

possible

role PMs would be posted in the initial post, like in an open game.
The flavor would be creative and intense, and not at all appropriate for those under the age of 18 (21 in some Southern states).

No weird mechanics -- just some

sick

flavor.

would there be any interest in such a game?

[Adel]

Mayfly Mafia

Basically a normal except that each player only lives for one day, but finds a replacement that will continue on in the role during the second day. All players know which player replaced which player. Mafia are able to kill during the night. Also, each player is able to talk with their replacement during the night.

A key to winning would be finding a good player to replace yourself.

[Adel]

Hellenic Mafia

full of non-deities from mythology and history, along with a few immortal gods who win with one side or another but do not have a vote and do not count for win conditions. God roles will be assigned to players normally burdened by proficiency, all other roles will be assigned randomly as per normal.

[Adel]

Like so many things, I suspect Adel is underestimating things outside of her original worldview.

I thought this was a thread for brainstorming. I do not appreciate the insult, even if it is accurate.

[Adel]

I would gladly co/backup-mod that with you to avoid the chaos that ensued...how's that for making up for my words?

Apology gladly accepted! I really look forward to collaborating with you!
sending PM now...

[Adel]

is riverworld series a good read? sounds interesting, if well written.

[Adel]

I wonder how much immunity from cop investigations would go for...

[Adel]

Dairy mafia

each player is a dairy product with an expiration date. The player dies once she has expired.
Once a dairy product is "opened" (by claiming a role) that player will expire in two game days.

[Adel]

Battlestar Galactica Mafia:

Enough said.

I don't think that idea has occurred to anyone else before!

[Adel]

Amber Mafia

Players create alts to play with. These alts are all minor members of the court of Amber
Alts play in-character, and the reality of the alts is limited to the reality of the game.

Breaking character and Mafia jargon are strongly discouraged!

Many many quicktopic threads are used to represent the parallel worlds.

The main thread preresents Amber, where players do not have abilities, but outside of Amber (in the quicktopic threads) all characters will have abilities.

A team of moderator/players run NPC alts. These NPCs have votes.

[Adel]

Has anyone thought of The Fifth Element mafia?

why not just go with the source material, and make it Heavy Metal mafia?

[Adel]

Nono, I mean The Fifth Element

I learned something today. I was under the impression that
Luc Besson (the writer/director of The Fifth Element) was not only greatly influenced by

Heavy Metal

(the magazine, not the movie) he hired several of the contributers to

Heavy Metal

for the artistic direction and development of the movie.

As it turns out Besson was greatly influenced by

Métal Hurlant

, but

Métal Hurlant

is not the same as

Heavy Metal

-- some of the sories are recycled, but HM is not simply a translated MH as I previously thought.

Métal Hurlant

was greatly influenced by the work of Jean-Claude Mézières, specifically his Valérian and Laureline series, and Jean-Claude Mézières is the person Besson hired as the conceptional designer.

[Adel]

My francophone ancestors must be relieved.

[Adel]

would anyone want to play in a disturbing & unusual large theme game based off of something unimaginally horrific?

[Adel]

AT LEAST HALF YOUR TOWN NEEDS TO BE VANILLA!

This is false. There needs to be enough vanilla that scum can feel safe claiming it. That usually means at least 2-3. Half vanilla seems a bit extreme to me.

no. 2-3 is way low for a 12 player game. do you want pie to be right?

[Adel]

would anyone want to play in a disturbing & unusual large theme game based off of something unimaginally horrific?

Your

second

nightmare I presume?

As I said before, I wouldn't mind playing in another one. Sparky for the win.

no, it is something compleatly different. I'm working on it with shaft.ed and I'm getting pretty excited about it.

[Adel]

saved for the big finale.

[Adel]

Rock Star Heroin O.D. Purgatory Mafia

Theme and setting are a mash-up of the early 70's and Dante's

Divine Comedy

All players are Rack Stars that died thanks to the big H in their veins.

Each day takes place in a different terrace of Purgatory.

The informed minority are the angels who send another Rock Star to heaven during each night cycle.

There is no Heroin in heaven, and the Rock Stars don't want to go.

[Adel]

Thanks. If "There is No Heroin in Heaven" isn't the name of an existing song, then it needs to be.

[Adel]

I'm in the queue now for a semi-open ten player Deep South game with Anarcha-Feminist + Space Opera flavor and normal roles:

Biker Riot Grrrls in Space!

what do y'all think?

[Adel]

both. The descendants of anarcho-bikers gangs (with differing ideologies) are on board a generational starship in search of a suitable planet to found their single-sex utopia!

[Adel]

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.