The Mafia Discussion Thread

[Josh]

The write-up has become a lost artform on these boards, especially for lynches.

Honestly, we have some really, really good writers running mafia games here from time to time. I know I put a lot of effort into mine when I do them, but off the top of my head I can give you a few people I consider to be great write-up writers: Sousa, C-MIL, thuggy, Split, Zan, Plubby... there's a good few that, when they put an effort into it, can write some really friggin' good updates.

But, that being said: write-ups go person to person. Some game runners LIKE using write-ups to drop hints and red herrings, and to create a story for the game. Others avoid them because they drop hints and red herrings, and let the players instead fend for themselves during the course of the game. Like I said, it all varies by how the game-runner wants their game to go.

I'm definitely of the bare-bones write-up variety, or at least I have been for a while now. In my early EWB games (M:TDG, You Pick), I used fairly lengthy write-ups, but I've since decided there's no real purpose in them. Give the necessary facts and move along.

As for playing games with longer write-ups, I tend to skim them, if that. I mean no disrespect to talented writers, but it just does nothing for me and makes it take that much longer to get the necessary info.

The only exception to this would be Sousa games, as it's no secret that I love his particular brand of humor.

I never read them. I'd prefer people to just forget about them because it takes longer to get the update up.

Also, this.

[Ruki]

Although I enjoy writing the longer updates, I usually skim other peoples

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

I use bare-bones updates because I don't want to give any hints as to what's going on. I've found away to avoid this for West Wing Mafia, but I don't expect anyone other than the TWW fanboys to read those anyhow.

[FireDoughnut]

I use bare-bones updates because I don't want to give any hints as to what's going on. I've found away to avoid this for West Wing Mafia, but I don't expect anyone other than the TWW fanboys to read those anyhow.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

srsly GoGo, you should know by now that I never play a squeaky clean game no matter what

[-A-]

This is not only entirely the wrong thread to be asking this, but entirely the wrong forum - it's just not worth its own thread. I'm thinking up a role for a future game and I've got a quote from some animated comedy in my head. I can't remember whether it's Futurama or Family Guy or anything else and it's making it impossible for me to search for it. It's something like 'Magic Mirror that if you stare at it long enough ... something weird happens.' I don't think it's 'The Scary Door' from Futurama, but I think I might be amalgamating them. The magic mirror bit is more important, does anyone know what hell I'm thinking of?

[oldskool]

A brief summary of the KotH small game I've been working on. If anybody sees loopholes or shenanigans, let me know please & thanks. I'd like this to not blow up like the MCS did >_<

I don't know how long I'll prattle on so I'll spoiler tag it now.

Spoiler: Click here to view

OK so essentially there are 3 'families' of 3 people each, along with a role that isn't connected to anyone else, but counts as "a family" for the sake of the following explanation attempt.

There is no mafia group. In their place are 4 individuals, each with a set goal to eliminate one of the families. They do this in various ways, it's not 4 serial killers vs 11 townies, I assure you.

As a result, there is to be NO roleclaiming, as in some cases the individual is looking for a particular family member and they may be a "dang ol' yo, man" away from finding them on the very first day otherwise.

Due to this chicanery, there is no "town", so to speak; each family has their own win condition of "eliminate the threat against your family, have no more than X families meet their end via their own threats (number varies depending on the family), and survive to the end", while each individual's win condition is "eliminate the family you are targeting". (Extraneous non-family "town" roles win only if all four families escape their individual antagonists.)

As it stands now, an example:

Indy A is lynched. Family A no longer has a threat against it.

Family A remain in game until all their win conditions are met, at which point they abandon "the town" and go to the Winner's Circle. (Should their win conditions become impossible to meet, they are eliminated and go to the Loser's Circle)

At this point they are free to roleclaim or rolepost as they see fit; however, since their victory relies on other families' survival it would be in their best interests to clam up and avoid giving the individuals any clues as to who not to target.

It creates an interesting dynamic; a family member with no remaining threat could easily out himself as such to keep from getting lynched, but by doing so they eliminate their usefulness to the town because the individuals know not to target that particular person.

Or the family member from Threatless Family A could lie about their role and claim to be a member of Family B; then that member of Family B has to decide whether or not the Threatless Family A character who just roleclaimed their role is lying about their roleclaim as a threat-free townie trying to maintain their usefulness to at least one family by having the individual waste a night action targeting them, or if they are an individual trying to cover their ass.

Makes the town think before pressing a lynch, because if you try to lynch a non-indy, that person may remove one of your safeguards against night actions, and every time you lose a safeguard you come that much closer to getting eliminated.

[Josh]

Oof. I'm torn on that, oldskool.

One part of me wants you to just run it and see if it works, as there are some interesting dynamics in there.

Another part loooooves KoTH so much that it will accept nothing less than a major success, and any attempt that contains any potential threat to that is then more than just risky.

Also, part of me thinks that half the fun of a KoTH mafia would be the roleposting possibilities.

Question: What if you still ran a game with such a set-up, but it had no KotH theme - which is instead another game on it's own completely?

[-A-]

How would night periods work? Do the individuals get night-kills or is it lynch-after-lynch like 12AM? If it's the former, won't the game be massively unpredictable with so many kills? If it's the latter, then how are the individuals going to do anything?

I don't really understand the bit about families getting removed and taken to the Winner's Circle. If their win condition is also to ensure that only a limited number of other families get eliminated, then how are they going to win before the game's virtually concluded?

I'm not quite sure how the day period would progress either. How would the town be working out who to lynch? Obviously each family knows their relatives, but what sort of information are they looking for to find the individuals? No-one's going to protect them and they don't have any relationships with any other players. I'm guessing there wouldn't be any investigators, either, is that right? Likewise for the individuals during the day, how are they going to figure out who their targets are? The vast majority of players will be in families, so I guess they'd be looking to try and group people together and then as people die you can start to work out who's Family A and who's Family B, for example. I think that would be a seriously difficult job, though. Normal mafia relies on the idea that there's a smaller group who try to get townies lynched subversively, which the unknowing masses then try to pick up on. In this game, you've got unknowing individuals trying to work out who's related to each other and then on top of that trying to work out which group they've been assigned to.

Makes the town think before pressing a lynch, because if you try to lynch a non-indy, that person may remove one of your safeguards against night actions, and every time you lose a safeguard you come that much closer to getting eliminated.

How does this bit work? I thought you couldn't roleclaim until you're in the Winner's Circle? So if, for example, a random-ish bandwagon against a Family member starts on the first day, they can't do anything to defend themselves.

I really can't get my brain around this at all, maybe we should just try it?

[Plubby]

oldskool, if there's anything I learnt from the original Transformers Mafia, and anything you should have learnt from the MCS, you can have wacky roles until the cows come home, but the game falls to pieces if you fuck with the basic structure.

[oldskool]

Oof. I'm torn on that, oldskool.

One part of me wants you to just run it and see if it works, as there are some interesting dynamics in there.

Another part loooooves KoTH so much that it will accept nothing less than a major success, and any attempt that contains any potential threat to that is then more than just risky.

Also, part of me thinks that half the fun of a KoTH mafia would be the roleposting possibilities.

Question: What if you still ran a game with such a set-up, but it had no KotH theme - which is instead another game on it's own completely?

In order:

- I'm torn too.

- I think I have to see how it works, because I can't really describe it any better without outright saying the roles & goals, and that monkeys with the balance too much.

- I also love the material and hope somebody does it justice in a true game.

- I am also concerned about missing out on the opportunity for roleposting. But then again, after the Day One "im gonna kick ur ass i tell u what" schtick how many roleposts will there be?

And finally:

- I thought about it, but as of now the roles are tied in with the setup. I could pull it out but it would just be generic Family A, Individual B, etc. and the blandness would burn.

How would night periods work? Do the individuals get night-kills or is it lynch-after-lynch like 12AM? If it's the former, won't the game be massively unpredictable with so many kills? If it's the latter, then how are the individuals going to do anything?

Night actions exist, but they aren't all kills. (As of now only 1 of the 4 individuals actually eliminates his targets in the process of achieving his win condition, and he only eliminates them if they're the ones he's supposed to be targeting)

In essence the individuals select their target, and they try to do whatever action they need to do to achieve their win conditions; for example, one character that didn't make the cut had to visit 3 different family houses to steal 3 different items in order to win. Nobody would die because of him, but he still had to find who was who to avoid going to the same house 3 straight times on 3 different players.

I don't really understand the bit about families getting removed and taken to the Winner's Circle. If their win condition is also to ensure that only a limited number of other families get eliminated, then how are they going to win before the game's virtually concluded?

It depends on the family. Some families might require every family to escape their threat to win, some might just require their own success before leaving.

I'm trying to minimize the likelihood of 3 players getting to "win" right off the bat because the very first lynch happened to bandwagon an individual, hence the "Other families must also escape their threat" to win dynamic. That can change, obviously, if a better idea comes up (and I'm hoping it does, as this one is convoluted)

I'm not quite sure how the day period would progress either. How would the town be working out who to lynch? Obviously each family knows their relatives, but what sort of information are they looking for to find the individuals? No-one's going to protect them and they don't have any relationships with any other players. I'm guessing there wouldn't be any investigators, either, is that right? Likewise for the individuals during the day, how are they going to figure out who their targets are? The vast majority of players will be in families, so I guess they'd be looking to try and group people together and then as people die you can start to work out who's Family A and who's Family B, for example. I think that would be a seriously difficult job, though. Normal mafia relies on the idea that there's a smaller group who try to get townies lynched subversively, which the unknowing masses then try to pick up on. In this game, you've got unknowing individuals trying to work out who's related to each other and then on top of that trying to work out which group they've been assigned to.

Yeah I probably should put in some families-can-talk rule It's only a 15 player game and 3 of the 4 families are three-person families; you essentially have a 1 in 5 chance of just randomly picking someone you should be targeting. If you notice three groups of 3 working together, your odds improve to 1 in 3 of picking the right one.

Makes the town think before pressing a lynch, because if you try to lynch a non-indy, that person may remove one of your safeguards against night actions, and every time you lose a safeguard you come that much closer to getting eliminated.

How does this bit work? I thought you couldn't roleclaim until you're in the Winner's Circle? So if, for example, a random-ish bandwagon against a Family member starts on the first day, they can't do anything to defend themselves.

"No roleclaims" is more of a suggestion than a rule. I mean, if you wanted to you could just come out and roleclaim right off the bat, but since the individual's goal is to find you and target you...it wouldn't be a wise move.

And just in the interest of "Some, but not full, disclosure, because the game will seriously fail if the roles & goals leak": by my count, the soonest the game could end, starting on Day 1 with a lynch vote, would be...day 2, jesus, even I didn't realize it could end that fast. It does require perfect usage of 4 night actions and 2 lynches, but beyond that...on the other hand with less luck being involved, the game could "drag" for 5-6 days with virtually nothing happening depending on how the lynches go.

[The Mask of Norro]

Did... did Ace just turn into Ruki in the Movie Monster Mafia game?

Ruki! Ruki, you're free! Someone has finally stepped up to take your place!

[FireDoughnut]

Ways to expand your games after signing them up.

1. Make a Global Mod the extra player.

[R.W.]

With Large games, it not so much of a problem adding one or two roles. Anything more, and I'll have words with people.

It's more the "I signed up to the Small Waiting List with a 15 player game, but now I want to add some roles which would make it a Medium game, thus nicely skipping the longer Medium list" I have a problem with.

[-A-]

RW, can I add 5 roles to Newbie Mafia?

[R.W.]

Do what you like with Newbie Mafia, it's the OVW to my WWE

[Plubby]

It's the minor leagues? Does that mean we can send Ace down to the minors for conditioning!??!

[The Mask of Norro]

Oh for fuck's sake, there was a legitimate reason why I was allowed in. Fact of the matter is I pre-signed, which is allowable, and Ruki forgot. I made my point about it and RW allowed it. Oh yeah, there totally was bias there, my name's in blue and so's his so there must be

I'd wanted into this game ever since Ruki decided to work on it and I reminded him several times to sign me up, he forgot, it was taken care of before any harm was done. Fuck's sake if the guy left the sign-up thread open longer he'd probably have more sign-ups anyway, it wasn't like he was locked into a number he HAD to follow by.

I'm positive (and hoping I'm right in being so) that FD was just fucking around, but honestly if anyone had a problem with me getting in then that's just... well, honestly, that's just stupid.

[-A-]

Come on then, who's going to be Santino to my Jim Cornette?

[R.W.]

I'm sure FD was just messing around Norro, don't worry