Mafia 73: Emergency is NOW!

[Deleted]

Thanks for the game Largehorn. I had fun.

I think the game setup was tilted in favour of town. The double whammy of Danner/Dranx's death pretty much screwed over mafia.

Also: LYNCH GRAEHAM ALWAYS!!!

Seriously my mind is boggled by the amount of people arguing that we keep him alive.

[Kryllian]

Well, thanks for the game Largehorn.

Oh and sorry Kryllian, I honestly thought you were scum.

Thanks for the game Large!

That's ok Dupti. I still love you anyways...really...really...really love you. I hope you like all the presents I left you. The fresh heart that shows my love for you. The message written in my blood. I also took something from your room when I snuck in to remember you always....

[Virothe]

Have you been trying to kill me?

Read the mafia thread, it honestly doesn't matter. I don't want to be a dick towards large and I feel like If I try to post anything in regards to the game it's just going to turn in to a rant.

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Something that didn't work out, and the mafia caught the front end of it...

No. The Concept is fine, having a game based off input time is a great idea. But you added abilities that could alter those times making your own concept pointless.

Not only that but you could have done this as day end based on hammer/timeout instead of when you decided to show up to the thread. You want to make a game about punctuality and then you bastard it by because you can't be bothered. You can try to excuse it but the fact is your late closures forced the day ends end game to run till 3-10am my time and I'm in bed, if you would have shown up the timer would have been about -9 hours from where it was and my actions would have been in within minutes of end not hours.

This game in all it's flawed aspects could actually work, but it needed a lot of refinement before being brought in and your attitude to showing up to close the game days is also shown in the amount of attention you put in to the creation of the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the game Largehorn. I had fun.

I think the game setup was tilted in favour of town. The double whammy of Danner/Dranx's death pretty much screwed over mafia.

Also: LYNCH VIROTHE ALWAYS!!!

Seriously my mind is boggled by the amount of people arguing that we keep him alive.

I fixed this one for you.

[Graeham]

Thanks for running the game Largehorn! At this point I'm probably just going to be echoing what has been said already but...I have to agree that things felt rather skewed in favour of Town. I feel like my role, for example, should have had some sort of perk to allow me to counter some of the abilities floating around. Mafia may have had a rough time but I feel like my chances of winning were even slimmer - especially with how eager people were to lynch me even when I tried to disguise myself as a vigilante.

I felt obliged to play like a vigilante though - we had two players who were away for most of the game due to unforeseen circumstances and there wasn't a whole lot to be done about them. I did have a lot of fun though - and there's no hard feelings. I never jump into a game with the expectation of winning so I'm content knowing that I managed to fool some people and live as long as I did.

[Virothe]

I felt obliged to play like a vigilante though - we had two players who were away

Don't his investigated innocents next time unless it's under 10 players though :P

[Graeham]

Don't his investigated innocents next time unless it's under 10 players though :P

Hey, I was trying to do everybody a favour. ;_;

[Deleted]

I also find it mildly amusing I was targeted by both kills on the same night for separate reasons and yet left alone after that :-P

[Graeham]

I also find it mildly amusing I was targeted by both kills on the same night for separate reasons and yet left alone after that :-P

Eh, I contemplated it but I figured out early on that my days were numbered and I had little to no chance of winning. I do regret my first two kills not going through - I even wrote up special flavour text for Reticence and yourself!

...but then again given how theatrical they were it may have tipped people off to it being me.

[Allowyn]

I loved the premise on this! Shame my internet hates MMO-C I fina,lly fucking get town and I can't play half the gam.e I'm gonna not sign up to one until this is fixed...

Thanks Large!

[Graeham]

I loved the premise on this! Shame my internet hates MMO-C I fina,lly fucking get town and I can't play half the gam.e I'm gonna not sign up to one until this is fixed...

Thanks Large!

You'll probably be scum again next game. Just you wait.

[Anakso]

So me giving reti an upper is what killed him?

[Crackleslap]

I got slightly triggered after Danner lynch our kill failed again, Dranx died and I got a guilty on me. xD

[Danner]

Before I start, I must emphasize one thing. The best team won. Good job.
But I believe this game missed two vital balance points.

--

Not-Issue #1: team sizes.

I'll cheerfully ignore the third party roles for this point - it's roles that doesn't really affect this too much. An SK will naturally try to balance a game (whether they succeed in that is secondary). So let's just look at the mafia team vs everyone else.

A 4 player mafia team wasn't terrible. In fact, I think that could have worked. But I think it is still a tad unbalanced. Not terribly, just a tad.

If this was an 18 player game with 4 goons and 14 non-mafioso VTs, the mafia would need to cause 5 mislynches and kill 5 players in 5 days to win. That's slightly more than the town would need (4 correct lynches to win). So from the premise, the town was at an advantage in this game. Not a big one though, that is a disadvantage that could have been handled with power level in roles. I believe this setup is better than a 5 mafioso setup given the player count.

But, as you can see, game balance in this setup relies on the mafia being able to kill and mislynch. And that's where things get wonky.

--

Issue #1: Confirmables

Second, out of the 12 town roles, very few of them are mislynchable. Almost every one of the town players had some sort night action or mechanic that could be verifiable through another player.
- The cop and doc roles just needed to claim to get a pass.
- The store keeper was confirmable handing out items
- The town drunk could be confirmed due to heckling action
- The first and third shift factory worker roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics
- The old lady and caffeine addict roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics
- The personal trainer and barista roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics

The only roles that was actually lynchable were
- The stalker role. Because mafia watcher is a thing. And that would clearly backfire once the role flipped watcher, and the watcher generally wouldn't claim without a guilty anyway.... meaning it wasn't really lynchable unless pressured to claim prior to that.
- The hopeless romantic role. Because action isn't confirmable (without store keeper luck).
- The 3rd party drug dealer. It had no counterpart, and was lynched for it.
- The mass murderer. Which was also lynched.

So out of a playerbase of 14 non-mafioso, only 4 were actually lynchable after a claim. That makes the mafia's job of causing 5 mislynches almost impossible! With a cop to that mix, and you see where this is literally impossible.

So, basically - had every single player claimed on day 1, the mafia would have lost outright. This is IMO the biggest flaw of the setup. An early mass claim need to be in scum favour. Either hand out fakeclaims that genuinely fit in to any pattern, or cripple the town by revealing that they don't have any protection roles or something. As it was, the non-mafia roles themselves made it too hard for the mafia to blend in. You could have given the mafia every single rolecard in use, and it would still have been a mafia loss.

Also, my personal lack of skills in not having a neon sign above my head saying "scum, lynch me" didn't help, but that's a side issue.

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Issue #2: Lack of kills

The mafia needed to kill 5 non-mafia to win. Clearly this didn't work out, we managed half of that in 6 nights, neither on targets we actually needed to kill. Nothing frustrates the mafia more than losing the night kill several nights in a row, while not knowing why. The last time this happened was in Blood Fox' And then there were none game, where my mafia team managed to kill 1 person in 7 nights or something. Needless to say, that was a game the mafia didn't win. This game has the same feel.

There is nothing wrong with using protective roles. But it does make the town decidedly stronger, and scum team balance must counter that. The doc/lady roles repeatedly saving people also confirms them, it gives the cop more nights to pull investigations, and makes a tight situation a lot harder for the mafia. The scum shouldn't be on a time limit unless they seriously fucked up earlier (possibly, I did). The town should be on the clock, having to catch scum before they die. It should be on their shoulders to carry the game. I think this game failed that. Just too much protection around. Sure, reticence's role caused a lot of that unintentionally, but I strongly feel there was no scum compensation for the strong town protection this game.

Due to the setup, every other kill lost NK is another mislynch the mafia needed to push. That's though!

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Non-issue #2: The gimmick was okay.

So, I don't think I am a fan due to the reasons stated in the signup thread, but I think you got a lot of mileage out of the gimmick of signup time mattering, and you made some really interesting roles around it. As an experiment, I feel it was a success. As a new game mechanic, I am not quite convinced, but that may be because I am a grumpy old bastard.

Either way, I think you put a lot of thought into the possibilities of role mechanic, and you do deserve credits for that. I did enjoy the rolecards. Just not the game. Probably because I was scum, but I can't really hold that against you

[Anakso]

In reference to the gimmick, I enjoyed it. I love games that do something different like that and I think it's great as a one off.

[Marack]

Being only my 2nd game played, but 20+ games watched... the mechanics behind the game could be viable (with a co-mod) to make sure the days ended closer to the time of lynch or timer. Minor balancing issues could be fixed to make the game more viable in the future.

Wishing I didnt give items out to people who died without getting a chance to use them.

[Largehorn]

Thanks for the great feedback (both positive and negative!) everyone.

Second, out of the 12 town roles, very few of them are mislynchable. Almost every one of the town players had some sort night action or mechanic that could be verifiable through another player.
- The cop and doc roles just needed to claim to get a pass.
- The store keeper was confirmable handing out items
- The town drunk could be confirmed due to heckling action
- The first and third shift factory worker roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics
- The old lady and caffeine addict roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics
- The personal trainer and barista roles could confirm each other due to similarity in role mechanics

I think you're right about the protects and much of everything else. These here though, I'm not exactly sure how you would have approached the problem you mention. Can you give me your thoughts on how you would have addressed them?

[Danner]

Thanks for the great feedback (both positive and negative!) everyone.

I think you're right about the protects and much of everything else. These here though, I'm not exactly sure how you would have approached the problem you mention. Can you give me your thoughts on how you would have addressed them?

It is a good question. And let me start off by derailing that question a little.

I feel the game of mafia is best if everyone is a potential suspect. The game of mafia works on distrust. You should never really have anyone to trust. The moment someone is universally trusted, their time is up - they absolutely must die as soon as possible, because they can lead the town to victory. This is the job of the scum in a game of mafia: kill the trusted players. Or seed suspicion on them so that they are no longer trusted (a lot harder). Scum must have a pool of similarly suspicious people to hide amongst, if the number of trusted people outnumber the suspicious people, the game is generally a town win.

Some roles are self-confirming. The most obvious example is the innocent child.
But a cop or doc claim is equally valuable as claims because literally all games have one of them.

The moment someone claims doctor, the scum have two choices:
- Fake-counterclaim, guaranteed sacrifice a valuable member fore a mere chance of eliminating the doctor in question,
- Kill the doctor. This is the more rational choice.
Everyone knows this. That is why a non-countered cop or doctor is generally self-confirmed. I just meant scum weren't comfortable sacrificing someone. And if that doctor claim really is scum play, then that will become apparent sooner or later.

Some roles can also self-confirm through actions. A tracker/watcher claiming player X went to player Y and have player X verify that claim. Masons confirm each other. A heckler confirming a heckled message is self-confirmed. Obviously both could be scum versions of those roles, but it's somewhat unlikely.

And finally, some roles confirm each other due to having similar mechanics, or even wordings on a rolecards. This is why most games run with a "no comparison" rule. It's hard to enforce when it comes down to comparing mechanics.

It takes a lot to push a lynch a semi-confirmed player, even when it is a fairly obvious case. Consider me trying to lynch Kryllian the "doctor" in the last game; didn't really work out.

As a mafia game designer, reducing the number of self-confirmed roles is important.

Example:
I think I failed on this in the MMMM game. Virothe's Constable role and your Doctor role had a similar mechanic (passively reveal rolecard and kill-weapon in the dusk/dawn reports, respectively) . As a consequence, you ended up confirming each other. That probably made the game too easy for the town, and the scum might have lost due to that alone if not for a few unrelated weird-ass things that happened to push the balance back in scum territory. It is something I will strive to avoid in future games.

I think Reticence had the right approach in the D&D game. We made the roles first, and then drew them to scum or town later. Any confirmation made by townies in that game was all down to chance whether they were correct or not. Obviously, that's a solution that doesn't fit all games. If you have a clear idea on what roles a mafia team should have, adding the "third factory worker role" to the scumteam just wouldn't have done anything for the mafia team.

One alternative is fake claims. Give the scum some idea of what a role that does fit into the system, and leave some space in the design for those roles to fit. Sometimes that means removing the doctor role for a scum doctor fakeclaim. In this game, a "second shift factory worker" would have been perfect for a scum fakeclaim. Imagine the fun you could have had watching the first and third factory worker confirm all three as obvious town due to similar roles, leaving the rest of the town chasing a wild goose hunt for that last scum elsewhere. Better, even if the second factory worker flips scum at some point, that doesn't mean the first and third factory workers are off the hook.

Example:
In the MMMM game, I gave the serial killer a fake claim of a Scion. I even gave the fakeclaim an active feedback part, so that it would receive abilities just like any other Scion role (although, the SK couldn't actually use the fakeclaim-given abilities). The SK would have fit into the pattern of anyone trying to compare roles though. That was what I was aiming for in the design.

Similarly, the undercover maid in the same game was indistinguishable from a real maid, and had a real maid rolecard to ensure that player knew what was up.

Another alternative is to poison the well. Play on what players expect, and defy their expectations somehow. You don't necessarily need to play it to the scumteam's advantage, just try to predict what the each player will predict, and defy some of those predictions. The best situation is if players feel they cannot really predict what the game will show them, and must read players based on actions rather than roles.

In the MMM game, I deliberately poisoned the well for anyone trying to look for scum in the servants chat in that game; the game had 3 scum factions, but only two of those scum factions had agents in the servants channel - but it was large enough to fit all three! I was secretly hoping that someone would play that pattern, and methodically lynch one servant at a time in a vain hope of finding that last scum. Sadly, didn't come up as the small mafia hid too well in that game.

The "faction" part of the rolecard was another such poison. I was hoping that someone would predict that the scum were of one faction only - f.ex "family" - and hunt accordingly. Unfortunately, scum of both factions died on N1, sealing that idea for the town players.

I also gave the scum the "help me out doing comparisons" ability in that game to directly counter anyone trying to compare abilities and mechanics, but unfortunately I didn't explain it good enough, so no scum team actually used that lifeline. Oh well. Next time

[Reticence]

The only counter I would state for some of those cross-confirming roles is that some of them could have been scum. Maybe not the factory workers, but I fully expected the casino to have a variant of the barista, which is why I didn't really completely trust Arialla or Krayzy despite being the old lady.

That kinda ties into poisoning the well, though. Giving scum some of those time-modifying abilities would have sown a little more distrust on everyone; making more of those roles committed to speeding up or slowing down (rather than both/either) might have done the same to some extent. A town role that could only slow down a player's actions by a few hours would have looked pretty scummy in the grand scheme of things.

[Largehorn]

I see and I agree. Interesting.

Thanks.

(This game was the first time I was really creating all my own Roles.)