On October 31 2012 03:30 sylverfyre wrote:When I run games IRL, I like the latest "newbie game setup" that they use at mafiascum.net. Before they had this, I used to run a variation on this without the jailkeeper (didn't realize how newbie-game-friendly of a role jailkeeper was before)
The mafia roles are fixed, the town roles are "Pick 2 randomly out of these four possibilities: Cop, Doctor, Jailkeeper, Villager"
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=2of4Hand out roles with a deck of cards:
Example:
2-10 of diamonds = Vanilla townieJ of Hearts = Jailkeeper
Q of Hearts = Doctor
K of Hearts = CopK of Spades = Mafia Role-Cop
2-10 of Spades = Mafia GoonPass out cards face down at the beginning of the game, it is helpful to have posted up somewhere what all the roles are. Have everyone spend at least 20 seconds confirming what role they are and what they do (EVERYONE)
If you're extra nerdy like me (My irl friends and I are all gamers of the non-computer variety), you have made your own set of mafia "cards" for this, using CCG opaque-backed sleeves which explain the role, but you can just have a few cheat sheets to pass around or a whiteboard to write them up where everyone can see them.
I pass the cards out and have everyone stare intently at their cards for an excessive period (15 seconds or so) of time before they place them face down. (It's mildly important for people to look intently, so that people with power roles can confirm themselves and you don't give people power-role reads based on "well you took longer than 1 second to look at your card")
During the day, voting is done by clearly pointing (and remaining that way) at a person. Everyone must vote by the time limit (make sure you give them warnings that the time limit is approaching.) they cannot vote for themselves, but they can vote no lynch by crossing their arms. A tied vote goes to the player who had the final vote cast against them earlier. It helps if you announce counts of the high vote targets whenever you remind people about the time limit.
Night modding is where the real mod work is:
Remember that IRL, meta-information like "I heard/felt him move when you were calling for mafia to open their eyes" is very real. Do your best to minimize the opportunity for it (don't crowd people too close together), but acknowledge that it will be part of the game.
Step 0 - decide to face a SINGLE direction at night. Don't look at whoever is raising their head.
Pregame (Night) 0 - Have everyone close their eyes and bow their head. (covering ones eyes with hands can be too much movement)
- Call for mafia to open their eyes to see their team, give them some time to communicate with nodding/looking at people, then have them go back to sleep.
- no night actions, nothing else to do night 0 (I do day start every game.)
For night actions, it is generally better to avoid making people point with their hands (re: movement information) and instead indicating with their eyes (and you confirming silently)
Night 1 - First, call the jailkeeper (whether or not it exists this game) to jail someone (since it's a roleblock, it needs to happen first). If the person who he blocks tries to take an action, you will give them an X symbol (with a card or your hands) to indicate they have been roleblocked.
Then call the other roles in a predetermined order, have them perform their action, and have them put their heads back down.
Cop - gets a yes (nod) for scum and a no (shake head) for townie.
Doctor - simply confirm their target.
Mafia night actions - call the mafia to look up, have them agree on a kill (they can again communicate by nodding/glancing.) and after you confirm the kill target, then ask the Mafia rolecop to pick a target for investigation.
Mafia - confirm kill target
Mafia cop - flash a card to indicate role of the target - 2 of diamonds, jack, queen, or king for the appropriate power roles.
I like the 2 of 4 gametype because I'm not a huge fan of fully open (all roles known) setups, but its a compact setup which is easy to randomly choose just by shuffling 4 cards together and picking two. It works well with the number of people I get to join my games (I have a hard time getting more than 10 players, but if I do get 12-13 players I do a similar setup with 3 mafia and 3-of-5 blue power roles, adding in a witch (1 potion of life, 1 potion of death - 1/game doctor + 1/game vigilante) to the possible town-favored roles. I pretty much just don't like getting 11 players.
EPT
