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United States2186 Posts
Caller's game is over and the motions are just being carried out. I do not know when the next game is coming up; BC told me he has some projects to work on before he can host and because he hasn't responded to me for several days I'm assuming he's pretty busy right now. TBH who hosts is not really all that important so long as they agree to work with everyone in figuring out the optimal game setup and don't just go run off and do their own thing. The prospective hosts can decide who does what among themselves etc, although I do heavily encourage as many of the veteran players to play, as we've had several games now with 'stupid towns' due to the low number of vets who were easily killed off at the start.
There have been a total of 6 different mafia games so far, 3 run by Chuiu, one by Ace, one by Bloodyc0bbler, one aborted one by Caller, and one revised one by Caller.
+ Show Spoiler [Previous game links] +
Here's a brief summary of each of them:
+ Show Spoiler [Summaries] +
Mafia 1: Mayor/Pardonner setup (townies get both). Basically town is retarded and when town intelligence level is too low mafia pretty much autowin if normal mafia balance numbers are used. Too many mafia for a low skill level game. Inactives hurt the game considerably and town surrenders quickly after lynching the mayor! Very one sided mafia win.
Mafia 2: Mayor/Pardonner setup (townie gets mayor, saboteur gets pardonner). Long drawn out game because of too many people + too many inactives. Town end up squeaking out a victory despite the mafia pulling off some sweet irc infiltration + finding a list of all known blues posted randomly somewhere due to murdering votelists, strong central organization through the mayor, and some good clue analysis efforts plus the mafia overstacked way too many kills. Close town win.
Mafia 3: No offices. The only game not crippled by inactivity. Ace gets inspected first round as mafia, gets the DT lynched but dies the next day. From here on the mafia just fold under poor strategy + a very overpowered town with good backdoor blue planning (votelists + too much town KP + lucky rolechecks/clue analysis i,e DECAF COFFEE LOL or N for Nemy!). Very one sided town win.
Mafia 4: Mayor/Pardonner (godfather gets mayor, medic gets pardonner). 2 mafia family game. Some irc infiltration (the lame kind of hiding invisibly rather than LTT's cool stunts) gave one family all the other family's roles + a bunch of blues and with good behavior analysis managed to snag virtually every blue with only 1 miss. Game ended prematurely due to role leakage but inactivity was crippling as usual with many blues being inactive. Very mafia sided win.
Mafia 5: No offices. DT gets myself killed day 1. Mafia manage to figure out and kill 10/15 blues by day 3 while the town was successful in killing 4/6 mafia with a combination of good rolechecks and votelists. However, the lack of blues was crippling and this combined with inactivity meant that the town could not win even with a 5/9 and 2/5 votelist.
Mafia 6 (aborted): Town was deemed too overpowered and the game was canceled quickly. Basically, invincible + guaranteed townies are bad news, sorry.
Mafia 6: Owned by inactivity for sure. I'll save the rest for when the game is 'officially' over even though there is no doubt to the outcome anymore.
Broad lessons from previous games:
-Inactives need to be removed killed burned immolated stuck on a pyre or thrown in the ocean. They have seriously affected 5/6 games but Mafia 3 wasn't all that active either.
-Votelists are overpowered unless there are an obscene number of people. For <50 games it is too good even when there is one per DT. For votelists to be used there needs to be some sort of trick roles (godfather, miller) or the insane dt system. With those they could be ok if limited to 1 per DT or if there are all 3 of those in place 2 per DT is acceptable.
-The DT roleclaiming problem day 1 is stupid and dumbs down the game.
-The first 3 days of kills have impacted the games far too much besides mafia 2. In mafia 3 the mafia was doomed when they didn't snag a very large number of blues. In Mafia 4 and 5 the mafia essentially won the game by very accurate targeting of blues in the first 2-3 days.
-Too many new roles per game is VERY BAD.
Here are some questions we should be attempting to answer:
-What elements make the game most fun and how can we incorporate them best? Role uncertainty? Chaos? Insane DTs? Godfathers? Clues? Pure analysis?
-What size of the game can we aim for. While we will ban the outright inactives there are many points on where we can draw the line (i,e the mafia who post one small thing and fake inactivity, the townies who don't do anything ever and are just sheep, etc). So rather than deciding that we should just decide what size of the game we are aiming for. I,e 20, 30, 40 people. 50 is by far the upper limit and I don't think we will get close banning inactives and getting that many people unless all previous actives return.
-How do we deal with the day 1 dt roleclaim 'you mafia' rubbish? Insane DTs? DTs cannot act until day 2? Millers? Balancing DTs is also an important issue. Are votelists (with extreme measures put on them) ok conceptually (i,e do they reward good things or does it just dumb down the game)? Give them infinite rolechecks? Make cluechecks not suck?
-How do we handle the overimportance of the first few days kills? This goes hand in hand with preventing the town from becoming a moronic slum too early on (i,e lose the key thinkers too early and it's gg). The real problem is that if mafia has just one player who is very good at behavior analysis and can figure out the blues just based on posts/votes, the mafia can essentially win the game on this sole factor. But if you bump up the blue numbers to combat this, then a mafia team who lacks those players gets completely screwed (i,e mafia 3). In the first two games this wasn't an issue nor was it in game 6 but in the other 3 I felt that a lot of the game was decided based upon the mafia's success in rooting out blues early, and frankly, it's pretty dumb. Lower KP on both sides?
-Which overall promotes a more fun game: mayor/pardonner or just an equal level game?
Please don't discuss possible new roles outside of the ones I have outlined. People are always overeager to do this and frankly adding new roles rarely benefits the game and can cause major problems -> see rockstar + nra member. It also confuses people and overwhelms them with new stuff -> see Ace's game where many vets were inactive. If you have (one) role that you think is really good you can pm me but I can easily see the thread getting cluttered up with pointless new roles thrown about.
Roles to Work With
DT: Randomization or only usable at night. No votechecks. More input needed here. This is balanced out by the Capo, making trust not an instant factor both privately and publically.
Medic: Same as always. Necessary role.
Vet: 1 extra life. Necessary role if only to make the mafia uncertain if they hit a vet or a medic blocked it.
The Godfather can choose at the beginning to appear as medic, DT, or townie (or vigilante). No conversions.
The Capo is a DT that acts at night but only has limited uses (2 or 3)
Vigilante: Questionable inclusion. Needs to be very limited in power (1 kill only) as it is by far the strongest town role.
I'll throw a bunch of strong suggestions in here so people can find things easier. Hopefully we can gain a good framework pretty easily.
+ Show Spoiler [Good ideas and Base Framework] +
On Hits:
Caller: Another option could be to randomize mafia hits. Give mafia a list of 10 people, then randomly pick 5 people to die out of that list. The RL rationale could be "x person was visiting a relative so we couldn't hit him, go down the list" or something like that. This way we can delay the rapid death of strong players very quickly.
[b]On Blues:[/b[
LTT:An idea that I've been toying with to encourage activity is to dilute every blue role a bit, and then giving everyone a role. These games are fun but they are susceptible to mass roleclaims. To prevent this, make it a closed game like Callers, where the total number of each role is unknown. There could be 3 detectives but 0 veterans. For balance reasons, this game would probably need to be smaller as well.
On DTs:
Incognito: Only let DTs use their powers at night.
RoL: thought I had was make the DTs able to role check day or night, however until Night 2, reds don't show up. Red=green green=green blue=blue until night 2, this can be altered. This encourages people to not use their role checks prematurely, they give less information, while you could find another blue to work with, if you get green it can be mafia or townie. So you have to wait to get the most info out of your role check, then act accordingly. I think that would limit day one role calling in order to establish circles, etc.
LTT: Role Finder - A DT may pm the game master (GM) a role and a positive integer. The GM will respond with a "random" player who has that role. The DT may only choose from townie roles. You may only use this ability X times. If you choose a role that no one has, you will be informed but this ability will still count as being used.
On Cheating:
Don't give information to dead players/observers. Have someone start a blog where all the alive players are banned to give the spectators a place to talk and figure things out on their own.
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-What elements make the game most fun and how can we incorporate them best? Role uncertainty? Chaos? Insane DTs? Godfathers? Clues? Pure analysis?
While role uncertainty seems like a good thing for town since mafia are scared/don't know how many more blues are out there, it's actually BAD for the town since the mafia can claim and since town doesn't know actually amount, can't be like omg, there are three claiming medic when there's only suppose to be 2.
Insane DTs are also detrimental to the town but it does solve the claim on day one problem and would need to be confirmed by checking the color of the lynched on the first day though that means wasting one check
Clues are good but it needs to be stated in the beginning of the game what will count as a clue. In both game 5 and 4 we thought names were clues until we found out later (told by host) that they weren't.
I think the inclusion of the GF is a very good role but we need something on the town's side to balance it out. The conversion/able to hide as a blue is really overpowering.
-How do we handle the overimportance of the first few days kills? This goes hand in hand with preventing the town from becoming a moronic slum too early on (i,e lose the key thinkers too early and it's gg). Lower KP on both sides?
the only way i can think of doing this is for the town to be ACTIVE. by everyone being active, everyone BECOMES important in future games and so there's not one guy singled out (as much)
In real life, the game of mafia is already balanced out. DT, medic, town v mafia. The advantage mafia have is that they know who else is mafia and the town doesn't and there is mistrust. We should work towards keeping this innate balance. If you make a role (GF) that makes it so that there is more distrust in the town, make a role that adds trust to the town.
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The problem is largely the rampant cheating which doesn't happen in IRL mafia, or in small group mafia.
I've had a full list of every role and mafia from around day 3-4 in every game after 2.
People running the games balk at actually responding when cheating is occuring despite conclusive evidence because it means ending the game. If people want inactives not to be an issue, make people's posts count, and limit them. Reading 10-30 pages if you have a life is not conducive to gameplay, and neither are people (besides the mafia, obviously) running the show behind the scenes.
Also, less roles please. The bulk of the town's work is supposed to be done by the green population, not a group of magic blue elves. If that means severely restricting the game's size, so be it.
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On January 15 2009 15:45 Ver wrote:
How do we deal with the day 1 dt roleclaim 'you mafia' rubbish? Insane DTs? DTs cannot act until day 2? Millers? Balancing DTs is also an important issue. Are votelists (with extreme measures put on them) ok conceptually (i,e do they reward good things or does it just dumb down the game)? Give them infinite rolechecks? Make cluechecks not suck?
My idea before mafia 5(or 6) was to change rolechecks to not identify regular mafia members at all (mafia = townie) and give DTs an infinite number of them. Still useful for finding blues, but no more day 1 DT roleclaim bs. I think the votelists are the most exciting part of the game (especially when you're on one with a bunch of mafia), plus it's much easier to analyze clues for a list of 5 or so people than trying to pour through 50+ profiles.
As for veteran players getting picked off by the mafia early, either hand out more medic roles (and no fucking suicide bomber) or perhaps just make the veterans... veterans. Ver, Ace, Camlito, BC, mikey, etc. get an extra life just to discourage the mafia from whacking them all by day 2.
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On January 15 2009 16:24 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2009 15:45 Ver wrote:
How do we deal with the day 1 dt roleclaim 'you mafia' rubbish? Insane DTs? DTs cannot act until day 2? Millers? Balancing DTs is also an important issue. Are votelists (with extreme measures put on them) ok conceptually (i,e do they reward good things or does it just dumb down the game)? Give them infinite rolechecks? Make cluechecks not suck? My idea before mafia 5(or 6) was to change rolechecks to not identify regular mafia members at all (mafia = townie) and give DTs an infinite number of them. Still useful for finding blues, but no more day 1 DT roleclaim bs. I think the votelists are the most exciting part of the game (especially when you're on one with a bunch of mafia), plus it's much easier to analyze clues for a list of 5 or so people than trying to pour through 50+ profiles. As for veteran players getting picked off by the mafia early, either hand out more medic roles (and no fucking suicide bomber) or perhaps just make the veterans... veterans. Ver, Ace, Camlito, BC, mikey, etc. get an extra life just to discourage the mafia from whacking them all by day 2.
I actually agree with the whole votecheck thing. It's not imba in terms of power, mafia just have to play it more safely and spread their votes. Also, it balances out a lot of the power that GD/Suicide bombers/Moles give the mafia
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Ok guys Ver's rundown is pretty well spot on.
If callers game ends, and for some reason they want me as the host I'm up for it but I will lay some stuff down now as I am insanely busy:
1) possible mafia game (this will involve an insane amount of work, where generally I plan to further balance my previous game, getting rid of all inactive players(this requires alot of work to find them all), etc...) To do this well, i will need input of LTT, Ver, Caller and Ace for all either a) playing a role in running a game, or/and being insanely helpful with suggestions. As a group we have to narrow down things and stick to a method
2) I am currently working on a 4 course fine dining menu for valentines day at my job, and have very little time to do it, which is insanely stressful as every one of my ideas has to a) be collaborated with a co worker and b) approved by management
3) In twoish weeks im heading home for a 12 day vacation in which I cannot say id be online much to be help
4) I have a weekly Pony Express segment to keep up on(missed this week sadly to do insane work)
5) Spending a bit of time getting up to speed on my bw game for a Lan
as well as a few more things as well.
These are all things untop of my regular work schedule, workout regime, and household obligations.
Now, as for what the next mafia needs.
More active players
More Balanced blue roles, but not new ones, using ones we all know that are balanced are fine
Non Vague clues
as main points.
We also have to find a new way to work the game. Day 1 is far far too important as of late, the game is dictated by how it swings and momentum follows with it. This usually is a roleclaim by a dt, jack, or asshole VI(me and RoL). So we have to find a way around this. To solve this issue I would like to hear some general early play ideas from people who have played mafia outside of TL.
Next, peoples lack of voting. In my game, more people were actively talking than voting, even knowing how much time they had. This is just plain annoying, you can easily change your vote in the event you have to, but not voting destroys the town.
Inactivity has to be combated, this usually stems from people getting a green role, or wanting to be led by the hand. In callers current game, participation was insanely low, most likely from most of the "core" known players died first day/night. My advice to these players(if its allowed by mods) is to for the purposes of mafia, have alternate names to avoid auto deaths.
As for fighting the inactivity itself, i mentioned above a huge list of people who don't participate have to be banned from the game and if possible a mod would have to ip check each user id(if new) to any of the banned players to avoid sneak around.
I also believe a short break from mafia games would encourage active participation, the span of time between chuiu's first three games was rather large, while the span between the last 4 have been so brief(i was supposed to be hosting again in callers stead but he created 12ish hours after the end of mine).
Regardless before someone can host a new one, serious serious thought has to be done by whoever hosts on balance issues, ways to prevent inactivity, and the like.
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Ver do you have any intention in assisting BC with the next game?
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On January 15 2009 16:33 Kuja900 wrote:
Ver do you have any intention in assisting BC with the next game?
Do you have any intention in playing next mafia game? LOL
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In the traditional face-to-face game of mafia, DTs can usually only use their checks during the night phase (for obvious reasons). Implementing this could eliminate the day 1 DT check problem as no DT would be able to use their role until the night time.
Player cap. Player cap can work two ways. Small mafia games tend to be more intense/involve more players assuming that only traditional and maybe a few extra roles (vigi/godfather) are included. However, inactivity (for those people who sign up only to be mafia) can ruin small games too. A possibility would be mod killing anyone who does not vote. Abstentions are permissible, and this system still allows the mafia to hide/whatnot. The problem could result in a mass mod killing of green townies, so perhaps experimentation with ratios needs to take place. Also a perhaps slightly larger game (40?) might be necessary to compensate for mass mod killing. Long games tend to make people restless, and people can become uninterested quickly if there is either an imbalance. Perhaps hosting more smaller and shorter games could increase activity.
Long games favor the town unless it is inactive. As a solution, reducing kill power might remove some of the swingyness of the first few nights, but ultimately benefits the town. Games I've played usually have a theoretical mafia win in 4-6 days assuming no mafia losses. However, if the game contains many unskilled/newer players, this might be unbalanced to the town.
In smaller games I've played in real life, DTs have infinite rolechecks, however, they are normally only alignment checks, not rolechecks. Vigi hits are also 1/night.
I think chaos in a game could make it fun, but could also make for dry uncertainty that could lead to an imbalance. I think infiltration with a dumbed down mayor/pardonner system + godfathers could make games interesting. A mayor/pardonner system could be fun, however inactivity could result if the mayor is secretive.
Another major cause of inactivity is secret circles. Some system needs to be devised that encourages open posting instead of the 5 person group who knows everything and tells nobody anything. I need to think about this. Conversions are overpowered. If successful, could mean insta-lose for the town. Especially when conversions happen night 3 and on. The town cannot risk sharing too much info because of conversion threats, but at the same time, they can't wait until after night 3 to organize. The mole role could be ok, since it is not a pick-a-knowledgeable person ability.
Although votelists can be overpowered, they are a check on mafia vote swinging, which is good.
I like the meth dealer concept in Caller's game that discourages 1a2a3a. Callers game had 2 though, and that is probably a bit much.
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On January 15 2009 16:20 L wrote:
The problem is largely the rampant cheating which doesn't happen in IRL mafia, or in small group mafia.
I've had a full list of every role and mafia from around day 3-4 in every game after 2.
People running the games balk at actually responding when cheating is occuring despite conclusive evidence because it means ending the game. If people want inactives not to be an issue, make people's posts count, and limit them. Reading 10-30 pages if you have a life is not conducive to gameplay, and neither are people (besides the mafia, obviously) running the show behind the scenes.
Also, less roles please. The bulk of the town's work is supposed to be done by the green population, not a group of magic blue elves. If that means severely restricting the game's size, so be it.
I can say this is a huge thing as well. People leak roles way to quickly. When i hosted mine(not going to say im guiltless as i know my game had leaks as well. I know of people who had the entire blue/red list who were a) dead players or b) random people watching the thread.
IRC infiltration is bloody gay and ruined aces game in the end(well and douchebag folca)
People account swapping to see other peoples roles in callers game.
Not sure how you can combat alot of that without a mod basically running or assisting with the game, and limiting irc channels to premade ones by game host(any brute hacking, or the like done by other side = they forfeit the game).
And L is right, the town should mainly be greens, It sucks being one when the chance of having a role is alot higher. I've been blue once, green 3 times, and a role far worse than green once. Being the blue was lame(ace led town by hand), being green once was amazing as I helped guide town to win, second time I was killed first night, third time game ended way early, and VI role I won with.
Honestly the game should be (if town has 50 players) 8-10 blue roles, 8-10 mafia, rest green townies. Of those blue roles, the KP should not be higher than the mafia, and not completely one side it either. Im guilty of having too many roles in my first game, If you guys want me to do one again, I will aim for a more balanced one.
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Canada7170 Posts
To be honest I don't really care, just as long as something is done about inactives. If another game gets destroyed by inactives, I'm done with mafia. Well, I would like to host. I don't mind DT claims on day 1, it gives town and mafia an idea of the players at hand, and stimulates debate between paths of thinking.
My thinking about inactives is that if you don't vote/abstain, you die. Unless you PM the game creator with a legitimate excuse ahead of time.
As for extra lives, I appreciate the thought, but mafia should be about every player working their role hard no matter what they are given. It is a completely legitimate strategy for mafia members to hit all the presumed active players at once. There are many thinking players who are not given credit publicly- I am typically a behind-the-scenes type player, it just happened that my role got compromised this most recent game.
For DTs, maybe if the DT gets to ask "did more than X mafia vote for PLAYER", and the moderator responds with a yes/no?
EDIT: Oh yeah conversions are really fucking terrible (sorry Caller)
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From past experience:
Mafia have a huge advantage over town when it comes to inactive members. Whereas townies should be posting EVERYDAY, flooding the traffic with as much discussion as they can, they aren't. Mafia can just sit back, post occasionally, and make kills almost unilaterally.
Mafia also tends to kill/silence the most important people first. This is bad as people like Ace/Ver/BC/Plexa/MTF etc etc etc keep dying on the first day. These same people also tend to get investigated by detectives. I think that the insane detective mechanism is good to block the latter, but former needs remedying. I suggest more protection/medic roles, or like I did, "trap" roles like the meth dealer. Keep in mind mafia strategy eventually became 1a2a3a4a5a 
Clues essentially have been useless in every single game. In every game town has won, it has been through rather overpowered listchecks. I tried to get rid of that in my game and to boost the importance of clues through the new veteran/medic/detective system, but apparently either I suck at writing clues or town can't interpret them.
New blood is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to mafia. For instance, Ver was new blood and hella active. At the same time, people with high post counts might either be unhelpful/inactive, or just plain cheating (cough AZ cough).
Another option could be to randomize mafia hits. Give mafia a list of 10 people, then randomly pick 5 people to die out of that list. The RL rationale could be "x person was visiting a relative so we couldn't hit him, go down the list" or something like that. This way we can delay the rapid death of strong players very quickly.
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On January 15 2009 16:40 Incognito wrote:
In the traditional face-to-face game of mafia, DTs can usually only use their checks during the night phase (for obvious reasons). Implementing this could eliminate the day 1 DT check problem as no DT would be able to use their role until the night time.
Player cap. Player cap can work two ways. Small mafia games tend to be more intense/involve more players assuming that only traditional and maybe a few extra roles (vigi/godfather) are included. However, inactivity (for those people who sign up only to be mafia) can ruin small games too. A possibility would be mod killing anyone who does not vote. Abstentions are permissible, and this system still allows the mafia to hide/whatnot. The problem could result in a mass mod killing of green townies, so perhaps experimentation with ratios needs to take place. Also a perhaps slightly larger game (40?) might be necessary to compensate for mass mod killing. Long games tend to make people restless, and people can become uninterested quickly if there is either an imbalance. Perhaps hosting more smaller and shorter games could increase activity.
Long games favor the town unless it is inactive. As a solution, reducing kill power might remove some of the swingyness of the first few nights, but ultimately benefits the town. Games I've played usually have a theoretical mafia win in 4-6 days assuming no mafia losses. However, if the game contains many unskilled/newer players, this might be unbalanced to the town.
In smaller games I've played in real life, DTs have infinite rolechecks, however, they are normally only alignment checks, not rolechecks. Vigi hits are also 1/night.
I think chaos in a game could make it fun, but could also make for dry uncertainty that could lead to an imbalance. I think infiltration with a dumbed down mayor/pardonner system + godfathers could make games interesting. A mayor/pardonner system could be fun, however inactivity could result if the mayor is secretive.
Another major cause of inactivity is secret circles. Some system needs to be devised that encourages open posting instead of the 5 person group who knows everything and tells nobody anything. I need to think about this. Conversions are overpowered. If successful, could mean insta-lose for the town. Especially when conversions happen night 3 and on. The town cannot risk sharing too much info because of conversion threats, but at the same time, they can't wait until after night 3 to organize. The mole role could be ok, since it is not a pick-a-knowledgeable person ability.
Although votelists can be overpowered, they are a check on mafia vote swinging, which is good.
I like the meth dealer concept in Caller's game that discourages 1a2a3a. Callers game had 2 though, and that is probably a bit much.
what makes you so sure there are 2? O.O
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Also perhaps have no clues. Clues could be biased both by interpretation and by the mod making clues that are inconsistent in difficulty. RL mafia games I've played have the killing just as a story, which contains no clues. Its just a story. This could make for more behavior/statistical analysis. Seriously, what's the percentage of times when the town actually makes a correct lynch based on clues?
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On January 15 2009 16:41 mikeymoo wrote:
To be honest I don't really care, just as long as something is done about inactives. If another game gets destroyed by inactives, I'm done with mafia. Well, I would like to host. I don't mind DT claims on day 1, it gives town and mafia an idea of the players at hand, and stimulates debate between paths of thinking.
My thinking about inactives is that if you don't vote/abstain, you die. Unless you PM the game creator with a legitimate excuse ahead of time.
As for extra lives, I appreciate the thought, but mafia should be about every player working their role hard no matter what they are given. It is a completely legitimate strategy for mafia members to hit all the presumed active players at once. There are many thinking players who are not given credit publicly- I am typically a behind-the-scenes type player, it just happened that my role got compromised this most recent game.
For DTs, maybe if the DT gets to ask "did more than X mafia vote for PLAYER", and the moderator responds with a yes/no?
EDIT: Oh yeah conversions are really fucking terrible (sorry Caller)
yeah they are pretty opp -_-
oh well can't say i didn't try
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On January 15 2009 16:50 Caller wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2009 16:40 Incognito wrote:
In the traditional face-to-face game of mafia, DTs can usually only use their checks during the night phase (for obvious reasons). Implementing this could eliminate the day 1 DT check problem as no DT would be able to use their role until the night time.
Player cap. Player cap can work two ways. Small mafia games tend to be more intense/involve more players assuming that only traditional and maybe a few extra roles (vigi/godfather) are included. However, inactivity (for those people who sign up only to be mafia) can ruin small games too. A possibility would be mod killing anyone who does not vote. Abstentions are permissible, and this system still allows the mafia to hide/whatnot. The problem could result in a mass mod killing of green townies, so perhaps experimentation with ratios needs to take place. Also a perhaps slightly larger game (40?) might be necessary to compensate for mass mod killing. Long games tend to make people restless, and people can become uninterested quickly if there is either an imbalance. Perhaps hosting more smaller and shorter games could increase activity.
Long games favor the town unless it is inactive. As a solution, reducing kill power might remove some of the swingyness of the first few nights, but ultimately benefits the town. Games I've played usually have a theoretical mafia win in 4-6 days assuming no mafia losses. However, if the game contains many unskilled/newer players, this might be unbalanced to the town.
In smaller games I've played in real life, DTs have infinite rolechecks, however, they are normally only alignment checks, not rolechecks. Vigi hits are also 1/night.
I think chaos in a game could make it fun, but could also make for dry uncertainty that could lead to an imbalance. I think infiltration with a dumbed down mayor/pardonner system + godfathers could make games interesting. A mayor/pardonner system could be fun, however inactivity could result if the mayor is secretive.
Another major cause of inactivity is secret circles. Some system needs to be devised that encourages open posting instead of the 5 person group who knows everything and tells nobody anything. I need to think about this. Conversions are overpowered. If successful, could mean insta-lose for the town. Especially when conversions happen night 3 and on. The town cannot risk sharing too much info because of conversion threats, but at the same time, they can't wait until after night 3 to organize. The mole role could be ok, since it is not a pick-a-knowledgeable person ability.
Although votelists can be overpowered, they are a check on mafia vote swinging, which is good.
I like the meth dealer concept in Caller's game that discourages 1a2a3a. Callers game had 2 though, and that is probably a bit much. what makes you so sure there are 2? O.O
Maybe because two have already died?
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An idea that I've been toying with to encourage activity is to dilute every blue role a bit, and then giving everyone a role. These games are fun but they are susceptible to mass roleclaims. To prevent this, make it a closed game like Callers, where the total number of each role is unknown. There could be 3 detectives but 0 veterans. For balance reasons, this game would probably need to be smaller as well.
Detectives are important in any game to start organization of the town. Unfortunately, blind rolechecks make the game unfair to any big name player who happens to be a mafia member. To combat this, I propose the following:
Role Finder - A DT may pm the game master (GM) a role and a positive integer. The GM will respond with a "random" player who has that role. The DT may only choose from townie roles. You may only use this ability X times. If you choose a role that no one has, you will be informed but this ability will still count as being used.
Note: For "random", an algorithm will be used. The algorithm will be given after the game to ensure that the GM didn't influence the game by choosing whatever he/she wished, but it is complicated enough that players will not be able to figure it out and influence the outcome. I've got a few ideas in mind that I can give to the GM to use for this.
This ability dilutes the ability for DTs to randomly find mafia, but doesn't stop them from organizing early. Give them Clue Checks and Vote checks to help find mafia and to force the mafia to be smart about their voting.
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On January 15 2009 16:53 Incognito wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2009 16:50 Caller wrote:On January 15 2009 16:40 Incognito wrote:
In the traditional face-to-face game of mafia, DTs can usually only use their checks during the night phase (for obvious reasons). Implementing this could eliminate the day 1 DT check problem as no DT would be able to use their role until the night time.
Player cap. Player cap can work two ways. Small mafia games tend to be more intense/involve more players assuming that only traditional and maybe a few extra roles (vigi/godfather) are included. However, inactivity (for those people who sign up only to be mafia) can ruin small games too. A possibility would be mod killing anyone who does not vote. Abstentions are permissible, and this system still allows the mafia to hide/whatnot. The problem could result in a mass mod killing of green townies, so perhaps experimentation with ratios needs to take place. Also a perhaps slightly larger game (40?) might be necessary to compensate for mass mod killing. Long games tend to make people restless, and people can become uninterested quickly if there is either an imbalance. Perhaps hosting more smaller and shorter games could increase activity.
Long games favor the town unless it is inactive. As a solution, reducing kill power might remove some of the swingyness of the first few nights, but ultimately benefits the town. Games I've played usually have a theoretical mafia win in 4-6 days assuming no mafia losses. However, if the game contains many unskilled/newer players, this might be unbalanced to the town.
In smaller games I've played in real life, DTs have infinite rolechecks, however, they are normally only alignment checks, not rolechecks. Vigi hits are also 1/night.
I think chaos in a game could make it fun, but could also make for dry uncertainty that could lead to an imbalance. I think infiltration with a dumbed down mayor/pardonner system + godfathers could make games interesting. A mayor/pardonner system could be fun, however inactivity could result if the mayor is secretive.
Another major cause of inactivity is secret circles. Some system needs to be devised that encourages open posting instead of the 5 person group who knows everything and tells nobody anything. I need to think about this. Conversions are overpowered. If successful, could mean insta-lose for the town. Especially when conversions happen night 3 and on. The town cannot risk sharing too much info because of conversion threats, but at the same time, they can't wait until after night 3 to organize. The mole role could be ok, since it is not a pick-a-knowledgeable person ability.
Although votelists can be overpowered, they are a check on mafia vote swinging, which is good.
I like the meth dealer concept in Caller's game that discourages 1a2a3a. Callers game had 2 though, and that is probably a bit much. what makes you so sure there are 2? O.O Maybe because two have already died?
could be more ^_^
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Caller, looking at the detail people have taken into interpreting clues, the town overall is horrible at it.
Game 2 had plexa, cam, mtf and ace,
game 3 had me, nightmare, mikey, mynock and possibly one other? In that game however nightmare mainly just vigi'd who we told him to, and mikey used his powers to investigate/kill.
game 4 uncertain as i died first night
game 5 was mine and town was mollested by retarded town(the few people who could analyze clues were totally ignored the whole way through as most of the mafia had been analyzed but the analysis ignored)
and callers current game the town is jsut terrible at it, as all the main analyzers are a) dead or b) not playing.
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On January 15 2009 16:56 LTT wrote:
An idea that I've been toying with to encourage activity is to dilute every blue role a bit, and then giving everyone a role. These games are fun but they are susceptible to mass roleclaims. To prevent this, make it a closed game like Callers, where the total number of each role is unknown. There could be 3 detectives but 0 veterans. For balance reasons, this game would probably need to be smaller as well.
Detectives are important in any game to start organization of the town. Unfortunately, blind rolechecks make the game unfair to any big name player who happens to be a mafia member. To combat this, I propose the following:
Role Finder - A DT may pm the game master (GM) a role and a positive integer. The GM will respond with a "random" player who has that role. The DT may only choose from townie roles. You may only use this ability X times. If you choose a role that no one has, you will be informed but this ability will still count as being used.
Note: For "random", an algorithm will be used. The algorithm will be given after the game to ensure that the GM didn't influence the game by choosing whatever he/she wished, but it is complicated enough that players will not be able to figure it out and influence the outcome. I've got a few ideas in mind that I can give to the GM to use for this.
This ability dilutes the ability for DTs to randomly find mafia, but doesn't stop them from organizing early. Give them Clue Checks and Vote checks to help find mafia and to force the mafia to be smart about their voting.
Like i said, random amount of blues is actually BAD for the town. and if everyone has a role, it's the same as everyone being green but they get to feel special about themselves. if everyone is special, that just means no one is.
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EPT
