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[Leafsnail]

This thread is for:
- Discussing proposed open setups and individual roles/mechanics
- Finding people to privately review closed/bastard setups

Spoiler: Setup Definitions (click to show/hide)

Open Setup
In an open setup the exact list of roles that appear in the game is fixed and revealed by the moderator.  A closely related gametype is the variable open setup - in this the role list is chosen from a set of publically stated possible role lists.

Open setups should be scrutinized thoroughly before they are run - the fact that every role is known means that breaking strategies can emerge.  However, if an Open Setup is balanced then it can be played any number of times.

Open setups run on Bay 12 include Mafia and Masons and Hackers (Mafia and Masons) and Beginner Sprint (Bird 7P).  Variable open setups run on Bay 12 include the both the new (2of3) and old (modified C9) beginner setup.

A list of already reviewed open setups is available on this page: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Category:Open_Setups

Semi-Open Setup
In a semi-open setup the moderator reveals all the possible roles but does not say how many of each will be in the game.

The possible roles in a semi-open setup can be examined in this thread.  A moderator may also want to ask for someone to privately review their actual setup for balance, though.

Semi-open setups run on Bay 12 include Paranormal Mafia and Roguelike Mafia.

Closed Setup
In a closed setup the moderator keeps the possible roles and role list secret.  The setup must adhere to a certain standard of sanity - for more discussion as to where the line is drawn see Bastard Setup below.

A moderator can put some restrictions on their closed setup.  For instance, they can state all the possible alignments in the game or say that their setup will adhere to normalcy standards.  If you aren't sure whether your closed setup is balanced you can ask for someone to privately review it in this thread.

Closed setups run on Bay 12 include BYOR setups and Toon Mafia.

Bastard Setup
A bastard setup is much like a closed setup, but with additional oddities.  The moderator should warn that a game is using a bastard setup in the signups thread.  The exact requirements for something to be a bastard setup aren't clearly defined, but common features that make something a bastard setup are:
- Lying to players about their role/alignment
- Puzzles that have to be solved
- Hints hidden in flavour text
- Extremely unusual mechanics/roles
- The possibility of everyone winning

A related gametype is the semi-bastard setup.  The exact definitions of "semi-bastard" is variable and the moderator should state what they mean by it, but usually it means the moderator will not lie to players about their own roles and that the game can be won simply by lynching scum.

Note that one thing a bastard setup shouldn't be is unbalanced.  All players should still have a reasonable chance to win.  For this reason it can be worth getting another player to review and vouch for your setup.

Examples:
- Kill Webadict Now: Full-bastard.  The scum was stated to be a particular player, but they had a lot of weird abilities.  It was also possible for everyone to win.

- Bellsounder Mafia: Full-bastard.  Townies were not informed of their win condition, the scum's win condition was non-standard and a puzzle had to be solved for the town to win.

- Mein Kampf: A Tale of Vainglourious Basterds: Full-bastard.  Flavour hints and an unquestionably bastard twist.

- The Lonely Prince: Semi-bastard.  Could still be played as a normal game of mafia, but had flavour hints pointing to a puzzle.

Some tips for setup design:
- If you're making an open setup, try and imagine what would happen if everyone agreed to claim their role on day one.  Can the cop stay alive and clear everyone?  Are there so many unique roles that the mafia can't blend in?  Remember that an uncontested claim in an open setup is usually a confirmed townie.
- Unless your setup is very strange a significant majority of players should be town.  Having an abundance of neutral third parties makes it very hard for town to win, and can also make the daygame sluggish.
- Try not to have the balance of your setup rest too heavily on individual players.  Ask yourself what would happen if certain roles died on the first day or night - does the setup fall apart?
- Be wary of including methods of changing win conditions outside of bastard games.  Players often don't like it because it means all the work they did up to that point was useless.

Old thread: [DISCUSSION] Mafia Gametypes: Hash 'em out here!

Discord Server with Game Design channel: Meph's Mafia Discord

[Leafsnail]

(from the previous thread)

Quantum Mafia!

The Meta-Scenario:

Even as you read this, in an infinite number of parallel worlds, an infinite number of players are reading a thread more or less like this one. In each of those worlds, the players will be playing a very simple Mafia game. Their rules will be as follows:

Players are either Town or Corrupt; there are no Independents.
The Townies win when they have lynched all the Corrupt.
The Corrupt win when they are equal or superior in number to the Townies.
Players, whether Town or Corrupt, do *not* have to survive to win. Townies, living or dead, win when the Town wins. The Corrupt, living or dead, win when the Corrupt win.
Days last 24 hours, and begin at 20:00 server.
Every day, all living players must vote to lynch one of their number. Voting is mandatory. If a player has not voted by the end of the day, he is deemed to have voted for himself.
The player with the most votes will be lynched. A majority is not necessary. The dice will decide any ties.
Nights last 24 hours, and begin at 20:00 server. Players may not post to the thread at night.
Every night, the Godfather must send that night's kill target to the GM.
If the Godfather is lynched, another one of the Corrupt becomes the Godfather.
The Corrupt may not kill one of their own.
Every night, all potential Investigators must send their night's Investigation targets to the GM.
There are no powers other than alignment Investigators. However, all Townies believe themselves to be alignment Investigators until one of their conclusions is proven wrong (think *Clue*). One of the Townies is actually an alignment Investigator whose conclusions are always correct.
All the other Townies receive random results each night until one of their random results is proven wrong.
A dead player may make a single death post to the thread. He or she may not otherwise communicate with other players.

As metaplayers in the Quantum Mafia metagame, an abstraction of all of those hundreds of games, you will follow all the rules of those basic games, except that you may post to our metathread whenever you like.


Game Mechanics:

Before the start of each Day, each Metaplayer is PM'D his/her current Corrupt/Town percentage.

At the start of the game, all Metaplayers will have the same chance of being Town or of being Corrupt, and all Metaplayers will believe themselves to be Investigators.  Although this game is being played in hundreds of parallel worlds, we will assume that each player makes the same choice of lynch vote, and, if applicable, the same choice of night kill or Investigation target, in each of those hundreds of worlds. So you only need to send me one lynch vote each day and, if applicable, one night-kill vote or Investigation target per night.
 
Night kills only take effect when the Godfather is lynched. All players killed by the Godfather immediately become 100% dead and out of the game, and they stand revealed at that time as 100% Town, since the Corrupt cannot kill their own.  Whenever a Metaplayer is determined to be Corrupt, he or she *will* prove to be the Godfather.  (The uncertainty about that is only a feature of the basic game, not the Metagame.)

Lynchings take effect at once. A player who has been lynched is 100% dead and out of the game.

If the true Investigator is killed, then he or she is revealed in death as the true Investigator and all of his or her conclusions become true.  There is only One True Investigator; once he/she is dead, that's it for Investigation.

Quantum ghosts (players actually night-killed earlier, but not yet known to be dead) may behave as though they were alive until they are determined to be 100% dead. (What, you've never heard of entire graveyards voting?)

I like the meta-players interpretation, that makes the game a lot clearer.  A few points:
- The mafia should probably have specified ranks so it's clear what the hierarchy is.  Like how you have an Alpha/Beta/Gamma werewolf.
- Just to be clear, the first player proved to be corrupt in the meta-game definitely becomes the godfather, even if there's still a chance of him not being one?  That seems a bit odd to me.
- As far as I can tell, you're not resolving deaths retroactively.  That is, when someone becomes confirmed to be 100% dead, they die now rather than at the point they would have died.  Is that correct?  IIRC there are some paradoxes that can arise from this.

[makeinu]

I've actually seen this game setup run twice. It reads more complicated than it plays. It's based, loosely, on the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment.

I like the meta-players interpretation, that makes the game a lot clearer.  A few points:
- The mafia should probably have specified ranks so it's clear what the hierarchy is.  Like how you have an Alpha/Beta/Gamma werewolf.

Since the mafia isn't predetermined, that's not really viable. I'll explain.

- Just to be clear, the first player proved to be corrupt in the meta-game definitely becomes the godfather, even if there's still a chance of him not being one?  That seems a bit odd to me.

No. As each player is lynched, a check is made against their Corrupt/Town percentage. For example, Lynchee McScumington has a Corrupt/Town ratio of 45/55, meaning that in 45% of existing world-lines, he's Corrupt. He gets lynched, and the mod rolls d100 against him. Any roll 1-45 collapses the meta-worlds down only to those where he is Corrupt; any in which he's Town are non-viable and eliminated. At that point, he's the Godfather in those world-lines, and any kill he ordered previously takes immediate effect.

Those players that he'd ordered killed on previous nights have been playing as quantum ghosts, alive in some worlds, dead in others. Once their killer rolls as Corrupt, any in which they were alive spontaneously cease to exist at that moment. Schrödinger's Box has been opened, and the cat is now no longer stateless; the observation collapses the quantum waveform to a known. And anyone that ordered him night killed that are still alive in the meta-game resolve as Corrupt Town[EDIT], since scum don't night-kill their own, further collapsing the quantum state.

Once that case is resolved, the game progresses on a reduced world-line quantum state, and the Godfather, now dead, must be replaced. His replacement resolves the next time a lynch is determined by the dice to come up Corrupt.

Conversely, let's say the mod rolls 46-100 for Lynchee up there. That's Town for him, so all the world-lines in which he's Corrupt cease to exist in the meta-game. Anyone he night-killed stays alive, but isn't confirmed as anything; those meta-worlds stay in play.

Eventually, the game resolves down to one state. At that point, and only at that point, are all living players 100% Corrupt or Town, and it finishes as a vanilla mafia game.

There's a large element of luck to it, but player actions can influence strongly which direction their trend goes until the whole quantum state collapses.

[makeinu]

Double post, thank you 504.

[Mephansteras]

Thread is now sticky.

[zombie urist]

Dangan Ronpa mafia 3rd draft. Previous ideas here.

Concerns from the previous draft

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are too many problems with the murder mystery aspect, which include having to write a scenario for every possible killer/victim/place combo, even writing a few general templates is very difficult. Having the mod and murderer collaborate would take way too much time and interrupt the flow of the game. Having pre-written scenes wouldn't really be fair to the murderer like many people suggested earlier in the previous thread. So I'm giving up on that part of the game.

However I still want to keep the general investigative roleplaying theme so here's my new idea.

Concept:
A player wins if they successfully kill another player and gets away with it. Players find coins through roleplaying to purchase skills. These skills include kills, which if done properly will allow one to win or tracks/blocks/cops which supplement scumhunting to foil these culprits.

Background story:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A group of super talented high school students prepare to enter the prestigious Hope's peak academy. Upon doing so they pass out and find themselves trapped within the school walls. A mysterious puppet tells them the only way to "graduate" and leave is to kill  another and get away with it.

Gameplay:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There will be a set number of "search" phases. During search phase day time players may freely talk amongst themselves. At search phase night they will submit an action to "search" an area for coins. These coins can be traded in for skills which can be used the next day. Once a kill is committed the game enters the "trial" phase. Players try to determine the culprit using the results from their skills and select a person to lynch. If the culprit is lynched, the game goes back to the search phases. Otherwise the culprit wins.

Details:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The costs for skills and such have yet to be determined.  I'll make another post when that time comes.

Coins will be approximately equally distributed amongst the school rooms. If multiple people search the same area at the same time they will share the coins there. If a person searches an area after someone else its likely there will be very few coins left.

If too many search phases pass without a kill, everyone who has already performed a kill will win. This is to promote action and keep the game from a standstill.

[Elephant Parade]

I just had an entertaining idea for a Bastard Mafia. I have no experience running games (and very little playing them), however.

Would it be possible for me to run it?

Edit: This might belong in the Games Threshold thread.

[Mephansteras]

I really wouldn't suggest a Bastard game for your first run. They can be tricky to do properly and usually require some extra work. Best to get the logistics of running a game down properly before you try one.

Once you do run the Bastard, I also recommend working with someone experienced with set-ups to make sure your idea is sound and to get the details balanced.

[Elephant Parade]

I really wouldn't suggest a Bastard game for your first run. They can be tricky to do properly and usually require some extra work. Best to get the logistics of running a game down properly before you try one.

Once you do run the Bastard, I also recommend working with someone experienced with set-ups to make sure your idea is sound and to get the details balanced.

Ah. This one probably wouldn't require too much work, but I still need to figure out a few things.

As for the idea being sound, could I PM you the details?

[mastahcheese]

I also had an idea for a bastard Mafia game, who should I PM the concept to?
I don't think I'd be able to run it, even if I did have the experience.

[Mephansteras]

Sure, you guys can send me your ideas to review.

Note that I have the Flu right now, so it might be a few days before I have the brain cells available to review it, though.

[webadict]

You can always send me gane stuff too. I might take a day or three to get back to you, but I'm good at breaking games.

[makeinu]

Would anyone be interested in seeing the Quantum Mafia proposed above run here? I've got a window of time available to do so.

[zombie urist]

Reindeer Mafia

Premise: An elf has heard some of Santa's reindeer are planning an rebellion! The loyal reindeer must weed out the traitors and save Christmas!

Setup: 1 person will be Rudolph, others will be the remaining 8 reindeer. Everyone will know everyone's names

There is a 50% chance Rudolph is scum. If he is scum and is lynched, town will immediately win. If he isn't scum and is lynched, town will immediately lose. There will be another mafia randomly selected from the other 8.

[mastahcheese]

Reindeer Mafia

I approve of this idea.