Hi Everyone!
This is my first post on the forum. I haven't played Mafia but I love game rules and as I went through the wiki a few ideas popped into my head. I will share them here if that's okay and if they are rubbish ideas that would break the game then you can tell me and I will have learned something extra about the game.
Taking influence from Secret Hitler, I think it would be interesting to try having both public and secret roles. I call the public roles "professions" because… well they're all professions! Another (now necessary) twist is that any player
regardless of profession can be mafia/town/other aligned. Secret roles are held in addition to professions. Players may have multiple secret roles but only one profession. Ideally I'd like every player to have a unique profession, that way the utility of each player factors into the decision of who to lynch.
Only one night action per player per night is permitted, so many players will have to decide which of their actions to use.
Since we now know the professions of everyone there can be discussions about what each player should do next and players have the option to publicly announce their intentions (which could be lies).
I had to make some adjustments to the way the professions work to avoid giving away people's factions, for example, if the cop declares a player to be mafia and that player is later (after being lynched) found out to be a townie, the rest of the town would know the cop lied and is therefore mafia.
I will now go on to explain the details of each profession and secret role:
(PS I am trying to design all rules without using any random numbers)
PROFESSIONS
CopThe cop chooses two players to investigate during the night. The GM does not reveal their factions directly to the cop, he simply tells the cop how many mafia and/or towny were amongst those investigated along with an additional mafia/towny result depending on the type of operation the cop chose to conduct.
The cop can choose to either conduct a surveillance operation or a sting operation. The purpose of this choice is to make it harder to produce definitive answers from investigations. The difference between the two types of operation is that surveillance will only give a definitive answer if both players under investigation are townies; while a sting operation will only give a definitive answer if both are mafia. Now the cop has some
real detective work to do!
The following truth table shows how this works, with the first two characters being the factions (M=mafia or T=towny) of the two players under investigation (in no particular order) while the third character depends on the type of operation conducted (surveillance or sting, respectively) shown in square brackets:
TT[T|M]
MT[M|T]
MM[T|M]
For example, the cop might start off by surveilling players A and B. The result he gets back from the GM is, "2M T". After consulting the truth table, the cop realises that at least one of A and B must be mafia. He thinks both might be mafia, so decides to run a sting operation on them: the result comes back, "2M T", again. Damn! He has learned that one is a towny and the other is mafia, but he still doesn't know which is which. He moves on to surveil players C and D, this time the result is, "3T". Yes! They are both townies. Now if he surveils either C or D along with either A or B he can deduce which one of A or B is the mafioso! Unfortunately, our cop is killed the following night.
DoctorThe doctor chooses a player to protect but he also chooses a medical kit to equip. Each medical kit prevents different murder methods, the doctor must be lucky enough to choose the right kit or the patient will die.
We can decide how many murder methods we want in the game to alter the success rate of doctors. Each medical kit will cover a number of murder methods but never all of them, so there is always a chance of failure and patient death. Therefore, the maximum chance of success we can give a doctor is (n-1)/n, where n is the number of murder methods permitted.
So if we have 3 murder methods, we can give our doctor a choice of 3 medical kits that each treat 2 types of murder method, giving the doctor a 2/3 chance of successfully picking the right kit. If we have 4 murder methods, the doctor can have 4 kits treating 3 methods each, and his chance of success is 3/4. And so on.
Additionally, we could introduce lower-skilled medical roles with medical kits that treat fewer types of murder methods than the doctor.
The doctor's action is
not a roleblock.
The doctor must have the right medical kit for
all murder methods inflicted on his patient in order to prevent their death.
BartenderCan intoxicate a player, roleblocking them.
If the same player is blocked by the bartender three times they die of alcohol poisoning.
CookCan cook a hearty meal for another player, allowing them to negate one roleblock placed on them during the night.
Alternatively, the cook can give food poisoning to another player, roleblocking them.
PriestCan take confession from any player by asking the GM what action they took (if any); the GM reveals this to the priest the next morning. This is only a confession of the type of action taken, no other information such as the target or method is given.
If the priest is roleblocked, the targeted player will not give confession.
ReporterEvery morning, the GM will reveal to the reporter the targets and murder methods involved in any attempted and/or successful murders the previous night. (The reporter can of course give false reports about attempts and murder methods but cannot lie about who has been killed since the GM will still be announcing the deaths to the group.)
This is a passive trait and cannot be blocked.
SECRET ROLES
MafiaThe number of mafiosi is not revealed. As usual, the mafia know the identity of all mafia members and will choose a player to murder each night. The difference here is that the mafia must elect one of their number to do the hit and choose a murder method. Performing a hit is obviously a night action, so this means the hitman cannot perform any other actions during that night.
GodfatherMafia. Appears to be a towny when investigated. Does not give confession.
ConsigliereMafia. Can flip the apparent faction of any player for one night (except himself).
HitmanMafia. Can choose two murder methods when commiting a mafia hit.
VigilanteTowny. Gets a single attack to use on any night during the game. Must choose a murder method.
Undercover AgentTowny. The undercover agent is a towny posing as a mafia member, thus he appears to the mafia as one of their own and knows the identity of all mafiosi. Undercover agents appear as mafia in cop investigations (unless some other ability makes them appear differently).
The undercover agent
cannot kill a towny via mafia hits but he may kill players of other factions this way. If an agent attempts a mafia hit against a towny that is successful, the kill is cancelled and instead the agent's cover is blown and he is out of the game.
Serial KillerIndependent (wins if last player alive). Gets a murder attempt each night, choosing a target and murder method. The serial killer appears to be a towny in investigations. Their true identity is not revealed until the end of the game, not even upon their death, but neither team can win while the serial killer is alive.
Killing Spree: If the serial killer successfully committed murder the previous night, he gains an additional murder method the following night. This resets on a night where he fails to murder anyone.
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There are a wide number of possible roles from different combinations of profession and secret roles. For example, a serial killer doctor who kills the patients he is supposed to be protecting; a corrupt cop who pretends that mafia members are townies; a serial killer reporter who misreports their own crimes; a vigilante priest who kills those who confess to murder; an undercover cook who continually gives mafia hitmen food poisoning to slow their progress; and many more!
Precedence of Actions1. Defensive actions: blocks and medical protection.
2. Misc. actions: flipping a player's faction, giving immunity to block, etc.
3. Being Killed.
4. Killing another player.
I.E. if the consigliere is blocked he cannot flip the faction of another player.
An example of a more bizarre situation is one where player A blocks player B, who in turn is attempting to kill player C, who in turn is attempting to kill player A. Because of A's block on B, B does not kill C, and therefore C is free to kill A. A has caused his own death because if he did not block B, B's killing of C would have taken precedence and C would not have been able to kill A.
If two players try to kill each other both take equal precedence and they both die.