I'm glad that kicked up some discussion! The status quo is unfortunately not tenable, it seems.
Regarging new players, I actually agree a fuckton that what drives people to Mafia is !!fun!!, and vanilla(-ish) games generate not that much of it (other than the MAFIA BASE, which is obviously important, but can be nuanced and hard for people to learn).
Let's imagine that these simplified skills are the ones used for playing mafia games:
- Basic mechanic knowledge (ALL): If you don't know these rules, you can't play. This includes day/night cycles, voting, lynching, and alignments.
- Basic role knowledge (ALL): If you don't know these rules, you can't effectively play, since you don't know all action possibilities. This includes vanilla town/mafia, kills, cops, protects.
- Intermediate role knowledge (non-Vanilla): This is required to play non-vanilla games. In most games,
- Psychological "knowledge" (ALL): This is recommended knowledge for all mafia games, to varying degrees. These are scumtells (or "untruthfulness" signals), whether explicit or as "spider sense", and other tropes of the genre. Note that it's entirely possible to play the game with a lack of this, and rely on logic/gut feeling/luck, and still do OK.
- Closed setup knowledge (CLOSED + BYOR): Included in this: how to scumhunt in high-uncertaintly games, how to choose what night actions to use based on day info.
- Advanced mechanics (CLOSED + BYOR): This is almost required for BYOR-style games. A lot of roles explicitly say what they do, but in this context the term "mechanics" means understanding what possible roles there can be, also depending on your own role.
- BYOR knowledge (BYOR): This is useful for BYOR-style games, where generally roles correspond to whatever names/things are sent in. In addition to closed setup knowledge, it ESPECIALLY includes how to bullshit your role and how to spot that from others.
- Advanced knowledge: Knowledge of prior games that have been played, players' playstyles, and anything else not covered before.
In short, you really need basic mechanics and roles down, and everything else you can figure out by reading the OP or asking mods/other players.
Now, let's look from the point of view of where FUN/enjoyment comes from a mafia game:
- Base fun: You're playing a game, talking with people, it's a social activity which is generally a plus.
- Challenge: Making choices under uncertainty is hard, and testing one's skill in a low-stress environment is generally enjoyable.
- Accomplishment: Winning a game, and to a smaller degree guessing one's alignment correctly, gives a sense of validation, which is enjoyable.
- Spectacle: Whenever something crazy or unusual happens, and
it's not too confusing, the "Huh?"/"Cool!" is fun.
- Plot/Flavor: Usually this far from the biggest focus in the game, but a reasonable quantity of good flavor can make a good game great. Reading and acting in a piece is fun.
- <I'm probably missing something obvious>
A lot of these don't actually depend on the player's skill, just their understanding of what's going on. On the other hand, almost all of these depend on the speed of the game's progression (up to a certain point): you get more FUN/week if the game goes through a cycle a week, for example, than a cycle per month.
So, to sum up my and others' thoughts on the matter (I'll be including some points already mentioned earlier in the thread):
- BM's, and vanilla games in general, are boring for most people, so there is little will to play them.
- People enjoy different things to different degrees in mafia games, so there needs to be some diversity.
- Newcomers really need to learn the basic mechanics and roles, but then they can figure out things on their own, as long as those things are documented or commented on. Without the basics, no fun, but after that the requirements are "can get up to speed on the current game's quirks" and are much more soft.
- BM's don't have to be vanilla, just more "explained" and explicit than other games. Or are BM's unneeded tradition?
- Many people want to mod games (it's the most engaging part
), but the games can't all possibly be filled up. Being courteous and following the queue seems to be making a market-failure situation.
- On the other hand, having only a few people mod games all the time is "unfair", so having a rotation of some sort seems to make sense still.
Suggestions (some conflicting) about what we could do:
>
Remove BM's and let new players join games as-is [as suggested by Lenglon]
>
Change BM format:
- looser, less certainty, more roles; maybe BYOR (
Pros: more fun, more activity, more incentive for older players to join;
Cons: harder to wrap head around, requires more setup as a mod) [as suggested by FoU, Wuba]
-
make BM's smaller (!): since they just need to learn mechanics, you could have a 1-mafia game to serve as an introduction to Basic Mechanics and some of our etiquette (voting, FOS, some scumtells, etc). These can be really short, and require fewer players, and are less of a commitment for older players/ICs.
- <Any other ideas?>
>
Change how the game queue works:
- Keep as time-based queue, but ask/incentivize people who don't fill their games fast enough to go to the back of the queue. [Problem: Games in sign-ups that don't fill create a "graveyard" and also delay other game starts.]
- Run as priority queue, where the most-demanded games (by vote? by general noise levels? idk) are run first. [Problem: Popular mods get to run their games first. Problem: crazier games (which are generally more popular) will be run much more often, leaving the "minority" that likes vanilla ones behind.]
- <Any other ideas?>
>
Change how games are run in real-world-time:
- Replace, then Modkill to a
set deadline of posting activity. If you can't play the game, and nobody can join soon, then it's a blank spot nobody can fill. * [Problem: Generally, town players are the ones who lose activity, so modkilling usually favors scum while gaining little info for town]
-
Limit extensions, so games can't go on forever. A close idea is
making longer, non-extendable phases, such as 1 cycle per week. Example: days = [Tuesday:Saturday], nights = [Sunday:Monday]. [Problem: Some people can only do weekends for big readthroughs/posts, some can only do weekdays for big readthroughs/posts, etc.]
- <Any other ideas?>
* This includes just general unwillingness to play as well as IRL things that come up - if you have finals/an injury or illness/real life things that overshadow internet forum games, then you should focus on those things and not worry about the game [Reasoning: if you don't have the time keep up with the game, then you probably are doing poorly in the real life things, and so you should really REALLY spend more time on it/stop procrastinating/whatever.] From the perspective of all other players, not knowing whether to keep your spot in mind or not is annoying.
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Topic: Banter Thread (Read 386837 times)