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[4maskwolf]

Other reading for scum players:

The Art of Power Wolfing
A Practical Guide to Open Wolfing

[Persus13]

Persus:

At one point I was thinking of fakeclaiming roleblocker because I knew Pooka was one, but decided against it because that would be too complicated.

My main strategy for determining if NJW was scum was seeing how Naturegirl reacted, so her blue voting NJW initially actually made me second guess things. I also considered the possibility of Superdorf being NJW's buddy, but I figured it was less likely.

Yeah...that would have resulted in a mess. You're a strong player, and I can see you probably had a plan and reason for doing it, but the risk of mislynch looks murderous. But by our mass claims and how they interconnected with each other, we had a great picture of Night 2. A web of actions being done where only NJW is the missing link.

Also, I'm glad to see that someone else thought Naturegirl was connected with NJW in one way or another! The blue voting NJW struck me as bussing, and what better lead to that other than her red voting myself in her very next post? She should have continued pursuing NJW, making it appear less likely that these two are scumbuddies.

I was mainly considering it at the very start of D2 before anyone had claimed to try and bait out a fakeclaim. Also because I'd have found it entertaining.

Yeah, when NJW claimed I knew that if he was lying, he had to be scum with Nature as his buddy (Superdorf was possible, but it seemed far less likely). I was considering asking NJW to vote Superdorf to see his reaction to check that, but I didn't end up needing to do that. Yeah, if Nature had continued to go for NJW, it would have made his claims seem much more credible.

[NJW2000]

Other reading for scum players:

The Art of Power Wolfing
A Practical Guide to Open Wolfing

Thanks for this! I'm loving the stuff on power wolfing already.

[Persus13]

Also, thanks IonMatrix for dying, because I got a bit of use out of your role.

[IonMatrix]

Also, thanks IonMatrix for dying, because I got a bit of use out of your role.

I find that oddly hilarious  .

[4maskwolf]

Any of the scum up to posting the mafiachat for perusal?

[Naturegirl1999]

Any of the scum up to posting the mafiachat for perusal?

yep

[4maskwolf]

Oh so that's why NJW wanted to know who I "actually" had my eye on, he was worried I might be suspecting him.

Nah, man, I was really off form for like the first week and a half I was back in mafia, which included all my time in this game.

I should probably explain my little cop shenanigans, shouldn't I?

Before superdwarf made a post about... he said something about having weird roles is all I can really remember, but there were basically two universes I was looking at based on my role (Indecisive Doctor).  One, and the universe we were in, was the universe where everyone had roles with weird modifiers and that was a fundamental part of the game.  The other, and the one that comment was geared towards, was the universe where my role was created to offset follow-the-cop potential.

For those who aren't aware, follow-the-cop is a problematic strategy useable in any setup where the town has both a doctor and cop.  The cop claims D1 and reveals their results every night, with the doctor protecting them from hiding and the town no-lynching until the cop finds a scum.  It's a super hard strategy for the scum to break since they can't actually kill the cop, killing the doctor is a crapshoot, and the town isn't mislynching anyone (which is a major part of the scum win condition), so they're in a race against time to randomly kill the doctor before the cop finds them and lynches them.  It's for this reason that placing a doctor and cop in game together, especially an open setup where the cop can know from the start there's a doc, is never done on most dedicated mafia forums without the scum having ways around it (daykills, strongmen, or macho cops all work).

But, back to my point.  In that second universe where my role was a "no follow the cop" precaution, that meant we had a cop in the game and there were a few potential outcomes.  The first was that my super vaguely worded comment (I think we have a cop in this game) were correctly interpreted by the cop as a protective role seeking them out and they would try and signal back.  The second was that the mafia would be taken aback by my statement and, when considering their nightkill, wonder if I wasn't trying to softclaim cop for my later claim and off me, thus removing a much less useful role from the game.  The third, and the bad  outcome, would be the scumteam realizing I was trying to reach out for the cop and giving false signals back to me, convincing me that they were the cop.

The second option was the most likely, and in either scenario was one I was okay with: in a 7-man mafia game a doc isn't a super powerful or helpful role, especially one who was playing as poorly as I was.  The first and third were much less likely, because I kept what exactly I was doing so vague it was super unlikely anyone, even those thinking hard about it, would interpret what I was doing the same way I, who knew my role, did.

tl;dr: It was a long-shot signal to any potential cop to make contact with me and a much more likely signal to the scum that I may be cop, shoot me first.

[Naturegirl1999]

now That the game is over, I learned that it would have been a good idea to kill Superdorf, since he was the most talkative and had a lot of questions. I think another Mafia game would be interesting, hopefully I might not be scum this time, but if I am scum or town, I learned things either way

[IcyTea31]

"You see, the spirits were only trying to help you. Your sins are many, and their sin-eating led to some of you to realize them. But now it's too late."

Mafiachat.

And with those words, the host ended the ceremony and the remaining sinners went back to their sinful lives, unhappily ever after.

Deadchat.

Now, little flies, it's dinner time. Or "tea", as they call it in some countries. I have some old chili in the freezer though, so I have options. Tell me, did you like my story? Did you even listen? If I like the answers, I might let you go.

Tell me, who was the hero of this story?

Spoiler: Roster (click to show/hide)

player | alignment | role

Naturegirl1999 | Mafia | Loud Doctor
Superdorf | Town | Odd-Night Role Cop
NJW2000 | Mafia | Ascetic Role Cop
Pooka | Town | 2-shot Roleblocker
IonMatrix | Town | Macho Tracker
4maskwolf | Town | Indecisive Doctor
Persus13 | Town | Universal Backup

And what did they do to earn being called 'hero'?

Spoiler: Action history (click to show/hide)

player | action | target | result (parentheses if uninformed of result)

D1:
Persus13 | Backup (auto) | IonMatrix | gains Macho Tracker

N1:
Naturegirl1999 | Protect | Superdorf | (success)
Superdorf | Inspect | NJW2000 | roleblocked, visited by Naturegirl1999
NJW2000 | Kill | 4maskwolf | (success)
Pooka | Roleblock | Superdorf | (success)
4maskwolf | Protect | NJW2000 | roleblocked, dead
Persus13 | Track | Pooka | target visited Superdorf

N2:
Naturegirl1999 | None | None | roleblocked
Superdorf | None | None | (none)
Pooka | Roleblock | Naturegirl1999 | (success)
Persus13 | Track | Superdorf | target visited nobody

What made that stranger who they were?

Spoiler: Comments on setup (click to show/hide)

The setup was hand-designed, keeping in mind a few principles:

• Massclaiming should be a risky move, and the players should know this. It should nevertheless grant an advantage, but not an immediate victory, to Town.

Both the Tracker and the Town Doctor have an anti-massclaim modifier to scare them off. The Mafia roles allow a number of strategies to combat it (the Mafia Doctor has a perfect alibi for their night action, and the Mafia Role Cop can act dumb about being Ascetic).

• There should be a lot of minor swing (to reward players for good play), but very little major swing (to not punish bad luck too much).

On the Town side, the Universal Backup ensures that they have the same mix of actions going into N1, but after that every loss hurts. On the Mafia side, both roles have solo power, though the loss of the Role Cop means the Doctor will likely have to abstain from nightkills unless they fakeclaim (but with their alibi, they can rely on lynches).

• Night-based information should be less useful than it seems at first glance, because there is so much of it.

There is no alignment Cop. Everyone visits someone. Role Cop sees townish roles on Mafia. There are two Doctors and two sources of roleblock (of which one can trigger multiple times per night), so a lack of nightkill has several explanations.

Things I might change:

• The Odd-Night modifier doesn't work well on the Town Role Cop when there are so few players; there's a very good chance the game ends one way or another before N3.
• For the same reason, being 2-shot doesn't limit the Roleblocker a lot.
• The Mafia Doctor could work better with a non-protective role to explain visiting a dead player after an honest claim.

What did the hanging scroll tell that stranger to do?

Spoiler: Comments on rules (click to show/hide)

The vanilla-ish rules worked fairly well otherwise, but my miscalculation with the phase lengths and weekend freezes led to a slower game than intended. The solution to this would be to have even shorter phases, to not have extensions, or to not have freeze-time. Leaving out extensions is the most likely solution, though I also noted that most players posted their night actions within the first 24 hours. The weekend freeze is standard convention on these forums, so not having it would lead to players asking me to include it.

I only had to make one ruling during the game, which I didn't even mention because it spoke for itself: "If a phase would end on midnight, it is extended by one minute." Midnight is confusing, and players might not realize when exactly the deadline is. It also causes an ambiguity when a phase would end when freeze-time begins. Shortening phases would be unfair, so my solution was to extend them.

Randomizing tied votes was to discourage people from leaving a tied vote, as everyone hates random mechanics. I now realize that this would have led to Mafia tying the player count not being the victory it usually is. The other options I could think of had their own problems:
Having mafia choose the lynchee slows down the game due to the need for a Twilight phase where everybody but the Mafia team is bored.
Having a tie be a no-lynch is "nobody gets what they wanted" solution which feeds apathy. Despite it being the usual standard, I wanted this to be a quick and flashy game to fuel interest in the subforum as a whole.
Now, in retrospect, I can think of another way to resolve a tie: the first to reach the tied votecount is lynched. This encourages early voting and doesn't slow the game down. It might give an advantage to some timezones, however, which is less than ideal. Perhaps the no-lynch solution is better for the future, but this gives an interesting option...

Did that stranger do as the hanging scroll asked them to?

Spoiler: Comments on play (click to show/hide)

The Mafia team was more aggressive than I expected. From my perspective of full knowledge, it's easy to say that I'd have done things differently, but I think it says a lot that I thought Naturegirl1999 still had a chance going into D3.

The Town played conservatively and didn't fall into the WIFOM traps that their and the Mafia team's actions set. Despite their nightgame power, I think their victory came more down to daygame skill and figuring out buddies and motivations. The action massclaim on D2 helped a lot when NJW2000 chose a lynch target and fakeclaim that didn't add up, but the "you were the last to claim" badgering was, in my opinion, his actual downfall.

The double-roleblock on Superdorf on N1 was an interesting case, though it saw less use than I expected. On D3, Superdorf suddenly couldn't be sure if Pooka's Roleblocker claim was genuine, and Naturegirl1999 could have used that to push a defense.

Luckily, no randomization had to be used after game start (I used random.org to sequence the roster).

And what did you think of the other strangers as individuals?

Spoiler: Player-specific comments (click to show/hide)

I can give further comments and advice at request.

You thought two doctors was unlikely

Mm, fair enough. Clearly it wasn't that unlikely!

Don't outguess the mod. I noted in the rules that duplicate roles were possible.

For example, Naturegirl's red vote not being followed with a quick hammer sent the message that scum is either one man short, or she is scum.

...or her target is scum. Scum wouldn't quickhammer one of their own, would they? This is one of the WIFOM traps that you managed to avoid.

Before superdwarf made a post about... he said something about having weird roles is all I can really remember, but there were basically two universes I was looking at based on my role (Indecisive Doctor).  One, and the universe we were in, was the universe where everyone had roles with weird modifiers and that was a fundamental part of the game.  The other, and the one that comment was geared towards, was the universe where my role was created to offset follow-the-cop potential.

As it turns out, these were the same universe. I was following the Mostly Vanilla style with giving everyone modifiers, but they were hand-picked to avoid leaving a breaking strategy in play.

This was my first time modding, so feedback is very appreciated. Based on the post-game chat, it seems everyone had fun despite my shortcomings, so I'd call the game as a whole a success. It's also breathed some life into the subforum, as there were some new and returning players and there now are several games competing to be the next one in the threshold thread.

[Superdorf]

Cheers!
The mechanics were interesting, the flavor was clever and just a wee bit creepy. Well done, sirrah!

[Naturegirl1999]

Yes, I liked playing and I liked the theme. It was fun

[IcyTea31]

If you're interested, here are the role flavours that didn't get flipped:


Odd-Night Role Cop:
You are a thief, with an accomplice rummaging through the belongings of the other guests for valuables to steal. Occasionally, they find something interesting that they have to report to you.

2-shot Roleblocker:
You are a dealer of "sundries". You brought some of your stash for your own use, but it seems you will have to use it on the other strangers to make it through this ceremony.

Universal Backup:
You are a robber on the run from the law. This tea ceremony is a perfect opportunity to pick up a new identity...


I wrote the theme to be ambiguous about the "winner of the story", even if the winner of the game is clear. I focused on giving little hints about the mystery and keeping the mood over describing things too clearly. It was a deliberate stylistic choice to always refer to the player characters as "strangers". I could bullshit you further about the "minimalism" of my story, but to be honest I felt pretty lazy at times about my writing, that I didn't write "enough".

[Naturegirl1999]

I like it.

[IcyTea31]

Naturegirl1999: I'm curious why you chose not to act on N2, by the way. On the off-chance that Pooka didn't roleblock you (for one reason or another), you could have got a kill in or a Loud action to prove your innocence.