I wanted to run a ridiculous game with cults and experiment with atypical role design. This is that game. If you do decide to join, don't say I didn't warn you. I'd greatly prefer to work with 13 players or more, but I'm setting the starting requirement at 11 just in case that's undoable.
For your sake I must label this game as being semi-bastard.
--I won't lie to you. Abilities may lie to you if they're forced to, but will not lie to you by default.
--I may refuse to answer your questions and respond instead, 'No comment.'
--On-death flips will be accurate as of time of death, but may be redacted partly.
--There will be weird game mechanics I will not fully explain until post-game.
This will be a medium power but high weirdness game. You will not get to choose your role.
You, optionally, when signing up, may PM me a single concept, such as 'spreading', 'growing', 'durable', 'imperceptible', 'lethal' or otherwise, which I will integrate into your role. If you try to cheese this, I will cheese you.
Here are, for reference, the (altered) fundamentals of the game of Mafia.
What is mafia?
Mafia is a social deduction game! I make no guarantees about what horrors await you in this match, but I can say at the very least there will be a Town team and there will be at least two Cult teams.
The Town are an uninformed majority. If you're a Town player, you're aware of your own alignment and not the alignment of any other players. You're opposed to the Cults (and any other hostile parties), and your primary win condition triggers once all anti-Town players have been eliminated from the game.
The Cults are insidious. Their primary win conditions may vary, but will require them to overcome the Town and ensure that their dominance cannot be usurped (such as by a player with the ability to kill). Each Cult will have some means of turning other players into more of their number. These means will be limited in some way.
Primary win condition?
You win the game once your primary win condition has been fulfilled. Your primary win condition will be associated with a certain alignment. The triggering of a primary win condition will lead to the failure of other primary win conditions if they are opposed.
How are players eliminated?
An eliminated player is referred to as dead, and cannot post further in the thread, and in most circumstances cannot use their Abilities.
The game of mafia is played in two Phases. During the Day, a vote is held where every player has one vote. The Town must deduce who the Cults are, while the Cults attempt to blend in and manipulate the vote for their own benefit. At the end of the Day, which occurs either on a deadline, or when a majority of players are voting one person (this is an optional rule known as the Hammer) whichever player has the most votes on them is eliminated. This is referred to as Execution.
(In previous games, Execution was known as the Lynch, but that term has certain connotations, so we as a community are shifting away from its use.)
During the Night, the thread is locked and public discussion cannot occur. Most Abilities are useful during the Night. The Cults will likely be attempting to grow their numbers at this time.
Some other ground rules:
Day Phases last 72 hours for the first and second Days, and 48 hours henceforth, though they still end immediately on
Hammer. I reserve the right to extend the duration as needed if a player replaces into the game, a real-life emergency occurs, or an extreme Day
Ability resolves.
Night Phases last 24 hours always, though they may be shortened if every player submits their desired actions or lack thereof quickly.
No editing your posts, and no directly quoting any PMs you have received from me. You are freely permitted to paraphrase. If you have access to a private chat where your alignment is mod-verified, such as a private
cultchat or
masonchat, you may quote PMs from me in there. If you have access to a private chat
without alignment verification included, you do not possess this privilege. Never directly quote PMs from me in the main thread no matter your alignment.
After the
Day is ended via hammer,
do not post. You may edit your posts to nullify content posted after the hammer, which is an exception to the above rule. If the
Day ends via deadline and not hammer, you may continue to post
until I close the thread, but further votes will not count and whoever was
Executed may not post (except to produce a single 'bah' post useful for mockery, a joke, or humor, but not permitted to contain game-related content). This bah post may be deployed on a future
Day if it is not immediately used.
Don't be too much of an asshole. Some aggression is fine, too much will have me stepping down from my cloud to warn you to cut it out.
Your primary win condition will be listed along with your alignment, in your role PM, along with a reference of the
Town win condition if you are not
Town.
Some action resolution rules:
By default you will not be informed when redirection (that is, the changing of your action target by the use of an ability) has occurred during the Night. Sorry.
I'm using [REDACTED] action resolution.
Again, please talk to me about your role so I can help you understand it. You can't just say 'what am I missing', but you can ask me about any details you like or even make absurd hypotheticals. I may refuse to answer, but I'll try to be fair about it, at least.
On action failures: there are multiple different types of action failure. Most will give you a result of Your action failed. when they occur. Let's go over the most common types.
Failure to target: Congrats, your target is outside of the game space due to a banishment effect or commuter ability, and cannot be targeted. Your action failed, because you couldn't even use your ability in the first place. Any shots you would have used have not been used.
Failure upon use: Something jammed you at the moment you used it. 'Target player's action will fail' would fall under this category, as would action failure due to "(Status) Curse: Your actions have a 50% chance to fail when used!" or such. Any shots you would have used have not been used.
--Roleblock: A roleblock is a specific type of power that forces action failure. Unlike other failures, if someone is roleblocked, they are explicitly given the message You were roleblocked. - but only if they attempted to act. If a player was roleblocked and did not attempt to act, they do not receive this message. This also does not consume shots.
Failure upon arrival: You successfully used your ability, but alas, woe is you, you hit a player who causes all non-kill actions used on them to fail. Unfortunately in this case your ability fully resolved, it just didn't do its job, so you do lose any shots you tried to use.
Failure of result: You successfully used your ability, you got the You performed your action message - and your killshot on webadict hit a protect action. You aren't told your action failed, and technically it didn't - but the effect failed completely even if your action didn't.
This should help resolve some of the confusion I saw about Night action messages.
Some ability rules.
Fallacy's Abbreviated Guide To Abilities:
Abilities that can be used are referred to as Actions. The set of all abilities is simply called Abilities. (Setup), (Reference), (Info) and (Status) tags indicate non-Abilities.
(Setup): This effect triggers pre-game, and typically involves giving you a choice.
(Reference): This isn't technically a part of your role, but describes something used by another part of your role. Still shows up on roleflip, though.
(Info): Some free information about some part of the setup as a whole. Will be [REDACTED] on death.
(Status): This isn't an ability, but is rather a status condition that afflicts you. If it appears to do nothing, there may be abilities owned by some other player that make use of it. Does not show up on your roleflip, since it isn't technically part of your role.
(Night): This action is used during the Night phase.
(Day): This action is used during the Day phase. Depending on importance level, either resolves at the end of the Day (more common) or immediately (effectively 'as soon as I can get to my computer and resolve it'). Immediately is reserved for actions of great importance.
(X): This action can be used during either the Day or Night phase.
(Auto): This ability has a passive effect and cannot be used.
(1-Shot): This action can only be used once, or if it is a passive ability, it can only trigger once. See also (2-Shot), or (3-Shot).
(Disabled): This ability cannot be used and has no effect. Either seen as an inflicted condition, or as a locked ability you must fulfill prerequisites to use.
(Innate): A very special ability. Cannot be Disabled, modified, or removed from your role.
(Single/Double/Triple): Can only be used once/twice/thrice per valid Phase.
On Targeting:
[target] indicates targeting a single player other than yourself. You must visit a targeted player in order to enact your action.
[choice] indicates that you choose a player, but do not target them.
[self] indicates an action affecting yourself. You do not visit yourself.
[(dead)] indicates an action targeting or choosing an eliminated player.
[] indicates a non-targeted action.
These may be chained or combined.
On Action Points: (Thanks, webadict!)
All actions have an Action Point cost, indicating how many Action Points it takes to use that action. By default, you have 3 AP available per Phase. Some actions may have variable costs, changing based on circumstances or allowing you to pay more for a greater effect.
Players:
- Maximum Spin
- notquitethere
- TricMagic
- Knightwing64
- Jim Groovester
- ToonyMan
- EuchreJack
- Egan_BW
- webadict
- NJW2000
- Toaster