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[Magma Mater]

Bring Your Own Board Game
Putting board games in your mafia games, so you can game while you game

Welcome to BYOBG!
First, I'd like to dive into some of the ideas I have about game design. These will be helpful for you to read because it will give you an idea of what kind of roles to expect. This is a role madness game, but I do like to have a method to my madness!

1. I like to design games that I think will be fun for the people playing them. This is my rule #1 that overrides all the others. If a role isn't fun to play as, with, or against, I simply won't include it. This means there won't be any roles with no counter-play, such as lynchproof mafioso; or negative utility roles, such as lynchproof townie; or roles that delay the game unnecessarily, such as... lynchproof anything.
2. I try to stick to the fundamental definition of mafia as much as possible. This means that there will be an informed minority (mafia) trying to eliminate an uninformed majority (town). I do not use any other alignments.
3. The mafia should feel confident that they own the night phase. In my mind, this means that they should not be caught be a role action that they could not prevent. An unblockable cop would be a simple example of something I wouldn't include. It isn't uncommon for the mafia to be given notes at the start of the game so that they know what to expect. See also, rule 1. Also, see rule 2.
4. The town should feel confident that they own the day phase. Things like mafia hidden double-voters only serve to frustrate the town, taking away what should be their main weapon against the mafia. See rule 1 again.
5. If both sides act randomly, the mafia should win ~55% of the time. Obviously, this is difficult to achieve in a role madness game, but this is the aim. The town should have to work for their win.

Finally, I'll state that this isn't a bastard game. I'm not going to lie. However, be very cautious about your assumptions. I can get pretty creative with role design.

When you sign up, please do two things. First, add me as a friend on Discord. I'll be putting all private topics there, which I can't do if I'm not friends with you! My username is ".urist". Once you've done that, send me a message on Discord with the name of the board game you'd like to play as. I'm a lot more likely to design a good role for you if I've played the game you're submitting. Don't be afraid to ask whether I'm familiar with a particular game, I'm more than happy to talk about that. 

Game-Specific Rules

• General Abilities: Every player will have at least one genre. Some may have more than one. These General Abilities are shared among all players with the same genre(s). Unless otherwise specified, active General Abilities may be used in addition to a Personal Ability each night.
• Personal Abilities: Each player may use one Personal Ability each night. These are your standard mafia abilities.
• Factional Abilities: This includes the win condition for each player, as well as the usual mafia abilities.
• Certain keywords might be in play:
  
  • Genre - The player's genre. Each player has at least 1 but not more than 99 of these abilities.
  • Passive - An ability which is always on.
  • Active - An ability which must be used in order to take effect. If a player fails to submit an action, they will simply not do anything.
  • Locked - An ability which has no effect.
  • Innate - An ability which cannot be removed, modified, or Locked.
  • X-shot - An ability which may only be used X times. On flip, it is not revealed how many shots remained. If it does not resolve, the shot is still consumed.
  • Free - This ability does not count against the one ability per night limit.
  • Shared - This ability is shared amongst a group of players. Only one player may use it each night.
  • Win Condition - How you win.
• Players will always flip with the abilities they possess at death. Flips will normally not be modified post-humously.
• Abilities used during the day will always resolve concurrently with the lynch, before any start-of-night abilities. If you are lynched, your day action will still resolve.
• All private communication with other players will happen in Discord servers.
• Days are 72 hours long. Nights are 24 hours.
• Hammers are in effect. If there is no hammer by the end of the day, there is no lynch.
• Each player may make a maximum of 50 posts per game day.
• Standard mafia rules apply. If you don't know the usual mafia rules, please ask before doing anything that seems like it might be considered cheating.

Players
1. Imp
2. FallacyOfUrist
3. CrystalizedMire
4. TricMagic
5. EuchreJack
6. VermilionSkies
7. Elephant Parade
8. Hyper Salvatore Monday
9. NJW2000
10. notquitethere
11. juicebox

[Imp]

Insane.  Surely.

[FallacyofUrist]

In. I'm not that much of a tabletop gamer, but I have some experience - so I think I have a good idea.

[EuchreJack]

5. If both sides act randomly, the mafia should win ~55% of the time. Obviously, this is difficult to achieve in a role madness game, but this is the aim. The town should have to work for their win.

I disagree with this, as Town will almost always act more "randomly" than Mafia in any given game.  Thus, mafia should win at most ~45% of the games if both sides act truly randomly, since Mafia will almost never act truly randomly and should make up that remaining 6-10% in most games.
Mafia should have to sorta work for their win by making proper night kills and not completely blowing the day game. 
In practice, Town will also have to work for their win, since they don't have the benefit of assured cooperation and Night Kills to fall back on.

Not sure I'm interested in what appears to be a fairly scum-sided mindset, honestly.

[Magma Mater]

5. If both sides act randomly, the mafia should win ~55% of the time. Obviously, this is difficult to achieve in a role madness game, but this is the aim. The town should have to work for their win.

I disagree with this, as Town will almost always act more "randomly" than Mafia in any given game.  Thus, mafia should win at most ~45% of the games if both sides act truly randomly, since Mafia will almost never act truly randomly and should make up that remaining 6-10% in most games.
Mafia should have to sorta work for their win by making proper night kills and not completely blowing the day game. 
In practice, Town will also have to work for their win, since they don't have the benefit of assured cooperation and Night Kills to fall back on.

Not sure I'm interested in what appears to be a fairly scum-sided mindset, honestly.

When I say randomly, I do not mean totally random. The 55% assumes some things, such as scum will never kill themselves, town will always lynch on a guilty result, etc.
The problem with giving town >50% chance of randomly winning is that the town is then incentivized to act randomly. Why would you choose to control your own actions when you win most of the time by rolling a die? The town always needs to have a less than 50% chance of randomly winning. It's not about designing a game that's intentionally scum-sided, but rather it's about designing a game where the town is incentivized to actually play the game. This is what I mean when I say that the town should have to work for their win.
That said, I'm also aware of Stoofer's 3rd Law and how it can affect game balance. It's somewhat likely that a setup which you'd consider town-sided, I'd consider scum-sided.

Of course, whether you choose to play is totally up to you. But rest assured that I'm not going to be hoping for one side to win over the other.

[Crystalizedmire]

In

[TricMagic]

IN this game of ours, your life is on the line~
When the stakes are down, drive on by the dice~~
Roll to win transverse and spin, this wonderful game of life~
Cause at the end of it all, mazes exist to cause strife~~

[Maximum Spin]

Interested, but I need to take time to think about some options because I am not any kind of board gamer and I don't have a lot of ideas.

[Imp]

Interested, but I need to take time to think about some options because I am not any kind of board gamer and I don't have a lot of ideas.

Mater appears well informed of board games in general and to research as well.

If it's unpleasantly weird to find one that suits, I recommend talking to Mater about details you like in your role, be they mechanics or something else, and let him help you find one that fits.


Guys, guys!  Because of Mater I now know there's, get this, a Warehouse 13 board game!  Which totally may or may not be my role submission!  But either way I now know it exists, whee!

[Imp]

5. If both sides act randomly, the mafia should win ~55% of the time. Obviously, this is difficult to achieve in a role madness game, but this is the aim. The town should have to work for their win.

I disagree with this, as Town will almost always act more "randomly" than Mafia in any given game.  Thus, mafia should win at most ~45% of the games if both sides act truly randomly, since Mafia will almost never act truly randomly and should make up that remaining 6-10% in most games.
Mafia should have to sorta work for their win by making proper night kills and not completely blowing the day game. 
In practice, Town will also have to work for their win, since they don't have the benefit of assured cooperation and Night Kills to fall back on.

Not sure I'm interested in what appears to be a fairly scum-sided mindset, honestly.

When I say randomly, I do not mean totally random. The 55% assumes some things, such as scum will never kill themselves, town will always lynch on a guilty result, etc.
The problem with giving town >50% chance of randomly winning is that the town is then incentivized to act randomly. Why would you choose to control your own actions when you win most of the time by rolling a die? The town always needs to have a less than 50% chance of randomly winning. It's not about designing a game that's intentionally scum-sided, but rather it's about designing a game where the town is incentivized to actually play the game. This is what I mean when I say that the town should have to work for their win.
That said, I'm also aware of Stoofer's 3rd Law and how it can affect game balance. It's somewhat likely that a setup which you'd consider town-sided, I'd consider scum-sided.

Of course, whether you choose to play is totally up to you. But rest assured that I'm not going to be hoping for one side to win over the other.

I got to chat with Mater last night about my role and then ideas in general.

I think Mater would have considered FBYOR 6 very heavily maf sided, and CYOS1 extremely maf sided (Were they?  I dunno how to balance, but I notice town won both no matter what the balance was), because of the complexity of roles and a base assumption that a powerful role is unlikely to be believed by other townies as well as unlikely to be believed to be a town role by other townies.

Even we go that path, maybe, in MVM games, 'SK and maf will have better roles than town'.  But it's not necessarily true for us that we think awesome high power games/their roles are scummy.

Also, that presumption that town needs less than a 50% chance to win to try?

Ignores that some of us are intrinsically motivated.  "Imp, you got less than 100% chance of winning, and maybe can find something to do that improves your chances."  High chance I'm normally gonna put real work into that, even if I think there's around a 99% chance I win, just because that is the joy and the life and the game and the why I often type so much for much of the time

Spoiler: me having a great time trying to reach that last 1% increased chance to win (click to show/hide)

What I think...

This game's gonna be a blast.  I think Mater's a different flavor of Fal of FBYOR.  I think we have a wish fulfillment game in the making.  Be careful what you ask for, and if you want, ask big.

If you need/want a break, Jack, or this feels like the wrong game for you, I already miss you.

Me... I got my face up to the barrier, chanting 'ball' already, full enthusiasm.  And I don't care who's scum, even if it's me.

[EuchreJack]

IN
I'll choose Monopoly. I always win at Monopoly.

[VermilionSkies]

In!

[Elephant Parade]

In

[Hyper]

just came from a really fun game, can i say IN?

[Imp]

just came from a really fun game, can i say IN?

Whew.  Was gonna be not so profitable to bus you if you weren't in the game.

In!

Whew and woot!