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[Vector]

I'd say we have some main features--that is:

Paranormal
Beginner's

(That way we guarantee both an expert game and a beginner game)

Then we have a couple games running that switch off:

Pick two of Toon Mafia, Vote Mafia, Weirdo Mafia, Religious Flame War, etc.

Then we have one we're testing:

Quantum, Secret Santa, etc.


The lurker-bans should help reduce the problem where people are playing lots of games and not posting in any of them, and hopefully we'll find some kind of equilibrium where most people who want to play can play, but the games are generally high-quality and remain fun.

I'd also suggest something where mods let in people who don't play much over players who are in everything, from time to time.

[Alexhans]

Well... apart from having limits... people should realize the amount of games they can play before joining...

Not join every single one of them and then complain they have to do homework or something and cant post.

[Vector]

Yeah.  The main reason why I'm suggesting limits is because most people seem to be unable to figure out "I'll be unable to play Mafia effectively" on their own.

[dakarian]

A thread that keeps track of active games can help, along with having seperate tags for Discussion threads. 

as for limits:

I'm wondering how many would want a plain old mafia, like Beginner, but open to all.  All of the other games are hyper-role-crazy-rule mafias.  Thus, if there's demand:

1 Beginner mafia
1 Paranormal Mafia
1 Plain Old Mafia

Then have 2 Successful mafias (like Toony) and two 'beta testing/first time' mafias (like wizard). 

We then have a post that shows which are active (and if they are in signup phase or need replacements) and which are in que/being proposed.  we can even put up a statement: "PM the host if you are interested".  That way, if there's A LOT of interest in a game, it can be pushed forward. 

For example, it seems Religious mafia is doing well, but I think Santa might need to be put on hold due to too much going on, especially since Bay 12 is almost ready to go and I'm thinking of making a Plain Old Mafia.


As for player limits: I think simply keeping track of people who flake will work.  A person that plays 10 mafias and flakes on just one is no worse or better than a person who plays just one and flakes on that.

[Mr.Person]

Meh, I was going to start a mafia I was going to call "Alexhan's Choice Mafia", which would have hammering, a fair amount of fairly normal PR, modkills on lurkers, and no flavor messages, but I was waiting on the number of mafia games to go down. Instead I might just run a smalltown game, depending on what you wind up doing Dakarian. Smalltown is fun too.

Also, Paranormal is a hyper-role-crazy-rule mafia, although it's also got its role listed out, so it doesn't seem as crazy as some of the others.

[Vector]

I'm wondering how many would want a plain old mafia, like Beginner, but open to all.  All of the other games are hyper-role-crazy-rule mafias.  Thus, if there's demand:

1 Beginner mafia
1 Paranormal Mafia
1 Plain Old Mafia

Then have 2 Successful mafias (like Toony) and two 'beta testing/first time' mafias (like wizard). 

We then have a post that shows which are active (and if they are in signup phase or need replacements) and which are in que/being proposed.  we can even put up a statement: "PM the host if you are interested".  That way, if there's A LOT of interest in a game, it can be pushed forward. 

As for player limits: I think simply keeping track of people who flake will work.  A person that plays 10 mafias and flakes on just one is no worse or better than a person who plays just one and flakes on that.

I'll respectfully disagree.  It's clear that 8 is far too many, and 7 is not really much better.  The Vanilla Mafia should probably go on the rotation once it's been tested, and one new one at a time seems like a good idea.  Limits can increase if we have enough interest in the games.

The way I see it is that this is a supply/demand thing.  The supply is currently too high.  We need the units demanded to be higher than the units supplied for this to continue to be fun for everybody.

Keeping track of people who flake is not going to do it.  There needs to be obvious, immediate action to take care of persistent lurkers/flakers.  So, I'd suggest a ban of a certain length at the beginning, with a longer ban in effect for people who have many lurker events close together.

Something like that.

EDIT:

Also, maybe we should make a separate thread for this about Bay12 Mafia policies.  I might make it a bit later.  With a poll, and everything.

[dakarian]

Hmm, so let's see. 

Three 'permanent' games:

Paranormal (it's what brought me over here, and I'm probably not the first to think of this as the trademark 'bay12game' mafia)

Beginner's Mafia

Plain old mafia

1 'testing' mafia (a mafia that's currently in beta.  I honestly would put Religious as one of those since it still needs a good deal of tweaks.  It also makes sure we don't get 'locked' on the same mafias over and over)


After that we should have a system as to which games should come up next based on demand.  If 20 people are rioting in the streets for another Toon mafia, then we shouldn't stop them, but 5 people going 'alright' isn't enough for Santa to even get a thread.  We could have a voting system in a thread with suggestions for mafias and a mafia would have to get a certain number of votes to start up.  A poll would work best since, otherwise, it would be a MESS of posts with "IN!" filling the thread quickly.  I know Scummafia does that but they have subforums to make it easier.

Idea:

Thread is opened and, by Monday, Three people suggest their mafias and requested number of players: Bay 12-requiring 15 people, Wizard Dual-wanting 12, and Alexhan's Choice-wanting 12.  Poll lasts until Friday.  On Friday, the mafias that get as many votes as requested players get the Green Light.  On Monday, the cycle repeats.

That allows for some control in what games get started.  You get some partial control over how many games people join by controlling how many votes people get (thus even if you want to play in all three you can only vote for one and would have to hope 12 OTHER people want to play in the others).  I'd set it, personally as: 1 vote per person, you can change the vote, 5 day time limit, anyone can see the results, and no more than 3 listed per session.

@ Mr. Person

I'd put that 'Alexhan's' mafia as a special mafia, since we've all grown used to settings like No Hammer.  I imagine 'smalltown' is the same as what I call 'Plain Old Mafia', set like Begginner but with open enrollment.  To be HONEST, I wouldn't mind if someone else ran it so I don't end up with a mass of mafias to take care of.  If no one else does run it, I will, but I'm content running Beginner and, perhaps, some special mafia.

[Alexhans]

Meh, I was going to start a mafia I was going to call "Alexhan's Choice Mafia", which would have hammering, a fair amount of fairly normal PR, modkills on lurkers, and no flavor messages, but I was waiting on the number of mafia games to go down. Instead I might just run a smalltown game, depending on what you wind up doing Dakarian. Smalltown is fun too.

Shouldn't I be modding that kinda game?  XD

You need my signed permission to use my name...

anyway... I don't favour modkilling lurkers over getting them replaced... bad thing here is that we don't seem to be able to get many replacements.

[Mr.Person]

One, yeah, you probably SHOULD be the host, but honestly, you'd be better at actually playing it.

Two, this should probably go into a seperate thread, this has NOTHING to do with Kingmaker

[Vector]

Yeah, I'll make another thread in a little while.  Just give me a bit--I'm really tired.

[Leafsnail]

So for Plain Old Mafia, are you going to go with C9 or a similar setup (basically with a chance of mafia RB and town docs and cops)?

Also, Paranormal is a hyper-role-crazy-rule mafia, although it's also got its role listed out, so it doesn't seem as crazy as some of the others.

It still seems to work well.  The current round has been very entertaining to watch, and the town seems to have done a very good job over the past 4 days.

And I don't mind you using this thread to discuss, I agree that this game had problems and they need to be addressed.  By the way, Bay 12 mafia will have a (near) unique way of discouraging lurking, but I am not at liberty to discuss it right now.

I wouldn't mind putting it off for a couple of weeks if it meant a more active and more fun game, so you can go ahead with your suggestions.

[Free Beer]

I'm not sure if restriction against multiple mafias would fix the lurking issue. If people don't have time to post in any of the multiple mafias they're signed up for, then I doubt they'd have time to post in just one.

My interrogation of chaoticjosh in Vote Mafia 3 revealed that he stopped posting there because the mafia became boring to him sometime around mid-Day One. Thus, I think the way to proceed would be to make the mafias less boring.

I suggest doing this by adding subgames that occur within the day phase of the mafia games themselves. That way, if people get tired of playing the day game, they still have another mechanic to latch on to in order to keep them interacting.

Example suggestion: Kingmaker Pictionary.

Exactly like Kingmaker, except the King can only communicate with pictures, and people have to guess what he's saying. Execute orders are also pictures, and people vote on who they think the King wants dead. The person that actually gets lynched depends on the votes, not who the king orders. Correct guessers have some sort of bonus within the Kingmaker aspect of the game, like requiring an extra vote to lynch if executed.

[Alexhans]

Free beer... aghhh.... If you want to make that kind of game... make it...

But if people get bored of playing mafia it's their own fault...

Town needs to keep talking to find scum... That's what makes the game interesting... If we have a commited and active town there should be no problems.

It's like if I was in an American Football match and left the field because I was bored of blocking the guy in front of me... Im gonna hurt my team... If want to make it better I should not only block him but throw him to the floor and try to block some other guy too.

What do we do with a teammate that hurts us on purpose?  We take him out.

The games are as interesting as the players want them to be...  Look at beginners mafia 1... That was a really nice game although it had some lurkers almost everyone tried to make the best for their team.

[dakarian]

@Leaf:  pretty much, though I have wondered why they switched the Godfather with the roleblocker.  The godfather helps ruin the cop's power, which, I think, is a great way to keep newbies from relying on him (I note both Beginners had the town focus on the day game to find scum and never put much thought of the power roles).  Roleblocker isn't as cop nullifying and a little redundant since mafia would more likely want to kill the power role instead.

As for Bay 12: you almost filled that game up.  I think there's enough demand for it to go through. 



Meanwhile:

Probably the #1 strongest weapons against dull play is the Mod.  Lurkers need to be Prodded and, if inactive, replaced (if they 'exist', as proven by PMs to the host but not talking, that's still 'in game' and something the town has to deal with: Lurking IS a tactic after all).  If the game is slowing down, the host can threaten to push the Deadline.  Beginner 2 was saved in that way. 

A thread to go to that involves replacements will help: one that's in this forum itself.  Once we, as a group, get used to replacing others in games it'll greately help the situation. 

Thus, I believe we need 1 poll made weekly that controls what games get started (beyond the 'main' ones) and a replacements thread.  That, along with mods that are aggressive with moving the game along, will solve most of the problems without stifling active players.

[Leafsnail]

Ah, ok then.  I suppose lurking (not posting much, trying to stay out of any arguments) or active lurking (posting quite a bit but not really saying or hunting much) should be allowed, but if a player is "flaking" (ie not playing at all) without a good reason then that's no good.  We might be confusing the terms on this forum.  I mean, Free Beer was accused of being an active lurker and unhelpful in this game.  It's true, he wasn't being helpful, but why should a scum player be helpful to the town?  Doesn't it make sense for a scum player to keep his head beneath the paraphet?

As for the replacement thread, I think that's a good idea.  I guess the OP could contain a list of all active mafias and any replacements needed for them.  Perhaps people could also volunteer to replace in certain games, so that if the need for a replacement arises the mod can instantly find a replacement.

As I said, Bay12 mafia will have a way of discouraging lurkers, and getting them out of the game quickly.  I guess you'll have to wait to see what it is...