Okay, let's thrash out the playability of Elements:
Here's the set-up for Elemental Mafia, or, because it has nothing to do with organised crime, just ELEMENTS
The set up:
Elements is a mafia-like game for five players. Each player plays an element secretly assigned to them: fire, air, water, earth and wood. Each element is naturally allied with two other elements and is enemy with two other elements. A player wins when both their enemies are dead. It is mafia-like because roles are only revealed upon death. In a way, each person is both scum and town.
The allegiances are as you'd expect:
Fire is allied with Air and Earth, enemy to Water and Wood.
Air is allied with Fire and Water, enemy to Earth and Wood.
Water is allied with Air and Wood, enemy to Fire and Earth.
Wood is allied with Water and Earth, enemy to Air and Fire.
Earth is allied with Wood and Fire, enemy to Water and Air.
Each day each player must choose to Eliminate one other player and also Protect one other player (not themselves). These actions are performed publicly, no PMing is allowed. This encourages the players to spend their time seeking alliances. The day ends when ALL the players have assigned both an attacking and a defending action, and one person has more kills-minus-protects against them than any other player. You only find out what element another player is after they've been killed. Play proceeds in this manner until someone has one. It is possible for the game to end in a draw- in which case everyone loses.
Discussion of the set up:
This game is potentially shorter than regular mafia: although the days have no set length, the game ends after only two to four lynches. There is no night phase.
A simple diagram could be drawn of the alliances and oppositions, and pasted in the OP for the game.
It has a low intensity workload for the mod: there are no nights, the thread need never be locked and there are only five players to keep track of. All they need do is give out the five roles and say who was what role when they die.
In contrast to regular mafia, as players need to protect as well as kill, the game encourages alliance building. The mechanic of roles being revealed only upon death encourages alliance breaking. The tension between the two should be fun. I'm sure when Water learns that they've probably allied themselves with Fire, they'll have to make a good excuse to break off that alliance.
I thought about allowing private messaging, but that would mean less activity in the main thread. What do people think?
I don't think lurking would be a major problem as inactive players could be replaced out. Also, it should be quite fast paced as the lynch happens when everyone has made their vote.
Should votes reset upon death? It would force players to actively make the decision to keep or break their alliances.
If the game is considered successful, the format could be repeated with variations such as unique elemental roles.
Wood was decided as the fifth element, above metal or void or what have you, as it worked well for the series of oppositions and attractions. Unlike the Chinese, I don't think Earth and Wood are naturally opposed unless you think of Earth as more like Stone.
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Topic: [DISCUSSION] Mafia Gametypes: Hash 'em out here! (Read 140935 times)