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[Bookthras]

OK... then I'm not understanding what rolling a six means. I thought it was "exceptional success", like rolling a 20 in D&D, not "success, but it somehow still sucks."

I'd leave veteran RTDers comment on that...

On the idea that it'd go from critical-failure to exceptional success, with a 3 minimal for nominal success, then for a doc it could be:

1: target dies
2: no effect
3: protects; you die if triggered
4: protects; you die if triggered
5: protects; you survive regardless
6: protects against multiple kills that night; you survive


For cop:
1: no result, target told
2: no result
3: result
4: result
5: result, bypass godfather effect
6: result, bypass godfather effect, roleblocks the target

(that last seems too much, maybe only 6 bypasses godfather, but it'd be nice if 5 had another perk then.)

[Dariush]

IMO not enough variety. Frankly, it simply looks like n%-role.

[Toaster]

Or just some other game mechanic altogether.  Like, and I'm just pulling this out of my ass here, say we had a zombie survival Mafia.  So there would be scum you're trying to oust, but then most players would have additional abilities like scavenging for food/stuff/barricade material, building barricades, etc.  So you'd decide to use a typical mafia-like ability (say investigate) or nail some wood over those windows to keep the zombies out.  Or maybe you have multiple actions and choose which to do or something. 

Another (very rough) idea I was tossing around is something like a three-phase game.  Like, for each "day" there's an adventure stage (maybe something RPG-ish like a dungeon crawl), then a camp phase where "normal" mafia gameplay happens, and some abilities/items you've earned in the prior phase come into play, then a night phase like normal.

You should check out these two, then:

BYOR: Choices  The bar standard for insane BYORs.

Mafia Roll to Quest  A neat game that sadly petered out.

OK... then I'm not understanding what rolling a six means. I thought it was "exceptional success", like rolling a 20 in D&D, not "success, but it somehow still sucks."

The standard 6 as I understand it is an "overshoot"- you succeeded at your goal, but with unintended consequences.  A 5 is critical success, and 4 is simple success.

[Darvi]

Basically, 1=Terribad, 2=Bad, 3=Meh, 4=Good, 5=Great, 6=CursedWithAwesome.

[Bookthras]

Having the Mafia part and the "other" part more separate.

Some of these have been tried. I suggest you peruse the notable games archive. If I have time later, I may look a couple of games up and link you. (Toaster already did!)

There was, as I said, one with a RTD game in the flavour, but people seemed not to enjoy it as much, since a "1" at the wrong moment meant flavour could get you killed, which was horrible for your team within the mafia game. But it was lots of fun to read.

There was a full-blown dwarf fortress one too, with a fortress needing to be built, a caravan coming in spring, people needing to dig for ore, craft mugs, tend farms, and complicated stuff like that. Again, lots of fun to read, but the non-mafia stuff got too much in the way of the mafia, leaving people confused and unable to proceed. If I recall correctly, this game didn't finish.

...there may be others I'm forgetting, but none of this crazyness caliber that I know of. Partly because the Chief Nut (Dakarian) left, and partly because they were, sadly, not as successful as I wish they had been.


But I think experimental and overly complicated games are endless fun, myself.  ;-)

[Dariush]

Like, and I'm just pulling this out of my ass here, say we had a zombie survival Mafia.  So there would be scum you're trying to oust, but then most players would have additional abilities like scavenging for food/stuff/barricade material, building barricades, etc.  So you'd decide to use a typical mafia-like ability (say investigate) or nail some wood over those windows to keep the zombies out.  Or maybe you have multiple actions and choose which to do or something. 

Damn, now I'll waste several days thinking about all the interesting ways this idea can be improved, post the result in this thread, get shit thrown at me and go sulk in a corner. I hate you.

Edit:
...Actually scratch that, I'll whip something up right now.

I propose a Deathworld-like setting. An outpost on a hostile planet, with several doppelgangers inside. There's only day phase. By default, everyone gathers in a meeting hall. There are cameras inside, so anyone who exits and enters the hall can be seen by everyone. At any point during the day, anybody can do an action (which takes up the rest of the day) after exiting the hall (though they can be accompanied by someone). For starters, there are three base parameters - food and (separate) defence of the two exits to the base. All three function almost exactly the same. Every turn 1 food is substracted for every player alive and a certain amount of health is deducted from both defences. If either drops below 0, town loses. An action consists of either improving or lowering some parameter, with effect depending on the number of participants. People doing an action together may PM each other and, if there's scum among them which consists of at least one third of all participants, they may infect someone with a spore, functioning like an arson (since a normal kill would be too obvious). People remaining in the hall count as being on a mission together.

What do you think, guys?

[Urist McUselessNoble]

I've sat down several times and tried to make one of those work, but the ability list always comes up lame and too random to use.

Let's look at cop and doc, for instance:

Cop:
1: No result, and target is told you were trying to inspect them.
2: No result.
3: Result that has a 50% chance to be naive.
4: Result.
5: Result- ignores godfather/miller effects.
6: Result, but target is told they were inspected.

Well, as Dariush points out that's what you get for insisting on using 1d6 as your die roll. You could use any probability distribution you'd care for to cook up the odds. Certainly enough web-based RNGs out there to do so.

I'm with Shake on a three-part game... in principle. It sounds all sorts of awesome to have "construction," "night" and "day" phases. In the first, you build the loot. In the second, somebody steals the loot. In the third, you try to figure out who was stealing the loot. It would also be pretty easy to blur the lines between mafia and third party, because you could add wincons based on the nature and quantity of the loot. And people would have to decide whether to get rid of someone playing for the wrong team but who was great at the construction subgame, and thus made the pie bigger for them to steal.

[Bookthras]

IMO not enough variety. Frankly, it simply looks like n%-role.

I don't disagree, but perhaps variety could be improved. I think the biggest obstacle is that there's too high a chance of an unwanted action. As Toaster said earlier, if there's too much of a chance of a negative result, people would be reluctant to even use their actions. If I'm a doctor with a 50% chance of not protecting or outright killing my target, I just won't.

Maybe by dropping that "6=CursedWithAwesome" thing, and maybe using a different die roll as McNoble suggested, percentages can be tweaked so that there's a >50% chance of a nominal, expected, success, a small chance of a catastrophic failure, but also a small chance of so cool a result that the risk is worth it. It'd no longer be true RTD, but still incorporate some of its spirit.

Say something like this for a standard doctor (who doesn't die if successfully protects)

Roll a d20:
1: target dies
2-3: no effect
4-5: protects; you die if triggered
6-15: protects; you survive
16-18: protects target, and target's target; you survive
19: protects target against multiple kills; you survive
20: protects target against multiple kills; if triggered, the attacker dies or is revealed.

(actual size of the die, and effects, can of course be tweaked, here only for illustration)

For an alignment cop, roll a d20:
1: no result, target told
2-3: no result
4-5: result, chance of naive
6-15: result
16-18: result, bypass godfather
19: result, bypass godfather, roleblock target
20: result, bypass godfather, roleblock target only if cross-aligned

With that, the chance of a "better than a normal role" effect is large enough that players would be willing to risk the negative effect of rolling low.

Another important consideration is whether players are told the result of their die roll. So if I am a cop, and am told I rolled a 4, I know my result may be naive, or if I know I rolled a 16+, that godfathers are not immune to my inspect. If the player is not told, then if a doctor's target dies, he won't know whether it was because he rolled a 1 and killed him himself, or merely rolled a 2-3 and his target was actually NK'd. Balance is not my forté, but I think I prefer the player be told their rolls.

I think it sounds like fun.

[Darvi]

I think they should be told their rolls. Otherwise it just devolves into wine.

Also, naïvity should be replaced with insanity.

[Dariush]

All the truly interesting stuff will be too rare, and the rest doesn't deviate too far from the standard n%-role.

[Leafsnail]

I'm not sure if I see the appeal.  The idea of RTD surely only really works if the moderator has discretion with the actions.  The die roll gives the mod ideas about what to write in response, but the mod can mess around with it to make sure the player isn't horribly screwed over (and instead make sure that the game is fun).  Mafia isn't like that - it has really rigid roles whose actions can't be fiddled by the mod to prevent stupid and unfair things from happening through no fault of the player's own.  There's also the fact to consider that mafia is generally regarded as a far more competitive, "play to win" kind of game than an RTD.  I feel that therefore a mafia RTD would therefore just be annoyingly random and arbitrary.  It doesn't even feel like it would be a fun kind of chaos, and rather just a "This dice will randomly decide whether you win or lose".

Although this is clearly just my opinion.

[Toaster]

I think that about sums up my opinion of it as well.

Good in theory, bad in practice.

A mafia-based RTD, on the other hand, might work- but that's a topic for another board.

[TolyK]

Hey, I haz an idea.

This would be a 3-phase-day, like Shakerag proposed.
Each person has actions for camp and night phase.

Camp (Voting phase):
 - People can only (change their) vote when around the campfire. They can only talk to people in their area. They can move places as often as they want around the camp "map". Mafia still get their chat, but they can only vote for where to meet up (during the day). People also have abilities during the day, which are slightly randomized (1-fail, 2-nothing, 3-slight success, 4-full success, 5-full success, 6-full success + something bad).
 - During adventure phase, they can choose to either go out adventuring (getting items, killing other folks discreetly, etc.) Here it's basically a freeform mini-RTD.
 - During night phase, most of the mafia-related actions happen. The interesting part here is that your roll determines at what time you do your job.

Night example:
 - mafioso with a kill.
 - doctor with a protect.
 - vigilante with a kill.
 - cop with an inspect.

mafioso roll (later is better, less chance of a doc protect): 1-10
doctor roll (later is better, less of a chance of a kill afterwards): 1-10
vigilante roll (earlier, since if a doc's protecting they could be down): 1-10
cop roll (later is better, because they might have already done their role): 1-10

Several scenarios:
 - mafioso 4 (on A), doctor 5 (on A), vigilante 2 (on B), cop 9 (on vig): A is shot and saved, B is killed, cop knows vig is a vig.
 - mafioso 7 (on A), doctor 2 (on B), vigilante 8 (on B), cop 7 (on A): B is killed (after protect), cop and mafioso meet at A's place (mod-defined behavior, like a shoot-out and someone/everyone dies)
 - mafioso 1 (on cop), doctor 7 (on cop), vigilante 6 (on maf), cop 4 or 8 (on A): cop is shot turn 1, so can't do his inspect on 4 (if roll was 4), but is revived by cop (on 7) and can do his inspect on 8 (if roll was . vigilante kills mafioso turn 6. (Read: very good for town )
 - etc.

What do you think?

[Powder Miner]

Why wouldn't everyone just go around the campfire for all the time?

[TolyK]

To have private chats, to do day-actions, to follow others, etc.