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[Captain Ford]

NQT, I've been thinking about your game idea for a few days, and written up rather large posts about ideas related to it.

Games with alliance-building aren't terribly fun when all the players are essentially equal and nobody is in the open for players to make decisions on. I once played a game of Twilight Imperium that lasted 3.1 days (IRL) and that turned out to be a ton of fun. I won in the end by taking a huge risk to grab up the territory I needed to win. Since I went last in the turn order (ironically, if everyone wasn't refusing to trade with me, that wouldn't have been the case), nobody could stop me. It was an immensely satisfying victory.

But what I wanted to talk about was the numerous backroom deals when players would take each other aside and talk in private. The balance of power shifted often on these deals. When one player got too powerful, the others would unite to take them down a peg. I only won because I came up with a cunning plan and blindsided everybody before they could react.

Basically, my point was that you don't get this kind of scheming and alliance-making unless the players are unequal in some way. It also gives you some latitude with regards to balance, since anyone who is perceived as more powerful will get wailed on by everybody else (I would know).

The problem with a game where everyone's equal mechanically is that it basically comes down to a popularity contest.

[notquitethere]

Yeah, you make a good point about asymmetry of power. I'll have a good think about how things can be mixed up a bit.

[Mephansteras]

Yes, but everyone starts off equal in TI, too.

I think the various power roles of the players will help, because each will be more powerful in certain situations.


I'm thinking that the 6 player version, with everyone knowing the identity of one other player, has a decent chance of working pretty well.

[Captain Ford]

Not from what I remember. Everyone's homeworld is different, you start off with different bonus techs, and the special ability of your race makes a big difference. My race had the disadvantage of having 0 influence unless I had a trade agreement, so I always went last, but my ground troops had +2 to hit. I think I remember my homeworld had +9 industry and +1 influence, which was high and low respectively. I was able to build ships and troops faster and I was better able to claim and hold onto planets in the early game.

The last version I played was the second edition, though. I don't know about third.

[Griffionday]

I had an idea for a role that I would like opinions on.  The general idea of the role is a undercover detective, who has access to the main mafia chat but is townie. 

The idea came from a short detective story I love (The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba by Dorthy L Sayers) which is set in a band of gentleman-thieves that only know each other by a number; with the exception of the leader who knows everyone in the band. 

To set up such a game it should be made VERY clear that the possibility of such a role exists, and in the role PMs each mafia member should be assigned an alias that they should post in the mafia chat as (depending on the flavor, a general example would be numbers).  I believe the mafia leader would be an extremely important role as they are guaranteed to not be the traitor, they know the names and aliases of all members, and would be given the alias "Number One" or other obvious title (so they can be identified by mafia members in the chat).  It should be possible for the mafia to choose to night-kill one of their own in an attempt to eliminate the traitor.

For balance purposes I think the mafia would need to be fairly large, possibly 3+1/10 or 4+1/12.

Thoughts anyone?

[Urist Imiknorris]

The problem with that is that the undercover cop could say "Yo, I'm that guy, and the scum are <foo>, <bar>, and <lol>" and town wins. We tend to use our usernames in scumchat just so we know each other.

Also I've been in a scumteam that had a mole, and the reveal was painful.

[Griffionday]

Hence the aliases...  Basically eventually the guy should be able to say "I'm pretty sure these are the people based on posting patterns and tone of voice."

[Toaster]

Even with the aliases, it becomes very tricky, since it wouldn't take much inferring to translate scumchat actions (or even posting style/sentence structure) to in-thread statements.

Such a role can exist, but it is very hard to balance.  Making it third party is a strong bet.

If you want to make an interesting alternative, may I suggest a Usurper?  I've never seen one here on B12.

[Griffionday]

This is actually perfect...  Sorry designing a Shakespearean Mafia game.  Things will become more concrete once I get a couple dozen games down though.

[Toaster]

Post restriction:  All posts must be in iambic pentameter.



(Seriously if you kept all the flavor in verse I'd be pretty impressed)

[RangerCado]

in regards to the detective/traitor role: this could work out if it went somewhat like this. detective is PMed who 1 mafia is. no role just that their mafia.                They are also then PMed the messages sent by this person in scumchat minus any names besides the detective himself.           This would give the detective a target to try and lynch, as well as a whole other chat to mull over. any feedback on this would be appreciated.                                               EDIT: Sorry for weird spacing, but posting this on a DSI puts some limits on me. namely, being unable to drop down a line effectively

[Griffionday]

in regards to the detective/traitor role: this could work out if it went somewhat like this. detective is PMed who 1 mafia is. no role just that their mafia.                They are also then PMed the messages sent by this person in scumchat minus any names besides the detective himself.           This would give the detective a target to try and lynch, as well as a whole other chat to mull over. any feedback on this would be appreciated.

Then wouldn't they just be an cop with a target they know from the start?

A phone tapper could be interesting, especially if the chose a specific time to listen, say two hour periods each day.

Post restriction:  All posts must be in iambic pentameter.

But of course it would have to be so.

[Urist Imiknorris]

A role that, at the beginning of the night, receives a random scumchat post from that day would be pretty interesting.

(without learning the author)

[RangerCado]

A role that, at the beginning of the night, receives a random scumchat post from that day would be pretty interesting.

(without learning the author)

            ...thats pretty good. i like the phone tapper idea as well.

[Griffionday]

Experiment: use a random number generate and see how many posts are game breaking.

EDIT: Around 25% probably more if you are able to read more into the the lines.