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[webadict]

Help Ford with Geriatric mafia.

Who me?

[birdy51]

Help Ford with Geriatric mafia.

Who me?

I believe it was addressed to me.

If CaptainFord is willing to let me shadow him and help out wherever I can, I have no problem with giving him a hand with Geratric Mafia!

I don't know... that role is just... boring.

The Double Agent does have the potential to be rather dull, so I may go on the consideration of giving it some JOAT abilities, most likely the ability to Nightkill or Investigate once. That way, even if the Mafia clam up, he's not entirely useless.

[notquitethere]

I disagree with Wuba here-- I think a doubleagent would be fun to play-- you'd have to work out from the scumchat who the mafia were and try to let town know without outing yourself.

[Mephansteras]

I think the Double Agent role would work if there are established codenames for everyone in Mafia-chat and no one fluffs up and comments while signed into their quicktopic profile.

The problem with this is that it seriously hamstrings the quickchat for the mafia. Sure, they can talk in code names and discuss the night kill ok, but the day game loses pretty much all co-ordination. You can't talk with someone about how you're going to attack them for such-and-such or ask someone what they really meant when they mentioned X. All of those things would be a complete give-away as to who the mafia actually is.

Also, always remember that cop roles don't have to worry about 'getting caught' by mafia. Once they find even one it can be an excellent idea to tell town everything they know, since a 1-1 trade is always a good deal for town.

So Mafia basically can't use the quicktopic for anything meaningful and you have an overall more disorganized game. Which is rarely as fun.

[webadict]

I disagree with Wuba here-- I think a doubleagent would be fun to play-- you'd have to work out from the scumchat who the mafia were and try to let town know without outing yourself.

Not really. You're just going to have zero talking in the thread. There's not really a point to having someone listen in on the scumteam. It turns out REALLY bad. It makes it PARTICULARLY bad, since you really want to agree on a person to kill, but doing so could reveal more people that aren't scum. Hence you just let one person pick, and then kill the person. No one else talks. It really makes the role pointless.

You can look at Paranormal some# with the old style Watcher.

Ninja edit because 504 errors: What Meph said.

[Captain Ford]

The double agent has been discussed before here, I think NQT is actually the one who brought it up.

I had the pleasure of observing a mafia game where a double agent was introduced midgame. Quite a lot went on behind the scenes, but ultimately it just turned into a lynchfest since the double agent was given a way (multiple ways, actually) to anonymously inform the town who the scum were.

At the very least, the double agent should be given a wincon that requires him to be alive at the end of the game, which should eliminate the temptation to break his cover early.

...actually...here's a great idea. Let's make it two roles.

Informant
The informant is a member of the mafia who is in contact with the spymaster. They do not have a private chat, but the informant can send one message to the spymaster per day.
The informant does not know the identity of the spymaster.
If all other mafia members are dead, the informant becomes a vanilla townie.
Wincon: Must survive to the end of the game.

Spymaster
The spymaster is in contact with an informant in the mafia. He may send any number of messages to the informant, but the informant only receives them when he goes to make an information drop.
The spymaster knows the identity of his informants.
Wincon: Wins with the town.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think the informant really works - if there's a doctor he can just claim and win, for instance.  Same if only one mafia member remains.

The better "mafia traitor" role is, in my opinion, the Usurper.  He still wins with the mafia, but he has to get the Godfather killed too and probably survive him (the Godfather loses if he dies while the Usurper is still alive, and is informed that someone in his ranks may be out to get him).  This is better in my opinion since the role still introduces some dissent into the mafia ranks without the risk of having people just tell the town who the mafia is.

You can look at Paranormal some# with the old style Watcher.

There was also the Controlled Doppelganger, which was weird because it could betray either of the scumteams it was aligned with (I'm not sure if one was ever actually used in a game, it was before my time really).

[Captain Ford]

You're right. So let's say the doctor can't save the informant.

Also give one of the scum a one-shot daykill to keep the informant from claiming when there's only one other scum left.

It may seem that there's no reason for the informant to not reveal the entire scumteam immediately and no reason for the spymaster not to reveal all of their identities. Except that if the informant and spymaster do that, then the informant loses because the scum identify him and kill him with the daykill.

Of course, the spymaster doesn't care whether the informant lives or not, so either the spymaster has to behave in good faith, or the informant has to not reveal everything at once.

But I ultimately agree that it's very prone to not working as intended.

And yes, the usurper is definitely a better role for injecting chaos into the scumteam.

[birdy51]

Ah... Now I see some of the flaws of the Double Agent.

The points of Mephansteras and Webadict provide solid reasoning as to why the role is potentially flawed. I'll keep thinking about ways that might make the Double Agent idea a bit more plausible though. The idea interests me. Perhaps I'll return to it eventually, but we shall see.


Now, onto the Informant/Spymaster role! It's an interesting concept, but I question whether the Informant will have enough incentive to keep his mouth clamped. As it stands, the Informant is a very swingy role. If the Mafia is winning, he'll want to stick with them, but if they are not faring well, the Informant becomes a massive nail in their coffin.

In addition, the idea of a Daykill helps with preventing the flip, but it can also become a potent weapon for the Mafia to instantly kill off any high value targets that might be forced into the open. Flipping roles is no longer a way to protect yourself when pressed.

[Captain Ford]

You're right about the daykill there. It's not the right kind of incentive. Ooh...better idea. Allow the mafia to have their own lynchvote, and the informant's vote always loses in a tie. (No Lynch is an option, and in ties that don't involve an informant the lynch is picked at random)

Edit: Shit, no, that's even worse. In fact, the whole thing is broken because as soon as there's two left, they'd just vote each other and the informant would die. The informant would always lose!

That problem holds true for the original version, too! Ugh. Completely broken.

[RedWarrior0]

You're right about the daykill there. It's not the right kind of incentive. Ooh...better idea. Allow the mafia to have their own lynchvote, and the informant's vote always loses in a tie. (No Lynch is an option, and in ties that don't involve an informant the lynch is picked at random)

Edit: Shit, no, that's even worse. In fact, the whole thing is broken because as soon as there's two left, they'd just vote each other and the informant would die. The informant would always lose!

I slowly typed up the equivalent of that before realizing it was the exact same. Hm... Though I think the mafialynch is the best way to do so, as well as the spymaster/informant combo.

I mentioned Diplomacy Mafia in the other thread. Anyone have an idea as to how to make it work without making it a slightly more restricted game of Diplomacy?

[birdy51]

You're right about the daykill there. It's not the right kind of incentive. Ooh...better idea. Allow the mafia to have their own lynchvote, and the informant's vote always loses in a tie. (No Lynch is an option, and in ties that don't involve an informant the lynch is picked at random)

Edit: Shit, no, that's even worse. In fact, the whole thing is broken because as soon as there's two left, they'd just vote each other and the informant would die. The informant would always lose!

I slowly typed up the equivalent of that before realizing it was the exact same. Hm... Though I think the mafialynch is the best way to do so, as well as the spymaster/informant combo.

I mentioned Diplomacy Mafia in the other thread. Anyone have an idea as to how to make it work without making it a slightly more restricted game of Diplomacy?

I haven't seen that post yet, but it sounds interesting. Where is it at?


Also... as I mentioned in another thread, I am considering running a game in order to build up bit of experience. The idea for Cold Mafia is being shelved for now, since there are complications with the Double Agent. Therefore, I am willing to take suggestions for a gametype that is interesting, but still simple enough that a relatively new player could run it.

Luckily, I have a bit of an RPing background, so any flavor shouldn't be a major problem. I just need a setup to run with.

[Toaster]

I've always wanted to see a Smalltown game.  (Everyone knows everyone's role, but not alignment.)

[Phantom of The Library]

I've always wanted to see a Smalltown game.  (Everyone knows everyone's role, but not alignment.)

I might run one of these after Toon Mafia finishes if anyone else is interested.

[zombie urist]

Someone should run a cybrid mafia. 

And a revolution mafia.

Wasn't Elements basically diplomacy mafia?