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[Lenglon]

working on an idea of my own, the key gimmick is that one invulnerable (from everything) player has total control of the day (only their vote counts, and day ends when they vote, not based on time), their win condition is to identify the one player that is their ally from all the rest, and make that player the last player standing. they have no faction chat, and don't know who their ally is. each of the other factions want one of their players to be the last one standing instead. as a rule of thumb, the larger the faction, the weaker the power roles they'd have. game ends one way or another when there's only one player left standing (the invuln player doesn't count, and signups for the invuln role would be separated from the normal player signups, similar to how ICs are handled in BM games.) no roleflips.

So: 1 Invulnerable player who wins when they have eliminated everyone but their ally. they are the only player to vote, it's obvious who the invuln player is so that there is no reason to false-claim. Looking bad so far I'm afraid.

It seems like a very exploitable set-up if I understand it properly. How does one player scum-hunt when EVERYONE says the same thing "I'm on your team dude!". Could you  go into more detail about the way this would work. Some examples of the various factions?

generally in a vanilla setup everybody claims the same role (vanilla townie) as well, so the invuln player would mostly need to be very good at normal scumhunting tactics. this is a mafia game after all. also, keep in mind that the invuln player has control of the only (excluding changeling) cross-faction chat.

Faction 0: (allied to invuln) 1 player, 1-shot bulletproof, or possibly a 1-shot auto-redirect to a random target. if game is large gets an ally with a 1-shot protect or 1-shot-auto-bodyguard (if the person you're protecting gets NKd, you die instead) (ally's wincon is that you survive, not that they do themselves, if they're last one standing everybody loses.)
Faction 1: (weak faction) lots of players, no individual power roles, 1 mafiakill (named different but effect is the same)
Faction 2: (strong faction) 1 changeling, can either NK or replace someone each night. can end up with access to many faction chats if chooses targets well.
Faction 3: (moderate- faction) small party, 1 mafiakill, every member has an inspect, every member gets a 1-shot redirect.
Faction 4: (strong faction) 1 doomspeaker.
Faction 5: (moderate+ faction) small party, every member a JOAT, 1 mafiakill.
Faction 6: (weak faction) same as faction 1

and so on, the exact number of factions and what they can do will vary, but there will always be at least 3 factions, plus Faction 0 (the actual invuln player's ally). nobody will get any kind of day action. roleclaims to form alliances between factions are possible but suicidal because you will be daykilled by the invuln player pretty much instantly.

it's pretty much intended for a closed setup. not knowing exactly what roles are in the game matters.

[griffinpup]

But again, how do you scumhunt when EVERYONE is claiming the same thing, and every role-claim is immediately lynched by the invulnerable player?  This game would devolve to people randomly nightkilling each-other while the invulnerable player randomly lynches people.  You can't scumhunt when there's no traits to differentiate the people you're looking for.  Everyone's goal is to kill everyone else.  Therefore, there's nothing to look for.

[Lenglon]

But again, how do you scumhunt when EVERYONE is claiming the same thing, and every role-claim is immediately lynched by the invulnerable player?  This game would devolve to people randomly nightkilling each-other while the invulnerable player randomly lynches people.  You can't scumhunt when there's no traits to differentiate the people you're looking for.  Everyone's goal is to kill everyone else.  Therefore, there's nothing to look for.

how is that different from basic mafia with no power roles?

also, i think you missed a few inspects and particularly how much the changeling changes things.

[Nerjin]

Inspects won't DO anything in that set-up however. If the only goal is to be the last man standing [or to have an ally be such] all the inspects do is say "Oh yeah you want him dead." Which people already knew anyway.

Plus the changeling doesn't really change much. It just kills and gets access to other chats. Again since you're entire goal is for the invuln player to love you you basically don't even need the other chats since you know that everyone else that's alive is another player that you want dead.

[griffinpup]

What separates the play of everyone else and the person the invulnerable person is trying to save?

[Toaster]

mafiakill

Here's the problem- it's too swingy.  All that has to happen is the ally to get nightkilled, and then you have a player who cannot win deciding who does win.

[Lenglon]

toaster: that's why no roleflips

pup: everyone else is trying to eliminate the other factions, but don't want to eliminate their allies. the true ally is effectively a survivor, the rest are closer to town.

Nerjin: the inspects say which faction a given player is with. each individual faction has a better chance of winning the fewer other factions are left alive. for example if faction players identify the changeling they can pick that person off and remove one nightkill that is outside their control. also, once they identify the person the invuln player is allied too, they actually have the option of claiming and holding the invuln player effectively hostage, because one of their unclaimed allies will nightkill the invuln player's ally if he chooses to daykill them.

[Nerjin]

So once you find out what faction the other player is... You set out to kill them. Which is exactly what you'd be doing anyway. Why waste an action inspecting when you'd want to just kill them anyway. I dunno. It could be an alright set-up but it needs work.

[Lenglon]

So once you find out what faction the other player is... You set out to kill them. Which is exactly what you'd be doing anyway. Why waste an action inspecting when you'd want to just kill them anyway. I dunno. It could be an alright set-up but it needs work.

the idea is to let you pick and choose your target, rather than kill at random. similar to how in normal mafia the scum want every townie dead, but a scum inspect lets them pick and choose the highest priority targets to kill first. remember a mafiakill is 1-per-night-per-faction, whereas the inspects are 1-per-night-per-person. kill 1 person and inspect two others each night. next night you can pick your target better.

[Nerjin]

Well maybe. I don't think I'd play it though I'll with-hold judgement until such a time that I see the full game set-up.

[dakarian]

May as well through my idea up for speculation:

The central mechanic is that everyone has second lives and the day cycle is divided into three phases instead of two.

During the morning phase everyone votes to take away the extra life of one player and give it to another player.  The players with the most vote in either category will be selected (as opposed to the most voted pairing).  If a player requests replacement, both of their bodies are also up for voting, similarly with players who have been absent for over 72 hours.  This phase lasts 24 hours without extension.

During this phase out of town guests (people in the replacement queue) may post once offering their candidacy for becoming a part of the town, town may then vote them in by giving them a body to inhabit.  If they are taking the primary body of another player they are counted as replacing that player and get their role and win-con.  If they only receive a secondary body they are randomly assigned a win-con with weighted chances based on the number of each side that voted for them receiving the body (so if 3 town and 1 mafia voted for them, they would have a 75% chance of being town and 25% chance of being scum).

During the day phase business is as normal: The player voted to be lynched only loses one life.  This phase would last 48 hours

The night phase is also fairly normal, players send in their actions etc.  This phase lasts 24 hours.

For the basic version the power-roles I have in mind are:

Spoiler: Mafia (click to show/hide)

Saboteur- During the night the saboteur may destroy one extra body a player has.

Spoiler: Town (click to show/hide)

Tracker- Standard version
Doctor- Standard version
Watchman- During the night you may chose to protect a players extra life, if any party would have messed with the body you scare them off

Additional power roles I want to add but aren't part of the basic game:

Spoiler: 3rd party (click to show/hide)

Body Thief- The thief starts with no extra lives, during the night he may steal an additional life from some player.  He wins and is removed from the game if he has three or more extra lives.

Spoiler: Town (click to show/hide)

Body Hacker- During the night he may select any secondary body to enhance with two of the following:
    Telepathy - Gives access to a chat room shared across everyone who has this ability
    Empathy - Gives the ability to determine the truth of a statement once per day
    Charisma - Gives two additional votes to the player
    Internal Battery - Protects the body against saboteurs
    Internal Explosives - Grants the ability of a suicidal paranoid gun owner

Aesthetically I'm thinking this works within a cyberpunk theme.

Thoughts?

Let me see if I get this right:

So there's two voting sessions and a night phase.

In each voting session, we vote to not only take a 'life' of a player, but also give that 'life' to another.  I imagine that, once you run out of lives you are 'dead'. 

From there, the roles involve taking, removing, protecting, or adding to people's lives.

I like the central theme of it.  I'm not sure the 'second phase' is needed, though.  I see the goal: you have two lives and those lives each get a vote.  However, if I want to lynch PlayerX then I have no reason to vote for him once then leave him alone.  I'll want ALL of his lives from the getgo.  As such, it might be best just to have one day phase. As for how to handle the lives issue, there's two ways to handle the lynch vote as I see it:

1. One life= one vote, and lynch kills ALL lives.  Would be tricky to balance but would be easier to manage than #2

2. Multiple voting boards.  I'll explain:

Say I had 2 lives.  Voting board #1 starts up and we vote as normal, with everyone having 1 vote.  However, since I have TWO lives, I can use my second life to start a second Voting board (#2).  Only people with a second life can vote on Voting Board #2.  If you have a third life, you can vote in Voting Board #3 and so on.  Of course, in most cases, people will dump all of their votes on the same person.

so if WTF! has 1 life, I have 2 lives PlayerX has 3 lives, and Litia has 4 Lives.  I vote for PLayerX, PlayerX votes for me, Litia votes for WTF and WTF votes for PlayerX.  The result will be this:

Voting Board #1
PlayerX[2]: WTF!, Dakarian
Dakarian[1]: PlayerX
WTF![1]:Litia

Voting Board #2
PlayerX[1]: Dakarian
Dakarian[1]: PlayerX
WTF![1]:Litia

Voting Board #3
Dakarian[1]: PlayerX
WTF![1]:Litia

Voting Board #4
WTF![1]:Litia

Everyone can vote in #1 since we all have one life.  This results in PlayerX losing a life. 
Only people with two lives can vote in #2.  This results in a 3 way tie.  Nothing happens.
Same for #3, two way tie.
Only Litia has 4 lives so she can vote in #4, which results in WTF! losing a life. 

Result: PlayerX goes down to 2 lives and WTF! is lynched. 

Of course, now that I see it in action, it makes MUCh more sense to NOT just dump all votes on the same person all of the time.  You're free to use your votes however you wish.

It's crazy, but it keeps teh spirit of the 'multiple votes with multiple lives' idea and gives a lot of power towards those that can collect a lot of lives. 


Many of the other features can remain, such as the town being able to vote on who gets the lives.  Perhaps have it so that the lives are evenly spread through the town in the order of the vote. i.e. Thus in the above example, 2 lives were taken (PlayerX and WTF!).  The 'granting vote' works as follows (note, 1 player, 1 vote.. you get no additional power for having additoinal lives. Too much feedback loop of POWER):

Litia: 4 votes
PlayerY: 6 votes
Dakarian: 1 vote
WTF!: 5 votes

The lives are given out one at a time top to down.  In other words, PlayerY and Litia get a life.  If 3 lives were up for grabs, WTF would also get 1.  if 4 lives, We ALL would get a life.

As far as the roles, the only role I have issue with is the Hacker.  Seems way too powerful and, honestly, I like the idea of most of the roles being based on the life system.  Maybe a person who gains power based on how many lives they have.

[RedWarrior0]

OH MY GOD IS IT TRUE? IS IT TRUE? HE'S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE! OH MY GOD HE'S ALIVE!

[Okami No Rei]

OH MY GOD IS IT TRUE? IS IT TRUE? HE'S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE! OH MY GOD HE'S ALIVE!

Are we sure he's alive, and not, in fact, a zombie?

[Tiruin]

Dakarian is something you cannot fathom, which may not even be right in terming it a 'thing'. He is the symbol of an ancient time, of a Golden Age in the mafia where things were more civil. As of the difference between now and then, there are the usual occurrences of shifts, up and down, but one thing lies in truth.

He's back.


I'd side with him on the Hacker too. All those abilities packed into one doesn't sound like a good combination.

[Griffionday]

The idea behind the Hacker was to grant additional powers to a player (similar to a Santa role) that will only show up when they get down to one life; essentially adding a glass cannon to the upgraded body might be passed around, so I'd need to figure out order of lives being granted.

Otherwise, I like the idea on how votes are handled based on lives as that means the people how gain power were voted into the power by the players.  I REALLY like the voting board idea, and already have ideas of how I can work that into the flavor.