Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[dakarian]

Personally, I like the idea of it being a 'workable when something dies' sort of alarm thing.But honestly, it doesn't have to be that way.

In essence, it would make Track into a..well, track while Investigate checks role.  Track shows where I went while Investigate who's what I've done.  Besides, I think that my version of Investigate is a game breaker: Set it high enough to catch kills and if only one person tried to kill (i.e. there's only 5 people left) then it's instant catch.

Perhaps make it so that Investigate is multi-target and sees all actions that are 100-X.  Then remove track's '100-X' version.  You can effectively Investigate 75/Track 25 a person and know almost everythiing about them.

[Leafsnail]

Block probably isn't too good early in the game - unless you're sure you've identified someone who's putting a lot into Kill, it'd probably be better to put more points into your own.  Later, however, it could help you slip through a lower kill.  In particular, it would be an essential part of a 3 player endgame.  I was thinking the same about Train (hard to use but gives you a pretty substantial advantage later on if you pull it off).

Realistically, I'd expect most players to try to kill on most nights.  "Track" is mainly useful for catching people in lies and can exonerate/ implicate people if a successful investigation action is also used, particularly if the successful kill used a lot of points.  I think the proposed change would make it weaker and also introduce a problem - putting more points into track under your system would actually potentially make it worse, since you'd pick up extra irrelevant actions without knowing how many points were put into them.  In order to avoid a "more points makes the action weaker" situation you'd really have to tell the player how many points were put into each action.  Your investigate change proposal suffers from the same issue - you don't really want to catch anyone except the person who put the most points into kill, so again putting more points into it would actually dilute its power.

I guess the changes could be ok if you were told how many points were used in each action you found (except in the case of investigate 100-X), but I feel like it'd be hard to actually conclusively catch someone even if they're using a lot of points in their kill.

[dakarian]

True my 'test' didn't have a true day game in it. However, it does lead to a question of how we can tell who did the kill if everyone is trying to Kill for themselves.  Since they aren't really a mafia, there's no natural scumhunting to do.  As such, I assumed that the town is meant to accumulate the blocks, tracks, and investigates to narrow down the choices, then use the partial information from that, player meta, and a bit of 'spot the lie 'to find who to lynch. 

As such, I actually can imagine that any night where the majority of the group tries to kill will, essentually lead to the final day as there would be too many 'kill' false positives, far too few investigations/tracks/blocks to sort them, and it would be easy to act like a "killer who's kill failed" right along side everyone else.

Personally, I'd spend the first few nights track/block/investigating like crazy and lynching them down, then trying for the kill later on. 

Btw, I think I see how Train comes into play.  If the last 3 players don't train at all, in order to win, they'd have to do 91 kill/ 5 block, 4 block, effectively picking one person to fully block (100-(2*5)=90) and one person to miss.  If they trained, though, they can effectively block both players and ensure a win. 

True, it's 'it breaks lylo but does nothing else' but does it really need to do anything else?  If you plan to win early, you try to target someone with JUST enough points to get a kill in and hope to slip through.  If you plan to win midgame you do so by the group forgetting you and realizing too late they didn't watch you.  If you plan to win late game, you train up and try to catch the killers so that you effectively will win at the 3-person.  Sort of a risk-reward thing.

All for letting people see the points used.

To be fully honest, what I'd like to see is this game in action to see how it'll roll.  It's hard to tell just what information everyone will need until we see how the day game works.  There's already a call in another thread for Experimental games that may be broken and this one very much looks interesting.

[Leafsnail]

A player is effectively a mafia member after they make a kill - they'll either have to try and lie about what they did last night or be instantly put in the prime suspect position by honestly claiming their kill (this would probably be suicidal due to the possibilities of investigations).  The idea is that the investigative actions would be able to catch the culprit in their lies.

Obviously there's a balance to strike between trying to make your own kill, looking for other people's kills and powering up for later (if you could hide the fact that you were training previously you'd have free points to spend on future nights).

[Shinigami_King]

The concept of hivemind is that one player controls a group of others, right?

[dakarian]

That is true that the kill effectively turns it into a mafia/town situation, which makes the day game work.  However, it's effectively Day 1 (even if it's, say, the third day technically, teh first two days had everyone as 'town'.  This is the first day for the mafia/town dynamic and Day 1s are painful for the town to handle (it's power is in supplying the tells that get found out later on).  While this would work if the town had multiple days to handle it (removing the '1 day doomsday' effect, which would make a fun game in itself but I like the doomsday mechanic) the town really doesn't have the means to do a regular scumhunt once a kill is made.  As such, they are heavily dependent on the investigative skills.  The balance, then, is in there being a situation when the town is able to find the killer in most cases and there being a situation where the scum can slip by (with the leaning heavily on town due to Time being heavily anti-town here).

Analyzing.. note that I'm thinking as i'm writing here

There seems to generally be three stages to the game:

Early game: Larger number of players.  No patterns to try to figure out on the players.  That'll result in players randomly performing their actions.

Mid game: fewer players and now patterns and play styles are showing up.  actions are now directed as people are now having a plan in order to win (or at least, not lose)

Last Day: 3 player game at night.  Win is basically determined by how well you Trained in order to out block everyone or, if no outright winner there, a guessing game as to who to block and who to kill.

The Last Day is, to me, balanced thanks to the Training system.  I was foolish to throw that item out.  Just having 6 points (20 points in Train for three days) is more than enough to turn the tide into a full win in your favor.  BAH, if your opponents didn't train, ONE POINT is enough to guarantee the win.  As such, whoever trains more wins.  However, you sacrifice your early game, risking both losing to an earlier successful mafia or simply being NKed.  Thus you have to plan to fight for the end game here, opting to balance Blocks (to avoid dying), investigates/tracks (to keep others from winning) and Train (to help you win the end).  I can see a person try to do a 100 Train all game but that's similar to someone doing a 100 Kill day 1 and attempting to slip by.  In the end, I think I really like the risk and reward and the planning required to pull it off. 

So the question comes to how the other games work out:  To recap the original rules (officially throwing out my suggestions)

You can Kill with a balanace between keeping below the radar (lower points) and actually making the kill (higher points).  Think Price is Right

You can Track: Shows how much into Kill they used (thus both if they tried to kill and the chance they made the kill), or, if strong enough, their target as well

Block: Effectivey stop a person from killing

Investigate: Show all nonkill actions or, if strong enough, show everyone that tried to kill the person.

train: talked about earlier.


Ok, let's say you made a kill for 100 points on someone who no one else targetted, and won.  Anyone that tracks you will see that you went all out and  that you aimed at the victim: confirmed killer.  Anyone that investigates will know you are the only killer: confirmed

In fact, if someone decides to go with a high point Investigate, so long as you are the only target, you will be doomed.  At most, 2 people will target the same person, which can be figured out by deduction. 

My worry, though, comes in if a person kills another, and there isn't a 100-X track or Investigate

I just can't really see an example of a low-point Investigate doing anything.  Yes, you can see that, say, Litia did a Block on PlayerX, but what would that really gain?  Litia can still kill the same player so knowing that she blocked doesn't stop that.  As such, Investigate seems to be an 'go big or go home' skill.  It DOES make an odd situation, though: if you are killing, you will WANT to aim at someone who others will try to hit.  It's the only way to dodge Investigation.

Track is pretty useful in any form.  Chances are, you'll get to see if someone tries to kill and knowing the power used will give you an idea of whether they succeeded.  Meanwhile, if the kill is high enough it's an instant confirm (both in that you get to see the target and, chances are, they succeeded anyway). 


Thus I guess my fear is if the players didn't get the killer caught in a track.  Investigate right now, is either a direct Stop on any killer or giving information that doesn't lead to any killer at all.  Meanwhile, while I imagine there should be a big question of 'where di you use your points' there's really nothing to investigate THAT element.  If I, as the killer, say I was blocking X, Y, and Z, and a high level Investigate/track wasn't done on me, there's nothing to say that I'm lying and again, day 1 scumhunting isn't reliable yet by itself. It makes me think that a mechanic for seeing what someone did could feed into that "What did you do" concept.

A few ideas:

What would happen if all blocks and tracks informed the other person.  i.e. (person blocked you).  No power level, all skills work the same.  Without power levels, you couldn't use it alone to track anyone, but it would present a check and balance.  For example, if I kill someone and Track you, I could claim I was JUST tracking you.  Note that if you did a kill (that didn't succeed) I would have to balance the amount of Track I claim so that it would match the amount of kill you applied (If kill attempt for 50, I couldn't claim a Track of 50 since I'd need to know your target).  This would match with another item

You MUST use all of your points.  You can't claim that you just didn't use 20 points.

If you investigate, it becomes public knowledge.  NOT the result, just that you did it.  That way you can't just claim 70 points in investigate after someone else told what happened. 

(note you CAN claim that you put all your points in Train, but, honestly, if I knew someone was dumping more Train points than me, I would try to win early and aim a kill at them since I wouldn't have a chance at winning at End Game)


All that with the skills left as is.  Low level investigate keeps people from just claiming that they did passive things to dead players and high level investigate ensures that you CAN'T just fling 100 points in kill and hope no one notices.  Track and Block are your defensive tools (only for end game? Meh, you can fling small bits of block around and really ruin quite a few killers.  It also helps your kill.  Instead of doing 30, you can do 20 and fling 10 block.  A killer doing 40 would not only lose to you but would also look worse to investigations).  Train is if you want to do end game stuff.  Meanwhile, you're hoping SOMEONE did an investigate each night.

(yes, the public report of investigate means that if no one did it the killer knows, but.. honestly, that sounds neat in a "OMG EVERYONE PANIC" sort of way.  Besides, it feels meh to have an entire plan set up only for someon to say "100 Investigate.  Lynch HIM!")

[webadict]

The Chosen Heroes marched upon the castle under the thick guise of night. Patrol after patrol they avoided, knocked out guards, and steadily, made their way into the throne room. Face to face with the Evil Wizard Emperor, the Chosen Heroes sought the end to their respective goals, and they readied their swords, bows, and magics. They had lost loved ones, families, and friends on their quest, and it was finally nearing its end. There was no room for cowardice now.

"Hahaha!" laughed the Evil Wizard Emperor, and the gates surrounding the throne room sealed shut. "Fool! You have fallen into my trap!" Gas poured in from the sides. The Chosen Heroes shielded themselves, but it was too late. Screams rang out.

"I have taken over the minds of a few of your group. There is no way out other than defeating me! But, in order to do that, you must kill your friends!"

And the Chosen Heroes at first refused, but realized the futility in resistance. They had already known the risks in fighting the Empire, and now they must finish the fight. The war would continue unless they stopped the Emperor. Here and now.

---

I decided to make a game similar to Magic Mafia because I enjoyed the ability aspects, but I felt like I wanted a bit more control over the roles. So, instead, I decided to come up with Final Boss Mafia. You're given your role (say, the Spunky Summoner), and are given a list of Abilities, Items, and Equipment to use. As an example, here:

Spunky Summoner

(Ability, Magic) Summon, Unicorn [Enemy]: Summon forth Einhorn, who gallops forth, pinning the enemy to the ground. The enemy is unable to make any Attacks, but may use Items and Magics during this Night.
(Attack) Staff [Enemy]: You smack the enemy with your staff, causing a random negative Effect to apply to them.
(Attack) Handle [Ally]: You reverse your staff and smack an ally with the staff handle, causing a random beneficial Effect to apply to them. You're not sure when you figured out that your staff worked like that, but it does.
(Item, Passive) Mending Cloak: Negative Effects applied to you are removed immediately. Yay!

I'm thinking of making the setup a sort of known role type, so that each player will be given a particular role that is known by all players. This is mostly to allow for better flavor and roleplaying, which I would enjoy. However, it is possible for these roles to be wrong or lies, for protection. I've yet to come up with all parts of this game, but I felt like any additions would be easy to expound on here, plus I could get an idea of popularity with the idea.

Anyhow, it probably won't start for a bit, as I'm a bit busy.

[Vector]

This seems pretty cool, to be honest.

Music!

[notquitethere]

I've been thinking a lot about role claims and alignment claims recently. We've had a spate of games where scum and third parties have claimed. Was thinking it might be a fun idea to have a game revolving around claims.

So there'd be a list of possible alignments and roles and everyone would randomly get given one at the beginning. Each day cycle, people would have the chance to claim a role or alignment. Then it works like the card game cheats: a vote against someone marks out whether the people think they're lying. If they are lying and they're majority voted then they are lynched, but if they're telling the truth and they're majority voted then their role is revealed and they get to live. Scum obviously have an incentive to lie here, but there'll also be a perverse incentive for scum to claim as scum, balanced by town-aligned vigilante roles. I'm not sure whether everyone would have to claim etc., but I think there might be something in this liars dice/cheats kind of set up.

[webadict]

I've been thinking a lot about role claims and alignment claims recently. We've had a spate of games where scum and third parties have claimed. Was thinking it might be a fun idea to have a game revolving around claims.

So there'd be a list of possible alignments and roles and everyone would randomly get given one at the beginning. Each day cycle, people would have the chance to claim a role or alignment. Then it works like the card game cheats: a vote against someone marks out whether the people think they're lying. If they are lying and they're majority voted then they are lynched, but if they're telling the truth and they're majority voted then their role is revealed and they get to live. Scum obviously have an incentive to lie here, but there'll also be a perverse incentive for scum to claim as scum, balanced by town-aligned vigilante roles. I'm not sure whether everyone would have to claim etc., but I think there might be something in this liars dice/cheats kind of set up.

Uh... No, that idea doesn't make much sense. I mean, if a scum claims scum, and is lynched, he gets to live, which means he's unlynchable, right? Well, then you've basically moved the game to the Night game. I mean, town can just claim town and not get lynched, and scum can just claim scum and not get lynched. Or, you know, claim town, and therefore it's the same as usual, right?

[notquitethere]

Yeah I see what you're saying. The way I'm envisioning it is that there'd be majority third party roles, including roles which have powers attached to other people's role claims.

[birdy51]

I still want to see a form of Geriatric Mafia take off, with the idea that over half of the players are elderly and are going to die of old age unless a doctor saves them from certain death.

There are many shenanigans that can be pulled off with that concept to reinforce the idea. For instance, I've been playing with the idea of an kind elderly old woman who can give people cookies each night that produce random bonuses. And an evil counterpart. Is it a good cookie? Or is it a cookie that tastes like DEATH ITSELF!

[dakarian]

Yeah I see what you're saying. The way I'm envisioning it is that there'd be majority third party roles, including roles which have powers attached to other people's role claims.

Well, I see the premise.  The trick, though, is that the 'ones to go after' aren't the mafia but 'who is lying'.  A mafia telling the truth is, in essence, 'town' while a townie claiming to be a cop is, in essence, 'scum'.  Remember that what makes scum scum isn't the label, but in being the informed minority. 

I'd say, remove the whole 'scum can claim' element.  There's no way I can see in a way for the scum to claim honestly without ruining the system.  you CAN have a game where everyone starts off a vanilla (town/scum.) then have a list of roles that they can claim.  Thus during the day, you can publically declare "I am a cop" and BOOM, they are a cop.  No one has any power until they claim something. 

You can play it strait and just give the mafia a 'mafiakill' as normal.  Then just make sure there's role breaking combos (ie.. two people can't claim doc at the same turn, or else a a doc can't protect another doc or a cop).  It'll require good balancing but can be an interesting game.

If you want a bit more 'crazygonutz' then let them choose whatever roles they want, but the roles aren't guaranteed (i.e. a Cop but not guaranteed a Sane cop). 
 
You can also give people features that alter their powers.  I.e. a SK who doesn't gain their claimed roll but, instead, gains the powers of another person.  Depending on how you set it up, it could then become something crazy or even turn into a Bastard Mod with a puzzle inside.

Don't go crazy on third party roles though.  Third parties are very tricky to make work and very easy to ruin a game with. 


@birdy

9 Geriatric Players.  if nothing is done, they die in Day 4

1 Treatment Doc.  Each night they can Treat a player so that they won't die.

No Mafia kill, there is a lynch.  No Lynch results in a guaranteed town lynch and, thus, is not recommended.

Thus each night the doc tries to choose a person to live.  They cannot choose themselves.

Thus the idea: after 3 nights, the doc has chosen 3 people.  On Day 4, the rest die.  Thus:

1. If the town accidentally lynches the doctor, they lose automatically.  The Mafia wins when the town is down to 1 person regardless of their survival.

2. If the doctor chooses 3 townies, the town wins.

3. If the doctor chooses 1 mafia, Day 4 is Lylo.

4. If the doctor chooses 2 or more mafia, Mafia win.

Other roles can exist, but no killing roles

Sound workable?

Edit: Just spotted an ugly issue with that.   Day 1 Doctor claim.  Without a killing role, there's nothing stopping the doctor from claiming.  it doesnt' destroy the game but it does eliminate the risk of lynching the doctor and robs a lot of the game itself.

Perhaps give the mafia a one-shot kill.  Thus the doctor has to not only avoid being spotted but they can't even claim on day 3 who they choose (or else mafia will just kill one of the Treated, ensuring a win).  The doctor has to not only remain hidden but also has to make sure no one can tell who they chose before day 4.

[Vector]

And someone with Munchausen's.

[Dariush]

Er, how many scum are there? Also, isn't expecting Doctor to choose three correct non-scum people and the town to lynch the correct however-many-scum-there-are scum a bit scumsided?