The Brotherhood of Serious Business - A Proposition
Eight different players, eight different roles, eight different win conditions. That’s how Third Party Mafia works – ultimately, every man is for himself, and to every man, every other man is scum. There are no teams, and few reasons for co-operation.
Except for the big one -
‘Whatever You Do, Don’t Kill The Bloody Jester’.If the jester dies, then everyone else loses the game. If it's every man is for himself (which is is), then the jester is the single greatest threat to every other man. The key to not losing is to find the jester, and then make sure that he doesn’t die. This is, perhaps, the only time in the game where the interests of the vast majority are co-alligned in such a way, because the only person that wants the jester dead is himself, and every else wants him very much alive.
So, how might we safeguard against such an occurrence? For that, I have a plan that I like to call The Brotherhood of Serious Business; dress code applies, open till late, strictly no jesters. Basically, it works like this; tonight, I will use my inspection on the first person that opts into the Brotherhood. They, in turn, will use their inspect on the second person to enter; and so on until the last person in the chain, who then use their inspect on me, Scatterbrain, to ensure my solidarity – if they so wish. The following morning, they will report back to the thread with a post of ‘X is not the jester’, or ‘X is the jester’, as appropriate. As the jester most likely won’t be opting into the scheme, then it will narrow down the group of players who
could be the jester, thus reducing the risk of anyone actually killing him. This could close the gap a little or a lot, depending on how many people are willing to give this a go – even if it is just me and one other person mutually inspecting each other, then the possibilites have been narrowed down, even if only by a little. Or the jester opts into the scheme, and we find out who he is. Obviously.
It’s in the interests of everyone playing this game that the jester is identified at the first possible opportunity, so that he
doesn’t die. Therefore, I’m hoping that you will see that the Brotherhood is a good idea, and that you will opt into it. Even if only one of you do, as I say – it narrows things down, even just a little bit. And your identity won’t necessarily be revealed; note that I’m asking participants to simply categorise you as jester or not-jester. If they reveal exactly what your role is, I’m afraid that that’s their decision, not mine.
Yours, Scatterbrain
(alternatively, if we want to REALLY spice things up, then we all say exactly what our inspect result was – but that’s not the purpose of the exercise, really. also – any other thoughts on the idea? this is a bit… unusual, i know, but i really think this could work.)