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[SaintDraze]

Well the game threshold thread Really only deals with starting games up and Organizing them,
The Strategy thread Deals with how the players play them...
But there is nothing that generally deals with how the flavor of a game should be composed.
Sure the notable games archive has examples of how it should be done But do you think thats enough?
I don't!

and thats why I am making this thread

I Personally think that the flavor doesn't really get enough credit...
Besides Tallying up the votes, modkilling, Sending the pms, getting the Pms, reading the Pms, and replying to the PMs,
The only thing that the Mod needs to do Is compose a flavor right?

The flavor is what makes a good game Memorable and a great game fantastic.

But what is the criteria of a good mafia game flavor?

[Argembarger]

At least for me, I try to seriously justify every random gaming abstraction in my flavor.

How can you figure out someone's alignment upon killing them if you weren't able to do it when they were alive? Example, you scan their brain to determine their alignment. Or in my BM XVIII, they had a card or a plaque at their house proving that they have no mafia ties. Why can't they show it to you when they're alive?

In flavor without psychics, technology or magic, how can a roleblocker block someone without A) the person blocked knowing who did it, and B) the roleblocker not knowing if they were actually going out to do something before they got roleblocked?

Good flavor should explain these things without shoehorning them in arbitrarily.

Based on my own criteria, my flavor is extremely shitty

[webadict]

I am personally not a fan of flavor, but I feel it is necessary in some cases.

BYOR is a game that cannot be explained with flavor. So, I need not care about seriousness.

[SaintDraze]

Well thats still a good point though...
also The player Playing in your game should know what really prevents them from leaving where ever the flavor is taking place...
Why can't They Just take the next train out of town?

I think part of the criteria in flavor should be
Relevancy to the game...
Why was It decided that person A was going to be lynched, What was the main thing they did too deserve it?

Remember that one mafia game where town was a cult and the scum were Paladins?
That Was An Excellent flavor...
They couldn't leave for fear of the elder god's wraith, there were no real roles to explain,And it had Relevancy!

I bet I could make a flavor for a BYOR Web

No way in hell I would mod it though...

[webadict]

Hey, if you want to co-mod, be my guest. You'll have to follow some strict guidelines of mine, but I wouldn't mind.

[SaintDraze]

Really?
Cool!
But what would I do As Co-Mod?

[webadict]

Grunt work.

Probably writing flavor, mostly. I can do vote count, actions, and the like. I'll send you what happens, and you write flavor. Sometimes, you'll need to avoid mentioning things, though. Mostly specific things.

[SaintDraze]

Grunt work.

Probably writing flavor, mostly. I can do vote count, actions, and the like. I'll send you what happens, and you write flavor. Sometimes, you'll need to avoid mentioning things, though. Mostly specific things.

Sounds good to-

Well shit I already derailed the thread...
Lets edit our posts to make everything relevent again...

[Leafsnail]

I quite enjoyed the Pokebox BM flavour (I think it was GlyphGryph's?) and Vector's was good (can't remember if it finished).  Dakarian had several games linked together in one storyline, which was cool.  And Meph generally has some epic battles when killers collide (me vs ToonyMan a few games back, for instance).

For some reason though, this is the most memorable bit of flavour ever for me.

Everyone returns back to the common meeting area that everyone agreed was the common meeting area. A quick head count shows that everyone is here. A second body count shows that dakarian has been decapitated!

[Mephansteras]

Personally I really like flavor in mafia games. Kind of obvious, I suppose, but I think it makes it more interesting to play. Would we have done 18(19) Paranormals by now if it was just the roles and the flavor was simply "You shoot webadict. He dies."? Probably not.

I also enjoy writing flavor, so I suppose that's part of why I've run so many.

That said, you have to be careful with Flavor. Ideally you want it to make sense and get people into the story. But you also have to be careful that the flavor doesn't give away too much information. Generally people don't know who did what, and poorly thought out flavor can give things away. Worse, it can give people the exact wrong idea of what happened and throw off people's games. And if you're inconsistent about how much information gets provided you can effect the outcome of the game unintentionally. I'm pretty sure I've done all three of those at some point or another.

A good guideline for writing flavor is to give yourself rules on what exactly is known for every action. A cop, for instance, should only know the Alignment of the person he inspects, not the Role. So don't give away hints as to the person's role when writing the inspection flavor. A doc shouldn't (generally) know who attacked the person they save. And the person who is saved generally doesn't know who protected them. Make sure you write your flavor with the rules in mind, and don't break the rules. If you really want to break a rule, make a Role that specifically breaks it. For example, in Paranormal I have a guard role that dies when protecting but tells the person they protect who attacked them. Since I know what the role does, I can decide how to weight it in terms of power and that lets me balance the game around what can happen.

[webadict]

I hate giving personal flavor for that exact reason. It gets too specific or too confusing, so I cut it to basics.

I, too, have rules for flavor, which make it difficult to begin with:

Doctors never know if they succeed in their attempts.
Players never know if the correct action hit the right target. Redirection does not alert people, and having their action changed does not alert them, either.
Roleblockers do not alert people that do not action or are unblockable.

I used to have a certain timing for actions, but that was scrapped due to ease. Now all actions happen at the same time, and they no longer paradox (two roleblockers blocking each other are told they are blocked).

[Leafsnail]

I think a problem with action resolution comes about when you have a situation like roleblocker vs redirector.  But that isn't too bad unless the redirector's redirecting them to himself, I guess.

[Argembarger]

What if a redirector redirects another redirector's redirecting of a roleblock back into the original redirector?

Code: [Select]

[block] -redirected-> [Redirector 1]
 |                      |        ^
 ?                      |        |
[blocktarget]           v        |
                      [Redirector 2]
WRITE FLAVOR FOR THIS </lolontopic>

[SaintDraze]

What about a personal flavor for some one who is being NKed?
Does it still matter If they find out specific details then?

[Argembarger]

I remember in one of my games, I told the cop who got nightkilled who did it, because he happened to be investigating that very person when it happened and I thought it was funny.

It's... marginally passable. Obviously not in stuff like Paranormal, where communication with the dead is possible.

It really depends on if you want the deadchat to be spoilspec or not, I guess, and if you can trust the person to not yell "I GOT KILLED BY x" as their bah-post. (which nobody should do anyway, lest be banned from all bay12 maf.)