Be Excellent To Each Other

I'll shortly move the game 2 chat thread to the 'old games' subforum, so this can take its place.

Ok

*prepares to chat loads*

Uh - come here often?

Just a point, Mr fence sitter, how completely does he join? Say, for instance, he joined the mafia, would he be told who they were, and they be told that they have a new whipping boy? Or would it just affect his win condition?

They'd be told, he'd be part of the gang, through and through.

Well I've been lurking in the shadows quite a bit, figured it was time to come out and sit at the bar though.

*orders a bottle of red with a large glass*

Tizer? Hardcore.

A question about the swift townie, if he is attacked by the vigilante or the serial killer will he find out who they are? or vice versa?

No, he'll just know he escaped an attack. Obviously if he's been pissing someone in particular off that day it might give him a clue.

As for the Vigilante/SK, they'll just know their attack failed.

Some interesting new roles you've got there, also, no ambiguities on the numbers? Everyone will always know how many people are around (apart from the cult who will grow at a rate decided by whom they target)

Malc

Indeed, Craster queried this with me as well. After consideration I'd like to try it. While the ambiguity of numbers did theoretically allow for people claiming to be roles they're not, in practice this doesn't seem to add much to the game. I think it would make accusations and theories a bit more solid if people can work with definite numbers. Of course, retaining the cult in the game will make any possible townie advantage arguable as it could literally dissapear overnight.

I mulled this over too for my ruleset and I think I agree. It'll certainly be interesting to see, anyway.

I'm leaving an awful lot of ambiguity in mine, because I enjoyed the town thinking the mafia could still be a threat when they were completely fucked.

I've also got a few fairly complex new roles, but ones I think are pretty well-balanced.

It'll be an interesting experiment if nothing else.

I propose a new game role for a future game. It will need some fine tuning, but I think it could be a good idea if tweaked a little, perhaps:

Collaborator

The Collaborator's night ability is to be able to send a message to one of the Mafia members, the Cult Leader and one of the Townies. He does this by sending the Narrator the messages, and these will be passed on to the Mafia, Cultist and Townie (to the Townie Cop? To a Townie Mason? Or to a Townie role of his choosing?). The Mafia, Cultist and Townie are then allowed to respond to him once, via the narrator. This can be an exchange of information, a request to lynch someone, suspicions or plain old misinformation. The collaborator is immune to cult recruitment.

The Collaborator's win condition is merely to survive to the end, at which point he can say he was on their side all along.

I love the suicide bomber role.

Vimto.

Worth clarifying if the Suicide Bomber can blow himself up post-lynch but pre-town-leader-decision-thingy?

Um, if you don't leave any ambiguity there's nothing stopping the town forcing a mass-claim early on, and leaving the mafia with no safe claims, or later on when there are hardly any townies left, again leaving them with no safe claims. A completely known set-up screws over the maff pretty majorly; it's not enough that the cult still has a chance of winning. You shouldn't be hugely likely to lose just because of the role you get.

In fact, I'll go further: In the listed setup, it is almost impossible for the mafia to win the game.

In this sort of game, the purer the better, the less special gimmicks the better.

I actually think that the first game was near perfect, balance wise. Unfortunately, in that game, the town was hugely unlucky, and lost their only special roles.

The second game was too wishy washy, with too many roles, a completely useless role (voyeur) a badly thought out role (mad scientist) and the cult, which is a bad idea anyway. Looking at it, the mafia were knackered from before the start, with only two goons and a tracker in the game.

The cult is a bad idea generally, but especially if there are special roles on the townie side.

I also don't think its a good idea to have a townie kill role, unless there are severe limits put on it. The town has advantage of numbers, that's their thing. Their killing weapon is the lynch, victory for the mafia is about turning the town's only weapon against it.

This is the sort of game that would be more fun:

1 Mafia Hitman (Has Kill action)
2-4 Mafia Wiseguys (No special action)
0-1 Mafia Roleblocker (Has Roleblock action)
0-1 Cop
0-1 Doctor
0-1 Serial Killer
0-1 Easily Led Vigilante (May kill one person who has at least one vote against them on that day)
Everyone Else- Town Person

Over on RLLMUK they had about seven simple games before introducing things like cults, which meant people developed a head for the basics which I'm not sure exists here yet. Perhaps it is a good idea to have a few more simple games before playing things like "Advanced Reverse Ninja Mafia". Although that's the kind of game I learned to play in, so am maybe utterly wrong.

Well fuck you then

I think it's definitely a good idea to have discussions about the rules before the game starts.

Whilst I have only been a Vanilla Townie, which does make you hanker after getting a more interesting role, it's dangerous to have too many special roles that can make the game even more about guesswork than about tactics. There could feasibly be about five days in a row with this game where there's barely a death between all the sides, without anyone knowing at all why, or who prevented them.

I'd second a vote for a little ambiguity over the roles also. Either way, this isn't meant as any criticism or anything, Comical. I'm looking forwards to the game either way.

It'll be a good experiment anyway. I think we're all finding our feet and after a few more games we'll know what works and what doesn't. Let's not try to disparage CG's plan before we've even seen it in action.

Can the suicide bomber "pick" ComicalGnomes?

Why don't people jsut leave the village?

Should I post my current provisional rules for game five for discussion, or would that just muddy the waters as game three hasn't even started yet?

I'm not necessarily running my VampireScum set as game IV. It was suggested, but I am not happy with them yet so may bow out if I feel they have balance problems etc. I don't think I've played enough Mafia to have a feel for it. There seems to be no shortage of people looking to run games.

Well, I think I'm ready to move up into the game four slot if you still want more time when game three is over.

OK, cool. Shall we see how it goes with Game III and make a decision towards the end of it?

Fine by me.

All feedback is good feedback, and I don't want to balls up and unknowingly set off an unbalanced game. Despite that, I'm still 95% happy with the current ruleset. I'm aware that vegetables appears to have played this a lot more than any of us, so I can't just ignore him completely. That said his concerns probably apply to an experienced set of players, and we're all still a bit new at this, so advanced mass tactics are probably beyond us, and we're too scared to out ourselves generally.

I'll concede the one point perhaps the mafia have a small disadvantage. My last decision when putting the rules together was for there to be a second townie Doctor. This, I reckoned, would help increase the odds of useful roles surviving past night 1. With that being the case I might well switch the second Doctor role into a Mafia Doctor, which would allow the mafia to protect one of their brood per night. I think that sounds about right, as it would mean there are 5 mafia, 14 townies and 1 cult guy.

Of course the fence sitter could make things interesting, either by getting the cult off to a good start, bolstering the mafia (albeit with no special ability, not even a kill role), or going with the town.

I think there's enough of a mix to make it interesting. The Mime Artist could cause a bit of chaos, and is vaguely similar to the Scientist but with a more straightforward power. The Governor (who obviously cannot be lynched, as he'll just pardon himself) will hopefully prevent rushed lynches, and nor can he be turned to the cult.

With the Vigilante able to pick his targets first, he'll be much more effective for the town, and so on.

Basically with the exception of the above correction, I think this mix will show some very interesting results.

The Mafia Doctor is an interesting idea, but wouldn't he/she just protect the Don the whole time?

There is no don.

If there IS a Don. Doesn't stop him being lynched though.

Unless the governor overturns it.

Can the governor be recruited by the cult?

No, that would pretty much guarantee a cult win.

In that case: as you were.

It should be fun to see if this works, either way.

I'm going to lynch/kill myoptika whatever happens, for lying to me in the previous game and trying to kill me for two nights in a row!

That's a point, I never got to lynch Myoptika. Sure, I roleblocked him (and saved your life, Mr Curiosity), but it's not the same...

You should never carry grudges over from game to game - it's not a good way to play.

It works.

If myp ends up being the governor Dave, he'll never lynch and strangely I don't think he'd save you from a lynch either

The governor is going to make this game very interesting.

If people plan on lynching me straight away because of my sneaky SK lies in the first game, it hardly seems me worth playing this one at all...

Tsk, you misunderstand, I said I wanted to lynch you even before the game began, and was disappointed I never got to. (You'll note at no point did I actually vote for you, mind, suggesting I'm not being 100% serious)

No, I just want to kill you so I can laugh at you at the Big Chill.



Only kidding... please don't kill me if you have a killing role again... please!

I don't care - I hate you now. *flounce*

*moves wedding date*

Would have won the townies the last game had they done that...

To early August? Nice one...

You're all fakey fakes. I'm the real Azreal.