Elements Mafia 79 - by MasterWalks

[kaempfer13]

@Wyand, can you visit the wordwideweb³ and both start participating?
Actually, it may be a bit far, but if you can, consider getting the marsmoons on board as well.

Btw, I was hoping Wyand would pick up this crumb and when he wrote that post to w3 i thought he understood. Yet he still couldnt produce a single read all game.

[MasterWalks]

who won? who was who?

Town won
RootRanger= Omegon
andretimpa= Sheed Ranko

serprex= Alpharius
Linkcat= Into Pech

Everyone else was town Legionarie

[marsmoons]

Good game! For me it was interesting to watch it play out while at the same time trying to figure things out for how to play.

[Linkcat]

Kaempfer was right about me for the wrong reasons. Missing my N0 action and late claiming Alpharius result were both things I would have done as town.

Our win condition was lynching anyone else D2, then identifying Omegon for the N3 kill. This was totally doable had I actually had time to play, very sad but it is what it is.

Rerolling was correct. The setup was interesting, but very mechanical without a lot of room for reads. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's a change of pace like the last game was. Unfortunately I believe these last two games have shown that there are not enough people who are both willing to sign up and able to be active in order to run proper games. I cannot in good faith condone hosting another game after this one.

[MasterWalks]

Unfortunately I believe these last two games have shown that there are not enough people who are both willing to sign up and able to be active in order to run proper games. I cannot in good faith condone hosting another game after this one.

This makes me sad. Mafia is what brings me back here. Even before flash death, Mafia was the reason I've stuck around.
I guess I'm being hopeful, but these last 2 games have shown us that creative minimafia is doable. My game could've started with 9 players, but still got 11. The Mafia wiki shows 4 player formats and everything above.
As far as general activity, the inactive players are the consistent ones. W3, shock, and whoever is a noob are always low posters. Not only that, my set up was inherently a low activity game. 4 power roles and 7 weak info roles will cause that. I created the rules with that in mind.

I hope Roots format idea will change your mind, but I get it if we end at 79. Maybe it'll encourage me to find another way to play.

[Wyand]

@Wyand, can you visit the wordwideweb³ and both start participating?
Actually, it may be a bit far, but if you can, consider getting the marsmoons on board as well.

Btw, I was hoping Wyand would pick up this crumb and when he wrote that post to w3 i thought he understood. Yet he still couldnt produce a single read all game.

I haven't produced anything because I haven't played Mafia ever. Ever. I barely put my left toe in the water to check it.
Also life is quite busy nowadays. Really. Maybe next time. It is a learning process.

[Mobian]

Soooo is mafia all of a sudden disallowed" Or is Linkcat just saying he won't be willing to run one himself due to current conditions?

[RootRanger]

Heya so here's what I've got, if people are up for it (and I get the Linkcat seal of approval) we can roll out.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Players have a Role (Mafia, Animal Cop, or Veterinarian) and an Animal (Cat or Dog). Mafia comprise approximately 1/3 of the players, and there is 1 Veterinarian who is part of the Civilian team. The remaining players are Animal Cops, who comprise the rest of the Civilian team. Animals will be randomized at the start of the game. Mafia are informed of their Animal, but Civilians are not.

In addition to the Mafia's factional Night Kill, there are three actions in the game which may be used during the night phase (depending on your Role). Players may choose up to one action during the night. Inspect may only be chosen by Animal Cops. Protect may only be chosen by the Veterinarian. Transform may be chosen by any player, including the Mafia. Self-targeting is not allowed.
1. Inspect: target a player; learn what their Animal is
2. Protect: target a player; learn what their Animal is and prevent them from being Night Killed
3. Transform: swap your Animal (Cat becomes Dog; Dog becomes Cat)

Each day, the players may vote on a player to Lynch, which kills them. Players may also vote to No Lynch, in which case no player will die. A tied vote is treated as a No Lynch. Phases are each 48 hours. When a player dies (whether through Lynch or Night Kill), their Role is revealed but not their Animal. Also, at the start of each day, players are told how many Cats and Dogs exist.

Action Priority
1. Protect
2. Night Kill
3. Inspect
4. Transform

Essentially, the significance of the Animals is that Mafia do not have the power to check someone's Animal and thus will have to fake their claims. Yet, there's no direct role investigation, so Mafia have a lot of options. As for balancing, the numbers I have in mind are 2 Mafia for a 7-9 player game and 3 Mafia for a 10-12 player game. Additionally, for balance reasons, the first 1 or 2 Night Kills may be skipped depending on player count. For games with 8/11 players, the first 1 Night Kill is skipped. For games with 7/10 players, the first 2 Night Kills are skipped.

[kaempfer13]

Does transform inverse the animal or transform into specified animal? Transform happening after inspection also complicates things a lot (but also simplifies them). I was thinking of a few ways to coordinate things, but its quite difficult (even in the latter case). In case of inversing we probably have to spend a night investigating the player below in signuplist and announce the result for people to know who they even are (Actually I rethought things and this is actually the correct approach even if you know what animal you turn into, as it allows for meaningfull results by night 2). next night is completely silent, unless someone chose to investigate a player that was stated to be a different player before (transform happens last and the night before everyone that investigated). Such a result would result in a 3 way thunderdome, involving 2 town and i dont see a way how subsequent nights could directly help resolve that (luck could have more players investigating the player of disputed species on night2).
Things get way complicated after that. Secrecy is required to not tell mafia everything they need to know, but a single player cant have enough information to know they found sth suspicious. Additionally even on dead players crosstreams give confidence that players have the same or different alignement, depending on whether their results agree.
All things considered, i think the sum of all animal cops amount to about half the value of a real cop, assuming all players are even involved enough to untangle things (value is a bit dependent on length of the game, where short games benefit less as there arejust not enough datapoints and an important witness is more likely to die before saying anything).
Also its way too complicated for half the players here.

Dont worry MW, it's not anime themed. It's furry themed.

Edit: with 50% chance of mafia just guessing right and more ways for mafia to evade suspicion, its actually more like a 1/4 th cop. Also agreeing claims are actually completely meaningless for the alignement of susbsequent claims. Either balance the game more towards mountaineous(5:1, no prs) or add/buff town prs. i didnt talk about the confirmed town doc as its a role we are already familiar with, but it is noteworthy ofc.

[MasterWalks]

Am I correct in understanding there's no difference between cats and dogs? Like no ability or priority change? So what's the point of transforming? And why would anyone use the dog check cat check as evidence when presenting a push? I get that it prevents fake claims, but the rest of the players will probably assume they transformed. Due to rule 3, its almost impossible to refute the transform option regardless of alignment.

Kae predicting the whole game made it sound a lot more complicated than the actual rules. My only gripe is the face value redundancy of dogs and cats. Might be missing something tho so I'll wait for a reply.

Dont worry MW, it's not anime themed, it's furry themed.

Mafia 80 by RootRanger- Zootopia

[kaempfer13]

I would suggest a relatively simple godfather setup with some modifiers and a carried nightkill:

Mafiateam: Godfather: The Godfather can order a goon to perform the nightkill, overruling their target in case of a dispute/no input. The Cop investigating the Godfather gets a town result, unless the Godfather chose to carry out the nightkill that night. The Godfather may have a powerrole as well.
Goons: Can carry the nightkill. If there are 10 players or more there will be 2 goons. Goons may have Power roles from the list below.

Roleblocker: Target a player. Prevent them from using their action(s), including the nightkill.
Tracker: Target a player. Can see who they targeted. In case that player performed the nightkill, only the nightkill will be tracked (but not directly specified as such).
Watcher: Target a player. Can see who else targeted target player, including through the nightkill.
Vanilla: No night action available.

Cop: There will always be exactly 1 Cop, guaranteed to be town. The cop can investigate target player each night. If they are a goon or (or and) performed the nightkill the result will be mafia, else town.

A roleblock will block any other ability, including the nightkill, otherwise priority shouldnt matter.
Only successfull ability uses can be tracked/watched.
Only Cop, watcher and tracker using their abilities will be informed if they have been blocked.

If a cop, watcher or tracker forgets to use their ability, their target will be randomized, unless they pm the host that they want to holster (marginally relevant in case of fearing a tracker I guess)


Here is what I consider balanced for respective player numbers: there is always a mafia godfather and a town cop. townprs can be counterweighed by mafia prs, so that  a mafia pr dead doesnt automatically mean that all remaining prs are town.
8:  1 goon, townprs-mafiaprs=2
9: 1 goon, townprs-mafiaprs=1
10: 2 goons, townprs-mafiaprs=3 (to account for claimpower vs size of playerbase i reduced the number after some thinking. also the mafia pseudo rolecops are basically useless with so many prs around, and it gets worse the more prs are in the game.)
11: 2 goons, townprs-mafiaprs=3
12: 2 goons, townprs-mafiaprs=2
13: 2 goons, townprs-mafiaprs=1

I'm actually a bit unsure about the balance of this setup, as I have no experience with the godfather role, but thought it would be a good way to limit the power of the cop and justify introducing an alternative way of finding mafia. It also has the advantage of being fairly straightforward in terms of what results of night actions mean (except for the cop ironically). All noncop roles are on about the same powerlvl as doc for town in this setup, except follow the cop is impossible unless only one mafiaplayer remains (and rb has some negative sideeffects). For mafia, both watcher and tracker are essentially rolecops, roleblock is a bit weaker, as you have to give justification for it and it doesnt affect townrb. I'm debating whether mafiarb should override townrb without informing townrb directly.

I also erred a bit towards townside, as inactives tend to mess with town more and are very common here (and also most popular setups i could compare to are daystart, favoring town in that regard).

[MasterWalks]

Vanilla role?? 

I like it tho. Seems simple enough, and finding a Mafia seems tough enough. Game win by parity or by godfather death?