Theme Test Market

[IceGuy]

Claiming Divided Germany (West/East) as a theme. Expect a game filled with German flavor, but still playable by somebody who doesn't speak German and isn't well-versed in German history.

I'm still in the process of getting sign-ups for my first modded (Open) game, and this will be my first Mini Theme, so I doubt it'll start before 2012. I've already got a rough idea how the setup is going to look like though.

If you want to help out with balancing the setup, review it or be the backup mod (I won't flake, I promise) nevertheless, PM me.

[IceGuy]

Calling dibs on Betting Mafia.

[IceGuy]

Minesweeper Mafia would need LOADS of players.

Or NPCs.

[IceGuy]

That leads me to another idea I've been kicking around in my head for a while:

Parallel Universes Mafia. Large Theme with 26 players. The game is actually two separate 13-player games: you're in game A or in game B, and you can only vote for and execute actions on people in your game. Mafia can communicate between the two games, though. There are some PRs (for instance, a player might be able to put themselves or another player into the other game, or swap two players). The end is either both games "collapsing" into one when a specific number of players has been reached, or both games are played separately to the end and you need to win both to fulfill your win condition.

Has this been done? Would you play it?

[IceGuy]

But Ice, what if we had two games going at the same time, and we apply what I posted only give two people "one identity". They would know who their other "side" wa but wouldn't be able to talk to them. And that other side could have a different affiliation, such as one be a vig and one be maf?

How is this different from two non-interconnected games with the same player list?

But the point is would you be interested in a game collaboration of some sorts?

In principle yes, but I think we're talking about two different things.

Done almost exactly as said once (there were actually three games combined into one - Tri-Cities Mafia by Quagmire), done with three slightly interconnected games (MtG: Parallel Universes Mafia with Tarhalindur, UncertainKitten, and MafiaSSK), twice with two player-swappable games (Tuthreded Mafia by mathcam and Teleportation Mafia by zoraster), and if you want to throw Team Mafia in, that too.

Thanks, didn't know of any of the games except for Team Mafia, which had a different concept.

[IceGuy]

If I remember correctly, there was a Lovers Mafia (or a similar name) which had lovers; because of what zoraster said there is little difference regarding how it plays out.

[IceGuy]

well, actually there's a huge difference in how it plays out because this basically gives town a HUGE leg up. Mafia have to essentially spend two nights killing someone, and yet for every lynch town makes they either get (a) someone confirmed or (b) a mafia to lynch the next day.

I haven't run the numbers, but even with a large setup, you'd run into an auto town victory fairly quickly.

What I meant with this was: Once one partner dies, the one will die soon after - either of an NK because they're confirmed as town, or of a lynch because they're confirmed as scum.

Of course this affects balance, game length and the like.

[IceGuy]

An idea I've been kicking around in my head...

Judge, Jury and Executioner

Day:

Every player has three votes. Day ends when three players have been hammered. Those three players are "defendants".

Night:

The Mafia does not have a kill, but sends one of the defendants to the judge, one to the jury, and one to the executioner.
- The

Judge

is a single player who either acquits the defendant or sentences them to death. When the game starts, the "Judge" attribute is guaranteed to be in the hands of a pro-town player. If they're killed, they need to name a replacement (which can be Mafia).
- The

Jury

is made of random players who get a QT for the night and can sentence the defendant to death with a simple majority, otherwise he is acquitted.
- The

Executioner

is like the Judge, except chosen by the Mafia every night.

Town and defendants don't get told which defendant got which treatment, only the kills at the end are revealed.

The idea behind this is to blur the lines between lynches and NKs. Of course it will need some refining (endgame rules, power roles and the like).

Thoughts.

[IceGuy]

Can the executioner be mafia?

Yes.

How many people are there in the jury?

I'm thinking number of alive players divided by two, rounded down to the nearest odd number.

Also, jurors are selected from all players except defendants, judge and executioner.

When fewer than 9 players remain, the jury is dropped and there are only two defendants.

With 4 or less players, normal lynching mechanics apply.

[IceGuy]

Is the identity of the executioner public? (If not, this is just a standard NK with complex flavour, out of a set chosen by the town.)

The identity is not public, but keep in mind:

Also, jurors are selected from all players except defendants, judge and executioner.

[IceGuy]

Slightly less say in the jury would be a minor penalty for scum to pay to guarantee their NK.

No, I meant that you can PoE the executioner.

[IceGuy]

Judge, Jury and Executioner

Any more thoughts on this? If replies are generally positive and nobody spots a game-breaking flaw, I'll design a setup and solicit reviewers.

[IceGuy]

How do you intend to handle things when endgame approaches, and finding warm bodies to fill all three roles is hard? Specifically, the Jury cannot be composed of people who are Judge or Executioner. The possibilities for no-wins, awkward mechanics, and weird interactions increase the fewer players there are.

By all means, don't reveal your decisions/thoughts on my (or anyone else's) comment here. Discuss it with your co-designer(s).

Well, that stuff would need to be public knowledge anyway, and I already detailed endgame rules above:

When fewer than 9 players remain, the jury is dropped and there are only two defendants.

With 4 or less players, normal lynching mechanics apply.

[IceGuy]

The town autowin is a strong incentive.

I'd only play this with a VI- and troll-free playerlist, though.

[IceGuy]

I think this would be a good open game, but considering the VI problem it's probably best to run it in another queue.

[IceGuy]

Ah, OK. I was thinking more in terms of the players you'd be likely to get. (The sort of people who think logically about when best to use the shot, rather than just playing emotionally and shooting day 1.)

A short look at the recent Open playerlists should show that this is not the case.

[IceGuy]

Just thought of an idea where the town is the informed minority and the scum is the uninformed majority.
Has this been done before?

It has, and it will mostly turn out to be a shitty game because there is no point in scumhunting when you're essentially only helping scum.

[IceGuy]

Bridge Mafia: You play as yourself and an (unknown) alt.

[IceGuy]

Bridge Mafia: You play as yourself and an (unknown) alt.

To expound on that idea: Every player controls two identities: himself and an alt. The alts are supplied by the mod and randomly given to the players. A player and his alt always have the same alignment.

Also, every player has an unlimited, always-usable power: they can send the mod via PM the names of two players. If those players are controlled by the same player, they get killed; otherwise, the player and his alt get killed.

I'm thinking 18 player slots (9 actual players) with 4 scum and 14 town.

[IceGuy]

Two ideas I've been thinking about, as an extension of the Executioner/King mechanic:

Council

(Mini or Large Theme)

Town elects two people to serve on the council, scum selects one. The council meets and decides about the lynch.

Proportional Representation

(Large Theme)

This is a bit more complicated, but here is how it would go down:

Candidacy phase

This would be the main Day phase. In this phase, parties form. A party forms by an application of at least three players. Players can join parties if the majority of the party approves of them and can leave parties by simple declaration. Parties have a QT where all party members can talk at any time.

Alternatively, players can choose to run as an independent, or endorse a party or independent either publicly or non-publicly.

After all players have either joined a party or sent in their choice to run or endorse (or when deadline hits), the candidacy phase is closed.

Distribution of the seats

A parliament with a small number of players is formed by the D'Hondt method (with random selections if necessary). The number of votes for a party or independent is the sum of the number of members and the number of endorsements. Seats that go to a party go to random party members; if a party would get more seats than the number of members (or an independent would get more than one seat), the seat is filled by the next party (or left empty if no other possibility).

Decision phase

The parliament now gets to decide on everything by a simple vote: player(s) getting killed, but also all other town actions.

The part where I'm unsure of how is how parliamentary meetings would go down. This could be completely open (in-thread, everybody can talk but only MPs can vote) to completely closed (QT) to something in-between (in-thread but only MPs can talk).

What do you think, and was this ever run before?

[IceGuy]

I presume the council meetings would be anonymous, otherwise they could decide "Yeah let's lynch the guy the scum sent to the council meeting". Assuming they are anonymous both of the elected people could just claim and then ignore the guy the scum sent.

No, they would not be anonymous, so it would be pretty stupid of scum to always send one of their own. The WIFOM is integral here.

[IceGuy]

Even if they didn't send one of their own you'd still want to just ignore them.

That's unfortunately probably a good strategy. But I prefer the Proportional Representation one anyway.

[IceGuy]

I like the proportional representation one but how exactly would this work in endgame situations?

Endgame would always have normal lynching mechanics.

[IceGuy]

Why should there be?

[IceGuy]

That just means a 100-player game is a bad idea.

[IceGuy]

Take note that Day 1 and 2 are essentially deleted, which is an attempt to make it so that players don't have to go back and reread games they weren't involved in before.

Local copies can be made, though.