/in-Vitational Game 5, Simon Mafia 2: Game Over before 832

[Lord Gurgi]

Well we mostly didn't want to screw up a kill. I never used my power, so you can consider that this game would have been the same if I was vanilla. As long as we don't know where people are, the floor locking mechanic is basically a multiple-target gaoler that we can't kill.

[SpyreX]

What did the consierge do?

[Lord Gurgi]

Switch two people's rooms. There was no real point in using it because we didn't know who was on what floor.

[Lord Gurgi]

For the record, I think that Batt and Goat are two of the better players on the site. They did a lot more to let us win that I did.

[SpyreX]

I just wish I had pushed on Batt harder out of the gate.

However, I do lynch lurkers and I can't feel bad about it.

QT?

[Lord Gurgi]

Quicktopic. I would link to it now, but I don't know if they want to keep it private. I'm also interested to know PJ's thoughts.

[SpyreX]

Fair enough. I just feel like I played bad this game and looking at what you guys were saying may help me.

I was 100% off. Even when I was right I couldn't quantify it or get pressure to make it go.

[Lord Gurgi]

I was surprised I wasn't lynched this game.

[Battousai]

It's ok to link QT.

I only used my power to move LG off of green to make sure we always had 1 person who can kill in case of lock, and when I moved FL last night. The night where the kill failed was when we targeted DDD.

[Battousai]

I actually thought I was going to be lynched D1, D2 for my protection of DDD. Even though that was what I would do as town.

[Lord Gurgi]

Quicktopic Thread

[Goatrevolt]

This was a fairly scum-dominated game. I never felt threatened at all, and there were never any real pushes on Batt or LG either. The majority of the town was content to sit back and do relatively nothing, which game us plenty of opportunity to take control of the game.

I wasn't sure whether I made the right move or not when I jumped in to oppose the LlamaFluff lynch after helping to drive it into lynch range. I was a bit worried that leading 3 consecutive mislynches in a row would make me quite a nice lynch on Day 4, and it ended up working out really well as Llama got lynched anyway but I didn't have to field any of the blame.

In terms of the setup, I think it was fairly balanced, to be honest. The floor locking mechanic was entirely town-centric and functioned at about the power level of a couple of power roles. The "doc save" on DDD night 2 was especially annoying, as that forced us to go an entire extra day and get an extra mislynch to win. Generally scum need 3 mislynches in a 12 person game, but we needed 4. The fact that they happened in succession makes the game appear to be anti-town but I really don't think that is true at all.

Ironically enough, the plan I originally proposed, which involved everyone claiming their color on day 1 would have worked out best for the town. It would have caused us to realize that there were 5 players on blue day 1 (we expected 3-3-3-3 symmetry, even on the final day we had no clue) lock down blue and FL could have secretly pushed people to the blue floor. This would have kept 5 players, all town, off of being able to be killed, and would have forced Batt and Gurgi to start shoveling people off of blue, which would have made FL confirmed town when she claimed bellhop eventually. That, or it would have forced Batt to counterclaim, pitting them in a 1-1 situation.

[forbiddanlight]

Ironically enough, the plan I originally proposed, which involved everyone claiming their color on day 1 would have worked out best for the town. It would have caused us to realize that there were 5 players on blue day 1 (we expected 3-3-3-3 symmetry, even on the final day we had no clue) lock down blue and FL could have secretly pushed people to the blue floor. This would have kept 5 players, all town, off of being able to be killed, and would have forced Batt and Gurgi to start shoveling people off of blue, which would have made FL confirmed town when she claimed bellhop eventually. That, or it would have forced Batt to counterclaim, pitting them in a 1-1 situation.

But we didn't know it was all townies on Blue. Granted, it still would be best to lock that floor.

[petroleumjelly]

Town Roles

Town Bellhop

Having worked for me in the past, you know exactly how tight of a ship I run. You also have some knowledge about the technology in the Hotel. Each night, I will allow you to fiddle with the electric control panel in your room. Don’t worry, there is panel like this in every room of the Hotel, so you can take this action even if you are moved to another floor. Doing this will allow you to change the information in the Hotel computer such that it will order a guest to be transferred onto another floor the following morning. If you are successful, the guest will be sent the following PM:

When you wake up, a Servant hurriedly passes you a piece of paper with the instructions that from now on, you will be residing on the [Insert Color Here] Floor.

There are two exceptions, however. (1) If more than one person tries to move a particular guest to a new floor on the same night, the computer will disregard those commands, the guest will remain unmoved, and the guest will receive no notification that they were ever targeted. (2) If the guest would be moved to the same Floor they are already on, they will not be notified and will remain unmoved.

You will never be told outright if your actions are successful.

You may use your ability even if your Colored Floor is locked. If a guest is in a locked floor, they can still be targeted by this ability since (i) this ability does not require you to enter their room, and (ii) they will change Floors the next morning and not during the Night.

You win when all Mafia, Serial Killers, and Cultists are dead, and there is at least one member of the Town still alive.

You are on Colored Floor

XXX.

Confirm your role by PM. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and have fun!

PJ

Mod Note: On

Green

floor.

Townie

You are a member of the Town. You are helpless and deserve to die. I will do my best to speed it along.

You win when all Mafia, Serial Killers, and Cultists are dead, and there is at least one member of the Town still alive.

You are on Colored Floor

XXX.

Confirm your role by PM. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and have fun!

PJ

Mod Notes:
- Debonair Danny DiPietro on

Green

floor.
- Elmo on

Blue

floor.
- LlamaFluff on

Blue

floor.
- Nuwen on

Blue

floor.
- Patrick on

Blue

floor.
- SpyreX on

Blue

floor.
- TDC on

Green

floor.
- ZazieR on

Red

floor.

Mafia Roles

Mafia Bellhop

You are a member of the Mafia. Your partners are

XXX

(Goon) and

XXX

(Concierge). Each night, one member of the Mafia may send in a nightkill. Living members of the Mafia may talk amongst themselves each night of the game, including pre-game.

Having worked for me in the past, you know exactly how tight of a ship I run. You also have some knowledge about the technology in the Hotel. Each night, I will allow you to fiddle with the electric control panel in your room. Don’t worry, there is panel like this in every room of the Hotel, so you can take this action even if you are moved to another floor. Doing this will allow you to change the information in the Hotel computer such that it will order a guest to be transferred onto another floor the following morning. If you are successful, the guest will be sent the following PM:

When you wake up, a Servant hurriedly passes you a piece of paper with the instructions that from now on, you will be residing on the [Insert Color Here] Floor.

There are two exceptions, however. (1) If more than one person tries to move a particular guest to a new floor on the same night, the computer will disregard those commands, the guest will remain unmoved, and the guest will receive no notification that they were ever targeted. (2) If the guest would be moved to the same Floor they are already on, they will not be notified and will remain unmoved.

You will never be told outright if your actions are successful.

You may use your ability even if your Colored Floor is locked. If a guest is in a locked floor, they can still be targeted by this ability since (i) this ability does not require you to enter their room, and (ii) they will change Floors the next morning and not during the Night.

You cannot kill and use your Bellhop ability on the same night.

However, this does not prevent you from using your Bellhop ability and one of your partners from sending in a kill choice.

You win when the Mafia controls half of the town (with at least one member of the Mafia alive) or nothing can prevent the same.

You are on Colored Floor

XXX

.

Confirm your role by PM. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and have fun!

PJ

Mod Note: On

Red

floor.

Mafia Goon

You are a member of the Mafia. Your partners are

XXX

(Concierge) and

XXX

(Bellhop). Each night, one member of the Mafia may send in a nightkill. Living members of the Mafia may talk amongst themselves each night of the game, including pre-game.

You win when the Mafia controls half of the town (with at least one member of the Mafia alive) or nothing can prevent the same.

You are on Colored Floor

XXX.

Confirm your role by PM. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and have fun!

PJ

Mod Note: On

Red

floor.

Mafia Concierge

You are a member of the Mafia. Your partners are

XXX

(Goon) and

XXX

(Bellhop). Each night, one member of the Mafia may send in a nightkill. Living members of the Mafia may talk amongst themselves each night of the game, including pre-game.

In your possession is a very special key. If you insert it into the electric control panel in your room, you will be shown a list of the living guests in the Hotel. You may choose two of those guests, and those players will switch rooms, and hence floors. You will not be told what colors they were on to begin with, or what colors they end up on. If you are successful, each moved guest will receive the following PM:

When you wake up, a Servant hurriedly passes you a piece of paper with the instructions that from now on, you will be residing on the [Insert Color Here] Floor.

There are two exceptions, however. (1) If more than one person tries to move a particular guest to a new floor on the same night, the computer will disregard those commands, the guest will remain unmoved, and the guest will receive no notification that they were ever targeted. (2) If both guests would be moved to the same Floor they are already on, they will not be notified and will remain unmoved.

You will never be told outright if your actions are successful.

You may use your ability even if your Colored Floor is locked. If a guest is in a locked floor, they can still be targeted by this ability since (i) this ability does not require you to enter their room, and (2) they will change Floors the next morning and not during the Night.

You cannot kill and use your Concierge ability on the same night.

However, this does not prevent you from using your Concierge ability and one of your partners from sending in a kill choice.

You win when the Mafia controls half of the town (with at least one member of the Mafia alive) or nothing can prevent the same.

You are on Colored Floor

XXX.

Confirm your role by PM. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, and have fun!

PJ

Mod Note: On

Green

floor.

[petroleumjelly]

Night Actions

Day One

Random Back-Up Floor: Red
Lynch: ZazieR, Townie, Red Floor
Locked Floor: Green

Night One

forbiddanlight, Town Bellhop, moves [forbiddanlight] to [Green] floor (no effect)
Goatrevolt, Mafia Goon, kills Patrick (success)
Battousai, Mafia Bellhop, moves [Lord Gurgi] to [Yellow] floor (success)

Day Two

Random Back-Up Floor: Red
Lynch: Nuwen, Townie, Blue Floor
Locked Floor: Green

Night Two

forbiddanlight, Town Bellhop, moves [SpyreX] to [Green] floor (success)
Goatrevolt, Mafia Goon, kills Debonair Danny DiPietro (fail)

Day Three

Random Back-Up Floor: Blue
Lynch: LlamaFluff, Townie, Blue Floor
Locked Floor: Green

Night Three

forbiddanlight, Town Bellhop, moves [Elmo] to [Green] floor (no effect: see below)
Goatrevolt, Mafia Goon, kills Elmo (success)
Battousai, Mafia Bellhop, moves [forbiddanlight] to [Blue] floor (success)

Day Four

Random Back-Up Floor: Green
Lynch: TDC, Townie, Green Floor
Locked Floor: Red
Endgame

[TDC]

Well at least it's over now.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

I know I wasn't posting at the very end, but I was extremely uncomfortable with the TDC wagon on the last day; unfortunatly if I was going to tilt at one of the two players who started it, I would've probably ended up hounding SpyreX again.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

However, I do lynch lurkers and I can't feel bad about it.

You're smarter than this SpyreX, M98 lynched lurkers/flakers D1 and D2 and lost because of it. Here we lynched lurkers/flakers D1 and D2 and lost because of it. Lynching lurkers/flakers doesn't help the town fufill it's win con and I'd suggest that lynching them doesn't change their behavior either so it effectively does nothing helpful.

You want to influence that behavior? Put together an official BaM blacklist not just limited to games your modding; include games you're playing and then get more mods to sign onto the list itself if not the ruleset. When people suddenly find themselves locked out of a large number of games the games will be better for the lack of their presence or they'll be forced to actually change their behavior.

[Goatrevolt]

The town really needed someone to step up and lead.

[Elmo]

The majority of the town was content to sit back and do relatively nothing, which game us plenty of opportunity to take control of the game.

How'd you feel the scum had control of the game?

I dunno exactly what to say, I suspect no-one wants to hear it.

[Nuwen]

I'LL SAVE YOU, ELMO.

I'd like to apologize for my terrible play in this game. The setup and player list were fantastic; I'm not sure why I fell victim to apathy (but I certainly wasn't the only one taken down).

[SpyreX]

I guess, ultimately, I hate losing but losing to active scum hurts a lot less then "welp, the lurker lurked to the finish line"

Apathy was a big issue. Further, I think that the minimal amount of votes needed for a lynch helped the apathy - it was way too "well, someone ELSE can find the scum" going on.

[petroleumjelly]

PJ Commentary

1.)

Despite how little effort probably comes across in my making this set-up, I actually spent more time making this set-up than most of my mini games I have run to date. I played with a good number of potential new roles and potential standard roles, but the more complicated my set-ups became under the mechanics of this game, the less I liked them.

In the end, the set-up comes down to the fact that the Floor-Locking mechanic is a giant Jailkeeper that only helps the Town and does absolutely squat to help the scum. Not only does a locked floor completely shield all townspeople on that floor for an entire night (acting as several doctor protections), but it also role-blocks all the scum on that floor.

I decided the most powerful way for the town to utilize the Floor-locking mechanic was simply to put the locked floors up to a vote (as opposed to Vaughn’s iteration of Simon, where a particular townsperson had the sole authority to decide which floor was locked each night). This way, a town is more likely to choose the floor that best helps them.

The Back-Up Floor concept was included to make sure that no matter what the town did, there would be a locked floor – so every night, even if there was a quicklynch and the town never decided what floor to lock, there was a chance that the Mafia nightkill could be blocked overnight.

2.)

With the following in mind, the game actually came down to trying to find ways to not completely screw over the mafia.

For example, in this particular randomized set-up, suppose on Day One the town had lynched Lord Gurgi (Mafia Concierge in Green) and locked Red (which held both Battousai the Mafia Bellhop and Goatrevolt the Mafia Goon). In that case, the Mafia would be a power role down and would be unable to kill on the first night of the game. In that situation, the Mafia would probably need to Bellhop Battousai or Goatrevolt to a different floor, while at the same time, forbiddanlight (Town Bellhop) would probably Bellhop herself to the Red floor.

It is insanely easy to imagine situations in this game where a mafia can be pretty devastated after just a day or two of playing, especially if they allow their power roles to be lynched. I do not think a 2-man mafia could have survived this set-up, because this set-up has a strong pro-town feature (the Floor-locking) that completely differentiates it from a standard 2:10 vanilla game. Not only that, but where a standard 10:2 vanilla game has a night-start, this game had a day-start (i.e. town gets more lynches).

Obviously I had contemplated the town strategy of locking the same Floor every night, with the Bellhop being on that Floor. I think a particularly disastrous thing that could have happened in this set-up, for example, would have been to lock the Blue Floor, while forbiddanlight (without having claimed) moves herself to the Blue Floor, and from that point, continues to (i) whisk others to the Blue floor, or (ii) targets herself to stay on the Blue floor. In that scenario, up to six town players (out of

nine

) are protected every night. The Mafia will only be able to Whisk people away at the same rate the Town can whisk them in.

Note:

The the Concierge does not really change the

numbers

of players on the Floors: only the players. The only way the Mafia can change that number of townspeople on a Floor with the Concierge is to swap a townsperson with a Mafiate. So for those who really think the Mafia had two roles to nullify the town's progress of whisking, I hope you keep this little tidbit in mind.

3.)

The town was not given traditional “power roles” precisely because the set-up inherently contemplates that one or more nightkill will be blocked through the course of the game. Even though the Mafia might

think

they have successfully moved some player onto an open floor, for example, such a movement would still

fail

if the Town Bellhop targeted that same person.

In essence, to compensate for a lack of power roles the town was considered to have been given an extra “lynch” because of the day-start + assumed missing nightkill. Usually in a 12-player game with 3 scum, the town can only afford to mislynch twice: in this set-up, the town can usually afford to mislynch three times. Furthermore, if the town plays well or gets lucky, and three kills are blocked during the course of the game (which is entirely feasible), the town can afford

four

mislynches.

Really, the town’s power exponentially increases every time a member of the Mafia is lynched. The game really only appears to favor the Mafia

so long as

the Mafia remains intact. Once a member is gone, their options become severely restricted very quickly (just like the last version of Simon Mafia). I think this is simply an innate feature of the Simon set-up.

To go one by one down the traditional power roles, though:

a.)

A Cop seemed inappropriate because (i) in the case that the Town could successfully cordon off a Mafiate, the Cop can investigate everybody in the game each night to both confirm innocents and to determine who is on a locked floor, and (ii) any innocents confirmed by the Cop are likely to be moved to whatever floor the town is locking.

b.)

A Doctor was just unnecessary and cruel, since the Town already has a giant Doctor role at their command.

c.)

The same reasoning as above applies to Role-Blockers.

d.)

A Vigilante was just plain inappropriate, as a successful vigging or two not only screws the mafia, but even a couple unsuccessful vigging will give the town additional collective kills in a set-up where the town already is assumed to get more attempts at killing the mafia than usual.

4.)

In retrospect, however, I think the game

may

have been better off with the same sole power role for the Town,

but

having the Mafia options being more restricted than having two separate power roles. I gave the Mafia two power roles with the thought that if one were lynched, then the Mafia would still be left fairly helpless and so there needed to be a Back-Up of some sort.

Options I considered (but which I may have been better off implementing) were:

a.)

Giving the Mafia a collective X-Shot movement to be used through individual Mafiates;

b.)

Giving the Mafia one power role, who, upon dying, has the power revert to a second Mafiate, who upon dying, has the power revert to the final Mafiate;

c.)

Allowing the Mafia an X-Shot bypass of locked floors.

I least liked Option C because I think the more proper mechanical theme is for a locked floor to be largely impenetrable.

Note

that an exception had to be made for the Bellhop / Concierge roles, because if they could not target players in locked floors, then a Mafia group who is stuck on a locked floor can literally do nothing and is completely at the mercy of the town. This was also way for the Town Bellhop to guarantee that they stay on a locked Floor forevermore, if they so chose.

I disliked Option B because it just felt too unwieldy and complicated for no particular reason. It simply did not strike me as an elegant solution.

Option A was

very nearly

used in this game, but in the end I decided that giving the Mafia specific power roles was most likely to result in connections in the thread (as the Mafia

definitely

has reasons to protect its power roles) than would a collective power. Presumably, this would make scum-hunting easier for the town since there was somewhat less incentive to buss the Mafia Bellhop and Mafia Concierge than the Mafia Goon.

5.)

Just as a note, everybody’s floor was completely randomized: I did not come in with the mindset of having a particular number of players on any particular floors. I was rather surprised to get a 5-4-3-0 configuration (I expected maybe a slight variant from 3-3-3-3), but I am not the type of mod who rerandomizes things just because the result is probably unanticipated by the players as well.

6.)

The flavor of this game derived from a very old short story I tried to write many moons ago (The Tale of Lucien Adley) about an eccentric man in a green suit who invited people into his home in order to get them to kill each other. Sadly, in the short story, I never got the point where people actually started killing each other. [That may have to be a NanoWrimo project for me, in fact.] Although I would not suggest reading it, chapters of the story can be found intermittently on deviantart, starting here. I wouldn't suggest that anybody actually go and read it, but since Patrick complained that my flavor was similar to MrBuddyLee's "Old Maid Mafia" (which I made a reference to in LlamaFluff's lynch), I thought I would point out that I had the idea first. It's mine, I tell you,

mine!

>.>
<.<

Strangely, when I was writing that story, I had never even heard of the game of mafia. However, the set-up here of inviting people to a Hotel was just

too

delicious for me, and I could not pass up the opportunity to play the part of Mr. Adley in this game. I had a considerable amount of fun writing up the scenes for this game (although I did cringe when writing the scene where I forced the Town into killing Nuwen), and I hope it was enjoyable to read as well.

7.)

Again, thank you to all of the players. I actually take pride in the fact that Town is complaining the set-up favored the mafia while the mafia is complaining that the set-up favors the town. I take that as a sign that set-up was, in fact, well-balanced. I think the best set-ups

seem hard to both sides

. I do not like making set-ups "easy" and I am very pleased that both sides felt the pressures of the game.

Thanks again to Mr. Flay, who was fantastic in keeping the game running smoothly and even stuck to the flavor! <3 Although he gave me an Excel sheet thingy to keep track of post frequency and such, I am completely inept and hence unable to supply you with that information.

[SpyreX]

I think the setup was fine, honestly. This is one of those setups that is balanced enough that it comes down to play.

And we got flat-out outplayed by the scum.

[Battousai]

The game would have been much different if I was lynched D1, and I think I might have been if there wasn't inactivity.

I was surprised that my vote on the last day was considered a town tell by SpyreX. My intentions were to vote the person I called scummy yesterday, Elmo and TDC (You can even notice I didn't take into account that Elmo was already dead), and make it easier for a quicklynch, as it would be easier to get LG/GR on at the same time over LG/GR/Batt. I can definitely see LG trying to keep GR on long enough for them to vote together.