Jack of All Trades Mafia -- OVER!

[Mastermind of Sin]

Actually, I think Fuldu/bluemonick were a 2-person mafia, because we never had three kills anymore after Fuldu died. It's possible that Fuldu had a vig office, but as Thok was discussing before, it seems far more likely that it's just two mafias. This makes more sense balance-wise, because if there was a 4-person mafia, they could all get power roles and really unbalance the game. With 2 2-person mafias, if the scum got power roles, they wouldn't be coordinating the actions of all 4 of them, which balances out the fact that they have power roles.

[Yaw]

Vote Count:

Not Voting: Coron, Mastermind of Sin, ThAdmiral

2 to lynch

Nice to see the participation up. Keep going.

[Coron]

gah, forgot to address the last point, and I got distracted. I agree that the Coron lurking thing is bad, but he was inactive for a long time and was really lazy. However, that point is probably the only major thing that's keeping me from voting ThAdmiral (other than waiting for everyone to present cases).

This is in fact the case. I'm not sure if you think lurking is scummy, but it's something that happens to me in a good number of games, as either town or scum when for whatever reason I can't access MS for a while.

[Mastermind of Sin]

*bump*

[Coron]

Bump yourself.

[Mastermind of Sin]

where is ThAdmiral?

[ThAdmiral]

Here. I have limited access though.
Does someone want to do a voting analysis of me and mmod?

[Mastermind of Sin]

I don't think a voting analysis gives that much insight into a player's alignment when I believe they only had one scumpartner.

[ThAdmiral]

to both: What do you think is more likely? Bussing your sole partner late-game, or trying to avoid him getting lynched even though it may make you look more scummy after he is lynched?

[Coron]

That completely depends on circumstances imho.

[Mastermind of Sin]

ThAdmiral, the problem is that it *can* be construed as a WIFOM argument either way. Either the scum bussed their partner to look more protown, or they thought that the town would think them likely to bus their partner, and they fought against it to look like a protown player, since most scum would not try to avoid their partner's lynch when it looks so inevitable. Under *most* circumstances, bussing is more likely. However, Coron is an experienced enough player to have possibly thought of this. Also, it's entirely likely that the scum didn't even try to plan for what the town would think, either. Game theory doesn't seem like it's going to do much good, at this point. Anything any of us did with regards to Quagmire could be construed as something scum would do.

[Coron]

We're aproaching our deadline and the end of what we have to discuss. Personally I think I'm going to place my vote and hope for the best.

Vote: ThAdmiral

[Mastermind of Sin]

I was about to do that anyways. ThAdmiral has consistently brought up game theory that is not relevant at this point, and it seems to be a ploy to distract us by making us think about things that don't matter anymore. If Coron is scum, good job. I agree with you on ThAdmiral being scum, so I would've voted today anyway and chanced you hammering him. Let's hope this turns out the way we want it to.

Vote: ThAdmiral

[Yaw]

That's a lynch. No time to get up the scene and all the ending stuff right now. It'll be up later tonight.

Thanks to all for playing. Final post, game setup, and my comments will be up soon.

[Mastermind of Sin]

OMG He's not gonna tell us if ThAdmiral was scum or not! Damn you, Yaw!

[Mastermind of Sin]

Yaw eats a long dinner...

[Yaw]

Final Vote Count:

ThAdmiral (2): Coron, Mastermind of Sin

Not Voting: ThAdmiral

2 to lynch

And with that, ThAdmiral is dragged to the ACME Guillotine and relieved of his head. Coron's search of the body reveals nothing to indicate he was working with the infiltrators. Coron gets to his feet and turns around to find Mastermind of Sin's knife coming at his throat.

ThAdmiral, Pro-town, lynched Day 10

Mastermind of Sin (Mafia) wins!

[Yaw]

Setup

This is going to look a little odd, because of the way in which it was created. The original game setup consists of three "stubs" -- one containing 26 names, a second containing 25 alignments, and a third containing 25 roles. All three were randomized independently by Excel to create the initial setup. (The odd name out became the night 1 flavour kill.)

Names:

Jack Adams
Jack Bennett
Jack Campbell
Jack Davis
Jack Evans
Jack Fox
Jack Gallagher
Jack Hall
Jack Irving
Jack Johnson
Jack Kay
Jack Lincoln
Jack Macdonald
Jack Nelson
Jack Olson
Jack Phillips
Jack Quinn
Jack Ryan
Jack Smith
Jack Thomas
Jack Usher
Jack Vernon
Jack Wilkinson
Jack Xavier
Jack Yates
Jack Zimmerman

Alignments:

2 Mafia Group 1
2 Mafia Group 2
1 Serial Killer
20 Town

Roles:

13 Unpowered
1 Doc
1 Cop (Sane)
1 Cop (Insane)
2 Managers (can switch the roles of two players each night)
1 CEO (one shot – can reassign the roles of all players)
1 Superintendent (can reopen an office each night, but does not move a player into it)
1 Bomber (can destroy an office each night – this removes a player’s role, but doesn’t kill the player)
3 Masons (night communicators – setup naturally guarantees no knowledge of a player’s alignment in this group)
1 Roleblocker

Notes:

New players occupying the cop roles do not receive previous night results.
The bomber only removes office-related roles. It cannot remove scum’s inherent ability to night kill. It can be used as a roleblock against any office-related ability.
The CEO role has only one shot the entire game. This means players assigned to the CEO role after the ability has been used effectively get an unpowered role with additional flavour.
The doctor can only save a player from one kill attempt per night.
Manager switches get assigned before a CEO mass switch if both happen the same night.
Role switchers can target themselves as part of a switch.

I had role PMs made up for each role and the scum alignments, and just mixed and matched once Excel was done its work to create the final role PMs. Excel came up with the following initial setup:

Randomized Roles (Initial Setup):

Harry_Potter/Quagmire (Jack Adams, Mafia Group 2 with Mastermind of Sin, Insane Cop)
Brian McQueso (Jack Bennett, Town, Unpowered)
viper0933/bluemonick (Jack Campbell, Mafia Group 1 with Fuldu, Sane Cop)
mystery meat of doom/ThAdmiral (Jack Davis, Town, Manager)
Coron (Jack Evans, Town, Unpowered)
MrBuddyLee (Jack Fox, Town, Unpowered)
Mlaker/Bogre (Jack Gallagher, Town, Unpowered)
Fuldu (Jack Hall, Mafia Group 1 with viper0933, Bomber)
Shamrock/spectrumvoid (Jack Irving, Town, Roleblocker)
SpamWise/mathcam (Jack Johnson, Town, Mason with BabyJesus and Masterchief)
armlx/pablito (Jack Kay, Town, Manager)
Mastermind of Sin (Jack Lincoln, Mafia Group 2 with Harry_Potter, Unpowered)
PookyTheMagicalBear (Jack Macdonald, Town, Superintendent)
the silent speaker (Jack Nelson, Serial Killer, Unpowered)
ChannelDelibird/lordy (Jack Olson, Town, Unpowered)
Max/LoudmouthLee/Save The Dragons (Jack Phillips, Town, Doctor)
Ibaesha/Thok (Jack Quinn, Town, Unpowered)
Masterchief/inHimshallibe (Jack Ryan, Town, Mason with BabyJesus and SpamWise)
Colonel Kurtz/Uraj45 (Jack Thomas, Town, Unpowered)
DrippingGoofball/Someone/zu_Faul (Jack Usher, Town, Unpowered)
Fritzler (Jack Vernon, Town, Unpowered)
Mariyta/Blackberry (Jack Wilkinson, Town, Unpowered)
Yosarian2 (Jack Xavier, Town, Unpowered)
BabyJesus (Jack Yates, Town, Mason with Masterchief and SpamWise)
TheCesspit/Oberon/KingEnigma/Cogito Ergo Sum (Jack Zimmerman, Town, CEO)

Night 0 victim: Jack Smith

[Yaw]

The initial role PMs were as follows:

Harry_Potter/Quagmire (Jack Adams, Mafia Group 2 with Mastermind of Sin, Insane Cop):

You are Jack Adams. Your office contains a desk and chair, and an ACME Investigation KitTM. This will allow you to investigate a player of your choice each night, and the kit will give you a guilty or innocent result.

You are also part of a mafia group, along with Mastermind of Sin. This gives you the additional ability, as a group, to kill one player per night. You will have to PM me with the name of the player you wish to kill, as well as which of you will carry out the kill, to do so. Be aware that each of you may only perform one action per night. You win when no player outside your group is left alive.

Brian McQueso (Jack Bennett, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Bennett. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

viper0933/bluemonick (Jack Campbell, Mafia Group 1 with Fuldu, Sane Cop):

You are Jack Campbell. Your office contains a desk and chair, and an ACME Investigation KitTM. This will allow you to investigate a player of your choice each night, and the kit will give you a guilty or innocent result.

You are also part of a mafia group, along with Fuldu. This gives you the additional ability, as a group, to kill one player per night. You will have to PM me with the name of the player you wish to kill, as well as which of you will carry out the kill, to do so. Be aware that each of you may only perform one action per night. You win when no player outside your group is left alive.

mystery meat of doom/ThAdmiral (Jack Davis, Town, Manager):

You are Jack Davis. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Guide to Managing People for DummiesTM. Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to switch two players’ roles each night. To do this, PM me with the players to be switched and the role names to reassign them to.

Coron (Jack Evans, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Evans. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

MrBuddyLee (Jack Fox, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Fox. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Mlaker/Bogre (Jack Gallagher, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Gallagher. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Fuldu (Jack Hall, Mafia Group 1 with viper0933, Bomber):

You are Jack Hall. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Bombing KitTM. Using this kit, you will be able to bomb one office each night, destroying it. This will not kill players, but it will destroy their ability to use their role. Permanently.

You are also part of a mafia group, along with viper0933. This gives you the additional ability, as a group, to kill one player per night. You will have to PM me with the name of the player you wish to kill, as well as which of you will carry out the kill, to do so. Be aware that each of you may only perform one action per night. You win when no player outside your group is left alive.

Shamrock/spectrumvoid (Jack Irving, Town, Roleblocker):

You are Jack Irving. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Disruptor RayTM. Using the disruptor, you will be able to prevent one player from performing any action each night.

SpamWise/mathcam (Jack Johnson, Town, Mason with BabyJesus and Masterchief):

You are Jack Johnson. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Telephone with Speed DialTM. On the speed dial are the numbers of Jack Ryan (Masterchief) and Jack Yates (BabyJesus). Using the phone, you will be able to communicate with them at night.

armlx/pablito (Jack Kay, Town, Manager):

You are Jack Kay. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Guide to Managing People for DummiesTM. Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to switch two players’ roles each night. To do this, PM me with the players to be switched and the role names to reassign them to.

Mastermind of Sin (Jack Lincoln, Mafia Group 2 with Harry_Potter, Unpowered):

You are Jack Lincoln. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

You are also part of a mafia group, along with Harry_Potter. This gives you the additional ability, as a group, to kill one player per night. You will have to PM me with the name of the player you wish to kill, as well as which of you will carry out the kill, to do so. Be aware that each of you may only perform one action per night. You win when no player outside your group is left alive.

PookyTheMagicalBear (Jack Macdonald, Town, Superintendent):

You are Jack Macdonald. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Skeleton KeyTM. Using this key, you will be able to reopen one empty office each night. (Offices become empty when players die.) You cannot assign players to newly opened offices (but someone else might be able to do so…)

the silent speaker (Jack Nelson, Serial Killer, Unpowered):

You are Jack Nelson. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

You are also a Serial Killer. This gives you the additional ability to kill one player per night. Be aware that you may only perform one action per night. You win when no other player is left alive.

ChannelDelibird/lordy (Jack Olson, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Olson. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Max/LoudmouthLee/Save The Dragons (Jack Phillips, Town, Doctor):

You are Jack Phillips. Your office contains a desk and chair, and an ACME Medical KitTM. This will allow you to save a player of your choice from being killed each night.

Ibaesha/Thok (Jack Quinn, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Quinn. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Masterchief/inHimshallibe (Jack Ryan, Town, Mason with BabyJesus and SpamWise):

You are Jack Ryan. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Telephone with Speed DialTM. On the speed dial are the numbers of Jack Johnson (SpamWise) and Jack Yates (BabyJesus). Using the phone, you will be able to communicate with them at night.

Colonel Kurtz/Uraj45 (Jack Thomas, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Thomas. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

DrippingGoofball/Someone/zu_Faul (Jack Usher, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Usher. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Fritzler (Jack Vernon, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Vernon. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Mariyta/Blackberry (Jack Wilkinson, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Wilkinson. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

Yosarian2 (Jack Xavier, Town, Unpowered):

You are Jack Xavier. Your office contains a desk and chair, but is otherwise empty. This means you have no powers in this game.

BabyJesus (Jack Yates, Town, Mason with Masterchief and SpamWise):

You are Jack Yates. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Telephone with Speed DialTM. On the speed dial are the numbers of Jack Johnson (SpamWise) and Jack Ryan (Masterchief). Using the phone, you will be able to communicate with them at night.

TheCesspit/Oberon/KingEnigma/Cogito Ergo Sum (Jack Zimmerman, Town, CEO):

You are Jack Zimmerman. Your office contains a desk and chair, as well as an ACME Organizational Management ChartTM. Using this chart, you will be able to reassign all players in the game (including yourself if you wish) to other roles. Unfortunately, the chart contains only enough room to do this once. To use this ability, PM me with a new list of players assigned to their new role names. If I do not receive a PM from you by the deadline, I will assume you are not using this role that night.

[Yaw]

Game Log

Day 1: Bogre lynched

Night 1:
PookyTheMagicalBear reopens Jack Gallagher office
the silent speaker chooses not to kill
TheCesspit chooses not to use his CEO ability
Max protects ibaesha
spectrumvoid blocks SpamWise (does nothing)
armlx chooses not to switch
Harry_Potter investigates BabyJesus (insane, gets Guilty)
bluemonick kills Blackberry
mystery meat of doom switches ibaesha --> Jack Johnson (Mason), SpamWise --> Jack Quinn (Unpowered)
Fuldu bombs Yosarian2 (Jack Xavier)
Mastermind of Sin chooses not to kill

Day 2: bluemonick lynched

Night 2:
PookyTheMagicalBear reopens Jack Campbell office
the silent speaker kills Fritzler
TheCesspit chooses not to use his CEO ability
Max protects ibaesha
spectrumvoid blocks MrBuddyLee (does nothing)
armlx chooses not to switch
Harry_Potter investigates ibaesha (insane, gets Guilty)
mystery meat of doom switches MrBuddyLee --> Jack Nelson (Unpowered) and the silent speaker --> Jack Fox (Unpowered)
Fuldu kills Brian McQueso
Mastermind of Sin kills lordy

Day 3: BabyJesus lynched

Night 3:
PookyTheMagicalBear reopens Jack Bennett’s office
the silent speaker kills zu_Faul
TheCesspit chooses not to use his CEO ability
LoudmouthLee protects mathcam
spectrumvoid blocks TheCesspit (does nothing, TheCesspit made no choice)
armlx switches armlx --> Jack Quinn (Unpowered) with mathcam --> Jack Kay (Manager)
Harry_Potter investigates TheCesspit (insane, gets Guilty)
mystery meat of doom doesn’t submit a choice to switch
Fuldu kills the silent speaker
Mastermind of Sin kills inHimshallibe

Day 4: mathcam lynched

Night 4:
PookyTheMagicalBear reopens Jack Kay’s office
KingEnigma chooses not to use his CEO ability
Save The Dragons protects Mastermind of Sin
spectrumvoid blocks Coron (does nothing)
Quagmire investigates Uraj45 (insane, gets Guilty)
mystery meat of doom switches Yosarian2 into Jack Gallagher’s office (Unpowered)
Fuldu kills Yosarian2
Mastermind of Sin kills MrBuddyLee

Day 5: Fuldu lynched

Night 5:
PookyTheMagicalBear reopens Jack Hall‘s office
Cogito Ergo Sum uses his ability, switching pablito --> Jack Campbell (Sane Cop), Uraj --> Jack Kay (Manager), Coron --> Jack Thomas (Unpowered), Quagmire --> Jack Bennett (Unpowered), Thok --> Jack Evans (Unpowered), Mastermind of Sin --> Jack Gallagher (Unpowered), Save the Dragons --> Jack Johnson (Mason), mystery meat of doom --> Jack Zimmerman (CEO), PookyTheMagicalBear --> Jack Adams (Insane Cop), spectrumvoid --> Jack MacDonald (Superintendent), Cogito Ergo Sum --> Jack Lincoln (Unpowered)
Save The Dragons protects pablito (blocked)
spectrumvoid blocks Save The Dragons
Quagmire investigates pablito (insane, gets Guilty)
mystery meat of doom switches spectrumvoid --> Jack Kay (Manager)
Mastermind of Sin kills Cogito Ergo Sum
(Due to CEO switching, offices of Jack Quinn, Jack Phillips, Jack Davis, and Jack Irving left unoccupied.)

Day 6: Uraj45 lynched

Night 6:
Quagmire kills pablito
pablito investigates Quagmire (sane, gets Guilty)
PookyTheMagicalBear investigates Thok (insane, gets Guilty)
spectrumvoid switches Save the Dragons --> Jack Bennett (Unpowered) with Quagmire --> Jack Johnson (Mason)

Day 7: No lynch

Night 7:
Mastermind of Sin kills PookyTheMagicalBear
PookyTheMagicalBear investigates Quagmire (insane, gets Innocent)
spectrumvoid switches Thok --> Jack Irving (Roleblocker)

Day 8: Quagmire lynched

Night 8:
Mastermind of Sin kills Thok
spectrumvoid chooses not to switch
Thok blocks Coron (does nothing)

Day 9: spectrumvoid lynched

Night 9:
Mastermind of Sin kills Save The Dragons

Day 10: ThAdmiral lynched

[Yaw]

Notes:

Modding Notes

This might just be the most mod-intensive game ever. Thanks for everyone for bearing with me -- I had no idea how confusing the role-switches would be to keep track of on my end. Every role switch required PMing a lot of people (particularly if it was a communication role, as everyone in that group had to know about the change), and resulted in a lot of appends in my Word file. I eventually had to start colour-coding to keep which offices were still in play straight. I still think it's an incredibly interesting mechanic that deserves to be explored more, but anyone who tries should consider this piece of advice:

Plan out how to record the changes first!

For a variety of reasons, this was the second-longest game ever played on Scum (behind only Intrigue Mafia). Part of this was poor luck with the crashes and with players needing replacement. The rest has to do with games taking longer in general across the site (although I think as time went on this game suffered more from inactivity than others). As complex as this game was, I still think a 25-player game should not take 14 months to complete. I think it's worth using this as a stepping-off point to try to figure out ways to address this issue.

Gameplay Notes

Now it can be told -- yes, bluemonick blew Fuldu's cover at the end of day 2. Unfortunately, I only saw it after people had commented on the post, so was forced to leave it up in the hopes Fuldu would be able to explain it away by WIFOM. I did try to contact bluemonick to engage him in dialogue about why what he did was wrong, but got no response. Because of this, I intend not to let him into any more games I run until this is addressed. I have no interest in revenge, but I insist on accountability, and no scum should have to put up with a partner that believes it's ok to sell out the entire group due to frustration. To Fuldu's credit, he managed to survive two more days without being lynched, despite bluemonick's mistake being brought up both days.

I find this to be a funny little game, in that despite the existence of power roles, it has a very Mountainous feel to it when it comes to trying to find scum because none of the roles are inherently trustworthy. I'm not sure if other people found the same thing, but from watching it occurred to me that the most productive way to play as town here (even in a power role) would be to ignore that power roles existed at all. There were a lot of interesting interactions between roles waiting to be exploited, but only one person came close to pulling it off.

That person was Cogito Ergo Sum. Follow the game log through and look at what havoc that mass-switch did on Night 5. The remaining scum group suddenly went from a position of strength to two straight nights in which the wrong kill would have lost them the game. Mastermind of Sin and Quagmire needed some very tight play to pull out the win based on CES's one-shot action alone.

Setup Notes

Overall, I liked this experiment. All the roles fit and made sense in context, and I think they only started to tap into some of what's possible from this sort of game. I'm not sure if I'd run it myself, but I'd be interested in seeing a game like this run in the future (with some changes, of course). It could also form the basis for an open setup (sort of) if someone wanted to put that together.

Some details on a few choices:

Why only groups of 2 scum? Probability has a tendency to do weird things when I'm around (look at the Hobbit Mafia 1% chance of survival for an example). Most importantly, I wanted to guarantee that the scum couldn't monopolize the role-switching roles. Groups of 2 meant it would be impossible for Excel to stick all three of these roles in one scum group. Groups of 3 meant there was a chance of it happening. (And having stated this would be random, I felt like I shouldn't mess with whatever Excel decided to do.) That said, upon running this I'm convinced that going up to regular-sized groups could be done without problem.

Why no vigilante? I considered it, but was stuck with a problem -- what if a scum group got the vig role? Either they'd get a second kill (which seemed like it could be unbalancing), or the vig role would be negated (which didn't seem fair either -- why have a role that can't be used?) The best choice was therefore to leave it out entirely. I'm not sure there's a satisfying solution other than not to have a vig in a role-motive split game, but people are welcome to try to figure one out.

For all the thinking about brokenness and how to avoid it, it turns out I invented a broken role: the CEO. Nothing should

ever

be that swingy. I liked the idea of having an extra check on the regular role-switchers, but this was far too powerful, and gave me ridiculous headaches trying to resolve what went on Night 5 when it was used. For all my railing against how broken bulletproof vest roles are, this was far, far worse. (Incidentally, this is the only game I'd seriously consider a bulletproof vest role for, because it's exactly as unreliable as every other role. Besides, scum suddenly get night choices that can get rid of it in the role-switchers and the bomber. In this context, the bulletproof vest is potentially balanced.)

Again, thanks to all who participated, and a particular thanks to those who followed this through to the end.

[Coron]

Gah!

[ThAdmiral]

I started to come around to thinking that mos might be scum, but I was never going to be able to convince coron to vote him anyway.

[Mastermind of Sin]

^_^

I'm so glad we killed both cops the night they found Quagmire guilty

Actually, ThAdmiral, I felt that Coron had a better chance of voting me than you did. That's why I made sure my analysis had a pro-ThAdmiralScum leaning, in order to make it so that Coron was agreeing with me. Had I attacked him, I felt that he might've OMGUS'd me and looked harder at my play so far during the game.

[the silent speaker]

This was a rare game in which I thought I might get a tactical edge from not killing night 1 as a SK, I figured there might be items that could come to me, items perhaps which to not use would get me lynched, and I didn't want the absence of a nightkill to incriminate me beyond repair. As it is I think there were no items -- only alignments that follow the player and roles that follow the office, amirité?

Anyway, good game. I think. It's been months since I played it...