Mafiascum.net

I'm currently creating a themed mafia game where, do to it's nature, balance is nearly impossible to achieve. This is not to say the game is wieghted to scum or town, merely that a sequence of choices could resut in day 2/3 endgaming and the game is more about experimenting a new design area and scum hunting than powerroles.

I'm just wondering a few things about the viability of running this game, namely whether it will get enough interest to even bother to post in the queue. The game won't be ready for running for probably a few weeks, but if people are even vaguely interested and would consider playing in it, could you just vote yes here just so I can gauge whether or not it will work, or whether or not to run it as a mini or a normal.

On a related issue, if I do start the game, should I post it in the theme queues and state it is not balanced, or should I start a seperate sign up area for it? Any information regarding this would be appreciated.

If it's not weighted in either the scum or town direction, then it is by definition "balanced".

You're looking for "swingy", which is down the hall and to the left.

Ok then, it's a very swingy game. Is there an accepted etiquette for running one of those?

I personally don't mind playing swingy (or indeed, unbalanced) games as long as I know about it up front. I generally assume that the mod thinks a setup is balanced and non-swingy unless they say otherwise, so I think you should explicitly notify players and make sure they understand what's going on when they're signing up. I don't know of any established etiquette, though.

Open game, I guess.

roffman wrote:...merely that a sequence of choices could resut in day 2/3 endgaming and the game is more about experimenting a new design area and scum hunting than powerroles.

Not sure what the "new design area" pertains to, but I don't like the idea of day 2 endgame. It sounds too soon to end because A) the day could be over fast (~10 pages) and not much of a game would have taken place or B) the day could stretch to 30+ pages and you'd feel cheated if you spent alot of time analyzing the game.

Jahudo wrote:

roffman wrote:...merely that a sequence of choices could resut in day 2/3 endgaming and the game is more about experimenting a new design area and scum hunting than powerroles.

Not sure what the "new design area" pertains to, but I don't like the idea of day 2 endgame. It sounds too soon to end because A) the day could be over fast (~10 pages) and not much of a game would have taken place or B) the day could stretch to 30+ pages and you'd feel cheated if you spent alot of time analyzing the game.

Small open games (read: ~7 players) can start out at LyLo-1, leading to Day 2/3 endgaming. However, people signing up such games usually know this (or can deduce this) beforehand.

This doesn't sound like an open game, though, and it sounds like the mod doesn't want to make it an open game because of certain mechanics that probably need to stay hidden. In which case, I agree with your points.

I think it would be a good thing if mafia games were less anticlimactic, with more deaths and revelations at the end instead of a half-hearted discussion between the replacements for the replacements for the replacements for the game's least controversial players.

Swingy games are perfectly acceptable, though as has been suggested it might be a good idea to advertise it as such, so the players know what they're getting into.

[sidetopic]Fiasco: Perhaps we should try balancing a game where the win conditions are "The Mafia win if they are a third of the town" and "The Town wins if there is only one Mafia remaining".[/sidetopic]

[sidetopic]I love that idea. A standard 12 player setup with only the win condition changed wouldn't be too far off balance, I think.[/sidetopic]

Swinginess is bad. It's not unacceptable, but it's a good idea to avoid it.

How many players, roffman? D3 endgame is acceptable with 7 players, not so much with 17.

Well, note he said a day 2 or 3 engame was "possible"; if you have a game with a lot of scum groups, or a lot of potential nightkills, or whatever, early endgames are often possible, and that's not necessarally a bad thing.

The distaste of players for random outcomes seems to be directly proportional to the amount of time they have committed to the game.
From an abstract game design POV, the best kind of swingy starts out high, and decreases with time. Limited-shot power role abilities is one way to add that quality to your game.

Xdaamno wrote:Swinginess is bad. It's not unacceptable, but it's a good idea to avoid it.

Setup design is an abstract. It is impossible to call any one quality of it "bad".

Jahudo wrote:A) the day could be over fast (~10 pages)

??? 10 pages is not a fast day! :-/


While I agree with Adel - swingness is worse if you spend more time into the game - if the game lasts for long enough that you start to care about it that much, it is not swingy anymore (or at least its swingness potential did not come to realize itself).

JDodge wrote:

Xdaamno wrote:Swinginess is bad. It's not unacceptable, but it's a good idea to avoid it.

Setup design is an abstract. It is impossible to call any one quality of it "bad".

I'm using the word "bad" in the same sense as it would be used to describe the cop-doc combo.

I'm also using the word swinginess not to mean 'powerful roles' in general, but as in the amount that the game is likely to disbalance itself as it goes on, generally due to pseudo-random factors. For example, having all the town being vanilla except from one extremely powerful role is swingy, because that role could be killed pseudo-randomly leaving the game much less balanced from that point on.

I like swingy games. Don't like unbalanced games too much unless its a bastard mod game where that would be expected.

I'd join depending on the theme and my current level of time I could devote to the game.

Xdaamno wrote:

JDodge wrote:

Xdaamno wrote:Swinginess is bad. It's not unacceptable, but it's a good idea to avoid it.

Setup design is an abstract. It is impossible to call any one quality of it "bad".

I'm using the word "bad" in the same sense as it would be used to describe the cop-doc combo.

I'm also using the word swinginess not to mean 'powerful roles' in general, but as in the amount that the game is likely to disbalance itself as it goes on, generally due to pseudo-random factors. For example, having all the town being vanilla except from one extremely powerful role is swingy, because that role could be killed pseudo-randomly leaving the game much less balanced from that point on.

How is bad any less relative there?

Yosarian2 wrote:Well, note he said a day 2 or 3 engame was "possible"; if you have a game with a lot of scum groups, or a lot of potential nightkills, or whatever, early endgames are often possible, and that's not necessarally a bad thing.

On the other hand, if you start day 2 of a mini with over half the players dead, you might have screwed up your setup design a bit.

but if day 1 opens with 4 of the 11 players dead your setup may get nominated for a scummy

Fiasco wrote:I think it would be a good thing if mafia games were less anticlimactic, with more deaths and revelations at the end

What do you think of roles that increase in power with time? Give a role who is allowed to:

• Track one person each night if at least 1 townie is dead.
  Roleblock one person each night if at least 4 townies are dead.
  Kill or protect one person each night if at least 7 townies are dead.

Add the disclaimer that only 1 ability may be used in a single night. It would be better suited for large games, and the actual numbers would need to vary depending on the total number of players and how many killing roles you had. It helps balance itself in that the power of the role increases as the town becomes weaker, but does not increase in the event that a mafia or 3rd party is lynched/killed. Therefore if the town is doing really well, their power doesn't increase as quickly. You could also reword the role to "if at least (X) townies are ," to further this dynamic.

Adel wrote:but if day 1 opens with 4 of the 11 players dead your setup may get nominated for a scummy

But there was ressurection.

Been in transit for a couple of days and want to clarify some things. The game i'm planning scales to as many players as you need, the main thing i was concerned about is stacking of power roles night actions. For example, in a 12 person setup, it is possible for scum to get 4 kills in night one, and 4 other random people dieing. This would only occur if 10 of the 11 people made a mis-target, including the scum, so i considered it highly unlikely.

That sounds really excessive, but then it could be fun. It would have to be a day start to give the town some sort of chance, because opening the game and saying "ok, you 10 are dead, you other 4, you've got 6 weeks to lynch the last scum" is just...well...retarded.

I think you have to tell everyone in advance that it has the potential for this kind of swinginess.