Oh and the "twist" is that there was a factional "drain vitality". That's why Rhand died. I drained Arian which lowered my vit, which made Rhand pay more.
Oh and the "twist" is that there was a factional "drain vitality". That's why Rhand died. I drained Arian which lowered my vit, which made Rhand pay more.
This is not how I died, means Lnr didn't target me and the -12 is still alive and called Megiddo.
Oh and the "twist" is that there was a factional "drain vitality". That's why Rhand died. I drained Arian which lowered my vit, which made Rhand pay more.
This is not how I died, means Lnr didn't target me and the -12 is still alive and called Megiddo.
Fun! I'll be happy if this is correct because I'm very unhappy with Meg this game if he's Town for several reasons.
I've had this irking suspicion for a long while that Meg and Kami are neutrals that share a daychat.
Probably completely wrong, but it would make so much sense.
Makes sense, since the OP has always implied 5 anti-town. Really weird to have the scum without a factional kill (having some kind of drain instead?) and a SK that's kind of scum-aligned, but they need to kill her to win.
Also, I totally called Proph being Yblissa, AND that all the kills were coming from Yblissa.
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And IIRC, dC was the only one who could not win with Proph. Which probably means that there is no factional NK because why would they bother keeping Yblisa around otherwise?
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"Isn't this what you wanted, Merios? Your Father and Mother, defeated, shackled and humbled?"
"Why are you goading me, Grandfather? Because none of this is about me. This is all about you and your plan, whatever it is."
"Is it? Let me tell you a story. I'm quite good at that. Once, years ago, there were two beings of great power. Their names aren't really important now - in truth, I am no longer quite sure I remember them. At any rate, they were brother and sister, and they loved each other greatly, and wrought the universe about them, and for a time, it was good. Then their innate flaws led them to squabble, and their mutual affection turned to hatred, and existence was torn asunder as they warred. Does any of this sound familiar?"
"I know your story, Grandfather."
"Yes, you do. Though the story I just told you was not mine, it may as well have been. In the aftermath of their war, the sister prevailed, and she drained her defeated sibling of energy and created two children, whose names were--"
"--Demernae and the Word."
"And then after our mother occluded herself, Demernae and I lived at peace until we came to blows, and we warred, and I prevailed, using her energy to create two children--"
"--Voes and Yblisa, who did the same, until Voes locked Yblisa in the Clock and used her energy to create the Elementals. So what are you trying to say? That this cycle of endless strife continues forever?"
"Not forever. Look around you. The Celestials are monstrous husks, not fit to live, sustaining themselves only through parasitic means. Your Mother and Father are wretched, hateful shadows of the children I brought forth, who will never be at peace. These worlds - those that have not collapsed entirely - will do so in the very near future - and then all will be lost."
"Grandfather?"
"Yes, Merios?"
"What am I supposed to do about all of this?"
"I already told you - trust me. Come. It is time I saw my children again, and you your parents."
"..."
***
Prophylaxis has been lynched. He was Yblisa, the First, False Mafia Serial Killer.
“You were only ever a tool to her. She saw you as her unwanted bastard children, forced upon her by her tyrannous brother. When your usefulness to her was over, she abandoned you.”
“But…we worshiped her.”
“And that would’ve sufficed for her brother. But what you need to understand about Yblisa is that she never wanted worship. She didn’t crave attendance like Voes did. She would’ve preferred that you never existed, and that the universe remained quiet and peaceful.”
“What would be the purpose of that?”
“There you go again with “purpose.” You must learn to abandon that. Beings with free will do not think along such lines.”
“But still, what would a world of eternal quiet, unchanging and pristine, benefit anyone? What meaning would it have?”
“Now you sound like your father, who thought as I do. Perhaps Yblisa will always be a mystery to the likes of us.”
“…May I ask you a question, Grandfather?”
“Why hesitate? Have I not satisfied your every curiosity?”
“…Why did you create Voes and Yblisa? Why not just watch over our world yourself?”
“Balance. There must always be balance. Just as Demernae’s remnants cannot create true life without me, I cannot maintain a world without her. I thought, perhaps, that with Voes and Yblisa…”
“…”
“…That things might be different. And maybe I was wrong. Maybe your world, Ruffu, would have been better off in my care. And maybe it will again have that chance….”
Welcome to Celestial Mafia, Prophylaxis! You are Yblisa, the First, False Mafia Serial Killer. You win when all other players are dead. Keep in mind that brings you into direct conflict with your mafia “teammates.”
You begin the game with 25 Vitality and have the following abilities: Treachery (passive): Mafia abilities have no effect on you. In addition, whenever your night actions and the night actions of the Mafia conflict, your choices always lose. (For example, if the Mafia decides to use Siphon Vitality on a townie, while you submit the same action on one of them, the action chosen by the Mafia will always be the action performed. This is to ensure that you cannot circumvent the Mafia’s majority decisions.) Nihilism (passive): When you use Siphon Vitality, you cannot be roleblocked and Siphon Vitality penetrates any protection its target may have. Last Word (active/night): Target another player. You will whisper your name to that player, killing him or her instantly. Last Word has no effect against Voes.
You are privy to Mafia nighttalk and, as far as they know, are part of their team, but you cannot win with the scum. A regular Mafia victory (scum control the lynch or such control is inevitable) will result in you losing the game. You count toward Mafia victory, as well (so if there are 3 townies, 2 mafia, and you left, that’s a scum win and you lose.)
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to PM me, and have fun!
Honestly, if proph had gone with a safer option in his claim, and maybe lurked less, he could have won this. He did a great job of bussing every last scum, but his ability claim means we basically HAD to lynch him for the info it provided.
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What does he want from me? Merios asked himself as he followed the Word across the dead plains of Erhamen. What does he think I can offer him? Before them was a small group of Celestials eagerly gathered around two haunting figures, chained and tied to spars of blasted rock.
Mother. Father. How did it come to this? We were so happy.
As they drew closer, Merios perceived an odd smoke swirling around the survivors, though there did not seem to be any fire. Soon he realized it was not smoke or dust, but ghosts. The spirits of the fallen, both in this conflict and all the ones that preceded it on this dark, forsaken world.
"Step away from my children," the Word said, striding forward. Heads whipped to face him. Voes looked upon him with amused contempt. The Mother's expression was one of pure, unadulterated hatred. And the Celestials saw the newcomer, surrounded in a corona of blazing light, as a fresh source of energy, and so gazed upon him with mindless greed.
The Word looked upon Voes and Yblisa for a long, long time. "How could I have wrought so poorly?" he finally whispered.
"Where have you been, father?" Voes laughed mockingly. "You've missed all the fun. And look who you brought! Step forward, my wayward child. Come and face your maker."
I owe you nothing, Father, Merios thought bitterly. But he took a stride forward all the same.
"Following your grandpa around like the lapdog you are, Merios? Betraying your kin wasn't enough treachery for you, and so you decided to spend time around Pops and learn from the best! What do you think, sister?"
"He is yours," the Mother hissed, and her hateful whisper send spikes of pain through Merios's body. "I have nothing to do with him."
"Disowned by your mother, despised by your father, and alone in the world. You almost have it worse than we do," Voes spat scornfully, and turned away from Merios. "So what is it that you want, father? Do you wish to lecture us on our failings? We're not going anywhere, I suppose. Or do you plan to let those" and here he gestured with his snout-like face at the gathered Celestials, who were watching the family dispute with avid interest - "feast on us and live a little longer before withering into nothingness?"
"The sooner the better," whispered Yblisa. She was as she had always been - dark, tall and thin, sheathed in hips-long hair that was once the brown of fresh-tilled soil but had clotted into the black of snuffed stars.
"Yes," said many voices at once, and Merios whirled to find out where they were coming from. It was the Celestials - all of them speaking as one. But the voice did not only come from their senseless mouths, but from the ghost-saturated air of Erhamen itself. "We are all here now, brother, and under your power, as you always wished. What would you have of us, you who have taken so much already?"
Demernae. It is her. Some part of her must have survived.
"We are near the end of all things," the Word began, addressing the separated essence of his dead sister, his twisted, corrupted children, and his doubting grandson - now possibly the only beings left alive in all of creation. "We have almost reached the end of our Vitality. Yes, I carry some within me yet, as do Merios, Voes, and Yblisa, but at the rate of decay that we are experiencing, that will be gone soon. If the energy of life were a wine, we are most assuredly sipping from the dregs now. As I see it, we have two choices - continue as we are now, fighting amongst ourselves, brother against sister, and slip into oblivion, or...start over. Pool what Vitality remains to us, and remake existence again."
"I choose oblivion," Yblisa said instantly.
"As do I," Voes added.
"You snuffed out my favored world and turned it into this festering sore on reality. You betrayed me and slaughtered me, separating all that comprised me into venal, petty beings - and even then, you stole the best of me, my Imagination and my Contentment, and used it to make Voes and Yblisa, who you abandoned to their own devices," said Demernae through the Celestials. "How could you ever think we would listen to you?"
"I don't," said the Word. "That's what I brought Merios for."
What? He thinks I'm going to convince them? I'm not even sure I'm convinced.
"This should be good," the Reaper sneered. "A final jest before we leave this life forever." Yblisa said nothing at all, but only looked at him as if she wished her hands around his neck. And then Merios knew what to say.
"The Word was a fool to think you would ever listen to him," Merios admitted. "And that's just as well, because we are all wretchedly flawed beings, and the universe will be better off without us. Demernae, your good heart blinded you to the crimes of Buchan, when earlier action might have forestalled them. Mother, your selfish naivete made you jealous and spiteful. Nothing stays the same forever, no matter how much you wish it would. Father, your callously short attention span led you to abandon your children while you furthered your quest for more power. And Grandfather, your misguided ambition and self-superior attitude makes you always believe you know what's best for everyone else." He paused for a moment, careless of their reactions. "I too vote for oblivion, if I must be remade alongside any of you - yet I am no better. In truth, I am a weak-willed sycophant who heedlessly jumps from one master to another, seeking justification for my inability to think for myself."
The Word looked stunned, hollow-eyed. Voes and Yblisa looked on with curiosity, as if hearing an animal known to be mute finally give voice to its soul.
"But that is not all I want to be. The cycle need not repeat itself. Maybe, this time, we can do better."
***
"...and together they joined what was left of their energy and made the Third Creation, which we live in today."
"What a wonderful story, Sidi. Thank you."
"Yes, thank you! And look! There's Father, coming up the path!"
"Run to your father, children, and tell him what you learned today. Go on, Umry."
"Fatherrrr! Here I come!"
"...Sidi?"
"Yes, Dina?"
"How do you know all of that story? Sometimes it almost seems as if you were there."
"The best storytellers always were, my dear. Go on. Catch up to your brother."
"All right. Umry! Wait! Umry!!"
"..."
***
"Do you ever wonder if I made the right choice?"
"Only after I've eaten one of your famous stews. Oblivion would be preferable to that any day."
"You still take liberties, after all this time."
"In seriousness? I do wonder. What if we get it wrong again? What if the cycle can never be broken, but is just bred into us, and our parents before us?"
"It's not like you to be so fatalistic."
"Remembering the past always makes me this way."
"Do you think they...understood?"
"Consciously? No. But on some level, they get it, especially the girl. The story isn't just a story. It never was."
"I guess we'll wait and see. And if it all goes wrong? The Fourth Creation, perhaps?"
"I doubt I have enough Vitality left for that. One day - not soon, but soon enough - I will fade, and it will be left to you to raise them."
"Do you think I can do it?"
The two men were silent for a time. They watched the children wandering slowly down the path back to the tribe's village, hand-in-hand. A tall, slender girl, dark of complexion and hair, and a fair-haired, vivacious boy.
I knew that there was something Proph wasn't sharing about his role, but I didn't really dwell on it since we needed his ability in order to win. When combined with the fact that vitality totals added an immense amount of accountability to this game, Proph's role makes it really hard for the scum team to win, lest he decides to not pursue his win condition.
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"I'm a compulsive liar no matter what team I play on, but I'm trying to get better about it."
This game made me insane, and I'm taking a mafia hiatus for a while because of it.
As evidence, I sent Zindabad over 50 PMs this game, which exceeds even what I do as scum (when I constantly feel like I'm exploding due to the stress). By the end I thought that Iso had a Day ability that let him change his vitality at will. It was that bad. That one in particular was because of the modding mistakes, but still.
If you are wondering why my play dropped off a cliff this game, it's because D1 I was focusing on players, behavior, and interactions. From Day 2 on... I was focusing on this.
That became my lens into the game and my primary interaction with it. Behavior was secondary.
I became obsessed with the numbers and the math. The spreadsheet was lording over me. It was in my thoughts every day as I was awake and as I slept.
This sounds really crazy but it was that bad. I took a V/LA after yesterday where I didn't eat because of this game. I wasn't going to participate in the game until Friday. Fortunately, it ended before I needed to post again.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
Hooray for being SO FEARED I was killed night 1 in a total town domination!
Joking, of course. Well done to my fellow members of town who did a great job. Megiddo, now your watch is over.
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This game is the first sequel I’ve written, which carries a burden in terms of mechanics as well as flavor. Seasons was my best game. Trying to follow it is not going to be easy. Rather than try to rehash the mechanics of Seasons, I’ve actually decided to go a little further back with this game and draw inspiration from Grim Batol.
Grim Batol had three core mechanics: location, Survey, and Corruption. All three were failures to some degree. Location was relevant to the game, but was too simplistic and had too little an effect on the game. Surveying was an acceptable mechanic, but it was hampered by my decision to keep its mechanics and details mostly a mystery from the town. And Corruption was a failure because I overnerfed its numbers savagely, making it so weak as to not pose a threat to the town whatsoever.
Celestial Mafia tries to fix the failings of Grim Batol. Corruption is replaced by Vitality, the game’s main mechanic. Three of the reasons that Corruption was poorly executed were its general weakness (it didn’t realistically pose a threat to the town at any point), the fact that it benefited only mafia (they weren’t affected by it, so they never really had to interact with it. It kind of passively tried to do their work for them, which is bad design anyway because it’s non-interactive, but doubly ineffective because I balanced the entire setup against Corruption being a big player for the scum when it really did nothing) and finally that it was concealed from the players. Scum didn’t know what Corruption levels their opponents had. Town (with 2 exceptions) didn’t know what Corruption levels their allies had, or even what Corruption score each of them had. It was a blind mechanic in a game full of them.
Celestial fixes that by making Vitality the central mechanic of the game. Both scum and town use it and are defined by it. It has positive and negative effects, and almost every ability plays with it in some way. Furthermore, Vitality scores are public knowledge for all players at all times. This will help keep people honest in their night actions (a bonus for the town), let the scum know how weak their targets are (a bonus for the mafia), and provide challenging situations for both sides. It will give the players a sense of agency (ex: “oh, Cyan’s at low Vitality, I can put Ward in Frost on him to protect him, or try to hurt a scum who’s going to finish him off with Ward in Flames, all the while waiting for him to die so I can collect his Vitality and keep myself going a little while longer.”)
Next is location. Location was an onerous process with too many rules in Grim Batol. It was also too straightforward. Going forward was almost always the right decision, because the poorly designed nature of Survey made it unprofitable to stick around. With these new “worlds”, more difficult and testing situations are created. (“Do we take the extra Vitality loss on Erhamen to try to hear some thoughts from our best analyst (who’s been dead since N2), or do we tough it out on Ruchperion because it only costs us 2 Vitality per day or night, even though it loses 4 itself and we risk dying en masse if we stick around too long?”)
Including two deterministic (i.e. non-random) role selections is new for me, as is a false mafia. Flavorfully, it totally makes sense that Yblisa and Voes will try to betray one another, but I am a little concerned about the havoc it could wreak on a scumteam, especially if the players who are randomed into the siblings are less experienced and end up outing each other too soon. One positive of the deterministic setup was that I think it smoothed out the randomness a lot (more details on this can be found in the “numbercrafting” section below, where you can see the relative difference between Celestial Mafia and my previous two games, which also used the system.)
Transparency and player agency are definitely my buzzwords in Mafia game design, and I think that this game delivers both of those while also incorporating fun, innovative roles that relate well to a central mechanic that has been explored before but never definitively locked down. In years to come I want people to be able to point to this setup and say “that’s how hit-point mechanics are done.” And that’s my manifesto for this game.
Numbercrafting:
This system is based off of my compensation system from Seasons Mafia and Ataghan Mafia which gave or took away abilities based on how many points the Mafia was below or above the town. The threshold is 6 points. Numbercrafting follows.
<<The most powerful scumteam consists of Yblisa, Voes, Dem’s Hatred, and any of the 3.5 roles, like Bitterness or Force . That's a total of 19 points, then they get 4.5 points for each member of the mafia, which gives them a total of 41.5 points, which is just 3 points more than the town in this scenario, who have 38.5
The weakest possible scumteam consists of Yblisa, Voes, Uncertainty, Heels, and one of the 2 MP roles, like Right Hand. That’s a total of 10.5, then they get a bonus of 22.5 (4.5 for each member of the mafia), giving them 33 total, while the town have 35 points, only a 2-point disadvantage.
Looking at averages, the town have an average point score of 2.37 (about .375 less than Ataghan and .45 less than Seasons) while the scum have an average point score of 2.67 (.17 more than Ataghan but almost 3 less than Seasons.) If 16 average townies come up against 5 average mafia, it's going to be 37.92 points versus 35.85 points - a very slight but within standard deviation advantage to the town. Looking pretty good here. There should be no need for compensation in this game, but if there is, the below system applies:>>
Compensation:
If the scum are more than 6 points above the town, one of their members, chosen randomly, gains the following ability:
Dominion's Cost (passive): While <randomly chosen teammate> is alive, your abilities without "Dominion" in the name will have no effect. (This includes passives. You can still perform Siphon Vitality while this ability is active.)
If the scum are more than 8 points above the town, two of their members, chosen randomly, gain Dominion's Cost.
If the scum are more than 6 points below the town, they gain access to the following ability:
Dominion's Toil (night/active): Target another player. Tonight, that player can't use any abilities. This ability may be used by any Mafia member, but only once per night, and the player using it can't use any other abilities.
If the scum are more than 8 points below the town, they gain access to the following ability:
Dominion’s Ambition (passive): The first time that a member of the Mafia would be killed (except by lynching) that kill is prevented. (This ability only works once.)
Role summary:
Yblisa – False Mafia SK who is actively working against the scum. (0 TP, 2 MP)
Voes – Vitality damager who can also voteblock people. (0 TP, 5 MP)
Dem’s Heart – “Docguard” that does little vs. Siphon Vitality (2.5 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Determination – Motivator that hurts. Good for both sides, maybe a little better for town. (3 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Bitterness – Hurts players or steals Vitality. Can really screw somebody over. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Memory – Vanillifier. Marginally less useful for scum since someone at 6 Vitality is likely to die soon one way or the other. (2.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Left Hand – Hiding tracker. Strong on both sides, slightly better for town. (4 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Hatred – Vig. Very strong for scum and they can pull shenanigans with Painful Resurrection. (3 TP, 5 MP)
Dem’s Love – Can protect players against Siphon Vitality and also hurt those who target its target. Strong in town hands, not so strong in scum hands. (3.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Passion – Vitality alterer that doesn’t interact with Siphon Vitality, slightly better for town. (2.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Force – Double voter and vote threshold lowerer. Much stronger in scum hands. Doesn’t contribute much to town IMO. (1.5 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Conviction – Can equalize Vitality and has the evenhanded passive. Significantly stronger as a townie. (3 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Uncertainty – Most of the passives do little for scum, but a townie paying 25% of his Vitality for some freebee passives isn’t strong either. Weak, though cool, role. (1.5 TP, 1 MP)
Dem’s Eyes – Gives some powerful disruption to the scumteam, and Contempt could be a potential gamewinner. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Vengeance – Again, a role stronger in scum hands than town. Could really wreck a town no matter whose hands it’s in. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Envy – Spends 3 nights doing nothing, roleblocking, and then killing a player. It’s a major investment for a scum just to get one kill, so I’m giving low MP. (2 TP, 1.5 MP)
Dem’s Heels – Vitality is always equal to the world’s vitality. Offers no protection against lynching, so it doesn’t do much for scum. (1.5 TP, 1 MP)
Dem’s Patience – Encourages slightly lurky play, which gives power to scum, but it’s also kind of obvious since Vitality scores are public in the first post and with every votecount. (2 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Suspicion – Poisoner that also blocks Vitality scores. The denial of information benefits scum, but the protection against machine-gun use of Poison Vitae weakens it a little bit. (2 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Soul – Drains Vitality from self and others and restores it to the world, or docs someone at the price of 3 Vitality. Can’t imagine scum using the first ability too often, and a 3-Vitality-drain per night is pretty strong. (1.5 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Right Hand – Illuminates players (like Painter, etc.) or puts a bouncing protective shield on players. First ability is pro-town, second is useable by both. (3 TP, 2 MP)
"So the Celestials were all that remained of Demernae, once the Word was done with her."
"Yes."
"What did they want? To...reunite?"
"Perhaps at the beginning, that was what they wished. But after the Word departed, the Celestials were left to fend for themselves. Eking out an existence on the blasted shells that had once been vibrant worlds, the Celestials quickly grew dark and bitter, forgetting the noble woman they had once been."
"...How tragic."
"Where did Voes and Yblisa come in?"
"The siblings had forged their own alliance. Voes told the Celestials, who were ravenous for the spiritual energy called Vitality, that he would provide his own sister as their new source of Vitality. He planned to present her to them at their great council that they called once every century."
"And they believed him?"
"Why are you surprised? Sacrificing his sister doesn't sound out of character for Voes."
"What really isn't surprising is how quick you are to judge him, Dina."
"At any rate, Voes had no such plan. He gathered three of the most desperate Celestials and formed a cabal - the five of them, together, would destroy the other Celestials and rule what remained of their worlds. Of course, in that atmosphere of distrust and suspicion, their true goal was not so easy to discern...."
Voes (desCoures), Yblisa (Prophylaxis), Demernae's Blessing (LrnGrrrR), hansanator (Demernae's Love), and Seppel (Demernae's Heart), you are the Mafia. You win when you control the lynch, or when such control is inevitable.
You have access to the following ability: Siphon Vitality (active/night): Target another player and choose a number other than 0. You pay that much Vitality. If you do, the targeted player loses twice that much Vitality.
The player using Siphon Vitality cannot use any other active ability on the same night, unless otherwise stated.
- The role titles for Demernae's Right Hand and Demernae's Left Hand were changed just before the game began, to Demernae's Blessing and Demernae's Loneliness, respectively.
- Ruchperion originally only drained 1 Vitality from players on it. It turned out too powerful as it was - 1 Vitality/phase would've been insane, so thanks to C'mancer for catching that.
- Clocking in at 5 Days and just under 3 months, this is the shortest of my games in both respects, but the second-highest in post count.
lol hans did you legitimately think that your ability worked with timestamps?
>I think that it is within our best interest for me to lock in my night action asap because they both work for the remainder of the night after I use my action.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
I wasn't entirely happy with how things played out here, and that's mostly because Days 4 and 5 devolved into nothing but talk about mechanics. I know why that happened - because it was a really complex game, perhaps too complex, and the very nature of my design pushed lots of information out into the public sphere which of course would naturally be discussed, but I thought some more behavioral analysis could've happened throughout the game. I'm still trying to hit that happy medium in terms of mechanics, which I think I did in Seasons, and didn't quite manage here.
Obviously my activity on D1 sucked although I think I got a lot better after the initial craziness, and I definitely missed some Vitality stuff. Sorry about that. A lot of it was the endless spam on D1 that ballooned the game to 2000 posts in a few weeks and made it difficult for me to keep on top of reading every post and making sure I was in control of prods, but the math errors were my own doing and a co-mod wouldn't have gone amiss here.
As far as the game itself goes, I think the scum were in with a chance up until Wildfire tracked Proph, which really broke their back. There were a lot of places where the scumteam faltered and things could've been so different - Seppel's meltdown D2, desCoures's complete failure to track said meltdown and very misguided assurance that he would somehow be able to survive D3, hansanator accurately claiming his ability and targets after using it in an obviously anti-town way, and Proph's questionable claim, not to mention the scum's equally dubious list of nightkills. The fact that obviously-pro-town-and-impervious-to-Vitality-death Megiddo was allowed to see out the game was a big blow to the scum's chances, even discounting the Voes-Yblisa rivalry (which had no effect on the game - both desCoures and Proph played to the scum wincon while they lived.)
Besides flavor reasons, that dichotomy was present because I felt it was actually too easy for the scum to take this game. They had inevitability on their side and so the general town win strategy of PoE actually might NOT have won had the scum been able to ensconce themselves low enough on the PoE list to outlast their opponents. They also had Siphon Vitality, which I feel was tragically underused this game (and I know Alway Etteem made it difficult to use, which was an oversight on my part, but they still should've done better, especially with the number of obviously cooked scum who went into night and died with lots of Vitality.) And not to belabor the point, but their entire night action strategy on N2 was a disaster. I love and respect the guy, but desCoures's insistence that he would live to see out D3 smacked of an ageing fighter trying to take on young men twice as fit as him (see Braddock trying to fight on with a broken wrist in Cinderella Man.) The team needed an experienced head to put his foot down and tell dC it wasn't on, and Seppel could've been that player, had he not flamed out.
On the town side, I thought Megiddo and Iso did well despite the mutual suspicion, but there were a lot of drifting, mildly suspicious players like HP and Karn that could've been taken advantage of with a stronger scum performance, so I'm choosing not to award a town MVP for this game. I don't think the town ever had a strong leader to rally 'round - they won because the scum were even more rudderless.
Thank you all for being part of this game, and I'd like to give special thanks to those players who replaced in - dkingsland967, Hunger, KamikazeArchon, and Cyan. I'd also like to thank my reviewers, Xyre and Cantripmancer, and I hope that you will all join me for my next game, which is called City of Lies Mafia, and is the sequel to Ataghan.
Meg - your early play concerning me was so frustrating. Also, the sheer quantity of your posts made re-reading this one so painful... which actually had me wondering when I was dead if it was by design.
What was frustrating about it? I actually don't remember what your complaint was.
Do I intentionally play in a frustrating way? Yes. That is by design and accomplishes my own selfish goals as a mafia player. But like I told Rhand, there's never anything personal in it. Normally I wouldn't have said that in-game but I didn't want him to follow through with replacing out or whatever he said he would do, as that would have been a disaster and I definitely didn't want him to do anything like that to himself.
I have taken this game personally before. It was a big ******* disaster (ask Iso). Never again.
I engage in certain behaviors for certain reasons. Those behaviors sometimes grate on other people. I accept and understand that there are consequences for this, but I never carry it outside of the game. I keep a "Chinese wall" (to use the racist term) between game threads and the outside world.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
No, it wasn't the personal comments, it was the play style D1. You'd take swipes but you'd never engage. You metaed me inaccurately based on post frequency (which you should absolutely not do because I'm actually rarely among the highest volume posters in a game) and then when I tried to engage you to debate it/reconcile it (because I had a town read on you at the time and wanted you to understand that I was as well) you'd just be cagey and non-committal and wouldn't engage.
I intentionally played a lot of reads close to the chest this game. I didn't really have a strong scumread on you. I was testing the waters with the comments and to get the statement out there for posterity. I didn't engage because I couldn't engage. I had nothing to actually argue the point on.
Same with Proph. I was very cagey with my read on him. Of course, he never commented on it in-thread, which only made him look worse.
I do that sometimes. I don't like to lay everything on the table always. I was also very cagey with my vote this game as you may have noticed.
Plus I generally do sit back and swipe. I like doing that. I just generate content and snipe at things I see. I usually pick out most of the scum this way, but there's a lot of noise in terms of finding scummy things town are doing.
Have you heard me say that my favorite strategy in the late game is to reread my own posts? This is why.
Occasionally I will actually latch on to something and try to case somebody (see Proph on D4 here). But my preferred thing to do is sit back, snipe at people, and try to draw somebody into engaging with me. Then I can go more in-depth.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
lol hans did you legitimately think that your ability worked with timestamps?
>I think that it is within our best interest for me to lock in my night action asap because they both work for the remainder of the night after I use my action.
Ward in Flames (active/night): Target another player. For the rest of tonight, any other player who successfully targets the player you place Ward in Flames on will lose 4 Vitality. Ward in Frost (active/night): Target another player. For the rest of tonight, that player’s Vitality score cannot change except through self-inflicted Vitality loss. (Paying Vitality counts as self-inflicted Vitality loss.) Eternal Bargain (passive): When you target other players with your "Ward" abilities, you mark them with Eternal Bargain. When players so marked die, you gain 3 Vitality.
I don't see how there is any other possible interpretation of this wording. "The rest of tonight" implies that anything that happened before is not considered.
I was even like 92% sure I verified that detail with Zinda before the game started, but upon closer inspection, I guess I misremembered that.
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"I'm a compulsive liar no matter what team I play on, but I'm trying to get better about it."
Thanks, zindabad, for the game. I've been dying to play in a zindabad game ever since I started playing, and this was a very stressful albeit good game. I think the town completely outplayed us, though - this playerbase was very good, and our vets (desCoures and Seppel) didn't really step up to the plate as needed.
I would appreciate any comments about my scum play this game. I know my scum game is traditionally terrible but this game taught me a whole lot - it was epiphany after epiphany. I was prepared to take the stage after desCoures was lynched, but the Wildfire track put me in a rather awkward position. I think if I read the flow of the game more and took advantage of the lulls in the thread then I would have a higher chance of winning, I think.
I would killed to be town this game. There were so many good players I would love to have worked with this game, but I kind of had to back off of them and kill them at night (Sir Chris/DCIII/Arianrhod). It was very depressing.
Once Wildfire tracked me I kind of saw the writing on the wall and focused on creating the best showing for myself under the circumstances. I was very grateful to Megiddo for letting me defend myself as scum - I've improved on my town defense and wanted to see how I could have done it as scum.
I wish I played a stronger role in night actions Night 1 and followed my gut but I was mostly absent, so apologies for that. I wish we used Siphon Vitality much, much more - I still can't believe we used it N1 to drain two vitality from someone. If I was regular scum then I would not have bussed as much, and focused on townbloccing our way to victory.
As is, I felt that I misread the game flow, at times - I chose to gun for LnGrrrR Day 2 rather than Seppel, and I had to make an awkward vote-hop to Seppel - same with dC. Ultimately, the thing that I was disappointed in was that my bussing never really paid off - we were all lynched in succession with the exception of LnGrrrR, and that's quite an embarrassment.
Overall, my performance in this game and other games has decreased to the point that I think I need to take a hiatus for a couple of months and really re-examine my play, but once that's over I hope to be bringing my A-game. Thanks zindabad and everyone else for this game - even though I did not play well, I learned a whole lot, and I'll definitely categorize this game as a "level-up" moment for my scum game.
I had a lot of fun in the one day I was here for, even if it was town's only mislynch. It was very fun going back and forth with people, my only regret is I didn't push harder for Des to end the day and I settled for the two large lynch wagons that I more and more felt were poor. Worked out, of course.
Proph, high praise from you on the scum board. I hope one day we will get to team up and do glorious things together. Was a little surprised about how hard Seppel pushed for me being night killed though, I didn't think I had attracted his attention really day one.
Although geesh Des you got to bring the pain harder than that on me, I felt very underestimated day one <_<.
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2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang) 2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer 2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator) 2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia 2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational 2015 - Best Town Player 2015 - Best Mafia Player 2015 - Best Overall Player
@Meg - I think it would behoove you (and your town comrades) to play more nicely in the sandbox, because it can be very distracting.
@Proph - enjoyed the read, do think your scum game was much improved over my last encounter with it which was Dinosaurs.
@Sir Chris - I like your game and I like playing with you (have told you that before but will express it again). Hope you stick around and play more games here.
You have Yblisa, Voes, and 3 randoms. It's crucial that yblisa does not let on that she is an SK for this plan to work.
D1 you play as normal. Everybody just plays well and tries to create good interactions with their buddies so as not to arouse suspicion down the road. Get a mislynch. 14-5
N1 Yblisa kills somebody one of the randoms pays all but like 1 or 2 vit to kill somebody else. Vig shoots somebody else ideally. Voes voteblocks somebody and reduces their vitality. 11-5
D2 The suicidal scum scums it up and tries to get wagoned and lynched as fast as possible. The goal is to reduce discussion and interactions as much as possible by being the blindingly obvious super scummy lynch target. 11-4.
N2 Repeat N1. Try and kill the vig if possible. 8-4.
D3 Repeat D2. 8-3.
N3 Repeat. 6-3 or 5-3.
D4 Repeat. 6-2 or 5-2.
N4 Now it gets tricky. You have just yblisa and voes left. They're trying to trick the other into dying. Yblisa has the upper hand here in terms of info asymmetry. Voes doesn't want to do the syphon kill because at this point it's established as a scum move. Yblisa volunteers to use the ability instead of her normal kill, as she has convinced Voes that she is a normal scumteam member. Instead she uses the normal kill. 5-2.
D5 Yblisa busses the ****** out of voes. 5-1.
And from then you just have to ride out two Days. Ideally at this point Voes's voteblock or normal townie actions have caused the scum to lose vitality to get extra deaths.
The idea is to cut off the town's strongest ally: The Day phase. By making the choice obvious, you put the town in a bad spot: Do you just lynch the obvscum or do you try to look for interactions? If you look like you're stalling, is that not scummy behavior?
Town is going to claim, but they will die at such an accelerated rate that you end up with this great momentum. Voes's ability ideally makes going to Erhamen unattractive as well.
No idea if that actually works in practice, but it would be fun.
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
I mean, you were obviously town*, yes. So you did your job.
But that's really all I can say about your play this game.
*EXCEPT IN MEG'S SUPER PARANOID ALTERNATE DIMENSION WHERE THE NIGHT KILL COSTS 1 VIT AND HANS USED IT AND YOU GAVE HIM 2 VIT TO HIDE IT BUT THE MATH DIDN'T WORK OUT SO MY BRAIN EXPLODED
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Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
My greatest weakness as a mafia player is that I overanalyze and overthink.
I do this too from time to time - you saw it first hand in Xymande. BUT, your interactions in games also certainly brings this out because you're so dodgy!
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Lots of us over-analyze. It's hard not to. You get committed to a stance and want to be right, and see things that aren't really there. Etc. Or at least, I have the same problem.
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Also Proph, you stated that if you lurked people would be onto you, so you definitely had to avoid that... Then lurked all the beginning of D1.
Iso for MVP.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
Me too. Top three reads headed into D2 as Seppel, dC, Proph
Goes to show an ugly D1 can be fine.
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
This is not how I died, means Lnr didn't target me and the -12 is still alive and called Megiddo.
Fun! I'll be happy if this is correct because I'm very unhappy with Meg this game if he's Town for several reasons.
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
Probably completely wrong, but it would make so much sense.
Makes sense, since the OP has always implied 5 anti-town. Really weird to have the scum without a factional kill (having some kind of drain instead?) and a SK that's kind of scum-aligned, but they need to kill her to win.
Also, I totally called Proph being Yblissa, AND that all the kills were coming from Yblissa.
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And IIRC, dC was the only one who could not win with Proph. Which probably means that there is no factional NK because why would they bother keeping Yblisa around otherwise?
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Well okay I don't really, but it would be really amusing.
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
Wooooo.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
/barn
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
"Isn't this what you wanted, Merios? Your Father and Mother, defeated, shackled and humbled?"
"Why are you goading me, Grandfather? Because none of this is about me. This is all about you and your plan, whatever it is."
"Is it? Let me tell you a story. I'm quite good at that. Once, years ago, there were two beings of great power. Their names aren't really important now - in truth, I am no longer quite sure I remember them. At any rate, they were brother and sister, and they loved each other greatly, and wrought the universe about them, and for a time, it was good. Then their innate flaws led them to squabble, and their mutual affection turned to hatred, and existence was torn asunder as they warred. Does any of this sound familiar?"
"I know your story, Grandfather."
"Yes, you do. Though the story I just told you was not mine, it may as well have been. In the aftermath of their war, the sister prevailed, and she drained her defeated sibling of energy and created two children, whose names were--"
"--Demernae and the Word."
"And then after our mother occluded herself, Demernae and I lived at peace until we came to blows, and we warred, and I prevailed, using her energy to create two children--"
"--Voes and Yblisa, who did the same, until Voes locked Yblisa in the Clock and used her energy to create the Elementals. So what are you trying to say? That this cycle of endless strife continues forever?"
"Not forever. Look around you. The Celestials are monstrous husks, not fit to live, sustaining themselves only through parasitic means. Your Mother and Father are wretched, hateful shadows of the children I brought forth, who will never be at peace. These worlds - those that have not collapsed entirely - will do so in the very near future - and then all will be lost."
"Grandfather?"
"Yes, Merios?"
"What am I supposed to do about all of this?"
"I already told you - trust me. Come. It is time I saw my children again, and you your parents."
"..."
***
Prophylaxis has been lynched. He was Yblisa, the First, False Mafia Serial Killer.
Megiddo, Demernae's Heels, Cythare, Demernae's Memory, HookerPunch, Demernae's Patience, Iso, Demernae's Determination, Wildfire393, Demernae's Loneliness, dkingsland967, Demernae's Eyes, Cyan, Demernae's Vengeance, and KamikazeArchon, Demernae's Uncertainty, have triumphed!
The town wins! Congratulations!
Additional flavor scenes and full setup to follow.
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
I'm glad I actually correctly read a town!Iso for once.
Proph, I think you did great, right up until the end, but it's hard to fight three consecutive scum lynches.
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Mother. Father. How did it come to this? We were so happy.
As they drew closer, Merios perceived an odd smoke swirling around the survivors, though there did not seem to be any fire. Soon he realized it was not smoke or dust, but ghosts. The spirits of the fallen, both in this conflict and all the ones that preceded it on this dark, forsaken world.
"Step away from my children," the Word said, striding forward. Heads whipped to face him. Voes looked upon him with amused contempt. The Mother's expression was one of pure, unadulterated hatred. And the Celestials saw the newcomer, surrounded in a corona of blazing light, as a fresh source of energy, and so gazed upon him with mindless greed.
The Word looked upon Voes and Yblisa for a long, long time. "How could I have wrought so poorly?" he finally whispered.
"Where have you been, father?" Voes laughed mockingly. "You've missed all the fun. And look who you brought! Step forward, my wayward child. Come and face your maker."
I owe you nothing, Father, Merios thought bitterly. But he took a stride forward all the same.
"Following your grandpa around like the lapdog you are, Merios? Betraying your kin wasn't enough treachery for you, and so you decided to spend time around Pops and learn from the best! What do you think, sister?"
"He is yours," the Mother hissed, and her hateful whisper send spikes of pain through Merios's body. "I have nothing to do with him."
"Disowned by your mother, despised by your father, and alone in the world. You almost have it worse than we do," Voes spat scornfully, and turned away from Merios. "So what is it that you want, father? Do you wish to lecture us on our failings? We're not going anywhere, I suppose. Or do you plan to let those" and here he gestured with his snout-like face at the gathered Celestials, who were watching the family dispute with avid interest - "feast on us and live a little longer before withering into nothingness?"
"The sooner the better," whispered Yblisa. She was as she had always been - dark, tall and thin, sheathed in hips-long hair that was once the brown of fresh-tilled soil but had clotted into the black of snuffed stars.
"Yes," said many voices at once, and Merios whirled to find out where they were coming from. It was the Celestials - all of them speaking as one. But the voice did not only come from their senseless mouths, but from the ghost-saturated air of Erhamen itself. "We are all here now, brother, and under your power, as you always wished. What would you have of us, you who have taken so much already?"
Demernae. It is her. Some part of her must have survived.
"We are near the end of all things," the Word began, addressing the separated essence of his dead sister, his twisted, corrupted children, and his doubting grandson - now possibly the only beings left alive in all of creation. "We have almost reached the end of our Vitality. Yes, I carry some within me yet, as do Merios, Voes, and Yblisa, but at the rate of decay that we are experiencing, that will be gone soon. If the energy of life were a wine, we are most assuredly sipping from the dregs now. As I see it, we have two choices - continue as we are now, fighting amongst ourselves, brother against sister, and slip into oblivion, or...start over. Pool what Vitality remains to us, and remake existence again."
"I choose oblivion," Yblisa said instantly.
"As do I," Voes added.
"You snuffed out my favored world and turned it into this festering sore on reality. You betrayed me and slaughtered me, separating all that comprised me into venal, petty beings - and even then, you stole the best of me, my Imagination and my Contentment, and used it to make Voes and Yblisa, who you abandoned to their own devices," said Demernae through the Celestials. "How could you ever think we would listen to you?"
"I don't," said the Word. "That's what I brought Merios for."
What? He thinks I'm going to convince them? I'm not even sure I'm convinced.
"This should be good," the Reaper sneered. "A final jest before we leave this life forever." Yblisa said nothing at all, but only looked at him as if she wished her hands around his neck. And then Merios knew what to say.
"The Word was a fool to think you would ever listen to him," Merios admitted. "And that's just as well, because we are all wretchedly flawed beings, and the universe will be better off without us. Demernae, your good heart blinded you to the crimes of Buchan, when earlier action might have forestalled them. Mother, your selfish naivete made you jealous and spiteful. Nothing stays the same forever, no matter how much you wish it would. Father, your callously short attention span led you to abandon your children while you furthered your quest for more power. And Grandfather, your misguided ambition and self-superior attitude makes you always believe you know what's best for everyone else." He paused for a moment, careless of their reactions. "I too vote for oblivion, if I must be remade alongside any of you - yet I am no better. In truth, I am a weak-willed sycophant who heedlessly jumps from one master to another, seeking justification for my inability to think for myself."
The Word looked stunned, hollow-eyed. Voes and Yblisa looked on with curiosity, as if hearing an animal known to be mute finally give voice to its soul.
"But that is not all I want to be. The cycle need not repeat itself. Maybe, this time, we can do better."
***
"...and together they joined what was left of their energy and made the Third Creation, which we live in today."
"What a wonderful story, Sidi. Thank you."
"Yes, thank you! And look! There's Father, coming up the path!"
"Run to your father, children, and tell him what you learned today. Go on, Umry."
"Fatherrrr! Here I come!"
"...Sidi?"
"Yes, Dina?"
"How do you know all of that story? Sometimes it almost seems as if you were there."
"The best storytellers always were, my dear. Go on. Catch up to your brother."
"All right. Umry! Wait! Umry!!"
"..."
***
"Do you ever wonder if I made the right choice?"
"Only after I've eaten one of your famous stews. Oblivion would be preferable to that any day."
"You still take liberties, after all this time."
"In seriousness? I do wonder. What if we get it wrong again? What if the cycle can never be broken, but is just bred into us, and our parents before us?"
"It's not like you to be so fatalistic."
"Remembering the past always makes me this way."
"Do you think they...understood?"
"Consciously? No. But on some level, they get it, especially the girl. The story isn't just a story. It never was."
"I guess we'll wait and see. And if it all goes wrong? The Fourth Creation, perhaps?"
"I doubt I have enough Vitality left for that. One day - not soon, but soon enough - I will fade, and it will be left to you to raise them."
"Do you think I can do it?"
The two men were silent for a time. They watched the children wandering slowly down the path back to the tribe's village, hand-in-hand. A tall, slender girl, dark of complexion and hair, and a fair-haired, vivacious boy.
"I think you'll do just fine."
"I do too, Grandfather."
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
I knew that there was something Proph wasn't sharing about his role, but I didn't really dwell on it since we needed his ability in order to win. When combined with the fact that vitality totals added an immense amount of accountability to this game, Proph's role makes it really hard for the scum team to win, lest he decides to not pursue his win condition.
Previous Mafia Experience:
Mafia aligned: 2/0 -100%
Town aligned: 4/3 - 57%
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
As evidence, I sent Zindabad over 50 PMs this game, which exceeds even what I do as scum (when I constantly feel like I'm exploding due to the stress). By the end I thought that Iso had a Day ability that let him change his vitality at will. It was that bad. That one in particular was because of the modding mistakes, but still.
If you are wondering why my play dropped off a cliff this game, it's because D1 I was focusing on players, behavior, and interactions. From Day 2 on... I was focusing on this.
That became my lens into the game and my primary interaction with it. Behavior was secondary.
I became obsessed with the numbers and the math. The spreadsheet was lording over me. It was in my thoughts every day as I was awake and as I slept.
This sounds really crazy but it was that bad. I took a V/LA after yesterday where I didn't eat because of this game. I wasn't going to participate in the game until Friday. Fortunately, it ended before I needed to post again.
Joking, of course. Well done to my fellow members of town who did a great job. Megiddo, now your watch is over.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
Either way, we're all gonna burn
Grim Batol had three core mechanics: location, Survey, and Corruption. All three were failures to some degree. Location was relevant to the game, but was too simplistic and had too little an effect on the game. Surveying was an acceptable mechanic, but it was hampered by my decision to keep its mechanics and details mostly a mystery from the town. And Corruption was a failure because I overnerfed its numbers savagely, making it so weak as to not pose a threat to the town whatsoever.
Celestial Mafia tries to fix the failings of Grim Batol. Corruption is replaced by Vitality, the game’s main mechanic. Three of the reasons that Corruption was poorly executed were its general weakness (it didn’t realistically pose a threat to the town at any point), the fact that it benefited only mafia (they weren’t affected by it, so they never really had to interact with it. It kind of passively tried to do their work for them, which is bad design anyway because it’s non-interactive, but doubly ineffective because I balanced the entire setup against Corruption being a big player for the scum when it really did nothing) and finally that it was concealed from the players. Scum didn’t know what Corruption levels their opponents had. Town (with 2 exceptions) didn’t know what Corruption levels their allies had, or even what Corruption score each of them had. It was a blind mechanic in a game full of them.
Celestial fixes that by making Vitality the central mechanic of the game. Both scum and town use it and are defined by it. It has positive and negative effects, and almost every ability plays with it in some way. Furthermore, Vitality scores are public knowledge for all players at all times. This will help keep people honest in their night actions (a bonus for the town), let the scum know how weak their targets are (a bonus for the mafia), and provide challenging situations for both sides. It will give the players a sense of agency (ex: “oh, Cyan’s at low Vitality, I can put Ward in Frost on him to protect him, or try to hurt a scum who’s going to finish him off with Ward in Flames, all the while waiting for him to die so I can collect his Vitality and keep myself going a little while longer.”)
Next is location. Location was an onerous process with too many rules in Grim Batol. It was also too straightforward. Going forward was almost always the right decision, because the poorly designed nature of Survey made it unprofitable to stick around. With these new “worlds”, more difficult and testing situations are created. (“Do we take the extra Vitality loss on Erhamen to try to hear some thoughts from our best analyst (who’s been dead since N2), or do we tough it out on Ruchperion because it only costs us 2 Vitality per day or night, even though it loses 4 itself and we risk dying en masse if we stick around too long?”)
Including two deterministic (i.e. non-random) role selections is new for me, as is a false mafia. Flavorfully, it totally makes sense that Yblisa and Voes will try to betray one another, but I am a little concerned about the havoc it could wreak on a scumteam, especially if the players who are randomed into the siblings are less experienced and end up outing each other too soon. One positive of the deterministic setup was that I think it smoothed out the randomness a lot (more details on this can be found in the “numbercrafting” section below, where you can see the relative difference between Celestial Mafia and my previous two games, which also used the system.)
Transparency and player agency are definitely my buzzwords in Mafia game design, and I think that this game delivers both of those while also incorporating fun, innovative roles that relate well to a central mechanic that has been explored before but never definitively locked down. In years to come I want people to be able to point to this setup and say “that’s how hit-point mechanics are done.” And that’s my manifesto for this game.
Numbercrafting:
<<The most powerful scumteam consists of Yblisa, Voes, Dem’s Hatred, and any of the 3.5 roles, like Bitterness or Force . That's a total of 19 points, then they get 4.5 points for each member of the mafia, which gives them a total of 41.5 points, which is just 3 points more than the town in this scenario, who have 38.5
The weakest possible scumteam consists of Yblisa, Voes, Uncertainty, Heels, and one of the 2 MP roles, like Right Hand. That’s a total of 10.5, then they get a bonus of 22.5 (4.5 for each member of the mafia), giving them 33 total, while the town have 35 points, only a 2-point disadvantage.
Looking at averages, the town have an average point score of 2.37 (about .375 less than Ataghan and .45 less than Seasons) while the scum have an average point score of 2.67 (.17 more than Ataghan but almost 3 less than Seasons.) If 16 average townies come up against 5 average mafia, it's going to be 37.92 points versus 35.85 points - a very slight but within standard deviation advantage to the town. Looking pretty good here. There should be no need for compensation in this game, but if there is, the below system applies:>>
Compensation:
If the scum are more than 6 points above the town, one of their members, chosen randomly, gains the following ability:
Dominion's Cost (passive): While <randomly chosen teammate> is alive, your abilities without "Dominion" in the name will have no effect. (This includes passives. You can still perform Siphon Vitality while this ability is active.)
If the scum are more than 8 points above the town, two of their members, chosen randomly, gain Dominion's Cost.
If the scum are more than 6 points below the town, they gain access to the following ability:
Dominion's Toil (night/active): Target another player. Tonight, that player can't use any abilities. This ability may be used by any Mafia member, but only once per night, and the player using it can't use any other abilities.
If the scum are more than 8 points below the town, they gain access to the following ability:
Dominion’s Ambition (passive): The first time that a member of the Mafia would be killed (except by lynching) that kill is prevented. (This ability only works once.)
Role summary:
Yblisa – False Mafia SK who is actively working against the scum. (0 TP, 2 MP)
Voes – Vitality damager who can also voteblock people. (0 TP, 5 MP)
Dem’s Heart – “Docguard” that does little vs. Siphon Vitality (2.5 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Determination – Motivator that hurts. Good for both sides, maybe a little better for town. (3 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Bitterness – Hurts players or steals Vitality. Can really screw somebody over. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Memory – Vanillifier. Marginally less useful for scum since someone at 6 Vitality is likely to die soon one way or the other. (2.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Left Hand – Hiding tracker. Strong on both sides, slightly better for town. (4 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Hatred – Vig. Very strong for scum and they can pull shenanigans with Painful Resurrection. (3 TP, 5 MP)
Dem’s Love – Can protect players against Siphon Vitality and also hurt those who target its target. Strong in town hands, not so strong in scum hands. (3.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Passion – Vitality alterer that doesn’t interact with Siphon Vitality, slightly better for town. (2.5 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Force – Double voter and vote threshold lowerer. Much stronger in scum hands. Doesn’t contribute much to town IMO. (1.5 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Conviction – Can equalize Vitality and has the evenhanded passive. Significantly stronger as a townie. (3 TP, 2 MP)
Dem’s Uncertainty – Most of the passives do little for scum, but a townie paying 25% of his Vitality for some freebee passives isn’t strong either. Weak, though cool, role. (1.5 TP, 1 MP)
Dem’s Eyes – Gives some powerful disruption to the scumteam, and Contempt could be a potential gamewinner. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Vengeance – Again, a role stronger in scum hands than town. Could really wreck a town no matter whose hands it’s in. (2 TP, 3.5 MP)
Dem’s Envy – Spends 3 nights doing nothing, roleblocking, and then killing a player. It’s a major investment for a scum just to get one kill, so I’m giving low MP. (2 TP, 1.5 MP)
Dem’s Heels – Vitality is always equal to the world’s vitality. Offers no protection against lynching, so it doesn’t do much for scum. (1.5 TP, 1 MP)
Dem’s Patience – Encourages slightly lurky play, which gives power to scum, but it’s also kind of obvious since Vitality scores are public in the first post and with every votecount. (2 TP, 2.5 MP)
Dem’s Suspicion – Poisoner that also blocks Vitality scores. The denial of information benefits scum, but the protection against machine-gun use of Poison Vitae weakens it a little bit. (2 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Soul – Drains Vitality from self and others and restores it to the world, or docs someone at the price of 3 Vitality. Can’t imagine scum using the first ability too often, and a 3-Vitality-drain per night is pretty strong. (1.5 TP, 3 MP)
Dem’s Right Hand – Illuminates players (like Painter, etc.) or puts a bouncing protective shield on players. First ability is pro-town, second is useable by both. (3 TP, 2 MP)
Mafia group PM:
Notes:
- The role titles for Demernae's Right Hand and Demernae's Left Hand were changed just before the game began, to Demernae's Blessing and Demernae's Loneliness, respectively.
- Ruchperion originally only drained 1 Vitality from players on it. It turned out too powerful as it was - 1 Vitality/phase would've been insane, so thanks to C'mancer for catching that.
- Clocking in at 5 Days and just under 3 months, this is the shortest of my games in both respects, but the second-highest in post count.
Mod board:
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/EYGw9giqFgB
Scumchat:
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/4muAK4XjuMe
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
>I think that it is within our best interest for me to lock in my night action asap because they both work for the remainder of the night after I use my action.
I wasn't entirely happy with how things played out here, and that's mostly because Days 4 and 5 devolved into nothing but talk about mechanics. I know why that happened - because it was a really complex game, perhaps too complex, and the very nature of my design pushed lots of information out into the public sphere which of course would naturally be discussed, but I thought some more behavioral analysis could've happened throughout the game. I'm still trying to hit that happy medium in terms of mechanics, which I think I did in Seasons, and didn't quite manage here.
Obviously my activity on D1 sucked although I think I got a lot better after the initial craziness, and I definitely missed some Vitality stuff. Sorry about that. A lot of it was the endless spam on D1 that ballooned the game to 2000 posts in a few weeks and made it difficult for me to keep on top of reading every post and making sure I was in control of prods, but the math errors were my own doing and a co-mod wouldn't have gone amiss here.
As far as the game itself goes, I think the scum were in with a chance up until Wildfire tracked Proph, which really broke their back. There were a lot of places where the scumteam faltered and things could've been so different - Seppel's meltdown D2, desCoures's complete failure to track said meltdown and very misguided assurance that he would somehow be able to survive D3, hansanator accurately claiming his ability and targets after using it in an obviously anti-town way, and Proph's questionable claim, not to mention the scum's equally dubious list of nightkills. The fact that obviously-pro-town-and-impervious-to-Vitality-death Megiddo was allowed to see out the game was a big blow to the scum's chances, even discounting the Voes-Yblisa rivalry (which had no effect on the game - both desCoures and Proph played to the scum wincon while they lived.)
Besides flavor reasons, that dichotomy was present because I felt it was actually too easy for the scum to take this game. They had inevitability on their side and so the general town win strategy of PoE actually might NOT have won had the scum been able to ensconce themselves low enough on the PoE list to outlast their opponents. They also had Siphon Vitality, which I feel was tragically underused this game (and I know Alway Etteem made it difficult to use, which was an oversight on my part, but they still should've done better, especially with the number of obviously cooked scum who went into night and died with lots of Vitality.) And not to belabor the point, but their entire night action strategy on N2 was a disaster. I love and respect the guy, but desCoures's insistence that he would live to see out D3 smacked of an ageing fighter trying to take on young men twice as fit as him (see Braddock trying to fight on with a broken wrist in Cinderella Man.) The team needed an experienced head to put his foot down and tell dC it wasn't on, and Seppel could've been that player, had he not flamed out.
On the town side, I thought Megiddo and Iso did well despite the mutual suspicion, but there were a lot of drifting, mildly suspicious players like HP and Karn that could've been taken advantage of with a stronger scum performance, so I'm choosing not to award a town MVP for this game. I don't think the town ever had a strong leader to rally 'round - they won because the scum were even more rudderless.
Thank you all for being part of this game, and I'd like to give special thanks to those players who replaced in - dkingsland967, Hunger, KamikazeArchon, and Cyan. I'd also like to thank my reviewers, Xyre and Cantripmancer, and I hope that you will all join me for my next game, which is called City of Lies Mafia, and is the sequel to Ataghan.
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
Do I intentionally play in a frustrating way? Yes. That is by design and accomplishes my own selfish goals as a mafia player. But like I told Rhand, there's never anything personal in it. Normally I wouldn't have said that in-game but I didn't want him to follow through with replacing out or whatever he said he would do, as that would have been a disaster and I definitely didn't want him to do anything like that to himself.
I have taken this game personally before. It was a big ******* disaster (ask Iso). Never again.
I engage in certain behaviors for certain reasons. Those behaviors sometimes grate on other people. I accept and understand that there are consequences for this, but I never carry it outside of the game. I keep a "Chinese wall" (to use the racist term) between game threads and the outside world.
It was really bizarre.
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
I intentionally played a lot of reads close to the chest this game. I didn't really have a strong scumread on you. I was testing the waters with the comments and to get the statement out there for posterity. I didn't engage because I couldn't engage. I had nothing to actually argue the point on.
Same with Proph. I was very cagey with my read on him. Of course, he never commented on it in-thread, which only made him look worse.
I do that sometimes. I don't like to lay everything on the table always. I was also very cagey with my vote this game as you may have noticed.
Plus I generally do sit back and swipe. I like doing that. I just generate content and snipe at things I see. I usually pick out most of the scum this way, but there's a lot of noise in terms of finding scummy things town are doing.
Have you heard me say that my favorite strategy in the late game is to reread my own posts? This is why.
Occasionally I will actually latch on to something and try to case somebody (see Proph on D4 here). But my preferred thing to do is sit back, snipe at people, and try to draw somebody into engaging with me. Then I can go more in-depth.
I don't see how there is any other possible interpretation of this wording. "The rest of tonight" implies that anything that happened before is not considered.
I was even like 92% sure I verified that detail with Zinda before the game started, but upon closer inspection, I guess I misremembered that.
Previous Mafia Experience:
Mafia aligned: 2/0 -100%
Town aligned: 4/3 - 57%
Thanks, zindabad, for the game. I've been dying to play in a zindabad game ever since I started playing, and this was a very stressful albeit good game. I think the town completely outplayed us, though - this playerbase was very good, and our vets (desCoures and Seppel) didn't really step up to the plate as needed.
I would appreciate any comments about my scum play this game. I know my scum game is traditionally terrible but this game taught me a whole lot - it was epiphany after epiphany. I was prepared to take the stage after desCoures was lynched, but the Wildfire track put me in a rather awkward position. I think if I read the flow of the game more and took advantage of the lulls in the thread then I would have a higher chance of winning, I think.
I would killed to be town this game. There were so many good players I would love to have worked with this game, but I kind of had to back off of them and kill them at night (Sir Chris/DCIII/Arianrhod). It was very depressing.
Once Wildfire tracked me I kind of saw the writing on the wall and focused on creating the best showing for myself under the circumstances. I was very grateful to Megiddo for letting me defend myself as scum - I've improved on my town defense and wanted to see how I could have done it as scum.
I wish I played a stronger role in night actions Night 1 and followed my gut but I was mostly absent, so apologies for that. I wish we used Siphon Vitality much, much more - I still can't believe we used it N1 to drain two vitality from someone. If I was regular scum then I would not have bussed as much, and focused on townbloccing our way to victory.
As is, I felt that I misread the game flow, at times - I chose to gun for LnGrrrR Day 2 rather than Seppel, and I had to make an awkward vote-hop to Seppel - same with dC. Ultimately, the thing that I was disappointed in was that my bussing never really paid off - we were all lynched in succession with the exception of LnGrrrR, and that's quite an embarrassment.
Overall, my performance in this game and other games has decreased to the point that I think I need to take a hiatus for a couple of months and really re-examine my play, but once that's over I hope to be bringing my A-game. Thanks zindabad and everyone else for this game - even though I did not play well, I learned a whole lot, and I'll definitely categorize this game as a "level-up" moment for my scum game.
Man, that's really awkward for you though.
Edit: To your credit I thought you seemed really genuine about it... I guess this is why.
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Proph, high praise from you on the scum board. I hope one day we will get to team up and do glorious things together. Was a little surprised about how hard Seppel pushed for me being night killed though, I didn't think I had attracted his attention really day one.
Although geesh Des you got to bring the pain harder than that on me, I felt very underestimated day one <_<.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
@Proph - enjoyed the read, do think your scum game was much improved over my last encounter with it which was Dinosaurs.
@Sir Chris - I like your game and I like playing with you (have told you that before but will express it again). Hope you stick around and play more games here.
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
You have Yblisa, Voes, and 3 randoms. It's crucial that yblisa does not let on that she is an SK for this plan to work.
D1 you play as normal. Everybody just plays well and tries to create good interactions with their buddies so as not to arouse suspicion down the road. Get a mislynch. 14-5
N1 Yblisa kills somebody one of the randoms pays all but like 1 or 2 vit to kill somebody else. Vig shoots somebody else ideally. Voes voteblocks somebody and reduces their vitality. 11-5
D2 The suicidal scum scums it up and tries to get wagoned and lynched as fast as possible. The goal is to reduce discussion and interactions as much as possible by being the blindingly obvious super scummy lynch target. 11-4.
N2 Repeat N1. Try and kill the vig if possible. 8-4.
D3 Repeat D2. 8-3.
N3 Repeat. 6-3 or 5-3.
D4 Repeat. 6-2 or 5-2.
N4 Now it gets tricky. You have just yblisa and voes left. They're trying to trick the other into dying. Yblisa has the upper hand here in terms of info asymmetry. Voes doesn't want to do the syphon kill because at this point it's established as a scum move. Yblisa volunteers to use the ability instead of her normal kill, as she has convinced Voes that she is a normal scumteam member. Instead she uses the normal kill. 5-2.
D5 Yblisa busses the ****** out of voes. 5-1.
And from then you just have to ride out two Days. Ideally at this point Voes's voteblock or normal townie actions have caused the scum to lose vitality to get extra deaths.
The idea is to cut off the town's strongest ally: The Day phase. By making the choice obvious, you put the town in a bad spot: Do you just lynch the obvscum or do you try to look for interactions? If you look like you're stalling, is that not scummy behavior?
Town is going to claim, but they will die at such an accelerated rate that you end up with this great momentum. Voes's ability ideally makes going to Erhamen unattractive as well.
No idea if that actually works in practice, but it would be fun.
Also I'd like to think I was one of the reasons Seppel went under suspicion early.
Either way, we're all gonna burn
But that's really all I can say about your play this game.
*EXCEPT IN MEG'S SUPER PARANOID ALTERNATE DIMENSION WHERE THE NIGHT KILL COSTS 1 VIT AND HANS USED IT AND YOU GAVE HIM 2 VIT TO HIDE IT BUT THE MATH DIDN'T WORK OUT SO MY BRAIN EXPLODED
I thought that hans+proph was "too easy" to be the answer... but sometimes games just are that easy.
I do this too from time to time - you saw it first hand in Xymande. BUT, your interactions in games also certainly brings this out because you're so dodgy!
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
*A Mediggo alt account coming to a Basic near you!
Town Win % = 75%
Mafia Win % = 75%
Overall Win % = 75%
Completed Game Log
2014: Best Mafia Performance (Group)
2014: Most Improved Player
2014: Best Town Player
2014: Best Overall Player
Proph PM me about what set me on to you
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player