MTG Salvation

OK GUYS THIS IS HAPPENING.

I have a couple of hours to myself and an Evernote note opened. If I don't have this out by the end of the day burn me at the stake.

Shhh, I'm on the west coast.

Not the end of day yet for me.

What worked:
A simple classic normal setup
Decently innovative roles without straying too much over the bounds of normalcy

What didn’t work:
Flavor
Angleshooting/rule-breaking/failure to mod
Not as timely with stuff as Ace Attorney
Replacement-mania
The lateness of this article
Just wasn’t fun?

So I think there was a lot that went wrong with this game, and some factors were under my control, and others were not. But ultimately, I think the main thing that went wrong with this game is that I didn’t have the passion to moderate it properly. When compared to the last large game I hosted on MTGS, which was Ace Attorney Mafia, I had a lot of passion in designing AND moderating that game. With this game, I mostly wanted to see how I could design a Normal, which are typically some of my more favorite games to play, but I didn’t have much intrinsical reason beyond that to make this game. Overall, I think the stem of most of the problems with this game came from the fact that I did not have much time to moderate this game as well as the fact that I just.. wasn’t passionate enough. I wasn’t invested in making the game as the best it could be for the players, and I know that the game suffered due to it.

But before we went to the things that didn’t work, let’s first briefly talk about the things that I thought did.

First, I think that the goal of the setup - which was for the setup to be a relatively “Normal” setup, with few tricks or gimmicks - was successful. The setup was somewhat low-powered for the town, which happened due to late balancing changes with Eco and Visor. Eco said that he didn’t like Innocent Child roles because once they get revealed they don’t do anything, and I agreed - one of my worst games ever was when I was an Innocent Child and was handily pocketed by the scum. Plus, it created a kind of conflict with the Desperado, so that’s why I agreed to change it to the Flavor Cop.

The Desparado, by the way, was the town’s most powerful role and one that I was eager to see used in this setup. The reason I like it is because it’s extremely skill intensive and still has a solid floor in that even if you misfire with it, the person who you use it on becomes confirmed town. Voxx was right that in the game Bur had a really good “floor” case with it where he used it to clear Huntzilla and himself, which prevented the town from mislynching both of them. However, it’s one of those roles that has an extremely high ceiling in that if Bur shot Voxx (since Bur suspected him) that could have blown the game wide open for the town and put the scum in a tough position. I really like the role and while Bur’s use of it may not have been the most optimal, it still was something the scum had to play around, as having two potential mislynches removed from them can be disastrous.

The Cloaker was a role that Visor thought was powerful, because it has a pretty good chance of stopping the kill late game. However, due to the way Grapefruit was run up early Day 1, he didn’t end up using the protective aspect of the role, more using it as a way to confirm himself.

The Bulletproof was there to add additional protection to the town without relying on a full doctor. Between the Cloaker and the Bulletproof, we thought that there was a good chance that the town would protect from a kill if the town plays their cards right. Sadly, Huntzilla was forced to claim Day 1 and was sniped by the scum using their strongman shot.

The Pre-game Neighborizer was also another role that I really liked. I really enjoyed reading Gruffin and Grapefruit’s conversation together and their game-solving was one of my most favorite parts about the game. I like the pre-game part to neighborizer because being able to pick who you want to chat with is more fun than having it be selected for you.

The Follower was basically a weak investigative role to complement the Desperado and the Backup. I think it has some utility because it can target two players and potentially catch scum trying to claim vanilla and then taking an action (or counterclaiming Mindreaver, like we saw in this game).

Speaking of the Backup, I don’t view it as a bastard role (I’d say a bastard role involves lying to your player in some way) but it was certainly unconventional and I understand JoeTerry’s criticism about the role. It was intended to be less of a catch-up role and more of a additional “shot in the arm” to give the town a little more momentum once they’ve lynched a specific scum member. I don’t think this interaction is super healthy for the game because it’s more swingy, but I wanted to test it out.

The mafia was pretty much all standard? I considered them to be a little more powerful than the town, but considering the town’s information advantage in the OP I thought that it was OK. The day chat enabler was chosen mostly because I love daychat and while it can be powerful, I don’t think daychat is utilized super well on MTGS, and considering the lack of well-performing scum teams last year I thought it would be good. The strongman was to introduce some counterplea with the bulletproof/cloaker role. The Roleblocker/Vanilla Cop role that Mindreaver had was something that I liked, because I dislike that for standard role blockers, on N1, you’re firing off your ability at anyone random to see if you can get a relevant role role blocked. I like for the roleblock to give a little more information - to make the game state slightly more clear. Maybe that role is quite powerful, but I wanted to test it out. The watcher/tracker role was included to give the mafia a safe claim.

So yeah, overall, lots of these roles were interesting twists on normal roles - basically, this game was a playground to see which role ideas worked and which ones didn’t, all within the confines of being a Normal. Some of these, like the Backup/Flavor Cop, were mistakes in retrospect and I don’t see using something like that in a game again, because I get the feeling that JoeTerry/shadowlancerx were betrayed by their roles, and that’s never fun to experience. Others, like the Desperado, I really liked.


Now, let’s talk about the flaws with this game, to which there were many.

The first is flavor. Not going to sugar-coat it, I bailed on this one quite heavily. I was envisioning this game to have moderate flavor around the Lord Ruler dying and finding the assailants, but I just dropped the ball on flavor because, as I said, I had little time AND I was not passionate enough about moderating the game. So I really do apologize, especially since I’ve said in the past that flavor is critical to making a good game great. This also applies to not being as timely with votecounts/responses/etc in this game. I simply just was not passionate enough about being a good mod, so I let those duties slip by.

The next is angleshooting, which I have a lot to say on but it’s 1 AM in the morning and I need to finish this. Basically, I’m a big proponent of interfering with the gamestate as little as possible as a mod. Since I’d already modkilled Gruffinchops for failing to find a replacement, I was not keen on making any more gamestate changes. The angleshooting that was brought to my attention were:

1) Cantrip directly requesting that I not end the Day
2) JoeTerry drunk posting/making avatar bets based on Rhand’s flip/saying that he’ll /out with any game Cyan is in/talking about being OK with being modkilled
3) The “I’ll never play with you again” posts
4) Cyan threatening to push a ban on Terry
5) Grapefruit generating a read on Newcomb based on how often the slot was replaced

The angleshooting, while it started small, grew and grew as the game went on until it became unavoidable and I was forced into a situation to act. However, by that time, it was already mylo, and I was content to see the game state play out and not interfere with it. I didn’t want to modkill somebody and have the game end that way.

I’ll talk a little more about the OOG posts when it’s not 2 AM and I desperately need to go to sleep, but it’s clear that I should have rules in place to prevent minor/major transgressions such as these. Mafia should be a social game, not a game where you read a post and wonder or not if they would make a post so extreme as scum.

The constant replacements were something that also damaged this game. I know it’s mostly outside of my control and such, but having this many replacements is something that I found concerning and I felt as though half of my time was spent looking for replacements for certain slots and such. I don’t really want to point any fingers but the constant time searching for replacements I think kind of made me less passionate about hosting the game - it was more work for me than fun, especially once the angleshooting started to happen.

And finally, I think the game just wasn’t fun. Even though this game had some interesting quirks in its setup and a couple of cool roles, I may have lost sight on what it means for this game to be fun. This was perfectly exemplified, I feel, when Cyan said that he wanted to be in the game to fulfill an obligation, but he was not having any fun at all. I felt pretty heartbroken when reading that because, even though I can’t really control it, I want my games to be fun! I want people to enjoy the games I moderate. However, as the game kept going on, I eventually realized that If I wasn’t having fun hosting my game, then the players wouldn’t have any fun either.

So yeah, this is my rambly reflection that has come out way too late. Sorry for the wait, guys, I put this off for way too long for no good reason because of procrastination. Once I’m not staying up late to write this I think I’ll talk about general play/maybe go a little more in-depth on the angleshooting since that’s a hive nest that I’m way too tired to write about right now.

Thank for you reading, and for being patient with me!