What worked: Masks, True Mask powers not being revealed except to True Wearers, Arcadic's role (except Lens of Truth), Majora.
What didn't: Game clock, reviewers, Romani Mask, AG's lynch threshold increase
Setup: I'll be straight up - the game clock didn't work, for the second time in two games. It was a complete nonfactor in the MafiaScum version; more damningly, it was a complete nonfactor here, despite a 1% variance in Majora's favor D1 (Bremen Mask not worn for most of the game, Link [Inverted Song of Time w/ daykill] dead + dayvig mask dead before either vig could be fired]). Even if Generic had been killed N1 and the Bremen Mask never worn, the game clock would only have advanced another 18 hours or so (middle of the Night of the Second Day).
In short, I overextended the game clock (I wanted an ~108 day limit to give a reasonable amount of time and because I wasn't entirely sure about how fast people would play... I was playing in Redux Mirror when this setup was designed, after all!) - either Mask Drafts should have counted towards the clock or I should have just cut the Inverted Song of Time (and Song of Double Time) entirely and gone with a straight-up 72 day limit. (Or both.)
Other than that, most of my regrets this game have to do with balance. Both of my reviewers thought that this game was overly complex and couldn't get past that to look at balance; DRey in particular wanted this game to work more like Showdown (make all Mask powers public, remove all superpowers), which, well... wasn't happening after Showdown, and especially after that game's spectator chat (wherein I lost all respect for DRey as a moderator/reviewer - that spectator chat, plus realizing this setup would win the Showdown after all, was why I looked for a second reviewer in the first place). I took a fair number of Zindabad's suggestions late in the setup, which turned out to be to the setup's detriment.
(Last time I make a Google document to send to reviewers. Mind Screw V was a similar disaster.)
The original design of the setup was that roles had a LOT of protective power, but masks had almost all of the investigative power. Both Zindabad and DRey thought that there were too many protective abilities but not enough kills... which I listened to while forgetting just how many kills in the setup were some sort of Strongman kill!
As noted in spectator chat, if I was running this game again I would do the following:
- Give a townie the Bottled Fairy (1-shot super bulletproof) back.
- Give Rosa Sister's Doublet back its original "the first time you would be killed, instead lose this ability" (and the "this ability only works while Doublet is active" aspect of the Stone Mask)
- Give Romani Mask its original Armorer power back (possibly with a restriction), modify the superpower (probably Rapid Action resolution).
- Cut the Lens of Truth and the {item} aspect of Sakon's Steal ability (but probably with a rider that Sakon learned all {items} in his target's possession, though not what they did)
I'd also do the following:
- Give Majora an additional shot of Overwhelm.
- Set game clock to 72 hours, period, removing all Inverted Songs of Time, the Song of Double Time, and possibly Majora's Erase 1-shot.
- Consider either making Mayor Dotour's lynch threshold increase permanent or converting it back to the other ability I considered once I removed his Red Potions: straight-up mod confirmation.
Role Notes:
This setup was adapted from the MafiaScum version of the game (as finally noted by Proph D3, despite something like THREE people trying to modgame me through my other MS modded games. I took account of this in the balancing - several abilities, roles, and alignments deliberately played off of the MafiaScum version in my usual twisted ways...
Link: Extremely top-down design: he has the Ocarina of Time (with Inverted Song of Time) and his Bow with one of each of the four arrow types from Majora's Mask. Arrow and Light Arrow were obvious, Ice Arrow was originally a jail but changed to roleblock in final development, Fire Arrow's effect was a combination of giving town a 1-shot permanent answer to a Mask (like, say, the Gibdo Mask) and being the best flavor fit. Originally had two other abilities: the Hylian Shield (protected Link from being killed by his own masks, affected the Blast Mask and Detonate Mask - rightly cut pregame for being extra weight and unfair to Majora) and a Bottled Fairy (1-shot super bulletproof [it protected against all strongman kills EXCEPT Overwhelm]), which might have been better off being kept. No True Mask, partially for flavor/balance reasons and partially because Ganondorf had claimed the Fierce Deity's Mask.
Rosa Sisters: Same role as the original (because it worked well there) - originally had aforementioned top-down "the first time you would be killed, instead lose this ability" aspect (super bulletproof, overrode every strongman kill in the game) which was cut in late balancing. Stone Mask was a terrible True Mask flavorwise but absolutely mandatory for balance reasons. Note that flavorgaming that this role had to be town was a VERY risky call - it absolutely *could* have been scum (probably with a few mechanical alterations), if the scumteam (or Neutral!) had been balanced to compensate.
Mayor Dotour: The important part of the role isn't the +1 lynch threshold; that was a VERY late addition, intended mostly to support the intent of the role (it was made temporary partially as a LyLo detector and partially to make mod-confirming this role take a little thought). The important part of this role is Clock Town Mayor, aka Legitimate Claim (from the MS version): the ability that ensures that this role drafts first in Mask Drafts instead of being randomly selected as normal. This WAS a confirmed town claim, for a very simple reason: The town (or possibly a Neutral - I could have given Legitimate Claim to Majora) needed to draft first in the First Mask Draft, to avoid Mafia cherry-picking the best Masks with the first four picks (the "town gets a global roleblock" effect was a bonus). A shining example of my "modgaming correctly may benefit you, modgame poorly and you will pay the price" philosophy.
Sakon: Another top down design, and another protection against massclaim and modgaming based off of the original (Sakon was, of course, Mafia in the MS version). This is the role hurt the most by late balancing, as almost every {item} left in the setup after initial changes was cut in the final pare-down (Link's {items} and the Fairy Boons/Bottles of Milk were the only stealable things at the end). Most importantly, the Mafia kill method {items} (the Postman's Biggest Bomb Bag, Guro-Guro's Music Box with Sharp's Song, and the Clock Town Goon's Gilded Sword) were cut in the final stages of paring the setup down; Sakon could not steal them (well, he could originally steal one of the Bomb Bag's Bombs), but would get a flavor scene about them if he targeted their wearers. Other than that, the only change in balancing was limiting him to one stolen Mask. No True Mask for both balance reasons (his role fits a "Town role with no True Mask" slot) and flavor reasons.
Tingle: Another top-down design, and the second most powerful Town role. Flavorwise, the idea here is that Tingle managed to find his very own fairy friend shortly before the game: Tatl, who performs the same Z-targeting function for Tingle that she does for Link. This is the Town's only true investigative role; as you might have guessed, that wasn't an accident (and was, in fact, insisted on to my reviewers). True Mask is the Great Fairy's Mask because fairy obsession... just like in the MafiaScum version.
Axonn: Some of you may remember that in this game's signups I referenced curveballs, sliders, and the occasional land mine? Well, here's the land mine: the role that wasn't in the game at all! His primary job is to be a big fat protection against massclaim - somebody goes "wait, that's not a Majora's Mask character" and then it's Theopor_COD in Stargate SG-1 time all over again! (Except this time Theopor is telling the truth.) LnGrrrR did a lot of things very poorly in this game. Managing to defuse the land mine was not one of them. (If you'd told me pregame that Axonn would be the only townie alive at endgame, I'd have been very doubtful!)
Other than that, Axonn fills a "town mask-affecting role" slot with a top-down design: he knocks off masks because he has a great big axe and that's something Bionicle characters can do with great big axes. As LnGrrrR correctly worked out, he has the Mask of Truth as his True Mask because it's appropriate for the source material (and to let it do something other than Cop people). Finally, he's two flavor hints in one! He hints at the Mask of Time entering the game later on... and he hints at the possible semi-sequel to this game. (Guess.)
Special note: In one of those "how did he do that" moments, little lizard correctly modgamed that Axonn might be in the game for COMPLETELY WRONG reasons. See, little lizard was flat-out WRONG that I routinely put characters from other properties in games - that's Vi's "Tarhalindur over Mafia" schtick. I'm prone to making a few strange flavor assignments a game, yes, but AFAIK this is the first time I've used an out-of-theme character in a game based on a single source material (Ocarina of Time, MafiaScum Majora's Mask, MTG Parallel Universe, Suzumiya Haruhi, GalCiv2 (aka Tech Tree), and Blaz Blue only used characters from the source material). No comment as to whether or not it will happen again.
Cremia: This role, despite having no abilities, actually balances closer to Doc due to the True Mask. Other than that, nothing special. (Romani Mask, of course, makes obvious sense flavorwise.)
Skull Kid: Exactly the same as the MafiaScum version, and still the weakest role in the setup (no abilities, no True Mask, millerish rolename).
Clock Town Bodyguard: Partially a spiritual successor to the dayvig from the original, partially a reference to Sironigous's very good (except the PM quoting part) falseclaim from the original. His true mask is nominally the Skull Mask, and that's good for him because the superpower works very nicely with Bodyguard. His *actual* True Mask is the Stone Mask, but just telling him this was slightly OP. (He's also the second hint that masks can enter the game later.)
Bremen Mask Guard: The other "vanilla with a True Mask" role. His True Mask bounced around for a while (it was originally Goron Mask, then something), settling on Bremen Mask late in design because it made said mask more likely to be worn and didn't increase complexity much. I tried to think of a superpower to fit, but never thought of one.
Clock Town Vanillas: Vanilla Town with default role name and no true mask. The default role. Not much more to say.
Happy Mask Salesman: Happy Mask Salesman fulfills the same basic role as Romani from the original game: a Neutral who needs to prolong the game to win. (He also needs Majora dead for flavor reasons.) He's got a LOT of tools to pull off his wincon: a built-in trade, Mimic (to get better use out of masks and to serve as a carrot for giving masks to him), Mask Database (to reduce the odds of drafting the same type of mask twice), and a True Mask that allows him to knock off his own mask and was never in particular demand in the MafiaScum version. The hard part is surviving and timing the win. Note the "gain abilities with Mimic" part of the wincon - Zinger may not have noted it publically, but he *couldn't* win D5 - he had to get to D6 to do so. I'm pretty sure that's why he was talking about townsiding!
A mod error of note: Zinger's Mask Database was not intended to give the full normal ability, just what kind of ability it had. But I screwed up during the First Mask Draft and decided to keep it that way for consistency reasons.
Note: Zinger never broke his NLP. He misunderstood his role quite a few times, but he never intentionally lied.
Another note: The mod note on Mimic was written about 20 minutes before the start of the game, when I realized the interaction with the Great Fairy's Mask. Four more boons I THINK NOT.
Majora: You know, if anybody had remembered the original Design Throwdown post announcing Majora's Mask they might have realized that Majora wasn't Mafia a lot sooner...
But, here he is. He was Mafia the first time, so he's Neutral here as a twist. He's an SK who trades in a full factional kill for a lot of utility and the ability to win via timeout (fat lot of good that did - oops).
Point of interest: Look at Majora's safeclaims. He has two. Why? Flexibility. Romani is probably the stronger safeclaim overall (and fits with Cremia being in the game), but Romani was neutral in the MafiaScum version so Madame Aroma (who fits with Mayor Dotour) was given as well.
Mod error of note: Corrupt Mask was supposed to give Seppel the full text of the corrupted mask (including superpower!) at the time of use. Then I forgot to give it to him until after he Detonated. :oops:
Ganondorf: So, Majora's not scum this time. Who's heading the scumteam? Why it's Ganondorf, back to hijack the one Zelda game he hadn't already hijacked! He's a pretty simple package: Inverted Song of Time, super bulletproof (bypassed only by Light Arrow), and two double-kills to punch through bulletproof shields. True Mask gives him Godfather immunity and a toughguy kill. (Fierce Deity's Mask is Ganon's true mask because in this remix of Majora's Mask Ganon IS the Fierce Deity.)
Fun story for TMCT: The Elegy of Emptiness was originally in the game. Ganondorf had it. (It gave name cop godfather, with a bonus for acquiring the FDM. It was rightly cut for being overpowered and extraneous.)
Postman: The Mafia rolecop equivalent and the other primary massclaim protection in the setup. See, he's an investigative role and has the Cop mask as his True Mask (and for flavor reasons). If he claims, people are probably going to think "Cop, must be town". And he *is* the closest the setup has to Cop. He's just not Town - and if the town incorrectly clears him, they will pay the price. (This is also why Town doesn't have a second full investigative role - I wanted to avoid "three investigative roles, one must be scum" modgaming. Sakon and Axonn had investigative elements, but I could live with those.)
Really, that's how I deal with modgaming in my games - if you do it better than the mod, it's valuable. If you don't, it's your own lookout. And the mod is rather good at modgaming.
Letter Bomb lets scum sow confusion and punch through bulletproof shields (except Majora's), and is a direct counter to Mayor Dotour claiming the Giant's Mask superpower. Honestly, Lens of Truth should have been nerfed to (nearly useless) item-only or cut - it was too strong in conjunction with Shred Mask.
Guro-Guro: Mafia Roleblocker equivalent, with a rather interesting story. Guro-Guro doesn't exactly fit for the Hookshot... so it's probably not surprising that said Hookshot wasn't his original ability. His original ability was the Music Box with the Song of Storms, which jailed its target (untargetability variant) and knocked their mask off. Then I thought of the Hookshot during an item brainstorm and threw it in on the Goon. This was rightly thought of as too complex and overpowered, so I moved to cut one of the two, and the ability to exchange masks with the target was important enough that the Hookshot won out. (I was going to change the character to fit the Hookshot better, but ran out of time.)
Not sure that claiming the Inverted Song of Time here was the right move - if anybody picked up the Bremen Mask, they might have rightly figured that one of the Inverted Songs had to be scum. (And if they did, it wasn't that far to figure out that Majora was neutral, which would have been to the Mafia's advantage.)
Clock Town Goon: He's got the vanilla role name and is a goon, not much more to say.
Mafia as a Faction: You'll notice that Mafia have factional abilities aside from the kill. This is design space I've been working with for a bit (the disaster that was Mind Screw 5 had them as well) - it eliminates the chance of a key Mafia ability being randomly lynched D1. Shred Mask is specifically a mask claim punisher in addition to utility - if town massclaims masks, it becomes much better as the Mafia can pick off the best town masks one by one.
Mafia had Kafei, Anju, and Bomb Shop Owner as safeclaims. The Bomb Shop Owner is the safest and most flexible of these (and thus was the one that got used). Kafei has about three obvious possible falseclaims: Kafei-Anju (obviously), searching mason Kafei, or something based on Kafei's Mask. Anju is almost locked into some sort of searching mason gambit (another massclaim protection related to the MafiaScum version - if people trust the MS version, then two Mafiosos can pick up the Couple's Mask halves, claim Kafei/Anju with mod confirmation superpowers, and potentially coast to victory).
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Masks:
In general, modgaming from the MafiaScum version was more useful for Masks than for roles. This was completely intentional.
Romani Mask: Originally had Armorer normal power (target a player, that player gains a bulletproof shield, fails if target already has a shield) with a Chateau Romani superpower related to a cut magic power theme. Normal power was moved to superpower based on reviewer comments, then nerfed again. In retrospect, I think the nerfs were too much.
Bremen Mask: Added to the setup as soon as I thought of the Inverted Song of Time ability. Then the player who has it as a True Mask skips it and it's the last mask to get worn. No superpower because it wasn't a True Mask until about a week before the game started and I couldn't think of an appropriate superpower in time.
Giant's Mask: The basic concept (no normal power, Dotour superpower) remained unchanged, but the actual super was swapped at the last minute - it was originally Lightning Rod, then I thought of what that might do with the Mask of Truth and the Bodyguard. Either way, it was designed for a single goal - give town an extra day if necessary. (I expected it to be fired N2.)
Couple's Mask (Sun's Mask, Moon's Mask): The superpowers but removed, but otherwise these masks remained exactly as they were in the MafiaScum version. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Stone Mask: Normal power unchanged from the 'Scum version. The superpower exists because the Rosa Sisters GOT this mask in the 'Scum version (luckily, MafiaScum meta considered untargetable a scum ability at the time). This is probably the wrong superpower; some sort of "Knock off your own mask" ability was probably more appropriate. (The current super is intended to help Rosa Sisters find a better mask for themselves if stuck with two bad masks.)
Mask of Truth: Completely reworked based on the switch to Bionicle flavor for this mask.
Great Fairy's Mask: The "can give to yourself" loophole from the 'Scum version was patched, and the superpower only allows one extra boon, but it's otherwise unchanged. Well, almost unchanged. With the Lens of Truth in the game this time, the Double Magic Meter ability was changed - originally to something involving magic power, then to its current 1-shot self-motivate.
Goron Mask: Normal power unchanged from the MafiaScum version. Originally had two other abilities (the Powder Keg [a 1-shot Hot Potato ala Mind Screw 4] and a Goron Lullaby [global roleblock] superpower) - the former was cut for being extraneous, the latter was cut then swapped in for the Giant's Mask original superpower.
Blast Mask: Now blows itself up too to remove possible shenanigans. Otherwise unchanged from the 'Scum version. One of the most obvious mask designs in the game.
Bunny Hood: Completely unchanged from the 'Scum version (with a setup better optimized for it). Irony time: In the MafiaScum version I expected the Fierce Deity's Mask to be the most sought after and it was ignored in favor of the Bunny Hood, then here I expected the Bunny Hood to be sought after and it was ignored in favor of... the Fierce Deity's Mask.
Mask of Scents: The superpower from 'Scum is now the normal power. Anything else to discuss?
Deku Mask: Power swapped in from the 'Scum All-Night Mask, using the untargetability variant to make it more useful for scum users. Originally played with the magic theme, but that was cut when that theme was.
Captain's Hat: Originally a Doctor mask, but that was cut during the first wave of balancing. The current form of this was a brainstorm from about the middle of July IIRC. It could originally quicken Shred Mask (but not the Mafia kill), but this was cut shortly before the game started. (Like 20 minutes before.)
Don Gero's Mask: Completely unchanged from the 'Scum version. No superpower - it's the Mask Salesman's True Mask because it's useful to him (and because I thought it might go unnoticed otherwise - it's one of two masks that was never drafted in the 'Scum version).
Keaton Mask: No Romani connections this time, but otherwise unchanged. Imagine my amusement when Zinger misses the second-best mask for him by one draft slot... and then drafts the single best mask for him in the setup! (And yes, he could stack the exchanges to swap masks twice in a night. He didn't think of this until N3, though, and was promptly killed or RBed every night afterwards.)
Postman's Hat: You *knew* there was a Cop mask floating around somewhere, right? Here it is. It's amazing how little love it gets. The normal power from the 'Scum version (itself ported in from a Mind Screw 3 role) became the superpower here; it was, of course, the reason for AsianInvasion's ??? 'result' PM N1.
Kamaro Mask: It's still completely vanilla. Because I can.
All-Night Mask: I moved the 'Scum power over to the Deku Mask and needed to think of a new one. I eventually lit upon something relatively uncommon - posting stuff with the morning scene. It's best on an investigative role (read: Tingle), of course.
(And then I have to modkill it D1. )
Kafei's Mask: In the MafiaScum version it was the Godfather mask (and that experience plus Kafei/Anju is why I made superpowers only visible to the True Wearer here!). Here it's the double voter (ported in from the Romani Mask and retemplated to work like the Rosa Sisters's extra vote). The power goes away in LyLo because I read the last days of Survival Horror and Legend of Lucian and wanted no part of that here. (Probably for the best considering who *did* eventually grab it.)
Gibdo Mask: The booby prize! What, you thought all the masks had to be beneficial? (Of course, it *is* moderately beneficial to scum, who can use it to explain bad investigation results - see DGB in the 'Scum version.) I even moved it from its original home just to shake things up. (I am darkly amused at little lizard drafting this mask and finally getting rid of it... just to draft the second worst mask in the game.
Garo's Mask: The Ninja Log superpower from 'Scum was modified to become the normal power here. Fun fact: It was a straight-up Governor mask for quite a while. For some strange reason I changed it to its current version around the beginning of July. [sarcasm]Gee, I wonder why?[/sarcasm]
I'll thank Ultimate Showdown for one thing - it showed me at least one thing not to do here.
Circus Leader's Mask: It was the booby prize during the MafiaScum version, so it got a vaguely useful power here. It was originally a roleblock (swapped 1-1 for the Gibdo Mask), but that was cut based on reviewer input. I eventually came up with the current power during the later stages of balancing.
Fierce Deity's Mask: It was the bigger booby prize in the 'Scum version, so I originally souped it to reward anyone who drafted it (especially if it got to Ganondorf). It was a JoAT mask for quite a while, with strong abilities (and they were different types, so Happy Mask Salesman could fill his mask condition by getting it and taking it off). Zindabad convinced me to change it to just the one-shot daykill when he came in, which was probably for the best. Superpower is basically Godfather + Toughguy (and a semi-mirror of Link's dayvig)
The Extra Four Masks:
These were mostly failsafes, either against powerful masks being destroyed early or against the possibility that players would die en masse due to tons of masks being destroyed early (say, by Shred Mask + Fire Arrow + Zora Mask + possibly Mimicked Zora Mask).
Skull Mask (from Ocarina of Time): The superpower is not half bad. Other than that, it's just there to give players an extra mask to wear.
Spooky Mask (from Ocarina of Time): A failsafe against the disruptive masks all getting destroyed early (especially back when the roleblock mask was in), and also a failsafe against both Guro-Guro and the donated Hookshot going down early.
Mask of Time (from Bionicle): Clock failsafe. If all the Inverted Songs of Time were killed and/or town mismanaged the clock horribly (possibly with help from the Song of Double Time), this would give the town six more RL days to play the game.
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Modding:
I know that I'm not the world's best at actually *running* games, and have a fairly quick modkill trigger. (I'm also used to MafiaScum, where people actually READ the ruleset. Lesson learned.) But still, it's sort of funny to me seeing people criticize me for being modkill-happy... when I was actually relatively modkill-ADVERSE here.
Swishh wouldn't have been modkilled if he was the first person to make a questionable claim this game (or if I had thought of the "modkill the mask" solution before I decided to modkill) - I flat-out told him this when I modkilled him. The thing was, he wasn't the FIRST person to make a questionable claim. He was the THIRD (after Zinger and Ghosting). I chose not to modkill Zinger mostly because I really didn't want to modkill an eager player less than 24 hours into the game and there was a decent chance the problem would be self-resolving (I had an Iso "daykill Zinger" PM in my inbox at the time, IIRC); in retrospect, that was a mistake and I should have modkilled there. Ghosting's quote was borderline and he was a fairly strong town power role, and. However, by the time swishh claimed the possibility of somebody going "you know, I think these guys quoted genuine mod PMs" and the game degenerating into either a rash of modkills or a flurry of quoting was weighing heavily on me (I wasn't going to trust Factional Falseclaim alone in my first modded game here), and swishh was THE minimum damage modkill - the weakest role in the game (millerish rolename, no abilities) who was under heavy suspicion and would likely be modkilled anyways.
The rest of the decisions are completely justified, IMO. Ghosting's posthumous modkill was game-mechanically identical to a forced replacement. Iso had to be modkilled (so Rule 14 has teeth) after he slipped that he was SKed in his Mafia Stats, and Proph had to be replaced because he saw it. The mod pause for decision-making D5 can be chalked up to one thing: Generic flat-out broke Rule 4 by claiming PM timestamps and would have been modkilled for it in any other gamestate. However, in LyLo, after another Mafia member (who no non-Majora players suspected) had falseclaimed Generic's ability and would thus be counterclaimed by gamestate, that would amount to the Mod deciding the outcome of the game.
That brings me to a technical point: I saw multiple comments from players/spectator chat people about not being so fast to modkill. Let me point out the obvious problem there: when the rules violation involves PM quoting/plagiarism, the mod HAS to modkill. I've tried not modkilling for Rule 4 violation before, it doesn't work - the playerbase WILL treat it as inadvertent mod confirmation of the slot, rightly or wrongly. The only other option is to not punish at all - and as you'll notice, I did that here for as long as I thought I could. Should I have warned about my unusually strict mod PM quoting more than I did? Probably. (This isn't likely to be a recurring problem, now that people know about Factional Falseclaim I can be less strict on my modkills... and the hand once burned is twice shy.) Should I have warned about the existence of Rule 1? Apparently (lesson about MTGS meta learned). But I only modkilled three times, and two were completely justified. That's not particularly heavy-handed.
As for not warning Seppel D5 for his modkill threats... chalk that one up to Internet problems/mod failing his spot check, because I usually warn/modkill that sort of thing (it's a very clear Rule 1 violation, especially given the recent example of Ultimate Showdown). But... I was having a hard enough time connecting to the most recent page of the game, let alone the previous one! (And that's not counting the fun of trying to post.)
Play:
I'm not going to sugar-coat this. I played in Mafia Invictus on 'Scum and in Ultimate Showdown. I modded Mind Screw 3. Those towns were exceeedingly bad. But this town is the worst town I have ever seen.
Why was this town so bad? Well, in the end it boils down to two things:
- Town did relatively little independent thinking; instead, it just sheeped the strongest players. Part of that is probably due to inexperience and lack of confidence (in turn partially due to the experienced players dying early), part of that is due to the playstyles involved. (Void having to replace out and Wheat_Grinder choosing to replace in for Digi didn't help from the experience standpoint - if he hadn't indicated a preference, he'd have replaced in for Void IIRC.)
- Scum were able to take control of the discussion, just like they did in Mind Screw 3 (but here they didn't even have to work for it). No really, look at how Seppel/Arcadic/Generic basically controlled the discussion after D1. Admittedly, part of this was due to half of the town being V/LA for most of the game, but still.
So yeah. Town: What you did here, don't do it again. (Tar recommends showing confidence even if you're not actually confident and trying to do more work.)
Town MVP: None. This town was THAT bad. Honorable Mentions: Sir Karn (for attempting to vig scum), AtheistGod (for realizing just what was happening to him D3)
Town LVP: LnGrrrR. I don't usually hand this out, but literally throwing the game for your faction at 5p multiscum LyLo (through catching a case of the dumbs or otherwise) will get you an LVP award. Dishonorable Mention: All Town players not named Sir Karn, AtheistGod, Prophylaxis, or Iso (and arguably Proph and Iso as well). The town was THAT bad. Special mention to JeY k, see below.
Mafia MVP: The Most Curious Thing. All the Mafia played reasonably well (at least compared to the Town), but TMCT stands out for somehow avoiding almost all attention even BEFORE he falseclaimed well. Honorable Mention: Arcadic, Generic, and Wheat_Grinder for managing to deflect attention for AGES. Also JeY k, for reasons Arcadic stated best:
Quote from "Arcadic, in Mafia chat" »
Town doesn't even know what's scummy. Jey is the scum MVP if we win this without losing a member. Because he's done very litte to be independent of any trending wagon, his second vote is making sure lynches get pushed.
Special Mention: Seppel, who played one of the best SKs I've seen in a while. Unfortunately, he had to have a perfect game to win here and wound up two plays short of that, of which one was his (I think killing little lizard over TMCT N3 was a mistake) and the other was... yeah.
So that's that. I hope you had fun, and I hope that my Internet access stabilizes sometime soon.
edit for productive comment: Watching this game was very painful.
I'm personally not a fan of overcomplicated mechanics because the town gets bogged down in them and blunders hard with the scumhunting... but this was really quite bad. (by this I mean the town performance, not the setup).
I stayed away from this game because of the complexity, as a note, despite absolutely loving Majora's Mask.
I would like to note in my defense that this is probably the most complicated game I have been in, which is why I had me as replace in instead of starting from the beginning
That said, the whole game felt so scummy at D3 that it was tough to filter out noise, plus no cop results in a game this big made it hard to analyze. No scum flips by D4 made it hard to crack the team.
Maybe just me, but the whole "stop time" ability seemed very towny. Blah blah blah poor modgaming, but I don't think it was crazy to assume that was a towny role. (TMCT was behaviorally town to me too anyways, just noting.) I wouldn't expect that on scum.
Finally, the Guardman lynch on D2 was pretty horrible. I tried to fight it once I replaced in near the end of D2, but I don't think his suspicion of JeY was off at all. If JeY wasn't a natural double voter, would anyone have thought she was town?
I will accept the LVP for losing the game for town, but given I am relatively new, and that was a pretty complicated endgame, I hope I will get better before I run into one of those again.
@Tar: As far as the time ability, I think it would have worked best as a modular ability:
3 time abilities in play: 192 RL days
2 time abilities in play: 96 RL days
1 time ability in play: 48 RL days
0 time abilities in play: 24 RL days
This would scale based on the number of players and it would make the Bremen Mask extremely useful.
I also think tighter deadlines make for better town play (unless the town doesn't actually care -- there's nothing you can do about that), so it would have balanced out.
That said, the whole game felt so scummy at D3 that it was tough to filter out noise, plus no cop results in a game this big made it hard to analyze. No scum flips by D4 made it hard to crack the team.
Maybe just me, but the whole "stop time" ability seemed very towny. Blah blah blah poor modgaming, but I don't think it was crazy to assume that was a towny role. (TMCT was behaviorally town to me too anyways, just noting.) I wouldn't expect that on scum.
I will accept the LVP for losing the game for town, but given I am relatively new, and that was a pretty complicated endgame, I hope I will get better before I run into one of those again.
1. Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of behavior analysis. You just need to wade through all of the modgaming crap to get there.
2. Except that Seppel was neutral. Both factions have a desire to keep the game clock running long.
3. Endgame was literally impossible for town to win unless you convinced two neutrals to vote scum with you, and then you'd have to have the SK and final scum crosskill. Not very likely. You can feel bad about the rest of the game but once you get into wacky "5 alive; only 1 town" endgames, you can just start posting lolcats or whatever.
Yeah, I deserve the town LVP. The game state had me way too flustered.
Nah, even though you ended it, Jey's play was far more worthy of Town LVP. He's a confirmed town double-voter that lived 4!!! Days!!!. We put off killing Jey because of how terrible his votes were and how awesome they were to us. Jey is the town LVP/ scum MVP.
I think, all hings considered, I played this game pretty well (exception being missing 90% of Day 2 and never really reading it.)
All things considered, you played horribly and were 100% a non-factor. When the town lost all the extra kills, you could have aided them but instead decided to some completely bone-headed plays and in the end did nothing to aid the town. For someone who has a no-lie policy, you certainly like to throw information around without confirming it.
I'm still thrown for a loop why the town thinks that using daykills as lynches day 1 was " bad play ". It should have been super obvious to the town with all the abilities they had that the scum would have something to mess with the kills at night. It ended up being for naught, as Iso was killed, but this town had zero ability to hindsight. When Guardman was lynched, i was sure the scum would win, since he and AI were the only threats to the scum and we took them out in one shot. We tried to kill seppel, but obviously we got caught, and he got protected and given stuff and was part of a falseclaim, so there was zero chance of him getting re-targeted another night.
Seppel pushing for 5 scum was a tell to me, but i could never figure out why. If i hadn't been lynched, my plan was to do the Azreal trick." Seppel is alive on day 5, ether the scum are idiots or he himself is scum."
Overall, except for the time mechanic, i feel the game went well and was designed well. Time mechanic might be better served as a variable defined by the gamestate. Day 1-3 is Day 1, Day 4-6 is Day 2 and Day 7-10 is day 3. It does restrict the town's ability to no-lynch, but it puts the mechanic into game. Majora should have an ability to effect time somehow as well. Other than that, i think everything is balanced, we just got super lucky with 2 masks falling into our hands day 1.
Leaving the FDM on the ground would have prevented most of the ways the mafia could mess with it at night. Yes, picking it up would require it be used but leaving it on the ground would have stopped basically any shenanigans in the first 2 days. I could also help coordinate control of the FDM while it was on the ground by asking for my mask to be removed and then giving 2nd pick to our designated FDM user. The thing that made me 100% certain leaving it on the ground was the correct play was when I noticed that the OP listed who had each mask, that prevented the scum from possibly taking it at night and screwing the town. Using additional lynches day 1 is bad play because we don't have night actions or enough behavior to create strong cases. Look at my wagon. If I had managed to get at least 2 of AR, JeY, and Lng off my wagon the pseudo-double lynch would have caused a huge swing in tempo because the mafia had revealed themselves through behavior. Using it N1 would not have been nearly as useful for the town.
The problem was that Seppel was more towny than the majority of town. And his "balancing out a double voter and double mask" did make sense.
That, and it didnt feel like you really started playing until you got pressured, and then your claim went from +1 lynch, to mass roleblock... It felt like you were just making stuff up to prevent the lynch. Live and learn next time I guess.
In fact, I think I was the only one who said that felt like a townie ability way more than a scum ability due to LyLo, and I don't think I got any backup from the rest of town.
So Seppel; let's say I managed to get you the sun's mask like I had planned at one point - what would you have told me in our mason chat?
I was scared ****less that you would learn my alignment, so this would never have happened.
LOL. Fair enough. That's what I hoped, to gaze into your alignment on a more personal level. I imagine I would've found you as a non-town entity . I remember explicitly stating in the thread that being able to personally talk would've confirmed you to me one way or another.
@Dishonorable mentions:
It makes me really angry to read these due to my competitive nature, but I won't react. I feel really dumb. I didn't do anything this game. I think I lost sleep over it a night or two ago.
As stated multiple times now, this is the last straw - I DO NOT disobey my intuition any longer. I can't believe I let myself mess up so much in this game. I should've pushed Generic, I should've pushed Seppel, and I should've posted Wheat the moment he gave me bad vibes (which he didn't at first which you can find).
My performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
I'm just going to forget about this game, or if I have to remember it, mark it as the day I learned not to doubt myself ever again.
My performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
Let me stop you right there.
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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 performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
Let me stop you right there.
Right Megiddo, your strange interactions with him definitely sparked the initial push =) Thank you.
Other than that, most of my regrets this game have to do with balance. Both of my reviewers thought that this game was overly complex and couldn't get past that to look at balance; DRey in particular wanted this game to work more like Showdown (make all Mask powers public, remove all superpowers), which, well... wasn't happening after Showdown, and especially after that game's spectator chat (wherein I lost all respect for DRey as a moderator/reviewer - that spectator chat, plus realizing this setup would win the Showdown after all, was why I looked for a second reviewer in the first place). I took a fair number of Zindabad's suggestions late in the setup, which turned out to be to the setup's detriment.
(Last time I make a Google document to send to reviewers. Mind Screw V was a similar disaster.)
The original design of the setup was that roles had a LOT of protective power, but masks had almost all of the investigative power. Both Zindabad and DRey thought that there were too many protective abilities but not enough kills... which I listened to while forgetting just how many kills in the setup were some sort of Strongman kill!
As noted in spectator chat, if I was running this game again I would do the following:
- Give a townie the Bottled Fairy (1-shot super bulletproof) back.
- Give Rosa Sister's Doublet back its original "the first time you would be killed, instead lose this ability" (and the "this ability only works while Doublet is active" aspect of the Stone Mask)
- Give Romani Mask its original Armorer power back (possibly with a restriction), modify the superpower (probably Rapid Action resolution).
- Cut the Lens of Truth and the {item} aspect of Sakon's Steal ability (but probably with a rider that Sakon learned all {items} in his target's possession, though not what they did)
I'd also do the following:
- Give Majora an additional shot of Overwhelm.
- Set game clock to 72 hours, period, removing all Inverted Songs of Time, the Song of Double Time, and possibly Majora's Erase 1-shot.
- Consider either making Mayor Dotour's lynch threshold increase permanent or converting it back to the other ability I considered once I removed his Red Potions: straight-up mod confirmation.
I've got a better idea - how about when you send a setup to reviewers, you don't send it like two days before you're planning to run the game, and you don't start running said game while it's still being reviewed? Let me tell you something, buddy - the problem wasn't that you listened to too many of my suggestions; the problem was that you didn't listen to nearly enough. I told you what an unplayable shower this game was in no uncertain terms and you ignored me. It's breathtakingly arrogant to now blame me for the situation I told you would come about.
Let me be clear: this game was not reviewed. Taredas sent it to two people (first DRey and then myself, since he apparently lacked faith in DRey's review skills) and then flatly ignored what we told him. There was no review process. He literally started signups less than 24 hours after I sent him my review, where he handwaved most of everything I said, especially including the part where I told him "I cannot sanction this setup as-is."
Nothing changed about the parts of the setup that I voiced significant opposition to, including but not limited to the "overly swingy setup with too much power concentrated in three roles (Link, Ganondorf, Majora.)" and "overabundance of abilities in general and protective abilities in specific that will turn the game into Roleclaim Mafia in a matter of days."
So it was a bit fresh to claim that this game was reviewed by me, and it's way beyond the pale to actually try to turn round and say that anything I said or did was to the detriment of the setup. I was trying to turn your setup into a game of Mafia. You had something else in mind and you stuck to that despite my plainly stated reservations. Fine. It's your game. But don't dare try to blame me for anything after that.
No worries about sending your setups to reviewers in the future, either. I doubt any will want to touch your work with a ten-foot pole after this. To be as blunt as I have ever been, this was a **** setup ran by an equally **** mod and I wash my hands of it and you.
(Your public attempt to smear DRey is equally disgraceful but I'll let him tend to his own defense.)
I would rather one of my last action(s) not to be to hand out infractions warnings, so this will be a final warning: Tone it down or this thread gets locked.
My performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
Let me stop you right there.
Right Megiddo, your strange interactions with him definitely sparked the initial push =) Thank you.
Now that I've stroked my ego, you definitely owned that game.
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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 performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
Let me stop you right there.
Right Megiddo, your strange interactions with him definitely sparked the initial push =) Thank you.
Now that I've stroked my ego, you definitely owned that game.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
My performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
Let me stop you right there.
Right Megiddo, your strange interactions with him definitely sparked the initial push =) Thank you.
Now that I've stroked my ego, you definitely owned that game.
My botched claim wasn't it at all?
I caught you way before that.
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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
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
Why did you say Seppel is confirmed town? Reaction-test?
Because I thought he was breadcrumbing the ability that slowed down the clock. He doesn't often read the OP and I took it as a sign he was town, because I thought Majora was part of the mafia.
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
@ER; the botched claim was more like a nail in the coffin I tgink I mightve started backing off admittedly before then but there was no way I was going to let you live mjch longer
Also thanks Megiddo.
I'll be around in the summertime for more mafia and put my pure intuition theory to the test then.
I didn't think I would ever be allowed to talk what I really happened with this game but Tar has now freed me so I won't hold back.
First I want to say I love him and everything about him, despite his harsh words towards me (that I don't think should've happened well at least not publicly, as I think this is bad form) this has not changed and probably won't.
The sad truth is that this game was not reviewed, I swear I tried, but a bit because of real life and a lot because I couldn't get my mind into the job, maybe the game was incredibly complex, maybe because I wasn't good enough for the job, dunno.
When Zinda came aboard I was happy because I could at least share the herculean job but then I discovered the game was running in like a few days... I protested, I tried to delay the game internally so it could at least go through a real review (by Zinda of course) but Tar was adamant in running the game ASAP (and I understand the feeling I really do but I think it was the wrong choice).
Things I disagree with Tar.
1)Rushing the game despite it having not passed review (a big part of this is my fault :()
2)Saying this town sucked. I mean what could one expect? A highly complex game, with a bunch of newbies that really should've not been allowed to play but we were short on people. From my experience, overly complex setups push the town into torpor, this is exacerbated by being a large game plus the mafia lucked out by getting the best players. Putting all those things together and you have a recipe for disaster.
3)Saying bad things about me in public instead of trying to address particularly with me. But I'm not bitter.
Things I agree.
1)Seppel played really well, but was tainted by his threat post.
2)Scum ruled.
At least I hope you guys had fun, that's what really matters in the end.
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The game is not being dumbed down. Control is doing fine; Draw-Go is not the only kind of control. Aggro is doing fine; Red Deck Wins is not the only kind of aggro. Creature combat is an important core concept and belongs in every color. Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.
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The scum have won a Diplomatic Victory!
What worked: Masks, True Mask powers not being revealed except to True Wearers, Arcadic's role (except Lens of Truth), Majora.
What didn't: Game clock, reviewers, Romani Mask, AG's lynch threshold increase
Setup: I'll be straight up - the game clock didn't work, for the second time in two games. It was a complete nonfactor in the MafiaScum version; more damningly, it was a complete nonfactor here, despite a 1% variance in Majora's favor D1 (Bremen Mask not worn for most of the game, Link [Inverted Song of Time w/ daykill] dead + dayvig mask dead before either vig could be fired]). Even if Generic had been killed N1 and the Bremen Mask never worn, the game clock would only have advanced another 18 hours or so (middle of the Night of the Second Day).
In short, I overextended the game clock (I wanted an ~108 day limit to give a reasonable amount of time and because I wasn't entirely sure about how fast people would play... I was playing in Redux Mirror when this setup was designed, after all!) - either Mask Drafts should have counted towards the clock or I should have just cut the Inverted Song of Time (and Song of Double Time) entirely and gone with a straight-up 72 day limit. (Or both.)
Other than that, most of my regrets this game have to do with balance. Both of my reviewers thought that this game was overly complex and couldn't get past that to look at balance; DRey in particular wanted this game to work more like Showdown (make all Mask powers public, remove all superpowers), which, well... wasn't happening after Showdown, and especially after that game's spectator chat (wherein I lost all respect for DRey as a moderator/reviewer - that spectator chat, plus realizing this setup would win the Showdown after all, was why I looked for a second reviewer in the first place). I took a fair number of Zindabad's suggestions late in the setup, which turned out to be to the setup's detriment.
(Last time I make a Google document to send to reviewers. Mind Screw V was a similar disaster.)
The original design of the setup was that roles had a LOT of protective power, but masks had almost all of the investigative power. Both Zindabad and DRey thought that there were too many protective abilities but not enough kills... which I listened to while forgetting just how many kills in the setup were some sort of Strongman kill!
As noted in spectator chat, if I was running this game again I would do the following:
- Give a townie the Bottled Fairy (1-shot super bulletproof) back.
- Give Rosa Sister's Doublet back its original "the first time you would be killed, instead lose this ability" (and the "this ability only works while Doublet is active" aspect of the Stone Mask)
- Give Romani Mask its original Armorer power back (possibly with a restriction), modify the superpower (probably Rapid Action resolution).
- Cut the Lens of Truth and the {item} aspect of Sakon's Steal ability (but probably with a rider that Sakon learned all {items} in his target's possession, though not what they did)
I'd also do the following:
- Give Majora an additional shot of Overwhelm.
- Set game clock to 72 hours, period, removing all Inverted Songs of Time, the Song of Double Time, and possibly Majora's Erase 1-shot.
- Consider either making Mayor Dotour's lynch threshold increase permanent or converting it back to the other ability I considered once I removed his Red Potions: straight-up mod confirmation.
Role Notes:
This setup was adapted from the MafiaScum version of the game (as finally noted by Proph D3, despite something like THREE people trying to modgame me through my other MS modded games. I took account of this in the balancing - several abilities, roles, and alignments deliberately played off of the MafiaScum version in my usual twisted ways...
Link: Extremely top-down design: he has the Ocarina of Time (with Inverted Song of Time) and his Bow with one of each of the four arrow types from Majora's Mask. Arrow and Light Arrow were obvious, Ice Arrow was originally a jail but changed to roleblock in final development, Fire Arrow's effect was a combination of giving town a 1-shot permanent answer to a Mask (like, say, the Gibdo Mask) and being the best flavor fit. Originally had two other abilities: the Hylian Shield (protected Link from being killed by his own masks, affected the Blast Mask and Detonate Mask - rightly cut pregame for being extra weight and unfair to Majora) and a Bottled Fairy (1-shot super bulletproof [it protected against all strongman kills EXCEPT Overwhelm]), which might have been better off being kept. No True Mask, partially for flavor/balance reasons and partially because Ganondorf had claimed the Fierce Deity's Mask.
Rosa Sisters: Same role as the original (because it worked well there) - originally had aforementioned top-down "the first time you would be killed, instead lose this ability" aspect (super bulletproof, overrode every strongman kill in the game) which was cut in late balancing. Stone Mask was a terrible True Mask flavorwise but absolutely mandatory for balance reasons. Note that flavorgaming that this role had to be town was a VERY risky call - it absolutely *could* have been scum (probably with a few mechanical alterations), if the scumteam (or Neutral!) had been balanced to compensate.
Mayor Dotour: The important part of the role isn't the +1 lynch threshold; that was a VERY late addition, intended mostly to support the intent of the role (it was made temporary partially as a LyLo detector and partially to make mod-confirming this role take a little thought). The important part of this role is Clock Town Mayor, aka Legitimate Claim (from the MS version): the ability that ensures that this role drafts first in Mask Drafts instead of being randomly selected as normal. This WAS a confirmed town claim, for a very simple reason: The town (or possibly a Neutral - I could have given Legitimate Claim to Majora) needed to draft first in the First Mask Draft, to avoid Mafia cherry-picking the best Masks with the first four picks (the "town gets a global roleblock" effect was a bonus). A shining example of my "modgaming correctly may benefit you, modgame poorly and you will pay the price" philosophy.
Sakon: Another top down design, and another protection against massclaim and modgaming based off of the original (Sakon was, of course, Mafia in the MS version). This is the role hurt the most by late balancing, as almost every {item} left in the setup after initial changes was cut in the final pare-down (Link's {items} and the Fairy Boons/Bottles of Milk were the only stealable things at the end). Most importantly, the Mafia kill method {items} (the Postman's Biggest Bomb Bag, Guro-Guro's Music Box with Sharp's Song, and the Clock Town Goon's Gilded Sword) were cut in the final stages of paring the setup down; Sakon could not steal them (well, he could originally steal one of the Bomb Bag's Bombs), but would get a flavor scene about them if he targeted their wearers. Other than that, the only change in balancing was limiting him to one stolen Mask. No True Mask for both balance reasons (his role fits a "Town role with no True Mask" slot) and flavor reasons.
Tingle: Another top-down design, and the second most powerful Town role. Flavorwise, the idea here is that Tingle managed to find his very own fairy friend shortly before the game: Tatl, who performs the same Z-targeting function for Tingle that she does for Link. This is the Town's only true investigative role; as you might have guessed, that wasn't an accident (and was, in fact, insisted on to my reviewers). True Mask is the Great Fairy's Mask because fairy obsession... just like in the MafiaScum version.
Axonn: Some of you may remember that in this game's signups I referenced curveballs, sliders, and the occasional land mine? Well, here's the land mine: the role that wasn't in the game at all! His primary job is to be a big fat protection against massclaim - somebody goes "wait, that's not a Majora's Mask character" and then it's Theopor_COD in Stargate SG-1 time all over again! (Except this time Theopor is telling the truth.) LnGrrrR did a lot of things very poorly in this game. Managing to defuse the land mine was not one of them. (If you'd told me pregame that Axonn would be the only townie alive at endgame, I'd have been very doubtful!)
Other than that, Axonn fills a "town mask-affecting role" slot with a top-down design: he knocks off masks because he has a great big axe and that's something Bionicle characters can do with great big axes. As LnGrrrR correctly worked out, he has the Mask of Truth as his True Mask because it's appropriate for the source material (and to let it do something other than Cop people). Finally, he's two flavor hints in one! He hints at the Mask of Time entering the game later on... and he hints at the possible semi-sequel to this game. (Guess.)
Special note: In one of those "how did he do that" moments, little lizard correctly modgamed that Axonn might be in the game for COMPLETELY WRONG reasons. See, little lizard was flat-out WRONG that I routinely put characters from other properties in games - that's Vi's "Tarhalindur over Mafia" schtick. I'm prone to making a few strange flavor assignments a game, yes, but AFAIK this is the first time I've used an out-of-theme character in a game based on a single source material (Ocarina of Time, MafiaScum Majora's Mask, MTG Parallel Universe, Suzumiya Haruhi, GalCiv2 (aka Tech Tree), and Blaz Blue only used characters from the source material). No comment as to whether or not it will happen again.
Cremia: This role, despite having no abilities, actually balances closer to Doc due to the True Mask. Other than that, nothing special. (Romani Mask, of course, makes obvious sense flavorwise.)
Skull Kid: Exactly the same as the MafiaScum version, and still the weakest role in the setup (no abilities, no True Mask, millerish rolename).
Clock Town Bodyguard: Partially a spiritual successor to the dayvig from the original, partially a reference to Sironigous's very good (except the PM quoting part) falseclaim from the original. His true mask is nominally the Skull Mask, and that's good for him because the superpower works very nicely with Bodyguard. His *actual* True Mask is the Stone Mask, but just telling him this was slightly OP. (He's also the second hint that masks can enter the game later.)
Bremen Mask Guard: The other "vanilla with a True Mask" role. His True Mask bounced around for a while (it was originally Goron Mask, then something), settling on Bremen Mask late in design because it made said mask more likely to be worn and didn't increase complexity much. I tried to think of a superpower to fit, but never thought of one.
Clock Town Vanillas: Vanilla Town with default role name and no true mask. The default role. Not much more to say.
Happy Mask Salesman: Happy Mask Salesman fulfills the same basic role as Romani from the original game: a Neutral who needs to prolong the game to win. (He also needs Majora dead for flavor reasons.) He's got a LOT of tools to pull off his wincon: a built-in trade, Mimic (to get better use out of masks and to serve as a carrot for giving masks to him), Mask Database (to reduce the odds of drafting the same type of mask twice), and a True Mask that allows him to knock off his own mask and was never in particular demand in the MafiaScum version. The hard part is surviving and timing the win. Note the "gain abilities with Mimic" part of the wincon - Zinger may not have noted it publically, but he *couldn't* win D5 - he had to get to D6 to do so. I'm pretty sure that's why he was talking about townsiding!
A mod error of note: Zinger's Mask Database was not intended to give the full normal ability, just what kind of ability it had. But I screwed up during the First Mask Draft and decided to keep it that way for consistency reasons.
Note: Zinger never broke his NLP. He misunderstood his role quite a few times, but he never intentionally lied.
Another note: The mod note on Mimic was written about 20 minutes before the start of the game, when I realized the interaction with the Great Fairy's Mask. Four more boons I THINK NOT.
Majora: You know, if anybody had remembered the original Design Throwdown post announcing Majora's Mask they might have realized that Majora wasn't Mafia a lot sooner...
But, here he is. He was Mafia the first time, so he's Neutral here as a twist. He's an SK who trades in a full factional kill for a lot of utility and the ability to win via timeout (fat lot of good that did - oops).
Point of interest: Look at Majora's safeclaims. He has two. Why? Flexibility. Romani is probably the stronger safeclaim overall (and fits with Cremia being in the game), but Romani was neutral in the MafiaScum version so Madame Aroma (who fits with Mayor Dotour) was given as well.
Mod error of note: Corrupt Mask was supposed to give Seppel the full text of the corrupted mask (including superpower!) at the time of use. Then I forgot to give it to him until after he Detonated. :oops:
Ganondorf: So, Majora's not scum this time. Who's heading the scumteam? Why it's Ganondorf, back to hijack the one Zelda game he hadn't already hijacked! He's a pretty simple package: Inverted Song of Time, super bulletproof (bypassed only by Light Arrow), and two double-kills to punch through bulletproof shields. True Mask gives him Godfather immunity and a toughguy kill. (Fierce Deity's Mask is Ganon's true mask because in this remix of Majora's Mask Ganon IS the Fierce Deity.)
Fun story for TMCT: The Elegy of Emptiness was originally in the game. Ganondorf had it. (It gave name cop godfather, with a bonus for acquiring the FDM. It was rightly cut for being overpowered and extraneous.)
Postman: The Mafia rolecop equivalent and the other primary massclaim protection in the setup. See, he's an investigative role and has the Cop mask as his True Mask (and for flavor reasons). If he claims, people are probably going to think "Cop, must be town". And he *is* the closest the setup has to Cop. He's just not Town - and if the town incorrectly clears him, they will pay the price. (This is also why Town doesn't have a second full investigative role - I wanted to avoid "three investigative roles, one must be scum" modgaming. Sakon and Axonn had investigative elements, but I could live with those.)
Really, that's how I deal with modgaming in my games - if you do it better than the mod, it's valuable. If you don't, it's your own lookout. And the mod is rather good at modgaming.
Letter Bomb lets scum sow confusion and punch through bulletproof shields (except Majora's), and is a direct counter to Mayor Dotour claiming the Giant's Mask superpower. Honestly, Lens of Truth should have been nerfed to (nearly useless) item-only or cut - it was too strong in conjunction with Shred Mask.
Guro-Guro: Mafia Roleblocker equivalent, with a rather interesting story. Guro-Guro doesn't exactly fit for the Hookshot... so it's probably not surprising that said Hookshot wasn't his original ability. His original ability was the Music Box with the Song of Storms, which jailed its target (untargetability variant) and knocked their mask off. Then I thought of the Hookshot during an item brainstorm and threw it in on the Goon. This was rightly thought of as too complex and overpowered, so I moved to cut one of the two, and the ability to exchange masks with the target was important enough that the Hookshot won out. (I was going to change the character to fit the Hookshot better, but ran out of time.)
Not sure that claiming the Inverted Song of Time here was the right move - if anybody picked up the Bremen Mask, they might have rightly figured that one of the Inverted Songs had to be scum. (And if they did, it wasn't that far to figure out that Majora was neutral, which would have been to the Mafia's advantage.)
Clock Town Goon: He's got the vanilla role name and is a goon, not much more to say.
Mafia as a Faction: You'll notice that Mafia have factional abilities aside from the kill. This is design space I've been working with for a bit (the disaster that was Mind Screw 5 had them as well) - it eliminates the chance of a key Mafia ability being randomly lynched D1. Shred Mask is specifically a mask claim punisher in addition to utility - if town massclaims masks, it becomes much better as the Mafia can pick off the best town masks one by one.
Mafia had Kafei, Anju, and Bomb Shop Owner as safeclaims. The Bomb Shop Owner is the safest and most flexible of these (and thus was the one that got used). Kafei has about three obvious possible falseclaims: Kafei-Anju (obviously), searching mason Kafei, or something based on Kafei's Mask. Anju is almost locked into some sort of searching mason gambit (another massclaim protection related to the MafiaScum version - if people trust the MS version, then two Mafiosos can pick up the Couple's Mask halves, claim Kafei/Anju with mod confirmation superpowers, and potentially coast to victory).
---
Masks:
In general, modgaming from the MafiaScum version was more useful for Masks than for roles. This was completely intentional.
Romani Mask: Originally had Armorer normal power (target a player, that player gains a bulletproof shield, fails if target already has a shield) with a Chateau Romani superpower related to a cut magic power theme. Normal power was moved to superpower based on reviewer comments, then nerfed again. In retrospect, I think the nerfs were too much.
Bremen Mask: Added to the setup as soon as I thought of the Inverted Song of Time ability. Then the player who has it as a True Mask skips it and it's the last mask to get worn. No superpower because it wasn't a True Mask until about a week before the game started and I couldn't think of an appropriate superpower in time.
Giant's Mask: The basic concept (no normal power, Dotour superpower) remained unchanged, but the actual super was swapped at the last minute - it was originally Lightning Rod, then I thought of what that might do with the Mask of Truth and the Bodyguard. Either way, it was designed for a single goal - give town an extra day if necessary. (I expected it to be fired N2.)
Couple's Mask (Sun's Mask, Moon's Mask): The superpowers but removed, but otherwise these masks remained exactly as they were in the MafiaScum version. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Stone Mask: Normal power unchanged from the 'Scum version. The superpower exists because the Rosa Sisters GOT this mask in the 'Scum version (luckily, MafiaScum meta considered untargetable a scum ability at the time). This is probably the wrong superpower; some sort of "Knock off your own mask" ability was probably more appropriate. (The current super is intended to help Rosa Sisters find a better mask for themselves if stuck with two bad masks.)
Mask of Truth: Completely reworked based on the switch to Bionicle flavor for this mask.
Great Fairy's Mask: The "can give to yourself" loophole from the 'Scum version was patched, and the superpower only allows one extra boon, but it's otherwise unchanged. Well, almost unchanged. With the Lens of Truth in the game this time, the Double Magic Meter ability was changed - originally to something involving magic power, then to its current 1-shot self-motivate.
Goron Mask: Normal power unchanged from the MafiaScum version. Originally had two other abilities (the Powder Keg [a 1-shot Hot Potato ala Mind Screw 4] and a Goron Lullaby [global roleblock] superpower) - the former was cut for being extraneous, the latter was cut then swapped in for the Giant's Mask original superpower.
Blast Mask: Now blows itself up too to remove possible shenanigans. Otherwise unchanged from the 'Scum version. One of the most obvious mask designs in the game.
Bunny Hood: Completely unchanged from the 'Scum version (with a setup better optimized for it). Irony time: In the MafiaScum version I expected the Fierce Deity's Mask to be the most sought after and it was ignored in favor of the Bunny Hood, then here I expected the Bunny Hood to be sought after and it was ignored in favor of... the Fierce Deity's Mask.
Mask of Scents: The superpower from 'Scum is now the normal power. Anything else to discuss?
Deku Mask: Power swapped in from the 'Scum All-Night Mask, using the untargetability variant to make it more useful for scum users. Originally played with the magic theme, but that was cut when that theme was.
Captain's Hat: Originally a Doctor mask, but that was cut during the first wave of balancing. The current form of this was a brainstorm from about the middle of July IIRC. It could originally quicken Shred Mask (but not the Mafia kill), but this was cut shortly before the game started. (Like 20 minutes before.)
Don Gero's Mask: Completely unchanged from the 'Scum version. No superpower - it's the Mask Salesman's True Mask because it's useful to him (and because I thought it might go unnoticed otherwise - it's one of two masks that was never drafted in the 'Scum version).
Keaton Mask: No Romani connections this time, but otherwise unchanged. Imagine my amusement when Zinger misses the second-best mask for him by one draft slot... and then drafts the single best mask for him in the setup! (And yes, he could stack the exchanges to swap masks twice in a night. He didn't think of this until N3, though, and was promptly killed or RBed every night afterwards.)
Postman's Hat: You *knew* there was a Cop mask floating around somewhere, right? Here it is. It's amazing how little love it gets. The normal power from the 'Scum version (itself ported in from a Mind Screw 3 role) became the superpower here; it was, of course, the reason for AsianInvasion's ??? 'result' PM N1.
Kamaro Mask: It's still completely vanilla. Because I can.
All-Night Mask: I moved the 'Scum power over to the Deku Mask and needed to think of a new one. I eventually lit upon something relatively uncommon - posting stuff with the morning scene. It's best on an investigative role (read: Tingle), of course.
(And then I have to modkill it D1. )
Kafei's Mask: In the MafiaScum version it was the Godfather mask (and that experience plus Kafei/Anju is why I made superpowers only visible to the True Wearer here!). Here it's the double voter (ported in from the Romani Mask and retemplated to work like the Rosa Sisters's extra vote). The power goes away in LyLo because I read the last days of Survival Horror and Legend of Lucian and wanted no part of that here. (Probably for the best considering who *did* eventually grab it.)
Gibdo Mask: The booby prize! What, you thought all the masks had to be beneficial? (Of course, it *is* moderately beneficial to scum, who can use it to explain bad investigation results - see DGB in the 'Scum version.) I even moved it from its original home just to shake things up. (I am darkly amused at little lizard drafting this mask and finally getting rid of it... just to draft the second worst mask in the game.
Garo's Mask: The Ninja Log superpower from 'Scum was modified to become the normal power here. Fun fact: It was a straight-up Governor mask for quite a while. For some strange reason I changed it to its current version around the beginning of July. [sarcasm]Gee, I wonder why?[/sarcasm]
I'll thank Ultimate Showdown for one thing - it showed me at least one thing not to do here.
Circus Leader's Mask: It was the booby prize during the MafiaScum version, so it got a vaguely useful power here. It was originally a roleblock (swapped 1-1 for the Gibdo Mask), but that was cut based on reviewer input. I eventually came up with the current power during the later stages of balancing.
Fierce Deity's Mask: It was the bigger booby prize in the 'Scum version, so I originally souped it to reward anyone who drafted it (especially if it got to Ganondorf). It was a JoAT mask for quite a while, with strong abilities (and they were different types, so Happy Mask Salesman could fill his mask condition by getting it and taking it off). Zindabad convinced me to change it to just the one-shot daykill when he came in, which was probably for the best. Superpower is basically Godfather + Toughguy (and a semi-mirror of Link's dayvig)
The Extra Four Masks:
These were mostly failsafes, either against powerful masks being destroyed early or against the possibility that players would die en masse due to tons of masks being destroyed early (say, by Shred Mask + Fire Arrow + Zora Mask + possibly Mimicked Zora Mask).
Skull Mask (from Ocarina of Time): The superpower is not half bad. Other than that, it's just there to give players an extra mask to wear.
Spooky Mask (from Ocarina of Time): A failsafe against the disruptive masks all getting destroyed early (especially back when the roleblock mask was in), and also a failsafe against both Guro-Guro and the donated Hookshot going down early.
Hero's Mask (from Wind Waker): Failsafe for Tingle getting killed. Marginally useful.
Mask of Time (from Bionicle): Clock failsafe. If all the Inverted Songs of Time were killed and/or town mismanaged the clock horribly (possibly with help from the Song of Double Time), this would give the town six more RL days to play the game.
---
Modding:
I know that I'm not the world's best at actually *running* games, and have a fairly quick modkill trigger. (I'm also used to MafiaScum, where people actually READ the ruleset. Lesson learned.) But still, it's sort of funny to me seeing people criticize me for being modkill-happy... when I was actually relatively modkill-ADVERSE here.
Swishh wouldn't have been modkilled if he was the first person to make a questionable claim this game (or if I had thought of the "modkill the mask" solution before I decided to modkill) - I flat-out told him this when I modkilled him. The thing was, he wasn't the FIRST person to make a questionable claim. He was the THIRD (after Zinger and Ghosting). I chose not to modkill Zinger mostly because I really didn't want to modkill an eager player less than 24 hours into the game and there was a decent chance the problem would be self-resolving (I had an Iso "daykill Zinger" PM in my inbox at the time, IIRC); in retrospect, that was a mistake and I should have modkilled there. Ghosting's quote was borderline and he was a fairly strong town power role, and. However, by the time swishh claimed the possibility of somebody going "you know, I think these guys quoted genuine mod PMs" and the game degenerating into either a rash of modkills or a flurry of quoting was weighing heavily on me (I wasn't going to trust Factional Falseclaim alone in my first modded game here), and swishh was THE minimum damage modkill - the weakest role in the game (millerish rolename, no abilities) who was under heavy suspicion and would likely be modkilled anyways.
The rest of the decisions are completely justified, IMO. Ghosting's posthumous modkill was game-mechanically identical to a forced replacement. Iso had to be modkilled (so Rule 14 has teeth) after he slipped that he was SKed in his Mafia Stats, and Proph had to be replaced because he saw it. The mod pause for decision-making D5 can be chalked up to one thing: Generic flat-out broke Rule 4 by claiming PM timestamps and would have been modkilled for it in any other gamestate. However, in LyLo, after another Mafia member (who no non-Majora players suspected) had falseclaimed Generic's ability and would thus be counterclaimed by gamestate, that would amount to the Mod deciding the outcome of the game.
That brings me to a technical point: I saw multiple comments from players/spectator chat people about not being so fast to modkill. Let me point out the obvious problem there: when the rules violation involves PM quoting/plagiarism, the mod HAS to modkill. I've tried not modkilling for Rule 4 violation before, it doesn't work - the playerbase WILL treat it as inadvertent mod confirmation of the slot, rightly or wrongly. The only other option is to not punish at all - and as you'll notice, I did that here for as long as I thought I could. Should I have warned about my unusually strict mod PM quoting more than I did? Probably. (This isn't likely to be a recurring problem, now that people know about Factional Falseclaim I can be less strict on my modkills... and the hand once burned is twice shy.) Should I have warned about the existence of Rule 1? Apparently (lesson about MTGS meta learned). But I only modkilled three times, and two were completely justified. That's not particularly heavy-handed.
As for not warning Seppel D5 for his modkill threats... chalk that one up to Internet problems/mod failing his spot check, because I usually warn/modkill that sort of thing (it's a very clear Rule 1 violation, especially given the recent example of Ultimate Showdown). But... I was having a hard enough time connecting to the most recent page of the game, let alone the previous one! (And that's not counting the fun of trying to post.)
Play:
I'm not going to sugar-coat this. I played in Mafia Invictus on 'Scum and in Ultimate Showdown. I modded Mind Screw 3. Those towns were exceeedingly bad. But this town is the worst town I have ever seen.
Why was this town so bad? Well, in the end it boils down to two things:
- Town did relatively little independent thinking; instead, it just sheeped the strongest players. Part of that is probably due to inexperience and lack of confidence (in turn partially due to the experienced players dying early), part of that is due to the playstyles involved. (Void having to replace out and Wheat_Grinder choosing to replace in for Digi didn't help from the experience standpoint - if he hadn't indicated a preference, he'd have replaced in for Void IIRC.)
- Scum were able to take control of the discussion, just like they did in Mind Screw 3 (but here they didn't even have to work for it). No really, look at how Seppel/Arcadic/Generic basically controlled the discussion after D1. Admittedly, part of this was due to half of the town being V/LA for most of the game, but still.
So yeah. Town: What you did here, don't do it again. (Tar recommends showing confidence even if you're not actually confident and trying to do more work.)
Town MVP: None. This town was THAT bad.
Honorable Mentions: Sir Karn (for attempting to vig scum), AtheistGod (for realizing just what was happening to him D3)
Town LVP: LnGrrrR. I don't usually hand this out, but literally throwing the game for your faction at 5p multiscum LyLo (through catching a case of the dumbs or otherwise) will get you an LVP award.
Dishonorable Mention: All Town players not named Sir Karn, AtheistGod, Prophylaxis, or Iso (and arguably Proph and Iso as well). The town was THAT bad. Special mention to JeY k, see below.
Mafia MVP: The Most Curious Thing. All the Mafia played reasonably well (at least compared to the Town), but TMCT stands out for somehow avoiding almost all attention even BEFORE he falseclaimed well.
Honorable Mention: Arcadic, Generic, and Wheat_Grinder for managing to deflect attention for AGES. Also JeY k, for reasons Arcadic stated best:
Special Mention: Seppel, who played one of the best SKs I've seen in a while. Unfortunately, he had to have a perfect game to win here and wound up two plays short of that, of which one was his (I think killing little lizard over TMCT N3 was a mistake) and the other was... yeah.
So that's that. I hope you had fun, and I hope that my Internet access stabilizes sometime soon.
Oh right, the QTs:
Mafia Chat
Spectator Chat
It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
edit for productive comment: Watching this game was very painful.
I'm personally not a fan of overcomplicated mechanics because the town gets bogged down in them and blunders hard with the scumhunting... but this was really quite bad. (by this I mean the town performance, not the setup).
I stayed away from this game because of the complexity, as a note, despite absolutely loving Majora's Mask.
That said, the whole game felt so scummy at D3 that it was tough to filter out noise, plus no cop results in a game this big made it hard to analyze. No scum flips by D4 made it hard to crack the team.
Maybe just me, but the whole "stop time" ability seemed very towny. Blah blah blah poor modgaming, but I don't think it was crazy to assume that was a towny role. (TMCT was behaviorally town to me too anyways, just noting.) I wouldn't expect that on scum.
Finally, the Guardman lynch on D2 was pretty horrible. I tried to fight it once I replaced in near the end of D2, but I don't think his suspicion of JeY was off at all. If JeY wasn't a natural double voter, would anyone have thought she was town?
I will accept the LVP for losing the game for town, but given I am relatively new, and that was a pretty complicated endgame, I hope I will get better before I run into one of those again.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
@Tar: As far as the time ability, I think it would have worked best as a modular ability:
3 time abilities in play: 192 RL days
2 time abilities in play: 96 RL days
1 time ability in play: 48 RL days
0 time abilities in play: 24 RL days
This would scale based on the number of players and it would make the Bremen Mask extremely useful.
I also think tighter deadlines make for better town play (unless the town doesn't actually care -- there's nothing you can do about that), so it would have balanced out.
I think, all hings considered, I played this game pretty well (exception being missing 90% of Day 2 and never really reading it.)
It's finally here! Sign-up for The Clone Saga: A Spider-Man Mafia 3 NOW!
2. Except that Seppel was neutral. Both factions have a desire to keep the game clock running long.
3. Endgame was literally impossible for town to win unless you convinced two neutrals to vote scum with you, and then you'd have to have the SK and final scum crosskill. Not very likely. You can feel bad about the rest of the game but once you get into wacky "5 alive; only 1 town" endgames, you can just start posting lolcats or whatever.
My extraordinary mafia abilities will have to be saved for another time.
Nah, even though you ended it, Jey's play was far more worthy of Town LVP. He's a confirmed town double-voter that lived 4!!! Days!!!. We put off killing Jey because of how terrible his votes were and how awesome they were to us. Jey is the town LVP/ scum MVP.
All things considered, you played horribly and were 100% a non-factor. When the town lost all the extra kills, you could have aided them but instead decided to some completely bone-headed plays and in the end did nothing to aid the town. For someone who has a no-lie policy, you certainly like to throw information around without confirming it.
I'm still thrown for a loop why the town thinks that using daykills as lynches day 1 was " bad play ". It should have been super obvious to the town with all the abilities they had that the scum would have something to mess with the kills at night. It ended up being for naught, as Iso was killed, but this town had zero ability to hindsight. When Guardman was lynched, i was sure the scum would win, since he and AI were the only threats to the scum and we took them out in one shot. We tried to kill seppel, but obviously we got caught, and he got protected and given stuff and was part of a falseclaim, so there was zero chance of him getting re-targeted another night.
Seppel pushing for 5 scum was a tell to me, but i could never figure out why. If i hadn't been lynched, my plan was to do the Azreal trick." Seppel is alive on day 5, ether the scum are idiots or he himself is scum."
Overall, except for the time mechanic, i feel the game went well and was designed well. Time mechanic might be better served as a variable defined by the gamestate. Day 1-3 is Day 1, Day 4-6 is Day 2 and Day 7-10 is day 3. It does restrict the town's ability to no-lynch, but it puts the mechanic into game. Majora should have an ability to effect time somehow as well. Other than that, i think everything is balanced, we just got super lucky with 2 masks falling into our hands day 1.
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
Also works for DesCoures and DYH!
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
and you still followed Seppel in his OMGUS wagon. Having you push that would have helped so much.
The problem was that Seppel was more towny than the majority of town. And his "balancing out a double voter and double mask" did make sense.
That, and it didnt feel like you really started playing until you got pressured, and then your claim went from +1 lynch, to mass roleblock... It felt like you were just making stuff up to prevent the lynch. Live and learn next time I guess.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
LOL. Fair enough. That's what I hoped, to gaze into your alignment on a more personal level. I imagine I would've found you as a non-town entity . I remember explicitly stating in the thread that being able to personally talk would've confirmed you to me one way or another.
@Dishonorable mentions:
It makes me really angry to read these due to my competitive nature, but I won't react. I feel really dumb. I didn't do anything this game. I think I lost sleep over it a night or two ago.
As stated multiple times now, this is the last straw - I DO NOT disobey my intuition any longer. I can't believe I let myself mess up so much in this game. I should've pushed Generic, I should've pushed Seppel, and I should've posted Wheat the moment he gave me bad vibes (which he didn't at first which you can find).
My performance in Katawa Shojou should've been the eye-opener when I vig'd scum!Iso, lynched scum!ER the next day purely on intuition; and admittedly derped on lynching scum!Arianrhod but I was scared out of my mind and I wanted to super-mega-double-triple justify his lynch. But it happened. And we won.
I'm just going to forget about this game, or if I have to remember it, mark it as the day I learned not to doubt myself ever again.
@Arcadic:
Pronouns, please. I am not male.
¤.†.¤ The OceanLink ¤.†.¤
Suggesting this thread gets locked a la Magical Girls.
Right Megiddo, your strange interactions with him definitely sparked the initial push =) Thank you.
¤.†.¤ The OceanLink ¤.†.¤
I've got a better idea - how about when you send a setup to reviewers, you don't send it like two days before you're planning to run the game, and you don't start running said game while it's still being reviewed? Let me tell you something, buddy - the problem wasn't that you listened to too many of my suggestions; the problem was that you didn't listen to nearly enough. I told you what an unplayable shower this game was in no uncertain terms and you ignored me. It's breathtakingly arrogant to now blame me for the situation I told you would come about.
Let me be clear: this game was not reviewed. Taredas sent it to two people (first DRey and then myself, since he apparently lacked faith in DRey's review skills) and then flatly ignored what we told him. There was no review process. He literally started signups less than 24 hours after I sent him my review, where he handwaved most of everything I said, especially including the part where I told him "I cannot sanction this setup as-is."
Nothing changed about the parts of the setup that I voiced significant opposition to, including but not limited to the "overly swingy setup with too much power concentrated in three roles (Link, Ganondorf, Majora.)" and "overabundance of abilities in general and protective abilities in specific that will turn the game into Roleclaim Mafia in a matter of days."
So it was a bit fresh to claim that this game was reviewed by me, and it's way beyond the pale to actually try to turn round and say that anything I said or did was to the detriment of the setup. I was trying to turn your setup into a game of Mafia. You had something else in mind and you stuck to that despite my plainly stated reservations. Fine. It's your game. But don't dare try to blame me for anything after that.
No worries about sending your setups to reviewers in the future, either. I doubt any will want to touch your work with a ten-foot pole after this. To be as blunt as I have ever been, this was a **** setup ran by an equally **** mod and I wash my hands of it and you.
(Your public attempt to smear DRey is equally disgraceful but I'll let him tend to his own defense.)
"...a talisman against all evil, so long as you obey me."
The GJ way path to no lynching:
Now that I've stroked my ego, you definitely owned that game.
My botched claim wasn't it at all?
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
Don't trust Seppel, ever
Don't be diplomatic with killing abilities, ever
Angry finger waving to Seppel for the threat to get himself modkilled. Don't do that **** again.
{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
Because I thought he was breadcrumbing the ability that slowed down the clock. He doesn't often read the OP and I took it as a sign he was town, because I thought Majora was part of the mafia.
No idea what you're talking about!
{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
Also thanks Megiddo.
I'll be around in the summertime for more mafia and put my pure intuition theory to the test then.
¤.†.¤ The OceanLink ¤.†.¤
First I want to say I love him and everything about him, despite his harsh words towards me (that I don't think should've happened well at least not publicly, as I think this is bad form) this has not changed and probably won't.
The sad truth is that this game was not reviewed, I swear I tried, but a bit because of real life and a lot because I couldn't get my mind into the job, maybe the game was incredibly complex, maybe because I wasn't good enough for the job, dunno.
When Zinda came aboard I was happy because I could at least share the herculean job but then I discovered the game was running in like a few days... I protested, I tried to delay the game internally so it could at least go through a real review (by Zinda of course) but Tar was adamant in running the game ASAP (and I understand the feeling I really do but I think it was the wrong choice).
Things I disagree with Tar.
1)Rushing the game despite it having not passed review (a big part of this is my fault :()
2)Saying this town sucked. I mean what could one expect? A highly complex game, with a bunch of newbies that really should've not been allowed to play but we were short on people. From my experience, overly complex setups push the town into torpor, this is exacerbated by being a large game plus the mafia lucked out by getting the best players. Putting all those things together and you have a recipe for disaster.
3)Saying bad things about me in public instead of trying to address particularly with me. But I'm not bitter.
Things I agree.
1)Seppel played really well, but was tainted by his threat post.
2)Scum ruled.
At least I hope you guys had fun, that's what really matters in the end.
Mythic rarity is not destroying the game. People whine too much for no good reason. Magic is more popular than ever, so keep calm, brew some decks and play some damn cards.