I really can't see how that constitutes PM quoting.
And frankly, modkilling SK does absolutely zero to resolve the situation. Why not modkill MMoD, for his post where he says that their role PMs say the same? Oh wait, he could be lying. Just like SK could have been lying. This situation wasn't going to result in any scum being outed. Once SK posted and MMoD agreed, the entire playerbase was just going to claim to have the same WC. Obviously. None of it meant anything.
You screwed up, and reacted in a panick..and then screwed up even more. AND you sent the game to night. You have done a ridiculous disservice to the town in your reaction here. Especially considering that SK's roleclaim was very, very likely to keep him from being lynched anyway.
We're not doing this right now. Anyone who still has an axe to grind when the game is over and all the information about the situation can be made public can air their grievances then.
then screwed up even more. AND you sent the game to night. You have done a ridiculous disservice to the town in your reaction here. Especially considering that SK's roleclaim was very, very likely to keep him from being lynched anyway.
I don't think you should host a game for awhile.
Sir; The game was in a deadline. I felt that considering the situation, it was the best action. I will go into detail after the game is over.
We live in a country were ~50% of the populace believe public schooling is a socialist conspiracy and that being called Einstein is an insult. We could try and fix it, but unfortunately the other 50% don't believe in euthanasia.
Been waiting for months to say this (although I said some of it to Ged in PMs a while ago).
What is interesting is that I designed Persona around about the same time as Ged was working on Danger City, and based on pretty similar issues with how MTGS games were designed overall- particularly with complication and role analysis over behaviour and such- and how there kept being issues with activity and replacements and so on. And I rather suspect- although we can't talk about it for a bit yet- Azrael designed Inheritance out of the same base. Everyone hit a different solution.
Of course, in my pride, my reaction was that we like complicated games, plus complications and tidbits of information give people stuff to talk about and get involved, so I'll turn the complicated up to 11 and have only 1 vanilla (and even they had a way to get an ability) and give out lots of little abilities. We hate games being based on role speculation and inspections and paint-by-numbers setup speculation (like the 2 doctors thing) so I'll savagely screw over anyone trying to rely on that. Games are getting too long, so I settled on a game with a high killcount. But no SK, but SKs are swingy and I wanted a BALANCED high kill highly complicated game. I found it interesting that Ged initially designed a two-mafia game with a lot of protection abilities as his solution to the last one; I just ramped up the killing abilities (but still with the protection to mitigate the killing from being TOO quick).
I was also attracted to the vig solution by all the people hating on vig roles in this same mafia theory thread
Against all odds, Persona steered itself to a sedate final 4 endgame, every mafia in the game got lynched, all but 1 without an inspection, and I only had 3 replacements (one of whom was a newbie who replaced out within the first 24 hours of the game, does that really count?). Not quite the 0 replacements Danger City got, but close!
I think once Inheritance is done we'll all be able to have a nice big discussion on game design and how to encourage activity and behavioural analysis and stuff, since it seems there's been a lot of thought going into it. I know I'm going to be retuning my upcoming specialty based on the lessons of all this stuff...
Wrong. We should mandate that all games have at least 3 vig roles, including at least one daykiller, and that they each target DYH in any game he's in at least once during the game.
Failing to do so is grounds for immediate blacklist.
I did my best, but one got lynched day 1 and the daykiller was DYH himself
There hasn't been much posting in this thread recently- the posts which I'm referring to are largely still on page 42 at 40 posts per page... you could say that I basically disagree with the positions put by CC and Azrael (but of course I couldn't talk about it at the time since I was about to run my game).
I personally think vigs are balanced in theory, as they provide a useful albeit hard-to-control strength. Of course, vigs who DATBF, lurk and feel obligated to shoot, etc. are obnoxious, but they aren't really a major issue with the role so much as the player himself. Any player who will screw around as a vig probably isn't a great resource in another power role, either. The only difference between vigs and other power roles is that the former can actively do damage, which probably increases the troublemaking allure, but the point still remains - if a townie wants to do damage to the town, it isn't hard. And a good town should tell their vig to stop being a prick, as they would with any townie who is utterly useless.
Though I do like the idea of broken-up vigs. I tried this in The Fiasco Corporation, which was heavily focused on X-shot roles. Agent Orange especially was an attempt at a role with powerful tools but no versatility. What I learned from TFC was that players with activation limitations are much more cautious about their use. This may be a plus in the sense that vigs can't outright screw the town, but it also means that the vig is a waste of space and more likely to be called scum. Ultimately, I don't think that designing around the vig is the right strategy - it's merely a role that requires a bit of caution.
EDIT: I won't comment on Inheritance, though as someone who has seen the game's setup, I will echo Ged's sentiment.
I find the effect of vigs on a game to be fascinating. On the one hand, it's pretty universally agreed that vigs shouldn't fire at players who aren't highly suspicious among the town and that lowering the number of town in the game helps the mafia, but it seems to be almost universal that aggressive vigging (even unilaterally) has a net positive effect on the town. Even a vig who shoots townie after townie (like Cyan in Tales and, well, all the vigs in Persona) removes potential mislynches and places for mafia to hide, making it much less likely for mafia to get an early win by generating mislynches.
I have to wonder if power-wise they aren't as strong or even stronger than cops; cops can confirm townies and keep them alive but have to operate in secret and can die before doing anything useful, whereas a vig can operate much more openly and gives immediate information to the town even if they can only confirm townies by removing them from play. A cop hitting scum also costs the town a lynch while the vig does not.
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You know, I only shot 2 townies in that game, and 1 scum(well I tried to shoot one scum, and obv. got redirected..but said scum STILL died, and the scum that redirected me got lynched accordingly..so it was a price worth paying).
I think that people overestimate the impact a vig is going to have on a game. In all of the games I have played, I have never seen vigging(whether aggressive or passive) cost the town a game. Frankly, I've only seen it be a major boon for the town a few times, and that was typically in a mini, where 1-2 dead bodies actually means something.
Each style of vigging has it's advantages. The mafia will always, always tread carefully around an aggressive Vig...because they have to. Or they'll think he's the SK, and overplay themselves trying to get him lynched.
Someone that plays the role passively also has advantages..if the scum don't see a Vig in the first couple of days, they will often assume that it doesn't exist, and will play more loosely than they would if they knew a Vig existed.
For the most part, a Vig just kills a couple of townies and then gets outed, and either A)gets dead/RBed alot or B)submits himself to the behest of the town, which is really just a nice way of saying that he resigns himself to killing people that lurk and/or claim Vanilla.
Mostly what I see is a town losing, and blaming the Vig because he killed a couple of townies. All the while, they are typically ignoring the fact that they played badly on the whole..the Vig is just the easy scapegoat, because his mistakes result in dead bodies.
It's important to note that I'm only talking about Vigs that kill at night here. Daykilling is just a 100% completely different affair, one that I feel has been used far, far too liberally around here lately. A 1 shot daykill on one side is not a big deal. But mods that give a repeated daykill to one side, or multiple townies with 1-shot daykills etc, are just setting themselves up for a ridiculously swingy game. Daykills are ridiculously powerful.
I find the effect of vigs on a game to be fascinating. On the one hand, it's pretty universally agreed that vigs shouldn't fire at players who aren't highly suspicious among the town and that lowering the number of town in the game helps the mafia, but it seems to be almost universal that aggressive vigging (even unilaterally) has a net positive effect on the town. Even a vig who shoots townie after townie (like Cyan in Tales and, well, all the vigs in Persona) removes potential mislynches and places for mafia to hide, making it much less likely for mafia to get an early win by generating mislynches.
I have to wonder if power-wise they aren't as strong or even stronger than cops; cops can confirm townies and keep them alive but have to operate in secret and can die before doing anything useful, whereas a vig can operate much more openly and gives immediate information to the town even if they can only confirm townies by removing them from play. A cop hitting scum also costs the town a lynch while the vig does not.
Well, the mafia can shoot a good vig, and can let a bad vig stay alive. So he's still rather volatile.
Vigging cost the town the game in stereo in LOTR Mafia (ok, that's going back a bit, but still), Random 3 (the "Az" of "AzWOLG") and arguably WDM2 (the "WOLG" of "AzWOLG"). There's probably others which I'm forgetting, those are off the top of my head. MTGS has been more and more shy about vigs in the past couple of years though.
I've also seen a number of games won by vigging (my very first game as mafia, English Literature Mafia on mtgnews, was saved for the town by Hawkeye's going 2 for 2 on vig shots late in the game plus an imbalanced setup that let the town not lose after mislynching on days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, allowing Hawkeye to cue the comeback in the first place).
I've seen a lot more vig-happy losses on mafiascum I think, but I haven't played there in a while, so i forget which games
MafiaScum has suicide bombers aplenty, and is full of Mutually Assured Destruction and Assassins in the Palace games. Not quite the same thing, especially since hosting lists there tend to move a lot faster than they do here.
...on the other hand, there are a fair few fascinating roles to be found there. Like in any Tarhalindur game. Heh heh heh...
(More ways to screw with players, coming soon to a desCoures game near you. :P)
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Esper Simperer; Even the court homonculi need someone to look down on.
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...' Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
One of the best elements in Persona and Inheritance, in my opinion, was fluid abilities. The crude predecessor of these mechanics was the "backup" role, which made setups less swingy by making sure 'power role x' wasn't lost by a lucky nightkill or being given to a weak player, etc. Inheritances and fusions kept certain abilities in play under controlled conditions, and the overall effect is a smoother level of balance throughout the game. This approach also has the effect of making mafia nightkill choices less about abilities and more about manipulating which living players are most likely to lynch other players, which I think is far more interesting than just "do we kill an analsyst or a power role?"
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I have recently come to hold a rather controversial opinion, but one that I don't think enough mods give adequate consideration to. So, I'd like to talk about it now. I believe modkills should be used more liberally in lieu of replacements. Each option has its pros and cons, which I would like to identify. (The lists very well may not be complete, but they are the best I can formulate.)
Replacing a player, Positives:
Allows a game to progress and not get stagnated by a player absence.
Potentially stimulates discussion by bringing a fresh perspective into the game.
Maintains game state by not altering the number of living players or removing any mechanics and/or abilities associated with that role.
Replacing a player, Negatives:
That player's behavior from that point prior largely becomes irrelevant due to the replacement being unable to answer questions about that behavior. This makes it generally difficult for relevant wagons to form on that player, which in turn places an unfair burden on the opposing team to generate a lynch on that player. This is especially unfair when the replacement occurs while that player is under heavy suspicion.
Because of the difficulty in generated relevant discussion about that player, the generalized effect on the game is that it contributes to stagnation, which is not fun for anyone.
Stagnation inherently creates an advantage for the mafia by making it more difficult for town players to analyze behavior, and discouraging thoughtful analysis.
Consequence-free replacement encourages players to quit instead of risk being lynched.
Players replacing in get stuck with whatever mess the previous player left for them, which usually isn't fun; it is not uncommon for a replacement to invest a great deal of time into the game only to die shortly afterwards.
If a replacement player does not make a signficant contribution to the game (i.e., acts as a warm body to pilot the role rather than taking an active interest in playing, or eventually gets replaced as well), it counteracts the positive effects of replacement while still incurring all the negatives.
Modkilling a player, Positives:
Allows a game to progress and not get stagnated by a player absence.
Further stimulates game progress by providing new information for discussion and numerically moves the game towards conclusion.
Modkilling a player, Negatives:
Effects the game state on the basis of something other than normal gameplay.
Almost always favors the town by removing a potential mislynch, or outright removing a scum.
Sucks for mods to see their carefully worked balance get skewed or a fun role vanish due to player laziness.
Many of the positives are shared by both, while modkilling does not share a lot of the negatives of replacing. The negatives of modkilling are still signficant, which is why it is often not appropriate. However, the decision to replace is generally made by default, without any consideration of the negative consequences. I believe replacements are appropriate when they are unlikely to contribute unreasonably to stagnation, such as:
During the early stages of the game
While the replaced player is not generating special attention (i.e., under heavy suspicion, or players are waiting for important opinions/analysis from that player, etc.)
The game pace is robust and unlikely to be signficantly slowed by replacing
The game is in the latest stages where each individual is critical, such as lylo
I believe modkilling may be more appropriate than replacing when:
The game is already suffering from stagnation
The individual role has already seen multiple replacements
The player being replaced is doing so under heavy pressure, giving the mod good reason to believe it is an intentional means of avoiding being lynched
In summary, replacing players can have a variety of negative impacts on a game, and in some cases it is better for the overall health of a game to modkill. Mods should be aware of the pros and cons of each action and consider them instead of automatically opting to replace.
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I think there was some discussion about this a while back, can't recall it though.
I do agree that more consideration toward modkilling would be beneficial although like you say replacing is still a useful option in a variety of scenarios.
The main problem with modklling is that it creates an image of "unfairness". It's swingy and if it turns out to have a large impact on the game the players that get screwed will feel like they lost due to non-game play reasons even if that is not necessarily the case.
I think modkilling should generally be considered on Day 3-4 (given standard activity on days), when there is pretty much a background and formed opinions on each player and replacing would mean negating all those.
Honestly, I think the best way to fix this problem is to somehow ensure that players that play in a game are committed to it. Obviously sometimes unforeseeable RL situations do come up (I should know) but that shouldn't account for more than one replacement per game, and if you take a look at games that are finished you typically find that 4-5 players have been replaced (in normal sized games). I don't know what the source of this chronic replacing issue is but if that can be addressed it is obviously more optimal than dealing with the outcome.
As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I agree. There is a list of people that have been replaced, but it doesn't appear to be maintained. Basing whether people can get into a game on an accurate list would go a long way to prevent requested replacements.
So I'm not sure exactly how Inheritance panned out since it quickly ended up too big for me to keep up with, but my impression of it while reviewing was that there was almost too much going on. As far as I could tell it seemed balanced, but it always felt like we could easily have missed something. I guess you could say the way Az dealt with the problem of focus on role over play analysis was to just throw way too much role information in there to fully analyze. A very interesting approach, to be sure, but not an every game sort of solution. I much prefer my "lots of little roles" or Persona's "no SK" solution in general.
OK, so there's been hardly any theory talk for months, but Inheritance is over now, so we can all speak again.
I guess between Danger City, Persona and Inheritance we all took on the issues that have plagued MTGS mafia games for a while....
- Really complicated games
- Power levels
- Vig roles/kill counts
- Keeping everyone interested without screwing up the balance
What was interesting that while perception of fun may vary, I think all three games were pretty balanced.
Do we have a new grand unified theory of game design now?
I think the thing to take away from these games is that there's lots of ways to solve problems in game design. Perhaps a better discussion would be what are the current problems with the meta. After determining those, we can break off again and each try to solve those problems in our own way. Then we'll come back together in a year or so and show each other what we've come up with - that is, we'll all go off and design games to fix the problems we've got and then run them. I think the fun of these 3 games is to see different solutions to the same problems.
May be worth discussing what worked and didn't work in each of these games. I'd love to be a part of that conversation, but mine is the only one that I read.
Also, are there any other games that we should be considering here that seem like they were trying to tackle the same issues?
EDIT: I also want to talk about modkills, but I want to finish this discussion first.
-Built-in anti-lurker mechanism-Might be a one-trick pony, but it helped activity.
-Redundancies/inheritances in the town to eliminate swinginess.
-Enabling players to still claim vanilla, in a game with interesting interactions.
-Eliminating roles that self-clear when they claim, while retaining cops + docs + vigs.
-Eliminating gaming the mod.
-Long-term review process with Xyre and Ged and others, really helped smooth out potential rough patches.
-Specific roles that promoted balance, and moderated swinginess.
-Versatile roles.
-Vigilantes that need town cooperation.
-NPCs
-Adjustable rules
-Flavor
-Conversation pieces
-Challenging strategic depth; especially in end-game.
-Surpises.
Design Features I'd Tweak or Cut:
-Complication- information overload.
-Mafia Factioning- not an elegant version.
-Real life mail. (Cute, but probably impractical)
-Expecting the town to formulate cunning plans and create synergy.
-Boring items (some were good, others were just silly).
-Eliminating incentive for mafia to lie about claims.
-Promoting spam.
-Reduce size/duration of the game.
-Built-in anti-lurker mechanism-might be a one-trick pony, but it helped activity.
-Redundancies/inheritances in the town to eliminate swinginess.
-Enabling players to still claim vanilla, in a game with interesting interactions.
-Eliminating roles that self-clear when they claim, while retaining cops + docs + vigs.
-Eliminating gaming the mod.
-Surpises.
-Long-term review process with Xyre and Ged and others, really helped smooth out potential rough patches.
-Roles that promote balance, and moderate swinginess.
-Versatile roles.
-Vigilantes that need town cooperation.
-NPCs
-Adjustable rules
-Flavor
-Conversation pieces
-Challenging strategic depth; especially in end-game.
-Explosions
Design Features I'd Tweak or Cut:
-Complication- information overload.
-Mafia Factioning- not an elegant version.
-Real life mail. (Cute, but probably impractical)
-Expecting the town to formulate cunning plans and create synergy.
-Boring items (some were good, others were just silly).
-Eliminating incentive for mafia to lie about claims. -Promoting spam.
-Reduce size/duration of the game.
Um yeah.
Also did real-life mail ever get used for anything?
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Modkills: I think the point at which a player has not been replaced for an entire game day is the point at which they should already have been modkilled
But seriously, yes, I think modkills need to be considered more often. If a player can be replaced quickly, replace, replacement affects the balance of the game less than a modkill. If a player cannot be replaced after a reasonable time, modkill, that affects the balance less than letting a role sit in limbo for long periods of discussion (or, worse, overnight). Make sure the policy is clear in the game rules so there's no question of the mod's decision being based on how the modkill/replace decision will affect the game state. If a key mafia member is absent and can't be replaced, it sucks but if a mod is willing to let mafia roles drift longer than vanilla townies, that's not good either.
I was going to ask about that actually. I didn't see it anywhere in the design (of course, you never said what the Juggernaut did either ).
Pretty much agree with your list though, although it just goes to show how different stuff can work. Persona was actually not reviewed by anyone With all the complexities, I figured I just had to back my own instincts as to how it was likely to play out and the probabilities of this and that happening. I didn't think it was fair on a reviewer to expect them to get to grips with the game as I had, and I didn't want to end up second-guessing myself if they ran away screaming...
-Built-in anti-lurker mechanism-Might be a one-trick pony, but it helped activity.
This is design space worth exploring, though. Creative ways to encourage activity without just saying "don't lurk" are potentially very valuable tools.
Fixed. No matter what you did, some people refuse to not game the mod. I think this is a good goal to a degree and minimizing the effectiveness of gaming the mod is good, but if you try to force it too hard then you just end up punishing players for behaving like townies.
This was a delicate balance to find, I think. With versatility comes the cost of raw power, and as Cyan previously commented so many of the abilities in the game just didn't accomplish much. It ends up feeling like there's tons of stuff going on but nothing relevant. I think the best part about the role design was, as you said, the town had to evaluate whether an ability was used in a pro-town fashion rather than whether the ability is likely to be given to a townie, or whether the claim was just a lie.
This setup recalled a lot of the emotions I had playing Smalltown as mafia, where night abilities are 100% about how you use them because of being an open setup, but the elements added to keep randomized roles from being broken made things so chaotic that you just could never formulate any kind of strategy.
I loved loved loved the Spider Mine mechanic and RobRoy's lynch ability. I thought they were brilliantly designed and had an elegant impact on balance and gameplay.
Really? The Main Computer role's design and interactions with other roles was very clever (I never expected the twist that you shot yourself and another role was actually redirecting it), but the rest just didn't seem to matter in the slightest. I assume the mafia could have deduced the Seer fueled information abilities and spent a kill offing it, but I don't really see where the NPCs added much value to the game beyond that.
I liked this too. I especially liked the options to toggle item and point sharing because they had clear benefits but also an obvious cost that couldn't be completely planned around. They definitely made you think. Some of the others probably should have been cut, and role PM enabling was pretty much a no-brainer, but overall I thought this element was an excellent addition.
Actually I thought this had a ridiculous cool potential. I was a little disappointed that it was simply an alternative to online chat; it would have been pretty damn sweet if, say, arim's enslave ability sent the recipient his/her orders in the mail, all CIA-mystery-style. Or even if role PMs were sent out as little dossiers.
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I think modkilling should generally be considered on Day 3-4 (given standard activity on days), when there is pretty much a background and formed opinions on each player and replacing would mean negating all those.
I agree with this point. If no replacement can be found by then, it generally bogs down the entire game with some players being a null read that can't ever be lynched or vigged because of the town's paranoia.
Really? The Main Computer role's design and interactions with other roles was very clever (I never expected the twist that you shot yourself and another role was actually redirecting it), but the rest just didn't seem to matter in the slightest. I assume the mafia could have deduced the Seer fueled information abilities and spent a kill offing it, but I don't really see where the NPCs added much value to the game beyond that.
It wasnt fully developed here, but I think there's a ridiculous amount of unexploited design space to play with, for future NPC roles.
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Actually I thought this had a ridiculous cool potential. I was a little disappointed that it was simply an alternative to online chat; it would have been pretty damn sweet if, say, arim's enslave ability sent the recipient his/her orders in the mail, all CIA-mystery-style. Or even if role PMs were sent out as little dossiers.
I had definitely considered doing something like that; but the adminstrative hurdles were pretty daunting. I could do delivery confirmation on the packages at a cost of $2/ability, but I'd also have to make sure that everyone playing wanted to give addresses, and the differing shipping times could have been messy too.
The only way I saw to make it a fair use of the ability was as a communication tool; though I still do love the possibility of [secret agent mafia mail].
There's room for design fixes there, especially in smaller games.
@Rafaelk- The mobile and portable comm units enabled real life mailing, but none of the players controlling those items opted to make use of it.
I think Inheritance was very well designed, with some really awesome flavour (I loved Rider coming back as a brain.) With some really cool left-field ideas (the Big Red Button, RL mail, NPC interaction).
However, I will echo that there was simply too much going on. If there had been more of a main mechanic with a support mechanic (Say, inheritance & points) it would have worked smoother, and with less incredible information absorption necessary. I felt that the NPCs (barring the computer) were pretty superfluous (not sure, but did each one basically just activate an ability or something?) and the items were just too much.
I just noticed that Points appeared on neither the Liked It or Would Change/Cut it list. I think that the pointing mechanic exacerbated other problems of the setup, such as complexity and unreasonable expectations of town coordination.
However, I think the implementation of points here - ignoring other factors - was very clever. They enabled the existance of a wide variety of powerful abilities in the setup while acting as a balancing factor by restricting the frequency of those abilities being used. I think a setup that focused on blending this style of pointing with regular abilities (while forgoing too many other mechanics to complicate things) would be very interesting, and it was far superior to the blunt method Points Mafia used.
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Hm. My last post in this thread has got me thinking. Can we have a sort of "State of MTGS Mafia Address" discussion? What are the problems plaguing games right now? What's been going particularly well? What glaring holes in the meta can I design my next game around?
Hm. My last post in this thread has got me thinking. Can we have a sort of "State of MTGS Mafia Address" discussion? What are the problems plaguing games right now? What's been going particularly well? What glaring holes in the meta can I design my next game around?
Blah, post eaten.
Overall, I think we've reached a good, stable place in our game design philosophy. We've had a lot of creative minds collaborating with one another to move us forward and produce quality games, reviewing for one another, and the basics are giving us influx of fresh talent and an outlet for players who simply want to mod something, without putting on a huge production. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way, and we have a good crew of experienced mods who know how to turn out quality games and are passing that knowledge on to the next generation.
One design principle that I think is still underrated (especially in the less complicated games) is the value of conversation pieces and activity-raisers. Keeping the town's discussion active and providing topics for debate to move the game forward throughout each stage of the game is very important for the health of games. Mechanics that the town can discuss, post restrictions, surprises, interesting flavor, debatable roles: these types of characteristics are often what separate a very clean, balanced, but otherwise unremarkable game from a memorable and truly enjoyable play experience.
One of the great things about mafia is that because every game is designed individually, every game has the chance to be something new, something that you've never quite experienced before. Like magic's expansion system, mafia uses a single rules system that can take on almost an endless variety of new manifestations, and allows for personal creativity. Games that can leverage that potential to create an environment that stands out are going to be fun, healthy, and active.
So what things should we continue to include in our games? I'd say:
1. Entertaining and well-written flavor. (MTGS Mafia Redux)
2. Conversation-starters and surprises. (China in World Dom 2)
3. Solid balance. (Not points mafia. ;))
Maybe we should have some folks submit some articles on MTGS design theory. That could be helpful in passing some of this knowledge on to incoming mods.
One design principle that I think is still underrated (especially in the less complicated games) is the value of conversation pieces and activity-raisers. Keeping the town's discussion active and providing topics for debate to move the game forward throughout each stage of the game is very important for the health of games. Mechanics that the town can discuss, post restrictions, surprises, interesting flavor, debatable roles: these types of characteristics are often what separate a very clean, balanced, but otherwise unremarkable game from a memorable and truly enjoyable play experience.
I couldn't agree more. I'm always trying to find such things but never quite have enough. Would anyone mind posting a list of things like this that've worked well in the past or even just a personal favorite? I think my favorite was the role Cyan had in... what was it, Cartoon? The Brain that could be "voted for president". Now there's a role to discuss.
Maybe we should have some folks submit some articles on MTGS design theory. That could be helpful in passing some of this knowledge on to incoming mods.
I have such a thing in the works - just going to write about the design of basics, though. I've noticed a lot of patterns in the stuff people send me, and it makes sense to compile what I keep telling people into an article. Probably still a month out, though, since that's when the term ends here at college.
The use of conversation pieces is an underexamined component of a setup, and I'm glad you brought is up, Az. Though I would put a caveat on it: conversation pieces that promote discussion without diverting it altogether. I'd especially put that mark on conversation pieces that the mod provides from the get-go that only lead to distractions.
Case in point: the dead guy in Blood Moon Mafia (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - it's the first game I ran here. Go find it and laugh your asses off), aka a perfectly normal guy who was listed in the dead players section of the normal status post. This led to a ton of useless discussion and ultimately did nothing but complicate the game. Other examples include overarching mechanical aspects that serve as distractions from analysis, or really crazy roles (e.g. every proxy role ever, essentially every mod-as-participant role ever, etc.).
Conversation pieces, in other words, should not hit the participants over the head like a sack of bricks. When subtly executed, they can make for a more enjoyable game; when improperly used, they usually just piss people off.
Or, at least, moreso than the final result might lead one to believe.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Or, at least, moreso than the final result might lead one to believe.
Yeah right. A UNC Education can never result in a perfectly balanced point mafia.
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Mafia MVP Harry Potter Mafia!
Logical Reasoning is dead; Long Live Stupidity
Quote from Seppel »
I love Joboman, Poggy, Niv, and Vezok, because, while they may not be the best players, they still try to win. Having fun is the most important thing to a game, but I've learned that if you don't try to win, then you're ruining everyone else's fun.
The use of conversation pieces is an underexamined component of a setup, and I'm glad you brought is up, Az. Though I would put a caveat on it: conversation pieces that promote discussion without diverting it altogether. I'd especially put that mark on conversation pieces that the mod provides from the get-go that only lead to distractions.
Case in point: the dead guy in Blood Moon Mafia (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - it's the first game I ran here. Go find it and laugh your asses off), aka a perfectly normal guy who was listed in the dead players section of the normal status post. This led to a ton of useless discussion and ultimately did nothing but complicate the game. Other examples include overarching mechanical aspects that serve as distractions from analysis, or really crazy roles (e.g. every proxy role ever, essentially every mod-as-participant role ever, etc.).
Conversation pieces, in other words, should not hit the participants over the head like a sack of bricks. When subtly executed, they can make for a more enjoyable game; when improperly used, they usually just piss people off.
Agreed. Anything like that which makes it in should be something that the town can reason their way through; mysteries without a solution are counter-productive.
And I disagree that every mod-as-participant has been problematic.
1. Entertaining and well-written flavor. (MTGS Mafia Redux)
I'm still genuinely perplexed when people cite that game as having TEH AMAZING FLAVAR. I mean, the whole point was that it was all ripped off of other, better games.
what does a setup have to contain in order for another player to review it? and do you have to have already come up with a setup before you sign up as a host in the sign up thread?
But it was ripped off the good bits of other games.
Plus it had the advantage of Az and the legendary smiley restriction.
Ah yes, the post restriction that I didn't give him, but for which I will gladly take credit.
@Keeperofzion: You don't need to have a setup ready in order to sign up to host. I suspect most people don't, at the time they sign up. You can get someone to review your work regardless of how near or far it is to being complete, though if you're applying for the Specialty or Fast-Track queue, you should get someone to review the complete or almost complete version.
I am looking for recommendations of a game to read among the currently active games.
With my upcoming schedule, running the one game I am modding is the most activity I can justify, but I am interested in also following one of the currently running games. I'm hoping that anyone who is involved with one of those games and believes I will enjoy it can recommend it to me by PM - I repeat, by PM, since I do not want this to affect any of the games - so that I can start my reading.
Recommendations are welcome from anyone, but I'm hoping some of the more experienced players will see this and help me out.
though not new to teh site I am slightly new to mafia and If somone could direct me to somwhere that conatined explanations of all these one word power roles im hearing like
mason
godfather
doctor
vigilante
bounty hunter
and some others I've forgotten just now it would be greatly appreciated :).
Check out the Welcome/Info thread here for all sorts of useful information. To answer your particular question, I'll direct you towards the introduction to basic roles here.
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I've been on a thinking about mafia design trip recently, and thus finally got around to reading the post-game of Inheritance thoroughly. This caught my eye:
On the town's side, you have roles that are limited in their individual application ; but which afford the town *as a community* a great deal of potential power. ... As a team, they also had an array of powerful community resources and the capacity to use them in creative ways.
That's the dynamic I was most interested in fostering this time. Not so much broken or novel roles in the hands of individuals, but a setup where teams of individuals could collaborate with one another to find the best strategic solution.
Thoughts? I'm hard pressed to think of specific examples where this sort of thing has been pulled off really effectively outside of Inheritance. Communication roles help this dynamic by letting players work together privately outside of the public domain of the game thread, and there's always just coordination of night actions - if you've got 2 suspicious players, roleblock one and vig the other. What roles are out there that when used in tandem are greater than the sum of their parts?
Design Features [From Inheritance] I'd Tweak or Cut:
...
-Expecting the town to formulate cunning plans and create synergy.
which seems to go against the philosophy of the first thing I quoted. What are ways mods can encourage cunning plans and synergy? One of the simplest examples is the "maid" role (roleblocker that only works on male roles) which naturally encourages its player to work for a gender claim, but this still isn't that near my goal of "make people work together more". Thoughts?
I think the best way to encourage cooperation is probably to put large quantities of publicly available information into play - via devices such as NPCs. UI/Ewie has actually taken that idea and run with it a tiny distance over on goodgamery, which greatly added to the discussion. He used a $ system where players can purchase abilities from NPCs to find alignments and allow last-posts from dead players.
I think the best way to encourage cooperation is probably to put large quantities of publicly available information into play - via devices such as NPCs.
I'll agree with that because it's the opposite of what discourages cooperation: uncertainty. A town has disincentive to implement organized plans because there are scum who will try to mess it up and usually are given the tools to do so. Plans made during the day generally benefit the scum by delineating exactly how to maximize their coordinated efforts, and the scum in contrast run no risk in organizing. Unclaimed players add huge variables to any equation, and obviously there are costs to mass claiming. Further, when plans require actually devoting resources - such as point and item sharing in Inheritance and point bequethal Points - the town runs the risk of giving resources to the scum.
However, as Puzzle said: "Certainty is antithetic with fun in Mafia." To cooperate, the town needs a degree of certainty and the more cooperation you want to foster the more certainty you need to provide.
In short the essenence of the game is an informed, cooperating minority versus an uninformed, disorganized majority. I think encouraging towns to cooperate via game design will never work out the way a designer expects because it requires players to act against the nature of the game.
*****
I think that a mechanic designed to encourage town cooperation should focus on playing off the elements the town already cooperates on: discussion, voting, daytime play. A publicly known mechanic that can be used during the day gives the town something certain to work with, but the uncertainty comes from not knowing the motives of some of the players. That's exactly what lynching is. If a mechanic can capture the essence of lynching while offering something new, then it could add depth to the game in a good way. I think this is exactly what Loran's current song mechanic attempted (accomplished? I dunno, I didn't play/haven't read it) in Camp Tachronic.
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I really can't see how that constitutes PM quoting.
And frankly, modkilling SK does absolutely zero to resolve the situation. Why not modkill MMoD, for his post where he says that their role PMs say the same? Oh wait, he could be lying. Just like SK could have been lying. This situation wasn't going to result in any scum being outed. Once SK posted and MMoD agreed, the entire playerbase was just going to claim to have the same WC. Obviously. None of it meant anything.
You screwed up, and reacted in a panick..and then screwed up even more. AND you sent the game to night. You have done a ridiculous disservice to the town in your reaction here. Especially considering that SK's roleclaim was very, very likely to keep him from being lynched anyway.
I don't think you should host a game for awhile.
Anyway, you're right.
Sir; The game was in a deadline. I felt that considering the situation, it was the best action. I will go into detail after the game is over.
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What is interesting is that I designed Persona around about the same time as Ged was working on Danger City, and based on pretty similar issues with how MTGS games were designed overall- particularly with complication and role analysis over behaviour and such- and how there kept being issues with activity and replacements and so on. And I rather suspect- although we can't talk about it for a bit yet- Azrael designed Inheritance out of the same base. Everyone hit a different solution.
Of course, in my pride, my reaction was that we like complicated games, plus complications and tidbits of information give people stuff to talk about and get involved, so I'll turn the complicated up to 11 and have only 1 vanilla (and even they had a way to get an ability) and give out lots of little abilities. We hate games being based on role speculation and inspections and paint-by-numbers setup speculation (like the 2 doctors thing) so I'll savagely screw over anyone trying to rely on that. Games are getting too long, so I settled on a game with a high killcount. But no SK, but SKs are swingy and I wanted a BALANCED high kill highly complicated game. I found it interesting that Ged initially designed a two-mafia game with a lot of protection abilities as his solution to the last one; I just ramped up the killing abilities (but still with the protection to mitigate the killing from being TOO quick).
I was also attracted to the vig solution by all the people hating on vig roles in this same mafia theory thread
Against all odds, Persona steered itself to a sedate final 4 endgame, every mafia in the game got lynched, all but 1 without an inspection, and I only had 3 replacements (one of whom was a newbie who replaced out within the first 24 hours of the game, does that really count?). Not quite the 0 replacements Danger City got, but close!
I think once Inheritance is done we'll all be able to have a nice big discussion on game design and how to encourage activity and behavioural analysis and stuff, since it seems there's been a lot of thought going into it. I know I'm going to be retuning my upcoming specialty based on the lessons of all this stuff...
I did my best, but one got lynched day 1 and the daykiller was DYH himself
There hasn't been much posting in this thread recently- the posts which I'm referring to are largely still on page 42 at 40 posts per page... you could say that I basically disagree with the positions put by CC and Azrael (but of course I couldn't talk about it at the time since I was about to run my game).
Though I do like the idea of broken-up vigs. I tried this in The Fiasco Corporation, which was heavily focused on X-shot roles. Agent Orange especially was an attempt at a role with powerful tools but no versatility. What I learned from TFC was that players with activation limitations are much more cautious about their use. This may be a plus in the sense that vigs can't outright screw the town, but it also means that the vig is a waste of space and more likely to be called scum. Ultimately, I don't think that designing around the vig is the right strategy - it's merely a role that requires a bit of caution.
EDIT: I won't comment on Inheritance, though as someone who has seen the game's setup, I will echo Ged's sentiment.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
I have to wonder if power-wise they aren't as strong or even stronger than cops; cops can confirm townies and keep them alive but have to operate in secret and can die before doing anything useful, whereas a vig can operate much more openly and gives immediate information to the town even if they can only confirm townies by removing them from play. A cop hitting scum also costs the town a lynch while the vig does not.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
I think that people overestimate the impact a vig is going to have on a game. In all of the games I have played, I have never seen vigging(whether aggressive or passive) cost the town a game. Frankly, I've only seen it be a major boon for the town a few times, and that was typically in a mini, where 1-2 dead bodies actually means something.
Each style of vigging has it's advantages. The mafia will always, always tread carefully around an aggressive Vig...because they have to. Or they'll think he's the SK, and overplay themselves trying to get him lynched.
Someone that plays the role passively also has advantages..if the scum don't see a Vig in the first couple of days, they will often assume that it doesn't exist, and will play more loosely than they would if they knew a Vig existed.
For the most part, a Vig just kills a couple of townies and then gets outed, and either A)gets dead/RBed alot or B)submits himself to the behest of the town, which is really just a nice way of saying that he resigns himself to killing people that lurk and/or claim Vanilla.
Mostly what I see is a town losing, and blaming the Vig because he killed a couple of townies. All the while, they are typically ignoring the fact that they played badly on the whole..the Vig is just the easy scapegoat, because his mistakes result in dead bodies.
It's important to note that I'm only talking about Vigs that kill at night here. Daykilling is just a 100% completely different affair, one that I feel has been used far, far too liberally around here lately. A 1 shot daykill on one side is not a big deal. But mods that give a repeated daykill to one side, or multiple townies with 1-shot daykills etc, are just setting themselves up for a ridiculously swingy game. Daykills are ridiculously powerful.
Well, the mafia can shoot a good vig, and can let a bad vig stay alive. So he's still rather volatile.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
I've also seen a number of games won by vigging (my very first game as mafia, English Literature Mafia on mtgnews, was saved for the town by Hawkeye's going 2 for 2 on vig shots late in the game plus an imbalanced setup that let the town not lose after mislynching on days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, allowing Hawkeye to cue the comeback in the first place).
I've seen a lot more vig-happy losses on mafiascum I think, but I haven't played there in a while, so i forget which games
...on the other hand, there are a fair few fascinating roles to be found there. Like in any Tarhalindur game. Heh heh heh...
(More ways to screw with players, coming soon to a desCoures game near you. :P)
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...'
Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
Do tell
OK, so there's been hardly any theory talk for months, but Inheritance is over now, so we can all speak again.
I guess between Danger City, Persona and Inheritance we all took on the issues that have plagued MTGS mafia games for a while....
- Really complicated games
- Power levels
- Vig roles/kill counts
- Keeping everyone interested without screwing up the balance
What was interesting that while perception of fun may vary, I think all three games were pretty balanced.
Do we have a new grand unified theory of game design now?
Make things blow up.
Responsibly.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Replacing a player, Positives:
Replacing a player, Negatives:
Modkilling a player, Positives:
Modkilling a player, Negatives:
Many of the positives are shared by both, while modkilling does not share a lot of the negatives of replacing. The negatives of modkilling are still signficant, which is why it is often not appropriate. However, the decision to replace is generally made by default, without any consideration of the negative consequences. I believe replacements are appropriate when they are unlikely to contribute unreasonably to stagnation, such as:
I believe modkilling may be more appropriate than replacing when:
In summary, replacing players can have a variety of negative impacts on a game, and in some cases it is better for the overall health of a game to modkill. Mods should be aware of the pros and cons of each action and consider them instead of automatically opting to replace.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
I do agree that more consideration toward modkilling would be beneficial although like you say replacing is still a useful option in a variety of scenarios.
The main problem with modklling is that it creates an image of "unfairness". It's swingy and if it turns out to have a large impact on the game the players that get screwed will feel like they lost due to non-game play reasons even if that is not necessarily the case.
I think modkilling should generally be considered on Day 3-4 (given standard activity on days), when there is pretty much a background and formed opinions on each player and replacing would mean negating all those.
Honestly, I think the best way to fix this problem is to somehow ensure that players that play in a game are committed to it. Obviously sometimes unforeseeable RL situations do come up (I should know) but that shouldn't account for more than one replacement per game, and if you take a look at games that are finished you typically find that 4-5 players have been replaced (in normal sized games). I don't know what the source of this chronic replacing issue is but if that can be addressed it is obviously more optimal than dealing with the outcome.
As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Yeah.
So I'm not sure exactly how Inheritance panned out since it quickly ended up too big for me to keep up with, but my impression of it while reviewing was that there was almost too much going on. As far as I could tell it seemed balanced, but it always felt like we could easily have missed something. I guess you could say the way Az dealt with the problem of focus on role over play analysis was to just throw way too much role information in there to fully analyze. A very interesting approach, to be sure, but not an every game sort of solution. I much prefer my "lots of little roles" or Persona's "no SK" solution in general.
I think the thing to take away from these games is that there's lots of ways to solve problems in game design. Perhaps a better discussion would be what are the current problems with the meta. After determining those, we can break off again and each try to solve those problems in our own way. Then we'll come back together in a year or so and show each other what we've come up with - that is, we'll all go off and design games to fix the problems we've got and then run them. I think the fun of these 3 games is to see different solutions to the same problems.
May be worth discussing what worked and didn't work in each of these games. I'd love to be a part of that conversation, but mine is the only one that I read.
Also, are there any other games that we should be considering here that seem like they were trying to tackle the same issues?
EDIT: I also want to talk about modkills, but I want to finish this discussion first.
EDIT2: Az wins game design theory
-Built-in anti-lurker mechanism-Might be a one-trick pony, but it helped activity.
-Redundancies/inheritances in the town to eliminate swinginess.
-Enabling players to still claim vanilla, in a game with interesting interactions.
-Eliminating roles that self-clear when they claim, while retaining cops + docs + vigs.
-Eliminating gaming the mod.
-Long-term review process with Xyre and Ged and others, really helped smooth out potential rough patches.
-Specific roles that promoted balance, and moderated swinginess.
-Versatile roles.
-Vigilantes that need town cooperation.
-NPCs
-Adjustable rules
-Flavor
-Conversation pieces
-Challenging strategic depth; especially in end-game.
-Surpises.
Design Features I'd Tweak or Cut:
-Complication- information overload.
-Mafia Factioning- not an elegant version.
-Real life mail. (Cute, but probably impractical)
-Expecting the town to formulate cunning plans and create synergy.
-Boring items (some were good, others were just silly).
-Eliminating incentive for mafia to lie about claims.
-Promoting spam.
-Reduce size/duration of the game.
Um yeah.
Also did real-life mail ever get used for anything?
Logical Reasoning is dead; Long Live Stupidity
But seriously, yes, I think modkills need to be considered more often. If a player can be replaced quickly, replace, replacement affects the balance of the game less than a modkill. If a player cannot be replaced after a reasonable time, modkill, that affects the balance less than letting a role sit in limbo for long periods of discussion (or, worse, overnight). Make sure the policy is clear in the game rules so there's no question of the mod's decision being based on how the modkill/replace decision will affect the game state. If a key mafia member is absent and can't be replaced, it sucks but if a mod is willing to let mafia roles drift longer than vanilla townies, that's not good either.
I was going to ask about that actually. I didn't see it anywhere in the design (of course, you never said what the Juggernaut did either ).
Pretty much agree with your list though, although it just goes to show how different stuff can work. Persona was actually not reviewed by anyone With all the complexities, I figured I just had to back my own instincts as to how it was likely to play out and the probabilities of this and that happening. I didn't think it was fair on a reviewer to expect them to get to grips with the game as I had, and I didn't want to end up second-guessing myself if they ran away screaming...
This is design space worth exploring, though. Creative ways to encourage activity without just saying "don't lurk" are potentially very valuable tools.
Fixed. No matter what you did, some people refuse to not game the mod. I think this is a good goal to a degree and minimizing the effectiveness of gaming the mod is good, but if you try to force it too hard then you just end up punishing players for behaving like townies.
This was a delicate balance to find, I think. With versatility comes the cost of raw power, and as Cyan previously commented so many of the abilities in the game just didn't accomplish much. It ends up feeling like there's tons of stuff going on but nothing relevant. I think the best part about the role design was, as you said, the town had to evaluate whether an ability was used in a pro-town fashion rather than whether the ability is likely to be given to a townie, or whether the claim was just a lie.
This setup recalled a lot of the emotions I had playing Smalltown as mafia, where night abilities are 100% about how you use them because of being an open setup, but the elements added to keep randomized roles from being broken made things so chaotic that you just could never formulate any kind of strategy.
I loved loved loved the Spider Mine mechanic and RobRoy's lynch ability. I thought they were brilliantly designed and had an elegant impact on balance and gameplay.
Really? The Main Computer role's design and interactions with other roles was very clever (I never expected the twist that you shot yourself and another role was actually redirecting it), but the rest just didn't seem to matter in the slightest. I assume the mafia could have deduced the Seer fueled information abilities and spent a kill offing it, but I don't really see where the NPCs added much value to the game beyond that.
I liked this too. I especially liked the options to toggle item and point sharing because they had clear benefits but also an obvious cost that couldn't be completely planned around. They definitely made you think. Some of the others probably should have been cut, and role PM enabling was pretty much a no-brainer, but overall I thought this element was an excellent addition.
Actually I thought this had a ridiculous cool potential. I was a little disappointed that it was simply an alternative to online chat; it would have been pretty damn sweet if, say, arim's enslave ability sent the recipient his/her orders in the mail, all CIA-mystery-style. Or even if role PMs were sent out as little dossiers.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
I agree with this point. If no replacement can be found by then, it generally bogs down the entire game with some players being a null read that can't ever be lynched or vigged because of the town's paranoia.
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Hosted: Intrigue Mafia (Mini), Seance #43 (Basic), Conflux Mafia (Normal), Goo Mafia (FTQ), Experiment #26 (Basic)
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NKed/Lynched/Survived - 15/11/15
It wasnt fully developed here, but I think there's a ridiculous amount of unexploited design space to play with, for future NPC roles.
I had definitely considered doing something like that; but the adminstrative hurdles were pretty daunting. I could do delivery confirmation on the packages at a cost of $2/ability, but I'd also have to make sure that everyone playing wanted to give addresses, and the differing shipping times could have been messy too.
The only way I saw to make it a fair use of the ability was as a communication tool; though I still do love the possibility of [secret agent mafia mail].
There's room for design fixes there, especially in smaller games.
@Rafaelk- The mobile and portable comm units enabled real life mailing, but none of the players controlling those items opted to make use of it.
However, I will echo that there was simply too much going on. If there had been more of a main mechanic with a support mechanic (Say, inheritance & points) it would have worked smoother, and with less incredible information absorption necessary. I felt that the NPCs (barring the computer) were pretty superfluous (not sure, but did each one basically just activate an ability or something?) and the items were just too much.
However, I think the implementation of points here - ignoring other factors - was very clever. They enabled the existance of a wide variety of powerful abilities in the setup while acting as a balancing factor by restricting the frequency of those abilities being used. I think a setup that focused on blending this style of pointing with regular abilities (while forgoing too many other mechanics to complicate things) would be very interesting, and it was far superior to the blunt method Points Mafia used.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Blah, post eaten.
Overall, I think we've reached a good, stable place in our game design philosophy. We've had a lot of creative minds collaborating with one another to move us forward and produce quality games, reviewing for one another, and the basics are giving us influx of fresh talent and an outlet for players who simply want to mod something, without putting on a huge production. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way, and we have a good crew of experienced mods who know how to turn out quality games and are passing that knowledge on to the next generation.
One design principle that I think is still underrated (especially in the less complicated games) is the value of conversation pieces and activity-raisers. Keeping the town's discussion active and providing topics for debate to move the game forward throughout each stage of the game is very important for the health of games. Mechanics that the town can discuss, post restrictions, surprises, interesting flavor, debatable roles: these types of characteristics are often what separate a very clean, balanced, but otherwise unremarkable game from a memorable and truly enjoyable play experience.
One of the great things about mafia is that because every game is designed individually, every game has the chance to be something new, something that you've never quite experienced before. Like magic's expansion system, mafia uses a single rules system that can take on almost an endless variety of new manifestations, and allows for personal creativity. Games that can leverage that potential to create an environment that stands out are going to be fun, healthy, and active.
So what things should we continue to include in our games? I'd say:
1. Entertaining and well-written flavor. (MTGS Mafia Redux)
2. Conversation-starters and surprises. (China in World Dom 2)
3. Solid balance. (Not points mafia. ;))
Maybe we should have some folks submit some articles on MTGS design theory. That could be helpful in passing some of this knowledge on to incoming mods.
I couldn't agree more. I'm always trying to find such things but never quite have enough. Would anyone mind posting a list of things like this that've worked well in the past or even just a personal favorite? I think my favorite was the role Cyan had in... what was it, Cartoon? The Brain that could be "voted for president". Now there's a role to discuss.
I have such a thing in the works - just going to write about the design of basics, though. I've noticed a lot of patterns in the stuff people send me, and it makes sense to compile what I keep telling people into an article. Probably still a month out, though, since that's when the term ends here at college.
Case in point: the dead guy in Blood Moon Mafia (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - it's the first game I ran here. Go find it and laugh your asses off), aka a perfectly normal guy who was listed in the dead players section of the normal status post. This led to a ton of useless discussion and ultimately did nothing but complicate the game. Other examples include overarching mechanical aspects that serve as distractions from analysis, or really crazy roles (e.g. every proxy role ever, essentially every mod-as-participant role ever, etc.).
Conversation pieces, in other words, should not hit the participants over the head like a sack of bricks. When subtly executed, they can make for a more enjoyable game; when improperly used, they usually just piss people off.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Totally balanced.
Or, at least, moreso than the final result might lead one to believe.
Only one way to be sure...
Run it again.
Seconded.
I would like to be town this time.
We'll make you an offer you can't refuse.
Hosting: Vista Mafia
Hosted: Intrigue Mafia (Mini), Seance #43 (Basic), Conflux Mafia (Normal), Goo Mafia (FTQ), Experiment #26 (Basic)
Ongoing/Completed - 0/41
Town/Mafia/SK/Survivor - 30/6/4/1
NKed/Lynched/Survived - 15/11/15
Yeah right. A UNC Education can never result in a perfectly balanced point mafia.
Logical Reasoning is dead; Long Live Stupidity
Agreed. Anything like that which makes it in should be something that the town can reason their way through; mysteries without a solution are counter-productive.
And I disagree that every mod-as-participant has been problematic.
I'm still genuinely perplexed when people cite that game as having TEH AMAZING FLAVAR. I mean, the whole point was that it was all ripped off of other, better games.
Plus it had the advantage of Az and the legendary smiley restriction.
Ah yes, the post restriction that I didn't give him, but for which I will gladly take credit.
@Keeperofzion: You don't need to have a setup ready in order to sign up to host. I suspect most people don't, at the time they sign up. You can get someone to review your work regardless of how near or far it is to being complete, though if you're applying for the Specialty or Fast-Track queue, you should get someone to review the complete or almost complete version.
With my upcoming schedule, running the one game I am modding is the most activity I can justify, but I am interested in also following one of the currently running games. I'm hoping that anyone who is involved with one of those games and believes I will enjoy it can recommend it to me by PM - I repeat, by PM, since I do not want this to affect any of the games - so that I can start my reading.
Recommendations are welcome from anyone, but I'm hoping some of the more experienced players will see this and help me out.
Edit: got some recommendations, thanks.
mason
godfather
doctor
vigilante
bounty hunter
and some others I've forgotten just now it would be greatly appreciated :).
I AM TEH MASTAH O FAIL
ty spiderboys
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Thoughts? I'm hard pressed to think of specific examples where this sort of thing has been pulled off really effectively outside of Inheritance. Communication roles help this dynamic by letting players work together privately outside of the public domain of the game thread, and there's always just coordination of night actions - if you've got 2 suspicious players, roleblock one and vig the other. What roles are out there that when used in tandem are greater than the sum of their parts?
Then I'm rereading this thread and I see this
which seems to go against the philosophy of the first thing I quoted. What are ways mods can encourage cunning plans and synergy? One of the simplest examples is the "maid" role (roleblocker that only works on male roles) which naturally encourages its player to work for a gender claim, but this still isn't that near my goal of "make people work together more". Thoughts?
Oh, and as long as I'm here,
Don't worry, it wasn't as cool as the original item in that spot: the DOOM CANNON (caps required).
the Rozencrantz and Guildenstern roles were - where if they both voted for the same player they effectively had a third vote.
Similar ploys may work nicely, here.
I'll agree with that because it's the opposite of what discourages cooperation: uncertainty. A town has disincentive to implement organized plans because there are scum who will try to mess it up and usually are given the tools to do so. Plans made during the day generally benefit the scum by delineating exactly how to maximize their coordinated efforts, and the scum in contrast run no risk in organizing. Unclaimed players add huge variables to any equation, and obviously there are costs to mass claiming. Further, when plans require actually devoting resources - such as point and item sharing in Inheritance and point bequethal Points - the town runs the risk of giving resources to the scum.
However, as Puzzle said: "Certainty is antithetic with fun in Mafia." To cooperate, the town needs a degree of certainty and the more cooperation you want to foster the more certainty you need to provide.
In short the essenence of the game is an informed, cooperating minority versus an uninformed, disorganized majority. I think encouraging towns to cooperate via game design will never work out the way a designer expects because it requires players to act against the nature of the game.
*****
I think that a mechanic designed to encourage town cooperation should focus on playing off the elements the town already cooperates on: discussion, voting, daytime play. A publicly known mechanic that can be used during the day gives the town something certain to work with, but the uncertainty comes from not knowing the motives of some of the players. That's exactly what lynching is. If a mechanic can capture the essence of lynching while offering something new, then it could add depth to the game in a good way. I think this is exactly what Loran's current song mechanic attempted (accomplished? I dunno, I didn't play/haven't read it) in Camp Tachronic.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.