You-Solve-It Mafia Game

[NAF1138]

Come one come all, a new mafia game for the SDMB is about to start.

Sign up and play in this thread. There are 19 player slots (don't believe anything I have said before.) and the sign up period will last 24 hours.

This game is going to be a tiny bit different from the others we have played here. It will be smaller, a bit slower, and much more traditional "real" mafia. No fancy schmancy bells and doodads on this on.

Please read the rules below to get a feel for what this game will be like.

New blood is always welcome, so if you haven't played before but want to give it a shot, jump on in!

[NAF1138]

Setup info and Rules:

The setup looks like this:
19 Players

5 Disgruntled Assosciates (scum)

14 Assosciates (town)

No Cops, no Vig, no SK, no Bombs, no Role Blockers, no Masons, no Recruitment, no Multiple Factions, forget pretty much everything you've known as Mafia on these boards and others. This is a flavor driven game, and the mechanics are VERY straightforward and out in the open(for 93% of the game's rules). The remaining 7% isn't something to count on, or lose sleep over. It's just a little something we threw in to keep y'all good and paranoid.

There will be a true Night start. Which means that one of you will wake up dead on Day 1. The management would like to make our apologize in advance for this unfortunate situation.

7 real life days per Day. 2 real life days per Night. Length of Day and Night subject to fluctuation at Mod discretion, but this will most likely be the length for the majority of the game.


Here are the rules:
1) A real majority is needed to lynch. So there is no confusion as to what we mean, a real majority is defined as one player receiving 51% of the votes. So if there are 10 players alive it will take 6 to lynch not 5.

2) This next one is important, read it twice.
If no Majority is reached by Day's end, there will be no Lynch. No one gets lynched if no one gets 51% of the votes.

3) Once a majority is reached there will be a 12 hour cooling off period. We are not going to go insta-lynch in this game; you can change your minds. If at any point in the 12 hours the majority is lost the clock will revert to the normal game clock. Otherwise at the end of 12 hours the player with majority will be lynched.

4) If at any point a player receives 2/3 of the vote the Day will end immediately. It will be up to you to keep track of where the votes are once the 12 hour cooling off period has started. Though we will do our best to post frequent vote counts.

5) The Day ends on time, always. Even if the mods aren't around to announce it. Once the Day is supposed to end assume that it has and treat it like a Night.

6) No strategy discussion at Night. No posting from the dead aside from a goodbye post with no strategic content.

7) No communication between Players, or between Players and non-Moderators who have accessed forbidden information unless you are scum. Scum may discuss strategy among themselves, but only at Night (including Night 1) and only on the designated scum boards.

8) If you want to direct a question to the mods, please PM both of us on these boards. If you must ask a question in the thread please post it in green, bolded, and at least size 3 so we can find it quickly while scanning the thread.

9) Votes in blue, unvotes in red. You know the drill at this point. You only get one vote each and it is up to you to make sure that we can find the votes and unvotes. Our count is always right, even if it is wrong (though we are willing to correct any mistakes that are pointed out to us.) So make those votes and unvotes clear.

10) More important in this game then in previous games. NO EDITING. We will have zero tolerance with veteran players on this one. Edit and you are mod killed.

For the spectators:
Off-site boards will be available for those who wish perfect information. Participation in these is encouraged because we'll be running flavor based contests there as the game progresses and the more people involved the better.

A forbidden thread for SDMB members will be open in this forum. The game has been designed with the SDMB community in mind and many of the things the community seems to enjoy will be part of the game. Non-players are welcome to post there as much as they like. It will also be the hangout for any deceased players who may wish to remain eligible for substitutions.

[storyteller0910]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

Come one come all, a new mafia game for the SDMB is about to start.

Sign up and play in this thread. There are 19 player slots (don't believe anything I have said before.) and the sign up period will last 24 hours.

This game is going to be a tiny bit different from the others we have played here. It will be smaller, a bit slower, and much more traditional "real" mafia. No fancy schmancy bells and doodads on this on.

Please read the rules below to get a feel for what this game will be like.

New blood is always welcome, so if you haven't played before but want to give it a shot, jump on in!

If this is going to be more or less what you described on the spoiler board for the Blade Runner game, I'm even more in than I was before, and I was pretty in before.

Sign me up, please!

[HazelNutCoffee]

Me tooooooooo

[NAF1138]

Game mechanics, or How this works:

This game is going to have three things that make it different from a normal vanilla vs scum game. We are calling them "The Twist" "The Dossier" and "The Secret" respectively. Here is a bit of useful info about these elements.

The Twist

A major component of this game will be player contributed death scenes. Each time a player dies we will announce the players alignment to the town and they will then have 48 hours to submit a death scene to the Moderators.

Death scenes have to come to the moderators, the deceased may not post them themselves.

If the player is Night Killed we will also PM the dead player a piece of information about their attacker which may or may not help the town. It is up to the deceased to decide if and how they will include this information in their death scene.

Any player choosing to forgo their right to write a death scene will have one written for them. These scenes will be one of the projects the watchers in the off-site forums will be working on. The explicit goal of these non-player designed death scenes will be to make them spectacular, and very unflattering to the victim.


The Dossier System

In the opening color post we will provide a single piece of information about each of the individual characters in the game. Each player will also have a list of information about themselves that only they know. This private information may be unique to them (they might be the only Britney Spears fan in the group) or it might overlap with other (there might be 3 or 4 closet New Kids on the Block fans.) It is up to each individual player to chose what to do with the private information.

Each time an Associate is killed at Night, one of the characteristics of their killer will be randomly selected and revealed to their victim. The victim will be allowed to place this information in their death scene if they so choose. The info revealed to the victim may require some logical thinking or research to correlate to a public characteristic. It may be a characteristic of their killer which was NOT previously public. It may be a characteristic that their killer shares with a vanilla associate. But it may also be a unique public trait of the killer.

The Secret
There is a secret element to this game. And we are not going to tell you about it. That's why it is a secret.

BUT we will not violate or contradict anything that we have told you is true. So there is absolutely, positively, 100%, without question, no recruitment in this game. Got it? Good.

[storyteller0910]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

BUT we will not violate or contradict anything that we have told you is true. So there is absolutely, positively, 100%, without question, no recruitment in this game. Got it? Good.

Hm... I know you said that, but I can't help wondering if maybe the secret will be that there is recruitment.

[Freudian Slit]

Can't wait. Sign me up!

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by storyteller0910

Hm... I know you said that, but I can't help wondering if maybe the secret will be that there is recruitment.

vote storyteller


hey I'm the mod, I can do what I want

[storyteller0910]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

vote storyteller


hey I'm the mod, I can do what I want

NAF1138 has been recruited!!!!!!

OK, no more recruitment jokes. I'm psyched; thanks for starting this.

[brewha]

I haven't done one of these in awhile.

I'm in!

[sachertorte]

Originally Posted by storyteller0910

Hm... I know you said that, but I can't help wondering if maybe the secret will be that there is recruitment.

vote storyteller

and I'm slow.

[MHaye]

*Rolls Will save.*

*Fails.*

Sign me up please NAF.

[NAF1138]

Sach, is that a sign up?

[Freudian Slit]

Question...so if we get enough people to sign up by tomorrow, that's when we start? What time? EST Or Pacific?

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

I'm in.

[sachertorte]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

Sach, is that a sign up?

Sure. Why not.

But if there is an oversubscription I'll give up my space to someone new.

[Hawkeyeop]

Hi all,

So I've been lurking for a while, but mafia games look fun enough that I think it is worth biting the bullet and actually socializing with people. I have not played mafia before, but have played things with similar mechanics. Plus, I have been reading the current game and a few of the previous ones, so I think have a solid understanding of how it works.

[storyteller0910]

Originally Posted by brewha

I haven't done one of these in awhile.

I'm in!

Oh, hey, brewha. Long time no see!

[ShadowFacts]

In like Flynn!

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by Hawkeyeop

Hi all,

So I've been lurking for a while, but mafia games look fun enough that I think it is worth biting the bullet and actually socializing with people. I have not played mafia before, but have played things with similar mechanics. Plus, I have been reading the current game and a few of the previous ones, so I think have a solid understanding of how it works.

New blood is always welcome. Come on in, the water is fine. I think this will be
a good game for new players, and a good challange for the vets.

[Santo Rugger]

Can I be Disgruntled?

brewha's in?! Score one for the good guys!

BYAHH!!!

[Pleonast]

Count me in.

[storyteller0910]

This is going to be a wordy game, isn't it? Someone should buy Roosh that SD subscription and get him over here to play.

[Pleonast]

May I make a strong suggestion: No Substitutions! If a player is adjudicated to be not participating by the moderators, can you please simply mod-kill them? Substitutions make finding patterns and motivations much, much more difficult.

[One And Only Wanderers]

/in if still space

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

May I make a strong suggestion: No Substitutions! If a player is adjudicated to be not participating by the moderators, can you please simply mod-kill them? Substitutions make finding patterns and motivations much, much more difficult.

We were thinking, limited substitutions in very very special circumstances.

But that being said. PLEASE make sure that if you sign up you actually want to play. Mafia requiers a bit more of a commitment then many other games on the SDMB, and this mafia game will require more then other mafia games, because you will only have what you say to each other to rely on.


You won't have to be online all day long, you don't have to post 50 times every day. But you will HAVE to be willing and able to spend the time to go back and anylize what others have said and done in the past and then post your own thoughts.

[NAF1138]

OH and I am an idiot. I totally forgot to introduce our co-mod and the evil genius behind the dossier system, MtgMan.

PM both him and me on all official business PM's please.

[Rysto]

When are we starting? I'm in, with the caveat that I can't participate very much for the next two days and I'll be somewhat busy until the 20th. After that, I'll be able to participate heavily.

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

May I make a strong suggestion: No Substitutions! If a player is adjudicated to be not participating by the moderators, can you please simply mod-kill them? Substitutions make finding patterns and motivations much, much more difficult.

NAF1138 hadn't talked about it specifically, and we may on the planning boards, but I'm fine with it. The reality is that with no power roles the game balance is designed around players using communication skills to play, so there isn't a delicate balance where if we off someone it throws the game to another faction. If a person can't contribute to the conversation, then a modkill is fine with me.

This isn't binding at this point, I'd like to discuss it with NAF1138 in private, but I'd like you all to know we're looking at this point.

Enjoy,
Steven

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by Rysto

When are we starting? I'm in, with the caveat that I can't participate very much for the next two days and I'll be somewhat busy until the 20th. After that, I'll be able to participate heavily.

We won't start until tomorrow at the soonest. And it will be a Night start, so low participation will be fine for at least 3 Days (I am guessing. The scum may decide to jumpstart the Night and not take their full 48 hours).

IOW, I think it will be fine.

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by storyteller0910

This is going to be a wordy game, isn't it? Someone should buy Roosh that SD subscription and get him over here to play.

I'm going to have to check the opening color messages(yes, plural) and make sure they don't run afoul of the SDMB post limits. So, yea. Wordy.

Enjoy,
Steven

[storyteller0910]

This is going to be awesome.

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

Come one come all, a new mafia game for the SDMB is about to start.

Sign up and play in this thread. There are 19 player slots (don't believe anything I have said before.) and the sign up period will last 24 hours.

This game is going to be a tiny bit different from the others we have played here. It will be smaller, a bit slower, and much more traditional "real" mafia. No fancy schmancy bells and doodads on this on.

Please read the rules below to get a feel for what this game will be like.

New blood is always welcome, so if you haven't played before but want to give it a shot, jump on in!

Technically there is some fancy smancy stuff, but it's all transparent, so it doesn't rely on individual players being Mafia geniuses or break down if they're not. It's also not enough to carry one side or the other.

Enjoy,
Steven

[brewha]

Originally Posted by storyteller0910

Oh, hey, brewha. Long time no see!

Helloo!

I'm really hoping I'm on your team this time. The end of that last game was a mess - mostly due to your evil genius as I recall!

[NAF1138]

Player list so far:

1.storyteller0910
2.HazelNutCoffee
3.Freudian Slit
4.brewha
5.MHaye
6.ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
7.sachertorte
8.Hawkeyeop*
9.ShadowFacts
10.Santo Rugger
11. Pleonast
12. One And Only Wanderers
13. Rysto

6 slots left!

Hawkeyeop, I have a * by your name because I am not sure if you will be around for the whole game as a guest. How long does the guest membership last (I don't remember anymore) and would you be willing to become a full member?

[Hawkeyeop]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

Player list so far:

1.storyteller0910
2.HazelNutCoffee
3.Freudian Slit
4.brewha
5.MHaye
6.ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
7.sachertorte
8.Hawkeyeop*
9.ShadowFacts
10.Santo Rugger
11. Pleonast
12. One And Only Wanderers
13. Rysto

6 slots left!

Hawkeyeop, I have a * by your name because I am not sure if you will be around for the whole game as a guest. How long does the guest membership last (I don't remember anymore) and would you be willing to become a full member?

Fair enough. Now that shouldn't be a problem. Well at least as soon as the payment processes since it seems to still have me listed as a guest for now.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

I see your Member.

*points and laughs*

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by Hawkeyeop

Fair enough. Now that shouldn't be a problem. Well at least as soon as the payment processes since it seems to still have me listed as a guest for now.

I shall remove the star from future lists. Thanks!

[CatInASuit]

So let me get this straight, 19 players and 5 scum, with no Doc and Detective. Those are some odds against the town.

::finds sub's bench::

:: dusts off Place #1::

I'm up for it, but as with sachertorte, if you get some new people give them priority, the more new people playing, the better.

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by CatInASuit

So let me get this straight, 19 players and 5 scum, with no Doc and Detective. Those are some odds against the town.

::finds sub's bench::

:: dusts off Place #1::

I'm up for it, but as with sachertorte, if you get some new people give them priority, the more new people playing, the better.

So you want to be #2 on the bump list, or #1 on the sub list?

(I am going to tell you the sub list probably won't see much action, we have decided that mod kills are preferable to subs 99% of the time.)

[Freudian Slit]

Come on, Cat, play! it will be fun. Maybe not as much fun as trying to make everyone undead like last time and pretending to be an evil cursed Necromancer, but then hey, what is?

[CatInASuit]

Originally Posted by NAF1138

So you want to be #2 on the bump list, or #1 on the sub list?

(I am going to tell you the sub list probably won't see much action, we have decided that mod kills are preferable to subs 99% of the time.)

If subs are unlikely to be used, then #2 on the bump list.

Always good to give other people a go.

[sachertorte]

Originally Posted by CatInASuit

So let me get this straight, 19 players and 5 scum, with no Doc and Detective. Those are some odds against the town.

I kind of gave that some squinty eyes too (at first).
Not to jump the gun too much, but balance analysis of vanilla v. vanilla games is extremely straight forward. In this case, Town needs to lynch 5 scum to win (obvious). Scum need 4 mislynches to win (4 mislynches + 4 night kills + 1 Night Start = 9 dead Townies and a scum win).

If there were 20 players it would have been a first to 5 to win for both sides. As it is, it is 5 for Town, and 4 for scum (slight scum favor). But the 'dossier' stuff and dead people writing death scenes looks pro-Town... so the setup passes the smell test from my point of view.

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by CatInASuit

So let me get this straight, 19 players and 5 scum, with no Doc and Detective. Those are some odds against the town.

::finds sub's bench::

:: dusts off Place #1::

I'm up for it, but as with sachertorte, if you get some new people give them priority, the more new people playing, the better.

There's a pseudo-detective. Re-read the section about the Dossier system. There's a logic and deductive element to this game as well as the softer skills of communication analysis. The idea was to give everyone something to do. Those who enjoy puzzle solving and logic challenges will have something to work with and those who can ferret hidden motives out of conversations will too. In fact, both are necessary because, as you've said, there is a higher number of scum than the overall numbers would justify without the Dossier system in place.

Enjoy,
Steven

[CatInASuit]

Originally Posted by Freudian Slit

Come on, Cat, play! it will be fun. Maybe not as much fun as trying to make everyone undead like last time and pretending to be an evil cursed Necromancer, but then hey, what is?

Alright, you've convinced me, add me to the list.

Good point is Diomedes going to play, I've got a bomb with his name on it

[CatInASuit]

Originally Posted by Mtgman

There's a pseudo-detective. Re-read the section about the Dossier system. There's a logic and deductive element to this game as well as the softer skills of communication analysis. The idea was to give everyone something to do. Those who enjoy puzzle solving and logic challenges will have something to work with and those who can ferret hidden motives out of conversations will too. In fact, both are necessary because, as you've said, there is a higher number of scum than the overall numbers would justify without the Dossier system in place.

Enjoy,
Steven

Hmm, interesting.

By the looks of it, everyone gets to play detective from the details that slowly get revealed.

The only thing that concerns me slightly is the long amount of time for the Days. A week is a very long time in these games for a single Day.

The other interesting twist is going to be receiving the death scene 48 hours into each game Day. That could shift a few votes around depending on the colour.

[faithfool]

Is someone who has never played before and knows absolutely jack about the game able to join in? If so, I'd love to. If not, y'all have fun anyway. [ ::: sniff ::: ]

[CatInASuit]

Originally Posted by faithfool

Is someone who has never played before and knows absolutely jack about the game able to join in? If so, I'd love to. If not, y'all have fun anyway. [ ::: sniff ::: ]

Joooiiin Ussss!!!

Joooiiin Ussss!!!

::makes beckoning motions to faithfool::

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by CatInASuit

Hmm, interesting.

By the looks of it, everyone gets to play detective from the details that slowly get revealed.

The only thing that concerns me slightly is the long amount of time for the Days. A week is a very long time in these games for a single Day.

The other interesting twist is going to be receiving the death scene 48 hours into each game Day. That could shift a few votes around depending on the colour.

Those are the Max times for a Day and Night. Majorities and supermajorities can shorten Days, and if the Disgruntled Associates get their Night instructions in early they can shorten Nights.

Enjoy,
Steven

[Mtgman]

Originally Posted by faithfool

Is someone who has never played before and knows absolutely jack about the game able to join in? If so, I'd love to. If not, y'all have fun anyway. [ ::: sniff ::: ]

You kidding? We've got two players already volunteering to give up their seats if new players want to join. New players bring new ideas and creativity to the table, and that's exactly what a game like this needs.

Enjoy,
Steven