Malacandra, I’ll post an email to you with my reasonings, as I don’t want to give away what exactly the awesome roles you’ve selected are yet, but based on NAF’s recomendations, I’d go with 10 vanilla and 4 scum, plus the power roles, some of which are scum.
Pygmy Rugger, that goes with my wet-finger estimate too. I’ve documented the last change I suggested to you and gone through once more looking to clarify any grey areas.
Of course, now that I publicized it, we’re going to have to change it. :smack:
Or not. Hehehe.
Well exactly. 
Wait till I tell them some of the roles have secret victory conditions!
Quoth Pygmy Rugger:
Well, I was assuming that it was because the Mob (whoever they are) was doing a good job sowing confusion, but given that you’re the one asking, maybe not.
I’ve written the ruleset I’m thinking of using for my future Mafia game. You can read it here.
I’m thinking of a game of 25, although 20 would work as well. Obviously, not all roles (or even sides) will be used. I could potentially include all roles, but that’d require about 40 people. I’d rather keep it small, but with up to 5 people dying each night, it would go faster than NAF’s game.
Comments are welcome. Are there any roles in particular that look especially fun?
That does indeed seem easy enough. Right, that’s the “Pirate Discussion Forum” set up…
Good to see ya brewha. If it’s any consolation you were my Top Townie! Well played, sir!
I was trying to look at it from an objective point of view. Pretty much everybody decided that they were going to vote unanimously with the three players the town considers trustworthy. Then, when all but one vote was cast for the same player, they changed their mind. I don’t understand why. You’re right, I’m probably biased, but how does it make sence from the town’s point of view?
That’s flippin’ complicated! I think it’d be better to only have 1 or 2 roles available that aren’t used, if any.
And a big well played to you as well. I never would have picked you as the SK. The first time I FOS’d was just a guess. I was just trying to get a read. If only I had followed through.
Well, Dopers are smart. 
The many roles and corresponding minigames are to keep people paranoid and on their toes. Having many unused roles adds uncertainty without randomness. I’ve set it up so that global information comes slowly (via delayed death-reveals), but counter-balanced by many roles with information and communication powers.
By the way, NAF1138, is there any chance that, after this game is over, you could open up the nocturnal thread to the public? I keep hearing about this fiendishly clever job the Mafia and their Deitypersonofunspecifiedgender are doing, and I’d like to see it myself.
We planned a couple minor things, and only one thing I’d consider game breaking. For the most part, it’s easier to just play it by ear. I remember commenting to the boards sometimes during Day Clusterfuck that it was hard to resist posting strategy to the boards during the day. The reply, many hours later, that it was better that way, because the town dynamic changed so much so quickly, that we couldn’t have possibly kept up with any type of defined team strategy. Sometimes, when reading my fellow mobsters comments during the day, I’d think :smack:, sometimes I’d think :eek:, sometimes I’d think :o, sometimes 
, sometimes :dubious:, sometimes :rolleyes:, sometimes 
, and sometimes :p. During the middle of the game, we’d let townies come up with incredibly complex theories, and support or criticize them as necessary. I think you’ll agree the Deitypersonofunspecifiedgender is much more fiendishly clever in this game than our team as a whole.
I have no idea what you could possibly mean by that.
Hmm, I’ve read over Pleonast’s ideas, and I think I see some problems.
First of all, the Occultist is way too powerful. E’s got all the advantages of a Vigilante, none of the disadvantages, and a great deal of bonus information to boot. The first night, e’d make a random sacrifice, and (presumably) get six names: Es own, the name of the person e killed, the Vampire, a werewolf, and the Vampire and Werewolf’s victims. Well, he knows who e is, and who e killed, so e can scratch those two off the list. The other two victims are easily identified by the fact that they’re dead (e can’t tell which is which, but who cares?). So that leaves em with two names, one of which is the Vampire and one of which is a Wolf. E then guesses which one is more likely to be the Wolf (at worst, 50-50, if e can’t find any tells). That person is es next victim. Best case, it turns out to be a wolf. Now, e knows that the vampire is the other one, and e can just safely continue picking off a wolf each night. Each night, es sacrifice tells em the name of another wolf, who goes under the knife the following night. When eventually e runs out of wolves, e arranges for the Vampire to die (more on this in a moment), and Town wins.
If, on the other hand, e guesses wrong on the first night, e tries to go up against the Vampire, and finds it to be a draining experience. E dies, and then role-claims. Everyone in the game knows immediately e’s telling the truth, as evidenced by the fact that e’s telling anything. E tells the town who the killers were, and which one was which. Within 24 hours, both of them are dead (one from the unanimous lynch, and one from the Vigilante who can confidently kill a known baddie). In exchange for the Occultist’s death, the town manages to get rid of one of the two anti-town kills, and gets a freebie from the other anti-town killing faction, a heck of a deal. And that’s in the worst case scenario.
I’ve found the more power roles you have the more it bogs the game down, although it may get the players to feel more invested in the game. I wonder if your experience in the long game going now has colored your perception of what it takes to make a good game? That has been an ususual game in several ways, and you’d be suprised how clean and elegant the standard game is if you just play it a bit more. A lot of players are working on making uber-games with themes and tons of factions, but a lot of times those add complexity without adding significantly to the fun.
Here are my off the cuff suggestions.
There’s a hole in your “no lynch” idea. You say “the person with the most votes” gets it so everyone must either not vote or unvote and one scum, or anyone really, sneaking a vote in just under the deadline can off someone, basically becoming a lynch mob of one. I don’t think this adds much fun to the game as it becomes pretty random and takes a lot of bookkeeping to pull off a no lynch.
Explain or somehow document why the roles are not revealed at time of death. What do you expect this to add to gameplay?
You’ve really crippled the masons here. Was that your intent? If you’re going to handicap them you might want to add an alternate victory path here for them so they can build their super-secret society by doing their secret handshakes and once they are aware of each other, allow them to join a masons forum(a lodge if you will). Then they can further strategize and try to ferret out the remaining masons, mass claim and win. To do so they must meet a quorum though. At least 2/3 of the original freemasons must still be alive, and in the lodge, in order to successfully take over the world. So they have to build their network quickly and quietly because anyone who says on day 1 “I’m a mason, everyone identify yourself and we’ll take over the world” would just be putting a bullseye on themselves for both town and scum. If they mass claim and they haven’t found all the masons, or don’t have quorum, then their plans for world domination fail and they are all outed and become normal citizens with no more designs of conquest. Of course this means they become a strong pro-town voting bloc, but also become targets for the various scum factions. I’m not worried about them mass claiming on day one and because all it takes is one town or scum to lie about being a mason and bring the lodge down from within. Best to build your secret society in secret, so you can vet your membership instead of accepting anyone who claims to be a mason.
I can break your game right away with the witches. On day 1 they all claim and validate each other. Then they say they’re going to protect witch #2 that night. Then the guardian angel(s) and witch doctor protect the other two witches. Then all three witches are protected and they can investigate each night and lead any anti-town lynch bandwagons during the day. The only role capable of penetrating their protection is the vig and he’s pro-town, so he wouldn’t. The scum’s only hope is to off the witch doctor and/or guardian angels, but with the witches free to work in the open they can have the seer, occultist, and detective work with them to identify scum pretty quickly.
The detective seems extremely powerful. Given that he’s a pro-town role and only scum, or the vigilante, will be doing night kills, he basically learns the name of scum each night. He could lay low for three to four days and then break the game by posting everything he knows. The occultist or warlock’s retribution spell may show up on his radar, but for the most part he’s going to finger scum each night without ever missing. Also, when does he get his info? It says “each day” he can find the killer of one victim from the previous night, so does he get it at the end of the day, or at the beginning? Basically can he lead a revenge mob immediately, or does he have to wait?
I don’t see a way for the coroner to use his power without giving himself away. If he starts bandwagons then he’ll get munched. If he doesn’t then his info is useless within a day.
The scotsman just seems like a red herring, especially if his identify is revealed afterwards. The bulletproof townie is basically the same thing, but without the one-shot effect. They can’t be killed at night at all, so once scum decides they weren’t being blocked in some way they’ll have to reveal themselves somewhat to start a lynch bandwagon against him or leave him alone. Similar comments apply to the magician.
How does your vigilantee know if he’s killed town or not? By my count there are potentially four kills each night(occultist, vigilante, werewolves, and vampire) not to mention one-shot kills like the warlocks retribution or the vigilante’s suicide. How does the vigilantee know if he killed town and has to suicide?
The witch doctor is very interesting, but seems wicked hard to play. Every time he protects someone successfully they come back and can finger scum(or the occultist/vig) without significant repercussions for their team. Basically the resurrected person becomes a one shot detective whom it doesn’t matter if the vamp or wolves munch the next night. Those kind of 1-1 trades are extremely good for the town, but the witch doctor is shooting in the dark as to who to protect, unless the witches claim of course.
I’m not sure the warlock adds anything to the game except an extra kill for the town on rare occasion. Why not just replace him with a bomb?
The occultist seems capable of breaking the game, but I’m not sure how to explain it beyond your example. That’s a ton of info and would move a game from midgame to endgame in a single swoop. If he joined in with the witches in announcing himself and having the GA/Witch Doctor protect him and had people volunteer to be his sacrifices each night you could break this thing open fast at the cost of only a couple townies.
The vicar seems to be a role blocker for a role which has its work cut out for it already.
The cabal seem to be the most likely victors of most games and they have to work the least to make it happen. Lead bandwagons and vote en bloc for lynching suspected witches or help the werewolves find the witches and then help the town win. The town would be dumb to retaliate against the cabal because they’d be throwing the game to the wolves/undead. Still this role seems easy and pretty likely to pay off with a minimum of work which could breed resentment among some of the players.
The undead can’t win unless the necromancer is very clever, because they’re not. Sounds like a horribly unfun role to play. Might be different if they had a night kill, but that would make them mechanically pretty much like the wolves.
The vampire seems to be a super Serial Killer. Does he count towards the undead numbers? If so then he should work together with the necromancer, which makes his job a lot easier than a standard SK’s.
The necromancer has an extremely hard job and has to do it on his own because his minions are all brainless. All the eggs for his entire faction are literally in his basket. Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun for either him or those counting on him for their chance to win.
About the only note I have on the wolves is that it makes sense for them to always send their alpha wolf out to kill. If he’s targeted by anyone other than the Vig or Vamp(this would make him immune to the warlock’s retribution and the magician’s shifting powers as well as the occultist’s sacrificing powers, correct?) then he finds out who they are and the wolves munch a power role. The wolves have nothing to lose by doing this because they’ll always get a new alpha if they lose this one.
Enjoy,
Steven
Holy shit, Mtgman.
That is all.
I wasn’t prepared for that response.
Enjoy,
Batman
And you were doing so well with those gender-neutral neologisms, too. 