Backseat Hitmen (Off limits to living Mafia players)

The Game Room
501

Pleonast, the more I think about it the more I think the Detective is going to cause you a lot of grief(the witches too, but to a lesser extent). The only situation where they would work as designed is in a game with no protective roles. Here’s two extreme examples of gameplay illustrating what I think the problem is.

Day 2, after the first night kills have happened, assuming the detective and GAs didn’t die.

Player 1 - “I’m the detective. I have just received a reply to my PM from the GM saying that Player 5 was involved in last night’s killing. I call on the town to lynch this person and for the GA’s to defend me tonight so we can continue eliminating scum.”

Player 2 - “Liar! I’m the detective. I have just received a reply to my PM from the GM saying that Player 7 was involved in last night’s killing. I call on the town to lynch this person and for the GA’s to defend me tonight so we can continue eliminating scum.”

Player 1 - “We can’t both be the detective, so town you now have to choose. Lynch me and you lose your real detective(and you won’t have any way of knowing this until my role becomes public). So lynch the person I said to lynch, protect me this night, and on the following day you’ll get confirmation that I was telling the truth and I’ll have another name for you.”

Player 2 - “What he said, but without all the lying.”

Town lynches Player 2.

Night falls - Player 5 is lunched.

Day dawns - Player 2 was the detective.

Player 1 - “Mwah ha ha! You’re screwed now townies.”

If it goes the other way, then the wolves are screwed. Either way I think the game is broken after the first round or two.

Enjoy,
Steven

502

There are no plain Undead. All roles are explained in my link. The Vampire(s) kills to help the Necromancer, who turns bodies into Zombies. Both have to make active decisions about how to use their powers. Thinking about it, you’re probably confused about my (probably poor) formatting: SIDES are listed thus, with an overview and victory conditions. Roles are listed afterwards.

The Cabal have the interesting problem of having to win without any special powers, other than the ability to communicate freely among themselves. The Wolves/Undead won’t be searching for them as much as the Witches/Detective, but killing them does advance their victory condition. The Cabal wants to kill Wolves/Undead as much as the Town, so will be helping the Town to some extent. Lurking doesn’t help the Cabal; another side will win. The Witches merely need to survive for the Town to prevent Cabal from winning. The Cabal has to make sure they don’t.

Let me think some more about the Witches and Detectives before I respond in detail about them. You may be right; they’re definitely tricky to balance.

On preview, you’ve posted more. I’ll respond after I get some actual work done. :stuck_out_tongue:

503

(Gah, stupid IE lost my message. Let’s try again.)

When the Detective claims, the Town and Wolves/Undead will be in a race of the Town killing scum vs the the scum trying to hit the Witches. The Wolves will probably lose, but the Undead will win. The Detective can’t find the Necromancer, who will be accumulating one Zombie most nights. The Undead will win about the same time the Wolves and Vampire(s) are killed.

The only way the Town can win the killing spree is if the Necromancer is discovered/killed. Very risky. And if one of the Witches is killed (with three of them, it’s a definitely possibility), they’ll have to give up investigations in order to keep protecting the Detective.

A Witch can claim early to help direct the Town, but that’ll lead to a similar play-out, except at a slower pace since the Witches will end up investigating some Townies.

The Town needs to juggle killing Wolves vs finding the Necromancer.

Mtgman (and Chronos, too), if you can keep it a secret, I’d be happy to PM/email you the specific numbers and roles I’m planning on using, so you can see exactly how I’m balancing things.

504

I don’t know about that… The Detective can’t find the Necromancer, but he can and will quickly find the Vampire. After the Vampire is dead, there will probably only be two kills per cycle (the lynch or Vigilante, and the wolves), or less, if the Guardian Angels guess right, one of which will be burried (and the Necromancer doesn’t know which). So on average, the Undead will grow by only one per two nights, or slower. Meanwhile, the Witches and the Seer are also investigating, and they can identify the Necro.

As for thinking that the Guardian Angels might be unbalanced, they’re almost the same as the Doctor, which is a fairly standard role for these games. The only difference is that your Angels know who each other are. This may not seem to be much difference, but it is: Suppose the Town has two people they want to protect (say, the other two members of the Coven). With ordinary (non-role-claimed) doctors, they can’t coordinate any way to guarantee that they’ll both be covered. But if the two Angels know each other, then the Coven can say something like “We’ll protect Magrat ourselves. Whichever Angel has the name that is earlier in alphabetical order, protect Granny Weatherwax. And the Angel that has the later alphabetical name should protect Nanny Ogg.”. You could change this, of course, by removing the power that the Angels know each other.

Mtgman, I’m not sure why the Town would lynch one of the purported Detectives. Couldn’t they test just as well, without risking losing the real Detective, by lynching one of the folks the Detectives fingered?

And Pleonast, I’d prefer if you did not send me any privelidged information, just in case I decide to play under your rules.

505

Well, at the risk of chiming in, I am working on my own rule set. I wanted something a little bit more complicated, and something that would be less boring and frustrating for vanilla Townspeople. Thus, I give you:

Mafia, a game: The Organization is Hiring

Rumors start to fly about a neighboring town being overrun by the corruption of the Mafia. Despite a lynching bloodbath, they are overrun… and now rumors are flying in Upper Doperville that one of their own has come to this sweet, innocent town to start a new Organization.
Will the town dispose of the scum? Or will the Mafia overrun another simple town?
This is a fairly standard Mafia game, with a twist.

The only Mafia member at the start of the game will be the Boss. The Boss has the capacity to recruit new Mafia members from the Townspeople in the place of a standard night kill. When a player dies, their true role is revealed.

The game will start at Dawn. During the day, the town members will vote for one player to lynch by vote. In the case of ties, there will be a vote-off (24 hours long).

During the night (72 hours), night powers may be used. The Doctor may protect, the Mafia may communicate and recruit or kill (not both), and the Vigilante may kill. Only a kill (and the killed player’s role) will be communicated to the Town. Recruits, investigations, and failed kills will not be reported to the Town at large.

Please note that former roles will be revealed. For example, a Capo will be revealed as "Capo / Detective” if he was formerly the Detective. In death, all truths are revealed.

THE TOWNSPEOPLE

The town will be composed at the start of the game of every player but the Boss, and will be divided into the following roles:

  • Townspeople. Honest and hardworking, they are trying to oust the Mafia from their beloved town… unless made an offer they can’t refuse. Townspeople have no special powers, but, as all players, may cast votes to Lynch. There is at least one Townsperson.

  • The Detective: Already aware of the new Mafia connection in his town, the Detective is hard on the lookout for scum. The Detective will always determine the exact current role of those he investigates each night. The only exceptions to this rule are Boss or the Capo, who has a 50% chance to be found out as their true role, and 50% chance to be identified as another randomly determined role (random roll of: Townsperson, Detective, Doctor, Vigilante, Mason, Priest, Bishop, Beat Cop, Police Chief, Soldier, Consigliere, Capo, Hitman, or Boss, excluding his correct role). If the target is being Made that night, he will return their new role, rather than their old role (former roles are not revealed in any case).
    The Detective also has the option to forego his investigation and instead study the levels of crime in town. By doing so, he will learn the number of Mafia in the game with 100% accuracy, including any recruitments done that same night. He will also determine whether or not the Capo is in play. There is one Detective.

  • The Doctor: Trying to stop the killing, the Doctor interferes with the night happenings. The Doctor may protect any player (including himself) whom he chooses each night. If he protects a player, they are safe from recruitment, night kills, and investigations. There is one Doctor.

  • The Vigilante: Fueled with a sense of rage towards the scum, the Vigilante has opted to take the matter into his own hands. He may, at his option, kill one player per night. The Vigilante is a fanatic and cannot be swayed from his course; he cannot be recruited, only killed. If a Vigilante kills a Priest, he is filled with deep shame and regret, and forsakes his Vigilante ways, secretly becoming a Priest himself. There is one Vigilante.

  • Mason: Masons know one another, but cannot communicate outside of the game. Masons are devoted to their own order and are difficult to sway; any Mafia recruitment attempt has a 50% chance of failure. There are at least two Masons.

  • Priest: A Priest is deeply religious and morally opposed to organized crime. These men of the cloth are devout in their ways, and cannot be recruited by the Mafia. Additionally, a Priest may, once per game, visit a troubled soul (any player) and pray with them all night, preventing any attempts at recruitment by the Mafia (but not a kill). There is at least one Priest at the start of the game.

  • The Bishop: The Bishop is like other Priests, but if he prays with a vanilla Townsperson, that person has a 50% chance to convert and become a Priest himself. If the Vigilante night kills the Bishop, he still becomes a Priest. However, power corrupts; the Bishop secretly nurtures ambition for greatness, and he will accept the Capo position if offered. Mafia attempts to recruit him normally fail. There is one Bishop.

  • Beat Cop: Working hard to investigate scum, they do so less accurately than the Detective. They will only detect if a player is affiliated with the Town or the Mafia, not a specific role (i.e. Priest, Soldier).

For each Beat Cop that chooses to investigate each night, there is a 20% cumulative chance to all Beat Cops that they will miss the target of their investigation (they will receive no result at all). For example, if there are two Beat Cops attempting investigation on one night, the chance of failure is 40% for each (each Beat Cop getting his own “roll” for failure).

They have a 50% chance to return the Boss, Hit Man, or the Capo as Town if investigated.

The Beat Cop(s) have one advantage over the Detective, however; if they happen to be investigating the target of a night kill or recruitment on a particular night, they will have a 50% chance to witness the event. If a killing, this will reveal the killer’s name. If the Beat Cop is witnessing a general Mafia Night Kill, the killer will be identified as the Hit Man if in play, or, if there is no Hit Man, a random Mafia player of the lowest rank in the game at that time. If they witness a making ceremony, they will identify one of the following randomly by name: Boss, Capo, Consigliere. No roles will be revealed, though the Beat Cop will know if the recruitment was blocked. There is at least one Beat Cop at the start of the game.

  • Police Chief: The Police Chief has the same powers as other Beat Cops (and counts as a “Beat Cop” for determining failure rates) but, once per game, they may recruit a regular Townsperson (randomly determined from all plain Townspeople) to join the force as a Beat Cop. He may not investigate during that night. He may choose whether or not he wishes to know the new Beat Cop’s name at his discretion when he decides to recruit. The new Beat Cop will not know who recruited him. If he is recruited by the Mafia or killed, this recruitment is lost. There is one Police Chief.
    THE MAFIA

Mafia roles, in order of rank from highest to lowest, are as follows: the Boss, the Capo, Consigliere, the Hit Man, and Soldiers.

The Boss: The Boss is the only Mafia player that can recruit. While alive, the Boss has final say regarding recruitment (which will override a night kill vote), though he may of course discuss the recruitment with others. If the Boss is killed, the Mafia may no longer recruit, though they may night kill. The Mafia can only attempt to recruit or night kill each night, not both.

Soldiers: If a normal Townsperson is recruited, he will become a Soldier, except for the first Townsperson recruited will become the Hit Man instead. Soldiers have no special powers.

The Hit Man: The Hit Man is the first regular Townsperson recruited. He may choose any one night kill (but not recruitment) done by the Mafia to be a special hit. This hit cannot be blocked by the Doctor and cannot be witnessed. If blocked, this power cannot be used again.

Consigliere: All other recruitable Town roles (such as Masons or the Doctor) will become Consigliere. For every Consigliere in play, there is a cumulative 5% chance that the Mafia will “discover” a random townsperson’s role during the night, but their original powers are permanently lost.

Capo: Once per game, the Boss can elect to designate a Capo from amongst the ranks of the Town. If the Boss is killed before using this power, it is lost. If the Boss attempts to recruit a Priest or Vigilante as Capo, the ability is blocked and cannot be reused, but the target’s role will be revealed to the Mafia. Recruiting a Capo takes the place of another recruitment or a night kill.

Should the Boss successfully recruit a Capo, the player recruited as a Capo gains powers depending on his original role:

  • The Doctor Capo can continue, at his discretion, to protect one player of his choice per night from night kills and investigations.

  • The Detective Capo may investigate as normal. However, instead of a failure chance on the Boss or Capo, there is now a failure chance on the Doctor or Vigilante.

  • A Beat Cop or Police Chief Capo may investigate, but will only return “Townsperson” or “Power Role” as a response (“Power Role” as all town roles but Townsperson). The Doctor, Vigilante, and Detective have a 50% chance to show incorrectly as “Townsperson”. The global failure rate of Beat Cops and the Police Chief is still in effect regardless of the town or mafia affiliation, though dead players do not count.

  • A Mason Capo gains a special power. If the Boss is recruiting another Mason, they can choose to go to the Mason personally and offer the recruitment. If this is done, a block by the Doctor or Priest (if in effect) will fail to block the recruitment, though it still can be witnessed by a Beat Cop. (If so, there is a 100% chance that the Mason-Capo will be identified as the recruiter.)

  • The Bishop Capo may reveal a random Priest in play to the Mafia during the night. This power takes the place of a recruitment or night kill. If used more than once, the same Priest can be revealed multiple times. Priests being defended by Doctors, or being prayed with by other Priests, will block this power.

  • A Townsperson Capo has no special powers (other than the decreased investigation effectiveness of various other roles against him).

NOTES ON NIGHT POWERS

When someone is killed or recruited during the night, this will not interrupt any of their powers. For example, a Doctor that is killed or recruited during a night will still have his protection in effect throughout the night. A Boss who is night killed but who was recruiting or promoting is still successful. Investigators who are killed will not be given their results, as they are out of the game and the information is useless, but investigators who are recruited during the round they investigate someone will still receive the results of their investigation.

NOTES ON BLOCKING POWERS AND FAILURES

If a power is blocked, neither the blocking party nor the person whose power was blocked will know. They will only know that they were unsuccessful. For example, if the Doctor blocks a night kill, there will be no kill that night, but the Doctor will not know if it was he who blocked the kill. There is no way to determine if a particular event was blocked or failed – the result is the same.

WIN CONDITIONS

The townies (including all power roles) not recruited win if the Mafia are all killed.
The Mafia (including all recruits) win if they outnumber the Town.

Feedback? :slight_smile: The idea was to do a recruiting game with a lot of blocks and strategy, and a lot of relatively low-value roles but that were still “something interesting”.

506

Argh, you’re right about this, at least the way I originally envisioned the Vicar. My original description doesn’t make this clear, but I had intended that the Vicar could bless the lynchee or any previous dead. The way to fix the problem is not allow the Vicar to bless the lynchee the same day he’s lynched. That let’s the Necromancer get a guaranteed Zombie every night, unless the Town does not lynch. It restores the game balance, but changes the dynamics of the Vicar’s choices.

I like not allowing the GAs to protect themselves, but letting them know who each other are. That let’s them start out protecting each other, but then gives them the problem of who protects who once someone else claims. Without Witches they’re fine, but the combination of both roles in the same game is too powerful. Since I think the Witches are the more interesting role (IMHO), I’ve decided to keep them.

Thanks for the help again, Chronos, and Mtgman! Consider spaces in my game reserved for you if want them.

The brings to mind my idea for allocating spaces. Have a set deadline from the time of the game’s announcement (maybe 48 hours) where anyone interested request a spot. Once the time is up, do a random draw of the needed players (25 in my case) out of everyone who expressed an interest. That seems a fair way. Thoughts?

fluiddruid: nice ruleset. I’m wondering if the Mafia should always recruit, never kill. A successful recruitment gives them a +2 advantage (minus to other side, plus to theirs) versus only +1 for a kill (minus to the other side). I guess at some point, recruitment will fail often enough that it’s better to kill. But by that point, will the Mafia have too big a numbers advantage? You’ll have to do some detailed scenario playthroughs to check your game balance.

507

Personally, I don’t like variants with recruitment, since it opens up the possibility that a player will want to be recruited, and play towards that end. I don’t like encouraging folks to backstab their own team.

Eh, if the Town is getting reliable Detective information, they might as well just let the Vigilante handle the details. And if you forbid the Vicar from burrying a fresh kill, then the Vicar’s power is irrelevant, until such time as the Town stops lynching. If there’s a lynch every night, then there’s no strategy or luck required for the Necromancer; he just picks the one he knows wasn’t burried, and he doesn’t worry that some of the old bodies are getting burried, because he’ll probably never catch up on his backlog anyway.

While we’re on the subject, what happens if the Vicar and the Necromancer target the same corpse on the same night? Whichever one PMs first gets it?

508

It’s an option, my example outcomes weren’t meant to be comprehensive. I was trying to point up the dangers of having a detective who is so accurate the scum will be willing to take extra measures, like counteclaiming, to get to him. Losing the detective due to a false counterclaim by scum would be a big loss in this game. If they decide to trust all the detective claims, pending verification, then they have to protect all the possible detectives. Remember that the scum know which of the two is only pretending to be a detective. So if they lynch players 5 or 7 then they have to wait a night(during which the real detective could be lunched because the GA or witches could be protecting the wrong one) to find out which side 5 or 7 was on, then another night(again maybe losing the real detective) to see if he was scum or the vig/magician/warlock. And if the scum is really clever they’ll finger the same guy the detective did. They could even beat him to it because they know who the hitman they sent out the previous night was. They end up losing two wolves this way(one they were going to lose anyway because he was fingered by the real detective) and the second as the sacrificial lamb doing the counterclaiming. Then they lunch the real detective while the protector role(s) are in doubt. The protectors can’t openly communicate to coordinate protection because that would give them away. I think the uber-detective is going to be a headache for the GM and players, and possibly give the game to the undead.

I considered making a similar role myself, the Father Confessor. Each night the Father Confessor is visited by a member of the Mafia, possibly chosen at random with repeats allowed, who unburdens his soul about the evil he has done. So the Father Confessor collects names of the scum over the course of the game. He can lay low and then reveal all he knows at once, giving the town a huge advantage, provided they believe his claims. Once he tells what he knows he has to step down from his post and go into exile for breaking his sacred covenant to keep things said in confession secret. So the town gets a list of scum, but their numbers are ipso facto reduced by one(which could give the scum victory if the Father Confessor waits too long). Also he’s not allowed to post in the thread again. No defending his list, nothing.

Ultimately I’ve decided not to use the Father Confessor because I think the role is too powerful and can be a game breaker.

I, on the other hand, am very unlikely to play in the games. I’ve got a full plate at the moment with other priorities. So reviewing your plans works fine for me.

Enjoy,
Steven

509

Oh, I see our confusion over the undead role Pleonast, in your descriptions you had the Town side and role coded the same way you have the Undead side and role coded, so I thought, since there are surely vanilla townies, that there would be vanilla undead too.

Enjoy,
Steven

510

No, the Vicar buries during the day.

Yeah, it makes the Necromancer’s strategy very simple at the beginning. It’ll be the midgame (which is the Necro’s endgame) that requires more thought.

No, no vanilla townies either. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll send you details later tonight.

511

Wow, Queuing is really coming on strong. Come one, Town, lynch him already. :slight_smile:

512

Remember NAF’s advice about having at least 1/2 the town be vanilla townies?

I just think it’s way too complicated, and even with all the explainations, I don’t quite get it. Maybe I’m not as bright as the average doper, but I doubt the reason. No offence.

513

ETA: Not to mention all the questions you’re going to get during the game, potentially exposing roles of those asking questions, and/or having to deal with a massive ammount of email/PMs, which may or not be considered “fair”.

514

I have to agree. I think that there comes a point where the game is more frustrating than fun, and having too many possibilities to sort out makes things more a matter of luck than of reasoning and strategy. I’m in Mafia 3, and it’s incredibly disorienting even with the few roles we have in play!

A pure, simple game should be enough to satisfy a real strategist. Kind of like chess. A few rules to learn, but a mind-boggling number of possible moves.

515

Yes, I’ve kept in mind NAF’s advice. Many of the Town roles are near-vanilla (Freemason, Coroner, Scotsman, Warlock, Magician, Vicar), with marginally useful, but still potentially fun, roles.

Although it seems complicated, it’s not too bad, I think. For the Town to win, it needs to kill all the Undead and Wolves, while preserving at least two of the Witches. For the Undead to win, the Necromancer needs to stay alive until he has enough zombies. For the Wolves, they need to get a majority by killing enough of the others. The Cabal needs to play the other sides against each other and survive.

I’m sure there’ll be a lot of questions about roles, PM/emails can handle that.

Millit, I think the frustration will be less than you think because every role has something to do besides voting to lynch. Having only 25 players will help. I think it’ll be fun. Proof is in the pudding, so we’ll see. :smiley:

516

Y’know, I think that Lakai might just get away with it. He’s now strawmanning the reason he was suspected as just being because he and brewha kept fingering each other (which is not that strong a reason). If the true Townies (whoever they are) are tired enough, they just might not remember the real reason.

More on Pleonast’s game: I’m not sure what the Cabal are supposed to do. They have to get rid of the witches to win, but they have no means of doing so. Sure, they can try to sway the lynches, but if a Witch is about to get lynched, she’ll role-claim, and she’ll probably be able to prove her claim to the satisfaction of the majority without the other two needing to claim. Alternately, the Cabal could try to communicate the Witches’ identities to the Vampire or Wolves, who also want to get rid of them, but how are they going to do that, without also communicating that same information to the protectors? And in either case, this assumes that they can even figure out who the witches are. They don’t have any investigative capability, and they’re at a dual disadvantage compared to the scum in a normal, two-faction game. First of all, the Mafia know that anyone who’s not with them is town, which gives them a smaller pool, and second, the Mafia can just hit anyone they’re not sure about, and even if the target isn’t a power role, well, it’s still one townie down. But the Cabal knows about a smaller proportion of the players, and they have no night-kill available to them.

517

People are now invited to view the roles for the Treasure Island-themed game. Hopefully we’ve got the bugs out now.

518

The Cabal is the most difficult side to play. They have no special powers, except communication. But don’t underestimate that! The dead Cabal can still give advice to the living ones; they also get day and night communication. I see both the Cabal and Witches as mini think-tanks where several players can strategize together and play a smart game. Balancing their lack of power is the fact that no one is intentionally looking for them. Killing a Cabal helps the other sides, but not as much as many other roles.

How to play Cabal? Try to figure out who the Witches are and either get them night-killed, or force them to claim publicly. The Witches can only protect one person per night, so the second Witch revealed creates vulnerability. And once one Witch is killed, the other two are restricted in the nightly choice: investigate or protect. So the Cabal helps the scum find/kill Witches and helps the Town find/kill scum. It’ll be tricky.

519

Looks good to me, seems like it will be a fun game!

520

Some clarifications on the Pirate game: I presume that Dick Deadeye makes one kill attempt per night? And if he kills pirates (other than Flint), do they count towards his quota?

If Steele and/or Livesey block a kill, do they know they accomplished anything?

If Flint dies and Gunn becomes sane, is his status revealed?

If the game gets down to just Sam and a normal crewman, whose victory is it? What if it’s just an unactivated Dick vs. crew, or a trio of Dick, Sam, and crew?

And you didn’t actually list roles for Flint or the generic pirates… I presume that they’re just garden-variety scum (aside from Flint and Steele’s recognition of each other)?