This thread is for unspoilt discussion of the Munchkin Mini Mafia game. Living players should not read it!
Feel free to speculate on character alignments, which sides will win, etc.
Boozahol is totally Chaotic Evil.
My main concern (as always when moderating a game) is whether or not the sides are balanced. In this game, I gave up trying to make it definitively fair and just hoped that the distribution of powers balanced out.
I’m surprised some players are trying to second-guess the role distribution. I say explicitly in the rules–it’s random!
I’m very interested to see how the Lawful/Chaotic sides work out. There can be some potentially interesting dynamics. I wonder if anyone will notice the way all the Lawful characters can win together.
I enjoy following these Mafia games (and would love to join one, but I either don’t have time to commit, or I miss the sign-ups), and I have to say, this is the most interesting set-up I’ve seen yet. I love the concept! And given that it’s meant to play through fairly quickly, and its randomly-generated nature, I could see this scenario returning every now and then, without it seeming stale.
I can’t wait to see how it plays out!
I did expect all the magic items to be in the game, though, with each player getting one and the rest sitting in the hoard. But then again, I like chaos.
Ooh, before I forget: I also like having the race/class combos known. It allows the players to indulge in a little bit of roleplaying for flavor (I’ve been trying to think of a way to implement a scenario to encourage exactly that–not that I plan on creating/modding a game, but I do have some ideas that might sound interesting if fleshed out).
This game is definitely meant to be replayed.
Not all magic items are included in order to increase uncertainty.
I designed the game so that, despite all the complexities, the basic Mafia-hunt of Good vs Evil is relatively simple. There are no perfect investigators, nor perfect protectors. Finding the Evil characters will depend on old-fashioned post and vote analysis.
Hmm. For all Lawful characters to win:
All Items in Hoard (Lawful WC fulfilled)
All Evil are dead (Good WC fulfilled)
All Good are dead (Evil WC fulfilled)
So, either you’re suggesting some kind of suicide pact by the last Lawful Good, or I’m missing something.
Yep. If everyone is dead, all the Lawful characters win, and none of the Chaotic. It’s unlikely, but might be tempting, depending on how the end game looks.
It’s quite fun, from the outside, watching people adapt to a whole new ruleset. Even if a purely optimal Day One mafia strategy hasn’t quite been hammered out, the script is pretty well known: mass claim or not?; lynch lurkers or not?; random vote or not?. There might be some discussion around individual roles, but they all fall into well known archetypes: watcher, detective, doc, blocker etc.
In contrast, here everyone can watch everyone else, power is partly a function of items, not role and no-one really knows what a pro-Town strategy is. In fact, I think the only way Good can win the game is to work out what the Evil plan to do. Obviously the basics apply (avoid attention, provoke Good on Good lynching, co-operate) but other behaviours (such as hunting power roles) don’t necessarily apply. Instead, they’ll want to: a) increase their number of kills and b) obfuscate investigation. As has been realised, that points towards them seeking and using items. I wonder if the smart thing for scum to do is to avoid the obvious and just use Cursing and mislynches to achieve their goal? Slower, yes but much harder to detect.
The Evil characters are rather confused on what approach to take as well. 
If anyone is interested in being spoiled, send me a PM request. Though, I’m not sure if this game will be more fun to watch spoiled or unspoiled.
I’m surprised no one has worked out the number of mislynches the Good side can afford. Depending on the number of Evil characters:
3 vs 12 => 4 mislynches
4 vs 11 => 3 mislynches
5 vs 10 => 2 mislynches
I think the best Evil strategy will be to use items/powers in an arguably Good way, and depend on the Curse and mislynches to win.
Good strategy is going to be tough. Look for perfect info slips, inconsistent statements/intentions, and hope for a few good investigations. The fact that both Clerics have the Elf bonus will be a huge plus to Good, if either of them are in fact Good.
Chaotic strategy is fairly simple–do whatever it takes to stay alive. Simple to understand, difficult to do.
Lawful strategy is difficult to determine. I think maybe the best way is to apply Disintegration pressure on as many characters as possible, and hope that the Chaotic ones will confess and drop their items. Things will be especially tricky when in the endgame–it may be better to avoid Disintegrating an Evil character in order to forestall a victory by Chaotic Good alone.
And at least one Lawful character has PM’d me with the tactic of simply killing all the Chaotics. But since the number of Chaotics is hard to predict (anywhere from zero to seven, with five the most likely), the Lawful Good might not have enough mislynches to eliminate the Chaotic Good.
It looks to me like all the surviving Evil will win or lose together: Unlike Good, Evil has the luxury of knowing exactly how close they are to the moral victory, and can conspire to mass-dump or mass-transfer items shortly before that point. Any Chaotic Evil character who tries to resist such a plan can be threatened with the Curse by the presumably more numerous Lawful Evil characters, so it’s actually plausible that Evil might cooperate across the ethical axis more than Good in this game (no blood war here!).
Incidentally, that’s another point: There isn’t a set number of fatal mislynches, because not only can the Evil kill fail, but it’s also possible (at least in principle, though I think MAD will keep it from happening; see above) for Evil to target Evil.
In principle, I think that it’s a good idea on both sides for Law and Chaos to cooperate, since the victory conditions are not mutually exclusive. The problem is how to arrange it. I’m thinking that it might be to everyone’s benefit (Good and Evil alike) for everyone to declare their ethical alignment, but I’m not yet certain if it’s in anyone’s best interests to lie.
Looking at this some more: Different combinations of abilities are better for various alignments. Absent any more information, at this point I would vote to zap the people with abilities best-suited to evil, and to spare or protect those with abilities best-suited to good. Some also favor law or chaos, which may be relevant later.
In order:
Hawkeyeop-- Surprisingly, his racial magic-boost doesn’t help his class, since all of his abilities are high chance anyway. Two of his abilities yield information, which is generally thought to help Good, but two of his abilities (plus his racial ability) depend on items being in his possession, and having items seems to favor Evil more. I’m not sure what the net is.
tdpatriots-- Lingering death probably favors Good, since it gives a chance to talk about the killer, but all of his class abilities obstruct information (most divinations seem to be magical), which I think more than outweighs the half-orc.
Darth Sensitive-- All class abilities relate to getting and keeping items, which seem to be more useful for Evil.
cometothedarksidewehavecookies-- That wind would be mighty useful for a Lawful, especially a Lawful Evil who knows when the game is about to end. The reduced chance of being affected by magic also favors Evil. On the other hand, taking items out of players’ hands favors Good, insofar as items seem to favor Evil.
MHaye-- Reduced chance of alignment detection definitely favors evil. Neither of the distraction abilities will work on Evil’s primary weapon, the curse, but they will work on most of Good’s abilities.
ZSophia-- Detecting ethics and dropping a character’s items are both of especial benefit to Law, since Chaotics don’t care what ethical alignment anyone is, and disarming a Chaotic can be an alternative to killing. Reflecting physical attacks can favor Good or Evil, depending on who has the more physical attacks available.
storyteller0910-- I think the confusion ability probably helps Evil more than Good, since Good is more dependent on targeted abilities. Decapitation is almost useless to Good, since if you can convince the Good players that it’s necessary, then you could just arrange a tie in the disintegration vote, and if you can’t convince them it’s necessary, then how can you be sure of it yourself? But Evil could use that to go from almost-winning to straight-out winning, fairly easily.
Blaster Master-- Like ZSophia, paladinhood helps Law. Being a Halfling clearly benefits Evil more than Good, though, since it protects against Disintegration, which is hopefully targeting Evil more often.
ShadowFacts-- Like Hawkeyeop, magic-user can go either way, but being a Halfling makes him better for Evil than Hawkeyeop is.
sinjin-- As in real D&D, the monk’s abilities don’t seem all that useful. The class just improves other actions, without actually giving any actions to take, so unless he gets good items to use, he’s just a vanilla. And just taking actions two turns in a row is probably better than spending an extra action to improve the odds. The passive class ability obstructs information, which is slightly Evil, but is so situational as to not be very relevant.
zuma-- The halfling ability and the ranger passive ability (which restricts information) both favor evil, but the observational abilities of the ranger favor good, and probably outweigh them.
Chucara-- All of the cleric abilities are useless to Evil but very useful to Good, and the race just makes them better. The only advantage for an Evil cleric is sowing misinformation, but that would get discovered quickly once good folks start getting disintegrated.
Hockey Monkey-- Like Darth Sensitive, thievery favors evil, but HM, being a dwarf, is better at it.
sachertorte-- Like Chucara, clerichood favors good, with the added bonus of luck
Boozahol Squid, P.I.-- Traps and planting items both obstruct information, and assassination is even worse than the fighter’s decapitation, since it’s both secret and guaranteed to eventually work.
Ranking in order from most net beneficial to good to most net to evil, we get something like:
sachertorte
Chucara
zuma
Hawkeyeop
ShadowFacts
cometothedarksidewehavecookies
ZSophia
sinjin
Blaster Master
tdpatriots
storyteller0910
MHaye
Darth Sensitive
Hockey Monkey
Boozahol Squid, P.I.
On another note, I think that everyone with some ability to do so needs to call storyteller0910’s bluff this coming turn (Rod of Negation, Rod of Divination, Detect Evil, etc.). If he turns out to really have the Helm of Empathy and really takes steps to ensure its safekeeping or destruction, then that’s a sign that he’s probably Good, but if he’s lying, then he needs to be killed immediately. Were it anyone else, I’d take his frank statement as evidence enough, but I know from experience that he’s too damn good at bluffing. Meanwhile, I also note that it took 11 hours between him confirming (after sachetorte had already mentioned his analysis of the items) him fessing up to owning the blasted thing, which might have corresponded to time spent conspiring with other Evil folks.
Chronos, you really need to play in one of our Mafia games someday.
I don’t think it’s beneficial for Chaotic Good characters to publicly reveal their alignment. They are the primary obstacle to a Lawful Evil win. Perfect gameplay for LE would be to kill all the CG while convincing the CE to drop their items for a shared Evil win. I wonder how they will handle the first character on the block who claims CG.
I agree that ranking each character in terms of Good helpfulness may be useful for choosing the first Disintegration, and it’s not so great in the long run since alignments were randomly assigned.
Really nice game setup, Pleonast! My first thought was ‘just think of the possibilities!’ with all the interactions that can happen. The partially open setup also gives something to talk about on the first Turn.
I was thinking of a tactic Cookies could pull off: push for the mass item claim right away, then use her lucky Druid Wind to blow them in the Hoard. It might catch someone lying about their item. Though actually the chance is pretty low (1/3 per item), but you could get lucky ;).
Yeah, it’ll just have to wait for the right intersection of having a bit of free time, and noticing one of the sign-up threads before it fills up. I’d have loved to play in this one-- Complicated rules sets seem the most fun to me.
Meanwhile, I think I’ve figured out proper chaotic strategy:
To start with, lay low as much as is possible. Given that people are suspicious, of course, this does not mean lurking. Hold on to your starting item, but don’t attempt to obtain any more.
If you think you might be at risk, then immediately claim chaos, tell everyone what your item is, and use your next action to drop it into the Hoard. People can watch you or the horde if they like, or use other powers to confirm, but if nothing else, they’ll know that you claimed to drop the Trinket of Knickknackery at the time when the Trinket of Knickknackery happened to appear in the Hoard, which lends credence to your claim of having dropped your item.
If you can convince everyone that you now have no items, then you’ve moved out of the crosshairs. Lawfuls don’t care about chaotic characters without items, and your moral enemies will now see you as a lesser threat, since you’ve given up a significant portion of your power, so they’re likely to focus their attentions first on whoever hasn’t taken a vow of poverty. So now you’ll probably stay alive until everyone else on your moral side has been killed first, in which case you’ve probably lost anyway.
A couple of other interesting things to note about this ruleset:
1: It’s possible for the game to end with no winners. If all of the CE are dead, at least one CG remains alive with an item, and the LE outnumber the CG and LG combined, then the lawfuls lose because of the CG guy, the CE lose by virtue of being dead, and the CG lose by virtue of Evil winning.
2: If a consensus arises, the Town can kill as many scum as they like in a single turn, thanks to the tie rules. But this might lead to an awkward situation with many last-minute vote changes.
Consider, for instance, the (hypothetical) case that the fighter and assassin are both evil, and both use their kill-powers the same turn on high-good targets (either highly trusted, high-powered, or both). OK, so they’ve made it pretty clear that they’re both Evil, and it’s to the advantage of the Good players for them to be tied in the disintegration vote. So all of the genuine Good players (and Evil players still trying to appear Good) put in one vote for each of them. But now, Assassin and Fighter (who no longer care about tells) both put in a single vote for Assassin alone, breaking the tie. So now a couple of Good players have to withdraw Assassin votes, to put them tied again. But then Assassin and Fighter both withdraw their Assassin votes, and place Fighter votes instead, and so on, until one side or the other screws up (good posters simul-posting, say) or the deadline arrives.
I’ll be sure to give you a heads up the next time I run a game. All of my games are complicated. I’m likely to run this one again, too, if there’s enough interest.
I think you have a good outline for the Chaotic strategy.
Not quite right. The game ends when at least one character satisfies both victory conditions. The situation you outlined above is not a game end. However, it would certainly end on the next Turn when all the LE form an unstoppable voting block and lynch the remaining good characters, thus ensuring all items are out of Chaotic hands.
Voting can be easily swung. That’s why I have a hard vote deadline. 
Do the Evil characters have the usual Scum advantage of knowing who each other are? Or are they as blind as the Good characters?
Evil knows who all the other Evil are. Although, interestingly enough, I forgot to tell them until they asked about it. :smack: (The scum board uses generic user names.)
They don’t know each other’s Lawful/Chaotic alignment, so there’s a chance they could try to double cross each other on that axis.
Rules clarifications:
1: Is the result of the Bag of Tricks public? For instance, if it comes up Dog, does everybody see the cute doggie wagging his tail at Goody McTwoshoes?
2: If someone uses an information-gaining power and it fails, do they get false information, or just a notice “your power failed”?
3: Are uses of magic items considered Magic, Physical, or variable depending on item? The axe and sword sure seem physical, but it’s not made explicit.
1: Is the result of the Bag of Tricks public? For instance, if it comes up Dog, does everybody see the cute doggie wagging his tail at Goody McTwoshoes?
Good point. My intention is that it is public, although who used it is not.
2: If someone uses an information-gaining power and it fails, do they get false information, or just a notice “your power failed”?
Your power failed.
3: Are uses of magic items considered Magic, Physical, or variable depending on item? The axe and sword sure seem physical, but it’s not made explicit.
Yes, the axe and sword are supposed to be physical. I thought it would be obvious. I fixed the google doc on that already.