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Author Topic: Mafia Mod Signups  (Read 88992 times)

SnowFire

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #150 on: February 26, 2010, 03:48:04 AM »
Mm.  Said it before but I definitely agree with Excal about the merits of 72 hour day lengths.  Means that you can be busy one night and not completely miss out on the day or have to roleclaim early for fear of not enough people seeing it and discussing it.

Anyway, since it seems there's a lot of desire to run games again...  I still have my Cthulu mafia ready to run that I signed up for a good long time ago.  It'd be flavor-heavier than normal but still ultimately a mafia game - not TOO much madness.  I talked with Sir Alex and he wanted to run his big huge game first, but it seems that the schedule is in flux, so uh I'm unsure.  Well, I'd like to run the game sometime, anyway, for the record.

Failing that, and this is probably more appropriate for the "More Arkham" thread, but on the Cthulu note I ended up picking up a few sourcebooks on the cheap recently.  If the mafia game falls through, I might be interested in running a brief online Call of Cthulu campaign.  By brief this means "two-four games" that would be run very system-light and cinematics-heavy.  (Since I don't expect all that many people to own the base CoC book, and the mechanics are clunky anyway.)

Yoshiken

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #151 on: March 21, 2010, 11:30:13 PM »
So, I had an idea to run a roleplay-based Mafia game. It'd require a pretty vague theme so people could pick characters they're familiar with, so I was thinking something simple like NR (or Ranked characters, either way works, NR just seems more original.)
Basic idea is that I get a few judges who know the characters involved to choose who they think are the top roleplayers during the day, and those players are given night actions. Want to get a little feedback on it before running it, though, and I'm fairly sure Snowfire would kill me if I put up signups now. ;)

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #152 on: March 22, 2010, 01:34:50 AM »
Sounds a little like Quantum Mafia, but moves too far away from "catch scum" and wanders into "roleplay game".

EDIT: Er, that's to say, it's probably still focused on "catch scum", but somehow placing a heavy focus on flavour, going so far as to reward people for it takes the focus on "catch scum" away in favour of "roleplay well to get a role".
« Last Edit: March 22, 2010, 01:38:18 AM by Bardiche »

lmm

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #153 on: April 02, 2010, 04:48:32 AM »
Roleplay game sounds like a very bad idea from here. Making the mechanics of the game dependent on subjective judging is a recipe for strife; people are going to get annoyed if they (rightly or wrongly) think they roleplayed well and were unfairly passed over. You simply can't judge how well someone is roleplaying from the outside, since you're never going to know the character as well as they themselves do; in fact I suspect this mechanic would lead to shallower and less interesting characters, because the motive is no longer to roleplay well but to play such that the judge thinks you're roleplaying well. So people will be playing to look like their character has consistent motivations, and generally trying to behave as expected, wheras the most interesting characters (IMO) are those who can surprise everyone, even their own players.

Good roleplaying is something everyone loves, but trying to encourage it mechanically almost always fails. I'd be very wary of trying to base mechanics on anything less objective than post restrictions.

Yoshiken

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #154 on: April 02, 2010, 11:56:38 AM »
Most of your comments only apply to original roleplay characters, though. This would be following a theme, so would be characters people will already know from whatever source. Judging is subjective, maybe, but that's why there'd be multiple judges.

Bardiche

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #155 on: April 09, 2010, 01:40:41 AM »
I was thinking about an Eden of the East themed Mafia game. This lends itself for a variety of options.

For example, regular Mafia with a little twist: everyone has the same role. Namely Inventor - as in, you get a bunch of options each night, and everyone has the same options. Twist: You start with limited money, like $20. Each time you use a role, you pay $x, whereas x depends on how good the role is. Cop could be 5, Doctor 4, Framer 2, etc. And when you reach $0 you are automatically eliminated from the game. Balance problem is the Cop, obviously, which would be excluded in this set up so you don't get everyone copping everyone else at the start of the game and cruise control to victory. Probably other roles that are problematic for balance but I'm sure some quirky stuff can be thrown in to keep it diverse and fun.

Additional ideas to consider while keeping it in the Eden of the East theme are:
At the start of each day, each of the players' actions are publically posted, so that everyone can track what everyone else is doing. Of course, it'll just say, "Selecão XI" or something, and it won't be published which player is which "Selecão", nor will it be possible to request that information at night. Obviously this has implications for scum and town alike in what actions to take at night. In this setup it'd be possible to remove your actions from the log for additional monopoly dollars.

Another idea goes less into Mafia and more into "Last Man Standing": everyone's a Survivor. Everyone. And you want to kill everyone else. However, you may team up with others and send them messages at night (all through the moderator) for moolah, or maybe purchase masonry. Except you only win when you're the last man standing, which makes it a little problematic when three players are left - after all, no mislynches, so what do when two are left standing and you can't get majority lynch? Obviously this needs some solution beyond "add Vigilante to night options", although it'd probably work... Last Man Standing between two'd probably go into "do I bulletproof myself or attack the other?", then watch who runs out of money first... Well, whatever.

Would anyone even want to play that though? I guess I was just bored and thought of it, since themed games seem to run well lately. Completely standard Mafia with roles is also possible; everyone having a role makes the Selecão work, but there's a bunch of supporting characters who could do well with either no role or maybe a quirky minor role for flavour shenanigans.

lmm

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #156 on: April 10, 2010, 12:18:47 PM »
I like the idea a lot in principle; the movie reminded me just how good that series really is. Obv. it makes a perfectly good setting for vanilla mafia and that may ultimately be the best way of playing it, but a full-on variant game is a lot more interesting from a design point of view.
The problem is that variants need to be designed very carefully to be balanced (texas justice being the classic example, IIRC) and interesting to actually play. I'd say if you're doing something this different it probably needs to be open setup (so that everyone can check it over as much as possible before it starts). I would certainly be very interested in playing if you can come up with a good concrete idea for the setup (or I'd happily collaborate at the design stage if you like, but you probably have your own ideas. I'll certainly give my thoughts when you've got a more fleshed out setup plan, though)
In summary, I'm very much interested, but be very careful with the design, and get as many people to check through it as possible.

(Reminds me of an idea I've been gradually putting together for a fate/stay night variant game, with people playing in master/servant pairs. (Of course that's unlikely to see the light of day for a year or so, at the very least I'll wait until I've run a few vanilla games (which in turn will wait until I've played a decent number here)))

Bardiche

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #157 on: April 10, 2010, 12:59:52 PM »
I've tried 100% vanilla games in the past, but no one's interested - it means either they don't trust me to lead it or there's just no animo here for 100% vanilla. Now I can understand the former after trainwreck mafia but I can impossibly screw up balance in vanilla-all~

The reason I posted it up here is, mostly, well, would anyone be interested, and if there's suggestions precisely like that - I think balancing would be a major point here since I want to give people useful things without giving town the "I win" option from Night 1 by coordinating their actions - provided I would be able to go with "inventor-all" setup.

Personally I really really want to see vanilla-all but you can't have everything you want. :v

SnowFire

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #158 on: April 11, 2010, 03:04:04 AM »
Well.  Problem with 100% vanilla mafia is that, weirdly enough, it removes the scumtells that vanilla characters play the game by in a normal roled game.  Basically, investigative roles keep scum honest.  In a pure vanilla game one scum member can ruthlessly bus all his other buddies, and if town considers good arguments that pan out evidence of towniness, they're going to lose by not lynching him.  If scum try to pull that in a normal game, this is much more of a gambit, as a single investigative role can completely ruin this strategy by threatening to out any scum member at any time.  Thus, there's an authentic incentive for scum to stick together and try and keep each other alive, which in turns creates behavior that can be looked for.  Not to mention that there's more informative WIFOM if scum kill people who suspect them because they're also role-hunting, since scum are looking for roles in their NKs.

This is of course different from Eden of the East where nobody's vanilla, everyone just has the same options.  Sounds interesting, though the "everyone is a Survivor" idea sounds somewhat meh...  that's a popularity contest.  Nobody is "right" so ultimately that will come down to "our alliance of 7 people agrees to aggressively vote off everyone not in it, hahaha, we'll deal with each other later."  On the other hand an EoE setup with normal town / mafia teams sounds good.  Maybe "balance" roles like Vig and Cop by handing out different amounts of money, though?  So only one or two townies could even afford to consider Copping people?  (Some people have "pre-spent" too much money as an explanation.)  The "everyone's actions are posted" does sound like the game might end up becoming a logic puzzle, though, so something to watch out for.

As for a role-playing tournament: If you want to do that, there's actually a board that does that already.  They run them about twice a year, since it's a pretty in-depth and involved affair that lasts a month or two.
http://forums.randominsanity.org/

The short version is something like "20-30 players, 4-5 people get voted off every round, people must vote on who to boot."  Avoids mod favoritism charges, at least, though at the cost of introducing potential Drama between players.  Then toss in a bunch of abilities to spice up a simple vote ( http://forums.randominsanity.org/showthread.php?t=845 for an example, it's gotten quite insane to the point of little miniature Sphere Grids for each character type).

On the downside crossover fanfiction tournaments are probably not everyone's cup of tea.  Certainly not mine; I'd rather just play in a normal story-driven RPG (in the sense of Vampire: The Whatever, Shadowrun, etc.) myself.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 04:02:57 AM by SnowFire »

Kilgamayan

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #159 on: April 11, 2010, 03:41:27 AM »
I would rather not play any game that rewards RP, largely because I suck at it. >_>


[22:28:39] <Edible> Mafia would be a much easier game if we were playing "spot the asshole"

Carthrat

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #160 on: April 29, 2010, 11:46:49 AM »
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Moriarty147/videos/1/

Compulsory viewing for all mafia players
WHAT BENEFITS CAN ONE GET FROM SCIENTOLOGY?

EvilTom

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #161 on: April 29, 2010, 02:13:34 PM »
lawl
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.

Kilgamayan

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #162 on: April 29, 2010, 06:05:53 PM »
HEIL CARTHRAT


[22:28:39] <Edible> Mafia would be a much easier game if we were playing "spot the asshole"

Tanaka

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #163 on: May 06, 2010, 09:39:14 AM »
I vaguely have an idea of what any of that means!

Cotigo

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #164 on: May 06, 2010, 09:46:31 AM »
Me, either!

Hunter Sopko

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #165 on: May 16, 2010, 12:44:15 AM »
Adding my name to the mod list for a Zoolander based Anonymafia game. Probably 9-11 players.

Luther Lansfeld

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #166 on: May 16, 2010, 02:27:39 AM »
That link is priceless.
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metroid composite

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #167 on: May 31, 2010, 12:53:44 AM »
So...ridiculously silly idea for a Mafia game; figured I'd post it to give everyone a laugh...

Pokemon Typechart Mafia

17 players, each corresponding to a pokemon type (Fire, Ice, Steel, Fighting, etc) which is their flavour-name.  If Fire votes for Grass, it counts as two votes...whereas if Fire votes for Water, it counts as half a vote (and so on according to the type chart).  Night actions are similarly affected (Ground can't nightkill Flying).  Keep the rest of the setup simple (mostly vanilla).

My gut says it's probably a terrible idea.  That, say, if Steel is on Scum's team then Scum can get a few nightkills and have Steel be unlynchable.  But there's another part of me that says smart townies would easily spot such a ploy, and that it would be hilarious to watch the meta of "no, we can't lynch Fire! If we lynch Fire then what do we do against Steel??"  And it would be even funnier watching Scum try to lead Town down the wrong logic road by Nightkilling Fire and then saying "oh god, we have to lynch steel now or we lose!"

Anyhow, probably a trainwreck to actually play, but it's rather hilarious to think about.

Ranmilia

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #168 on: May 31, 2010, 01:19:39 AM »
....

I'd play that in a heartbeat.

Magetastic

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #169 on: May 31, 2010, 07:11:54 AM »
If that is not made into a real mafia game, I will be very, very sad.
<%King_Meepdorah> roll 1d999 for "It was beauty...that killed the mage"?
* +Hatbot --> "King_Meepdorah rolls 1d999 for "It was beauty...that killed the mage"? and gets 999."12 [1d999=999]
<%King_Meepdorah> ...
<+superaway> ...Uh oh.
<+RandomConsonant> ...
* +superaway shakes head.

metroid composite

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #170 on: May 31, 2010, 10:27:32 PM »
Oh...augh, I just imagined the flavour of that game.

Ice: "You're voting for me?  That's cold."
Fire: "So I think Steel is today's hot topic."
Steel: "Wait, those two are unconfirmed Masons; that's not exactly an iron-clad defence."
Water: "I'm not following the flow of your argument."
Electric: "I'm rather shocked by that flip."
Grass: "So...wait, what's the root of your argument."
Dragon: "How much longer is this going to drag on?"
Bug: "Something about electric bugs me."
Flying: "So the wind seems to be blowing back towards electric now."
Fighting: "I'm going to counterclaim.  put up your dukes."
Ground: "What on earth do you mean?"
Rock: "Seems like electric has a rock-solid roleclaim."
Ghost: "I agree with the spirit of your argument, but would like to see cleaner quoting practices."
Normal: "Seems like a typical town-town spat to me."
Poison: "But there was no need to be so virulent in those arguments."
Psychic: "Unless you're a mind-reader you just showed that you know more than you ought to."
Dark: "I'd like to get the lurkers out of the shadows."

Man, sucks to be dragon.  I've got like...nothing for dragon.

VySaika

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #171 on: May 31, 2010, 10:38:22 PM »
Dragon just has to tone back the scale of it's puns is all. Some subtlety might be a breath of fresh air as well.
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Cmdr_King

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #172 on: May 31, 2010, 10:39:48 PM »
"Certainly day 1 is dragon on".  As always, it is secretly the most powerful pokeyman.
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Yoshiken

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #173 on: June 01, 2010, 12:41:50 AM »
....

I'd play that in a heartbeat.

Magetastic

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Re: Mafia Mod Signups
« Reply #174 on: June 01, 2010, 12:44:49 AM »
Needs more puns.

EDIT: Needs a post restriction where you MUST use puns.
<%King_Meepdorah> roll 1d999 for "It was beauty...that killed the mage"?
* +Hatbot --> "King_Meepdorah rolls 1d999 for "It was beauty...that killed the mage"? and gets 999."12 [1d999=999]
<%King_Meepdorah> ...
<+superaway> ...Uh oh.
<+RandomConsonant> ...
* +superaway shakes head.