You don't know Jack ... Mafia

[Zag]

I thought I'd put this out there for sign-ups. No hurry to get started, though. It can wait until the game that Snik has set up is done.

I proposed this in another thread and got some feedback, and I think that I have resolved the problems. The theme is that nobody knows anything for sure. Oddly enough, what you do know is exactly what all the roles are. (Well, almost.) As with my Chocolate! game, there are no vanilla roles (because I dislike being a vanilla townie). I've now edited it some more to incorporate Amb's and Chaz's feedback. Thanks to both for the help.

First, all the night conversation will happen in a forum on Quicktopics -- not on Grey Labyrinth, where we can quickly create threads that will be limited only to those appropriate. Note that the Mafia Quicktopic thread will include a qualifier that people should NOT post with their real (i.e. their Grey Labyrinth) names, but should assume a fake name. (You'll see why, below.)

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The Mafia
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Player 1: Mob Boss (Mafia) He knows who the Poisoner and the Infiltrator are, and they know him. Of course, he doesn't know who the Undercover Agent is. He has the ultimate decision on whom the mafia night-kills. If he dies, then, if the Poisoner has been neutralized (by the death of the Undercover Agent) then the former Poisoner takes over this role. If not, then the Infiltrator has the decision, in addition to his existing role. Note that the Infiltrator still does not know who the Poisoner is, but a night-kill action against the Poisoner simply will have no effect.

Player 2: Poisoner. As a night-time action, he may target one person and poison him, but only as long as the Undercover Agent continues to live. (That's his source of the poison ingredients.) That victim will be told he has been poisoned and will die the following night if he doesn't receive an antidote. This is in addition to the normal mafia night-kill. NOTE: Instead of actually poisoning someone, the Poisoner can deliver a non-lethal poison, which will make the person think he has been poisoned, but he will not die and will simply recover. The victim will get the same note from me that he would have gotten if he had been poisoned -- he won't be able to tell the difference between this case and being truly poisoned but then being given the antidote by the apothecary.

Also note that the Poisoner does NOT know who the Infiltrator is and might accidentally poison him.

If the Poisoner is the only mafia left alive (and the Undercover Agent still lives), then he controls both actions. If the Poisoner has been neutralized (by the death of the Undercover Agent) and the Mob Boss is killed, then the former Poisoner takes over the role of Mob Boss. (At that point, unless they are idiots, the two remaining Mafi will each know who the other one really is.)

Player 3: Infiltrator who was worked his way into Mason group #3. Participates in night conversations both with his masonic buddy AND his scum buddies. However, he only knows who the Mob Boss is, not the Poisoner. Also, he will appear innocent if investigated. I'm toying with the idea that, when he dies, his true identity is not revealed, only his false one. Otherwise, all the other masons get to know for sure that their buddy is innocent. Let me know if you feel strongly about this point.

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The Town. Note that there are 12 roles here, but there will be only 10 town players. Of the roles 10 through 15, TWO of them will be given to the Mafia as safe claims to make. They will not actually have those powers, but they will know that there is no townie who will deny their claim. The Masons and the Undercover Agent roles will always be held by townies.
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Players 4 & 5: Mason group #1
Players 6 & 7: Mason group #2
Player 8: Mason group #3

Player 9: Undercover Agent. This is a townie role who participates in the night-time conversation of the mafia. Note that he does not know who any of the mafia are, because they are using aliases. Also, the way that he got his entry into the secret Mafia organization was to provide certain ingredients. Unbeknownst to him, those are the ingredients that the Poisoner is using to make his poisons. Therefore, if the Undercover Agent dies, then the poisoner becomes just a goon.

Player 10: Apothecary. Can administer an antidote as a night-time action. If the person was poisoned the previous night, then the poison will be neutralized. (The unknown aspect here is that the apothecary has only the person's day-time word that he was poisoned.)

Player 11: Doctor. (As normal.) He has a night-time action of protecting another player. That player will be protected BOTH from night-kill by the Mafia and being poisoned by the Poisoner. However, if his protectee has already been poisoned, the Doctor is no help (other than to make the passing a bit more comfortable, I guess).

Player 12: Nurse. Will take over the role of either the doctor or the apothecary if either of them die from any means (or if they never existed). If both die, he can choose which action to perform on any night. With the introduction of the townie role variability, this player must submit his choices for both roles from the beginning, because the role he would replace might not have existed in the first place.

Player 13: Cop, as normal, except that any investigation has a 10% chance of failure (producing the opposite result from the correct one). This includes the Infiltrator -- investigating him has a 10% chance of producing a guilty result.

Player 14: Bus Driver. He may choose to switch two players each night. Thus, any night choice performed on a switched player will affect the other player targeted by the Bus Driver. The Bus Driver's night choices are only valid for that same night. For example, the Bus Driver switches John and Jack. That same night, a roleblocker targets John and a Goon targets Jack. It will be Jack to be roleblocked and John to be killed. The next night, those players will no longer be switched (unless the Bus Driver targets them again). ^{[Quoted from MafiaWiki.]}

Player 15: Sensor. He can detect how many scum-aligned players were on the lynch bandwagon on the previous day. ^{[Quoted from MafiaWiki.]}

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So there are 5 townie masons. 4 of them have another partner who is also a townie, but the fifth is sharing all his secrets with a traitor. Of course, none of the 5 know whether or not he drew the short straw, but it's an 80% chance it's safe (from the player's point of view).

The Poisoner gives the mafia a chance of an extra night kill, but it has the risk that he might kill his fellow Mafioso, since he does not know who the Infiltrator is. Plus, of course, it might get reversed. It also provides them with a lot more opportunity for mind-games, perhaps poisoning on of their own, or simply claiming to do so. On the other hand, planning such things is tricky, because they can not reveal their identities in their night conversations, nor discuss specific daytime actions they will take, or they will just be outed by the undercover agent. But they know he's there, so perhaps they can manipulate him. Etc. Note that night time is still only going to be 4 days (where Saturday and Sunday together only count as one day), so they will have to do their clandestine discussions and manipulations quickly.

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Note that the Apothecary (or Nurse) administering the antidote is the FIRST night-time action, so if that player is killed in the night, it does not prevent the antidote from being administered. Also, if the Poisoner poisons the same person, he is poisoned again..

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So, I'm looking for comments as to whether or not you think this is balanced. Also, please respond to the question that appeared in the middle. Finally, if you're interested in playing, feel free to sign up.

[Amb]

Mass claims should make this a very easy win for the town. The mafia can only claim Doctor/Cop or Mason and if they claim Mason, you lynch one of each mason until you find the guilty one, then string up the other. Then you have a high chance of having hung the traitor along the way. I dont think it would be all that harmful to the town to have doctor and cop claim early because of the ability to break the mafia without them.

Aliases are a real pain in mafia, and not recommended because you have to log out of your normal account.

Dont forget that vanilla roles can also be very useful because they are the players who can use their head to deduce the mafia - and this is a site dedicated to matters of the mind.

[Chaz]

Amb's other points not withstanding, the alias problem could be overcome (I'm planning to code some fast user switching anyway.) Though I don't think Zag was taking about using aliases on the GL anyway....

Maybe the inf could have a win condition of "you win if you're alive when Mafia would have otherwise won if you were a townie." And undercover agent could be the same but opposite.

Then let them both listen in on all conversions (but not post) and make them appear to town as mason group 3. Let them know each others roles and have their own quick topic where they can talk.

That probably won't eliminate the mass claim problem... unless inf shows up as scum instead of mason. Maybe even give them a night kill if the other is killed...

In any event /in for sure.
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The enemy's base is down.

[Zag]

I have to admit that I didn't think about that town strategy. I'm not convinced, though, that it is an easy town win. That's an average of 2.5 incorrect lynchings, so several night-kills, before the town finds the correct one, and that is IF I disclose that the person was the Infiltrator when he dies. (Read that section again about my question at the end of it. But I think you've convinced me that it is the right approach, that I don't disclose the Infiltrator's identity when he dies.) So if the town starts by forcing a mass claim, and they lynch all the masons, then they clearly lose.

But I think you still are on the right strategy for the town, so I will need to muddy the waters a bit. Suppose the two Mafia who need to lie claim to be apothecary and nurse, and the real apothecary and nurse speak up. So the town has four to lynch, plus a safe voting block of the people who claim doc, undercover agent, and cop. How about this? I design the game with two extra townie roles, so that there are two that go unused. Then I let the Poisoner and the Mob Boss each know a safe claim to make.

I'm not quite sure about your comment on vanilla townies. It's not as if the power roles don't have to think, also. The doc, nurse, and apothecary. still don't have any more information than a vanilla townie would have. They just have a little something to do at night. And the masons don't have much more information than a vanilla townie.

Chaz was correct (It had to happen eventually!) that I was not talking about putting the night-time conversations on Grey Labyrinth at all. There are too many of us who are mods for that to work, anyway. I was talking about using QuickTopic, which is the site that mith used for the night conversations in the 10-year reunion game. People can use the threads without even signing up for the site. You only have to sign up to be able to create threads.

[ralphmerridew]

If the game starts with the nurse, but no apothecary / doctor, is the nurse informed of that fact night 1?

[Zag]

That's why the nurse submits choices for those from the very beginning. They are just ignored if the roles do exist.

I thought of another twist that I like. The Mob Boss is told the two roles that do not exist, but the Poisoner is not told any. They can try to find a way to communicate without tipping off the Undercover Agent, or the Boss can just let the Poisoner guess.

[Chaz]

I still think the goofy win conditions would eliminate the mass claim problem.

"you win if you're alive when Town would have otherwise won" for infiltrator, and "you win if you're alive when Mafia would have otherwise won" for the Undercover Agent. Then group them together as a team.

That keeps them both quiet about who's mafia and who's not (since admitting that knowledge would certainly get them killed), and it prevents town from doing a mass claim (since town has to kill the Agent to win, plus they can't rely on an "innocent" death to indicate that the other mason is "safe."

You would have to tell town when both the Agent and the Infiltrator were killed though.

By the way, what was the "question" we were supposed to answer?

As to your revisions, I think the Sensor might be too powerful. Huh... just checked MafiaWiki, seems it's not a new role, so I guess it must balance itself by needing too many night's info to deduce who's mafia.

[edit: I realized I have the "goofy" win conditions backward. inf should win if town would have, and agent if mafia would have.]
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The enemy's base is down.

[Zag]

An interesting approach, but I think it gives those two players too many ways to win, since they still win with their own sides if they die. It also discourages them from sharing any of the info they have, which makes their roles pretty much useless.

I agree about the Sensor -- it might be too powerful. On the other hand, in any mafia game with 10+ people, telling someone "That lynching included two mafia votes" is not going to surprise anyone, nor give them all that much information. The presence of the role probably hurts the mafia more in that they now have to make at least one vote whenever it looks like a mafia player is being lynched. It would be disastrous for them if he ever heard "There were no mafia players in that last lynch vote."

The question was whether or not people are offended by the idea of the mod not telling the town when the infiltrator has died, but only reporting it as a mason.

[Chaz]

Oh... I didn't mean for them to win if they're dead. They have to live, and the opposite side would have to have won if their win condition didn't otherwise exist.

So if there's four mafia (including the inf) and three town, then inf wins. If there's four town (including the agent) and all mafia (aside from, maybe the inf) are dead, then agent wins.

They would be allowed to view all (or maybe all opposite alignment) conversations, but could only talk to each other about stuff. They could have full knowledge of what's going on, but they couldn't post too much without risking getting themselves killed.

The biggest problem I could think of is that inf would (essentially) become a townie role (since his win condition is linked to town winning) and vice versa for the agent.

Maybe they could win together (or alone) when either side would have otherwise won. That would completely eliminate the "mass claim" problem, since town would have to worry about killing both the inf and the agent in order to win (as would mafia.)
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The enemy's base is down.

[Chaz]

[Amb]

Every player bar 1 is a serial killer who only thinks he is a serial killer. None of the kills go through. The one remaining player is a lynch proof townie, who is actually a serial killer and once he finally figures it out can start killing. He loses if he gets to the end (and he will) having not successfully killed at night.

[Chaz]

That's ridiculous!
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The enemy's base is down.

[Chaz]

What I really like about your game, Zag.
It gives *every* role something to do at night. I like playing as townie (though I didn't used to) for the reasons Amb posted (and L'l had once hinted at), but it really makes for an anxious Chaz at night.

What I don't like:
It's a bit complex. Some players seem to have a really rough time with rules like "don't quote the mod" and "don't post at night", so I honestly can't see them deciphering what to do if they're poisoned. I can, honestly, see them posting the opening day that they've been "poisoner" last night (after they get their role message) and asking someone to give them an antidote.

The mass claim problem is the main thing that needs "fixing", but, fwiw, it sounds like a fun game. I wish I could have been there for Chocolate.
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The enemy's base is down.

[MNOWAX]

Chocolate was fun, especially because i was the tough guy.
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[Zag]

[Zag]

In case you missed it, this thread was also meant to be a sign-up thread. Was that not clear? Or is there really very little interest? I promise not to pout for too terribly long if no one wants to play with me.

[ralphmerridew]

Do the people posting on the quick topic know what the roles of the other people posting are? (For example, would they know that "Bob" is the Mob Boss, even if they don't know what Bob's GL name is?)

[Zag]

No, not unless the person says so.

[Amb]

I didn't realise it was a sign up thread...

[Zag]

... and yet, now that you do, you STILL don't sign up. Thanks, man!