The Grey Labyrinth is a collection of puzzles, riddles, mind games, paradoxes and other intellectually challenging diversions. Related topics: puzzle games, logic puzzles, lateral thinking puzzles, philosophy, mind benders, brain teasers, word problems, conundrums, 3d puzzles, spatial reasoning, intelligence tests, mathematical diversions, paradoxes, physics problems, reasoning, math, science.

Zag · Tired of his old title

Anyone who has been hanging around GL long enough to know me knows that I usually prefer making puzzles to solving them, and I usually prefer running games to playing them. So it's probably no surprise that, only into day 2 of my first Mafia game, I've been thinking about interesting games I could run. I'm not ready to ask for sign-ups or anything -- I'm just interested in the opinions of more experienced players on these unusual setups.

I can tell you that my first reaction is that I hate the feeling of being in the game and knowing NOTHING. It's very frustrating. One thing I would probably do in my game is tell the players exactly what the setup is. However, my extensive poker background makes me want to make the game so that, while players know SOMETHING, they are not always 100% sure on what they know. Anyway, that was the design goal in the first game, which I call "Everybody Knows Something."

This would be tweaked for the number of players, but let's assume 12. All the players would know the setup, as described below, and their own role (except for the insane cop, who thinks he is a real cop).

There would be 3 mason-like pairings (Masons, Elks, and Rotary Club). Two of those pairings would be both townies, but one pairing would include a scum infiltrator. Of course, the townie in that pairing doesn't know this. (So, of the 5 townies that are in such pairings, 4 of them are actually paired with another townie. Pretty good odds, eh?) Mason pairings can talk to each other privately at any time. These societies are super-secret and players are not allowed to reveal their membership to anyone, nor will they be revealed when a player is killed.

There are two townies who believe themselves to be cops. One is true and one is one of four forms of 'insane' cop (naive, paranoid, backwards, and random -- which one he is will be selected at random). They may choose to reveal their status as cop, and even their own doubts of their sanity, if they like. When either one is killed, it will only be revealed that he was a cop, not whether or not he was a true cop. Also, both cops are extra tough, and would require two night-time attacks to kill. (This is due to the absence of docs. In a bigger game, there would be a doc and this rule goes away.) They can still be lynched normally.

In addition to the Mafia-mason, there would be a three other people who are part of the mafia clan. However, one of the four is actually an undercover agent. He may NOT reveal this role to anyone. If checked by a true cop, he appears as a townie, but no other info is given. He, of course, knows who all the mafia are and can participate in their discussions. If he dies, he is reported as a mafia, but both cops, if they are still alive, are informed of his real status at that point, and they can choose to reveal it if they like.

Another of the mafia is a 'stealth mafia.' He has the 'Godfather' ability that he appears as a townie to a true cop. However, the other mafi do not know who this is, and he has no other powers. (The mafia vote during the night on whom to kill.) If he dies, he is just reported as a mafia.

The last person is a Peeping Tom. At night, he gets to watch one person to see who that person talks to. The recipient/sender of the first private message that person sends or receives will be revealed to the Peeping Tom. That is, the Peeping Tom gets to know whom the person spoke to in private, but not the contents of the conversation. This would require all the players to inform the moderator of their first nighttime missive each night. Also, it means that the mafia have to do all their nighttime communications one-on-one, officially. (They could send to a mailing list, but the first one on the list is the one that counts.) Obviously, knowing that the Peeping Tom exists, the mafia should figure out to be very careful whom each of them speaks to first, and the mafia-mason probably wants to be doubly careful.

So here are the roles:

1. Townie Mason (Of course, the names of the three groups might be rotated.)
2. Townie Mason
3. Townie Elks club
4. Townie Elks club
5. Townie Rotary club
6. Scum Rotary club infiltrator
7. True cop (town)
8. Insane cop (naive, paranoid, reversed, or random, selected randomly) (town)
9. Peeping Tom (town)
10. Townie Undercover agent (appears as townie to cop, as mafia to mafia)
11. Stealth mafia (appears as townie to cop, as mafia to mafia)
12. Mafia goon

Opinions? I'm just playing around, here. I don't actually have enough experience to know if anything here is game-imbalancing, but I don't think so. Everyone has some information, but they all have some doubt about it.

Antrax · ESL Student

One idea you might want to play with is a randomized setup, like they do on scum. Basically players know the setup is either A, B, C or D with equal probability.

The peeping tom role adds administrative overhead, and will slow the game down. It adds flavour, but it's best to dispense with such roles, in my experience.
What's the undercover agent's win condition? If he wins with the mafia, then isn't he just a (standard) godfather? Otherwise, he can just vote for all the mafia on day 1 in rapid succession, and once he dies, the town wins.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

Courk · Daedalian Member

Traitor mafia would not work. I had a role similar to that once, and the mod had to come up with so many hoops for me to jump through that it was ridiculous. All the traitor has to do is make his first post this:

Vote: Ann
unvote ann
vote: bob
unvote bob
vote: claire
unvote claire

And then do his darndest to get himself killed day 1. Yeah, town still has to find the godfather, but that'd be a lot easier with the rest of the mafia handed to them.

The peeping Tom is interesting, and would work in theory, but in practice it might be a bit hard. Sometimes it's hard to get the mafia to submit their kill choice, much less to get everyone to tell you who they talked to first.

Or what Ant said.

Poisonium · annoyed by the old

Isn't Peeping Tom the voyeur from the myth of Lady Godiva?

Personally, I think a role that looks at the other players naked is an awesome role.
_________________
I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

Zag · Tired of his old title

Zag · Tired of his old title

My second game idea: Mastermind Mafia

This one is more "out there," and I have no idea if it would work at all.

The basic premise is that there is a broken scum detector, which every person must stand in each morning. Its results are completely random: I flip a coin for each living person. However, when it is all done, it tells how many of those guesses were actually correct. So each day would start with a post like this:

Antrax · ESL Student

That actually sounds very interesting. I need to think a bit if it's broken in a non-obvious way, but on face value it seems nice, with the obvious drawback that an unlucky day might end the game through no fault of the mafia. However, if you throw in roles that tamper with the gadget, you can probably offset it (like, a role that offsets the real answer by some pre-chosen fixed amount, or chooses the result of the flip for one other person, etc etc).
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

Courk · Daedalian Member

*likes that, too*

A variation could be a metal detector that's broken -- cops and any killing roles should set it off, except it's broken and random, yadda yadda.

Undercover Monk · Professor Chaos

ohh sounds fun. I like the metal detector idea, but when it gets down to say 3 or 4 people it would be very easy for the town to win. As the mafia kill and eliminate suspect it becomes easier to pinpoint the scum with every day getting a new reading it would take an insanely high number of scum or an extremely insane amount of luck for scum to win. However this would make a great one-shot ability. call it airport security or something.

so its a great concept you just will have to find a way to tweak it to make it more balanced.
_________________
The Classic Blunders:
1. never get involved in a land war in Asia
2.Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line
3. Never release Peyton Manning

lexprod · NOT not a title

I'm also interested in the mastermind mafia idea, or maybe some other sort of "maybe" investigation, like being told each night N-2 players that have at least one mafia in it, with N being the total. It wouldn't help terribly at first, but after the 3rd night you could probably draw at least one or two definite solutions.

I've had an idea that I guess is more werewolf/zombie like. You start with just one scum, and if they survive the first night they "bite" or recruit another member and no one gets NKed. Then the next round the recently recruited player bites another. Now that I've just said this out loud I guess the town wouldn't really have any hopes if they don't keep up from round one, but what if lynching the most recent convert means no "bite" that night or one town member is a vig that kills every night, perhaps even a known role that cannot be removed from the game? Basically I wanted to see how a growing mafia would work, because you'd have to hide you change in allegiance.

Zag · Tired of his old title

Well, I just played out a couple of games on paper, of my Mastermind Mafia idea (using dice to randomize). It is not as interesting as I thought it would be. As long as the mafia are reasonably intelligent, they can perform kills so as to keep any of the old information from becoming useful.

I was playing a 12 person game with 3 mafia. In the first round, the machine declared 5 scum and 7 townies, and then claimed that 8/12 of those declarations were correct. I figured that the town would agree to lynch someone who had been declared to be scum, and, choosing at random from the 5, they chose a townie. Then the scum decided to lynch someone who had been declared by the machine to be townie, so the row was left 7/10 correct.

The next morning the machine declared 3 scum, and that it was 5/10 accurate. The town used the first row of data, it being more reliable, and successfully killed a scum (who had also been declared scum in the second round), and the mafia cleverly killed a townie who had been declared town in the first round and scum in the second, rendering the remaining accuracies 4/8 (left from first round) and 4/8 (from second round), leaving nearly no information.

It continued like this -- the town actually ended up winning, but only by luck.

In the second game I played out, the second row of declarations was 9/10 accurate (correctly guessing all the scum, and incorrectly identifying one townie as scum). In this game, the town won easily, as you might guess, but it wouldn't have been an interesting game.

The point is that, since the scum know, all along, exactly which guesses are right and wrong, they can choose their kills so that no real information can be gleaned from them. Unless there is a freakishly accurate (or freakishly inaccurate, which works out to the same effect) row of guesses by the machine, the town doesn't actually gain any info (assuming intelligent mafia). And if there is such a freakish occurrence, then that is an even less interesting game.

Antrax · ESL Student

lexprod, I've used such a role (an Agent Smith), but in a game where all roles were very powerful, so its power was offset by a) some roles not being recruitable, b) multiple groups/roles with killing powers and c) some roles that could be used to hamper its progress. It didn't win, but only due to superb play by one of the (c) characters. The point is that recruiting into a cult with 100% success at the rate of one per night is insanely powerful for the cult.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

Zag · Tired of his old title

I had another setup idea that I realize now is only amusing for the moderator: For a smallish game, say 7 or 8 people, have only a single mafia, but he is a Godfather -- that is, he registers as town to any cops. Also, there are two true cops in the game. That's it for special roles.

The cops' information is useless, because everyone shows up as town. If they get around to role-claiming, one will claim and the other counter-claim, so the two of them will be the next two lynched. But, while all the confusion sounds fun for the moderators, I don't see it as being fun for the players, so I would recommend against it.

Antrax · ESL Student

I once ran a game inspired by Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians". 10 players, one mafia, one doc. IMO the only problem with such setups is the chance for the mafia to lose through no fault of theirs, like an unlucky day 1 bandwagon.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

raekuul · Lives under a bridge & tells stories.

I'm actually experimenting with a very... high-powered setup... on I Wanna Be The Forums' IWBTM 7.9... there's only one person out of twelve that doesn't have night actions (unless you count masons as not having a night action)

Zag · Tired of his old title

I've been thinking about the "Constrained Mafia" game that I mentioned in the other thread. In spite of fairly little interest being shown, I'm working on it anyway. Glutton for punishment and all that.

Zag · Tired of his old title

I was thinking about another mafia game I'd like to propose, and I came up with another crazy idea, and I'm looking for feedback. The idea seemed more radical when I originally thought of it, but it is less so if you turn it upside down. I'll present it as I thought of it, first.

The mafia don't know each other, and do not get to deliberate at night. The only night-time activity they have (together, that is) is to vote on whom to night-kill, which they do by private PM to me. The town, on the other hand, know who each other are. However, they also do not get to communicate at night, their only avenue of communication is in the thread. This would require that the mafia actually outnumber the town, however, because the town can always just vote as a block once they have a numerical advantage.

Another way to look at it, though, is just to swap which side is which. The town (which I had been thinking of as the mafia) is just the normal town, but they have, collectively, one vigilante kill each night. The mafia, however, have no night-kill and are not allowed to communicate at night, making them a fairly crippled mafia. For that group, it will play much like day 1 of a day-start game, where the mafia know each other but haven't had a chance to communicate, yet.

I guess that, without their night-kill, the mafia's only power is that they know who each other is, so they can vote as a block. However, if they do vote as a block too much, then they will give away their identities to the other group, which does have the night kill. With such a slight advantage, then to make it balanced the mod would have to make the town's numeric advantage pretty small. This would put too much burden on getting a correct lynch or vig-kill on the first day, and those are mostly luck, anyway.

I think I've already talked myself out of this whole idea.

Sentran · Ray of Sucking Funshine

Don't be so quick Zag, I think the idea sounds very interesting.
I was also utterly confused when I started reading this thread. I didn't look at the time stamp, and was going to question you about playing in your first game. Then, when I got into the responses, I figured out what the heck was going on.
_________________
Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

Antrax · ESL Student

Wait what? How can a town that kills one person per night beat mafia that outnumber them, and thus can also kill one person per game cycle?
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

Zag · Tired of his old title

The mafia doesn't outnumber them, when you think of it as the town doing the night-kill.

The idea is that Group A is numerically fewer, but knows who each other is, which gives them an advantage in the daytime voting for a lynch. Group B has more people; they vote in the day normally, but they also all vote at night on a night-kill. However, since they don't know who each other is, they might end up voting for each other, accidentally.

You can call Group A the town, but that's odd because it means that the town knows each other and the mafia doesn't (but that was my first way of thinking of it). That makes Group B the mafia, but they are voting somewhat blind on their night-kill.

Or you call Group A the Mafia, because they are fewer and know each other, but they are crippled compared to normal mafia because they can't talk at night and they have no night kill. That makes Group A the town (which is appropriate because there are more of them and they don't know each other), and they have a voted-on Vig kill.

Both ways of thinking of it are the same game, just with the names rearranged. But, despite Sentran's comment, I don't think it is very playable, since it is too dependent on Group B guessing right on the first day.

Sentran · Ray of Sucking Funshine

Has anyone tried a variation on the majority rule mafia, where everyone gets as many votes as they wish? I do not mean that they can vote for one player twice, but that they can cast 1 vote for several players. Majority vote would still win, but players could reach that majority a lot faster.

Also, has there ever been a mafia game run where discussion is still open, but all voting is done by secret ballot? I assume that would significantly change the game dynamic.
_________________
Sentran
"Speaking of double negatives, I haven't read greylab yet today." - Lifeinmomland

Jedo the Jedi · Paragon in Training

itisally · Master of Disguise

Secret ballots remind me of Twelve Angry Men, but I am not sure what we would talk about. It would be a very diffrent game. Could the cop investigate what someone voted? That might add some depth to the discussion.
_________________
I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

Antrax · ESL Student

Zag, so effectively you have town vs. evil masons? Since mafia games where the mafia don't get a kill are relatively balanced, what do the evil masons get in exchange for their lack of kill? (town can refuse killing anyone at night to degenerate the game into no-kill mafia)
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

raekuul · Lives under a bridge & tells stories.

Regarding secret ballots: If I remember correctly the IRCHighway Mafia game only revealed who voted for whom at lynch. Then again, since all discussion was done through the moderator-bot (and lynch was on a set time-limit as opposed to "whenever we reach it"), that was probably a side-effect of the setup. It did have the side-effect of not having bandwagons form on people trying to start bandwagons, however, and that seems to occur a lot around here.

Deception · Daedalian Member

Well there is always mafia daytalk.

You could take away mafia's ability to night kill, but give them a meeting. In this meeting there could be 1 town, however everyone uses an alias so it is 1) unsafe to nameclaim yet 2) possible to be a somewhat organized mafia.

However you don't have a night kill, instead you have a daykill which is voted on in a secret mafia QT. The town would probably have a vigilante role and perhaps even a mason role in this to balance it out. This makes claiming harder to do and it also provides a new gameplay style (maybe not new but interesting I think; I don't really know what you guys do here). Vigilante + lynch = 2 town kills, however both of these could hit town, as could the mafia day shot. The mafia day shot is of course the most powerful shot of all and as a result town may be cautious with their vigilante firings.

Upon death the town spy would be revealed as vanilla mafia (this is best for a 4 coven team in which 3 are vanilla mafia and 1 has a special ability) because otherwise an early death would be gamebreaking.

This is just me spit balling ideas but may be something you want to roll with. Of course if this has already been done here then just say so, I don't know.

ralphmerridew · Daedalian Member

Zag · Tired of his old title

Double Vote Mafia:

Nobody has any special powers (or maybe just some very mild ones).

Every vote should look like this: Lynch: Jedo, Protect: Zag That is, you vote one lynch target and one protect target. The day ends when the lynch target has a majority (or because of deadline). The person with the most protect votes is protected from all night action AND can not be voted for (either way) the following day.

I think that the extra voting is that much more information for the town, though I'm not sure how much.

The Great Crep'er · 2% Spambot

Deception · Daedalian Member

With a mechanic like that, be known that town will be hesitant to protect anyone they don't feel confident is town. Day 1 then will likely be a no-protect.

Zag · Tired of his old title

No scum, no night kills, just daily lynching and two competing cults. Recruiting ability passes on within a cult, so it's nearly impossible to eradicate one. The goal is basically to get recruited by the eventually-winning cult.