Inverse Mafia Game 2

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Hello guys. I have no idea how the game submission thing on Syndicate works so I'm posting this here, hopefully this is the right place since this isn't really a complete game.

This game is a sequel to another one I hosted a few months ago on Naruto Forums. It was an idea I suddenly had one day and I hosted a quick game with 12 players just to see if it could work. The result was a really fun game imo, but it had some balance problems that kept it from being perfect.

Link: http://www.narutoforums.com/showthread.php?t=1035049

MP suggested I should try it here again, and I think I'm gonna do it. Hopefully this time around I'll have more time to balance it, and will also be able to do it with more players. I think it should be a Speed Game, since it's kind of a weird setup for a big game.

To sum it up: this setup inverts how lynches work. Instead of trying to lynch mafia, civilians are trying to lynch civilians. And mafiosos are trying to lynch mafiosos (while pretending they want to lynch civilians). Mafia wins when every member of the team is dead. Town wins when the number of town players is equal to, or lower than the number of mafia players.

In the game I hosted most roles were generic with no abilities (I was trying to keep it simple to avoid problems), and there were a few civilian roles that mirrored classic ones (cop, doctor and vigilante). The translation of those roles is what caused some of the unbalance, since they clearly weren't made for inverse mafia (for example, a role that confirms mafia players can be incredibly broken in this setup, since it guarantees that player will never be voted and thus not get lynched, specially in my forum were revealing night info is usually allowed), so I had to fix them. I probably should have tried to make more original roles, but that's what I intend to do this time around.

As for the mafia roles, I went with roles that could steal votes from town players. Pretty simple, and it added a cool element to the game, but I may have made the mafia team overpowered in the end. I intend to make the mafia roles more different from each other this time around, with only one role capable of stealing votes, and the others having different abilities.

Another issue was figuring out what to do with the night kills, since they are obviously bad for mafia. I made them optional for mafia, so at least they could kill the power roles if they needed to, but I think that execution was somewhat sloppy, with mafia players having trouble to understand what they were supposed to do. I could make night kills mandatory in the next game, but I'd have to pay attention on the town/mafia rate since I'd probably have to increase it to give mafia a good fighting chance. Otherwise, I could replace the night kills for some permanent roleblock. Still not sure about that.

Here are the roles I used in the first game. Note that I went with an Escape from Hell theme, where every player starts dead and trapped in hell and they are trying to escape and come back to life, while mafiosos are demons who are disguised as humans, and will capture the human souls on Earth if they managed to escape. The theme will probably be different this time, though.

Spoiler: show

Town

Sinner: A soul who is being punished for their sins in life. Has no special abilities, but has the majority in the game. There is a total of 6 sinners in the game.

Dirty Cop: This corrupt soul used his intelligence and influence to do engage in many forms of corruption at life. Now that he is dead, he can help his allies by distinguishing them from the demons. Once per night, he can investigate the alignment of one player to see if they’re town or not. This ability has a 50% chance of failing. It will always fail at mafia, but he won’t be told whether it failed because they were mafia or because of his bad luck.

Evil Scientist: This wicked doctor was once convicted for running horrible experiments on living people. After death, he can use his knowledge of science to remove the effects of the demons’ abilities. Once per night, he can choose one player to protect. That player will not be affected by any ability from demons for the next cycle. He cannot protect himself.

Necromancer: The soul of a witch who was burned for performing unholy rituals with dead people. But even in death, her magical powers still work. Once in the game, and only in the night, she can instantly bring a player of her choice back to life, and remove them from the game. She cannot use this ability on herself.

Mafia

Archdemon: The general of the demons, helping Lucifer as his right-hand man. The Archdemon is the leader of the demon faction, having the power to choose what abilities they’ll use. Once per night, and if he wants to, the Archdemon is able to revive a town player and remove them from the game. Aside from that, the Archdemon has powerful illusion abilities that can fool even the smartest cop. He appears as town in investigations, if the investigation succeeds. If the Archdemon dies, another mafia player will be able to perform faction revives, but won't inherit the ability to fool investigations.

Daemon: An evil spirit from ancient Greek mythology, who can use his tricky magic to fool mortal souls. Once per night, he can choose a player. Every vote that player receives in the next day will be transferred to the Daemon. This ability can only be used if there are 4 or more players left in the game.

Shinigami: The god of death from Japanese mythology, he can bring mortal souls who try to escape back to hell. Once per night, he can choose a player. If that player is lynched in the next day, the lynch will fail and the Shinigami will be lynched in their place. This ability can only be used if there are 4 or more players left in the game.

The first game had 9 civilians and 3 mafiosos, with 6 sinners (generic civilian) and 1 of each of the rest.

Thoughts? ideas? Suggestions? I'm all ears.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

the basic concept of the game sounds extremely cool. and hilarious.

[Ricochet]

Would we be allowed to claim alignment?

I'd be like "Hey guys, my name is Ricochet and I'm totally bad, please lynch me. Llama, now's your chance!"

Twisted, indeed, what the night kills would mean for the mafia in this case, since lynching civilians would be detrimental to them. Also I'm assuming BTSC is rendered pointless by this setup.

Otherwise, cool. And crazy, too. So basically my two favourite kinds of Mafia.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Would we be allowed to claim alignment?

I'd be like "Hey guys, my name is Ricochet and I'm totally bad, please lynch me. Llama, now's your chance!"

Twisted, indeed, what the night kills would mean for the mafia in this case, since lynching civilians would be detrimental to them. Also I'm assuming BTSC is rendered pointless by this setup.

Otherwise, cool. And crazy, too. So basically my two favourite kinds of Mafia.

I think you didn't understand it well. There's still a majority of cilvilians, and a minority of mafiosos, and the mafiosos are trying to blend in. The civilians are still trying to figure out who is who, the difference is that now town tries to lynch town, and mafia tries to lynch mafia. But if people claim alignment, they will always claim civ. BTSC is not rendered useless because mafiosos still have to find a way to lynch their partners without town noticing it.

Also I didn't mention in the first post but self-voting is not allowed (screw you marmot). Plus, failing to vote makes you lose a vote on yourself. This is to force people to lynch others (and play the game) even though they are trying to be lynched themselves.

[Ricochet]

You say "if people claim alignment, they will always claim civ", but that's the issue. Mafia blends in to avoid getting lynched and losing. But if getting lynched and losing is actually winning in this case (due to the inversion) - I quote from you: "Mafia wins when every member of the team is dead." - then why would I need to blend in and claim civ?

Nevertheless, role hinting is rarely accepted here, so you can always enforce it.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Because civs want to lynch civs, so they will only lynch the mafiosos if they think the mafiosos are civs. If a civ thinks someone is a mafioso, they'll leave that person alive till the end of the game, and mafia doesn't want that. Mafia is trying to look like a civ so they earn the lynch. The lynch, in this case, is a reward for looking more civ than the others.

One example: in the game I hosted, there was a mafioso who was so hopelessly bad-looking that nobody trusted him. The guy stayed alive until the end, and town won.

[Ricochet]

Whoops, good point. Further proof that I never think like a civ.

[Tangrowth]

YES!

So glad you posted this. I can't wait. Should be wild.

What if you give the NK to the civilians? Have them vote on a player to die via PM, player with the most votes dies? I'll keep thinking.

Regarding the submission process, if you make this game 19 players or less, you can submit it to the Speed Queue by PMing S~V~S and llama. If you want to make it 20+, unfortunately you just missed out on the Full Game submission process, and the queue was gigantic (so many great hosts, so many great games), so you'd have to wait until we get through the upcoming games, so I'm not sure I'd recommend this route, unless you're willing to wait quite a while.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

How much time left do I have to submit a speed game?

I'm trying to make a program that tells me the probability of mafia winning depending on the setup. So I can figure out whether it's possible for mafia to win with the existance of night kills or not.

I mean, I'd already made the program for my first game, but now I'm adding the routine that simulates the night kills...

[Epignosis]

How much time left do I have to submit a speed game?

You can submit a speed game anytime it's ready. Just PM S~V~S and thellama73 when you want it added to the queue.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

No, I mean, MP said I missed the full game queue and now I have to wait till all games are over. Isn't it the same proccess for the speed game queue?

[Epignosis]

Here's the Speed Game schedule:

http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com/viewto ... 2175#p2175

Your game just goes at the end of that queue when you submit it. Speed games are not voted on like full games.

[Tangrowth]

No, I mean, MP said I missed the full game queue and now I have to wait till all games are over. Isn't it the same proccess for the speed game queue?

My bad, I didn't fully explain how the submission process works.

Full game submissions happen during a couple of week period on an annual basis (well, it was designed to be that way, but we had a TON of submissions this last time), after which all the members vote on the games they want to play in the poll, and the games are then hosted in the order of most votes received to least votes received. Then repeat.

Speed game submissions are played in order of submission. There is no poll. This was largely because, when the site first started, we were uncertain how much demand there would be for the smaller games. So we didn't want to unnecessarily complicate matters by having two separate poll submission periods, when we thought we might have periods where smaller games wouldn't occur. Turns out there never has been any such lull or lack of demand for speed games.

Linki w/ Epi

[Tangrowth]

The speed game queue is pretty flexible, too, hosts can swap the order of their games if they agree to it and then inform S~V~S and llama. I've let others host before me, especially if I was too busy or they were a new host. The full game queue technically can work that way as well, since obviously schedules can change, but it doesn't happen quite as often.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Ok, cool. So I can take my time.

I made the program assuming mafia makes night kills and I figured out they really screw up with mafia. Basically mafia needs to have a 2 player team in a 19 player game to have a ~50% chance at winning.

I could implement MP's idea, but honestly I don't see how that's a lot different from a lynch.

Removing night kills and replacing them for some abilities that let mafia counter town's abilities is one solution that balances the game. The problem is how slow it would make the game. Without night kills, there's only player dieing every two days. So a 19 player game could last up to 34 real life days. Not much of a speed game, right? Of course, I could make it with a smaller player number, like the previous game that had 12.

Another solution would be to remove nights phases altogether, and allow players to send abilities during the day. For example, with the vote stealing mechanic that the first game had, the mafioso would use the night to decide who to steal votes from in the next day. But for this case, the mafioso would send that action during the day, so the votes would be stolen in the following day.

[Tangrowth]

Another solution would be to remove nights phases altogether, and allow players to send abilities during the day. For example, with the vote stealing mechanic that the first game had, the mafioso would use the night to decide who to steal votes from in the next day. But for this case, the mafioso would send that action during the day, so the votes would be stolen in the following day.

I say go with this.

[Golden]

Yeah, my instinct was to remove night phases.

Or, make the killer a civilian ninja with no btsc? That would be different from a lynch.