X-men mafia game thread

[Gwaihir]

I only had it the first time it was used. It was pro town then. I was getting a hell of a lot of fire for it though. After that it was given to mafia I think. Ankeli had it the 2nd time, but I can't remember if he was town or not.

It is my favourite role of all times though. I'd want to have it any game.

Me! Posion Ivy. Seductress, could make someone follow my vote around. Loved the possibilities.

I use my personal QT threads to give feedback on the game directly to the mods, and given how difficult I found getting that sort of critique publicly when I ran the DT game, I don't share them. I have no problem if the mods want to share it.

No problem go for it. Also answering your points now that game is over and I don't have to worry about spoilers:

The Morse code was a very quick and good solution to the issue you had. Well done. I might have said it, but that restriction was meant to vote block and be a bit annoying but not cut off all communication, but it didn't seem to hamper you at all.

"I'm going to make a logical argument for allowing this action: I use my ability to freeze myself. Once frozen I am protected and cannot use my ability. From a logical point of view, my ability within the X-Men universe should be able to be used on myself."
-Agreed, that would have been a better flavor, but we had roleblocks actually stop a roleblocker (lol at BA stopping FOE 2 nights in a row), so roleblocking yourself would prevent the jailing in how we did it, so we just said no

"Also giving anti-town three kills on a single day is a bit OP."

One was from a pro-town source (Beast lovers). There was one day that anti-town got 3 kill attempts, but that was a one time shot from winning the gladiator match, which was a huge risk on the part of mafia.

Also as mentioned before, there were almost broken amounts of ways for town to stop NK's.

1)doc
2)jailer
3)bodyguard
4)roleblcoker
5)ability thief
6)wolverine regen
7) Beast one shot

And then 2 redirects:
1)self bus driver
2)redirector

I can't say I was to worried about number of anti-town night kills. Although we could have had 6 in one day (SK, mafia, gladiator, lover, vig, lynch) which would have been a bit game breaking.

 

[Gwaihir]

Also, if you want to see me flailing as a mod and Pyro trying to reign me in, here is the thread that we started way back when we first agreed to plan the game. You can see how everything evolved to the game start and thoughts as the game continued.

http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/XrqymuLyCRKys

 

[Gwaihir]

Favorite gif:

Favorite post:
"Nope."

 

[Drixx]

The game was great overall. I feel bad that the mafia got steamrolled but I'm not really sure from a game balance perspective that it was really your game setup. This game was a huge statistical outlier in a lot of cases (looking at the abilities and what happened). You could play this setup 100 times with 100 random groups and you would probably see a really nice bell curve on results.

It speaks a lot to what you guys did that we never mislynched and I still felt like we were a mistake away from losing on day 3.

 

[Pyrotechnician1]

I appreciate any comments that anyone may have to make it a potentially better game next time. I know the "Mod" Quicktopic is fairly long, but it really describes the evolving of the game and the process it came down to the final setup and last minute decisions we had to make.

End setup with 21 players as everyone can see was 21 players 15 town/5 mafia/ 1 sk with 1 of the town a potential SK recruit. It seemed like a balance setup in terms of numbers.

We tried our best to make it so that everyone had a power, of course this meant an overflow of power for the town, and since there was only one mafia team, it had to be balanced out with what we though was an overpowered mafia. Godfather/Namecop, Unlimited strongman/nightkill immune/roleblocker, post restriction which would result in one day sooner mylo/lylo, gladiator with bonus vig shot for winning and ninja/mimicer. The mafia posted before that they were concerned with the potentially "two" ability thief type powers. The only thing is that one was a one shot swap, and the other had little information connected to it unless it had a result. The mafia also had other bonuses such as Sabertooth's ability matching wolverines which could make a great cover if it worked out.

The SK was given the bonus of politician, and also a potential recruit. We felt that the SK had to have the lower chance of the win, but with all the powers we felt it would be too under powered without a little extra oomph.

The town overall had a lot of protective power, which after the game started we immediately realized that was way too much. They also had a lot of ways to confirm people, but that necessarily couldn't have happened depending on who was killed. There was no alignment cop, but there was a name and ability cop, and the ability could potentially be spun in some cases.

I'm not sure there was much else I would change. Even though the town had a lot of power, most of it ended up hurting themselves. Bad Ash Roleblocked Fred twice in a row, the lover shot ended up killing a townie, etc. Doc saves never actually ended up saving anyone. The Jailer and the ability cop ending up doing the most damage, and they could have been killed easily multiple times from lack of protection, but it just never happened.

I feel like the mafia tied themselves up in the beginning. Zokar was the only one that was actually caught by a "cop", logout was caught too, but that result didn't really have an effect anyway. Although I now kind of feel bad for how Goryani was strung up and I think I'll try to avoid the "he's alive" arguement as much as possible from now on if I've ever been guilty of it before (Sorry Gory, the game shouldn't be played like that).

The lose of the strongman from the start, combined with not using the strongman the first night (really not sure why that was, still confuses me) put them at a disadvantage that was hard to recover from.

I'm sure I have other thoughts flying around, but a lot of them are in the mod thread, so if anyone has anything to share please feel free to post them. I look forward to reading them.

Edit: And once again a special thanks to all the players, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves.

Also a special thanks to Gwaihir, a great co-mod. I still feel like I made him do too much of the work but it was a great time.

 

[Zokar1]

There was no alignment cop, but there was a name and ability cop, and the ability could potentially be spun in some cases.

Which in a heavily themed game basically equates to standard cops IMO.

 

[logoutzero]

Also: DAMNIT LOGOUT THIS IS MY GAME STOP GUESSING ALL MY POWERS.

You called a good 5-6 roles closely on D1 that you did not have access to.

Honestly, I could have called way more, but, I only wanted to call on the ones I felt I knew for sure. Contrary to popular belief, I know what I'm doing at this game, I just stink at playing it!

Also, to sort of echo everyone else, it was a ton of fun. I felt like we were quite underpowered, but, our play is more to blame than setup. We did have 2 first time scummers, and it was only my second game period. That alone probably could doom ANY mafia team on ANY setup. Can't wait for the next one!

Edit:

HAHAHA. I'm already dead, so you can't mod kill me!

Apparently, Frankiez had a hard-, well, he was pressed to attack me. lol. Nice choice of lyric for the lovers move, sorry it didn't work out!

 

[Goryani]

Thanks Gwaihir and Pyrotechnician for creating and hosting.

Congrats to the town. You spanked us. The combo of night actions and D3 mass claim did us in. I called the outcome that early (and think Drixx is crazy for thinking town was on the verge of losing at that time - antitown needed 3 or 4 mislynches to win and got 0).

The major feedback I have about this game is that it was a) too difficult for anti-town to lie and b) too easy for town to catch that lie. This game was ENTIRELY about the claim (theorycrafting). Anti-town had no viable claims nor a viable claiming strategy. Scumhunting wasn't a factor once claims occurred.

Several elements contribute:
no fake claims
too themey (name or mutant power or ability identifies alignment too easily)
mafia didn't have any unique mutant power name which could be a town character/ability
mafia abilities were obviously mafia while town abilities were obviously town
mafia were given multiple abilities which is impossibly to hide or lie about (fight, post restrict)
more informational power roles than anti-town roles

I'll read QTs later. And maybe the game posts I didn't get to.

 

[Bad Ash]

Thanks for hosting! Interesting game for sure.

I'd love for us to brainstorm ways around these heavy lore games where role claiming can potentially be game breaking.

Ban name claiming? Make fake roles standard? I'm trying to think of a solution before it's my turn to host.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[pharphis]

Thanks for hosting! Interesting game for sure.

I'd love for us to brainstorm ways around these heavy lore games where role claiming can potentially be game breaking.

Ban name claiming? Make fake roles standard? I'm trying to think of a solution before it's my turn to host.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

You can do whatever you want in your game to balance it. I've already sorted out some work-arounds in my incoming games

 

[Caluin Graye]

I'd love for us to brainstorm ways around these heavy lore games where role claiming can potentially be game breaking.

Ban name claiming? Make fake roles standard? I'm trying to think of a solution before it's my turn to host.

A while back, I had an idea for a Marvel universe game, set during the Secret War[SUP]1[/SUP]. So everyone would have a major lore character to claim, some good guys, some bad guys, but any of them could be mafia. That way a name claim could happen day one, but it doesn't net you anything other than possibly revealing clues for abilities.


[SUP]1[/SUP]Secret War is a point in the Marvel[SUP]2[/SUP] comic universe where aliens called Skrulls would capture and imitate super heroes. So someone like Captain America could possibly be a Skrull and a bad guy.

[SUP]2[/SUP]Marvel is Avengers, X-Men, Spider-man, etc.

 

[thefranklin]

Honestly, I could have called way more, but, I only wanted to call on the ones I felt I knew for sure. Contrary to popular belief, I know what I'm doing at this game, I just stink at playing it!

Also, to sort of echo everyone else, it was a ton of fun. I felt like we were quite underpowered, but, our play is more to blame than setup. We did have 2 first time scummers, and it was only my second game period. That alone probably could doom ANY mafia team on ANY setup. Can't wait for the next one!

Edit:

HAHAHA. I'm already dead, so you can't mod kill me!

Apparently, Frankiez had a hard-, well, he was pressed to attack me. lol. Nice choice of lyric for the lovers move, sorry it didn't work out!

Hmm, seems the mods forgot to mention my permanent role.

Name: Frank-e Listener
Role: Many, all badass
Alignment: Unimportant
Wincon: Also unimportant
Flavor: Logout got you lynched day 1 as town watcher.
Audio clip to accompany flavor: "Jerk" narrated by Bender Bending Rodriguez.
E - listened message: Thefranklin will assassinate Logout hilariously.

 

[logoutzero]

Hmm, seems the mods forgot to mention my permanent role.

Name: Frank-e Listener
Role: Many, all badass
Alignment: Unimportant
Wincon: Also unimportant
Flavor: Logout got you lynched day 1 as town watcher.
Audio clip to accompany flavor: "Jerk" narrated by Bender Bending Rodriguez.
E - listened message: Thefranklin will assassinate Logout hilariously.

How do I do thumbs up? ^ I love it!

 

[Gwaihir]

The game was great overall. I feel bad that the mafia got steamrolled but I'm not really sure from a game balance perspective that it was really your game setup. This game was a huge statistical outlier in a lot of cases (looking at the abilities and what happened). You could play this setup 100 times with 100 random groups and you would probably see a really nice bell curve on results.

The strongman counters the protective roles, but the problem is losing him early really hampers mafia. So maybe spread the power around some more.

The Jailer and the ability cop ending up doing the most damage, and they could have been killed easily multiple times from lack of protection, but it just never happened.

I feel like the mafia tied themselves up in the beginning. Zokar was the only one that was actually caught by a "cop", logout was caught too, but that result didn't really have an effect anyway. Although I now kind of feel bad for how Goryani was strung up and I think I'll try to avoid the "he's alive" arguement as much as possible from now on if I've ever been guilty of it before (Sorry Gory, the game shouldn't be played like that).

Also a special thanks to Gwaihir, a great co-mod. I still feel like I made him do too much of the work but it was a great time.

Yeah, I was surprised. I expected X to be a huge factor as a kinda mason recruiter. But the other 2 were a bigger deal. Also agreed on the Gory argument, will do my best to stay away from it.

And lol, you did plenty of work. This went so smoothly because of your effort.

Which in a heavily themed game basically equates to standard cops IMO.

Ability cop was built so it was not. For over half the mafia and the SK, it was not confirmation. The name cop was specifically blocked by Magneto. So yes normally, but we tried to build in weaknesses.

Congrats to the town. You spanked us. The combo of night actions and D3 mass claim did us in. I called the outcome that early (and think Drixx is crazy for thinking town was on the verge of losing at that time - antitown needed 3 or 4 mislynches to win and got 0).

The major feedback I have about this game is that it was a) too difficult for anti-town to lie and b) too easy for town to catch that lie. This game was ENTIRELY about the claim (theorycrafting). Anti-town had no viable claims nor a viable claiming strategy. Scumhunting wasn't a factor once claims occurred.

Several elements contribute:
no fake claims
too themey (name or mutant power or ability identifies alignment too easily)
mafia didn't have any unique mutant power name which could be a town character/ability
mafia abilities were obviously mafia while town abilities were obviously town
mafia were given multiple abilities which is impossibly to hide or lie about (fight, post restrict)
more informational power roles than anti-town roles

I agree with parts. I tried to give mafia room to hide with Mystique/Magneto/power overlap. I did try to give antitown some normally pro town powers (namecop, gladiator had previously only been town) and protown had quesitonable ones - roleblock, lover/hater, even regenerator if triggered by lynch could have been anti-town. Overall I did underestimate the power of protective roles to confirm townies, and anti-town just did not have wiggle room they needed.

I'd love for us to brainstorm ways around these heavy lore games where role claiming can potentially be game breaking.

Ban name claiming? Make fake roles standard? I'm trying to think of a solution before it's my turn to host.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

For this game, I still like giving "captured" x-men to the mafia to use.

 

[Goryani]

I'd love for us to brainstorm ways around these heavy lore games where role claiming can potentially be game breaking.

Ban name claiming? Make fake roles standard? I'm trying to think of a solution before it's my turn to host.

There are lots of solutions but it's best to know what the exact problem is. Assume town is going to win. What do you need to do as creator/moderator to allow mafia to win at a rate you are comfortable with?

You can add more mafia. A 1 for 1 trade is almost always bad for mafia but with enough scum, it becomes a viable strategy.

You can give fake claims. If you can find characters on a wiki devoted to the theme, I think fake claims are always necessary. I've not yet seen a highly themed game that just breaks down with a D1 mass claim. D1 mass claims are THAT game breaking. And they should be good fake claims. Don't put wolverine in the game. Give that to mafia for Sabertooth to safely claim (early!). Mafia fake claims should be just as good as the townie claims - no minor characters. You don't always need 1 fake claim per scum, but you need some.

You can re-interpret the theme. Make Magneto pro-town and Dr. Gray anti-town. Give someone a power that isn't super obvious upon glancing at a wiki. A little weirness goes a long way.

Side note: The weirdness factor is I was upset at all the role PM quoting. Side side note: If I were mod, at least one modkill would have been handed out. Mafia count on the confusion to steer lynches and obfuscate things. Quoting the exact role PM format and entire sentences from a PM/QT clears up the confusion.

Above all, let mafia blend in. Mafia need enough tools to look townie. That includes enough info to act townie and the right combo of name/ability/role to pull off the act. This game, mafia role PMs caused us to fear a cop, name cop, role cop, mutant power cop, watcher/tracker, and some type of vigilante/bodyguard. A lie to avoid one would be caught by another. The sheer number and variety of the informational power roles made fake claiming damned difficult. It's OK to tell mafia that no ____ exists so they don't worry about creating fake claims to fool ____.

 

[Goryani]

Ability cop was built so it was not. For over half the mafia and the SK, it was not confirmation. The name cop was specifically blocked by Magneto. So yes normally, but we tried to build in weaknesses.

I disagree with this. Ability cop used on mafia returned abilities that pointed to a mafia character or 1 other town character. AT BEST, the mafioso claimed the one and only one town character with that ability and gets counterclaimed. A one for one trade is town sided. Or look at how CG's claim turned out even without the counterclaim. Mafia needed Eye Lazors, not regeneration or shapeshifting. I'm not sure how Magento would flip to ability cop or name cop, but an investigator showing no results is almost as bad as returning a guilty-ish verdict. It's natural to assume godfather or mafia hider or similar.

 

[Gwaihir]

I disagree with this. Ability cop used on mafia returned abilities that pointed to a mafia character or 1 other town character. AT BEST, the mafioso claimed the one and only one town character with that ability and gets counterclaimed. A one for one trade is town sided. Or look at how CG's claim turned out even without the counterclaim. Mafia needed Eye Lazors, not regeneration or shapeshifting. I'm not sure how Magento would flip to ability cop or name cop, but an investigator showing no results is almost as bad as returning a guilty-ish verdict. It's natural to assume godfather or mafia hider or similar.

I see. In general I figured that the a good chunk could hide with vaguer roles like super strength, when there were at least 2 in game with that tag, as well as quite a few others in general lore. I also figured that with 3 roleblockers in the game, a no results could hide decently well.

But yeah, in a theme game mafia need more places to hide.

 

[Caluin Graye]

I also figured that with 3 roleblockers in the game, a no results could hide decently well.

A general rule of thumb: If the result doesn't return as town, then it might as well have returned mafia.

 

[Zokar1]

A general rule of thumb: If the result doesn't return as town, then it might as well have returned mafia.

Can you elaborate a bit? To me, "no result" seems to imply immune, blocked or similar. That prompts further questioning, but guilty? Idk...

 

[Caluin Graye]

Can you elaborate a bit? To me, "no result" seems to imply immune, blocked or similar. That prompts further questioning, but guilty? Idk...

Who's immune to investigations? Scum. Never town.

Nobody claimed roleblocker during the mass-claim? Then how do we know for sure if the investigator was blocked or the person is just investigation immune? You lynch the target, 'cause you definitely don't want to lynch a claimed investigator.

Did the roleblocker step forward, but his targets don't match the investigator? (I.E., "I cop'd Goryani on Night two, but nobody role blocked me that night.") Lynch the target because he is probably scum or lying.

Did the roleblockers targets match up? This, and only this IMO, grants a reprieve.

Discussing the lynch is good and encouraged, but it always comes down to the fact that you now have an unknown quantity, and the only sure fire, 100% way to get information on that is to lynch him/her.