Dollhouse Mafia - Game Over

[Sabrar]

Dollhouse Mafia

Mod: Sabrar
Speed: Normal - Pseudo-Nightless (Night actions must be sent in advance during the day prior - backup and conditional action submissions are permitted).
Bastardry: None


General Rules

Spoiler:

1. Do not talk about the game outside this thread.
2. DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE GAME OUTSIDE THIS THREAD.
3. Please stay on topic.
4. Don't lurk through the whole game; if you need to drop out, TELL ME. Really bad lurkers risk MODKILL. I am serious about this one!
5. If you aren't part of the game, please post in a separate, forbidden to players, thread for outside analysis.
6. You’re alive until you are hammered in a lynch, or the mod tells you that you're dead, by PM or in thread.
7. If you die, don't say anything for the rest of the game except a simple, "Bah, you got me," which reveals no information.
8. You may not post verbatim or quote from your role PM or any other messages sent to you by the mod. Paraphrasing is fine.
9. You may not edit your posts. This is to preempt the possibility of cheating by sending messages to other people and then editing them out.
10. You may not play to lose, or act in a way that is clearly against your win condition.
11. You may not use encryption systems in order to communicate privately or circumvent these rules.
12. This is a game; it’s meant to be fun. Personal attacks or other offensive behaviour towards other players will not be tolerated.

Specific Game Rules:

Spoiler:

1. I may set a deadline for the day, indicating when I am likely to call night. Until I actually call night, however, you are free to keep posting. Extension might be granted if I feel it's necessary.
2. You may post in thread during the day phase but not the night phase. It is night when the mod posts a day-end post or a hammer vote is cast, in which case it is automatically night, whether or not the mod has made a day-end post. Note that this means you may not post content after a hammer vote.
3. All votes should be made by posting on a new line, IN BOLD. For example,
VOTE: Sabrar
4. You do NOT have to unvote to change votes, but it makes things easier and will be very much appreciated if you do. You can unvote in bold and on a new line, like this:
UNVOTE
VOTE: Rarbas
5. If you have questions, either post them IN BOLD in this thread, or PM me.
6. You may only communicate with other players by PM if I have specifically said you can do so. You must CC me in all PMs.
7. This game is nightless - see details below.
8. Players cannot target themselves.
9. At the start of each day phase I will reveal the alignments & related details of all players killed since the start of the previous day phase.
10. If the deadline is reached and no player has been hammered, then the person with the most votes at the deadline will be lynched.
11. A tied vote at day end will result in No Lynch in all cases.
12. You can vote not to lynch anyone by casting a vote for "NL" or “No Lynch”. “No Lynch” will be treated exactly the same as any other player for determining votal results.

Nightless Setup

Spoiler:

This game is nightless - if a player or faction has any night actions, these should be submitted before the end of the day phase. All night actions are then processed as quickly as possible and the next day begins as soon as I've finished writing the flavor. I may be lenient if you send in your action a bit late (before I'm done evaluating the results and writing the flavor), but I don't promise anything. If a player fails to send in an action, they will not carry out any action that night (unless that day was exceptionally short - i.e. a majority lynch was reached within 24 hours, in which case a brief period of grace might be allowed in which actions can be sent in). Players are therefore encouraged to send in provisional actions early on during the day phase, to facilitate that I will allow players to send in back-up actions should events such as the lynch make their original action impossible. For example, a killing role might send in the action:
Kill: X
Back-up Kill: Y
If X is lynched or otherwise killed at the end of the day, I will treat the Mafia as having decided to kill Y that night instead.

Game Setup:
This is a closed setup. This means that I will tell you only what I think you need to know about the setup. What I want to share is that there's no bastardry whatsoever. This means:
- I may not answer a particular question, but I will never lie.
- Roles contain no hidden mechanics. E.g. if your role pm does not explicitly say that you're a Miller then you can't be one. Or if you're a Cop then you're guaranteed to be sane unless you role pm says otherwise.
- Although it would have been thematically very appropriate, due to the relatively small number of players I did not include any alignment or role that would change other player's alignment or win-condition. E.g. there's no Cult.

About the flavor:
Around half of the players are flavor-blind, so I intend the flavor to be somewhat on the lighter side and not 100% serious. I hope in that way it will overall be more enjoyable. Also I aim to write flavor that is fairly indicative about the actions during the night.

One final note about mass-claiming and meta-speculation:
A lot of the characters had shifting loyalties during the run of the show. Additionally - due to the nature of the series - anyone could be a sleeper agent in theory. Because of this and the fact that I don't want to give an unfair advantage to the players who know the flavor, the characters won't necessarily have the same alignment as in the show (role abilities however follow the show pretty closely). Further preventive measures have been taken against mass role-claiming as well, although it's not prohibited at all. You're welcome to do it but as we know "actions have consequences".

Role pm-s are going out shortly. Role pm-s are out.

Please confirm in the thread that you've received your role pm and read the rules. Day 1 will start after everyone confirmed (probably on Monday).

Players:
1. Freezeblade - lynched D1, Town
2. Dimochka/Madge - killed N3, Serial Killer
3. crucialityfactor - killed N2, Town
4. mpolo - died N1, Town
5. Diemo - killed N3, Mafia
6. emlightened
7. Carlington - lynched D2, Independent
8. bessie
9. jimbobmacdoodle - killed N1, Town
10. adnapemit - killed N2, Town

Replacements:
1. ConMan

[jimbobmacdoodle]

Message received and understood!

[adnapemit]

Role received and rules read.

[emlightened]

Can confirm role received.

[Carlington]

Role received, rules read, ready!

[mpolo]

Confirm. Read rules.

[Diemo]

Can confirm. Rules are read.

[emlightened]

Can confirm role received.

EBWOP: And rules read. Forgot to say earlier.

[bessie]

Confirm. Read rules.

[crucialityfactor]

I confirm.

[mpolo]

Totally off-topic, but since this afternoon, no secure (https) sites are working from here. Can somebody google and see if this is a general problem with Deutsche Telecom, or do I need to be looking for a problem closer to home? Thanks!

[dimochka]

Received and read rules.

Totally off-topic, but since this afternoon, no secure (https) sites are working from here. Can somebody google and see if this is a general problem with Deutsche Telecom, or do I need to be looking for a problem closer to home? Thanks!

Don't see anything related to this, sorry!

[mpolo]

Thanks for checking. It was the router after all — only a hard reboot solved the problem…

[freezeblade]

confirmed and role read!

[Sabrar]

Supposedly it was Benjamin Franklin who once said: "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Well, the Rossum Corporation's masterplan for world domination was certainly shared by more than that, so it was no wonder that the news slowly leaked out, causing massive panic in the initiated. For some unknown reason the Dollhouse in Los Angeles seemed to have a crucial role in the proceedings and therefore it fell to its inhabitants to save the cheerleader world.

Adelle DeWitt paced nervously in her office. The supply of her favorite brandy had run out which never happened before. Oh and there was also the minor matter of Rossum's plans to turn the whole world into dolls save for the selected few who would live eternally in luxury. She seriously doubted that she'd be one of them. Finally she heard footsteps and saw her head of security approach.

'Mr Dominic,' she sighed, 'I hope the lockdown was successful?'

'Yes, Ma'am.' came the prompt reply. 'However in the confusion earlier some fringe elements may have bypassed our defenses. The reports are inconclusive.'

'Just great. How on earth will we filter out the spies amongst us?'

'If I may suggest Ma'am, we could imprint one of the dolls with the necessary skills to...'

'No!' protested Adelle vehemently. 'After what Topher found in the Chair I'm not trusting anyone to use it.'

Laurence Dominic shrugged his shoulders. 'I guess it's back to the good old-fashioned lynch then. I'll give the order immediately.'

Obviously this idea was not met by all with critical acclaim. However, once it was pointed out that it was either this or a life in isolation without any more midnight pizza delivery, everybody was happy to jump on the train and start throwing the blame around.

It is now Day 1. No deadline is currently set.

10 players alive, 6 votes required to hammer.

[mpolo]

Usually this would be the place for thoughts about the setup, but the flavor influence has been somewhat reduced due to the randomization of roles.

If I'm reading this right, the Town is loyal to Adelle, the LA manager, while the mafia is loyal to the Rossman corporation, but I'm not 100% sure of that. [double-checks Role-PM] And my Role PM doesn't really make that any clearer.

With 10 people, we most likely have about 3 mafia, maybe some kind of third-party as well. It's been a while since I've seen the series, but I think Echo is probably some kind of Jack of all Trades, there was a doctor in the agency, there was an ex-soldier, there was a computer programmer (Topher), there was a security guard…

Wow. The flavor is escaping me severely.

[freezeblade]

Wow. The flavor is escaping me severely.

Agree, I remember really liking the show, but I haven't seen it since it was on TV which was...far too many years ago to admit to.

3 mafia sounds about right, or 2 if they are signifantly powered.

Maybe Topher has a investigative role?
Doctor is obvious
Echo could be a vig?

[emlightened]

This is what I get for not having Netflix/etc. to watch the series beforehand on.

Sorry about not really being able to comment on possible roles much. I get the feeling that we're unlikely to have three mafia or just two vanilla mafia, so I'd expect the mafia to have powers, or for there to be third party.

Not sure what sort of third party roles are likely, but some sort on independent seems more likely than anything else to me.

[emlightened]

EBWOP: I meant flavour-blindness in that first line. Should have read that through again.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

I don't think I ever heard about this series before this game was proposed. As such, I think it's hard to be more flavour blind than I am. To solve this, I've gone to Wikipedia, and there's a reasonable plot and character summary on there. We don't know much about alignments, but I'd guess there are probably 3 mafia, or possibly 2 powerful mafia with an anti-town independent. That bit will probably be a bit clearer come D2, based on kill counts.

From Wikipedia, here are a list of characters that I could find (some may be very minor):
Echo/Caroline Farrell
Adelle DeWitt
Topher Brink
Boyd Langton
Victor/Lubov/Anthony Ceccoli
Sierra/Priya Tsetsang
Paul Ballard
Mellie/November
Joel Minor
Alpha
Nolan Kinnard
Matthew Harding
Bennett Halverson
Whiskey/Dr Claire Saunders (possibly two different characters)
Laurence Dominic
Senator Daniel Perrin
Ivy
Joe Hearn

There may well be other characters not mentioned. In particular, the second series does not have any new characters listed at all. If there's a serial killer, I'm going to assume it's Alpha, as he is actively described as a serial killer, otherwise at a guess he's some kind of vigilante. Regarding possible abilities Paul is probably some kind of cop. Boyd might be as well (described as an ex-cop and later head of security), or likely some other kind of investigative ability. Topher is described as skilled technologically, but I don't know how that could translate into a role. Victor originally starts off as an informer, so might be some kind of investigative role as well. I didn't see much regarding an obvious ability for her. The best that stands out to me is that she killed her rapist, Nolan. Maybe she has some sort of kill that she can use to target specific people, which could be one of the anti-claim mechanics? Adelle was head of the Dollhouse, which probably gives some sort of special knowledge, but no clue what. Claire Saunders is a physician, so almost certainly a doctor. Laurence is an NSA agent, so probably some kind of investigator of some kind? November appears to be some kind of combat sleeper agent, so maybe some kind of kill ability. Ivy was Topher's assistant, maybe a backup? Nothing obvious in the way of abilities for Joe Hearn stands out. Nolan is a psychiatrist. He also seems to be quite manipulative, so maybe somebody who can control others actions/redirector. Senator Perrin is a politician, so maybe some sort of vote ability. Bennett is a genius programmer, but as with Topher, I don't really know what sort of role that could be.

[dimochka]

For obvious reason, I suspect mafia to have a godfather. So cop results are helpful but should be taken with a grain of salt.

I agree with the 3 mafia or 2 mafia + 1 independent theory. More likely the latter in my opinion.

Also - I am on Jimbob's list, but I expect that everyone will be on it.

P.S. Mondays / Tuesdays I'm really busy, but will have some more thoughts later.

[bessie]

Initial setup thoughts. I suspect that there are no vanilla roles. The mod didn’t promise everyone a power role, but it seems to be the normal setup lately in flavor heavy games, and in games this size.

I am also flavorblind, and got all my flavor knowledge from the main Wikipedia page. The initial post says that “role abilities however follow the show pretty closely” but I won’t have the knowledge to figure out powers that would fit with characters, so my setup speculation will general, not flavor specific. I think that three mafia might be too many for this game, unless they are all mafia goons with no additional abilities. I already speculated that there are no vanilla roles so I will guess two power mafia roles (godfather, roleblocker, investigative role?). And one third party, either an anti-town independent or someone that wins with mafia. I’ve been considering whether or not a serial killer would be too much kill power for a ten player game, and I think it may work if there is a doctor or a bulletproof townie. For town roles, my guess is that they are all regular power town roles (doctor, cop, tracker, watcher, bulletproof townie, one shot vigilante, town power backup, or maybe a miller?) and that no one townie is overly powerful.

I’m pretty busy the next two days, but I will try to keep up and post what I can. Don’t expect any long analysis posts from me until at least Wednesday night.

[adnapemit]

I've watched two episodes since I signed up.

I agree that there might not be any vanilla roles. All the characters I have seen in the show so far have jobs or abilities that would align to some kind of power within the game.
As for numbers I would guess 2-3 Mafia and maybe 1-2 independents, however I think the independents would have a win condition that is equally bad or beneficial to town and mafia.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

I did some rethinking on the likely number of scum, and I think I now agree with bessie. It is unlikely that there are 3 scum, as this would only give us one mislynch, which only seems reasonable if we have some particularly strong town powers. From what the mod said, I think it unlikely anyone, including scum, is vanilla. My breakdown guess is 7-2 with one independent.

I don't think that there are likely to be scum-specific powers, so I'm not sure a claim in self-defence should carry much weight, but I'm open-minded on this point.

[emlightened]

I think that some players that are only able to use powers on some nights (cop, but not on consecutive nights, one-shot vig, etc.) are probably more common then straight-up power roles, unless they're something like PGO.

How closely do people's roles correspond with their abilities? It may be useful later on to know if, for instance, Dr Saunders is guaranteed to have a doctor role, or if the role could correspond with some other aspect of her from the show.

I know that my ability corresponds somewhat closely to my character, but I wouldn't expect many people to guess it first time.


I probably won't have time to post tonight, by the way.

[crucialityfactor]

7-2-1 seems like a reasonable distribution for the factions. But I would not be surprised if there was an alignment changing role or perhaps a traitor role that doesn't know they are a traitor or something along those lines. So it's probably more blurry between scrom/town/3rd party lines.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

From the rules:

- Roles contain no hidden mechanics. E.g. if your role pm does not explicitly say that you're a Miller then you can't be one. Or if you're a Cop then you're guaranteed to be sane unless you role pm says otherwise.
- Although it would have been thematically very appropriate, due to the relatively small number of players I did not include any alignment or role that would change other player's alignment or win-condition. E.g. there's no Cult.

So, I don't think alignment changing or unknown traitor roles are an option. On the other hand, a known traitor could well be possible (i.e. they know they are a traitor).

[Diemo]

I think that every game I have played in with a traitor, the traitor has known his own true alignment.

But yeah, there is guaranteed to be no cult . I like cults.

Someone made a good point that with 3 mafia we are only get one mis-lynch. While that is possible (I know that I have run games where that is the case) it does suggest a 7-2-1 split. I would not be overly surprised with a 6-2-1-1 as well, depending on town's power roles.

I think that roles that can be used every night are more likely than roles which have limitations, but meh - that is just coming from my (pretty limited) experience of modding.

I don't think that there are likely to be scum-specific powers, so I'm not sure a claim in self-defence should carry much weight, but I'm open-minded on this point.

This pings me a little - it seems like [you with the crazy dice] is setting up a bit later to lynch someone with a town-aligned power role later while still being able to claim that [you with the crazy dice] is still acting in town's best interest. But it is pretty minor.

Oh, in terms of flavour, I watched this show years and years ago. But to be honest the only character I remember is Echo? (You know, Faith from Buffy) so you might as well assume I am flavourblind.

I am also on jimbob's list, if that helps. I have a feeling that there are no new people in the second season, but man I can't really remember.

Flavour-wise, I feel like Echo could steal other people's powers. Ort work like an inventor role maybe? Alpha is probably a serial killer if they are in the game.

I mentioned this elsewhere somewhere, but I am moving country and starting a new job right at the moment so my posts might be a bit sporadic. Provided that it doesn't get to Smalltown size I should be ok though.

[freezeblade]

I am also on jimbob's list.

My role is aligned with the character's role in the show pretty closely.

The only "other characters" I can think of were on a never-aired back up episode, that was created to tie up loose ends if fox cancelled the show at the end of season one (like they did with firefly). I remember because these characters were played by Felicia Day and Dave from Titus.

I sincerely doubt that any of these characters will be included though, because they have zero interaction with any of the "regular show timeline" characters.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

@Diemo - I made a similar statement in Alternating 9P, and I think it makes more sense in this context, due to the random alignments, though I do wonder how random they actually are the more I think about it (e.g. I think it unlikely that possible serial killer!Alpha has a separate random ability, whilst doctor!scum wouldn't make much more sense). Does anybody else have any thoughts on it?

For the record, my own character is on the list as well.

[crucialityfactor]

Well that's a bit borning then. I guess bastardy means something different nowadays. Just in that we don't onow the roles and alignment breakdown?

[freezeblade]

Well that's a bit borning then. I guess bastardy means something different nowadays. Just in that we don't onow the roles and alignment breakdown?

Conventional current wisdom is that "bastardy" contains cults, because it changes a player's alignment.

[bessie]

I only have a few minutes; let’s see what we have so far. Everyone’s posted except Carlington, but I think he did mention in the sign up thread he would be busy this month. There are no random votes. This is a little different than normal. I never random vote, but I’m generally in the minority. When I place a vote, it will be serious. A lot of flavor and setup talk with everyone agreeing with each other, and not much else. Setup speculation usually dominates the first page, and not playing too aggressively on D1 is consistent with what I remember of most of the players in this game (note: I haven’t actually played a game with crucialityfactor before, we were both in Secret Santa but he was dead by the time I replaced and there was so much content I only skimmed his posts). I’m not really good at getting things started (like SDK or Vytron or others) but I’ll try to come up with some questions by tomorrow when I have more time.

And Diemo, congratulations on your new job.

[Carlington]

Everything said so far seems entirely reasonable to me. I think there's quite likely an independent, but I think that with a 7-2-1 split an indie with a kill seems unlikely, as a mislynch and two kills leaves us at 4-2-1 MYLO on D2, and I feel that only giving town two mislynches is not super generous. I'm also on jimbob's list, but I'm entirely flavour-blind so I can't comment on whether the role makes flavour sense or anything of the sort, really. I don't have much else to say at this point, but I do want to ask Diemo what was meant by [you with the crazy dice]. I'm not quite picking up what you're saying, and it struck me as pretty weird. I'm more curious than suspicious, though.

[Diemo]

Oh, that was just a joke. Check the pronouns thread.

Jimbob, could you explain what you mean by random alignments?

[jimbobmacdoodle]

Jimbob, could you explain what you mean by random alignments?

I was referring to this from the rules:

Because of this and the fact that I don't want to give an unfair advantage to the players who know the flavor, the characters won't necessarily have the same alignment as in the show (role abilities however follow the show pretty closely)

However, now that I've reread it, I think I misunderstood slightly. Abilities follow characters, but alignments don't necessarily. I originally interpreted this as meaning all characters were distributed and then alignments assigned arbitrarily. However, since it's possible for characters to have one of a range of different abilities that might make flavour-sense, I now think it more likely that Sabrar thought something like this e.g. "I want character X to be scum. The obvious role for them would be a doctor, but that doesn't make much sense for scum, so I'll use this other ability that they also have in the series."

[adnapemit]

Maybe I haven't seen enough games but is an indie with a kill usually more against town? even without a kill are they more likely to side with Mafia?
There is enough people suggesting an independent that it seems almost certain.
I spent too much time on the PyPokémon tonight, I will write a full analysis tomorrow.

[emlightened]

I need to spend less time on PyPoke, and more here. That said, I only have a couple of minutes to post, and should be able to post something properly tonight.

I am also on jimbob's list, btw.

[Carlington]

I need to go to sleep, but to answer adnapemit's question, simply because an indie with a kill, presumably an SK, doesn't know who town or scum are. Since they just have to kill everyone, they'll likely pick at random early game which means hitting town is more likely. It doesn't tend to favour one side or the other overall, though. Just makes the swing much stronger.

[mpolo]

If the indie has a kill, he's usually a serial killer and against everyone, but will tend to want to remove mafia fairly early for his own protetion.

Otherwise, most indie roles are capable of siding with town or scum depending on what most helps them.

I forgot to look at this when I had more time and will have to come back later.