Meta discussion

[roband]

The way I see it is that you can either be open or closed or inbetween with your setup, and you can also reveal everything, nothing or inbetween when people die.

Depending on how the rest of the game is setup and such, it could be interesting to vary each of these.

[t1mm01994]

My Pokémans was closed beyond closed, but really, it didn't seem to differ that much from "normal" closed... I honestly don't really see how it leads to other gameplay in an open setup, other than plans being more on scumhunting then on game-exploiting cleverness.

[Adam H]

So I was talking to my brother about mafia (he plays live with his friends sometimes) and they play with open set-ups but roles are not revealed upon death. Have people played this style, what are your thoughts?

I have played some live where absolutely nothing is revealed on death. It definitely muddies the water and makes it a lot more luck-based. In real life it's fun because the games are short and you're trying to read faces more than anything. Mafia gambits a lot more. One that comes to mind is when I falseclaimed cop, cleared my scumbuddy, then NKed myself. Fun stuff like that.

In a forum setting I don't think it would work, since you're investing more than 15 minutes into a game where town really has no idea what is going on. You could try IRC.

Sometime I might make a game where nothing is revealed on death, but with cop(s)/framer(s) that can only target dead people. Or something like that.

[Misnomer]

So I was talking to my brother about mafia (he plays live with his friends sometimes) and they play with open set-ups but roles are not revealed upon death. Have people played this style, what are your thoughts?

I've done this on another forum before, 'twas pretty fun to mod. That said, I'd recommend keeping power roles to a minimum and making sure the scum factions aren't too large.

[mpolo]

You can also have a "coroner" power that can be used on the deceased to find out what killed them/their alignment/etc. if you're using such a setup.

[trineroks]

I've noticed most of these (if not, all) xkcd mafia games never reveal role/alignment at death by lynch, but reveal them the very next day. It's a little funky, I have to admit, because I'm used to playing mafia where roles are revealed upon death by lynch.

Also, in other forum mafias, the coroner role is able to detect cop sanity as well as who his/her target visited each night.

[BoomFrog]

Discussion moved to this thread:

I'm thinking replace the 6 large/medium/small/micro with 2 Large (>16), 2 Medium (8-16), and 1 small (<10). Leaving Turbo and Vanilla as they are.

If that's too dramatic of a change, maybe just bump down the number of players for medium/large a bit - instead of medium being 13-20 make it 12-18.

redefine medium as 16max instead of 20 max so this doesn't happen again. Maybe "grandfather" the current mediums in the queue to have 20 max if the moderators really want to.

Considering the large queue is essentially dead at the moment we have a golden opportunity to embrace reality here and change the Game Queue system to better reflect how many games we can sustain right now. I like leaving vanilla and micro open as basically a way for mods to skip the queue as a reward for running games that are less fun to mod. The most fun to mod are obviously mediums followed by smalls. I suggest we brainstorm all the ideas that we think might be reasonable and then I will do a poll and we vote for the best option. In addition to the above three ideas I also think a simple plan would be to merge the large queue into medium, and make the medium queue 3 games max and 13-unlimited players. Or maybe 15-unlimited and make smalls 14 max. I heard rumors of a catastrophic queue merging in the days of old though so maybe there's a reason to not do it. Suggestions?

[Adam H]

For reference, here's the current setup:
Large (21-27 people Max) 1 active, 2 queue
Medium (13-20 people Max) 2 active, 4 queue
Small (8-12 people Max) 2 active, 4 queue
Micro (7 people Max, no minimum) 1 active, 2 queue
(I agree we should leave vanilla and turbo how they are, so I left those off)

1) Replace all 6 large/medium/small/micro with 2 Large (16+), 2 Medium (8-16), and 1 small (<10).

2) Redefine Medium as 13-18 (from 13-20). Redefine Large as 18+ (from 20+).

3) Redefine Medium as 13-16 (from 13-20). Redefine Large as 16+ (from 20+).

4) Merge Large and Medium into Medium. Redefine Medium as 3 games max and 13+.

5) Merge Large and Medium into Medium. Redefine Medium as 3 games max and 15+. Redefine Small as 8-14.

6) Merge Large and Medium into Medium. Redefine Medium as 3 games max and 14+. Redefine Small as 8-13. (yes, I'm quite nitpicky. )

If we put this to a vote we should combine the similar ones somehow, otherwise the results might be deceptive. IMO, 2>3, and 6>5~4.

[Lataro]

7. Delete the large queue, rename medium to large, small to medium, micro to small. Remove the cap on large games, and make them 13+. Keep all other ranges as defined. Run 2 Large/2 Medium, 1 Small.

Overall, this eliminates one active game, and removes a slot that isn't much used properly. In addition, put a time limit on sign ups for excessively large large games. Give the mod one week to fill their game, then run it with what they got, or cancel it. More times than not, games with excessively long signups fail due to people who signed up losing interest by the time the game FINALLY starts. It's better to run A game with players that will be active rather than have signups drag on forever and ruin any chance the game will stand. General statement that mods should be considerate with deadlines for their games, and not let days drag on for RL weeks, and nights last a whole week or more.

It's best to cut a game at this point, and to make it a big one, rather than a more easy to run small one. We have no justification at all for making more slots as things stand.

Proposed Setup:
Large (13+) 2 Active, 4 queue
Medium (8-12) 2 Active, 4 queue
Small (7 or less) 1 Active, 2 Queue
Turbo (As is) 1 Active, 2 Queue
Vanilla (12 or less, same rules) 1 Active, 2 Queue

7 total games active at a time max, rather than 8 now.

[mpolo]

Lataro's proposal sounds reasonable. I personally like the big games with a lot of flavor, but he's right that they usually fail because of the people who end up with a game running a month after they thought it would come, and therefore are no longer available.

[Adam H]

Let's just do Lataro's proposal. The only adjustment I might make would be to change the medium/large cutoff from 12 to 14, but that can easily come later.

[BoomFrog]

Alright, since no one has any objection, I'm just going to make the change to Lataro's idea. If _infinia_ feels cheated out of his spot in line he can PM me and I will give him my spot in the Medium queue. I doubt that will be necessary considering the current state of things though.

I'm putting the "run it with the sign-up you have in one week or drop" rule to apply to all game sizes. I don't think anyone has any objection to that, but let me know if you do.

[UniqueScreenname]

How do people feel about a Hunger Games mafia? Spoilered for some book spoilers.

Spoiler:

The obvious problem is that if the game were to be placed in an arena setting, at some point it gets to be every man for himself and the alliances would crumble. To overcome this, I was considering a game where the protagonists are kidnapped by some crazy who wants the all-star game to finish or be redone according to his standards. Work in a mechanism for town to get out alive if all the antagonists are killed. And there are obvious roles for SKs and indies.

Also, I don't necessarily want to mod it, I moreso want it to exist. So if anyone has a better idea, go for it.

[Snark]

How do people feel about a Hunger Games mafia?

I'd definitely play that.

This topic might get more traffic in the Gojoe thread than this one.

[BoomFrog]

Actually I like having a split between talking about ongoing games via spoiler, and talking about forum 53 in general. I often won't check an update in the "gojoe" thread just because I can't read half of them so it's unsatisfying.

[tastelikecoke]

I think an all-out everyone-survivors game kind of suits in Hunger Games' mechanics, but

Spoiler:

Since Katniss had friends and Peeta, there's obviously a town, a survivor, and a mafia faction, and a traitor.

But I think it would be cool if everyone else dies, like the townies don't win if every mafia dies, and they have to fight each other at the end so that almost 3 of them are always left at the very bitter finale?

[BoomFrog]

If it's a FFA then it's not mafia. You need people's goal to be, "root out scum, even if you die it is worth it." otherwise talking and participating is a bad idea. and that's unfun.

Maybe give certain people a bonus win for surviving?

[mpolo]

You could base it on the Quarter Quell in the second book, where there was a town "team" really intending to win together [maybe not tell Katniss that she is a part of this team ]. You could also make a couple of "teams" of professionals, and a handful of free agents.

[orangedragonfire]

Has anyone heard of quantum mafia, and would anyone be interested in playing?

I'll try to explain, but it's semi-complicated...
There are some mafias, and the rest are townies. The mafias are numbered in order to distinguish between them. The basic idea is that in the beginning, you are in a superposition of many possible scenarios - one for each possible possible distribution of mafias. Every action you take will then collapse some of these possible scenarios, slowly going down to a single one (scenarios collapse if they are incompatible with your actions). In that scenario it is clearly defined who is good and who is evil, and then the winner is determined through standard means - the surviving side wins.

Each day you will get a statistic, telling you how good and how alive you are. For instance, if you are alive in half of the scenarios that are left, you will get 50% alive in your statistic. If you are evil in all of the possible scenarios, you will get a 0% good statistic. The statistics will be visible to everyone, but with "Player1", "Player2", etc. instead of usernames. Each player will be told what their player number is. Every night, everyone will need to send a PM of who they would murder, to be used in those scenarios where they are the highest ranked mafia.

The idea is based on this.

[Adam H]

Wow that sounds awesome. I want to play.

[Snark]

Sounds complicated. I love it.

[roband]

Sounds way too complicated for me. I'd be interested to play, or watch if I wussed out.

[t1mm01994]

I'm in, on Quantum stuff. If there's enough demand for this, I might get some nerdy games soon, with mathsy stuff and stuffs.

[webby]

Has anyone heard of quantum mafia, and would anyone be interested in playing?

I'll try to explain, but it's semi-complicated...
There are some mafias, and the rest are townies. The mafias are numbered in order to distinguish between them. The basic idea is that in the beginning, you are in a superposition of many possible scenarios - one for each possible possible distribution of mafias. Every action you take will then collapse some of these possible scenarios, slowly going down to a single one (scenarios collapse if they are incompatible with your actions). In that scenario it is clearly defined who is good and who is evil, and then the winner is determined through standard means - the surviving side wins.

Each day you will get a statistic, telling you how good and how alive you are. For instance, if you are alive in half of the scenarios that are left, you will get 50% alive in your statistic. If you are evil in all of the possible scenarios, you will get a 0% good statistic. The statistics will be visible to everyone, but with "Player1", "Player2", etc. instead of usernames. Each player will be told what their player number is. Every night, everyone will need to send a PM of who they would murder, to be used in those scenarios where they are the highest ranked mafia.

The idea is based on this.

Sounds like a good game, I'd be in.

Here is the puzzle based on the game - it was part of a puzzle competition run by CiSRA (I did an internship there a couple of years ago). They run that competition every year in August and it's open to everyone (although only teams of Australian students can win prizes). If I remember, maybe I'll link to it when it happens, I have a feeling xkcd people would be interested.

[orangedragonfire]

Well, there seems to be a good response to the quantum mafia idea, so I'll try to bring this into a format that is playable. Spoilers are just for easy distinction of sections

Quantum Mafia

The idea is based on this.

General idea (as copied from my last post )

Spoiler:

There are some mafias, and the rest are townies. The mafias are numbered in order to distinguish between them. The basic idea is that in the beginning, you are in a superposition of many possible scenarios - one for each possible possible distribution of mafias. Every action you take will then collapse some of these possible scenarios, slowly going down to a single one (scenarios collapse if they are incompatible with your actions). In that scenario it is clearly defined who is good and who is evil, and then the winner is determined through standard means - the surviving side wins.

Each day you will get a statistic, telling you how good and how alive you are. For instance, if you are alive in half of the scenarios that are left, you will get 50% alive in your statistic. If you are evil in all of the possible scenarios, you will get a 0% good statistic. The statistics will be visible to everyone, but with "Player1", "Player2", etc. instead of usernames. Each player will be told what their player number is. Every night, everyone will need to send a PM of who they would murder, to be used in those scenarios where they are the highest ranked mafia.

Complete Rules:

Spoiler:

- There are some numbered mafias, and rest are townies.
- The game is in a superposition of scenarios. Each scenario works like a normal game of mafia, and the players play all of them at the same time (basically, all actions will be affecting all scenarios in which they are legal actions). Players do not know all the scenarios that the game is a superposition of, just the overall statistics, which will be given at the beginning of each day. The statistics list all players (numbered so as to preserve anonymity) and how alive and good they are (for instance, if you are alive in 31 of 93 scenarios). In the beginning, there is one scenario for each distribution of mafia roles.
- Every player who is not 100% good or 0% alive must send in a target to kill each night. In each of the scenarios, the mafia with the lowest number gets to kill its target. If that target is already dead or a mafia member, the scenario is collapsed.
- Trying to kill (at night) for a person that you have killed before is only allowed if an evil person has been hanged since last time you tried to kill that person.
- Voting during the day is as normal; but it highly affects the scenarios. First, obviously, since the player is hanged (s)he cannot have been dead before. Thus all scenarios where when a player was dead will collapse. Furthermore, her/his state is collapsed into either good or evil according to the current probability of said states (this will be done using a random number generator.). All scenarios where this person is not in the now fixed state is collapsed.

What players will actually see

Spoiler:

All the math and different scenarios are pretty much invisible to players. They only see the following: at night, they need to send in a target to kill. In the beginning of the day, they will get a chart of probabilities, like this one:

Code: Select all

 Player    Alive    Good
   1   100%    53%
   2    60%    66%
   3    60%    66%
   4    80%    60%
   5   100%    53%


(naturally the number of players in this list would be dependent on the players in the game)

And they will know what their own player number is. The rest of the day is just like a normal mafia game, with discussions and a hanging at the end. (everyone who is not 0% alive can partake in this)

Note that you will not receive a specific role at the beginning, everyone starts exactly the same.

Simplified Rules (without explanations of how the scenarios work):

Spoiler:

- There are some numbered mafias, and rest are townies.
- The game is in a superposition of scenarios. See Complete rules for more information.
- Every player who is not 100% good or 0% alive must send in a target to kill each night.
- Trying to kill (at night) for a person that you have killed before is only allowed if an evil person has been hanged since last time you tried to kill that person.
- Voting during the day is as normal.

[Snark]

Questions on game setup:

Does a round of kill submissions happen before the first voting round? I'm guessing yes since otherwise all the probabilities would be equal and boring.
After the lynch happens, do you update the table before the night starts (so everyone knows what the heck is going on) or after the night is over (and everyone who should has sent in a kill target)?
Is there a seer?
When will the game start?

[orangedragonfire]

Answers on game setup:

Yes.
Probably. I guess players can say which way they would prefer.
No. It makes things more complicated to run, and this is the first time I'm running quantum mafia. Maybe if this works out I can try to include other roles in the next game.
I don't know, as I'm new to the mafia subforum, and don't know what I need to do to be allowed to start the game.

[Snark]

Sign up in the pre-sign-up queue for mods. You'll probably want to do the small or medium game size to begin with. When it's your turn and your game gets moved from queue to active (you can also move it yourself if you see a slot open and your game is next in the queue), put the game into sign-ups in the sign-ups for players thread. When you have almost enough sign-ups, you can create your game thread in the mafia subfolder. When everyone confirms, have a N0 phase where everyone sends in their target. Then begin the game.

I'm sure other people could explain it better, but that's a good overview.

[UniqueScreenname]

Back to Hunger Games:

What if it was a pit game, but instead of a kingmaker role that chose one of the players, the players have to pick two each time? It keeps the spirit of fighting alive, and then the alignment makes sense because the best way for scum to stay alive is to get town into the pit and the town can be released if they kill all the scum (maybe?). Since the scum will know who town is, the challenge will be to get two town into the pit.

[Snark]

Back to Hunger Games:

What if it was a pit game, but instead of a kingmaker role that chose one of the players, the players have to pick two each time? It keeps the spirit of fighting alive, and then the alignment makes sense because the best way for scum to stay alive is to get town into the pit and the town can be released if they kill all the scum (maybe?). Since the scum will know who town is, the challenge will be to get two town into the pit.

I like it. Everyone could get a weapon of choice and a fighting stat 1-10 (Just like in the book). People can be sent to the pit by a combination of voting and a kingmaker choosing. You could have sponsors in the game too that send items to specific players that could be used to boost their chances in the pit. And there could be all kinds of roles based on ability in the pit, how often the person can or can't go to the pit, and so on.

[eculc]

quantum mafia:

W.T.F.

I am so confused. I feel like I want to join this, but I barely understand what you're saying.

[UniqueScreenname]

Back to Hunger Games:

What if it was a pit game, but instead of a kingmaker role that chose one of the players, the players have to pick two each time? It keeps the spirit of fighting alive, and then the alignment makes sense because the best way for scum to stay alive is to get town into the pit and the town can be released if they kill all the scum (maybe?). Since the scum will know who town is, the challenge will be to get two town into the pit.

I like it. Everyone could get a weapon of choice and a fighting stat 1-10 (Just like in the book). People can be sent to the pit by a combination of voting and a kingmaker choosing. You could have sponsors in the game too that send items to specific players that could be used to boost their chances in the pit. And there could be all kinds of roles based on ability in the pit, how often the person can or can't go to the pit, and so on.

Anyone know whether the king in pit games is usually town or scum? Or would the mod just randomize it?

[BoomFrog]

Answers on game setup:

Yes.
Probably. I guess players can say which way they would prefer.
No. It makes things more complicated to run, and this is the first time I'm running quantum mafia. Maybe if this works out I can try to include other roles in the next game.
I don't know, as I'm new to the mafia subforum, and don't know what I need to do to be allowed to start the game.

I'd recommend working with a co-mod who has run a game before on these forums. You do the quantum calculations and the co-mod does the formatting and handles normal rule enforcement.

Alternatively, you could put your game in the mod sign-up list and also sign up as a player for one game. After playing once you should have a decent idea of how the format works here.

[fshfood]

Hey all -- I must admit that I am addicted to this game now. I would love to learn to be a mod. If anyone wants to take on an apprentice as an assistant, so I can learn the ropes that way, just let me know.

[ConMan]

Hey all -- I must admit that I am addicted to this game now. I would love to learn to be a mod. If anyone wants to take on an apprentice as an assistant, so I can learn the ropes that way, just let me know.

Well, I've been looking for a co-mod for Keys to the Kingdom. Are you interested?

[fshfood]

Sure. I have no flavor knowledge, but would love to help out. Send me a pm.

[[username]]

Note on the Pre-Sign Up Queue:
The description for Vanilla games still says "Small or Micro-sized" - but we don't have Micro games any more. Should probably be switched to Small or Medium-sized (max 12, same as original)?

[BoomFrog]

As you can clearly see my completely unedited post timestamped 47 minutes before your post already contains the fix.

Vanilla (Small or Medium size-game, newbies get preference for spots

But thanks anyway.

[Adam H]

I'm having thoughts about a vanilla-ish mostly-open setup.

The gimmick is that factions and roles aren't revealed on death, as was discussed a while ago. The roles:

Spoiler:

Town:
-Vanilla Town: Vanilla
-Detective: At night, investigates living or dead players, learns role and faction.
-Coroner: At night, investigates dead players, learns role and faction.

Mafia:
-Vanilla mafia: Vanilla
-Framer: At night, chooses a living target (can target self), and any of the 6 roles. If the target is investigated that night, the investigation result will be whichever role the framer picks.
-Nurse: At night, chooses a dead target, and any of the 6 roles. If the target is investigated that night, the investigation result will be whichever role the nurse picks.

Some questions I have:
-Should the framer and nurse also learn their target's true role?
-Should coroners/nurses be allowed to target living players, which would fail if the target did not die from NK?
-What should the numbers be for a 12 player game? I'd say something like 1 of each mafia, 1-2 detectives, 3-4 coroners, 3-5 vanillas.
-Is this vanilla enough for the vanilla queue?
-Would the game suck?

[Snark]

Some questions I have:
-Should the framer and nurse also learn their target's true role?
-Should coroners/nurses be allowed to target living players, which would fail if the target did not die from NK?
-What should the numbers be for a 12 player game? I'd say something like 1 of each mafia, 1-2 detectives, 3-4 coroners, 3-5 vanillas.
-Is this vanilla enough for the vanilla queue?
-Would the game suck?

No.
Sure.
Sounds about right. Maybe throw in another vanilla townie or two and bump it up to 13-14 players. Seems a little in favor of scum otherwise. Disclaimer: I have done no real research on this whatsoever.
I'm not sure.
No way. Sounds really fun. I'd play.