The Syndicate

S~V~S wrote:My pet peeve with alive to win win cons is the civ protector who protects him/herself every other night. I think the protector should be trying to protect OTHER people. That is less likely to happen in win dead or alive set ups.

One reason why self-targeting is a no-no almost all of the time in my games.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Always worth a chuckle when civs actually believe they're a team.

That's probably the center of this philosophical disagreement.

I think civilians are as much of a team as any other faction (though they wouldn't be a team in a survive-only win condition since they'd have to compete with one another to survive). In my experience, towns that play like they're a team win a whole lot more often than towns filled with people trying to solve the game on their own.

Again, I think it depends on the type of game you've got going.

A primitive solution to an open setup in which one person had info would be this: The civilians win dead or alive, but the role checker must be alive at the end to win. An experimental compromise...

S~V~S wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I don't usually share my...strategies in Mafia, but the wine tonight has warmed me, and I'm feeling generous.

On the rare occasion that I nab a lie detector role or a role check, I almost always check a female player.

This is kinda creepy, lol. Why?

There are several reasons, none of which are creepy (or sexist):

First, females get lynched at a significantly lower ratio than males do. It takes much, much more effort to get a female lynched than a male, especially early in the game. Matt, sig, MetalMarsh89, thellama73- all favorite Day 1-2-3 lynch targets. Can you name any females who are favorite Day 1-2-3 lynch targets? Me neither. It's much easier to get a lynch going on a dude than it is on, say, juliets or bea. I think guys are generally more reluctant to show aggression toward a female early on, and males far outnumber females here, so I see this as a natural dynamic.

Second, while I have established a mental catalog of male Mafia tells over the years (which are becoming less useful, I'm willing to admit), females generally say things that make me suspicious of them, with only a few of them having specific traits that I can point to and say "A ha!" Think about yourself- how often do I go after you when we are both good? There have been a few times when I walked into a game and said "I am not going to accuse S~V~S," and I ended up doing it because what you said was something I found so outside my thinking, I couldn't help myself (Lost Again was the most recent example of this).

Third, if I find that the target is good or telling the truth, it's much easier to support a female than a male in the thread (again, in general). A number of guys straight up want to crucify you for supporting their view, backing them up, defending them, etc. They are much swifter to condemn you of "buddying." Another thing that backs this up? I rarely see guys tear into each other for supporting a female, but will have no qualms doing so for supporting a male. It's uncanny.

In summary, info on a female player tends to be more valuable to me than another male player.

I don't usually share my...strategies in Mafia, but the wine tonight has warmed me, and I'm feeling generous.

On the rare occasion that I nab a lie detector role or a role check, I almost always check a female player.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

S~V~S wrote:I think it is better to give a win to 10 people who did not deserve it than to deny it to one person in the winning faction who did, tbh.

Agreed. Could you imagine if you and I were the only winners at the end of Talking Heads Mafia? We were the only two players to survive. That would have been devastating to many who did deserve it.

I probably wouldn't accept the banner because my role would be a literal cheat code with that rule in place. :P

To be fair, if I were to play in such a game my methods would be very different. I would be much more selfish and probably a lot less useful, but I'd still want to win the game -- even if at the expense of people who think they're aligned with me.

Trust me, if anyone should be staunchly in the "Win Dead or Alive" camp, it's me. I get Night killed all the time, especially when I'm on the right track. But like I said, I'm only averse to it when there's info involved + an open setup. My view comes from many examples when a civilian effectively outed himself or dumped info into the thread to score the win. That method takes no skill whatsoever, and spoils the game for the Mafia. Mafia should have the recourse to punish the info-dumper and take away his win (as well as remove his ability from the game).

In a closed setup with a cop (i.e., the cop isn't tied to one specific role), it's different because the civilians have to work together in trying to steer the Mafia's kill away from the cop on top of catching the Mafia. This worked out perfectly in Arrested Development, and the entire civilian team deserved the win.

I like both setups, and I think both types of win conditions have their place.

Law wrote:I will never host a game where Townies or Mafiosos need to be alive in order to win.

That type of win-condition belongs in 3rd party/Independent faction, not the main two. Sometimes sacrificing yourself is the smart play, and you should win with your team.

I'd rather take wins away from players who stayed alive but didn't deserve to win than those who played hard for their team, but got killed for it.

That depends on the setup. In an open setup in which information is in play (role checker, lie detector, civilian BTSC, etc.), having to be alive in order to win keeps civilians from getting Mafia lynched just because they dump info into the thread. There's an art to lynching Mafia without drawing the Night kill yourself. It's one I myself have not mastered and probably never will, but I think it keeps blabbermouth civilians from ruining the game for the Mafia.

No info or a closed setup? That's different.

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Public lie detectors as a whole, honestly.

A non-public LD is essentially a weaker cop, so it can be dealt with even if it can be used every day.

A public one is so OP it hurts.

I have a standing rule that I refuse to make statements for the purpose of being checked by the lie detector- my alignment matters not.

Turnip Head wrote:My Warcraft game definitely won't be a traditional mafia game since it features two identical teams of equal strength. But I think it will retain enough of what I consider to be the central concept: which players should I be trying to lynch/kill? I think people will figure out how to play it while they're playing it, which is very exciting to me as the host

Romance of the Three Kingdoms won't be traditional Mafia either, since it features three civilian factions that have to eliminate Mafia, but also need to eliminate one another. Alliances...betrayal...treachery...Guan Yu kicking ass...

Just like in the book.

Golden wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

Golden wrote:if you build it, they will come.

If I ever begin manufacturing sex toys, this will be my logo.

What are the chances that you will begin manufacturing sex toys?

At this rate, 6.9%.

(See, there's an object in between the six and the...

...I'll show myself out)

Golden wrote:if you build it, they will come.

If I ever begin manufacturing sex toys, this will be my logo.

G-Man wrote:Yikes. Given the general disdain for resurrections and recruiting, I may scrap that hybrid idea I posted earlier.

Having been away from the game for a few years, I'm trying to give every mechanic and role type the benefit of the doubt as I encounter them anew or for the first time. A lot of the success or failure of these mechanics depend on how the host implements and manages them. Throwing cool ideas you saw elsewhere can be a recipe for disaster if you don't take time to thoroughly think through how that mechanic interplays with other elements of your game. If you only know it on a surface level, I'd say be careful. You have to have a higher understanding of some mechanics to use them well.

Think of it this way: The core element of Mafia is the small but informed versus the large but uninformed trying to eliminate each other. That's what makes Mafia Mafia. Everything else should serve that purpose.

I've seen games that have lynches and night kills, but they're not Mafia (Last Man Standing, for example, is not Mafia).

Turnip Head wrote:I also don't care for lynch switches as a baddie power. Lynches should be the domain of the civs, and to give the baddies a way to completely overrule that process is frustrating.

I agree with this. I think I did a good job with Masters of the Universe in the context of it being my very first game, but man, if I had to do it again, a lot of that lynch manipulation the mafias had (two teams of six, by the way) would be gone. In general, if you are bad and you got caught, you shouldn't be saved by mechanics.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:1.) Another anti-town faction inherently decreases town's chances to win (and every other faction). Town vs. two factions has a 33% chance to win in a perfectly balanced game with perfectly balanced player performance. Town vs. one faction is 50/50.

2.) In a game with multiple mafia teams, members of both mafia teams enjoy the luxury of genuine baddie hunting. I think that's a significant thing -- one of the most fundamental ways for townies to find baddies is to identify who's presenting b/s or insincere reads. With confirmation in a game of multiple mafia teams, there's really no reason for insincere reads to exist. I think that makes life pretty tough for townies.

I don't agree with this, however. A second Mafia poses a huge thread to the first, and vice versa. From a strategic point, two Mafia teams all but removes the incentive to throw a teammate under the bus; first, you need numbers in case a night kill swings your way, and second, there's little credibility to be gained unless you successfully lynch an opposing Mafia member.

Ricochet wrote:Resurrections must be anti-town, surely. Two times, I think, a civ got rezzed and the mafia team(s) endured the drawback. One time, the mafia got rezzed (though he was also a seemer, so he fooled the rezzer's perception) and the team almost endured through to near lylo situation (well, not exactly, but still like two-three phases close to it).

If I include a resurrection, it's always in a two-team game (plus independents), and it only allows the civilian to bring back a Night killed person. That way, there is always a risk of bringing back Mafia (or a serial killer- ask S~V~S).

I also like democratic resurrections, for Night killed players, in which the living vote to bring back a killed person.

Ricochet wrote:

Epignosis wrote:An unlimited recruiter, whose recruitment power passes to the recruited players upon the recruiter's death. Unless the recruiter is lynched Day 1 (or blocked Night 1 and lynched Day 2), the recruiter wins. This mechanic is inherently game-breaking.

And yet, you snatched a victory by being recruited in the last minute.

Twice.

Another, somewhat related one, is a secret simultaneous resurrection and recruitment to the Mafia, a civilian getting resurrected to the Mafia's team. Such a player almost certainly won't be lynched, and it makes for an easy victory for the Mafia.

An unlimited recruiter, whose recruitment power passes to the recruited players upon the recruiter's death. Unless the recruiter is lynched Day 1 (or blocked Night 1 and lynched Day 2), the recruiter wins. This mechanic is inherently game-breaking.