What is Your Least Favorite Mafia Game Mechanic and Why?

[Dragon D. Luffy]

I've played games with recruiters (called cults), but they usually come with restrictions that balance them. The cult is independent from mafia, and can't recruit members of mafia, as well as some of the civs.

Yeah, guess which faction got smoked and burned once for not being able to be recruited by the cult, which also had night kills every two nights. The mafia.

Cults should NEVER have kills, unless they are lucky enough to recruit a vigilante.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

On the rezz + recruit thing, I once made a cult where every member of it was a ressurected, immortal player, but nobody was allowed to vote except for the cruit recruiter. So it was balanced. It was a vampire cult.

[Ricochet]

I've played games with recruiters (called cults), but they usually come with restrictions that balance them. The cult is independent from mafia, and can't recruit members of mafia, as well as some of the civs.

Yeah, guess which faction got smoked and burned once for not being able to be recruited by the cult, which also had night kills every two nights. The mafia.

Cults should NEVER have kills, unless they are lucky enough to recruit a vigilante.

Well, the game was still very fun to play (at least for me), even if not fully sound as a design - and even if we got Leo-Revenant-style rekt, as mafia, with such flaws very slightly weighing in on that endresult.

[Marmot]

And you also need another chart "Pro-casual" and "anti-casual", because my favourite thing about non-changeable votes is when I don't have to check in 5 minutes before lynch to know I'm not being lynched.

In that sense, I think changeable votes are among my least favourite mechanics... even though I value their strategic worth.

I'm a big fan of changeable votes. But role-powers that are dependent on specific voting outcomes can make things a little tricky (see timmer's death in World Reborn). As such, holding votes in polls where one could make a vote without being tracked can also be bothersome. But the polls are so much more convenient for tracking player votes, that I still think it is the most ideal way to do it. The only downside is when votes are not changeable, when someone misclicks and votes the wrong player. One wouldn't make this mistake just posting in the thread.

Of course, the JTM method isn't bad either, creating a vote tag for votes, and having an alternate account track votes. This wouldn't be easy to implement, and has potential for shenanigans.

[Marmot]

No, I'd say rezzes are either pro-town or null. Nothing like bringing back a confirmed civ, especially if you have a protection plan in place. At worst the mafia has to waste a kill on them.

Though there's always exceptions, like the one time that a civvie with info was rezzed, then misinterpreted his info, made it obvious that he had info, and then ran a lynch train on me, his fellow civ

Or there's the case of rezzing the civ with info, then not believing the info, and ultimately second-guessing yourself as a result and trying to lynch said civ with info.

[Golden]

I think I lean slightly anti-town on rezz generically, although it becomes strongly pro-town if the roles are open, there is clearly a civ rezzer, and the role rezzed is a confirmed civ.

If a mafia team rezzes, they get an extra number... either (confirmed baddie) an extra lynch day or (non-confirmed baddie or civ or confirmed civ) an extra resource outright.

If a civilian rezz happens, even on a confirmed civ, there will still be doubt about whether the person is still civ or not (ie have they been rezzed bad), so it really only favours town when there is sufficient information to presume the rezz is civ-motivated.

[Turnip Head]

No, I'd say rezzes are either pro-town or null. Nothing like bringing back a confirmed civ, especially if you have a protection plan in place. At worst the mafia has to waste a kill on them.

Though there's always exceptions, like the one time that a civvie with info was rezzed, then misinterpreted his info, made it obvious that he had info, and then ran a lynch train on me, his fellow civ

Or there's the case of rezzing the civ with info, then not believing the info, and ultimately second-guessing yourself as a result and trying to lynch said civ with info.

[Ricochet]

Of course, the JTM method isn't bad either, creating a vote tag for votes, and having an alternate account track votes. This wouldn't be easy to implement, and has potential for shenanigans.

Vote registered for It is currently the night phase.

[Marmot]

On the rezz + recruit thing, I once made a cult where every member of it was a ressurected, immortal player, but nobody was allowed to vote except for the cruit recruiter. So it was balanced. It was a vampire cult.

Does this mean that the cults' ability to win was entirely dependent on the survival of the initial recruiter?

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Yes.

In fact, all the vampires turned into dust if the initial recruiter died.

Though he had bulletproof status, iirc.

[S~V~S]

I have had a couple of games with a cult, but only one where the cult won. He was basically bulletproof (it was a Cthulhu like role; if he was targeted with anything, who ever targeted him was insanified). But he had a lot of restrictions on how he could recruit and who he could recruit. Plus his recruits were vulnerable. The problem with that role was, I think, that noone knew he was in the game. If you have a cult, people should know about it.

I like rezzes only of NKed players. It does not put a target on rezzed civvies backs, and it gives baddies a chance. If you have a civ rezz, I will have one team with a rezz, usually not both. The second will have a recruit.

I seriously dislike games with one bad team, unless it is a tiny game. I totally hate info. I have seen too many good baddie games trashed by a clumsy role checker.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

A few months ago I started making a chart for my own reference when designing games which shows my perspective of balance and imbalance in setups. I actually don't agree with my prior self on all of these, but a lot of it holds. It'd be cool to build upon this with this discussion.

Keep in mind this was made with a mindset for RYM-styled games and certain Syndicate norms aren't acknowledged.

Spoiler: show

I'm sure there'll be some disagreement with certain things here.

Ok, I actually agree with a lot of this. It probably explains why mafias win so much at the Syndicate, compared to other sites. The rules most hosts use here tend to be strongly anti-town.

And you also need another chart "Pro-casual" and "anti-casual", because my favourite thing about non-changeable votes is when I don't have to check in 5 minutes before lynch to know I'm not being lynched.

In that sense, I think changeable votes are among my least favourite mechanics... even though I value their strategic worth.

I personally love changeable votes. It lets me do the 4 vote changes per day I'm known for in NF.

[sprityo]

The anti thread

Well, personally. Game ending roles are literally the worst. Or roles that steal win cons

Other than that, alignment switching. Yes it's fun to watch but at the same time it's kind of rude to the players since it throws all their strategy planning out the window

[Epignosis]

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.

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.

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.

[G-Man]

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.

[Epignosis]

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).

[Marmot]

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.

I think a game based around it is not the same a game that includes a single instance of it.

And as long as we're not running recruitment games every other month, people will still enjoy the freshness of it to an extent.

[Golden]

And yet, G-Man, recruitment mafia was voted in the top two last time there was a round of voting on full games...

It's all contextual. There is a big difference between a game designed around rezz and recruitment, and an incidental one.

(And anyway, I design the games I want to host... if you build it, they will come.)

[Epignosis]

if you build it, they will come.

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

[Golden]

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?

[G-Man]

That and the previous Recruitment games were very popular and had a lot of buzz leading up to it. There was once a time and place where A game based on recruitment was foreign and unclear if it could work. In those instances where bold new things are being tried, it really comes down to the host's ability to execute.

And Epi has a point about games straying away from what is really mafia. I don't think I ever consciously asked myself if what I'm trying to add or change up really serves the core purpose of mafia. I am definitely guilty of getting lost in building up a cool set dressing to the point where I've built a game that's based on mafia but isn't really mafia. Especially lately it seems. Some of my favorite ideas are probably not true mafia games. Now I'm determined to go back them and figure out to rebuild them so that they are true mafia games or else scrap them. Murder your darlings, right?

[Epignosis]

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)

[Tangrowth]

Lots of intriguing and good things discussed in this thread AND the non anti-counterpart. Great ideas, sprityo and G-Man.

I don't have much to add, other than, while for a long time I was a huge fan of recruitment and other experimental elements, I always strive to do something unique with each game I create, and lately find myself more interested in experimenting with closed setups and new elements than with resurrections and recruitments, which I no longer find interesting or desirable. I find myself similarly frustrated by unexpected recruitment elements in games, even when I benefited from them (Doctor Who comes to mind), and agree with Epi that sometimes these games transform into something that isn't quite mafia. That doesn't make them necessarily less desirable though; I think one of the best things about this site is a willingness from players and hosts to constantly be open-minded to new approaches to playing mafia, whether they be strictly within the realms of what constitutes "mafia" or not. I don't think anyone should feel dissuaded from trying anything out based on anyone's opinions in this thread, but one should thoroughly consider one's game setup and how it can affect player's chances of winning and enjoyment when crafting a game, which becomes increasingly difficult to balance correctly the more experimental the game becomes (I have extensive experience here, as I know quite a few others here do as well).

[Turnip Head]

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

[Epignosis]

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.

[Marmot]

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

I'd love to see this play out (though I know nothing of Warcraft). SVS and I started but never really got going on a Baseball Mafia that was going to have a similar type setup: two identical teams pitted against each other.

[S~V~S]

Once GOC is over we can restart that.

[MacDougall]

My least favourite mechanic is vanilla civilians.

Lol heaven forefend a townie need to just analyse the game to find bad guys.

My least favourite mechanic is deadline lynching. I'm way happier with hammer voting because vote switching at the last second is just dumb. Have a deadline and if nobody has reached the hammer min at deadline it's a no lynch.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

My favorite role is a vanilla townie.

[S~V~S]

Being town makes me want to bang my head into the wall, lol, and being vanilla town makes me want to bang it harder. So for me the best civ role is a civ BTS role. I can say all the stupid ridiculous things I say to them instead of to the thread and not get suspected as much. I react really poorly to suspicion when I don't have BTSC.

My favorite game of all time I was a BTSC civvie, that is a dream role for me.

[Golden]

My least favourite mechanic is vanilla civilians.

Lol heaven forefend a townie need to just analyse the game to find bad guys.

I do that all the time...

But having some kind of role power is fun, even if it doesn't help you analyse the game. I'm seen too many vanilla civilians not engage. I mean, I've seen plenty of people with role powers not engage too. It works both ways. But I understand why a vanilla townie doesn't engage in a game that is role power heavy.

[G-Man]

I'm a bad mafia player because I'm not good at analyzing other players. I can look at vote patterns and use process of elimination to track who other players might be but making a good/bad judgement call based on post content is not my forte. Thus, being a vanilla civ is something of a chore for me. I need secret stuff to decode or a power to play with to keep my mind off of my inability to analyze people's posts. It does at least allow you to be completely honest and not fall under any suspicion for someone seeing that you used a power or whatever, but it's challenging. Given how few vanilla roles are in games these days, I'm not sure I remember the last time I was a 100% vanilla townie.

I guess hammer lynching isn't such a bad sounding idea but it allows the baddies to skip a vote with no consequences should the poll be heading toward a civvie lynch. A hammer would allow hosts to post at their convenience- a lynch deadline also brings with it the expectation of a lynch post following shortly thereafter. But I also like the expectation that must vote because the data freak in me wants a trail on everyone I'm playing with/against. I also like my votes to be final, not changeable.

[Soneji]

I would have to say the jester role as a whole. In games where if the jester wins the game ends its terrible due to the nature of the game being to lynch scummy players, which the jester will try to appear as without making things too obvious, hinging the entire game continuing on a crapshoot. At least in those games though it has a purpose, if the presence of a jester is made known to the players as it always should be when lynching the role ends the game. Its in games where a jesters death just wastes town's time by taking up a phase lynching it or debating on peoples jesterhood that really grinds my gears. The whole role just goes against the spirit of the dayphase and is just a boring role that takes little effort to win as.

As a host, I have only used it once, announcing to the thread that a jester was present and lynching it may have consequences, for town or mafia. If 70% or more of town were on the lynchwagon, three town members would be killed at random. This made it more of a challenge for the jester and town. Mafias negative was that if they had too many members on the jester lynch, that condition of its role being shown upon death is fairly damning. The jester still won but had to put effort into it. I still think the role is terrible though, even with my adjustments.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

I've seen jesters in two games hosted by you

(though technically one of them was made by me )

[Dragon D. Luffy]

Also has there ever been a games with jesters in the syndicate? I've never seen people here talk about it.

[Soneji]

I don't count Gohan because 1) he was made by you and 2) it was an in-joke due to SoulTaker submitting Gohan into Favorites for a third time straight. It served a comedic purpose and you added a nice twist to it compared to the standard jester.

[Marmot]

Also has there ever been a games with jesters in the syndicate? I've never seen people here talk about it.

We do have a tendency to not use the traditional names of roles on this site, so if there was a jester, it wouldn't be obvious.

In Watchmen, my win con was to get nightkilled. A variation of the standard jester.

I can't recall a regular Jester cropping up anywhere, but I'm sure it has.

[Tangrowth]

I had a jester in Super Meat Boy... Tofu Boy!

He started out as a regular civilian, but once he lost just one life (i.e., received one vote against him), he became suicidal and could only win if he was lynched.

[Tangrowth]

Pretty sure that's the only jester I've seen on this site, or even on other LP-based sites beforehand, though.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

I've once played a game that had a jester cult.

Basically, the cult could recruit someone every night, and they won the game if they managed to lynch the most recently recruited player in the next day.

They won in day 3.

[S~V~S]

That would be AWESOME!!

So long as it did not end the game for everyone else, I think I would actually like that in a game.

[Marmot]

I agree with SVS, that's a neat idea, and would be more awesome if the game didn't just end, and any cult members that don't get lynched have something else to play for.

[Dragon D. Luffy]

In that version the game ended. I don't know if that's better or worse, it does add a certain thrill to the game.

The game had a few other weird roles that balanced it though. Like, there was an indie survivor who knew every role in the game.

Here is the game, if you wanna see it: http://www.narutoforums.com/showthread.php?t=1006205

[Sorsha]

Least favorite: secret recruits. I think if a recruit is possible, especially by a mafia team, that the players should be aware that it's a possibility.

[DharmaHelper]

Mafia spies.

[S~V~S]

Silencing.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Anything that corrupts voting or lynch results for either faction.

[G-Man]

Anything that corrupts voting or lynch results for either faction.

In light of this, you might not want to play my Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 game coming up later this year.

[S~V~S]

Or any game I ever host, where I give out extra votes like Candy (that was not the case in GOC; TH restrained me )

[Law]

Lie-detectors that can be used every single day, so you end up with everyone in the game clamoring to be detected.