The Syndicate

Marco wrote:Took me a while to find where this game had gone.

Congrats, scum-team. Where's the scum chat?

Also, sig and MP legit "slipped" with assuming mafia kill D1?

Marco

My genuine apologies for your death. I thought I'd sent in a PM jailkeeping you. Entirely my fault. Mea Culpa.

Have you guys tried QuickTopic for the mafia chats. Much more convenient. And it's so much fun reading up later. I've been in QTs where the post count has rivalled that of the game thread. The games on my board can get fucking off the hook on the power scale though, so there's a bucketload of things to discuss.

Golden wrote:

Marco wrote:Took me a while to find where this game had gone.

Congrats, scum-team. Where's the scum chat?

Also, sig and MP legit "slipped" with assuming mafia kill D1?

Marco

My genuine apologies for your death. I thought I'd sent in a PM jailkeeping you. Entirely my fault. Mea Culpa.

At least you jailed me N1.

Exampe QT: http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/PrYcNK37zYw2t

Once you cross 1000 posts, you can't view all messages at once, but rarely does a QT cross 1000 posts.

We used to use QT on RYM quite a bit. I think we switched to chatzy just because it's easier to talk in real time, but you're right that QT is better for keeping tabs on the full length of discussion. As a mafia teamer I'd be okay with QT.

I think private threads are the best; they're just hard to figure out technically.

Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

Not to mention, multiple mafia factions are the norm. And it's also very common to find Masons, cultists, etc. It also lets the Host have a tight leash on everything and make sure everything goes perfectly.

I'm going to see if that functions at work, which is my basic problem with Chatzy.

Thanks for the suggestion! I do remember now that a QT was used for last year's Champions game on Turnip Head's team. I started playing mafia nearly 6 years ago now on Lostpedia-based mafia communities and chatzy was the go-to service for chatrooms by that time already, so it's stuck around for familiarity and because people like the real time chat feel of it.

Recently we've done some on-site private threads, as Jay mentioned, and some people like them but some people really don't because you have to be logged in to the site and it doesn't have the real time aspect.

Marco wrote:Not to mention, multiple mafia factions are the norm. And it's also very common to find Masons, cultists, etc. It also lets the Host have a tight leash on everything and make sure everything goes perfectly.

That's actually the norm historically here as well, though the largest game I've ever seen on an LP-based site I think was 50 players, so our games don't get quite as high. Over the past year we added the Heist format for simpler games; other than that, I played predominantly 20-40 player role madness games for most of my career without even knowing of anything else.

13 vs 4 is fine enough as a ratio. For a long while in Bulba we considered 12 vs 4 balanced enough. It was the extra kill power that is a problem; 1-shot mafia vigs, town vigs that don’t shoot correctly… any and all extra scum kill power was removed, with all the vigs becoming strongmen instead.

Did you actually use Chatzy as the mafia chat for the entire game? Wow, I’d find that really bothersome, because I’m used to Bulba/MU private threads (Bulba private threads are the XenForo way of doing PMs which is seriously convenient) and QTs when Bulba was still on vBulletin.

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of.

Can't agree more, I can relate to the higher staff part a lot. I even use QTs as notepads when hosting.
At least we got "conversations" which are PMs in XenForo software and look like threads, that's good enough stuff.

On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

I can't really relate to this, though, 20 player games are considered pretty big for us. 2-3 abilities with GF is commonplace for our role madness games as well, though. And if you think chat rooms are inconvenient in big scum teams... have you checked the MU mashes? 85-man, 57-man... scum teams of 15-21 people using SKYPE. There's some madness

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

The only downside I've come across is if there is a role in the game that gains nightly BTSC with a different player each night. It makes much more sense to create Chatzy rooms each time rather than a new private thread.

Zexy wrote:I can't really relate to this, though, 20 player games are considered pretty big for us. 2-3 abilities with GF is commonplace for our role madness games as well, though. And if you think chat rooms are inconvenient in big scum teams... have you checked the MU mashes? 85-man, 57-man... scum teams of 15-21 people using SKYPE. There's some madness

Zexy wrote:13 vs 4 is fine enough as a ratio. For a long while in Bulba we considered 12 vs 4 balanced enough. It was the extra kill power that is a problem; 1-shot mafia vigs, town vigs that don’t shoot correctly… any and all extra scum kill power was removed, with all the vigs becoming strongmen instead.

I've long been a big proponent of 7:2/4:1/11:2 (role madness and V++/V+/mountainous). I do think ratios closer than 7:2 can work, but they call for very precise balancing roles that I honestly think are just usually not present in setups in my experience.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

The only downside I've come across is if there is a role in the game that gains nightly BTSC with a different player each night. It makes much more sense to create Chatzy rooms each time rather than a new private thread.

How we do this on MM is to have a dedicated sister subforum along side each game name, and then have a bunch of sub-subforums within there for each type (we have BTSC A-F, for Mafia and then any other possible multi-factional games) as well as a Ghosties sub-subforum. Each player with some sort if BTSC access has the privilege to see and post in their specific sub-subforum, but not the others. In examples like what you mentioned, the nightly BTSCs can be moved into the Ghosties sub-subforum. Any dead players or spectators would be able to see all the sub forums.

The only thing you need is a mod to clear the permissions and stuff between games and set up permissions for players during games as needed, which could always be an extension of the MoD since games always have one here.

A lot of us prefer the Chatzy threads, though. It is easier to just "talk" more naturally. We have done the hidden threads & subforums in some games, and will continue to do both.

Inawordyes wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

The only downside I've come across is if there is a role in the game that gains nightly BTSC with a different player each night. It makes much more sense to create Chatzy rooms each time rather than a new private thread.

How we do this on MM is to have a dedicated sister subforum along side each game name, and then have a bunch of sub-subforums within there for each type (we have BTSC A-F, for Mafia and then any other possible multi-factional games) as well as a Ghosties sub-subforum. Each player with some sort if BTSC access has the privilege to see and post in their specific sub-subforum, but not the others. In examples like what you mentioned, the nightly BTSCs can be moved into the Ghosties sub-subforum. Any dead players or spectators would be able to see all the sub forums.

The only thing you need is a mod to clear the permissions and stuff between games and set up permissions for players during games as needed, which could always be an extension of the MoD since games always have one here.

Yeah, I've done this for my past couple of games in fact, and I personally am OK with it; some people prefer the chatzy threads. Just depends on what the host wants to use.

As a player, I prefer private threads. As a host, I haven't had to deal with permissions yet, so I'll go with private threads again.

Golden wrote:I'm going to see if that functions at work, which is my basic problem with Chatzy.

I know it's not counted as Message Boards/Forums. A couple years ago, before I became self-employed, I couldn't access any forums in my workplace but QT was never an issue.

MovingPictures07 wrote:Thanks for the suggestion! I do remember now that a QT was used for last year's Champions game on Turnip Head's team. I started playing mafia nearly 6 years ago now on Lostpedia-based mafia communities and chatzy was the go-to service for chatrooms by that time already, so it's stuck around for familiarity and because people like the real time chat feel of it.

Recently we've done some on-site private threads, as Jay mentioned, and some people like them but some people really don't because you have to be logged in to the site and it doesn't have the real time aspect.

Before we came across QT (about 4-5 years ago), BTSC used to be done only via PMs. So, we never got into the whole "real-time" aspect. It seems cumbersome to me which is probably because I'm used to the forum format. Our BTSC threads are pretty much the same as the game threads, in the way people "chat" with each other.

Marco wrote:Not to mention, multiple mafia factions are the norm. And it's also very common to find Masons, cultists, etc. It also lets the Host have a tight leash on everything and make sure everything goes perfectly.

That's actually the norm historically here as well, though the largest game I've ever seen on an LP-based site I think was 50 players, so our games don't get quite as high. Over the past year we added the Heist format for simpler games; other than that, I played predominantly 20-40 player role madness games for most of my career without even knowing of anything else.

Pretty much the same. Until about 2 years go (when I discovered Epicmafia), the only "small" games I played were in RL. And I still find larger role madness games more appealing. I really love the tactical aspect of them which one can't find in "generic" games. When I say generic, I don't mean that everyone is a generic. Just that the majority of roles will be generic, or the opposite of role madness.

Zexy wrote:

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of.

Can't agree more, I can relate to the higher staff part a lot. I even use QTs as notepads when hosting.
At least we got "conversations" which are PMs in XenForo software and look like threads, that's good enough stuff.

Yeah, our Mafia board has had a very eventful history with some of the staff members. We actually didn't have a section of our own until 3-4 years ago. It was made just so post counts could be disabled for the entire board. Definitely made us a lot more organized but it's made it harder to attract fresh blood.

[qupte]

On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

I can't really relate to this, though, 20 player games are considered pretty big for us. 2-3 abilities with GF is commonplace for our role madness games as well, though. And if you think chat rooms are inconvenient in big scum teams... have you checked the MU mashes? 85-man, 57-man... scum teams of 15-21 people using SKYPE. There's some madness [/quote]

MU has giant games like this?? I thought there were into the whole "pure" vanilla mafia philosophy.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Marco wrote:Private threads would be great, but mafia is just a small part of the website I come from and some of the higher staff like to keep us on a tight leash, so we don't have any such options. QT's are the perfect alternative. They're really convenient for role madness games as there's so many abilities, players, roles, gambits, etc to keep track of. On our board, 20 player games are considered small and there're usually 2-3 60+ player games each year (average game size is around 25-30 players, and the preferable size is generally ~40). And most mafia teams usually have each member with 2-3 abilties with a Godfather (and maybe Backup) having 4-5. And a lot of games go beyond this. So you can see how chatrooms would be a big inconvenience.

The only downside I've come across is if there is a role in the game that gains nightly BTSC with a different player each night. It makes much more sense to create Chatzy rooms each time rather than a new private thread.

QTs are pretty convenient in this regard. You can make as many threads as you want and they're all private, so only the people with the direct link can access them. And once you sign up, all the QTs you've ever visited are neatly organized on your home page.

I enjoy the nostalgia of going through some of the really old QT's I have on my list sometimes. Shows how different I was, others in the community were, change in overall meta, etc.

Marco wrote:Took me a while to find where this game had gone.

Congrats, scum-team. Where's the scum chat?

Also, sig and MP legit "slipped" with assuming mafia kill D1?

Yes i think they unconsciously said it. for me, it was the perfect cover to try to continue to lynch them

No, I didn't slip; I did it on purpose. I was the JOAT, not the 1-Shot Mafia Vig, which is what I theorized had happened.

A question on the playing of "Town innocent child"

How is this most effectively used? Any thoughts? It gives the town an immediate early boost to eliminating worlds early. On the other hand, I suppose it makes mafia decision making easier?

I am also intrigued by that.

Also, the new setup as 1-Shot Mafia Strongman; what is that role?

Golden wrote:A question on the playing of "Town innocent child"

How is this most effectively used? Any thoughts? It gives the town an immediate early boost to eliminating worlds early. On the other hand, I suppose it makes mafia decision making easier?

I think I've only seen this role in a game once ever, so my experience is limited. I think that if I got that role in a setup that might have a cop, I would put added effort into appearing as overtly town as I possibly can to discourage a peek being wasted on me. If I have reason to believe there is not a cop then I might be a bit more strategic -- perhaps making "mistakes" or "slips" deliberately to see who tries to capitalize (to paint myself as the sort of low-hanging fruit token mislynch option that mafia teams need and pursue).

On the day of the reveal I would just be a fountain of posts, knowing that all of the other townies would be mechanically required to trust every word I say and that it'd probably be my last day alive.

MovingPictures07 wrote:I am also intrigued by that.

Also, the new setup as 1-Shot Mafia Strongman; what is that role?

Strongmen typically can penetrate protections (doctor, jailkeeper, and bulletproof), but not a non-jailkeep-related roleblock and not a commuter.

The jailkeeper/strongman interaction is often debated, so I would ask the hosts about that when the time comes Golden. I believe most of the time, if a jailkeeper targets the strongman, then that strongman cannot kill. However, if the jailkeeper targets the strongman's kill target, then the kill goes through.

I read the MU definition of Strongman, and it definitely read as though the role itself couldn't be blocked or jailkept, so getting clarity on this is something I'll keep in mind.