Not sure if there are enough people interested in playing a thread-based social deduction game not named Mafia, but I'll try anyways and hopefully people are interested enough to give it a try.
What is this game?
Glad you asked hypothetical person. Behind the Mask is a social deduction game where your goal is the be the last man standing and win the title of King. To succeed at this you will need a healthy balance of social engineering, deduction, and a bit of luck on your side. You'll need to know when to forge and break alliances and with whom to do so with as well as working the political game so you come out on top.
But how do you play?
Another great hypothetical question. To start each player will be given a unique role, all roles will be posted publicly but like Mafia you will not know who got which role. The game will run in cycles which consists of 3 phases: the Challenge Phase, the Voting Phase, and the Dinner Phase. Different roles can act at different times, so it is a good idea to read up on which roles can act when as well as what they can potentially do.
The Challenge Phase:
This will be the longest phase at 36 hours long and is split into 2, 18 hour mini sections. During the first 18 hours each player can issue a single challenge to another player, if you do not submit a challenge you will not issue any. After the 18 hours are up every player who was issued a challenge will be informed who issued the challenge and what they challenged you with. You have the remaining 18 hours to accept of deny any individual challenge you were issued. If you do not do anything you will automatically accept all challenges you did not actively chose to deny. Be warned, you only start the game with a single deny so use it wisely. Two types of challenges can be issued either a
Dance or
Duel. The only difference between these two challenges is that each role has a different position on each list. Some roles are better suited to winning
Dances while others are better at
Duels. At the end of the Challenge Phase the results of all accepted challenges are posted publicly, the player whose role ranks highest on the given list will be the winner. A full list of each role's position on the
Dance and
Duel list will be posted bellow alongside the roles.
This phase is going to be your main method for figuring out other player's roles by seeing if they are above or bellow you on a given list, but it will also have implications for the Voting Phase as you will see bellow.
The Voting Phase:
This phase will last 24 hours and a poll will open for the duration. All players who lost a challenge last challenge phase will be added to the poll and be eligible to receive votes. Whoever receives the most votes by the end of the Voting Phase will be executed and eliminated from the game. There will not be a vote for the first Voting Phase. If there is a situation where no challenges were made, all players will be eligible to be voted. This, however, is not all there is to the Voting Phase. Every player who participated in at least 1 challenge last challenge phase will receive a gift. During the Voting Phase PM the host, that is me, with what gift(s) you would like to receive. You can chose a number of gifts equal to the number of challenges you participated in regardless of if you won or lost them. Which gifts each player chose will be revealed at the end of the Voting Phase. Most gifts will effect the Dinner Phase and a full list of gifts is in the spoiler bellow. Most will make more sense after reading the Dinner Phase.
Extra Deny - You gain an extra deny for the Challenge Phase. You start the game with 1 Deny. You can hold up to 3 Denies in total.
Extra Switch - You gain an extra switch for the Dinner Phase. You start the game with 1 Switch. You can hold up to 5 Switches in total.
Gift Reserve - During a later Voting Phase you can chose to exchange this gift for any other gift except for a Ticket. You can hold up to 2 Gift Reserves in total.
Guess Immunity - No player may attempt to guess your role for the next Dinner Phase only.
Free Guess - You will not be executed for an Incorrect Guess for the next Dinner Phase only.
Premium Food - No player may switch plates with you and you are immune to Poison for the next Dinner Phase only.
Lottery Ticket - If you are the only player to take the Ticket you will have your total gifts doubled for this Voting Phase. When you chose this chose your Ticket gifts along side it. Note: this will still take a gift slot so if you had 2 gifts you get 3 to chose besides the Ticker, if you had 3 you would get 5, and 4 you get 7, etc.
This will be the shortest phase at just 12 hours in the interest of keeping things shorter as most players who want to do something for the Dinner Phase will know what they are doing ahead of time and wont need a lengthy period of time. To start each player can chose to switch plates with another player if they so desire. This action will be announced the moment it happens and like denying a challenge you get a single switch to start with. Why might you choose to switch plates? Well I wouldn't want to die of poison would you? Whose plate is poisoned? Ask the Poisoner, not me. The other main event of the Dinner Phase is that each player may chose to guess another player's role limited to once per Dinner Phase. If you are correct in your guess, the player whose role was guessed will be executed and eliminated from the game. If, however, you guess incorrectly you will be executed instead unless you took a Free Guess gift. All guesses, correct or incorrect, are publicly revealed at the end of the Dinner Phase.
What about the Roles?
Well bellow are a list of roles just for those who would ask such a question:
You are the Poisoner,
Each Voting Phase you may target another player.
Their plate will be poisoned for the next Dinner Phase. Whoever eats the food at the end of the Dinner Phase will die.
If a player takes Premium Food and you poison them, they will not die and your poison will be wasted.
You are the Thief,
Each Dinner Phase you can swap two player's plates secretly.
Unlike a normal switch this will not be revealed when it happens.
If the Poisoner dies, you will know who the Poisoner was and your role will become Poisoner.
Once you change roles, players may guess you are either Thief or Poisoner for the guess to be correct.
You are the Man At Arms,
Once during the Voting Phase you may target another player who lost a challenge last challenge phase.
They will be killed at the end of the Voting Phase.
If you win a challenge you regain the ability to shoot, but can only store 1 bullet at a time.
You are the Actor,
You may guess the role of each dead player once.
You are informed if you were correct in your guess.
Once at any time you may chose a dead player to masquerade as.
It will be publicly announced "The Actor has taken up a disguise" when you do so.
Your position on both lists will change to the original position of the role you are masquerading as, but you will not gain their abilities.
Players must still guess you are the Actor and cannot guess you are the role you are masquerading as to be correct.
You are the Court Jester,
Whenever a player is killed by something other than execution your position on both lists will be randomized.
You will know your new position. You will be told this as "bellow [Role]" or "bellow nobody" if you are the highest.
Once during the Challenge Phase you may chose to skip the following Voting Phase.
You are the Blackmailer,
Each Dinner Phase you may target another player.
They will be informed "You were Blackmailed" at the end of the Dinner Phase.
If a player you have Blackmailed fails to participate in at least one challenge during the next Challenge Phase, they will be executed at the end of that Challenge Phase.
You are the Entertainer,
Each Challenge Phase you may target another player.
Their role will be turned off for the current cycle and they cannot use any active abilities nor benefit from their passives.
You cannot distract the same player two cycles in a row.
You are the Investigator,
Each Challenge Phase you may submit a hypothetical challenge to the host.
The challenge must be between 2 living players neither of which are you and can be either a Dance or Duel.
You will know the result of this hypothetical challenge at the end of the Challenge Phase.
You are the Peasant,
You will passively be informed what roles target you and when they target you.
Each Challenge Phase you may target another player.
Your passive will extend to them letting you know what roles target them that cycle and when.
You are the Soldier,
You are immune to the effects of other roles and will counterattack and kill the Man at Arms if they try to kill you.
You are still informed when the Barbarian, Blackmailer, or Entertainer target you even if they have no effect.
You are the Gambler,
Each Voting Phase you may try and guess other player's roles.
You can make as many guesses as challenges you participated in last Challenge Phase.
You cannot guess any player who you participated in a challenge with last Challenge phase.
Guesses done in this way will not result in any executions, but you will know if they were correct or incorrect.
You are the Hypnotist,
Three times during the Dinner Phase you may target another player.
Any challenge they participate will use the other list instead. IE: if they Dance with someone the winner is decided by the Duel list.
It does not matter if they issued the challenge or accepted another challenge, all challenges will be switched around.
You are the Barbarian,
You gain 1 charge whenever you participate in a challenge and can store up to 5. You start with 0.
During the Dinner Phase you can expend 1 charge to intimidate another player. You can do this as many times as you have charges.
Players will be informed "You were Intimidated".
Intimidated players cannot issue or deny any challenges the next Challenge Phase.
Players who lost a challenge cannot guess Barbarian that Dinner Phase.
You are the Professor,
When you make a guess, you submit 2 roles to guess.
If you won a challenge the last Challenge Phase you can submit 3 roles.
If you were incorrect on all your guesses, only your first guess is shown. Otherwise the correct guess is shown.
You are the Augur,
Each Challenge Phase you may target a player who died the previous cycle.
You will know their role at the end of the Challenge Phase.
And of course each role's position on the Challenge lists bellow:
Dance List
1) Actor
2) Court Jester
3) Hypnotist
4) Entertainer
5) Peasant
6) Blackmailer
7) Professor
8) Thief
9) Soldier
10) Augur
11) Poisoner
12) Gambler
13) Investigator
14) Man At Arms
15) Barbarian
Duel List
1) Barbarian
2) Man At Arms
3) Poisoner
4) Soldier
5) Thief
6) Professor
7) Blackmailer
8) Peasant
9) Investigator
10) Gambler
11) Entertainer
12) Augur
13) Court Jester
14) Hypnotist
15) Actor
*If this is ran, the thread would be open 24/7 as there is never a reason to close it really. If players want there can be some delay between cycles or between phases if people need some breaks.
*Unlike in Mafia you are actually allowed to communicate with others privately outside of the game so long as you are both still alive. This is a game about forging and breaking alliances. You can have as many or little as you think would be best. It would still be preferred you CCed the host though mostly for keeping track of everything.
*Ideally 15 people end up showing interest in the game and we can run the full list. Otherwise the game can possibly be ran with fewer roles. Anything less than 9 wouldn't likely function properly.
*Remember there will only be 1 winner, so try to just have fun and not take anything too personally if you get backstabbed by your best friend or alliance members. Everyone has to do it eventually.
*This is a game I've seen ran before on other forums, so it is for the most part confirmed to function as a game and people seemed to like it.
*I don't expect this to get much traffic since we're going into the holidays, but if this doesn't get at least 9 yes votes by the end of January I'll consider the interest to be a no and close it then.
*If there is anyone who would like to possibly co-host or just help moderate things as the game could get a bit heated you are welcome to PM me.
