The Syndicate

After reading through some of the wonderfully instructive threads about game design and structure (gotta work off the rust somehow!), I find myself in a bit of a jam. Sure enough, after only a few days of hanging out here, I got an idea. It's not new exactly. It's more like a firm grasp on a rough idea I came up with years ago. I would like some feedback to see if this idea could be workable. If so, I will keep developing the idea that is in my mind.

Originally, the idea was to have every player change roles and powers after each Day Phase. That way they could be somewhat accountable for their actions on Night X during Day Y. This never felt right to me because having people switch on and off between baddies and civvies would be too random and take any level of strategy out of the game. Someone could get screwed over by being shifted to the losing team on the last day of the game and it would be little more than a veiled free-for-all.

So here's the change-up: Everyone is given a role and that stay permanent. Baddies stay baddies and civvies stay civvies the whole game. There would be a list of powers available in the game and the number of available powers would match the number of players. The baddies would have to retain the night kill power to themselves but what if all of the other powers changed hands each night? When someone gets killed or lynched, the power they hold at that moment is removed from the game.

I can envision it two ways- one is that the powers are separate. Baddies have a power list that switches up among the baddies and the civvies have a power list that switches up among the civvies. I feel like that takes the fun away for the baddies because they know they're always going to have those powers at their disposal; just the user of that power will change.

The other way is that the powers are not separated between baddies and civvies (though the baddies would have to retain the kill power to remain an antagonistic force). That create tension where the baddies have to work together more on strategy than just to rely on sweet baddies powers, but could this make the game uneven and hand the civvies the advantage even if they don't have BTSC?

Also, with changing powers on a regular basis, I would presume that info dumping would be strongly frowned upon. Or could it be tolerable to allow players to discuss their previous but not current powers?

Is this a sound idea or am I opening up another Spirit of Ia / Innocence mechanism can of worms?

[see Secret Mafia 3 thread for brief explanation of how my innocence mechanism threatened to drag the game down]

Roxy's game The Donner Party Mafia was quite similar to what you have described in your second paragraph.

boo's game Cards Against Humanity Mafia had an element where powers could change hands.

I do not care for people changing roles- that pushes the game too far into luck territory (although luck always plays a part in any Mafia experience). Powers changing hands can be fun, but I would urge you to have a predetermined way that this happens to eliminate host bias. Roxy, for example, used the Night polls to determine when changes happened.

Info dumping is almost always frowned upon, but whether or not people are permitted to talk about past powers is up to you.

Epignosis wrote:Roxy's game The Donner Party Mafia was quite similar to what you have described in your second paragraph.

boo's game Cards Against Humanity Mafia had an element where powers could change hands.

I do not care for people changing roles- that pushes the game too far into luck territory (although luck always plays a part in any Mafia experience). Powers changing hands can be fun, but I would urge you to have a predetermined way that this happens to eliminate host bias. Roxy, for example, used the Night polls to determine when changes happened.

Info dumping is almost always frowned upon, but whether or not people are permitted to talk about past powers is up to you.

Thanks for the comments. I took a look at The Donner Party game. There are some similarities but I don't think what I had in mind is quite the same. I could be wrong though. Maybe Roxy could tell me.

Sides would be set. Once a civvie, always a civvie. Once a baddie, always a baddie. Allegiance would not change. Only the powers would shift each night and they would do so by double randomization (randomly sort all the active players, randomly sort the available powers, and match the two lists together).

If allegiance remains constant and only powers change hands, do you think it would be better to have a list of baddie powers and a list of civvie powers or let everyone drink from the same well?

I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

Epignosis wrote:I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

Agreed. Last time I was a civvie silencer, I never used my role (Cars).

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

Agreed. Last time I was a civvie silencer, I never used my role (Cars).

Although when I include a civilian silencer, I usually make it so that their target cannot vote either, which can be useful in reducing the Mafia voting bloc.

Epignosis wrote:I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

I see what you mean. The game would almost have to be populated with powers that could serve either side. That could result in some powers being duplicated or I'd have to work up a few originals or give them some twists.

The only downside I can see is that it would mean a lot of extra legwork for the host because it would involve PMing the powers out at the start of each Night Phase.

Epignosis wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

Agreed. Last time I was a civvie silencer, I never used my role (Cars).

Although when I include a civilian silencer, I usually make it so that their target cannot vote either, which can be useful in reducing the Mafia voting bloc.

True, but if you know how people are on this site when it comes to lynching someone who can't defend themselves. I can only remember one time where that happened.

G-Man wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I personally like the same well, but that would depend on the nature of the powers. In a one Mafia game in which the kill stays with the Mafia, Mafia inheriting a "protect" power is useless to them. Civilians generally gain little from a silencing power.

I see what you mean. The game would almost have to be populated with powers that could serve either side. That could result in some powers being duplicated or I'd have to work up a few originals or give them some twists.

The only downside I can see is that it would mean a lot of extra legwork for the host because it would involve PMing the powers out at the start of each Night Phase.

That's one reason I myself would never do it.

I'm by no means an expert on game design/balance/strategy so I won't weigh in on that side of the equation, but from the POV of a player who plays purely for funzies, I like this premise because it reduces the drag of being a vanilla civvie (which can be an alienating experience, and which can contribute to waning enthusiasm/low participation), allows the players to be thinking very broadly about how a variety of powers could be fruitfully employed rather than focusing only on their power (and thus makes the game an educational experience and therefore of benefit to the entire community, since smarter and more thoughtful players make for better games and better realization of a hosts ideas/hard work), and reduces the risk of an awesome role/power being under utilized by an absentee player (though hopefully the new PScore mechanism is going to help make that less of an issue over time).

I think you'd obvioisly need to be thinking carefully about what types of powers you would include, since civvie powers need to acruelly be useful to civs/contribute in some small way to helping them figure out who the mafia are (for example, a traditional follow/track power becomes practically useless in this type of set-up for both civ's and baddies, while a gossip-type role might become much MORE useful/interesting than normal, since it allows many players to openly express their opinion rather than just one...but of course the possibility of a gossip/journalist/info-publishing type role being co-opted frequently by the baddies adds an extra element of uncertainty and doubt, which might allow you as a host to be more liberal with the kind of info that is released/published by these types of roles).....like I said, I'm no design/strategy wonk, but I think is really do like this concept, especially if the civs and baddies share the same pool of powers. I think you'd need to think very carefully about how many powers you'd want to have in the game...maybe a reduced number of abilities, but more powerful ones (since they'll be floating between both teams)? Maybe not everyone has a power every night? I dunno.

But I like it!

^Good points, those.

Enrique's speed game - Last Man Standing is similar in that the roles rotate. But I think it works there in that each of the players are pretty much in it for themselves. There isn't really civ/mafia teams in it.

Role switching was a pretty fun mechanic though. I enjoyed both those games lots. I didn't play donner though.

Thanks for all the great feedback everybody! I am encouraged enough by the interest in such a concept to continue planning my game. I'll have to take a look at the different powers I've seen in past games and try to weed out or modify those that don't lend themselves to baddie-civvie swapping.