The Syndicate

The following is taken directly from Thingyman on Mafia Universe:

Link
The host randomizes a letter or a number, deciding which setup is used. I.e. if the host rands C, then the setup will consist of the roles in the C column. The host then adds 2 Mafia Goons to the setup and fills up the rest with Vanilla Townies.

I.e. setup C would give you this:
General notes:

• The mafia's factional kill must be assigned to a single member of their team each night. This means that the mafia's factional kill can be blocked by a Town Jailkeeper or tracked by a Town Tracker.
• For those wondering, some of the roles in the matrix (Mafia Ninja and 1-Shot Mafia Bulletproof) will indeed only have value for either the row or the column setup in which it is used and not the other. This is not a mistake, it is done on purpose to only boost the mafia side in one of the two setups.

Notable restrictions/clarifications:

• The Mafia Ninja may not perform the factional kill on consecutive nights.
• The Bulletproof roles are passively protected from the first shot fired at them during night. They will not be informed if they lose their vest.
• None of the included roles can self-target, including the protective roles.
• Doctors, Jailkeepers and Roleblockers are not allowed to target the same players on consecutive nights.
• The Innocent Child may choose himself when he wishes to be publicly confirmed in the thread as town.
• The Even Night Vigilante may only shoot on even nights (i.e. Night 2, Night 4, etc.).
• The Town Cop gets an automated check on Night 0, i.e. when the game begins he will already know the alignment of one town player (this player can be a power role or a Vanilla Townie, the Cop will not know). The reason that the Town Cop can't potentially check a mafia-aligned player on Night 0 is to prevent an unfortunate situation of a representative being outed as mafia before they've had a chance to showcase their skills.
• There are no restrictions on info-dumping or roleclaiming.
• The thread will be locked during night phases.
• It hasn't been decided yet on Mafia Universe whether the mafia team will be allowed to communicate during the day phase. If they don't decide before this game starts, I will flip a coin to make that decision.
• This game will be conducted without a theme, or at least from the perspective of the players and spectators it will have no theme. There will be no "characters" or roleplaying. However, when players are eliminated, they will be revealed as some sort of character -- this has no purpose within the game other than to add flavor for viewers.

Days/Nights and lynch mechanics

• There will be a deadline each day phase, and the person with the most votes at the end of the day is lynched, unless a majority has already been reached before then, in which case the day ends prematurely.
• Days will last 36 hours and nights 12 hours, meaning 48 hours (2 days) per game day. With one exception: The weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) will be one game day (so day will be 60 hours and night 12 hours on weekends). This has the potential to change if I am unable to maintain the proper schedule as the host. I will try to hold to it though.

~~~

Differences from what will be seen on Mafia Universe:

• We'll still use the poll for voting, as usual on The Syndicate games. On Mafia Universe voting is conducted entirely in the thread, and an automated program keeps a tally.
• The same automated program will likely end day phases immediately when a hammer vote is reached (a majority of >50% the number of living players). On The Syndicate we won't have this. Hammer votes will still apply the same way, but I will have to end the day phase manually. This means that if I am not present at the time a hammer is delivered, there will be some delay before I can finalize the end of the day phase.

Purpose:
I've volunteered to host this game here for one primary reason. A lot of the standards and concepts being employed in this setup are quite foreign to The Syndicate culture. Turnip Head had to adjust on the fly last year to a very different type of game (and he did a great job of that). This time we're trying to give Golden and any other champs representatives from our friendly Mafia neighbors an opportunity to get some exposure to this stuff before being thrown into the fire. I'm mimicking the proposed Matrix12 setup in as many ways as I reasonably can. Obviously anyone else here is welcome to take part beyond just champs representatives, because we have 17 slots to fill.

Come on out and get a taste of the madness Golden will be dealing with soon.

This is at least a start. There are likely more details to come as the flow out on Mafia Universe. If anyone has any questions about anything here, whether it be about rules, mechanics, or what a certain role is -- please ask. I'd be happy to answer, unless it's about the Mafia Jack-of-all-trades role. I don't know what "shot" or "save" specifically refer to either. Don't worry, I'm looking into it.

There's no poll option yet, but you can still sign up by simply saying you'd like to play in the thread.

Players signed up:
1. Silverwolf
2. ika
3. Metalmarsh89
4. MovingPictures07
5. Soneji
6. Long Con
7. sig
8. DrWilgy
9. Zexy
10. Psittaciform
11. Inawordyes
12. Marco
13. Dyslexicon
14. a2thezebra
15. Frog
16. Sloonei
17. Golden

This looks a lot like games I am used to playing on ms.

Silverwolf wrote:This looks a lot like games I am used to playing on ms.

Oh, This means I am in.

Silverwolf wrote:This looks a lot like games I am used to playing on ms.

^this very much. me and silver are going to see if we can hdyra it, if not we are goign to wreck shop

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I'd be happy to answer, unless it's about the Mafia Jack-of-all-trades role. I don't know what "shot" or "save" specifically refer to either. Don't worry, I'm looking into it.

I got clarification on this, and it's what you'd probably figure. "Save" refers to a night phase protection (like a doctor) and not a lynch prevention (thank God I hate those ). "Shot" refers to a vigilante shot.

I am a big fat maybe for this. I appreciate the chance to familiarize myself with this setup before the real games begin, but i don't know if i'll have the time, and Turf Wars was a taxing game of mafia.

Clarification for Syndicateers who might be confused:

The Mafia "Ninja" does not have extra kills. I know the term "ninja" here usually refers to civilians who kill at night (what most sites call a "vigilante"). In this case, "Ninja" refers to a Mafia player who is immune to tracking and watching.

The Ninja term confused me so much when I first started playing here, lol.

/in

Shouldn't Golden be an auto-sign-up. Where is that guy?

I should also state that for this game to make sense, it needs to take place before Golden plays in his first official tournament game. If we can't garner the necessary sign-ups quickly enough, the game may be cancelled. That's not a threat or anything, just letting y'all know before anyone gets too amped.

silverwolf
ika
sig
metalmarsh

4/17 keep going!

sig wrote:The Ninja term confused me so much when I first started playing here, lol.

I like its connotation here, even if it's more of a metaphor. You're a civ with a kill, you can land it unexpectedly whenever you want. Hashhaaa...

I probably shouldn't with the end of the semester creeping around the corner and thus I'm about to be the busiest I've been all year... also I'm on a break from playing, but I'm incredibly intrigued by this setup and want to make sure Golden gets some valuable scrimmaging in. So consider my break temporarily broken.

I shall play.

Oooh, sweet, sign-ups just started and already I get to play with two folks I've never played with on The Syndicate before (one of them ever). Awesome.

scum team now

me/silver/sonji and one fo mp/daisy

ika wrote:scum team now

me/silver/sonji and one fo mp/daisy

Not sure Daisy will be playing, but even if she won't be, I think you'd rather have me on the mafia team.

Or maybe not, because I have had some pretty bad mafia losses over the years... I blame my randomizing mafia way too often.

Standard warning though: My activity will be far from ideal or even necessarily standard for MP expectations, blah blah blah. There's no telling just how busy I'll be when this game starts, so I may be much quieter than normal at times if I'm busy spending all-nighters writing various research proposals.

I don't understand what a lot of the roles in that matrix do, but I'll give it a shot.

Mafia Role Cop?!

I'm up for that, but only if it'll be a hydra with me and Vompatti.

I dislike the mafia role cop.

in/ I guess. Not sure how active I'll be though school is picking up.

Long Con wrote:I don't understand what a lot of the roles in that matrix do, but I'll give it a shot.

Perhaps Jay (or myself, if I get to it) could provide an index of the terminology for each role? Jay mentioned some of their abilities in his clarifications post, but an Index of terms would probably prove useful not only now but during the game.

mafia rolecop is super common

Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

No, it's just a role checker (rather than an alignment checker, which would be useless) on the mafia team.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

No, it's just a role checker (rather than an alignment checker, which would be useless) on the mafia team.

Never played in a game with such a baddie.

Ricochet wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

No, it's just a role checker (rather than an alignment checker, which would be useless) on the mafia team.

Never played in a game with such a baddie.

I have, but it was only in complex role madness games with multiple mafia teams, rather than in a setup like this. It'll be my first time being exposed to various of these roles in this kind of setup myself (such as Jailkeeper), so I'm excited for it.

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

rolecop finds a person's exact role

Sometimes I misread Town Tracker as Town Cracker.

Ricochet wrote:Sometimes I misread Town Tracker as Town Cracker.

I've never even thought of that, but I'm not sure I'll be able to ever unsee it now.

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

A rolecop can check the role of one player and find out what it is. Very useful if you are trying to figure out night kills. An actual mafia cop is only useful in multiball setups-two opposing scum teams.

I'm very familiar with all the roles from ms so can answer any questions on any of them.

Silverwolf wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

A rolecop can check the role of one player and find out what it is. Very useful if you are trying to figure out night kills. An actual mafia cop is only useful in multiball setups-two opposing scum teams.

I'm very familiar with all the roles from ms so can answer any questions on any of them.

I presume, based on this and other posts you've made, then that complex role madness games were uncommon at MS, or did they regularly exist but you didn't play them as often?

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Silverwolf wrote:

Ricochet wrote:Yeah, but what is it? Is it when the mafia team finds out the identity of the player they nightkilled?

A rolecop can check the role of one player and find out what it is. Very useful if you are trying to figure out night kills. An actual mafia cop is only useful in multiball setups-two opposing scum teams.

I'm very familiar with all the roles from ms so can answer any questions on any of them.

I presume, based on this and other posts you've made, then that complex role madness games were uncommon at MS, or did they regularly exist but you didn't play them as often?

They existed but the normal mafia games were a lot more common and I played a lot of those. I also was a teacher there to new players and new players would always start with normal games.

So all these roles are super familiar.

I actually came here to get a taste of the more complex role madness games because they are super interesting to me but I love playing games like this as well to remind me of some of the other games I used to play.

Silverwolf wrote:I actually came here to get a taste of the more complex role madness games because they are super interesting to me but I love playing games like this as well to remind me of some of the other games I used to play.

That all makes sense.

You've come to the right place, at least.

Many of us, at least those of us who are interested enough in playing Heists and Heist-like games such as this one, are headed the opposite direction. I almost exclusively played complex, large or semi-large role madness games for the first 4-5 years of my mafia career, and as much as I still love hosting those games, I'm equally wanting to host them (if not more so) when compared to the larger games.

With regards to playing, I'm more intrigued in playing these kinds of games these days, but that's just me.

I've signed up.

I ask one favour of other players. Please don't nk or lynch me early. JJJ is doing this so that I get the opportunity to practice for the champs game, so I'd like to actually get a chance to practice lol!

Golden wrote:I've signed up.

I ask one favour of other players. Please don't nk or lynch me early. JJJ is doing this so that I get the opportunity to practice for the champs game, so I'd like to actually get a chance to practice lol!

Yeah, actually, I was going to express that sentiment myself once the game started. It would be pretty dumb to lynch you Day 1, as much as I don't believe in giving anyone a pass. Lol.

Golden wrote:I've signed up.

I ask one favour of other players. Please don't nk or lynch me early. JJJ is doing this so that I get the opportunity to practice for the champs game, so I'd like to actually get a chance to practice lol!

Fuck that. I'm tempted to sign up just to keep you on your toes. "Please don't nk or lynch me early." Get outta here with that.

Epignosis wrote:

Golden wrote:I've signed up.

I ask one favour of other players. Please don't nk or lynch me early. JJJ is doing this so that I get the opportunity to practice for the champs game, so I'd like to actually get a chance to practice lol!

Fuck that. I'm tempted to sign up just to keep you on your toes. "Please don't nk or lynch me early." Get outta here with that.

Addendum: Please lynch or NK epi as soon as possible

Here's a breakdown in Syndicate language for what all of these roles are. You've likely seen many or all of them before under different names.

Town Jailkeeper - Each night, the jailkeeper targets another player. That player cannot be targeted with any other night actions, and that player cannot use his/her own night action. It's a combination of roleblocker and doctor.

2-Shot Town Jailkeeper - This is the same as a Jailkeeper, except the player is only permitted to use the ability twice instead of every night.

1-Shot Bulletproof Town - This townie is immune to the first attempted night kill on him/her, whether from a Mafia player or a town vigilante.

Town Innocent Child - This player can choose any day phase to be revealed by the moderator as a confirmed townie in the game thread.

Town Cop w/ n0 town check - This is your standard alignment checker. The cop identifies a player every night to learn their alignment (not their role). The n0 check means the cop begins the game with a free check on another townie (in this setup it can be any townie, power role or not).

Town Masons (2) - These are two townies who begin the game knowing each other to be town, and they have BTSC.

Town Bodyguard - Each night the bodyguard selects another player to protect. If that player is targeted with a night kill, the bodyguard dies in his/her place.

Town Tracker - Each night the tracker targets another player. The tracker is told who that player targeted with a night action, if anyone.

Town Even Night Vigilante - Each even-numbered night phase, this player gets to night kill someone.

Vanilla Townie - This is a standard townie with no special abilities.

~~~

Mafia Roleblocker - Each night, this player gets to target another player. That player's role will not function that night.

1-Shot Mafia Vigilante - Just like the town vigilante, but for the mafia side instead. It's essentially one extra night kill.

1-Shot Mafia Role Cop - Each night, this player gets to target another player. He/she will be told what the targeted player's role is.

1-Shot Mafia Bulletproof - Just like the town bulletproof, but for the mafia side instead. This is meant to grant immunity against a town vigilante for one shot.

Mafia Ninja - This player cannot be tracked when attempting a night kill. The tracker will receive an incorrect result upon the attempt, that the ninja targeted nobody.

Mafia Jack of All Trades - This player, in this specific setup, gets three 1-shot abilities. One is a save (doctor's protection to save a team mate from a vigilante shot). Another is a check (role cop check). The last is a shot (vigilante shot).

Mafia Goon - This is a standard mafioso with no special abilities.

~~~

Anyone please let me know if you have any questions.

I mean, if people are determined I'm bad they should lynch me. If they are determined I am going to solo win the game they should nk me.

But in reality, in both cases people will have options and given JJJ is running this game to help me it would be good if I actually had a chance to get my head around the setup.

The point of this game is to help you and anyone interested be more familiar with the set up. Killing you would be counterproductive.

I'm glad to see a nice influx of sign-ups already. In the event that this fills up quite soon, the start date might be held until the 13th or later. I'm flying to a different continent on Tuesday.

Also, I don't promise all of these matrix possibilities are adequately balanced. I didn't design them. :P

MovingPictures07 wrote:I probably shouldn't with the end of the semester creeping around the corner and thus I'm about to be the busiest I've been all year... also I'm on a break from playing, but I'm incredibly intrigued by this setup and want to make sure Golden gets some valuable scrimmaging in. So consider my break temporarily broken.

MP - you definitely need to play. What happens if I am suddenly unavailable due to medical illness or something? You're the alt, dude!

MovingPictures07 wrote:

ika wrote:scum team now

me/silver/sonji and one fo mp/daisy

Not sure Daisy will be playing, but even if she won't be, I think you'd rather have me on the mafia team.

Or maybe not, because I have had some pretty bad mafia losses over the years... I blame my randomizing mafia way too often.

MP will essentially be on your team either way

Nice index, Jay!

Thanks for putting it together!

Golden wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:I probably shouldn't with the end of the semester creeping around the corner and thus I'm about to be the busiest I've been all year... also I'm on a break from playing, but I'm incredibly intrigued by this setup and want to make sure Golden gets some valuable scrimmaging in. So consider my break temporarily broken.

MP - you definitely need to play. What happens if I am suddenly unavailable due to medical illness or something? You're the alt, dude!

Oh, if it wasn't clear I am indeed playing.

Golden wrote:Addendum: Please lynch or NK epi as soon as possible

You can persuade the mafia to do that for you.