The Syndicate

Posted: **Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:46 pm**

As the witless member of the council I will vote in lock step with my elder colleagues. I also like to note that Urist seemed to have caught Enri in a slip, but still advocated for vig shots to be used on LC despite this. This mindset seems questionable. That’s all.
[VOTE: urist] aubergine

Posted: **Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:53 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:40 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:23 pm I approach things not just as a player but as a game designer.

So the first question given this morning's mana a mana clash (I'm so clever ) for me is this: "Would a mafioso use an ability to make himself the only other name on the poll?"

The answer to that is "Hell no unless you crazy."

The second question I ask is, "Would I as a game designer give mafia an ability to transform the poll from anybody can die to 'Mafia has a 50% chance of death?'"

The answer to that is "Hell no I ain't crazy."

The third question I ask is, "Would a mafia member whose faction has this in hand use this ability?"

See the answer to number one.

I'm gradually gaining the perspective that this is all going to be a cautionary tale of "Just because you can don't mean you should."

The reverse lynch mechanic was almost certainly going to work against civilians.

This lynch mechanic may very well work against civilians.

JPIC has essentially forced our hands into choosing between them, which means if we agree with the answers to the questions above, we have no choice but to accept JPIC's decision on the matter.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

On the other hand, silencing is a pro-Mafia mechanic in almost every scenario, and I'm not altogether sure I buy the "There's a secret benefit to it." I don't even make civilian silencers anymore.

The fact is we've been dealt two names to choose from, and one of them is someone whose skill set doesn't make much sense coming from a mafia member. The other one does.

And at the end of the day, if we lose, I get to blame JPIC.

[VOTE: Urist] aubergine
If scumJpic ends the game with a free kill tonight I'm saving this as copypasta

If that happens the game is unbalanced and not my fault either.

Posted: **Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:00 pm**

Official VC 4.1:

Justplayingitcool - 0
Urist - 3 - Epignosis, hollowkatt, TonyStarkPrime

Not voting - 0 -

Posted: **Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:04 pm**

@Urist has been chopped!

He was: Dovin - TOWN

His land cards were:

His artifact was:

Elaborations:
-This is a night action
-You cannot prevent damage dealt by the Mafia factional artifact "Punish the Fool"
-Players will be notified upon receiving this token
-If a player were to die with this token in their possession, this token will show up in their flip along with their other artifacts (unless it gets sacrificed by its own ability)
-This is how the Silence token will look like from the eyes of the recipient:

Posted: **Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:14 pm**

It is now Night 4!

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:00 pm**

Night actions have been locked!

112 has died, she was town
falcon45ca has died, he was town
Epignosis has died, he was town

@DrWilgy @dunya @TonyStarkPrime @Enrique @Epignosis @falcon45ca @Sloonei @Jackofhearts2005 @Justplayingitcool @Kylemii @Long Con @MacDougall @Made @Marmot @Esooa @112 @hollowkatt @tedxtr @Urist

Game is over, thank you everyone for playing!

Mafia has won! - Dunya/TonyStarkPrime, Justplayingitcool, Long Con, Enrique

Graveyard/Spec chat - https://discord.gg/S2YTUVXR

I'm waiting to receive confirmation from people that they are okay with me publicly releasing Wolf Chat, Mason Chat, and the two Neighborhood chats

Full reveal:

Spoiler: show

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:00 pm**

Town had no way of stopping Mafia from winning tonight, no matter what actions they submitted, as long as Mafia used all of their night kills on Town. The reasons why I didn't end the game as soon as yesterday's chop was resolved are:

1) Mafia had the option to holster their kills, and my night actions get locked 1 hour before SoD

2) It's a closed setup role madness game with a lot of unorthodox roles. There can always be the chance of something unexpected happening. If I were to end the game right after yesterday's chop - imagine a future situation where I'm hosting a similar game with unorthodox roles, and similar playerlist. The mafia team goes into the night with a lot of night kills and all they have to do is use them to win. However, let's say I don't end the game faster then, because town actually has a chance of surviving. In that case, that Mafia team will think: "'Hey, wait a second, tutuu ended the game sooner that one time, but now she's not, even though this is the same situation. This tells us for a fact that town has some ways of stopping us from winning, we now know this for a fact". If this were to happen, it would be an unfair advantage to this hypothetical wolf team from the future.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:01 pm**

Here is how I think I could have done better in terms of balancing the game:

1) The reverse yeet (Democracy) artifact was probably too much. It should have costed 1 mana of every color. Or somehow altered to give town more accessibility to the chop. I intended it to be slightly to moderately annoying for town (fitting with the Oko planeswalker) but it ended up stronger than I expected. An idea that I just thought of, unfortunately too late, is to keep the reverse-chop mechanic, but simply give all players 2 or 3 votes (I believe that's doable with the poll). If it is doable with the poll then I think it would have been less oppressing for town and actually becoming fun for everyone, while (i think) still benefitting scum as intended. I think that I saw Jack mentioning this ITT as well when he saw it, i wish i had done that

-FWIW I wouldn't have allowed Mafia to use both the reverse yeet ability and the triple neighborhood ability on the same night. They never considered doing it so it wasn't brought up in wolf chat, but it was my bad on not pre-emptively writing on the "Carnarium" artifact that it can't be used in conjunction with the "Democracy" artifact. Sorry about that, that brought unnecessary confusion for potentially both alignments

2) Punish the fool probably should have costed X mana to use (so u can pay any amount u want), and for each mana paid, deal 3 damage. Instead of pay 3 to deal 12 like it was now. I think that maybe it was a tad too punishing for town to try to teamplay with their mana, but I also think that Town could have done a better job at least attempting to. Urist gave out his mana in an extremely good way on day 1, he targeted 3 town and it was the correct colors for all 3. Epi, Marmot and Guillotine tried to teamwork with their mana as well. Other than those names nobody sent out any mana (except 1 colorless from 112 to Urist but I think that was due to a request?). I think everyone else could have put a little bit more effort to work as a team with their mana

3) MacDougall's un-kicked ability probably should have been the same as Jack's (make him counter all non-damaging abilities instead of only those who target him). It made no difference in this game but he should have been able to, in theory, roleblock Long Con's reverse yeet abiliy and JPIC's gladiator-generator ability. As it is right now, he was too limited in what scum abilities he could block

4) 112's ability probably should have costed 1 less mana (5 colorless total instead of 6 colorless)

5) The Mana Leaf artifact tokens - I should have allowed them to generate colorless mana so that 112 and Made could have used them

6) This was suggeted by Mac and Urist in spec chat and I agree - I think that a lot of people have assumptions about how roles work (people who are able to prove their benign roles existing = town). I don't like these assumptions to be correct in my games, I don't abide by them, I like mechanical ambiguity unless I intend otherwise (like the masons). If a role can confirm their actions in some way then I'm going to try my hardest to make it seem alignment-ambiguous (for instance urist silencer being town, jpic gladiator mafia, enrique marker mafia), that's my policy and that's what I think is the most fun. BUT it is a fact that even tho on a metaphysical level, a person shouldn't assume anything, in practice, a lot of people assume what role is towny and what isn't based off of their past experience in games. It's a fact that I have to take into account. I think the solution is to simply warn people in my sign-up threads to please let go off assumptions and to not make parallels between my benign looking confirmable roles and the meta (as in most widely popular) host design way of implementing benign looking confirmable roles in other people's games. But actually that might reveal some kind of info that I don't want, so the cleanest solution would probably just me linking my past games and asking people to please check out the revealed roles at the end, and to approach mech solving my games with an open mind

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:01 pm**

^^^

These are my opinions on what I could have balanced better. I have no regrets about anything else. I'm happy with the balance on Enrique's, JPIC's, dunya's/TSP's and Long Con's roles (except for the aforementioned Democracy)

I heavily disagree with the notion that Mafia being given extra conditional KP in a 13v4 game is unbalanced, considering how much of a punch the town roles packed as well. It's a role madness game after all

I don't think that the toys I gave Town to play with were less shiny than the toys I gave to the Mafia

Town had:

-Kyle who could stop a NK every night from his own mana, if he received 2 extra mana he could give someone a BP vest (life over 10)

-Urist who could stop a NK every night from his own mana at the price of a post restriction

-Jack who could stop all of the mafia abilities with his own mana (jpic gladiator, long con reverse-chop, TSP neighborhood, enrique mark), if he received 2 extra mana he could have stopped a NK on top of it

-Hollowkatt who could obtain a BP vest (life over 10) if he targeted Mafia at least once. The 2 dmg wasn't that impactful but if he received 2 extra mana he became a half-vig (5 dmg)

-Falcon who was a half-vig with his own mana, if he received 2 extra mana he became a full vig

-Mac who became a half-vig if he received 2 extra mana, his unkicked ability was underpowered unforunately

-112 who became a janitor-full-vig if she received 3 extra mana (and everyone could produce at least 1 colorless mana, and all town roles with a kicker had 1 colorless in excess if they just wanted to use their unkicked ability, so i deliberately tried to incentivize those town roles to give away their excess 1 colorless mana every day)

-two masons whose artifacts weren't useful but they were confirmed town

DrWilgy, Made, Guillotine and tedxtr's roles were very situational and not that useful, but i do believe that Town had 9 other power roles that could all heavily influence the game

While balancing the setup I was assuming that by night 3 at least 1 mafia would be dead (either chopped or vigged) and at least 1 mafia night kill would have been stopped. multiple town roles were capable of night killing mafia and multiple town roles were capable of stopping mafia night kills

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:02 pm**

I don't think that I like vote power manipulation (Made and Guillotine's roles), I most likely won't dabble there again. The reverse chop as I already mentioned could have been designed better, but I do like the triple neighborhood, I think that was very cute and thematic with the planeswalker Tibalt (deception) and his fakeclaim Elspeth (community). Since he was forced to pick 2 town I don't think it was overpowered. The role revolved around pocketing people which is what Tibalt would do. I'm also happy with the balance of enrique's vraska's role - it was a skill oriented ability. the town was alerted of the consequences, so they had to make a wifom-based decision. it wasn't a hidden KP out of nowhere that they couldn't prepare for, they made an informed choice

i think that if this setup was played as it is 1000 times, with a playerlist that wasn't prepared for this, mafia would win more than 500 and less than 600 of those games. it was also a very swingy setup since all roles had a lot of impact, so there was a big snowball effect. if a mafia was chopped on day 1 or day 2 i think there would have been a snowball for town and the game would have taken a competely different turn. On day 3 the mafia were all sweating because if hollowkatt had unvoted Enrique and voted for wilgy at EoD, it was guaranteed that JPIC or Enrique gets chopped, and then the other one would then get de facto outed and it would have been game over for the wolves. JPIC was also sweating hard in wolf chat during his duel with Urist. On day 4 if JPIC was yeeted I think the scales would have been evened out and it would have been 50/50, maybe even town would have been slightly ahead

I wanna congratulate all 5 members of the mafia @Long Con @dunya @Enrique @TonyStarkPrime @Justplayingitcool , I could see from wolf chat how much effort and passion everyone was expressing. We even all had a dream about this game on the same exact night (except enrique who's dream came a bit late). JPIC dreamt of the wolf chat being accidently leaked somewhere and townies entering it and him getting outed and chopped, and "tears were shed". I dreamt that the mason chat between epi and marmot was somehow leaked and another player entered it and i was very upset. I forgot what were LC's and dodo's dreams but they had it on the same night as us literally and i think that they were all very similar.(TSP joined us too late to have a dream, next game though!). I think this was all due to dunya neighborizing hollowkatt, and we were all very intrigued.

i wanna thank all the members of the town for putting up a fight as well, and i know that this was a very overly-complicated game with convoluted mechanics, and especially if you haven't played MTG before, and you didn't have BTSC to talk with someone, this game was probably very daunting and confusing, particularly "how do i work as a team with the rest of the town to use our mana properly"

all of the wolves put a ton of effort both ITT (and outside the thread for dunya and TSP), and during the night and organizing their mana. so it's not like the mafia had a chill and stress-free game and just coasted off of their power roles, i do believe that they worked very hard for their win. they performed better than the town from my pov, both in terms of daytalk and in terms of towns devouring themselves with their scumreads and with their night actions

so i feel like mafia being rewarded for their greater effort and performance with the win is fair and to be expected. other people are free to disagree, but i have faith in myself that im able to determine balance, if not perfectly than at least moderately. thanks for playing, everyone!

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:07 pm**

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:00 pm Night actions have been locked!

112 has died, she was town
falcon45ca has died, he was town
Epignosis has died, he was town

@DrWilgy @dunya @TonyStarkPrime @Enrique @Epignosis @falcon45ca @Sloonei @Jackofhearts2005 @Justplayingitcool @Kylemii @Long Con @MacDougall @Made @Marmot @Esooa @112 @hollowkatt @tedxtr @Urist

Game is over, thank you everyone for playing!

Mafia has won! - Dunya/TonyStarkPrime, Justplayingitcool, Long Con, Enrique

Graveyard/Spec chat - https://discord.gg/S2YTUVXR

I'm waiting to receive confirmation from people that they are okay with me publicly releasing Wolf Chat, Mason Chat, and the two Neighborhood chats

Full reveal:

Spoiler: show
esooa/112 - ugin - town

lands: wastes, wastes, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - na
d2 - give mana self
n2 - na
d3 - give 1 mana to urist, rest self
n3 - na
d4 - give mana self
n4 - na

drwilgy - saheeli - town

lands: island, mountain, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - give thopter to guillotine
d2 - give mana self
n2 - give thopter to macdougall
d3 - killed

epignosis - rowan - town

lands: mountain, mountain, wastes

d1 - give mana to guillotine
n1 - na
d2 - give mana to dunya
n2 - na
d3 - give mana to hollowkatt
n3 - na
d4 - give mana self
n4 - na

marmot - will - town

lands: island, island, wastes

d1 - give mana to guillotine
n1 - na
d2 - give mana to dunya
n2 - na, killed

falcon - chandra - town

lands: mountain, mountain, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - shoot wilgy (not kicked)
d2 - give mana self
n2 - shoot marmot (not kicked)
d3 - give mana self
n3 - shoot macdougall (not kicked)
d4 - give mana self
n4 - shoot long con (not kicked)

guillotine/sloonei - domri - town

lands: forest, mountain, wastes

d1 - give mana to epi
n1 - na
d2 - give mana self
n2 - use ability on macdougall
d3 - give mana self
n3 - use ability on tony (i disallowed it to work coz of the triple neighborhood)
d4 - give mana self
n4 - use on 112

hollowkatt - lilianna - town

lands: swamp, swamp, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - shoot tedxtr (not kicked)
d2 - give mana self
n2 - shoot epignosis (not kicked)
d3 - give mana self
n3 - shoot 112 (kicked)
d4 - give mana self
n4 - shoot long con (not kicked)

jackofhearts - jace - town

lands: island, island, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - holster
d2 - give mana self
n2 - holster
d3 - give mana self
n3 - holster
d4 - give mana self
n4 - block hollowkatt (not kicked)

kyle - ajani - town

lands: plains, forest, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - protect dunya; killed

macdougall - raal - town

lands: island, mountain, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - block dunya (not kicked)
d2 - give mana self
n2 - block marmot (not kicked)
d3 - give mana self
n3 - block 112 (not kicked); killed

made - karn - town

lands: wastes, wastes, wastes

d1 - killed

tedxtr - kaya - town

lands: plains, swamp, wastes

d1 - give mana self
n1 - activate ability (not kicked)
d2 - killed

urist - dovin - town

lands: plains, swamp, wastes

d1 - 1 white to kyle, 1 blue to jack, 1 cololess to 112 (props to urist for this. i was kinda expecting more towns to do stuff like this during designing)
n1 - na
d2 - give mana self
n2 - safekeep guillotine
d3 - give mana self
n3 - safekeep TSP
d4 - give mana self; killed

dunya/TSP - tibalt - mafia

lands: swamp, mountain, rainbow grove

(all wolves had a rainbow grove land instead of a wastes. it looked like this:)

d1 - give mana self
n1 - carnarium on mac + marmot (got blocked by mac)
d2 - give 1 colorless to jpic, rest self
n2 - agony HK (hood + 3 dmg, didnt heal), Punish the fool on Mac (0 dmg), lifescope for 2 mana, received mana leaf from LC
d3 - give 1 black to jpic, rest self
n3 - carnarium epi + hk
d4 - 1 black to enrique, rest self
n4 - agony + all kickers on sloonei

dunya/TSP's fake claim

lands: plains, plains, wastes

enrique - vraska - mafia

lands: swamp, forest, rainbow grove

d1 - give mana self
n1 - give mana leaf to LC (use kicker), receive mana leaf from LC
d2 - give mana self
n2 - mark epi (fake) and guillo (real)
d3 - give mana self
n3 - mark jack (fake) and urist (real)
d4 - give mana self
n4 - wolf pack epi, punish the fool hollowkatt, pursue token on falcon, lifescope for 2 mana

enrique's fake claim:

lands: forest, forest, wastes

JPIC - nahiri - mafia

lands: plains, mountain, rainbow grove

d1 - give mana self
n1 - wolfpack kyle
d2 - 1 white to LC, rest self
n2 - wolfpack marmot
d3 - 1 cololess to LC, rest self
n3 - create dishonorable duel token
d4 - give mana to enrique; use dishonorable duel on urist
n4 - victory token on 112

jpic's fake claim:

lands: plains, mountain, wastes

long con - oko - mafia

lands: island, forest, rainbow grove

d1 - give mana self
n1 - give mana leaf to enrique, receive mana leaf from enrique
d2 - give mana self
n2 - activate democracy, give dunya mana leaf
d3 - give mana self
n3 - wolf pack macdougall, give HK mana leaf
d4 - give mana self
n4 - trickery with kickers 1 3 and 4 on falcon

long con's fake claim:

DAG NABBIT I WAS THERE ON TSP UP TILL JPIC USED HIS THING.
RIP the dream

GG and WP wolves!!

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:07 pm**

(thread is unlocked; game is over!)

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:09 pm**

first night i use my doctor power to protect @dunya cus i'm excited to be playing a game with her again after so long and her team kills me :[

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:12 pm**

maphia all along

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:16 pm**

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:02 pm On day 4 if JPIC was yeeted I think the scales would have been evened out and it would have been 50/50, maybe even town would have been slightly ahead

I don't think town would have figured out the mana leaf thing was w/w. But at least it would have been closer to a win!

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:16 pm**

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:20 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:16 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:02 pm On day 4 if JPIC was yeeted I think the scales would have been evened out and it would have been 50/50, maybe even town would have been slightly ahead
I don't think town would have figured out the mana leaf thing was w/w. But at least it would have been closer to a win!

The mana leaves would have showed up on their corpses

So if either LC or Enri got chopped or vigged, a Mana Leaf would show up on their corpse (as being part of their possession), and on their Mana Leaf Generator Ability it would have been written "You cannot self-target"

(They both gave each other a Mana Leaf on N1)

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:20 pm**

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:20 pm**

My biggest fear with sharing mana wasn't that I could share wrong, it's that I could get someone I town read killed with it. So I think your considered change to Punish might be a good idea.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:22 pm**

well played mafia btw, you used your abilities well.

i don't think the reverse yeet was that bad. we could have ensured that one person was left with 0 votes, but certain people were committed to playing suboptimally. i think that was the biggest advantage it gave the mafia, it was an obstacle for the town to play around.
giving everyone x votes instead of 1 wouldn't change anything btw. if everyone has 3 votes, i think it's even worse for the town because then you have to coordinate even more to get everyone even at 3 or 4 votes, etc.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:23 pm**

S
W
E
E
P

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:24 pm**

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:20 pm
Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:16 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:02 pm On day 4 if JPIC was yeeted I think the scales would have been evened out and it would have been 50/50, maybe even town would have been slightly ahead
I don't think town would have figured out the mana leaf thing was w/w. But at least it would have been closer to a win!
The mana leaves would have showed up on their corpses

So if either LC or Enri got chopped or vigged, a Mana Leaf would show up on their corpse (as being part of their possession), and on their Mana Leaf Generator Ability it would have been written "You cannot self-target"

(They both gave each other a Mana Leaf on N1)

Oh so we would have just won then.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:26 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:22 pm well played mafia btw, you used your abilities well.

i don't think the reverse yeet was that bad. we could have ensured that one person was left with 0 votes, but certain people were committed to playing suboptimally. i think that was the biggest advantage it gave the mafia, it was an obstacle for the town to play around.
giving everyone x votes instead of 1 wouldn't change anything btw. if everyone has 3 votes, i think it's even worse for the town because then you have to coordinate even more to get everyone even at 3 or 4 votes, etc.

you can call me out Urist, it won't hurt my feelings. I played like ass

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:27 pm**

I should have been more direct in explaining that Epi and I were Masons. That Day 2 yeet was just out of control, and I understand why people thought that I was protecting/saving Epi from the yeet.

I didn't want to yeet ted at all, but I did have to vote to save Epi, so I did.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:28 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:24 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:20 pm
Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:16 pm
tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:02 pm On day 4 if JPIC was yeeted I think the scales would have been evened out and it would have been 50/50, maybe even town would have been slightly ahead
I don't think town would have figured out the mana leaf thing was w/w. But at least it would have been closer to a win!
The mana leaves would have showed up on their corpses

So if either LC or Enri got chopped or vigged, a Mana Leaf would show up on their corpse (as being part of their possession), and on their Mana Leaf Generator Ability it would have been written "You cannot self-target"

(They both gave each other a Mana Leaf on N1)
Oh so we would have just won then.

Assuming that one of LC/Enrique gets chopped after JPIC, and if people notice that the other one is outed due to the Mana Leaf being part of their possession, and assuming that Enri/LC doesn't successfully defend himself with "the mafia has power that steals artifacts", and then assuming TSP was chopped at f4 mylo - yeah

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:28 pm**

I don't think the reverse yeet was that powerful tbh, but it could have easily been abused by mafia self-voting as mentioned. I almost got yeeted from it remember.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:32 pm**

hollowkatt wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:26 pm
Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:22 pm well played mafia btw, you used your abilities well.

i don't think the reverse yeet was that bad. we could have ensured that one person was left with 0 votes, but certain people were committed to playing suboptimally. i think that was the biggest advantage it gave the mafia, it was an obstacle for the town to play around.
giving everyone x votes instead of 1 wouldn't change anything btw. if everyone has 3 votes, i think it's even worse for the town because then you have to coordinate even more to get everyone even at 3 or 4 votes, etc.
you can call me out Urist, it won't hurt my feelings. I played like ass

Nah I was talking about Epi

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:33 pm**

Can I just how funny it was that none of you noticed how the pursue card for the marking has wolves in it!

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:34 pm**

Justplayingitcool wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:33 pm Can I just how funny it was that none of you noticed how the pursue card for the marking has wolves in it!

LOL true

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:36 pm**

hollowkatt wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:26 pm
Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:22 pm well played mafia btw, you used your abilities well.

i don't think the reverse yeet was that bad. we could have ensured that one person was left with 0 votes, but certain people were committed to playing suboptimally. i think that was the biggest advantage it gave the mafia, it was an obstacle for the town to play around.
giving everyone x votes instead of 1 wouldn't change anything btw. if everyone has 3 votes, i think it's even worse for the town because then you have to coordinate even more to get everyone even at 3 or 4 votes, etc.
you can call me out Urist, it won't hurt my feelings. I played like ass

Also it should go without saying but no hard feelings over here, I don't think that either of us were at peak performance this game hahah

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:39 pm**

Justplayingitcool wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:33 pm Can I just how funny it was that none of you noticed how the pursue card for the marking has wolves in it!

to be fair that was double reverse psychology on my part when picking the picture :P

i purposely made town-generated artifacts ominous looking so it wouldn't be revealing that they were towny

(note the tentacles)

if i were to have the "Pursue" token look benign, i think it would actually hint that it was mafia-generated (coz it makes sense to have mafia-generated stuff be benign looking right?)

so i thought its more fitting and constent to have it scummy-looking just like the town-generated tokens, and this way hopefully end up having it be perceived as benign

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:39 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:36 pm
hollowkatt wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:26 pm
Urist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:22 pm well played mafia btw, you used your abilities well.

i don't think the reverse yeet was that bad. we could have ensured that one person was left with 0 votes, but certain people were committed to playing suboptimally. i think that was the biggest advantage it gave the mafia, it was an obstacle for the town to play around.
giving everyone x votes instead of 1 wouldn't change anything btw. if everyone has 3 votes, i think it's even worse for the town because then you have to coordinate even more to get everyone even at 3 or 4 votes, etc.
you can call me out Urist, it won't hurt my feelings. I played like ass
Also it should go without saying but no hard feelings over here, I don't think that either of us were at peak performance this game hahah

no no, this was peak HK performance... *cries*
ok, maybe not peak, but like I was really paying attention and really trying to solve things. It just so happened I solved exactly backwards. And also Dunya is excellent at pocketing people.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:54 pm**

Fantastic game, amazing attention to detail and balance and creativity and INNOVATION, this is a VERY strong contender for Best Racket this year. Phenomenal and inspiring, thank you so much tutuu. I have never seen anything like this.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:00 pm**

Long Con wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:54 pm Fantastic game, amazing attention to detail and balance and creativity and INNOVATION, this is a VERY strong contender for Best Racket this year. Phenomenal and inspiring, thank you so much tutuu. I have never seen anything like this.

T_T T_T T_T

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:01 pm**

lolvillage

gj wolves

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:01 pm**

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:00 pm
Long Con wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:54 pm Fantastic game, amazing attention to detail and balance and creativity and INNOVATION, this is a VERY strong contender for Best Racket this year. Phenomenal and inspiring, thank you so much tutuu. I have never seen anything like this.
T_T T_T T_T

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:26 pm**

Long Con wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:54 pm Fantastic game, amazing attention to detail and balance and creativity and INNOVATION, this is a VERY strong contender for Best Racket this year. Phenomenal and inspiring, thank you so much tutuu. I have never seen anything like this.

Mafia had control over the lynch polls for the majority of the game.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:40 pm**

Urist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:40 pm
Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 6:23 pm I approach things not just as a player but as a game designer.

So the first question given this morning's mana a mana clash (I'm so clever ) for me is this: "Would a mafioso use an ability to make himself the only other name on the poll?"

The answer to that is "Hell no unless you crazy."

The second question I ask is, "Would I as a game designer give mafia an ability to transform the poll from anybody can die to 'Mafia has a 50% chance of death?'"

The answer to that is "Hell no I ain't crazy."

The third question I ask is, "Would a mafia member whose faction has this in hand use this ability?"

See the answer to number one.

I'm gradually gaining the perspective that this is all going to be a cautionary tale of "Just because you can don't mean you should."

The reverse lynch mechanic was almost certainly going to work against civilians.

This lynch mechanic may very well work against civilians.

JPIC has essentially forced our hands into choosing between them, which means if we agree with the answers to the questions above, we have no choice but to accept JPIC's decision on the matter.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

On the other hand, silencing is a pro-Mafia mechanic in almost every scenario, and I'm not altogether sure I buy the "There's a secret benefit to it." I don't even make civilian silencers anymore.

The fact is we've been dealt two names to choose from, and one of them is someone whose skill set doesn't make much sense coming from a mafia member. The other one does.

And at the end of the day, if we lose, I get to blame JPIC.

[VOTE: Urist] aubergine
If scumJpic ends the game with a free kill tonight I'm saving this as copypasta

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:41 pm**

I'm still not wrong.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:00 pm**

Ngl, kinda salty about losing a 4 day game where I had a real vote twice.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:01 pm**

Told ya Dunya and JPIC were Maphier.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:06 pm**

Really great play, LC and Enrique.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:23 pm**

tutuu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:01 pm Here is how I think I could have done better in terms of balancing the game:

1) The reverse yeet (Democracy) artifact was probably too much. It should have costed 1 mana of every color. Or somehow altered to give town more accessibility to the chop. I intended it to be slightly to moderately annoying for town (fitting with the Oko planeswalker) but it ended up stronger than I expected. An idea that I just thought of, unfortunately too late, is to keep the reverse-chop mechanic, but simply give all players 2 or 3 votes (I believe that's doable with the poll). If it is doable with the poll then I think it would have been less oppressing for town and actually becoming fun for everyone, while (i think) still benefitting scum as intended. I think that I saw Jack mentioning this ITT as well when he saw it, i wish i had done that

-FWIW I wouldn't have allowed Mafia to use both the reverse yeet ability and the triple neighborhood ability on the same night. They never considered doing it so it wasn't brought up in wolf chat, but it was my bad on not pre-emptively writing on the "Carnarium" artifact that it can't be used in conjunction with the "Democracy" artifact. Sorry about that, that brought unnecessary confusion for potentially both alignments

2) Punish the fool probably should have costed X mana to use (so u can pay any amount u want), and for each mana paid, deal 3 damage. Instead of pay 3 to deal 12 like it was now. I think that maybe it was a tad too punishing for town to try to teamplay with their mana, but I also think that Town could have done a better job at least attempting to. Urist gave out his mana in an extremely good way on day 1, he targeted 3 town and it was the correct colors for all 3. Epi, Marmot and Guillotine tried to teamwork with their mana as well. Other than those names nobody sent out any mana (except 1 colorless from 112 to Urist but I think that was due to a request?). I think everyone else could have put a little bit more effort to work as a team with their mana

3) MacDougall's un-kicked ability probably should have been the same as Jack's (make him counter all non-damaging abilities instead of only those who target him). It made no difference in this game but he should have been able to, in theory, roleblock Long Con's reverse yeet abiliy and JPIC's gladiator-generator ability. As it is right now, he was too limited in what scum abilities he could block

4) 112's ability probably should have costed 1 less mana (5 colorless total instead of 6 colorless)

5) The Mana Leaf artifact tokens - I should have allowed them to generate colorless mana so that 112 and Made could have used them

6) This was suggeted by Mac and Urist in spec chat and I agree - I think that a lot of people have assumptions about how roles work (people who are able to prove their benign roles existing = town). I don't like these assumptions to be correct in my games, I don't abide by them, I like mechanical ambiguity unless I intend otherwise (like the masons). If a role can confirm their actions in some way then I'm going to try my hardest to make it seem alignment-ambiguous (for instance urist silencer being town, jpic gladiator mafia, enrique marker mafia), that's my policy and that's what I think is the most fun. BUT it is a fact that even tho on a metaphysical level, a person shouldn't assume anything, in practice, a lot of people assume what role is towny and what isn't based off of their past experience in games. It's a fact that I have to take into account. I think the solution is to simply warn people in my sign-up threads to please let go off assumptions and to not make parallels between my benign looking confirmable roles and the meta (as in most widely popular) host design way of implementing benign looking confirmable roles in other people's games. But actually that might reveal some kind of info that I don't want, so the cleanest solution would probably just me linking my past games and asking people to please check out the revealed roles at the end, and to approach mech solving my games with an open mind

I strongly agree with 1 and 6. Idk how much difference the others made behind the scenes.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:29 pm**

I only want to say two things:

1) Even though I don't believe civilians had a chance in hell with this setup, I still had fun in the process.

2) I am proud of tutuu for recognizing areas of improvement in the setup. That's what experience is all about. Take that knowledge and run with it.

Posted: **Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:33 pm**

This one looked quite involved. I checked the thread a few times here and there and saw many pictures.

Posted: **Sat Mar 20, 2021 3:33 am**

Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 10:29 pm I only want to say two things:

1) Even though I don't believe civilians had a chance in hell with this setup, I still had fun in the process.

2) I am proud of tutuu for recognizing areas of improvement in the setup. That's what experience is all about. Take that knowledge and run with it.

I agree. As soon as I realized it, I lost WIM and left.

I believe I read in the sign ups that the game was not bastard (or maybe I read it was bastard but I forgot) so I was expecting normal roles with fun mechanics. I consider really bastard anything that has to do with manipulating how town eliminate mafia during the day via the yeet. Reverse chopping and giving three people only the right to decide the chop was disheartening and should not be incorporated in a game again in my opinion.

Meh, At least I was right about Dunya and playingitcool but LongCon had me completely pocketed.

Good game wolves. Did you actually believe I was a PGO or nay?

Cheers

Posted: **Sat Mar 20, 2021 3:39 am**

you came close to yeeting me like three days in a row tho

Posted: **Sat Mar 20, 2021 4:07 am**

Yeesh.

What an overly complicated setup. Especially trying to read the mafia roles and their fake claims.

Not too hard to imagine why it was imbalanced, if much at all. I wasn't watching the game actively.

Very interesting though.

Posted: **Sat Mar 20, 2021 9:28 am**

I appreciate tutuu’s huge effort to bring the theme to life.

Posted: **Sat Mar 20, 2021 11:51 am**

Wolf chat - https://discord.gg/JaZaV5td

Mason chat - https://discord.gg/7PVeWKpu

Neighborhood 1 - https://discord.gg/h7Pb3D69

Neighborhood 2 - https://discord.gg/U6EXaNuG

The Syndicate

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Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

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Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

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Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

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Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

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Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!

Re: Magic the Gathering Mafia - Game Over - Mafia has won!