The Syndicate

A mafia game in which the town has to discover the identity of their "prophet", and follow whoever he or she decides to vote for in unison. Every town player that votes for the same person as the prophet earns the town team seven points, a touchdown. Every scum player that votes for the same person as the prophet takes away three points from town and gives it to themselves. If the prophet votes for a scum, the town earns ten points. If the prophet votes for town, the town loses twelve points and gives it to the scum team. The scum team can earn five points by passing on the night kill. The last team standing earns twenty-nine points, almost certainly guaranteeing their victory.

The prophet has an ability during the night where they can split their parasitic soul into two forms and possess two other players for the remainder of the game. This means that whichever player the prophet was suddenly becomes vanilla, and the two previously vanilla town players suddenly both become the prophet. The risk of doing is that if the prophet possesses two players - who one or both of which might be scum - this means that scum can easily hijack the game if one or two of them is possessed by the prophet's soul. The mafia has a false prophet of their own, and if the town votes for the same person as the false prophet, the scum teams earns three points. The votes are hidden from both the thread and the scum team's knowledge so no one can be sure who the prophet is/are and who the false prophet is, but the game's title is taken from the false prophet. The town team has to lynch the scum team in a certain order because each of them besides the first require a prerequisite before they can be killed. First the succubus, then the seraph, then the messenger, then the sacrifice (who might be town-aligned, then the false prophet. There are also other power roles, such as the sacrifice, who can either decide to give up their own life as part of the last player that town must lynch before they are able to lynch the false prophet and get twenty-nine points, or to transfer their burden to another player, who may or may not be the false prophet itself in which case the prerequisite of the sacrifice will combine with the false prophet and town will win twenty-nine points if they are lynched. There are also one-shot cops, trackers, jailkeepers, and roleblockers. The false prophet of the title's namesake is itself a godfather.

Player count and roles as well as thematic flair and further information will be given with updates.

I forgot to give credit to Metalmarsh89 for inspiring this concept by suggesting that one player (Golden) might be the only non-civilian and that town had to lynch players in a certain order to defeat that one player. This gave me the idea for this game.

It looks interesting. What happens if the prophet is NK'd or lynched?

Another civilian is immediately randomly selected to take the prophet's place.

Awesome concept! I dig it.

I'll definitely play this one.

Especially after the final game on RYM (RIP RYM). I really enjoyed the point system used to lynch players in that one. I'd love to play another game like that.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I'll definitely play this one.

Especially after the final game on RYM (RIP RYM). I really enjoyed the point system used to lynch players in that one. I'd love to play another game like that.

I'm really wanting to incorporate hit points into future game(s) of mine, specifically Earthbound, so it seems I need to get with zebra on that, since I wasn't able to participate in that game.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I'll definitely play this one.

Especially after the final game on RYM (RIP RYM). I really enjoyed the point system used to lynch players in that one. I'd love to play another game like that.

I'm really wanting to incorporate hit points into future game(s) of mine, specifically Earthbound, so it seems I need to get with zebra on that, since I wasn't able to participate in that game.

I don't know if you got a chance to see that game... I think it's lost to cyberspace now.

But it was a closed setup 16 player game with 4 mafia teams of 4. But the point mechanic made it even more interesting. Every player started with 20 HP. Each lynch, every player had a vote which would deduct 2 HP. Some players had a one-shot gun of some sort that could deduct 5-10 HP (I forget). A couple players also had a one-shot playerkills (do 20 HP damage).

The best part of it was: there were no nightkills or night PMs, everything was done in thread. For example, I was one of the one-shot vigs for my mafia team, but in order to kill the player I wanted to, I had to say in thread Gallon of Fat Free Milk MovingPictures07 (or something like that) in order to kill you. But players could also come up with fake actions that do nothing in order to hide their real ones.

It was a blast.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I'll definitely play this one.

Especially after the final game on RYM (RIP RYM). I really enjoyed the point system used to lynch players in that one. I'd love to play another game like that.

I'm really wanting to incorporate hit points into future game(s) of mine, specifically Earthbound, so it seems I need to get with zebra on that, since I wasn't able to participate in that game.

I don't know if you got a chance to see that game... I think it's lost to cyberspace now.

But it was a closed setup 16 player game with 4 mafia teams of 4. But the point mechanic made it even more interesting. Every player started with 20 HP. Each lynch, every player had a vote which would deduct 2 HP. Some players had a one-shot gun of some sort that could deduct 5-10 HP (I forget). A couple players also had a one-shot playerkills (do 20 HP damage).

The best part of it was: there were no nightkills or night PMs, everything was done in thread. For example, I was one of the one-shot vigs for my mafia team, but in order to kill the player I wanted to, I had to say in thread Gallon of Fat Free Milk MovingPictures07 (or something like that) in order to kill you. But players could also come up with fake actions that do nothing in order to hide their real ones.

It was a blast.

That does sound pretty sweet, I'll have to keep thinking about how I want to set up Earthbound; I keep going back and forth. I want to be able to represent the game as much as possible, but that's pretty difficult. This HP system is neat though, I had fun experimenting with it in Meat Boy, but I think what zebra did in that game sounds like it worked out better than Meat Boy's mechanic did.

Wow! I'm flattered Marmot, I got the impression that that game was a general disappointment. I'm glad you liked it so much.

The only reason that game had four mafia teams of four though was because I couldn't think of any other way to be sure that the game was balanced. Having it be civs vs. mafia was just too difficult to hypothesize with so many factors to consider. Because of that, I'm not sure that I can help MP much with designing a similar setup, or one that also incorporates a health point mechanic. But I'm happy to do what I can!

a2thezebra wrote:Wow! I'm flattered Marmot, I got the impression that that game was a general disappointment. I'm glad you liked it so much.

The only reason that game had four mafia teams of four though was because I couldn't think of any other way to be sure that the game was balanced. Having it be civs vs. mafia was just too difficult to hypothesize with so many factors to consider. Because of that, I'm not sure that I can help MP much with designing a similar setup, or one that also incorporates a health point mechanic. But I'm happy to do what I can!

Plus, as with any brand new mechanic, there's going to be a learning curve. Someone hoping for a regular mafia game but seeing nothing but mafia roles might be a bit disgruntled as a result.

But you warned me of crazy shenanigans before the game. :P But had you not warned me, I would have enjoyed it anyway. The only thing I regret is getting killed so early. Technically I wasn't lynched right?

You were actually the only player in the game that was finished off by a particular mechanic where if you're down to 3 HP or less, imaginary actions were also counted against you one point each.

a2thezebra wrote:You were actually the only player in the game that was finished off by a particular mechanic where if you're down to 3 HP or less, imaginary actions were also counted against you one point each.

I was surprised to have died when I did. That explains it.

a2thezebra wrote:You were actually the only player in the game that was finished off by a particular mechanic where if you're down to 3 HP or less, imaginary actions were also counted against you one point each.

That's awesome.