The Syndicate

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the game of Favorites.

This is how it works: upon signing up, each player must submit a character they like. It can be any character from any film, book, game, or any form of media. It can also be someone from real life.

When I get enough sign ups, I will close them, and then I will begin to design the game. I will make a role for each character submitted. If I don't know the character, I will research them and learn their abilities and traits, so I can make a role that does them justice.

I will then merge all the roles, together with some thematic game mechanics I will make to fit with the characters, in a mafia game setup, and will distribute each role to a random player (so you won't necessarily get the character you submitted).

There is catch: any character may have any alignment. Anyone can be civilian, mafia or independent, depending on what I decide when I'm making the roles, and regardless of what they were in their original stories. For example, I have seen games that had God as a serial killer and Judge Judy as a mafia boss. To take advantage of that mechanic, role claiming will be allowed, so you will have to figure out not just who is bad, but whether the character they are claiming is bad.

In the site I where play this, Favorites has the tradition of being the biggest, craziest game. Roles have numerous abilities, multiple deaths happen each night (and each day!) and a huge number of players come together to play it, including veterans who are retired of mafia but keep coming back every year for Favorites. Last year's game had 70 players.

I don't have time to host a game with 70 players, but since this site has less players and is used to more simple games, I think it is a perfect fit. I will be able to exercise my creativity while still making something that can be hosted during my free time after work. Of course, I intend to uphold the tradition and make the an unique, crazy, and powerful role for each character submitted. You guys give me the setup, and I'll just make it work.

I will just need some time to design the game (around 1 month) after people sign up, so we might need to make some adaptations. My suggestion is that we open sign ups as soon as the queue starts, together with another game in the queue, and then I make the roles while the other game gets played.

I think it sounds like a fun game. We did a simpler "pick your own character from anything" game on RYM years ago and it was a lot of fun.

Recommendation: you could even start allowing people to request characters for this before it is in sign-ups, to limit the amount of time you'd need to build everything appropriately. Perhaps if the game enters a full game queue, you can volunteer to go last and begin accepting requests immediately anyway.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2017 5:31 pm I think it sounds like a fun game. We did a simpler "pick your own character from anything" game on RYM years ago and it was a lot of fun.

Recommendation: you could even start allowing people to request characters for this before it is in sign-ups, to limit the amount of time you'd need to build everything appropriately. Perhaps if the game enters a full game queue, you can volunteer to go last and begin accepting requests immediately anyway.

The thorn with this is that the people who request a character may no longer be able to play when the host is ready to host it. If the players list changes too drastically, that could prove very inconvenient for the host.

Yeah usually some players end up replacing at the last minute and not getting to submit anything. And this can be a bigger problem if you give them a longer time window to submit them. Not that this is stopping the last few hosts from opening it in February to host the game in August, though.

I hosted 2015's game, together with Soneji. It had 58 players.

One of the craziest mafia experiences I've ever had, but I'd like to repeat it.

Ooh hell yeah this is a cool idea. I'm super down.

I suppose the most similar thing I've played was Freckles' Build Your Own Mafia on the Piano years ago, in which each player designed their own role -- this is a bit different since players just pick the flavor and you pick the abilities, but it sounds awesome.

Reminds me of BlenderSongfia, a game I played on mine and Sprityo's native forum. Submit three songs, the host will mix two into your role.

I loved that. I'll love this.

I'm in.

sounds neat, i can probably get some interesting abilities with some of my favorites

nutella wrote: ↑Tue Jul 25, 2017 1:32 am Ooh hell yeah this is a cool idea. I'm super down.

I suppose the most similar thing I've played was Freckles' Build Your Own Mafia on the Piano years ago, in which each player designed their own role -- this is a bit different since players just pick the flavor and you pick the abilities, but it sounds awesome.

I was reminded of this too. I miss frex.