The Syndicate

This one popped into my head tonight before heading to bed. The idea wouldn't let me sleep, so here I am. Hopefully getting this out of my system will let me catch some z's.

For those of you who do not get the reference, this game is thematically based on John Carpenter's The Thing. I'm not calling it The Thing Mafia because I'm not going to use character names because- well, if you don't know, then you must watch the film. It's one of the greatest horror films of all time.

Essentially, what happens is this- all the players sign up. Everyone in theory is a "civilian" role. No one in the film was an evil person- some were just unlucky. There is no mafia team but a number of players will be randomly selected to be potential hosts. The lone infected player kills each night until they are lynched. Then the Thing latches onto one of the remaining potential hosts. If the "civilians" lynch all of the potential hosts, they win.

I'm considering having a host kill nullified if they try to kill another potential host. Furthermore, if a potential host is lynched before they are infected, they will not be named as a potential host in the lynch post. Only the lynching of an infected player will be announced.

Potential hosts won't know who each other are. They will merely be told that they are a potential host and they will also be notified when they have become the infected. I'm considering allowing the potential hosts work together in a BTSC chat room but without revealing their identities to each other.

The purpose of this would be to create a sense of paranoia in everyone- good and bad. Civvies won't be able to look for teamwork to bring down a formal team. No one will know how many potential hosts remain. This game boils down to a person's ability to read their peers on an individual level.

Does this setup make it too difficult for either the civvies or hosts to win?

I haven't seen the movie, because I'm a scaredy cat.

Looks interesting enough and would play. As you say, it would involve interesting dynamic between the whole ensemble, considering some will become progressively "rotten" - although, if all potential hosts will know they're potential hosts, [will win together with the current host (if said host cleans up the civs successfully) - or will they?] and will not get killed by the host, they'll essentially form a "bad indie" faction, so I presume they'd still have to adopt civ blending tactics. Maybe they could be announced as potential hosts after all, if they're lynched, to motivate the civs further (although I like the full paranoia, how-many-more-are-there-among-us version as well).

I don't know how hard it would be for hosts to win it (an active host would basically be an LMS), but the civs would probably have to play their best game to nail the host (or the potential hosts) instead of simply butchering themselves all game long. But they kinda always do that, anyway, so idk.

The only thing I wouldn't personally design is the anonymous BTSC, because it would either require sock accounts or players to remember to sign up with false ID. And you can ask Mr. "MM89-Phone" how much that can get screwed up. If the host and potential hosts win together, I reckon they'll be motivated enough to mess up with the civs' play, even if they're on their own.

Apologies if I got any of this the wrong way. Again, looks good overall, would play.

Also, delicious potential confusion between the host and the Host is delicious. Who will we kill: the host or... the Host?

Ricochet wrote:The only thing I wouldn't personally design is the anonymous BTSC, because it would either require sock accounts or players to remember to sign up with false ID. And you can ask Mr. "MM89-Phone" how much that can get screwed up. If the host and potential hosts win together, I reckon they'll be motivated enough to mess up with the civs' play, even if they're on their own.

I am usually very good about such things, but Biblical Mafia was a complete disaster for me.

Anonymous BTS would only mean that you sign into a Chatzy under a pseudonym. So long as you do not have chat in more than one game at a time, it is not that hard. In a game at RM, LOST: Revolution, the baddies, in addition to home chat, had a variety of chatrooms embedded in the game for various uses, some requiring role names (plus it was a sock puppet game with about 50 players), or even made up names. It was hard and complex, and there were mess ups, but overall, it added to the intensity of the game rather than detracting.

I would play a game like that again in a heartbeat (although it did require 4 hosts, lol, due to the various hidden threads~ different groups of players had different threads the others could not see, until the combined about midway through).

Thanks for the feedback guys! This idea was, admittedly little more than an hour or two old in my brain when I posted it here.

The only problem I can envision with allowing anonymous BTSC between the potential hosts is that it might be kind of easy to figure out who the other potential hosts are based on BTSC discussion of who to kill. I like the idea of baddies not knowing who their "teammates" are. A nullified NK seems the best option even though the infected player will know its intended target is a teammate. I don't see the harm in that. I also don't plan on telling the potential hosts what order they will be assimilated in.

Another thought that I have now is possibly canceling out a potential host's vote if they vote for the active-assimilated player. That could cause some drama by way of altered lynch results if there's a close vote. But could that protect the baddies too much?

Overall, I feel like I have to start with a set number of potential hosts. While it would be interesting to allow the first assimilated player to pick the next host upon death, I think that might disadvantage the civvies too much. If this were to run as a 19-player speed game, I could see three or four potential hosts. I'm guessing that it will be harder to spot killer behavior in a lone individual, so there's a chance that the first assimilated player could run the table.

Ricochet wrote:As you say, it would involve interesting dynamic between the whole ensemble, considering some will become progressively "rotten" - although, if all potential hosts will know they're potential hosts, [will win together with the current host (if said host cleans up the civs successfully) - or will they?] and will not get killed by the host, they'll essentially form a "bad indie" faction, so I presume they'd still have to adopt civ blending tactics. Maybe they could be announced as potential hosts after all, if they're lynched, to motivate the civs further (although I like the full paranoia, how-many-more-are-there-among-us version as well).

Some thoughts on this:
-All potential hosts would win if the current assimilated player wins.

-In the film, it is not made clear if multiple characters are assimilated at the same time or if the Thing picks a new host each time it is found out. It's a horror film, so there's a general one-at-a-time scheme to the dying.

-I could have all the potential hosts be assimilated from the start but rotate the kill. They would not know who the other assimilated are but could figure it out in part by having a kill nullified if they try to take out someone else who is assimilated. Assimilated players would also be able to figure out how many of their assimilated peers are left based on how quickly the kill comes back around to them.

-Another possibility could be that BTSC is gained by assimilated players only when they try to kill another assimilated player. The civvies would be at a disadvantage early but teamwork patterns could develop later and expose the assimilated players if they happen to try to kill each other.

Ricochet wrote:I don't know how hard it would be for hosts to win it (an active host would basically be an LMS), but the civs would probably have to play their best game to nail the host (or the potential hosts) instead of simply butchering themselves all game long. But they kinda always do that, anyway, so idk.

This is one of my chief concerns. I don't want the civvies to get steamrolled but I do want to make it hard for them to steamroll the baddies. I have always hated it when a baddie team I am on gets steamrolled one after another but I also don't want to make this ridiculously easy for the baddies to win either. This game format will either result in a gritty battle of skill or it could be a complete flop.

Ricochet wrote:The only thing I wouldn't personally design is the anonymous BTSC, because it would either require sock accounts or players to remember to sign up with false ID. And you can ask Mr. "MM89-Phone" how much that can get screwed up. If the host and potential hosts win together, I reckon they'll be motivated enough to mess up with the civs' play, even if they're on their own.

Yeah, I think I'm against an anonymous baddie BTSC now, given what I laid out earlier in this post. If anything, the gradual attainment of BTSC might be the way to go. I did something like that with the first two Secret Mafia games because the civvies didn't know anything about the roles before letters started filling in.

Ricochet wrote:Apologies if I got any of this the wrong way. Again, looks good overall, would play.

Also, delicious potential confusion between the host and the Host is delicious. Who will we kill: the host or... the Host?

Yeah, maybe we'll call them assimilated players from here out.

G-Man wrote:Thanks for the feedback guys! This idea was, admittedly little more than an hour or two old in my brain when I posted it here.

The only problem I can envision with allowing anonymous BTSC between the potential hosts is that it might be kind of easy to figure out who the other potential hosts are based on BTSC discussion of who to kill. I like the idea of baddies not knowing who their "teammates" are. A nullified NK seems the best option even though the infected player will know its intended target is a teammate. I don't see the harm in that. I also don't plan on telling the potential hosts what order they will be assimilated in.

Another thought that I have now is possibly canceling out a potential host's vote if they vote for the active-assimilated player. That could cause some drama by way of altered lynch results if there's a close vote. But could that protect the baddies too much?

I would go with two variants here:

A. Hosts and potential hosts win the game together, host night kills on potential hosts fail. Current host finding out, this way, who potential hosts are isn't so bad, because, as I've said, they've kind of a scattered "bad indie" collective anyway.

B. Hosts and potential hosts do not win the game together. All host night kills go through. Initial host begins and has to finish as LMS; any future Hosts are also LMS. Very Thing-y-like. [Granted, the only major downside is that, say, out of four total potential hosts, if it goes down to the very last host, he could have a way too easy field remaining to navigate through as an LMS].

G-Man wrote:

Ricochet wrote:As you say, it would involve interesting dynamic between the whole ensemble, considering some will become progressively "rotten" - although, if all potential hosts will know they're potential hosts, [will win together with the current host (if said host cleans up the civs successfully) - or will they?] and will not get killed by the host, they'll essentially form a "bad indie" faction, so I presume they'd still have to adopt civ blending tactics. Maybe they could be announced as potential hosts after all, if they're lynched, to motivate the civs further (although I like the full paranoia, how-many-more-are-there-among-us version as well).

Some thoughts on this:
-All potential hosts would win if the current assimilated player wins.

-In the film, it is not made clear if multiple characters are assimilated at the same time or if the Thing picks a new host each time it is found out. It's a horror film, so there's a general one-at-a-time scheme to the dying.

-I could have all the potential hosts be assimilated from the start but rotate the kill. They would not know who the other assimilated are but could figure it out in part by having a kill nullified if they try to take out someone else who is assimilated. Assimilated players would also be able to figure out how many of their assimilated peers are left based on how quickly the kill comes back around to them.

-Another possibility could be that BTSC is gained by assimilated players only when they try to kill another assimilated player. The civvies would be at a disadvantage early but teamwork patterns could develop later and expose the assimilated players if they happen to try to kill each other.

I wouldn't go with all potential hosts being assimilated from the start, on the other hand this version of BTSC is sort of interesting. Since a host will find out potential hosts due to nullified night kills, gaining BTSC and gradually forming a bona fide mafia team sounds about right.