Making Vanilla Roles Fun

[Apeiron]

Some people prefer playing a simple role, but most experienced Mafia players would rather have some night abilities. There are a number of ways to make games fun even for vanilla roles, or ways to exclude vanilla roles from the game entirely. What do you think about this? What works best? What is the most fun?

Possible Strategies

1. No Vanilla Roles

This is an obvious one. Excluding all vanilla roles from the game means everyone has an ability and this raises interest in the game. There are several options:

• Create/Include Uncommon Roles - If you make some weak roles, the town does not get overpowered by having no vanillas, yet still everyone has an ability. I have for example used this strategy in a game with the Roman Revolution as theme (link)
  
• Share Roles - By giving one guy uneven night investigations, and another even night investigations, you've got two people with abilities, yet their strength is under one (because they can double). This can be done for lot's of roles of course: Vigilante, Roleblocker, Doc etc.
  
• Turn Vanillas into Weak Roles - Instead of making someone a vanilla, you can make them Mason (weak in large games), Tracker, Double-Vote Townie (weak in large games) etc.

2. Changing Roles

Again there are several ways of achieving this. You can have any vanilla be changed into something more interesting through triggering. For example, have someone play vanilla until their prospective Mason finds them. The Mason can send you one name per night to find out if that person is his buddy. In such ways you can of course make Activated Vigilante/Serial Killer/Roleblocker etc.

3. Subgame

I really love including subgames in Mafia's, and will probably attempt to do so in any future game I make. There can be various kinds of subgames, from very easy to pretty complex ones. There are also other distinctions that can be made: Is playing the subgame mandatory, automatic or by choice? Is the subgame directly or indirectly related to the game, or not at all?

Some examples:

• Automatic / Simple / Indirectly Related --- A game I played in was themed 'American Politics'. Apart from the Mafia/Town distinction, there were Republicans and Democrats mixed through both. The subgame winner was the group who had the most remaining alive at the end. So if there were more Democrats who stayed alive, they'd win. Everyone automatically plays (because everyone is either D or R), and the game is simple. It is indirectly related because it does not affect gameplay, at least not much.
  
• By Choice / Simple / Directly Related --- A game I am currently playing in is an Anime All Star Mafia. The moderator gives out hints after Night messages and anyone who solves the damn thing gets to ask a question about the game to the moderator. Playing is by choice (I haven't really looked at it), the subgame is simple (even though the question can be hard) and it is directly related.
  
• By Choice / Simple / Directly Related --- Another such subgame was to find the solution to something in a Haruhi Suzumiya themed Mafia (an anime series). Every player had received a hint in their PM, it turned out that all the hints were sentences from the Prologue, and the missing one was the first sentence. Instead of getting to ask a question, the first to solve it got some actual role-benefit out of it (iirc). (For example getting to Roleblock someone once or something like that).
  
• By Choice / Complex / Unrelated --- I am myself working on a Mafia themed 'The Hobbit' and will play it in a month or so on utopiatemple.com. The book 'The Hobbit' contains a large number of Dwarves which hardly have a role, yet are important somehow. I can't give all these guys actual abilities, so I decided to make a subgame. The game is a 'treasure hunt' and gives out points for puzzles (crosswords, mazes, riddles) solved. It is unrelated to the mafia.
  
• Automatic / Complex / Indirectly Related --- A sort of award for whomever is the best player. It is complex because it can be involved in all the aspects of the original mafia game (which is complex), does not influence the game itself (does indirectly related) and playing is automatic. You can for example give out points for voting for scum, investigating/killing scum (for cop/vigilante), activity in posts etc. Of course this all is revealed at the end of the game.

4. Hints About the Game

To increase discussion and involvement in the discussion you can give every player a hint about the game mechanics and set up. I am doing this in a minimafia game with as a theme the regal period of Rome. (Rome was ruled by 7 kings before it got changed into a republic). There are some vanillas in the game, but they each have a unique hint about how the game is set up. Examples:

• There is one Serial Killer in the game
  
• Everyone has received a hint
  
• Godfathers do not have investigation immunity in this game
  
• There is one Paranoid Cop in the game
  
• There is no Vigilante

[Mr Stoofer]

Someone who thinks that it is not fun to play a Vanilla Townie will, after the novelty wears off, find that it's not fun to play any other role, either.

[Apeiron]

That's a pretty harsh statement there, and I sincerely doubt it. Unless you take it

very literal

as saying 'no fun at all', in that case you are right of course.

What I meant was rather that most people prefer something with abilities over a vanilla role anytime.

[Mr Stoofer]

What I meant was rather that most people prefer something with abilities over a vanilla role anytime.

Really?

[Patrick]

lol I think PJ might have something to say about that.

[Apeiron]

Really?

(1) Yes. This is at least the case on the two sites that I play mafia on. People prefer not to be vanilla. Favorite roles are usually Mafia Godfather, Serial Killer (especially with investigation immunity), Vigilante or Sane Cop. In a recently conducted poll on this by me, only 1 out of 21 voters (so far) voted a preference for Vanilla Townie, and that was someone pretty new to the game who didn't want complex roles yet.

(2) I am sure you can find examples, or even lots of examples, of people who like playing vanilla better than any other role. However, I sincerely doubt that a majority of Mafia players would prefer vanilla over say mason.

(3) Even if it is the case that on mafiascum people prefer playing vanilla, this is not the case in my experience and on other sites. My point with this thread clearly was not too discuss what a majority of players prefers, but rather how to achieve a game without vanilla roles or with interesting vanilla roles - whether that is your preference or not.

(4) Could you please be bothered to reply to anything on topic and in at least some detail? Posting "Really?" doesn't move a discussion anywhere

[Glork]

(1) Yes. This is at least the case on the two sites that I play mafia on. People prefer not to be vanilla. Favorite roles are usually Mafia Godfather, Serial Killer (especially with investigation immunity), Vigilante or Sane Cop. In a recently conducted poll on this by me, only 1 out of 21 voters (so far) voted a preference for Vanilla Townie, and that was someone pretty new to the game who didn't want complex roles yet.

I find this interesting. Godfather, Investigation-Immune Serial Killer, Vigilante, and Sane Cop are all fairly self-sufficient and/or powerful roles which can take over a game on their own. This says to me that the players would rather have the crutch of some kind of power/advantage, rather than figuring everything out on their own. Being a vanilla Townie can be a lot more rewarding when you

do

succeed (*coughLightsOutMafiacoughcough*). If you're looking to help people want to enjoy being Vanilla more, try getting them to focus on the upsides (or silver linings, as you may want to call them) rather than the mechanical weaknesses of the role.

(2) I am sure you can find examples, or even lots of examples, of people who like playing vanilla better than any other role. However, I sincerely doubt that a majority of Mafia players would prefer vanilla over say mason.

I'll take the bait on this one, and I'll even give you a reason as to why Vanilla Townies can be preferrable to Mason roles. When you're a mason, so long as you're believed (as is the tendency when one or more players claim Mason [together]), there's virtually no need to prove or defend your own alignment. (I don't know about you, but here there was a stretch where scum Masons were not uncommon... fortunately or unfortunately, those days seem to have passed.) Part of the fun of Mafia, at least for me, is defending or proving (or faking) my own alignment. I think that's why some players cross the line in terms of "proper" pro-town play. Point being, when you're a Mason, you've lost that need to defend yourself. That takes away a very important aspect of the game.

[Apeiron]

Thanks very much for your reply. Gives me some stuff to think about.

What do you guys think about subgames though? Especially if they're not mandatory but are theme-related.

[Mr Stoofer]

I wouldn't play in a game with a subgame.

[Apeiron]

Why not? What are your reasons?

What if the subgame is as simple as "Find the solution to the question" and has no relation to the game other than the same theme, and has no influence upon gameplay whatsoever?
What if the subgame is only some puzzles, has no influence upon gameplay and is done through PM's?

I can see why you wouldn't want to play in a game in which winning the subgame or solving parts of it gives people benefits in the mafia, but if the benefits are very small, if the subgame is fun, or if there aren't any benefits at all then what can be the problem? Why rule out subgames entirely?

[ChannelDelibird]

The way I see subgames is thus: if another player suggested we played a subgame appropriate for the theme, I would accuse him of trying to distract us from finding scum. If I want to play a small game with a few other people I'll set up a TWSOGMM thread for it. I sign up to mafia games to find scum (or, alternatively, be scum).

[Kelly Chen]

I don't have much confidence in the "no vanilla roles" approach, because it means scum will

have

to be creative when they claim. That's a double strike against the scum, since invariably the non-vanilla town roles are useful and/or confirmable also.

I have more confidence in the idea of allocating alignment separately from role. But this could be hard to balance; if the roles are all quite useful to the town, the mafia is still going to lose despite having good claims.

I don't like to implement things that detract from the game being about town finding scum from their interactions, and scum trying to evade this detection and (we hope) manipulate the day's outcome.

I wouldn't like any kind of subgame that would slow the game down.

I like to play as mason, but as a mod I think it is a rubbish role until masons have more incentive not to come out.

One reason to prefer vanilla over a power role is that the latter comes with increased responsibility to use the role well and also not get killed off.

With vanilla there's no reason to hold back from putting yourself out there and trying to find the scum. No huge loss if you die, and you arguably take a hit for a power role.

[Adele]

I like to play as mason, but as a mod I think it is a rubbish role until masons have more incentive not to come out.

I was actually thinking about masons.

You can PM "X" at night. "X" is pro-town, as are you. You both appear anti-town to cop investigations. You are a

masonic miller

Would that be a good thing or godawful?

On the wider topic, I'd like games to be slightly more complex or have something more to them, but not

too

absurd, and nothing that stops the scumhunting or gives the scum space to participate safely without making statements about the game. I mean, I'm the classic "theme" game player, with a short attention span, preferring minis, theme games, and power roles, but I really think that the vanilla role has its place - I like to play a variety of vanilla-containing and vanilla-free games.

Basically, I think people should have their pick, and (since of course vanilla-containing's the standard) I've seen people adevertise their game on the basis of it being vanilla-free. I

do

think it should be mentioned in the sign-up thread, since people expect between half the town and half the players to be vanilla, and a game with none at all is, I reckon, probably themed be definition, and there is a large group of people who, for some reason, like their games as boring as possible, they should have the chance to avoid it.

[Kelly Chen]

I was actually thinking about masons.

You can PM "X" at night. "X" is pro-town, as are you. You both appear anti-town to cop investigations. You are a

masonic miller

Would that be a good thing or godawful?

Not quite good enough. Claimed masons don't usually get investigated. However, I like the idea of making them death millers: Tell them that when they die, they show up as scum. That borders on bastard modding (unreliability of role reveal info) but I think it's significantly improved when you tell the person that is how they appear on death.

I've had this idea: Everyone knows that there are masons, and that the scum need only have the masons killed in order to win. Masons outing each other carelessly is simply game over. In order to balance that, though, there would have to be fewer scum than usual, which doesn't appeal to me too much.

and there is a large group of people who, for some reason, like their games as boring as possible, they should have the chance to avoid it.

QFT. I would never ever sign up for a no-vanilla game unless 1) I am guaranteed pro-town alignment in advance or 2) the scum get pro-town abilities too.

[Fiasco]

I tend to agree with Stoofer that Mafia shouldn't

need

night powers to be fun. The day game is what makes it unique. I do think it's legitimate to prefer playing some sort of power role. One thing you could do is just give everyone a power role with a high (>50%) failure probability.

If there's a subgame I want to know how exactly it compares to the main win condition, maybe in terms of a point value. When making tradeoffs in a game, I like to know what it is that I'm trying to accomplish. If the subgame really has nothing to do with the main game, I agree you should just play it independently (in Mish Mash or equivalent).

For masons I still think an interesting idea is to reveal their group affiliation on death, but not whether that group is a mason or scum group. See also "color mafia" in the open setups thread.

Verbose II had masons who were millers wrt one cop, but were investigated by the other cop.

there is a large group of people who, for some reason, like their games as boring as possible

...and then there's the group of people who couldn't enjoy a game of chess until they renamed all the pieces to characters from some random TV show.

[Fiasco]

BTW, Apeiron's setups remind me of a (probably way too megalomaniac) idea I had for a site-wide game. I think Adele once mentioned introducing players into the game in different stages. This could be useful in limiting game size and still letting a lot of people participate. You could have 96 roles each based on someone from world history (preferably well-known but not TOO obvious), divided into 8 periods (...-500BC, 500BC-500AD, 500-1500, 1500-1800, 1800-1900, 1900-1950, 1950-1990, 1990-...). Start the game with the first 12 players. Once some stuff happens (e.g. once most people are dead, or maybe something based on role powers), add the next batch of 12 players to the survivors. Repeat until one group achieves win condition. Maybe to get the game off to an interesting start, the first batch of 12 should be selected on an invitation basis. Signups for the next period happen while the current period is still in progress. There shouldn't have to be more than 20-30 players in the game at any one time. Most players won't play for more than the length of a typical mini, and I guess the ones that do survive for much longer than that could be (honorably) replaced if necessary. Maybe what roles enter into the game could be determined by role powers, too. Roles in the last period are much more powerful than roles in the first period, as they have a much easier time surviving until the end. Form cross-period scum groups with that in mind.

[Zindaras]

(1) Yes. This is at least the case on the two sites that I play mafia on. People prefer not to be vanilla. Favorite roles are usually Mafia Godfather, Serial Killer (especially with investigation immunity), Vigilante or Sane Cop. In a recently conducted poll on this by me, only 1 out of 21 voters (so far) voted a preference for Vanilla Townie, and that was someone pretty new to the game who didn't want complex roles yet.

I wouldn't say it's my preferred role, but there is much beauty in being Vanilla Town. Personally, it gives me a kick to dominate a game as Vanilla Town. As Vanilla Town, you can't rely on some power or claim to back you up, you're on your own. The Vanilla Townie may not be the easiest role to master, but it is (one of) the most rewarding.

(2) I am sure you can find examples, or even lots of examples, of people who like playing vanilla better than any other role. However, I sincerely doubt that a majority of Mafia players would prefer vanilla over say mason.

I'll give you that one, but I think it's besides the point. Vanilla Townies are an important part of Mafia, if only for the balance issues. I think it's also not a matter of relative preference, but of absolute preference. I may prefer to play Mason (though I wouldn't be sure on that. Mason bores me. I've never actually made use of the role, and I've been it a couple of times), but that doesn't mean I don't like to play as Vanilla Town.

The game's the game, whatever role you have.

(3) Even if it is the case that on mafiascum people prefer playing vanilla, this is not the case in my experience and on other sites. My point with this thread clearly was not too discuss what a majority of players prefers, but rather how to achieve a game without vanilla roles or with interesting vanilla roles - whether that is your preference or not.

Interesting vanilla roles are easily achieved. Make the game interesting. If there's a lot of activity, a lot of discussion, people won't mind being vanilla. It's when Nights become the most interesting part of the game that it really starts to suck to be a vanilla.



Personally, I am a firm believer that it's quite easy to make a non-vanilla game. It's simply a matter of giving scum roles that are believable as town as well, and giving town roles that are possibly scum.

[Fiasco]

Interesting vanilla roles are easily achieved. Make the game interesting. If there's a lot of activity, a lot of discussion, people won't mind being vanilla. It's when Nights become the most interesting part of the game that it really starts to suck to be a vanilla.

Just thought I'd QFT this. The Night game should be designed to enhance rather than replace the Day game.

[petroleumjelly]

lol I think PJ might have something to say about that.

Indeed.

There is nothing inherently

exciting

about a role with night choices. You are playing the exact same mafia game as everybody else, with one exception: you make one measly decision (who to investigate, who to role-block, etc) on the side.

With power comes great responsibility. </Spiderman>

Having a power is like having a small chunk of a big puzzle, except you have to guard it like an attack-dog until you think it is appropriate to give out that information. There is a responsbility to keep yourself hidden and hope that you don't get night-killed before you ever get the chance to claim. I find that I occasionally hold myself back so as to not draw undue attention to myself when playing a power role (although I think I have been able to throw off that habit fairly well), which in turn detracts from game-play.

Not so with a vanilla. In fact, as a vanilla role, it is of the

highest

compliment to be night-killed by scum, as you are showing that you can be a threat even without a power (although you could technically be killed because you are annoying, to leave false trails, etc). And as such, vanilla townie is a role where I can allow myself to be extremely free with my thoughts, and I allow myself much more flexibility on my view of the game.

If people think of vanilla townies as a

release of pressure

from other roles, I think it would become a much more appreciated role. I don't think we need to add anything to the game to make it better: what we need to change are people's

attitudes

.

[Zindaras]

PJ speaks much truth, if only because he uses a Spiderman quote (even if it's wrong: with

great

power comes great responsibility >.>).

I play pretty much the same way PJ plays with this one. I play to catch scum, I play to get night-killed. Getting night-killed by scum because of the way you're playing should be seen as a compliment, if anything.

I get lots of compliments. *smiles happily*

Though, as an added note, I play pretty much the same way if I've got a power role. It doesn't really matter what role you've got, catching scum is the perennial goal of the game, and you shouldn't let your role detract from that.

[Yosarian2]

1. No Vanilla Roles

This is an obvious one. Excluding all vanilla roles from the game means everyone has an ability and this raises interest in the game. There are several options:

• Create/Include Uncommon Roles - If you make some weak roles, the town does not get overpowered by having no vanillas, yet still everyone has an ability. I have for example used this strategy in a game with the Roman Revolution as theme (link)
  
• Share Roles - By giving one guy uneven night investigations, and another even night investigations, you've got two people with abilities, yet their strength is under one (because they can double). This can be done for lot's of roles of course: Vigilante, Roleblocker, Doc etc.
  
• Turn Vanillas into Weak Roles - Instead of making someone a vanilla, you can make them Mason (weak in large games), Tracker, Double-Vote Townie (weak in large games) etc.

This is generally rather broken for the town, every time I've seen it.

If you have two cops, one even night cop and one odd night cop, that's stronger then a single cop because they're both basically unlynchable. Masons are strong, because they're basically unlynchable. Two people where one makes and investigation and the other gets it confirm each other and are unlynchable. Trackers are confirmable, even every-other night trackers, so long as they track one person who did something one night. So are roleblockers, limited shot vigs, double voters, message senders, ect. In the end, in games like this usually there are so many unlynchable or confirmable townies that there's just no way for the scum to win. You can somewhat counteract that by giving the scum extra confirmable roles or powers like roleblocker or scum double voter or scum message sender or whatever, but that's messy, and gets worse if the town has trackers and such. Games where everyone has a power are almost never balanced, and are generally a great deal unbalanced in the town's favor a great deal. It's even worse if all those roles have flavor, of any kind, which they also usually do in such games.

And plus I agree that a vanillia townie is quite a fun role to play. It's a much more fun role to play then, say, doc, which is usually just an exercise in frustration.

[Glork]

If you have two cops, one even night cop and one odd night cop, that's stronger then a single cop because they're both basically unlynchable.

I've toyed with the idea of having Even/Odd action pairs which are of different alignments. For example, a Mafia with an even-night cop, or a mafia with an odd-night cop. Or a pro-town Even-Night Motivator with an Odd-Night Mafia Roleblocker.

Actually, I think it might be fun to have an Evens/Odds Mafia, where everybody role only works on even nights or odd nights... I just might have to design a setup for that.

Trackers are confirmable, even every-other night trackers, so long as they track one person who did something one night.

You've obviously never played in the myriad of ScumChat games which have had Mafia Trackers. In the original one, CES made me a Mafia Tracker simply because he figured it would punish the town for assuming that I'm a confirmed innocent. Needless to say, I won.
But I suppose that one's beside the point. I agree that having too much power makes the night game replace the day game, which is generally not what you want to do in Mafia.

[Yosarian2]

Trackers are confirmable, even every-other night trackers, so long as they track one person who did something one night.

You've obviously never played in the myriad of ScumChat games which have had Mafia Trackers. In the original one, CES made me a Mafia Tracker simply because he figured it would punish the town for assuming that I'm a confirmed innocent. Needless to say, I won.
But I suppose that one's beside the point. I agree that having too much power makes the night game replace the day game, which is generally not what you want to do in Mafia.

Well, that's true of any of the roles; the mod could in theory give almost any role to the scum, which helps a little. However, in practice, if too many townies have confirmable roleclaims, even if the alignment is not confirmable, there are usually any number of ways for the tow to either find the scum by process of elimination, or to "solve" the game by figuring out how to use all the claims to confirm each other and find any scum. It's almost impossible to make games like that really balanced.

[Fritzler]

if you can't kill people, townies are the next best thing

plus its funner to lie as a townie

[Mr. Flay]

I tend to agree with Stoofer that Mafia shouldn't

need

night powers to be fun. The day game is what makes it unique. I do think it's legitimate to prefer playing some sort of power role. One thing you could do is just give everyone a power role with a high (>50%) failure probability.

Roles with random elements tend not to go over well, and they seem to have a tendency to throw monkey-wrenches into your game balance as well. A single night in which all of the pro-town actions succeed or fail

en masse

can make or break the setup...