Can there be/have there been No-Scum games?

[gorckat]

Reading the two threads about cults got my mind spinning around the sheer paranoia (I imagine) that would creep up in a game with no scum. Maybe a Cop and a Doc. Maybe all vanilla. Perhaps a random night-kill on random nights...

How would you react in a game where there were no Night Kills after three nights? How would you react to the kill (accidental death) of the fourth night?

Would you assume that the Scum are playing a massively brilliant game, lurking in the shadows and avoiding all suspicion?

What if there were no night-kills unless a there was a No Lynch...then a random person died...how might that change reactions?

[Yosarian2]

It' been tried. See April Fools mafia. It's really kind of boring, IMHO.

[Kelly Chen]

Once I was lecturing in scumchat about how games should be mostly town power roles since that is more fun. And that what scum there are should probably be paid for the inconvenience.

I'm not exactly remembering how it happened, but I agreed to mod a game (having said repeatedly that the game might not have any scum in it).

The setup was cop, doc, vig (who claimed daycop), tracker, watcher, chef, and protown mafia recruiter. All town, but the chef (unknowingly) and the recruiter could create scum.

It was a pretty good game actually. Although only one scum ever existed and he was busted the same night he was recruited because the recruiter was vigged and his recruitment observed I believe. The game kept going because the vig (claimed daycop) under Pie's control kept vigging people. (It was chamber in control, though, when this position claimed daycop.)

With no scum there was not very much lurking.

However, I do believe forum games with little scum have high potential to be boring, as scums' effect on the discussion is harder to see. This might be particularly so (i.e. particularly boring) if the town knows how few scum there are.

[Mr. Flay]

It's pretty much been forbidden in forum games, but I've heard about it in scumchat. It's really an extra level of bastardy to tack onto a game that's already going to take months out of people's playing time.

On the other hand, the Reservoir Dogs mini I ran had all of the "scum" eliminated in two Days, and the "town" had several days to decide for themselves if they were actually safe or not, but that played heavily on the theme for that game. There was still a traitor in their midst, but he had no nightkill ability and eventually escaped with his life.

I think random nightkills would be completely unfair to the town in that sort of game. After 2-3 days and nights of no killing, it would be logical to declare a ...and they all lived happily ever after situation.

[Patrick]

Kelly's was quite an entertaining game I was James Bond, the (real) cop.

[Zindaras]

I actually just remembered something.

This game, hosted on another site, was also originally non-scum. To give it a bit of an impetus, the mod eventually did create an SK, who, amusingly enough, eventually won the game. (and, even more amusingly, it was me >.>)

The game was a complete farce. It was a "sequel" to the most failed Mafia game ever hosted on the site, and it was therefore designed to be a sucky failure.

For the rest, I've only seen it in scumchat. I hosted a scumless dethy a couple of times.

[gorckat]

Good points about the time involved.

I think I find the idea of a game where No Lynches cause random kills vs Lynch and no kill interesting, but that is likely more of a human behavior thing...will the group knowingly sacrifice someone to save themselves for one more day.

And its probably not Mafia, except it exists because of Mafia (if that makes sense).

[GreenLiquid]

I remember there was a game on this site with all serial killers save one, who was a townie. Actually turned out ok, but there were some special mechanics.

[Kelly Chen]

Murphyville Mafia:
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2043