Endless Mafia

[Karo]

Seeing the "Let us count to 10000000000 and actually do it" thread in the other forum made me think. Since this is

the

place for mafia, with all its silly variants, why not add another one of those silly variants to it (or at least suggest it)?

Endless Mafia

would be played endlessly on the forum (there might be a cooler name, but I have yet to find it).

Rules needed to be tweaked obviously. Neither town nor scum should be able to win and end the game. To give players some feeling of archivement, they'd gain points though:

Townies:

Having taken part in the lynch of x members = points
Staying alive for x rounds = more points
Having successfully used their ability (not sure about this, hard to quantify) = even more points

Scum:

Staying alive for x rounds = a certain amount of points

They can even participate more than once in the game, even if they were killed. To avoid confusion, they should only be allowed to re-enter if the whole of the players they have played with has been revolved, so no player would mistake the reentered player with his former role.

Once a player dies, another one would immediately enter the game with a role that would balance the current mix of roles available.

So, what if town hits a number of scum and just lynches every player entering the game? Frankly I don't know yet. I am open for your valuable suggestions though.

I am still working on the details, especially the game mechanics, but I think it could be archived.

What do you think? Am I making sense here? I am really interested in you opinions. Question is, would you be interested in the game?

[Kelly Chen]

I'm not sure what the appeal would be, since once the original players are cycled out, you just have new players some of whom happened to play with the original players.

Can you imagine replacements expected to read the thread?

We need more games that only last one game day though.

[mith]

There was an endless type game somewhere before (either here or the GL).

[Primate]

it was tried on the GL. Mod abandoned into d2 though, so can't really be used as an example.

[mith]

There's this one. I was sure there was a smaller one that lasted a while, though. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong.

[Karo]

I see. So the idea hasn't catched on yet. I'll have to think about that a while.
Thanks for pointing out that game on GL.

[Mr. Flay]

I think endless would suffer from the read-over-the-thread problem mentioned above, and lack of investment in ever actually getting anywhere. Points are nice, but they make it a very individual game, whereas Mafia's strength comes in part from townies' willingness to get themselves killed for the good of the group.

[Mr Stoofer]

Once a player dies, another one would immediately enter the game with a role that would balance the current mix of roles available.

So when a scum dies, he is replaced by a new scum? And when a townie dies he is replaced by a new townie?

Hmmm.... I see a problem here.

[Kelly Chen]

I think a die should be rolled for each new player. Since the game isn't meant to end, you would never need to weight the die I think.

[Shanba]

yeah but then you could conceivably end up with more mafia than town... which would probably mean no more mafia would die. Or you could end up with only town, which would be equally odd

[livingod]

What!? My whole rambling on how this would work is lost!

[Mr Stoofer]

Yeah, I had made a number of perceptive, insightful and amusing comments.

[Mr. Flay]

Here too? Damn, you were busy Stoof...

[AlexTiefling]

I'd made some suggestions too, based on the use of a deck of cards and the idea of beginning with only one mafiate, and cycling in additional ones as time passed.

There was also a 'gravedigger' role to prevent cards going back into the deck for a bit.

Did anyone see that one?

Ah, well.

The subsequent spin-off thread about how to make games play much faster vanished, too.

AT

[beanbagboy]

Maybe you could add neutral roles, or something. Jesters get X points for a lynch. Survivors get X points for each round they survive.

Sounds cool, might be better in RL?

Maybe if a Scum got killed, you add a buncha pplz with a few new mafioso, maybe an SK or two or a new clan. If it was all town, you randomly switch a few to mafia. Actually, that's better, when a Scum gets killed, you add a new person and randomly assign a new person mafia.

It wouldn't be mafia, more like a sibling game, but I would give it a try. Pointless on a message board, though, IMO. It would need to be in RL.

It wouldn't be endless, though, it would end after people got bored and you add up points.

[AlexTiefling]

My proposal for scoring was to have a number of league tables - best mafiate, best survivor, most deadly SK, most accurate lyncher - and have players aim to climb the rankings.

I'm willing to try running this over in WGMM if that would be appropriate - an initial intake of 12 players seems about right. Any takers?

AT

[beanbagboy]

That sounds cool, the only problem is that people could vote for someone strategically so that the people who did well wouldn't get that many votes, and not pass them.

[AlexTiefling]

Beanbagboy, can you explain that a bit more, please?

I'm looking for ways to balance the scenario.

AT

[livingod]

Naw, I'm not really into the whole league table thing. That IS enforcing a survivor-type attitude. As I said earlier:

Have a set of 12 roles, assign one to each player.*
When one player dies, induct a new player and randomly choose their role among those same 12 roles.
If mafia successfully avoids lynch, eventually they'll gain majority and win.*
If town successfully lynches scum, they eventually get rid of them and win.*

*Just like in a normal mafia mini

Any further deviation, I believe, is a mafia mutation.

[AlexTiefling]

Livingod, the problem there is that the game will end when one faction or the other wins - which defeats the idea of 'endless' Mafia.

AT

[beanbagboy]

I'm actually trying it somewhere else. (My sig should explain where.)

My idea is that if someone dies, you could add a scum, a townie, or a neutral role. The neutral roles would shake things up: SKs, obv, Jesters would get points for being lynched (jesters win if they are lynched) survivors get points for however long they stay in.

This wouldn't stop after a while, my idea is it doesn't stop. At least not for a long time.

Yup, not mafia. It would be a mutation, but I would be willing to (And am) try/ing it.

[StallingChamp]

Personally, I think adding points to it will make EVERYONE a survivor...

[Yosarian2]

Livingod, the problem there is that the game will end when one faction or the other wins - which defeats the idea of 'endless' Mafia.

AT

Well, no. Truly endless mafia would be pointless. Mafia that's only potentially endless is much better.

You'd have to increase the scum though, I think. If you start out with 3 scum and 12 townies, and each time someone's lynched the new parson has a 1/3 chance of being scum, the scum would have on average to kill or lynch 12 townies in a row without losing any scum, wheras the town only has to lynch right about 4 times to win. Dosn't sound balanced.

[StallingChamp]

I agree with you, but only slightly. 6 lynches for the Mafias, when the Town need only 4 is still abit unfair. Maybe a 4/8 Mafia/Town split?

[livingod]

Hmm, I'd actually like to try a potentially endless mafia. Although I think I'll need a comod.