No innocents.

[xyzzy]

Would a game with no innocent team be interesting? I played in a game on another forum a few months ago - "Battle of the Bands". There wasn't really an evil team; just five independent teams, who knew each other. It made for a very interesting game, since voting alibis had to be much better than, "I don't know if he's good or not," since no one was ignorant.

[Mr. Flay]

Broken. Rock Paper Scissors, Gay Mafia.... there's several examples, but they all suffer from the "no reason not to vote this person, since he's not on my team" problem, and emphasize the nightkills over the day game.

It might be fun in certain settings, but it isn't Mafia IMO.

[Mr Stoofer]

it isn't Mafia

QFT

[HurriKaty]

I've played in games like that on other forums anymore, and its becomes evident after awhile that it isnt Mafia. Its just an all out battle to see who can survive the longest.

[gorckat]

What about a real 'gang war' type game:

12 players, 4 factions
4 Godfathers, or other appropriate role (un-Nightkillable) who know each other
8 Grunts who don't know which Godfather they serve or who their partner is

The goal is for a single Godfather to survive to the end with his Grunts- become the majority, basically.

The Godfather's might even be allowed to communicate at Night and vote on an NK...makes there role way cooler, though, and rules would have to be in place to prevent a No-Kill, I think...maybe.

If a Godfather gets lynched, his Grunts (if both are alive) 'find each other' and get to talk at night and try to take out the other Godfathers.

[Kelly Chen]

Are you suggesting that four players, none of whom are aligned with each other, might be asked to vote on a NK?

[gorckat]

I am.

It is a bit forcing, I admit, but possibly interesting...although whomever lost a grunt would lose the other by a 3-1 vote...Maybe nightkill by a night vote since everyone is scum. They all send a secret night vote to the mod and most votes dies (a common hitman gets a lot of phone calls and pleases the most people he can )

Hmmm....I was thinking that having an unknown leader would prevent any kind of 'just lynch a person' attitude and the restricitons on the leaders' interactions with their group would also balance things some...I'd have to mull it over more.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, those games dosn't really work, because no one ever agrees on a lynch, no one has any reason to scum-hunt or look for scum-tells or anything, and basically nothing ever happens; or if it does it's pretty much random.

The only faction style game that kind of worked was "civil war mafia", dispite being abandoned it had some things going for it and some parts of the game were working well, but again it was mostly about the nightkills.

[livingod]

How about a bastard mafia where there are, say, 4 four-man mafia factions, but they each think that the others are town. It would be on the border of mafia, if at all, but it's bastardy.

[livingod]

xyzzy: Minesweeper!

[xyzzy]

xyzzy: Minesweeper!

I'm sure there's a hilarious joke here, but I'm totally missing it.

Help?

[AutumnEvenings]

I've played in a few games like that--never really enjoyed any of them for the reasons people have mentioned (no analysis, didn't care who got lynched so long as they weren't on my team, etc.)

One game along similar lines which I didn't play in but the people who played it enjoyed it was set-up like this:

Four teams, each of which has a killer, a cop, and 3 "serfs". The killer and cop know who each other are and can communicate off-thread. They don't know who their serfs are. The serfs know who the killer and cop for their team are, but they don't know the other serfs. Each killer has a limited number of kills (which are made at night). I think in this game they had 4, but it was played before my time, so I'm not entirely sure. The cops could investigate ever night (I think?) and would be told the player's team and role (though that could be changed for balance). Serfs had no special powers. During the day, you try to lynch. I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that claiming your team was prohibited?

Anyway, it forced people to use strategy to try to figure out who comprised their team and guess at the roles/teams of the other players.

Not quite sure if that's what you were looking for...

[Kelly Chen]

That sounds kind of interesting.

I don't think you need to ban claiming your team publicly, since it seems to me it would mostly be suicidal to do so.

[IH]

Actually this would work, BUT you'd have to be a little bastardly.

AKA for each scum team, have a death GF or two, for "fake innocents"

Make it a closed setup

See Space Monkey Mafia for other tips.

[Glork]

One game along similar lines which I didn't play in but the people who played it enjoyed it was set-up like this:

Four teams, each of which has a killer, a cop, and 3 "serfs". The killer and cop know who each other are and can communicate off-thread. They don't know who their serfs are. The serfs know who the killer and cop for their team are, but they don't know the other serfs. Each killer has a limited number of kills (which are made at night). I think in this game they had 4, but it was played before my time, so I'm not entirely sure. The cops could investigate ever night (I think?) and would be told the player's team and role (though that could be changed for balance). Serfs had no special powers. During the day, you try to lynch. I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that claiming your team was prohibited?

Anyway, it forced people to use strategy to try to figure out who comprised their team and guess at the roles/teams of the other players.

Not quite sure if that's what you were looking for...

This actually sounds

VERY

interesting to me. Would you mind providing a link? I'd like to see what kind of strategies were employed and how the technical details of roles worked. I could see myself running a similar or identical setup in the future, because it sounds really, really cool.

[AutumnEvenings]

This actually sounds

VERY

interesting to me. Would you mind providing a link? I'd like to see what kind of strategies were employed and how the technical details of roles worked. I could see myself running a similar or identical setup in the future, because it sounds really, really cool.

Sorry--I can't. All our games that are older than September of last year are lost. (It's not a mafia board, it's a discussion board for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire--we just play there.) We do have a discussion board that has commentary on the games, and I could probably put you in touch with the woman who modded the game too, if you'd like. PM or IM me any time.

[livingod]

xyzzy: Minesweeper!

I'm sure there's a hilarious joke here, but I'm totally missing it.

Help?

Do a google search of the two words together. (xyzzy and minesweeper)

[xyzzy]

xyzzy: Minesweeper!

I'm sure there's a hilarious joke here, but I'm totally missing it.

Help?

Do a google search of the two words together. (xyzzy and minesweeper)

I'm not going to get one of those horrible things with some old guy swinging his manhood around, am I?

[livingod]

xD Not an image search, a normal search.

[xyzzy]

xyzzy: Minesweeper!

I'm sure there's a hilarious joke here, but I'm totally missing it.

Help?

Do a google search of the two words together. (xyzzy and minesweeper)

I'm not going to get one of those horrible things with some old guy swinging his manhood around, am I?

Hooray! It wasn't old man nudity!

You don't know how many of those things my "friends" try to get me to go to.

And the verb XYZZY is much older than Minesweeper; it dates back to a very fun interactive fiction entitled Collosal Cave Adventure, in which the word was used. It's been featured in pretty much every great game since, like, forever, including minesweeper, and bearly every Infocom game ever.

In Zork: The Great Underground Empire, the verb (remember, since IF involves manipulating objects, the first word in a string is always a verb, so XYZZY is a verb) returns:

A hollow voice says, 'Fool.'

[livingod]

Since it's been ages since I've last heard of CCA, the reference I associate it with is minesweeper. (Nothing Happens)

[mneme]

Dunno -- I enjoyed Antrax Returns (which was an "elephant in the room" mafia with asymetic teams--a team of 5, two team of 4, a team of 3, and Jaguar as the lown townie "mayor").

Things that made that work:

1. Everyone had powers.
2. Still stuff to figure out (the Elephant in the Room nature wasn't stated, and as shouldn't happen, wasn't stated in thread either; too easy to lynch the guy who claims the emperor has no clothes on).
3. Still stuff to figure out. With asymetric teams, all of whose members had powers, there was a lot of stuff going on trying to figure out who was on who's teams, who was winning, and so on.
4. Interesting stuff happened. Hell, the game came down to the two remaining members of my team (the 5) against Jaguar. Since she had two votes, was immune to night kills, and could wake up voting, she should have won -- but because she misjudged the game play, the two remaining players were able to hammer her.

That said -- not an "every day" game.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, I was going to cite Antrax Returns as one of the few games of this type that seemed to work, even though it had the idiosyncrasies that you mention. I have a game in mind that has some elements of that, but I want to keep it under my hat for now...

[Dr. Doom]

Umm, I'd like to read that game, but I can't find it - what was it called, or where can I find it? *makes puppy eyes*

[Mr. Flay]

Theme Park, 2004: http://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1194