Perma-vote -- been tried before?

[Peers]

Been kicking around variations on games to consider modding someday... has anyone ever done a game like this?

The number of votes required to lynch never changes. If 12 people start playing, it will always be 7 votes to lynch. The catch: Votes don't vanish at the end of each day. If one person is lynched with 7 votes, one person gets 3 votes, and two others get a vote each, then the non-lynched start Day Two with 3 votes, 1 vote, and 1 vote. Meaning it'll only take four votes to lynch that first player, and six votes to lynch the other two, but a full seven to lynch anyone else.

The day will not end when a person is lynched; instead, it ends when everyone has voted. This may result in multiple lynches, especially later in the game. After a lynch is reached, a 24-hour deadline would be set for everyone who hasn't voted yet to get in their votes -- votes can no longer be changed once the deadline is set, only made.

Roles would include three standard scum, cop, doctor, and Spin Doctor (reduces the number of votes against someone to 1... no spin doctor is perfect).

Voting becomes more important... every vote counts, for the rest of the game, so making a mistake and voting for a townie will make it easier for scum to finish him off in the late game; on the other side, if the town can't decide which of two scum to lynch, they can cast their votes how they want and try to lynch them both on the next turn.

So... did someone try this already? Did it fail horribly? Is there some balance issue I'm not seeing?

[Mastermind of Sin]

I would just never vote until I'm ready to end the day. In fact, I'd probably insist on being the hammer every day, in order to conserve my vote.

[Yosarian2]

I would just never vote until I'm ready to end the day. In fact, I'd probably insist on being the hammer every day, in order to conserve my vote.

Well, or else if it was obveous person A was going to be lynched, you could put your vote on person B just to set up for the next day's lynch.

One problem, Peers; it seems like if things go a certain way, you could easily get to a late-game situation where it's impossible to lynch anyone, or anyone who any town people will be willing to vote for, like with a cop investigated innocent having 4 votes on him when there's 3 pro-town people left. If the town can't reach the 7 votes, is that an automatic no-lynch (and perhaps an automatic scum win)?

[Max]

I had this as a box in pandoras box mafia. They had unlimited votes but they could not unvote

[Shanba]

I had this as a box in pandoras box mafia. They had unlimited votes but they could not unvote

vote player a x12

vote player b x11

vote player c x10

etc. until only you are left. Oh look! Only a townie left! Town wins.

[Peers]

One problem, Peers; it seems like if things go a certain way, you could easily get to a late-game situation where it's impossible to lynch anyone, or anyone who any town people will be willing to vote for, like with a cop investigated innocent having 4 votes on him when there's 3 pro-town people left. If the town can't reach the 7 votes, is that an automatic no-lynch (and perhaps an automatic scum win)?

It would be a no-lynch, but in a case like that... say there's two scum left. They both vote for the cop, knowing that they're 'outed' anyway. The pro-town players put all their votes on one of the scum. The day ends with no lynch, since nobody's reached the lynch point left. The scum kill someone that night, and the next day put a vote on the cop to push him over the edge, and toss a vote onto another townie; the remaining town might or might not have enough votes to lynch one of them.

It's slowly starting to feel like this variant would need a lot more thought and planning in the early-game, with mistakes there being more costly as a misplaced vote on the cop would make it easier for the scum to get him without using their night-kill to do it.

[Max]

They could only vote a player once

[Peers]

I never said they could only vote a player once. I said votes carried over each day.

Example: 12-person game

Townie A gets seven votes.
Scum A gets three votes.
Townies B and C get one vote each.

Townie A is lynched. Townie D is hit.

On Day 2, Scum A still has three votes on him. Townies B and C still have one vote on them. It's still seven votes to lynch, and everyone gets to vote again. But only four people need to vote for Scum A to lynch him... most likely, the three from the previous day, and one more they can convince to help. The other five votes are going to get spread around and make it easier to lynch other people on Day Three.

In a way, this setup rewards the ability to avoid suspicion from the beginning, and punishes games where not everyone is under suspicion. Do you throw a vote on the cop now in case he's false-claiming? If you don't, it'll be near impossible to deal with him later... but if you do, and he's telling the truth, the mafia might not need to waste their night-kill on him.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Yos still brings up a good point. What happens when none of the scum have enough votes on them for the town to lynch them? What if there are 3 town left and 1 scum, and said scum only had 3 votes on him? He's not going to vote for himself. The town will probably lynch someone else with enough votes to actually get a lynch, then the scum nightkills another town and wins. You're basically setting up situations for the scum to get a win far before they should get one in a normal game. Generally, with 1 scum and 3 townies left, the town actually has a chance.

[Yosarian2]

Yos still brings up a good point. What happens when none of the scum have enough votes on them for the town to lynch them? What if there are 3 town left and 1 scum, and said scum only had 3 votes on him? He's not going to vote for himself. The town will probably lynch someone else with enough votes to actually get a lynch, then the scum nightkills another town and wins. You're basically setting up situations for the scum to get a win far before they should get one in a normal game. Generally, with 1 scum and 3 townies left, the town actually has a chance.

Hmmm...although, that's not a situation where the town is doomed; if the town correcly guess the identity of the last scum, the correct move there is to have all 3 townies put their votes on the scum, putting him at 6 votes. That's a no-lynch, the scum kills a townie, but the next day the town can lynch the last scum who now has 6 votes on him.

Of course, if the last scum has 0 votes on him in a 3 town 1 scum situation, he auto-wins.

[Sarcastro]

Wouldn't the ideal strategy just be for nobody to vote until enough people agree to vote for someone? This game seems to assume that everyone would use votes the same way they normally do, which would obviously not happen.

[Yosarian2]

Wouldn't the ideal strategy just be for nobody to vote until enough people agree to vote for someone? This game seems to assume that everyone would use votes the same way they normally do, which would obviously not happen.

Actually, no, just the opposite; you want a few "floating" votes on people who look scummy, so you can lynch them later when you have less pro-town people avalable, so you probably want the town to spread their votes around a bit so long as you have enough to lynch. Of course, that also makes it easier for scum to quicklynch later.

Hmmm....I can imagine vast amounts of time wasted trying to figure out exactally what the best mathmatical way to arrange the voting patters are before everyone votes, possibly leading nowhere. It might be best to have strict deadliens in this kind of game.

Edit: Wow, there were an amazing number of typos in that post.

[Sarcastro]

Oh, hm. I see. I didn't realise that the holdover votes were dissociated from their original casters.