Mafiascum.net

Hi, everyone!

The LSG listmods have put together a rough outline of what a possible grading criteria for games moving forward would look like.

We are bringing our first draft to the community to solicit feedback and identify any potential areas that need improvement. Below, you'll find a rubric, as well as a few examples of some games that have run to show what kind of rating they would get. We also think this would be a living document. It's open to evolving as games on the site evolve. If, at some point, communication outside of PMs becomes the norm (IE tribe chat rooms, open GD forums, etc) we would adjust the rubric as needed. The categories of each game, that is, the titles, are open for discussion. Not sure complex/twisty/standard/vanilla are really the best signifiers.


In this system, the listmod in charge would be assigning a rating prior to the game entering signups. This would be no additional work on the game mods' part. Game mods are also free to reveal as much about the grading as they want -- the only thing the listmods would reveal is final scoring. Game mods could then choose to reveal, for example, "This game is considered complex, due to and .


Idols and unique items/powers are heavily prevalent in the game and exceed previous qualifiers.
Traditional PM communication either does not exist, or is only a piece of the full ways of ability to communicate.
The game is in a fairly constant state of flux, or there are extreme methods of game shakeups.
Multiple elimination rounds will be common, and/or players will be expected to be voted out in non-traditional methods.
The game will feature multiple unique/themed mechanics that are mostly or entirely secretive and players should expect to be surprised by design.


Idols could be re-hidden, or there could be more than one idol per tribe / Items & powers in this game are fairly standard.
PM communication exists, but there are multiple other potential ways to talk to someone.
Tribe swaps occur frequently, or there are non-traditional game shakeups.
Players should expect that there will be occurrences of multiple eliminations in a round, or players being voted out in a non-traditional methods.
Mechanics/twists in this game should be expected, but they will be partially explained ahead of time.


One idol per tribe, maximum, with no re-hiding of idols.
Communication is mostly limited to PMs, with some minor exceptions
Tribe swaps occur with more frequency.
There's a potential for more than one player to be eliminated per round, based on who is voted out.
Mechanics/twists only include twists/mechanics from the TV show, and/or any new mechanics/twists are fully explained ahead of time.


There are little-to-no hidden items or idols in this game, with no re-hiding of idols.
Communication in this game is strictly limited to PMs.
There is only one (or none) tribe shakeups in the game per % of playerlist.
Players will be eliminated once per round, based only on who is voted out.
Nothing in this game would be surprising to see on the first few seasons of Survivor (TV).

First thing, obviously: in this method, it's impossible to get less than 5 points.

So we would need to scale that up a slight amount.

Raise every threshold by 3 or something?

Adjust the scale from 4-3-2-1 to 4-2-1-0. That fixes the can't-have-less-than-5 problem and let's the super-complex games stand out more.

I think a good way to test if these are effective is looking at our past games that are already kind of outliers like doctor who, Hogwarts, game of thrones and see how they fit. And if the rating doesn't seem right, we gotta fix accordingly. Like does knowing about twists before signups change the rating at all?

In post 3, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Adjust the scale from 4-3-2-1 to 4-2-1-0. That fixes the can't-have-less-than-5 problem and let's the super-complex games stand out more.

I support this

In post 3, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Adjust the scale from 4-3-2-1 to 4-2-1-0. That fixes the can't-have-less-than-5 problem and let's the super-complex games stand out more.

I support this, actually!

In post 4, xofelf wrote:I think a good way to test if these are effective is looking at our past games that are already kind of outliers like doctor who, Hogwarts, game of thrones and see how they fit. And if the rating doesn't seem right, we gotta fix accordingly. Like does knowing about twists before signups change the rating at all?

Yeah, the mechanics rating takes into account how much is known ahead of time.

I don't see how multiple elims really make a big difference.

And also I think big difference between kinds of twists that are possible that needs to be clear

Something that looks like x but is actually y result should seriously be noted as different than just a twist.

Can you give examples of what you mean by x looks like y?

Can you give a more concrete example?
EDIT: DAMN IT RECK

maybe an actual example would help

Something that looks like Survivor but is actually Soccer Simulator.

It's called Football Manager it's one of the most popular games in the UK THANK YOU

In post 8, xRECKONERx wrote:Can you give examples of what you mean by x looks like y?

"Go to exile, put in a shitty 4 person tribe*

"This one vote the person who's voted out doesn't go"

"This vote makes people team captain instead of voted out"
."the people you vote out can vote you out as ghosts"

Etc?

Ah, I see.

I think that would fit under how fully the mechanics are explained in the rubric, but it needs to fine-tuning to account for that.

One thing I noticed, the Idols and Items category is almost entirely focused on Idols for the lower two tiers. By these standards pretty much every game that's ever had an auction qualifies as twisty instead of standard.

I would argue introducing items into the game should count heavily because they're very volatile. Open to ideas of how to better crunch that down though

In post 15, Haschel Cedricson wrote:One thing I noticed, the Idols and Items category is almost entirely focused on Idols for the lower two tiers. By these standards pretty much every game that's ever had an auction qualifies as twisty instead of standard.

This is fine TBH. Burn auctions

Vanilla: No Idols or Items,
Standard: One idol per tribe, no more than one or two items on the level of double-vote, vote shield, or challenge advantage
Twisty: Idols can be rehidden or could be more than one item per tribe, items are more prevalent or may include higher-powered things like vacations or bonus FTC votes
Complex: Idols and unique items/powers are heavily prevalent in the game and exceed previous qualifiers.

?

I prefer the current one. Denormalize items IMO

Non-Idol items can fuck right off to twist land.

In post 20, Cephrir wrote:Non-Idol items can fuck right off to twist land.

ilu

In my opinion, the communication methods category could be a bit more specific. PM communication is so powerful that a lot of times it's better to ignore anything else if possible. Are other methods specifically referring to ways to communicate with people that you normally wouldn't be able to PM? The way it's currently worded, having a tribal forum would push it up to standard even though those from my experience are primarily used for talking about availability and little else. With a note that I may be slightly out of touch at present, if I were forced to make the scale myself it would be something like:
1: Communication is strictly on tribal lines, no more, no less.
2: There exists some basic and consistent deviation from 1, such as a public forum or periods of time when all PM communication is disabled. (Like Medivac's walking to tribal council.)
3: There are non-public methods of cross tribal communication, or unusual or unexpected communication restrictions. (Eon's pairs, both for their existence and their forced secrecy, though only one of those two mechanics would be enough to qualify for this tier.
4: The way communication occurs significantly changes the foundation of how the game is played.

And more of a personal gripe than anything else, but the minimum number of points in each tier should be increased by one, in order to prevent games from falling in multiple categories.

The problem is that past games have really only had one of three different levels of communication: PMs only, PMs plus (something like #2016 with the pairs twist, or Bands with the single Chatzy, or Hogwarts with the teams), and no PMs or mostly irrelevant PMs (the Medevac games by design, Hyrule by accident because of the Chatzies). Maybe it’s just not necessary to have four levels for this, you could have just three (instead of 4-3-2-1, 4-2-1).

What about games like Ned's where there's a public forum for just everyone hanging out? Or it used to be more common to see a Shoutbox? It's not super significant, but it does allow you to get to know personalities on the other tribe before the merge.

Not every rating has to be used all the time, but there's no harm in having it available.