Maplewood Village - game over - [MATURE CONTENT!]

[hebichan]

I was kinda sad I was dead so early on here.

[drealmerz7]

it was largely from Chesskid's gameplay approach rather than content, though it could be argued that's alignment-indicative or whatever. I played my shots selfishly, is what I'm saying, with little to no actual scumhunting informing them.

I found his gameplay approach to be scum-indicative, and a style that I dislike a lot, that (among the reckless nature of his early busing without having a grasp of much at all because it was so early - I don't have any inherent problems with busing, but there is a time and place and tact and skill to it and I didn't think chesskid pulled any of that off) - not meaning to dwell on chesskid though really!

I apologize for getting frustrated and saying things that may have been out of line. A lot of frustration came from shooting so well but then still potentially being lynched despite my survivor wincon. The first iteration the WS knew they were lynchproof, I think in retrospect that might have been just as well because it allows the player to play with an ease which is what I intended all along for the character to instill in the player.

@Drealmerz:

Thank you for running this game. Thank you for running such a non-traditional (on this site, at least) style of game; I believe that innovation is incredibly important to designing fun mafia setups--it's why I don't run or even play in normals and opens. Before I write much more, I'm fairly certain our approaches to mafia game design and moderation are very different. Keep that in mind when it comes to criticism, I guess. A lot of people consider the games I run to be outlandish and far from the normal mafia experience. People have called my games 'not mafia' in the past. I consider myself design ethos to be far more 'normal' in many ways than yours, so I hope you understand why people on-site would have such a high objection to this game's moderation and design.

Thanks so much! That encouragement and appreciation, criticism and time you've taken, as well as your dedication and enjoyment and interest in playing it! means a lot! This will certainly be the most unusual setup I run as far as hidden mechanics for character interactions and the whole way the abilities worked between characters. Part of the reason I re-ran the setup (which I'll get to a little bit more in RE: further down on re-running a setup) was to establish a precedent and mod meta of several things I felt it was important to establish as I go forward as a mod here on MS. I certainly anticipated a level of objection / balking / uncomfortable ness / not totally embracing reaction to many of the aspects of the game, but of course I didn't envision it going quite as negatively as it did. I definitely tried to do what I thought was right for running the game / pulling off an enjoyable experience with much of that in awareness. More onward ...

In this game, a ton of the player frustration came from not understanding the lynch mechanic. I am not quite sure what hiding the lynch mechanic allows for the game space. I think that the mechanic you have here is interesting and that certain elements of its design could have remained hidden and that players would've enjoyed it, but you need to be upfront about exactly the nature of what is hidden. Make it big and bold so that players get the picture--this phase will end on a certain hidden trigger that is tied to posts made, or votes made, or whatever it may be. Find a balance in what is told and what is hidden. When most of the public mechanics that facilitate the mechanical game of mafia aren't transparent to the majority of the playerbase, your players will almost always lose interest in playing.

Without doubt, and I anticipated some frustration but not nearly this much. First and foremost I wanted it to present a gamestate that replicated the actual communal atmosphere how it would have been in the actual situation: so that people were not ever voting for someone they didn't want to see dead or suspect was likely of being a threat to their community (aka "being scum"), on top of a similar thing that I also thought it implement and replicate (successfully, in a way that worked and was good) what it is like to play in a flesh-world group (especially when the moderator is like "okay everyone let's see where we are at with our votes" and they go around and just make everyone say one last final time where they are voting and the moderator is taking tally on the votes and getting ready to declare the lynch once he's finalized knowing where everyone's final vote is, AND, as he goes around and ppl say where they are voting, sometimes other ppl will shift, or call someone out on their vote for whatever reason, and some content and shifting or shit will happen, or not, and then it continues on and the mod wraps it up and makes sure that he has everyone's votes WHERE THEY WANT THEM TO BE, knowing fully who is on the table and where the votes are at, etc. - yeah, that is what I was trying to replicate with that, and it worked much much much better in the first iteration, WHICH ACTUALLY HAD SIX STAGES INSTEAD OF THREE, which were more complex and explicit / restrictive on what was to takes place during them. haha! This also goes into 14 day deadlines being too long, players are very often not inclined to make it go faster and I think a bit shorter Days is a healthier gamestate, when playing in-flesh, it isn't like that at all. The moderator simply observes the individual game at hand and can sense when things need moved along, when to wrap it up.

I tried to give it a level of intrigue and figure-outableness that was fun. I am aware I missed the mark and that sharing a bit more about certain things would have definitely remedied a lot. Sorry for that miss.

I believe that there should be no hidden role interactions/features. I do get your reasoning of not telling a player about certain aspects of their role, but there are other ways to incentivize play. Simply making role mechanics hidden strikes me as less innovative and less fun for the player to play around--it's enjoyable for the moderator, but a player should know the full functionality and intended playstyle of their role. Now, you could, by design, have enablers for abilities people don't start with, as well as other similar interesting not-immediately-apparent-to-the-role-holder-alone caveats, but you have to spend the time to build those into the game.

It was less to incentivize play (only in the Snoops case did I want them to play a way that wasn't True to what the role was), and I did mean for everyone to have a more straightforward picture of what their role was / what it did. What I also did intend for was for there to be a boatload of ambiguity in figuring out what happened why at night. Not impossible to figure out, but, upon a surface look, complete WTF ambiguity. I didn't mean for it to be a chaotic clusterfuck of "wtf happened" - and don't think it was at all, it didn't even get a chance to be anything, really! Pretty much all of the role interactions were reasonably anticipatible not "out there" beyond standard - bodyguard, doctor, tracker, paranoid, all behavior understandably.

1.) In the case that you do have hidden role interactions and that not all public mechanics have a reasonable degree of transparency, you should make that incredibly obvious in the advertisement, sign-up, and game thread. You definitely undersold it here. Players will be far more forgiving if they know that the game they are signing up for features, specifically, something that is the non-normal mafia experience. You already advertise your game as a large theme game; why not advertise the other important aspects of the setup in the same degree? Yes, it can be limiting in a design space, but that's easily overcome by moderator innovation. It simply makes for a game in which players are much more likely to enjoy the game, because it is aligned with what they believed they signed on for. 2.) You should always assume that, unless said otherwise, players assume normality from setups. I've built a moderator meta on non-normality, and players still approach my games with the same mentality.

1.) Yep, I am and always have been definitely aware of that, and that is what I aimed to do / was my desire to do for this game, and what I thought I did do! Obviously I missed for a good number of the players, but I also hit for some! I am so glad for that and is the best outcomes in this game! I wish I could have enticed more, of course that was my goal, to make ppl go "ooo this is interesting fun, different, wacky" and tried to get the mentality of ppl on that side of anticipating more WTFness so that the "forgiveness" (and residual openness / understanding to "different shit is going on don't get frustrated, go with it, figure it out, enjoy it") as you mention would be there. Again, I did have that awareness and was trying to achieve such. OOPS!

2.) I have tried to establish a DREALMER IS A WTFMOD WOWAHOAOHA NOT NORMAL AT ALL reputation since starting modding on here with each of my previous games. Always approach my games with "what what what am I about to get into?" - BUT BUT BUT - AND THIS IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW!! I WELCOME QUESTIONS!!! If I am advertising a game and you aren't sure what it will entail to enough of a degree to make you comfortable, or ENTICED, PM me and just say "yo, wtf is up with this game, why should I want to play it. these are my reservations or what I don't like about games, what does your game have to offer that you can tell me?" etc. etc. etc. and I am HAPPYHAPPYHAPPY to tell anything and all I can so that there aren't any unwelcome surprises when in my game. THE LAST THING I WANT as a moderator is the players to not enjoy or be able to get into the game. My goal is to make games that are WTFAWESOMECOOLFUNUNIQUEEXCITINGYESSIRCANIHAVESOMEMORE goodness. (what mod isn't I guess?)

I believe, at the end of the day, players still want to play mafia. In my setups, you'll find extensive added rules that strip down the game to very basic mafia mechanics when in LYLO/MYLO, because I know that if players ended up in a situation where the game was decided by non-normal mechanics rather than the basic town v scum regular voting mechanics setup, they will feel the game is not legitimate. By design, no matter how well a game goes for town or how poorly it goes for scum, there should at least be a minimum number of lynches equal to the total number of scum (minus one if there are other kills in the game, though this rule of thumb goes out the window when you start adding extra factions and tons of extra kills). By design, town should never be able to confirm a number of town as town equal to the total number of scum or more--even simply through 'soft-confirms'.

Yep, am totally aware, surely, if I don't do this, it's intentional by design and I want players to embrace it, but most games I will do will be more standard than this one. This game had LOTS of kill potentials that really changed things around, and I didn't want too much to be obvious with a lot of things intentionally for this game, more than will be for I think any other games I do?

1.) a.) I believe that flavor should do its best not to confirm or deconfirm alignments, though it can reflect mechanics--b.) a good moderator will design reasonable fake-claim flavor for scum such that even if flavor perfectly fits a 'character', it doesn't confirm a player's alignment. c.) Here, I became very unsure how much the flavor spoke towards mechanical aspects of the setup that were not spelled out. I think that doing so creates a very unfair guessing game for players. Some moderators even do this sort of thing in normal setups with different kill flavors, where the kill flavor ("Player X was shot" rather than "Player X was poisoned!") actually reveals something about the mechanical source of the kill.

If it is intended for players to understand something, then make it clear to them in the most basic mechanical terms.

I am definitely aware of the probably higher ratio of moderators who adhere to these/some of these or whatever. I guess let me address 1 at a time.

1.) a.) for me it only depends on the individual game I am making, but be sure whichever way I do it is absolutely intentional and I am completely aware of the implications and potential ramifications, to not would be badbad negligent modding for sure - for this game no flavor confirmed/deconfirm anyone's alignment, do you disagree? I provided more than sufficient flavor for all neutrals and group werewolves to have a "villager" identity. I also was open to giving flavor to all the neutrals and groupwolves should they want it and it were reasonable, but mostly it wasn't necessary. However, this isn't normally how I do for my games.

b.)I disagree. I strongly think that a good player will be able to come up with their own fakeclaim in a game. I think moderators providing fakeclaims so readily in games is weak. I think it should only be done if the game is specifically designed in a way that fakeclaims make sense to have. Like stolen identities in flavor or functional / practical when applied. If that makes sense / I'm describing well enough what I mean? - again for this game, the part of their claims that made them able to seem to identify as natural villagers was because they were actual villagers, there was nothing fake about the flavor that they were given that made them seem to be villagers were they to quote it from their character PM. But regardless, I do not ever ever ever think the onus should be on the moderator to create anything for scum like that. Good players and good scum are grown by being put into situations where they have to think and operate on their own, not rely on the mod, but aside from that, it's just an inherent part of the game to me. You don't get a fakeout! The whole idea (or half the idea?) of the game is to try and fake out! That is what your role and goal is when you roll scum! To fake being a towny, beyond that, it's on you to navigate! Seriously, playing that breeds better players!

c.) Yep, I'm definitely aware of all that! (me responding as such doesn't mean I don't appreciate you taking the time to make sure I know or expressing your suggestion that you think certain ways work better and what not, certainly not at all, am just responding and explaining in return my position about and letting you know my awareness or whatever!) it was intentional for this setup, and again, whenever I do however I do in my setups, it's with awareness and intention / reason, as should be done for a competent/non-negligent mod, imo! it's not meant to be an unfair guessing game though, but a fun bit of stuff to figure out. The kills here definitely had intended results that were meant to mirror the sort of "kill type X" vs "kill type Z" - they were: kill type 1:) mutilated (wolf and paranoid kills) 2.) disappear (Wood Spirit removal by Alpha Wolf, Lone Wolf lycanthropy cured by wood spirit, all demon worshiper kills, 3.) a.) wood spirit day kill b.) wood spirit night kill - the retaliation kill of the Skilled Hunter would have been obvious and explicit, I think that is all of them? if I didn't list one let me know and I'll tell it, it's in my brain somewhere! (and my notes! but I know the setup so well it's all in my brain, and I go through a series of checks and order of operation when actually doing everything during the game, not worrying about that now is all)

I believe that shorthand for roles is misleading. Telling a player they are a '2-shot doctor' is incredibly misleading; are they just to assume that they have the mafiascum.net normal role 'doctor' and that their role can make use of that two times? When? Day or Night? Is it two shots as in they can only ever take two uses of the ability; what if it fails? Is there a chance for it to be refilled? Can they take both shots at once? Instead of using shorthand that may actually mislead players about the actual functionality of their roles, just type what their abilities and role functionality is, as concisely as possible.

Again, I'm definitely aware of all of those and made the roles, characters, descriptions of things, abilities, etc., with all of this in mind. There's a lot to it all too, so I'm not exactly sure how much to get into / how much to go on about it. I guess just start from the top! You were not called a Neutral Survivor, you were called a Wood Spirit, the role that was SK-like wasn't truly a SK and had a different name altogether (Demon Worshiper)...make it more simple, let's just use the Village Worry and Animal Doctor examples. Neither of those wordings are anything that has ever been used in a setup, there is nothing normal about them, that is the indicator that they aren't necessarily normally functioning. The whole idea IS that because they aren't having the regular, standard, normal names the to ability or role, that that indicates that they don't function as their normal counterpart would, that there is something different about them. NOW, for the Animal Doctor, that is a bit less true than it is for the Village Worrier. The Animal Doctor very very much was like a doctor role functionally (though again as stated in on the the previous walls, she never would do any actual medical doctoring, just functional protection like a doctor - which is why the different name) - there isn't meant to be a lot of ambiguity about it, but some, and my hope is that the player, if unsure about whatever, asks "so like, umm, does this work like a doctor normally or what?" to which I say "well it's like a doctor but don't expect it to function 'normally' with the potential for hidden mechanics and other things" <-and that response is simply meant to be put in a way so that when for instance her heal doesn't succeed on an Alpha Wolf target or on a Demon Worshiper target, she is more open to thinking about things that could have happened than not (the AW essentially would have acted like a strongman and bypassed her, but the Demon Worshiper, because she targets her NK during the day, gets a success on her target before the AD is able to help/interfere/stop the kill.) There's also the option for the interceptor bodyguards to take the kill before the AD, etc., making the AD not know that they didn't save their target that the VW or VS did. Oh which brings me back to the Village Worrier. Mostly a bodyguard, but exactly a bodyguard, so I didn't want to call it a bodyguard or say it was exactly equivalent to bodyguard, because it's not exactly, with it's ability to Day target, and how it carried over, and the fact that it could do more than intercept kills vs. other actions taken against its targets, etc.

So, yes definitely, I know ppl anticipate certain words meaning certain things when it comes to roles and abilities, and every single one I made in this game was tailored and made with all of that in mind, so if you have specific questions about why a certain one was a certain way or did a certain thing or whatever, please, ask or whatever about it, I really do enjoy going over such things and hashing it out and explaining to others who enjoy / appreciate !

More on that is the whole "2 shot" thing and whatnot, again, totally aware of all of that. If I am not explicit and clear, it is intentional. I am EXTREMELY word deliberate in pretty much EVERYTHING I type, especially so when it comes to moderating and creating the roles and characters. Take any example of any character or role or ability from any where from any of my games and ask me about it or point out whatever your issue is about it or whatever, and I can absolutely explain to you why it is the way it is. Without question! Again, this is a part of modding that I feel is crucial for premium modding! And I do every bit with awareness! One example I will just toss out there right now because it is easy is is if I say "one time in the game you can kill a player by PMing me 'hack to pieces: #playername'" - that means, exactly as it says, that you CAN KILL a player ONE TIME in the game, which by logical deduction infers that you can fail 5 times when you submit PMs to 'hack to pieces: #playername' and keep on submitting until ONE TIME a player IS KILLED. Alternately, if the PM says "you can attempt to kill a player 5 times during the game", it means, as it says, that you can ATTEMPT 5 times, that doesn't mean that you get 5 successes, just 5 attempts. and so on and so forth. ALSO, it is my thought and strong strong belief, that players should be in the habit of PMing their mod for clarifications and for little dripplets of information of they can get them. And my intention with that isn't to make things difficult, my intention is to 1.) encourage players to think simply by the way things are setup and be inquisitive and in the figure-outing mindframe and 2.) input a level of play that is enjoyable in that exactly as you say, discovering the scope and limits and intricacies of a role and abilities, and this comes from a moderator intention of making their games have depth. - example: I put your ability as "kill with an axe: PM me any player you wish to kill with an axe" - I WANT the player to ask questions, I want the player to think about implications that could exist that don't just involve me having spelled them out for them, such as "wait, can I do this during the day AND night?", it's not that I don't want the player to know, it's that I want them to conceive of the option themselves because 1.) it is more fun I think! "ohshit I can kill during the Day!" 2.) it makes for more thoughtful players, it encourages them not making assumptions because they are thinking and not just relying on being told every single little thing / hand fed every aspect of the game - I want the player to ask "can I do this more than once?", and if I want them to know without having to ask, I am explicit (but again, when it comes to my word usage, I do explicitly mean what things say and it's just a matter if ppl understand the literalness or whatever sometimes.)

I believe a moderator should do their best to be impartial. Don't let your own feelings influence the game at all. It really annoyed me that you came out and outright shared aspects of the setup design when given a lot of flak for it while the game was running. I know it can be hard. Trust in what you built. If it breaks, build a better setup next time, but have integrity until the thing is done with.

Oh certainly, it wasn't done lightly at all. I did say in the dead thread that the reason I came out and revealed that was because my intention was for things to be more figure-outable. For me as a moderator a lot of the time a rule or certain thing is put in place in order to try and ensure something happens/doesn't happen and uphold a spirit of something that I have in mind and the spirit of what the rule is trying to get across is more important than sticking to the rule if the rule fails to ensure the thing it was put there for. Don't misunderstand, it wasn't something I did light arbitrarily without a lot of thought and reflection, and I didn't do it because I was getting flak or because ppl were pissy at not getting it, I did it because my intention was that people would have gotten it more than they were getting it. I did it because so much was my intended desire for it to be understood more by that point (things I had put in place were aiming at it being understood more at that point, that failed, and as a moderator I was able to make an adjustment.) I honestly probably should have come out sooner and explained a bit better about there not being a hammer and that majority was still the idea. My thought was that ppl would have questioned me in a way (it only takes 1 question a certain way, really) that made me come to thread and announce more about the Evening and Lynching and whatever else. That is another big thing about how I mod. NOOO @moderator stuff in the thread. ALWAYS PM me questions, and a LOT of the times rather than respond via PM, the question will prompt a response taht is something for the entire PL to know, and I will announce in thread that the question was asked and what the answer is / whatever other relevance (but of course not who asked it!

Finally, I believe a moderator should never inhibit their players unfairly. Not being able to claim my wincon and parts of my role was a very strange thing for me. It mostly just frustrated me. If the concern is that players will 'game' the mechanics of the setup, design a setup that can't be 'gamed' so easily. The other real problem comes in with whether or not a player is softing aspects of their role that they can't claim. It becomes difficult to actually enforce post restrictions without disrupting the game and even you saw how poorly it turned out when you locked thread over that whole Elli mishap. It just isn't worth designing such a thing into a setup. The same kinds of 'restrictions' can be designed into a setup in much more interesting ways for a player to play around. In more than one of my games, I allowed scum/certain players to kill other players but only if they could correctly present the player's flavor name or quote the claim from one of those player's posts; these were featured in games where I made it very clear that flavor-claiming was punishable, by design.

It wasn't out of a concern that people would game mechanics or anything else like that, I more simply wanted to try it and thought it was fun. It's not something I think I'll ever do again, but I thought it suited this setup and could have worked just fine, and mostly did. The main things about this I think is : 1.) the other reason was because when creating a neutral with a bunch of power I didn't want them to be auto-confirmable as neutral because of their flavor aspects "ohya you are obviously neutral with the powers you say because WOOD SPIRIT and all that goes with it is obviously not made up and is easily confirmable - makes the win TOO easy I thought 2.) the lone wolf was initially groupscum but didn't want to be a werewolf in flavor and I also wanted to instill chaos/confusion in the game by making their night prowl ability non-claimable to his fellow packmates (it was a way to weaken the power of the 5groupscum, and to add to the possibility that not only the groupscum, but other players would think it was possible there were 2 wolfpacks in the game)

umm okay it's all becoming a blurr I think I covered all of that I wanted to^ / was needed ? Again will reiterate that the hidden aspects wasn't something I did lightly and ultimately I think worked how I wanted except for me fucking up (which is really out of character for me and again just ahard learned lesson about modding when tired - I'm glad it happened to a game that I ran once before that had already gone successfully!) and it not being enjoyed as much as I intended

It actually bums me out that you've run a similar iteration of this setup before. Don't cling to something that's done for. Come up with something new. ... those setups got run. They're done. They were awesome setups. I am still proud of them. I can still make use of certain mechanics featured in them, but I won't be returning them as a basis for creating a wholly new setup. I always start from scratch. I don't want someone to be able to just point to another setup I have run and be able to nearly solve a new setup I've designed. I hope that stating my own ethos and grievances with this game's design help a bit in designing your next game.

It wasn't something I did lightly at all, and I definitely felt a bit of betrayal and bastardization from the original. But I ultimately decided it needed / should be run for numerous reasons that outweighed the ethos of "create something new, the setup has been done, start from scratch, etc." which I all absolutely subscribe to and so understand that I ran this for reasons that outweighed that, which is saying quite a lot for those reasons.

The reasons mainly are pretty simple: 1.) to establish a certain modmeta reputation and set and establish numerous sorts of precedences and tendancies going forward as a moderator (this is really crucial in a lot of aspects of what this game had) and 2.) to hit MS with a dose of THIS IS SOME SHIT THAT CAN BE DONE / + this is something that is done, not from arrogance, but so that it makes space for more, not just of my own, but for an overall mentality of "hey things don't always need to follow such norms, things can be done that work that go against norms or reinvent or completely create new ways of doing things."

I will always be creating unique and new setups. I never tend to re-do any other setups, it isn't something I DO, it's just something that had to be done with this game. PLUS, I was very very interested to see how this setup would go when going through a 2nd iteration on a different site, having run it successfully elsewhere. It was definitely a conscious experiment to a degree in that regard with an awareness of "it' definitely better to not rerun setups but there are reasons to do this one and since that is so, it also becomes an interested experiment for comparison"

no worries on me doing anything re-done again, and not because this didn't go well, but because it is definitely against how I am as a mod

Anyway, I hope that helps. I've been typing at this for about an hour now, which feels a bit silly. I guess I just want to see you make something really amazing. This game has the makings of it, but fell short for a lot of reasons. I hope that you can understand why people might not have liked this setup. It's okay. Getting combative, though, won't solve anything. Just make the next one better. That's my mantra, at least. Learn what worked, what didn't, and what you could overhaul into something bigger and better. Then do it.

it was fucking great dude, thank you so much for your time and feedback and encouragement!!!

I hope you take my responses not as combative at all because none of it is meant to be (: definitely am not letting this one getting me down and I've got lots of theme games in the works that I'm looking forward to unveiling, am proud of, excited for, all for varying reasons (I have 6 that have actual documentation working on them to one degree or another, and a couple ideas for others floating around not far behind)

pretty sure the rocky horror game is next!

[drealmerz7]

Another setup note for drealmerz: I thought it was really, really cool that you outright said there would be no 'normal' formatting for role PMs and that they'd vary, which can be really helpful if, by design, something about the role pm (if normalized) could be 'gamed'.

thanks! Even if it's not even true, just saying it as a moderator can go a long way to mitigate any potential issues with such things! I say let them quote the PMs usually, and think I will aim to do this sort of thing in most of my games unless there is a functional reason NOT to

[drealmerz7]

Most the time, people really need help conveying their theme through mafia mechanics.
Drealmerz has a great handle on that, imo. As much as I wasn't a fan of the lynch mechanics being hidden, it did drive a lot of the hopelessness and frustrations that might be reflective of a town with a werewolf problem. Then again, Bloodborne Mafia did a wonderful job of mechanics conveying a theme atmosphere for players, but it was still a mechanical bust and could've been designed better.

thanks again!!!

I tried to manifest this sort of thing in several aspects, though not (m)any of which were readily apparent! I tried to instill paranoia in the Paranoid Villager player by making their flavor heavily suggesting they were "paranoid barn owner" and would very possibly kill people who visited them at not BUT NOT outright telling them so that, as a player, they don't know whether to claim it (though I don't endorse PGO's claiming and design games such that any role claiming prematurely [which means before L-1 or massclaim in my book] does a disservice to town), or if/when they are pushed to claim if claiming it it is true and that makes them all the more paranoid. On top of which, I named another player Mary and that was supposed to add to it. I also initially had Sam Timmons named Lewis so that there was a Mary and a Lewis and it would make the Mary Lewis character be like "wtf, does that mean something?" and increase their paranoia.

Similarly a bit with the potential N3 masons and potential N4 neighbors - I wanted the relief that the masons would feel come N3 having survived a few months against werewolves, feeling powerless and alone, uncertain even about their own loved one and relative, to resonate and carry through from the flavor and characters to the actual players. "Ahhh, security, someone I can trust, hope in the trying times" etc. And with the neighbors a waffling feeling of "wait, is this telling us we can trust each other, CAN we trust each other? in one aspect it's nice and feels good, but on the other it feels risky and is it really a good idea?"

Etc. etc. THANKS MUCH FOR APPRECIATING IT SUCH AND SAYING SO!! I really wanted players to FEEEL it!

[drealmerz7]

I'm so sorry, A50. I took you out without any hesitation.
Honestly, if anything, this game should be a testament to why you don't give non-scum players kills. The chance for swing is far too high and, while, yeah, it's more exciting to be able to kill someone or whatever, it's that much lamer to just be taken out of the game without expecting it. People with kills get to decide who plays the game and who doesn't, and while we all join mafia games with the reasonable expectation that scum factions will be doing that to players, it's kind of bogus to throw in other kills that can land anywhere, come any time, and aren't an announced/advertised part of the setup.

Which reminds me, god I hate multiball.

I like swing! I want swing! I intended for swing! I like kills! I like smart and good players being able to say "this player being killed right now helps the gamestate get to how I want it to be / I think serves me and my goals" (in regards to non-town/neutral kill roles) or "this player being killed is pro-town" (in regards to town vigs.) There should be a reasonable expectation that you can be killed at any time by a player with a kill shot. At least in my games! Again, another precedent that was important for me to establish, combined with the existence of Day roles, which I think can be utilized a lot more and more interestingly than is done! Lots of games I've played on here have been tedious as FUCK on sooo many Days, a kill or some action can do wonders to enthuse a playerbase, make an interesting turn of events, and works on multiple levels.

I generally dislike multiple scum factions, but I love serial killer type roles! (I don't consider that "multiball" even - to me multiball is strictly 2 teams)

[Varsoon]

Thanks for the thorough response. <3

The only thing that I really want to respond to here is where you talk about role design and wanting players to discover the functionality of their role:
In the example you gave;

I put your ability as "kill with an axe: PM me any player you wish to kill with an axe"

I'd obviously have a lot of questions, such as, "How many uses of this ability do I get, when can I use it, does the axe flavor show up on the kill, does that flavor (if so) implicate me? etc."
However, it's very much the site meta that players just assume the most normal iteration of what they are handed on their rolecard. For a lot of people getting that example would mean, "Oh, cool, I can kill someone each night" and they'd recognize axe-kill flavor as their flavor, maybe. I don't think you need to write out every interaction or possibility, but here's how I'd render the same ability;

Chop till they drop:

You may only use this ability once per game phase.
Target a player; that player dies.
Successful kills made by this ability will be accompanied with appropriate and unique axe-murderer flavor in the public game thread.

Again, this comes back to something that I think will go a long way for you; establish a standard of transparency. It's okay to have hidden mechanics, but let me know that's definitely going to be the case in the game or is a staple of your mod meta. One big thing I do with each game I advertise is post a whole section about what a 'Varsoon' game is. That way, even people who haven't ever seen one of my games (such as new people on-site) can immediately get an idea of the kind of game I typically run. I also do a writeup of what my goals are for the game I'm planning on running. It's always best that players have a full sense of what they're getting into; it's fine for things to be unexpected from then on, but people have to know they're signing up to experience something unexpected.

Otherwise, the only other thing that comes to mind is discussing swing and how much swinginess should be an intended part of the design of the game. To me, swing in a game means that either 1.) some player has too much power or 2.) some element of the setup isn't balanced to function fairly across the entirety of the game. Typically, though, it ends up as that first one. Maybe town's got a great role in it, but if that role eats a bullet early, then town's got a huge uphill battle. Maybe town has a vig and they could eliminate scum with a shot, making the game that much easier to win. The problem I have with swing is twofold; it means that some player gets to have a cooler and significantly more impactful (and perhaps, fun) role than a lot of other people, and it also means that my game could very easily become a nigh-unwinnable affair for one side and that a lot of the mechanics/roles I labored over might not see play. Part of what draws me to making closed setups is running role-madness games and giving every player an interesting and, hopefully, fun role. I want the players to get their most out of all of what I make, and having swinginess in my design often counteracts that. This said, I've designed purposefully swingy setups in the past, with SaGa Frontier being the biggest offender, but a large deal of that design was trying to ensure that the 'swing' was capable of working like a pendulum; no one kill/role/power would irreversibly swing the game into one side's favor forever. One the mechanics I used in the recent Steven Universe game I ran had a meter that reflected how hard the game was swinging in which side's favor--abilities that benefited the other side would be enabled only when the swing was against them. I think swing can be used as a really neat mechanic, but, again, the game you make should be designed around the swing to maximize player agency, interest, and enjoyment. Again, there should be a degree of transparency established so that players know; "I am signing up for something designed to be swingy."

Oh! I like the idea of playing with the deadline mechanic, but, yeah, if the goal is to emulate real-world mafia, make that clearer. In flesh-world mafia, there's still an established 'normal' gameplay that people are adhering to and if they don't understand what's going on, it'll be readily transparent (either through asking or watching).

Here I go again, writing way too much.
Basically, sign me up for whatever you do next, but my advice would be to focus on transparency, concision, and player agency.

[Varsoon]

Finally, as a bit of a footnote, though something you should consider:
This site is meant to be very inclusive, and that means to people of all ages. I can get wanting to tell a more mature story, but the content that you post on this site is readily available to everyone to read. I appreciate that you were upfront about this game having explicit themes and writing, as tagged in the thread title. As a player, I have to be aware that if I link such a game anywhere else, I also have to recall that aspect of it and, suddenly, that really inhibits how freely I can share my play from past games with other people on-site. Furthermore, when writing explicit content, you run the risk of causing problems for players--you saw here how some of the flavor/explicit themes caused distractions and issues while the game was running and in post-game.

Here's the rub;
I want to see this site do well and I want to see you flourish. However, if you eat a ban because you're running a mature/explicit game and something serious happens (like an underage player signing up, lying about it, but then it coming out that they are underage), that's counterproductive to both the site's well-being and your time as a mod here. I've seen at least one friend get banned for things they felt innocuous. I don't even go to the social parts of this site because I would prefer to use this forum primarily as a means of running mafia games and playing mafia games and I've seen social-side bans compromise that for far too many players.

So, in the future, keep the games age-neutral, if you can. If that's just not your style, or whatever, it's cool, but definitely make sure that the staff at Mafiascum understand what you're doing and the scope of what your games entail so that you can avoid serious issues down the line.

[Alisae]

... The fuck is this shit.

What the FUCK

[chesskid3]

I found his gameplay approach to be scum-indicative, and a style that I dislike a lot, that (among the reckless nature of his early busing without having a grasp of much at all because it was so early - I don't have any inherent problems with busing, but there is a time and place and tact and skill to it and I didn't think chesskid pulled any of that off) - not meaning to dwell on chesskid though really!

lol except as stated I was being widely townread so no incorrect.

Varsoon has stated exactly why survivors having all the kills is dumb you should listen

[Nachomamma8]

>>Defends rape

I understand the need to clearly define rape and understand and agree what you're trying to do with this. I think that this is crossing a line.

For one, I can't help but feel like a little bit of context is missing. We are talking about a situation where some demon worshipper uses some magical voodoo bullshit to make someone want to have sex with them. The discussion of "is this rape or not" is purely intellectual - disagreeing that it is rape is not at all equivalent to defending rape culture because we are talking about a situation that isn't really comparable to real world scenarios. Roofies and date rape drugs have been brought up as real world equivalents, but there is a wide gap between knocking people out with chemicals (not okay) and using magical bullshit voodoo to make yourself look attractive (not real). The reason there is wiggle room in these imaginary scenarios is because of situations like Cupid's Arrow - is it rape because he's altering mindstates? Is it consensual because he's just awakening true love that was already there? - there is a legitimate debate to be had there because we are talking about intricacies of things that don't exist. There is not an equivalent "reasonable debate" to be had in real world situations, which is why it's so important that rape and consent are as clearly defined as humanly possible and everyone understands what they are and why they are important.

Secondly, I could also be misreading the situation completely, but it seems like we've kind of skimmed past the original point and are talking past one another and placing too much emphasis on the socially perfect answer, based on drealmer's initial response here:

Also I'm pretty upset about defining rape as consentual here. That's very not okay.

this. give a murder game content like this by all means, but i really wouldn't call that consensual.

):

he was totally into it in his heart and body though, anyone who wasn't wouldn't have been susceptible

he really enjoyed it, the only reason there's a "black out and don't remember" element is because I can't tell the player anything about what happened to them at Night actionwise but also want to subtly hint at something maybe having happened

the Skilled Hunter (Dave) wouldn't get tempted by her allure because of being devoted to his family, etc.

definitely never intended to get anywhere close to rape :\

The "frownie face, shit that's not what I intended, frownie face x2" doesn't carry an explicit "I'm sorry", but not finding the perfect words is different from being a stubborn rape apologist.

And finally, a bit of splitting hairs - expecting drealmer to confess to writing a rape scene and apologize for writing a rape scene when he didn't actually write a rape scene is a bit ridiculous. You can argue that emphasizing that it was consensual when she had to magic the guy in bed with her is an unhealthy view on sex in general, but writers have complete control of their characters in a way that human beings don't have over each other.

For example, I could write a short story about a couple where the man continually says no and very clearly and obviously refuses to give consent, but the woman forces sex anyways - as the writer, I can say that they established a safe word beforehand and thus it was consensual or nope, was rape.

[Nachomamma8]

It's okay to have hidden mechanics, but let me know that's definitely going to be the case in the game or is a staple of your mod meta. One big thing I do with each game I advertise is post a whole section about what a 'Varsoon' game is. That way, even people who haven't ever seen one of my games (such as new people on-site) can immediately get an idea of the kind of game I typically run. I also do a writeup of what my goals are for the game I'm planning on running. It's always best that players have a full sense of what they're getting into; it's fine for things to be unexpected from then on, but people have to know they're signing up to experience something unexpected.

I think this is an amazing piece of advice. Giving your players a sense of the "type" of the game they are expecting can help their enjoyment levels immensely; for example, Oakwood Village. I had the expectation that if I invested time in the flavor of my character than more of his story would be revealed and I'd have a say in developing him - if that expectation was never set in place, "Fergie" Ferguson would just be another one of the countless roles I can't fucking remember at all and the running scene wouldn't have stuck with me in the way it did.

I think that some people (read: myself, back in the day) avoid this sort of advertising because they think that it limits the freedom of the moderator, but proper advertising makes it more likely that the players who will do your game justice actually sign up.

[chesskid3]

For example, I could write a short story about a couple where the man continually says no and very clearly and obviously refuses to give consent, but the woman forces sex anyways - as the writer, I can say that they established a safe word beforehand and thus it was consensual or nope, was rape.

no you actually can't but thanks for trying

[Nachomamma8]

no you actually can't but thanks for trying

I don't appreciate being stereotyped.

[chesskid3]

I don't appreciate rape apologists

[chesskid3]

like if you write a rape scene that isn't rape because they had a safeword

earlier in your writings, write about the negotiations they did thanks

[chesskid3]

otherwise assuming oh yeah they totally had one?

no

[drealmerz7]

Thanks for the thorough response. <3

The only thing that I really want to respond to here is where you talk about role design and wanting players to discover the functionality of their role:
In the example you gave;

I put your ability as "kill with an axe: PM me any player you wish to kill with an axe"

I'd obviously have a lot of questions, such as, "How many uses of this ability do I get, when can I use it, does the axe flavor show up on the kill, does that flavor (if so) implicate me? etc."
However, it's very much the site meta that players just assume the most normal iteration of what they are handed on their rolecard. For a lot of people getting that example would mean, "Oh, cool, I can kill someone each night" and they'd recognize axe-kill flavor as their flavor, maybe. I don't think you need to write out every interaction or possibility...

yepyep! and I'd be hoping, wanting, and thrilled for you to ask those questions having been vague intentionally with the awareness that you shouldn't be assuming much about that ability. My goal is to establish, for myself as a mod first of all, that if you aren't explicitly told, you should be asking or trying things that might fall within the realm of function for your role/abilities if your mind is "open" to it and that I want players to ask / try, I want it to be known that my word choice is 100% intentional no matter what the words are (so that if it says "you can kill 5 times" you *KNOW* through logic that you have the potential to shoot more than 5 times if you don't make 5 kills with your first 5 attempts - there should be no question to the player that 5 ppl CAN die by their hand.) I do understand site meta is not this, and part of my awareness of making the ability non-explicit is to work against site meta because I don't believe it helps players be better and is limiting in many ways, but first and foremost it is because this is how I prefer to mod - with precision wording where nothing is assumed and explicitness mattres. It's not always how I prefer, but it will often be how I prefer, and so I need to make that known about how I mod. If I spoonfeed the thoughts to the players before hand then whenever I run a game players will not be looking for things that aren't explicit, and that's no good.

I appreciate all the time and words!!!

[drealmerz7]

It's okay to have hidden mechanics, but let me know that's definitely going to be the case in the game or is a staple of your mod meta. One big thing I do with each game I advertise is post a whole section about what a 'Varsoon' game is. That way, even people who haven't ever seen one of my games (such as new people on-site) can immediately get an idea of the kind of game I typically run. I also do a writeup of what my goals are for the game I'm planning on running. It's always best that players have a full sense of what they're getting into; it's fine for things to be unexpected from then on, but people have to know they're signing up to experience something unexpected.

I think this is an amazing piece of advice. Giving your players a sense of the "type" of the game they are expecting can help their enjoyment levels immensely; for example, Oakwood Village. I had the expectation that if I invested time in the flavor of my character than more of his story would be revealed and I'd have a say in developing him - if that expectation was never set in place, "Fergie" Ferguson would just be another one of the countless roles I can't fucking remember at all and the running scene wouldn't have stuck with me in the way it did.

I think that some people (read: myself, back in the day) avoid this sort of advertising because they think that it limits the freedom of the moderator, but proper advertising makes it more likely that the players who will do your game justice actually sign up.

yeah, I definitely went the wrong direction, and it was definitely because I was worried to scare off players and that I wouldn't get enough players, so yeah, absolutely, and of course since it went as it did for me here, I will definitely be making sure players have a fuller and sufficient understanding of what I'm doing.

BUT, part of me DOES still feel a bit like I was a hot pepper vendor with a variety of peppers on display and a bunch of signs that say "CAUTION: HOT! SOME OF THESE PEPPERS ARE BRUTAL!" and a naive guy comes up and says "oohohh I want to try your hottest one" and I go "well maybe that's not a great idea, I don't think you understand how hot some superhots can be" and he grabs one and eats it anyway and then after he almost dies for 10 minutes he comes back and goes "OMG WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME IT WAS LIKE THAT?!" - I TRIED!! I EVEN HAVE SIGNS!!!

not disagreeing with you, I definitely should have done more, obviously, but I still do feel a bit like that ^

[Lady Lambdadelta]

otherwise assuming oh yeah they totally had one?

no

Yeah this shit is how the BDSM community gets fucking accused all being rapists TBH.

Also, I don't care what your fucking position is Nacho, this circumstance isn't fucking come-si come-sa yeah? It's fucking black and white. The dude fucking FORCED ANOTHER DUDE TO DRINK THEIR BLOOD, AND THAT MAGICALLY MADE THEM ENAMOURED WITH THEM FOR A MONTH, AFTER WHICH TIME THEY FORGOT.

This game was specifically advertised as having "no NCN". For those who are not BDSM lingo friendly, that's "no non consent". That doesn't just mean rape, that means even scenes where non-consent is implied BUT WAIT IT'S ALL A SHOW!

IF YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING PUT NCN IN YOUR GOD DAMNED GAME FUCKING ADVERTISE IT AS SUCH SOME PEOPLE AREN'T OK WITH THE SHIT IT'S LIKE FUCKING SAYING "HEY WANNA PLAY A GAME?" "SURE!" "OK ALL THE ROLES ARE DIFFERENT PICTURES OF MY DICK" "WAIT, I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS, IT MAKES ME FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE, AND THE SIGNUPS SAID NO EXPLICIT CONTENT!" "OH MY DICK ISN'T EXPLICIT CONTENT....

IT'S MY DICK

"

fucking hell b'y

[Ginngie]

Spoiler: How I was night 1

[chesskid3]

don't ruin that song for me ginngie

[Tammy]

I was going to write a post with some advice/feedback for more effective communication practices, but Varsoon hit the points I wanted to make and way better worded than I could, so I'll just say I agreed with Varsoon's points.

I do agree that advertising your game clearly can help. Heck maybe if it's even just a little bastard, call it more bastard than it is. I don't think it will affect how many players sign up for it, but it will keep away players who don't appreciate bastard setups at all. I loved the first iteration of this game and there weren't any huge complaints about the setup (the lone wolf was the only part I remember), and maybe that in part was because you played it on your homesite and had been talking about it for a while, so people knew a bit more to tease out the puzzle through the flavor because they did. It's obvious that you spent a lot of time and effort in this game; it was a creation of love and it sucks that people didn't enjoy the game as much as you hoped they would. Advertising it as more bastard than you thought it was might have helped to draw the players that would love the game as you crafted it.

As far as the he'd defending rape thing that happened last night and then again this morning, there's a whole lot of intellectual dishonesty going on here. There is absolutely a conversation to be had about the story he wrote and how that came across and how it's interpreted.

If people would bother reading what he wrote when it was brought up, the way he envisioned it was totally consensual, which he states several times. He likens it to pheromones, not something like roofies where he can't make a decision nor to his character being good or otherwise. He says it wouldn't have worked if the character wasn't interested. It's pretty obvious if you read his thoughts on his intentions that he didn't mean for it to be interpreted the way it came across.

It's fine to not like how it comes across. It's fine to point out that that essentially looks like rape. But as he said more than once, he didn't mean it to come across that way. He stated that he should have made it more clear it was consensual. He pretty much broke down about how it came across.

Him defending and trying to explain what his intentions were when his intentions were that it was consensual is not him condoning or defending rape. It's him getting flustered and trying to explain himself while getting attacked for something that surprised him to get attacked for and not really knowing how to respond right.

There were real critiques to be made. There was real feedback that could be given. There are things people say, do and write that don't come across the way you meant it to or you don't even realize how it comes across because you know what your intentions are and you don't consider what the reaction is going to be. Pointing out that that was a rape scene and looked like a rape scene came across as okay and that was wrong is great; it raises awareness. But the rabidity of the attack last night completely lost that message because it became more important to put someone down and in their place than it did actually read what he was saying and talk about how that comes across, and how hey if that's what you want in your game make sure to place a disclaimer.

[Varsoon]

As a moderator, my stance is that I wouldn't even chance skirting that line in future games I make. Just ain't worth whatever story I want to tell.

As a person, I didn't and still don't see it as a rape scene, though Tammy hit the points I'd make and way better worded than I could, so I'll just say I agree with Tammy's points.
There is a conversation to be had about consensuality and where the line between temptation and coercion lies; doing it in the post-game of a mafia game on a forum that's open access doesn't seem like the best place to do so.

[Ghostlin]

So, I'm gonna poke the bear a bit, in a respectful way of course. This beginning disclaimer is to mostly say I didn't read the scene in question very deeply, came home after going out for a few hours, went 'holy fuck, this blew up', went to bed and still went 'holy shit'.

Using a magical realist way to make someone essentially down for something (what Nacho called voodoo bullshit) abridges someone's consent, and is rape. Do I think Dreal meant anything by it? Nope, and from what I read he's since apologized--there have been romance novels with worse rape scenes and as a English Lit major/Education minor I just finished a 18th Century lit class where there was not one, but two attempted rape scenes (I use the word attempted because the would be rapist never actually committed the act, he just attempted to). Was it offensive to me as a non-rapist bisexual man in 2017? Fuck yes, but

Pamela

itself was generally offensive to modern sensibilities. I have read books where it is mentioned (sometimes fairly graphically), mostly in works that are meant to biopic in nature, an acknowledgement that it happened.

The problem again, is I'm 36, going back to college and can interact with such a thing as an adult; and generally university policy is such that I can pull my professor aside and go 'this doesn't work for me' and we can work something out. People may or may not want to interact with it in a mafia game. It's also 2017 and we've come a ways from the bodice ripper novels of the 60s, 70s, and 80s; sexual consent is king (and it should be!) and people have their own beliefs and belong to a diverse amount of sexual community...can I use the words sexual culture? Some people are understandably triggered by even the mention of non-consensual date rapist (magical realist? voodoo date rapist? I don't know anymore) sex, no matter how it might have worked for the character in the game. The players matter.

I'm actually not going to spend a lot of time angry at Dreal (or anyone), this is something that he wrote a novella through the game flavor on, would of made a frankly interesting novel (although you'd find my tastes eclectic), and I don't think he meant much harm in it. I think in this case, on the internet, as a community, it's more

productive

to frankly talk about these issues when they come up then to

scream at each other as being rape apologists/art hating philistines.

So, what's the points here?
*It's a little too late for Dreal to do anything but apologize and promise essentially to be clear what such a flavor would involve. If you want to involve a list mod or moderation on the topic, feel free but the cat is out of the bag.
*Future mods

need

to be explicit on what kind of flavor may be included in their game that might trigger their audience (their players), while hanging comes with the landscape and so does murder in the game of mafia (sorry if this surprises you), other things out of it might need to be more explicit. Players need to be well-informed the experience they're about to consume.
*We're a community of

incredibly

diverse people, and it's OK to go 'you stepped on my boundary there. Not cool.' It's even OK to go to adminstration and go 'this part of this game made me feel X' and they can have a say in how future games like that are handled. At the end of the day, tho', we share this space and so telling people they are rape apologists or overreacting is burning bridges. We can be civil to each other outside the game. I respect a ton of users in this thread (also, hi, Nacho) so let's this continue, if it must, in a respectful conversation.

[Ghostlin]

TL;DR: Just because you may be OK with it someone may not be, a 'what might appear in this game' should be explicit for future games, we need to treat each other better than candidates for major political parties because we get to share this space together, and I respect all of you.