Night 1 kills

[Dasquian]

This question was raised on another forum which is quite new to mafia (ie, I introduced them to it ), and I found myself floundering a bit for a convcining answer.

The question was, since signing up for a mafia game and getting killed night 1 before you can do anything is a bit sucky, why allow that to happen, and not just have NPCs killed off or start with day (or other solutions involving randomly allocating roles to NPCs who'd be killed)?

My take was that dying on night 1 is all part of mafia, sucks when it happens, but it has to happen to someone. And that the night 1 kill choices are all part of the meta-game, finding out what roles are around, the number of killers, etc. I was curious to see what people made of the same question here, since there's a much greater wealth of accumulated knowledge and experience to tap from

[mathcam]

The argument against starting with day is that there's even less to go on on day 1 than we have on this site. Cops have no investigations, there's noting to be learned from who the mafia targeted, etc.

In real-life games, we often played that the non-killing roles got to act the first night, but there would be no kills. This was to prevent people from having to sit out the entire game. Here, however, this isn't really an issue, because you're a few clicks away from being signed up for your very next game.

Cam

[Dragon Slayer]

Plus by starting with night you find out in the day what kind of killing groups you're up against. I agree with Cam on this one, just being alive day 1 and dying the floowing night (if a game started with day1) it really isn't anymore fun. You go through a boring day to just die the next night.

-DS

[CaptainBlicero]

I remember one time when I was killed on Night One three games in a row. That was pretty annoying. Even so, I definitely agree with mathcam and DS. Night 1 kills are necessary to get the game started.... Read through Day One of Intrigue Mafia (ALL the way through) if you want to see the kind of nightmare that can happen by starting with a Day. Also, I like the idea of the mafia being able to get lucky and take out an important town role on Night One, and I love the whole "who's most likely to be protected?" meta-game. Taking away choice from the players (i.e. forcing the mafs to kill an NPC) almost always takes fun out of the game, IMO.

[Dasquian]

Thanks guys, I agree with everything you're saying - I was just worried I was being massively closed-minded about how best to run mafia games, but I feel much happier sticking by my guns of starting the carnage from the word go now

Ta!

[Someone]

Nightmare? I thought intrigue was fun

[cuban smoker]

It is fun. He's just grumpy.

[CaptainBlicero]

Oh, Intrigue was definitely fun. But, if every Day One was like Intrigue's Day One, I would give up Mafia and take up a less tiring hobby.... like crocodile wrestling.

He's just grumpy.

Damn straight. Where's my bourbon?

[shadyforce]

A suggested alternative:

-Say in a 20 player game with 3 mafia and 1 SK.
-For the mafia a random choice a number between 1 and 17 is made for the kill kill.
-The SK as well as docs/cops/vigs/etc must randomly choose between 1 and 19.
-Whatever number is chosen, this is the role that the night one action will affect.
-Now, if 2 people die, just have 18 people assigned to the roles that are remaining.
-This will get rid of the idea of leaving the game before it starts, and also gets rid of bias towards experienced players or newbies or enemies or whatever for people making 'random' N1 choices.

[mathcam]

Isn't this exact same effect as simply giving out all the roles and having the evil not kill the first night?

Cam

[cuban smoker]

Something like that. Its setting up a night scene with NPCs to kickstart the game. The end result is a randomly setup game, start on day, but you have the benefit of a night kill. Better would be to just pick which roles got whacked, and balance the remaining players. Actually, there's a not too bad idea...

[Norinel]

Better would be to just pick which roles got whacked, and balance the remaining players. Actually, there's a not too bad idea...

This is basically what I'm doing in the normal mini that's up to run next.

[gslamm]

I used and encourage what I call benchwarmers.

These are generic backup roles that take the place of the Night 1 kill. You still have a player getting killed but don't lose the uber-cool role that the whole game is based around. I also used a benchwarmer for the day lynch. This provided a great balance since the day 1 lynch is rarely much better than random anyways.

Stewie recently used one in his mini theme and I hope the idea cathes on with other mods.

[Dasquian]

I guess the next question is: do you want to preserve the balance at the start of the game, or would it be more interesting for each game to get off from a random start? It's not good for the town to wake up and lose their cop and doctor, but it means that from the word go, that game's heading down a unique route - people are playing differently since there is no cop out there to be doing the groundwork, etc.

As long as any individual game can cope with any <x> roles getting bumped off at the start which, really, they should be able to, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing to shake things up by losing a few random roles. That's separate from losing random players of course, since you could assign <x> NPCs roles, and kill them off as the first night kills.

[gslamm]

Good point(s). To answer your question: Yeah I'd rather preserve the balance at the beginning. Since that is key to the overall balance. Then the game will lean toward one side gradually and either recover or lean the other way or ... based more on play than a single random guess night one. It's ultimately up to the mod. Is your game going to be fun if X is killed night 1?

Being targeted by mafia night one:
*Compliment ? The mafia fear you.
*Insult ? The doc won't be protecting you.
*Random? Miller calls Milwakies Best a premium beer!

NPC's ? Bah. A good idea if you have an AI structure to play for them and need to fill extra player slots, but I wouldn't add them just to be the target night 1.

[Dourgrim]

I haven't seen a really strong argument for changing the basic structure of Night One yet. I think denying the scum the chance to bump someone off for metagame reasons takes away much of the strategy that makes being scum fun. Also, the Night One kills give the Town a frame of reference they'll need to help them find scum:

• 1. How many killing parties are in the game can be crucial knowledge for the Town, especially early.
  
  2. The experience level of the N1 victims can sometimes tell you something about the scum (who they're wary of). It gives the Townies a metagame resource with which to hunt for scum... especially important in a game with very few info roles.
  
  3. Some pro-Town choices rely on the scum making the first move (i.e. SKs who are immune on nights they don't kill, P.I.-types, roleblockers, etc). Eliminating N1 kills kinda hampers those roles...

Of course, YMMV... but, as the old adage goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

[Dragon Phoenix]

You still have a player getting killed but don't lose the uber-cool role that the whole game is based around.

This is a non-argument. What if you lose this player on day 1 or in night 2?

Making one role so important is never a good idea.

When I introduced the role stealer for thefirst time (Dune), I of course would have been disappointed if that player would have been killed or lynched early in the game. But I set up the game such that also after an event like that, it is still a real game.

Killing real players in night 1 is still the preferred option in my book. It is all part of the meta-game.

[gslamm]

~agrees with DP~

I'm defending the benchwarmer role only as a generic backup instead of having seperate backups for roles that skew the odds by being killed.

[korais666]

Okay, I just wanna set things straight.

I did not play in, read about, or otherwise take from any of your mafia games. I invented the Replacement role in Alphabet mafia all by myself, not knowing that it had been done before.

No one's accused me yet, but I thought I'd get that straight pre-emptively.

[ZONEACE]

pre-emptive defense seems a little scummy to me

vote korais

err woops i guess we cant lynch people on this board