Mini 1953: XP Mafia (Game Over)

[mastina]

maki...get your head out of your ass in regards to gerry, thanks

I mean...I was telling you this was his scumgame the entire game!

[mastina]

Well done, gerry and mastina. Sorry I got bombed.

That was out of your control. yurkin is the town MVP this game. Not only did yurkin turn a shitty role into an awesome one, yurkin went from vigbait to literally vigging scum. You couldn't have stopped that and we couldn't have thought of stopping it, either.

It was a little inconvenient that you died having saved your XP while gerry used his leaving us without any to make the next kill, BUTSTILL. Not something you could have reasonably anticipated. <3

[mastina]

Very good scum theatre between gerry and Mastina.

From the moment Jae and I landed scum with gerry, we intended to push that. It was unanimous between both heads that we'd push gerry as hard as we could. We fully expected to fail, since gerry is just damn unlynchable for some mysterious reason. Even with scum being the strongest advocates for his head, he couldn't die. And we were banking on that ability from the get-go.

It was a neat collaboration every step of the way.

[mastina]

Also, the mod hasn't linked to it yet, but here's the scum PT. You can read what happened over the course of the game there.

[Something_Smart]

First order of business: PT's.

Scum thread (dammit mastina you ninja'd me )
Mod thread (all setup information and night actions are in here)
Unspoiled dead thread (the deadest dead thread )
Spoiled dead thread
Review thread

[drealmerz7]

I do prefer unspoiled deadthreads but it was deaddddd so I went to the spoiled :\

[mastina]

Although to be fair probably at least half the neighborhoods would have included mastina.

I also specialize in neighborhood manipulation, so.
That choice woulda been +EV for us, honestly, but I thought advocating for rolecop was better overall.

[Something_Smart]

Second order of business: my thoughts.

Well done, scum. This was not an easy setup for you, despite the extremely delayed introduction of lynching. Yurkin rocked it by taking out your strongest role just at the point when he was about to become even more powerful. One of the things I was concerned about was the fact that the setup was extremely conventional and therefore too many people might be towncleared based on claims. Town had one main investigative role and one main protective role, and one role was duplicated for town and scum, and scum had a roleblocker which is an extremely predictable scum role (with an extra ability that overlapped with Ginngie's, too, though nobody noticed that). Props to the scum for creating enough confusion to blow all of those (correct) assumptions out of the water.

And fyi, my reasoning behind having two dead threads was "why the hell not". Having to put everything in spoiler tags just in case somebody doesn't want to be spoiled is dumb. So while I expected everyone to go to the spoiled thread eventually, I gave them a chance to say stuff before being spoiled if they so chose.

[mastina]

mastina is bashing my setup and it makes me a bit insecure even though I know she's only doing it to push an agenda

I was, indeed, pushing an agenda; I think the game was overall balanced.

[Srceenplay]

Thanks for the game mod.
Gg scum.
Definitely didn’t see that team.

[mastina]

You lynch a guilty 100% of the time when it's not Lylo

The problem is...it WAS lylo.

That's what made my bullshit narrative work. The idea that scum were mislynching me was viable given that.

[mastina]

You can't vote to lynch? You're in (assumed) MYLO. YOU CAN NO LYNCH.

I brought this up in the scum PT. Were I town I'd have suggested we utilize the unique game mechanic we had at our disposal to break the deadlock: the block function went entirely forgotten once we unlocked the lynch function, but it is something which would've been BETTER than a no-lynch and better than a mislynch. Not as good as a scum lynch, obv, but a scum lynch was almost assuredly never gonna happen.

[Something_Smart]

Third order of business: the setup.

This was an extremely ambitious setup with several novel mechanics and at times during the game I felt like I bit off more than I could chew. However, I don't think any serious flaws in the game design were revealed. The biggest crisis I had was the realization, after the game had started, that somebody getting RB'd when trying to vig was absolutely horrible, both balance-wise and enjoyment-wise. So since I had never specified what would happen to the XP if a paid ability was RB'd, I retconned in a rule that refunded XP only in case of the vig. Fortunately, this issue never came up in the game, as I would have had to do even more awkward sidestepping of questions.

I want to address mastina's account of what happened around the start of Day 6, where mastina first claimed to have not received the result she was owed from me and then later received it, and she also claimed to have had a PM conversation with me where I refused to answer her questions directly but ended up accidentally revealing the information she was looking for. Aside from the last part about me accidentally revealing the answer to her question (which I believe was rhetoric to support her claim), this is all true. I did forget to send her result initially, and I responded to her redirector questions as though she were town (which in most cases led to me saying "I can't say).

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the setup as this was my first attempt at creating a complicated setup centered around an original mechanic. Clearly I aimed high, and while I don't think the setup mechanic was brilliant or extremely well executed, I'm pretty happy with how it was received and how well people seemed to understand the idea behind it. If people like the idea, I may take what I learned from this game and create a sequel with the same mechanic that hopefully has a lot of the kinks ironed out.

Regardless, I would really like to hear what people thought about the XP mechanic itself, the other related mechanics like training and the Public Mechanic votes, and the setup design and execution (as well as balance and swing) as a whole. Any feedback you can give would be much appreciated

[mastina]

Well done, scum. This was not an easy setup for you, despite the extremely delayed introduction of lynching. Yurkin rocked it by taking out your strongest role just at the point when he was about to become even more powerful.

Mad props do go to yurkin for turning what would have been a roflstomp into something with a semblance of being a fair game. The guilty track from Screenplay also was inconvenient to deal with, so respect for that not to mention the vote.

I am disappointed the spoilered dead thread is ranting about how obviously scum I was though and shitting on Maki. That's exactly the attitude I was hoping they wouldn't have. Alas.

I personally feel like I did earn the victory there. I set up scumteams such that nobody had it right except for havingfitz for the briefest of times (and he talked himself out of it later on which I can't fault him for), and I was putting my all into the game. So many times I put so much effort above and beyond the normal call of duty here. And, hey.

I had a fucking guilty on me and at different times had 3/4 town players thinking the guilty wasn't a guilty, in spite of that being the simplest solution. You can attribute that to an idiot town all you'd like, but idiot towns tend to sheep guilties mindlessly. Something had to have thrown them from sheeping guilty into not doing so and I don't think it's arrogant to say I played a part in that.

This is, 100%, the hardest-fought win I've ever had, and the best scumgame I've ever played hands-down. And I think I have the right to be proud of it.

[drealmerz7]

if that is your best scum game you'd best kill me every time you roll scum because I will destroy you and would have if I'd been alive

[drealmerz7]

your bullshit was so thick and obvious , is why I'm so pissy, honestly, can't believe ppl ate it up

I just don't get it

to me it was on the level of LLD from mid-scummer night's how obvious the scumness

[Srceenplay]

Mastina I think you did well. You did exactly what you should have done. Give reasonable doubt.
Even if we got your lynch to go through I don’t think Gerry would have been under suspicion.

[drealmerz7]

IT WAS NOT REASONABLE THOUGH!!!

not in the slightest

[drealmerz7]

sure, there was logic to it

but it was a farfetched ridiculousness

go with most likely

most likely, that's a bunch of bullshit, and then it just kept piling on! oif

[mastina]

Definitely didn’t see that team.

I mean.
We were winning the game no matter what.

Nobody saw the scumteam, except ever so briefest for moments, havingfitz who talked his way out of it. And even had he not, even if he held firm to the idea of a mastina-gerryoat scumteam, he'd had eaten either a vig or a mislynch for pushing that "ludicrous" idea once one of us had flipped.

I could have done a LOT less and still won this game, just by letting my lynch go through and trusting in gerry to be townread by the survivors.

But.

Instead. I just REALLY wanted to beat a guilty, for personal reasons if nothing else. It was even arguably detrimental to my wincon since by doing so I at several times risked gerryoat being lynched in my stead. And every time I didn't make effort to lynch gerryoat, I risked exposing our distancing for what it was.

Still, tho. Had a blast efforting it up that hard in order to get the personal satisfaction of having earned a win rather than being given the win. If anything, the TOWN was given a win--a mislynch-in-the-making suicide-bombed scum, and a second scum was guiltied, with a vig, a backup, and a tracker all on the board with the final scum at the time being out of XP.

I wasn't sure even I could pull it off...but I WANTED to. For bragging rights, if nothing else. I beat a fucking guilty on me. And also, the energy I put in would have hopefully worked to further frame a particular narrative. (The idea being that havingfitz was scum.) It was a blast, and it was also stressful-as-HELL. SO many points where I thought it was over. SO many times where I was legit panicking. SO many times where my heart was racing, adrenaline-fueled, as I had shaky hands and was on the edge of my seat.

Even if it hadn't worked, I'd say it was worth it. That it did was just a bonus. <3

I do think the town did pretty well overall and they shouldn't be bashing one another and blaming it on town incompetence. Ginngie had good reads. Dunnstral was gamesolving pretty good. Vaxkiller was genuinely threatening at points. havingfitz was the only person to call the correct team (even if he later rescinded it). Screenplay got a guilty. And yurkin suicide-bombed scum. You can't say those were bad things.

But I maintain my opinion from the scum PT was accurate--make the right nightkill, and there was no way the town was going to nail all three scum. gerryoat is annoyingly like a cockroach. He stinks, he's filthy, he's an insect crawling all over you, and yet when you try to stomp him into oblivion, he just. won't. die. By utilizing this, we could set up convincing interactions, soyeah. That team wasn't going to lose this game.

[mastina]

I want to address mastina's account of what happened around the start of Day 6, where mastina first claimed to have not received the result she was owed from me and then later received it, and she also claimed to have had a PM conversation with me where I refused to answer her questions directly but ended up accidentally revealing the information she was looking for. Aside from the last part about me accidentally revealing the answer to her question (which I believe was rhetoric to support her claim), this is all true. I did forget to send her result initially, and I responded to her redirector questions as though she were town (which in most cases led to me saying "I can't say).

Here are the PMs for the curious, since I figure I might as well share.

Spoiler: Series of PMs

Day 6 begins!

You have 1 XP.

So...I did not see havingfitz do anything?

My bad. Sorry, it was 2:30 in the morning
You blocked the following action:

Each night, you may target a player. If that player is aligned with you and dies that night, you will gain their role, replacing your own.

If roleblocker A roleblocked redirector B, and redirector B redirected A to C, who would have priority?
Could busdrivers self-busdrive?

The answer to both questions is: that is not public knowledge.

If MY roleblock was used on Player A, and Player A redirected me to Player B, who would have priority?

ASSUMING that a busdrive could self-busdrive,
If MY roleblock was used on Player A, and Player A busdrove A<->B, who would hold priority?

Okay.

I can answer the second one. In that case, the busdriver would get priority and you would end up blocking B.

Regarding the first one, that information is inherent in the design of the redirector, which is not a normal role and does not have a standardized set of interactions. Therefore, although it is related to your role, your role is tangential to the interaction, and so only the redirector would know the answer to that question.

I try as a mod to answer only the questions that I feel have a definite answer in my mind, so that my players can have the same general picture of action resolution that I do (and have ONLY general information as opposed to information that reveals something about the setup). Situations like the busdriver one I would always resolve that way unless the roleblocker's PM were specifically written to supersede redirection. However the redirection situation has no such standard in my mind and I would make that decision as a balance concern, during the setup design.

Sorry I took so long to respond; it's because I'm trying to explain as best I can what makes me not want to answer that question. If you want to discuss it postgame, we definitely can.

Like I said. 90-98% the truth, just a tad bit of...an alternative spin on things.

[Srceenplay]

sure, there was logic to it

but it was a farfetched ridiculousness

go with most likely

most likely, that's a bunch of bullshit, and then it just kept piling on! oif

Yes and I said as much.
But
They did give a possible alternative and it was able to cause doubt. You can fault them for it when it’s exactly what should have been done.

[mastina]

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the setup as this was my first attempt at creating a complicated setup centered around an original mechanic.

I really liked the mechanic. Many, many times has an attempt been made for there to be some sort of evolution in roles, hybridizing RPG mechanics with mafia. Most of them never pan out because it's so easy to fuck things up. Yet you didn't. You basically nailed it, I feel.

[drealmerz7]

of course they give a possible alternative!!!

I think people forget that the main crux of mafia IS SORTING THE WIFOM

urgh

[Srceenplay]

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the setup as this was my first attempt at creating a complicated setup centered around an original mechanic.

I really liked the mechanic. Many, many times has an attempt been made for there to be some sort of evolution in roles, hybridizing RPG mechanics with mafia. Most of them never pan out because it's so easy to fuck things up. Yet you didn't. You basically nailed it, I feel.

I second this.
It was enjoyable and could have went any way. I would love to see a part 2 or something similar.