Alicademy (A School of Modding)

[Alisae]

　　　　　　　　　

Welcome to the Alicademy, a school of modding.

Slightly inspired by mastina's academy and Varsoon's Guide to Modding, this will be my home where I give my opinions on certain topics, and/or just provide resources for people who want to mod (like role pm templates you can use, rules, OPs). If you want to ask me to give my feedback on a completed game, I'll do that. If you want to ask me what I think of X role from a game design Point of View, I'll do that. Keep in mind I am VERY conservative about modding when it comes to some things, while very liberal in others (mod banter for one).
Note: Please do not talk about ongoing games. If you want to ask me about something and its related to an ongoing game, wait till after.

　　　　　　　　　

What can I ask?

Anything that's related to modding. "What do you think of Multiball?" (Answer: I hate it) or "What do you think of third parties?" (Answer: I hate those too) or "What would you do when THING happens?"

　　　　　　　　　

How do I help?

If you're looking for resources, I plan on using this thread to have to provide as many resources as possible, from guides that others like Varsoon posted, to just opening posts stuff.
If you're looking for advice on designing games, I can try to help you out with ideas. Key word is try.
If you're looking for a reviewer, well there's a thread for that. You can ask me personally (though I might say no depending on ~circumstances~).
If you want me to analyze your specific setup after you ran your game (and as long as the game isn't ongoing), then free feel to ask and I'll try to analyze it, tell you what I would have done.

　　　　　　　　　

Disclaimer.

If you're a better mod then me, then chances are I'll be saying things you will already know. I will remind of you of said things. I might be able to tell you something new. But otherwise, you don't need me. If anything I need more of you in my life.
For example if you're Varsoon? Then you're probably someone I want to design a game with and if anything, can learn from you.

Spoiler: Read these

A Guide to Modding Written by Varsoon
ASCII Art in Opening Posts by Me
Modding uPicks by Me (Don't exactly remember how up to date it is but there are things in there that are still relevant).
A modding guide by Frozen Angel

Spoiler: I talked about these things!

Dos and Don'ts for First Time Mods

[Alisae]

I'll mark the part relevant parts with Numbers and talk about it for that specific role pm, or in the event it makes usage of tables, digest each row.

Spoiler: A developed adaptation of RadiantCowbells Role PMs from his games like Elemental Trinity, In Memory, Freedom Calls, and Spring Fever. Used in Beneath The Mask. Warning, its pretty big.

Justice? Righteous!? Keep that shit to yourselves!

1

2

Oh Great Detective. You found are the illegitimate son of Masayoshi Shido, whom you desperately hate after finding out that he was the result of his mother's suicide. But before then you wanted to be useful to your father because of how you struggled to get him to love you. So you became a detective, however your father didn't care. But afterwards, you started to hate your father. So you came up with a plan. You wanted to "aid" him in his campaign to rule over Japan. You became a great detective in order to gain your father's trust. That failed. So you helped crushed his foes. You gained the ability to access the metaverse and hold multiple personas. This was the weapon you were looking for for oh so long you yearned for this power. And now it was yours. And when your father gained power, you would crush him, as you keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Oh Great Akechi, the time to get your revenge has come, but first you must stop the

Phantom Thieves

, who you insist in defeating. Friendship is a myth afterall. Will you get to spite your father at the end of the day? Can you prove to the world that you are a proud detective that should be loved? Can you guide the

Conspiracy

to victory? Can you help the

Conspiracy

establish it's dictatorship to make it's mark in time?

3

Welcome -Playername-! In the Real World you are

Goro Akechi

, a Godfather Phantom Thief Real World Role Cop / Backup Modified Flavour Tracker. However in the Metaverse you are

Crow

, a Ninja Jack-Of-All-Trades.

4

You are aligned with the

Conspiracy!

5

FACTIONAL

6

Mafia: You are aligned with

People

and that you may chose between the following roles:

Yaldabaoth (Real World Immune / Nexus Conditional Limited Phantom Thief Vanillaing World Locker in the Metaverse), Goro Akechi (Godfather Phantom Thief Real World Role Cop / Backup Modified Flavour Tracker in the Real World, and a Ninja JOAT in the Metaverse), Masayoshi Shido (Dreaming God Disabling Conditional Metaverse Immunity Hidden Doublevoting Global Real World Voyeur in the Real World, and a Reflexive Neighbourizing Limited Strongman Bomb Conditional Strongman in the Metaverse), Junya Kaneshiro (Framing Captain in the real world, and a Self-Watching Self-Voyeur Conditional Temporary Role Thief in the Metaverse), and Kunikazu Okumura (Modified Vengeful Disloyal Roleblocker / Inventor in the Real World, and a Conditional Vengeful Reflexive Jailkeeper Conditional Jailkeeper in the Metaverse).

You have daytalk and may talk in here here
False and Safeclaim: At any time, you may send me an ability (or set of abilities) and a role name. If you do, I will make a fake role PM to the best of my ability for you using the given name and abilities. Your assigned fakeclaim is Ann Takamaki. Scum other then Akechi must choose between the following fakeclaim to use during pre-game: Yuuki Mishima, Hifumi Togo, Toranosuke Yoshida and Shinya Oda.

PASSIVE

7

Your default location is:

The Real World

Phantom Thief: You know that

-Playername-

is

Akira Kurusu

. If you preform an action on a Phantom Thief, you will learn that the person you targetted is a Phantom Thief.
Metaverse App: During the Night or Pre-Game, you may go into the Metaverse. For the next Day and Night Phase you will have left the Real World and will have been in the Metaverse. After the next night phase, you will be forced out of the metaverse.
Arcana: Upon being collected by

Akira Kurusu

, you will unlock the Lovers arcana ability for him. However upon your death, you will grant him the Justice arcana ability for him.
The Traitor (Godfather): If you were to be investigated by Akira, you will give him a

Town

result.

REAL WORLD

8

Ace Detective (Real World Role Cop / Backup Modified Flavour Tracker): During the night you may target someone. You will learn their role in the real world. If a Modified Flavour Tracker were to die, you will inherit their role. Upon doing so, anyone you rolecop you will also learn the flavour of the person that they visited if anyone. You'll be given the target's fakeclaim if you target someone who is aligned with the

Conspiracy

.

METAVERSE

8

Assasin of the Conspiracy (Ninja): Any actions you preform in the Metaverse will be unseen.
Wild Card (Jack-Of-All-Trades): In the metaverse you may use one of these 3-shot abilities

• Robin Hood (3-shot Asceticizer): During the night you may target someone. They will be given an ascetic modifier in both the Metaverse and the Real World for the rest of the game. They are told that they have been asceticized.
  
• Loki (3-shot Non-Consecutive Modified Reflector): During the night you may target someone. Any actions they preform regardless of their location will be reflected back at them.

You win when the Mafia controls 50% of the votes and nothing can stop this from happening.

9

Please confirm your role pm by pming me your role name and/or posting in the thread during pre-game!

10

Gamethread

11

Source
1 - A quote about a character or just a phrase/line that they say.
2 - Image
3 - Flavor.
4 - Character Name and Role.
5 - Alignment
6 - Factional Abilities
7 - Passive Abilities
8 - Active Abilities.
9 - Wincon
10 - Asking for Confirmation. NOTE: You can do this in a pm where you say "Hey, I'm about to send pms, please confirm to your role pm by saying what alignment you are and/or posting in thread.
11 - Gamethread

Spoiler: Modified Varsoon Role PM. Used in Once Upon a Time. Also Pretty Big.

Eevee	Espeon	Umbreon
the Evolution Pokémon.	the Sun Pokémon.	the Moonlight Pokémon.
Eevee is rarely seen, and can adapt to severe habitats by evolving, changing its capabilities and form.	It predicts opponent's moves and detects air currents with its body hairs.	The rings in its fur glow when the moon shines on them.
You are aligned with the Town.	You are aligned with the Town.	You are aligned with the Town.
Evolution. 6A You must confirm your role pm by saying which head will be Umbreon and Espeon. If you recieve no votes during the day, the assigned Eevee will evolve into Espeon. If no one preforms a night action on you, you will evolve into Umbreon. You have the option to cancel your evolution, however you will have to meet the requirements a seperate phase again to evolve. Moveset. You may only preform one of the following moves per day/night cycle. You cannot be motivated. Both heads of the hydra may act on the same night. Wish: During the night, you may target a hydra. They cannot be shot during the next day and night phase. Substitute: During the night, you may use this. You will be immune to poison and you cannot be doused once the day starts. Upon being shot, you will not die, however the substitute will be destroyed. You cannot use another substitute while the current one is active. Helping Hand: During the night, you may target a head of a hydra. You and your target will be strongwilled and they will be motivated during the next day and night phase. You can use this on your other head, however you will not motivate them. Batton Pass: During the night, you may target a head of a hydra. If you have a Substitute active, you will give your Substitute to them. If your buffs from Helping Hand are still in effect, you will transfer the strong-willed modifiers to your target. They are told all of the modifiers they recieved. Happy Ending. 6B You are aligned with the Town. You will win the game when all threats to the Town have been eliminated.	Moveset. 6A You may only preform one of the following moves per day/night cycle. You cannot be motivated. Both heads of the hydra may act on the same night. Morning Sun: During the day, you may target a head of a hydra. They cannot be shot during the day and night phase. Light Screen: During the day, you may use this. Every action preformed during the night will be strong-willed. Reflect: During the day, you may use this. Everyone will be immune to poison and cannot be doused during the night. Yawn: During the day, you may target a head of a hydra. They will be informed that they will be roleblocked during the next day and night cycle. Happy Ending. 6B You are aligned with the Town. You will win the game when all threats to the Town have been eliminated.	Moveset. 6A You may only preform one of the following moves per day/night cycle. You cannot be motivated. Both heads of the hydra may act on the same night. Wish: During the night, you may target a head of a hydra. They cannot be shot during the next day and night phase. Protect: During the night, you will commute. This cannot be used consecutively. Heal Bell: During the night, you may use this. If anyone were to be poisoned or doused, they will be cured. Everyone will be immune to poison and cannot be doused for the night. If an arsonist ignited, the ignition will fail. Toxic: During the night, you may target a head of a hydra. You will poison them. It will be announced that they have been poisoned at the start of the day. If the poison is not cured, they will die at the end of the day. Happy Ending. 6B You are aligned with the Town. You will win the game when all threats to the Town have been eliminated.

Source
Row 1 - Character Name
Row 2 - A quote about a character or just a phrase/line that they say.
Row 3 - Image
Row 4 - Flavor
Row 5 - Alignment.
Row 6A - Abilities
Row 6B - Wincon

Spoiler: Older Varsoon Role PM. Used in Suikoden U-Pick Mafia (A game he ran for clearification)

Ranger - Koroku

The Dog (Allied Unification Army)

Awoooo!

I want to pee on Nash. Sincerely, Cecile. Each day, you may mark a single player. They will be informed that you have marked them. Nash is avoiding me. Yours, Cecile. Each night, if you ended the day voting for any marked player, any night actions that player attempts against you will fail. Woof! Woof! You win the game when all threats to the Allied Unification Army has been defeated and at least one Allied Unification Army player is alive

Source
Row 1, Cell 1 - Character Name
Row 1, Cell 2 - Alignment + Character Name.
Row 2, Cell 1 - Image and quote character says.
Row 2, Cell 2 - Abilities and Wincon.

Spoiler: Simpler Role PM for more Normal Games. Used in Sibling's Large Normal. Really old and outdated, and would definitely improve.

You are a 2-shot Cop You are aligned with Some people that wanted Fro99er dead for ~reasons~ who are Goons . You may talk in your factional PT here at night. During the night, you may target one person. You will learn whether they are town aligned or not. This may only be used twice per game. You also know there is one Traitor in the game who you are aligned with.

You win when your faction controls 50% of the votes. | Gamethread | Please send your Role Name as confirmation! And lastly, have fun!

Source
Row 1 - Role, Factional information, and Abilities.
Row 2 - Wincon, Gamethread, and Confirmation.

Spoiler: Sample VT Role PM used in Keyen's Divergent Game

Divergent You are Divergent , a Vanilla Townie. You are aligned with the Allegiant.
A new threat has spread throughout the Chicago City and you must do everything to save your life, save everybody's life, and to fight for your own faction.
Allegiant Abilities You will voice your concerns on the thread. You will use the voting power to lynch. You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.	Faction (Birth Faction) You will share a Private Topic with your Birth Faction ( Faction ) here. You can talk with other birth-faction members using the Private Topic Day One until the end of Night One. For more details, visit the private topic.
Please confirm by sending your role, alignment, and your birth faction. This is the game thread.

Source
Row 1 - Character Name + Alignment + Role
Row 2 - A quote about a character or just a phrase/line that they say.
Row 3, Cell 1 - Factional Abilities. TBF if I were to modify this, I would probably use this for Passives and Factional, or add a cell for Fational.
Row 3, Cell 2 - This was game had special hood mechanics, and this was the section for that. However for your own adaptation I would probably turn it into just the Active abilities.
Row 4 - Confirmation. Again, I would replace this with Wincon and use [header] code here while sending out a pm saying "hey, I'm sending role pms now, please confirm/whatever"

[Alisae]

Reserving this post for Rulesets/Opening posts for people to C/P

[Alisae]

If you were asked to mod a game with as minimal effort as possible, how would you mod it?

See for yourself

[Alisae]

Do you have any suggestions or must-do's for beginner modders?

I mean
there's probably a lot that I am forgetting.
But this is kinda moreso what not to do, a lot of things that you should do are covered by Varsoon here.

But don't worry about writing flavor for normals/opens. I feel like poorly written flavor can actually make the game worse then better. Plus, the Theme queues is where flavor is important, not normals/opens.
Make sure you're posting your VCs and prods happen on time. I remember my very first game the mod was extremely slow to prod and find replacements for people who needed it, and it was just hard to deal with in general.
Don't actually spam the game with VCs, if anything try to limit yourself to 1 VC per page.
Use a Mod PT and/or Spreedsheat (And once you have the ability to make Private Topics, make a Private Topic for yourself so you have a place where you can post all of your templates like your opening posts, your role pm formatting if thats complicated, your votecount stuff if your formatting is complicated like my own).
Don't worry about interacting with your players unless they ask you a question in bold. This should be a very simple concept, but I see it a lot in the open queue from first time mods who say something along the lines of (note, I wasn't in this game)

I can't believe I have had to intervene this early....@xXTonereaderXX...you do not have a post restriction...nobody in this game does. I am going to have to ask you to stop trolling. Please play with behavior that is conducive to the game.

xXTonereaderXX was modspewed as town because of this.
I know another open (this one I rep'd out of) MathBlade was confirmed scum because of a slip by the mod when they asked "Do scum have daytalk?" (Ironic)
Also don't go bribing people with bah posts or stupid shit for doing things for you.
Also don't modkill someone because they called your modding terrible. Yes, I've actually had a mod threaten to modkill me because of that. Like, modkills are something you should be AVOIDING not promoting.
Also another mod, James3, ran a game on this site. And he modkilled someone for posting a

Spoiler:

tag I shit you not. He also had 24 hour prod timers, which were extremely unforigving and in general, his modding made most if not his whole playerlist rep out of the game. (Also, he got the open number 666. Coincidence? I think not. )

A lot of games that are actually ran in the open queue are amazing examples of what not to do.

Edit: Remember at the end of the day modding is a free commitment and you're responsable for your players.

[Alisae]

There's no formula for making something that is balanced by ms standards.
Well, if there is one, I just don't know it.
I do know off the top of my head that a 13p setup 3 masons vs 3 goons is balanced.
9p Tracker + Doc vs 2 goons is balanced by ms standards for some fucking reason. I hate that setup and think its really townsided and forces scum to doc hunt in a not fun way, and if your scumbuddy gets lynched D1 then essentially it becomes Follow The Cop.
13p JK + Cop vs 3 Goons is balanced by MS standards I think?

This is something you should be asking someone who is part of the Normal Review Group not the mod that is.
Well, to quote mastina
"On nearly-Varsoon levels of crazy"

[Alisae]

First Time Mod

wrote:
I can't believe I have had to intervene this early....@xXTonereaderXX...you do not have a post restriction...nobody in this game does. I am going to have to ask you to stop trolling. Please play with behavior that is conducive to the game.
xXTonereaderXX was modspewed as town because of this.

Come on, it was his first time and tonereader wasn''t exactly modspewed as town. Town won, but not exactly because it was an unfair advantage. I spectated that game.

Yes...I am aware it was their first time. It's still something you just don't do. People make mistakes and others can learn what not to do from those mistakes.

[Alisae]

It depends how competent you are at not accidentally modspewing someone as whatever alignment.
If you're competent, you can chat with your players a little bit, but its not something I recomend.
Something mastina does is puts little comments in posts she comes across while she catches up. Its nice addition to the game, especially since she's a professional and knows what she's doing.
If its your first time? Just avoid it overall. Just bring it upon yourself to make only game related posts.

[Alisae]

I still need to add some opening posts... I'll do it eventually.
I'm hoping to put out some role pm formats I've been working on, but I kinda want to give a disclaimer.

When you're putting a color on the background of a table, you need to check the contrast of it so that the role pm is readable. Shea linked this tool to allow you to check contrast.
So, lets say you wanted to change the background of the table to fit the alignment of the person you're sending it too.
You should PROBABLY change the text to black so that there's contrast.
Also, on MafBlack, the default text color is a whiteish color, so you should change that to black as well.
On skins like MafSepia and MafSilver, it'll be fine on.
However for MafBlack, if you don't change it to black, it'll be white and it'll be really hard to read depending on the contrast.
You should probably make it black.
And if you DO make it black, MafBlack users will have this phenomenon happen.
(We're using a Varsoon Role PM as an example)
MafBlack compared to MafSepia/Silver
(Trying to get them to PNG format just isn't happening right now)
Where the text has this kinda glow to it and is just harder to read in general?

Keep in mind, this does NOT happen on any other skin.
So the tl;dr is that MafBlack is just terrible.




The actual tl;dr is you if you're going to color your tables, make the text inside them black, but also check the contrast. And EVEN THEN, MafBlack users are going to have a harder time reading your pm no matter what.

[Alisae]

Yeah that would make sense.
Honestly, if there was a way that text-shadow could be manipulated through BBCode, that would be great.
And I mean yeah, that works, but I don't think it contrasts.

[Alisae]

Yeah that would make sense.
Honestly, if there was a way that text-shadow could be manipulated through BBCode, that would be great.
And I mean yeah, that works, but I don't think it contrasts.

yes pls

The onl reason why that would be great is to fix issues like these.
Actually USING it would create lag and honestly looks terrible 9 times out of 10.

[Alisae]

cfj the first thought that came to my mind was making them loved and take more then 1 or 2 votes to lynch or just making them lynchproof but I don't think that works for the particular situation your talking about :/

[Alisae]

Btw people want to know how to make tables.
Here is a post on that.

The main BBCodes you will be using will be

Code: Select all

[table] - Establishes the table. [table=hexcolor] to color the table.
[row] - establishes the row.
[cell] - establishes the cell within the row. Replaceable with [header]. Do not use with [cell]
[header] - creates a white background with black bolded text. It's good for well, headers. Replaceable with [cell]. Do not use with [cell]

Table 1: Basic Table with a color

Basic Table

basic header

To add the color to the table just put =hexcolor in the table code.
You won't need the # when you're doing this

Table 2: Table with only one column.

Character Name
quote
picture
alignment
abilities
wincon

Table 3: Table with multiple columns

Name 1	Name 2
stuff

This looks a bit more complicated but isn't. Say the number of cells you have in row 1 is 5 and in row 2 you have 3 cells. Without expanding the cell, it would look like this.

a	b	c	d	e
f	g	h
To expand it		You have to put = and then the number of cells you need to expland it by	it works with header cells as well. The first cell on his row is expanded by 2 and this header cell is also expanded by 2. The first cell expanded looks like cell=2 and this header looks like header=2 (it [ ] in between cell=2/header=2 I don't feel like breaking this table you get the point.
Another	example Here it looks like cell=3			here

I think that's everything you need to know about tables off the top of my head at 2:30am.
I am going to update the op with my most recent new formatting for role pms at some point probably tomorrow I want to sleep right now.

[Alisae]

Yo I have 2 more guides for ya

Spoiler: Message to the community as someone loves modding games and wants the mafia modding community to grow. Warning, its a wall, and I wrote it while I was high.

I think I am also going to kinda use this as like a modding blog and also just use this to talk about what I want to accomplish in 2019, because I actually do want to be involved with mafia again as a mod, and I have plenty of ideas to do that.

While enjoying fun and enjoyable games for my players, I want 2019 to be a really special year modding wise. 2018 was kinda meh in that I don't really feel anything significantly stood out. I want to offer experiences that are just different. A lot of mafia games are really similar to each other. You have a setup, you have some roles, you slap something together bada boom bada bam. Its plain old noodle soup. No special sauce or anything. To make it special, you just have to believe its special.

The issue is: no one believes that's special anymore. You are literally advertising noodle soup as noodle soup, you're not advertising it with a special sauce. And the reason is simple:
When was the last time you saw a mountainous game ran?

Mountainous is frowned upon on MS.
Its seen as scumsided and people don't want to play it.

However this mentality is so wrong.

Mountainous IS plain old noodle soup. Its the original formula. You can reuse it as much as you want, its the basis for all games.
Normal Games is a formula that only works once. You use the setup once, and then you have to throw it away, you can't use it again until people forgot about its existance. This goes for most U-Picks, other standard role madness games, and any Varsoon game.

There are 3 setups that stood out to me during my time on MS. These setups are practically my favorite of all time.
FakeGod's dance games. Pretty self explanatory since these are re-ran seasonally. These games are known for being that Open Theme thats ran frequently in the queue, its a pretty dam good and fun setup.
Regfan's It's an Owners Market (WHICH BTW, I'M GOING TO MOD AS A SECRET ALT GAME AND YOU SHOULD TOTALLY PM ME TO PRE-IN). This setup looked really cool and interesting to me, could be run multiple times.
and finally, Nahdia's Civilization Mafia, while being known for the clusterfuck that is 749 pages, this setup is timeless in that you can take the skeleton and redesign all of the powers and even if you wanted, all of the resolutions, or cut resolutions entirely if you even wanted to (but don't do this, its just won't give off the same feeling)

btw as a promise, I promise to get someone to rerun Nahdia's Civ Mafia game as their own. I can't do it, but someone else

They are all similar in that:
Everyone starts as VT/Goon
They have fancy mechanics which are doing all of the work, and the game is about the mechanics, not the setup, where as in the current modding community, gameplay involves breaking the setup and revolves around the setup, not mechanics.
If powers are aquired, they are aquired later on instead of at the start. This makes gameplay more dynamic. In Civ and Regfan's game, its about getting the most important things when you need to get them. In This game that I am currently designing and trying to get several people to look at (btw pre-in its 25 players), its about the rock paper scissors formula, but that formula is SUPPOSED to create a game that (hopefully) a "best" strategy doesn't exist. I can run this game and every run of the game will be different due to how diverse it is.

So, I want try to inspire more open themes and cool semi opens to be moderated in the theme queues. Because some of the best setups and games I've ever seen designed are Open Themes.

---------------

But wait, there's more I want to do.

I want to try to grow the modding community, and work together with other individuals in the modding community to provide amazing games for 2019.

Also, I want to explore the realm of mentor/mentee games.
I also kinda of want try to encourage player growth and improvement.
I feel like the best way to do this is to try to learn from someone else.

What makes this different from just hydraing with each other, is that in hydras are really hard things to get in perfect synchronization and harmony.
The mentee has a game to play.
Hopefully, mentors WON'T PLAY THE GAME FOR THE MENTEE but instead will attempt to help develope the mentee's skills.

Thats the idea anyway.