Three Day Mafia

[BrianMcQueso]

I've noticed a trend around here; no matter what the setup, no matter how interesting the roles are, games tend to lag around the third day. People lose interest and replacements shoot waay up. The first day also tends to lag if it's not preceded by a "Night Zero".

I want to try an experiment. I'd like to create a turbo-charged theme-sized (25 or so people) Mafia game that will be over in three (mafia, not RL) days. I want each day and each night to

matter

. It needs to be balanced so that the game is decided based on the three lynches; I'd like to set it up so that it becomes a "best of three" type situation, similar to the way newbie games are handled. That is, in a 2 Mafia/5 Town setup that lasts three days, if the town lynches correctly twice, they win, and if they lynch wrong twice, they lose.

I'm brainstorming ideas to make this work, as there would be some complications. If a Mafia group is made up of more than three people, it would be impossible for the town to win (aside from vigilantes, and it's stupid to base a game's outcome on the success/failure of vigilantes). If the Mafia was made up for three or less people, it'd be rather difficult for the town to nail all of them in three days.

One idea I had was to make each scum lynch be more significant for the town. For example, if there was a group of four Mafia, whenever a mafioso was lynched, he or she would have to publicly name another member of their Mafia to take down with them. This would mean a 4-man mafia would take 2 lynches to defeat, falling into the "town can win in two lynches" structure of a Three Day Mafia game.

Because we're trying to end a large game in a short time, it would also give me the freedom to increase the power level of the pro-town roles. Without using many specific examples (as if I'm going to go through with this, I don't want to have all my brilliant role ideas laid out before the town ), cops with enhanced investigations, larger masonries and other experimental roles would fit right at home here.

But a game of this nature is complicated to develop, which is why I'm coming to the MafiaScum community. I need to find a way to create a game with three interesting and memorable days for a group of 20+ players. If you have game mechanic ideas (like the one I suggested in paragraph 4), please feel free to share them in-thread. If you have specific role ideas, I'd rather you discussed them privately with me through PM, e-mail or AIM (contact information can be found in my profile)

Even if you're not interested in helping develop a setup like this, I'd obviously like to know: would you be interested in playing?

[inHimshallibe]

/reservation

[Tamuz]

Oh, we can do that?
/reservation

[VisMaior]

hmm, it would be hard for mafia to win.

[Puzzle]

Needs more daykills...

[SpeedyKQ]

Maybe run a paced game, where the top three vote-getters at the end of each day get lynched?

[Norinel]

Or just have like five mafias.

[VisMaior]

Or do a variation of bjs ww mafia, where people can challange each other, and then have a shootout immediately. Yea, Thatll thin them out fast

[Mr. Flay]

I don't believe your analysis of Day Three tending toward slowness is borne out by the facts, but i don't have the time/the site doesn't have the bandwidth for me to summarize post counts for all games in all forums...

But I'd like to see the actual numbers someday. I don't know what you can do besides upping your number of investigators, without seriously tipping the balance based on a lot of random chance...

[Mastermind of Sin]

what if you have multiple lynches available per day???

[BrianMcQueso]

what if you have multiple lynches available per day???

It's been done. Besides, it made the days flow funny. You'd lynch someone, but wouldn't know if they were scum or not, which means that the information you tried to get by lynching one person couldn't be used in your reasoning for lynching the second person.

How about this for the setup: An X person game with Y mafia, and the numbers don't matter. We play three days. If the town lynches mafia two of those days, no matter how many scum are left, the game is declared a victory in favor of the town. The town lynches their own twice, the game is declared a victory in favor of the scum. While I'm sure I could think of some flavorful reason behind it eventually, the premise is there. Whatcha think?

[Tamuz]

I thought of that Bian, but I'm not sure that would would be too balanced on the hand of the town. Mafia could sit lurkers often to cut the towns chance down, or cop claim day two and kill their teammate making thm somewhat safe day three. It would be based too much on the luck of N1 investigations and D1 lynches. Essentially a newbie, but probably with more people and more power-roles. On the other hand, day three would always be a mass claim because you don't have to preserve your image for D4...

Insane avatart though, way too morbid after he loses that first eye though

[BrianMcQueso]

Yeah, that system tweaks the game in favor of the scum, but that can be offset by increasing the scum's numbers (8 people in a 25 person game or so) or making the town more powerful through their roles. Having a larger scum group does allow them to control the vote easier, but it'll be tricky for them to "jump" if there's too many of them. Also, if 5-6 people hop on a wagon very quickly, it'll reveal them to the town. Because every lynch is more important, I hope that more discussion and less bandwagoning will be the result.

I was also thinking of a special rule where if the town lynched the Mafia Godfather, they automatically won (to be used if there was a more-than-four mafia group). For sake of fairness, there would also be a special "Mayor" pro-town role that gave the scum the game if the Mayor were lynched/killed.

[VisMaior]

I dont think this would work out.

[BrianMcQueso]

Which part, specifically? Or the whole frikkin concept?

[VisMaior]

I dont thing rushing is the solution. The root of the problem lies that a game can become boring if nothing happens that could be discussed. I think a threeday mafia concept is flawed. if people want to play a quick game, they should have few people. A large games appeal is that it is large, also, it has a lot of time to develop. I think the best solution would be some sort of mod intervention now and then, to let information surface. (like, riddles, or somesuch) That would give people basis for a discussion. Or, perhaps a Mayor role, like in Oval office? As in, you could hold elections now and then, it can be twisted many ways.

[Norinel]

I was also thinking of a special rule where if the town lynched the Mafia Godfather, they automatically won (to be used if there was a more-than-four mafia group). For sake of fairness, there would also be a special "Mayor" pro-town role that gave the scum the game if the Mayor were lynched/killed.

Did you see mini 202? It centered around the scum hitting one particular role by a time limit, and we basically lucked into the win.

[Changling bob]

I was also thinking of a special rule where if the town lynched the Mafia Godfather, they automatically won (to be used if there was a more-than-four mafia group). For sake of fairness, there would also be a special "Mayor" pro-town role that gave the scum the game if the Mayor were lynched/killed.

Did you see mini 202? It centered around the scum hitting one particular role by a time limit, and we basically lucked into the win.

¬_¬

Seriously though, I've got a couple of ideas, and would be interested in helping design the setup. Go go gadget PMs!

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, that system tweaks the game in favor of the scum, but that can be offset by increasing the scum's numbers (8 people in a 25 person game or so) or making the town more powerful through their roles. Having a larger scum group does allow them to control the vote easier, but it'll be tricky for them to "jump" if there's too many of them. Also, if 5-6 people hop on a wagon very quickly, it'll reveal them to the town. Because every lynch is more important, I hope that more discussion and less bandwagoning will be the result.

A larger scum group would just make it easier for smart scum to manipulate the conversation, and I've played a lot of newbie games; it's pretty darn hard to figure out who the scum is based on voting records and posting pattern if you only have 3 lynches. If you're smart and careful, you can do almost anything as scum in a 3 day game and get away with it.

The only time the town really seems to have a chance in the newbie game is when there's a cop, and that's because in three days a cop can investigate half the people in the town, making the cop in a newbie game much more powerful then any one cop in a larger game.