The Council (mafia + nomic) - thoughts?

[lendunistus]

I floated the idea of running this here over a year ago, but it never went anywhere. thought I'd ask for people's opinions

https://kevan.org/games/thecouncil

basic premise: there's an informed minority and an uninformed majority, but one player is The Outsider whose identity is known to everyone and who is not part of the main mafia game. The Outsider wins with the informed minority. during the day, any player may put forward a proposal to change the game in some way (adding a new mechanic, eliminating someone, etc). if the proposal is approved by a majority of the living players, its effects are applied. however, The Outsider may veto any proposal (except "physical" proposals that change stuff that's already in the game, e.g elimination) with no explanation whatsoever, in which case that proposal immediately fails. each day has 12 in-game hours, which are spent by proposals. elimination proposals spend 6 hours, other physical proposals spend one hour and non-physical proposals spend any amount of hours that the outsider and the players can agree on. once all 12 hours have been spent, the night phase begins and scum may kill someone, after which a new day starts.

I like the concept and I've played a bit of it myself, but there's definitely a lot of things that just wouldn't work with MS's playerbase. here's some of my own miscellaneous thoughts:

- do we have a deadline or no? there's a lot of open-ended discussion here and the core of the game would definitely be compromised with the addition of a deadline, but at the same time, it'd prevent the game from stalling out (plus I don't even know if I could queue a game without a day deadline)
- what town-to-scum ratio would work here? the games I've played were 7v2 and 6v2, which anyone here would call scumsided
- there's definitely a concern that the fun would be drained out of this pretty quickly - after all, the safest strategy for The Outsider is to just veto everything. I think it depends on the players themselves and that it's a "run it and see" situation, but I'm still a bit worried
- should it be allowed to have multiple pending proposals simultaneously? if the answer is no, should there be some kind of queue or proposing order?
- the document mentions that nightkills are decided by The Outsider, but I think it'd be safe to let the scum decide as well
- if I were to run this, I'd probably just be a neutral moderator (handling proposal resolution and such) and The Outsider would be randomly picked from within the players

what do you think? I'd like to see the perspectives of the players as well, since I haven't really had the chance to discuss this with anyone who has experience with forum mafia
thanks for reading! (this thread might've been more fit for Open Setup Discussion but this is quite a drastic modification so I think MD is better)

[Gammagooey]

Given the examples on the webpage you linked, it seems like the Outsider fits more as the Moderator of the game rather than another player in it, especially given that for it to function as it seems like it's intended the proposals should be more of a negotiation with the Outsider on the proposals relative fairness instead of a straight "veto if bad for mafia don't veto if good for mafia". If you want to run it with an Outsider-moderator, then you might want to include an idea of how much "power" is fair to hand out given the playercount - with something like 7vs2 at least, the first one-shot cop or a doctor type proposal would be fair game, while if you increased the playercount to fit a more typical "no power roles" playercount of 10vs2 or 11vs2 the Outsider would have much more reign to veto anything at all that could be harmful to mafia. Having a player as the Outsider rather than a moderator would make it tough to run it at lower playercounts where power roles are needed without explicitly limiting the veto for the Outsider, but adding veto limitations to an Outsider player risks the non-Rebel players trying to find the limit of the veto with nothing but varying powerful proposals and then trying to break the game that way. (Though also, given that elim proposals take 6 hours rather than the full day, 11vs2 might be a bit many players on the town side as well if town wants to only elim twice a day instead of making new rules)

I don't really see how the game would be compromised with a real-life deadline? You could make it a bit longer than a regular game here (2 1/2 or 3 weeks instead of 2 maybe), but also most people outside Mafiascum have much shorter deadlines than us and may be used to much faster paced games, so if you have 2+ people coming into the site just to try it then you may want to keep their expectations in mind as well.

First-come first-served on proposals makes sense to me, you could do it another way but I would try to avoid much complexity in the proposal system itself given that adding new rules mid-game will add plenty of complexity and challenge to moderating it on its own.

[lendunistus]

thanks for the suggestions!

Given the examples on the webpage you linked, it seems like the Outsider fits more as the Moderator of the game rather than another player in it

my idea was to take, say, 14 signups, pick an Outsider from there and then put the rest in an 11v2 (with numbers substituted as necessary, of course)

with something like 7vs2 at least, the first one-shot cop or a doctor type proposal would be fair game

proposing power roles wouldn't work since the Outsider's goal is to make the mafia win. putting power roles in the starting ruleset is an option, but that just feels kind of... wrong? probably just me though

Though also, given that elim proposals take 6 hours rather than the full day, 11vs2 might be a bit many players on the town side as well if town wants to only elim twice a day instead of making new rules

one of my thoughts actually was to either cap eliminations at one per day or make them end the day immediately, would probably make sense to do so if we're playing with a more mafia-oriented crowd

I don't really see how the game would be compromised with a real-life deadline?

my main concern would be people not being able to get their proposals voted on or there just not being enough time to discuss/vote. two and a half weeks might be enough time to alleviate that, but I'm still unsure on that

[Gammagooey]

with something like 7vs2 at least, the first one-shot cop or a doctor type proposal would be fair game

proposing power roles wouldn't work since the Outsider's goal is to make the mafia win. putting power roles in the starting ruleset is an option, but that just feels kind of... wrong? probably just me though

I see where you're coming from - the main issue imo is that as you said, the Outsider has no incentive to approve any proposals without some benefit to the mafia or some kind of potential Monkey-paw effect for the town. For the Outsider as a strictly mafia-aligned player to work, I think their veto needs

some

limitations in order to make the proposals & game part of it fun, but adding strict or public limitations leads to potential game-breaking (or at least game-breaking attempts that might make the game less fun).

I'd maybe consider starting with a particular setting or theme, and use that to put in a few hidden restrictions for the Outsider's veto. I'll PM you a quick idea for a possible restriction, but the exact details are obv completely up to you!

[lendunistus]

veto restrictions really aren't a good idea in my opinion, giving town freebies just isn't how I think encouraging proposal gameplay should go

see here for the games the origin community has played, you can still pull off a fair bit even if the outsider is technically incentivised to veto everything

[Gammagooey]

You could try without any veto restrictions, but I think you would be solely relying on the Outsider prioritizing making the game fun & interesting rather than strictly playing to their win condition imo. I saw that both of these passed as the first proposal in a game, and I think many players on this site would avoid giving any sort of investigation results

ever

as the Outsider, as doing so would make it less likely for their team to win.

Eliminate Cuddlebeam. The Outsider shall then unambiguously post to the gamestate channel the name of a non-Spy Courtier for the purposes of this Proposal, themed as the death letter with the result of Cuddlebeam’s investigations into the royal family.

A physical object denoted as "Crystal Ball" starts it's gamestate as being on the ground. When the status of the Crystal Ball is in gamestate of a Village Folk's, that player may use the object. If the object used, they are told the names of 3 other Village Folk. The names of the Village Folk will consist of 2 Good Townsfolk and 1 Evil Henchman, however, the possessor is not told which of those Village Folk resides of either alignment.(In other word: If Alice is told the names of Bob, Carl and Daphne, then Alice know 2 of trio is good and 1 is bad. However, Alice is unaware of which of the trio is good and which is evil). Once Crystal Ball is used, it remains unable from that point onward.

[lendunistus]

fair enough, I'll consider it, even if I still disagree for now

some other things:
- maybe we can have a sort of 48-72hr "day 0" where The Outsider has been determined, but nobody has gotten their alignment yet? it'd allow for people to make starting proposals without having to be concerned about alignment (see The Heist game on the page I linked for an example)
- how would dead players be handled? since a rule allowing for interaction with dead players could be passed at any time, should a dead PT be a thing? or should the players decide that? if we want to allow spectators inside the dead PT, do we just have to straight out ban all interaction with dead players?
- do we reveal alignments upon death? I assume the answer here would be an obvious yes, but doesn't hurt to ask

[Isis]

What if you did like

Once 1 maf 1 town is dead the dead players submit proposals secretly.

If at least 1 proposal passes mafia gets a small bonus. If the townie's proposal is passed, town gets a small bonus

Thats the best way I could think of to try to get some stuff passes

[lendunistus]

What if you did like

Once 1 maf 1 town is dead the dead players submit proposals secretly.

If at least 1 proposal passes mafia gets a small bonus. If the townie's proposal is passed, town gets a small bonus

Thats the best way I could think of to try to get some stuff passes

eh, I don't think that works. it'd limit the amount of proposals being passed quite significantly (unless you're saying it should be an addition to the regular proposal gameplay).

I honestly can't think of any real solutions to the proposal problem except for relying on player goodwill (which, yes, is quite far from ideal). the best way I've seen the game being described is "a nomic with a Mafia superstructure". thinking about it, maybe running this on a mafia site isn't the best idea, but I'd still like to try

[Jingle]

I think the best way to make this runnable is to remove the factional slant of the Observer entirely. It's entirely alright to have the goal of that particular role be to make the game as interesting as possible, which will then lead to them veto-ing things that aren't fun instead of things that benefit town.

I'd also let mafia privately submit proposals.

[DragonEater70]

What Jingle said works

Also, we could just tell players to use common sense and not veto everything?

[lendunistus]

I think the best way to make this runnable is to remove the factional slant of the Observer entirely. It's entirely alright to have the goal of that particular role be to make the game as interesting as possible, which will then lead to them veto-ing things that aren't fun instead of things that benefit town.

I feel like that would just remove half of what makes the game interesting, since the negotiation and such would be dumbed down quite a bit if The Outsider has no stake in the proceedings. at that point, why even have an Outsider if the neutral mod could technically just do everything
(also, you'd be relying on another player to make "fair" decisions, which would result in quite a few complaints, I imagine)

[lendunistus]

like I said in the OP, I believe it's just a "run it and see" situation

[Jingle]

I feel like that would just remove half of what makes the game interesting, since the negotiation and such would be dumbed down quite a bit if The Outsider has no stake in the proceedings. at that point, why even have an Outsider if the neutral mod could technically just do everything

I mean… that’s kind of my point. The mechanic just doesn’t really work with an outsider who wants to win. Either they don’t play to win con or they don’t allow anything that benefits town, which is just a really boring game.

[Jingle]

FWIW, I would never play this if I didn’t know for sure who the outsider was before signing up, and as described the outsider has perfect setup knowledge so there’s no reason for them to not also be the moderator.

[lendunistus]

so the only way to make this playable for an audience who "plays to win" is to either:
1. handicap The Outsider (which I can't think of any good way of doing)
2. remove The Outsider's factional slant (which would result in a game that's, frankly, in my opinion, both too much work for the moderator and just plain not fun)

would be nice to hear other ideas about what can be done, I suppose. I'll think about it myself

[Jingle]

viewtopic.php?t=73390&hilit=“Mod+is+mafia”

Might want to look at this for a similar if different game.

[imaginality]

Would a possibly viable option for handicapping the Outsider be:

- if mafia have a majority, town win if the following conditions are both true:

- the Outsider has not allowed at least N approved proposals from town players to pass, where N is the number of living mafia players
- at least 2xN proposals have been approved

The first condition means the Outsider has a reason to approve some proposals and also, the fewer they approve the more info they give away (as the players making those proposals are more lilely to be town). The second proposal prevents town just voting down all the proposals to make the Outsider fail the first condition

[Jingle]

Not really. Town can then just approve a bunch of proposals that would destroy the game. (I propose all scum players get immediately modkilled.) which the outsider then has to veto and then speed lik anyone who makes a reasonable proposal. It’s a guaranteed town victory.

[DragonEater70]

I think the solution is to just tell people to play for fun and NOT to try and break the game for either alignment

[usesPython]

Make observer a 3p who wins if a majority of scum and majority of town players agree they made the game fun

[Jingle]

I think the solution is to just tell people to play for fun and NOT to try and break the game for either alignment

The problem there is that there will always be players who disagree with you on what makes the game fun. Some people will want to break the game, because they derive their pleasure from winning. If your solution to a game being unbalanced is “Well just trust the players to have fun anyway” that’s not good game design. It’s hoping to have a group of players who mesh well together. It’s the equivalent of solving FTC by mod killing cop claims.

I really do think the solution here is to have the moderator and the observer be the same person, because primarily the moderator is there to make the game fun. If you think that there’s too much work for one person to moderate that, you could 100% have a mod team or comod situation.

Also, look at it this way: a game where I’m an observer is going to be a fundamentally different game from one that dragon is an observer is going to be a fundamentally different game from one where isis is an observer is going to be a fundamentally different game from one where FL is an observer.

We publicize who reviewed/designed setups so that people can join setups they think they’ll enjoy. If I joined a setup and then a week later you told me notmafia was the observer when he wasn’t even in the plist when I signed up I’d be pissed, despite the fact that I’d probably have signed up for a game where notmafia was the observer.

[DragonEater70]

Okay good point

I like both your idea and Python's (which is virtually the same idea).

[Gamma Emerald]

this looks neat, the limited number of hours reminds me of the flow of the ToS live game, where you technically have 3 chance to deliberate on a player's guilt or innocence but from what I've seen you'll only ever see 2 of those trials maximum happening a day. I also like the idea of the scum-aligned publicly known player, reminds me of the Guilty Child Treestump used in some games, but the influence it's allowed here feels like Pine's role in Alisae vs. Pine.

[Gamma Emerald]

maybe a way to balance the veto power would be to actually make the outsiders work like the outside players in Radio Buzz where there's an assortment of objectives.