[nard]

This thread would serve as discussion on the roles you would like to see in round 7 of sc2sea mafia.

I apologize if you all felt that Round 6 was unfairly geared towards the mafia. Fact was the citizens should have won it anyhow but fate has it that infeza came out tops.

Give me a chance to learn from any mistakes I made and add new roles to keep the games fresh and new and possibly attract the old players back. People like pikk0n and skrawl who offered lots of discussion.


Discuss away!

[sRFullstop]

I have never played Mafia before, so I would like to ask: What is the purpose of Mafia winning tiebreaker situations? It seems like in the last game, there was 1 vote each and because it was a tie the Mafia autowon.

One theory: If there was a tie between two players, let's say 3 votes each, and one of them dies, wouldn't one automatically know that the other one is a Mafia?

[nard]

it could be. but it could also be a tie between two citizens/informants/vigilantes/professionals.

do u really want to risk losing two citizens in two consecutive daytimes.
some think its worth it, some don't.

there are many differing views on this.

[cruxis]

I think a majority vote rule would be best. Day doesn't end until the time is up, or there is a majority vote 7/12.

[nard]

imo this would encourage lurkers rather than active posters.
Fun of this game is that it forces participation and players like pikk0n, next_rim, nobunaga and crazerk really go in depth and study the vote patterns to successfully identify the mafia. although im pretty surprised next_rim made a mistake the last round.

[nard]

just bumping this. sc2sea is getting so hot that it disappears of the left nav panel so quick nowadays.

[sRFullstop]

Wow I'm so bad... I have no idea how to study patterns in voting to get the Mafia

[crAzerk]

Do I need to copy paste the roles that Nobunga suggested in the previous round or you've seen them already?

And as for:

One theory: If there was a tie between two players, let's say 3 votes each, and one of them dies, wouldn't one automatically know that the other one is a Mafia?

As nard says, it could be a tie between any other roles as well.

My exams are around the corner so I don't have the brain capacity to think of new roles, but those that Nobunga were pretty good.

[Nobunaga]

Just copy and pasting from the other thread:

Some roles that I randomly thought of/took from other games:

Serial Killer: This role gets to kill one person every night phase, and wins by being the last person alive. The goal of this role is to balance out the teams; if there are too many mafia, the Serial Killer has no chance of winning, but leaving the citizens with their "power" roles is not favorable as well

Sociopath: This person starts off as a citizen, and chooses to "stalk" a person every night. If the stalked person dies, the sociopath will become that role. His win condition changes to the role's win condition, and any abilities he acquires will be at full capacity. The only exception to this is if the stalked person is a citizen or mafia. If a citizen dies, he will remain being a sociopath, and if it is a mafia, he will become a serial killer instead.

Mercenary: The mercenary starts off with no win condition. During the day, he chooses a target, and at night becomes the role of the target. The mercenary chooses a side by killing a player at night. If the player he kills is a citizen, he joins the side of the mafia and if he kills a mafia, he joins the side of the citizens. Furthermore, killing the professional, arsonist, or serial killer will put him on the side of the citizens. If the mercenary is unable to kill a person at night, he will only be able to win by being the last person alive (all other win conditions beat his).

Neighborhood Watch Leader: This is a rough idea, but basically one citizen also starts as the "Neighborhood Watch Leader" and at night, can recruit another person to join as the neighborhood watch. The maximum size of the neighborwhood watch is 4. Being part of the neighborhood watch allows players to PM each other, possibly forming a strong alliance and starting voting trends. The kicker is, you don't know the roles of the other players, so you could be recruiting a mafia. Only the leader can recruit players, and once he is dead there can be no more players joining the neighborhood watch.

Informants: Buff and limit informants. The problem with informants is that once they get any data on someone, they are not in a position to use it, in fear of dying. Once they take charge of the citizens, they are instantly sniped. In the end, they just become a sort of "advanced citizen" class. I propose two changes, in order of importance. The first is that if the citizens win, the informants will also win regardless of dead or alive status. Secondly, informants get a "last will" message after their death, where they can write about who they searched, who is innocent and who they think is guilty. Then limit the informant role to 1.

This lets the informant be more vocal, but also makes him an important target to be killed off early on. Note that scouting the Mercenary or Sociopath will give an appropriate answer based on what role they CURRENTLY are (Mercenary becoming Vigilante will be suspicious, but Mercenary taking Citizen will be not suspicious).

Doctors: Put 2 doctors. If they want to keep on protecting each other, that's fine. They just won't be able to protect anyone else. Otherwise, make it so they can only protect from one attack a turn (i.e. if the mafia and mercenary both attack the same person, 1 doctor can only block 1 attack while 2 doctors can block both). Possibly make it so they can block role targeting as well (informant won't be able to see a person who is protect by doctor, mercenary won't be able to copy role from doctor).

The serial killer sounds like a better arsonist and second mafia family combined into one, but the idea is that it tries to keep both sides balanced. I feel informants now have a strong role to play, even if only 1 of the buffs is implemented. The mercenary is also a role that allows the player to be active, as he not only gets the roles that he targets, but he also know who's who. The sociopath ends up being a fun role that can add some uncertainty to the equation.

The neighborhood watch is an attempt at making daytime more active for players. I don't know how this will all play out, but Capcom shows that by making overpowered things and throwing them together, it eventually balances itself out.

I think someone asked before on why have 2 doctors and suggested that they just have 1 doctor with the ability to protect 2 people. I think it's not good to have too much power for 1 doctor, because even with 2 protects, the doctor cannot protect themselves. So when the doctor dies, its once again back to "not going to talk cuz I might die" game. Having 2 means that when one dies, the other is still there so people might still talk.

[syfMiley]

Round 6 was pretty balls man, first game of Mafia i've ever played.

[mustapusta]

if you want nosy parkers, don't tell them they are. because in the position of nosy parkers, it's very hard to accomplish anything at all.
you know you're suspicious to informats, yet you are not supposed to divulge your role. it removes a layer of deduction. would also like a informat type role for the mafia, so that we can have MORE action on the game. since both informats will be coming out with information as early as they can/

[Next_rim]

although im pretty surprised next_rim made a mistake the last round.

Bugalugs really threw me off with his random "defend the mafia" call.

I suggest, keep it simple. Overcomplication causes imbalance. If you introduce over 9000 active roles, and balance around it, some people might actually be busy, and not prticipate (this happens a lot). Then, the active role that was supposed to be doing a lot of things, becomes useless, and balance is gone.

1) We need two mafia families. First, it makes games faster. Second, it adds two more dimensions to each simple role - there are 3 camps in the game. Although it makes it easier for citizens to do pattern analysis, it is counterbalanced by 2x kills each night. Mafia role is straightforward and requires participation.
2) Add Dons. Don is mafia leader who shows innocent on informant scan.
3) Return link between informant and vigilante.
4) Keep Joker (the best role in game, imho), but remove professional and arsonist.
5) Keep 1x Doctor.

To sum up, I'm seeing the best game setup as follows:
-2x mafia families, each has a don. Number of players depends on total player pool size. Don appears innocent in informant scans, otherwise is just like mafia.
-Doctor 1x - ur simple doctor as you know it, with no shield or anything
-Vigilante 1x (knows informant, can communicate in PM's, has 2x night kills per game)
-Informant 1x (knows vigilante, supplies info via PM's.). When informant dies, his scan results are revealed in form of death note, but vigilante identity is not revealed.
-Joker 1x - same as previous games.

What this all does? Well, there are a lot of night roles. So when night passes, there is a lot of information to think on and to discuss. You get doctor saves, vigi kills, and mafia kills.

I would also think about adding some more night roles. I would restrain from "stalker" type roles, because it's kind of complicated, and you are discouraged to share information during daytime.

There should not be roles that know something, but can't say it (besides mafia, ofc).

There should be roles that get info with special abilities and can immediately act upon it during night time, so when day starts, kills/saves happen, and there is stuff to discuss.

[crAzerk]

1) We need two mafia families. ... Although it makes it easier for citizens to do pattern analysis,

Er... no? How is having two Mafia families easier for pattern analysis? If anything, it is more DIFFICULT to analyse any votes from 2 separate families as it's not that uncommon for 2-3 individuals to vote together even if they have no relation.

You're missing the point of adding more active roles. It's not a matter of overcomplication, it's more of a reduction of boredom? Anyone who has been afflicted (lol) with a Citizen role will know how boring it can be as they have more or less no power to do anything in the game.
Stir up a discussion? No point, best strategy is to stay under the radar until the end of the game and then make bandwagons to save your life. All in all equates to a boring round of Mafia.


I haven't had the time to do some serious thinking but some general thoughts I have -

1) Some way to make it easier to figure out who is Mafia (e.g. Informant Vigilante ties), as well as make it easier to figure out who has a role (for Mafia to snipe). This will promote more than just random snipes.
I wonder if something can be done on the Game master's side... Ok I just thought of something!

Suggested New Informant Role
During the night time, he will investigate one member as per normal. He will receive a reply as to whether it's a suspicious/non-suspicious role.
During the day, the game-master will reveal a list of 3 Randomly-selected names-
1 will be the person that the informant has investigated
1 will be an innocent
1 will be a suspicious role

2) The Don idea can be improved. It doesn't make sense to have immunity from investigation, perhaps having more power in some way - takes two hits to kill? Takes 75% of votes to kill? Ability to deflect a day vote hit to someone else? (by sending a PM to the GM) (Can only be used once in the round)

3) THREE-WAY MAFIA?? (or more)
An idea I'm just toying around with. Assuming 20 players, and 4 Mafia in each family, will leave 8 players with Citizen-like roles (Informant, etc)
How will this affect the game dynamics?

[nard]

All good suggestions thus far.
I am leaning towards a round of mafia where everyone feels obliged/compelled to partake in discussions. In established mafia communities, Ppl who don't contribute are deemed useless and voted off. The last round had 3 of the 4 mafia who posted nothing substantial and one who posted little. Yet they won.
In our 6 rounds thus far it has always been those who are vocal who are voted off. Perhaps only
Round 1 was close to what we are trying to achieve thus far.

[Next_rim]

Crazerk,

How is having two Mafia families easier for pattern analysis?

Because you have more night time kills

Anyone who has been afflicted (lol) with a Citizen role will know how boring it can be as they have more or less no power to do anything in the game.

I actually liked the citizen role the most so far. All you do is talk, and you are not afraid to reveal your role, cuz you have the most basic one, and are equal to a lot of other people in that sense. I enjoyed simple mafia a little bit, but when I was vigilante, it sucked major one.

I agree with your vision of Don, it can be made a very good role with a lot of simple rules.

What sucks about forum mafia, you have 0 pressure to participate, no matter what role you get. In a game with drunk friends, you can't be inactive, or you get booed at and made to drink more, and are denied girls.

[crAzerk]

Na, not much can be gleaned from Mafia kills unless it is a blatant attempt to silence someone.

And continuing with my idea of the 3 names thing, the Mafia can also decide to try to target someone with a role rather than just sniping those who are vocal

Regarding Citizens:
The problem with citizens is you have no move to make. There's nothing special you can do besides try to analyze vote trends, which , if Mafia has half a brain, will reveal little.
That's why I'm suggesting the Random 5 names every day/night (both?). How this works is simply RNG 5 numbers, and the GM will list out the corresponding roles those 5 ppl have.

E.g.
The old gypsy has looked into the crystal ball once again, and she cackles. "You want names? I've got names. Crazerk, next rim, nard, bakainu, paroxysm. Of these 5, we have 3 Citizens, a Doctor, and.. a MAFIA! Which is which, I wonder..."

This provides much more material for discussion than silly vote trends which most players have figured out how to dodge already.

[nard]

But if u happen to RNG 5 mafia the game ends right there

[crAzerk]

@nard That isn't difficult to overcome, just have some semblance of balance - e.g. If draw turns up 3 mafia and above, re-draw

It can be something that is only in play for the first 3 days + nights too, or until the game hits 10 players, etc

[Nobunaga]

I reckon something like that can be more integrated with a role, rather than the GM stepping in.

[crAzerk]

@Nobunga I've thought about that, and a possible integration would be via informant, where his night action can be to select 5 players to be investigated, and they will be revealed in the manner I described above. Makes more sense than the current system whn the informant can't come out with the info he has without dying