Planning & Running Mafia 101: An in-depth guide.

[Dragon2010]

This is a detailed thread that goes over the overall concept of mafia and how to develop and produce roles for those who are looking to run games, or just those whom are interested in how it works.

Hopefully, this helps everyone out a bit and gives them some perspective to how a game is run, how much work and though goes into a game as well.


Allegiances and Alignments:

By now, I'm sure we are all aware of this structure and the types of alignments there are in mafia. However, here is some clarification of each one, and a bit about them.

• Town: Has your required powers in an investigator, spy, role-blocker, protector, vigilante.etc. They don't know each other usually. However, it's not uncommon for players with "Bonds" to know each other (ie. Peter and Lois Griffin).

This faction is the largest represented faction in a mafia game. Relies on information from players and lynches to get an advantage. Usually outnumber all the bad guys 2:1 or even higher. Anything less and they're at a disadvantage to begin with.​

• Mafia: A group that know all other people in their faction. Are much smaller then the town. They take their actions at night and rely on their kill abilities and tactical actions to get a leg-up. They can also vote to add confusion and lead people astray. Not uncommon to see more then one mafia faction per game. If you're going with one faction, then they obviously need more players or more protection to fight the numbers they are up against.

If you're going with two factions, then the above can be reduced. 3 - 6 seems to be a pretty good number. They should be a small yet coordinated group. They rely off co-ordination and conversing to have an advantage over the town. QuickTopic is their preferred mean of communication.​

• Cult: We've seen a few of these now, and are well aware of what they do. They have base abilities and they recruit valuable people to their group. If you add a cult I think you need to be mindful of how fast their faction can grow.

Most people are going to accept recruitment offers, especially considering their success in past mafia games. Either the leader needs to be vulnerable or recruitment can be slowed down to prevent them being too strong a faction.​

• Indie Self aligned people, usually with a unique ability and special win condition. Their win condition is usually quite an achievement and by no means "easy". Serial-Killer is a common ability among here to thing numbers.

Colour code is an important factor to. It's relevant in showing the good, bad and such for those who don't really know the game. It's universal mafia key. Now, each mod is different but I like to do it this way.

• Town= Blue
• Mafia 1= Red
• Mafia 2= Dark Green
• Cult= Pink
• Independents= Orange
  

Picking a theme:

In my opinion, this is not as easy as people make it. You need to pick a theme that has a lot of depth and character to it. You need to be able to produce 30+ roles that are quality, known characters and can add powers to them that somewhat keep within the genre.

ie. There's no point giving Lois Griffin a kill ability, it's pointless and dumb. Evil Chicken however due to his violent nature prospered as a killer.

Try to keep in the theme to, both in the write-ups and such. It's good involvement and it's the point of the game. There's no point doing a theme on a game where you can only write 10 interesting characters and the rest are random fillers. Have a look at Futurama Mafia example, there was/were many well known, well developed characters in there with a consistent theme throughout. It keeps people interested it's the point of playing themed mafia.

Try to build special theme based abilities to if you can, powers that are unique to that part of the genre or character. It's something different.


Structuring the PM's and character roles:

The time consuming part, in my opinion at least. This is the most important part to as it's all the information a person gets on who they are, their actions and what they need to know about themselves. Don't give them enough and you'll leave them confused.

How you approach this is entirely your choice just try to follow a good structure. Informative yet direct and clean is the goal you want.

Personally. I believe something like this works well for a PM structure.

You are;
NAME HERE, ALIGNMENT HERE.

BIOGRAPHY

ABILITY(IES)

WIN CONDITION​

That's a clean PM template and shows a player pretty much everything they need to know about their character, bio, ability and win condition. Here's an example of a filled out role PM:

You are;
Officer Rick Grimes, Rick Grimes aligned leader

Former police officer of the King County sheriff's deputy who was shot in the line of duty and fell into a coma only to wake up and find himself in the middle of an undead apocalypse. You are the leader of your group. Along with your wife, son and daughter you venture out with a group to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Ability- Cop: (Night Action) – Rick can investigate any one player per night phase, and find out player’s role. You are to PM the player you wish to investigate. This will give you info on their alliance.

YOU MUST PM YOUR NIGHT ACTION

Win-Condition: You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.
​

As you can see. It's got a colour code, the name of the ability and it's condition in (Brackets) so they aware if it's a night action, day action, passive, special.etc. The biography helps to tell them a bit about their character should they not be an expert on said theme and their win condition so they are aware of their exact requirements in basis.


Write-Ups:

I can't tell people exactly how to run their game. But a write-up that's a bit informative and creative towards the game is always helpful. People enjoy reading a write-up as long it's interesting (And not overly long). Also, it helps to give hints as exactly what's going at night and can potentially lead people to the right culprit (Or lead them astray).

Try and do something different. It makes mafia exciting. Short write-up for lynches are okay, but when it comes to night kills give it some bang.

Here's a good basis of what to include in write-ups, again it's personal choice:

Included in write-up:

• Successful kills.
• Re-Directed kills.
• Someone protected by another player from a kill.
• Someone protected by their role from a kill.
• Other Write-Ups (eg. Quagmire in Family Guy, Kiwi Chick in Random). This is a personal choice of the mod.

Not included in write-up:

• Killer roleblocked.
• Other irrelevant night actions such as spy investigations.etc.

Player Outed via kill:

• Can approach this either way:
  • A protected player get's attacked. Write-up reveals who they are as a mild penalty and to confirm their status.
  • A protected player get's attacked. Write-up reveals their character name only as being attacked and NOT outed.
  • A lynched player that is protected in-directly (Another player being alive) should always usually be outed as it's the effect of being lynched.

Opening Post:

There's two ways you can approach the opening post. But either way you do it needs the set the course of the game up and the events that follow. if you look at any game in the past, the opening write-up needs to be the launch point and inject people into the game.

In Family Guy the death of me and BDR set-up the Mafia and Channel 5 taking over the town. In SSB afinals set himself as Master Hand but did not die, he was the puppeteer controlling them so to speak.

Here are the way you can approach it:

• Die: Kill yourself off at the beginning and be done with it. You're dead, now you're the mod.
• Don't die: Make yourself be present in the write-up but be god or a master controller where your figure is the top dog and you control the game.
• Generic Write-Up: Have a genetic write-up that just set's up the series of even and you are merely "The Mod".

Powers and abilities

Main Article: Mafia Scum Wiki

That article there pretty much explains everything one person needs to know and in detail as well.

I will say a few things:

• Balance: Finding a good balance in the games is always hard ability wise. It depends very much on the player who lands said ability to, how vocal they are in the game thread as well as their longevity.

Hardest part and can come down to luck. Look at the structures of previous games to find out what worked well and start from there. Numbers is the first part. Then roles.​

• Unique abilities: These are your abilities that are unique to a given character within the theme of the game and it reflects that of the character. (ie. Adam West could turn into Batman in Family Guy Mafia). They add some variety of fun to the game and are totally different to your traditional roles.

• Factional abilities: Roles that are factional. Town- Census, auto-lynch, double/triple votes. Mafia- Silence/Gag/Force-Vote.etc. They are based and structured abilities that are factional unique and give the team an upper-hand in said phase and the overall game.

• Vanilla Roles: The town relies on strength in numbers, not every person having an ability so the town is over-powered as Superman on horse supplements. (ASADA need to investigate this).

However, I'm not a big fan of vanilla roles and like to give everyone something. I've only ever had two dunce roles and neither player liked them. I believe there's ways around it to keep everyone interested.
​

These are:
​

Spoiler: Avoiding Vanilla Roles:

Single use abilities: Single use ability such as a one off kill power, investigation, roleblock.etc. At least let's them have some involvement and more value.

Shared abilities: Two players, shared ability. ie. Two players share a roleblock ability. One takes the liberty of controlling the odd night roleblocks, one takes the liberty of controlling the even night roleblocks. Both get an involvement factor and both get to enjoy having an action. Should one of them die, they gain the full ability for use each night (If you want).

Passive abilities: I'm sure by now, we all know what these are. The passive abilities that they have no action to take but can be valuable should their action be taken into account or have a good gain. ie. Can't die at night, able to talk to other townies.etc.

Day Actions: Yes, day actions. These can be meeting a certain post criteria, having to be involved or even being able to have extra votes. Makes them feel a better and makes them want/forced to get involved in the day phase of the game.

Also, things people might want to start looking at is see through abilities. A.K.A- Abilities that are now becoming less useful as people are onto them. These include:

1. Silence: By now, we are all aware of this. A player goes quiet and people either pick-up he's been silenced or he comes out upon the night phase and says it. In my opinion, still holds value to mafia as should a silenced player vote- they die or get outed.
2. Force-Vote: This is another one to, they just say "Nothing to see here. Vote: XXX" and move on. People know it's a forced vote and rarely join the lynch train. It can still be effective, but not as much as previously.
3. Frame Ability: In essence, this still has the potential to work but it's peaks in BunniesMan and Mystery mafia. Worked decent in Family Guy but I wouldn't be using it anytime soon. People catch onto it quick and it never get's the desired effect of framing an innocent person to let the serial-killer keep doing their work.

Understanding more intricate roles:

Below I will go through some of the more advanced and detailed abilities that often confuse people and show some clarity between them.

Spoiler: Comparing Steal, Copy and Re-Directs

Steal:

Player X has kill ability. For night they want to kill Player Y.
Player B comes along, copies player X's ability and uses it on Player Z.
Player X no longer has an ability, Player B performs the kill on Player Z himself.

Number of kills = 1

Copy:
Player X has kill ability. For night they want to kill Player Y.
Player B comes along, steals player X's ability and uses it on Player Z.
Player X kills Player Y and Player B kills Player Z.

Number of kills= 2

Re-Direct:
Player X has kill ability. For night they want to kill Player Y.
Player B comes along, redirects player X's ability and uses it on Player Z.
Player X now unknowingly attacks player Z instead of Player Y.

Number of kills= 1

Assigning Roles:

For role assignment. I use the Random Role Generator, found on: This Site

It totally randomizes the roles that are given. You input the player list (Forum names) and character list (Themed names) into the two adjacent boxes. It then assigns people with the appropriate names. This is who they are for the game.

For the sake of discussion, there has been cases and continue to be where a mod had/might have to custom assign a role for the case of a less experienced (Note; new) and/or a player who is meta-gamed constantly to give everyone a fair chance at playing forum mafia.


Processing Night Action:

I find the easiest way to process night actions is in an excel spreadsheet. I have this structure running Horizontally.

Character Name - Player Name - Ability - Night 1 Action - Night 2 Action - Night 3 Action

This way, it allows me to keep track of every player, their actions through the entire game and saves having salvage through 100PM's to find something. Additionally, when a player dies I put a red mark in the phase they died so I can also keep track of their death within the spreadsheet, again- making my life easier.

Additionally, another method is typing the actions and the person who has taken the action via a lone quick-topic chat.


Processing PM's and Order:

One of the harder parts, and I'm a victim of this. I've made a mistake or two in replying to PM's. However, I like to have a template that I use and each time I use that base "reply" reply template and just fill in the required info.

Makes it simple to manage, and shows consistency.

Such templates can be:

Investigate: My friend, XXX IS/IS NOT town aligned.

Silence: You have been targeted by a force-uknown. As a result- you are unable to post in the thread next day phase (Day NUMBER[2]). I'm afraid if you do, the mod will be very angry and kill you.

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

On the actual processing of night actions, not everyone does it the same. But here is two method of process:

Method 1: Processed in chronological order.
Method 2: Process all actions at once.

An example of the difference:

Method 1
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2 but Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 so Player 2 isn't roleblocked.

Method 2
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2. Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 but the action goes through as they are all processed at the same time.

Also, for the sake of the players and balance of the game. Keep an empty inbox. I made the mistake of maxing my inbox once and we saw the result that produced.

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

Want to know more? Read one of the most detailed websites for Forum Mafia on the net. Go to: mafiascum.net/‎

Should people have any questions, queries.etc regarding running a mafia game or what is involved. Do not hesitate to leave your question here. We will reply to it.

-------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to those who have contributed:
- Dragon2010 (Original Post).
- Apey (Information and feedback).

Spoiler: Version History

Version 1.0- Wed 15th May: Thread created.
Version 1.1- Wed 15th May '13: Thread updated with information from Apey.
Version 1.2- Wed 15th May '13: Pagination and tidy-up.
Version 1.3- Thu 15th May '13: Added information and fixed spelling errors

 

[Bazzi]

A very neat guide that shows some insight in to how much effort, thought and planning goes in to producing a mafia game.

Should encourage others to have a go at running one down the track, I know this is something I'd use for when I get working on my mafia game.

Nice job!

 

[soc123_au]

Good one D10. I had hit a bit of a hurdle with life of Brian, but that will help.

 

[Apey]

Good thread.

I'll take some time to provide some input from running my two games. Some of it is similar to what you've said but I'll share it anyway. I'm sure Misanthrope would have some quality input to share as well.

Town/Mafia/Cult/Indie:

By now, I'm sure we are all aware of this structure and the benefits each one of these has as well as the ratios and how they work in a nutshell.

• Town Your stock standard town. Has your required powers in an investigator, spy, roleblocker, protector, vigilante. They don't know each other usually. However, it's not un-common for players with "Bonds" to know each other (ie. Peter and Lois Griffin). This faction is the largest represented faction in a mafia game. Relies on information from players and lynches to get an advantage.
• Mafia A group that all know who their allies are. Are much much smaller then the town. They take their actions at night and rely on their kill abilities and tactical actions to get a leg-up. They can also vote to add confusion and lead people astray. Not un-common to see more then one mafia faction per game.
• Cult We've seen a few of these now, and are well aware of what they do. They have base abilities and they recruit valuable people to their group.
• Indie Self aligned people, usually with a unique ability and special win condition.

Town - Strength in numbers. Don't go crazy with giving them protection. I think some people have been guilty of this, including myself in Futurama Mafia. They are supposed to be a large uncoordinated and vulnerable rabble for the most part. Usually outnumber all the bad guys 2:1 or even higher. Anything less and they're in deep shit to begin with.


Mafia - Everything you do with a mafia faction depends firstly and primarily on two things; 1) How many people are playing the game 2) How many mafia factions there are. If you're going with one faction, then they obviously need more players or more protection to fight the numbers they are up against. If you're going with two factions, then the above can be reduced. 3 - 6 seems to be a pretty good number. They should be a small yet coordinated group.

Independent - The serial killer is often used to help pad out the number of kills but you have to be careful to ensure they have a viable win condition somehow. I tried to do in Futurama Mafia but still wasn't happy with some of them (in particular the two serial killers) so I completely ditched the independents in BM Mafia by giving both mafia factions two kills.


Cult - Personally not a fan myself and that's coming from someone who has been pretty successful with them. Each to their own though and if you add a cult I think you need to be mindful of how fast their faction can grow. Most people are going to accept recruitment offers, especially considering their success in past mafia games. Either the leader needs to be vulnerable or recruitment can be slowed down to prevent them being too strong a faction.

Picking a theme:

In my opinion, this is not as easy as people make it. You need to pick a theme that has a lot of depth and character to it. You need to be able to produce 30+ roles that are quality, known characters and can add powers to them that somewhat keep within the genre.

There's no point giving Lois Griffin a kill ability, it's pointless and dumb.

Try to keep in the theme to, both in the write-ups and such. It's good involvement and it's the point of the game.

Agree with all this. Obviously you need to know the theme you choose well. You don't actually have to use a theme but people will be more interested if you do. Of course, it's hard to pick themes that many people will enjoy. I think the theme Misanthrope and I touched on, the one where the people who signed up are the game characters, is a theme that can be re-used as long as the game structure is noticeably different.

Keeping the focus on the theme is one of my favourite parts of running a mafia to be honest. I think I did a good job during BunnieMan Mafia in that respect.

Structuring the PM's and character roles:

The time consuming part. This is the most important part to in my opinion as it's all the information a person gets on who they are, what they do and the sorts.

Personally. I believe something like this works well for a PM structure.

That's clean and shows a player pretty much everything they need to know. Here's an example:

As you can see. It's got a colour code also, the name of the ability and it's condition in (Brackets) so they aware if it's a night action, day action, passive, special.etc.

Everyone will do this different. As long as it is clear it's good. I'm too lazy to set mine out better but I should. I usually just go with:

Name, alignment, description, small bio. First three being in the bolded alignment colour.
Passive/night actions
Win condition

Write-Ups:

I can't tell people exactly how to run their game. But a write-up that's a bit informative and creative towards the game is always helpful. People enjoy reading a write-up as long it's interesting (And not overly long). Also, it helps to give hints as exactly what's going at night and can potentially lead people to the right culprit (Or lead them astray).

Try and do something different. It makes mafia exciting. Short write-up for lynches are okay, but when it comes to night kills give it some bang.

Agree with most of this.

I did long write-ups in Futurama Mafia and it made me not want to run another game. I did shorter ones in BM Mafia and thought it worked much, much better for me without effecting the game.

As long as you provide all the necessary information and leave a few clues here and there, I think the bare minimum for night write-ups is satisfied. Being creative will of course make them more interesting. I think when I run another game, I will keep the night write-ups the same length as I did in BM Mafia. (somewhat) Short but sweet.

One thing you didn't mention here is the opening post. There are a few different ways you can kick-start the game. It doesn't always have to be the admin dying although that is quite popular.

Powers and abilities

Main Article: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Roles

That article there pretty much explains everything one person needs to know and in detail as well.

I will say a few things:

• Balance Finding a good balance in the games is always hard ability wise. It depends very much on the player who lands said ability to, how vocal they are in the game thread as well as their longevity.
• Unique abilities These are your abilities that are unique to a given character within the theme of the game and it reflects that of the character. (ie. Adam West could turn into Batman in Family Guy Mafia). They add some variety of fun to the game and are totally different to your traditional roles.
• Factional abilities Roles that are factional. Town- Census, auto-lynch, double/triple votes. Mafia- Silence/Gag/Force-Vote.etc. They are based and structured abilities that are factional unique and give the team an upper-hand in said phase and the overall game.
• Vanilla Roles The town relies on strength in numbers, not every person having an ability so the town is over-powered as Superman on horse supplements. (ASADA need to investigate this). Vanilla roles helps bring balance and harmony to the game. Yes, you might not like it- but deal with it. The town has their strengths, you can still be a valuable vocal member by catching people out for their posts, assisting in lynch (Or even taking the bullet for a townie with powers).

Balance - Hardest part and can come down to luck. Look at the structures of previous games to find out what worked well and start from there. Numbers is the first part. Then roles. I could write an essay on this so I'll just leave it at that.

I am going to try something different in my next game with regards to balance.

Vanilla Roles - Not a single one of my games has had a true vanilla role yet and I'm not sure they ever will. I think it'd be good if they were incorporated but it's hard because they are very boring to some people and it doesn't exactly invite them to participate. The roles I've had that are closest to vanilla weren't exactly welcomed with praise.

Assigning Roles:

For role assignment. I use: This Site

It totally randomises the roles. You input the player list (Forum names) and character list (Themed names) into the two adjacent boxes. It then assigns people with the appropriate names. This is who they are for the game.

For the sake of discussion, there has been cases and continue to be where a mod might have to custom assign a role for the case of a less experience (Note; new) or a player who is meta-gamed to give everyone a fair chance at the game.

Yep yep. Easiest one to use. The other intervention I did in Futurama was to fiddle a bit with who got night actions so the night phases weren't so terribly long. Won't do that again though.

Processing Night Action:

I find the easiest way to process night actions is in an excel spreadsheet. I have this structure running Horizontally.

This way, it allows me to keep track of every player, their actions through the entire game and saves having salvage through 100PM's to find something. Additionally, when a player dies I put a red mark in the phase they died so I can also keep track of their death within the spreadsheet, again- making my life easier.

Processing PM's:

One of the harder parts, and I'm a victim of this. I've made a mistaken or two in replying to PM's. However, I like to have a template that I use and each time I use that base "reply" reply template and just fill in the required info.

Makes it simple to manage, and shows consistency.

Also, for the sake of the players and balance of the game. Keep an empty inbox. I made the mistake of maxing my inbox once and we saw the result that produced.

Spreadsheets and quicktopics both work.

On the actual processing of night actions, not everyone does it the same.

Method 1: Processed in chronological order
Method 2: Process all actions at once

An example of the difference:

Method 1
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2 but Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 so Player 2 isn't roleblocked.

Method 2
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2. Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 but the action goes through as they are all processed at the same time.

Doesn't particularly bother me which way you go, I use Method 2, D10 uses Method 1. I think Misanthrope uses Method 2 there are probably others who use Method 1.

 

[Frederick]

If I had the time (ie. no job, study or wife) I probably would have a go at hosting one, but just simply do not have the time

 

[whall15]

That random generator is cool, I just used a list randomiser but I will definitely use that if I ever run another game.

 

[Dragon2010]

Thanks Apey. Good Input.

Have added in some of your and acknowledged it.

 

[soc123_au]

On the actual processing of night actions, not everyone does it the same.

Method 1: Processed in chronological order
Method 2: Process all actions at once

An example of the difference:

Method 1
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2 but Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 so Player 2 isn't roleblocked.

Method 2
Player 1 roleblocks Player 2. Player 3 killed Player 1 'before' Player 1 roleblocked Player 2 but the action goes through as they are all processed at the same time.

Doesn't particularly bother me which way you go, I use Method 2, D10 uses Method 1. I think Misanthrope uses Method 2 there are probably others who use Method 1.

This is the one I have been stuck on working out how to go. Method 1 is probably the most realistic, but disadvantages players that are offline as soon a s a lynch happens.

When using Method 2 how do you guys determine what actions are followed through in cases where someone has been hit with a number of different actions that would cancel each other out?

The other ones I am struggling with are the vanilla roles, I want everyone to have something seemingly worthwhile to use to keep interest up, but am worried about an overpowered town. I am thinking single use abilities might be the key here. Also I think the post restriction role can be fun, I cringed when I first got my role in the Simpsons game, but by the second day I was having a great time with it.

Lastly I agree 100 percent that the theme is important. The 2 games I personally enjoyed the most were Mis's random game & Apeys Bunniesman one. I had a good role in Random & just a passive protection in Bunniesman but still enjoyed both. i also liked the WD one even though I am not familiar with it, but that was due to the behind the scenes stuff in the QT.

 

[Dragon2010]

Do people like the little header I put? Found it from a random site.

 

[Apey]

If I had the time (ie. no job, study or wife) I probably would have a go at hosting one, but just simply do not have the time

No Job - check
No study - check (finished last year)
No wife - check

I'm the perfect candidate!

When using Method 2 how do you guys determine what actions are followed through in cases where someone has been hit with a number of different actions that would cancel each other out?

You'd have to give me an example I think.

Protector > Roleblocker > any other action

is the basic idea. But yeah, an example?

The other ones I am struggling with are the vanilla roles, I want everyone to have something seemingly worthwhile to use to keep interest up, but am worried about an overpowered town. I am thinking single use abilities might be the key here. Also I think the post restriction role can be fun, I cringed when I first got my role in the Simpsons game, but by the second day I was having a great time with it.

A true vanilla role is no power whatsoever. In the most basic form of mafia, everyone is vanilla bar the mafia faction who have one factional kill. Sounds boring to some but I would like to play it.

Yeah, with so many people playing, you do have to start to stretch it a bit. Just try to think of something based on their character.

Lastly I agree 100 percent that the theme is important. The 2 games I personally enjoyed the most were Mis's random game & Apeys Bunniesman one. I had a good role in Random & just a passive protection in Bunniesman but still enjoyed both. i also liked the WD one even though I am not familiar with it, but that was due to the behind the scenes stuff in the QT.

Haha, I enjoyed running both my games but I did have many more lols in BM mafia.

 

[Dragon2010]

"Traditional" mafia is where the town has no abilities and the mafia has a kill. Each day phase the town get a chance to lynch a mafia, each night the mafia splatter a town member. It's different, requires a lot of thought and cunning to win it.

 

[soc123_au]

I will use Bunniesman as the target. Bunniesman has a passive ability that he cant die while DL is alive.

PM Time Action
9.25 Smiley Kills DL
10.00 9701 kills BM
10.18 KTF Protects BM
10.50 Soc Roleblocks KTF
11.15 Bunniesman Investigates Apey
12.20 Dutchy protects DL
12.50 Cliffhanger kills BM
12.25 AFS steals Cliffhangers Power & directs it at Dutchy (I think thats how the steal works?)

Interested in how you guys would process that & the difference in the outcome for different hosts.

 

[Dragon2010]

I will use Bunniesman as the target. Bunniesman has a passive ability that he cant die while DL is alive.

PM Time Action
9.25 Smiley Kills DL
10.00 9701 kills BM
10.18 KTF Protects BM
10.50 Soc Roleblocks KTF
11.15 Bunniesman Investigates Apey
12.20 Dutchy protects DL
12.50 Cliffhanger kills BM
12.25 AFS steals Cliffhangers Power & directs it at Dutchy (I think thats how the steal works?)

Interested in how you guys would process that & the difference in the outcome for different hosts.

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

First off. A steal ability means he takes Cliffhanger's kill. So BM won't die from her.

Anyway.

1. Dogslife is marked to die by Smiley, Dogslife will die unless a protection comes in. This makes BM vulnerable.
2. BM is marked to die by 9701, BM is able to fall should Dogslife still be a night target.
3. KTF opts to protect BM, regardless if Dogslife dies or not BM will now survive attack from 9701.
4. soc roleblocks KTF, the roleblock has now trumped the protection and BM is vulnerable and will die by 9701.
5. BM has chosen to investigate Apey, this investigation will take place should BM make it through the night by other means.
6. Dutchy has protected dogslife, dogslife is now protected so he won't die. The attack from Smiley will go through, but dogslife will survive as a result of Dutchy.
7. Cliffhangers ability is null.
8. 9701's kill on BM now fails as an outed dogslife has passively protected him.
9. AFS kills Dutchy. Dutchy is now dead and is worthless from the next phase onwards.
10. BM get's his investigation results.

That is the "behind the scenes" way of processing it. That's all the irrelevant shit people don't see in what get's scribbled up and how it get's planned. It's a confusing process behind the scenes.

TL;DR:
- BM will not die, but he wil be outed.
- dogslife will not die, but he will be outed.
- Dutchy's protect will go through, but he will die AFTER he did his job protecting dogslife.
- BM gets his investigation results
- Cliffhangers ability is void.

I had a similar case in Family Guy like this as well as TWD. It depends how one approaches it and what method they use. But pretty much a protection trumps a kill ability. It's a bit un-fair if you go "Well, the killer sent his ability in prior to the protector so he will die". Makes their role worthless and those that don't live around a computer hard to play.

The easiest way to honestly do it is based off the "Ability tree" in which ability trumps which and such.

 

[soc123_au]

Thanks for that, I am keen to see if Apey & Mis would have come up with the same end results.

 

[Dragon2010]

Thanks for that, I am keen to see if Apey & Mis would have come up with the same end results.

I just gave an example. One of many ways to do it. My mate who runs mafia on MMO-Champion forums works on FIFS (First in, first served).

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

Also, things people might want to start looking at is see through abilities. A.K.A- Abilities that are now becoming less useful as people are onto them. These include:

1. Silence By now, we are all aware of this. A player goes quiet and people either pick-up he's been silenced or he comes out upon the night phase and says it. People are onto it and IMO holds little value now to add confusion.
2. Force-Vote I think this is another one to, they just say "Nothing to see here. Vote: XXX" and move on. People know it's a forced vote and rarely join the lynch train.
3. Frame Ability In essence, this still has the potential to work but IMO had it's peaks in BunniesMan and Mystery mafia. Worked decent in Family Guy but I wouldn't be using it anytime soon.

 

[soc123_au]

I think silence is still useful. We got Butch mod killed for breaking a silence in your last game. Also it is less extreme than a kill, but still can take someone out of play for a day. Everyone knows what has happened, but they still get no info or opinions from that person. I would maybe tweak it a bit so it includes the following night phase as well. Their night action if any would still count as it is via pm.

 

[Dragon2010]

I think silence is still useful. We got Butch mod killed for breaking a silence in your last game. Also it is less extreme than a kill, but still can take someone out of play for a day. Everyone knows what has happened, but they still get no info or opinions from that person.

Butch got killed by a silence because his PM didn't show up on his phone. Not because he buggered-up.

I never said they were pointless, just not as effective as people catch on to them.

 

[Apey]

I will use Bunniesman as the target. Bunniesman has a passive ability that he cant die while DL is alive.

PM Time Action
9.25 Smiley Kills DL
10.00 9701 kills BM
10.18 KTF Protects BM
10.50 Soc Roleblocks KTF
11.15 Bunniesman Investigates Apey
12.20 Dutchy protects DL
12.50 Cliffhanger kills BM
12.25 AFS steals Cliffhangers Power & directs it at Dutchy (I think thats how the steal works?)

Interested in how you guys would process that & the difference in the outcome for different hosts.

Okay, that's a good example and obviously that's where it gets complicated. Thankfully, anything like that rarely ever happens :lol:

The key difference imo is that method 1 processes a kill precisely as it happens whereas method 2 doesn't consider the kill has taken place until the end of the night phase.

Another key difference is that immediately I can disregard the times those PMs have been sent in because all actions are processed at once.

So using Method 2 the process I would go through is

Write down everything that happened.

*Smiley attempts to kill dogslife.
*9701 attempts to kill BM.
*KTF attempts to protect BM.
*soc roleblocks KTF.
BM investigates Apey.
*Dutchy protects dogslife.
*Cliffhanger kills BM.
*afs steals Cliffhanger's power to use it on Dutchy

The stealing power depends on what your aim for that power is. I didn't have a stealing power as such but rather a power redirector. Very similar to a steal but wasn't sure what you meant by steal exactly. So using the "power redirector"

What happens?

*afs uses Cliffhanger's kill power on Dutchy, Cliffhanger tries to kill Dutchy instead of BM unknowingly.
*Dutchy dies at the end of the night phase, protects dogslife.
*Smiley attempts to kill dogslife but he is protected by Dutchy.
*9701 attempts to kill BM but BM is protected by dogslife.
*KTF's protect attempt on BM fails because he was roleblocked by soc
*BM successfully investigates Apey

So the final result is

*Dutchy dies
*BM investigates Apey

There are probably flaws in both methods. I will be sticking to Method 2 for my games though.

 

[Apey]

Worth noting in that example that the result is almost identical, but that is just because of how you ordered the night actions.

 

[Dragon2010]

The grey area is the type of ability afinals had. A steal power means Cliffy is pointless that night pahse regardless. afinals does the kill himself. A copy means both do it. A re-direct means you make them target someone else. Thee totally different and unique abilities.