Cleaning up Circus: Forum intros and other junk

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
hiya so Yeti's post in the big got me thinking that we really could stuff some additional stuff into the "What is even going on in this forum?" thread

so without further ado:
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Village vs. Mafia

By far the most common of Smogon's mafia formats, Village vs. Mafia is also the format that stays truest to real life Mafia/Werewolf. Often abbreviated as 1v1 or 2v1 (depending on how many mafia teams there are - more on that later), Village vs. Mafia is exactly what it sounds like - the village attempts to discover and vote out the mafia during the day, while the mafia attempts to stay hidden and kill the village during the night.

There are a couple of key differences between Smogon Village vs. Mafia games and real life mafia. As mentioned in an above post, most Smogon games allow for outside communication during games, meaning players can discuss the game wherever they want rather than being confined to the game thread. The ability to have private conversations during a game is obviously a huge deal and has led to the formation of many interesting play patterns not seen in real life games.

The most notable of these play patterns is the Village Leader system. Essentially, what happens is one player publicly announces their role, preferably with some sort of proof that they're telling the truth, and then asks all of the other players to send information about their role - also known as claiming - to the leader. The Village Leader system strengthens the average Smogon village considerably, as the ability to consolidate information and coordinate night actions often leaves the nighttime strength of the village on par with the mafia. One potential drawback to this, however, is that if a mafia member manages to infiltrate the inner circle of the village - known as moling - the village often gets curbstomped. As a more meta-related drawback, the Village Leader system often results in non-leading members of the village having significantly less agency than the leader(s). [needs rewrite]

Outside communication and village leaders aren't the only difference between Smogon and real life. Games are bigger on Smogon, and power roles are more numerous - most Smogon games (barring traditional-style No Outside Contact games) don't have any vanilla/roleless players at all! This means that Smogon games tend to be much more night-focused than real life games. That's not to say that day is unimportant - it just means that Smogon games place less emphasis on scumhunting and more emphasis on using night roles efficiently.

One final difference to note: as mentioned above, Smogon games often have more than one mafia faction - indeed, 2 mafia teams vs. a single village is considered Smogon's "standard" format. Note that on some sites, this is known as multiball, though it's a term that's rarely used here. Games with only one mafia team still exist, but they're less prevalent than the 2v1 format. Games with more than 2 mafias or more than 1 village are not unheard of, but they're definitely rare, and some of them don't quite fall under the perview of the Village vs. Mafia format, but are actually closer to another format:

Multifaction

First popularized by Exarius's Metal Gear Solid Tactical Game, the Multifaction format takes the basic mechanics of mafia and overlays a very different team dynamic. Multifaction games don't have a "village", and they have no "mafia". Instead, users are split into multiple teams - usually at least four or five. Sometimes they know who their teammates are, sometimes they don't. Sometimes the teams are all the same size, sometimes they aren't. The way each team wins is varied as well, though usually it involves outlasting most or all of the other teams.

Multifaction mafia very quickly turns more into a game of politics and negotiation than one of us-vs-them witch hunts. Lynches turn into reverse popularity contests of sorts, with whichever team is the current unfavorite usually getting the boot. Nights are often incredibly chaotic, as each team usually has at least some capacity for killing. Careful negotiation and a keen sense of the proper time to backstab is usually what leads to victory in these games.

Vanilla roles are essentially nonexistent in Multifaction games, and the overall power of roles is often greater than in Village vs. Mafia games.

An interesting facet of Multifaction is that it allows for more interesting neutral roles. Often referred to as a wolf on Smogon or a serial killer on other sites, neutral roles traditionally simply need to outlive every other player in the game. While this remains mostly the case in Village vs. Mafia, Multifaction neutrals are often more numerous and varied, often having win conditions that align with certain teams. This isn't to say that that's the case in every Multifaction game - some games won't have neutrals at all.

Free-For-All (FFA)

At it's core, Free-For-All games are a simple concept, taking Multifaction to a logical conclusion: what if EVERYONE was on their own team? FFA is quite possibly the most complex format for Smogon Mafia, as role distributions and win conditions are entirely up to the designer. This is where complexity comes in, as FFA often has extra mechanics layered on top to spice things up - mechanics which range from fairly simple (HP and attacks come to mind) to rather complicated (ask some of the old-timers about Card Games Mafia). There's really no blanket statement for what to expect out of a FFA, so reading the rules is especially important for these games.

Fans of politics and negotiation will love FFA games, as these are the core gameplay elements. If you love diplomacy, or even Diplomacy (which we also play sometimes), FFAs may be the game for you. Be warned, though: these games usually require immense levels of activity and involvement, both on the forums and in real-time communication. Do you dare?

As an aside: Do FFAs count as mafia games? Sometimes they really shouldn't. But will we continue to call them mafia games? Of course, because change is bad.

Viva-Style

A rare format, Viva-Style, or just Viva, refers to the format used in the classic Viva la Mafia game. Essentially, it's Multifaction, but each team starts out with only two or three members. The rest of the players are "freelancers" - players who are unaffiliated with any team. The main goal of the teams is to convert players to their side in such a way that their team comes out stronger than the others. Though you might think Viva evolved from Multifaction, it's actually the other way around; Viva was the predecessor of the modern-day Multifaction.

Lynchpin

A rare subsection of Village vs. Mafia, Lynchpin games typically start out as your standard 2v1, but there's a catch: one person in the game is assigned the role of Lynchpin. When that person dies, the faction he's associated with splits into two. Generally, these two new factions need each other dead. There's generally a couple of special roles which know the identity of the Lynchpin, but generally the game plays like a standard Village vs. Mafia before the split, and as either a Village vs. Mafia or a Multifaction afterwards.


NOC

Sometimes we play actual mafia! NOC stands for "No Outside Contact", which means that all discussion must take place inside the game thread, emulating the environment of real-life mafia. NOC games are almost exclusively Village vs. Mafia, and are generally smaller than our other games. Additionally, the spread of power roles is closer to what you'd find in a real-life game of mafia, with plenty of vanilla players on both sides. We still maintain longer deadlines, however, so these games often get a bit... verbose.

Some common Smogon Mafia terms [need to alphabetize this]

WIFOM - "Wine In Front Of Me". Refers to logic that requires one party to predict whether the other party will be able to predict the original party's actions. To fully understand the reference, I highly recommend watching the clip it originates from. Also the entire movie.

Village Leader - A player who publicly claims their role and asks for other users to claim their roles to them, enabling the leader to coordinate night actions in an attempt to find mafia. Exclusive to Village vs. Mafia and highly controversial.

BG - The bodyguard/doctor.

Scum - A member of the Mafia.

Scummy - Refers to behavior consistent with that of a mafia member.

Scumslip - A mistake made by a player which indicates that player is likely to be mafia. Mostly seen in NOC.

Townslip - A mistake made by a player which indicates that player is likely to be a villager. Mostly seen in NOC.

Town - A synonym for village. Similarly, "townie" is sometimes used to mean villager.

CC - Stands for "counter-claim". Refers to when one player claims a role that has already been claimed by another player, usually intending to discredit the original claim.

MYLO - "MislYnch and LOse". Refers to a daytime situation in which the village will lose if a villager is lynched.

Mislynch - A lynch in which a villager is killed.

LYLO - "LYnch or LOse". Refers to a daytime situation in which the village will lose unless they lynch correctly.

Neut - Short for "neutral".

Harmless Neutral - A neutral role that does not need to kill anybody to win. Rarely seen in modern games.

Res - Short for "Resistance", as in the tabletop game. We play it a lot when nothing else is going on.

Von Karma - A role which causes the person with the second highest number of votes to be lynched instead of the person with the highest number. The name is a reference to Manfred von Karma, the original role name which possessed the role. Rarely seen nowadays.

Dickens - A role which can essentially turn another user into a mole. The name is a reference to Charles Dickens, the original role name which possessed the role. Rarely seen nowadays.

Claim - To claim is to tell someone your role. It can be private, or it can be public; it can be as detailed as your full role PM, or as vague as a role name and a hint. Can also be a noun to refer to the role that is claimed.

Softclaim - Implying a claim without actually claiming. Mostly, but not exclusively, seen in NOCs.

Clean - Someone who is clean has been confirmed to be town. Can also be used as a verb to refer to the process of ascertaining if someone is clean or not.

Fakeclaim - To lie about your role, usually to disguise the fact that you're mafia. Can also be used as a noun to refer to the role being claimed.

Safeclaim - A fakeclaim that is given to the mafia ahead of time and is guaranteed to not be present on the village. Usually, but not always, takes the form of a role name.

Role - Can refer to either the entirety of your information (name, ability, etc.) or just your abilities and actions.

Power Role - A role that does something, as opposed to a vanilla role. NOC-exclusive.

Vanilla - A role with no ability. Usually only found in NOCs. Also referred to as "vanillager" or "vanilla townie" or simply "villager" when a villager, or "goon" when mafia.

Negative voter - A role whose lynch vote is worth -1 instead of 1 (i.e. when he votes for someone, 1 is subtracted from that person's total number of votes). Often shortened to "neg voter".

Sub - A substitute player.

Host - The person running the game. Sometimes referred to as a "mod", which has nothing to do with forum moderators.

Cohost - A person who aids the host in running the game. Often had less of a hand in desigining the game (if at all), and usually defers to the host on major decisions.

Godkill - The host forcibly killing a player who has broken the rules.

Godsub - The host forcibly substituting a player for a different one, usually due to a rules violation.

Idle - To not use a night action. The term "idler" is often used in a derogatory sense to refer to a player who chronically forgets to send actions, or an NOC player who rarely posts.

GMaxing - The act of infiltrating the supposedly-secret/secure private chat of another team. User:GMax was very, very good at this.

Fuck Tiger - The act of intentionally godkilling ones self right before being lynched, causing the person with the second most votes to be lynched instead. Nowadays there are usually rules which safeguard against this. [remind me to link to the original later]

Melt - Short for "meltdown". Will probably not be relevant when the Season 3 Mafia Invitational ends.

Stealth lynch - to withhold votes until the last second to catch someone by surprise and lynch them.

SG - Safeguard.

NL - No lynch.

Priority - Refers to the order in which actions occur. Generally predetermined. Sometimes kept secret, sometimes not.

might put more roles here but need to see which roles are already in aska's part of the guide

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pls post feedback/additions/corrections/suggestions and i'll take a gander when i wake up. i feel like there's probably more i can/should write about multifaction but i can't think of what because zzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
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Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Make a glossary section (or at least a better one than the thread currently has). For stuff like claiming and cleaning and fake claiming and so forth. I'll make a longer list of terms and definitions when I'm on laptop.

I think this is the big thing confusing newcomers. They don't know our meaning of wolf means something different than mafia and we have a lot of terms that we all comprehend in our sleep but are unfamiliar to them.

As well as why game so big with so many roles.
 

UncleSam

Leading this village
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
fuck the village leader system.

it should in no way be part of any guide, let alone introduced to new users.
Agree with the sentiment (hue my ct) but given how prevalent it is newer users need to know how to deal with it imo.

Alternatively we could ban suggesting night actions to other players and sort of kill it that way, but that would be super hard to enforce and definitely in the 'complex bans' bin.
 
Throw it in a glossary if absolutely necessary, but don't argue it strengthens the average village considerably.

If you want to explain how to deal with it, explain common openings, early strategy, and possible reactions.
 

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
gonna focus on getting the rest of the guide written up before I go back and change anything but yeah I can see where you're coming from re: not encouraging village leader
 
user alkinesthetase (sp?) put together a comprehensive list of roles from both mafiascum and smogon that I find to be pretty useful for giving basic descriptions of what stuff does. Obviously the mafiascum roles aren't very relevant but in general I think it's a good document that explains pretty well what a lot of the common smogon roles do and what not.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...nWdTHI5CjBf7GsJZb9yoKcw/edit?authkey=CPfWqNIK

Not sure if you want to include this at all, but I figured I would post it in case anyone finds any part of it helpful.
 

Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
I'm sorry but the village leader system is undeniably the most effective method in OC for the village. I will continue allowing it in my games and I will continue playing as such in games I am in, until the point at which you throw so many pathetic ban attempts to stop it from happening the game becomes some stupid, artificial meta.

Find me a game where there was no village leader, that is OC, and the village didn't flounder.

Yes, it sucks because it centralizes information. Yes, it sucks when the leader is never properly vetted/cleaned and is a mole, or gets moled. Yes, it sucks to not be on the village leader sheet.

But you know what sucks more? Being the hooker, not knowing who to target, and hooking your own inspector on a rand. Without coordination, the uninformed are left to their own devices and gut reads. And you even see in NOC that people don't have the same reads. So it is much better to synthesize with others about who the best targets for XYZ things are. Feeling like you have no clue what to do and could be a hindrance to your team is worse than having someone tell you what to do imo.

The village leader isn't a flawless system. Sam has added moles to his sheet in DLE's game and ELECTRO and WAS the mole in MAGS2. However it allows the village to be coordinated, without telling mafia information, or revealing it in public. This isn't a problem in NOC or rl mafia because there are usually only "doctor" "cop" in the game, at most. There's nothing to coordinate. But our OC meta is so heavily reliant on power roles (mostly because vanilla roles in OC games have been whined about so heavily in the past for being boring that everyone needs some sort of role now) that some sort of cohesion in who targets what, both to clean people and to stop/find scum, is necessary unless the village wants to risk harming itself by mistargeting. It also begs the question of why the informed minority get to be the only ones coordinating their moves and the village can't try to.

My problem has never been with village leader as a concept since I think it is a. beneficial b. necessary but rather the lengths some leaders go to. Specifically, Sam was WAY too overbearing, pushy, and negative in DLE's game. Newbies agreed, he was making the game unfun to be mafia. Our poor roles and fakeclaims aside, the mafia should not be caught out by being instantly PMed "I already know you're mafia but give me a fake just to be fun in the next 30 seconds or I lynch you."

The village leader's job should be coordination of the town, not trying to drive the mafia insane by preying on them having lives and being unprepared. Especially when they don't even know their own night results, PMing them the instant the night ends gives NO TIME to fake if something went screwy in the night. I think the problem is when leaders can abuse the mafias, not having someone to organize the town so they can better combat the mafia's power roles with their own. Leaders should be able to self-regulate going too far imo and not go full nazi leader mode.

Until the time at which a village successfully wins without a leader whatsoever and a viable alternative is proposed for how the village should play, the leader system "is" Smogon OC meta, for better or worse. You can't just ban elements of it endlessly without proposing another way the village is supposed to win. Banning suggesting targets is especially stupid because that is NOT the problem. The problem is a. unproven town not feeling involved b. mafias being put through the ringer to fake.

I guess you could prohibit claiming altogether unless you are an info role and you inspect a target, allowing you to claim to that target, but then, you just get centralization on the inspector.

Seriously what alternative do you want for the village to coordinate? Or do you think they should all pubclaim their roles in public and play OC like NOC when NOC is constantly complained about on this forum for the wallposts and tl;drs and irrationality of scumhunting in it?

If you think using power roles to find scum in OC is superior to "I've got a gut read" in NOC, then how do you expect villages to operate in doing so without a leader? Everyone randomly picks a target on their own.... by going off their own gut reads and not info like "there are two BG claims"? Do you think the inspector comes forward when he inspects a scum and doesn't instantly die or get permahooked? The only counter to that is omniguard and/or revmar. No, that's why the leader exists, to be a mouthpiece for the information roles.

Like seriously do you want a coordinated town or do you want the same gut feels of NOC in OC? If the former, how do you achieve this without someone(s) receiving and funneling information?
 
yeti I don't believe you have made any attempt to understand any complaint i have made for weeks.

I am not against the village communicating.
I am not against villagers communicating primarily with those they find trustworthy.
I am against individuals taking it upon themselves to run the game for half the people the moment the game starts.
I am against overly aggressive, self-assured villagers harassing the whole userlist before there is any reason to coordinate.
I am against telling people that this is the right, or best, or meta strategy for games.
I am not telling anyone to ban it, or change their games to prevent it from happening.
 
I'm sorry but the village leader system is undeniably the most effective method in OC for the village. I will continue allowing it in my games and I will continue playing as such in games I am in, until the point at which you throw so many pathetic ban attempts to stop it from happening the game becomes some stupid, artificial meta.

Find me a game where there was no village leader, that is OC, and the village didn't flounder.

Yes, it sucks because it centralizes information. Yes, it sucks when the leader is never properly vetted/cleaned and is a mole, or gets moled. Yes, it sucks to not be on the village leader sheet.

But you know what sucks more? Being the hooker, not knowing who to target, and hooking your own inspector on a rand. Without coordination, the uninformed are left to their own devices and gut reads. And you even see in NOC that people don't have the same reads. So it is much better to synthesize with others about who the best targets for XYZ things are. Feeling like you have no clue what to do and could be a hindrance to your team is worse than having someone tell you what to do imo.

The village leader isn't a flawless system. Sam has added moles to his sheet in DLE's game and ELECTRO and WAS the mole in MAGS2. However it allows the village to be coordinated, without telling mafia information, or revealing it in public. This isn't a problem in NOC or rl mafia because there are usually only "doctor" "cop" in the game, at most. There's nothing to coordinate. But our OC meta is so heavily reliant on power roles (mostly because vanilla roles in OC games have been whined about so heavily in the past for being boring that everyone needs some sort of role now) that some sort of cohesion in who targets what, both to clean people and to stop/find scum, is necessary unless the village wants to risk harming itself by mistargeting. It also begs the question of why the informed minority get to be the only ones coordinating their moves and the village can't try to.

My problem has never been with village leader as a concept since I think it is a. beneficial b. necessary but rather the lengths some leaders go to. Specifically, Sam was WAY too overbearing, pushy, and negative in DLE's game. Newbies agreed, he was making the game unfun to be mafia. Our poor roles and fakeclaims aside, the mafia should not be caught out by being instantly PMed "I already know you're mafia but give me a fake just to be fun in the next 30 seconds or I lynch you."

The village leader's job should be coordination of the town, not trying to drive the mafia insane by preying on them having lives and being unprepared. Especially when they don't even know their own night results, PMing them the instant the night ends gives NO TIME to fake if something went screwy in the night. I think the problem is when leaders can abuse the mafias, not having someone to organize the town so they can better combat the mafia's power roles with their own. Leaders should be able to self-regulate going too far imo and not go full nazi leader mode.

Until the time at which a village successfully wins without a leader whatsoever and a viable alternative is proposed for how the village should play, the leader system "is" Smogon OC meta, for better or worse. You can't just ban elements of it endlessly without proposing another way the village is supposed to win. Banning suggesting targets is especially stupid because that is NOT the problem. The problem is a. unproven town not feeling involved b. mafias being put through the ringer to fake.

I guess you could prohibit claiming altogether unless you are an info role and you inspect a target, allowing you to claim to that target, but then, you just get centralization on the inspector.

Seriously what alternative do you want for the village to coordinate? Or do you think they should all pubclaim their roles in public and play OC like NOC when NOC is constantly complained about on this forum for the wallposts and tl;drs and irrationality of scumhunting in it?

If you think using power roles to find scum in OC is superior to "I've got a gut read" in NOC, then how do you expect villages to operate in doing so without a leader? Everyone randomly picks a target on their own.... by going off their own gut reads and not info like "there are two BG claims"? Do you think the inspector comes forward when he inspects a scum and doesn't instantly die or get permahooked? The only counter to that is omniguard and/or revmar. No, that's why the leader exists, to be a mouthpiece for the information roles.

Like seriously do you want a coordinated town or do you want the same gut feels of NOC in OC? If the former, how do you achieve this without someone(s) receiving and funneling information?
The affirmative answer to this question (What could motivate a replacement for a village leader) is something that I've been toying with. I've seen smogon games do the following to discourage it:

-Attempt to scare people off with recruitments that basically guarantee a single village leader gets moled. (uncertain alignment after clear)
-Attempt to scare people off with a ring mechanic and a small number of PRs that basically leave an unprotected village helpless. (higher risk)

Both of these were very effective at nerfing village leaders but the lack of game designed motivation to do anything else meant the village united under a leader and killed themselves anyway.

The ability to share results privately basically means they should only be shared to people you trust, and the easiest way to do this is not in blocks but a common trusted person. Even in NOC if the village has too much power sharing results publicly is not a bad idea. Banning explicit claiming means shitty softclaiming goes up and nothing changes. People should be able to do what feels natural to them within the constraints of the game and believe that's the optimal solution, not look for stupid ways to get around that.

I think games where village leader is not optimal can be designed but they haven't yet. Perhaps the best way to solve this is by creating a "common strategies/tips" header so it doesn't get folded into the game description (allowing for freedom of game design in the future) while nudging people in the right direction or giving them a reference so they don't get lost.
 

UncleSam

Leading this village
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Idea: Deadtalk freely allowed, but cardflip is unreliable. Many ways to implement this, but if every person in the game were going based solely off of their own gut instincts I sort of doubt anyone would want to trust anyone else to consolidate information.
 

Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
I am not against the village communicating.
I am not against villagers communicating primarily with those they find trustworthy.
I am against overly aggressive, self-assured villagers harassing the whole userlist
I am not telling anyone to ban it, or change their games to prevent it from happening.
I am fine with these and agree.
However I think we may disagree on what 'harassing' means, or at least how much tone can color an interaction.

I am against telling people that this is the right, or best, or meta strategy for games.
I disagree with this because I do think it is the best strategy, personally, for Smogon OC village vs mafia games and has been for years. We can agree to disagree I guess because as both a host and a player I see the leader system serve the village better than a lack of coordination and trust would. I also see it be abused by complacency which again is the Real problem imo.

I am against individuals taking it upon themselves to run the game for half the people the moment the game starts.
before there is any reason to coordinate.
I am somewhat disagreeing with these. The first only because I do think that, if someone wants to try and lead that game, they should be able to. If a newbie is like yo I wanna try to lead this game after playing a few why not let them step up the first cycle? It goes downhill when you get crap like Uncle "i premade my sheet" Sam who very clearly did want to iron fist rule the town. Which again, it's the person's responsibility to monitor their own tryhardness and ensure they don't go overboard.
The latter I think is entirely subjective. N0 is fair for rands, sure. But is N1? When is too early to have a reason to coordinate? What night/cycle?

idk I think bullying the mafias is the real problem of a leader as well as users who never get to be involved bc they either can't be cleaned (in time) or have intentionally shady roles or the leader goes full dictator or the village sheeps too hard. These are what I think should be addressed
 
Idea: Deadtalk freely allowed, but cardflip is unreliable. Many ways to implement this, but if every person in the game were going based solely off of their own gut instincts I sort of doubt anyone would want to trust anyone else to consolidate information.
Going to piggyback off of this, but I don't know if anyone has ever played an online mafia game known as Town of Salem. (Lots of dumb players on it, and too short to have meaningful discussion, but still fun nonetheless)

Anyway, that game has a role known as a Medium, which can freely talk with other dead players and relay what said dead players say. This, paired with US's idea, is actually pretty interesting to me.
 
There is no point trying to defeat the village leader system because it's always going to be the best thing to do for the village. In any situation where an uninformed majority can aggregate their information to one or multiple individuals, they will and they should because it maximizes their chances of finding mafia and cleaning villagers. In any game where you can talk privately to people, the benefit is just way too high for a village to be limiting their chances of winning by not aggregating information to one source.

If you want to see change in games not following the same setup, then it starts with the players taking responsibility for their actions and going from there. Building setups based around "defeating" a system will usually either fail or become games that have too much luck and/or other weird shit in them and/or too much reliance on the host telling you how to play. It's important to teach players to be autonomous individuals and that they need to think critically about what they do and who they claim to (which is the point at which billy is trying to get at imo). People have had their hands held for too long w.r.t village leaders running the game and I think the only solution to such a "problem" if it is truly deemed a problem is that individual players need to step up and start thinking for themselves.
 

zorbees

Chwa for no reason!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
[rambling stream of thoughts on the subject]

  • honestly i'm against the village leader system because i think it makes the games less fun to play for all parties.
  • i think it is the best system that exists for 95+% of smogon games.
  • i generally say that it should be on the game host/designer to create a set of rules/roles that discourage players from attempting the village leader setup.
  • however i tried this with chaotic mafia, warned the players that it probably wouldn't work, and they followed the leaders anyways.
  • most of my ideas for anti-village leader end up being either ffa or multifaction, but i'm sure someone could come up with a good set of rules/roles to discourage the village leader system in a traditional mafia/village setup.
  • one of my unfinished games had the only info roles be role checks/watchers/trackers/etc, no definitive way to check alliance. but i feel like that would only slow the leader system down, not stop it.
  • i kind of want to say that our current role meta has the perfect mix of roles to make the village leader system work, plenty of power roles but nothing so insane like the alien psychotrooper (a role from mafiascum/PS mafia that makes all cop roles insane while it's alive). we generally don't like info-falsifying roles like different sanities or moles, but always have info roles that are hard to check.
  • one idea i had was a NOC game but with a shitload of neighborhoods (you can OC to people in your neighborhoods).
  • we might need a big shift in terms of game structure, maybe secondary win conditions to encourage villagers to work towards the team and the personal, idk
my main point is probably that imo it is on the game designers to create a setup that discourages village leaders
 

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
finally finished FFA/Viva/NOC writeups and started the glossary. Feedback everywhere is nice, but especially on:
-how to rewrite the Village vs. Mafia section, especially with regards to village leaders
-more stuff to include in the glossary
-how to better define what i already put in the glossary

Also, if you're a newbie and stumbled upon this thread, your feedback is especially welcome! I've become jaded to all the Circus jargon and don't always know what needs to be defined, so anyone with an untainted vernacular is much appreciated.
 
Maybe mention how sometimes Mafia factions get in contact and coordinate with each other. Also mention that Mafia members shouldn't leak their team info to strangers a prime example was glass ceiling in dle's game where izhuark ended up leaking his whole team by d2.
 

Gmax

kuahahahaha
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Not sure if this is more heavy than what you're looking for, but here's some advice for new players on a mafia team:-

Be Interested - Engage with experienced players on your team
Talk to them. Ask them why the team is doing things. Enquire as to why you're supposed to do something. The goal is not to undermine the team's unity or direction by doing this, the goal is to understand the reasoning behind actions so that you're on the same page as the whole team, and will be capable of making decisions if and when you're placed in such a position, as you doubtless will be if you continue to play mafia. Experienced people would love to work with people who take interest in understanding gameplay, because knowing that you understand what's going on takes a load off of them.

Be Involved - Take part of the planning of night actions
Follow the ongoing discussion of whom to target with which role during the night phase. People will put forward different options. Work out, according to you, which one is a better target, and join the discussion, suggest the target you think is better, and give your reasoning. Don't be afraid to be part of the process. The real fun of mafia is in working in sync with an awesome team, and everyone would appreciate you making an effort to contribute.

Be Prepared - Talk about plans regarding external communications to your teammates
Villagers are probably going to approach you during the initial phase. They'll watch you like a hawk, waiting for you to slip up. Talk to your team about how you're planning to handle such approaches. If you don't have a plan, ask your team. If you have a plan, ask your team. This game is all about collaboration. Your teammates will have been in your position before, and will help you figure out what to do and what not to do. Ideally, it's alright to be cagey initially, given that no one would really have proved themselves very early, and they don't really have any justification for MAKING you claim. However, if you make a good claim that you can either not be forced to prove or at least back up more or less, it'll help you slip under the radar and survive later into the game, allowing you to use your role to help your team for a longer while.
 

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
added a lynchpin section since someone asked about it in AG's thread

also we should 100% include the above GMax post in the guide, that's some top shit
 
Idea: Deadtalk freely allowed, but cardflip is unreliable. Many ways to implement this, but if every person in the game were going based solely off of their own gut instincts I sort of doubt anyone would want to trust anyone else to consolidate information.
I'd like to see a game like this happen. What about a completely flipless game? This would make using an inforole on a dead person a viable and novel play.
 
I'd like to see a game like this happen. What about a completely flipless game? This would make using an inforole on a dead person a viable and novel play.
A really old mafiascum NOC game had no cardflip on death but the mafia had to win 3 times. It was pretty cool.
 

Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Anyway, that game has a role known as a Medium, which can freely talk with other dead players and relay what said dead players say. This, paired with US's idea, is actually pretty interesting to me.
I've been thinking about this and I think it has a lot of potential.

The biggest problems with not feeling involved in mafia are when you a. die early b. have a role that can't prove itself and isn't a priority to clean so you never get onto the village leader sheet.

I think a way to solve that would be the Medium. One villager can commune with the dead villagers. When you die as town, you get PMed "death is not the end, you may still speak with the Town Medium: X. you can join their Medium Channel at #iseedeadpeople and you have been invited to the Medium Conversation on Smogon" and then you and all the other dead town can go there, strat talk, etc. The Medium could add all of these people to the village leader's sheet (as can-view only) so they can see the info. However, the only way their consensus/ideas can be communicated to the town is via the Medium.

So this lets dead, confirmed town be really involved with strategy and they get onto the sheet but the only way their insight reaches living!town is through the Medium who absorbs all the info and communicates it to the living players on the sheet.

I think you'd have the ban the Medium directly posting logs from their channel/conversations otherwise when all the namekill targets get namekilled it would be them just rolling the game with strategy from the Medium c/ping all of their lines. Summary only.
 

Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
How would this interact with dead mafias and their innate ability to deadtalk with their team?
How I would make the role is, the village Medium can only talk to dead villagers. So in this instance I wouldn't be in support of no flip on death or unreliable flip.

I think this is the counterpart to dead mafians being allowed to stratalk with their team. While they can't share new info, so if the mafia leader/experienced player goes down they can't outright negotiate, they can help their team decide ideal targets, etc.

The problem with being town and [dying/having a shady or low-prio role] is you usually aren't allowed to stratalk after dying, or get info. If you have a village Medium whose channel/convo only gets dead town added, then the dead town can still participate and offer their opinions to the Medium who relays them to the living town council on the sheet.

So if mafia can talk with their team by default, and this role allows villagers to do that (up until its death), it might be interesting? At least people wouldn't get quite so frustrated dying N1 and never getting info unless the host likes/trusts them enough to sheet.
 

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