Holy Grail War Roster (and ideas)

[lokiduck]

Will attach Roster here later.

Here is the WIP roster https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TuCxgbJMSaiGXp239Imt0SVFgJ-q45MFHDG8r_hwih4/edit?usp=sharing

Role PMs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zc7A5_E2q0PUpbDIyupU-XPu8tMcBQxWThZFgy_M6u4/edit?usp=sharing

 

[lokiduck]

The game is based on the Fate Series, a Japanese series of games/anime/movies/manga based mainly around mages (called magus) summoning figures (known as servants) from mythology and history to do their bidding.

The most common reason for summoning servants is for a Holy Grail War (HGW), where seven masters and their servants fight to win the Holy Grail which will grant their wishes. Each servant is from one of the 7 main classes (there are more) of Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker.

For the Sequel to Fate/Mafia the plan is to have a game based on a Greater Holy Grail War where two factions fight over the control of the grail as it will allow for more players.

Each faction is made up of 7 masters and 7 servants (one of each class) with a ruler to oversee the war to make sure everything is fair for both sides. As a result we plan on having a game with 29 players total with lots of way for death to happen to move things along. Since the series has a lot of servants and even masters, we think it would be fun to do a non-canonical HGW where characters from all over the franchise can be used to throw off expectations on who the flavor is.

The way we figure, if this game goes really well maybe in the future we can do more games with the similar set up but different servant and masters.

We also plan on using some mechanics we introduced in the first game, which we will explain below for those unfamiliar with it.

 

[lokiduck]

Game Mechanics and plot for the game.

Flavor plot for game: After so many years of putting up with their plans the Clocktower has decided to make a stand against the Einzbern family challenging them to a HGW over a true Holy Grail. However, while making their battle plans, both sides learn that some masters and their servants have different intentions for the grail and both sides have agreed to put aside differences for now to find them while the grail war proceeds. To help them is the Ruler brought into oversee the war, Sherlock Holmes!

Unique game mechanics for this game:

Proposal 1: A mechanic I propose is called one-sided lovers. Two players will be matched up as lovers and have their own chat but they only both die if the player playing the master is killed.

In fate, it is fairly common for a servant to be killed while the master lives, but if the master is killed the servant will disappear because the master is their power source.

Because of this I propose we do something similar where if the servant is lunched/NK'd the master lives, but if the master dies his servant dies with him (hence why it is called one sided lovers).

There is a huge risk of the game ending really fast because the masters keep getting picked off, but I think this might be a fun way of affecting how people play because naturally they may want to hide their master status to protect themselves and their partner. However, because of this, we can't have too many killing powers around as again it might end things too fast.

Proposal 2. In Fate masters have three command seals which prove they are a master and allow them to maintain control of their servant. They can use these seals to make a servant do something they normally wouldn't do but if they use all three they end their contract with their servant (and risk getting killed.) Since servants are supposed to be super powerful beings we were thinking that for the most part most of the powered roles would go to the servants while the masters would usually be vanillas, though there would be exceptions. If a servant has more of a passive ability then maybe it will be fine to let the master have a power as well and such.

However, we were thinking that all masters should have 2 command seals that can be used once in the game. The first one would be a 1 shot redirector that can change who their servant targets (if they have a targetable ability) as this would fit the lore and would allow them to change their partners target at the last minute if the partner was going to be out and not able to play. It's similar to how the scum team can usually do a action for their scummates by listing them still as the one doing it.

The other Command Seal would be a motivator which allows the servant to get another shot of whatever ability they have, but it can only work on servants (unless the master is also a servant them self.)

Naturally these Command Seals would be useless for servants without shots or targetable abilities (in those cases either they can have their own ability or just having nothing), but we like the idea of including them, because it fits the lore and gives the master's players something to do if they are a vanilla.

Additionally because there are two factions fighting for the grail in this game, I want to have an additional win condition for town.

The main win con is of course that all scum have been eliminated from the game, but I also want there to be condition that the faction with the most players on their side at the end of the game wins the grail war as well. This is to cause tension between townies as they may want to keep people in their faction alive over the other.

However, because of this one of our main goals is to make both sides even power wise so both have a fair chance at winning this win con.

 

[lokiduck]

Basic break down of the players:

29 players, 15 servants and 14 masters.

There will be 6 scum (2 masters and their servants on one faction, 1 master and his servant on the other but all on the same scum team), 4 neutrals (1 servant on one team, and 3 on the other), and 19 townies (10 masters and 11 servants).

Now you may be wondering: with the additional win con of one faction winning at the end of the game, wouldn't it be unfair for one team to have 4 mafia members while the other has 2? And what's with all the neutrals?

And the answer to that is because the neutrals are helping us balance out the number of mafia members so both sides have the even number of town and scum. I'll break it down in the next post.

 

[lokiduck]

Factionless player (Their wincon is just to take out scum so they win if town wins):
Sherlock Holmes

Army 1: the Einzberns aka Team Homunculus (Town players only win if town wins and their team still has more players alive)
Tokiomi Tohsaka and Sir Francis Drake (Rider)
Kiritsugu Emiya and Billy the Kid (Archer)
Illyaviel von Einzbern and Karna (Lancer)
Shinji Matou and Li Shuwen (Assassin)
Gilgamesh and Emperor Nero (Caster)
Zouken Matou and Emperor Caligula (Berserker)
Irisviel von Einzbern and Sir Bedivere (Saber)

Army 2: the Clocktower aka Team Big Ben (Town players only win if town wins and their team still has more players alive)
Kirei Kotomine and Xuanzang Sanzang (Caster)
Medea and Beowulf (Berserker)
Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald and Arjuna (Archer)
Waver Velvet and King Arthur (Lancer)
Kairi Sisigou and Sakata Kintoki (Rider)
??? and Miyamoto Musashi (Saber)
Taiga Fujiwara and Queen Cleopatra (Assassin)

As you can see
the teams are balanced out via the neutrals. Army 1 has 4 mafia and a neutral, while army 2 has 2 mafia, and 3 neutral 2 working as a team allowing for the number of town to be even on both sides. All of the mafia members are working together BTW. I'll explain the neutrals below.

Medea and Beowulf: Medea like Taiga and Gilgamesh are an interesting case because they are actually servants but Medea is a special case out of them. She is a servant that largely lives to fulfill her own goals (Admittedly Gil does this too but we'll make a flavor reason why he's town), and in this case her goal is to liberate more servants like herself.

Beowulf is her berserker servant that has a Double Vote (because his fists are really charismatic okay) but if he dies she unlocks her full potential. His win con for the entire game is that his master wins so does he, so as long as she achieves her win con he'll win too.

While Beowulf is alive Medea's win con is a survivor one, but if Beowulf dies then she becomes a "mason maker". In fate, her main ability is to sever the contract between a master and servant removing their buffs as well. We want to represent that here by having her be able to turn masters and servants into masons instead of one sided lovers meaning that if the master dies the servant player gets to live. She can also do this to scum as well (since they will also be onesided lovers) meaning this ability could actually help town and scum in both cases.

We were thinking of making her win con at this point that she has to "liberate" x number of servants at which point she gets to leave (possibly with those servants?)

Additionally when a servant and master are made into masons they will be notified that something happened during the night but not what occurred.

We also considered the idea of her having a night chat with the liberated servants (maybe an anonymous one to hide identities) but considering how many chats we will have we may not do this.

We were also thinking of making it so that if Medea hits a master with her Rule Breaker (name of her ability) she just roleblocks the master. This might be fine as the other faction has a Jailer so that even it'd out a bit and it doesn't make town too defensive since she's just a neutral.

Arjuna and Karna: These two are two separate players but they have the same wincon so I'll talk about them at once.

In Fate, both want to kill each other because in life Arjuna killed Karna. As a result we have made it their win con that they basically have to outlive the other, and if both are alive at the end of the game then they lose that wincon but can still win if their faction wins. The reason is because ultimately they are still servants to their masters. Both are super loyal servants, that just get sidetracked by each other... so they still have the faction win con.

They can win as survivors (if both are still alive, otherwise one would have already won) if their faction has more members still alive aka the faction win con.

Additionally they will have abilities to help with the hunting of each other.

Arjuna will be a flavor cop that can only check for divinity since Karna and himself are divine. However there are 7 divine characters to throw him off track.

Karna will only have a passive which is a self watcher ability that tells him when a divine player visited him. If this power is considered too weak, we can make it a regular self watcher ability but he's additionally notified if they are divine or not.

We think this power will work pretty good because here are all the divine players in the game:
Gilgamesh
Arjuna
Karna
Taiga (she's the host for a deity named Jaguar Warrior)
Sakata Kintoki
Xuanzang Sanzang
Cleopatra

Additionally redirect powers might throw Arjuna off as well especially if he hits himself somehow.

 

[lokiduck]

The Scum team (They have the normal mafia win con):

Scum Masters
-Tokiomi Tohsaka: is a godfather to throw off the alignment checks from Artoria Pendragon, though if the team needs more abilities he is probably the one to get them.
-Kiritsugu Emiya: A switch that can't vote the day he uses his ability. He will permanently RB someone until he dies if they have an ability. He is the one master who probably doesn't need a fake claim as Kerry is a protag in Fate/Zero. May still give him one since he's not exactly a good person.
-Kirei Kotomine: Janitor

This group of masters works additionally because Kirei and Kerry hate each other and would never work together. If Tokiomi or Kirei flip before Kerry claims, then he can possibly be town read due to this.

Additonally Kerry's in universe daughter and wife are both in the game as masters which may throw off suspicions on him from fate knowing fans (which makes it even more evil that he's mafia LOL)

Scum Servants
-Sir Francis Drake: Thief. She works like a flavor rolecop because she steals something from a person she investigates connected with said role. Sometimes this role serves as a roleblock so willing to let her do that if it doesn't make scum too strong.
-Billy the Kid: x shot Strongman to counter the doctor/jailer because his fate ability is a hard to block and fast gun shot.
-Xuanzang Sanzang: x shot deflector and motivator so scum get more shots and can protect from investigative shots. She is the only player that can motivate masters but she can't do certain abilities such as Kerry's switch.

The servants don't actually need fake claims as all are considered good guys in fate, but we can give them fake claims if they want them just so people don't figure out their powers. Additionally, non-fate fans may think Drake and Billy are baddies just because they are a pirate and outlaw respectively. Xuanzang is the safest of the bunch however because she's a happy go lucky ditzy Buddhist monk that just so happened to be summoned by an evil Priest LOL.

CS wise:

-Tokiomi will need a motivator and redirector shot for Drake
-Kerry will for Billy possibly?
-And Kirei won't for Xuanzang as she only needs one motivator LOL.


---
Summary of all the potential wins in the game:

Neutral wins: If a neutral meets their win con they win can happen whether town or scum win with exception of Karna/Arjuna's second win con.

Mafia Wins: Win if 50% of remaining players. Cancels out factional win.

Sherlock Wins: If all threats to town have been removed from the game.

Team Homunculus wins: If town wins and their faction has more players (Karna also wins if Arjuna is still alive)

Team Big Ben Wins: If town wins and their faction has more players (Arjuna also wins if Karna is still alive.)

Basic run down on the Hindu bros:
- Arjuna dies before Karna = Karna win
- Karna dies before Arjuna = Arjuna win
- Scum wins = If neither has won, then both lose
- Homunculus won and both are alive = Karna win
- Big Ben won and both are alive = Arjuna win

Both dying isn't a thing because the first one to die loses.

 

[lokiduck]

Master and servant powers break down (non-mafia team):

EDIT: just realized we didn't include Holmes power LOL...

Sherlock Holmes is a captain, aka someone who is given three powers to choose from during the day, and he can give a suggestion on how the player will use that power. We have to decide how to handle the roll, since if done wrong it'll tell him what rolls are in the game.

One suggestion would be to keep it vague like "1. Communicate 2. Investigative 3. Manipulative" or "1. Investigative 2. Investigative 3. Manipulative," but how would we decide the choices.

Also should scum powers be included LOL?

If the role is too complex, then we can make Holmes a master servant checker. He'll be thrown off by servants that are masters so it works pretty good lol.

Like the first game we decided to have the power town servant powers with vanillas and the passive servant powers with powerful town powers. This will affect who needs the CS.

Army 1:
Shinji- snitch and
Li Shuwen- x shot tracker

Shinji needs both CS

Gilgamesh- Universal Back Up (Able to use power if Nero dies) and
Nero: Gladiator.

Gil does not need CS as Nero's can be a one time thing plus he gets his own abilities based on which town dies first.

Illyasviel von Einzbern- x shot mailman and
Karna- Divine self watcher

Illya does not need CS

Zouken Matou- Jailer with a BP and
Caligula- ... So for Caligula we were deciding how to do his powers. Either he will kill his master if Nero dies (hence the BP on Zouken) because Caligula is obsessed with her. The alternative is making him vengeful meaning that if he dies (via lunch or NK) he takes someone with him when he dies. Some input on this idea would be nice.

In either case Zouken does not need CS.

Irisviel von Einzbern- Even/odd commuter (because she goes joyriding lol) and
Sir Bedivere- Lightning Rod.

Since Bedi is most likely going to die when he uses his LR, I'd say it's safe to say Iri doesn't need CS.

Army 2:
Medea- Survivor and later Mason maker and
Beowulf- DV

Medea doesn't need CS

Kayneth- Vanilla and
Arjuna- Divine flavor cop

If Arjuna is x shot, then Kayneth needs both CS, but since Junie is hunting for another neutral not scum maybe he can be infinite shot and Kayneth gets a 1 time redirector.

Waver- Vanilla and
Artoria Pendragon- Alignment cop

Waver needs both CS

Kairi Sisigou- Doc and Restless Spirit and
Kintoki- x shot loud commuter (Anyone who targets him while commuting will be told they heard a loud motorcycle in the distance)

Weird proposal- the entire thread knows when he's commuting.

Sisigou doesn't need CS unless we want to give Kintoki more commute shots, does not need redirector.

???- Innocent Master (When she uses the command the mods will announce she is town) and
Musashi- x shot Vig

??? Doesn't need Motivator CS unless we want to give Musashi more than one shot, the redirector might be fine though.

Taiga- Reporter and
Cleo- Override

Does not need CS

 

[lokiduck]

@Verelios

We need to decide what we are doing with Caligula since I don't know what his role is even called if he kills his master upon Nero's death. In either case look over what i have so far. I think I'm done for right this moment LOL.

Also Shinji shouldn't be a sleepwalker. If his partner is the power he's supposed to be the foil for, then we don't need it.

Besides Li has to deal with two commuters as well. XD

Also also should the entire thread be told when Kintoki commutes or only people that target him?

 

[lokiduck]

Basic break down of town powers:

Protective:
Even Odd commuter
x Shot loud Commuter
Doc
Jailer
Universal Back up???

Investigative:
Alignment cop
Flavor cop
Tracker
Self divine Watcher

Communicative:
Reporter
Jailer
Mailman

Vote based:
Double Vote
Override
Gladiator
Restless Spirit

Anti-town stuff:
Snitch
Kintoki's commute is loud
Sisigou can't protect himself/same player at night
The flavor cop is only for neutral hunting and watcher too possibly.

 

[lokiduck]

For additional fun some of our masters we picked are a bit different and might make things hard for players (This is good LOL) BTW I'm informing the reviewers not you Vere :P

The best example is Zouken Matou and I wouldn't be surprised if his player claims someone else LOL because Zouken is an outright villain and horrible person. Illya is liked by a huge number of the fan base but she has also done some pretty bad stuff and Shinji is probably the most hated master in the entire fanbase LOL.

Kayneth is also a pompus ass that Japan really loves for some weird reason (Seriously he's one of the most requested) but really only Shinji and Zouken have to worry about it.

Gil has been a major antagonist a bunch but he's crazy popular so peeps will give him a pass. Medea has also been one so she may get mixed results she is your ally like Gil in FGO though so people might believe she's town. Her player can always fake claim if they feel the need.

As for the servants, most should be fine... Some are actually really popular but the key thing here is that really any servant could be mafia in this game because it's their master that controls their actions so just because your character is Nero or Artoria doesn't mean you automatically get a pass.

Though Lancer Artoria specifically has been a villain for a singularity and people might speculate that she's actually an Alter Artoria of some kind (though technically Lancer Alter is actually the good version LOL because she rejected her divinity and avoided becoming the Lion King)

Also Vere I think FGO fans would Lunch us if we made Bedivere mafia LOL.

 

[lokiduck]

I think most fake claims we give for servants should still be in their class if we give them, but we can throw in some other ones just for fun.

Also since Kirei is a Janitor we can def do whatever for the scum team as their servants/masters can fake claim the class that got janitored. Might be good to give them some servants that have been in a bunch of different classes like Cu, Elizabeth, and even Artoria (since they can just claim to be a different version of her which might be believable LOL?

That way they can say they are one of those and just pick the class based on what they think they need (since LOL they won't get the PM.)

 

[lokiduck]

I had a good laugh earlier because of the idea of using Caster Nero's final ascension art as the art for her death. If Nero's player doesn't get to announce who they are before they die, it'll be hilarious because that's how people will learn swimsuit Nero was in the game and people will be very confused if they don't know fate.

In general I think it's a good idea that when a character dies we use art for them, so for both game we should figure out what art we want to use.

For Gil, we need to use one of his casual outfits since he's a master and not a servant but I'm horribly tempted to use this lovely number:

 

[lokiduck]

I'm joking though, we should probably use his black and white outfit. XD

 

[lokiduck]

Holy fuck should we use shirtless Kirei poster for Kirei? XD

 

[lokiduck]

I also feel like Kirei needs an additional power based around Mapo Tofu. Just cause. Better yet he sends a player Mapo Tofu which does some status affect to them. Fate fans will know who caused it instantly and everyone else will be???

 

[lokiduck]

Just imagine though

[Player name] has died.

They were...

Empero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Swimsuit edition)

Role PM.

 

[Geno]

Holy shit so sorry, I told the reviewers I would review and then wasn't added to the board and completely forgot about it, thankfully I was added now, is this the board we will discuss the game or the other one?

 

[Fanto]

Yes, sorry for the wait! Apparently something went wrong and Geno and I only just got access to start the review now.

I'll start reading through the thread when I get a chance, let us know if there is any post in particular with the most up to date version of the game. :)

 

[Fanto]

Ok, so it looks like the other thread was a copy/paste of posts from a different design thread you two had because this is a sequel to another game you already made? Do I have that all right @lokiduck

I've read through the posts in here and took a peek at the doc in the OP, but it's probably going to take a bit for things to sink in for me, it's a pretty complicated game, and I'm not familiar with the flavor at all, so my eyes kind of glazed over at times until I hit mafia mechanics again lol. :P

I'll be back home tomorrow so I should be able to dive in more this week though, looking forward to making a big post with my initial thoughts.

Also, am I seeing things right here in that one of the Town powers is a Snitch? Jeez, I didn't think that role would ever show up again after LiS lol. :P

 

[lokiduck]

@Fanto Thank you for asking if this is a sequel, because it fucking is. We asked for reviewers for Fate/Mafia not Fate/Mafioso (This one). We wanted to do Fate/Mafia first because it's smaller and less complex than this one, basically to introduce the new mechanics.

@Geno as for discussing the game this thread will work fine. Since we were making this game second, we started our idea thread for this one a bit more organized.

But we wanted to review the other first so we could finalize this one... for review.

 

[lokiduck]

Also, am I seeing things right here in that one of the Town powers is a Snitch? Jeez, I didn't think that role would ever show up again after LiS lol. :P

Lol yes one of them is a snitch, because it 100% fits the character and flavor (He's literally the worst character in the franchise and this series has literal child killers). We have a lot of town players with beefy powers, so we wanted a lot of non-useful abilities as well.

 

[Fanto]

@Fanto Thank you for asking if this is a sequel, because it fucking is. We asked for reviewers for Fate/Mafia not Fate/Mafioso (This one). We wanted to do Fate/Mafia first because it's smaller and less complex than this one, basically to introduce the new mechanics.

@Geno as for discussing the game this thread will work fine. Since we were making this game second, we started our idea thread for this one a bit more organized.

But we wanted to review the other first so we could finalize this one... for review.

Ah, perhaps there was another mix up then and we were supposed to do the first one. I'd try reaching out to the review team again to be sure, this is an unfortunate mess lol.

I suppose if you need reviewers for the sequel later then, well... :P

Lol yes one of them is a snitch, because it 100% fits the character and flavor (He's literally the worst character in the franchise and this series has literal child killers). We have a lot of town players with beefy powers, so we wanted a lot of non-useful abilities as well.

Lol, I suppose that makes sense then.

 

[lokiduck]

Ah, perhaps there was another mix up then and we were supposed to do the first one. I'd try reaching out to the review team again to be sure, this is an unfortunate mess lol.

I suppose if you need reviewers for the sequel later then, well... :P

Vere and I were talking about it, and were actually wondering if you guys would be able to help us with this one later since you've already had access to it. XD Plus maybe by then you'll be a bit more familiar with the mechanics we are introducing in the first one. XD

Lol, I suppose that makes sense then.

Part of it is because his partner actually has a decent power from what I remember, so we thought it'd balance things. XD

Everyone is paired on in these games BTW :D

 

[Geno]

I thought 1 was already done with review, maybe we should request to be moved there yeah

 

[lokiduck]

I messaged Roy about it. And he said they were handling it.

 

[lokiduck]

@Fanto @Geno @Verelios

The thread is ready to be reviewed actually >:D Let's make this complicated game balanced. >:D

Also this game will probably be bastard like the first just because we have town masters with neutral servants >> But if we can run it in a different way then okay lol I feel it works anyways, since town has the additional condition, that to win as town, their team needs to have the most players left LOL. This will insight additional rivalry among town than normal conditions.

This is also why town is a bit stacked on certain powers. Since both teams are supposed to fighting each other, it'd make sense both would have similar powers like commuters, or investigative powers.

Anyways first question... do we need to make scum more OP so they can handle all the shit coming our way? Do the neutrals have a chance?

 

[Verelios]

I think the neutrals have a chance, but how good they are depends.

 

[lokiduck]

I think the neutrals have a chance, but how good they are depends.

true... I like how we are handling the Hindu bros since they have two ways of winning, but one is dependent on town, it makes them more pro town or at least for their faction lol.

Medea... depends on how we handle her rule breaker win con lol.

 

[lokiduck]

So I know everyone has been busy lol, but it might be a good Idea to work on this one I guess since it's a big game and will require a lot of talking for it.

We can also wait until after Fate/Mafia runs before we fully approve it if we want to see how a fate game runs, but still.

 

[Verelios]

I concur, if that's not a weird thing to say right now.

 

[lokiduck]

Update guys... Geno didn't have permission for this game lol apparently and he is too busy to help review so we are currently looking for someone else.

He did recommend however that we don't get the game fully approved until we run fate/mafia which I agree might be a good idea, but this game has a lot going on so I feel we can review most of it and still only wrap up after Fate/Mafia has run.

Things that ned to be worked on for sure:

- Can all factions win? We need to make sure this is 100% doable
- Can each of the two town armies win? We gave them a unique win con with this one, and when deciding on town powers Vere and I wanted to make sure both factions had similar types of powers to balance them out so both have a chance.
- Since Drake is a Thief we need to make a list of what items she can steal from all of the powers. Additionally we will have to decide which powers she roleblocks.

Because the thing with Thieves is that they are basically roleblockers that are role cops. They steal an item from a player and if that person can be roleblocked they will be. But even if she can't RB them she still gets a clue about their role via the item. Honestly this is how I could have handled the role fisher in Nier lol.

Now the items don't have to be specifically something that'd relate to a mafia role lol, they can in fact be a flavor based item like say with Kintoki his commute is his motor cycle and Iri's is her sports car, so those are the items Drake would steal lol.

 

[Fanto]

Didn't realize this was gunna be reviewed so soon now lol.

I'm kind of taking a small break from the internet this week, at the least I'm not spending much time online, so I probably won't hop in here for a bit still, just as a heads up.

 

[Verelios]

So it's just you and me Loki, trapped in our thoughts.

I think Drake can be able to effect most most active PRs except commuter who should have priority.

 

[lokiduck]

Royal Flush has joined us :D Everyone give them a warm welcome!

Didn't realize this was gunna be reviewed so soon now lol.

I'm kind of taking a small break from the internet this week, at the least I'm not spending much time online, so I probably won't hop in here for a bit still, just as a heads up.

Yeah we decided we wanted to work on it while we wait for the first game to run since we don't have any other games ready yet for review. However once Automata is approved Vere may want his fun game reviewed ;)

Either way enjoy your break! It'll give Royal Flush ample time to catch up with our game design. c:

So it's just you and me Loki, trapped in our thoughts.

I think Drake can be able to effect most most active PRs except commuter who should have priority.

Yep. lol. Her power will be prioritized as a Roleblock so it should block most powers. We can go through that while we generate a list of items for her to "Steal"

 

[Verelios]

Sup Flush, welcome to the family.

@lokiduck you want to generate the items now or wait for Royal to catch up?

 

[Flush]

So, just to be clear: THIS is the game I should dig into, not whatever is in the other thread? (Which I didn't open yet)

 

[Flush]

I'm sad there aren't any Town/Scum pairings. It was before my time (Star Wars @ Season 2 on GAF), but from what I hear is that Town/Scum lovers can be pretty traumatic for the Town part :P

 

[Flush]

I'm not sold on this whole Town v Town angle, it will create some *really* weird situations that will benefit Scum enormously ("What? Fanto Scum? Says the Big Ben member! Nice trick... Go search in your own Team!"). What's my situation to hunt down Mafia when my Team is currently losing? I will lose anyway, won't I? Can we find a solution to this?

I do like the one-sided lovers angle, though. Reminds me of the Love Boat Games. Do any of you have design insights into those by any chance? Would be really helpful to have a reference of how the chat impacts balancing. Because everyone having a chatpartner should be an upside for Town that needs to be considered.

 

[Flush]

Re Captain: I had a Captain role in Gods&Men. Here is the role PM I sent out back then:

Silly you. Did you really think you were done with death and betrayal after you resigned your post at Parakros? After you were fed up by all the senseless slaughter, by the wars just for the sake of having a war, by the constant monitoring by your officers? Apparently it's not so easy to escape the suffering. At least your long experience at the forces could be helpful. You even sense some other members of the Armed Forces of Parakros around. They'll surely appreciate your help...

You are a Captain.

You are aligned with the Followers of Komena (That's Town).

You win when all Followers of Peripseros are dead.

Once per night phase you may send us one of the following commands:
- Protect <Player> tonight!
- View <Player> tonight!
The player(s) who can send the chosen command will be notified that their Captain ordered them to target the player you chose. They are not forced to follow the order. If they already have chosen a target, they may switch their target to the Player you chose. Please send your command during the first half of the night phase, so the other player(s) has/have time to react.

The game thread is here:

If you have any questions, please send a PM to YesNOnoNOYes or Royal_Flush.

Please post in the thread or reply to this message a confirmation that you received it.

Have fun!

Goddamn, it was a good game... Also, very interesting to read my flavor from 4.5 years ago. I don't think I'd write like this today...

 

[Flush]

More specific things:

1) Caligula Gladiatoring his master doesn't make any sense because if the master dies, Caligula dies. Caligula basically would have to say "Yeah, I just involuntarily thunderdomed, please kill me". Not fun.

2) What is a Snitch?

3) What is this "CS" you're talking about in the Town power post?

4) What is a restless spirit?

5) I hate Lightning Rods and think they are unfun and inherently inbalanced. It's bastard, so no hard objection from me, but I suggest you think of alternatives.

 

[Flush]

Final post for tonight: You do realize you'll end up with a bunch of confirmed Town at some point, yes? Because of course the servants will say "Fanto is my master" when they're in danger of being lynched. When they're confirmed Town there's no reason to doubt the master.

Actually, mass claim. Everybody makes their pairing public (not who is master and who is servant, just who is their counterpart). Suddenly you have a strong bond between two Scum. Even when only the Servant is lynched, the master is up next because they're confirmed as the Scum servant's partner. Have you thought that scenario through?

 

[Fanto]

I haven't fully looked this one over yet, but just in case Royal doesn't know, me and Geno reviewed the previous game from these two which uses a similar theme/mechanics, so I'm already familiar with some of the basics.

And again, without looking at anything here specifically yet, I still want to take a little time to answer a couple of these questions while I can and because no one else has chimed in yet lol.

2) What is a Snitch?

The role is also known as the Singer:

Singer - MafiaWiki

wiki.mafiascum.net

Singer is a role that, upon being nightkilled, will reveal a random town role to the Mafia.

I called it the Snitch in my Life is Strange game to fit the theme more, so I'm assuming Loki is cribbing the name from there lol. :P

3) What is this "CS" you're talking about in the Town power post?

I believe that refers to "Command Seals" based on the last game, one of the one-sided lover mechanics if I remember right.

4) What is a restless spirit?

I believe this refers to the role that is still allowed to place a vote after their death, usually just on the day following their death if I remember right:

Restless Spirit - MafiaWiki

wiki.mafiascum.net

Final post for tonight: You do realize you'll end up with a bunch of confirmed Town at some point, yes? Because of course the servants will say "Fanto is my master" when they're in danger of being lynched. When they're confirmed Town there's no reason to doubt the master.

Actually, mass claim. Everybody makes their pairing public (not who is master and who is servant, just who is their counterpart). Suddenly you have a strong bond between two Scum. Even when only the Servant is lynched, the master is up next because they're confirmed as the Scum servant's partner. Have you thought that scenario through?

So, in their last game, which has very similar mechanics to this one, this was basically my #1 concern. It was decided that the players would not be allowed to claim their partners publicly in the thread, under the threat of being modkilled for doing it, so that should prevent any of those scenarios from happening. I assume Loki/Vere are planning to take that rule to this game as well.

--------

Depending on how much time I have, I'll try to get a closer look at things this weekend. Otherwise I'll definitely dig in next week.

 

[lokiduck]

So, just to be clear: THIS is the game I should dig into, not whatever is in the other thread? (Which I didn't open yet)

The other thread is just quotes we copied over from Fate/Mafia because we worked on both games at the same time and as a result had to make sure to not have spoilers for the other game. We just removed the posts for this game from Fate/Mafia and tossed them in that copy thread then made more organized threads to present to the reviewers which is what this thread is.

So yes you are in the right one.

I'm sad there aren't any Town/Scum pairings. It was before my time (Star Wars @ Season 2 on GAF), but from what I hear is that Town/Scum lovers can be pretty traumatic for the Town part :P

it's funny you mention that but hey at least we have two town/neutral pairings. Plussss the complexity will help with having doubt XD

I'm not sold on this whole Town v Town angle, it will create some *really* weird situations that will benefit Scum enormously ("What? Fanto Scum? Says the Big Ben member! Nice trick... Go search in your own Team!"). What's my situation to hunt down Mafia when my Team is currently losing? I will lose anyway, won't I? Can we find a solution to this?

LOL the town v town angle is a mechanic I have really wanted to try out and this game's flavor seemed like the best way of handling it since HGW are based on Faction v Faction fights.

Additionally no one will know who is on each faction anyways unless they claim soooo for all the know they could be leading and not realize. Plus it does ad to more conflict and I want to see how town handles that. XD

I do like the one-sided lovers angle, though. Reminds me of the Love Boat Games. Do any of you have design insights into those by any chance? Would be really helpful to have a reference of how the chat impacts balancing. Because everyone having a chatpartner should be an upside for Town that needs to be considered.

My first ever mafia game I read was LB 2 so that basically inspired my idea for one sided lovers since I decided to make a mafia game for Fate LOL.

Masters and servants will only have night chats which is something we had in our first game.

Part of this is accurate to fate as a lot of the time Servants leave their masters to go handle tasks or do their own plans so having them come together at night makes sense flavor wise.

This is mainly so players focus on the main thread during the day, but also to maybe help sow doubt a bit as players will have time periods where they can't directly talk to their partner except loosely sinceeeeeee as explained by Fanto, players aren't allowed to publicly claim their partner.

1) Caligula Gladiatoring his master doesn't make any sense because if the master dies, Caligula dies. Caligula basically would have to say "Yeah, I just involuntarily thunderdomed, please kill me". Not fun.

Caligula is going to kill his master or be Vengeful not a Gladiator. The one that is a gladiator is his Niece and his power only triggers if Nero dies.

As of right now I'm leaning towards him just being vengeful as it works for a berserker. If Nero dies, he randomly kills someone. It's a bit of a twist on the idea, but it's better than two dead town because he killed his master who already used his BP. We can additionally remove the BP on Zouken if Caligula is jsut vengeful unless we want it as a caution. Whatever works.

2) What is a Snitch?

I called it the Snitch in my Life is Strange game to fit the theme more, so I'm assuming Loki is cribbing the name from there lol. :P

LOL I saw Snitch as an alternative to Singer so it's what I use :p Plus you were the first time I saw the role, but I'd note that in nier mafia, when Vere flipped as the sample PM his character Devola was a Singer :P

Flavor wise Snitch fits better for Shinji as the dude only cares about himself and would totally out an ally only to die. He's literally the worst.

3) What is this "CS" you're talking about in the Town power post?

CS are command Seals. there are a power masters will have if their servant's powers require them and they are mainly there so Vanilla masters get something to do lol and also because they fit the flavor of fate.

The two CS in these games are:

1. A Motivate shot meaning the master can give their x shot servant one extra shot. These are only needed for servants with x shots that can be recharged as we probs don't want to give the override and extra shot unless we think that might be fun lol.

2. A redirect meaning the master can change the target their servant targets if they have a targetable ability. This power fits fate a lot as masters will often make servants do things they don't want to do with command Seals, but it's also is useful if a master doesn't trust their servant enough and decides they should target someone else. lol

It can also be used if the servant isn't around right before Night actions lock and the master realizes they should change target. They can use their redirect for such occasions.

I 100% admit most masters won't use the second command seal that much but in cases where the servant and master don't trust each other, it can cause more chaos and will especially be fun for mix alignment teams like say the town master and neutral servant.

Plus it fits the flavor. Everyone is like "oh flavor is just flavor" but I really want people to get that flavor can be important especially in my games. PLus we have these shots in the first game so it seems smart to keep that up.

4) What is a restless spirit?

As what Fanto said, basically when he dies Sisigou's player will be able to vote during the next day phase but not talk.

5) I hate Lightning Rods and think they are unfun and inherently inbalanced. It's bastard, so no hard objection from me, but I suggest you think of alternatives.

I like the idea of LR's because it's a way for town to tank a kill possibly for town lol. It messes with results but it can help in some ways. It also fits Bedi because he is the type to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Final post for tonight: You do realize you'll end up with a bunch of confirmed Town at some point, yes? Because of course the servants will say "Fanto is my master" when they're in danger of being lynched. When they're confirmed Town there's no reason to doubt the master.

Actually, mass claim. Everybody makes their pairing public (not who is master and who is servant, just who is their counterpart). Suddenly you have a strong bond between two Scum. Even when only the Servant is lynched, the master is up next because they're confirmed as the Scum servant's partner. Have you thought that scenario through?

So, in their last game, which has very similar mechanics to this one, this was basically my #1 concern. It was decided that the players would not be allowed to claim their partners publicly in the thread, under the threat of being modkilled for doing it, so that should prevent any of those scenarios from happening. I assume Loki/Vere are planning to take that rule to this game as well.

It is as Fanto said. Servants and Masters are prevented from saying who their partner is as even the flipped Role PM won't reveal who their partner is. Some case peeps can do the math, but if someone admits to be partnered with someone else... they modkilled.

Additionally... Sherlock Holmes is not partnered with anyone so town will have suspicion about there being an odd number of players...

Additionally additionally it's a bastard game. Just because we don't have any town/mafia pairings in this particular game doesn't mean people won't suspect their master/servant of secretly being scum especially since we will have lover chat be night only like the first game, and because... well Spoilers for the first game and referring to me earlier... (you can't play Fate/Mafia anyways just because you might figure out things after reviewing this game) several pairings in that game are Mafia/Town.

Just because there aren't in this game and we only have the town/neutral combos, doesn't mean people won't suspect it's the case in this game especially with it being bastard again.

Plus wouldn't you agree that masters having redirects seem scummy lol

Depending on how much time I have, I'll try to get a closer look at things this weekend. Otherwise I'll definitely dig in next week.

Okay fanto sounds good.

 

[lokiduck]

Sup Flush, welcome to the family.

@lokiduck you want to generate the items now or wait for Royal to catch up?

I think we'll let Flush catch up before we work on the item list.

Re Captain: I had a Captain role in Gods&Men. Here is the role PM I sent out back then:



Goddamn, it was a good game... Also, very interesting to read my flavor from 4.5 years ago. I don't think I'd write like this today...

oooh good you have experience with captains. In that case I'll make you in charge of helping us figure out that role lol.

We were debating how to handle it (and will probably do it like you did) but in that game where the targets they could captain random each night, or did they get specific roles to control?

The reason i asked is because we have a ton of roles in this game soooo was trying to figure out how many of said rolls the captain would be able to influence and if scum should be included.

 

[Verelios]

Final post for tonight: You do realize you'll end up with a bunch of confirmed Town at some point, yes? Because of course the servants will say "Fanto is my master" when they're in danger of being lynched. When they're confirmed Town there's no reason to doubt the master.

Actually, mass claim. Everybody makes their pairing public (not who is master and who is servant, just who is their counterpart). Suddenly you have a strong bond between two Scum. Even when only the Servant is lynched, the master is up next because they're confirmed as the Scum servant's partner. Have you thought that scenario through?

Like Fanto and Loki mentioned, they're not allowed to just blurt out who their partner is but I'm sure some players will try to circumvent that rule by either placing their partner always in a TOWN list or generally saying they ride and die for them. That's not really a problem for us because players love referencing prequels, and our prequel fate has mixed pairs, meaning there will always be some degree suspicion between partners.

 

[Flush]

Okay, I didn't know there was a second game with the pairings mechanic. Is it already completed? I honestly didn't really follow which games are running recently.

I think we'll let Flush catch up before we work on the item list.

oooh good you have experience with captains. In that case I'll make you in charge of helping us figure out that role lol.

We were debating how to handle it (and will probably do it like you did) but in that game where the targets they could captain random each night, or did they get specific roles to control?

The reason i asked is because we have a ton of roles in this game soooo was trying to figure out how many of said rolls the captain would be able to influence and if scum should be included.

The two roles the Captain could recommend an action to were fixed. If I remember correctly (It's been a while) I chose the roles in a way that the commands give a strong hint as to what the role does. This requires the roles to be commanded to quite standard (All your targeting active nighttime Town roles fulfill this requirement, imo). If you include Scum it needs to be refusable.

 

[lokiduck]

Okay, I didn't know there was a second game with the pairings mechanic. Is it already completed? I honestly didn't really follow which games are running recently.

LOL yes, this is the sequel. The first game is a much smaller one and it is scheduled but it hasn't run yet. Sneeks told me it'll probably happen next season at the earliest.

Geno said to have that game run before we complete review for this one, and that's the plan currently. The reason we are reviewing it now tho is because 1. Every one of my games has taken a while to review so wanted to get the ball rolling 2. There's a lot to look at and maybe even balance in this game so probably by the time we have gotten it close to completion, Fate/Mafia will be about to run.

When it does we can see how the mechanics handle, and from there we can finalize this one lol.

The two roles the Captain could recommend an action to were fixed. If I remember correctly (It's been a while) I chose the roles in a way that the commands give a strong hint as to what the role does. This requires the roles to be commanded to quite standard (All your targeting active nighttime Town roles fulfill this requirement, imo). If you include Scum it needs to be refusable.

Okay got it on scum ones being refusable. Not really sure what powers we'd include of that group, probably Xuanzang's motivate or even Drake's Thief since it's a rolecop technically lol (they'd just think it's investigative.

We can tell Holmes that if the player refuses him they get RB'd, but that's a lie for the scum team lol.

If we go with fixed actions we'll need to decide on which characters he'll get. As I said before we got quite a few roles that over lap mainly because of the factions so one idea would be to make sure both factions get covered in even amount but we don't have duplicate powers.

So basically one investigative power from faction big ben and one communicative from faction homunculus. That way Holmes can't learn all the roles or even if there is overlap.

One idea would be to generate a list of the powers he should be able to captain and we go from there. Additional proposal flavor wise, is maybe we can only Captain servants?

It cuts him off from the doctor in that case and even the jailer, but maybe that'll help condense powers down he can captain and would make some sense since he's a ruler that over sees servants. I'm not attached to the idea fully so we don't have to do that especially since Holmes could still be like advising masters as well flavor wise.

I can generate the list of powers that can be captained below.

 

[lokiduck]

Powers Holmes can captain:

Team Homunculus:
Masters:
Illya: 2 shot mailman
Zouken: Jailer

Servants:
Drake: Thief
Li Shuwen: Tracker
Can Captains control thunderdome targets lol? I doubt it but if so then Nero: Gladiator.

Team big ben:
Masters:
Sisigou: Doctor
Medea: Mason maker???

Servants:
Xuanzang: motivate shot (not her deflector)
Arjuna: Divinity checker (flavor cop role)???
Artoria: Alignment cop
Musashi: Vig shot???

I see no point in including the other mafia powers as the thief and motivator can be passed off as town is power if we just list them as like investigative and supportive.

I'm not really sure about the Captain being able to give instructions to Medea at all as her power is hard to sum up. I think Arjuna's is more okay out of the neuts tho. I'm also unsure about both the gladiator and vig shot as I feel those type of powers should be up to the one with them.

If all peeps included are listed that is:
two scum servants
one neutral servant
one neutral master
3 town masters
3 town servants.

for this reason we probably shouldn't restrict it to servants only.

now to group stuff.

Communicative:
Illya
Zouken as his jailer role can "interrogate"

Investigative:
Artoria
Arjuna
Drake

Investigative but can list as Tracking:
Li Shuwen

Supportive:
Sisigou
Xuanzang

Jailing:
Zouken

Manipulative: (Can also list as other)
Medea (RB's masters and makes masons)

If we picked one from each category it gets interesting and would require Holmes knowing there is a Jailer and a tracker but that's not bad.

Who I'd pick.

Communicative: Illya
Investigative: Artoria
Tracking: Li Shuwen
Supportive: Sisigou
Jailing: Zouken.
Manipulative if we include it: Medea

It's all town except for Medea. But if we include here then the group is 3 big ben and two homunculus with 4 masters and 2 servants. If that doesn't work we can swap in Xuanzang or Drake or something. lol
L
A
A

 

[lokiduck]

Hey everyone! Fate/mafia just ended so let's get to work on Mafioso. @Fanto I really want your feedback on how you felt the game went since you weren't in mod chat. I will be posting the stuff Vere and I cameh up with below.

One thing I want to address is @Flush you are right that having only one team on town being able to win will cause too much friction among town, so I have an alternative suggestion.
wghts and the flavor will reflect them winning. We may not even tell them about this extra win con so they can speculate about the whole faction business.

The only ones affectioned by the faction win con will be our two Neutrals Karna and Arjuna if they have to resort to their survivor win con.

If both are living at the end of the game, then which of the two wins will be based on which faction wins. Also since this wincon is based on them both being alive, I guess we can consider telling them at least they can win as survivors if their faction wins, but that might just make them too complacent in the game instead of hunting each other so maybe not. We can discuss how to handle this.

Either way what do you guys think?

 

[lokiduck]

As promised here is the stuff Vere and I noted from Fate/Mafia

1. Night 0 chats allowed so masters and servants can plan.

Alternative is to keep them always open since there are no mix alignment pairings for now. Issue with that: clues in group on mix alignments not being a thing. better to keep it as Night chats.
Might be a solution: Open chats intermittently
2. The no partner reveal rule.
Should we keep it?
If we do, what rules should be added so it’s better enforced to prevent loopholes.
Suggested rules: No Chat number reveal. no class of partner reveal. No confirming or denying partnership. No hints about your partner. Don’t do shit like “I have a scum partner vote: partner” or I trust my partner I will never vote (partner name).
3. Don’t discuss private warnings in the game thread. (Will be talked about during review.)
4. Tell the players who don’t have a chat how the chats works (even give fake number?) so they know what’s going on. Sounds like a good idea for our scum pairings since they will all share a scum chat in stead of regular chats.

Additionally how I plan on doing the chats for this game is.

Big Ben 1
Big Ben 2
Big Ben 3
Homunculus 1
Homunculus 2
Homunculus 3

dividing the chats in half will help prevent players from figuring out how many chats there are in game but additionally we can give scum fake chat numbers and even low ones at that (maybe RNG the chat numbers for each pair?) We'll inform scum tho that town will have night chats and they can't submit their commands in the chat.

Holmes should also get this info. Additionally I'm thinking Medea and Beowulf's chat should always be open and they will be informed all other chats are night only and commands are usually not submitted in the chat (they can tho since they are 100% partners that can trust eachother).

 

[Fanto]

Oh boy, give me a bit to remind myself about this game and then yeah, I'll dig in again soon.

I'll also post some more detailed thoughts on how the first game went.

 

[lokiduck]

Oh boy, give me a bit to remind myself about this game and then yeah, I'll dig in again soon.

I'll also post some more detailed thoughts on how the first game went.

o7 Looking forward to it and I'm sure @Verelios is as well.

 

[Verelios]

Well, well, well, no time like the present to hear feedback.

 

[lokiduck]

Well, well, well, no time like the present to hear feedback.

Yep. I want this game to get reviewed and balanced so we can maybe get it on the docket for the season after next at the earliest :D :D :D

Considering it's size and this being a sequel game maybe it can even be a seaon ender/operner

 

[Verelios]

Yep. I want this game to get reviewed and balanced so we can maybe get it on the docket for the season after next at the earliest :D :D :D

Considering it's size and this being a sequel game maybe it can even be a seaon ender/operner

If we don't dream big then why dream at all.

 

[lokiduck]

If we don't dream big then why dream at all.

Yep.

 

[heymonkey]

Hello, I am here.

 

[lokiduck]

Hello o7

Take your time looking over the roster and our proposed changes based on fate/mafia, but also any other opinions. c:

 

[Verelios]

Welcome, welcome. And I finally got a notification for this thread, haha.

 

[heymonkey]

Additionally no one will know who is on each faction anyways unless they claim soooo for all the know they could be leading and not realize. Plus it does ad to more conflict and I want to see how town handles that. XD

I have thoughts about this but I need to understand this first:

One thing I want to address is @Flush you are right that having only one team on town being able to win will cause too much friction among town, so I have an alternative suggestion.
wghts and the flavor will reflect them winning. We may not even tell them about this extra win con so they can speculate about the whole faction business.

I don't understand what you're proposing here. Can you explain again?

1. Night 0 chats allowed so masters and servants can plan.

Alternative is to keep them always open since there are no mix alignment pairings for now. Issue with that: clues in group on mix alignments not being a thing. better to keep it as Night chats.
Might be a solution: Open chats intermittently

What's possible benefit of intermittent? How did you feel about only night chats in first game?

2. The no partner reveal rule.
Should we keep it?
If we do, what rules should be added so it’s better enforced to prevent loopholes.
Suggested rules: No Chat number reveal. no class of partner reveal. No confirming or denying partnership. No hints about your partner. Don’t do shit like “I have a scum partner vote: partner” or I trust my partner I will never vote (partner name).

If people can't trust their partner's alignments and no one is confirmed through this, what's the downside of just being open about it? Here's why I ask:
if you're heavily scumreading Vere but townreading loki, you have to decide if the scumread is enough to risk the other person. That gives people something to chew and focus on.

Unless you're going to be very aggro about modkills, people will be coy and hint and it will always be a thread of discussion. If you are okay with that, then I say keep it as it was before.

 

[lokiduck]

I don't understand what you're proposing here. Can you explain again?

Basically in the original design town can only win if they kill all scum and their team has more team members alive at the end. So if town wins but Team Big Ben has more living members than Team Homunculus, then only Big Ben wins the game along with Holmes' player since they only have the town wincon.

Flush was concerned this would cause town to fight among themselves too much instead of focusing on scum hunting.

So as an alternative I'm proposing that all of town wins if town meets their win con, butttttt the team with the most living players will win the bonus team win con.

Basically all of town wins the game because they got scum so go town, but now Team big ben get extra bragging rights because they also won the Holy Grail war \o/

This secondary wincon also impacts our two hunter neutrals as if they can't get the other killed, then they can still win if their team wins.

What's possible benefit of intermittent? How did you feel about only night chats in first game?

The reason we were thinking of this was because we realized that maybe some stuff like with Jman and Fran could have maybe been avoided if they had been able to talk and get to know each other before day start, and even plan.

There's still a chance we may have infighting between partners, but it might allow for some planning. We don't have to go with this plan if we want to keep it to night 1 being the first contact.

If people can't trust their partner's alignments and no one is confirmed through this, what's the downside of just being open about it? Here's why I ask:
if you're heavily scumreading Vere but townreading loki, you have to decide if the scumread is enough to risk the other person. That gives people something to chew and focus on.

Unless you're going to be very aggro about modkills, people will be coy and hint and it will always be a thread of discussion. If you are okay with that, then I say keep it as it was before.

That is a true point I guess (people knowing who are partnered). Part of why we had the no partner reveal is because we had mix alignment teams but also so that if Gilles got killed people wouldn't be able to solve the game via asking everyone to partner claim and just voting out his master.

The issue is the only mix alignment pairs in this game so far are two town masters who have neutral servants sooo if we remove the rule, will people assume there aren't mixed pairs even if the game is still bastard? (Which i feel should be the case so people don't assume there aren't mixed pairs).



Personally I don't want to go aggro with modkills, which is part of why I want to fine tune the rules maybe if we are keeping it. I think there's a way we can find a way that makes the rules clear so people don't get modkilled but they can still be coy and hint at their partner as I'm okay with that honestly.

If we can't then we should just get rid of the rule.

 

[heymonkey]

Okay, thank you for clarifying re: the extra win condition. I think if it's just an extra thing, that's fine, but the way it was phrased, it sounded unsolvable - so it would create a semi-useless red herring that would distract from the game and result in half the winners not actually winning, and I don't think players would like that. This new proposal is better, and works with the neutrals. I still have some hesitations but I think we can work through those.

Short version of me as a reviewer:
I am all for a little mild trolling of players in bastard games and definitely support meaningful flavor, but I think there's a hard line between what's fun to design and what's fun to play and adding extra opaque things that detract from solving the game generally produces dissatisfaction, so one thing we can do while we worth through the rest is model what certain flips look like and how they possibly impact the game state - that's a good way to check to see if things are impeding game solves or scum strats or if they are adding to the general feeling of the game.

 

[Verelios]

Okay, thank you for clarifying re: the extra win condition. I think if it's just an extra thing, that's fine, but the way it was phrased, it sounded unsolvable - so it would create a semi-useless red herring that would distract from the game and result in half the winners not actually winning, and I don't think players would like that. This new proposal is better, and works with the neutrals. I still have some hesitations but I think we can work through those.

Short version of me as a reviewer:
I am all for a little mild trolling of players in bastard games and definitely support meaningful flavor, but I think there's a hard line between what's fun to design and what's fun to play and adding extra opaque things that detract from solving the game generally produces dissatisfaction, so one thing we can do while we worth through the rest is model what certain flips look like and how they possibly impact the game state - that's a good way to check to see if things are impeding game solves or scum strats or if they are adding to the general feeling of the game.

Hm, what do you mean by certain flips? The two town factions? Or the neutral flips?

 

[heymonkey]

Hm, what do you mean by certain flips? The two town factions? Or the neutral flips?

Oh, none in particular, just kind of a test. Like if x role flips day 1 (pick any), what kinds of clues do people get and are they reasonable? Just that. I think in games with a LOT going on like this, it's good to model a little to try to get a sense of what players will experience.

It's difficult to balance complex games because there are so many potential combinations of powers flying around that charting it out gets complicated, but doing a test case or two gives us a little of a sense of what players see and what they might think.

 

[Verelios]

Oh, none in particular, just kind of a test. Like if x role flips day 1 (pick any), what kinds of clues do people get and are they reasonable? Just that. I think in games with a LOT going on like this, it's good to model a little to try to get a sense of what players will experience.

It's difficult to balance complex games because there are so many potential combinations of powers flying around that charting it out gets complicated, but doing a test case or two gives us a little of a sense of what players see and what they might think.

That's a good point. We can post them and give our first impressions since we'll probably have four different insights.

 

[heymonkey]

And since we don't have PMs yet, just a list of the key bits, you know? We can analyze.

Let me get back to these other points.

 

[heymonkey]

The reason we were thinking of this was because we realized that maybe some stuff like with Jman and Fran could have maybe been avoided if they had been able to talk and get to know each other before day start, and even plan.

There's still a chance we may have infighting between partners, but it might allow for some planning. We don't have to go with this plan if we want to keep it to night 1 being the first contact.

no no, i totally get why you'd want to adjust (and I think a n0 chat could go a long way toward helping people get settled pre-game), but I don't understand why you'd float intermittent openings for chat. What's that mean here? short windows during a day/night cycle? every other night? It just seems overly complicated and I expect people would wonder if it was design or function of something.

What's your drawback for not having chat open all the time?

 

[lokiduck]

no no, i totally get why you'd want to adjust (and I think a n0 chat could go a long way toward helping people get settled pre-game), but I don't understand why you'd float intermittent openings for chat. What's that mean here? short windows during a day/night cycle? every other night? It just seems overly complicated and I expect people would wonder if it was design or function of something.

What's your drawback for not having chat open all the time?

The only reason why I'd be against not having lover chats open all the time for this game is because it'd be different from the first game and people may think the reason is because pairs aren't mix alignment.

In the first game we did night chat only to 1. allow players to have a little distrust because they can't just immediately ask their partner something if they have a concern during the day phase, after all we want a little distrust as that's pretty common for most master and servant pairs anyways. 2. So the Scum team would only have to worry about talking to their town partners at night and could freely plan with scum during the day when not in the main thread.

In this game so far that's not the case as the neutral servants won't have any other chats to worry about (since the other neutral neutral pair know they are both neutrals and share a chat). So we wouldn't need night only night chats, but then people might assume things.

I guess we could make some excuse that one of the changes we made after the first game was making the constant chats, but that seems unfair to any future scum players in a future fate game since going back to night chats would probably mean something is up (if we do mix alignment in those games).

Basically, I'd prefer to keep it be night chat only but we have N0 chats allowed to let the master and servant get to know each other and plan a bit.

 

[lokiduck]

Also your idea of planning a bit via killing off one role and seeing how people responds seems like a good way of handling it.

I'm already curious how people will respond when they see that there are an odd number of players lol. It does suck for whoever gets Holmes because they will have basically signed up for a partners game only to be the one person with out one. XD

I'm also massively assuming that because they are a neutral party in the HGW as an overseer players will assume they are a neutral role like how thorny thought TWE was one XD.

 

[heymonkey]

The only reason why I'd be against not having lover chats open all the time for this game is because it'd be different from the first game and people may think the reason is because pairs aren't mix alignment.

In the first game we did night chat only to 1. allow players to have a little distrust because they can't just immediately ask their partner something if they have a concern during the day phase, after all we want a little distrust as that's pretty common for most master and servant pairs anyways. 2. So the Scum team would only have to worry about talking to their town partners at night and could freely plan with scum during the day when not in the main thread.

In this game so far that's not the case as the neutral servants won't have any other chats to worry about (since the other neutral neutral pair know they are both neutrals and share a chat). So we wouldn't need night only night chats, but then people might assume things.

I guess we could make some excuse that one of the changes we made after the first game was making the constant chats, but that seems unfair to any future scum players in a future fate game since going back to night chats would probably mean something is up (if we do mix alignment in those games).

Basically, I'd prefer to keep it be night chat only but we have N0 chats allowed to let the master and servant get to know each other and plan a bit.

I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m just trying to get you to talk through it. I think your reasons are sound. Adding n0 and keeping the rest sounds good to me.

 

[lokiduck]

I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m just trying to get you to talk through it. I think your reasons are sound. Adding n0 and keeping the rest sounds good to me.

Coolio c: Any other concerns you want to bring up from what you saw during the first game? Or any concerns for the current game?

 

[heymonkey]

Coolio c: Any other concerns you want to bring up from what you saw during the first game? Or any concerns for the current game?

I think the next hurdle is handling partner discussion. Because people ARE going to try to circumvent any rules you make; it's how things go. It's not just connection, since they know they can't trust that, but also master/servant position, because that's relevant to everyone. So what's the best way to handle that after what we saw in the first game?

 

[heymonkey]

In fact, I think the minute they see there's an odd number, they will assume the extra person is in fact a neutral and try to find some way to out them because people get hella paranoid about neutrals, so the game setup already lends itself to more reasons for people to try to out that they at least have a partner, and who it might be.

 

[lokiduck]

I think the next hurdle is handling partner discussion. Because people ARE going to try to circumvent any rules you make; it's how things go. It's not just connection, since they know they can't trust that, but also master/servant position, because that's relevant to everyone. So what's the best way to handle that after what we saw in the first game?

We already discussed some of the rules we wanted to implement I believe.

1. Don't discuss your chat number. (additionally we will give scum fake chat numbers in random spots so people can't solve the game via guessing how many chats there are. Basically both teams will have 7 chats some of them just won't actually exist ).
2. Don't reveal your servant's class if you are a master (claiming to be a servant and a class is okay I guess, but maybe we should discuss that since people can mass claim via "archer, archer, archer, archer for both master and servant)

However, with there being two teams that may help matters I guess. People would at most learn what people may be paired but not who is with who... but again the ones involved will know and if people have claimed their team then this is an issue. So yeah best to prevent people from just class claiming their servant's class.

Servants can do this and of course people can fake claim a class or being a servant, but no saying "my servant is class."

3. Do not reveal your partner. Do not confirm or deny your partner. Violators will be modkilled.
4. If you get too close to all but confirming your partner when hinting about who they are, you will receive a warning. Do not discuss this in thread. If you violate the rule after the warning, you will be modkilled.
5. Do not make obvious hints about your partner such as "I feel good and trust my partner, BTW I would never vote (player)," "I don't trust my partner vote (player)," "Partner 1: I'm the doctor" "Partner 2: My partner claimed doctor (I'm not confirming or denying who my partner is)"

I don't think we'll have any rules about team claim, players will know about the bonus team wincon so claiming team may be bad possibly and even if everyone claimed a team then that doesn't reveal partner stuff (sucks for Holmes tho since he's not on one XD)

There seemed to be a minor issue with ZIpped's whole gambit of acting like his partner was still alive, but I'm honestly okay with this as it left him as a viable target for scum to kill (tho they went to Ephi instead). XD

Another other rules we need? XD

In fact, I think the minute they see there's an odd number, they will assume the extra person is in fact a neutral and try to find some way to out them because people get hella paranoid about neutrals, so the game setup already lends itself to more reasons for people to try to out that they at least have a partner, and who it might be.

This is a very fair point LOL. Part of why Holmes is town besides the fact that his goal is just to find who is causing trouble so the war can continue like it's supposed to was to throw off some expectations about the one person out of the norm.

I'm actually really curious how Holmes' player will handle it XD Will they claim right away hoping people trust they are town because rulers usually don't want the grail (and despite wanting it the last ruler was town), or will they try and pretend to have a partner and even claim one of the teams XD

Personally, the best way to help prevent all this is to just fine tune the rules up above... One proposal would be "Do not confirm or deny you have a partner or your partner is alive or dead" Holmes doesn't have to listen to this rule I feel like?

 

[heymonkey]

Yeah, we should think that one through for sure. Let me chew on these. Did we tag Flush somewhere to let him know this is chugging along again? We might wanna.

 

[lokiduck]

Yeah, we should think that one through for sure. Let me chew on these. Did we tag Flush somewhere to let him know this is chugging along again? We might wanna.

Okay will do! o7 I tagged @Flush when I made the change on the team wincon but haven't heard back. XD If he doesn't get back here before the week starts we can see about hitting him on on discord. XD

 

[Flush]

Hey :) Thanks again for hitting me up on Discord, I haven't been on OM for months... Also Hi @heymonkey !

Straight to the new points:

- Having "Win vs Win more" instead of "Win not vs Win" is a good solution to the two-Town-faction problem. I don't even know if I would necessarily tell them about that their factions matter at the end. The downside of hiding it is that it might feel like unfair BS if the other guys suddenly win more put of nowhere. The upside is that there won't be any infighting for sure. Maybe hint at it instead of spelling it out? It really depends on if you want that within-Town rivalry and if yes how much of it. In no case I think Town will knowingly completely sabotage itself to hurt the other faction if you frame it as "Win vs Win more".

- Night 0 chat sounds fine, I have no opinion on night-only vs chat all the time.

- I didn't even think about that an odd number of players rings all the alarm bells and I think it's great that the solo player is Town. Keep that in at all costs :)

- I don't quite get the deal with the chat numbers. Why is it important people don't know how many chats there are? Let them now it's always two-player chats, let them hunt for that solo player :P Also, you don't need to number them. Just name them after the roles in it or call them Mumbai, Paris, Moscow, ... or yellow, pink, lavender, ...

- I didn't follow the game that just finished, how was partner discussion handled there?

 

[heymonkey]

- I don't quite get the deal with the chat numbers. Why is it important people don't know how many chats there are? Let them now it's always two-player chats, let them hunt for that solo player :P Also, you don't need to number them. Just name them after the roles in it or call them Mumbai, Paris, Moscow, ... or yellow, pink, lavender, ...

The chat numbering has to do with the new OM setup - we have base chats we recycle instead of creating new ones every time, and they are numbered. Some people were rolling with the assumption that the numbers mattered in the last game. But they really don't; the OM person could put people in them in any order (and I recall that I did that in one game in fact, but I don't remember now which one).

I have been thinking about this, though, and wondering where we draw the line. Maybe instead of adding that into the rules, we can just discuss that in the review thread this season, because it really doesn't mean anything - but if you tell them NOT to talk about it, they will assume it does, you know?

 

[heymonkey]

also, hi, Flush! <3 <3 <3

 

[heymonkey]

Also, I feel like we're near the end of working out these wrapper details, so I think at this point I'd like to see the powers spreadsheet if y'all have one. I find that easier to work with than a list.

Or if you want a list, can we see something with columns, town on one side, mafia on the other? Balancing games like this is tricky.

 

[Flush]

Also, I feel like we're near the end of working out these wrapper details, so I think at this point I'd like to see the powers spreadsheet if y'all have one. I find that easier to work with than a list.

Or if you want a list, can we see something with columns, town on one side, mafia on the other? Balancing games like this is tricky.

Did you see the link in the first post? Or do you mean a different type of spreadsheet?

 

[lokiduck]

- Having "Win vs Win more" instead of "Win not vs Win" is a good solution to the two-Town-faction problem. I don't even know if I would necessarily tell them about that their factions matter at the end. The downside of hiding it is that it might feel like unfair BS if the other guys suddenly win more put of nowhere. The upside is that there won't be any infighting for sure. Maybe hint at it instead of spelling it out? It really depends on if you want that within-Town rivalry and if yes how much of it. In no case I think Town will knowingly completely sabotage itself to hurt the other faction if you frame it as "Win vs Win more".

Personally like having masters and servants not fully trust each other, I wouldn't mind a little town v town situation but I also don't want it being too much of a distraction.

I think one way of handling it would def be advertising it as a bonus wincon.

"Since this HGW is special... if town wins the game then one faction has a chance of winning the bonus win con which is basically extra bragging rights!!!"

We don't even have to explain how they can win it if we want. XD

- I didn't even think about that an odd number of players rings all the alarm bells and I think it's great that the solo player is Town. Keep that in at all costs :)

That's the plan lol

- I didn't follow the game that just finished, how was partner discussion handled there?

If you want to see how that was handled... >> read day 2 of Fate/Mafia when we had to modkill someone. Basically one master didn't trust his partner at all because he was an assassin class servant and because they didn't get to talk N0 he went out the gate suspecting them and even claimed master.

Then on day 2 the servant got frustrated especially when he found out his master had redirected his shot and was still suspecting him after his master said he was trusting him, so he kept heavily hinting who his master was so hard he was all but saying it.

We told him to knock it off and he did, but his master kept basically all but saying who he was after that and when we issued the master a warning he told the thread he had been warned after we just announced in the future we'd be warning anyone who got close to breaking the no partner reveal rule. Making it clear he was telling the truth about who his partner was...

So we had to modkill him.

The additional rules and even the N0 chat were largely put in place because of that reason.

- I don't quite get the deal with the chat numbers. Why is it important people don't know how many chats there are? Let them now it's always two-player chats, let them hunt for that solo player :P Also, you don't need to number them. Just name them after the roles in it or call them Mumbai, Paris, Moscow, ... or yellow, pink, lavender, ...

The chat numbering has to do with the new OM setup - we have base chats we recycle instead of creating new ones every time, and they are numbered. Some people were rolling with the assumption that the numbers mattered in the last game. But they really don't; the OM person could put people in them in any order (and I recall that I did that in one game in fact, but I don't remember now which one).

It's what Monkey said basically LOL. I numbered the chats because it's easier for the OM mods to put people where they need to be, so we were coming up with ways we can throw off info such as randomizing who gets put in what chat and even giving the scum team their chat number even tho they don't have one.

If we named the threads

Big Ben Lancer,
Homunculus Lancer
Big Ben Rider,
Big Ben Saber,

it's going to be weird to tell OM where to put people.

Additionally, in our first game we had two assassin and two berserker so we could haven't just called them: Rider chat, assassin chat. We had to number them.

It was just that town got the stupid idea to claim everyone's chat number via saying "is your chat number closer to 1 or 10" so they wouldn't outright claim who they were partnered with.

We shut that down fast. Amusingly the person they were asking that of was the pair in chat number 1.

In either case, the good news is for this game chats will be split in half with the two teams, so it'll make it less easier to solve. That plus fake chat numbers ought to help.

I have been thinking about this, though, and wondering where we draw the line. Maybe instead of adding that into the rules, we can just discuss that in the review thread this season, because it really doesn't mean anything - but if you tell them NOT to talk about it, they will assume it does, you know?

Good point. If it gets brought up during review and made a general rule then we don't need to have it in our specific rules and that way people won't suspect something is up with them.

I like this plan.

Also, I feel like we're near the end of working out these wrapper details, so I think at this point I'd like to see the powers spreadsheet if y'all have one. I find that easier to work with than a list.

Or if you want a list, can we see something with columns, town on one side, mafia on the other? Balancing games like this is tricky.

Like Flush said, it's in the first post.

Will attach Roster here later.

Here is the WIP roster https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TuCxgbJMSaiGXp239Imt0SVFgJ-q45MFHDG8r_hwih4/edit?usp=sharing

c:

 

[heymonkey]

Did you see the link in the first post? Or do you mean a different type of spreadsheet?

OH lol no I did not see it at all because uh

my eyes are broken

 

[heymonkey]

I've got it open but it may be tomorrow before I get to robust comments, just FYI

 

[lokiduck]

I've got it open but it may be tomorrow before I get to robust comments, just FYI

Sounds good o7

 

[heymonkey]

Update: I'm sorry, y'all, I'm having a VERY busy week at work but this is still open on my screen and I will get to it as soon as I can. I just wanted to let you know it wasn't off my radar. :)

 

[lokiduck]

Update: I'm sorry, y'all, I'm having a VERY busy week at work but this is still open on my screen and I will get to it as soon as I can. I just wanted to let you know it wasn't off my radar. :)

Okay sounds good o7

 

[heymonkey]

I am returned! I have some notes and questions:


Emiya - is that a one shot switch or one per night? And it’s if they switch someone, they can’t vote?

People who can potentially self-confirm as town:
Snitch
Universal Backup
Commuter, MAYBE
Gladiator
Tracker
Vengeful
Override
Innocent, if i'm reading that correctly

^^This is a lot of people to potentially be able to self-confirm, though of course, not all really can. Do you think this is mitigated by the mixed pairs? Not all pairs can be mixed, obviously - but can scum get through to kill all these people able to self-confirm?

I lean toward paranoia making this okay.

 

[heymonkey]

Remind me what the snitch does?

And the restless spirit?

I do not think you should announce a commuter is commuting - that makes that one basically innocent/mod confirmed if so.

 

[heymonkey]

What's the reporter?

Negative utility outside masters:
Lightning rod

Okay, basically just that.

Does scum have unlimited strong shots or is it x-shot? We have a doctor, a jailer, commuter (does your version of strong hit a commuter?) - if these people are alive when a bunch of people are confirmed, scum could be in a really bad position.

Why do you have a godfather? Tell me what you think that does here.

 

[lokiduck]

Emiya - is that a one shot switch or one per night? And it’s if they switch someone, they can’t vote?

It was a one shot ability as it usually is for game play reasons. The Switch basically roleblocks a person until the Switch themselves dies, but he'd only lose his ability to vote for the day he uses the power.

People who can potentially self-confirm as town:
Snitch
Universal Backup
Commuter, MAYBE
Gladiator
Tracker
Vengeful
Override
Innocent, if i'm reading that correctly

^^This is a lot of people to potentially be able to self-confirm, though of course, not all really can. Do you think this is mitigated by the mixed pairs? Not all pairs can be mixed, obviously - but can scum get through to kill all these people able to self-confirm?

I lean toward paranoia making this okay.

If we make the loud commuter not loud then that'd take care of one LOL.

I do see your concern about possible confirmable powers. It's something to consider when balancing. How do you propose we get around this, because quite a few powers I do want to keep.

Remind me what the snitch does?

Snitches will reveal one town power if they are night killed. They are also called Singers.

And the restless spirit?

Restless Spirits have the ability to vote after death but can't talk. Sometimes it's only for one day, some times it's for several days, sometimes it's until the end of the game.

To balance it, I'd say we have the Restless Spirit only be able to vote for one day after death.

I do not think you should announce a commuter is commuting - that makes that one basically innocent/mod confirmed if so.

It was quirky idea we had but I'm def willing to scrap it to make them less confirmable.

What's the reporter?

Reporters are players that have the power to make one post before day start. Basically they "report" on the state of the game and send in what they want to post to the mods who will posted as being by the reporter.

So yeah :I it basically confirms another player... unlessssssssss we make it that they can't reveal who they are maybe both in post their reports and in thread?

Does scum have unlimited strong shots or is it x-shot? We have a doctor, a jailer, commuter (does your version of strong hit a commuter?) - if these people are alive when a bunch of people are confirmed, scum could be in a really bad position.

Considering the amount of powers town has, i think it's fair to make the scum team not x shot at least on the strongman shots. On if the strongman can hit Commuter, we should consider letting them to help with balancing town having two of them. XD I'd be down with it.

Why do you have a godfather? Tell me what you think that does here.

Because we have an alignment cop in the game, so I always default having a godfather and it fits Tokiomi flavor wise. But we did say we would consider changing his powers around to help make the scum team beefier if needed.

 

[heymonkey]

I don’t think making the reporter anonymous solves that - you can tell who most people are.
So yeah - lots of ways for town to confirm themselves, even more than I thought at first, and that leaves mafia in a tough spot in two ways:
1. Leads to an unshakable town core unless town plays very dumb. Mafia cannot get in and it’s a race against the narrowing of the PoE
2. If people start mass claiming, anyone without a way to self confirm at that point goes into the PoE

Even someone who is crushing it and super townread will be expected to die at that point. So a godfather helps, but what really helps mafia is ways to get past the confirms. Or, if they play well, to get the game under control before it happens but in a game like this... don’t see that happening.

Pair mechanic adds a little balance but I’m not sure how much. Vere, what do you think about this angle?

 

[lokiduck]

I don’t think making the reporter anonymous solves that - you can tell who most people are.
So yeah - lots of ways for town to confirm themselves, even more than I thought at first, and that leaves mafia in a tough spot in two ways:
1. Leads to an unshakable town core unless town plays very dumb. Mafia cannot get in and it’s a race against the narrowing of the PoE
2. If people start mass claiming, anyone without a way to self confirm at that point goes into the PoE

Even someone who is crushing it and super townread will be expected to die at that point. So a godfather helps, but what really helps mafia is ways to get past the confirms. Or, if they play well, to get the game under control before it happens but in a game like this... don’t see that happening.

Pair mechanic adds a little balance but I’m not sure how much. Vere, what do you think about this angle?

In that case... We maybe need to give scum some confirmable townie powers? We already have Xuanzang as she's a motivator (If we don't make all of the scum team unlimited that is... right now I want Billy at least to be unlimited to counter all the protection).

Drake is actually confirmable too... maybe. LOL Thieves can be any alignment and one variant of the role is that they actually get to use certain powers they steal from. So her player could either try and pass as another power... or claim as being the thief. The latter honestly may work if they flavor claim as well since Francis Drake is a pretty popular fate character.

 

[Flush]

I don't think it matters if the reporter can be easily identified (or even reveal themselves) or not - the role is very NAI in my book.

In that case... We maybe need to give scum some confirmable townie powers? We already have Xuanzang as she's a motivator (If we don't make all of the scum team unlimited that is... right now I want Billy at least to be unlimited to counter all the protection).

Drake is actually confirmable too... maybe. LOL Thieves can be any alignment and one variant of the role is that they actually get to use certain powers they steal from. So her player could either try and pass as another power... or claim as being the thief. The latter honestly may work if they flavor claim as well since Francis Drake is a pretty popular fate character.

Right, but those are all powers that *could* be Town. A snitch creates a *guaranteed* Town. A Tracker who hit is *guaranteed* Town. A commuter (almost) *guaranteed* is Town. If you're unlucky the backup also gets one of those roles. That being said, that's only 3, potentially 4 Townies as confirmed green, the others monkey listed I would classify as yellow - Can confirm their role but that doesn't mean that role is necessarily Town.

 

[heymonkey]

I don't think it matters if the reporter can be easily identified (or even reveal themselves) or not - the role is very NAI in my book.

I'm curious why you think it would be NAI. I lean town on such a role because it's influential, and I think after EastEnders, most of the community would as well. (Now I want to put one in as scum, though).

Flush, you don't think a universal back-up is more town-side? Especially since they will always inherit a town power unless a vig happens to hit d1 or a neutral goes out first? And that's only if it doesn't specify town power - often, they do. Same for gladiator. It can be classified as negative utility, but that's part of what makes it town.

Same with override. It's possible that can be given to scum but it's shitty if it is because it's basically a vig for scum that hijacks the only collective power town has.

And innocent isn't yellow, it's mod-confirmed and loki isn't quite Geno yet. :P


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

I don't know if giving scum confirmable powers is the answer. I don't want to heavily load scum - just find balance. So here the issue is:
a heavy chunk of town can self confirm + soft confirms their partners, then (because at best, only some pairs can be mixed - even if every single scum was paired with town, that's still only x pairs, from game perspective). It puts some attention on perceived partners (because everyone will have developed guesses) but allows those to be more easily sorted, too.

Which puts scum in a little bit of a hole. We need to give them a ladder, not a bomb. Bump strong kills a little, add a fruit vendor sub-power, something like that. I'm curious to hear from Vere, though, since I think over time he's rolled mafia more than all of us? Or at least, a couple of my mafia games were far less role heavy so I might be seeing shadows, idk.

 

[lokiduck]

Yeah we'll wait to hear from Vere what he thinks about this, but part of it sounds like you think we should actually split up the scum pairs to mix them in with town partly?

Giving scum some fish vendor type powers might definitely work, tho one thing to consider is we mainly would need to try that with servants. >>

While we did give more masters powers this game (we can also dial that back a lot of needed to help with balancing actually, it'd remove some town confirmable powers) there are vanilla masters, so some scum masters can always claim that if needed.

Scum servant wise... again Xuanzang is confirmable in that all she needs to do is say she'll motivate a town player and do it (if we mix up the partners she should have a powered master maybe just to help XD) and Drake is confirmable as well if she goes with power claiming.

Billy is the only one out of the three that'd need an additional power to claim if we go that route and I'm sure we can come up with something if needed.

 

[heymonkey]

While we did give more masters powers this game (we can also dial that back a lot of needed to help with balancing actually, it'd remove some town confirmable powers) there are vanilla masters, so some scum masters can always claim that if needed.

But again, it doesn't put them into the confirmable claim category. The heart of the issue is that a significant portion of town can be confirmed, either through self or other actions, or mod actions.

Scum then either has to be able to break through a confirmed core (direct balance) or be insidiously prepared for that possibility (indirect). And we need to find a way to do it that doesn't much impact the design, because I think it's pretty solid otherwise (for a power heavy game, haha). I lean toward indirect because you want to give them the tools, not make it easy. Tools can be used well or misused and that's just the game. Direct equal balance is more boring and mathematical.

 

[lokiduck]

But again, it doesn't put them into the confirmable claim category. The heart of the issue is that a significant portion of town can be confirmed, either through self or other actions, or mod actions.

Scum then either has to be able to break through a confirmed core (direct balance) or be insidiously prepared for that possibility (indirect). And we need to find a way to do it that doesn't much impact the design, because I think it's pretty solid otherwise (for a power heavy game, haha). I lean toward indirect because you want to give them the tools, not make it easy. Tools can be used well or misused and that's just the game. Direct equal balance is more boring and mathematical.

Okay then, how can we go about an indirect route then? Besides mixing up the pairs of course?

 

[Verelios]

I don’t think making the reporter anonymous solves that - you can tell who most people are.
So yeah - lots of ways for town to confirm themselves, even more than I thought at first, and that leaves mafia in a tough spot in two ways:
1. Leads to an unshakable town core unless town plays very dumb. Mafia cannot get in and it’s a race against the narrowing of the PoE
2. If people start mass claiming, anyone without a way to self confirm at that point goes into the PoE

Even someone who is crushing it and super townread will be expected to die at that point. So a godfather helps, but what really helps mafia is ways to get past the confirms. Or, if they play well, to get the game under control before it happens but in a game like this... don’t see that happening.

Pair mechanic adds a little balance but I’m not sure how much. Vere, what do you think about this angle?

I can see where you're coming from. I suppose there are three ways we can go about this:

1). Giving Scum more firepower to kill down town faster (Easy but unfun)
2). Giving Scum more cover (ie. Mixed pairs)
3. Diversifying scums' power so that they can do more at night to mislead town, such as introducing a delayed kill ability separate from the factional kill(More complex and harder to balance)

What do you mates think?

 

[lokiduck]

I can see where you're coming from. I suppose there are three ways we can go about this:

1). Giving Scum more firepower to kill down town faster (Easy but unfun)
2). Giving Scum more cover (ie. Mixed pairs)
3. Diversifying scums' power so that they can do more at night to mislead town, such as introducing a delayed kill ability separate from the factional kill(More complex and harder to balance)

What do you mates think?

Mixed pair and maybe more power to mislead town sounds like a good way of doing it, tho let's not go the delayed extra kill route unless we feel it's needed.

Admittedly that wouldn't be too bad since town has a lot of specific killing power (vig shot, override, gladiator, vengeful).

Kind of wonder if maybe a switcher power might work for Tokiomi? Xuanzang has a reflect but that's only one time.