Cluedo Mafia spreadsheet + mechanics + balance discussion

[Atheon]

Sophia

Aug 24 2017 at 5:07pm

Spreadsheet here.

Mechanics:
Mafia must pick a weapon to kill with each night.
Each weapon has it's own unique effects, uses, and death message.
The Mafia Godfather may not kill unless they are the only member remaining.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Sep 25 2017 at 3:39pm

Current balance design questions I have:
1) Are the role PMs easy to understand? Are there any logical issues coming from them? Anything that could be misinterpreted?
2) Do the power roles have enough oomph? Worried about them being too powerful in endgame, but I also don't want them to be useless.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 18 2017 at 3:22am

Hey, Soph! A few things that came to my mind while reading:
1. How does the Ninja modifier for Ms. Peach work? If she has to give up on her powers to commit a kill, I think she would never end up using her Ninja trait, right?
2. In her role PM,
Because of your sweet and innocent charm, you will not be detected by any investigative or tracking results made upon you.

That may make the player think there's a tracker in the game???
3. Are the death prompts just fluff, or do they hint on the special abilities of the weapons?

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 18 2017 at 8:52am

Hey, Soph! A few things that came to my mind while reading:
1. How does the Ninja modifier for Ms. Peach work? If she has to give up on her powers to commit a kill, I think she would never end up using her Ninja trait, right?
2. In her role PM,
Because of your sweet and innocent charm, you will not be detected by any investigative or tracking results made upon you.

That may make the player think there's a tracker in the game???
3. Are the death prompts just fluff, or do they hint on the special abilities of the weapons?

1. It's not really a ninja in the traditional sense of the role, and in retrospect you're right in that it probably isn't needed. I'm gonna go ahead and remove this modifier from her, as the weapon covers the Ninja aspect already, and the motion detector isn't going to detect her if she's not acting anyhow. Nice catch!
2. See above: I was trying to figure out a way to word this, but it's redundant now and would just cause confusion.
2b. Related to the above two, I now need to think about the function of the rope. Should it bypass Doctor protection, bypass the Motion Detector, or both?
3. Largely just to indicate what weapon was used, nothing more. Do you think they should indicate the special abilities of the weapon?

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 19 2017 at 5:24pm

Nice \o/
---
Initially I think that the rope could be detected by the Motion Detector in the night it's used, and stopped by the Doctor in the night it tries to kill someone. It doesn't make a lot of sense to do it backwards (for example, the Doctor shouldn't be able to protect the victim in the first night, since the victim is not dying then), and buffing the weapon to bypass more than that would make it overpowered??
---
I mainly asked because I saw two different messages for the Lead Pipe and the Spanner. We both know that no matter what you decide, the players will overthink and try to infer *anything* from those messages
That's up to how you wanna make the game. Knowing the special abilities of a weapon wouldn't help Town a lot since the weapons all have only one use, but it would help with clearing up some confusion with past events: players would see the Rope's abilities and say "oooh, that's why no one died last night!".
Motion Detector and Investigator both only have one shot and can receive false results (for example, MD can target Doctor and Investigator can target Godfather), so I don't think it would be unfair to give that information publicly.
If you plan on making the players rely on their own investigative skills and reads than help from the mechanics themselves, it's fine like this ^^

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 19 2017 at 5:34pm

I'd change the Neutral's PM from
You may vote during the day phase on who you think is a member of the Mafia.

to
You may vote during the day phase.

since they're not sided with anyone.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 19 2017 at 8:21pm

Noted on the Neutral PM. Went ahead and changed it, and yeah I'd like some degree of speculation in regards to which weapon does what as the text will be highlighted. The rope will be obvious considering it'll appear, so yeah I think it'd be okay with going past the Doctor protection.
Essentially right now Mafia has: Two strong kills and a ninja kill
Town has: A motion detector shot (which can detect everything) and a investigative shot (which detects everything but the dagger)

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 19 2017 at 8:24pm

Off-topic of balance for a second, but I feel like I'm obligated to have a map mechanic in this due to the nature of Cluedo. But I've not thought of a map mechanic that would be satisfactory by my standards, lol.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 20 2017 at 10:02am

Whoops, I misread the rope's description and thought it would kill someone at the end of the next night phase, and not day phase. I'm glad you understood me anyway
Another thing, is the neutral lynchproof as well?

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 20 2017 at 4:42pm

Oct 20 2017 at 10:02am Bowlie said:
Whoops, I misread the rope's description and thought it would kill someone at the end of the next night phase, and not day phase. I'm glad you understood me anyway :D
Another thing, is the neutral lynchproof as well?

Negative, just bulletproof. Updated the role PM to reflect this.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 26 2017 at 10:00am

I think things are calm enough that I can come back to this now!
Thanks for listening to all that I've been saying so far, soph.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 26 2017 at 11:26am

I don't know if the number of scum is enough. Partly because in our meta the faction ratio is on average 3:1, and partly because Mafia could lose at the end of D2 in a best case scenario. Maybe swapping one vanilla from Town to Mafia???
I feel that if we start tending to smaller games in the future, this situation will be inevitable.
I'd like to feel Retro's (though that will not happen soon) and more importantly your thoughts on this.
The power balance is good, I'm happy with it!
A good thing about Clue is that you don't need fake claims since everyone can be the criminal in the game

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 26 2017 at 5:46pm

You're welcome. I've kind of been sidetracked, but I definitely want to run this for Season 10 if possible. I think it's the perfect game for our new forum, myself.
Which do you think would be better: Increasing the playercount so it's 3 Mafia, 1 survivor, 10 town, or swapping a Mafia over so it's 3 Mafia, 1 survivor, and 9 town?
Assuming no doctor protects, swapping a townie to scum makes Day 4 Lylo for the current player count.
On the other hand, adding an Mafia player makes Day 4 Mylo with the survivor.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 26 2017 at 10:45pm

Duh, yeah you could also add another goon, didn't cross my mind. That gives the same increase in longevity to Mafia while also not giving them a great advantage; good idea!
From my calculations, the number of weapons should still be enough to last the entire game.
Do you have enough characters in the original board game to add a fourteenth one? I feel we're close to the end.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 26 2017 at 10:55pm

Definitely have enough characters. I've added Mrs. Ho (the cook from the movie) as a Mafia Goon.
Also went through all PMs and edited to say 13 other players instead of 12 other players.
I am slightly worried about metagaming the roles tho. Let me know if you find anything that can be meta-gamed through names or whatever.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 27 2017 at 7:05am

In my family the Colonel was often the culprit
Seems like I need to watch the movie to know all these other characters, I will call that "research".
I'll get back to you later tonight, when hopefully I'll have watched it.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 27 2017 at 10:01am

Originally I was considering The Singing Telegram Girl, but a) it felt like it might stand out too much and b) I want them to be the example role PM.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 27 2017 at 3:41pm

Some other balancing thoughts while I'm thinking about it: Mostly like both factions will wait until near endgame to use their single shot powers, so how does this stack up balance wise if the only remaining roles are the three PR townies + the survivor or a vanilla + the mafia with most/all of their special weapons?

Also, what information should be given to the players of the game in the opening post? Should they be informed of what the pool of characters is from? What about the weapons? I'm leaning towards "No" on all these, in typical Mafia fashion, but...

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 27 2017 at 4:04pm

Now that I watched the movie, I think you did a good job on that.
Everyone is a suspect from the get-go, people are killed by different people depending on the endings, and all the main characters are Vanilla in your setup. For example, Nurse White or Black as the Doctor ("Doctor" in case of Black since he's not a doctor of medicine), or Mr. Boddy as the Survivor would be logical assumptions from the players, and you didn't do that.
You also added one of the main characters as Mafia, that could stop them from thinking "main character == Town".
Maaybe if Sgt. Gray roleclaimed and people googled his name and learned he is a corrupt cop, they could think he's Mafia-aligned (like how I was a Mafia Role Cop in Anime)?? Gosh, I sound like a Townie overthinking things.
If you say "fluff is fluff" enough times, that should take care of it :3
And damn, the Telegram Girl as an example PM would be so good! Dying seconds after being introduced

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 27 2017 at 4:23pm

I'm No on talking about the weapons before the game begins; that's a cool mechanic, and an integral part of the board game. Something you could do is leave a highlighted message when a weapon runs out of charges, saying "A Rope was found", and then the death message (or vice-versa), to make them really see that the killing methods are about weapons. In this case, "A Lead Pipe was found" would only be said once that weapon had been used twice, etc.
The Brazilian version I used to play was different from any american/british ones, so knowing the game it's based on would not help me personally and in fact would only confuse me. For those types of players that could have some use.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 27 2017 at 4:32pm

Oh, does the Survivor get notified when they avoid the first NK attempt on them?

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 27 2017 at 8:17pm

Oct 27 2017 at 4:04pm Bowlie said:
Maaybe if Sgt. Gray roleclaimed and people googled his name and learned he is a corrupt cop, they could think he's Mafia-aligned (like how I was a Mafia Role Cop in Anime)?? Gosh, I sound like a Townie overthinking things.
If you say "fluff is fluff" enough times, that should take care of it :3

I've been overthinking this a lot, to be honest. I actually didn't associate any role with any character, so I'll probably just claim which character is what is random (as it is in the game)

Oct 27 2017 at 4:23pm Bowlie said:
I'm No on talking about the weapons before the game begins; that's a cool mechanic, and an integral part of the board game. Something you could do is leave a highlighted message when a weapon runs out of charges, saying "A Rope was found", and then the death message (or vice-versa), to make them really see that the killing methods are about weapons. In this case, "A Lead Pipe was found" would only be said once that weapon had been used twice, etc.
The Brazilian version I used to play was different from any american/british ones, so knowing the game it's based on would not help me personally and in fact would only confuse me. For those types of players that could have some use.

Yeah, I was kind of leaning that way as is. The murder text for each weapon describe it already, but maybe I'll adjust them a bit...?

Oct 27 2017 at 4:32pm Bowlie said:
Oh, does the Survivor get notified when they avoid the first NK attempt on them?

I'm not sure about this. I'm leaning towards yes (which would mean the PM needs updated) but at the same time it's a simple enough game I could leave it as "No", and let them figure it out for themselves. But on the other hand, they might get screwed over if they claimed it at any time and the Doctor counter-claims... Hm.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 27 2017 at 8:41pm

Randomizing the flavor names and expressing that in the opening post would actually be an easy way to get rid of name metagaming.
The Survivor thing is not even a balance thing; just let the player know that they will/will not know when an attempt on their life has been made. There's a chance they would PM you to ask that same question once the game is running anyway.
Gonna go to bed now o/

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 27 2017 at 9:03pm

Oct 27 2017 at 8:41pm Bowlie said:
Randomizing the flavor names and expressing that in the opening post would actually be an easy way to get rid of name metagaming.
The Survivor thing is not even a balance thing; just let the player know that they will/will not know when an attempt on their life has been made. There's a chance they would PM you to ask that same question once the game is running anyway.
Gonna go to bed now o/

Nini!
It's pretty much a given they're gonna ask that, so I'll put it in the PM. It's just a matter of deciding if I want them to know. I'm actually thinking it might be more in the spirit of Cluedo to actually not tell them, so they can figure out if they've lost it or not.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 28 2017 at 11:34pm

Decided the survivor should know when their bulletproof is gone.

I think there's not much else left to look at? I'm feeling confident about it. Let me know if you find anything else to look at.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 29 2017 at 7:18am

I was thinking of possible endgame scenarios a bit, and most of them end up in WIFOM situations. Everyone has a nice counter, and correctly using the Motion Detector only gets harder if Town's PRs are all alive. I couldn't see anything highly skewed towards one faction.
I'm confident in your design too c: Thanks for letting me help you with it. I'm gonna send my OK to Retro now.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 30 2017 at 2:26pm

Thank you for helping me balance it. <3
Can't wait to ruuuun this.

 

[Atheon]

Sophia

Oct 30 2017 at 2:29pm

I think I wanna make one change tho, and that's switching the role of Sergeant Gray with another townie. Otherwise I suspect it might be too open to meta-gaming.
I'm gonna switch her with Mrs. Peacock.
I'm also slightly worried that Yvette being the survivor might be too open to meta-gaming as well, but that might just be my own paranoia showing through.

 

[Atheon]

Bowlie

Oct 30 2017 at 2:56pm

The Gray change is nice, but like I said earlier Boddy would be the logical Survivor. Yvette is fine the way she is.
You did good, soph, believe it :>