Gauging Interest in Mafia Games (OOC)

[Grillick]

First I want to thank Fizban and the rest of the moderation staff for setting up this forum with a clear purpose. Hopefully we can drum up some fun beyond the nation-building of the main game and outside the political humdrum of Alliance and National Politics.

 

I've found that mafia-type games translate very well to a forum like this one, and I'd like to moderate one if there is enough interest. I've created a poll on this topic to see how people feel about these games here. Please read the descriptions of each game below before casting your vote.

 

Because this is a roleplaying forum, it should be noted that these game formats are a channel for actual roleplaying. Players are encouraged to develop their characters as much as they are comfortable doing so. That being said, players will not be turned away solely because they do not wish to fully-immerse themselves in the character of the story.

 

Standard Mafia (all subsequent entries are a variant on this, and more information about this type of game can be found on Wikipedia here)

 

Mafia is at its core a game of deception and investigation. The players will be divided into two groups: the innocent, uninformed majority; and the fiendish, informed minority.

 

Game play takes place over the course of several in-game days (which on a forum usually take several real-life days each), which are broken up into a day phase and a night phase. During the day phase, the players select and vote for another player to lynch. Their goal is to kill all the mafiosi. After the day phase is concluded, the night phase begins, during which the mafiosi select an innocent player to kill. Their goal is to outnumber the innocent players.

 

In some games, some players have special roles that allow them to take special actions during either the day or the night phase.

 

Werewolves

 

This game works just like Standard Mafia, but has a werewolf theme.

 

The Resistance

 

This game is based loosely on Standard Mafia, in that there is a good, uninformed majority and a bad, informed, minority, but the game play is different.

 

Game play takes place over the course of five missions. Players alternate who is the team leader, and the team leader decides who will be the proposed members who attempt the mission. The make-up of any individual team is approved by a majority vote. If a team is rejected, the next player creates the team, and so on until a team is approved. If a proposed team is rejected five times for a particular mission, the good team loses.

 

Once the team is assigned, the mission will either succeed or fail, depending on two factors: 1) if there are no bad players on the mission, it will succeed; but 2) if there are bad players on the mission, they vote whether to sabotage the mission or not: if they do sabotage the mission (or, in some variants, if enough of them sabotage the mission), the mission fails. The good team wins by succeeding three missions, and the bad team wins if three missions fail.

 

Space Station

 

This game works just like Standard Mafia, but has a science fiction theme.

 

Quantum Werewolves

 

This game is similar in function to the Standard Mafia game, but at the beginning of the game, nobody is quite sure what their role is. Players will be secretly given a player number, and there will be a public posting of the probability that each player is either: 1) a werewolf; 2) a seer (who has the ability to identify werewolves at night; or 3) an ordinary villager. Players goals are the same as they are in Standard Mafia.

 

During the day, lynchings will happen in the same way they do in Standard Mafia. At night, however, each player who has any probability of being a werewolf or a seer will submit to the moderator their selection for a night killing and a vision. The accuracy of the vision the potential seer receives will be dependent on both the probability that the seer is actually the seer and the probability that the werewolf is actually a werewolf. If the seer is not actually the seer, his vision will be random, but if he is actually the seer, than his vision will probably be accurate (depending on how likely it is that his target is a werewolf).

 

At the end of each day and night, every player will be assigned a probability of being dead ranging from 0-100%. As long as a player is less than 100% dead, that player can continue to vote for lynchings and take actions at night. When a player becomes 100% dead, the moderator will determine the player's role definitively, and the probabilities will be recalculated using this newly-discovered information.

 

As an example: in a five-player game, there is one werewolf, one seer, and three villagers. Each player starts the game with a 20% probability of being a seer and a 20% probability of being a werewolf, as well as a 0% chance of being dead. During the night, if a player is selected to be killed by another player, then he has a 20% probability of being dead.

[Ayayay]

#werewolf-game on IRC already exists, why should people play this game instead of that?

[Grillick]

Because IRC is stupid.

 

More importantly, though, because IRC doesn't allow for the same type of roleplaying fun as a forum-based version does. On a forum, you have a permanent record of all the arguments and all the accusations, and it's more than just pushing buttons and selecting options.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Grillick

[Ashland]

The resistance is actually very, very good.  I've played it in board game version.

[Grillick]

I play it pretty regularly in board game version. It's fantastic. Have you played the Avalon variant?

[Fizban]

Quantum Werewolves

 

This game is similar in function to the Standard Mafia game, but at the beginning of the game, nobody is quite sure what their role is. Players will be secretly given a player number, and there will be a public posting of the probability that each player is either: 1) a werewolf; 2) a seer (who has the ability to identify werewolves at night; or 3) an ordinary villager. Players goals are the same as they are in Standard Mafia.

 

During the day, lynchings will happen in the same way they do in Standard Mafia. At night, however, each player who has any probability of being a werewolf or a seer will submit to the moderator their selection for a night killing and a vision. The accuracy of the vision the potential seer receives will be dependent on both the probability that the seer is actually the seer and the probability that the werewolf is actually a werewolf. If the seer is not actually the seer, his vision will be random, but if he is actually the seer, than his vision will probably be accurate (depending on how likely it is that his target is a werewolf).

 

At the end of each day and night, every player will be assigned a probability of being dead ranging from 0-100%. As long as a player is less than 100% dead, that player can continue to vote for lynchings and take actions at night. When a player becomes 100% dead, the moderator will determine the player's role definitively, and the probabilities will be recalculated using this newly-discovered information.

 

As an example: in a five-player game, there is one werewolf, one seer, and three villagers. Each player starts the game with a 20% probability of being a seer and a 20% probability of being a werewolf, as well as a 0% chance of being dead. During the night, if a player is selected to be killed by another player, then he has a 20% probability of being dead.

This is probably the nerdiest thing I have ever seen. I love it!

[Ashland]

I play it pretty regularly in board game version. It's fantastic. Have you played the Avalon variant?

No.  Does it incorporate hexes somehow like an Avalon Hill game?

[Grillick]

No. It's the Resistance, but set in the world of King Arthur.

 

The teams are the Minions of Mordred and te Loyal Servants of Arthur.

 

There are special characters like Merlin, Percival, Mordred and Morgana.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Grillick

[Dietrich]

This looks somewhat interesting; I've never seen a Mafia game involving any level of serious roleplaying. I think I'd prefer Standard Mafia or Werewolves, anyhow, especially for the first game.

[Ashland]

No. It's the Resistance, but set in the world of King Arthur.

 

The teams are the Minions of Mordred and te Loyal Servants of Arthur.

 

There are special characters like Merlin, Percival, Mordred and Morgana.

No.  And after having read the Legends of King Arthur I can't take anything Arthurian-themed seriously.

 

Some of them are so hilarious.  I was actually contemplating putting up a thread where I paraphrased them.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Ashland

[Grillick]

Aside from not having played Avalon, you sound a lot like a friend of mine. He's always just as focused on te time of te games as he is in the mechanics, and no matter how great the mechanics are, he can't get over a thematic problem once he's identified it.

[Hereno]

i strongly dislike the way you do voting here.

 

why do you do it that way?

[Grillick]

I'm not sure what you mean, Hereno. Are you talking about the poll?

[Reagan]

He probably means making the votes public.  There is an option for them not to be, which most people prefer.

[Grillick]

For this particular poll, I thought it was important for everyone to be able to gauge not only what was more popular but also who was interested in what.

 

If there's a lot of interest for two things, but the people interested in them are highly varied, it might make sense to do two different ones at once.

[Vincent]

The space station sounds good, if is on, I am in. science friction stuff, my cup of tea

[Hereno]

was confused looking at the quantum werewolves thing

 

needless to say i am against that one

[SAI-40]

I've never heard of nor played the Resistance variant, so I'd love to give it a try. I'm game for any kind of mafia though.

[Tank Girl]

Standard Mafia !! i love that game

[Ashland]

It's a poll about a board game or whatever! Who cares if it's public?

[Dietrich]

I would like the voting system a lot more if it were announced, about a day before the poll closed (whether or not it is actually closed, at some point the results will have to be evaluated), that the poll was about to close. That way, anyone who voted for something that is sure to lose can transfer their vote. I mean, if Standard Mafia was clearly losing, I would want to transfer my vote to Werewolves, and I think that a lot of people might feel a similar sentiment.

[Grillick]

You can vote for as many options as you want....

[Godfrey]

I voted for Standard Mafia. Let's use the Cop, Medic, and Vigilante roles. Should be a good time.

[Ashland]

It does sound cool.

[Grillick]

It looks like people want to get their feet wet with a standard mafia game, so I guess we'll get the ball rolling with that one. I'll have a sign-up thread posted sometime this week.

 

I'll start with a seven-character cast, but if we get more interest, it's easy enough to expand the cast of characters to accommodate more people.