You are a dragon. This is nothing new. You've been around for millennia. To all those insolent humans, arrogant elves, respectable kitsune, and deceitful lying scum wyverns that say they wish they could be immortal, you are an example of what they wish they could claim. They are jealous.
As it turns out, immortality is
really boring. By the name of the First, living forever is the
worst. You've mastered chess over the course of a few decades, most other board games too. New ones are even easier to learn. Your hoard is well stocked, of course - it is your status symbol. Most hoards these days are fairly equal, however - ever since the humans and elves signed that peace treaty, every time you try and steal something properly valuable you get an army dumped on your doorstep - the nerve of those mortals, to think they can oppose you! Except, unfortunately, it's been proven that they
can do so, in such large numbers and with the powers of their own mages, massed and used in cohesion. It's no fun.
So by now, you would be utterly insane if not for the game of FBYOR.
As the records clearly state, Most Elder Fallacy, the dragon called 'Of Urist', inscribed the rules for the game on a slate of adamantine. Most Elder Fallacy never quite explained what the sigils making up the name of 'FBYOR'
meant, but the game itself is perfect for a dragon of your immense intellect.
Your invitation for this decade has arrived. There is nothing left to do but to declare your acceptance and return, with your response... your 'role submission'.
This is my attempt to make a BYOR that is less bad. Can we please just pretend FBYOR 1 through 4 didn't happen? Thanks.
This will be a medium-high power game. You could call it semi-bastard by default, because while I will not try to be a bastard intentionally, things will just not be truly predictable and will only somewhat be sane. I'll try to make it comprehensible enough for a beginner, but no promises on whether or not I'll succeed.
Here are, for reference, the fundamentals of the game of Mafia.
What is mafia?
Mafia is a social deduction game! I make no guarantees about what horrors await you in this match, but I can say at the very least there will be a Town team and there will probably be a Mafia.
The Town are an uninformed majority. If you're a Town player, you're aware of your own alignment and not the alignment of any other players. You're opposed to the Mafia and any other hostile Third Parties, should they be present, and you win the game once all anti-Town players have been eliminated from the game.
The Mafia are an informed minority. Each of the Mafia is aware of the alignment of the other Mafia players. This makes them a coordinated, but small team up against the uncoordinated, but massive, Town. The Mafia win once the number of uneliminated Mafia equal or surpass the number of remaining uneliminated non-Mafia players, so long as there is no way to interrupt that condition and at least one Mafia player is still alive.
How are players eliminated?
An eliminated player is referred to as dead, and cannot post further in the thread, and in most circumstances cannot use their Abilities.
The game of mafia is played in two Phases. During the Day, a vote is held where every player has one vote. The Town must deduce who the Mafia are, while the Mafia attempt to blend in and manipulate the vote for their own benefit. At the end of the Day, which occurs either on a deadline, or when a majority of players are voting one person (this is an optional rule known as the Hammer) whichever player has the most votes on them is eliminated. This is referred to as Execution.
(In previous games, Execution was known as the Lynch, but that term has certain connotations, so we as a community are shifting away from its use.)
During the Night, the thread is locked and public discussion cannot occur. Most Abilities are useful during the Night. The Mafia have access to two privileges that give them an edge despite their small numbers. The Mafiakill is the shared Ability to forcefully eliminate a player of the Mafia's choice. The second privilege is the scumchat, a private Discord chat which allows the Mafia to communicate and coordinate in secret in both Phases.
While the dragons may not know this, FBYOR stands for Fallacy's
Bring Your Own Role. When you sign up to play, please PM me your role name. I will design your role and abilities based on your role name, and once the game begins, you will possess the role I custom-designed based on the name you chose. Whether you're
Town or
Mafia or
Third Party will not depend in any way on your role submission, since I randomize the alignments. However if you are a
Third Party, the role name you sent in
may influence what
type of
Third Party you are. Or maybe you'll submit
Paragon of Niceness and Charity and end up being a
Serial Killer.
You may select anything at all for your role name as long as it does not violate the forum rules and guidelines. You could submit your favorite physical character (
Batman,
Squirrel Girl,
Omori) or an abstract concept (
Murphy's Law,
Purpose) or some bizarre amalgam (
Cheshire Cat Strikes Back In Theaters Monday,
I'm Right Behind You, Shakerag, Can't You Hear Me Whispering), or even a Shakeragian style role (
The FBYOR 5 Role That Ignores Rules). I reserve the right to give you silly, broken, absurd, or seemingly useless
Abilities if you submit a Shakeragian role.
Don't worry. Everything in the role you eventually receive will have
some purpose. Hopefully most of the time that purpose will be obvious, but remember you can always ask me questions about your role in private. In fact, please do so. If you do not read your role correctly and don't ask me about it, what happens next is on you. Did you know Maximum Spin and Roden missed a way to gain infinite Gold last game because they didn't fully read their abilities? Now you do! Always read your role fully and never be afraid to ask me questions about it. In private. Not in public. If someone's dead, you can even ask questions about
their role, too!
Some more specific rules, including some things I'm explicitly stating now:
Day Phases last 72 hours for the first and second Days, and 48 hours henceforth, though they still end immediately on
Hammer. I reserve the right to extend the duration as needed if a player replaces into the game, a real-life emergency occurs, or an extreme Day
Ability resolves.
Night Phases last 24 hours always, though they may be shortened if every player submits their desired actions or lack thereof quickly.
No editing your posts, and no directly quoting any PMs you have received from me. You are freely permitted to paraphrase. If you have access to a private chat where your alignment is mod-verified, such as the
scumchat, you may quote PMs from me in there. If you have access to a private chat
without alignment verification included, you do not possess this privilege. Never directly quote PMs from me in the main thread no matter your alignment.
After the
Day is ended via hammer,
do not post. You may edit your posts to nullify content posted after the hammer, which is an exception to the above rule. If the
Day ends via deadline and not hammer, you may continue to post
until I close the thread, but further votes will not count and whoever was
Executed may not post (except to produce a single 'bah' post useful for mockery, a joke, or humor, but not permitted to contain game-related content).
Don't be too much of an asshole. Some aggression is fine, too much will have me stepping down from my cloud to warn you to cut it out.
By default you will
not be informed when redirection (that is, the changing of your action target by the use of an ability) has occurred during the
Night. Sorry.
I'm using sane Natural Action Resolution. While I reserve the right to make super-priority actions, by default your Night actions are resolved according to the Natural Action Resolution as seen on mafiascum wiki, paradox resolution handled via the emergency list, and then rolling for initiative if even that fails.
Again, please talk to me about your role so I can help you understand it. You can't just say 'what am I missing', but you
can ask me about any details you like or even make absurd hypotheticals. Your roleblock might have a niche case to it that does something incredible in an unlikely circumstance!
On action failures: there are multiple different types of action failure. Most will give you a result of
Your action failed. when they occur. Let's go over the most common types.
Failure to target: Congrats, your target is outside of the game space due to a banishment effect or commuter ability, and cannot be targeted. Your action failed, because you couldn't even use your ability in the first place. Any shots you would have used have not been used.
Failure upon use: Something jammed you at the moment you used it. 'Target player's action will fail' would fall under this category, as would action failure due to "(Status) Curse: Your actions have a 50% chance to fail when used!" or such. Any shots you would have used have not been used.
--Roleblock: A roleblock is a specific type of power that forces action failure. Unlike other failures, if someone is roleblocked, they are explicitly given the message
You were roleblocked. - but only if they attempted to act. If a player was roleblocked and did not attempt to act, they do not receive this message. This also does not consume shots.
Failure upon arrival: You successfully
used your ability, but alas, woe is you, you hit a player who causes all non-kill actions used on them to fail. Unfortunately in this case your ability fully resolved, it just didn't do its job, so you do lose any shots you tried to use.
Sneaky failure: You successfully used your ability, you got the
You performed your action message - and your killshot on webadict hit a protect action. You aren't told your action failed, and technically it didn't - but the
effect failed completely even if your action didn't.
This should help resolve some of the confusion I saw about Night action messages.
Let's talk about alignments. There
will be a
Town team, and there will probably be a
Mafia team. I may or may not include
Third Parties, based both on randomness and player count, and in an especially big setup I may or may not include a second scumteam with a name such as
Werewolves or
Gamers. Or in short, there will be a
Town, and there will also be an
anti-Town, which will probably be the
Mafia.
But for your reference here is the
Total List Of Alignments. I will not include any alignments outside of these, and the win conditions will always be as stated.
(Always Appears) The Town must eliminate every anti-Town player and have at least one living Town player to win. Anti-Town players are any players that have win conditions directly opposed to the Town. A Mafia player would be anti-Town, but a Survivor would not be.
(Will Probably Appear) The Mafia must eliminate enough players such that the number of living Mafia players equal or outnumber the other living players, and furthermore at least one Mafia player must still be alive. This win condition will only trigger if there are no remaining ways to eliminate the Mafia - so a Town double voter or vigilante killer could obstruct it. The Mafia will always possess a totally private scumchat which any living Mafia may communicate freely in, as well as a factional Mafiakill. In a game with a secondary scumteam, the Mafiakill may kill in a less direct manner, otherwise it will be a straightforwards kill.
(Very Rare, Requires Large Game) The other scumteam may take up any villainous-sounding factional name. They share the same rules and win condition as the Mafia - and yes, they will need to fight the Mafia in order to achieve their win condition, and vice versa, because it turns out this town isn't big enough for two groups of murderers.
All alignments below this line belong to the Third Parties category.
(Common) The Mafia-Ally simply wins when the Mafia players do, without actively being on their team (and thus gaining none of their special privileges).
--(Rare) The Other-Ally could be allied to any of the alignments present. While not being of that alignment, they will win when a player that possesses that alignment wins.
(Uncommon) The Survivor must be alive at the end of a certain Day number, including surviving the execution that Day, in order to win. Depending on game size this number will probably be 3, 4, or 5. If the game ends before that number they will also lose.
--(Rare) The Joint-Survivor exists as a team of two. They have the win condition of the Survivor, but modified - either both of them must be alive at that time, or at least one of them must be alive at the selected time.
Any type of Survivor that wins immediately exits the game.
(Uncommon) The Serial Killer wins when every player that is not themselves has been eliminated. If every player including themselves is dead, they also win. They typically have some form of lethal ability to help accomplish this, though usually not so direct as the Mafia's kill.
(Very Rare, Requires Large Game) The Cult win when the number of living players of their alignment equal or outnumber all non-Cult remaining living players, and there is no longer any way to stop them through kills, vote manipulation, or otherwise. As a courtesy, if there is a Cult, I guarantee you that at the start of the game there will only ever be one Cult player. The Cult player will possess a means of transforming any player that is not scum or Joint-Survivor into another Cult player. This methodology will be limited.
(Rare) The Hunter is opposed to a specific alignment decided by me. As long as that alignment loses, the Hunter wins. If their opposed target is Town then they count as anti-Town, otherwise they do not. The Hunter need not be alive to accomplish this win condition.
With all that said and done, here's the signups.
Player List:- Maximum Spin - killed Night 1, was "A Heart Full Of Neutrality"
- EuchreJack
- webadict - executed Day 2, was All of the Eeveelutions crammed into a single Pokeball
- TricMagic
- Knightwing64
- Jim Groovester
- notquitethere
- NJW2000
- ToonyMan
- TolyK
- Vector - executed Day 3, was the Public Universal Enemy
- Roden - executed Day 1, was the Happy Mask Salesman
- juicebox - executed Day 4, was Pot Of Greed
- Nakéen
I'll close signups Friday, unless we reach our desired playercount before then.
