The white, unmarked van slowly rolled up to the side of the warehouse. The reinforced exterior bounced lightly against the curb. Moving with practiced efficiency, an expert team deployed in seconds, carrying their payload.
WUBA-Inc Hotdog Catering was the best in the business for speed, bulk delivery, and flavor. They were frequently called upon when there was little to no warning given for food-requiring events. Birthdays, business barbecues, conventions... unfortunately, it was quite the tough business. Especially given their main competitors - Mafiaco Deli.
When the WUBA employees rolled into the building, they found to their shock that Mafiaco had already set up shop. When they fled, they noticed their tires were, somehow, outright
removed. It took several humiliating hours for the tow truck to finally get the van moving, during which they had to watch Mafiaco steal their planned catering contract.
The evidence was clear. WUBA-Inc had a mole. Probably several. Mafiaco was well known for corporate espionage, and rumors suggested that they weren't above sending obstacles to the hospital. Or... the morgue.
The suspects were rounded up, and in compliance with ancient tradition, told to figure out who the moles were themselves.
This is Mostly Vanilla Mafia 3, a closed-setup game of forum mafia. I will be taking any number of players that want to join. In terms of thresholds for player count: with under 9 players, I'll do my best to make the setup interesting, but it's going to be over shortly and it'll be a struggle to reach the depth of strategy present in the previous two MVM games. 9 players is my preferred minimum. Between 9 to 12 players, I'll likely be able to create a decent setup, on par with Mostly Vanilla Mafia 2. I'd really like to shoot for 13+ players, since it'd allow me to experiment with setup creation, while still remaining within the core bounds of the MVM ruleset and guidelines. Both new players and veterans are welcome to join - while everyone
will have a power role (no boring Vanilla Townies and Mafiosos here), you won't be seeing the unbridled chaos and uncertainty of a BYOR. The game is not vanilla, but it has vanilla roots. A few notes below:
The game is called Mostly Vanilla Mafia because most roles will be vanilla and a few will be mostly vanilla. There's a difference between an Odd-Night Cop and a Pyromaniac Cop, after all. The existence of unusual role modifiers and combinations is something you'll have to watch out for - don't try to outguess the mod. The
mafiascum wiki will have most or all of the role names you'll see in the game.
The days will not be allowed to drag on. In the interest of creating a game that doesn't drag on forever and leave players exhausted and unmotivated, I'm taking a few pages out of Wuba's book, with a few of my own touches. 72 hour Days, 24 hour Nights,
no player-voted or caused extensions. Mod-instituted extensions in the event of a daykill, replacement, or meta-related reason - for something like exams or a player having a personal emergency - can still occur. Hammers will be in full effect (when the majority of players are voting a single target, the Day immediately ends,
please stop posting after that point, and that player is executed). As previously demonstrated, this leads to a faster and more enjoyable game.
A few ability types are ruled out and will not appear in the setup. First, no
manipulation of votes. No Doublevoters, Vote Stealers, or Concealed Voters or such. Mechanics can still
involve voting or
execution, however - for example with a Vindictive modifier as seen in the previous game, or an execution-cancelling
Governor. Secondly, just like in the previous Mostly Vanilla Mafia game, your role will not have any
hidden modifiers - if you're a Cop, you won't secretly be Insane. Thirdly, it is possible for role flips to be obscured by a Janitor, but role flips will
not lie (though let's be honest, this is just basic decency - I'm not running a bastard game). Fourth of all, I will never include alignment conversion in a game with less than 13 players, and even when it's an option it
will not be deployed in an unlimited form. Finally, I'd like to ask for a little trust. Having the
option to use something doesn't mean I will, and the more unbalancing it is, the less likely that I'll use it. I might not be a legend of design like webadict, but I've learned enough to avoid creating nightmares by now.
Here's an example list of vanilla and Mostly Vanilla roles, along with the alignments they would be given to.The Town is guaranteed to appear. The majority of players will be Town, and while they will not know who else is Town, they will have to deduce each others' identities, find the anti-town aligned players, and work together to lynch them and win. Town players win when all anti-town players are dead and at least one Town player is still alive.
Odd Night Cop (town)
(Night) Odd Night Inspect [target]: You learn whether your target is town, mafia, or other. This ability can only be used on odd-numbered nights (1, 3, 5, etc).
Chaotic Inventor (town)
(Auto) Chaotic: Whenever you attempt to perform an action targeted at a single target, you must choose three players instead. You randomly select one of those three players and target them with your action.
(Night) Invent [target]: You grant your target a random 1-Shot Night action from the following list: Block, Kill, Alignment Inspect, Track.
The Mafia is also guaranteed to appear. A small-ish minority of players will be Mafia, and will have the benefits of private communication during both the Night and Day (potentially enabled by an Encryptor) and a factional Mafiakill ability which can be used by any of their players to kill a target once per night. They are undoubtedly anti-town, and will win once their membership count is greater than or equal to the number of other players in the game, at least one of them is still alive, and it is not possible for them to be opposed. For example, if there were four players left - two town and two mafia, but the town had a Bus Driver, it would be possible for the mafia's own kill to be redirected onto one of their own members and leave the game in a two-town one-mafia situation.
Strongman (mafia)
(Auto) Brutality: Kill actions you perform cannot be stopped by protecting the target or kill immunity.
Disguised Ninja Poisoner (mafia)
(Auto) Disguised Ninja: When you perform a Night action, choose a player. Watch action used on your target(s) see that player visiting instead of you.
(Night) Poison [target]: You poison the target. At the end of the following Day, they die of poison. Using this ability counts as using the mafiakill.
Third Parties are not guaranteed to appear at all, but add spice to the game. Their win conditions may be somewhat harder to accomplish compared to the Town and Mafia, so they're given a bit more individual power to compensate. The only third party players that can appear in Mostly Vanilla Mafia 2 are Mafia-Ally(common), Survivor(uncommon), Serial Killer(uncommon) and Cult(requires 13 or more players, rare).
Mafia-Ally players win when the Mafia win, but lack knowledge of the mafia's identities - so they have to attempt to figure out who the mafia are and support them covertly.
3-Shot Tailor (mafia-ally)
(3-Shot, Night) Tailor [target]: You choose whether your target alignment inspects as town, mafia, or other tonight.
Loud Evil Doctor (mafia-ally)
(Auto) Loud: Anyone you visit during the Night knows that you visited them.
(Night) Evil Protection [target]: You protect your target only if they are anti-town. Otherwise, you just visit them.
Survivor players get a bad rap in this community, and very often have a very hard time winning, so I've spiced them up a bit. A survivor wins if they are still alive at the end of a particular Phase (after the execution, if it's a Day) or the game ends before then.
I've added the variant of Joint-Survivor(rare), which appears in a pair of two. If one or both of them are alive at the end of the game, they both win. They don't get the benefit of winning before the game ends like an individual Survivor, but in exchange they're more robust and can work together. The possibility of Joint-Survivors is intended to make Mason groups less trustworthy and reliable.
Bus Driver Survivor (survivor)
(Night) Bus [target1/self] [target2]: Any actions targeting your first target are switched to target your second target, and vice versa. Your first target may be yourself.
Colossus (survivor)
(Auto) Bronze Body: You are immune to standard kill actions.
(Night) Bodyguard [target]: All kill actions used on your target are redirected to you.
Survivor Mason (joint-survivor)
(Auto) Secret Order: You have a private, alignment-confirmed quicktopic which you can communicate in at any time (except when dead) with your partner [name].
Serial Killer players win if all other players are dead. It makes no difference whether they are alive or dead - they can win either way. They can kill directly or indirectly, or maybe even not at all...?
Serial Killer (serial killer)
(1-Shot, Auto) Bulletproof: You can survive one standard kill.
(Night) Murder [target]: You stab your target to death, killing them.
Chain Vigilante (serial killer)
(Auto) Kill Chain: If you successfully performed a kill action the previous Night, you cannot be roleblocked or protected against. If you successfully performed a kill action the previous two Nights, your kills pierce kill immunity.
(Night) Kill [target]: You shoot your target to death.
Cult are intended to be an ominous presence. The rarest of all the third parties I have the option to include, but perhaps the most sinister. Of note, I'll only be able to include a cult in a 13+ player game, for balance reasons. I'll be honest with you, I mostly just want the option to do this to freak you, my players, out a little. In all likelihood you won't see a cult until MVM7. But who knows. We'll see what the dice see. Cult function by insidiously converting individuals (any player with a 100% alignment-confirmed quicktopic, such as town Masons or the mafia, will be entirely immune to conversion), changing their alignment to serve them. This is a powerful ability, and it will never come without a cost. Cult players will win once they can no longer be removed from play - they must have enough members to make it impossible to execute one of them and no players with the ability to kill can still be present. (This means they will always be put up against the mafia).
Cult Leader (cult)
(Night) Brainwash [target]: If your target is a recruitable individual, you brainwash them and add them to your alignment.
(Auto) Cult of Personality: While you are alive, all the members of your alignment share a quicktopic together, usable at Night by living players. Once you die, all the members of your alignment return to their original alignments. Players with your alignment, other than you, cannot use abilities.
Spider Witch (cult)
(Night) Hex [target]: If your target is a recruitable individual, you possess them with your Spider Demon, adding them to your alignment. You can only have one possessed individual at a time - if the previous one dies, you may make another. If this is used on a non-recruitable individual, they will be alerted of the fact that this ability was used on them by a cult-aligned player. If you die, all possessed players, living or dead, return to their original alignments.
(Night) Command [target/self]: If there is presently an individual possessed by the Spider Demon alive, you may use this ability to control their night action, replacing their own intended one. If you target a player other than yourself, the possessed player will attempt to kill your target. If you target yourself, the possessed player will use a protect on you, saving you from kills.
More minor notes:
-When it comes to resolving actions, I'll do my best to use Natural Action Resolution principles as per the page on the mafiascum wiki. In the event that two actions of the game priority level clash, like with two kills or two role blocks, I'll use random.org and roll initiative to see what order they resolve in.
-After your death, you may post one 'bah' post to the thread containing no game-relevant information unless your role empowers you to do such. You will gain access to the deadchat at this point. I reserve the right to use a Medium role, so watch what you say while dead. If you are revived after gaining deadchat access, you lose deadchat access - since I can't revoke the link, it's honor system for this. Post-death revivals will be quite rare, and might not even be present at all, however.
-Don't edit your posts, even to correct spelling mistakes. (Just a reminder for new players)
-Try to be decent to your fellow players. I'm not going to come down with my mod hammer if you start insulting someone's play, but at least be constructive about it? Aggression is a valid tactic, but use it with moderation in mind.
-Don't directly quote PMs or quicktopic statements from the mod in the thread. If you have access to a 100% alignment-confirmed quicktopic, such as a mason chat or the mafiachat, you are allowed to directly quote mod PM statements in it. Otherwise, just don't. You may quote statements the mod makes from the thread, in the thread. (Things like vote counts, rules from the first post, etc) If you need to share information from your action results, private clarification questions, or role PM in thread, paraphrase!
-Flavor is intended to be mostly irrelevant. The sole exception is death flavor - you are definitely allowed to infer different death sources if after the Night two players are dead - one frothing at the mouth and the other from gunshots.
Playerlist (as of Round 5):- webadict
- NJW2000
- EuchreJack
- Maximum Spin
- Roden
- Jim Groovester
- ToonyMan
- Magma Mater
- Toaster
