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[Imic]

I am here to siscuss roleplaying mafia ideas and mechanics.
How roleplaying mafia would work:

One person is a baker. Basically an ordinary towny. He is grumpy, but kind on the inside, although he dislikes getting colds. The fact that there is a baker, as well as his known personality, is shown to all players, this is a small town, and everyone knows everyone.
BUT!
SUDDENLY!
A spie comes into town from the nearby kingdom of Antagonista, with the intention of infiltrating the town!
So, the spy pretends to be the baker, thus creating a brand - new kind of mafia environment!

Requesting constructive criticism, as well as ideas for roles.

[doll]

What is in place to make this anything other than fluff over the top of normal mafia?
Do some players know about certain roles' traits more than other players, allowing them to angle towards sniffing out the spy by making them slip in flavor, while leaving this same avenue open to everyone else?
Is this going to be strong enough to overcome the usual method of 'disregard flavor and just hunt'?

I can't see any incentive to stay in character as it were from what you've just described. If it's based on good faith, then it really is just flavor.

[Imic]

Yes, pretty much. I don't mind.

[Jack A T]

Imic: Have you read the Witches' Coven games?  (One, Two part I, Two part II, Three)

They had no roleplaying expectation, but they did have a good bit of the interlocking player flavour you're describing.  Bastard games, very much.  Worked out well.

[Imic]

I like it. That style + roleplaying = might actually be interesting.

[Mephansteras]

I also did a RP Supernatural Mafia game at one point. It went ok, but we don't have that many players who like RPing mafia. I've seen it work really well on other forums, though. Could always try, we do have a different mix of people now than we did years ago.

[doll]

It strikes me that in many cases the following may be a good idea:
Have players go 'in' via PM rather than by posting in the thread.
To my eye, most of what occurs in the pre-game banter within the thread can be summed up as:
1) Players fishing setup information out of the moderator
2) Players discussing the game format (as opposed to the specific setup)
3) Pre-RVS meta-gaming whereby players discuss plans and methods they intend to employ in the game itself, and in doing so influence how those methods will be perceived within the game
4) Moderator enacted setup changes, often due to 2), 1) or additional players going in in unlimited population games

In a game like Paranormal (or Broken Hearts) which has an open list of possible setups with a separate thread to discuss game mechanics in, and often an indeterminate number of players, (2) can be done elsewhere (and feeds strongly into (1)) while (1) and (3) directly benefit the early players (and (4) feeds so heavily into (3) that it usually has a major effect on Day 1). (1) and (3) are both disruptive of normal game flow and generally undesirable; the changes of (4) usually severely disrupt the plans and mindset of early players and so can be largely considered the same.
Using PMs allows moderators to avoid giving players information on who they will be playing and gives moderators the opportunity to censor player's attempts to express how they will be playing, which I suspect is quite good for the health of the game. Giving signup statistics allows moderators to still express how close the game is to starting for those games which start upon getting enough players in.
PMs have the added benefit that they allow moderators to make active decisions about which players to include in a game where more wish to play than slots are available for. Moderators attempting to straddle the line between successfully running complex setups which inexperienced players may disrupt, and getting enough players to run a setup at all will benefit from a PM system as they can fill their games by preference order rather than by chronological order. Similarly, players who have less time than other players may be able to indicate so in the PM and be placed lower in the preference order in an elegant fashion without having to try to guess if the thread will fill without them going 'in' and basing their decision on that; the moderator need not trouble busy players by putting them in a game unless their brief and sporadic posting becomes the moderators preference due to the lack of a game without, while busy players can more easily ensure that games they are interested in do not fail to arise without clumsily attempting to register both an interest in playing and a partial disability in doing so.

[TolyK]

Interestingly enough, IN-ing is a long-standing tradition. I don't know why, exactly, but it's likely descended from forum games in general. The one problem I see is that the process of who gets to play (and who doesn't) isn't transparent, and could theoretically be abused by mods (knowingly or subconsciously) to let people they know better (or like more) play.

[doll]

The one problem I see is that the process of who gets to play (and who doesn't) isn't transparent, and could theoretically be abused by mods (knowingly or subconsciously) to let people they know better (or like more) play.

There are a lot of opportunities like that for both players and mods within the state of affairs of b12mafia, which is why mods use procedural role allocation, and mods are trusted to use procedural role allocation, while players are trusted not to cheat etc.

[Mephansteras]

On the other hand, we've had a lot of problems getting enough people to fill games lately so I don't think the issue of moderators deciding who to let play is much of an issue at the moment. And we do get instances of people specifically deciding to play a game because another person they like playing with is in it.

There is also the issue that a thread with more activity gets more attention.

So it depends a bit, I think, on what the mod's primary concern is. In-thread signups can be good for attendance, but possibly have some negative effects on the game itself. PM signups may be better for the game but could cause more games to be short players or end up cancelled due to lack of interest.

[Persus13]

Also pregame banter is fun.

[Libervurto]

Hi Everyone!

This is my first post on the forum.  I haven't played Mafia but I love game rules and as I went through the wiki a few ideas popped into my head.  I will share them here if that's okay and if they are rubbish ideas that would break the game then you can tell me and I will have learned something extra about the game. 

Taking influence from Secret Hitler, I think it would be interesting to try having both public and secret roles.  I call the public roles "professions" because… well they're all professions!  Another (now necessary) twist is that any player regardless of profession can be mafia/town/other aligned.  Secret roles are held in addition to professions.  Players may have multiple secret roles but only one profession.  Ideally I'd like every player to have a unique profession, that way the utility of each player factors into the decision of who to lynch.

Only one night action per player per night is permitted, so many players will have to decide which of their actions to use.

Since we now know the professions of everyone there can be discussions about what each player should do next and players have the option to publicly announce their intentions (which could be lies).

I had to make some adjustments to the way the professions work to avoid giving away people's factions, for example, if the cop declares a player to be mafia and that player is later (after being lynched) found out to be a townie, the rest of the town would know the cop lied and is therefore mafia.

I will now go on to explain the details of each profession and secret role:

(PS I am trying to design all rules without using any random numbers)


PROFESSIONS

Cop

The cop chooses two players to investigate during the night.  The GM does not reveal their factions directly to the cop, he simply tells the cop how many mafia and/or towny were amongst those investigated along with an additional mafia/towny result depending on the type of operation the cop chose to conduct.

The cop can choose to either conduct a surveillance operation or a sting operation.  The purpose of this choice is to make it harder to produce definitive answers from investigations.  The difference between the two types of operation is that surveillance will only give a definitive answer if both players under investigation are townies; while a sting operation will only give a definitive answer if both are mafia.  Now the cop has some real detective work to do!

The following truth table shows how this works, with the first two characters being the factions (M=mafia or T=towny) of the two players under investigation (in no particular order) while the third character depends on the type of operation conducted (surveillance or sting, respectively) shown in square brackets:

TT[T|M]
MT[M|T]
MM[T|M]

For example, the cop might start off by surveilling players A and B.  The result he gets back from the GM is, "2M T".  After consulting the truth table, the cop realises that at least one of A and B must be mafia.  He thinks both might be mafia, so decides to run a sting operation on them: the result comes back, "2M T", again.  Damn!  He has learned that one is a towny and the other is mafia, but he still doesn't know which is which.  He moves on to surveil players C and D, this time the result is, "3T".  Yes!  They are both townies.  Now if he surveils either C or D along with either A or B he can deduce which one of A or B is the mafioso!  Unfortunately, our cop is killed the following night.


Doctor

The doctor chooses a player to protect but he also chooses a medical kit to equip.  Each medical kit prevents different murder methods, the doctor must be lucky enough to choose the right kit or the patient will die.

We can decide how many murder methods we want in the game to alter the success rate of doctors.  Each medical kit will cover a number of murder methods but never all of them, so there is always a chance of failure and patient death.  Therefore, the maximum chance of success we can give a doctor is (n-1)/n, where n is the number of murder methods permitted.

So if we have 3 murder methods, we can give our doctor a choice of 3 medical kits that each treat 2 types of murder method, giving the doctor a 2/3 chance of successfully picking the right kit.  If we have 4 murder methods, the doctor can have 4 kits treating 3 methods each, and his chance of success is 3/4.  And so on.

Additionally, we could introduce lower-skilled medical roles with medical kits that treat fewer types of murder methods than the doctor.

The doctor's action is not a roleblock.

The doctor must have the right medical kit for all murder methods inflicted on his patient in order to prevent their death.


Bartender

Can intoxicate a player, roleblocking them.
If the same player is blocked by the bartender three times they die of alcohol poisoning.


Cook

Can cook a hearty meal for another player, allowing them to negate one roleblock placed on them during the night.
Alternatively, the cook can give food poisoning to another player, roleblocking them.


Priest

Can take confession from any player by asking the GM what action they took (if any); the GM reveals this to the priest the next morning.  This is only a confession of the type of action taken, no other information such as the target or method is given.

If the priest is roleblocked, the targeted player will not give confession.


Reporter

Every morning, the GM will reveal to the reporter the targets and murder methods involved in any attempted and/or successful murders the previous night.  (The reporter can of course give false reports about attempts and murder methods but cannot lie about who has been killed since the GM will still be announcing the deaths to the group.)

This is a passive trait and cannot be blocked.


SECRET ROLES

Mafia

The number of mafiosi is not revealed.  As usual, the mafia know the identity of all mafia members and will choose a player to murder each night.  The difference here is that the mafia must elect one of their number to do the hit and choose a murder method.  Performing a hit is obviously a night action, so this means the hitman cannot perform any other actions during that night.


Godfather

Mafia.  Appears to be a towny when investigated.  Does not give confession.


Consigliere

Mafia.  Can flip the apparent faction of any player for one night (except himself).


Hitman

Mafia.  Can choose two murder methods when commiting a mafia hit.


Vigilante

Towny.  Gets a single attack to use on any night during the game.  Must choose a murder method.


Undercover Agent

Towny.  The undercover agent is a towny posing as a mafia member, thus he appears to the mafia as one of their own and knows the identity of all mafiosi.  Undercover agents appear as mafia in cop investigations (unless some other ability makes them appear differently).

The undercover agent cannot kill a towny via mafia hits but he may kill players of other factions this way.  If an agent attempts a mafia hit against a towny that is successful, the kill is cancelled and instead the agent's cover is blown and he is out of the game.


Serial Killer

Independent (wins if last player alive).  Gets a murder attempt each night, choosing a target and murder method.  The serial killer appears to be a towny in investigations.  Their true identity is not revealed until the end of the game, not even upon their death, but neither team can win while the serial killer is alive.

Killing Spree: If the serial killer successfully committed murder the previous night, he gains an additional murder method the following night.  This resets on a night where he fails to murder anyone.


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


There are a wide number of possible roles from different combinations of profession and secret roles.  For example, a serial killer doctor who kills the patients he is supposed to be protecting; a corrupt cop who pretends that mafia members are townies; a serial killer reporter who misreports their own crimes; a vigilante priest who kills those who confess to murder; an undercover cook who continually gives mafia hitmen food poisoning to slow their progress; and many more!


Precedence of Actions

1. Defensive actions: blocks and medical protection.
2. Misc. actions: flipping a player's faction, giving immunity to block, etc.
3. Being Killed.
4. Killing another player.

I.E. if the consigliere is blocked he cannot flip the faction of another player.

An example of a more bizarre situation is one where player A blocks player B, who in turn is attempting to kill player C, who in turn is attempting to kill player A.  Because of A's block on B, B does not kill C, and therefore C is free to kill A.  A has caused his own death because if he did not block B, B's killing of C would have taken precedence and C would not have been able to kill A.

If two players try to kill each other both take equal precedence and they both die.

[notquitethere]

I like the idea of public and private roles. Opens up a new vector for lying. Unless I'm mistaken the Undercover Cop role wouldn't work as intended: having a town player know the identities of the mafia team breaks the game as they blurt out in the thread who everyone is. It would only work in a non-talking game.

[RoseHeart]

Hi. I am new to this subforum. I'd like to try my hand at hosting here.

Q1) Should I 'ask' to host. Some forums have this rule for mafia.
Q2) Any suggestion on fairly common roles for these characters?

Captain America:
Deadpool:
Wolverine:
Quicksilver:
Spider-Man:
Nick Fury:
Venom:
Domino:

I want all roles to be visible, maybe even player chosen. Some players will be skrulls. I see venom as a third party in the sense that he wins just by surviving. Not sure which power to give.

May make extra players shield agents.

[FallacyofUrist]

Q1. Something like that. Wait until a game finishes, though. We don't want too many at once to be run. Use the Games Threshold Discussion thread.

Q2.
Captain America might make a good bodyguard.
Deadpool might get a self-revive due to regeneration, or perhaps kill immunity. Along with Astrologer powers(receive random info each night) due to fourth wall breaking.
Wolverine also has regeneration, and might make a good vigilante(kill during the night).
Quicksilver is less common. Taking multiple actions of some kind each night.
Nick Fury might start off known as town by everybody.
Venom would make a good third party, yes. But here's an intriguing idea: Venom is a symbiotic creature. The player with his role could choose to cause another player to become Venom, then die(though this wouldn't cause game loss). All players who have been Venom win at the end of the game if Venom is still alive.
Domino: No clue who this is.
Spider-Man: Very versatile. Maybe a JOAT(has multiple different abilities, each can only be used once).

Some players will be skrulls.

Skrulls are a good choice for mafia. You may want to consider giving them a 1-shot convert ability or such.

I want all roles to be visible, maybe even player chosen.

This is the tricky part.