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[notquitethere]

See now I've slept on it, I just don't this is juicy enough. It becomes a bit too dry and puzzly and not characterful/personalised. Something more to ponder.

[EuchreJack]

See now I've slept on it, I just don't this is juicy enough. It becomes a bit too dry and puzzly and not characterful/personalised. Something more to ponder.

Maybe less Golems?

Maybe Mafia work through the Red Golem instead of seperately?

[NJW2000]

How do people feel about designing games with didactic motives? I.e. creating a game where certain ways of playing are rewarded or punished due to the nature of the setup?


I've been thinking about the fact that people are usually quite quick to claim truthfully on this site, by D2 at the latest. You don't often see town gambits or players clamming up until the end of the game. Obviously there are a lot of exceptions, and veteran players have their own styles anyway, but I do think lying as town or keeping everyone in the dark is NOT something that gets talked about very much. Very different from some other mafia forums!

I think this might be because of experimental or high-powered closed setups being pretty much the rule here. The exception is the odd open/semi-open, and a couple of longstanding mafia formats with more predictable roles like Supernatural, Paranormal, Mostly Vanilla Mafia, Armed Forces, etc. This dominance of weird closed setups tends to make disclosure less damaging, and false claims less useful. Even in the exceptions, there's a bit of a tendency to drop the ball when there's info that shouldn't be made public - it's just not something that's foremost in people's minds.


(I've tried a game where powers weren't too strong and claiming at the wrong moment could massively lower the chance of town victory - Wormwood Mafia. It kind of worked, but careful truthful claiming was in town's interest after a certain point, and there really weren't a huge number of opportunities for town gambits. It was a test of impulse control, but didn't go that much further in terms of controlling information as town.)


I'm wondering about a game where there's a list of possible roles, and knowing a town player's role lets the mafia control their night action, or even force them to perform the kill. Call it something like True Name mafia, after the thing from the Earthsea books and fantasy in general where knowing someone's true name gives you power over them. Conventional roles like Tracker, Blocker, and even Cop, but as soon as your role is known, you become a mafia asset. Maybe even the mafia getting to convert people if they know their true names? That might be going too far.

I'd be interested in any thoughts people have on the True Name mafia. Also what you think about designing setups to reward particular ways of playing.

[Imp]

How do people feel about designing games with didactic motives? I.e. creating a game where certain ways of playing are rewarded or punished due to the nature of the setup?


I've been thinking about the fact that people are usually quite quick to claim truthfully on this site, by D2 at the latest. You don't often see town gambits or players clamming up until the end of the game. Obviously there are a lot of exceptions, and veteran players have their own styles anyway, but I do think lying as town or keeping everyone in the dark is NOT something that gets talked about very much. Very different from some other mafia forums!

I think this might be because of experimental or high-powered closed setups being pretty much the rule here. The exception is the odd open/semi-open, and a couple of longstanding mafia formats with more predictable roles like Supernatural, Paranormal, Mostly Vanilla Mafia, Armed Forces, etc. This dominance of weird closed setups tends to make disclosure less damaging, and false claims less useful. Even in the exceptions, there's a bit of a tendency to drop the ball when there's info that shouldn't be made public - it's just not something that's foremost in people's minds.


(I've tried a game where powers weren't too strong and claiming at the wrong moment could massively lower the chance of town victory - Wormwood Mafia. It kind of worked, but careful truthful claiming was in town's interest after a certain point, and there really weren't a huge number of opportunities for town gambits. It was a test of impulse control, but didn't go that much further in terms of controlling information as town.)


I'm wondering about a game where there's a list of possible roles, and knowing a town player's role lets the mafia control their night action, or even force them to perform the kill. Call it something like True Name mafia, after the thing from the Earthsea books and fantasy in general where knowing someone's true name gives you power over them. Conventional roles like Tracker, Blocker, and even Cop, but as soon as your role is known, you become a mafia asset. Maybe even the mafia getting to convert people if they know their true names? That might be going too far.

I'd be interested in any thoughts people have on the True Name mafia. Also what you think about designing setups to reward particular ways of playing.

I am 'in general' extremely interested in complex games, especially if the rules are known or can be learned without strong harm, so I am very yay about the idea!

I also enjoy exploring how mechanics and 'natural consequences' (which have to be faked to some degree in games) affect and direct choices and behavior.  So in general, "setups designed to reward particular ways of playing" are likely to interest me.

I'm averse to what triggers in me a sense of 'uninformed unfairness' and/or 'costs are high enough to discourage exploration (if the rules are hidden)'.

Like, if town is not told that the maf can control them if they claim true, only finding out through experiencing it, finish that experience and game over - that's more set up and 'have a bad time, town, by my guest' - not even learn from it, just suffer.

But if it were part of a marathon or something, with like a restart as rules are discovered through play, now we know and continue, potentially restarting on the next rule discovery - I'd be fine with that (and I understand most would not - tell the rules straight out plus restarting is annoying for most!)  I am fine with 'tell the rules straight out' though.  Especially if we can discuss 'em if they're complex (or at least confusing to me and/or I see many edge cases).

So I'd love if we explore this, unless the game's gonna be strongly focused on the parts I explained I wouldn't like!

[Magma Mater]

How do people feel about designing games with didactic motives? I.e. creating a game where certain ways of playing are rewarded or punished due to the nature of the setup?


I've been thinking about the fact that people are usually quite quick to claim truthfully on this site, by D2 at the latest. You don't often see town gambits or players clamming up until the end of the game. Obviously there are a lot of exceptions, and veteran players have their own styles anyway, but I do think lying as town or keeping everyone in the dark is NOT something that gets talked about very much. Very different from some other mafia forums!

I think this might be because of experimental or high-powered closed setups being pretty much the rule here. The exception is the odd open/semi-open, and a couple of longstanding mafia formats with more predictable roles like Supernatural, Paranormal, Mostly Vanilla Mafia, Armed Forces, etc. This dominance of weird closed setups tends to make disclosure less damaging, and false claims less useful. Even in the exceptions, there's a bit of a tendency to drop the ball when there's info that shouldn't be made public - it's just not something that's foremost in people's minds.


(I've tried a game where powers weren't too strong and claiming at the wrong moment could massively lower the chance of town victory - Wormwood Mafia. It kind of worked, but careful truthful claiming was in town's interest after a certain point, and there really weren't a huge number of opportunities for town gambits. It was a test of impulse control, but didn't go that much further in terms of controlling information as town.)


I'm wondering about a game where there's a list of possible roles, and knowing a town player's role lets the mafia control their night action, or even force them to perform the kill. Call it something like True Name mafia, after the thing from the Earthsea books and fantasy in general where knowing someone's true name gives you power over them. Conventional roles like Tracker, Blocker, and even Cop, but as soon as your role is known, you become a mafia asset. Maybe even the mafia getting to convert people if they know their true names? That might be going too far.

I'd be interested in any thoughts people have on the True Name mafia. Also what you think about designing setups to reward particular ways of playing.

It's interesting for sure. Tournaments encourage didactic play, and you could write a study on how different scoring / advancement criteria affect the participants' play styles.

For example, in the yearly Mafia Universe tournament, players are encouraged to play in a certain way. Most often, the players who advance are those who make high-density posts. Winning the game is not the objective; if you want to win the tournament, your objective is simply to make the electors believe that you are a better player than the other candidates. Whether you win each individual game is inconsequential.

I've also played in tournaments with concrete scoring criteria. Sometimes, these criteria have led to extremely degenerate strategies. I played one where you were only scored based on your voting accuracy, which led to a bizarre meta where all of the town were lying about their reads to mislead each other, holding their vote for 5s before deadline.

The only downside to tournament style games are the time it takes, of course. But it's definitely a great way to experiment with didactic play if you're into that.

[EuchreJack]

How do people feel about designing games with didactic motives? I.e. creating a game where certain ways of playing are rewarded or punished due to the nature of the setup?

Web's games usually have that sort of methodology. For example, his games tend to punish those who claim Miller, since he hates that meta.

Some game types exist as "newbie" game types. This forum ran one a while back.

...
I'm sure it'll do fine, although whether the lessons are actually valuable will likely determine whether the Mod gets labelled a Bastard.

[Imp]

I was terrified about post limits my first post-limit game.  Had like 25 per game day and I was freaking out and using like 10 so I'd have some for later.

Then I adjusted and they did help me go from posting like 14x as much as most to posting like 8x as much as most.... I think.  Seems that way to me!

But didactic games are definitely cool with me and their lessons can stick even into games with other mech.

[notquitethere]

I think encouraging some kind of play and discouraging others is all good game design— and for mafia you want to encourage interesting gambits, lies, plots, misdirections. So I agree, punishing the Bay12 meta of early truthful claiming is a good idea. I once played a tournament game where four town players fake claimed cop— with results! — to give cover to the real cop. This happened in the setup because there was only one power role and they had to work hard to defend it.

[Maximum Spin]

I think encouraging some kind of play and discouraging others is all good game design— and for mafia you want to encourage interesting gambits, lies, plots, misdirections. So I agree, punishing the Bay12 meta of early truthful claiming is a good idea. I once played a tournament game where four town players fake claimed cop— with results! — to give cover to the real cop. This happened in the setup because there was only one power role and they had to work hard to defend it.

I once played a game where three mafia players (I was one of them) fakeclaimed cop and confused town enough that they lynched the real cop who had claimed first with a guilty inspect. 

[Imp]

I think encouraging some kind of play and discouraging others is all good game design— and for mafia you want to encourage interesting gambits, lies, plots, misdirections. So I agree, punishing the Bay12 meta of early truthful claiming is a good idea. I once played a tournament game where four town players fake claimed cop— with results! — to give cover to the real cop. This happened in the setup because there was only one power role and they had to work hard to defend it.

And in my first successful team-maf game (the witchhunt over on MU)... town at the behest of the usual-mod-finally-playing led them into it.

An open setup, also known that there must be a conf town priest and a conf town acolyte; acolyte knows the priest.  He happened not to have either role, but he led town into having everyone make a claim of whatever D2 so that the real priest could make a real claim and the real acolyte could potentially do so too.

.... This was really useful for maf.  I didn't know who the priest aco were by the end of that.  But I knew which 3 pairs almost certainly included the real pair, and one of those 3 was the correct set.

I think ploys are great, for all involved, wheeeeeeeee!  Kudos to those who can pull them off, either side, and who can even tell what might help the enemy more than own, or who can weasel around that.  Yes to mech, yes to didactic design, yay for free-or-constrained play yay!

[EuchreJack]

I think minimum and maximum post counts would be ideal, yes yes.

Like "post more than 5 times but less than 30, with posts of a minimum of 20 words and a maximum of 120 words".
 

[Elephant Parade]

I think that's a bit overcomplicated. If someone doesn't post enough you can just lynch them.

[Imp]

I think minimum and maximum post counts would be ideal, yes yes.

Like "post more than 5 times but less than 30, with posts of a minimum of 20 words and a maximum of 120 words".
 

My brain would break.

Stepwise changes.  Lest you destroy the fragile balances!

[Crystalizedmire]

I think my brain would break too with a post restriction like that.

[TricMagic]

And this is when we just post image cards with a bunch of words on them.