Hi, we (well, I was away otherwise I would have taken part too) seemed to be having a pretty decent discussion about things in the SW3 thread until it got locked somehow, so let's continue it here!

My opinion is that flip on death + public setup is very town sided. And the way to 'balance' such a thing is with more vanilla towns, which I don't think is a good tradeoff overall (sacrificing fun for balance).

Also I think referencing a game that happened 7-8 months ago as proof of concept or whatever is a bit of a joke, since we've all come so far in gameplay (and this game was every bit the steamroll I expected).

And the difference between IRL games and online games is that there is a permanent, decisive record of everything said ever in a IRL game, which is hugely +town when combined with flip on death, 100% accurate vote tallys and knowing the exact setup. The trade off of course is that in an online game, scum have the capability to carefully plan their moves that they don't have in a IRL game, which doesn't quite make up for all the advantages town gets in a werewolf type game (public setup + flip).

 

I think the most balanced setup is closed ruleset with no reveal on death.

Maybe have a couple faction changing roles sprinkled in with varying win conditions, too, to increase the fun factor.

With the rest vanilla, of course.

 

Faction changing roles are anti-fun honestly.

 

That'sthejoke.jpg

 

Clearly, every game should have game-ending Jesters, mixmasons, and Cults.*

-

I like Closed/Death RR and Open/No Death RR, of course. Open/RR is just too easy, even if you don't force everyone to roleclaim right off the bat. Good for first-timers, boring as shit for people with experience.

*joking of course

Edit: ...Though, Making a game that amounts to an unholy mishmash of bad mechanics might actually be pretty fun in a super fucked-up way...

 

:facepalm I'll admit I only read as far as faction changes but still.. herp a derp.

 

*points at DLP hunt*

<3 lungs

 

You can't tell me DLPhunt isn't epic

Also, yeah.

I'm super not in agreement with zeit over the openrolemafia/hunt distinction because I'd like to point out several things:

1. Most "mafia" style games are closed role and flip.

2. Openrolemafia with flip means that the information surge becomes extreme near the end of the game -

Let's assume 20 roles okay with 4 scum and around 7 vanillas. (iirc that's a very reasonable ratio):

in a hunt (yes I know a hunt with vanillas is made of no fun): 20 roles you have the knowledge of and the nexus of "information gathering" from the town sits in roles like the priest - guilty checks and gravediggers - single persons who have access to some of the best information in the game. This fundamentally affects playstyle and forces whoever it is to go ahead and understand very clearly the rc situation. I don't think anyone would disagree with this.

in a mafia (with a closed role setup), while the entirety of the town gets a net informational benefit of knowing who's lynched, they don't have the rolelist, which means this "information sharing" thing and working out who's who and rolereading and stuff becomes an exercise of mental jujutsu that you play with not other players but the gamemod. This is metagaming in the traditional definition of the word - you must divine the intent of the game's creator and try to understand what drives the creation of each role in order to roleread.

Benefits of hunt:

more analytic thought and less psychology stuff
more desperation and less trust - forces players to participate because everyone wants faction and rolereads
more fun? this is a subjective one. I love rolereading, so mafias frustrate me and stuff

Benefits of mafia:

more batman logic >_>
easier for everyone - it's much better to rc or even rr in mafias because there's generally no way to stop you from influencing the game after that

I'm not sure I'm not just really biased against mafias lol

Problems with having an openrole mafia:

encourages super bandwagon mentality
doesn't force people to think as much
vanillas literally have the least amount of power and it's easier to rc as a vanilla to basically stall good discussion while mafia games encourage other claims
mass rr is a critical threat, even greater than that of hunts.