Or be a glorified pincushion, following the always lynch mentality.

Seems to me that based on how you want the game to flow, one person is going to die the first round regardless. With Night first, the village has a greater chance of correctly lynching the Death Eaters.

That and the Healer could always get lucky!

Even if not, with a diminished pool to vote on, the village still would have a greater chance of correctly lynching the Death Eaters.


Really most of the time someone's going to die round 1, what it matters that he gets to post a couple of times before then, especially when weighed against the advantages the village would have if Night started first?

Not to say that it's all to the village's side, since the Mafia could get lucky and get the Auror or the Healer...

But such extremes are also fun.

Tracker/Watcher equivalent. Especially if a Sorcerer is on the loose.

Of course there's information to be gained. You know who's a leader, you know who's a lurker, and if the game is continually hosted, that information carries on, since a person might act differently if they're a certain role rather than not.

It's also not just in the who defended who, but the how.

Basically, lynching first gets people talking. And there's always something to be gained when people talk, even if it's not immediately useful or even eventually for that game.

And, it would give the Auror more info to decide who he's going to investigate.

But I agree that it's still better to not lynch Day 1. I don't agree that you don't gain anything though. You just stand to lose a lot more.

 

You should lynch every day after the first day.

First day it's completely random, so likelihood is you're shooting yourself in the foot.

After that you'd better hope that your auror is skewing the odds in your favour by pushing heavily and convincingly for or against a player being voted for.

 

Holy shit, I'm fucking surprised I did as well as I did. I guessed 2/4 death eaters. Also: Taure, the first day isn't about voting based on evidence, it's about voting to obtain evidence. It's shitty, but it's the best system available in this game.

 

Basic mafia has no investigator or roles other than town and mafia. Is it alright to lynch the first day then? Or would you propose arbitrarily waiting until Day 2 since a person who may or may not actually be an investigator is not involved in this particular version of the game?

You'll eventually get it. And when you do, you'll stop posting.

 

Well, luckily for us all, that you don't get to decide if someone gets lynched on the first day, and it's the 16 people who are actually playing in the game. If someone says something retarded and reeks of suspicion (like Berkeley on the first day) you go after him.

 

/me smiles innocently and bats her eyelashes.

I am seriously surprised that I was never killed, all things considered. I'm screwed for the next game, though, because now people will want to kill me just to be sure that they don't repeat this mistake again.

 

Basic mafia is a terrible game based mostly on luck or people not playing sensibly (i.e. mafia drawing attention to themselves unnecessarily). In an absence of the latter, the mafia will almost always win (the larger the game the more likely it is the mafia will win, because you have to get very lucky multiple times), regardless of how you play.

 

Wait, these setup can not have an investigator?

In that case, of course you should lynch. But I'm strictly talking about a case where there is a protector and an investigator. In which case, lynching Day 1 is the suboptimal strategy.

There are different strategies depending on how you're setting up the game, just because vanilla Mafia doesn't have an investigator doesn't mean that lynching first is always the best choice for a game with an investigator.

In the case of basic vanilla, it's always going to be essentially random who you choose to lynch since you can't gather information concretely, like in the case of a game with an investigator.

And if it's always going to be random, of course you should start lynching at the beginning when you can afford it, otherwise you'll more likely lose.

 

As a random aside, if anyone wants to play IRC mafia, join #werewolf. Probably played a few hundred games in the last two weeks (when to bot doesn't bug). There's villagers, an investigator, and one or more werewolves. Each game only lasts like 5 minutes and is addicting and fun. Unless you're Aekiel and get killed first every time.

 

LOL.

Also, Anarchy, I can't believe you had a spreadsheet.

 

Here's a few off the top of my head. You'll have to forgive the crude explanations.

Unspeakable: [Perhaps as an alternative to the healer unless game has a lot of players]
Special ability: Stalk - the Unspeakable will be keeping an eye on the chosen person, if a death eater visits the person, the Unspeakable will be able to identify the DE, but not save the victim.

Perhaps in case the Dark Lord himself visits the victim the Unspeakable will be able to save the victim but unable to identify the Dark Lord. Or just die.

Wizengamot Member:
Political influence - The Wizengamot member receives 2 votes instead of the normal one. [The second vote could be identified as just "Token Vote" on the actual vote tally.]

The Obliviator [Could be both a DE or Villager to make it more interesting]
Obliviate - Visit a person and obliviate them of their suspicions and plant new ones. What it does: Lets you forcibly change a persons vote. Same person cannot be targeted twice, can be identified by the Unspeakable if caught.

Ministry Worker:
Public Figure - Everyone will know you're the ministry worker.

 

If anyone read the first page, you'd realize an investigator does not necessarily get drawn (or a Dark Lord for that matter). I am torn as to whether I should announce what roles have been drawn before a game however. That's what's done in SC2 Mafia (and it works well enough) but I wouldn't know if it'd work here.

 

There could be a role that discovered which roles were drawn...

/complicated.

Or perhaps more specific.

Role: Azkaban Guard. Can discover how many Death Eaters have broken out of their cells, or if there is a Dark Lord on the loose.

 

There needs to be a lone wolf. Perhaps an Escaped Convict (Or a minor Dark Lord) who just wants to see the whole world burn for his injustice, and he kills a person every night, separate from the other DE's kill. His goal is to be the last man standing, so he has to take out everyone. His endgame strategy is going to be severely difficult, but he would have a load of fun. It would make a 25 person game go quicker instead of 3 weeks.

 

Obliviators wouldn't be fun if they were pro-Mafia people, or people who just like to screw around for the lulz. We could introduce them in a future game, but not the next one. Maybe after the townspeople actually win a game...

I figured that Vigilantes could be called Hit Wizards.

Hit Wizard:
Role is similar to the Vigilante in normal games of Mafia. Hit Wizards are pro-town players who can choose to kill a player at Night.

I still have no idea what to call the Beloved Princess. Perhaps the Prophecised One? The Boy-Who-Lived? No, both are shit names. D=

At any rate, the Beloved role might be interesting. It might make people think and lynch rationally (lol at the potentially oxymoronic sentence).

EDIT: I should mention that the inclusion of the Beloved would necessitate another pro-town role, like a Guard or Order members who know who the Beloved is. That way, if the Beloved dies, it's a punishment to the idiots who let it happen. Hm, maybe you could call the Beloved the BWL/GWL. He/She is one of the town's more important roles and the main target of the Dark Lord. If the BWL/GWL dies, the town skips a Day, which is not good...

 

That's done in a lot of places that play Mafia...including competitive. Frankly I was more surprised that the roles weren't known.

Would it work here? I don't see why it wouldn't.

 

If you include the role that tells if a single sentence is a lie you could call it the Pub Landlord, after Aberforth Dumbledore.

Anyways, this was an interesting game, despite Lion's retardation, and I'd be up for another one. Especially if there were other roles added.

 

I'd also be up for a game - watching this was really nifty.

 

Okay, here's a few more suggestions. The Beloved role is a contentious one with a rocky history, but it would definitely change the status quo for our next game. Here's the basic outline:

The Boy-Who-Lived or Girl-Who-Lived:
Role is similar to Beloved Princess in normal games of Mafia. The Boy-Who-Lived or Girl-Who-Lived is the most important role in the town and the main target of the Dark Lord. The townspeople must endeavour to keep the Boy-Who-Lived/Girl-Who-Lived safe at all costs. Upon this player's death, the next Day phase will be skipped, because the Wizarding World goes into temporary mourning.

Abilities
-Communications with Order members via PMs
-Will cause the town to skip a Day upon death.

Half-Blood Prince/Professor/Think-of-a-better-name
Role is similar to Bodyguard in normal games of Mafia. The Hogwarts Professor is an Order member who can target a player during the Day or Night to protect them. If the protected player is supposed to be killed, the Professor is killed instead ("taking the bullet" for them, as it were). Their main priority would be to protect the BWL/GWL.

Abilities
-Communications with Order members via PMs
-Can choose to take the bullet for one person

In some variants, only the Guard and the Princess know that they are who they are; the others would have no clue who the Princess or Guard is.

Communications with Order members is an optional ability, but I think it would necessary, or else the Professor or BWL might act like complete idiots. And we all know that one idiot move by either the Professor or the BWL might get them killed and result in a skipped Day...

 

I'd be up to join another game too - IRC got me hooked on werewolf, so this'd be a blast to try. You could probably get a 20-person game next time 'round, Merrill, if that wouldn't be too hard to handle.