WOLF MAFIA

in the tail end of the game, as soon as it was discovered there was a seer circle and that false positives wouldnt be given a fair chance (i.e. if someone was seered wolf, the town quite rightly would execute them) meant it was better for me to just not post.

I'd note that an awful lot of Drumstick's hunches and extrapolated data turned out to be wrong. He consistently believed Daz to be a wolf role and ultimately was not aware of TAP's alignment at the end of the game. He also PMed me to note the suspicious nature of two seers, two humans and Ian at the start of the game( ). The tactics he describes might have caught a couple of the wolves faster(and I'd note that GCE was posting up regular counts on things like this) but wouldn't ultimately have won us the game, as I see it.

EDIT: I'll also say that I was relying on other people to do a lot of the legwork this time round as I've been working pretty hefty shifts, so thanks to Jenuall, GCE and ORKN for sorting a lot of that out.

Kezzer wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:Wolves - was the low post count a deliberate team strategy from the off or did it just turn out that way?

I am generally a low poster in these games, preferring to absorbe the info and make decisions.

this was the first time playing as a wolf along with VlaSoul and PPM. Luckily we had TAP and Sykes as our more experienced memebers.

I was actually very lucky i didnt get taken out or exposed with the inactive kills

Was your research on who was sending PMs what led the wolves to kill Preezy? Or had the fact he was a seer been leaked to one of you already? If the former then well played!

OrangeRKN wrote:Game ending by timeout sucks

The "wolves win by Friday 13th" timeout clause made the endgame frustrating for me, and their win feel cheapened. Had there been no timeout, as we had managed to find the other wolves, Mommy and myself could have kept the seer protection circle going right up until the end and we would have won. So the only reason we didn't win was because of a somewhat arbitrary limit on when the wolves would win by default.

To play devil's advocate; had you won the game that way, simply because you'd created an effective seer protection circle and randomly worked through literally every other person in the game until you struck lucky, can you see how that win would have been a frustrating endgame for every other player and felt like a cheap win for any humans fortunate enough to have been left alive when you finally did land the Dogfather?

People dislike this approach, so new elements of the game (the Half Wolves) were introduced to deliberately nerf it. The clues (particularly Don't trust the old ways) were my way of trying to encourage you to take a different approach.

sawyerpip wrote:

Kezzer wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:Wolves - was the low post count a deliberate team strategy from the off or did it just turn out that way?

I am generally a low poster in these games, preferring to absorbe the info and make decisions.

this was the first time playing as a wolf along with VlaSoul and PPM. Luckily we had TAP and Sykes as our more experienced memebers.

I was actually very lucky i didnt get taken out or exposed with the inactive kills

Was your research on who was sending PMs what led the wolves to kill Preezy? Or had the fact he was a seer been leaked to one of you already? If the former then well played!

FWIW, Drummy caught Errkal PMing a seer request using that exact method, noted it to me, then when he died I cast the finger of suspicion over Errkal and he outed himself as a seer in the thread. Not my finest tactical move.

Clarkman wrote:...particularly considering the nature of a dwindling volume of living players means the thread slows to a crawl anyway.

A popular setup is to have the day phase shorted as soon as a lynch vote reaches a majority. So if there are 20 players, as soon as a single lynch candidate gets 11 votes the lynch gets enacted. Combined with shorting night phases as soon as all of the night actions are submitted, it's possible to run games pretty quickly, and have them speed up to balance out the fewer players towards the end.

The downside being that it favours players who can be active any time of the day, so I don't think it'd work too well on here (although I have been wondering about the possibility of running a "lightning" game over a single weekend or something).

I liked the twist "half-wolf" mechanic. Kept things interesting right 'til the end. I understand there is some tension between trying to run a traditional game and trying to keep it fresh though.

I thought it was a bit harsh how everyone assumed the "broken seer" role was true and immediately blamed Dan for it, when that wasn't really what was going on. He seems to have taken it in stride though.

Seer circles can be a bit frustrating to play with if you're not in the circle. I think this will be remembered as one of the better ones because at least Mommy made it entertaining. (Not to say OrangeRKN wasn't, but I think he'd agree Mommy was the star of the show. )

PMs add to the intrigue of a game, and I 100% see why they'd be included in any "AYA? Classic" mode, but my personal ideal game would have no secret communication (even for the wolves). If the wolves had to come up with clever ways to hint to each other - even if they just had to resort to block voting more often - it would leave a much stronger breadcrumb trail of clues that would make the villager role more interesting to play.

Mystical Ninja Starring Danmon wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Game ending by timeout sucks

The "wolves win by Friday 13th" timeout clause made the endgame frustrating for me, and their win feel cheapened. Had there been no timeout, as we had managed to find the other wolves, Mommy and myself could have kept the seer protection circle going right up until the end and we would have won. So the only reason we didn't win was because of a somewhat arbitrary limit on when the wolves would win by default.

To play devil's advocate; had you won the game that way, simply because you'd created an effective seer protection circle and randomly worked through literally every other person in the game until you struck lucky, can you see how that win would have been a frustrating endgame for every other player and felt like a cheap win for any humans fortunate enough to have been left alive when you finally did land the Dogfather?

People dislike this approach, so new elements of the game (the Half Wolves) were introduced to deliberately nerf it. The clues (particularly Don't trust the old ways) were my way of trying to encourage you to take a different approach.

Oh yeah, I agree - I don't lie seer protection circles either. It just feels like one cheap tactic was countered by another, rather than the game made fair. I appreciate the intention, I just don't like the timeout approach!

sawyerpip wrote:

Kezzer wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:Wolves - was the low post count a deliberate team strategy from the off or did it just turn out that way?

I am generally a low poster in these games, preferring to absorbe the info and make decisions.

this was the first time playing as a wolf along with VlaSoul and PPM. Luckily we had TAP and Sykes as our more experienced memebers.

I was actually very lucky i didnt get taken out or exposed with the inactive kills

Was your research on who was sending PMs what led the wolves to kill Preezy? Or had the fact he was a seer been leaked to one of you already? If the former then well played!

it was me PM watching.

we knew then that Preezy and Mommy were suspect

cant believe I also had TNAG in my sights he just posted fewer than those two.

Call and Answer wrote:GG wolf pricks.

Mommy being an actual nightmare in thread was entertaining, but sowing confusion and discontent amongst your own teammates isn't a great play.

I did have a thought about how to make the game more interesting for players assigned regular human roles - basically, guilds. In fiction, every player receives a role PM that identifies them as a classic village tradesman. So for example, a butcher, a baker, a farmer. They'd also be given a list of players who are in the same industry as them - this wouldn't be public, only shared between those players. There would be no special powers associated with these tradesmen roles. I've written a spec version of this in the spoiler below.

You are a Baker. Your family has lived in the village for years, providing fresh bread and tasty treats to the locals. When your father died a few years back, you took ownership of the shop with yeasty zeal.

You now bake from dawn to dusk with your apprentices;
Lagamorph
Moggy
TAP

(Guild sizes could be flexible depending on player count.)

Why this might be a good idea:

- This immediately offers players involvement in a larger meta game, with a potential group ready made to contact and formulate ideas with.

- By encouraging the entire village to PM each other, it eliminates the tactic of PM watching.

- Having multiple known alliances gives wolves a bigger area to hide in out in the thread. A wolf might be included in a guild however, and their role PM would not include any of this data (no human role fluff, no list of guild mates, just standard wolf info - in fiction say that being turned made them lose their memory). This amounts to a situation similar to the card game Spyfall, where the humans could use details about their role to try and draw out bluffing wolves.

Basically, it gives humans more chances to interact and be suspicious of each other, and gives wolves more places to hide while also making it harder to conceal themselves.

I've probably explained that appallingly, but any thoughts?

I think this was tried in Moggy's infection game as we all started in different tribes. Can't remember if there was any mechanical benefit in the end.

I feel like honestly this just adds another layer of complexity that isn't really needed. Like mafia is at its heart a game of social manipulation so i'd be against creating scenarios where, a bit like mcj suggested earlier in this thread, wolves can be caught because they don't know the specific role wording or something. I think the idea of trying to create other alliances for the wolves to hide in might be an interesting idea for one game but I reckon it might just add uneeded complexity.


An idea that we tried on ONM once was that everyone was essentially a vanilla role apart from the classic, seer, roleblocker, bodyguard and vig. Then on death the power roles user could pass the role on to someone of their choice. So if the mafia could convince the bodyguard to trust them, then they could inherit that bodyguard role upon the previous bodyguard's death for example. Made for an interesting gamestate where wolves and villagers were both competing for control of the power roles by discrediting the other players. It was a fun small game with like 20ish players iirc

Corazon de Leon wrote:I'd note that an awful lot of Drumstick's hunches and extrapolated data turned out to be wrong. He consistently believed Daz to be a wolf role and ultimately was not aware of TAP's alignment at the end of the game. He also PMed me to note the suspicious nature of two seers, two humans and Ian at the start of the game( ). The tactics he describes might have caught a couple of the wolves faster(and I'd note that GCE was posting up regular counts on things like this) but wouldn't ultimately have won us the game, as I see it.

EDIT: I'll also say that I was relying on other people to do a lot of the legwork this time round as I've been working pretty hefty shifts, so thanks to Jenuall, GCE and ORKN for sorting a lot of that out.

I also had 3 wolves in my original group of ~8 people that I wanted to look at. Also the second, suspicious nature = doesn't necessarily mean I wanted to lynch them, more a hunch that there's more to them than meets the eye.

Much respect to my fellow wolves, who I thought played incredibly well, especially towards the end as the seers tore through our ranks.

From my, obviously quite different, point of view I thought the deadline and the witch doctor played quite interestingly against each other. As wolves, we made the full amount of attacks every night (so 3, then 2, and finally 1). The only exception was on the double weekend, where like with the village we were given the choice and declined.

As rightly guessed, towards the end we spent most of my nights attacking the protected person because we wanted to keep the human numbers as high as possible. (I also "attacked" Rocksteady to recruit him, which also appeared as "nothing happening")

However we were only able to do that because the witchdoctor and the seer protection circle was so public, and so locked down, that I could reasonably guess who was the target each night.

I don't think it's really fair on Dan to say that the time limit was unfair... because from my point of view the absolute rigidness of the protection circle is what provided the wolves with an alternative path to victory. At any point OrangeRKN could have stopped protecting Mommy (which he did, eventually, but it was too late), and then at least every second night the wolves would have had to make a kill. He could have also sacrificed himself for the village, and then our strategy would have imploded. The protection allowed me to hide and play towards the time-limit win condition, and that was a scenario entirely created and maintained by the villagers.

Everyone interpreted the rules and the clues differently which I thought was really cool, but my own interpretation of it being the "same game but different" and the town being "It's a trap", etc. was actually related to how old mechanics wouldn't necessarily work with the deadline. A protection circle can be a slow, but safe, way to win the game as the villagers, but in this game the deadline was also a factor.

I've no idea what would have happened if the protection circle had voluntarily disbanded, but it would have at least forced the wolves to continue reducing the human numbers and closing their own circle, and would have forced more people to run for mayor and discussion options. That would have definitely created more opportunity for the wolves to make mistakes.

Karl_ wrote:PMs add to the intrigue of a game, and I 100% see why they'd be included in any "AYA? Classic" mode, but my personal ideal game would have no secret communication (even for the wolves). If the wolves had to come up with clever ways to hint to each other - even if they just had to resort to block voting more often - it would leave a much stronger breadcrumb trail of clues that would make the villager role more interesting to play.

The first time I played mafia was as the offline party game, so I'm biased to that setup: village can only talk to each other during the day phase, while in the night phase the wolves silently point out their target while everyone else has their eyes closed. The wolf communication outside of the day phase is no more than "lets change who we're pointing at until we reach consensus", so the majority of their chat is done publicly and they are forced to come up with clever ways of hinting to each other.

Obviously the online forum game has evolved into several different beasts, but I am always drawn back to that classic, offline game setup.

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:The only exception was on the double weekend, where like with the village we were given the choice and declined.

Ah, I thought that by us accepting it it also made you have two kills - I didn't realise it was a separate choice! What was the punishment for you if you hadn't submitted any kill targets?

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:At any point OrangeRKN could have stopped protecting Mommy (which he did, eventually, but it was too late), and then at least every second night the wolves would have had to make a kill. He could have also sacrificed himself for the village, and then our strategy would have imploded.

The problem being that I definitely wouldn't sacrifice myself for the village, because the role PM explicitly stated that if I die I lose the game (there was no "you win if the village wins").

I think this is the first game I've ever played where trying to not kill people was a valid wolf tactic.

Karl_ wrote:I liked the twist "half-wolf" mechanic. Kept things interesting right 'til the end. I understand there is some tension between trying to run a traditional game and trying to keep it fresh though.

I thought it was a bit harsh how everyone assumed the "broken seer" role was true and immediately blamed Dan for it, when that wasn't really what was going on. He seems to have taken it in stride though.

Seer circles can be a bit frustrating to play with if you're not in the circle. I think this will be remembered as one of the better ones because at least Mommy made it entertaining. (Not to say OrangeRKN wasn't, but I think he'd agree Mommy was the star of the show. )

PMs add to the intrigue of a game, and I 100% see why they'd be included in any "AYA? Classic" mode, but my personal ideal game would have no secret communication (even for the wolves). If the wolves had to come up with clever ways to hint to each other - even if they just had to resort to block voting more often - it would leave a much stronger breadcrumb trail of clues that would make the villager role more interesting to play.

I think that's a really good idea, no PMs for anyone would be an interesting variant.

OrangeRKN wrote:

Karl_ wrote:PMs add to the intrigue of a game, and I 100% see why they'd be included in any "AYA? Classic" mode, but my personal ideal game would have no secret communication (even for the wolves). If the wolves had to come up with clever ways to hint to each other - even if they just had to resort to block voting more often - it would leave a much stronger breadcrumb trail of clues that would make the villager role more interesting to play.

The first time I played mafia was as the offline party game, so I'm biased to that setup: village can only talk to each other during the day phase, while in the night phase the wolves silently point out their target while everyone else has their eyes closed. The wolf communication outside of the day phase is no more than "lets change who we're pointing at until we reach consensus", so the majority of their chat is done publicly and they are forced to come up with clever ways of hinting to each other.

Obviously the online forum game has evolved into several different beasts, but I am always drawn back to that classic, offline game setup.

The first time I was introduced to this game was on this forum, so when I eventually played the game in real life it was a complete change of pace. I think one of the big advantages of playing in real life is that everyone is present throughout the whole game, so there is no way of avoiding questions or not participating, and all communication (apart from the pointing) is done in the open. Online, PMs and just not posting take away from this element somewhat. I think a no PM at all approach brings it much closer to the barebones real-life game.

I think ideally there should also be some mechanic to either discourage or outright ban non-activity, but I understand that would be a nightmare to monitor from the gamerunner's perspective.

sawyerpip wrote:I think ideally there should also be some mechanic to either discourage or outright ban non-activity, but I understand that would be a nightmare to monitor from the gamerunner's perspective.

The mafia championships that DarkRula represented GRcade at enforced a 10 post minimum per player per day. It works, but it excludes a lot of people from playing, which sucks. (They also had a lot of automated game running, which obviously helped.)

OrangeRKN wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:I think ideally there should also be some mechanic to either discourage or outright ban non-activity, but I understand that would be a nightmare to monitor from the gamerunner's perspective.

The mafia championships that DarkRula represented GRcade at enforced a 10 post minimum per player per day. It works, but it excludes a lot of people from playing, which sucks. (They also had a lot of automated game running, which obviously helped.)

I tried it in the aforementioned Are You A Supernatural, it worked quite well but it's incredibly time consuming (unless Jenuall can provide a script that does the checking for the gamerunner?).

OrangeRKN wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:I think ideally there should also be some mechanic to either discourage or outright ban non-activity, but I understand that would be a nightmare to monitor from the gamerunner's perspective.

The mafia championships that DarkRula represented GRcade at enforced a 10 post minimum per player per day. It works, but it excludes a lot of people from playing, which sucks. (They also had a lot of automated game running, which obviously helped.)

I seem to recall a game run here that had a 5 post per day minimum but I can't remember how that turned out, I may be misremembering.

One idea I've thought of would be something along the lines of players being forced to respond when they are quoted directly. Obviously there would have to be some generous time limit for this due to working patterns etc., and the rule needs tweaking to avoid it being abused, but I'm trying to think of a way to ensure that players are forced to respond to direct questioning just as you would be in reality.

No PMs certainly forces the thread to be more active and requires players to come up with imaginative ways to communicate with others in the open. But generally whilst I think games closer to the "IRL" version are certainly interesting in their own way, but it feels like nerfing aspects of a forum based version to more closely match that is in some way a shame.

Finding interesting ways to take advantage of the different nature of a forum based game and the kinds of interaction that this allows is much more fun!

Drumstick wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:

sawyerpip wrote:I think ideally there should also be some mechanic to either discourage or outright ban non-activity, but I understand that would be a nightmare to monitor from the gamerunner's perspective.

The mafia championships that DarkRula represented GRcade at enforced a 10 post minimum per player per day. It works, but it excludes a lot of people from playing, which sucks. (They also had a lot of automated game running, which obviously helped.)

I tried it in the aforementioned Are You A Supernatural, it worked quite well but it's incredibly time consuming (unless Jenuall can provide a script that does the checking for the gamerunner?).

I wanted to spend more time refining and expanding the capabilities of the script during this game but a combination of factors prevented me from doing that (and then I died in the game anyway!) but in principle I would be more than happy to look at some general scripts which could help a gamerunner. Post counting is pretty straightforward and if specific formatting or tags are used for things like votes and nominations then those can be counted up easily enough as well.

Certainly if I were running a game in the future I would look at using stuff like this to ease the burden and potentially therefore allow for some additional mechanics.