Games Mafia Game 86 - Magic: the Gathering - Planechase - END GAME

[Evil3ye]

by desin, panda and evil

Mechanic Design

Spoiler: Game Pitch

The idea was a mechanic that is part of the core Mafia Game and not just an optional addon that distracts from it. Therefore the mechanic was based on the amount of night actions happening per night, giving people agency as individuals as well as factions as a whole. For full transparency all possible effects would be visible to everyone from the start so there are no information imbalances. As for the effects of the mechanic we once again took a look at the core mechanics being night actions and voting.

Spoiler: Day/Night Effects

In regards to votes we chose "sticky votes" in the sense that every player has 2 locked votes to use. Thus giving every vote meaning and possibly undercutting any mafia last minute vote switcheroos. The intention was to give all three factions more options when it comes to voting ranging from voting your top two suspects as a town or using one vote on your mafia buddy to use later on as an alibi.

"Single vote" phase had a similar intention by putting more pressure on the day discussion and analysis beforehand to make a vote that counts while also leaving mafia less options for deniability for their votes.

"Double lynch" phase was supposed to be possible only very early in the game as it was only achievable with lot of active role uses. During the day town would be at a disadvantage due to it only being D2/D3 but still with a chance to get mafia. During the night in "double action" phase Mafia have a chance for two kills, however early on they would not have enough information to target valuable townies specifically. On the other hand townies had 2 nights for actions to gather information and get a surplus of info from very early on in the game thus speeding up the game. Investigative roles could possibly confirm their sanities and feed in lot of information for the following day discussion. Kill reducing roles had the same chance of stopping a kill just as in any normal night. This was supposed to help town get an information advantage early on by giving them the results of 3 nights by the beginning of D3/D4.

The chance of double kill is nevertheless alluring to mafia who would push for it but this would be balanced out by the automatic mechanic of the following night where the kill would have a 50% chance to fail. During the day the previous votes would be turned into penalty votes giving mafia a chance to manipulate the vote while also being at danger of paying for past suspicion.

Janitor kill was supposed to take information away from both parties opening the chance for mafia to claim a role that the investigator could find out thus catching mafia right there. The day lynch would be hidden as well thus as well only letting the investigator find out who it was while mafia does not know which role (if townie) was taken out and can’t plan around that.

As the game progresses the effects of the mechanic become less and less intrusive thus bringing endgame back to the basic game.

Assuming with almost certainty the game would start off accelerated early on with a double action night followed by a 50% failure chance to bring it back in pace, thus the assumption was D2 using mechanic 8-9 followed by mechanic 10+ which would then cut down actions to 3-6 and then staying in that realm until endgame and no mechanic interventions.

Role List/Faction Build

Spoiler: Game Mechanic Context

The main aspect of the game mechnic - number of the night roles used - was a key element in building the roles list. It was a balancing act of active and passive roles, as well as the timing of possible role uses. Majority of roles were added under the assumption they would start use at the beginning. As the game would progress further would be activated, to balance taken out roles. A number of maximum possible actions was defined and the rest would be filled out with passive roles. Naturally the Town as biggest faction would receive most of it and would have the biggest influence on the mechanic through cooperation. No day action except for one voting related roles were added to keep the focus on night actions.

Spoiler: Town build

The Intel Force
A third of the Town's setup would be the investigative roles, which could feed in new details from active player pool as well as beyond the grave. Due to the possible double night action scenario and resulting in possible information overflow the roles were added in a singlular amount. The Spy role with the potential to varify any night action, bundled with the by hosts confirmed amount of night actions, to make or break any claims made during the day phases. Spirit Medium, similar to the Spy would potentially make or break action claims. Insane Detective to potentially find Mafia/TP, although from 7 non-Townie roles only 4 were detectable, so the potential here was limited. Coupled with the Naive Traitor role this Detective would come "online" with the findings later than usual, as the sanities needed to be confirmed first. And upon death would also have the potential to seed dissesnt amoung the Mafia team to help unfail a TP member amongst them. Investigator was added for the possible Janitor'd night action scenario to unfail hidden roles.

The Protectors
An other third of the Town was designed to increase the durability and be able to reduce number of casualties in double action night scenario. Roles with this intend being used were Sane Doctor, Bodyguard, Prostitute and Jesus.

The Special Force
The two new role Necromancer and Banshee were added for observation as they both never had practical use before. Both seemed more on the situational end of usefulnes, but likewise had potential to be pivotal for a leap forward for their faction.

The Decoys
And lastly, two vanilla Townies were added to potentially attract Mafia's attention and tank a night hit instead of an other role for a possible Sleeper recruting in an early TP death scenario.

Spoiler: Mafia build

Mafia Setup
The Mafia was designed to have two actions per night, and therefore have the possibility in participating in the mechanics as well. For the second action besides the kill there were currently only two possible options available, which are Detective or Escort.

Settling on Mafia Escort as this role was more aligned with the mechanics in mind. Detective with a double action would scout the Town roles too quickly, giving full transparancy. The Apprentice as addition to sacrifice some flexibility in the beginning to be able to react flexibly on the situation at hand. The choices to go along were Strongman for a certain kill, a Bomb for an additional kill at lynch, and a Janitor for an information surplus. Poisoner to give flexibility in timing of kills. Mafia Boss in this setup was more a pro-Town faction choice to give Mafia the impression of higher Detectives presence.

Spoiler: Third Party build

Third Party Setup
With no killing ability, and with passive roles only, (with exception of Mafia member), Third Party was not given the possibility to participate in the mechanics. However, both non-Mafia members were given protection related roles to increase durability, one night protection in Threesome candidate as Bulletproof, one late game day protection role for the town Lover as Innocent Child with a D5 timed confirmation. This role with also start off with the Hot Potato with the same timing. The Mafia Noble role was assigned to the Lover to use it within the Mafia faction, as well as late game potential change to Third Party faction.

Gameplay Analysis

Spoiler: Night Actions

Spoiler: Mechanics Application

As the game kicked-off the analysis around the use of the mechanic started. Different strategies of using it to the best advantage were discussed and weighted off against each other. The dominanting strategy among the players with night roles and therefore influence on the mechanic agreed to be a conservative use of the night roles to not reach the treasholds of 7 to 9 role uses.

This resulted in only half of the night actions being used, successfully denying the "double action"/"janitored" day and night phases the following day and remained the in use throughout night 1 to night 3 as leading strategy from town's side as evident by (periodically) missing night actions from roles such as Doctor, Prostitute and Spirit Medium.

Only by night 4 confidence in night role use increased as the pool of players with night roles has declined enough to not reach the threasholds and stay in line with the initial strategy.

Spoiler: Faction Performance

Townie Faction
The lack of information from performed investigative night actions from the dominant mechanic strategy, and setup, led to analysis of players' behaviours, such as role claims. Those were weighted off against each other and analyzed against plausibility in setup. Behavioural patterns, such as voting as well as cooperativeness with the leading strategy became factors to decide the order of day lynches. More subtile patterns, such as timing of role hints, activity in total were picked up on as well, but were secondary as deemed to be non substantial enough. By end of D4 and four lynched townies in a row, the situation for town became unwinnable, however was not perceived as such, as the existence of third party was not discovered and thus disregarded, but giving a false sense of security through the bloated numbers. Inconsistancies in night role action claims against the confirmed night role action used by the mechanic came in as an additional analysis tool as well, however, already at a very late point in game, and too late to turn the tides.

Mafia Faction
Starting off very cautiously assessing the importance of the mechanic, almost no one participating actively in discussions throught the first day phase, or hinting the nature of a role, before going into first night discussions with the team to talk through and align a working strategy. Through following day phases the team succeeded in dodging day lynches in diverting the players to find someone more suspicious or inconsitant to lynch instead. The strategy to pass the Hot Potatoe secondary role to an investigative townie role and blocking it paid off greatly and was overlooked by the other players long enough to almost tie in numbers with remaining factions. The existance of third party, while couple of times mentioned in the internal brain stormings was not seriously enough considered to start looking into the potential candidates for it. The focus remained heavily on dismantling town, even at the point where it was not possible to lynch townies anymore. The end game strategy became working towards reaching a close enough number and win the game with the additional Noble vote, unaware of it belonging to third party as well.

Third Party Faction
With plenty players to go through Threesome candidate took six guesses to join the Lovers' party and their night discussions. The night protection role ensured survival of one mafia kill attempt, and the false claim by an other townie benefited and made him trusted enough to not be lynched. Mafia, while picking the apprenticed Strongman role chose a different target to use it on, making him literally dodge the bullet until making the mafia lover aware of his own existence shortly after. Similarly unaware of the identity of the candidate the lovers were trying to give hints about their own alignment, as discretely as possible to not expose themselves completely. Town lover although passing the potato stayed under the radar during day phases long enough to get day time benefits from the town role on D5. Mafia lover was from then on faced with a bigger challenge to keep the town counterpart alive, but, was trusted within the faction even while persuading to go for alternative options. During the day Mafia lover remained trusted by town also through incriminating mafia faction members, until only one was left and numbers allowed it to win with the votes.

Spoiler: New Roles Performance Review

Hot Potato played by @MarmaladeSky D1, @Holt D2, @sakura-aneki D3-D5 (killed D5)

The starting position of Hot Potato was given to a Town-aligned secondardy Third Party out of curiosity to see what they do with it. Through the exchange with the Mafia Lover it was quietly passed on to a Mafia player, to then decide within the team. Mafia team passed it on to role revealed Spy and going forward effectively blocked with the Mafia Escort the investigative role as well as the further passing in one action. Due to the novelty of this role and strategy and no indication of a Mafia Escort in the setup to that point Town did not identify this as highly benefitial Mafia strategy and held the passing Mafia Member accountable up until after the Hot Potato exploded.

In role design we categorized this role as a Priority 3 action to potentially block the movement. If this is going to remain a one-sided pro-Mafia strategy only, perhaps the categorization into Priority 3 need be reevalued again. I think this needs at least two or three games further test runs. In any case the movement of the Hot Potato is an important new information for the players to analyze.


Necromancer played by @Demonspeed (killed N4)

This role starts off basically very vanilla and with progressing game increasingly gains strength. All really depends not only on the Town setup, but also the order in which Townies died, thus bit on the harder side to plan around in game design as it could tilt the balance heavily pro-Town, or be completely useless. This situational usefulness of the role could lead to very unique outcomes and memorable moments, thus looking forward to see what our players will do with it in next games.


Banshee played by @SonOfDaws (lost D8)

Due to the longevity of the player this role could not show all aspects of its functunalities in this game, as the killing action was missing for a full review ( why didn't you die daws ;p). My impression was that similar to all other Townie killing roles it incentivises the player to analyze the player pool in selecting anti-Townie targets. We also drafted it as a Priority 3 action, both selecting and killing, which means it could be blocked. Player raised the question about feedback concerning his viable targets upon death, as he wouldnot know which actions have succeeded and which havenot. Perhaps this need further clarification.


Bulletproof Townie (Lover) by D6 previously (Threesome Candidate) played by @Gajeel (won D8)

Threesome Candidate as secondary role was the new addition in this game, and of course can be paired with a lot of roles on-going. This combination in particular is in the upper spectrum strength wise. Most combinations give this role a solid role claim thus increase the time the player can have to find the other members of the Third Party, thus victory becomes more achievable (as demonstrated in this game). No matter the primary role though, if one Lover dies in the first couple of phases this role has same slim chance as before to guess the remaining member.


Mafia Noble (Lover) played by @Lambu (won D8)

This role was added as a big nerf for the self-confirming Townie Noble. Perhaps also due to the fact that it was added just now the players would rather take it as self-confirming Mafia Noble, thus the Mafia team decided it is best to keep it as a last resort role in end game, when the numbers allow it to lynch a last Townie and win the game. I like to see some more bolder usage of the role in a few more test runs to see if it is versatile enough to allow different playstyles, or it will remain this last resort use. But either way I think it makes the previously drafted Mafia Robber obsolete and see its potential to move it to the chopping board and go on with Mafia Noble alone.

Spoiler: Conclusion/Learnings

The built game mechanic is right now the best tool to try out different cencepts in the meta and potentially explore new rules or addition of new roles. What we were most curious about was exploring different voting regulations, concept of collective vs individual choice to select varying night scenarios.

Voting concepts: From the three concepts it turned out to be the least impactful. This might or might not have been heavily influenced through the simultaneous introduction of new tie breaking rule, which turned out to shift the timing of the votes more towards the end. Implementation-wise, some inaccurate wordings led to different interpretations of intended concepts, that were unnoticed by us for some time, unfortunately resulting in some frustrations on the side. Generally the hope to observe some different strategies around the voting concepts werenot observable in the scope as hoped in development.

Collective and individual choice concept: Giving the individual players the option to participate in an overarching game mechanic strategy was the second incooperated concept. Players discussing it already on day one, strategizing around it and arguing for/against the respective positions was perceived by us as positively participative. In this format with night actions, not everyone was given the chance to actually influence it individually with their own actions. Changing that is something I might explore in a future game.

Varying night scenarios concept: Coupled with the previous concept of choices the varying night scenarios concept was a very risky endeavour, that was misjudged in game designing phase, thus in hindsight something I would not do again. The role list was build upon the possibilities of these varying night concepts actually occuring, some even in a particular order, which due to the free choices were not going as drafted at all. Lot of these concepts while being big part of the design were not used, thus best done in a set environment only.

​

 

[Hardy]

I'll have to agree with Hardy as well.

Those mechanics are scum favoured early game no matter how you look at them. I think it's safe to assume that they have 5 players on their mafia team and maybe there's a third party somewhere. Knowing that, I highly doubt that more than 3 players on that mafia team have night actions and perhaps one of them only has a one use night action ability like Strongman. The hosts probably balanced the mechanics that way by not allowing them to have too many night actions.

So when it comes to night actions, there will be around 3-4 (night kill, night kill/action, detective, other active role)*** actions allocated to mafia and TP while the rest is ours. So day 1, I think we should only prioritize the spy and the detective (assuming there's only 1 detective and scums have 4 actions). The spy is a deadly role with these mechanics so it's a must use one. Bodyguard and Doctors are basically gambles early game, so I don't believe we should use them until we have a clearer picture of the roles. So I believe at least one investigative role (2 if we feel lucky) should be used by town tonight as I don't think we will reach 7 night actions that way.

Or we can just all agree, as townies, not to use any role tonight and see what ability we get the next day

*** just my thoughts

I don't think investigatives are even worth the risk either, sorry.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

Are you jelly I’ve got the hot avy or something

(thanks for making me hot though hosts )

It's alphabetical order so you just got lucky for having a name in the middle I guess.

And I'm rock hard, heh.

 

[Gajeel]

I don't think investigatives are even worth the risk either, sorry.

Then there's absolutely no point in playing this game. Might as well just call it quit and end this game now

 

[GrySun]

Docs have accidentally saved kills plenty of times, wouldn‘t say they should not use.

Imo mafia has no idea who will use or how many, they can‘t plan shit for first few phases so I think not using any of our roles is overkill. That‘s assuming we have Dets and Docs though, if we‘re all Hiders or something less useful then meh.

 

[Hardy]

Then there's absolutely no point in playing this game. Might as well just call it quit and end this game now

Why? If I host a game with 15 plain townies and 5 plain mafias is it game over for town?

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

Docs have accidentally saved kills plenty of times, wouldn‘t say they should not use.

Imo mafia has no idea who will use or how many, they can‘t plan shit for first few phases so I think not using any of our roles is overkill. That‘s assuming we have Dets and Docs though, if we‘re all Hiders or something less useful then meh.

1/14~ chance of saving someone, amazing

 

[Gajeel]

Why? If I host a game with 15 plain townies and 5 plain mafias is it game over for town?

Yes, we'll mislynch until we lose, that's how it works

 

[GrySun]

Then there's absolutely no point in playing this game. Might as well just call it quit and end this game now

I mean, a pure vanilla game has no Dets. They‘re not instrumental to playing Mg, no roles are. My problem is that mafia will prolly have some roles they can use if we have good roles, so us playing vanilla while they aren‘t is already putting the game in their favor even without the mechanic ever mattering.

 

[Erinyes]

Votekill @Erinyes btw. A single post just to immediately dismiss what I think is the best course, while barely interacting with me in any sort of other way, is alerting me.

i didnt dismiss anything Hardy, i just found it funny somehow the way you said it, i do agree partly with you, i feel mechanics looks pro mafia , or at least how i read them.

well yep i didnt post a lot and i likely wont, but the game just started so yeah, just one post (or 2 actually)

 

[Gajeel]

My problem is that mafia will prolly have some roles they can use if we have good roles, so us playing vanilla while they aren‘t is already putting the game in their favor even without the mechanic ever mattering.

hence why I believe at least one investigative role should be used tonight. Those hosts are experienced. They must have balanced the mechanics by restricting the number of active roles on the mafia side. Even if 4 of them have active roles, I think at least one will have a restricted use such as strongman or mafia defuser. I'm 100% willing to risk one of us using their investigative role tonight and even maybe 2

 

[Hardy]

Yes, we'll mislynch until we lose

That's not how the game works LOL. You read odd behaviours and evaluate people's votes. We have a 1vs3~ number advantage for a reason. Unless you think everyone in here is a stupid idiot that can't adapt and play without roles.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

hence why I believe at least one investigative role should be used tonight. Those hosts are experienced. They must have balanced the mechanics by restricting the number of active roles on the mafia side. Even if 4 of them have active roles, I think at least one will have a restricted use such as strongman or mafia defuser. I'm 100% willing to risk one of us using their investigative role tonight and maybe 2 even.

It's a waste as we won't know sanities and cannot coordinate that without getting yourself killed anyway

 

[Gajeel]

It's a waste as we won't know sanities and cannot coordinate that without getting yourself killed anyway

Sanity won't matter on a spy, and the detective would get a result which is already better than nothing. Nothing is a waste, we're giving 1-2 free slots by the hosts and you're not even willing to use them.

 

[Hardy]

Did you break the no edit rules just to add a stupid emote btw lol

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

Sanity won't matter on a spy, and the detective would get a result which is already better than nothing. Nothing is a waste, we're giving 1-2 free slots by the hosts and you're not even willing to use them.

Yeah I'm not, needless high risk for low chance reward.

 

[Gajeel]

Did you break the no edit rules just to add a stupid emote btw lol

why would you incriminate me like that if you're a fellow townie

 

[Hardy]

How do you even coordinate that btw?

Let's say I'm spy, I say here I'm the one to act tonight.

Tonight I'm fucking dead obviously, then.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

why would you incriminate me like that if you're a fellow townie

Implying you are town

 

[Gajeel]

How do you even coordinate that btw?

Let's say I'm spy, I say here I'm the one to act tonight.

Tonight I'm fucking dead obviously, then.

You don't say anything until you feel confident enough.

Hopefully, people will read the discussion so far and notice that it would be dumb to use any role other than investigative ones early game.

My point is that yes, these mechanics nerf town a lot, but there's still a small ray of hope for us and we should make use of it.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 20, 2020 ---

I'm basing all this on the hope that we have a spy though as I think it should be the prioritized role in town

 

[xnut]

I agree with Hardy and believe we should restrict our abilities for now as practically everyone so far agrees that the mechanics are a bit of a steep drop. I may not have mafia cake experience but I do play games similar and its quite easy to weed out behavior given this game can especially turn out to drag out for awhile, but I do believe a list of important roles should act without a doubt (investigators and such should find out their sanity correct?)

 

[Hardy]

You don't say anything until you feel confident enough.

Hopefully, people will read the discussion so far and notice that it would be dumb to use any role other than investigative ones early game.

My point is that yes, these mechanics nerf town a lot, but there's still a small ray of hope for us and we should make use of it.

There's potentially no hope. Let's say mafia has the 5 I mentioned. They could also have a disease or hot potato in their hands. Then there's the possible shapeshifter that bumps it to 7.

We are basically playing Poker showing them our hand and fully relying on getting lucky, it's on them to fold or go all in. The chances are on their favour, so I rather just not play their game then.

 

[xnut]

Mafia game*

 

[Gajeel]

There's potentially no hope. Let's say mafia has the 5 I mentioned. They could also have a disease or hot potato in their hands. Then there's the possible shapeshifter that bumps it to 7.

We are basically playing Poker showing them our hand and fully relying on getting lucky, it's on them to fold or go all in. The chances are on their favour, so I rather just not play their game then.

There's absolutely no way mafia has 5 night roles let alone 5 night roles with unlimited uses. They were 3 hosts on this, they must have balanced these mechanics somehow and that somehow must have been the scum roles.

I respect your opinion though, better safe than sorry is you're way of thinking, but I'm confident scums alone won't reach 6 actions tonight and that we have at least one free spot to make a move. That's just what I think. I'm passive anyway so It's all up to you active roles to decide what's best, but If I was spy, I wouldn't think twice and go for it.

 

[Hardy]

There's absolutely no way mafia has 5 night roles let alone 5 night roles with unlimited uses. They were 3 hosts on this, they must have balanced these mechanics somehow and that somehow must have been the scum roles.

I respect your opinion though, better safe than sorry is you're way of thinking, but I'm confident scums alone won't reach 6 actions tonight and that we have at least one free spot to make a move. That's just what I think. I'm passive anyway so It's all up to you active roles to decide what's best, but If I was spy, I wouldn't think twice and go for it.

I mean, quick numbers:
Let's say there is a shape shifter
Mafia has at least 3 roles
We have two spies
There is a NVD or a Hot Potato, or both.

This is all very possible and brings us to an. undesired volume of night actions.

 

[Nie Li]

For now I can't add anything to your current discussion, but I'll let you know that my role is passive.