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.

​

 

[gnut]

You're a 9

 

[Hardy]

So now you agree? lmao

Gave it a bit more thought, explained it before. Doesn't make me too happy but it's the one role I would give a good pass.

 

[Nie Li]

The 8-9 phase will only happen once as the 10+ will happen after that

Why so? If I understood correctly, the World changes according to the amount of actions used the previous night, not the sum of the previous nights, so we may get the 8-9 phase more than once.

 

[gnut]

What about vote related roles....nroles....not one but asking should they use it?

 

[Lambu]

Yes sleep my friend you need to be ready for the night phase

You can do better than that Shady boy

Someone tell g that at some point he will have to play the game.

Ok night o/

 

[gnut]

You can do better than that Shady boy

Someone tell g that at some point he will have to play the game.

Ok night o/

Really....atleast im being honest and asking questions.
Might not know numbers but damn sure wanna see if I can see players trying to manipulate others actions....especially in this situation.
Why I ask about voter related roles....cause if a spy is a good/acceptable role to use at night shouldn't a day use role know the same...?

 

[GrySun]

Why so? If I understood correctly, the World changes according to the amount of actions used the previous night, not the sum of the previous nights, so we may get the 8-9 phase more than once.

I mean it will be followed by a +10 most definitely due to double actions, though yes it can happen twice, just think it‘s unlikely as people will be dying a lot with every 8-9 phase, maybe even many deaths in normal phases.

 

[Nie Li]

I mean it will be followed by a +10 most definitely due to double actions, though yes it can happen twice, just think it‘s unlikely as people will be dying a lot with every 8-9 phase, maybe even many deaths in normal phases.

That makes sense. I hadn't honestly thought of that.

 

[Gajeel]

What about vote related roles....nroles....not one but asking should they use it?

it's not a night action, so it is not affected by the mechanics at all. he's free to use it every day

 

[gnut]

it's not a night action, so it is not affected by the mechanics at all. he's free to use it every day

Ok

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 21, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 21, 2020 ---

it's not a night action, so it is not affected by the mechanics at all. he's free to use it every day

Wait a minute....why is it listed in the 1st box

0-3
Day Timething
Night Timething

What does the 0-3 mean(total actions or just night)....I mean Im serious....I have no clue what it represents then....why list Day Time then?

 

[Nie Li]

Ok

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 21, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 21, 2020 ---

Wait a minute....why is it listed in the 1st box

0-3
Day Timething
Night Timething

What does the 0-3 mean(total actions or just night)....I mean Im serious....I have no clue what it represents then....why list Day Time then?

Total night actions used the previous night.

It lists what summoning that result would change for the day time and the night time respectively.

 

[GrySun]

I think it means which effect is active at day/night time respectively. Currently nothing, days and nights are normal.

Whether day actions count, I‘d say no, but can always tag and ask hosts to clarify.

 

[Nie Li]

So, about what was being discussed before, I'll give my two cents.

On one hand, I believe doing nothing at all this round means the next one we will be standing at the same place but with less townsfolk alive.

On the other hand, publicly announcing we will only use the spy (spies?) action this round makes it easy for mafia to calculate the amount of night actions that will be used. Could the mafia potentially summon a dangerous world with only that one additional spy action?

 

[Hardy]

On one hand, I believe doing nothing at all this round means the next one we will be standing at the same place but with less townsfolk alive.

On the other hand, publicly announcing we will only use the spy (spies?) action this round makes it easy for mafia to calculate the amount of night actions that will be used. Could the mafia potentially summon a dangerous world with only that one additional spy action?

Will most likely be the same whether we use abilities tonight or not, the problem is paying the consequences immediately after.

We might not even have a spy so it's not too bad.

 

[Shad]

Will most likely be the same whether we use abilities tonight or not, the problem is paying the consequences immediately after.

We might not even have a spy so it's not too bad.

It will be the same tonight but it will be helpful in the long term.

if we don't use abilities, we have absolutely no way for townies to try and confirm themselves, for people to check their sanity or to try and expose bugus claims.

I don't like the idea of playing the game without actions, it favours mafia over all.

 

[Nie Li]

Will most likely be the same whether we use abilities tonight or not, the problem is paying the consequences immediately after.

We might not even have a spy so it's not too bad.

Say we don't use any action tonight and we successfully avoid a bad World.

What do we do next round? No actions again and another random vote?

 

[Hardy]

It will be the same tonight but it will be helpful in the long term.

if we don't use abilities, we have absolutely no way for townies to try and confirm themselves, for people to check their sanity or to try and expose bugus claims.

I don't like the idea of playing the game without actions, it favours mafia over all.

Us getting our lynches janitorized or getting killed twice per night favours them much more.

Say we don't use any action tonight and we successfully avoid a bad World.

What do we do next round? No actions again and another random vote?

Why would the votes be random? You think a prostitute, a doctor or a single det result are gonna get us anything for tomorrow? The answer is no.

Tomorrow we check on who died by lynch, on who died by night kills, on how people behaved towards them, on what roles they start to claim, then make a judgement. It's not random.

 

[Nie Li]

Why would the votes be random? You think a prostitute, a doctor or a single det result are gonna get us anything for tomorrow? The answer is no.

Tomorrow we check on who died by lynch, on who died by night kills, on how people behaved towards them, on what roles they start to claim, then make a judgement. It's not random.

I don't know if we will gather information to make an educated guess after only one night, especially not an educated majority guess. If there's no additional info input involved it looks very easy to me for a mafia to hide during day talks, but since it's my first time playing I could of course be very wrong in thinking this way.

 

[Shad]

Us getting our lynches janitorized or getting killed twice per night favours them much more.


Why would the votes be random? You think a prostitute, a doctor or a single det result are gonna get us anything for tomorrow? The answer is no.

Tomorrow we check on who died by lynch, on who died by night kills, on how people behaved towards them, on what roles they start to claim, then make a judgement. It's not random.

The question is which is more important townies using their action every night, or avoiding Bad Worlds for the rest of the game?

I think you are underestimating actions, it true that early in the game they won't change much, and we will still be voting in the way you describe but D4 onward they will be extremely important, unless we can lose before D4 why would we give that up?

Also it would be totally bad for town to not use their action today and then do it later, if we are gonna start using actions anyway, we should do it now.

Also double kills that won't happen until N3 or N4, because if all townie use their role today that will already be 7 -> 12 uses, mafia won't risk it and will also use all their roles, so until the number of player start dropping we are guarenteed to always land on +10

By then if doctors are hoe alive, they also have 2 actions and enough info to make educated guesses on who to block/protect, so it is not guaranteed that they will get 2 kills.

 

[Hardy]

I don't know if we will gather information to make an educated guess after only one night, especially not an educated majority guess. If there's no additional info input involved it looks very easy to me for a mafia to hide during day talks, but since it's my first time playing I could of course be very wrong in thinking this way.

There's usually patterns in how people vote and discuss, it's certainly harder to pick up than just getting 2 opposite results as a detective and screaming here, sure, but the circumstances do need it.

At the end of the day, that's my opinion on the best course of action by far, but it is a different way of playing to what everyone here is used and also lamer both as a player and for the hosts.

Also, of course (...and if you are townie) you don't have to follow fucking anything I say, but ideally we all cooperate with the same strategy for

The question is which is more important townies using their action every night, or avoiding Bad Worlds for the rest of the game?

I think you are underestimating actions, it true that early in the game they won't change much, and we will still be voting in the way you describe but D4 onward they will be extremely important, unless we can lose before D4 why would we give that up?

Also it would be totally bad for town to not use their action today and then do it later, if we are gonna start using actions anyway, we should do it now.

Also double kills that won't happen until N3 or N4, because if all townie use their role today that will already be 7 -> 12 uses, mafia won't risk it and will also use all their roles, so until the number of player start dropping we are guarenteed to always land on +10

By then if doctors are hoe alive, they also have 2 actions and enough info to make educated guesses on who to block/protect, so it is not guaranteed that they will get 2 kills.

The possibility of 4 townies getting killed in a row is the worst scenario these mechanics allow and not a single role upside can balance that.