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.

​

 

[Marmalade]

Mnhm okay, I can't imagine there are much actives at all (for both mafia and town) if these are the mechanics. That would make it too easy for mafia in my opinion. Though I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be at least a bit careful about it and think about night actions properly before using them. Do not have a night action myself however

 

[GrySun]

Probably won‘t use my role either unless I get bored or see a good usage opportunity.

 

[Demonspeed]

My role is active too, I will use it on my precious, let’s see how it goes

Your precious? There is no Panda, Magi and Zasz in this game, so who? Or are you roleplaying?

 

[Marmalade]

Perhaps Takuan? He's in the game right?

 

[GrySun]

Still think it‘s perhaps best everyone who isn‘t a 1-time use role uses it the first night so we as town learn the number of everyone with actions(who is town) as it could easily break the game and make it easy to win for us.

!votekill Demonspeed

 

[Erinyes]

@Erinyes Lambu said he's passive too.

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

And Moegara too.

I will fix that asap, thxs !

my bad @Hardy i saw it and i thought i ve written it, im just too tired.

 

[Hardy]

Still think it‘s perhaps best everyone who isn‘t a 1-time use role uses it the first night so we as town learn the number of everyone with actions(who is town) as it could easily break the game and make it easy to win for us.

!votekill Demonspeed

... not rly because we are depending on what the other teams do, we won't know either way.

I'm kind of getting a decent idea on how the general rolelist is built just reading on some people talking about their roles and it matching my own, but won't talk for the time being.

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

I will fix that asap, thxs !

my bad @Hardy i saw it and i thought i ve written it, im just too tired.

Naps are good right?

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 21, 2020 ---

For Night one I'm still certain only spy should move.

 

[Lambu]

Backreading again on the conversation I've reached the conclusion that we either restrict or play normally, leaning more towards the second since I have the feeling people are just going to judge by themselves giving scum a better way to fake actions and "witholds".

I'll give you an honest answer.

- I dislike option 1 because, from my inexperience, telling who's guilty or not without any hints from the roles seems close to impossible unless anyone slips big time. It's too easy to lie on a forum thread and too many rounds are guaranteed to be randomly voted for my taste.

- Option 2 is certainly the safer choice if 5 night actions cannot be reached, that is true. If the possibility of it reaching 5+ is slim, as you guys tell me, I'd go for it. It may get us a culprit immediately which would be very good, but from the moment a spy reveals himself he'll obviously be targetted and we will need to use some additional night actions to protect him. I guess that using a skill like bodyguard then is okay, since there would be one less mafia either way (from the spy accusation and lynching) so the sum of actions should remain the same.
It's a good option, I admit it.

- Option 3 has the biggest risk; a risk that is actually non-existent in the other two options, I can see that, but I don't dislike this option either. Precisely because it's not about going all-out with the actions but about "not even us knowing for sure what other townies will choose to do" that there being additional variables is a good thing. Landing a 7 is unprobable and impossible to calculate. There's the risk of it happening, but it's a valid gamble. Landing a 8-9 is also dangerous but it has some redeeming things unlike 7. Overall, yes, 7-8-9 can land with this option, but not at the mafia's will.


I'm okay with whatever everyone else wants to do. The only option I don't like is 1.

Roles are but a support to hunt scum more easily, they are ultimately revealed more in the day discussions and vote pattern. Still Option 3 sounds the most difficult to control for scum, they wont be able to predict the amount of night actions until later on in the game when Town will also get a general idea of who has actions and who doesn't.

 

[digitaldude]

So is there no other vanilla townie here?

 

[Lambu]

For Night one I'm still certain only spy should move.

If we agree on that then we are willingly restricting everything at our disposal, its safer but town nerfs itself by their own accord... Then when people with night actions die we will fear exceeding the limit of 7 even more than before.

 

[Nie Li]

Still think it‘s perhaps best everyone who isn‘t a 1-time use role uses it the first night so we as town learn the number of everyone with actions(who is town) as it could easily break the game and make it easy to win for us.

!votekill Demonspeed

Hard disagree here.

If townies use their roles we won't know which used actions were from townies and which were from Mafias, and Mafias will learn exactly which ones were used by us and which ones were used by them.

Roles are but a support to hunt scum more easily, they are ultimately revealed more in the day discussions and vote pattern. Still Option 3 sounds the most difficult to control for scum, they wont be able to predict the amount of night actions until later on in the game when Town will also get a general idea of who has actions and who doesn't.

That's what I like about option 3, but since I have 0 experience at this game I have to trust you guys when you say we can uncover mafias through daytime discussion alone, so I'll be okay with whatever strategy the majority picks this time.

 

[Demonspeed]

But what if we have several Spies?

 

[Lambu]

This all comes with the assumption we have so many active roles btw. Unless we all coordinate and decide who acts and who doesn't its going to be free paranoia for three days.

 

[Hardy]

If we agree on that then we are willingly restricting everything at our disposal, its safer but town nerfs itself by their own accord... Then when people with night actions die we will fear exceeding the limit of 7 even more than before.

I rather nerf town than give mafia a massive buff.

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

But what if we have several Spies?

We are like 14 townies, very unlikely, and even with 2 spies anti towns would need a total of 5 actions to make it happen.

 

[GrySun]

Hard disagree here.

If townies use their roles we won't know which used actions were from townies and which were from Mafias, and Mafias will learn exactly which ones were used by us and which ones were used by them.

We can expect a couple to be from scum, so if we get 6 actions as a result of this we can expect 3 town, maybe 4. If we get 10 it shows even more towns there. And we don‘t need to solve the number immediately either, as people die a lot of this info will be very useful later as we‘ll be able to tell who acted when and confirm town and mafias later, at least I think that to be the case.

Feels like we‘re restricting ourselves against the cons so much that it‘s creating other bigger cons, but welp.

 

[Hardy]

It's Night 1, only investigative roles hurt to not use, and it's a cheap price to pay with this mechanic...

 

[Nie Li]

We can expect a couple to be from scum, so if we get 6 actions as a result of this we can expect 3 town, maybe 4. If we get 10 it shows even more towns there. And we don‘t need to solve the number immediately either, as people die a lot of this info will be very useful later as we‘ll be able to tell who acted when and confirm town and mafias later, at least I think that to be the case.

Feels like we‘re restricting ourselves against the cons so much that it‘s creating other bigger cons, but welp.

The info would be useful, but it would also be useful for Mafias and they'd figure it immediately, which is worse.

We are indeed retricting ourselves a lot going with the proposed strategies, but if our aim is to avoid the Mafia's freely landing a 7-8-9, letting them figure our numbers so soon, on top of potentially landing already on 7-8-9, is worse.

 

[Lambu]

Feels like we‘re restricting ourselves against the cons so much that it‘s creating other bigger cons, but welp.

Yeah

It's Night 1, only investigative roles hurt to not use, and it's a cheap price to pay with this mechanic...

The info would be useful, but it would also be useful for Mafias and they'd figure it immediately, which is worse.

We are indeed retricting ourselves a lot going with the proposed strategies, but if our aim is to avoid the Mafia's freely landing a 7-8-9, letting them figure our numbers so soon, on top of potentially landing already on 7-8-9, is worse.

The thing is that after N1 we are going to end up restricting again and even more since it will be harder to reach 10 and easier to land on the threshold so the nerf is going to last for more than one night...

 

[Nie Li]

The thing is that after N1 we are going to end up restricting again and even more since it will be harder to reach 10 and easier to land on the threshold so the nerf is going to last for more than one night...

I have expressed similar worry over that. What would you say is your preferred course of action?

 

[Hardy]

The thing is that after N1 we are going to end up restricting again and even more since it will be harder to reach 10 and easier to land on the threshold so the nerf is going to last for more than one night...

You don't know that

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

I'm not going to talk about the roles I'm assuming we have so that mafia don't have easy claims, so don't dig.