Aspects of a Mafia Game

[Chaco]

When is too much? Should mafia stick to the basics or play off of flavor? I ask things such as these because I am trying to create the perfect balance of different dimensions; Flavor, gameplay, mafia, characters roles in game relating to their individual alignment, all of this tied into one. I have a tendency in mafia games to go too far, but continuously reaching out for that just amazing game. Ever since LoDscrew though, I wonder how much is too much; Night actions running through multiple people, ******* roles, and just the confusion of the play.

So, DGers, tell me what you like in a mafia game! What you want to experience! New things that I havent thought of that you'd love to play in! Pitch them discuss them, and most of all critique them.

 

[M.K]

Never off of flavor.
Because that leaves way too much room for "well that wasn't a good game/tv show/movie to base it off of anyways". Xiivi said once to me that if you base games off of flavor, you can basically pick off the antags 1 by 1 following a mass claim or something of that nature.
In PikMafia, I based my individual roles off of the game (i.e., Purple Pikmin, Doublevoter, Pellet Posey, VT) but not my entire game (Red/White Pikmin were Mafia)

 

[Xiivi]

That's when you don't have adequate safe-claims for them.

 

[CT Chia]

There's room for both games of mafia, flavorless and some flavor. Games that are packed full of flavor and new mechanics are fun, but only time to time and aren't "the best" balance. I like some light flavor with some roles (as the aspect of safe claiming and stuff helps imo) as long as the flavor is a bit more standardish.

 

[Nicholas1024]

I love the idea of making roles thematic. If you can pull it off and keep a balanced game, by all means do it. Just make sure the mafia has good safeclaims if you do so.

However in scumhunting, don't take much account of flavor. It's a trap.

 

[Omni]

Flavor is for fruits.

 

[Tom]

^^^^^ flavor is for awesome mafia games you mean

oh wait youre a newb and werent around for harry potter mafia lawls

 

[Rockin]

I believe in any Mafia game, they should be simple, yet fun. That's about the main ingredient in my games

I feel that flavor is important, cause it keeps the reader interested and sets a more relaxing atmosphere around him. Like whatever he/she reads would be either pleasant or lulz worthy.

Mechanics of a game should be simple, yet effective. You can aim for unique, but don't overdue it. I feel that tradional style mafia works best in any mafia game. There are times when you need to put in the more uncommon roles, but also have te make sure it's fair and balanced.

 

[Ronike]

Personally, I avoid games lacking of flavor. Just not interesting or as stimulating to me. Thats a personal thing though and is going to be highly varied.

Games can be great pretty much no matter what goes into them as long as it is thought through. Oh and mafia should always have safeclaims in flavored, or else just so totally bat**** randomized a massclaim wouldnt matter.

 

[Chaco]

Ronike shoots down my alley. I may try out a small private game with an idea I've been boggling around and mentioned to Xiivi.

 

[Rajam]

I like themed games with lots of crazy roles and mechanics, though I think it's better to make it very hard/impossible to deduce stuff from the flavor (like breaking the game via mass claims, or deduce a player's character through his abilities, etc.)

 

[Overswarm]

It depends on what you're looking for.

At its core, Mafia is balanced towards Mafia winning. Mafia just wins more often than town, at all levels of play.

Adding newer ways of getting information makes it easier for town. Adding ways to confuse town makes it easier for mafia.

I personally like games with lots of flavor and unique roles; they're fun to balance, fun to play, and it gives both town and scum a unique way to approach the game. Flavor discussion isn't "useless" in these games, just different.

Other people see it as a disservice to be unable to claim they're a miller when the flavor is set up in such a way that only one character could conceivably be a miller, or to claim to be doctor and one guy is obviously a doctor.

 

[Omni]

Well I'm a huge fan of closed setups. Super huge fan of vanilla games with the typical townie, doc, cop roles.

I think open setups that exhaust flavor and roles to the max take away from the core of mafia. Players concentrate on roles, night actions, flavor so much that they don't know how to play mafia without them.

In CT Mafia even though I won at the end of Day 1 I was ninjad into lynching our Day 1 candidate. It was Chrono who had the ability to revenge kill whomever lynched him. Couldn't have seen that coming. He wad also super inactive so a claim was useless.

I like mafia regardless. Just a preference thing.

 

[Overswarm]

Well I'm a huge fan of closed setups. Super huge fan of vanilla games with the typical townie, doc, cop roles.

I think open setups that exhaust flavor and roles to the max take away from the core of mafia. Players concentrate on roles, night actions, flavor so much that they don't know how to play mafia without them.

Yeah, it's definitely a different style of game.

In CT Mafia even though I won at the end of Day 1 I was ninjad into lynching our Day 1 candidate. It was Chrono who had the ability to revenge kill whomever lynched him. Couldn't have seen that coming. He wad also super inactive so a claim was useless.

I like mafia regardless. Just a preference thing.

I made CT mafia to be more chaotic in general, accompanied by recruitment and revival roles to give a "shuffling" kind of feeling. Town kicked butt and killed Lavos early though, and then you mind wrecked them later.