Gova
I'm goin' for it!
I carried Xonar to D3. 
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Gigabots Manfia - GAME [JUMB]OVER. Who got the Gigatron?
- Thread starter #HBC | Laundry
- Start date
Orboknown
Smash Hero
christ. sorry JD.
My first lylo and I ****ed it for town.
well, second lylo. in the same game
My first lylo and I ****ed it for town.
well, second lylo. in the same game
Gova
I'm goin' for it!
Obv townies don't make it to Lylo.
#HBC | Acrostic
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Any particular reason why Jupiter chose to shoot you over Jdietz? I only started paying attention around Day 7.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
yea I'll take the heat for this one.
allegory, JdietZ was abducted at the time.
allegory, JdietZ was abducted at the time.
#HBC | ZoZo
Shocodoro Blagshidect
Orboknown.
I'd love to stress this.
Just because someone posts a lot of words, doesn't mean they're good points. Or town. It just means there are a lot of words.
I'd love to stress this.
Just because someone posts a lot of words, doesn't mean they're good points. Or town. It just means there are a lot of words.
#HBC | Acrostic
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Oh. Orboknown then.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
I guess the first thing I'm going to be asked is "SO WHAT ABOUT THOSE RANDOM *** QUESTIONS TO START THE GAME, LAUNDRY?"
This is my method for drawing alignment. Ryker knew this prior to the game starting (having watched me use them in a game he co-hosted with me as well as played in games I've hosted and use them), and, naturally, you can tell he tried to tweak his answers a bit (he wanted indy, so he answered like he was a hipster). The method works like this: ask a bunch of random questions (really, they're random, I come up with them off the top of my head), and look for trends in answers. By allowing people to lie about their answers, I've opened the door for two possibilities: creating alignment by letting them choose how they answer in a means I have absolutely no control over and also allowing them to answer in a way that, if creative enough, will provoke me to reward the player. Funny answers will not guarantee any alignment, but I do tend to give out good roles from that alignment.
So, for example, in this case, I had three alignments: mafia, indy, and town. I had answered five questions and, unfortunately, the name one was useless (dunno why I asked it). So I had to try to find a trend that gave me exactly four people with a similar answer to one question. In this game, it was the oddball question.
Mod note: It's always been the oddball question I ask at the end. It's not planned, it's just how it works out.
If you look at the answers from Murderbush, Gova, Biceps, and JTB, all of them answered in a non-positive answer. Murderbush, Biceps, and JTB either deliberately said "no" or they left the door open for distaste. Gova just posted a picture, so he got Indy because it's a ****ing picture, that's not a verbal answer.
So yeh. This is my method of randomization, and I prefer it to an RNG. It's definitely a lot more fun and interesting for the people involved--as long as I don't ask three straight yes or no questions (pulled my hair out when I realized this, that's so limiitttiiiiinnnnng).
And no, Glyfe didn't know everyone's role from the start. He wrote a stock role PM that didn't include any information about alignment or role abilities and I just copypasta'd that around while filling in the crucial parts.
This is my method for drawing alignment. Ryker knew this prior to the game starting (having watched me use them in a game he co-hosted with me as well as played in games I've hosted and use them), and, naturally, you can tell he tried to tweak his answers a bit (he wanted indy, so he answered like he was a hipster). The method works like this: ask a bunch of random questions (really, they're random, I come up with them off the top of my head), and look for trends in answers. By allowing people to lie about their answers, I've opened the door for two possibilities: creating alignment by letting them choose how they answer in a means I have absolutely no control over and also allowing them to answer in a way that, if creative enough, will provoke me to reward the player. Funny answers will not guarantee any alignment, but I do tend to give out good roles from that alignment.
So, for example, in this case, I had three alignments: mafia, indy, and town. I had answered five questions and, unfortunately, the name one was useless (dunno why I asked it). So I had to try to find a trend that gave me exactly four people with a similar answer to one question. In this game, it was the oddball question.
Mod note: It's always been the oddball question I ask at the end. It's not planned, it's just how it works out.
If you look at the answers from Murderbush, Gova, Biceps, and JTB, all of them answered in a non-positive answer. Murderbush, Biceps, and JTB either deliberately said "no" or they left the door open for distaste. Gova just posted a picture, so he got Indy because it's a ****ing picture, that's not a verbal answer.
So yeh. This is my method of randomization, and I prefer it to an RNG. It's definitely a lot more fun and interesting for the people involved--as long as I don't ask three straight yes or no questions (pulled my hair out when I realized this, that's so limiitttiiiiinnnnng).
And no, Glyfe didn't know everyone's role from the start. He wrote a stock role PM that didn't include any information about alignment or role abilities and I just copypasta'd that around while filling in the crucial parts.
#HBC | ZoZo
Shocodoro Blagshidect
Because I convinced him Orboknown was indy probably. And mafia vs indy is better than mafia vs town town town (abduction release).
Even then, indy can have BP etc.
Even then, indy can have BP etc.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
I know that much, but....yea. I feel like i ****ed it for town. learning experience sentence goes here
#HBC | ZoZo
Shocodoro Blagshidect
Don't worry man, this is a great example of it.
Jupiter is way better with words than me. Both parts of the hydra are amazing with words and overall persuasion. They like to belittle things to be more convincing, and it works.
But watch out for that stuff.
Jupiter is way better with words than me. Both parts of the hydra are amazing with words and overall persuasion. They like to belittle things to be more convincing, and it works.
But watch out for that stuff.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
Note made. feel free to gloat JD.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
Alright, so just a quick recap on how I thought about the game:
ALRIGHT SO NOW YOU HAVE ALL OF THE DATA I COLLECTED THROUGHOUT THE GAME, TIME TO HEAR **** EXPLAINED!
I'll start with my thoughts on the game:
This will probably offend some of the newer/worse players but I really wish I had the original playerlist when I ran this game. This isn't to say that I didn't think certain factions played well, just that, with all the bull**** tossed around, no one really knew how to handle it and a better roster would've probably caught onto my schtick earlier (will explain schtick when discussing the set-up). Likewise, I feel like it would've forced scum to play better, or that I would have a stronger scum team or roster or something. I dunno. I just feel like the entire game would've went better as the roster got overwhelmed so much by my set-up and not enough by actual play going on.
Case-in-point of this was Gorf's lynch on D4. Gorf was not playing that antitown of a game, outside of buddying Ryker. He certainly was not the scummiest player in the game. Yet, he got lynched through a flavor cop because two newbie players bought the (unintentional) WIFOM and thought Gorf was a scum jailer when the flavor cop was supposed to be telling of role, but not necessarily alignment.
Meanwhile, the entire game, the Biceps-JTB-(Murderbush) scumteam remained thoroughly obvious to anyone with a scrap of experience and knowledgable scumhunting. Yet, they didn't get lynched, outside of JTB. Town was basically a dummy, abused by the mafia (not even the indy, there was no presence by either Gova or Xonar until D5 at the earliest) for the longest of time. The good players (Bananalama, Vegito, Gorf) got distracted by Ryker's tired schtick for three days until eventually everyone wised up to what he was doing when he was angling to kill himself. Yes, Ryker wanted to die. He was not at all expecting the scum shot.
So the fact that you drew this to 2-1 Lylo in D8 is so ****ing beyond me that I don't even understand how it happened. It's like, I don't want to award an MVP at all because play on all sides was ****, yet on the other hand, the fact that you drew it out that far was so ridiculous that it's hard for me not to award one. The game was so scumsided while Murderbush was alive that I thought it was going to be over by D5 at the latest. Instead, you drew it out.
One last thing: D7 was hysterical for me. When I saw that Biceps had shot Xonar, I knew exactly what was going to happen: XonarvBiceps. There was no way it was avoidable unless Biceps thought he couldn't win and went for the joint, as by that point, Biceps knew Xonar was indy and couldn't let him live, but by exposing him, he'd reveal he was scum to the super-defensive Xonar. Whoever won the argument won the game as well.
good gog, town, you were *******.
ALRIGHT SO NOW YOU HAVE ALL OF THE DATA I COLLECTED THROUGHOUT THE GAME, TIME TO HEAR **** EXPLAINED!
I'll start with my thoughts on the game:
This will probably offend some of the newer/worse players but I really wish I had the original playerlist when I ran this game. This isn't to say that I didn't think certain factions played well, just that, with all the bull**** tossed around, no one really knew how to handle it and a better roster would've probably caught onto my schtick earlier (will explain schtick when discussing the set-up). Likewise, I feel like it would've forced scum to play better, or that I would have a stronger scum team or roster or something. I dunno. I just feel like the entire game would've went better as the roster got overwhelmed so much by my set-up and not enough by actual play going on.
Case-in-point of this was Gorf's lynch on D4. Gorf was not playing that antitown of a game, outside of buddying Ryker. He certainly was not the scummiest player in the game. Yet, he got lynched through a flavor cop because two newbie players bought the (unintentional) WIFOM and thought Gorf was a scum jailer when the flavor cop was supposed to be telling of role, but not necessarily alignment.
Meanwhile, the entire game, the Biceps-JTB-(Murderbush) scumteam remained thoroughly obvious to anyone with a scrap of experience and knowledgable scumhunting. Yet, they didn't get lynched, outside of JTB. Town was basically a dummy, abused by the mafia (not even the indy, there was no presence by either Gova or Xonar until D5 at the earliest) for the longest of time. The good players (Bananalama, Vegito, Gorf) got distracted by Ryker's tired schtick for three days until eventually everyone wised up to what he was doing when he was angling to kill himself. Yes, Ryker wanted to die. He was not at all expecting the scum shot.
So the fact that you drew this to 2-1 Lylo in D8 is so ****ing beyond me that I don't even understand how it happened. It's like, I don't want to award an MVP at all because play on all sides was ****, yet on the other hand, the fact that you drew it out that far was so ridiculous that it's hard for me not to award one. The game was so scumsided while Murderbush was alive that I thought it was going to be over by D5 at the latest. Instead, you drew it out.
One last thing: D7 was hysterical for me. When I saw that Biceps had shot Xonar, I knew exactly what was going to happen: XonarvBiceps. There was no way it was avoidable unless Biceps thought he couldn't win and went for the joint, as by that point, Biceps knew Xonar was indy and couldn't let him live, but by exposing him, he'd reveal he was scum to the super-defensive Xonar. Whoever won the argument won the game as well.
good gog, town, you were *******.
#HBC | Acrostic
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This is awesome. I think I would prefer this method (so I would be able to be town all the time).
I don't think there's anything to gloat about.
Just give you a "shame on you" face and move on.
Hahahahaha, I really enjoyed reading this. I had a gut feeling that Jupiter was scum, but since EE kept being EE, I wasn't sure. Good game, guys.
Also, WL, I find it funny that even though I pmed you about the unvote and continued the game, it continued exactly the same, lmao.
Also, WL, I find it funny that even though I pmed you about the unvote and continued the game, it continued exactly the same, lmao.
I'll take the MvP. Best decision, imo.
What the hell are you talking about? We never revealed that. At all.
Like, the fact that Xonar was pulling eight million new claim elements out of his *** at the last second in lylo to try to incriminate us for a nightkill that doesn't exist (ergo, didn't happen, and certainly wasn't us) was the crux of the case.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
I pm'd washed asking if JD was hated or something. man.
ryker, good job with what you were doing.
He never actually did say he shot xonar. he said that xonar was lying about the BP.
ryker, good job with what you were doing.
He never actually did say he shot xonar. he said that xonar was lying about the BP.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
>Pointed out he was a BP
Did he change his claim? If so, completely remove that entire point because it's bull****.
Did he change his claim? If so, completely remove that entire point because it's bull****.
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Except our points WERE good points.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
I'll go with Jup mvp.
That's a nice job passing judgment on play you apparently didn't read, Laundry
Pink Lemonade
Smash Rookie
It's ok dude. I have ****ed it up for town in lylo before as well. ANNDD I re-read and that's why I ****ed up. So you'll **** up in lylo for whatever. If you re-read or don't read. I have LOLhammered scum when I super lurked through town and ended the game. **** happens dude. Now curl this stress up into a paper ball, and throw it into
And I ****ed up for you guys here. It wasn't your fault bro. So here, I'll take the burden with ya. Don't let that stress you man. It stressed me out... You don't even know. Or maybe you do.
Don't forget this is sort of a team effort.
#HBC | ZoZo
Shocodoro Blagshidect
I dunno, I felt like I'd have a chance against it if it wasn't for the fact that the third townie was Orboknown.
But yeah I did some dumb stuff like saying there was no NK N6 when I totally meant to say other stuff n stuff.
stuff.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
I'm a busy *** man, I ain't got time to read play sometimes. I still followed along for a majority of it, I just dropped the ball in lategame because you guys weren't voting nearly as much.
Orboknown
Smash Hero
lol ran. I'll learn from it. thanks for letting me play washed.
>Don't read game
>Tell me I played like ****, citing things I didn't do
K.
>Tell me I played like ****, citing things I didn't do
K.
Are people outside the game allowed to vote? Jupiter deserves it, no question.
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????????????????????????????????????????????????????
You're mad about one point he was wrong on. Chill your boner.
#HBC | ZoZo
Shocodoro Blagshidect
>he doesnt know scum team
>hinted he was traitor at EE in first few posts
gogdamrnitz
>hinted he was traitor at EE in first few posts
gogdamrnitz
That was wrong. I did know.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
ANYWAYS SHUSH BIGASS POST:
Now, the set-up. First things first, this isn't the first time I ran a set-up like this. Way back in 2010, I pulled out a game called Wannabes with Broto, where I invented a lot of the different habits I used to moderate/host/create this game. If you want to read it (the game is fairly short), here's a link:
http://allisbrawl.com/forum/topic.aspx?id=156674&page=1
I went into this with two goals in mind: misinformation and the plant abductor. I got the latter while bouncing ideas for some mafia game off of someone. Might've been Stew, thought it was Gova but then I realized that I had the set-up longer than I planned to do TWEWY maf, but I'm not sure. At any rate, as I think Broto pointed out, I love the plant. It's one of my favorite roles. I used it in my very first mafia game, where I watched it trigger and hit the same person 4 times in one game (he's never lived the nickname "plant bait" down), and I rarely avoid using it since. I got the idea from a general notion to create better indies than the rampart SKs Smashboards uses for Indies (it's so rare to see indies outside of those), and the combination of a "Plant Assassin" role from a game I ran with Vult Redux ages ago on AiB.
So, the plant abductor was born. I didn't want to give him both the abilities of a plant and an abductor, as I found the original Plant Assassin to be overpowered. Rather, I tweaked it so the plant word would trigger the abduction. This gave the Plant Assassin the safe play (use words that are spoken a lot) or the huge play (use a word that only one or two people are using but they're using a lot). It basically gave them an option to tailor their abduction pool a little bit, while still having pretty minimal control over who they abducted that night. This practically forced the abductor to lynch his scum targets or join scum in mislynches as there's no way he'd have control over either and I damn well was not giving him a role cop on top of that.
This might be my favorite indy role ever. It's powerful, but not overpowered, it can blend well into games provided the set-up is right, and it forces intelligent, active play without being obvious. You have to be a top-tier player to play this well. Damn shame it went to the inactive/lurking Gova and then was baton-passed to the non-English Xonar.
So, then, there's the misinformation part. I don't like people relying solely upon roles in order to find scum. My goal is to have it aid them, without being a crutch for them. I see a lot of games where players can skate by, allowing their roles to do the work for them (Auspher in Lost Mafia comes to mind immediately). The easiest way of nerfing the strength of roles in general, is to make it unreliable. You do that by creating misinformation.
Information is a powerful tool in mafia, and most people don't realize this. This is why I go around *****ing at people for weak arguments like "he's being fake:" usually they can't back it up, and when they can, 9/10 they spun some of the posts to fit their argument. Yes, persuasion itself is the best tool to have in mafia ("it doesn't matter that you had the best reads if you can't convince anyone to act on them" argument), but one of the best means of persuading anyone is through having certain information that others do not, or having better information than anyone else. Information is also at a premium in mafia, and tainted by uncertainty. Every bit of mod-confirmed information is valuable, simply because it can't be argued. Every bit of a confirmed cop read is valuable, simply because it takes one person off the table or catches scum when it matters. It's not the only thing, but it's damn well important to have. By reducing the amount of information made available to players, the more I made them get by on their play.
So I went about my set-up preparing for this idea. This should be thoroughly evident by the scum faction alone: A bull**** inventor, a janitor, and a traitor. In an earlier game co-hosted, again, by Vult Redux, they used an inventor role that sent fake one-shot abilities to players. This role was scum-aligned, but despite a cop guilty on the inventor, Broto and I actually sat down and lynched the gogdamn cop over the inventor because we believed its shots (which were supposed to be real gogdamn role shots, like vigs and docs, and cops, mind), despite the fact that they clearly didn't work in endgame.
Before I go on, lemme say it was fun to **** with this role. After awhile, they started to catch on that I was turning anything they sent me into bull****. It started out pretty simplistic with the butt and the eyepatch (which I basically just made up into bull**** actions despite the ridiculousness of these), but then, when they started to figure out the actions did nothing (when they sent JDietz the Gigabot), I got more creative. This is what they sent me on N4, for JTB:
For good measure, the one to Orbo was pretty good too, I'll post what Orbo got:
had Ryker not been the traitor. That was an intentional balance for the team's sake. The nature of the game made it pretty scumsided already, and the roles that existed (Calvin, Hated Jan, Traitor Terrorist) made it even moreso. Instead of just making town ridiculously overpowered to compensate, I nerfed scum instead. The Traitor wasn't the only balance, albeit it was the most obvious and the best one. What I wanted scum to do, they did. I originally intended to go further and not tell the traitor the scum team in hopes that he blew one of them up, but I figured that was nerfing too far.
The other nerf I incorporated was to make the jan a hated player. While he does take less to lynch in a game where survival is of the utmost importance, I found it as more of a boon. Accidentally putting scum at L-2 with absolutely no signs of survival could just lead to a quickhammer and that hurts town a hell of a lot. Usually (but not always) the longer days go, the better it is for town: they get to discuss things with one another, which leads to planning, decisions, and, most importantly, trust. But it does come at the cost of, from their perspective, half the scum team, so it damn well better be worth it.
Also, this intentionally gave the scum team a specific plan: set the endgame to have the Calvin in it. This is why I'm glad Biceps got that role, as he was a strong enough player to pull that plan off, albeit Murderbush could've done just as well with it (I'm curious to see who would do better in an invention-off betwen the two of them). The plan is simplistic enough, and it was really easy to pull off. Traitor Terrorist had to lie low enough not to draw the scumkill, but remained active enough to avoid the Thief. The Jan had to use his role, then eventually get himself lynched, maybe outing a PR on the way (the Jan should be playing suicidal the entire time, but not suicidal enough to get himself lynched D1). Once the PR is exposed, the Terrorist blows it up, preserving the Jan for a day. THe jan gets lynched. THE ENTIRE TIME, the Calvin has so many options, and with his mates drawing everyone's attention he can avoid scrutiny. But at the same time, the early-game sweep is much harder to do, as it's almost too easy to kill his mates or for his mates to kill themselves.
The best part is? Without even intending to execute this, it happened. The only hitch was the scum killed the Traitor, but Ryker told me he was in a position to start the next day by blowing someone up. Other than that, they performed it exactly to my expectations. It's fun ****ing with roles.
Actually, no, the best part is, they knew what Murderbush was, but killed him anyways. Both Glyfe and JTB walked into the game, saw 14-man with a 2-man mafia, and thought "double mafia game." Like, seriously, they immediately pegged Murderbush as a traitor within his first few posts in the game (where he, y'know, literally claimed traitor)...but for the other mafia team. That's the best part about the misinformation: scum wasn't immune to it. They thought there was another team until at some point between D5-D6 (I think the JDietz/MeowMonster team was the last hurrah for them, until they realized there really wasn't).
Now, for town, I had about half the roles decided: fake roles. I hate vanillas. I find them boring, repetitive, and ultimately pointless, outside of ****ing over massclaims. But here, I gave the scum enough information to avoid that: the Calvin is an anti-mass claim role and the Jan and Terrorist were trying to die anyway (JTB claiming vig was hilarious, by the way). This game is no exception, so where most normal hosts would place vanillas, I used fake roles that did nothing. But I have to admit, this was my favorite set of fake roles out there. The Laser Deflector is a mainstay, one I used before in my first misinformation game that I hosted on AiB. It was frilly, stupid, but ridiculous enough to seem plausible, especially in a game where one of the characters pilots a robot that turns into a gigantic laser gun.
The rest were a bit more original however. I think the backup was the first of these I made. I've used a backup role before in that same game I hosted on AiB, but it was a backup to a role that never existed. That's all fine and dandy, using linked roles is by far away the easiest means of creating fake roles, but that's easy and predictable ****. Likewise, when doing this, I wanted to create as many fake roles WITH ACTIONS as possible. This screws the tracker over in the early game but makes it a damn powerful role in the lategame when there aren't nearly as many actions going on.
"But you put a backup in anyway?"
DAMN STRAIGHT I DID. I validated it by making it a backup to a fake role. Hence, Commander Stryker, the Town Popcap Vigilante, was born. I thought this was great: and I chuckled to myself quite a lot. It also added to the misinformation factor: it was important enough to get a backup, but it ultimately did nothing. People wouldn't believe it. They'd either think the backup was full of ****, or they'd think the vig was legitimate. Neither were true.
The last one's a throwaway one I did because I thought Dr. Park was a douche. I've seen watchmen before, I find them ultimately useless, as they just delay the game an entire phase. Yes, it stops scum, but it weakens the (mis)information flow, and that's just a detriment to the entire function of the game. So I made it fake with subtle hints in the role PM suggesting as much and moved on. Yay bull****.
Then the PR's came from that. Jailer was obvious, mandatory, and really there was no thought put into it. The Tracker was also an automatic selection as well. On that game I hosted on AiB, I used a tracker there as well, and I realized that it fit well into the game but not nearly well enough as it's nerfed to hell in the early game by the cluster**** of ongoing actions. These were my starting points for real PRs, as they both provided reliable actions and were one of the few role PMs where I could be totally clear about one action or another. Then came the fun ones, such as the Thief.
I think it's ironic Glyfe blew so many gaskets with this game, considering he hosts so many similar games. The thief was the source of his frustration besides his own damn role though, at least most of it. I chuckled. Yes, the thief was legit in everything it claimed to do. Originally, it wasn't like that. Joey was the one who thought it up in the first place (he helped me make the set-up originally when I ran it through the queue [yes I ran it through the queue first, only to turn around and host it as a private when i got skipped because activity]). I went with it because it was the perfect addition to the game. It was originally a flavor cop, meant to track little bits of flavor that could catch scum in the lategame. I altered it at the last minute, but I don't think the alterations impacted the role at all. Any smart player would've been able to tell a liar had the results been a "a robin" or "Orange goggles". It's still weaker than a regular role, but potentially dangerous in the right hands. Clues were meant to be cryptic but still telling. Again, misinformation, but this is one of the roles that could provide the closest thing to mod-confirmed, USEFUL info outside of a successful killshot this game.
The De-Evo Ray originally was called something less-ridiculous: the Gardener. I got the idea from the Woodsman, a role designed to kill tree stumps, and intended to make it a fake role originally, but then I figured it'd be SO MUCH BETTER as a plant killer. The way the role works, it just screams a fakerole immediately, and I wanted the capacity to blow it on something meaningless to exist, but simultaneously, I realized that it could also be a good countermeasure to **** over the indy. But then Orbo didn't touch it all game despite two abductions that could've really shaped endgame and altered how it progressed. Had he used it, he damn well wouldn't have cemented himself as the indy.
The Bodyguard and the Bookie were two last minute alterations. The Bookie's an underused role and it really shouldn't be. It's a powerful asset for scum players but it can be spun in the town's direction as well. Claim it, get your lynch, and use the shot you're gift and you become practically cleared--if town can get over the WIFOM of you claiming a traditionally scum role. But I gave it a BP because scumsidedgame much? The bodyguard was because the game was scumsided and I wanted more protective roles beyond the jailer. The bodyguard (and the bookie) helped to this extent. Ironically enough, none of the protectives sucessfully stopped a NK from hitting its intended target.
And...that's all I have on the set-up. Yes, it's lengthy, and I'm sorry for that but I wanted to explain it out, as a lot of it's not self-evident and there's a wide range of description here. My set-ups are usually well-planned for this exact reason: it makes balance easier and it makes role creation that much better. Outside of the stock ones, there's really not an unoriginal role here. All of it went to a single goal, outside of a few last minute alterations made for balance's sake.
Now, the set-up. First things first, this isn't the first time I ran a set-up like this. Way back in 2010, I pulled out a game called Wannabes with Broto, where I invented a lot of the different habits I used to moderate/host/create this game. If you want to read it (the game is fairly short), here's a link:
http://allisbrawl.com/forum/topic.aspx?id=156674&page=1
I went into this with two goals in mind: misinformation and the plant abductor. I got the latter while bouncing ideas for some mafia game off of someone. Might've been Stew, thought it was Gova but then I realized that I had the set-up longer than I planned to do TWEWY maf, but I'm not sure. At any rate, as I think Broto pointed out, I love the plant. It's one of my favorite roles. I used it in my very first mafia game, where I watched it trigger and hit the same person 4 times in one game (he's never lived the nickname "plant bait" down), and I rarely avoid using it since. I got the idea from a general notion to create better indies than the rampart SKs Smashboards uses for Indies (it's so rare to see indies outside of those), and the combination of a "Plant Assassin" role from a game I ran with Vult Redux ages ago on AiB.
So, the plant abductor was born. I didn't want to give him both the abilities of a plant and an abductor, as I found the original Plant Assassin to be overpowered. Rather, I tweaked it so the plant word would trigger the abduction. This gave the Plant Assassin the safe play (use words that are spoken a lot) or the huge play (use a word that only one or two people are using but they're using a lot). It basically gave them an option to tailor their abduction pool a little bit, while still having pretty minimal control over who they abducted that night. This practically forced the abductor to lynch his scum targets or join scum in mislynches as there's no way he'd have control over either and I damn well was not giving him a role cop on top of that.
This might be my favorite indy role ever. It's powerful, but not overpowered, it can blend well into games provided the set-up is right, and it forces intelligent, active play without being obvious. You have to be a top-tier player to play this well. Damn shame it went to the inactive/lurking Gova and then was baton-passed to the non-English Xonar.
So, then, there's the misinformation part. I don't like people relying solely upon roles in order to find scum. My goal is to have it aid them, without being a crutch for them. I see a lot of games where players can skate by, allowing their roles to do the work for them (Auspher in Lost Mafia comes to mind immediately). The easiest way of nerfing the strength of roles in general, is to make it unreliable. You do that by creating misinformation.
Information is a powerful tool in mafia, and most people don't realize this. This is why I go around *****ing at people for weak arguments like "he's being fake:" usually they can't back it up, and when they can, 9/10 they spun some of the posts to fit their argument. Yes, persuasion itself is the best tool to have in mafia ("it doesn't matter that you had the best reads if you can't convince anyone to act on them" argument), but one of the best means of persuading anyone is through having certain information that others do not, or having better information than anyone else. Information is also at a premium in mafia, and tainted by uncertainty. Every bit of mod-confirmed information is valuable, simply because it can't be argued. Every bit of a confirmed cop read is valuable, simply because it takes one person off the table or catches scum when it matters. It's not the only thing, but it's damn well important to have. By reducing the amount of information made available to players, the more I made them get by on their play.
So I went about my set-up preparing for this idea. This should be thoroughly evident by the scum faction alone: A bull**** inventor, a janitor, and a traitor. In an earlier game co-hosted, again, by Vult Redux, they used an inventor role that sent fake one-shot abilities to players. This role was scum-aligned, but despite a cop guilty on the inventor, Broto and I actually sat down and lynched the gogdamn cop over the inventor because we believed its shots (which were supposed to be real gogdamn role shots, like vigs and docs, and cops, mind), despite the fact that they clearly didn't work in endgame.
Before I go on, lemme say it was fun to **** with this role. After awhile, they started to catch on that I was turning anything they sent me into bull****. It started out pretty simplistic with the butt and the eyepatch (which I basically just made up into bull**** actions despite the ridiculousness of these), but then, when they started to figure out the actions did nothing (when they sent JDietz the Gigabot), I got more creative. This is what they sent me on N4, for JTB:
This is what I sent JTB in response:Jupiter's Biceps said:
Self explanatory. We want to make sure this is legit in case Ran gets it, but we also want to make sure we make whoever gets it into a bomb. The player receiving it also needs to know it doesn't make them a bomb, I mean how would they know from just getting a death collar ha.
Please please don't mess this one up.
WashedLaundry said:
For good measure, the one to Orbo was pretty good too, I'll post what Orbo got:
Anyways, back on topic, a lot of my mafia was themed from concepts from Wild Werewolf Adventure (the game I got the scum inventor from), albeit not necessarily roles. WWA had a jan too, but it was an every-night jan, and one of the gogdamn hosts had it. I was not doing that again, no sir. I hate wasting day phases to lynch people who shouldn't have to be lynched anyway, and neither should you. But I did want a jan. I love watching those ???s flip. It just adds a little WIFOM. Them using it on Ryker was the ultimate kicker...WashedLaundry said:
had Ryker not been the traitor. That was an intentional balance for the team's sake. The nature of the game made it pretty scumsided already, and the roles that existed (Calvin, Hated Jan, Traitor Terrorist) made it even moreso. Instead of just making town ridiculously overpowered to compensate, I nerfed scum instead. The Traitor wasn't the only balance, albeit it was the most obvious and the best one. What I wanted scum to do, they did. I originally intended to go further and not tell the traitor the scum team in hopes that he blew one of them up, but I figured that was nerfing too far.
The other nerf I incorporated was to make the jan a hated player. While he does take less to lynch in a game where survival is of the utmost importance, I found it as more of a boon. Accidentally putting scum at L-2 with absolutely no signs of survival could just lead to a quickhammer and that hurts town a hell of a lot. Usually (but not always) the longer days go, the better it is for town: they get to discuss things with one another, which leads to planning, decisions, and, most importantly, trust. But it does come at the cost of, from their perspective, half the scum team, so it damn well better be worth it.
Also, this intentionally gave the scum team a specific plan: set the endgame to have the Calvin in it. This is why I'm glad Biceps got that role, as he was a strong enough player to pull that plan off, albeit Murderbush could've done just as well with it (I'm curious to see who would do better in an invention-off betwen the two of them). The plan is simplistic enough, and it was really easy to pull off. Traitor Terrorist had to lie low enough not to draw the scumkill, but remained active enough to avoid the Thief. The Jan had to use his role, then eventually get himself lynched, maybe outing a PR on the way (the Jan should be playing suicidal the entire time, but not suicidal enough to get himself lynched D1). Once the PR is exposed, the Terrorist blows it up, preserving the Jan for a day. THe jan gets lynched. THE ENTIRE TIME, the Calvin has so many options, and with his mates drawing everyone's attention he can avoid scrutiny. But at the same time, the early-game sweep is much harder to do, as it's almost too easy to kill his mates or for his mates to kill themselves.
The best part is? Without even intending to execute this, it happened. The only hitch was the scum killed the Traitor, but Ryker told me he was in a position to start the next day by blowing someone up. Other than that, they performed it exactly to my expectations. It's fun ****ing with roles.
Actually, no, the best part is, they knew what Murderbush was, but killed him anyways. Both Glyfe and JTB walked into the game, saw 14-man with a 2-man mafia, and thought "double mafia game." Like, seriously, they immediately pegged Murderbush as a traitor within his first few posts in the game (where he, y'know, literally claimed traitor)...but for the other mafia team. That's the best part about the misinformation: scum wasn't immune to it. They thought there was another team until at some point between D5-D6 (I think the JDietz/MeowMonster team was the last hurrah for them, until they realized there really wasn't).
Now, for town, I had about half the roles decided: fake roles. I hate vanillas. I find them boring, repetitive, and ultimately pointless, outside of ****ing over massclaims. But here, I gave the scum enough information to avoid that: the Calvin is an anti-mass claim role and the Jan and Terrorist were trying to die anyway (JTB claiming vig was hilarious, by the way). This game is no exception, so where most normal hosts would place vanillas, I used fake roles that did nothing. But I have to admit, this was my favorite set of fake roles out there. The Laser Deflector is a mainstay, one I used before in my first misinformation game that I hosted on AiB. It was frilly, stupid, but ridiculous enough to seem plausible, especially in a game where one of the characters pilots a robot that turns into a gigantic laser gun.
The rest were a bit more original however. I think the backup was the first of these I made. I've used a backup role before in that same game I hosted on AiB, but it was a backup to a role that never existed. That's all fine and dandy, using linked roles is by far away the easiest means of creating fake roles, but that's easy and predictable ****. Likewise, when doing this, I wanted to create as many fake roles WITH ACTIONS as possible. This screws the tracker over in the early game but makes it a damn powerful role in the lategame when there aren't nearly as many actions going on.
"But you put a backup in anyway?"
DAMN STRAIGHT I DID. I validated it by making it a backup to a fake role. Hence, Commander Stryker, the Town Popcap Vigilante, was born. I thought this was great: and I chuckled to myself quite a lot. It also added to the misinformation factor: it was important enough to get a backup, but it ultimately did nothing. People wouldn't believe it. They'd either think the backup was full of ****, or they'd think the vig was legitimate. Neither were true.
The last one's a throwaway one I did because I thought Dr. Park was a douche. I've seen watchmen before, I find them ultimately useless, as they just delay the game an entire phase. Yes, it stops scum, but it weakens the (mis)information flow, and that's just a detriment to the entire function of the game. So I made it fake with subtle hints in the role PM suggesting as much and moved on. Yay bull****.
Then the PR's came from that. Jailer was obvious, mandatory, and really there was no thought put into it. The Tracker was also an automatic selection as well. On that game I hosted on AiB, I used a tracker there as well, and I realized that it fit well into the game but not nearly well enough as it's nerfed to hell in the early game by the cluster**** of ongoing actions. These were my starting points for real PRs, as they both provided reliable actions and were one of the few role PMs where I could be totally clear about one action or another. Then came the fun ones, such as the Thief.
I think it's ironic Glyfe blew so many gaskets with this game, considering he hosts so many similar games. The thief was the source of his frustration besides his own damn role though, at least most of it. I chuckled. Yes, the thief was legit in everything it claimed to do. Originally, it wasn't like that. Joey was the one who thought it up in the first place (he helped me make the set-up originally when I ran it through the queue [yes I ran it through the queue first, only to turn around and host it as a private when i got skipped because activity]). I went with it because it was the perfect addition to the game. It was originally a flavor cop, meant to track little bits of flavor that could catch scum in the lategame. I altered it at the last minute, but I don't think the alterations impacted the role at all. Any smart player would've been able to tell a liar had the results been a "a robin" or "Orange goggles". It's still weaker than a regular role, but potentially dangerous in the right hands. Clues were meant to be cryptic but still telling. Again, misinformation, but this is one of the roles that could provide the closest thing to mod-confirmed, USEFUL info outside of a successful killshot this game.
The De-Evo Ray originally was called something less-ridiculous: the Gardener. I got the idea from the Woodsman, a role designed to kill tree stumps, and intended to make it a fake role originally, but then I figured it'd be SO MUCH BETTER as a plant killer. The way the role works, it just screams a fakerole immediately, and I wanted the capacity to blow it on something meaningless to exist, but simultaneously, I realized that it could also be a good countermeasure to **** over the indy. But then Orbo didn't touch it all game despite two abductions that could've really shaped endgame and altered how it progressed. Had he used it, he damn well wouldn't have cemented himself as the indy.
The Bodyguard and the Bookie were two last minute alterations. The Bookie's an underused role and it really shouldn't be. It's a powerful asset for scum players but it can be spun in the town's direction as well. Claim it, get your lynch, and use the shot you're gift and you become practically cleared--if town can get over the WIFOM of you claiming a traditionally scum role. But I gave it a BP because scumsidedgame much? The bodyguard was because the game was scumsided and I wanted more protective roles beyond the jailer. The bodyguard (and the bookie) helped to this extent. Ironically enough, none of the protectives sucessfully stopped a NK from hitting its intended target.
And...that's all I have on the set-up. Yes, it's lengthy, and I'm sorry for that but I wanted to explain it out, as a lot of it's not self-evident and there's a wide range of description here. My set-ups are usually well-planned for this exact reason: it makes balance easier and it makes role creation that much better. Outside of the stock ones, there's really not an unoriginal role here. All of it went to a single goal, outside of a few last minute alterations made for balance's sake.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
Mod note: some of my notes may not have reflected tweaks I made. The traitor did know the scum team.
#HBC | Laundry
Grand Sage of Swag
Dood chill, I made a mistake. Sorry, fixing my post.