Pokemafia: Safari Zoned: Six Pokeballs In Hand (END) Wild Pokemon Win

[Opossum]

Cursed image lol.

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

Reminder that we’ve had a game where everyone was a cult leader.

uh when is the sequel to that game starting signups

 

[Opossum]

uh when is the sequel to that game starting signups

Ask Holder.

 

[BarDulL]

Regarding the infrastructure of the set up:

The flavor was good. A Pokemon trainer being a cult leader is pretty original and is honestly an awesome combination. Loved it.

The mechanics, the rules, how things were run, ambiguity in role PMs, among some other things, were...oh dear. Still think you're great though, praline. Obviously, **** happens. Ultimately the game still played out fine in the grand scheme of things.

The MAJOR problem is that some mechanics of this game were being decided upon as the game progressed. The game technically was incomplete from the start. Also, some roles were very ambiguous and subsequently open to interpretation (specifically, Ura's role as well as Natz/Moydow's role, as some have already pointed out).

Lesson to be learned here: outline the rules from the start and ensure that they address all possible interactions. Make sure Role PMs are not ambiguous and very clearly outline what an ability does. Leave no room for misinterpretation. This way, no one thinks the host is trying to pick a side when a rule or an ambiguous ability hasn't been addressed already.

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

Holder of the Heel
*sweating profusely* u-uh

 

[Ura]

It wasn't one mistake....

Well it was still a good play to keep me guessing especially at a time where your team was cornered. And I'll give you props for that.

Although in the future I'll admit I'll be less likely to believe your claims of that nature lol.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Holder of the Heel
*sweating profusely* u-uh

*shrugs* Either never or a good while from now lol. No clue when it'll even be my turn for a mafia.

This is the game where I did it.

It was flawed, some of the mechanics caused it to follow a predictable road.

If I do it again I will have to rethink a few aspects of it.

 

[Deleted member]

Well it was still a good play to keep me guessing especially at a time where your team was cornered. And I'll give you props for that.

Although in the future I'll admit I'll be less likely to believe your claims of that nature lol.

Fair enough. I wouldn't expect anyone to believe me after that, anyway. Such a thing is kind of a one-and-done deal. :V

 

[BarDulL]

I'm curious to hear opinions on the set up from those who played.

Was it balanced? Too Town-sided? Too cult-sided? Opinion on cults in general?

 

[CrusherMania1592]

I thought it went well minus the slip up from Praline during the last day about a role that came in late. Had it was not for that, I would've followed Opo's team and made them win

 

[Deleted member]

I don't think the setup itself was unbalaced, the problems I have are with some aspects of the hosting.
Cults should never be in a normal game though, themed Town vs Cult games are where they should be.
though I'd like some warning beforehand that it's Town vs Cult

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

From my role PM:

Ura said in-thread that he didn't see me targeting anyone. He could be cult trying to ride my claim, but if so, he didn't actually back up what I said, which is weird. But maybe makes sense in some way I'm not understanding?

The alternative is that Ura is town, and knows that I'm fakeclaiming cop, but isn't drawing attention to it because he really does have a bingo on Opo, and doesn't want to tank it by bringing this up. And I'm choosing to believe that this is the case, because it's the only hope of hitting cult leader (unless Ura himself is the leader) and because I don't know why he would stick to my story as cult and bet on me not noticing.

 

[praline]

I thought it went well minus the slip up from Praline during the last day about a role that came in late. Had it was not for that, I would've followed Opo's team and made them win

Well it wasn’t really a slip up. The trainer’s rock/repeat ball weren’t supposed to be trackable but because of how I worded it, Bar and vaan insisted I add that.

 

[Ura]

From my role PM:

Lol I just didn't know you fakeclaimed. Wasn't paying much attention til Day 5.

 

[Ura]

I'm curious to hear opinions on the set up from those who played.

Was it balanced? Too Town-sided? Too cult-sided? Opinion on cults in general?

It was almost designed for Town to fail I think. Or at least more favored towards the trainer. Would have been so easy for us to lose.

 

[BarDulL]

I think it's fair to consider cults a form of bastardry, yeah? I don't want to hear from Nabe that they aren't because they definitely are, lol. MU also hates them, not just MS.

I'll be transparent: I think cults are laaaaame. No offense to praline of course; I am speaking generally about cults. Town is forced to find a needle in a haystack (I know, I'm regurgitating this from the graveyard PM, but still) and all of their relationships break down at the start of each new phase because they know at least one of their own has been converted. It's a really rough game to play.

Additionally, getting converted sucks. Outside of the cult leader, every player will be trying to find the aforementioned leader and build camaraderie as they do so. Upon being converted, there is a lingering sentiment of distaste and a lack of motivation that comes with it because those players have to go against their original win condition as well as their original allies. Or at least, that's how it felt as I watched this play out for some of the players that got converted. Some embraced it like Shish, others did not (i.e. Natz)

I think I agree that games with Cults should be announced so that everyone really does know what they're in for, and that if they get converted, well, that's just how it is. I don't think it will change the fact that people will dislike being converted and turned against their old teams though.

 

[praline]

Also sorry if the flavour was kinda bad lol

I’m trying to write better.

 

[CrusherMania1592]

Posting my thoughts here:


I think this is hands down one of the most active I've been in any mafia. Other than Natz screwing me over in one game by not realizing she was mafia, this has been a wild and crazy ride so far.

Not even sure how or why Nabe is targeting me right now, so I need to figure out which way I'm going to go moving forward: it's either siding with Opo for the time being or side with Nabe, who is calling me something that I'm not. Decisions, decisions


inb4thisiscopiedintothegraveyardfor****sandgiggles lmao

This was when I felt conflicted and I was a swing vote. Right then I knew whatever move I made was going to be critical: either I stuck with Opo who I didn't realized was the trainer until Golden's post plus he kept giving me some kind of hint that he was the trainer. Or, I could've threw my votes away from Nabe, who randomly targeted me out of nowhere thinking I'm cult when I've repeated multiple times that I have no knowledge of being in an alliance and he and Ura were ganging up on Opo. It was a pretty tough one to consider and the tie votes came to my head. We could've forced that and made Ura end up voting instead and that was another possibility since we only had 5 vs 5 and Ura would've voted Opo since he could break the tie

Ura you mind showing me the rock message?

 

[Moydow]

I'm in two minds about the idea of cults, though I lean mostly against them.

On one hand it forces you to be constantly vigilant of things like any changes in behaviour, which seems fine to me. Part of the game is about paying attention to what's going on and using your ability to read people effectively, after all, and something like this challenges that ability more than a standard game does.

But on the other hand, something just feels off about the idea of allegiances changing mid-game. For the converted, you have to start working against the win condition you've been working towards up until that point, and for the rest of the town, basically every day means throwing out the work you've done before and starting afresh, because you never know when someone has become your enemy. Plus you're aiming for only one person, who starts off in a strong position and grows stronger at an accelerating pace the longer they are undetected. It seems to require very careful balancing to give the town enough of a chance of finding that person, while also giving the cult leader enough of a chance to survive that long at all.

There also needs to be some sort of confirmation or at least strong hint at the start that a cult is involved, I think. Just so that everyone knows where they stand in terms of win conditions, and to avoid a repeat of the situation from Day 1 here where nobody had a clue what side they were meant to be on (though that's also just a problem of unclear wording).

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

I will say one thing about cults; I definitely felt like the only player invested in the game a lot of the time, and that probably speaks to most people's enjoyment of them. I understand that they're not most players' cup of tea.

A standard mafia game allows like three mislynches before loss. This setup at game's start allowed three, and if the Repeat Ball and rock were removed, which they should probably be, it's a safe four mislynches with a good cast of town abilities on hand. You can argue that lynching through a mafia is easier than picking out a single cult leader because of connections, but I'd argue the Opo-site. Being a cult leader means engaging with the game in a unique way, and that does have tells. And as the game goes on and cult recruits begin to wake up, their playstyles shift too, sometimes dramatically. Lynching recruits doesn't make up much ground, but it allows for a ton of connections to begin to be drawn. I mean, in this last Day the majority of the Cult had an extremely obvious and singular purpose in lynching me, and if the town cast had been more engaged and were participating, they would have noticed that straight away. If phases were longer than 24 hours, the game would get even more readable.

 

[Fire Emblemier]

Fire Emblemier
If you are somehow cult leader, I'm annoyed that you didn't attempt to cult me. Just saying as I see you floating in here.

Was reading this on my work break so I was only reading for 15 minutes, that's why there was no response even with my presence.

 

[praline]

If I did do another cult game I’d nerf the rock, maybe have it only make you not be able to vote. I’d also probably remove the repeat ball, diveball and netball. The latter 2 were literally just fancy pokeballs since the only characters that would have affected them were captured or fled lol

 

[BarDulL]

I will say one thing about cults; I definitely felt like the only player invested in the game a lot of the time, and that probably speaks to most people's enjoyment of them. I understand that they're not most players' cup of tea.

A standard mafia game allows like three mislynches before loss. This setup at game's start allowed three, and if the Repeat Ball and rock were removed, which they should probably be, it's a safe four mislynches with a good cast of town abilities on hand. You can argue that lynching through a mafia is easier than picking out a single cult leader because of connections, but I'd argue the Opo-site. Being a cult leader means engaging with the game in a unique way, and that does have tells. And as the game goes on and cult recruits begin to wake up, their playstyles shift too, sometimes dramatically. Lynching recruits doesn't make up much ground, but it allows for a ton of connections to begin to be drawn. I mean, in this last Day the majority of the Cult had an extremely obvious and singular purpose in lynching me, and if the town cast had been more engaged and were participating, they would have noticed that straight away. If phases were longer than 24 hours, the game would get even more readable.

If you remove the repeat ball and the rock, town would be at LyLo after 4 mislynches, meaning they'd have 5 total lynches available assuming no protections from Natz/Abra is never targeted when he uses teleport, yeah?

(1 cult, 14 town)

1 14 (day 1 start, no convert)
1 13 (lynch)

2 12 (day start, 1 convert)
2 11(lynch)

3 10 (day start, 1 convert)
3 9 (lynch)

4 8 (day start, 1 convert)
4 7 (lynch)

5 6 (day start, 1 convert)

I'm still thinking about what "feels right" for a cult game in terms of the minimum number of available lynches. 5 feels like way too much, but maybe it's not?

I mean, we also have to consider that both Z25 and Ura could catch the Cult Leader with their abilities. 4 phases of ability use before LyLo is A LOT.

 

[Ura]

Ura you mind showing me the rock message?

Well I got two consecutive messages first. The first was my tracker result...

"Opo visited Golden"

And then the message of me getting hit by the rock.

"...what?

Someone hit you with a rock!

That makes you angry... so angry you can't think straight.

Your vote and your ability is locked for the next phase."

That was followed up later in a correction with...

"Opo visited you".

And then the rest was history lol.

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

I already responded to this, but

unvote Vote: Nabe oh ****

 

[Fire Emblemier]

I will say I was invested in the game but the last 2 phases I just wasn't around for much due to being swamped with work. Also after work yesterday, I was playing the new spiderman game, so I didn't check in much. I'm glad we managed to pull through. I'm not against cult setups, I just believe that if there's a cult it should be the focus like this game.

I actually wish I was the trainer because I’m pretty sure I would have won doing nothing

If that were true I would've flipped out that no one listened to me.

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

Man, which game is the way to stretch this idea next? Two cults with no idea who's on their side, or Disfunkshunal two warring towns with no idea who's on their side?

Disclaimer: Do not actually answer this.

 

[Disfunkshunal]

But on the other hand, something just feels off about the idea of allegiances changing mid-game. For the converted, you have to start working against the win condition you've been working towards up until that point, and for the rest of the town, basically every day means throwing out the work you've done before and starting afresh, because you never know when someone has become your enemy. Plus you're aiming for only one person, who starts off in a strong position and grows stronger at an accelerating pace the longer they are undetected. It seems to require very careful balancing to give the town enough of a chance of finding that person, while also giving the cult leader enough of a chance to survive that long at all.

I agree with this and would be interested in brainstorming solutions.

Off the top of my head, I think it could be kinda cool to have a town "hero" vote in addition to the town lynch. The hero choice would involve some flavor about the fictional contributions that the character has made to the town and would declare them "pure" or unable to be converted. That way, at the very least, there are some confirmed townies and some work that does not need to be redone. This could occur every other day phase.

Another idea, or maybe just a variation of the first, is to have two separate cultists, one which represents an evil entity and one which represents a good one. The rest of the players are third party with the goal of joining a cause and pushing its vendetta.

 

[BarDulL]

Hi guys, remember this one? It's my personal favourite way to win a game.

Vote: Nabe

Bye guys

One day, you are going to finally get one of these, and when you do, we’re all going to be

 

[praline]

So yeah I’ve started working on a sexond one. This time it’ll have all the problems I had (in technically both of my games) not be there.

It’s a double cult and I’m just gonna reiterate that so that everyone is prepared.

 

[praline]

Also... did no one notice the fire emblem and Sonic references???

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Also... did no one notice the fire emblem and Sonic references???

There were onion rings in this game? :V

 

[praline]

There were onion rings in this game? :V

*looks at thread title*

Uh... s-sure...

 

[Z25]

So yeah I’ve started working on a sexond one. This time it’ll have all the problems I had (in technically both of my games) not be there.

It’s a double cult and I’m just gonna reiterate that so that everyone is prepared.

Oh that’s gonna be interesting

 

[praline]

Oh that’s gonna be interesting

I hope atleast people will enjoy it more than this one. lol

I’m definitely gonna get an actual cohost for this one too.

 

[Ura]

Looking forward to making my return to Mafia soon. Especially the game where I clutched out in the end lol.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

So yeah I’ve started working on a sexond one. This time it’ll have all the problems I had (in technically both of my games) not be there.

It’s a double cult and I’m just gonna reiterate that so that everyone is prepared.

Will the alignments actually be clear this time around?

Aka "you are town"

 

[praline]

Will the alignments actually be clear this time around?

Aka "you are town"

Yes.