This game was founded on two principles, a Mandate that players would pretty much need to win, and the ability to form alliances that would move the Mandate back and forth over the course of the game. The latter was burdened by the fact that the alliance makers accomplished absolutely nothing during N0, though I should have thought of that. The Mandate didn't do its job because it didn't leave Dong Zhuo until the very last day.
Still, it did not fail to be a very eventful game (it did dip in the middle before kicking into overdrive). Alot will be explained as I dicuss each player and role, but as the host I feel in a postgame it is necessary to ask yourself two things. What did I learn, and what mistake did I make?
The truth is, there were two of each that I cannot ignore.
I learned that you can't have an ideal scenario and just expect players to follow it.
Seeing players backstab allies and fight for the Mandate would have been so cool, but that never happened. So much of the game was balanced around that, that for a while I was really worried how players would like the game when all was said and done. The Mandate was also supposed to prevent a kingmaker scenario, and it didn't even do that. But then there is why my best laid plans were dashed.
Stick a fork in it, 1v2 is done (or should be).
It's been said before but I guess we never fucking learn. The mafia will always team up, the village will always brute force them. A wolf won this game because the village was so busy scum hunting it didn't heed my numerous warnings of powerful wolves. It's sad, because to me mafia is the concept of the informed minority against the uninformed majority. But it's only going to be played the same way every time and innovation is really just going to be a bother. This and my above point have led to the decision that my future games will be much more symmetrical, with more natural options for shifting alliances and anything to give even experienced players less idea of what they should be doing. I don't want players to follow a preconceived scenario like this game, I want to facilitate an environment where players create their own scenarios.
I didn't have enough kills.
A big dip in momentum mid game was probably the result of one player dying a night, and at its worst night no one died! Then four people got revived, and a high number of mafia meant that the village couldn't win fast either. In my head I figured 2 to 3 kills a night would be good, but I didn't factor in how many kills would be blocked or just fucked up by sheer coincidence. In mafia, players demand blood!
I made hailflameblast leader of a faction.
Seriously what the fuck was I thinking.
Cao Wei
Contrary to standard mafia logic, it actually seemed very natural to make the big, powerful, oppressive kingdom the village. Shu Han and Eastern Wu were allied against them for most of the time, after all. With only 11 villagers, that'd seem like a huge weakness, but I did take steps to rectify this.
Cao Cao / wickdaggler
Mayor +1 and Silencer. Also started the game with Cao Wei's alliance maker.
wickdaggler made a splash very early by trying to bully the mafia into falling in line, which didn't work and really contributed to the communications breakdown N0. He made a bid for leader, but his role wasn't really suited for it. If Cao Wei got the Mandate, they wouldn't want other factions to know who Cao Cao was. On the plus side, he extracted info on the mafia from hailflameblast and moled the village as a zombie. Even though he won, it's hard to tell what kind of an impact he had on the game.
Sima Yi / Hydrattler
Mayor +2, not persuadable. Became Cao Wei's second alliance maker.
Hydrattler was always suspected by Aura Guardian. I guess it seems like the role is too good to be true, but honestly, a mayor with three votes by itself would be such a liability. But the village needed more votes, so I made him not persuadable. Even after he became alliance maker, he was still under suspicion for some reason, and he didn't communicate much with other factions.
Li Dian / coolking49
Bodyguard
Rand killed N1, never a good fate. However, oddly he came back and stayed alive for a few nights. Afroninja22 even failed a kill due to his protection. I guess he was a good ally to Aura Guardian once clean.
Dian Wei / game freak201
Reverse Martyr
Tonight on unsolved mysteries, the mysterious death of game freak 201. UPDATE! He was killed by Phantasia while protecting Aura Guardian. Whoops! What sucks more, is he got subbed in that day. Sorry bro.
UPDATE! Nobody gives a shit about bigfoot.
Zhang Liao / Phantasia
Vigilante
Apparently did not trust Aura Guardian at first. Still, he killed Quagsires and zombie wickdaggler. If the lynch had been tied on Day 9, Phantasia would have won the game for the village. Oh well.
Xiahou Dun / Fangren
Rogue
Followed orders and did nothing all game. Wow, Rogue is ass. I even made it so that the rogue only had to target a player in the faction that was killing him (which led to a crucial change in how mafia kills work, I'll explain later). I doubt I will ever use a Rogue again.
Xu Huang / badalcristiano
Resuscitator
He brought back coolking49, which ended up being a very good move actually. Other than that, didn't have much to do.
Cai Mao / Yeti
Hooker
This guy right here, fucked up several kills I believe. Until the mafia figured out what he was doing, he was one hell of an asset to the village.
Zhang He / Insomniac.
Martyr
Fucked with people, but not as much. Diverted jig's first godkill away from Aura Guardian, then blew up.
Yu Jin / Fatecrashers
Priority Changer and third alliance maker
The kingmaker. Decider of who won and who lost. Mind you, he COULD have just watched, but nooooo, he had to affect the outcome. Which was entirely in jig's favor. As alliance maker he seemed on the ball, but maybe he should have taken a more active village role sooner.
BEST VILLAGER
Xiahou Yuan / Aura Guardian
Inspector
I'm not going to lie, alot of his tenure was dumb luck. Announcing he was inspector day 1 yet living until day 8. He killed the mafia inspector then used inspect on people that had to be at least 90% confirmed mafia. In essence, the village lost because Aura Guardian brute forced the mafia leaving the wolves in a perfect position after I warned constantly about the wolf threat. There were other suspicious people he could have inspected that weren't exposed scum. But criticisms aside, he was the village. So he gets best of Cao Wei.
Eastern Wu
The kingdom of pirates and greedy scoundrel. I gave both mafia five members, mostly for flavor purposes. Hey, I did make efforts to balance the factions out, but refer to Mistake #1. Also, originally Wu killed on odd nights and Shu on even. But when I upgraded the Rogue, I worried that this might be too predictable and gave them a 1/2 and a choice of which night to kill on. But effectively it was just always odd nights. For this faction, I wanted the motif of distrust and deception. Neg mayor, mole, the ability to break alliances. Then throw in hooker and bg just for two very good roles.
Sun Quan / hailflameblast
Negative Mayor and first alliance maker
hailflameblast is just the worst player ever. I mean really. He was exposed simply by Aura Guardian leaning on him. He then revealed almost the entire other mafia. I got rid of a recruit ability to avoid something like that happening. Wu, I am so sorry that I made him your leader. I really am.
And stop being a sore wuser.
Zhou Yu / Alchemator
Alliance Breaker and second alliance maker
As a more experienced player than hfb, he was supposed to help guide hfb to victory. I didn't want the first alliance maker to be the best player. Well we see how well that went. Alchemator didn't get much of a chance, he defended the undefendable and was lynched for it.
Sun Ren / King Emerald
Mole and third alliance maker
And a hell of a mole role at that, able to fool all three factions. Which is exactly why I gave it to a noobie. But to be fair, he did stay under the radar for a long time and made some smart choices when in command. He was a contender for MVP actually.
Gan Ning / Thoughts
Hooker
Thoughts was one of three mafiosos who subbed in and then didn't play even though active on the site. I messaged them and told them to get their shit together, and only Thoughts actually came back to play. It was shortlived though, his role dying and all. Still, hooker went a long way to put pressure on the village.
Zhou Tai / Terrador14
Bodyguard
Another guy who subbed in and was inactive, only showing up to godkill himself. And Bodyguard did nothing anyway, but it WOULD have on Night 9. So Terrador14 lost the game for his team.
Shu Han
So these guys are my favorite kingdom, and I really wanted them to be something of an underdog team. Whereas Wu's roles are deceptive, Shu is straitlaced and heroic. Except for kidnapper. Yeah.
Guan Yu / zorbees
Team wide reverse martyr, bpv, and deadtalk
So yeah, Shu got one really cool role and I gave it to who I thought was the best player in the game. His abilities never came into play and he didn't even fill an advisory role. Disappointing. I know it may seem hypocritical of me to not allow team deadtalk when a character can, but I do think Guan Yu is balanced. The role is made to die.
Zhang Fei / BLUEBERRY BITCH
Kidnapper
And again with inactive subs, blagh. And I know, if hooker and bg are supposed to make Wu good, how is kidnapper at all balanced along with a role like Guan Yu? Well, originally the plan was that kidnap had a very low priority. And it still does in a way, but this game ended up using a priority system unlike any in mafia. I'll be making a Strategic Int thread to talk about it in more detail. Suffice it to say, in the end kidnap wasn't as nerfed as I had originally intended.
Zhuge Liang / dogfish44
Inspector
My stomach turned when Aura Guardian rand inspected him. I know he didn't have any better leads at the time, but getting rid of an inspector with Dong Zhuo still hidden was just not the right idea. Remember, Dong Zhuo stayed hidden until Day 8. More baffling is why the mafia didn't revive him. Sorry dogfish44 :(
Zhao Yun / assassinfred
Resuscitator
Could only revive the day after. Could feign alliance change, but mostly they could have just allied with Cao Wei to protect someone. This ability was never used, at least not by assassinfred.
BEST MAFIA
Liu Bei / polelover44
Persuader
He was cool, collected, lived to the end of the game and maybe could have won if things had gone slightly different. Another candidate for MVP. Not much else to say. He just always seemed to know what he was doing.
Wolves
Yuan Shao / Quagsires
Killer, kidnapper, inspector, alliance maker
The gimmick here was a fourth alliance maker, a wolf that could switch up alliances even more. Of course this never came to pass, and neither did much for Quagsires. An unfortunate randkill sealed his fate even after he had been brought back. He could either kidnap or inspect, but not both, which I thought made for a very balanced wolf. A very good player I feel, but did not reach his potential here.
Dong Zhuo / -TheLucarioEffect-
Redirector and holder of the Mandate
I'm glad you liked this role TLE. I really am. Because the role was made to die. I wasn't gonna give it or its partner to someone who had never played before, but I did give them to the two players I thought most likely to expose themselves somehow (why didn't I give the role to hfb -_-). But if a player did kiss ass with Dong Zhuo power to them, and you did stay hidden for a long time and several players nominated you for MVP. Buuuuuuut;
<jig> 7 votes on afro
<jig> 3 votes on HFB
<TheLucarioEffect> well, glad we caught someone. technically 3 for aura as well
<jig> in 15 minutes we got 3 votes
<jig> why is there 3 votes for aura?
<jig> WHY IS THERE 3 ON AURA?
<TheLucarioEffect> mandate?
<jig> ah
<jig> how do you know it gives exactly 3 votes?
So yeah...
Lu Bu / Afroninja22
Killer Twin
I never told you this, but if Dong Zhuo would have died, your WC would have changed and you would have been able to kill every night. Yet you were always in more danger than he was.
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Zhang Jue / jigglypuffers42
Mystic Neutral
I really didn't want this to come down to "whoever wins", so thankfully it didn't. Even if King Emerald had won, you would be MVP. Though you weren't without mistakes, you kicked a ton of ass and played puppetmaster in the final cycles. Great job.
The gimmick here was a "wolf" with no kill, but a bunch of silly abilities. Like a modified announcer, which I wanted to make sound like it was actually the host giving tips. But jig was all "fuck that, I'm gonna make bad poetry". The revive recruit was powerful, but it had its limitations. No mafia, so no team spoiling. And the village needn't even discover the recruit, just kill jig and they'd win. What obviously won the game were persuade and ability copy. Ability copy led to some silly shit, like 4 revives.
Anyway, need to crash. Hope you all had as much fun as I did.
Still, it did not fail to be a very eventful game (it did dip in the middle before kicking into overdrive). Alot will be explained as I dicuss each player and role, but as the host I feel in a postgame it is necessary to ask yourself two things. What did I learn, and what mistake did I make?
The truth is, there were two of each that I cannot ignore.
I learned that you can't have an ideal scenario and just expect players to follow it.
Seeing players backstab allies and fight for the Mandate would have been so cool, but that never happened. So much of the game was balanced around that, that for a while I was really worried how players would like the game when all was said and done. The Mandate was also supposed to prevent a kingmaker scenario, and it didn't even do that. But then there is why my best laid plans were dashed.
Stick a fork in it, 1v2 is done (or should be).
It's been said before but I guess we never fucking learn. The mafia will always team up, the village will always brute force them. A wolf won this game because the village was so busy scum hunting it didn't heed my numerous warnings of powerful wolves. It's sad, because to me mafia is the concept of the informed minority against the uninformed majority. But it's only going to be played the same way every time and innovation is really just going to be a bother. This and my above point have led to the decision that my future games will be much more symmetrical, with more natural options for shifting alliances and anything to give even experienced players less idea of what they should be doing. I don't want players to follow a preconceived scenario like this game, I want to facilitate an environment where players create their own scenarios.
I didn't have enough kills.
A big dip in momentum mid game was probably the result of one player dying a night, and at its worst night no one died! Then four people got revived, and a high number of mafia meant that the village couldn't win fast either. In my head I figured 2 to 3 kills a night would be good, but I didn't factor in how many kills would be blocked or just fucked up by sheer coincidence. In mafia, players demand blood!
I made hailflameblast leader of a faction.
Seriously what the fuck was I thinking.
Cao Wei
Contrary to standard mafia logic, it actually seemed very natural to make the big, powerful, oppressive kingdom the village. Shu Han and Eastern Wu were allied against them for most of the time, after all. With only 11 villagers, that'd seem like a huge weakness, but I did take steps to rectify this.
Cao Cao / wickdaggler
Mayor +1 and Silencer. Also started the game with Cao Wei's alliance maker.
wickdaggler made a splash very early by trying to bully the mafia into falling in line, which didn't work and really contributed to the communications breakdown N0. He made a bid for leader, but his role wasn't really suited for it. If Cao Wei got the Mandate, they wouldn't want other factions to know who Cao Cao was. On the plus side, he extracted info on the mafia from hailflameblast and moled the village as a zombie. Even though he won, it's hard to tell what kind of an impact he had on the game.
Sima Yi / Hydrattler
Mayor +2, not persuadable. Became Cao Wei's second alliance maker.
Hydrattler was always suspected by Aura Guardian. I guess it seems like the role is too good to be true, but honestly, a mayor with three votes by itself would be such a liability. But the village needed more votes, so I made him not persuadable. Even after he became alliance maker, he was still under suspicion for some reason, and he didn't communicate much with other factions.
Li Dian / coolking49
Bodyguard
Rand killed N1, never a good fate. However, oddly he came back and stayed alive for a few nights. Afroninja22 even failed a kill due to his protection. I guess he was a good ally to Aura Guardian once clean.
Dian Wei / game freak201
Reverse Martyr
Tonight on unsolved mysteries, the mysterious death of game freak 201. UPDATE! He was killed by Phantasia while protecting Aura Guardian. Whoops! What sucks more, is he got subbed in that day. Sorry bro.
UPDATE! Nobody gives a shit about bigfoot.
Zhang Liao / Phantasia
Vigilante
Apparently did not trust Aura Guardian at first. Still, he killed Quagsires and zombie wickdaggler. If the lynch had been tied on Day 9, Phantasia would have won the game for the village. Oh well.
Xiahou Dun / Fangren
Rogue
Followed orders and did nothing all game. Wow, Rogue is ass. I even made it so that the rogue only had to target a player in the faction that was killing him (which led to a crucial change in how mafia kills work, I'll explain later). I doubt I will ever use a Rogue again.
Xu Huang / badalcristiano
Resuscitator
He brought back coolking49, which ended up being a very good move actually. Other than that, didn't have much to do.
Cai Mao / Yeti
Hooker
This guy right here, fucked up several kills I believe. Until the mafia figured out what he was doing, he was one hell of an asset to the village.
Zhang He / Insomniac.
Martyr
Fucked with people, but not as much. Diverted jig's first godkill away from Aura Guardian, then blew up.
Yu Jin / Fatecrashers
Priority Changer and third alliance maker
The kingmaker. Decider of who won and who lost. Mind you, he COULD have just watched, but nooooo, he had to affect the outcome. Which was entirely in jig's favor. As alliance maker he seemed on the ball, but maybe he should have taken a more active village role sooner.
BEST VILLAGER
Xiahou Yuan / Aura Guardian
Inspector
I'm not going to lie, alot of his tenure was dumb luck. Announcing he was inspector day 1 yet living until day 8. He killed the mafia inspector then used inspect on people that had to be at least 90% confirmed mafia. In essence, the village lost because Aura Guardian brute forced the mafia leaving the wolves in a perfect position after I warned constantly about the wolf threat. There were other suspicious people he could have inspected that weren't exposed scum. But criticisms aside, he was the village. So he gets best of Cao Wei.
Eastern Wu
The kingdom of pirates and greedy scoundrel. I gave both mafia five members, mostly for flavor purposes. Hey, I did make efforts to balance the factions out, but refer to Mistake #1. Also, originally Wu killed on odd nights and Shu on even. But when I upgraded the Rogue, I worried that this might be too predictable and gave them a 1/2 and a choice of which night to kill on. But effectively it was just always odd nights. For this faction, I wanted the motif of distrust and deception. Neg mayor, mole, the ability to break alliances. Then throw in hooker and bg just for two very good roles.
Sun Quan / hailflameblast
Negative Mayor and first alliance maker
hailflameblast is just the worst player ever. I mean really. He was exposed simply by Aura Guardian leaning on him. He then revealed almost the entire other mafia. I got rid of a recruit ability to avoid something like that happening. Wu, I am so sorry that I made him your leader. I really am.
And stop being a sore wuser.
Zhou Yu / Alchemator
Alliance Breaker and second alliance maker
As a more experienced player than hfb, he was supposed to help guide hfb to victory. I didn't want the first alliance maker to be the best player. Well we see how well that went. Alchemator didn't get much of a chance, he defended the undefendable and was lynched for it.
Sun Ren / King Emerald
Mole and third alliance maker
And a hell of a mole role at that, able to fool all three factions. Which is exactly why I gave it to a noobie. But to be fair, he did stay under the radar for a long time and made some smart choices when in command. He was a contender for MVP actually.
Gan Ning / Thoughts
Hooker
Thoughts was one of three mafiosos who subbed in and then didn't play even though active on the site. I messaged them and told them to get their shit together, and only Thoughts actually came back to play. It was shortlived though, his role dying and all. Still, hooker went a long way to put pressure on the village.
Zhou Tai / Terrador14
Bodyguard
Another guy who subbed in and was inactive, only showing up to godkill himself. And Bodyguard did nothing anyway, but it WOULD have on Night 9. So Terrador14 lost the game for his team.
Shu Han
So these guys are my favorite kingdom, and I really wanted them to be something of an underdog team. Whereas Wu's roles are deceptive, Shu is straitlaced and heroic. Except for kidnapper. Yeah.
Guan Yu / zorbees
Team wide reverse martyr, bpv, and deadtalk
So yeah, Shu got one really cool role and I gave it to who I thought was the best player in the game. His abilities never came into play and he didn't even fill an advisory role. Disappointing. I know it may seem hypocritical of me to not allow team deadtalk when a character can, but I do think Guan Yu is balanced. The role is made to die.
Zhang Fei / BLUEBERRY BITCH
Kidnapper
And again with inactive subs, blagh. And I know, if hooker and bg are supposed to make Wu good, how is kidnapper at all balanced along with a role like Guan Yu? Well, originally the plan was that kidnap had a very low priority. And it still does in a way, but this game ended up using a priority system unlike any in mafia. I'll be making a Strategic Int thread to talk about it in more detail. Suffice it to say, in the end kidnap wasn't as nerfed as I had originally intended.
Zhuge Liang / dogfish44
Inspector
My stomach turned when Aura Guardian rand inspected him. I know he didn't have any better leads at the time, but getting rid of an inspector with Dong Zhuo still hidden was just not the right idea. Remember, Dong Zhuo stayed hidden until Day 8. More baffling is why the mafia didn't revive him. Sorry dogfish44 :(
Zhao Yun / assassinfred
Resuscitator
Could only revive the day after. Could feign alliance change, but mostly they could have just allied with Cao Wei to protect someone. This ability was never used, at least not by assassinfred.
BEST MAFIA
Liu Bei / polelover44
Persuader
He was cool, collected, lived to the end of the game and maybe could have won if things had gone slightly different. Another candidate for MVP. Not much else to say. He just always seemed to know what he was doing.
Wolves
Yuan Shao / Quagsires
Killer, kidnapper, inspector, alliance maker
The gimmick here was a fourth alliance maker, a wolf that could switch up alliances even more. Of course this never came to pass, and neither did much for Quagsires. An unfortunate randkill sealed his fate even after he had been brought back. He could either kidnap or inspect, but not both, which I thought made for a very balanced wolf. A very good player I feel, but did not reach his potential here.
Dong Zhuo / -TheLucarioEffect-
Redirector and holder of the Mandate
I'm glad you liked this role TLE. I really am. Because the role was made to die. I wasn't gonna give it or its partner to someone who had never played before, but I did give them to the two players I thought most likely to expose themselves somehow (why didn't I give the role to hfb -_-). But if a player did kiss ass with Dong Zhuo power to them, and you did stay hidden for a long time and several players nominated you for MVP. Buuuuuuut;
<jig> 7 votes on afro
<jig> 3 votes on HFB
<TheLucarioEffect> well, glad we caught someone. technically 3 for aura as well
<jig> in 15 minutes we got 3 votes
<jig> why is there 3 votes for aura?
<jig> WHY IS THERE 3 ON AURA?
<TheLucarioEffect> mandate?
<jig> ah
<jig> how do you know it gives exactly 3 votes?
So yeah...
Lu Bu / Afroninja22
Killer Twin
I never told you this, but if Dong Zhuo would have died, your WC would have changed and you would have been able to kill every night. Yet you were always in more danger than he was.
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Zhang Jue / jigglypuffers42
Mystic Neutral
I really didn't want this to come down to "whoever wins", so thankfully it didn't. Even if King Emerald had won, you would be MVP. Though you weren't without mistakes, you kicked a ton of ass and played puppetmaster in the final cycles. Great job.
The gimmick here was a "wolf" with no kill, but a bunch of silly abilities. Like a modified announcer, which I wanted to make sound like it was actually the host giving tips. But jig was all "fuck that, I'm gonna make bad poetry". The revive recruit was powerful, but it had its limitations. No mafia, so no team spoiling. And the village needn't even discover the recruit, just kill jig and they'd win. What obviously won the game were persuade and ability copy. Ability copy led to some silly shit, like 4 revives.
Anyway, need to crash. Hope you all had as much fun as I did.
