Circus Maximus Rules v3.0 (05/09/2010) - Required reading for both players and hosts!

[Mekkah**]

Hello, Smogonites and Smogonettes! Here it is at last, our very own forum games subforum. Forum games, most notably mafia (which grew too big and serious for Firebot), will be hosted here in the future. Please read through these rules before posting, and have a fun time!

Requesting permission to host a game:

• The requesting party must send the complete rules of the proposed game to one or more of the moderators (Mekkah, billymills, LightWolf) for approval.
• Only one moderator needs to approve the game. Their approval may be conditional to minor rule changes.
• The requesting party must be constituted of at least one (1) user with an account on the Smogon forums.
• The requesting party must offer to host the game they propose, which includes making all threads necessary for the game, enforcing the rules of the game and anything else applicable to run the game smoothly.
• The requesting party must specify if the game will require one thread or more. If more than one thread is needed, they must specify how many or (if the number cannot be determined in advance) on what basis they will be made.
• If the requesting party can find any number of users who can express support for the game, it would be increase the chances of the game to be approved. Each of these users must be willing to play in the game. The number of supporters wanted would depend on the total number of players required to participate in the game. As a rough estimate, if you can manage to get 1/4th of the total number of users to 'support' it, it should be good. Please note that this will probably only be applicable to newer, untested games. This is optional. You could search for support in The Propose-A-Game Thread.
• The moderators will decide of a timespan during which the game may be started (which may or may not coincide with the time of approval). The game must be started in that span, else it will be locked or deleted. If the period expires, the requesting party may reiterate their demand.
• No thread may be started for a game if it does not go through this process of approval.

Informal Guidelines:

• No "postcount++" games will be accepted. This includes most (all) "poster above" or "poster below" games or games that require little to no effort to participate in.
• Don't request to host a game that's too similar in gameplay to other games that are already running (with the exception of Mafia).
• Games that require thought and/or involvement from the players are preferred.
• Please do not post in Mafia games that you are not in.

Mafia Hosting Rules (NEW!)

Earthworm and I finally got done and discussed what exactly we're changing after having this lie around for a while. The discussions there led to the decision to change the rules to the following. Please read them closely.

Categories

Mafia games now fall under one out of these four categories.

1. Beginner
How many at a time? 1.
Max size: 25.
Priority system: Yes.
Experimental concepts? No.
Who can host? Anyone.
Approval from mod required? Yes.

Accessible games for first-timers. Roles and flavor are basic and easy to understand, so ideal to get into mafia with. If you don't want to dive head-first into Standard play, this is recommended.

2. Medium (Standard)
How many at a time? 3.
Max size: 25.
Priority system: Yes.
Experimental concepts? Yes.
Who can host? Anyone.
Approval from mod required? Yes.

These are the games that are regularly played right now, and not much will change about them (other than the handpicking rule being thrown out). They run on the same priority system as beginners.

3. Expert
How many at a time? 1.
Max size: 30.
Priority system: No.
Experimental concepts? Hell yes.
Who can host? Expert hosts only.
Approval from mod required? No.

This category is for those that have proven to excel at designing and hosting games (and for Earthworm, HEh). It allows absolute freedom in your concept, design, and player list (though we still put a 30 player maximum for now). If you want to host one of these, instead of judging your game, billymills, LightWolf and I will judge you. There are no hard guidelines on being allowed host an expert game or not. If you want to be eligible for hosting an expert game, we recommend you get a solid hosting history under your belt, as well as being a prescence in the Office of Strategic Influence subforum.

4. Big
How many at a time? 1.
Max size: 50
Priority system: No.
Experimental concepts? Yes.
Who can host? Expert hosts only.
Approval from mod required? No.

These are the games the whole mafia trend started with, and they're a seperate category as well. Big mafia's aren't really as tied to the process, but they are included here for completion's sake. Generally, the requirement for hosting a big game is to be known in the mafia community, and having hosted at least one mafia game before. Big games are extremely hyped events, so the responsibility of hosting these is a big one.

Hosting Process

Are you interested in hosting a mafia game? Read this whole post, as well as this to make sure it goes smoothly.

Your plan is as follows.

Pre-game

1. Design your game, and put it in a spreadsheet. It doesn't have to be 100% complete, but close to it is nice.
2. Contact Mekkah, LightWolf or billymills about hosting a mafia game. Include which category game it is, and if it's beginner or medium, ask if they would like to approve it. If expert, include a summary of why you think you are eligible to host an expert game.
3. If required, give said host access to your spreadsheet and work on getting the concept and balance right.
4. Once those steps are done, Lightwolf will put your game on the Game Listing, and he will tell you when you can post the sign-ups of your game. Your game (roles, PMs, flavor, rules) must be completely finished before you post sign-ups.
5. When you can, post the sign-ups. If applicable to your game level, put in a sentence saying your game was approved by billymills, LightWolf or Mekkah (unapproved games are locked). Put the difficulty level in the title and in the OP. Note that priority is required for beginner and standard games.
6. After 48 hours, ask a Circus Mod to lock the thread and randomize your player list, taking into account the priority system. Make sure the list includes the order of the people who did not get in, as this order can be used for substitutions.
7. Post your actual game thread, and begin hosting.

During the game

Concerning substitutions, everyone who signed up for the game but did not get in is eligible to be a substitute. If you want, allow people who did not sign up to apply for substitution via PM. You can add those to the bottom of your substitutions list.

If a player requires to be subbed out, send a PM to your entire sub list (or the top five or so if you want), asking if anyone wants to sub in. If you get one of these as a player, please reply whether you want to be in or not. If you get multiple positive responses, priority goes to those higher on your substitution list.

Note that a substitute must be priority 1 at the moment of substitution to be eligible!

After the game

You are allowed to create a postgame thread after your game ends, if you want.

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These conclude all the major changes to the rules. All the old rules that carried over to the new system can be found below. Modifications have been made to them, so read them carefully.

• Currently, only 1 beginner, 3 standard, 1 expert and 1 big game can be hosted at a time.
• Players who are not participating in any other beginner/standard mafia will be Priority 1 players, players who are already in another will be Priority 2 players, and so on. The players themselves must post what category they belong to when they sign up.
• Sign-ups will be posted and dealt with by mods using a random number generator site to ensure that all the people that sign up have a fair chance. This is there because people don't trust others to do this fairly. Additionally, Priority 1 players will get spots before Priority 2 and so on.
• All beginner/standard mafia games must have their playing roster randomized. However, hosts can choose to reserve up to 7 spots for players they choose. This should only contain Priority 1 players unless there are spots left over AFTER giving a spot to all Priority 1 players. In this case, a host could reserve a spot for a Priority 2 player and so on.
• Being dead or having subbed out from another game will still count towards your tally until the game in question ends. Exceptions from this are deaths in the first cycle of a game with working kills or a working lynch (usually Day 1 or Night 1), as those are unavoidable.
• Hosts must keep signups open for a minimum of 48 hours. At this point, they should ask any of the mods to close the thread and do the randomization for them.
• Since IRC has proven to be crucial in most if not all games, all hosts of a game must have regular access to it. In addition, it is encouraged to put a rule in the game that makes IRC compulsory for all players.

Thanks for reading this, and enjoy your gaming forum!

[Mekkah**]

If you need a good ruleset, here's the one Fishin made for Minor Character Mafia. Most games nowadays copy these and modify them to their own taste, so you should too!

Rules

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1. Whilst you are alive you can talk to anyone about the game. Once you are dead you cannot talk to anyone about the game, unless you are mafia and on the same team, in which case you may talk with members of your team only, and only for strategy purposes. Knowledge acquired after death cannot be transferred from a dead player to a living player.

2. Every user has a role PM. Role PMs may not be shown to other users on Night 0, but starting from Day 1 onwards they may be freely distributed. Screenshotting of all forms is banned. If anyone finds a person encouraging others to take screenshots or taking screenshots and showing other people, please be sure to report it.

3. You can paste things told to you by the host. You may fake logs. Do not take pasting of a host conversation as definite proof, these can be faked. If you want to fake a log, feel free to PM one of the hosts for assistance. Impersonation of a host or another user however, is banned at all points. Please do not attempt to impersonate in any way.

4. Each day will have a deadline of 48 hours. You may vote to lynch users during the day by posting "lynch USER" in bold, or "No lynch" if you don't want to lynch anyone (lynch votes will not count if they're not in the correct format!), and if you change your vote, you MUST edit the bolded text out of the old post if you post with a new vote. Once there is a majority as determined by the host, there will be a grace period of 3 hours, and if the majority is still in place after said grace period, the day will end. Please don't ask about when a majority is reached - once it's time for the day to end, it'll end (provided a host is there to update). The game will start on Night 0, but deaths can happen on Night 0 just like any other night.

4.5. If there's a tie, both users with the highest amount of votes will be lynched, but no lynch will take place the next day.

5. Each night will have a deadline of 48 hours. This gives you 48 hours to send your night action. Please state what you are doing in the PM title, it makes it MUCH easier to handle. Remember that PMs are to be sent to Fishin AND Serenity.

5.5. If you're not going to do anything at night, send a PM titled "Night X - idling". This makes keeping track of things easier and informs me that you're still playing the game.

6. Priorities have been decided beforehand and will not be revealed.

7. This game features items. Items can be used at the same time as regular night actions, unless stated otherwise. You can give an item away during either the day or night, by sending a pm to Fishin and Serenity stating "Night/Day X - Give ITEM to USER." You cannot use an item during the same night you give it away, however you can use an unrelated ability whilst giving away an item. Giving away an item has the lowest priority, and if you are killed/lynched the same night/day you attempt to give away an item, it won't be moved.

8. There is no "Scavenger" ability, and information about items (neither those initially held nor those held upon death) will not be revealed upon a user's death. Stealing abilities are allowed to target a dead user - this is the only way to recover items from a corpse.

9. "Minor Character" can mean any character that isn't really a main character. Someone like Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter, for example, would qualify. Characters may come from anything - TV shows, movies, anime, books, video games, real life, websites, etc.

10. Only sign up if you know you're going to be at least fairly active. If I notice that you seem to be idle, I reserve the right to have you forcefully subbed out if necessary. I'll most likely nudge first, though.

11. Be careful who you trust. I'm not going to give a real reason as to why, but everyone would do well to be more cautious than normal.

[Mekkah**]

Black List

This is a list of players who have shown to be either really terrible at mafia, notorious idlers, or something else that makes them less than desirable to have in your game. If you are hosting a game and randomization would allow you to let a player on this list in, you are allowed to leave them out in favor of the next person on the randomization list.

Current list:
- RODAN. (idler)
- Raverist (buffoon)
- Shining Latios (suicidal)
- Earthworm (earthworm)
- manav95 (idiot)
- pokemonrocks777 (incomprehensible)
- UllarWarlord (repeatedly suicidal)