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Alias Mafia - game abandoned/v long postgame up
- Thread starter JALMONT
- Start date
As someone with no passive whatsoever, I think it's amusing that all three factions' cops ended up inspecting me simply because so many people are immune to inspection.
It was a good game while it lasted. Nice game, everyone! And thanks for hosting, JALMONT!
This postgame is way too long, but I spent all this time writing it and I had some fun in doing so, so yeah. Enjoy if you so desire! Thanks again to everyone for playing/spectating.
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I think I owe to both everyone who played/followed this game to write something up to provide some closure to this game. At the very least, I have to do it for myself. Skip this part if you don’t want to read me wallowing in self-misery. (note that I’m editing this a month later so while my feelings definitely are not quite as strong, I still hope that this postgame conveys my thoughts as accurate as possible).
The birth of a game
The concept of this game delved from the fact that I was tired of hearing complaints about the format but was also tired of seeing the same tropes from other games that I thought were unfair/unfun/broken. This game was my vision of the “ideal” mafia versus village game at a basic format (meaning, no major game-deviating mechanics). How can I make a Smogon mafia that incorporates the basic ideas of what a Smogon mafia is while keeping it true to what I think makes a game good. This game was meant to be a reflection on what I thought makes mafia fun and what I think makes mafia a game of mafia (even as many of us know, outside contact really doesn’t resemble what “mafia” is).
I made each faction with a clear “theme” in mind. The town centered around vote control – in mafia, the idea is that the town controls the lynch, while the mafia does their thing at night. Roles like lynch redirector I think are really whack because it warps away from the basic idea of the game. The mafia should control the night and the village the day. I wanted those lines to be clearly defined or at least defined enough that people could potentially catch on to it. It’s funny that a lot of vote control roles are considered mafia by their very nature, so I hoped to play on that as well. The “village leader” system is the best to way to play and I tried to nerf it by having the village have no protection roles and instead give them to mafia/neutrals. This sort of backfired in the end, but the idea was that the village wouldn’t expect this and it would give the mafia strong fakeclaims that they could use to their advantage.
The idea behind the unique role rule was to give the mafia an out to claim their actual role in case they were lazy. I think this meant that the mafia suffered in terms of power because they were left with roles that gave little utility beyond information which was being shared with the village in most cases. My ideal mafia team is probably centered around disrupting information as much as possible. I cut the Hooker due to the game having to become smaller in size but that probably would’ve been more useful versus a watcher. The alias swapper is a cool role that can’t be used in normal games for obvious reasons. I’m not a huge fan of the host giving out safe claims because I don’t think I should have to play the game for the mafia but I think I could’ve helped the mafia out by giving them the names of at least one if not more NPC aliases. I think this would’ve allowed them even more freedom in terms of creating chaos, which is what I wanted. I also think results stealer would’ve been better served on the mafia since that would let it be both an information and disruptive role. Maybe the numbers weren’t there to give all the roles I wanted to the mafia, but overall I felt there was a decent mix of “safe” roles vs. obviously suspicious roles that would slow the village down.
The neutrals I think were also good. The NPC Creator role ended up being worse than I thought because it quickly became too obvious he was behind them? I’m still not sure if the rate of robot gain was the “right” number but I do think his access to a multitude of roles made him able to potentially succeed in numerous late game positions. His partner’s role was meant to be more supportive – keep him alive and potentially mole the village. It kind of felt like this team was prone to losing more often than not but maybe that’s ok because it should be hard to win as a wolf/third party? But I felt that I gave this team more than enough tools to leverage the abilities they did have to get into a position to do well and win assuming they didn’t get unlucky (e.g. crossfire).
Passives were a good addition I think and complicated the game. I probably could’ve worded Ninja better though since it seems like people misunderstood it. The one I wish I treated differently was NPC. I realized mid-game that how I wanted to deal with NPC inspections broke the no-bamboozle rule if I simply said Alias had no alignment or role or etc. The way I dealt with it was good but honestly it was probably too strong given that it made the user unable to be inspected. I guess the issue with passives is that they don’t add agency to the game but they served their purpose well in this one by complicating things for everyone involved. It’s much harder to clear the entire village when a lot of the game can’t be cleared by inspection, which is what I wanted.
Slots weren’t randomized. I tried to be as fair as possible in dividing roles without “overpowering” any one side or person. For that reason, the players I deemed to be stronger I deliberately gave trickier roles to work with. Players who I felt had “potential” or were new I wanted to give stronger roles to keep them involves and hopefully encourage them to participate. Players who I was worried might idle I gave more traditional “boring” roles. Sorry about that, but I think it was a necessary evil to balance the game. Ultimately though, the hope was that everyone regardless of role would recognize that they would need to be active in some way once it was realized that there was no way for the town to win by finding the mafia purely mechanically. Same went for the mafia – AG and hal were given roles that would be hard to fit in on a town whereas Leet and CsYager were given strong “town” roles that would hopefully let them fit in better and utilize that to their advantage – if they so desired. The neutrals were two players who I felt were strong players but were relatively untested in the OC format. I was impressed by bluedoom’s recent play in the last couple of NOCs and felt Dusk would be a perfect partner who could play smart and support bluedoom given his recent good play and nomination to the mafia championships, but would also probably be under the radar as far as a neutral player could go. The same concept applied to the town, where I tried to avoid giving the more experienced players more clearable/easy roles.
It’s hard to tell if any one side was “broken.” I think the JOAT role was probably too weak and too obvious – Dusk seemed to be more powerful when he had a nightly kill, although honestly it’s hard to tell given that the neutrals severely underused the NPC Creator. I think the town seemed underwhelming too, but I maintain that they of their own accord got rid of their best roles – the target mayor and the lynch securer. I think the idea that the village loses once they lose majority restricts how villages are built because it implies that the only way for them to succeed is to succeed from the start. It’s very difficult to come back so I wanted to give them outs where losing numbers wasn’t exactly the end of the world as long as certain town roles played/hid well. Unfortunately, I guess we’ll never know if I gave the town enough tools to survive and possibly win in an endgame situation in which they were behind in numbers.
The flavor of the game was inspired from askaninjask’s billymills mafia where he did the same thing with Wikipedia. I always found that amusing and copied it. Perhaps I should’ve randomized some more to get some actual pages with content. I tried to have fun with it but keep it simple since for this game flavor wasn’t meant to be important. Flavor isn’t important as mafia games go but I think when done right it’s very enjoyable. Yeti’s games are the most obvious example of well done flavor and while I don’t think I could ever reach that level, I at least tried to make it somewhat amusing!
The Game
Night 0
This night was…eventful to say the least. I originally thought that the mafia was at fault for AG’s result getting stolen but in reality the reverse martyr would’ve stopped their plan in the first place (wow, me forgetting how a reverse martyr works? theme much?). I don’t know, I guess they could’ve played it safer but there’s nothing wrong with the plan. They got doubly unlucky that it was Former’s alias they targeted, which just added to AG looking real bad the next day.
The other major event was that the NEUTRALS decided to clean Former. This turned out to be a bizarre decision primarily because they didn’t do anything to try and capitalize on this event, as far as I’m aware. It’s an interesting idea and a good one if it works out and bluedoom is able to get into the town circle. But nothing I saw showed him making any progress on that front or even trying, so it seemed to me as if they just ended up clearing Former for no real gain or reason. This was especially frustrating to me when Dusk complained later on in the game about “oh there’s nothing you can do but follow the village leader” which was very ??? to me because they created the whole leading scenario! Good play by Former to take advantage of this all and get himself cleaned. Other than that nothing else super exciting happened afaik.
Day 1
AG was lynched because his result was stolen and he couldn’t really pretend to be a villager given that Former’s results were stolen. It was clear he was guilty and so lynched he was.
Aura Guardian – Mafia Role Swapper
I really liked this role and was sad to see it gone so early. It’s a unique power for alias games only and is a good role because of how it can complicate the game and force people to think. It potentially would’ve caused a lot of havoc in the game but obviously we never got to see it happen. I think a lot of the mafia’s power was in this role and losing it early really sucked for them. I know the mafia team was pretty demoralized. I have no complaints about AG’s play; I felt bad for him because he asked to be mafia and didn’t really get a chance to do his thing through no fault of his own. Alas, that’s how mafia is – sometimes you get lucky and other times you do not.
Night 1
Former began working on gathering claims and clearing people. For some reason, OM was seen as mafia, which he was, albeit for reasons that weren’t very clear other than cancerous and Mewtwo also being inspect roles. This led to his result being stolen for a while, which again was very unlucky for the mafia. The NEUTRALS made some more confusing decisions. They decided to protect Former, which was somewhat defensible. Then they decided to have bluedoom idle which was confusing? OK, maybe they wanted to stack bots to kill lots of people. I was pissed off about this because M2H was inspecting bluedoom and I thought for sure he was going to be lynched and there goes a major balancing agent in the game who wasn’t going to get to use their kills. I guess the bodyguard was fine in hindsight but idling was not a good play. I think it would’ve only made sense to idle with the expectation that bluedoom was going to get entrance into the information circle, which wasn’t going to happen given that Former was having him inspected. The mafia tried to kill Former and very sadly ran into Dusk’s bodyguard. Their bad fortune continued.
Day 2
M2H received a neutral result on bluedoom and so Former decided to…rand an alias? I don’t think this was a good decision, but then again, bluedoom had expressed interesting in working with Former iirc. Bluedoom made a really smart save by claiming to be a harmless neutral which Former believed. The rules specified that a faction could only win by themselves so Former probably should’ve known this wasn’t the case, but I can’t blame him. That said, without having a clear alias to lynch, risking an NPC lynch was not worth risking a guaranteed neutral lynch. Former thought Pot of Greed was DLE, who he thought was mafia because DLE claimed near deadline. It wasn’t anyone and so the mafia caught a first break.
Night 2
Did I mention the mafia catching a break? This time they ran into DLE’s BPV, literally the village’s only form of night protection. I believe they thought Propodus was important because Former had Leet rev mar that alias the night before. That wasn’t the case. I think after this night hal and friends wanted to surrender. I can’t say I blame them for feeling so disheartened at this point. The NEUTRALS continued their interesting play by deciding to do what Former wanted??? This was the decision that made literally no sense to me. I don’t understand why, after knowing the Town knew bluedoom was a neutral they decided they were just going to do what he asked??? And just waste the bots?? I guess the hope was that bluedoom could stay under the radar long enough to unleash a barrage against the village.
Actually that couldn’t be the hope because the NEUTRALS decided to have bluedoom contact Da Letter El on the belief he was mafia because of what Former was saying? DLE, contrary to what nearly everyone in the entire game believed, was actually not mafia and was indeed a member of the town. So naturally the NEUTRALS were unable to make contact with the mafia and their entire conversation got leaked to the town. I’ll be fair here and say that I guess the thought process was thought communication with the mafia was desirable (good call) and that DLE was probably mafia because that’s what Former thought and had probably communicated to bluedoom/Dusk. That said, it seemed like a really random decision to go down that path this specific night when they could’ve waited until an actual alias was being lynched but IDK. Nothing else that noteworthy really happened.
Day 3
Bluedoom was quite obviously lynched here. I wonder who would’ve been the target had last night’s shenanigans not happened. Possibly DLE? For whatever reason, I think he was still suspected although I think the town core (consisting of zorbees/FH/M2H) were coming around on him.
Bluedoom – Neutral NPC Creator
I thought his role made for a decent wolf. He was obviously gated by having to use bots, but I think that was a fair restriction. Maybe it would’ve been more interesting to have a singular wolf but open up his abilities and let him use all of the once a night. For smaller factions, I think you have to accept that they are prone to getting randed out of the game. For that reason, it’s appropriate to give them the tools to succeed in as many positions as possible. I think this role did that – lots of things that could’ve been fake-claimed, a passive that prevented most inspections, and abilities that could and would win the lategame. This is a good trade-off I think.
Bluedoom’s play was below average I think. I don’t blame him for how he played because I think he and Dusk were pretty disjointed – at least in the sense that they didn’t adequately bounce ideas off of each other. Bluedoom had a lot of good ideas but these ideas lacked an end result that would be beneficial for him. Clearing Former was fine IF he could leverage that to get on the sheet. I don’t think he even tried which is not the best play IMO. Saving bots was fine but not using them after being found was a mistake. Lying to Former about his win con was a great play. I still think bluedoom is a good, probably great player but I feel I needed to team him up with someone who would’ve better supported him and help him execute his ideas. In that vein, I wish I put AG as his partner. Sorry, I feel like I came off super negative towards this faction so if you read this bluedoom, while I think you didn’t play optimally all the time, I do think you did do well in certain areas and I do think you put in a decent effort. And that’s all I can and have ever asked for. Thanks for playing.
Night 3
This is where the village started throwing. The obvious big action here is Former deciding he needed to vig Alex. Former has his reasons, but I would maintain those reasons were not very good. I feel like Former didn’t really think about the roles themselves that people were claiming, which worked out sometimes (see: OM) and not others. In this instance, I’m not even sure if I’ve ever seen a strictly mafia mayor. Apparently Alex had accused Former of being a wolf or something, but his role just seemed to reek town to me. I guess it must’ve been good design if his role was enough to clear him so I’m glad for that at least!
At this point, Former added Cancerous and Dusk to the sheet. I think these were OK things to do. This did however result in Dusk killing a member of the town in zorbees. He originally forgot about Leet’s reverse martyr and was going to kill him but then changed his action. The mafia also got their kill off onto DLE again, which was smart. The DLE kill was unfortunate because he was heavily suspected, but couldn’t be helped. Perhaps it would’ve been better to keep him alive at this point since he was functionally vanilla, but I think the mafia were in a position where they had to start getting town numbers down.
Zorbees – Town Results Stealer
This is another cool role I’m glad I included. I meant for it to be a “suspicious” role but that went out the window after his results night 0. In hindsight, I should’ve swapped this with the mafia results destroyer. It was just too powerful of a role for the village because of how it could negatively effect the mafia’s roles. It would’ve made more sense to put a nerfed version on the village, one that would’ve been more suspect too. I think zorbees played well. He butted heads with Former on plans but I think for the most part they worked out their differences. Don’t know how much input he had on the night he died where Former did some funky stuff with actions. Overall I felt he provided a nice foil to Former’s leadership and kept him in check as much as possible. It would’ve been interesting to see how he would’ve dealt with the suspicion had he been seen as mafia, but alas, that wasn’t on the cards. I think he played well, if lucky.
Alexander489 – Town Target Mayor
This was another role that I think was really cool! Mayor is such a dull role and I tried to spice it up by making it an action, which at least means it can get interrupted. This role had the potential to carry the town if it got to the late game, assuming it gained enough votes in either a positive or negative direction. However, I don’t think people truly thought of this role like that, which is too bad. I did not expect this role to get vig’d even with the NPC passive. Even with the modification, I felt bad giving someone this role, knowing that it would be fairly low impact until late-game. I wanted to give the new users roles that I felt would engage them – this role probably did not meet that standard. I have no qualms about how Alex played. He submitted an action and seemed like he tried to play the game and that’s all I can ask for. Apparently Former found him suspicious because Alex accused him of being a wolf? Or something? Idk. I think viging Alex was a big error. I just don’t see how there was that much scum equity on a role like this. I guess maybe without recognizing the town theme, yeah, but I dunno. I think Alex was unlucky to die as he did.
Da Letter El – Town BPV/Backup
Another neat modification to a normally boring role. I gave the backup player a choice – instead of inheriting or anything like that, you choose what dead role to backup whenever you want. The cost is that you have to do it before your BPV pops, which creates an interesting choice of waiting to backup, or taking advantage of it while you can. Ultimately, DLE had a pretty crazy time which is funny because he was definitely skating by. For some reason, everyone thought he was mafia…except the mafia who thought he was an Important Village Role. The mafia thought this because Former had Leet protect him night 1, not knowing that he did that just to test roles, not because he was important. Former thought DLE was mafia because he claimed 10 minutes before deadline ????? Idk. It’s super hard for me to see the thought process behind a Backup being mafia…I thought this would be a pretty clear cut town role but evidently not (and for that I’m glad!). I thought DLE did a good job for the circumstances he found himself in, and it was certainly amusing to see him being accused of all sorts of different things.
Day 4
Cs got lynched. He had basically been outed as mafia for a while.
CsYager – Mafia Watcher
Watcher I think is probably the strongest role in mafia. Full role cop is probably the strongest but throw in mole and millers and maybe not. Watcher is so powerful because its truth is guaranteed and it definitively tells you what someone(s) did. This role was absolutely meant to be used as a safe claim and get within the village circle. Sadly, it was not used that way. CS got thrown to the wayside because hal used his alias as part of his fakeclaim. As soon as that happened, CS had no alias to claim which meant that he had a really tight timeframe to try and come up with anything near a convincing story. I think Former entertained him for a bit and CS put on a good show but it was just that – a show. I give a lot of props to CS for sticking with it, even though he was in a bad spot. I wish he had been used a little differently. I think he was someone who could’ve benefitted a lot from teammates who could’ve guided him more and if he was online more often; having to play through PMs definitely slowed his learning curve. Overall, I think he had fun and I enjoyed seeing him play, which was all I could have asked for.
Night 4
At this point, Former was convinced he had been moled and took a couple steps to try and figure it out. He felt it was either Cancerous or Dusk. I was a little out of the loop on this one but he put fake actions into the main shared sheet and then distributed different actions off of a sheet that I don’t believe I had access to. IDK, the actions submitted were kinda weird. I don’t know why Leet was on Dusk instead of protecting Former himself but yeah. I also don’t understand why Former had toni target someone who he knew was 88% ascetic – I guess he thought they were both mafia? Idk. Dusk killed Toni this cycle because he thought toni was mafia and wanted to even the numbers. Shooting OM I figured was probably the more obvious choice so I was surprised he went with toni when I found out why he targeted toni. This was another bad night for the town especially as M2H was only able to clear Cancerous. Also Jacaranda should’ve died here but I didn’t kill it off. I was thinking of Former’s vig more like a hooker instead of a kill, which it actually was. This luckily was a recoverable mistake and I thought it would be the last mistake of the game for me…
Tonithetourguide – Town Silencer
The silencer is a pretty staple role. Usually it’s on the mafia so I threw it on the town as potential mislynch bait (plus it was a vote affecting role). The silencer is mostly a pretty irrelevant role given that the thread is pretty irrelevant. Perhaps a future game can find a use for it as a way to pseudo-kill in conjunction with something like a persuade. As for Toni, they joined my game when I asked which I really appreciate! He wasn’t the most active and I had to remind him to submit his action a couple of times. But he always came through. And really, that’s all I wanted. So thanks.
Former – Town NPC Vigilante
This was a very very neutered vigilante. I think a full-on vig is just too powerful in village hands when 9 times out of 10 they know who the mafia is. This role let the town still have some agency and ability in viging, but limited them to a select few roles. It also gave them a way to check for NPCs, which was useful enough. I think it probably would’ve felt more useful had I put more NPCs in the game. Honestly, for what this role was, I really didn’t think it would be a leader role. But as things happened, the wolves decided to gift the village and clean Former for free. I think Former did a good job all things considered. Being village leader is probably the most important role in the game and with all the information, it’s expected for there to be some mistakes. Former’s read of the game was mostly pretty good – sometimes he got lucky in being right for the wrong reasons, and sometimes he was just wrong. I think the big mistakes came down to viging Alex really. Getting moled was not really his fault and it was a decision that made sense. I appreciated his willingness to try and get people involved and play the game. It’s easy to go all UncleSam and rule with an iron fist, and maybe that would’ve helped him out. But instead he tried to be open and inclusive and I respect that. All things considered, Former could’ve been better, but I think he set up his team to be in a position to win which is all you can really ask for.
Day 5
The village really really wanted to get rid of the extra kill, which I think they were right to do so. Unfortunately the man pegged as the wolf was not the wolf and had also not submitted an action when his role was very provable. Moody probably had the most clear town role in the game and yet found himself getting lynched. Spinning his way out of this one was just not possible, I think and really there was no one to blame but himself. All he had to do was target really any other alias (or get a mafia alias from M2H) and he was fine. But nope, there was little evidence for Moody to point to towards his innocence beyond the brokenness of the role he was claiming.
Moody – Town Lynch Securer
Yay, another cool role I came up with! Redirectors are very much a mafia thing and people saw this as a kind of redirector and were suspicious of it. The idea behind this role was that it would enable the town to keep a lynch majority even if they lost the numerical person majority. As a result, this role had the potential to be extremely powerful. Unfortunately we never got to see it activate so whether or not it balanced the village I guess we won’t ever know. Moody had some interesting ideas in the beginning to use his role, but then became inactive. I had to prod him a couple times to get an action. It’s too bad because literally using this once early game I think would’ve perma-cleared him (and that’s what I expected to happen pre-game). Someone should’ve taken the authority and done something with this role. But no one did, and so it became a big question mark. I think that it should have been obvious from the get-go that no mafia would claim this role and that it was way too powerful to be anything but town but I also can’t blame M2H and the rest of the village for suspecting and voting Moody after his failure to convince them of him being town. Moody I think is a low-key very good player but he does have a tendency to afk from time to time (I can relate to that very much…) This game wasn’t one of his best but, hey things happen and it kept the game interesting so thanks for amusing me at least!
Jalmont Fucks Up
Fuck man, everything was getting so spicy. Was Dusk going to do it? The mafia had a very good chance of making something happen? And you couldn’t count the town and their numbers out either. If OM was lynched as was going to happen before you know what, the game would have been very wide open. I can’t exactly predict what would’ve happened but a lot was riding on who the town was going to lynch. Whydon and Samoyed were the mislynch baits while there was still an outside chance that one or both of Dusk/Leet would be lynched. Lynching one would’ve put the town in a really good spot, while failing to lynch one would probably leave the town as loser. Unfortunately none of this was to be.
I made the mistake because I got lazy with coming up with results in my sheet. So the big lesson is, don’t get complacent and write down the results that you think you should give out before actually giving them out and double check that.
Sigh – moving on.
Samoyed – Town Persuader
Same idea as the silencer. It’s a vote control role so it gives the town more breathing space plus doubles as a role commonly seen on the mafia! Perfect. Samo tried his best and the beginning to do some spicy stuff involving creating a server and inviting people to it. I don’t think anything came out of it but I was happy to see him try something nonetheless. I think Samo was largely left alone for most of the game – not really sure how much he was suspected but he was definitely a big question mark. I think his early antics would’ve been strong enough to clear him but at the same time I don’t think anyone put a lot of stock into that. He’s been turning into a sneaky strong player after a long run of being AWOL in many games so I was excited to see if he would have been able to defend himself. I have no complaints on his gameplay; he tried something fun early and then sent his actions in. Thanks.
M2H – Town Alignment Checker
Pretty standard role here. Lots of passive abilities to run into though so had the potential to be fairly ineffective. I thought M2H played really well. I wanted this role to be given to a more “under the radar player” in terms of smogon play and felt he fit the bill and I wasn’t wrong. He did a good job working with Former at first in leading the village and then in taking the mantle himself. Although he wasn’t catching on to Dusk or Leet, I don’t really blame him for that. It’s hard to rate how he did without having the rest of the game play out because I do think there was opportunity for him to correct his mistakes (which is what mafia is all about anyways). For the most part, his activity was very strong and he did a good job of leading regardless of the mistakes he did make. Thanks a lot for your energy my man, I think you were definitely one of the most active players and one of the best on the town.
Cancerous – Town Passive Checker
So I actually miscalculated roles and cut one town role too many. The sample role I posted was actually a role I cut lol. I felt bad having to give someone one of the weaker roles and I ended up choosing Cancerous. I don’t know, I think this role isn’t as useless as I thought it might be because passives were so prevalent and potentially damaging. I guess it’s pretty similar to a role cop albeit a tad more useless. Unluckily, we never really found out how useful this role would’ve been because Cancerous had his results destroyed all game by the mafia. I was happy to see that Cancerous took this role in his stride and drove onwards to be a part of the game in unorthodox ways. He tried to set up a fake conversation with DLE where he pretended to be a neutral. He targeted FORT with this antic and I think had some laughs although there wasn’t a lasting impact, but who cares, the attempt was funny so it gets an A from me. Otherwise, Cancerous did manage to get in the town circle although he was suspected of being the mole. M2H cleared him the night before I called the game so he was bound to become a key town voice. I was super happy to see Cancerous play the way he did and have fun with the game even though his role wasn’t necessarily the greatest. I appreciate that I lot so thanks for everything my dude.
Dusk – Neutral Bodyguard
This role will always be a bodyguard to me regardless of what it’s called elsewhere. This is always such an “obvious” town role and I have always felt that with the strength of the village leader, there’s really no need to give the town a protection role. I guess it’s the same thing with the lynch – if the town controls the lynch, the mafia should be free to control their kill without worrying about it getting interrupted…for the most part. I put the role into the game because I felt like it would most definitely get on a sheet and also gave the neutrals the choice to follow the leader and protect someone they probably shouldn’t be or use that information to kill potentially important roles. In hindsight, I think this disadvantaged the mafia too much so it probably wasn’t a good idea. Still, I felt like this role gave the neutrals a lot of power which they needed with less people (and being prone to mafia crossfire). Dusk I think started off pretty poorly but then transitioned to playing very well. I feel like I was too harsh on him over the course of the game but I won’t lie that I was super frustrated with how he was playing because it felt like he was just giving the game to the town. Him making a comment about how “town always wins lol!” on like day 3 when everything was going town’s way was super ??? to me because he and bluedoom had essentially set them up entirely for success! But I will give him a lot of credit that after that he did well to get within the village circle and use that to his advantage. I feel bad that I fucked him over twice and that I didn’t give him the opportunity to really redeem himself and win. If I had to bet on it, I think Dusk was in the best position to do so. Alas. Thanks for playing even though I know these games aren’t really your speed.
Whydon – Town Safeguard
This role is pretty straightforward. It’s probably more useful/interesting in games with more actions flying around than this one. I asked Whydon to join and he did and I am grateful for that. He submitted his actions on time and that’s all I wanted. I think he would’ve been suspected late game as mafia so I would’ve loved to see how he would’ve handled that. Still, I appreciate him joining and playing the game. Thanks man.
Apricity – Mafia Results Destroyer
This is a nifty role because of the potential chaos it can cause. Roles that cause chaos with information I think should become staples in future OC games (if there is a future). Town v mafia is all about information and destroying information just makes things so much harder. This role had a lot of potential with the alias swapper but it just didn’t pan out. The mafia resorted to using this to basically take Cancerous out of the game. Hal is one the most creative/smartest players that I have seen and I really liked his approach to this game at first. I wish I had given him more tools for fake claims (eg adding more aliases) because his fake claim was very interesting I thought and had there been no BG, one that would’ve been harder for the town to suspect. My one criticism one his play was that he wasn’t really the leader that I wanted him to be for the mafia. It obviously didn’t help the other veteran in AG was gone early, but I felt like too often his plan was the only one he was interested in pursuing. And in fairness, that was probably the right play. But it would’ve been nice to see him get his teammates involved more, get their input into plans, and try to put them in positions to succeed. I know he was on vacation for a large portion of time and I obviously understand that it’s hard to be online 24/7 and I definitely think that his team didn’t really put in an effort to try and get super involved so this isn’t like a huge criticism or anything. But I feel like roles like CS were underutilized when they perhaps were better placed to try and get an in on the village and mess up information for them. That said, I think hal played well and he was super creative in his usage of roles and his fake claim. Honestly, it’s a wonder he survived so long and it’s interesting to think what he could’ve planned late game. I know this game was a little frustrating for him, but thanks to him for sticking it out and putting in a good effort.
Fear Only Rotten Toads – Town Tracker
Straightfoward role. It’s a good information gainer without being too powerful so others can play around it. I didn’t know what to expect from FORT but I gave him a fairly strong role to keep him interested in the game and from going AWOL. I feel like he put a decent amount of thought in this game. I think he would’ve been a key player for the town in the endgame which is especially a shame because I think he was mostly on the periphery of the game and was just about to become a pivotal character and would’ve hopefully been really drawn into the game. As things stood, that didn’t happen but regardless I think he did his job, submitted actions, and tried his best, so thanks. Would love to see you play more on circus but it doesn’t seem like that will happen? Oh well, maybe sometime in the future! =]
Hitmonleet – Mafia Reverse Martyr
Evidently reverse martyr is a role that is confusing to everyone, including the host. I have always liked it as a role because its something that you really have to think about using (although I guess it’s also just a meat shield). Leet was a standout performer for the mafia – he said he wished he wasn’t mafia at the beginning of the game and then ended up being the key mafia member. His role was another one that naturally just seems like a town role because what use is it on the mafia? An underappreciated aspect of a role like this is that Leet got info on potentially strong town roles based on who he was told to target. This backfired with regards to DLE because the mafia thought he was a strong role when the reasoning for Leet to target him was actually just to check actions. That said, Leet did very well individually. While he could’ve maybe been a stronger voice within his team, I’m not sure that’s necessarily his game. I was pleasantly surprised by how strongly he played in getting into the village circle. He made all the right moves, especially in the beginning by acting involved and wanting to solve the game which I think helped Former trust him. I don’t think he was suspected at all by the time the game was called. Could he have pulled out a win? Absolutely – I think it all came down to whether or not the town and Leet could manage to figure out Dusk was the mole. If Leet was able to figure this out and get him lynched/night kill him then I don’t think anyone would suspect him and it would be fairly easy to get a mislynch in the final 3. That said, I think it’s also very possible that this might not have happened, and in a tie situation Dusk would win because of his BG. In any case, I can’t state enough how well Leet played and in my opinion, he was one of the most pleasant surprises of the game.
OM – Mafia Role Checker
Another weak info role. OM was the mafia DLE for this game in the sense that everyone thought he was mafia because…I’m not really sure? I believe it was because Former and co. felt that his role didn’t make sense with M2H and Cancerous’s inspection roles but I don’t really see why…This essentially meant there wasn’t a lot of game for OM to play since I think town assumed he was mafia. Not sure how/if he tried to combat this perception but nothing really happened on that front as far I could perceive. Late game I think he would’ve been lynched had I not messed up. OM I believe was one of the last to signup so I’m thankful for that.
Concluding Thoughts
Smogon Mafia holds a special place in my heart since I started playing in…2012? 7 years feels like a long time and also doesn’t. It seems weird to me that games were so popular back then or even 3 years ago and now it really seems like information management mafia is on its last legs. It’s crazy that there was a time where there were literally multiple 25 player games being played at the same time and now it’s a struggle to get players for a 12 player game. While that’s kinda disappointing to think about, I’m grateful that I got to experience most of that, with all the good things and bad. It’s weird to think that I’ve changed a lot since I started playing. I hope that I’ve become a better person to play with. Winning or losing aside, nothing feels better than getting people interested and more involved with the game, and I feel that I have been a positive influence in that regard - that’s an accomplishment that holds the most weight to me. I don’t know if this game really accomplished that, but I hope it did.
As far as this game goes, I’m happy with what it was. Sure, things could’ve been better and balance could’ve been tweaked but for the most part I think it really showcased what I feel is a “good” Smogon OC for what it’s become. While the game I think was “balanced” I do wonder about whether it was “fun” and this kind of goes back to my thought on getting people more involved. I think while I tried to give people more agency, less “powerful” roles did make things more difficult. I guess then it’s difficult to balance balance and fun – which is why I like the multifaction format because a lot of the fun comes from working with a team; people you know for sure you can trust. Honestly, I’m surprised people haven’t tried to make more multifactions. If mafia vs village is a little restricting, multifaction is super open to different interpretations and mechanics – just check out the many games from the past. If I do try and make another game, that’s what I’ll be exploring.
Thanks to everyone for joining and letting me host a silly game that I put together. It sucks what happened, but at this point I’m grateful that I got to host it at all. I don’t really know what the future holds in terms of the games I host or even the subforum but I hope there will still be good times to come.
gg
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I think I owe to both everyone who played/followed this game to write something up to provide some closure to this game. At the very least, I have to do it for myself. Skip this part if you don’t want to read me wallowing in self-misery. (note that I’m editing this a month later so while my feelings definitely are not quite as strong, I still hope that this postgame conveys my thoughts as accurate as possible).
Fuck me. I think what bothers me so much is not just making the mistake, but it’s making the mistake knowing that I sat on this game for a year plus and that this is probably the culmination of anything I will ever make for this format of mafia. I didn’t want to admit that this format is broken or not fun but unfortunately I think I will have to concede the point. And that makes it extraordinarily frustrating/bittersweet. Because I don’t think I’ll ever want to host a game like this and even if I do (ok honestly it’s like 50/50 I might want to) I don’t think I’ll be able to. It’s easy to see the flaws and the difficulty in having everyone engage. What I think is a good point for the format (i.e. you actually don’t need to be incredibly active to play – you can play and do little and that’s ok!), doesn’t actually work out when people have 0 interest in even just submitting an action. Ultimately, what’s also incredibly frustrating is that this game ended up being most of what I hoped for. It was coming down to the wire and each faction had a legitimate chance to win. Objectivity aside, the game was balanced as far as each faction had opportunities to progress and ultimately win the game. The fact that we’ll never know who would have eventually wins because of something stupid I did makes me incredibly sad/upset. I’m not sure why I care so much – maybe it’s because I’ve spent too much time on this dumb subforum. But in case it wasn’t obvious, I truly was invested in this game and for it to be lost because of my idiocy fucking blows. I just – ugh – I have no one to blame but myself.
In any case, thanks to everyone who said they had fun. I’m glad at least some enjoyment was to be had. Thanks guys.
In any case, thanks to everyone who said they had fun. I’m glad at least some enjoyment was to be had. Thanks guys.
The birth of a game
The concept of this game delved from the fact that I was tired of hearing complaints about the format but was also tired of seeing the same tropes from other games that I thought were unfair/unfun/broken. This game was my vision of the “ideal” mafia versus village game at a basic format (meaning, no major game-deviating mechanics). How can I make a Smogon mafia that incorporates the basic ideas of what a Smogon mafia is while keeping it true to what I think makes a game good. This game was meant to be a reflection on what I thought makes mafia fun and what I think makes mafia a game of mafia (even as many of us know, outside contact really doesn’t resemble what “mafia” is).
I made each faction with a clear “theme” in mind. The town centered around vote control – in mafia, the idea is that the town controls the lynch, while the mafia does their thing at night. Roles like lynch redirector I think are really whack because it warps away from the basic idea of the game. The mafia should control the night and the village the day. I wanted those lines to be clearly defined or at least defined enough that people could potentially catch on to it. It’s funny that a lot of vote control roles are considered mafia by their very nature, so I hoped to play on that as well. The “village leader” system is the best to way to play and I tried to nerf it by having the village have no protection roles and instead give them to mafia/neutrals. This sort of backfired in the end, but the idea was that the village wouldn’t expect this and it would give the mafia strong fakeclaims that they could use to their advantage.
The idea behind the unique role rule was to give the mafia an out to claim their actual role in case they were lazy. I think this meant that the mafia suffered in terms of power because they were left with roles that gave little utility beyond information which was being shared with the village in most cases. My ideal mafia team is probably centered around disrupting information as much as possible. I cut the Hooker due to the game having to become smaller in size but that probably would’ve been more useful versus a watcher. The alias swapper is a cool role that can’t be used in normal games for obvious reasons. I’m not a huge fan of the host giving out safe claims because I don’t think I should have to play the game for the mafia but I think I could’ve helped the mafia out by giving them the names of at least one if not more NPC aliases. I think this would’ve allowed them even more freedom in terms of creating chaos, which is what I wanted. I also think results stealer would’ve been better served on the mafia since that would let it be both an information and disruptive role. Maybe the numbers weren’t there to give all the roles I wanted to the mafia, but overall I felt there was a decent mix of “safe” roles vs. obviously suspicious roles that would slow the village down.
The neutrals I think were also good. The NPC Creator role ended up being worse than I thought because it quickly became too obvious he was behind them? I’m still not sure if the rate of robot gain was the “right” number but I do think his access to a multitude of roles made him able to potentially succeed in numerous late game positions. His partner’s role was meant to be more supportive – keep him alive and potentially mole the village. It kind of felt like this team was prone to losing more often than not but maybe that’s ok because it should be hard to win as a wolf/third party? But I felt that I gave this team more than enough tools to leverage the abilities they did have to get into a position to do well and win assuming they didn’t get unlucky (e.g. crossfire).
Passives were a good addition I think and complicated the game. I probably could’ve worded Ninja better though since it seems like people misunderstood it. The one I wish I treated differently was NPC. I realized mid-game that how I wanted to deal with NPC inspections broke the no-bamboozle rule if I simply said Alias had no alignment or role or etc. The way I dealt with it was good but honestly it was probably too strong given that it made the user unable to be inspected. I guess the issue with passives is that they don’t add agency to the game but they served their purpose well in this one by complicating things for everyone involved. It’s much harder to clear the entire village when a lot of the game can’t be cleared by inspection, which is what I wanted.
Slots weren’t randomized. I tried to be as fair as possible in dividing roles without “overpowering” any one side or person. For that reason, the players I deemed to be stronger I deliberately gave trickier roles to work with. Players who I felt had “potential” or were new I wanted to give stronger roles to keep them involves and hopefully encourage them to participate. Players who I was worried might idle I gave more traditional “boring” roles. Sorry about that, but I think it was a necessary evil to balance the game. Ultimately though, the hope was that everyone regardless of role would recognize that they would need to be active in some way once it was realized that there was no way for the town to win by finding the mafia purely mechanically. Same went for the mafia – AG and hal were given roles that would be hard to fit in on a town whereas Leet and CsYager were given strong “town” roles that would hopefully let them fit in better and utilize that to their advantage – if they so desired. The neutrals were two players who I felt were strong players but were relatively untested in the OC format. I was impressed by bluedoom’s recent play in the last couple of NOCs and felt Dusk would be a perfect partner who could play smart and support bluedoom given his recent good play and nomination to the mafia championships, but would also probably be under the radar as far as a neutral player could go. The same concept applied to the town, where I tried to avoid giving the more experienced players more clearable/easy roles.
It’s hard to tell if any one side was “broken.” I think the JOAT role was probably too weak and too obvious – Dusk seemed to be more powerful when he had a nightly kill, although honestly it’s hard to tell given that the neutrals severely underused the NPC Creator. I think the town seemed underwhelming too, but I maintain that they of their own accord got rid of their best roles – the target mayor and the lynch securer. I think the idea that the village loses once they lose majority restricts how villages are built because it implies that the only way for them to succeed is to succeed from the start. It’s very difficult to come back so I wanted to give them outs where losing numbers wasn’t exactly the end of the world as long as certain town roles played/hid well. Unfortunately, I guess we’ll never know if I gave the town enough tools to survive and possibly win in an endgame situation in which they were behind in numbers.
The flavor of the game was inspired from askaninjask’s billymills mafia where he did the same thing with Wikipedia. I always found that amusing and copied it. Perhaps I should’ve randomized some more to get some actual pages with content. I tried to have fun with it but keep it simple since for this game flavor wasn’t meant to be important. Flavor isn’t important as mafia games go but I think when done right it’s very enjoyable. Yeti’s games are the most obvious example of well done flavor and while I don’t think I could ever reach that level, I at least tried to make it somewhat amusing!
The Game
Night 0
This night was…eventful to say the least. I originally thought that the mafia was at fault for AG’s result getting stolen but in reality the reverse martyr would’ve stopped their plan in the first place (wow, me forgetting how a reverse martyr works? theme much?). I don’t know, I guess they could’ve played it safer but there’s nothing wrong with the plan. They got doubly unlucky that it was Former’s alias they targeted, which just added to AG looking real bad the next day.
The other major event was that the NEUTRALS decided to clean Former. This turned out to be a bizarre decision primarily because they didn’t do anything to try and capitalize on this event, as far as I’m aware. It’s an interesting idea and a good one if it works out and bluedoom is able to get into the town circle. But nothing I saw showed him making any progress on that front or even trying, so it seemed to me as if they just ended up clearing Former for no real gain or reason. This was especially frustrating to me when Dusk complained later on in the game about “oh there’s nothing you can do but follow the village leader” which was very ??? to me because they created the whole leading scenario! Good play by Former to take advantage of this all and get himself cleaned. Other than that nothing else super exciting happened afaik.
Day 1
AG was lynched because his result was stolen and he couldn’t really pretend to be a villager given that Former’s results were stolen. It was clear he was guilty and so lynched he was.
Aura Guardian – Mafia Role Swapper
I really liked this role and was sad to see it gone so early. It’s a unique power for alias games only and is a good role because of how it can complicate the game and force people to think. It potentially would’ve caused a lot of havoc in the game but obviously we never got to see it happen. I think a lot of the mafia’s power was in this role and losing it early really sucked for them. I know the mafia team was pretty demoralized. I have no complaints about AG’s play; I felt bad for him because he asked to be mafia and didn’t really get a chance to do his thing through no fault of his own. Alas, that’s how mafia is – sometimes you get lucky and other times you do not.
Night 1
Former began working on gathering claims and clearing people. For some reason, OM was seen as mafia, which he was, albeit for reasons that weren’t very clear other than cancerous and Mewtwo also being inspect roles. This led to his result being stolen for a while, which again was very unlucky for the mafia. The NEUTRALS made some more confusing decisions. They decided to protect Former, which was somewhat defensible. Then they decided to have bluedoom idle which was confusing? OK, maybe they wanted to stack bots to kill lots of people. I was pissed off about this because M2H was inspecting bluedoom and I thought for sure he was going to be lynched and there goes a major balancing agent in the game who wasn’t going to get to use their kills. I guess the bodyguard was fine in hindsight but idling was not a good play. I think it would’ve only made sense to idle with the expectation that bluedoom was going to get entrance into the information circle, which wasn’t going to happen given that Former was having him inspected. The mafia tried to kill Former and very sadly ran into Dusk’s bodyguard. Their bad fortune continued.
Day 2
M2H received a neutral result on bluedoom and so Former decided to…rand an alias? I don’t think this was a good decision, but then again, bluedoom had expressed interesting in working with Former iirc. Bluedoom made a really smart save by claiming to be a harmless neutral which Former believed. The rules specified that a faction could only win by themselves so Former probably should’ve known this wasn’t the case, but I can’t blame him. That said, without having a clear alias to lynch, risking an NPC lynch was not worth risking a guaranteed neutral lynch. Former thought Pot of Greed was DLE, who he thought was mafia because DLE claimed near deadline. It wasn’t anyone and so the mafia caught a first break.
Night 2
Did I mention the mafia catching a break? This time they ran into DLE’s BPV, literally the village’s only form of night protection. I believe they thought Propodus was important because Former had Leet rev mar that alias the night before. That wasn’t the case. I think after this night hal and friends wanted to surrender. I can’t say I blame them for feeling so disheartened at this point. The NEUTRALS continued their interesting play by deciding to do what Former wanted??? This was the decision that made literally no sense to me. I don’t understand why, after knowing the Town knew bluedoom was a neutral they decided they were just going to do what he asked??? And just waste the bots?? I guess the hope was that bluedoom could stay under the radar long enough to unleash a barrage against the village.
Actually that couldn’t be the hope because the NEUTRALS decided to have bluedoom contact Da Letter El on the belief he was mafia because of what Former was saying? DLE, contrary to what nearly everyone in the entire game believed, was actually not mafia and was indeed a member of the town. So naturally the NEUTRALS were unable to make contact with the mafia and their entire conversation got leaked to the town. I’ll be fair here and say that I guess the thought process was thought communication with the mafia was desirable (good call) and that DLE was probably mafia because that’s what Former thought and had probably communicated to bluedoom/Dusk. That said, it seemed like a really random decision to go down that path this specific night when they could’ve waited until an actual alias was being lynched but IDK. Nothing else that noteworthy really happened.
Day 3
Bluedoom was quite obviously lynched here. I wonder who would’ve been the target had last night’s shenanigans not happened. Possibly DLE? For whatever reason, I think he was still suspected although I think the town core (consisting of zorbees/FH/M2H) were coming around on him.
Bluedoom – Neutral NPC Creator
I thought his role made for a decent wolf. He was obviously gated by having to use bots, but I think that was a fair restriction. Maybe it would’ve been more interesting to have a singular wolf but open up his abilities and let him use all of the once a night. For smaller factions, I think you have to accept that they are prone to getting randed out of the game. For that reason, it’s appropriate to give them the tools to succeed in as many positions as possible. I think this role did that – lots of things that could’ve been fake-claimed, a passive that prevented most inspections, and abilities that could and would win the lategame. This is a good trade-off I think.
Bluedoom’s play was below average I think. I don’t blame him for how he played because I think he and Dusk were pretty disjointed – at least in the sense that they didn’t adequately bounce ideas off of each other. Bluedoom had a lot of good ideas but these ideas lacked an end result that would be beneficial for him. Clearing Former was fine IF he could leverage that to get on the sheet. I don’t think he even tried which is not the best play IMO. Saving bots was fine but not using them after being found was a mistake. Lying to Former about his win con was a great play. I still think bluedoom is a good, probably great player but I feel I needed to team him up with someone who would’ve better supported him and help him execute his ideas. In that vein, I wish I put AG as his partner. Sorry, I feel like I came off super negative towards this faction so if you read this bluedoom, while I think you didn’t play optimally all the time, I do think you did do well in certain areas and I do think you put in a decent effort. And that’s all I can and have ever asked for. Thanks for playing.
Night 3
This is where the village started throwing. The obvious big action here is Former deciding he needed to vig Alex. Former has his reasons, but I would maintain those reasons were not very good. I feel like Former didn’t really think about the roles themselves that people were claiming, which worked out sometimes (see: OM) and not others. In this instance, I’m not even sure if I’ve ever seen a strictly mafia mayor. Apparently Alex had accused Former of being a wolf or something, but his role just seemed to reek town to me. I guess it must’ve been good design if his role was enough to clear him so I’m glad for that at least!
At this point, Former added Cancerous and Dusk to the sheet. I think these were OK things to do. This did however result in Dusk killing a member of the town in zorbees. He originally forgot about Leet’s reverse martyr and was going to kill him but then changed his action. The mafia also got their kill off onto DLE again, which was smart. The DLE kill was unfortunate because he was heavily suspected, but couldn’t be helped. Perhaps it would’ve been better to keep him alive at this point since he was functionally vanilla, but I think the mafia were in a position where they had to start getting town numbers down.
Zorbees – Town Results Stealer
This is another cool role I’m glad I included. I meant for it to be a “suspicious” role but that went out the window after his results night 0. In hindsight, I should’ve swapped this with the mafia results destroyer. It was just too powerful of a role for the village because of how it could negatively effect the mafia’s roles. It would’ve made more sense to put a nerfed version on the village, one that would’ve been more suspect too. I think zorbees played well. He butted heads with Former on plans but I think for the most part they worked out their differences. Don’t know how much input he had on the night he died where Former did some funky stuff with actions. Overall I felt he provided a nice foil to Former’s leadership and kept him in check as much as possible. It would’ve been interesting to see how he would’ve dealt with the suspicion had he been seen as mafia, but alas, that wasn’t on the cards. I think he played well, if lucky.
Alexander489 – Town Target Mayor
This was another role that I think was really cool! Mayor is such a dull role and I tried to spice it up by making it an action, which at least means it can get interrupted. This role had the potential to carry the town if it got to the late game, assuming it gained enough votes in either a positive or negative direction. However, I don’t think people truly thought of this role like that, which is too bad. I did not expect this role to get vig’d even with the NPC passive. Even with the modification, I felt bad giving someone this role, knowing that it would be fairly low impact until late-game. I wanted to give the new users roles that I felt would engage them – this role probably did not meet that standard. I have no qualms about how Alex played. He submitted an action and seemed like he tried to play the game and that’s all I can ask for. Apparently Former found him suspicious because Alex accused him of being a wolf? Or something? Idk. I think viging Alex was a big error. I just don’t see how there was that much scum equity on a role like this. I guess maybe without recognizing the town theme, yeah, but I dunno. I think Alex was unlucky to die as he did.
Da Letter El – Town BPV/Backup
Another neat modification to a normally boring role. I gave the backup player a choice – instead of inheriting or anything like that, you choose what dead role to backup whenever you want. The cost is that you have to do it before your BPV pops, which creates an interesting choice of waiting to backup, or taking advantage of it while you can. Ultimately, DLE had a pretty crazy time which is funny because he was definitely skating by. For some reason, everyone thought he was mafia…except the mafia who thought he was an Important Village Role. The mafia thought this because Former had Leet protect him night 1, not knowing that he did that just to test roles, not because he was important. Former thought DLE was mafia because he claimed 10 minutes before deadline ????? Idk. It’s super hard for me to see the thought process behind a Backup being mafia…I thought this would be a pretty clear cut town role but evidently not (and for that I’m glad!). I thought DLE did a good job for the circumstances he found himself in, and it was certainly amusing to see him being accused of all sorts of different things.
Day 4
Cs got lynched. He had basically been outed as mafia for a while.
CsYager – Mafia Watcher
Watcher I think is probably the strongest role in mafia. Full role cop is probably the strongest but throw in mole and millers and maybe not. Watcher is so powerful because its truth is guaranteed and it definitively tells you what someone(s) did. This role was absolutely meant to be used as a safe claim and get within the village circle. Sadly, it was not used that way. CS got thrown to the wayside because hal used his alias as part of his fakeclaim. As soon as that happened, CS had no alias to claim which meant that he had a really tight timeframe to try and come up with anything near a convincing story. I think Former entertained him for a bit and CS put on a good show but it was just that – a show. I give a lot of props to CS for sticking with it, even though he was in a bad spot. I wish he had been used a little differently. I think he was someone who could’ve benefitted a lot from teammates who could’ve guided him more and if he was online more often; having to play through PMs definitely slowed his learning curve. Overall, I think he had fun and I enjoyed seeing him play, which was all I could have asked for.
Night 4
At this point, Former was convinced he had been moled and took a couple steps to try and figure it out. He felt it was either Cancerous or Dusk. I was a little out of the loop on this one but he put fake actions into the main shared sheet and then distributed different actions off of a sheet that I don’t believe I had access to. IDK, the actions submitted were kinda weird. I don’t know why Leet was on Dusk instead of protecting Former himself but yeah. I also don’t understand why Former had toni target someone who he knew was 88% ascetic – I guess he thought they were both mafia? Idk. Dusk killed Toni this cycle because he thought toni was mafia and wanted to even the numbers. Shooting OM I figured was probably the more obvious choice so I was surprised he went with toni when I found out why he targeted toni. This was another bad night for the town especially as M2H was only able to clear Cancerous. Also Jacaranda should’ve died here but I didn’t kill it off. I was thinking of Former’s vig more like a hooker instead of a kill, which it actually was. This luckily was a recoverable mistake and I thought it would be the last mistake of the game for me…
Tonithetourguide – Town Silencer
The silencer is a pretty staple role. Usually it’s on the mafia so I threw it on the town as potential mislynch bait (plus it was a vote affecting role). The silencer is mostly a pretty irrelevant role given that the thread is pretty irrelevant. Perhaps a future game can find a use for it as a way to pseudo-kill in conjunction with something like a persuade. As for Toni, they joined my game when I asked which I really appreciate! He wasn’t the most active and I had to remind him to submit his action a couple of times. But he always came through. And really, that’s all I wanted. So thanks.
Former – Town NPC Vigilante
This was a very very neutered vigilante. I think a full-on vig is just too powerful in village hands when 9 times out of 10 they know who the mafia is. This role let the town still have some agency and ability in viging, but limited them to a select few roles. It also gave them a way to check for NPCs, which was useful enough. I think it probably would’ve felt more useful had I put more NPCs in the game. Honestly, for what this role was, I really didn’t think it would be a leader role. But as things happened, the wolves decided to gift the village and clean Former for free. I think Former did a good job all things considered. Being village leader is probably the most important role in the game and with all the information, it’s expected for there to be some mistakes. Former’s read of the game was mostly pretty good – sometimes he got lucky in being right for the wrong reasons, and sometimes he was just wrong. I think the big mistakes came down to viging Alex really. Getting moled was not really his fault and it was a decision that made sense. I appreciated his willingness to try and get people involved and play the game. It’s easy to go all UncleSam and rule with an iron fist, and maybe that would’ve helped him out. But instead he tried to be open and inclusive and I respect that. All things considered, Former could’ve been better, but I think he set up his team to be in a position to win which is all you can really ask for.
Day 5
The village really really wanted to get rid of the extra kill, which I think they were right to do so. Unfortunately the man pegged as the wolf was not the wolf and had also not submitted an action when his role was very provable. Moody probably had the most clear town role in the game and yet found himself getting lynched. Spinning his way out of this one was just not possible, I think and really there was no one to blame but himself. All he had to do was target really any other alias (or get a mafia alias from M2H) and he was fine. But nope, there was little evidence for Moody to point to towards his innocence beyond the brokenness of the role he was claiming.
Moody – Town Lynch Securer
Yay, another cool role I came up with! Redirectors are very much a mafia thing and people saw this as a kind of redirector and were suspicious of it. The idea behind this role was that it would enable the town to keep a lynch majority even if they lost the numerical person majority. As a result, this role had the potential to be extremely powerful. Unfortunately we never got to see it activate so whether or not it balanced the village I guess we won’t ever know. Moody had some interesting ideas in the beginning to use his role, but then became inactive. I had to prod him a couple times to get an action. It’s too bad because literally using this once early game I think would’ve perma-cleared him (and that’s what I expected to happen pre-game). Someone should’ve taken the authority and done something with this role. But no one did, and so it became a big question mark. I think that it should have been obvious from the get-go that no mafia would claim this role and that it was way too powerful to be anything but town but I also can’t blame M2H and the rest of the village for suspecting and voting Moody after his failure to convince them of him being town. Moody I think is a low-key very good player but he does have a tendency to afk from time to time (I can relate to that very much…) This game wasn’t one of his best but, hey things happen and it kept the game interesting so thanks for amusing me at least!
Jalmont Fucks Up
Fuck man, everything was getting so spicy. Was Dusk going to do it? The mafia had a very good chance of making something happen? And you couldn’t count the town and their numbers out either. If OM was lynched as was going to happen before you know what, the game would have been very wide open. I can’t exactly predict what would’ve happened but a lot was riding on who the town was going to lynch. Whydon and Samoyed were the mislynch baits while there was still an outside chance that one or both of Dusk/Leet would be lynched. Lynching one would’ve put the town in a really good spot, while failing to lynch one would probably leave the town as loser. Unfortunately none of this was to be.
I made the mistake because I got lazy with coming up with results in my sheet. So the big lesson is, don’t get complacent and write down the results that you think you should give out before actually giving them out and double check that.
Sigh – moving on.
Samoyed – Town Persuader
Same idea as the silencer. It’s a vote control role so it gives the town more breathing space plus doubles as a role commonly seen on the mafia! Perfect. Samo tried his best and the beginning to do some spicy stuff involving creating a server and inviting people to it. I don’t think anything came out of it but I was happy to see him try something nonetheless. I think Samo was largely left alone for most of the game – not really sure how much he was suspected but he was definitely a big question mark. I think his early antics would’ve been strong enough to clear him but at the same time I don’t think anyone put a lot of stock into that. He’s been turning into a sneaky strong player after a long run of being AWOL in many games so I was excited to see if he would have been able to defend himself. I have no complaints on his gameplay; he tried something fun early and then sent his actions in. Thanks.
M2H – Town Alignment Checker
Pretty standard role here. Lots of passive abilities to run into though so had the potential to be fairly ineffective. I thought M2H played really well. I wanted this role to be given to a more “under the radar player” in terms of smogon play and felt he fit the bill and I wasn’t wrong. He did a good job working with Former at first in leading the village and then in taking the mantle himself. Although he wasn’t catching on to Dusk or Leet, I don’t really blame him for that. It’s hard to rate how he did without having the rest of the game play out because I do think there was opportunity for him to correct his mistakes (which is what mafia is all about anyways). For the most part, his activity was very strong and he did a good job of leading regardless of the mistakes he did make. Thanks a lot for your energy my man, I think you were definitely one of the most active players and one of the best on the town.
Cancerous – Town Passive Checker
So I actually miscalculated roles and cut one town role too many. The sample role I posted was actually a role I cut lol. I felt bad having to give someone one of the weaker roles and I ended up choosing Cancerous. I don’t know, I think this role isn’t as useless as I thought it might be because passives were so prevalent and potentially damaging. I guess it’s pretty similar to a role cop albeit a tad more useless. Unluckily, we never really found out how useful this role would’ve been because Cancerous had his results destroyed all game by the mafia. I was happy to see that Cancerous took this role in his stride and drove onwards to be a part of the game in unorthodox ways. He tried to set up a fake conversation with DLE where he pretended to be a neutral. He targeted FORT with this antic and I think had some laughs although there wasn’t a lasting impact, but who cares, the attempt was funny so it gets an A from me. Otherwise, Cancerous did manage to get in the town circle although he was suspected of being the mole. M2H cleared him the night before I called the game so he was bound to become a key town voice. I was super happy to see Cancerous play the way he did and have fun with the game even though his role wasn’t necessarily the greatest. I appreciate that I lot so thanks for everything my dude.
Dusk – Neutral Bodyguard
This role will always be a bodyguard to me regardless of what it’s called elsewhere. This is always such an “obvious” town role and I have always felt that with the strength of the village leader, there’s really no need to give the town a protection role. I guess it’s the same thing with the lynch – if the town controls the lynch, the mafia should be free to control their kill without worrying about it getting interrupted…for the most part. I put the role into the game because I felt like it would most definitely get on a sheet and also gave the neutrals the choice to follow the leader and protect someone they probably shouldn’t be or use that information to kill potentially important roles. In hindsight, I think this disadvantaged the mafia too much so it probably wasn’t a good idea. Still, I felt like this role gave the neutrals a lot of power which they needed with less people (and being prone to mafia crossfire). Dusk I think started off pretty poorly but then transitioned to playing very well. I feel like I was too harsh on him over the course of the game but I won’t lie that I was super frustrated with how he was playing because it felt like he was just giving the game to the town. Him making a comment about how “town always wins lol!” on like day 3 when everything was going town’s way was super ??? to me because he and bluedoom had essentially set them up entirely for success! But I will give him a lot of credit that after that he did well to get within the village circle and use that to his advantage. I feel bad that I fucked him over twice and that I didn’t give him the opportunity to really redeem himself and win. If I had to bet on it, I think Dusk was in the best position to do so. Alas. Thanks for playing even though I know these games aren’t really your speed.
Whydon – Town Safeguard
This role is pretty straightforward. It’s probably more useful/interesting in games with more actions flying around than this one. I asked Whydon to join and he did and I am grateful for that. He submitted his actions on time and that’s all I wanted. I think he would’ve been suspected late game as mafia so I would’ve loved to see how he would’ve handled that. Still, I appreciate him joining and playing the game. Thanks man.
Apricity – Mafia Results Destroyer
This is a nifty role because of the potential chaos it can cause. Roles that cause chaos with information I think should become staples in future OC games (if there is a future). Town v mafia is all about information and destroying information just makes things so much harder. This role had a lot of potential with the alias swapper but it just didn’t pan out. The mafia resorted to using this to basically take Cancerous out of the game. Hal is one the most creative/smartest players that I have seen and I really liked his approach to this game at first. I wish I had given him more tools for fake claims (eg adding more aliases) because his fake claim was very interesting I thought and had there been no BG, one that would’ve been harder for the town to suspect. My one criticism one his play was that he wasn’t really the leader that I wanted him to be for the mafia. It obviously didn’t help the other veteran in AG was gone early, but I felt like too often his plan was the only one he was interested in pursuing. And in fairness, that was probably the right play. But it would’ve been nice to see him get his teammates involved more, get their input into plans, and try to put them in positions to succeed. I know he was on vacation for a large portion of time and I obviously understand that it’s hard to be online 24/7 and I definitely think that his team didn’t really put in an effort to try and get super involved so this isn’t like a huge criticism or anything. But I feel like roles like CS were underutilized when they perhaps were better placed to try and get an in on the village and mess up information for them. That said, I think hal played well and he was super creative in his usage of roles and his fake claim. Honestly, it’s a wonder he survived so long and it’s interesting to think what he could’ve planned late game. I know this game was a little frustrating for him, but thanks to him for sticking it out and putting in a good effort.
Fear Only Rotten Toads – Town Tracker
Straightfoward role. It’s a good information gainer without being too powerful so others can play around it. I didn’t know what to expect from FORT but I gave him a fairly strong role to keep him interested in the game and from going AWOL. I feel like he put a decent amount of thought in this game. I think he would’ve been a key player for the town in the endgame which is especially a shame because I think he was mostly on the periphery of the game and was just about to become a pivotal character and would’ve hopefully been really drawn into the game. As things stood, that didn’t happen but regardless I think he did his job, submitted actions, and tried his best, so thanks. Would love to see you play more on circus but it doesn’t seem like that will happen? Oh well, maybe sometime in the future! =]
Hitmonleet – Mafia Reverse Martyr
Evidently reverse martyr is a role that is confusing to everyone, including the host. I have always liked it as a role because its something that you really have to think about using (although I guess it’s also just a meat shield). Leet was a standout performer for the mafia – he said he wished he wasn’t mafia at the beginning of the game and then ended up being the key mafia member. His role was another one that naturally just seems like a town role because what use is it on the mafia? An underappreciated aspect of a role like this is that Leet got info on potentially strong town roles based on who he was told to target. This backfired with regards to DLE because the mafia thought he was a strong role when the reasoning for Leet to target him was actually just to check actions. That said, Leet did very well individually. While he could’ve maybe been a stronger voice within his team, I’m not sure that’s necessarily his game. I was pleasantly surprised by how strongly he played in getting into the village circle. He made all the right moves, especially in the beginning by acting involved and wanting to solve the game which I think helped Former trust him. I don’t think he was suspected at all by the time the game was called. Could he have pulled out a win? Absolutely – I think it all came down to whether or not the town and Leet could manage to figure out Dusk was the mole. If Leet was able to figure this out and get him lynched/night kill him then I don’t think anyone would suspect him and it would be fairly easy to get a mislynch in the final 3. That said, I think it’s also very possible that this might not have happened, and in a tie situation Dusk would win because of his BG. In any case, I can’t state enough how well Leet played and in my opinion, he was one of the most pleasant surprises of the game.
OM – Mafia Role Checker
Another weak info role. OM was the mafia DLE for this game in the sense that everyone thought he was mafia because…I’m not really sure? I believe it was because Former and co. felt that his role didn’t make sense with M2H and Cancerous’s inspection roles but I don’t really see why…This essentially meant there wasn’t a lot of game for OM to play since I think town assumed he was mafia. Not sure how/if he tried to combat this perception but nothing really happened on that front as far I could perceive. Late game I think he would’ve been lynched had I not messed up. OM I believe was one of the last to signup so I’m thankful for that.
Concluding Thoughts
Smogon Mafia holds a special place in my heart since I started playing in…2012? 7 years feels like a long time and also doesn’t. It seems weird to me that games were so popular back then or even 3 years ago and now it really seems like information management mafia is on its last legs. It’s crazy that there was a time where there were literally multiple 25 player games being played at the same time and now it’s a struggle to get players for a 12 player game. While that’s kinda disappointing to think about, I’m grateful that I got to experience most of that, with all the good things and bad. It’s weird to think that I’ve changed a lot since I started playing. I hope that I’ve become a better person to play with. Winning or losing aside, nothing feels better than getting people interested and more involved with the game, and I feel that I have been a positive influence in that regard - that’s an accomplishment that holds the most weight to me. I don’t know if this game really accomplished that, but I hope it did.
As far as this game goes, I’m happy with what it was. Sure, things could’ve been better and balance could’ve been tweaked but for the most part I think it really showcased what I feel is a “good” Smogon OC for what it’s become. While the game I think was “balanced” I do wonder about whether it was “fun” and this kind of goes back to my thought on getting people more involved. I think while I tried to give people more agency, less “powerful” roles did make things more difficult. I guess then it’s difficult to balance balance and fun – which is why I like the multifaction format because a lot of the fun comes from working with a team; people you know for sure you can trust. Honestly, I’m surprised people haven’t tried to make more multifactions. If mafia vs village is a little restricting, multifaction is super open to different interpretations and mechanics – just check out the many games from the past. If I do try and make another game, that’s what I’ll be exploring.
Thanks to everyone for joining and letting me host a silly game that I put together. It sucks what happened, but at this point I’m grateful that I got to host it at all. I don’t really know what the future holds in terms of the games I host or even the subforum but I hope there will still be good times to come.
gg