OC Circus Maximus and the Temple Mafia of Doom - Game Over, Town Relics Win!

[Yeti]

Voice call postgame/we play Resistance or Jackbox or Betrayal or Among Us or whatever tf else one can play will kick off at 6pm Pacific on Saturday.

 

[ImaginaryNeon]

Postgame Part 2​

The Mafia:

Rather than dissect individual misplays by the mafia members, of which there were multiple, I will instead use this section to offer some helpful advice for our intrepid youngsters. Some shoutouts to good moments:

Realiti: probably the best mechanical player with the strongest action submissions and most direction with his choices. Master of RNG picking strong village aliases, too. I am uncertain why NE refused to sheep those submissions and changed them to his own picks, realiti was bigbraining!
Ecat: great fakeclaim, a bold move picking full BG but well-rewarded by the village lacking a BG due to the temple mechanics. Got a misvote onto M2H D1 with his claim! Has great “I’m noobtown” energy.
AP/DBD: two promising whippersnappers who need to hone their craft and consider how they come off in public to let them blend in. Mafia’s not all mechanics, it’s a social game, too. These guys def have the sauce to become great.
Celever: certified not a pussy. Was proud he got his fake together and claimed ASAP, the village didn’t have much suspicion on him outside of the overlapping claim with pulsar. I think if he didn’t die to RNG he could have gone far this game.
NE: absolute master of server organization. With some mentorship to refine his action choices and direction I think he will be an excellent player with a lot of energy. Would love to see him get ‘a sweat’ to help sharpen the blade next game.
Laurel: made a hard pivot on his social game when he realized it was tanking him and he needed to buy time to get the Sheep’s Clothing onto himself. Excellent recalculation of his tactics. I think he’s another who could benefit from a mentor helping him learn how to direct his energy.
Jalmont: was not feeling great a lot of the game but did his best to provide guidance to his team when he could and accurately read all the early scumclaiming as townies to avoid. I know he may not be the most proud of his performance but I saw effort and commitment to the cause.
Bluedoom: very ambitious fake that made the village leadership doubt it was a fake at all because of the levels to it. Step above the usual easy-to-catch mafia fakes - though it was a little too complex to sustain in the long run. Would love to see him go to the next level in the next game, either with moling or with leadership.
Flandrs and Day were not super active while alive and the former was voted out D2, but I hope they enjoyed the experience all the same and will take some of the lessons from this game into their next one! Zorbees was also an early death but I think he did well trying to get himself cozied up to LN for help with poisoning, etc.

The mafia move pool:

All-temple hooker (this hooks everyone in your specified TEMPLE):
Meant to punish publicizing fortification and turtling there, or good moling to figure out where multiple villagers were going.
Single-target hooker (this hooks the specified ALIAS):
A more standard and targeted means of disabling an ability.
Single-target martyr:
No martyr was on the village so this would let mafia fakeclaim a pretty darn believable role, and have some hooker-esque disruption.
Safeguard:
Standard.
Bodyguard:
Also standard. One of their best fakeclaims as it turned out.
Thief:
Standard.
All-temple ability inspector (this ability checks everyone in your specified TEMPLE):
Would get alias:ability for everyone in a temple. Meant to reward mafia finding out where people would be, and punish turtling by exposing town info.
Single-target ability inspector:
Reliable means of getting info. This was originally a full inspector but I removed inspectors from the game altogether, which made the Ghost role a little difficult to deal with in retrospect.
2-ALIAS item safeguard:
Kind of bad but like, it’s something to do.
All-temple sheriff (this alliance checks everyone in your specified TEMPLE):
Not the MOST informative thing because if the mafia work together they know what aliases are town, but it lets them scout for where villagers are.
Vote negator (target can vote but it counts for 0):
Was originally persuader but I don’t like giving teams ways to username:alias match. Lets the mafia play with votes in the lategame if they want.
Temple watcher:
Equivalent of the Ghost’s role except it was supposed to see attempted visits as well as successful visits and I think I did not always give results accurately for that, oops.
Temple tracker:
Equivalent of the Zune role, sees where an alias goes.
Fake temple track/watch plant:
Lets them spoof their own aliases onto somewhere they suspect is being checked to not look sus, or spoof someone somewhere they shouldn’t be. This is probably best utilized if the mafia mole and are able to see where the Ghost/Zune are looking.
Mask temple track/watch:
Hides an alias from showing at a temple on track/watch, useful for pretending like you weren’t somewhere you shouldn’t be.
Temple probability/entrance check:
Equivalent of the Two-Party System role except only gives a single temple’s info each night.
Temple redirect:
Forces someone into another temple from their original choice. Can be used to set up big bombs on temples by pushing people in successfully, OR to fail people at the door to solo-kill them.
Item graverobbber (targets dead ALIAS):
Item scavenger, not a great role especially because I let the mafias pass items during the day (I shouldn’t have let anyone pass items at day).
Announcer:
A late addition to the lineup just to give them something else believable to fakeclaim as, if they wanted.
All-temple worst outcome guard:
I did miswrite this role between the sheet and the PM, it was supposed to be single-target but I made it all-temple here and I think had it work as single-target for most of the game until realiti pointed out it said ‘all-temple.’
Temple probability/outcome path - night-based:
This was kind of troll, it was actually a cut village role and was only intended as a very believable and easy to prove fakeclaim. Of course it required long-term commitment to the bit if one went to unique temples, but, I think it was a great way to worm your way in to trust.
Every-Other-Night Delayed Poison:
Arsenic Poisoning / Proper Comedic Timing / Activated Charcoal
Poison Hemlock / Utility Players / Turmeric Root
Delayed poison to give mafia extra KP. Wound up being very bad no good because one mafia only targeted the other with it (cough Comedy) and the village found/fortified Constantine instantly.
Factional Kill:
Would be blocked by BG/being inside a temple. If it was blocked, would unlock temple destruction during the day.
Temple Destruction:
This mechanic let mafia kill an unlimited number of villagers (assuming nobody protected) if they were in an unfortified temple. Obviously moling into the village or luring people to go with you to somewhere like Hagia Sophia was recommended to pull this off. Neither tactic was successfully utilized.

One point of discussion is mafia action economy. With so many actions, they obviously cannot use them all in one night. I would posit that a normal TvM scumteam would only have one action per member, so I don’t feel like having them only choose one ability to use a night is underpowered or out of sorts. I think there is good cause to say that poisoning should have been an ‘in addition to’ like the factional kill, instead of taking the place of a move pool slot.

It was always meant to be a choice, to some degree. It was up to individual mafia members how long they wanted to keep up their fake charades. Bluedoom realized his fake required significant investment of their economy to keep up, and could be caught if the mafia SG was used on a target that was targeted by a non-disruptive. The SG would also block their ability cop, so he couldn’t provide an accurate result. That’s the name of the game. Forsaking your claim’s activities or making a claim that let you not need to provide tangible results was an option. It really depended on how mafia wanted to play it.

Perhaps one track that could’ve been taken is to divide the roles into Tier 1 and Tier 2, with Tier 1 being obvious-mafia-activities like hooking and role copping, and probably a full inspector so they could get surefire info (or making their role cop work different to the village’s on villagers). And the mafia slots could use a Tier 1 and Tier 2 ability each night, 1 for advancing their wincon, 2 for providing fakeclaim cover. In theory, they did not need this. In practice, it may have freed up their economy to punish LN for publicizing too much information, as this didn’t seem to have ever occurred to them around maintaining their fakes and bumbling (sorry) around to get info.

With aliases enabled, the mafia were missing a role that let them watch a temple to see what aliases also targeted the temple (and thus find the Town Crier, Ghost, etc). That’s probably the most valid criticism of mafia weakness in this game, because I really don’t think they WERE weak.

They had the capability to mass-detonate villagers and never really did anything to ensure they could. They weren’t talking to villagers trying to arrange visits. They weren’t pushing their advantages, which very quickly turned into having severe disadvantages. If they coordinated on D2, and Utility stayed on Taq Kasra, that was 5 villagers dead in one cycle. Which is about as many as they killed the rest of the game. Oof.

They had the ability to punish LN severely for publicizing fortified temples. If they all-hooked and ability copped Heaven and Constantine, suddenly you have 10+ villagers saying “I’ve been hooked because I went where LN said!” and maybe people trust him a lot less.

They just didn’t do this. They couldn’t get out of their own ways. One would suggest temple redirecting to ensure a kill went off and the others would hem and haw about doing it until it was deadline and what they submitted wasn’t REALLY optimal, probably because they were greeting for more temple destructions. The problem was, they weren’t using their actions to ensure they knew WHERE to destroy, nor using the social side of the game to root out where villagers were.

My suggestions to aspiring young scumteams:

Start planning your actions before deadline is looming. Please. I feel like there was always a rush at the end by mafia that did not exist on town (by necessity, they have to PM people instructions) and they would kind of ask each other “do you think I should do this?” “should we do that?” and run out of time to really settle on any solid plans. Now, imo, the question you should be asking is, “what do we hope to accomplish doing this?”

It didn’t feel to me like either mafia was really thinking through what they wanted to get out of using their actions, with the exception of, figuring out how to use them for their fakeclaims. They did great on that front imo. But when it came to figuring out what to do with your all-temple hook and all-temple ability checker, the planning fell flat. When realiti took his hand at directing actions he would label what he wanted to happen with the kills and temple redirects, which I thought was extremely helpful, because previously there was a lot of “should we kill-kill or try to bomb” surrounding that.

It probably would have helped if they designated someone to break down the actions and figure out a best use for each one, so when they looked at “what should I do” they could easily pick out “let me do something that disrupts a temple” or whatever.

They would also submit some weird temple choices. This game’s design was for the mafia to be caught by their lies instead of by an inspector checking their aliases in unison. The village had no alias-targeting info role in the traditional sense, only tracker/item result checker/I guess hooker became a tracker. The mafia would then just… lie. About stupid stuff. Town told Laurel to go somewhere and for whatever reason NE wanted him to go to possibly the worst temple he could’ve gone to instead, NE suggested a claim to cover why Laurel went to a random place (not even a temple that gave him anything useful for his troubles lol), being SGed and redirected, and Laurel did not claim that. Which of course exposed he SGed himself and that’s why he didn’t have Tommy’s hook flavor despite being in Cashel. Added benefit of pushing AG further into the “oh this guy is clean actually” area, because AG’s result did line up.

Think about your story before you tell it. Yes, being scum is a little more taxing than being town, because you have to lie about some things. Consider what you are lying about and how you’re keeping your story straight. I think the mafia’s heads started spinning from trying to keep their fakeclaims together and do things that benefited their wincon, so maybe be tracking what lies you tell people so you can easily refer to your established logic for a decision.

I was criticized for not “telling the mafia to make fakes on N0 and guiding them more.” I don’t think this is my job as a host, and I stepped in a little more than I thought a host should have to guide the mafia when it became clear the struggle bus was not slowing down. I also told them to make a channel in their Discord servers FOR fake discussion/planning when I sent the team PM.

I wrote their fakes, I copy/pasted villager wording to keep things consistent, I told them in their team PMs to discuss their fakes, I even let them submit fake flavor so they couldn’t be caught by that, and they STILL would forget to submit flavor to be used for their fakes.



I am not sure what else a host can do if the mafia just forget to submit stuff. Yes, one can argue that “a sweat” on their team would have done the submitting for them, or nagged them to submit themselves. At a certain point, though, I do feel like players need to take full responsibility for their own fake/actions, and ensure that their fake is fully set up without expecting the more experienced person on their team to babysit that process. Or, even worse, expecting the host to babysit it.

Like I really do feel this format was very scum-friendly and gave them a lot of room to be creative with how they moled or disrupted the village. They were able to spoof LN’s role in public, down to the flavor. If they guessed the number right he literally would not have been able to tell which result was his. The capacity was there.

The potential of the move pool was not reached, or, maybe the root issue, grasped by the scumteams. Maybe there were too many options and they just didn’t pick out the most important roles to use for pro-scum activities, instead of ‘how can I support my fakeclaim’ activities.

I do think the mafia came up with some great fakes. Ecat’s BG claim contributed to M2H’s misvote, because his claim was seen as more credible and as a staple of the village. Some of the Utility claims overlapped with villager roles, but were still solid concepts, and led to confusion by the village leaders about the nature of Gmax’s pure-passive role.

I think the newcomers were an eager crop of folks who didn’t really ‘settle down’ into the scum roles and take a good, hard look at their abilities and how to utilize them to disrupt town, despite their proficiency at looking town with good fakes for a while.

I also encourage mafia members to consider HOW you come across in public. Too many of you open gooned by opposing LN when it was clear that dissenting village voices faded away. Yes, the game is not going great for your team. If you make that frustration public, people will suspect you are on the rough times scum team, and not on the town. If you show up with a proofed fake and hand your alias over readily, you will not be on the chopping block for a bit. Sometimes, you need to blend in by your public persona. Sheep LN. Give him a couple strokes (ok maybe don’t do this) of how great he is for voting out a mafia. Don’t give the village leaders an opportunity to be like “lol this guy is so salty and opposed, must be mafia,” if there is not enough on-town dissension for you to blend in with.

Item management was another big issue for both mafias. They both had results-faking items and did not ask enough questions about using them to realize they could spoof LN’s results, which would have false-cleared Ecat, potentially. I know there were a LOT of things to manage in this game, so maybe designating one member of your team to keep track of all relevant info for: actions, temples, tidbits picked up in public, items, idk, whatever else you could keep track of. That might’ve helped you guys stay organized and aware of what tools were at your disposal.

I’d also say maybe come up with some Big Plays of your own? Public claim that one of you greenchecked the other, solicit claims, try to arrange temple visits. Aliases are on, so people can’t find you even if they do sus you out. Come on and have fun with it! Be creative on what public role you can spoof with announcer, come up with something quirky enough to seem real, extort some info before you go down.

TL;DR of my advice:

1. Slow down N0 and make sure you understand what factional tools are available to you.
2. Get your fakes in order on N0, especially if the host will help you with them.
3. Start your actions early in the night phase, giving yourself plenty of time to discuss as a team.
4. When discussing your actions, include and ask about the why’s behind each choice and target. It may help you catch a foolish decision or a conflicting role.
5. Make sure you are keeping track of your items and things you learn about other users/aliases in the game.
6. Make sure you are keeping track of your lies. Oftentimes you see people go “I don’t remember what I said to who” and you tell on yourself.
7. Pay attention to your public persona and how ingratiated you are with leadership/other players.
8. Alliances and cooperation are important in games like 1 town 2 mafia, multifaction, etc. Do not give away all your information to someone you cannot win with, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot having bad comms or teamwork when you need something from someone.
9. You don’t have to wait for an actual villager to claim cleaned and leading, you can stir up claims yourself.
10. If some schmuck DMs you to add them to your server, DO NOT. DON’T.

Solving the Game

The game took a very unexpected turn for me, as I fully thought the village would suffer heavy losses early and NEED the temple sealing comeback mechanism. Instead the Medium was running out of fodder to temple-match and access #graveyard. Who woulda guessed. Turtling in the fortified temples was intended, and still punishable if scum found out what temples there were. I thought LN publicizing them was an absolutely terrible play by him with the tools the mafia had at hand, but they never once made him regret it.

Despite the mafia’s, uh, difficulties in securing kills, I thought the village side played out as expected.

The Hwow Checker caught one guy in a lie, and only because that guy later admitted to what temple he was in when he didn’t have to. I think the Crusader (Ability Checker) only checked villagers, up until DayDiamond accidentally stumbled into the cleaning temple. So the Crusader’s evidence for or against someone was “well, if they aren’t lying.”

The Town Crier was thwarted three of the six times it was used, it almost went over capacity N0, and it put Ecat and pulsar in a 50/50 against each other another day. I think all of its confirmed clears were added to village leadership, but both mafias were VERY close to being able to dupe it. If Laurel didn’t SG himself and go to the wrong temple the night prior to his demise, he would’ve Sheeps Clothinged himself and appeared town to LN - or, at least, shown up on sunny’s watch as expected. He could’ve then been cleaned next night and shown up as town.

LN said he enjoyed having to post stories of the accused’s crimes, since the village could never point and say “look our inspector said he mafia.” It is reasonable to say I shouldn’t have taken the full inspector out of the mafia’s move pool, especially since I made idling give a None result since ability checkers were based on that night’s role used.

For the village, though, they solved as I had hoped they would. They put together the pieces, they found a couple items that confirmed people were doing things they shouldn’t. For example, the full targeting history for DBD’s alias showing him targeting 2 people 2 nights, and a temple the other 2 nights, when his claim was every-other-night hooker. A liar! The full watcher history on Tommy’s alias showed realiti targeting Tommy one night, when realiti claimed pure passive. Another liar!

I do think that, without scum knowing the extent of items in the game, they didn’t craft their fakes and action choices QUITE carefully enough to avoid these items outting them. That was always the design, though, that given enough time and enough lies, the info items would expose the scum, if the village could find and target them right.

I’ve seen people say I should have made this a 1v1 if the mafia were “meant to work together” but I feel like people have maybe just forgotten that is how a 1v2 is meant to go, the mafia join up for a bit to avoid crossfire but will need to stab at some point. Also, if one mafia had ‘a sweat’ psychopath who figured out how to ravage the village numbers by temple destruction, I don’t think there would be as much Discourse about the 1v2 format, nor quite as much need for the mafias to be buddy-buddy since town’s numerical advantage would be stripped.

The mafia side of things obviously backfired and did not go as planned. The village side worked as I hoped. They never had ‘lock scum because the inspector got a role pm,’ they caught people in lies and voted (or infected) them accordingly. So I am pleased with that front. They were also able to sheet the vast majority of the village off of circumstantial evidence in the townspeoples’ favor. If the game was going worse then more caution would have sadly been needed.

Actual channel of 12 actual villagers!

The Temples and Items

I will go over the items with the temple(s) they were available in, since almost all of them were unique to a temple. Like the first Temple Mafia, these were side-quests people could go on to receive perks or hindrances depending on their RNG/adventure path. Sometimes even death, because that’s the funniest outcome!

Full pathways and flavors are available in the linked Google Doc I used to write out all relevant things to copy/paste for this game. Having to go look up each result for a role, an item, a temple, etc. was part of what made updates take so long, as there was a LOT of stuff to c/p and I didn’t want anyone’s results to be inconsistent (until we reached the point where the PoE was very exposed and about to go next).

Chichester Cathedral, Temple of Heaven, St. Vitus Cathedral
Entrance: None
Results: 60% unique SG item, 40% non-unique announcer item


Three identical temples that awarded a unique SG item that restocked on use, or a scroll that was either for announcing, anon voting, or sacrificing to better temples. Intended to be a safe place with one possible actual reward. Like you could turtle there and get a SG every phase you used it but not much else.

Rock of Cashel
Entrance: None
Results: PR 100%


Kizhi Pogost
Entrance: Say “Let me in”
Results: PR 100%


But Thap Temple
Entrance: Go in a pair (2 people total)
Results: PR 100%


Somnath Temple
Entrance: Go with 2 others (3 people total)
Results: PR 100%


Kalasan Temple
Entrance: At least 2 people
Results: PR 100%


Bait temples lol, the lot of them. They won’t kill you. They’re even quite safe! But they can give away you are in them. Some of y’all have such sticks up your butt about playing along with PRs. Some of y’all have a sense of humor. Respect to the ones who went hard in the paint for their PRs. Shame to the ones who didn’t vote to avoid their PR.

Hagia Sophia
Entrance: At least 4 people
Results: Nothing 33% Role Name Checker 33% Ability Checker 34%


Village-friendly temple with some weak info items. They restocked on use, and were considered a separate item to the versions found in other temples. There could only be one Hagia-Monocle out at a time. It was sealed off early and never gone to. I think these items are find, I guess Monocle is essentially a sheriff item since a role name mismatch is quite convicting for mafia.

Great Mosque of Samarra, Selimiye Mosque, Great Mosque of Djenne
Entrance: Go 2 nights in a row, alone
Results: Activated Charcoal, Rosemary, Turmeric Root 100% respectively


The cure items! I shuffled around how to get the cure items quite a bit and I think Constantine is the biggest area of this game you can flame me for. These temples were intended that you could always get the cure, as each temple awarded one item, if you knew where to go, but the delay on getting the cure would probably mean someone died early before figuring it out. Or, they could be bamboozled by mafia trying to go to the temple and bouncing them on the ‘alone’ requirement. I like these 3 temples as cure distributors. They are easy to destroy as well if you want to shut down access to your poison.

Hassan Tower
Entrance: Go alone
Results: Persuade 25% Temp Item Vault 25% Marijuana 25% Nothing 25%


Not a great temple to fortify or destroy since only one person can be inside at a time, but when you’re the mafia this game, it’s better than your usual kills per day… Only source of the persuade item, which let you control someone’s vote. I like the temple as a concept, though. It was the only RNG with 4 possible outcomes. Perhaps I should have done more like that, and fewer PR temples.

Todai-ji Temple
Entrance: Even nights only
Results: Item Disabler 45% Silenced 45% Death 10%

Taq Kasra Temple
Entrance: Odd nights only
Results: Roleblocker 45% Roleblocked 45% Death 10%


These two twin temples were even and odd night entry. One could either roleblock you or give you a targeted roleblocker (since the Love Interest was only sometimes one), and the other gave you an item disabler or silenced you. The Deep Sea Diving Suit was very misunderstood and Gmax sacrificed it to Theodoric twice. Very sad. It was intended to use on someone to disable a BPV or LPV if you thought they had one, or disable their roleblocker item, or what have you, but the circumstances in which it could’ve had a tremendous impact lategame did not manifest as well. The Music Box I think needs no explanation.

Biete Amanuel
Entrance: Say “please”
Results: Death 40% Thief Item 30% Temp Item Vault 30%


BAIT. Since the village had a temple-based thief, and the mafia might not want to put action economy into thieving, here was an item to do just that. The Diversion Safe was a one-time insurance against a thief, so teams could store their valuables in it. Biete itself is total bait though lmao, the rewards can be gotten elsewhere and are not worth the highest death percent in the game. Unless you’re Gmax. Then you can go. Biete wound up with the best kill percentage, taking out three mafia in one night!

Borgund Stave Church
Entrance: None
Results: Marijuana, Hooked, Safeguarded


Borgund is fairly safe but has an obvious downside in a third of the paths leading to hooked. It’s not really a great temple, since Marijuana is bait, but it is A temple one can easily get into. Marijuana I was so upset nobody ever tried to cure someone with only for them to die anyway. It was a placebo, of course I wouldn’t have this thing actually help anyone’s problems!

Brihadisvara Temple
Entrance: None
Results: PR, Thief Item, Target History Checker


I will accept flame for putting Dead Sea Scroll in a temple that is both easy and safe, as Brihadisvara is. The other comprehensive info items were locked behind temples with worse outcomes than a PR (which nobody who received it actually tried to do, you all suck). Funnily enough town was never able to get a second copy, they kept picking the wrong re-randed paths. I suppose, though, that if things went disastrously wrong for the village like I anticipated, the Dead Sea Scroll could’ve been a saving grace for a ravaged town.

Maria Laach Abbey
Entrance: Have successfully completed an action the prior night
Results: Marijuana

This temple originally rewarded priority changes but I decided I didn’t want to deal with that bs and made it COMPLETE BAIT. Honestly, a waste of a temple, and it was destroyed D1. Would redo into something more interesting but I felt like I needed some bait temples to prevent too many good items from entering the game.

Genoa Cathedral
Entrance: None
Results: Results Faker, Ability Checker, Vote Negated


The other home of the Magnifying Glass. I think that Genoa is a pretty good temple. It offers a mafia-sided item, a village-sided item, and a punishment that grows worse in severity as the game goes on and votes begin to matter. The Fake Painting unfortunately sat in the Comedy inventory unused once they obtained it as they couldn’t figure out how to implement it. The unfortunate resting place of NE, killed by pulsar not telling the Comedies smh.

Corvin Castle
Entrance: None
Results: Item Checker, Temple History Checker, Role Name Checker


Other home of the Monocle as well. This temple probably should have had a fourth, negative outcome, but I also didn’t want every temple to have some risk for some reward, if the village needed scraps. The Travel Log is a way to verify if someone is lying or not about what temples they went to, such as if they snaked LN’s role. Perhaps too info-heavy of a temple and one of the results should have been non-info. The Magnet was about the only way to check someone’s held items without being a thief, obviously intended for thieves to know where to go. It should have been a little more plentiful because thieving was very irrelevant this game.

Arch of Constantine
Entrance: Do not hold a cure item
Results: Marijuana, Activated Charcoal, Turmeric Root, Rosemary

I regret Constantine. When I was fiddling around with the temples, specifically the cure items and how they could be accessed, I had a moment of severe village-siding weakness and wanted there to be a decent but not assured source of cure items. It would take four people going here and each picking a different path to ensure you received the specific cure item you needed. But, it made mafia poisons entirely irrelevant (not that the Comedies ever poisoned a villager for it to matter…), and because the mafia were not bothering with Constantine, required more investment by them to cure the plague. Which, like, was the point in a game where the village took the expected number of losses. In this game, Constantine being fortified on N1 was toxic af.

Hwangnyong Temple
Entrance: Say “open sesame”
Results: Results Faker, Safeguard, Items Stolen, Hooked


An oft-visited temple despite the fact it had two bad results, and the items needed to be used to restock, so there was literally nothing in it. Poor Alice was mugged twice by this temple. This was the source of the Spoofer the UP obtained, which led to Laurel’s lies catching up to him about how he obtained it, because that conflicted with his earlier claims about N1. The Spoofer was only used once, by the village, to mask jalmont’s infection with the plague, so the mafia would not cure him. Sick and twisted. Pork was a clone of the other SG items. I think Hwangnyong was a well-designed temple by me, but definitely not one I would have chosen to fortify or return to often.

Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan
Entrance: At least 2 people, 1 sacrifices an item
Results: Death, Vig Shot, Watch History Checker


I think Tenochtitlan was an excellent temple. It required investment to get into, 33% chance of death, but also huge rewards if you picked the right path. The Guest Book is obviously a town-sided reward, which will let them catch any aliases that were doing something they really shouldn’t have been doing (realiti was caught targeting Tommy when he claimed pure passive for example). Yoko Ono (dak’s PM warned about her!) was a one-shot kill that bypassed temple protection, but not BG or jailkeep protection (or BPV). Any team can utilize her. The Comedy tried to get back in here to find Yoko Ono again, but were unable to successfully reenter.

Temple of the Sun
Entrance: Go 3 nights in a row
Results: Death, BPV, SG


I think that going 3 nights in a row, and getting in on the third, was a bad entrance requirement. Very few roles except the village would want to invest in getting nothing for two nights, while also risking death. The Ghost is the obvious candidate to go here, since the Ghost cannot be nightkilled outside a temple. It is not very mafia-sided. The Solar Panel was the weakest BPV as it only blocked one way to die, but I mean, it helps, if you need to absorb some KP. Abuela was a funny SG flavor but she was never found, sadly.

Great Tent of Genghis Khan
Entrance: Must have been responsible for a death, via nightkill or on-wagon vote
Results: Death, Dickens Item, Flip Tailor Item


This is “the mafia temple,” yes, although contrary to initial belief it was not exclusively available to the mafia. LN lied about this when voting out Day. Mafia probably should be going here, which makes it an excellent watch target for the Ghost. Unfortunately, the cycle they decided to start putting sunny on Genghis was the cycle the UP decided to send Day. There is risk in this temple, of course, but I think the rewards are extremely strong. The only cardflip-altering item or role in the game (UncleScam currently in shambles M2H was lying), which could throw public leadership into chaos. Perhaps, I will say, the item was not available ‘early enough’ to make a difference since there has to have been a wagon or nightkill to enable someone to go. Sheep’s Clothing was a silent dickens that would give whatever fabricated result the item-holder selected upon an info role hitting it. Laurel would have shown as Town Relic on LN’s check, for example. Unfortunately his activities caught up to him once Gcat was sheeted and posted logs with him. And after he told the Comedies to spare her! I think this was a strong temple. Probably the first candidate for the village to seal, if they want to cut off access to falsifying items.

Humayun's Tomb
Entrance: Must sacrifice an item
Results: Death, BPV, LPV


It’s what it says on the cards. 33% chance to die, get a BPV that will tank any of the standard kill methods, or get a LPV to let you tank the vote. Sac an item to get in. This was sealed on D1 and never used, which was quite possibly a misplay by the mafia because I think if you worst outcome guard it, it’s a pretty mafia-friendly temple. Allows them to soak a crossfire when the other mafia stabs, or soak a vote. Or a sealing by the village. Nothing in here helps town solve, anyway.

Mausoleum of Theodoric
Entrance: Must sacrifice an item
Results: Item returned, Death, Temple Full History Checker, Permanent Item Vault


Now it’s the Mausoleum of Celever! This one has a troll result from the first game, in returning your item. It can also kill you, though with four paths instead of three (or ‘six’ that share outcomes), your odds of survival are better. The Sarcophagus allows a team to stash items that can never be stolen or found by other teams. I thought it was a pretty good item; by the time Gmax found it, the game was over, so its utility in keeping Bass’s DPV safe was minimal. The Sacred Texts were picked up early by Redless but never used. Gcat had to scavenge them off his body. They are another info item that gets better the longer the game goes on, because it will display more information. You could use this item to catch people in a lie, being places they shouldn’t have been, or not being somewhere they said they were. I thought it was a strong item. I think Theodoric was a well-balanced temple. Half the rewards are great, half are meh.

Temple of the Great Jaguar
Entrance: Go alone and idle
Results: Death, Role Backup, Dickens Item, Nothing


Looking at it, I do feel that ‘nothing’ for idling was too punishing to the mafia. They would need to give up one of their action economy while someone like Gmax or aska could just swoop on in because they had no action. Comedies did this when AP was hooked by a temple anyway (though they did not outcome guard and that was a fat mistake). Mauled by a jaguar! I think the Spellbook was the most interesting item in the game that, to my chagrin, nobody ever obtained. It could be gotten and used an infinite amount of times. It had a different effect depending on alliance. For the village, it would absorb the role of the deceased villager it was used on, allowing the living teammate to have two roles going forward. For the mafia, it would ‘absorb’ the move pool slot of the dead mafian, letting the living teammate use two of the move pool roles nightly. I guess locking it behind ‘alone and idle’ was not ideal to the item being used. This also has a Sheep’s Clothing clone which is quite mafia-friendly.

Torre del Oro
Entrance: Idle and sacrifice an item
Results: Death, DPV, Omniguarded, Gold (bait item)


Man go read Torre’s pathways. I did fine work on those. The Gold was a bait item, I was hoping it would be like the Diamond where people thought it was a free win or something and got dumb about it. It was never found. I think this was a village-sided high-risk temple, particularly with the entrance requirement. It has no info but it also doesn’t have anything that’s like, actively helping the scum deceive, only survive. This was the strongest BPV in the game, which could tank any attack on the holder’s life. Omniguarding is obviously a good result, could save you from destruction that very day! Ullar was the only person who went here, on a suicide mission to hopefully clear his slot, and he came out with the DPV. A noble hero.

Final Thoughts

Looking at the game now, I would have refined the temple results more. Put a few more ‘big ticket’ info items spread across temples that took more risk, maybe made fortifying and turtling in the weaker temples a little more punishing. Definitely changed Arch of Constantine to not give out cures too freely. Probably only made one ‘idle to get in’ temple and given it town-sided results, so the mafia could either ignore it without losing precious action economy, or destroy it without much loss to themselves, like they did with Humayun’s. You will notice that all the ‘mausoleum/tomb’ type temples are ones you can die it. That was intentional, if anyone picked up on it. Sort of a warning that this one was risky.

The churches and cathedrals tended to be safe havens, often with a useful info item. Except Biete which was the bait king. I think there were some thematic hints for the temples and their rewards, but I am not sure if anyone picked up on them. Probably one of the many moving pieces of this game that was a little overwhelming to try and condense onto one sensible spreadsheet.

My own sheet was definitely difficult to manage, even though I felt like I had set it up pretty effectively. I still sent a couple wrong results or forgot specific interactions and needed to re-check them. My advice to someone who wants to do locations or temples in the future is get a cohost and build the game from the ground up with them, so both of you can keep track of things to their full extent without needing to question the ‘main host’ or one of you interpreting an interaction differently.

I really thought I looked at all the parts of this game and how they would play together but some peoples’ questions I had no prepared answer for! Goes to show how creative players can be about interactions, and how many devils are in your details.

Since there is a current rallying against our old friend format, Town vs Mafia (particularly my favorite setup to design, 1v2), largely by upcoming OC game hosts grumbling my game will tank their game’s returning playerbase or by mafia members who were unsuccessful in exploiting the format for their team’s benefit, I am not sure if or when you’ll see a Temple Mafia 3. I do know I would remove the destruction mechanic so it’s less punishing for people to talk about where they are going and plan with their friends, regardless of alignment. Maybe once people get sick of watching their sweaty teammates play multifaction negotiation simulator and being kingmade against, there will be a cry for another rompin’ good time of a TvM. And maybe, if I feel like it, I will answer the call.

Most hotly-debated role is probably permanent fortifier. PERSONALLY, I still don’t think it’s that OP. Not nearly as OP as the mafia who couldn’t figure out how to punish it claim it to be. Saber was inside a temple he fortified N0, and N2-N4 (or would’ve been N4 if he wasn’t redirected to die). All-temple hook Heaven by Comedies, all-temple hook Constantine by UP, and he fails his fortify on N2 and N3 (he did on N4 because they hooked where he was redirected). All-temple role cop the same temples, and his alias is found on N2. I’m sorry but there were very obvious ways around his role, especially since I took same-temple SG off the village.

A role never being punished as it was intended to be does not make the role inherently imbalanced or OP.

I really felt that fortifier was needed to give village a chance after heavy losses early. Somewhere needed to be safe, and temple redirecting still let the mafia get 1 kill a night off, as most mafias function. Yes, their poison was hampered to the point of uselessness by Constantine, I’ll take that L on my host write-up.

I guess one design suggestion I have for people is something that’s long been an obstacle for mafia: villages usually have more ‘creative’ roles that are pretty easy to look at and think, hm, this is wild if it’s on scum, and it’s proving itself, so it must be town. I tried to give the mafia options to fakeclaim from a wide variety of abilities with the move pools, but there’s still a discrepancy between something like the Beatles running around sending the band on tour and what the mafia can fake. Part of that is, scum either have pro-scum actions that are creative, but if claimed as-is to the village, are obviously scum, or they have generic stuff like ‘hooker’ to disrupt village actions with, but what is the hooker fakeclaiming? What cool spin is there?

I attempted to prevent ‘guess I’ll claim hooker and use my mafia flavor and be instacaught’ by letting the mafias choose flavor for their roles. I think that would have been more successful if they remembered to set it. There were too many details in this game, I guess, for the mafia to keep track of. Even the village leadership messed up things like sending aska and Blazade to the same temple to try and verify aska’s action, because there was so much stuff to keep track of, and no team was really telling someone ‘hey can you please keep track of temple knowledge and movements’ to help with that.

Maybe having a task would enable people to stay engaged more, because they have a specific thing to look at without being overwhelmed, and something to ‘focus’ on.

In the end, the village solved as I hoped they would. Liars were found to be lying, and exposed by that, instead of by a point and click inspector dropping a role PM. It did require some more aggressive scumhunting to put all the pieces together, and reports by villagers of mafia logs that just didn’t quite make sense.

The mafias, well, UP giving actual-Comedy DBD a villager to talk to, and the Comedies all thinking “well pulsar could just be difficult to get into out of because that’s how she is in NOCs” for long enough to out half their members to her - that was not expected. Especially with aliases. I thought the mafias getting in touch and avoiding crossfire while targeting villagers was a given. Like I didn’t consider the possibility that’s how the game could go.

It played out how it played out, and the team that put together the clues to say “hey, you’re not doing pro-town activities!” won with a commanding numerical lead.

Thanks everyone for playing. If you liked my game feel, and the flavor, you can stay tuned for my effort at making a Co-op mafia where the town faces off against an NPC scumteam. If you don’t like my specific hosting pizazz, and you don’t think co-op mafia sounds fun, you probably won’t like that game, either, so I’ll see you ‘round in whatever OCs someone else hosts.

I think it’s like 5-6 months away in the queue. Plenty of time for me to develop it. It will be Pokemon Mystery Dungeon themed and feature exploring and item-based objectives to further your wincon, as well as scumhunting to figure out which of the aliases are the village’s, and which belong to the nefarious mafiosos thwarting your efforts. I am designing it for 20 players, so I hope it hits 20 since my thread about it has 15ish likes!

I don’t think TvM is a lost cause OC format and I look forward to seeing what other hosts do to bring new life into it.

Ok but what about the deep analysis into the jackbox and shit.
I need an in-depth analysis of