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Of Gods and Men [Mafia] | Ambrosia In Front Of Me

Good game everyone, especially scum. Thank you for creating and hosting Royal! I'm really kicking myself for going along with the OceanicAir lynch, and I think part of that was a desire to reach agreement with the people I considered town.

I don't think I can blame myself or anyone on town for the Seath lynch though. That was the scummiest sloth I've ever seen. I did offer a Kyan lynch early in the day as an alternative, which is when Seath did his double vote nonsense, but the preday votes would have made a Kyan lynch hard. We should have gone after Swamped in hindsight.
 
ZESTYBUS FERIRAMA (not FERIRANA as Swamped said, sneaky) TUTTADIT PERIPSEROS

g6l58sf.gif


worth it

gg all
 

Kyanrute

Member
The game of mafia was fun. The game of X-Com rng was not. Perhaps bit too many roles too to my liking, especially ones that did not do that much in the grand scheme of things, they just ended up as confirmed townies. Fluff was fun. Pepsi was the supreme cola and I am Ordinary Town. Boo gorlak for using his vigishot, I wanted that additional kill. Good game, thanks town, thanks scum for carrying me.
 

Swamped

Banned
Woah, what, we won?! Really thought we would lose there. Roy saved our butts!

Zeke is by far scum MVP
after Roy ;-)

Dragonz was absolutely phenomenal as first time scum and first time player.

Kyan of course was scum of the highest order. What a team.

I'll discuss what I thought of the Townies and game mechanics/flavor too. But this was actually one of the most fun games I've played so far lol.

So Blarg was the one who killed P! Great job. I really thought that there weren't enough words. Guess I miscalculated :p
 

Swamped

Banned
We should have gone after Swamped in hindsight.

Splinter was right, would have been the correct town move. I really tried my hardest to appear townie enough that day to avoid that lol.

Splinterrrrrr mah Despair buddy, what happened? Why did you side with those pitiful Komena followers? Despair and chaos is where it's at!
 
No joke though when I got the role PM that said I was scum I literally went "Oh, shit" out loud because I was so terrified at the thought that people would be actively hunting for me
 

*Splinter

Member
Splinter was right, would have been the correct town move. I really tried my hardest to appear townie enough that day to avoid that lol.

Splinterrrrrr mah Despair buddy, what happened? Why did you side with those pitiful Komena followers? Despair and chaos is where it's at!
Well, I DID try to throw the game by voting Blarg, sooo.... :p
No joke though when I got the role PM that said I was scum I literally went "Oh, shit" out loud because I was so terrified at the thought that people would be actively hunting for me
Nah town are losers #despair4life
 

Sorian

Banned
Per Swamped's request, here's what you could have had if our resident bastard god Star got succeeded in her god killing quest.

1. (Insanity) Mind to Mouth - During this day phase all post must be written in rhymes.

2. (Hubris) Game of Thrones - During this day phase players vote for a King instead for a Lynch. The elected King will then decide who will be lynched. If two players are tied in votes, no one will be lynched.

3. (Paranoia) Cain and Abel - In addition to their normal role, two players will receive an additional role that only is valid during this day phase. One player will be Abel and will lose if he gets lynched. The other player will be Cain who wins if Abel gets lynched. Cain knows the identity of Abel but not vice versa.

4. (Delusion) Parrot Paradox - During this day phase one player chosen at random can only post quotes of other players and daytime commands (such as "vote: <Player>"). However, the daytime commands have to occur in one of the quotes.

5. (Amnesia) New Chapter in Life - All players will receive a new role of the same alignment.

6. (Bipolarity) Two Tribes - All players are randomly divided into two groups. During this day phase each group will get their own chat. Players are not allowed to post in the main game thread (this thread). Players can only interact with players in the same group (e.g. voting). In each group one player will be lynched. During the following night phase, players can only target players in the same group. The Followers of Peripseros get one regular Night Kill per group.
 
Per Swamped's request, here's what you could have had if our resident bastard god Star got succeeded in her god killing quest.

1. (Insanity) Mind to Mouth - During this day phase all post must be written in rhymes.

2. (Hubris) Game of Thrones - During this day phase players vote for a King instead for a Lynch. The elected King will then decide who will be lynched. If two players are tied in votes, no one will be lynched.

3. (Paranoia) Cain and Abel - In addition to their normal role, two players will receive an additional role that only is valid during this day phase. One player will be Abel and will lose if he gets lynched. The other player will be Cain who wins if Abel gets lynched. Cain knows the identity of Abel but not vice versa.

4. (Delusion) Parrot Paradox - During this day phase one player chosen at random can only post quotes of other players and daytime commands (such as "vote: <Player>"). However, the daytime commands have to occur in one of the quotes.

5. (Amnesia) New Chapter in Life - All players will receive a new role of the same alignment.

6. (Bipolarity) Two Tribes - All players are randomly divided into two groups. During this day phase each group will get their own chat. Players are not allowed to post in the main game thread (this thread). Players can only interact with players in the same group (e.g. voting). In each group one player will be lynched. During the following night phase, players can only target players in the same group. The Followers of Peripseros get one regular Night Kill per group.

All of these would have been awesome and annoying
 

Sophia

Member
Per Swamped's request, here's what you could have had if our resident bastard god Star got succeeded in her god killing quest.

1. (Insanity) Mind to Mouth - During this day phase all post must be written in rhymes.

2. (Hubris) Game of Thrones - During this day phase players vote for a King instead for a Lynch. The elected King will then decide who will be lynched. If two players are tied in votes, no one will be lynched.

3. (Paranoia) Cain and Abel - In addition to their normal role, two players will receive an additional role that only is valid during this day phase. One player will be Abel and will lose if he gets lynched. The other player will be Cain who wins if Abel gets lynched. Cain knows the identity of Abel but not vice versa.

4. (Delusion) Parrot Paradox - During this day phase one player chosen at random can only post quotes of other players and daytime commands (such as "vote: <Player>"). However, the daytime commands have to occur in one of the quotes.

5. (Amnesia) New Chapter in Life - All players will receive a new role of the same alignment.

6. (Bipolarity) Two Tribes - All players are randomly divided into two groups. During this day phase each group will get their own chat. Players are not allowed to post in the main game thread (this thread). Players can only interact with players in the same group (e.g. voting). In each group one player will be lynched. During the following night phase, players can only target players in the same group. The Followers of Peripseros get one regular Night Kill per group.

These are awesome. XD
 
Per Swamped's request, here's what you could have had if our resident bastard god Star got succeeded in her god killing quest.

1. (Insanity) Mind to Mouth - During this day phase all post must be written in rhymes.

2. (Hubris) Game of Thrones - During this day phase players vote for a King instead for a Lynch. The elected King will then decide who will be lynched. If two players are tied in votes, no one will be lynched.

3. (Paranoia) Cain and Abel - In addition to their normal role, two players will receive an additional role that only is valid during this day phase. One player will be Abel and will lose if he gets lynched. The other player will be Cain who wins if Abel gets lynched. Cain knows the identity of Abel but not vice versa.

4. (Delusion) Parrot Paradox - During this day phase one player chosen at random can only post quotes of other players and daytime commands (such as "vote: <Player>"). However, the daytime commands have to occur in one of the quotes.

5. (Amnesia) New Chapter in Life - All players will receive a new role of the same alignment.

6. (Bipolarity) Two Tribes - All players are randomly divided into two groups. During this day phase each group will get their own chat. Players are not allowed to post in the main game thread (this thread). Players can only interact with players in the same group (e.g. voting). In each group one player will be lynched. During the following night phase, players can only target players in the same group. The Followers of Peripseros get one regular Night Kill per group.

As entertaining as those sound, it's probably for the best that Star died early.
 
Day 5 Seath flip D:
Night 5 NK immunity :D
Day 6 dictate reveal D:
Day 6 Kyanrute hammer and flip :D
Night 6 Splinter death D:
Day 7 Zeke as Periscope D:
Day 7 Sophia betrayal D:
Night 7 Zeke death :D
Day 8 dictate reveal :D
Endgame D:
 

Swamped

Banned
Finally have some time to write out a few of my thoughts regarding this game!

I did have a lot of fun in this game. It feels really special to make it to the end of a game. I want to thank Flush and Yeeny for coming up with this unique concept and hosting. Flush was a great moderator. He was always extremely timely with updates and answering questions.

I loved the edict system (and reading the neutral edicts I wish those had been included too, what chaos we would have had!). It was a great twist. In the end the Peripseros edicts were crucial to the scum win. It would have been nice if one of the scum edicts was a double night kill, as a direct counter to the town edict of a double lynch. But that's just a tiny detail. The other issue was that the scum roles weren't actually that useful in the end. The RB would have been (especially if Crimson, the doctor, and Darryl the gossip/rolecop had lasted longer). But the absorb - while it was a cool concept it wasn't that useful. Would have been better if a multi-shot vig had been in play >:). The targetting power definitely played its role. That double-kill on N2 was extremely helpful for scum. And it was balanced by some town PRs not targeting players (eg GP and Splinter's roles). But I dunno, I just felt like the scum powers were pretty weak overall.

I think, given all the new additions, this game was in fact pretty balanced! And this was really thanks to the edicts. Although it does suck that scum could have lost at the last hurdle there!

The god killing spells were an interesting mechanic, even if it wasn't strictly necessary. It was more likely to kill townies with this, so I guess that was balanced in favor of scum. However, townies are more likely to get the spell given that there are more townies than scum in the game. Still, I thought it was pretty cool - the question becomes, do you share the word? Do you trust people to use it correctly? So that decision-making added a whole other level of mental games between the players.

What happened on N5 (the night all the townies were kill-immune)? Somehow Dragonz ended up gold-cursed, even though we targetted GP that night (thinking he was less likely than the others to have bet on Seath). I actually thought he had switching powers as well lol.

The flavor was extremely enjoyable. Can't believe Pepsi was in love with Kokakola the whole time.

Anyway, this game introduced lots of interesting mechanics and player roles, and I think it would be really fun to apply some of these to future games. Looking forward to more from Flush and Yeeny!
 

Sophia

Member
What happened on N5 (the night all the townies were kill-immune)? Somehow Dragonz ended up gold-cursed, even though we targetted GP that night (thinking he was less likely than the others to have bet on Seath). I actually thought he had switching powers as well lol.

Looking at your scum chat, it was probably this

3. Dragonz makes GP target Sophia (cos why not. Besides, GP may not have revealed everything about his role. As he has described it it seems too weak)
 
But that...that only means that GP would have become gold cursed. I didn't target you.

Edit: Checking my sent PM's, I didn't even use my power. I investigated L_P and killed Giant Panda. I used it the night after, when I had GP target Blarg.
 
But that...that only means that GP would have become gold cursed. I didn't target you.

Edit: Checking my sent PM's, I didn't even use my power. I investigated L_P and killed Giant Panda. I used it the night after, when I had GP target Blarg.
You sent me the command "Giant Panda targets Sophia" N4. As your command template was "<Player A> targets <Player B>" I counted your action as targeting both. My rule for if something is a "target" or not is not a logical or flavor one but a semantical one in the sense that I check if a template of the form <Player> gets replaced.

That means that, according to Sophia's role which says "roleblocked the following night" you were roleblocked N5. So would have been Giant Panda if he had a role that could be redirected (captain is one clusterfuck of a role... More on this later)
 
You sent me the command "Giant Panda targets Sophia" N4. As your command template was "<Player A> targets <Player B>" I counted your action as targeting both. My rule for if something is a "target" or not is not a logical or flavor one but a semantical one in the sense that I check if a template of the form <Player> gets replaced.

That means that, according to Sophia's role which says "roleblocked the following night" you were roleblocked N5. So would have been Giant Panda if he had a role that could be redirected (captain is one clusterfuck of a role... More on this later)

I just checked my sent pms, i definitely sent N4 investigate L_P and kill GP. N5 I sent GP targets Blarg.

I mean all things considered it doesn't really matter at this point, but I definitely did not target Sophia lmao
 
I just checked my sent pms, i definitely sent N4 investigate L_P and kill GP. N5 I sent GP targets Blarg.

I mean all things considered it doesn't really matter at this point, but I definitely did not target Sophia lmao
I doubt you investigated anyone N4 because the betting game was D5 and therefore your investigation was N5.

I have the following PM sent to me by you on 17. April 2016 at 4:19 AM CET:
WhereAreMahDragonz said:
<Giant Panda> targets <Sophia>
That was your N4 action.
 
Oh I see what you're saying. I did send it on the 17th. But how would that have made me gold cursed? If it's because I targeted GP to target Sophia then that's kind a silly meta detail IMO.
 
I got the message saying I had been gold cursed after the investigate on L_P

I can confirm these were your N5 and N6 actions, but it doesn't change a thing :p

Oh I see what you're saying. I did send it on the 17th. But how would that have made me gold cursed? If it's because I targeted GP to target Sophia then that's kind a silly meta detail IMO.
Yes that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't know if you play Magic, but I learned a lot about formal language there and tried to apply it to the game. So if you were a MTG creature, your ability would be something like "Change the target of target ability to target creature or player". You target two times.
 
Right I understand. I mean it doesn't really matter at this point so I'm not gonna keep nitpicking, it just doesn't really make sense that I would be affected by that.

But alas.

Edit: I see. I didn't know that's how it worked. In hindsight I should've clarified. C'est la vie.
 
Right I understand. I mean it doesn't really matter at this point so I'm not gonna keep nitpicking, it just doesn't really make sense that I would be affected by that.

But alas.

Edit: I see. I didn't know that's how it worked. In hindsight I should've clarified. C'est la vie.
It also doesn't matter at all because GP had won the bet anyway :p
 

Swamped

Banned
I'm so honored to be her Gafia baby duckling <3

Aaaahhhhhh so cute!!!

I want to take you under my scaly dragon wings and transform you into a MAFIA GODDESS.

(Not that you need much training. You were awesome!)

Glad we didn't kill Blarg though. Made the game last a little longer which was fun. Also, would have felt a teeny bit like cheating :p
 
Aaaahhhhhh so cute!!!

I want to take you under my scaly dragon wings and transform you into a MAFIA GODDESS.

(Not that you need much training. You were awesome!)

Glad we didn't kill Blarg though. Made the game last a little longer which was fun. Also, would have felt a teeny bit like cheating :p

Please do <3
 
So either:

1. Zeke is scum, got too far ahead of himself, and outlined scum's plan to win. Only he didn't count on the bet reward awarding immunity, so he hammered Splinter the next day and killed GP at night.
2. Zeke is town and scum is trying to frame him.

Also, if you're scum, why not try to kill Blarg two nights ago? A bit of metagaming, but why not bet (heh) on the fact that he'd be too busy IRL to submit a Seath bet?

Heh.

Something like that. Come on vote for me, you know you want to. Maybe an edict for 2mrw can save the day.

Can you guys imagine If i did the Indecisiveness edict today? Probably would've lost scum the game.

Swamp kill blarg or dragonz 2mrw. Don't want to risk Sophia lying about her power.

Heh.
 
217.jpg


Epilogue

"That was a strange ending", Royos said, passing the gates of Mephyklai walking next to Yena whose thin legs produced clicking staccato noises whenever they hit the ground.
"Did it surprise you?"
"No, of course not. I've known it all beforehand. And so did you. But actually seeing it is different from just knowing it."
"Hmmm..."
"Don't you agree?"
"I think the difference is irrelevant." She slightly quickened her steps.
"Are you running away from a question you don't know how to answer, oh almighty spider?", Royos laughed.
"What? No! Leave me alone with your mundane questions. I have the knowledge of ..."
"Yeah, sure, the knowledge of everything that is, that is to come and that ever was. Blablabla. I've heard that phrase about a million times now"
"You were more respectful when I first met you."
"I wouldn't call it 'meet', to be honest"
"Details"
"I kindly disagree", he laughed again, " but anyway, where are we headed? As you might remember I have a wedding to attend"
"And as you might remember, you may even make it to the Bachelor Party because we can overcome the concept of time. In fact I think your wedding is in about 2000 years?"
"You have a point there. So, where are we heading?"
"I thought you were able to read the prophecies I'm made of. Why don't you find out yourself?"
"Because asking you is easier. By the way, how does this work. You can't move your head far enough to read the stuff on your body. Do you just know everything off the top of your head?"
"There are a few mysteries in this world, Royos, that even you are not destined to understand."
With an amused smile on his lips Royos just accepted that answer and walked alongside her silently for a while, enjoying the feeling of not knowing where they were headed or what was about to come next. Just walking, embracing the view of the nature and the song of the birds.
"You know, Yena, we really are the last of us."

___________________________


The Making Of

This whole game started when I stumbled across the Dreaming God (which is basically our Gods, but with Powers all over the place and behaving like a normal player, i.e. lynchable, etc.). But why stop at one? Why not make a Town God, a Scum God and a Neutral God? And oh, this community has the strange urge of lynching cool PRs early, so maybe make them unlynchable and not killable? Yeah, that could work and it also adds a great flavor of above-human power to the whole thing. Great! But it's quite boring to play as an immortal character, right. If I were a god I would probably just claim D1 and shittalk... There had to be a threat, a way to remove them. With the different abilities that game would also cater to people that maybe got a bit bored by "normal" Mafia or at least would enjoy interesting twists and being forced into new ways of thinking.

At this stage (About 20 minutes after I've discovered the role) I was so excited about this that I decided to pause the Battlestar Galactica game (which, after seeing this game, needs a major overhaul) in favor for this one that obviously had to be a midseason game. Oh and since I didn't want to fuck this up, especially on the flavor side of things, I asked for a co-mod. Maybe, to demonstrate my excitement about the idea I will just post my original pitch to yeeny here:
ok, the basic idea evolves around the role of the Dreaming God. Read it and shudder of it's awesomness!

ok, done reading? Great! To make it even more ... interesting, i thought of maybe adding two gods (one town alligned with abilities ranging from slightly negative to very beneficial for town and one scum alligned (not part of the main scum team) with a range of abilities from desatrous for town to slightly positive for town) and make those gods unlynchable and untargetable (They are gods after all). There would be, however, more than one way to slay a god during the daytime (A character with a day command or an item that enables its user to kill a god).

Possible god abilities I already thought of:
Prophecy - Each player may PM one name to the gamerunner(s). If that person get's lynched each player that had a "bet" on that person gets a reward
Two Tribes - All players are divided randomly into two groups. Each of these groups gets their own thread on OG and their own lynch within. The groups are not allowed to communicate with each other
Omiscient Verdict - The first person that receives a vote gets lynched and ends the day phase
Bloodlust - Two lynches (like in Nightvale)
Visions - Each player can send exactly one message anonymously (via the game runners) to another player
Madness - Everyone has to post in whatever form of lyric is common in the flavor we choose
And many more, as we have to think of (at least) 8 abilities per god. We have a huge design space here! Go where no Mafia game went before!
(Note that the dictates turned out much more "even" than described in the original pitch)

So, after I got yeeny committed, it was time to think about how to remove Gods. As I already thought that 3 gods probably were a bit much the idea of the godkiller that transforms into a neutral god was obvious. But there had to be something else. Because while the original gods at least had a team the would try to carry to a win the newborn neutral god had literally nothing to loose and therefore no motivation to stick around. He needed to be killable. And then I came up with the book (which was I think born from the book in Cthulhu), the two spells (for the two gods) a 3 words to allow for some nice pacing (You see I already had kind of a script in mind at this stage) and force Town to coordinate and communicate but still leaving the door wide open for paranoia, mistrust and scum betrayals.

Next thing in line were the Dictates. It wasn't really on purposed they were more "even" than I originally imagined, it just kind of happened because we put our ideas (that either favored Town, favored Scum or were just batshit insane) in the corresponding column and I never bothered to change some of the weak ones around. And the toning down of the most powerful ones also happened more on the fly, because that game already was inherently swingy (with the option of one of the gods being replaced by a neutral early on) so we didn't want to enhance that further.

For flavor we at first weren't sure what to do exactly (Cosplay or not, which setting or maybe mixed across different mythical universes), but I think we both already had a slight preference for a Greek or Roman setting. The fact that I had the idea to use Theros artwork as illustration sealed the deal (because Magic artwork usually is just gorgeous).

Last thing were the roles, which just were interesting ones we wanted to include and filled the rest with staples. The only ones that stand out are the Heretic, which is a "beautiful" role in this setup, because it is literally unusable in any other setup (That is, btw, imo a good criterium to evaluate if your unique game mechanic is good: If you can't find a role that does literally nothing in a game without your mechanic, doesn't break the game in half and doesn't seem completely out of place in a mafia game, you probably should rethink your core design) and the Gold Cursed which was a flavor-first role that struck me when I saw the artwork I used.

General comments on the game

I'm sure I'm forgetting half the things I wanted to say, because I didn't take notes, but what is one about to do? :D

- The gods themselves I think were very interesting. And considering the outcome of the first days, it was definitely the right decision to make the gods unlynchable. I'm sure we would have had a L_P lynch D1 and a NK on Zeke N1 ;) I also think it was correct to keep the aspect of the gods not knowing what the're doing. Otherwise they would just rush out the most powerful Dictates at the beginning in fear of getting offed. I actually am surprised it turned out fairly balanced on a day-by-day-basis (Like, I knew overall both sides were similar powerful, but the chosen Dictates actually each day had a comparable power level)

- I would have loved to see the Neutral God, but that was not my decision. I already gave him 1-shot NK-immunity, there wasn't anymore I could do.

- The book was very interesting. For some reason Seath never brought it up D2, leading to words from 2 different spells floating around. Then Gorlak got the book and was offed N3, so at the beginning of D4 there still were only two words (from two different spells) known. In my little headscript the first god would be banished D4 or at latest D5 with a debate on who shares which word and if one of the words was a Scum fake, etc. dominating discussion. Well, that didn't happen... Instead the book become a deciding factor in the LyLo situation we ended up because it killed one Scum. But, tbh, I still really like the idea (especially with the paranoia aspect) and I don't see any other good method to decide who would get the book. If you have any ideas I'm looking forward to hearing them. (Also I looked forward to the combo "words from the book" and the "one secret message" Dictate but this also never happened because all Words already have been posted in the thread)

- D6: Uhm, yeah, that happened. In theory, if you're not in MyLo/LyLo and don't have a confirmed Scum, that Dictate shouldn't be that broken. If Scum tries to pull off an early turbo, they will need some serious persuasion skills to prevent an instant lynch on that person the following day. And, as the textbook says, 1v1 trades are bad for Scum. Well, anyway, I didn't think of LyLo when deciding this one which was a clear oversight and made the day basically "someone gets killed based on RNG".

- RNG in general: There was a lot of it in the game, mostly in the Dictates and all it was either for balancing purposes or for decision making purposes. Your design space gets a lot smaller if you go without those tools, but I'm fairly positive there still would have been enough. Well, if anyone ever includes a Dreaming God again, make sure to think about this. A few examples to my reasoning for using RNG:
-- The D8 dictate (summon): I could just say "Town", but having a new confirmed Townie seemed a bit too powerful to me, so I gave them a chance to have different alignment. However, the chance of being Town was ca. double the chance of a randomly chosen player from the starting roster being Town, so in my books it was a slight advantage for Town. I think this would have been okay-ish in early game but got worse very fast the further the game went until it was a win-or-lose die roll at the very end. Clearly not how I imagined it.
-- The "one Townie gets the alignment of another Townie": This is the second case, where it would be much more interesting if a player could make this decision, but I'm not a player and therefore neutral. I can't do this in Towns best interest and I also can't choose the most interesting way. RNG was (and still is) the only solution I see for this. That being said, I didn't like that Dictate in general very much.

- The LR/Voyeur interaction: I have seen it. I said I didn't mind if it could happen, but that it would inevitably happen. I was already in the process of replacing the LR, but I was told the interaction was fine and to keep it. So I did. And it happened what had to happen but to my great amazement, Town handled it so poorly that in the end it actually helped Scum more than Town. I also am a bit sad Scum thought they had to claim Vanilla now. They could just have claimed a PR that didn't target.

- I underestimated the sheer number of confirmed Townies this game would produce which probably is the only balance flaw (apart from the point above) I should have seen. Everything else was more unpredictable or within the Dictates where there was of course a big lack of experience so I can't really blame myself for the flaws they had.

- I used a point system for balancing the game (Like Vanilla Townie = +10, Doctor +40, Scum Roleblocker -80) with most of the values coming from evaluating the roles in a vacuum compared to the Vanilla version of that alignment and the point values of other roles. I ended up with +20, so slightly shifted towards Town. In the end I think the game was more shifted towards Town than I thought, considering that Town almost constantly fucked up big time and still almost managed to win it. However, I think the point system is a great tool for evaluating your balance and the fact that this game didn't turn completely sideways (*cough* WWE *cough*) despite having many unique mechanics and roles is a strong argument for it.

- Unnecessary Town gambits: "Gifts" from Komena? Pray to a player? What? I made this game and I have no clue what the purpose of those was. Town really fucked itself over this game.

- I'm glad people liked the flavor.

The Roles

So there were a few non-normal roles in this game which I'd like to discuss. I will rate them based on how well I think they worked out:
5/5: Great role. I'd like this to become a staple
4/5: I liked that role and wouldn't mind if it gets used on a semi-regular basis.
3/5: The role was okay. If it fits in, go ahead and consider it.
2/5: The role disappointed on one level or the other. Think about if the role works better in your context than it did in this game before including it
1/5: This role isn't fun or breaks the game and needs big conceptual changes before you should consider putting it in your game.

Let's start (I will only used unusual roles that in principle could work outside this setup, so no Heretic or Gods):

- Oracle (Lie Detector) 2/5: First thing: It's a chore to moderate. Most posts in the game were clustered with useless information that I could neither confirm nor deny, so "Truth" is a almost impossible answer. It has huge room for moderator errors or different interpretations of what people actually said in their post. As a workaround I agreed with *Splinter to list all the statements I'm including in my analysis, but I think that's far from ideal. Another problem that I realized during the game but thankfully never came up: Is it a lie if the person who tells it thinks it's the truth? This role is just full of stumbling blocks... Btw, I think Splints was too greedy with trying to be a "super-cop". Settling on being a normal cop that already can't be redirected would maybe have been better, but I can't tell for sure.

- Dreamweaver (Chef) ?/5: We've never seen this role in action. The "following night" clause was a necessity so Darryl could be roleblocked or redirected while his guest still have a full night to talk. Then there is, especially in this community, the timezone issue: The guests shouldn't know each other (only their roles) but if I was in there and my opponent made posts at 4 am I could pretty much rule out any European player. Technically you also shouldn't know the alignment of the other guy so you have to name the roles in a way that don't give it away immediately that you are Scum. I would love to see this role in another game in action.

- Captain 1/5: This role has so many issues: Due to the timing constraints (the advised needs time to react) I had this role immediately resolve after I got the command. That of course means it can neither blocked nor redirected, which honestly is a problem I wasn't aware of when I included the role. The second big problem is that you have to decide which commands you include. That also means that you give the Captain a short (incomplete) list of roles in your game with their role PM. Seeing how this game turned out this is another source of confirming people and making it hard for Scum to fakeclaim you should be aware of. As a workaround you could include a few red herrings that aren't actually in the game or something along those lines. But that would make the role even more useless than it already was.

- Lightning Rod 2/5: It's not that unusual of a role, but I list it here just to say how salty I am that Scum didn't get that beautiful Gorlak kill N1 (for reference: They would have redirected his selfheal and killed him). LRs break things and negate any decision making other than its own.

- Gold Cursed (Passive Roleblocker) 5/5: I really liked that role. How powerful it is in the end depends on your ration of player-targeting PRs between the two sides, but at least in this setup we had roughly 50:50 between Scum and Town and it also didn't necessarily block the Scum kill for the following night if Scum is aware that they targeted the Gold Cursed, so I would say for power level considerations it was roughly on the level of a Vanilla Townie. Which is great imo because it makes for much more interesting decision making than Vanilla Townie.

- Mesmerist (Deflector) 3/5: Insanely powerful especially in a game with a lot of claims like this was. On N1 it almost got around a selfheal and on N2 it was basically an additional kill after Gorlak admitted he had a vig-shot. On all other nights it was more a "maybe he/she lied about his/her PR, we should redirect it, just in case" and did basically nothing.

- Mind Wader (Absorber) 5/5: I think this was one of the most interesting roles I've ever seen. At worst it's a X-shot rolecop. Even if it hits a PR some of them are actually quite useless for Scum (such as alignment cop or doctor). But if it hits a roleblocker, a vig or even a doctor if a vig is running around, it has additional utility. I think however, that other than with most other roles you tend to overestimate its power in the design stage.

- The Chosen One ?/5: I almost left this one out because it doesn't go in most games, but if you have some unique elements in your game that depend on some roles (such as the dictates here) I think it's a very interesting idea to have someone hunt for those players and then take their place being an even more extreme version of them. I'm very sad we didn't see it happen, especially since the daycommand was tailored to maximize the "Oh Shit!" effect.
It actually also was supposed to be the "ultimate betrayal" from the movie poster. :p

What I personally have learned

- Set access to any secret chats before you send out role PMs with links to said secret chats.

- Coming up with meaningful flavor for rather uneventful days and nights gets increasingly hard.

- for me personally Design > Playing >> Modding. I think it's rather boring and also quite disappointing if you see your coolest roles getting lynched before the can do their thing, the epic moments you designed the game for never happening or the design just generally falling apart (RNG ending)

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How big is the demand on a player rating? I honestly don't remember enough to make a good judgment on this one and would have to read the thread again. But as a general thing to say: Without the unnecessary suicide *Splinter probably would have been Town MVP, but as it stands I'm really not sure who to hand it. Scum all played fantastic: Dragonz gave a great performance for a first-timer ("too good for first time. #scumtell" yet her teammates barely gave direct input), Swamped dazzling as always, Kyan ... being Kyan. But really great was Zeke who was on nobody's Scum list for most of the game. imo Scum MVP.


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Special Thanks to

- Yeeny, for being my wingwoman in this game. I know you feel bad for not being able to help during the game, but don't worry. I managed and just hope your internet gets repaired soon :)

- Sorian for reviewing the game and more importantly taking over when I was unavailable (and for being excited about the game ^__^). You really were a huge help.

- Ouro for reviewing the game and giving useful insights into modding. I'd say you were kind of my mentor...

- Roytheone, Retro and Nin for doing support in the modchat.

- cabot and UnmaskedFerret for reviewing the role names on the aspect how easily you could determine the alignment from the names.

- Gorlak, El Topo, OceanicAir, RetroMG, CrimsonFist, roytheone, TheG, RNH and cabot for providing the votes D5

- Lone_Prodigy, Darryl, CrimsonFist, EzekelRAGE, flatearthpandas, Freakinchair, Giant Panda, StarSketch, Sophia, Zippedpinhead, OceanicAir, Swamped, Gorlak, Kyanrute, WhereAreMahDragonz, Seath, fengshuifever, *Splinter and Blargonaut for playing
 
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