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[Sibare]

On that note, might I be able to divulge my schemes?

[Venser]

Here's what I'm going to say now that I have time to put out all my thoughts.

The mafia was, as a few people have said, fucked from the very beginning. They had a traitor in their midst that only wanted them dead, while they had no idea that they should have been prepared for betrayal.

At the same time, the town not only had to deal with the substantial number of antitown players from the beginning (5), but also with the conversion of dead players to Shadows through the Dead Pool. Without myself, Kudo, Mort, and Derf managing to become connected (so Mort could destroy Shadows) I think town would have had little chance of victory.

Similarly, without me stepping up and leading the town early on, the game might have fallen into a rut as Draco pushed abstains and just wrecked the town before they really knew what was going on. My role was powerful, perhaps broken, but only with a powerful presence behind it - which I provided, assuming that the Doctor role (since I knew there was one) would keep me going. However, Mort noped at me and let me die, so the town was cast down and Draco was able to push the abstain successfully.

There was a lot of power in the town roles, but fact was, with only 13 players to begin and 5 of them being antitown (a very high number in a no-reveal setup), plus the potential for conversion to antitown from town, this was a narrow victory. We barely managed it, and it took a lot of luck and a lot of abuse of Derf's power, which allowed town to be recursed from the grave. (Killing mafia was just a bonus).

[Neo]

On that note, might I be able to divulge my schemes?

Hm? Go for it, game's over

Yeah I think you could've even if your word worked, let alone you were the other Shadow that had Whisper.

[Sibare]

On that note, might I be able to divulge my schemes?

Hm? Go for it, game's over

-Shadify Rag
-Optionally: Tell Rag to tell the others to prepare a list of curse words, so we'd be able to revive each other easily
-Tell him to tell the others to say my word and DD's (if he'd become a shadow after the don's death) three times/day
-Both our words said three times--> -1 town, day ends sans lynch
-Kill Derf god damn
-Say the second person's word--> probably -1 town and end day
-Kill #2
-Win

I'm somewhat disappointed that I couldn't put it into motion.

[Neo]

Venser, I like how you played the Traveler role. It's nothing like I intended from the beginning though, but I liked your version better. I had intended Traveler to be an outsider who just entered the town, and so wasn't too affected by Dusk 0, and so hard to trust, but as time goes on, becomes more trusted by everyone and helps correct their respective situations, or mess things up (Psychic visit).

Do you have any suggestions for how I should've gone about the traitor part?


And I didn't see Shadows as anti-town in the beginning, just a 3rd party out for themselves that can win as long as they survive.

[liquidCorgster]

Well... To be the last to survive. Which is, in essence, anti-town.

[Neo]

Well see your arrival and toppling of the mafia changed it to be the last to survive.

Normal shadow goal was just survive. I see that as able to win with the town/mafia depending on who's left, if by any chance they defeated the mafia before you were Shadow Lord...

Wait...does that even work?? (had so many of those moments when making this game)

[Venser]

No non-town players really recognized what a threat Derf was until it was too late. I heavily abused his role power in order to sway things into Town's favor, that and the fact that no one was really recognizing what kind of power he had, not even Derf himself. I'm pretty sure that during the game, I was the only one that knew that Derf was the key to the whole thing. The Death Seer role was unimaginably powerful, and was simply moreso when connected with the Traveler role.

I was aware when I got the Traveler role PM, and its description, that you weren't really thinking of the role as I was thinking, Neo. In my mind, with all the information I had that was immediately useful, I was better off leading the town for as long as I could, keeping them away from the hidden perils I knew of. You, though, knew that my role's visiting power was much more powerful than I knew, and so expected the role to play out more slowly. However, being used to fast-paced games where role powers are essentially useless, I wasn't so much concerned with my powers as getting the town on the right track. So I wielded my power as best I could.

Hm. As far as mafia traitors go, it's very, very difficult to do in a balanced fashion. Thing is, the mafia are working from the mindset that they are the ones set against the town, and that their goal is domination, not defending themselves. So you have to set the traitor in such a way that they cannot easily backstab the mafia, because the mafia are not going to be prepared for it whatsoever. That wasn't much of a problem with this game, because the town eliminated the mafia fairly efficiently, but Liquid didn't do a damn thing for the mafia while he was alive, despite being its third member.

The way I've typically seen it set up in the past (in a balanced fashion) is to alert the mafia of a traitor in their midst (and use anonymity or some other device to prevent them from using the information), or, alternatively, simply not tell the traitor that they are, in fact, a traitor, until some event triggers them or pulls them away. Either one of those, (the latter of which you kind of invoked), or have the traitor's goal not one incompatible with the mafia, but simply not the same goal as the mafia's.

In this particular case, I think it would have been better had the mafia known Liquid was some kind of Shadow, perhaps "helping the mafia" or something like that. At least then they would have been suspicious, prepared to look for backstabbing.

Beginning the game, Sibare acted as a very anti-town Shadow, whereas Ellipsis was more that third party you were looking for, Neo. You have to understand that people will take roles in directions you never considered - I can remember when Gammagooey utterly broke a role I'd considered to be one of the poorer town roles in a game - and should be prepared for many different situations. I generally use "random events" as a sort of GM god tool, which allow me to correct imbalances that I notice after the game has started. I never totally change the game, but if one side is really hurting because of some oversight I made, then I can at least lend them a hand, or what-have-you.

[liquidCorgster]

Venser: Finding a way to min/max Mafia since 1993.

[Neo]

You keep saying you abused Derf's power. How'd you do that? I thought everything was legit. Derf gets letters. Derf gets messages. You help him figure them out only after you've connected. If you sent him a hint I would filter/modify it if I thought they were too easy.

In the beginning I had no idea the Soul Healer/Traveler/Witch who found the Shadow Lord connection would happen. You're lucky you didn't find the Don or you would've become mafia.

I thought if town was going to win it would be "that role that does stuff...ya know?" to save the day after coming back from death after 3 votes.

I also think I messed up early-on bigtime by letting all the dead know eachother's curse words. That wasn't supposed to happen. But since I let it happen once I let it happen to all the rest.

[Sibare]

I also think I messed up early-on bigtime by letting all the dead know eachother's curse words. That wasn't supposed to happen. But since I let it happen once I let it happen to all the rest.

How far would Stu have gone if he wasn't outed by saying my word?

[liquidCorgster]

Venser did not abuse the Death Seer's power. He helped Derf use it to its maximum potential. I will admit, I did not see originally how important the Death Seer role was. I did, but it was far too late to act upon it, and I had to prioritize.

And again, Neo, don't worry. It was a beta game, and regardless of the results, it was a lot of fun.

[Sibare]

Perhaps there's another way to balance the shadow role for a future game: Make them a mafia that backstabs itself. Last person to survive wins, so there's a tension between keeping themselves under wraps and throwing the others under a bus.

[Angrystu]

I also think I messed up early-on bigtime by letting all the dead know eachother's curse words. That wasn't supposed to happen. But since I let it happen once I let it happen to all the rest.

As I'm tired and a bit drunk, this is the only point I'll be raising at the moment.

Generally, I'm okay with the random curse word idea as usually the words have to be so unusual that it's unlikely any of them will be said. The issue that came in this game was that they were so powerful to any side that triggered one in their favor (kill enemy/raise ally: +2 player differential!) and that there was a role dedicated to using them. Also, the resurrection of players didn't work to well with that: had the RNG not simply said "fuck shadows lol" we would have been able to kill SL and resurrect Sibare, which combined with all the Shadow players we had on the last day would have tipped the scales.

Actually, one more point:

I'm not really a fan of all the % chances that were used in this game. Broadly speaking anything that someone restricts to only having a chance to work is really powerful. There's no guarantee that the RNG won't simply... stick and break the game. For example, having the three soul-healer fragments with a 1/3 chance of working: there's a 1/3 chance that ALL the powers work and for that particular night the town gets the advantage of three doctors. There's also the same chance that on that night they get NO doctoring. You also recall that we pretty much spammed Clairvoyant and it was a matter of good fortune for the town that it failed every single time we tried. That kill + revive could have swung the game, and based solely on the peculiarities of the RNG.

I mean, it'll *probably* work out all right, but there's a non-neglible chance any given day of having a setup turn out awful for one side or the other. Putting so much to the RNG takes away from the players; I don't think it's a great mechanic.

[Sibare]

I also think I messed up early-on bigtime by letting all the dead know eachother's curse words. That wasn't supposed to happen. But since I let it happen once I let it happen to all the rest.

As I'm tired and a bit drunk, this is the only point I'll be raising at the moment.

Generally, I'm okay with the random curse word idea as usually the words have to be so unusual that it's unlikely any of them will be said. The issue that came in this game was that they were so powerful to any side that triggered one in their favor (kill enemy/raise ally: +2 player differential!) and that there was a role dedicated to using them. Also, the resurrection of players didn't work to well with that: had the RNG not simply said "fuck shadows lol" we would have been able to kill SL and resurrect Sibare, which combined with all the Shadow players we had on the last day would have tipped the scales.

Actually, one more point:

I'm not really a fan of all the % chances that were used in this game. Broadly speaking anything that someone restricts to only having a chance to work is really powerful. There's no guarantee that the RNG won't simply... stick and break the game. For example, having the three soul-healer fragments with a 1/3 chance of working: there's a 1/3 chance that ALL the powers work and for that particular night the town gets the advantage of three doctors. There's also the same chance that on that night they get NO doctoring. You also recall that we pretty much spammed Clairvoyant and it was a matter of good fortune for the town that it failed every single time we tried. That kill + revive could have swung the game, and based solely on the peculiarities of the RNG.

I mean, it'll *probably* work out all right, but there's a non-neglible chance any given day of having a setup turn out awful for one side or the other. Putting so much to the RNG takes away from the players; I don't think it's a great mechanic.

Protip: Ask questions about your role. Neo can attest that I asked a fair bit of them, and from that I learned that the shadows had THREE CHANCES PER DAY of tripping the curse word. Note "day": your try during the night, which tipped off the town, didn't count, and excluding that invocation, "Clairvoyant" was said twice, leaving a 4/9 chance of it not working. Tl;dr: We fell on the wrong side of a ~50-50 shot that could have been mitigated.

And Neo, when do you plan on starting up another game?