Mod Commentary
1.)
This set-up had the exact same roles and mechanics as a game I have played on another forum. The only difference was the presentation of the set-up; at the other forum, the town was told the following:
9 innocents, 2 mafia, and 1 traitor. There will be a Doctor, and a 1-Shot Vigilante. However, any player (including mafia and traitor) may have the power roles.
Their set-up ended up giving the town both the Doctor and the 1-Shot Vig (just as I did in this game); I thought that set-up was balanced -- especially when you consider that the mafia does not know the identity of the traitor, and the town will probably get an “extra” lynch by (a) using the 1-Shot Vig; or (b) saving somebody with the Doctor; or (c) having mafia nightkilling their own Traitor.
2.)
The other forum also instituted the exact same limited reveal mechanic used here. I was a townie, and it was undoubtedly one of the most
frustrating
game I have ever played.
I think my initial dislike for the set-up came largely from the limited reveal aspect; as a long-time player at mafiascum.net, I have been indoctrinated into practically
relying
on full reveals. It was really only after I had a while to ponder the game that I realized that the experience was a game like this is; yes, you can never be sure who the traitor is or what (if any) power roles are dead, but it truly forces you to take the game to a new level.
3.)
One of the time-honored strategies at the other site – noting that they often included Traitors as a part of their role sets – was to look for traitor hints. The town wanted to find the traitor because that might lead to finding a mafia, or possibly both mafia. The mafia wants to find the traitor so they can avoid lynching/nightkilling them unless it is necessary. This leads the traitor into the quandary of trying to find ways to out themselves to the
mafia
but not to the town; and since there are more townspeople than mafia, a diligent town is more likely to catch any hints dropped. Because of the ‘power’ of finding the traitor, their site developed the ‘don’t reveal the traitor’ mechanic. I was a little disheartened that there did not ever seem to be people reading over the game for the sole purpose of looking for “traitor hints.”
4.)
Although the town loses some power in that the mafia/traitor may be able to claim a power role ‘safely’ when the correspondong power role dies, so too does the town gain power in having the option of claiming Traitor in certain situations. There are quite a good many of interesting scenarios that could result from that – for if the mafia acts on reliance of such a claim, they may out themselves only to learn the game is not as over as they thought. Similarly, the mafia may mistakenly act on the belief that there is a live traitor, leading to potentially bad situations, just like what happened in this game. In essence, the possible presence of the traitor almost forces the mafia to be cautious near endgame, even if they may have a win 'in the bag' if they were just to go for a quicklynch.
[Note: I actually claimed Traitor in the game I played on Day 4 with 6 alive. It did not turn out to be too successful in finding mafia, but some players did think me more likely to be town because of it.]
I do regret a little that the town in
this
game lost additional power because I essentially took away the chances of the town being able to counter-claim (in that the town ‘could’ have three power roles when I only gave them two), and that the mafia could direct further lynches by claiming the other roles I included as ‘possibilities’ in the game. I probably should have just used their set-up to the T by taking away role-blocker and Cop claims, but I was largely trying to present the set-up differently on the off-chance somebody recognized it from the other forum. *sigh*
5.)
As mentioned earlier, the Hunchback of Notre Dame flavor was largely pasted onto the set-up because I felt the game needed
some
sort of flavor as I did not feel comfortable running the game in the Little Italy forum. Also, I have had Notre Dame Mafia (based off my currently favorite board game) jumbling around in my mind for a while, so I thought this would be a cute way to lead up to that game.
6.)
I was also surprised at the late reactions to the limited reveal aspect. I tried to focus attention on that aspect to replacements and players in the sign-up queue, but the general trend seemed to be:
Player on Day 3 wrote:Wait,
WHAT?
Perhaps I should have bolded that text and drawn arrows to it and made the text very large or something, but I do kinda expect that players read my rules – or at least the set-up – to see if anything is different from the standard game.
~
To answer questions:
a.)
I banned text quoting because I wanted to keep the game ‘pure’ if possible. As it happens, I took all of the text from
one
source, and if that were discovered by the town than a mafiate who took text from a separate translation may have been lynched on that basis. Additionally -- although highly unlikely -- a mafiate
might
have claimed the exact same flavor text as another role, which would have been a ridiculous situation to deal with especially if the two translations were slightly different. I wanted to avoid scenarios such as those.
b.)
Scum role-names were written from each character’s perspective. I tried to give player’s their “full” name, but then abridged names – as they are more likely to be known as – to the other players.
