Good Omens Mafia! Game Over.

[Fritzler]

Yea, I looked scummier here than I ever have, my bad guys. I know I distracted people during the day or two i entered.

[mneme]

Great game, people. Pooky was -so- MVP this game; I don't think I'd have survived without him.

Though even I admitted at one point during that last day that -if- there were two scum, pooky was the most likely way that could happen...but somehow, enough smoke got into the air (and Pooky did look -so- harmless) that that never quite got taken as gospel...which I was somehow just as happy about. The thing was, -if- I wasn't scum, there were better possiblities than Pooky. After all, he'd only investigated one of the other two players, and so it was likely esme+someone else. Naturally -if- I was scum, Pooky was (and I was, and he was), but...

Very fun game; very complicated setup.

[mneme]

Oh, one thing. God/Metatron are described as "masons" but they have a recruit ability. How's that work again? I don't know how it interacts with the game.

[Fritzler]

Oh, one thing. God/Metatron are described as "masons" but they have a recruit ability. How's that work again? I don't know how it interacts with the game.

It only comes into effect if the apocalypse comes.

[Dragon Slayer]

They could recruit townies and if the apocalypse occured then if God/Meta recruited enough peopel to outnumber the satanic group then the good guys would win.

[olio]

It was a while when I was killed in the game, but I still have good memories about it. Thanks to mods and players: I had fun

with joy, Olio

[mneme]

Ok, and so...the apocalypse happens iff the Horsemen survive to get their deliveries?

[Mr. Flay]

Huh. Wow, lots going on behind the scenes, which explains the no-reveal rule.

Thanks for the game, DS/Polotet. Sorry it didn't go as smoothly as hoped.

[mneme]

I think the no reveal rule was primarily to finally, have at least -one- theme game where the entire bloody game didn't revolve around the players manipulating the roles and figureing out who the bad guys where by catching conflicting/false role claims or elimination.

There's a lot to be frustrated in, frex, Monkey Isle (where the first two days ended with a lynch-scum-by-claim-conflict (ok, the funny part was two different scum claiming a three headed monkey, but...)).

I suspect the best two ways to do heavily themed games are either:

No claims. People find out the setup as people die, and can't try to guess the setup in advance. Occasional modkills to make the point.

Open roles. People are assigned roles at the beginning of the game, and those roles start out revealed. However, good/evil groupds are assigned completely separate of the theme roles, so one can't look at the roles and try to divine alignment or aliegence.

The third way -- "mess with expectations" has been tried with some success -- I remmeber being told about a Harry Potter game where the Gang of Three were mafia. But it seems of limited use to me; why play theme when you aren't playing the theme? It ends up playing wifm with the mod, which is...interesting.

The fourth way -- have a game with so many characters that it's hard to game, is possible, but seems to have issues; these tend, more than anything, to not feel like you're playing a themed game at all.

[Mr. Flay]

I think the fourth way is the only reasonable answer. Everything else gets into mod interference in what should be (IMO) a "recreation" of the theme world. Open roles can be useful, but then you have to wonder what the 'motivation' is for mafia roles to associate with each other in such obviously out-of-character ways (HP having the Gang of Three as the scum was bad enough, but what if Harry, Snape, and Dobby were the mafia by accident?).

On the other hand, I think (humbly, of course) that Reservoir Dogs worked as a theme game without breaking claims, because we did an end-run around the limited number of roles by making aliases 'Open' and abilities secret. Greek Mafia on GL worked pretty well without claims breaking the game, because there was a wealth of possibilities (Sappho was a bloody inspired false claim, I don't care what anybody says - and it wasn't even me!). THHGTTG-type games all seem to have done well without resorting to mass claims, unless I'm remembering badly. LOTR/Minas Tirith? Hobbit Mafia had other, bigger problems... *thinks* Checkmate turned out okay, didn't it? I can't talk about Civilization or Nativity Mafia yet...

[mneme]

For open roles with random groupings, you have to come up with reasons for the grouping after the fact -- ranging from conspiracy to alien pod people. The fun factor there is that people can actually play their roles without fearing (much) giving up their identies.

Should look at RD.

I was overbashing the fourth way, but it realy does cut down on your choice of theme, and is the method that most easily leads to problems, since a game the GM -thought- was open enough that nobody would guess their roles can get broken due to miscalculation.