Mini 456: Ultimatum Mafia - Game Over!

[pablito]

Mini 465: Ultimatum Mafia

co-mod: Guardian

(an experimental game with a speed mafia/duel mafia setup...thereby also being open role and nightless)

Note: Please read ALL rules carefully (they're in the next post) because this game involves different mechanisms.

Primary election season is here in the land of the Federated States of Organized Crime and Lycanthropes and this year's crop of candidates comprise of three liberals, three conservatives and six minor-party candidates. While the minor-party candidates would just love to have the election as is right now and hope for the best in a run-off election, the liberals and conservatives would rather pummel all their opponent party candidates right now in debate and embarrass them off the ballot. Now everyone wants to challenge other candidates in televised debate and embarrass others with their mastery of debate. However, everyone knows that trying to humiliate an opponent in a group debate is not as effective as challenging your opponent to a one-on-one no-holds-barred steel-cage debate.

During each gameday, one player will step up to the podium and challenge an opponent to a government-sponsored debate. The ultimatum has been set. Everyone else must vote to save the challenger or the opponent. Once you have voted for one candidate

to win the debate

that cycle, there is no unvoting.

Failure to vote before deadline each game cycle will likely result in modkill.

The loser of the debate will embarrass himself on national media and will remove himself from the primary ballot. The game ends when either the liberals or conservatives equal/outnumber all other candidates or when the minor party candidates are the only ones on the ballot. So let the televised debates begin!

Each lynch cycle (8 days) is split into two parts: a challenge period and a voting period. There are two different deadlines that must be met for each cycle. As noted before, there must be one lynch every 8 days*. There is also a deadline to challenge. There must be one challenge within 4-5 days of the last lynch. If no one has volunteered to challenge by the deadline to challenge, the person who has the least recent post at that point will be forced to challenge. The deadline to challenge has already been randomized and will always occur at some moment on the 4th or 5th day of the cycle. A person who has been forced to challenge must name his/her opponent within 36 hrs of being chosen or else s/he will be automatically lynched. Basically, if you don't post or participate within deadlines (unless advance notification has been given), you will likely be killed. If you do not think you can post every 24 hrs, this game is probably not for you.

Before the deadline, everyone must vote for who they want to save and there is no unvoting

. A plurality (not a majority) of votes will save a player from lynch, and thus the other person will be lynched. If there is a tie vote, then the final vote cast will be disregarded to determine who will be lynched.

Game Status: Please see Page 26 for roles.

Still on the ballot

Albert B. Rampage (r. SpinWizard)
Battle Mage* (r. DanMonkey)
Carrotcake
DeanWinchester
dylan41985
mneme
Mr Stoofer
Sparks
Stewie
The Fonz
VanDamien
Yosarian2

Off hanging like a chad

+challenged last round and is not eligible to challenge this round
*total challenges - see rules for getting to third challenge

[pablito]

Because of the strict deadlines, prodding will occur often via MafiaScum Private Messaging (PMs). If you would prefer that we prod you through email, please send us your email address before the game.

Here is a guideline for a normal cycle:

1 - discussion, free to challenge
2 - discussion, free to challenge
3 - discussion, free to challenge
4 - the deadline to challenge may occur at any moment
5 - the deadline to challenge may occur at any moment
6 - challenge has already been set, voting is occurring
7 - voting
8 - all votes must be in by end of day or modkill occurs

Rules

• Each game day, one player must volunteer to challenge another player of being anti-town. Challenges must in bold.

Challenge: Pablito

. Once a challenge has been made, it can not be revoked. Only the first challenge during a day counts. There are rules which limit the frequency of your challenges, which may invalidate it, however. A player may not challenge within two consecutive cycles. Before you can make your third challenge, everyone still in the game must have already been the Challenger at least once.

• A Challenge must be made within 4-5 days of the last lynch. If no one has volunteered to be the Challenger, then the person with the least recent post at deadline will be named the Challenger. That person must then name his/her opponent within 36 hours of being chosen as Challenger. Failure to do so will lead to an automatic lynch.

• If a challenge is deemed valid, then the Ultimatum has been set. Every player (except the Challenger and Opponent) must vote for either the Challenger or his Opponent to survive. All votes must be in bold.

Vote: Guardian

. In this game, there is

no unvoting and please do not confirm vote

. Once you vote, you are stuck with it.

Everyone must vote before deadline.

• Lynches will require a simple plurality of votes. If the count ends in a tie, the last vote will be disregarded and the person with lfewer votes will be lynched. If at deadline a player has not yet voted by the 8-day deadline, he will be modkilled. A player will NOT be replaced during the voting period (there are measures to assist with voting, for those that have notified that they will be absent). Each day will last a maximum of 8 days unless there was a forced challenge, in which case the deadline will be announced.

• Once all players have voted, I will formally post a final vote count. If I do not formally post a final vote count, assume that the lynch has already occurred and deadlines reset. Once you have been lynched, you may no longer post,

not even a "bah" post

.

• Do not edit/delete any previous submitted posts. Do not use invisible text or color=black.

• Do not quote any PMs from me, or anything from outside the game. The game is not to be discussed outside of the thread.

• Please try to post at least once per day. If you anticipate being unavailable for more than a 48-hour period, please post a notice to that effect in the thread and PM me ASAP. If you do not post within a 72-hour period, you may be replaced without notice. Treat this game as a commitment and be considerate. If you know you will have limited access during the game, notify me as soon as possible and we will see if we can continue in your absence as the voting process can be automated.

• I am your mod. Guardian is your co-mod. Anything we say goes. PM us if you have any questions.

Please confirm by PM. Mafia may talk to each other before the game begins. Once all confirms are in, we will begin shortly thereafter.

[pablito]

Roles

You are

the liberal mafia with AAA and CCC.

You may talk with your fellow mafia until the game starts. The game will start 24 hours after the last confirm is in. I will notify you when this occurs. You may

NOT

PM your fellow mafia once the game begins.

Win condition: The liberal mafia is alive and outnumbers or equals all others still in the game.

Please confirm by PM

.

You are

the conservative mafia with XXX and ZZZ.

You may talk with your fellow mafia until the game starts. The game will start 24 hours after the last confirm is in. I will notify you when this occurs. You may

NOT

PM your fellow mafia once the game begins.

Win condition: The conservative mafia is alive and outnumbers or equals all others still in the game.

Please confirm by PM

.

You are a townie candidate from a minor political party. You are not allowed to communicate with any of the other players outside the thread.

Win Condition: You win with the Town when all evil is gone.

Please confirm by PM

.

[pablito]

All confirms are in. The game will begin in at least 24 hrs.

[Guardian]

Government Notice

Greetings, Citizens!

Welcome to the FSOCL! In our great nation, all citizens must be political candidates, and once you are running, the state mandates that you must be active in trying to win!

Some sneaky candidates have already aligned themselves with each other, but being in an underground political party greatly hampers the chances of minor party candidates winning. So, we sponsor nationwide debate and political primaries, to try and out the underhanded candidates! Elections are coming soon, so we mandate that this process goes quickly! You have about 4... or is it 6... or more near to 5 days - to complete the first part of this process - by that time one of you must have challenged another to the first primary! We know you are all new to this process, so we are giving you 10 days instead of the normal 8 for the first primary to be over. Well, get going folks! Your first deadline is sometime between 4 and 6 days away! This is your first Ultimatum!

[pablito]

Deadline to Challenge: randomized moment between June 11th-12th
Deadline to Lynch: June 16th 23:59 EDT

We are operating to the minute on the Eastern Daylight Standard Time system out of convenience to the mods. It is now 7:10 am on June 7th in EDT. Please note the time difference to your time zone and adjust your deadlines accordingly. If there's an overwhelming number of players in GMT or Aussie time or something, let me know and I'll post the numbers for those time zones as well. Otherwise, please do your math.

Both I and Guardian, my co-mod, will regularly notify you of pertinent deadlines.

Let the game begin.

[mneme]

Good morning!

This isn't mafia, but should be interesting anyway.

Suggestion: We can't do normal voting bandwagons in this game (there are no "votes" until a challenge has occured), but the hard information gained from bandwagons is still crucial.

Instead of milling around, why don't we informally "nominate" people to challenge? Unless this is terminated by deadline or by someone breaking the process, if we can get a majority "nominate" bandwagon on someone, we can force them to challenge (or be challenged by someone on the bandwagon). And in the meanwhile, we get useful info!

Of course, we don't have much time -- just four days between now and the possible deadline, so we have to work fast!

Thougthts?

[Carrotcake]

Without the random voting, I really don't know how to start. From the roles posted, it does not seem like the mafia can nightkill, they are the same in all abilities as everyone else? That could make things difficult.

[Carrotcake]

Oh, and I nominate mneme for starting the idea!

[The Fonz]

Without the random voting, I really don't know how to start. From the roles posted, it does not seem like the mafia can nightkill, they are the same in all abilities as everyone else? That could make things difficult.

That's the case, the game is nightless. The only kills will be the ones that result from challenges.

[Mr Stoofer]

OK, here are my thoughts.

There are two crucial mechanics in this game that our strategy should be based around.

1

. This game involves players unilaterally attacking others -- without the necessity of getting a majority of people to agree with you. Previous games of this sort (Bad Idea Mafia I & II; M.A.D. Mafia) have all gone the same way: the Townies kill off each other and the Scum coast to victory. Townies have less to lose and so are more reckless; the Scum are more cautious in a such a game, so that sit back, keep their heads down, and the Townies ignore them. We have to avoid doing that. DO NOT CHALLENGE RECKLESSLY.

2

. This is a speed game. So the oppurtunities to get info are limited. This means that EVERYONE MUST MAKE REGULAR SUBSTANTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS. If players are allowed to lurk -- and that includes Townies -- it makes it so much harder to work out who the Scum are.

With that in mind, I propose the following strategy for Day 1:

(a)

Nobody make a challenge. Instead we let the Mod enforce this rule:

If no one has volunteered to be the Challenger, then the person with the least recent post at deadline will be named the Challenger.

This will encourage everyone to post regularly. And it also avoids a jumpy Townie challenging another jumpy Townie (which is what will happen with any other strategy).

(b)

The Challenger challenges the person who has made the fewest

substantive

contributions.

I think that this strategy will give us a decent, information filled Day 1 to allow us to really hunt Scum on days 2+.

Thoughts?

[Mr Stoofer]

Also, I'm going to be watching for "active lurkers" -- players who post regularly but without saying anything substantive.

[The Fonz]

I think that, whilst avoiding lurking is indeed desirable, if we don't post with the aim of someone eventually deciding to challenge someone else, we're going to end up with posting for posting's sake. We need the threat of a challenge there to ensure that the discussion is

about something

.

So, whilst for individual townies, not challenging, and certainly not until the deadline nears, is quite likely a good policy, handcuffing the town like that is not.

[mneme]

Stoofer: your idea is interesting, but it provides no controls against unsubstantive lurking -- in fact, it provides NOTHING FOR US TO POST ABOUT AT ALL!

While if no useful bandwagon has emerged by deadline time, it's entirely reasonable to let the mechanical rule kick in, it's very important that we have something to talk about and where the discussion can go. On a discoursive level, the conversation -must- end up being about more than two people, and not a pure lurker kill -- otherwise, we'll get next to no information out of every day. Since the only advantage the information-less 6 have against the informed sets of 3 is that the scum -must- work together (and thus give up info) to have a better than average chance of winning, our best approach to winning is to produce more info every day, not less. This does mean any challenge without consensus or majority is majorly anti-town (and I, for one, will happily vote against any early challenger who destroys our day this way).

(Fonz: exactly)

nominate: Stoofer

for trying to restrict debate in this way.

[Mr Stoofer]

I agree with The Fonz/mneme. We need something to talk about, and nominations for Challenger is a good idea. So I propose modifying my suggestion:

Stoofer strategy v2.0

(a)

During the Day, we nominate players to be the Challenger.

(b)

If a majority (i.e. 7+ players) nominate one player ("the Nominee"), he must become the Challenger.

(c)

If the Nominee does not make a Challenge, then we let the Mod enforce the rule below; and everyone will vote to evict the Nominee.

If no one has volunteered to be the Challenger, then the person with the least recent post at deadline will be named the Challenger.

(d)

If nobody gets a majority, we let the Mod enforce the same rule.

(e)

Unless

(c)

applies, the Challenger will challenge the person who has made the fewest

substantive

contributions.

This strategy will encourage everyone to post regularly. And it also avoids a jumpy Townie challenging another jumpy Townie. I think that this strategy will give us a decent, information filled Day 1 to allow us to really hunt Scum on days 2+.

Thoughts?

[Mr Stoofer]

OMGUS nominate: menme

just to get things going.

[SpinWizard]

wow, cool mechanic, it may take a while to get used to

[mneme]

unnom
nominate: Carrotcake (come play!)

Given that we've already got a lurker controls, and as players we are quite capable of punishing lurkers on our own, why build a limit our system that removes some of its teeth?

Possibility 1: whoever's nominated gets to challenge whoever they think is most suspicous. Keeps things interesting. If this is a lurker, so be it.

As a contrary idea, if we can manage it, why not run two bandwagons -- Challenger and Challengee, or just let people have two live nominations at once, or combine the idea, and let people nominate two people and have one "challenger" among them at a time? We don't want it ambiguous who's got the onus to challenge! The winner of one of them must challenge the other (at which point, we talk about things and vote one of them off), or be challenged and more or less automatnically lose the challenge.

If we can avoid apathy, it seems like the double-bandwagon idea gives us the most info we can possibly get during the day.

[Stewie]

I agree with The Fonz/mneme. We need something to talk about, and nominations for Challenger is a good idea. So I propose modifying my suggestion:

Stoofer strategy v2.0

(a)

During the Day, we nominate players to be the Challenger.

(b)

If a majority (i.e. 7+ players) nominate one player ("the Nominee"), he must become the Challenger.

(c)

If the Nominee does not make a Challenge, then we let the Mod enforce the rule below; and everyone will vote to evict the Nominee.

If no one has volunteered to be the Challenger, then the person with the least recent post at deadline will be named the Challenger.

(d)

If nobody gets a majority, we let the Mod enforce the same rule.

(e)

Unless

(c)

applies, the Challenger will challenge the person who has made the fewest

substantive

contributions.

This strategy will encourage everyone to post regularly. And it also avoids a jumpy Townie challenging another jumpy Townie. I think that this strategy will give us a decent, information filled Day 1 to allow us to really hunt Scum on days 2+.

Thoughts?

I think that this, and other similar strategies, are fine for the first couple of days when we don't have much information and this sort of thing could help get the game going. Later on we will have a much clearer image of who is suspicious to the town, and who isn't, so anyone could challange one of those people. My main concern is that there is too much to talk about later on the game, and I don't think anyone will get a majority. Then the mod will have to apply the rule, and I don't think that would be desirable later on the game.

For now though,

nom: spinwizard

for that last post.

[Mr Stoofer]

I think that this, and other similar strategies, are fine for the first couple of days when we don't have much information and this sort of thing could help get the game going. Later on we will have a much clearer image of who is suspicious to the town, and who isn't, so anyone could challange one of those people. My main concern is that there is too much to talk about later on the game, and I don't think anyone will get a majority. Then the mod will have to apply the rule, and I don't think that would be desirable later on the game.

I completely agree.

[dylan41985]

i also agree

[Sparks]

Vote: stoooofer

not random

[Yosarian2]

Stoofer: What you said about active lurkers is very true. Based on what happened in MAD mafia, we have to keep a very close eye on people who try to lurk in plain site. We don't want this to become a "active townies go after each other while semi-lurking scum coast their way to victory".

I don't necessaraly agree with the "no one should challange" plan, though. I think we're going to get some information based on who challanges who, and that information could be very useful to figuring out who could be scum with who.

[Yosarian2]

BTW, that was in response to Stoofer's first post. Stoofer Plan 2.0 is better, although in the past such things haven't worked out so well; in these kinds of games (like Bad Idea mafia and such) usually someone just ends up ignoring the votes and going off on their own anyway. Noneteless, I do support the idea of "nominating" the challanger (or perhaps both the challanger and the challangee) and keeping track of votes and all that, so as to gain information. All we've got to go on this game is day information anyway, so we might as well generate as much as we possibly can.

[mneme]

Bah. I nominated Carotcake not realizing that she'd posted (and, in fact, nominated me).

Random will do. I'm going to follow my v2 suggestion, since it seems simple enough. Nominate the two people you want to fight; if you want, mention which one should be the challenger. Explictly unnom; if we can get a majority on two, force (ish) the one of the two with the most "challenger" noms to challenge the other one.

I'm going random -- The people without even vaguely substantive contributions so far are:
Late to the party: DanMonkey, DeanWinchester,VanDamien
Only useless posts: dylan41985, Spinwizard

Sparks has had only one, very short post, but it contains a vote (never mind that votes don't matter at this stage), so I'm leaving him off the list.

Original Roll String: 1d5

1 5-Sided Dice: (2) = 2

Original Roll String: 1d4

1 4-Sided Dice: (4) = 4