Mafia Capital (WWC XIII): Important Info Here -- READ OPENING POSTS!

From the AV/Aventine QT in Beware of Bites:

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I could look across past games to see whether wolves are more likely to try and infiltrate by claiming, or clam up, but even with how often I do it, there's hardly enough games for such research to be anything but a crapshoot.

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Kinda curious what others think of this, on a meta level. In both HP and Villains the wolves claimed fairly late and only once the towniness of the person they were claiming to was proven beyond a doubt (despite the fact that I provided fake-claims in HP), but two games is hardly a significant amount of data. Plus it obviously depends on who the wolves are.

With the Harry Potter game, one weakness I saw in the fake claims (excepts Gonagell (?)) was that there was no reason for them to be at the school. Moody usually wasn't a teacher, or the only time he was he was a 'wolf' in disguise. Fudge shouldn't be there, and he's so incompetent as to likely be a neutral at best. I forget the other fakeclaim, but I think it was similar.

In the game I'm going to run, I am making more roles than there should be players, so all roles are known of, but it's not known which are in the game and which aren't. Which will actually fit my narrative, too! :smallsmile:

More comment later, but baby getting fussy.

===later===

I realize my comments might not be useful because I find networking to be a hassle. Requires too much thought, checking links, and worry, so I prefer to just network with 1-3 people and let someone else handle the big 'towncore' stuff and group threads. I've done differently in some games (most notably the current BoB one), but it's a little wearying.

Because of that, when I'm a wolf, I generally only talk to 1-3 Town. I don't really WANT to infiltrate the core, but I like to be somewhat trusted by a couple people. AV usually is one of those, since she usually talks to everyone so it's easy to half-share info with her; and if I lie, it's reasonable because of course you might lie a little bit to AV about your power or what actions you plan to take.
On the other hand, that's exactly how I act as Town as well. Which is my general playstyle: be as helpful and useful as I can, sometimes with a couple schemes brewing. Very rarely a scheme might even manifest into action or fruition, such as getting Bunny to kill AV (though that did fulfill Bunny's win-con, so it was a beneficial scheme.)

I'll also usually try to let Neutrals win if I can do so without compromising my win condition. Seems nice, and a good metagame to foster for whenever I have a neutral role. Plus it motivates neutrals to believe I'm worth working with.


EDIT: as a wolf, I feel much more comfortable claiming late game when the chances of getting counterclaimed are lower. I guess that means a lot of claims early on is a boon for town, though it can also help wolves pick their targets.
But, if I'm hesitant to claim as Town, it's probably to keep my identity secret and protect a valuable power, or to let the wolves think I'm valuable so they go after me instead of a more useful townie.
If I'm hesitant to claim as wolf, it's to buy time.
So, again, either as Town or wolf, I act pretty similar. :smallbiggrin:

Though this last game I think I claimed D1 (or maybe N1--don't remember) to AV, and she turned out to be a wolf :smallfrown:

I do think it depends a lot on the particular wolf, and the set-up of the game.

I do also think it goes back to games that allow PMs and such need to have ways for wolves to avoid easy detection (well, all games really, but probably more-so when networking is possible). In an all PR game, the list of known town roles (if any) needs to be much smaller than the number of townies, so that wolves can invent plausible-sounding fakeclaims (or be provided them by the narrator). In a mass-claim situation, every role known to exist is either a hard-confirmed townie or a lynched wolf (possibly after a mislynch if town guesses wrong on who they think is lying).

A wolf with a fake-claim that is not trivial to see through can do a lot of damage if he's trusted by the network.

sorry to interject, but just wanted to let everyone know that I am going to be lite contact for the next week but should be back after that.

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Originally Posted by Aventine

I do think it depends a lot on the particular wolf, and the set-up of the game.

I do also think it goes back to games that allow PMs and such need to have ways for wolves to avoid easy detection (well, all games really, but probably more-so when networking is possible). In an all PR game, the list of known town roles (if any) needs to be much smaller than the number of townies, so that wolves can invent plausible-sounding fakeclaims (or be provided them by the narrator). In a mass-claim situation, every role known to exist is either a hard-confirmed townie or a lynched wolf (possibly after a mislynch if town guesses wrong on who they think is lying).

A wolf with a fake-claim that is not trivial to see through can do a lot of damage if he's trusted by the network.

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Hmm... makes me think for my game, I might let the wolves know a handful of Town roles that are fake, so they can have some safe fakeclaims.

I guess all my experience as a wolf when dealing with fakeclaims was when it was relatively private claims, only to 1-3 people, not a mass claim situation.

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Originally Posted by JeenLeen

With the Harry Potter game, one weakness I saw in the fake claims (excepts Gonagell (?)) was that there was no reason for them to be at the school. Moody usually wasn't a teacher, or the only time he was he was a 'wolf' in disguise. Fudge shouldn't be there, and he's so incompetent as to likely be a neutral at best. I forget the other fakeclaim, but I think it was similar.

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I believe Flitwick was the other fake-claim, but yeah, you have a point. In retrospect, I definitely should have had some main characters as fake-claims, which would have both prevented that issue and prevented analysis like "well, Hermione is probably a real claim because why wouldn't an HP game include Hermione". The difficulty was mostly finding fake-claims where the claimed powers could be faked by the wolves and which also fit major characters. In the future, if I run all-power-role games they won't be themed around something that specific, because figuring out roles that fit characters was definitely the most headache-inducing part :smalltongue:

For the Pactverse game I'm planning, the characters are strongly inspired by the plot of the book, but none of them are necessarily a person seen in the book. E.g., I have a Chronomancer, Enchantress, Necromancer, and the wolves are Diabolist lawyers, but they aren't any of the named characters. So that gives me some leeway to obfuscate things.

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Originally Posted by JeenLeen

For the Pactverse game I'm planning, the characters are strongly inspired by the plot of the book, but none of them are necessarily a person seen in the book. E.g., I have a Chronomancer, Enchantress, Necromancer, and the wolves are Diabolist lawyers, but they aren't any of the named characters. So that gives me some leeway to obfuscate things.

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Ritual Incarnate as a Cult (presuming you're following Pale)? :smalltongue:

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Originally Posted by Bunny of Faith

Ritual Incarnate as a Cult (presuming you're following Pale)? :smalltongue:

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It's been long enough since I read Pact that I don't get the reference. But I'm guessing the answer is 'no', unless I did it unintentionally.
Who was Pale, or Ritual Incarnate?

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Originally Posted by JeenLeen

It's been long enough since I read Pact that I don't get the reference. But I'm guessing the answer is 'no', unless I did it unintentionally.
Who was Pale, or Ritual Incarnate?

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Oh man, go google Pale Web Serial now. It's Wildbow's newest and currently being written sequel to pact. Arc 1 just wrapped up and it's pretty darn good. A different vibe from Pact in some ways, but if you liked Pact you'll probably like what is there so far.

@PartyOfRouges are you ready to begin recruiting for your D&D mafia game?

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Originally Posted by AvatarVecna

@PartyOfRouges are you ready to begin recruiting for your D&D mafia game?

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If not has Aventine figured out a plan or am I next?

Well, since I'm just stealing lovingly borrowing an old game from the archives, there isn't much for me to do to get ready.

The numbers do seem to have been dropping off a bit which makes me suspect some people have burned out, so I might wait until next week to start recruiting even if I am next. I don't know if giving a little bit more buffer time between games will make a difference. But, I figured I might as well see.

Yeah, I'd agree the rapid fire has probably contributed to the decline.

PartyOfRouges has replied to a PM saying they'd get a thread up today. I'm keeping an eye on the recruitment subforum, but yeah it might be prudent to slow down a bit if people are burning out.

Yeah, I was thinking maybe we should go back to having a week or so between games, or at least not having them overlap.

I second that.

Alright, I’m fine delaying my game for a little bit

I wonder. Should we push recruitment back or just run a longer recruitment? On the one hand a longer recruitment gives people time to sign up and find the game. On the other hand, it could cause new people who sign up early to lose excitement.

I mentioned a variant of Wereworlf called The Thing a few posts back. I wanted to formalize the rules and offer to run a game, if enough people are interested.

Spoiler: rules

Show

1. All scientists go to sleep.
2. All scientists who are Things infect a victim (who is secretly notified)
3. If over half of the living scientists are infected, the game ends, otherwise everyone wake up.
4. One scientist is chosen for testing: if positive (aka he is a Thing), he dies, else he continues playing
5. A bonus test is tried on another scientist: if positive, he dies and another bonus test is tried.
6. Bonus tests continue until either all infected scientists are killed or a negative result is obtained.
7. On a negative result, bonus tests end, the last tested scientist continues playing, and everyone goes back to step one.

There are roles that can be added too, like a rogue (who is town and kills at night, trying to find the thing, but that the other scientist want dead for his vigilanty ways), a doctor (who can protect someone at night), a pharmacist (who survives 1st attack), resistant thing (dies when tested, but takes so long as to end the testing when they die), etc.

But I figured for a first game, it would be fun to just play it without powers, as it is already different enough from werewolf. Idealy this would need about 20 players. If it is closer to 10 players, then the researchers loose their free bonus test, as it just gives them too much of an advantage. You start with 2-3 things depending on the number of players.

Sounds good to me. Want me to put you on the schedule?

Should we start recruitment for the next game soon? That'll give probably at least a week between games, maybe more.

Though I can see waiting until the current game ends, to make sure folk have time to rest between them.

@AV, yes please add me to the rotation. I am glad I didn't join the last game, as I came down with a nasty stomach bug this past week and have been wiped out. I am back at 100% now.

I think we'll go back to a recruitment starting when the old game stops. The faster pace is decent at building player base, but burns out the existing one.

RA's "The Thing" has been added to the schedule.

EDIT: That's not to say we can't go back to this eventually, just that we're going to need more than just the same ~20 people showing up every game if we wanna run them bi-weekly, or those 20 people stop showing up consistently.

Put me on the schedule for Pelor the Burning Hate (Cult game).

The Jellicle Ball has ended in a victory for town and neutrals, as well as a spiritual victory for Logan1996.

@PartyOfRouges are you ready to begin recruiting for your game?

Yep, I’ll get the post up this evening

Dungeons and Doppelgängers is recruiting.

Dungeons & Doppelgängers has now started.

Dungeons & Doppelgängers has ended with town victory, could you please put me on the list for a space themed game