This is Critical Failures' Master Phalla thread. It's for signups, statistics, and general discussion of Phalla and its mechanics. Generally, there will be one main Phalla running (with up to two threads), as well as up to two smaller Phallas. Signups are required for the main game. No dead threads, and the game will be run in the same threads where the signups take place. This is going to be the system until we start having problems, at which point I will probably fix those problems in ways that no one will like, so play nice.
What is Phalla?
Phalla is the Penny-Arcade Forums' version of
the party game Mafia.
The Basic Rules
The "village" consists of all players in the game. Included in the village is a small number of bad guys. Normally, the bad guys all know one another at the beginning of the game, but nobody else knows anything about anyone other than themselves.
Each day (normally 24-hour period) the village discusses and publically votes for one person to be executed that night. At the same time, the bad guys choose one person to kill each night and PM the name to the narrator.
The good side wins if all of the bad guys die. The bad side wins if the number of good guys is less than or equal to the number of bad guys (on the assumption that at that point, they control the vote plus get their kill, so it's inevitable).
Usually, there will be one or more "special" roles among the good guys (and occasionally among the bad guys). Exactly who holds each role is only known to that person, although how many of each role exist is most often known.
Each night, the narrator gives the details of who died, and normally whether they were a bad guy. Some games also include clues or outright statements if someone who died is a good special.
Standard Special Roles
Roles will have different names depending on the theme of the game. Listed below are the usual "generic" terms for each role. Normally, specials exercise their power by communicating with the narrator via PM.
Seer -- once per night can "investigate" a particular person and find out from the narrator if they are a bad guy. Variations of seers may be able to determine a good special as well, although they may be unable to distinguish them from a bad guy.
Vigilante -- once per night can kill a person of their choosing.
Guardian -- once per night can protect someone from any death other than execution by the village. Whether they can protect against multiple attacks on one person in the same night is up to the narrator.
Masons -- a group of good guys, usually of similar size to the group of bad guys, who start the game knowing each other, and that they are all good.
Common Variations
Many larger games contain multiple groups of bad guys working at cross-purposes.
At least one game has included a council elected every other night who are able to overturn the popular vote. Normally, this shifts the execution to the person who got the second-most votes.
The typical size for a group of bad guys is 3, although an individual game may have more, particularly if there is only one group of bad guys in a larger game.
Common "House" Rules
You may not communicate regarding the game with someone who is dead, unless there is some specific mechanic in place to do so. In that case, communication normally goes through the narrator.
You may not use any anonymous method of communication to discuss the game. Forum-based PMs, external IMs, and e-mails are allowed as long as the person you are talking to knows who you are.
You may not use screencaps to "prove" anything to anyone.
Normally, everyone gets a "flavor" role in the game. Bad guys and good specials usually get a normal "villager" role in addition to their special role. This keeps people from using their initial PM to verify someone else's role. The two most common ways to do this are to (a) use the exact same message to everyone, or (b) give everyone a unique villager role.
Posts
Everybody - The First Thirty-Ninth Annual Phalla Awards
Nobody - Nothing
Phalla Moderation Waitlist
What this is
- a thread for signing up to run games of Phalla, aka Mafia, in bold, bright colors. (see thorgot's thread for older posts)
- a thread to post the theme and/or size of your game.
- a way to figure out roughly how long it will be until somebody gets to run their game.
- a thread to find people to help you run your game.
- a thread to discuss mechanics, strategies, and ideas. (see Nerissa's thread for older posts)
What this is not- a thread to sign up to host games in D&D. Use Richy's thread instead.
- a thread to sign up to play games. Use the thread specific to the game you wish to join, instead.
- a thread to sign up to host "mini" games. Contact the host of the current game to ask if you can start one.
Miscellaneous- This list is hardly binding; you can change your theme or size at any time without letting anybody know.
- You can delay your turn if you aren't ready when the time comes.
- Very few games could take more than two weeks or less than one, so you can estimate how long until person n gets to go as n weeks to 2n weeks.
- Moderator-approved rule: No practical joke games. If the game is unexpectedly unbalanced, that's one thing, but don't waste our time on purpose.
- If your game involves more than one thread, PM Thinatos to let him know.
- Each game should be one thread, including signups. (Exception being a major game which requires two threads.)
MinisOld Games
Old Games Elsewhere
G&T
- Aroduc - Romance of the Two Kingdoms
- ??? - Wangshire
SE++A History Lesson:
0. HylianBunny (Eternal Darkness) - YEAH YEAH I SCREWED UP SHUT THE HELL UP
1. Infidel (Death Note) - Lived until day 5, didn't really do much. I got blow'd up
2. Plutonium (A Song of Ice and Fire)- Lived until final day, didn't realize how a certain game mechanic worked.
3. Squashua (PhalLOST)- The game where I manipulated Xevo pretty easily and did some cool stuff. Ended up getting resurrected once and lived to the last day.
4. Ardor and MrBlarney (Phalla Royale)- The one where I was a hacker, did some tricky stuff (And shot) Embark and escaped the island first.
5. robothero/life3 (Ultimate Fighting Championship: Robot Edition) - I was the white manager, and died day 2. Couldn't really do much because we were pretty much doomed from the start.
7. Bliss101 (French Revolution) - The one where I can't really remember what happened. I think I won. Probably.
8. Buzz Buzz (BANG!)- My first oDaM game, I joined in around day 4, and totally called Koan. Died in a duel with Koan.
9. Shankill Butcher (The Stand) - Totally called like every one of the bad guys. Take that, Marx. Died I think day 2 or 3 from a high dosage of Bees.
10. Green (Animorphs)- I don't know what the hell happened here, but apparently I was suspicious. Died day 1.
11. Neville (Harry Potter) - My first game! Neutral character, chose the baddies. Accidentally did something suspicious and was bandwagoned second day. Outed myself pretending to be a good guy and swung the votes away but ended up being killed by my own team
12. Robothero (Oregon Trail) - Joined in day 4 I think. Vigilante this game. Killed Green first, then moved on to kill 2 baddies in one night (sorta).
I'm missing a couple D&D ones im sure but those were so uneventful I don't remember them
A History Lesson III:
Ok, just noticed your modification to the rules; never mind.
Well, that's for games which require two threads. The signup would have to be one of those two threads, still.
I'm sure by then I'll think of a theme.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=3539251#post3539251
get em now while supplies last!
* Squashua (Lost Phalla) - Ahaha~ I put a lime exclamation point in the signup thread, but Squashua skipped over it. Upon learning the game likely had no penguins, I didn't bring it to his attention.
* Plutonium (Phalla of Ice and Fire) - Howland Reed. Had a pretty terrible skill, but used it to kill Rend. Proceeded to have my grand plans foiled by taking ten minutes to indulge in stupid free cake.
* Ardor + MrBlarney (Phalla Royale) - Killed B:L with a small rock launched by a golf club from several miles away. Also led my team to the endgame, and had things set up to even take out robothero if the RNG went my way on a few rolls. Hakkekage shot me a lot, and I laughed at her misfortune. I could've partnered up with FWD and accomplished some amazing things, no doubt, but he didn't advertise the spork kill nearly enough.
* robothero/life3 (Ultimate Fighting Championship: Robot Edition) - Syndicate. I pegged a few of the fighters, but the game ultimately came down to super-ultra entire game network vs. syndicate and Phallax vs. Gundam, which of course ended up in favor of Japanese technology.
* Locus (Through The Greatwood) -Didn't do much. I put up a suspicion post that I detailed to Raakam I was hoping would hit the trifecta of villager, good special, bad guy, and ended up doing it. My continued inexplicable trust of Elendil struck true. Otherwise I was a sort of hybrid, but equally useless sheep.
* Bliss101 & Hylianbunny (French Revolution) - The church doomed us from the start, as usual.
* Buzz Buzz (BANG!) - Died in a duel day one, entirely of my own doing. I thought I could moderately lean the odds towards the village side by getting the dead thread to hand items to my brother, but he was killed the next day, and was close to inactive anyway.
* Last Son (super-alliances) - Guu~
* thorgot (Democratic File System) - Uguu~
* FunkyWaltDogg (Space Station 13) - Angry I missed out on Sailor Moon phalla, but confident that my presence would have avoided that disaster.
* DarkPrimus (The Court of King Phallis) - Gaa~
* precisionk (Insane Asylum) - Octopus guy. Played a decent enough game, lived to the end and killed Precisionk in the final narration. Struck up one or two decent schemes, but not sure if we ever acted on them. Crazy-network helped things along. Strongly considered arranging things to kill Plutonium, who was on my own team.
* Saburbia (Haunted House) - Killed day one by some jerks, decided to blame Ardor.
* PsychoLarry (Comic Book Style) - Fufufu~
* Hylianbunny (The Zodiac Phalla Story) - Killed day 1 by TehSpectre because I didn't make the archer abilities suck enough to be even more unworkable in a game than they were. I was very sad.
* Gnasty (The Kingdom of Phalla vol. 1: The Caves of Phalla) - Defended Snacks on a Plane, and was completely and utterly correct. Killed on day 2. I think I used my dry sun analogy here, or some other flawless logic.
* EvilBadman (Phallanoia) (35-40) - I implemented what I believe to be the first game of RPS into Phalla, through intermediary Gnasty, but lost to Mazlo, whose !Zap missed me. Was about the only villager to so much as question Squashua or Rygar, but most people looked at the game as little more than a zap fest, so it's understandable.
* CJ Iwakura (Vampire: Masquerade) - Plain Toreador. The only game I've really roleplayed, because I have a soft spot for vain, extravagant, overly verbose jerks. Mixed good play with terrible play.
* Rygar (Space Phalla) (50) - Family member from Cleveland, successfully suspected Digger Dude and Munkus Beaver early on, but died to suicide bomber RNG in the middle of the game somewhere. Game was amusing because the whole city debacle really did end up pushing the network heavily in the right direction for a bunch of bad guys.
* VisibleHowl + ArrBeeBee (Soviet Phalla) - Villager, didn't actually accomplish much, but held one of my shining Phalla moments. I remember a night or two before the Eri blowup, I had an exchange with her regarding Devoutly Apathetic. DA 'came out' as the spy needing to hook up with the bad guys while Eri had the execution vote placed on him. I contacted DA acting as a bad guy, as any villager should have in that situation to keep him from his supposed objective, but also covered my bases by informing Lady Eri of my efforts. I suspected it was likely she was operating under the assumption that he was a good special, DA's reveal was just a measure to attempt to trap a dirty capitalist, and the execution vote would be removed at the last minute, as this would be the only useful course of action in the event DA really was a good guy. I recall fondly the response she gave me when I detailed my thought process on the matter - "I see..."
At the end of the day, that did turn out to be the plan, but of course oh so many things went wrong.
* ElJeffe (Phalliad) - First game. Villager until I became a vigilante and joined the network fairly late in the game. I was really pretty terrible at picking out anybody of interest, but managed to act competently once in the network. Elendil voted for me on the last day of the game, and it was enough to kill me. Really, I should still be throwing grudge votes at him, but I tend to naturally think he's a good guy instead.
Summary-I was generally a fan of Eri's presence, and I can't win a damn game of Rock Paper Scissors.
I say this merely to be informative.
It's not like I can send someone a PM saying "You are.....a Big Daddy! I don't really know why no one else has noticed you're in a giant suit of armor and have a drill hand, but sure enough, they can't tell!"
SAW works out much better and I can at least make some unique gameplay elements.
Not exactly a Phalla though.
Hey if I could make games I probably would have at this point. I just don't like SAW is all.
Might try to organize a mini sometime though.
in soviet russia, everyone is winner!
The mafia one I don't have a clue about except for a few unique mechanics (which haven't been tested at all yet).
Steam
1. Saburbia (Haunted House) - First game, first evil role. Great game that was marred by several instances of metagamery. Lived through to the end of the game.
2. precisionk (Insane Asylum) - Villager who had no clue what the hell was going on. Lived until day 6 or 7 when half the remaining players got killed.
3. DarkPrimus (The Court of King Phallis) - Broke-ass noble who never managed to win any bids. Identified Plutonium as a bad guy but nobody listened to me because I was suspected myself. The network called a bandwagon down on me on the second to last day.
4. FunkyWaltDogg (Space Station 13) - I was the captain of the ill-fated station. It was an important role story-wise, but I really had no power of my own except for a protection that enabled me to survive the bomb that ended the game.
5. thorgot (Democratic File System) - Was a guardian-mason with FWD and robothero. Added Grundlterror and Infidel to our network based on logic that turned out false, but fortunately neither of them were evil. Turned out to be a damn good thing we did, because the game came down to those two and DA, an evil seer.
6. Last Son (super-alliances) - Villager who hooked up with another villager (jdarksun) day 1 to form an impromptu mason network. Got seered day 1 as well. Did a lot of work behind the scenes that allowed the village to bring down some of the more vocal baddies.
7. Buzz Buzz (BANG!) - I was a bad guy who had an extra kill of my own. We had a couple slip-ups, but I felt like we were in control of the game most of the way through. Died on the second to last day, and Zerinan, our compatriot, brought it home for us.
8. Bliss101 & Hylianbunny (French Revolution) - Guardian-mason with MrBlarney for the Aristocracy. Got networked with the seer in no time flat. Our network was infiltrated by Grundlterror, a thrall, but it didn't matter because the Church had already screwed everyone over.
9. Locus (Through The Greatwood) - Member of a mason network that exercised far too much discretion. Every time we were finally ready to contact somebody, they died. We didn't live that long ourselves.
10. robothero/life3 (Ultimate Fighting Championship: Robot Edition) - Epic. I was the Blue Robot, Domo Arigato, and I was also elected MC three days straight based on my Beer & Wenches campaign and my narrative interviews. Got bandwagoned once the tournament started, but I didn't care because Drez, my opponent for the first round, had just died. Came back the next day and swept the rest. Killed the last two Syndicate members.
11. Ardor + MrBlarney (Phalla Royale) - Member of the ultra-dominant Ohtori School. Our school was destroyed by the vote on two consecutive days because Bliss 101 and I both took our lovers down with us when we died. Survived until the second to last day.
12. Squashua (PhallLost) - Heh. I was the Evil Psychic. I got voted out on Day 3, but I managed to fully describe the mechanics of the game to the village before I did, rather than allow the Greats to feed them just enough to keep them in line. Then a few days after that I got resurrected, then killed, then resurrected, then killed, then resurrected, then killed. So, uh, technically I survived until the second to last day.
13. Plutonium (Phalla of Ice and Fire) - I was Qyburn the Necromancer, which was just too damned funny given my newly established reputation for resurrection. I was the Lannister seer, and I connected with Grundlterror, another Lannister, on Day 2. On Day 3, I was going to verify TehSpectre, a Lannister, but I was killed by DA, a Lannister. Yeah, our team shot itself in the foot a couple times, or we would have dominated.
14. Infidel (Death Note Phalla) - Villager. Had no clue what was going on with all the events, but I at least managed to lead a bandwagon against an outed evil before I died.
D&D games:
1. tuxkamen (Ad Astra per Phalla) [concurrent with The Court of King Phallis] - Thompsonite Slaver (evil). Had a blast with this one. We destroyed our rival evils before any of us were touched. Lost a teammate to inactivity and two to bandwagons near the end of the game, but I survived unscathed and snagged the win for us. The awesome narrations made it all the sweeter.
2. visiblehowl + DevoutlyApathetic (Phallian Phalla) [concurrent with Super-Alliances] - My role was Grundlterror and I was killed by Grundlterror on day 1. Woohoo, irony.
3. Cantide (The Legend of Phalla) [concurrent with Through the Greatwood] - I was a vigilante. Pegged a bad guy on the second to last day, which would have been the last day otherwise. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly enough to salvage the game by then.
4. Richy (Artifact Phalla) [concurrent with Ultimate Fighting Championship: Robot Edition] - Villager. Never had any artifacts, although I was offered one of the evil artifacts late in the game. It was pretty clear that the good network had control of things by that point.
5. ElJeffe (Phalla Arcade/Something Phallic) [concurrent with PhallLost] - I was a really weird special in this game. My votes counted negative. This made it really hard for me to make a case against somebody, because then I'd have to vote for something else. Regardless, the bad guys were underpowered and they never got around to killing me.
6. robothero + thorgot (Oregon Trail) [concurrent with A Phalla of Ice and Fire] - Subbed in on Day 1 for a bandit. DA, the seer, felt bad about killing me in APoIaF, so he seered me. Then got me killed. Again. But we won anyway. Oh, and I was also a cat. Huh?
I love seeing all these various personal histories on the past games. We're getting some interesting Rashomon effects on some of them.
Edit: Knew I was forgetting something. Added ElJeffe's.
If you want a list to fill in:
3. Squashua (PhalLOST) - Survived until the last night, converted Evil night 1. Had a blast with this game, mostly because it was fun debating with the Good side.
4. Ardor and MrBlarney (Phalla Royale) - Gunned down jdarksun before got stabbed and choked.
10. thorgot (Democratic File System) - Felt totally useless in this game, killed early on.
11. FunkyWaltDogg (Space Station 13) - Security Officer, killed Night 4.
13. precisionk (Insane Asylum) - Conjoined Twin Seer. Joined Ardor, B:L, Plutonium, a few others, in generally controlling shit and ensuring the bad guys won.
14. Saburbia (Haunted House) - Poltergeist. Made the mistake of revealing I knew too much about the mechanics, killed by my rivla, DA.
15. PsychoLarry (Comic Book Style) - Chucked into the sun for being endorsed by a naked Burt Reynolds.
16. Hylianbunny (The Zodiac Phalla Story) - Goltana. Got myself and B:L killed for claiming to be the same role, probably cost Goltana the game, looking back.
17. Gnasty (The Kingdom of Phalla vol. 1: The Caves of Phalla) - Had the Giant Magnet. Was also TehSpectre's anchor to the mortal world.
18. EvilBadman (Phallanoia) (35-40) - Villager, killed first night in the zap fest.
19. CJ Iwakura (Vampire: Masquerade) - Neutral Giovanni. Gave the Sabbat all the Camarilla's information. Killed by Kue-jin.
21. RBB and VH (Soviet Phalla) - Capitalist pig.
22. ElJeffe (Phalliad) - Killed by the vote towards the end, due to not being in the network.
23. Visiblehowl (Kingdoms of Phallacia) - Killed for inactivity. Sword through the ass.
24. Pokemon (Don't remember who ran it) - My first Phalla. I was an evil slowbro.
Oh god, I remember that. That was one of the two games started near the beginning of oDaM's life, along with the first Death Note game. The Death Note game was incredibly unbalanced, but the pokemon game was pretty fun. Snooty Legendary Bird turned out to be evil, right?
and another Phalla Royale
I'd host one of these if it weren't for the fact I want to play them.
MrBlarney, Plutonium and I are looking at December for for PR, the SE++ Island, but we'll have to check with Bogey again about availability to see if it'll even work.
Might Take Several Posts To Complete Though.
What ale you doing, youl not clazy hele.
Anyhow, before I sign up for a main phalla would it be wise to run a mini first so I get used to how to run a phalla?
Steam
A more popular idea, potentially more practical as well, is to co-host with someone or have someone co-host with you.
I ran tests not to familiarize myself with hosting, but to make sure I didn't miss something obvious to make the game suck and be no fun for example.
I feel as if this is talking to me specifically