One of my goals was to make this game feel like a murder mystery. I wanted the villagers to feel like they were gathering clues to suss out who the mafia were, and I wanted the mafia to feel like they were trying to cover up a crime while the village got closer and closer to the truth. Thus, all of the villagers had actions to get those clues, while the mafia had abilities to disrupt or otherwise turn those clues into red herrings. I actually think this aspect of the game was fairly successful, at least from my observations. Whether it resulted in a game the mafia couldn’t win is another matter entirely.
The last two games I ran with Austin featured moderately underpowered mafias, so we made a concerted effort this time to not repeat that mistake. For one, the mafia actually had a kill this time, which was a step in the right direction. For another, we made the mafia closer to 25% of the player base rather than 20%. But with a lot of seers running around, we had to keep beefing up the mafia. Part of that was removing all village specials except for the vigilante. Another part was giving the mafia multiple abilities that would make the village’s seer results unreliable. I think, for the most part, it worked, except that I maybe would have allowed the mafia to use all of their abilities every day, regardless of how many of them were left. Another possibility was giving the mafia an extra kill every other day or so, which would have prevented the village networks from forming. And as discrider pointed out, they could have kept someone “confirmed” village the entire game, at which point the village would be relying entirely on luck to win.
The mafia still ended up as an underdog, and maybe even a heavy underdog, but I think it was closer than it may have appeared. The mafia had a couple of bad breaks (Phyphor’s role getting found out night one; the basically random bandwagon on Ghostly Clockwork on day three; a results mistake on the hosts’ part), but otherwise kept things really close. I would say up until Day Five the mafia had a viable path to victory, although it was always going to be tight. I will admit I was rooting for them the entire time.
Austin can confirm that my biggest fear for this game was that the village would go with what I will call the “Discrider Plan,” i.e. everyone reveals roles on day one, and then just circle role seers. It was the best choice for the village, by far. Had that actually happened, we were prepared to step in and give the mafia a major power boost in exchange. Luckily it did not, and thus no intervention was required.
That being said, when the time came for mid-game decision making, and I am specifically referring to the clarifications regarding death results, we sided with the mafia where we could. discrider will (justifiably) quibble with this, but the OP very specifically does not say that death results are reliable. It just says that role and alignment will be revealed. Contrast that with conversions, which the OP very specifically says are not in the game. So Austin and I both felt that denying that particular clarification request was okay.
For the record, though, I dislike both conversions and unreliable death results (especially if there’s no way to uncover the truth) as mechanics. If you’re playing one of my games, and you’re on the fence about whether one of those mechanics is in play, you’ll probably be better off assuming that they are not. That’s not to say those mechanics can’t be fun, but I am not 100% confident in my ability to crack that nut. The OP in this game explicitly stated that there were no conversions, because the name of the bad guy group (the Corrupted) could easily make someone think that there were conversions, and I didn’t want the village wasting time going down that rabbit hole.
Let’s see, what else? The vigilante role was attached to an item, in order to keep the daily kill count fairly consistent. The item would randomly pass to another villager upon the death of the vigilante, with first dibs going to someone who Questioned/Investigated the vigilante on the night the vigilante died. The last two games Austin and I hosted had A LOT going on, so I did try to keep the mechanics of this one fairly simple. Nevertheless, there was a lot of information to process on the hosting end, and Austin did an amazing job keeping track of everything. We only made one results mistake during the game (again, to the mafia’s detriment), and I feel like that’s pretty good.
As has become my custom, I apologize to the mafia if you were all demoralized from day one. Never my intent. I promise the next game will not have 19 half-seers in it. Maybe not even one seer, who knows?
+7
Options
AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
I got railroaded the night I went to Pittsburgh (I live near Columbus, so about 4 hours away) to see Tool and was unable to defend myself.
OTOH, I got to see the song I listed in my sign up live, so it was still a good day.
I made a couple mistakes and the audio quality is bad.
SNIP
Lyrics
Oh Gideon lived ‘til the last day
Though he regrets it now
A horse he killed with murder bold
I guess he’ll take his bow
Now the vote is close at hand
And he can hide no more
The village wits he meant to trick
Now they’re settling the score
His partners lied, though it was tough
To tell them “Sir Fab’s town”
And now the fools all choose to vote
To vote at Gideon Brown
To vote at Gideon Brown
The Seer results all came around
And they planted small suspicions
I said Mamawolf, to let you know
Your kill is your volition
But I’ll suggest a couple folks
So that you don’t shoot Town
If I’m a help, then please don’t vote
Don’t vote at Gideon Brown
I’ll network ‘til I’m sick and pale
And shut the village down
I always thought that I'd stand proud
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
Many days did pass away
My partners all did fade
We didn't talk on ProBoards much
Except “ I am afraid'
If things don't soon improve
Then we'll be underground
I hope we never see ourselves
In a vote for Gideon Brown
I’ll network ‘til I’m sick and pale
And shut the village down
I always thought that I'd stand proud
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
I sat and held one friend today
And said 'Mari, I’m sorry'
I’m dead, the town has got your name
We’re the losers of this story
And when I'm gone they'll send you off
For saying Sir Fab’s town
You’ll buy yourself one day, my love
With a vote for Gideon Brown
I’ll network ‘til I’m sick and pale
And shut the village down
I always thought that I'd stand proud
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
I’ll network ‘til I’m sick and pale
And shut the village down
I always thought that I'd stand proud
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
‘Til the vote for Gideon Brown
My theory is that because there were so many seer abilities, the villagers were (understandably) focused on using those abilities and waiting for confirmed seer calls, rather than trying to find mafia the old-fashioned way via looking for suspicious activity. Thus Romantic Undead's inadvertent reveal went entirely unnoticed.
The concept for the game, as originally pitched to Austin:
The Day the Music Died – Prelude: Concerning Charlie Horse – A Great Big [Phalla]
Theme: Great Big Sea
Sub-Theme: Murder Mystery
All role names are public information at the beginning of the game.
All village abilities are public information at the beginning of the game.
All mafia abilities are public information at the beginning of the game.
No villager has been made aware of the role or alignment of any other player in the game, or which villager holds the ITEM.
Each mafia player has been made aware of the role and alignment of each other mafia player, but does not know the role of any villager, or which villager holds the ITEM.
All villagers can take one of the following actions every night:
1. Investigate – Choose a role from the OP. You will learn the alignment of, but not the player assigned to, that role.
2. Question – Target one player. You will learn the role, but not the alignment, of that player.
One villager has the ITEM. The ITEM may not be given to another player, or discarded. If the villager holding the ITEM dies, the ITEM will pass to another villager, in one of two ways: (1) if the villager holding the ITEM was either Investigated or Questioned on the night they were killed, one of the villagers who Investigated or Questioned them will get the ITEM, at random; otherwise (2) one of the villagers will get the ITEM, at random. The ITEM allows the villager who holds can take following action, in in place of their villager action:
1. Vigilante Justice – Target one player. That player will be eliminated from the game.
Each mafia player can take one of the villager actions, plus one mafia action, every night. Each mafia action may only be used once per night. The mafia actions are:
1. Plant Evidence – Target one player, and choose one role. If that player is Questioned that night, their role will be revealed as the chosen role, rather than their actual role.
2. Spread Rumors – Choose a role from the OP. If that role is Investigated that night, the result will be the opposite of the role’s actual alignment.
3. Cover Up – Target one player. All Investigations and Questioning targeting that player will be blocked for that night.
4. Intimidate – Target one player. If that player Investigated or Questioned that night, that action will be blocked.
5. Gag – Target one player. That player may not use any mode of private communication the next day.
6. Murder – Target one player. That player will be eliminated from the game.
7. Should one (or both) of the “block” abilities be more like a bus driver instead???
There are X mafia at the start of the game.
Each night, the role and alignment of each player eliminated will be revealed. The method of elimination will not be revealed.
Original design spreadsheets, from many many years ago when I first wanted to make a Great Big Sea-themed game and was thinking about how I wanted it to go:
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
First off Thanks for running @Locus and @AustinP0027 I really like the theme and narration! How did you get the idea to do a collection of songs as the roles?
So let's look at the powers: Village has 13 full seers a night, an immortal vig, and the vote. Mafia has one kill, a can't communicate in PM ability (did not help), ability to roleblock a non vig target (useful, but not enough considering the volume of seers), ability to change alignment results (GREAT!), ability to change role results(good), ability to hide a target.
I say 13 seers because in order to network mafia needed to supply information to the village. (If we lied that would lead to the situation with Sir Fab/ H3k. Temporary reprieve followed by the massive penalty in game length from losing a member). Seers are very powerful! One seer if left alone can turn the tide of a game to the village. 13 seers is very many seers! Every villager has the power to make their own network which is a huge asset if you consider that that's the mafia's primary power and advantage, they start with a network. The situation is compounded by the fact that the mafia lose power as they start losing, while the village gains power by networking. Its the same issue as tying mafia kills to particular members. In a game of this size mafia should probably have at least 1.5 kills. Mafia were demoralized from the start which leads to sub-optimal play. As far as the vig being immortal to keep game length shorter, that is a *HUGE* boon to the village. I'm not sure how to square that one. Relevant quote from Infidel here.
My first main game I had too many seers. I had two mafia factions both with their own seer in addition to village seers. While I thought in my head they could each potentially form fake village networks they both outed members of the other mafia faction to prove how village they were. I've tried to cut back seer use or try variations. (I've never tried unreliable seers, it doesn't seem fun. It seems less fun then thralls/millers.) The other thing I think was happening here is that everyone was socializing a lot more in their groups and also waiting for a seer call every night, which is understandable with 13 seers.
All in all this was a very unique memorable game and I want to thank you again for running it. I know how much work goes into one of these and I'm happy when I get to play in one.
In a game of this size mafia should probably have at least 1.5 kills.
Just wanted to isolate this because I literally just PMed Austin saying that this was probably the change that most needed to be made.
As for the rest, I appreciate your feedback! Ultimately, my goal is for the players to have fun. I'd be fine having the most unbalanced game of all time (hat-tip to the all-vigilante game from back in the day) if everyone has fun playing it. But if the unbalance causes some people (i.e. the mafia) not too have fun, that is no good. We'll take this as yet another learning experience. Of course, we'll probably make the mafia too powerful and the game will be over by day three. :P
From my position, I don't think the mafia was as much if an underdog as it seemed. Two of the mafia were caught with out seer back up (ghostly was pure random luck and morridin was a fortunate vig kill since we had no info on their role/alighnment)).
The villagers were all pretty darn active, which was very much neccisary. Still an underdog, and the only 'mistake' I saw the mafia make was being too quiet in thread. I think some careful lies early on would have really disrupted the village as we tried to put together what was going on.
In the other hand, clearly I have issues making games that are balanced for the mafia so that may say more on my biases.
+1
Options
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure how they used the disguise, but a mafia member could have appeared as the same villager the whole game long, with the only tell being a 50:50 guess between the two Penelopes.
Assuming no m-vibes from sirfab that is.
I mean that’s what happened more or less. I think I would’ve come up Penelope on at least 3 days and I’m pretty sure I was never actually revealed as Gideon Brown. The problem is that this falls apart once the village gets small and/or organized enough to have everyone’s exact role and my real role had been compromised since day 1.
On an unrelated note, sorry to Lucedes! I feel like I was not very nice to be ‘networked’ with, with all the flip-flopping about you that was really just me trying to get you voted off!
I think saying the village had 13 full seers is a bit off the mark. 26 half seers is not exactly the same thing as 13 full seers. It's more like 13 every other day seers except there's twice as much chance for half or all of your results to messed with. The village abilities basically REQUIRE networking to be useful, while at the same time networking opens them up to being messed with even more.
In fact, if not for the fact that Sir Fab's cover was someone in my group, I never would have looked at 38th. If anyone in my group was mafia I had it pegged as ZH, or maybe H3K all the way up until the Penelope day.
That isn't to say that I don't think the mafia was underpowered. Knowing their abilities now it's clear they were at least slightly under powered. Giving them an extra .5 kills, or letting them use the full compliment of abilities even when dwindled down, (or even an extra kill each night triggered by going to half size) would have been enough for them to win this game (as it played out) I'm pretty sure.
@AustinP0027@Locus thanks again for running this amazing game. I haven't had a Phalla blow out the data analysis part of my brain this hard in a LONG time. Between my crazy unfinished spread sheet and Sir Fab's amazing farewell post, this will definitely be a game I remember for a mighty stretch of time!
One more thing: I had to laugh as I was reading the mafia orders. There were at least 2 nights I was supposed to check out ZH,but ended up going with different orders (one night to check mama, i can't remember the others) and those were the 2-3 nights that mafia were making him look like Gideon Brown. That could have gone much more terribly if I had stuck to the plan of verifying ZH!
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
edited November 2019
The first game I ever ran was very similar with seers all over the place. It was a Star Wars game where the Knight/Padawan pairs could choose to seer. The main differences was that they could also choose to do something else and the mafia had a conditional global obfuscate effect. So while there was technically village/2 number of seers, there was something else to pull it away where the entire village wasn't focusing on finding people and seer results could be completely unreliable.
That being said, this game could have gone much differently. If the first person seered red ended up dying green, it would have set back village trust in the seering process and mafia being seered wouldn't have been such a game ender for them. Phyphor's unlucky targeting meant the mafia got real unlucky. Had things gone differently, the village would have had a hard time trusting results. Hell, I seered 38th as red and didn't even believe the results until the last day.
I think saying the village had 13 full seers is a bit off the mark. 26 half seers is not exactly the same thing as 13 full seers. It's more like 13 every other day seers except there's twice as much chance for half or all of your results to messed with. The village abilities basically REQUIRE networking to be useful, while at the same time networking opens them up to being messed with even more.
In fact, if not for the fact that Sir Fab's cover was someone in my group, I never would have looked at 38th. If anyone in my group was mafia I had it pegged as ZH, or maybe H3K all the way up until the Penelope day.
That isn't to say that I don't think the mafia was underpowered. Knowing their abilities now it's clear they were at least slightly under powered. Giving them an extra .5 kills, or letting them use the full compliment of abilities even when dwindled down, (or even an extra kill each night triggered by going to half size) would have been enough for them to win this game (as it played out) I'm pretty sure.
@AustinP0027@Locus thanks again for running this amazing game. I haven't had a Phalla blow out the data analysis part of my brain this hard in a LONG time. Between my crazy unfinished spread sheet and Sir Fab's amazing farewell post, this will definitely be a game I remember for a mighty stretch of time!
One more thing: I had to laugh as I was reading the mafia orders. There were at least 2 nights I was supposed to check out ZH,but ended up going with different orders (one night to check mama, i can't remember the others) and those were the 2-3 nights that mafia were making him look like Gideon Brown. That could have gone much more terribly if I had stuck to the plan of verifying ZH!
I was feeling good about my soft-networking group, but you guys weren't convincing the rest of the town. It was a matter of time no matter who looked like who.
Even if you want to say that 26 half seers is equivalent to only 6 full everyday seers (disagree). 5 FULL SEERS IS A LOT for 50 players. Even 50 person games would often fire with 1-2 seers. Additionally the advantage to everyone being a seer is that the information was distributed and impossible to kill.
Again I think everyone played pretty well here and that made it as close as it was, but it is hard to imagine it going any other way at the end. We only had one power that really could confuse things, making alignments show up wrong. And only one of us could do that and if we ever switched it up and got seered everyone not in our soft group was calling for our blood. (This is why I died.) If mamawolf killed any of us it wouldn't be close at all. Vote records didn't look good for us either if seering failed.
The first game I ever ran was very similar with seers all over the place. It was a Star Wars game where the Knight/Padawan pairs could choose to seer. The main differences was that they could also choose to do something else and the mafia had a conditional global obfuscate effect. So while there was technically village/2 number of seers, there was something else to pull it away where the entire village wasn't focusing on finding people and seer results could be completely unreliable.
That being said, this game could have gone much differently. If the first person seered red ended up dying green, it would have set back village trust in the seering process and mafia being seered wouldn't have been such a game ender for them. Phyphor's unlucky targeting meant the mafia got real unlucky. Had things gone differently, the village would have had a hard time trusting results. Hell, I seered 38th as red and didn't even believe the results until the last day.
It was a fun game. Thanks for running it, hosts!
Really? I thought you were chomping at the bit to kill me days before. So you weren't the don't trust 38th guy?
I'm not sure how they used the disguise, but a mafia member could have appeared as the same villager the whole game long, with the only tell being a 50:50 guess between the two Penelopes.
Assuming no m-vibes from sirfab that is.
I mean that’s what happened more or less. I think I would’ve come up Penelope on at least 3 days and I’m pretty sure I was never actually revealed as Gideon Brown. The problem is that this falls apart once the village gets small and/or organized enough to have everyone’s exact role and my real role had been compromised since day 1.
On an unrelated note, sorry to Lucedes! I feel like I was not very nice to be ‘networked’ with, with all the flip-flopping about you that was really just me trying to get you voted off!
Well, the "ideal" move here probably have been to pick one mafia the first night and just flip their results every turn forever, make their role always seer as village. But that only works if the immortal vig continues to miss forever. The ideal would be getting down to 5 exactly, vig misses, vote misses, you don't overlap with the vig and you dont hit the vig and then you win
The first game I ever ran was very similar with seers all over the place. It was a Star Wars game where the Knight/Padawan pairs could choose to seer. The main differences was that they could also choose to do something else and the mafia had a conditional global obfuscate effect. So while there was technically village/2 number of seers, there was something else to pull it away where the entire village wasn't focusing on finding people and seer results could be completely unreliable.
That being said, this game could have gone much differently. If the first person seered red ended up dying green, it would have set back village trust in the seering process and mafia being seered wouldn't have been such a game ender for them. Phyphor's unlucky targeting meant the mafia got real unlucky. Had things gone differently, the village would have had a hard time trusting results. Hell, I seered 38th as red and didn't even believe the results until the last day.
It was a fun game. Thanks for running it, hosts!
Really? I thought you were chomping at the bit to kill me days before. So you weren't the don't trust 38th guy?
The reason I started the multi-day power usage of seering you was because I thought you were mafia, yes.
But then I got the result that you were mafia and I doubted it
I still think the ideal move fit the village here would have been to circle-see all the Personae nights 1 and 2, and then soft network after the entire alignment results had been outed as ' the role above me is villager' or 'the role below me is mafia'.
Then you have a full alignment record out there without much mafia interference, as there is no way for the mafia to tell N1 who to befuddle.
Main reason I jumped on Phyphor D2 without questioning the set results.
And then the mafia is locked into lying, likely about their red role, or potentially about their 'seeing results'.
This would've isolated mamawolf though, who couldn't see and kill.
And I guess the mafia this game could see to forge villager results, and also duplicate a role and flip a role's colour to make two of them immune to this verification the entire game, so
One more thing: I had to laugh as I was reading the mafia orders. There were at least 2 nights I was supposed to check out ZH,but ended up going with different orders (one night to check mama, i can't remember the others) and those were the 2-3 nights that mafia were making him look like Gideon Brown. That could have gone much more terribly if I had stuck to the plan of verifying ZH!
This is the tracker sheet. There were a number of times where something worse could have happened for the village, but a shift or someone getting killed prevented the confusion.
Example: If Aura hadn't been killed D1, he would have gotten the wrong role back on JPants, which probably would have killed JPants' ability to try and coordinate anything from the very start.
Edit: As I dig more, it could have gone worse for Mafia as well. There were at least two people who were going to find a mafia role that got killed instead.
How did you get the idea to do a collection of songs as the roles?
What an interesting question! Warning, personal stuff ahead, in an unneccessarily long and winding story:
My parents, but my mom especially, were really big folkies. I was exposed to music of the American folk revival from the time I was a tiny little baby, most significantly Pete Seeger, Harry Chapin, Carole King, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. One of the more obscure folk bands my parents liked was Schooner Fare, a New England trio who sang a lot about ships and sailing (sample lyrics: “’There’s a fire!’ somone shouted, ‘Fire in the hold!’/And a northwest wind across the deck that chills the very soul/Their courage would be tested ‘fore that awful night was through/Of cowards there were many, of heroes just a few”). Schooner Fare still may hold my personal record for the number of times I’ve seen a band live (although I can’t remember exactly how many times, thus the ambiguity).
As I grew older, my musical tastes started becoming more personal, as happens, and my parents’ musical influences started holding less sway over me. The first CD I ever bought? Fat of the Land by The Prodigy. The second? Let’s Face It by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Very clear signs I was becoming my own person. I still enjoyed the music of my youth (a Harry Chapin song remains, to this day, my favorite of all time), but in my mind it was a thing of the past, a thing that once was but never would be again.
That remained the case until I went to Japan as part of the JET Programme. I was placed in Akita, which is very nice in the summer but very cold and very dark in the winter, especially if you don’t like winter sports (which I emphatically do not). So I had a lot of time to absorb Japanese pop culture. In terms of music, I was drawn to two musical acts in particular: Love Psychedelico and Rie fu. The former is a folk-rock band, and the latter is a purely folk singer. Upon listening to them for the first time, the influences of the artists I had listened to as a child was apparent. It seemed as if the musical influences of my parents lingered on. Who knew?
At about this time, while I was still in Japan, there was a post on the Penny Arcade website drawing attention to the song “The Mermaid,” by Great Big Sea. As was the custom at the time, I immediately procured a copy of the song and listened to it. And I was delighted! So I went and found their other music (their most recent album at the time was Something Beautiful). To my surprise and delight, their music was awfully familiar to me. Songs about sailing the high seas and working on boats abounded. It was like someone had taken Schooner Fare, and added an electric guitar and a Newfoundland accent.
Among my friends and family, I became a Great Big Sea evangel. I dragged my sister to a concert, at which she continually yelled for the band to play “Margarita.” I went on a road trip with one of my best friends to Maine to see Great Big Sea put on a free concert. I made my wife go to a show with me in New York City. She thought they were just fine, until they launched into a rendition of “The River Driver.” Watching her expression change into amazement as the song went on was a delight for me that will be hard to recreate.
To summarize, Great Big Sea is one of my favorite bands of all time, in part because the music is great but also because it is a direct connection to the music of my youth, and to my family. Yes, my entire family is from New York City (the Bronx specifically) and we’ve never been sailing and my dad gets seasick at the drop of a hat, but the music of Great Big Sea was important to me.
What I really enjoy about folk music generally, and Great Big Sea songs specifically, is that the songs explicitly tell stories. There are characters and plot and everything that goes along with that. I have always found story-songs especially compelling. It only made sense to me that the music of Great Big Sea, and the characters contained therein, would be an interesting (and flavorful) setting for a phalla. What I needed was a framing device, some kind of story to tell with all of these characters. I eventually settled on “Concerning Charlie Horse” (one of two songs from the same album about a horse falling through the ice), because the song is kind of silly and kind of sweet, and because the idea of a horse being murdered tickled me. Yes, Charlie Horse’s death is legit an accident in the song, but an accident wouldn’t make a village go on a murderous rampage. The other song I was considering using as a framing device was “Excursion Around the Bay,” which is about a woman who falls ill and dies on a sightseeing boat. That seemed a bit too heavy for the mood I was going for. Once I settled on "Concerning Charlie Horse," I needed to come up with a motivation for the mafia. Like, why would anyone want to kill a horse? That was the tricky part. But we got there in the end.
Ah, but I can hear your questions now. Locus, what about the One Guitar, the Loaded Six-String, the Golden Fiddle, and the nice young man in the white suit? Those have nothing to do with Great Big Sea at all!
Well, this was just the Prelude, after all. You’’ll all just have to wait for Act One for your answers.
+8
Options
38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
Thanks for sharing and I'm very impressed that you were able to make such a personal thing a great game for everyone!
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
@Sir Fabulous I've listened to that song multiple times today while reading along with the lyrics you posted.
I can't express how much it makes me smile. That kind of genuine display of heart and talent is often missed in this online world and I'm not sure you realize how much you brightened mine.
@Sir Fabulous I've listened to that song multiple times today while reading along with the lyrics you posted.
I can't express how much it makes me smile. That kind of genuine display of heart and talent is often missed in this online world and I'm not sure you realize how much you brightened mine.
I love Penny Arcade and the people in it.
Quoting so I can emphasize that your song, standing alone, made the whole game worth it. Thank you.
+6
Options
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
FWIW, Locus. I think without your clear love of the source and also putting heart into the game wouldn't have created the environment that allowed this to exist.
This feels like a true passion project all around and its incredibly fitting considering the source.
"Sir Fabulous" I've listened to that song multiple times today while reading along with the lyrics you posted.
I can't express how much it makes me smile. That kind of genuine display of heart and talent is often missed in this online world and I'm not sure you realize how much you brightened mine.
I love Penny Arcade and the people in it.
It's like.... the culmination of all my years of Phalla. Pack it up, this was the last game
"Sir Fabulous" I've listened to that song multiple times today while reading along with the lyrics you posted.
I can't express how much it makes me smile. That kind of genuine display of heart and talent is often missed in this online world and I'm not sure you realize how much you brightened mine.
I love Penny Arcade and the people in it.
It's like.... the culmination of all my years of Phalla. Pack it up, this was the last game
Ah, but I can hear your questions now. Locus, what about the One Guitar, the Loaded Six-String, the Golden Fiddle, and the nice young man in the white suit? Those have nothing to do with Great Big Sea at all!
Well, this was just the Prelude, after all. You’’ll all just have to wait for Act One for your answers.
First off Thanks for running @Locus and @AustinP0027 I really like the theme and narration! How did you get the idea to do a collection of songs as the roles?
So let's look at the powers: Village has 13 full seers a night, an immortal vig, and the vote. Mafia has one kill, a can't communicate in PM ability (did not help), ability to roleblock a non vig target (useful, but not enough considering the volume of seers), ability to change alignment results (GREAT!), ability to change role results(good), ability to hide a target.
I say 13 seers because in order to network mafia needed to supply information to the village. (If we lied that would lead to the situation with Sir Fab/ H3k. Temporary reprieve followed by the massive penalty in game length from losing a member). Seers are very powerful! One seer if left alone can turn the tide of a game to the village. 13 seers is very many seers! Every villager has the power to make their own network which is a huge asset if you consider that that's the mafia's primary power and advantage, they start with a network. The situation is compounded by the fact that the mafia lose power as they start losing, while the village gains power by networking. Its the same issue as tying mafia kills to particular members. In a game of this size mafia should probably have at least 1.5 kills. Mafia were demoralized from the start which leads to sub-optimal play. As far as the vig being immortal to keep game length shorter, that is a *HUGE* boon to the village. I'm not sure how to square that one. Relevant quote from Infidel here.
My first main game I had too many seers. I had two mafia factions both with their own seer in addition to village seers. While I thought in my head they could each potentially form fake village networks they both outed members of the other mafia faction to prove how village they were. I've tried to cut back seer use or try variations. (I've never tried unreliable seers, it doesn't seem fun. It seems less fun then thralls/millers.) The other thing I think was happening here is that everyone was socializing a lot more in their groups and also waiting for a seer call every night, which is understandable with 13 seers.
All in all this was a very unique memorable game and I want to thank you again for running it. I know how much work goes into one of these and I'm happy when I get to play in one.
Two thoughts I had reading this:
Yeah, I was convinced there was something more going on the night I got railroaded because it seemed like Sir Fab was falling on his sword to me. I feel like the trickier way to play it would've been to deny the falsified result when pm'ed to make it seem like you're just a patsy and create confusion about what the hell was going on. Of course, Sir Fab was in the precarious position of his actual role having already been seered as red, and you'd have to commit one of the mafia's limited nightly actions to faking green for the rest of the game to make that initial seering seem like it was also falsified. On the plus side, I feel like 'the mafia's trying really hard to make a Sir Fab that hasn't been as active in thread look suspicious' would be a pretty plausible defense.
I see your (& Infidel's) point about the vig passing from one villager to another being too strong, on the other hand I also think there's a point to the notion that single life specials means a lucky mafia kill or two early on can leave the village playing for the better part of a week with very little chance of winning. Maybe if mafia kills happen before vig/seer (but not guard, obviously), and there's a delay before the special is reassigned (so the village loses two or more days, and then has to reconfirm the new player, but can eventually get it back)?
I think saying the village had 13 full seers is a bit off the mark. 26 half seers is not exactly the same thing as 13 full seers. It's more like 13 every other day seers except there's twice as much chance for half or all of your results to messed with. The village abilities basically REQUIRE networking to be useful, while at the same time networking opens them up to being messed with even more.
In fact, if not for the fact that Sir Fab's cover was someone in my group, I never would have looked at 38th. If anyone in my group was mafia I had it pegged as ZH, or maybe H3K all the way up until the Penelope day.
That isn't to say that I don't think the mafia was underpowered. Knowing their abilities now it's clear they were at least slightly under powered. Giving them an extra .5 kills, or letting them use the full compliment of abilities even when dwindled down, (or even an extra kill each night triggered by going to half size) would have been enough for them to win this game (as it played out) I'm pretty sure.
I agree with all of this pretty strongly (except suspecting H3K obviously :P ). Mafia not having their actions limited as they lose players probably would've been enough.
I've got a odd question. If the Mafia investigated/questioned the vig, and then killed them, would the Item go to them? I assume not as that would be crazy powerful, but I also can't think when it would come up.
FTC: honk.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
I've got a odd question. If the Mafia investigated/questioned the vig, and then killed them, would the Item go to them? I assume not as that would be crazy powerful, but I also can't think when it would come up.
It would not have. The vig item specifically could only be held by a villager.
Ah, but I can hear your questions now. Locus, what about the One Guitar, the Loaded Six-String, the Golden Fiddle, and the nice young man in the white suit? Those have nothing to do with Great Big Sea at all!
Well, this was just the Prelude, after all. You’’ll all just have to wait for Act One for your answers.
Which equipment slot does the One Guitar go in, hand or swung way down low?
Posts
The last two games I ran with Austin featured moderately underpowered mafias, so we made a concerted effort this time to not repeat that mistake. For one, the mafia actually had a kill this time, which was a step in the right direction. For another, we made the mafia closer to 25% of the player base rather than 20%. But with a lot of seers running around, we had to keep beefing up the mafia. Part of that was removing all village specials except for the vigilante. Another part was giving the mafia multiple abilities that would make the village’s seer results unreliable. I think, for the most part, it worked, except that I maybe would have allowed the mafia to use all of their abilities every day, regardless of how many of them were left. Another possibility was giving the mafia an extra kill every other day or so, which would have prevented the village networks from forming. And as discrider pointed out, they could have kept someone “confirmed” village the entire game, at which point the village would be relying entirely on luck to win.
The mafia still ended up as an underdog, and maybe even a heavy underdog, but I think it was closer than it may have appeared. The mafia had a couple of bad breaks (Phyphor’s role getting found out night one; the basically random bandwagon on Ghostly Clockwork on day three; a results mistake on the hosts’ part), but otherwise kept things really close. I would say up until Day Five the mafia had a viable path to victory, although it was always going to be tight. I will admit I was rooting for them the entire time.
Austin can confirm that my biggest fear for this game was that the village would go with what I will call the “Discrider Plan,” i.e. everyone reveals roles on day one, and then just circle role seers. It was the best choice for the village, by far. Had that actually happened, we were prepared to step in and give the mafia a major power boost in exchange. Luckily it did not, and thus no intervention was required.
That being said, when the time came for mid-game decision making, and I am specifically referring to the clarifications regarding death results, we sided with the mafia where we could. discrider will (justifiably) quibble with this, but the OP very specifically does not say that death results are reliable. It just says that role and alignment will be revealed. Contrast that with conversions, which the OP very specifically says are not in the game. So Austin and I both felt that denying that particular clarification request was okay.
For the record, though, I dislike both conversions and unreliable death results (especially if there’s no way to uncover the truth) as mechanics. If you’re playing one of my games, and you’re on the fence about whether one of those mechanics is in play, you’ll probably be better off assuming that they are not. That’s not to say those mechanics can’t be fun, but I am not 100% confident in my ability to crack that nut. The OP in this game explicitly stated that there were no conversions, because the name of the bad guy group (the Corrupted) could easily make someone think that there were conversions, and I didn’t want the village wasting time going down that rabbit hole.
Let’s see, what else? The vigilante role was attached to an item, in order to keep the daily kill count fairly consistent. The item would randomly pass to another villager upon the death of the vigilante, with first dibs going to someone who Questioned/Investigated the vigilante on the night the vigilante died. The last two games Austin and I hosted had A LOT going on, so I did try to keep the mechanics of this one fairly simple. Nevertheless, there was a lot of information to process on the hosting end, and Austin did an amazing job keeping track of everything. We only made one results mistake during the game (again, to the mafia’s detriment), and I feel like that’s pretty good.
As has become my custom, I apologize to the mafia if you were all demoralized from day one. Never my intent. I promise the next game will not have 19 half-seers in it. Maybe not even one seer, who knows?
OTOH, I got to see the song I listed in my sign up live, so it was still a good day.
This was also amazing.
My theory is that because there were so many seer abilities, the villagers were (understandably) focused on using those abilities and waiting for confirmed seer calls, rather than trying to find mafia the old-fashioned way via looking for suspicious activity. Thus Romantic Undead's inadvertent reveal went entirely unnoticed.
The concept for the game, as originally pitched to Austin:
Theme: Great Big Sea
Sub-Theme: Murder Mystery
All role names are public information at the beginning of the game.
All village abilities are public information at the beginning of the game.
All mafia abilities are public information at the beginning of the game.
No villager has been made aware of the role or alignment of any other player in the game, or which villager holds the ITEM.
Each mafia player has been made aware of the role and alignment of each other mafia player, but does not know the role of any villager, or which villager holds the ITEM.
All villagers can take one of the following actions every night:
1. Investigate – Choose a role from the OP. You will learn the alignment of, but not the player assigned to, that role.
2. Question – Target one player. You will learn the role, but not the alignment, of that player.
One villager has the ITEM. The ITEM may not be given to another player, or discarded. If the villager holding the ITEM dies, the ITEM will pass to another villager, in one of two ways: (1) if the villager holding the ITEM was either Investigated or Questioned on the night they were killed, one of the villagers who Investigated or Questioned them will get the ITEM, at random; otherwise (2) one of the villagers will get the ITEM, at random. The ITEM allows the villager who holds can take following action, in in place of their villager action:
1. Vigilante Justice – Target one player. That player will be eliminated from the game.
Each mafia player can take one of the villager actions, plus one mafia action, every night. Each mafia action may only be used once per night. The mafia actions are:
1. Plant Evidence – Target one player, and choose one role. If that player is Questioned that night, their role will be revealed as the chosen role, rather than their actual role.
2. Spread Rumors – Choose a role from the OP. If that role is Investigated that night, the result will be the opposite of the role’s actual alignment.
3. Cover Up – Target one player. All Investigations and Questioning targeting that player will be blocked for that night.
4. Intimidate – Target one player. If that player Investigated or Questioned that night, that action will be blocked.
5. Gag – Target one player. That player may not use any mode of private communication the next day.
6. Murder – Target one player. That player will be eliminated from the game.
7. Should one (or both) of the “block” abilities be more like a bus driver instead???
There are X mafia at the start of the game.
Each night, the role and alignment of each player eliminated will be revealed. The method of elimination will not be revealed.
Original design spreadsheets, from many many years ago when I first wanted to make a Great Big Sea-themed game and was thinking about how I wanted it to go:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14oNBJScHCDKnpfhS_NjIEexuhsqhbqkhatIk1c18nlk/edit?usp=drivesdk
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EaKIf_BVkt85DjXH41C43ufXzwIP60hwu-RSl5cxbno/edit?usp=drivesdk
And so, naturally, I got Day 1'd.
So let's look at the powers:
Village has 13 full seers a night, an immortal vig, and the vote.
Mafia has one kill, a can't communicate in PM ability (did not help), ability to roleblock a non vig target (useful, but not enough considering the volume of seers), ability to change alignment results (GREAT!), ability to change role results(good), ability to hide a target.
I say 13 seers because in order to network mafia needed to supply information to the village. (If we lied that would lead to the situation with Sir Fab/ H3k. Temporary reprieve followed by the massive penalty in game length from losing a member). Seers are very powerful! One seer if left alone can turn the tide of a game to the village. 13 seers is very many seers! Every villager has the power to make their own network which is a huge asset if you consider that that's the mafia's primary power and advantage, they start with a network. The situation is compounded by the fact that the mafia lose power as they start losing, while the village gains power by networking. Its the same issue as tying mafia kills to particular members. In a game of this size mafia should probably have at least 1.5 kills. Mafia were demoralized from the start which leads to sub-optimal play. As far as the vig being immortal to keep game length shorter, that is a *HUGE* boon to the village. I'm not sure how to square that one. Relevant quote from Infidel here.
My first main game I had too many seers. I had two mafia factions both with their own seer in addition to village seers. While I thought in my head they could each potentially form fake village networks they both outed members of the other mafia faction to prove how village they were. I've tried to cut back seer use or try variations. (I've never tried unreliable seers, it doesn't seem fun. It seems less fun then thralls/millers.) The other thing I think was happening here is that everyone was socializing a lot more in their groups and also waiting for a seer call every night, which is understandable with 13 seers.
All in all this was a very unique memorable game and I want to thank you again for running it. I know how much work goes into one of these and I'm happy when I get to play in one.
As for the rest, I appreciate your feedback! Ultimately, my goal is for the players to have fun. I'd be fine having the most unbalanced game of all time (hat-tip to the all-vigilante game from back in the day) if everyone has fun playing it. But if the unbalance causes some people (i.e. the mafia) not too have fun, that is no good. We'll take this as yet another learning experience. Of course, we'll probably make the mafia too powerful and the game will be over by day three. :P
The villagers were all pretty darn active, which was very much neccisary. Still an underdog, and the only 'mistake' I saw the mafia make was being too quiet in thread. I think some careful lies early on would have really disrupted the village as we tried to put together what was going on.
In the other hand, clearly I have issues making games that are balanced for the mafia so that may say more on my biases.
I mean that’s what happened more or less. I think I would’ve come up Penelope on at least 3 days and I’m pretty sure I was never actually revealed as Gideon Brown. The problem is that this falls apart once the village gets small and/or organized enough to have everyone’s exact role and my real role had been compromised since day 1.
On an unrelated note, sorry to Lucedes! I feel like I was not very nice to be ‘networked’ with, with all the flip-flopping about you that was really just me trying to get you voted off!
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
In fact, if not for the fact that Sir Fab's cover was someone in my group, I never would have looked at 38th. If anyone in my group was mafia I had it pegged as ZH, or maybe H3K all the way up until the Penelope day.
That isn't to say that I don't think the mafia was underpowered. Knowing their abilities now it's clear they were at least slightly under powered. Giving them an extra .5 kills, or letting them use the full compliment of abilities even when dwindled down, (or even an extra kill each night triggered by going to half size) would have been enough for them to win this game (as it played out) I'm pretty sure.
@AustinP0027 @Locus thanks again for running this amazing game. I haven't had a Phalla blow out the data analysis part of my brain this hard in a LONG time. Between my crazy unfinished spread sheet and Sir Fab's amazing farewell post, this will definitely be a game I remember for a mighty stretch of time!
One more thing: I had to laugh as I was reading the mafia orders. There were at least 2 nights I was supposed to check out ZH,but ended up going with different orders (one night to check mama, i can't remember the others) and those were the 2-3 nights that mafia were making him look like Gideon Brown. That could have gone much more terribly if I had stuck to the plan of verifying ZH!
JPants basically dragged me across the Victory Line, I was pretty clueless most of this game.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
That being said, this game could have gone much differently. If the first person seered red ended up dying green, it would have set back village trust in the seering process and mafia being seered wouldn't have been such a game ender for them. Phyphor's unlucky targeting meant the mafia got real unlucky. Had things gone differently, the village would have had a hard time trusting results. Hell, I seered 38th as red and didn't even believe the results until the last day.
It was a fun game. Thanks for running it, hosts!
I was feeling good about my soft-networking group, but you guys weren't convincing the rest of the town. It was a matter of time no matter who looked like who.
Even if you want to say that 26 half seers is equivalent to only 6 full everyday seers (disagree). 5 FULL SEERS IS A LOT for 50 players. Even 50 person games would often fire with 1-2 seers. Additionally the advantage to everyone being a seer is that the information was distributed and impossible to kill.
Again I think everyone played pretty well here and that made it as close as it was, but it is hard to imagine it going any other way at the end. We only had one power that really could confuse things, making alignments show up wrong. And only one of us could do that and if we ever switched it up and got seered everyone not in our soft group was calling for our blood. (This is why I died.) If mamawolf killed any of us it wouldn't be close at all. Vote records didn't look good for us either if seering failed.
Really? I thought you were chomping at the bit to kill me days before. So you weren't the don't trust 38th guy?
Well, the "ideal" move here probably have been to pick one mafia the first night and just flip their results every turn forever, make their role always seer as village. But that only works if the immortal vig continues to miss forever. The ideal would be getting down to 5 exactly, vig misses, vote misses, you don't overlap with the vig and you dont hit the vig and then you win
The reason I started the multi-day power usage of seering you was because I thought you were mafia, yes.
But then I got the result that you were mafia and I doubted it
Then you have a full alignment record out there without much mafia interference, as there is no way for the mafia to tell N1 who to befuddle.
Main reason I jumped on Phyphor D2 without questioning the set results.
And then the mafia is locked into lying, likely about their red role, or potentially about their 'seeing results'.
This would've isolated mamawolf though, who couldn't see and kill.
And I guess the mafia this game could see to forge villager results, and also duplicate a role and flip a role's colour to make two of them immune to this verification the entire game, so
I should share this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U4Plv9fd_DM0tRq-zbYSoJSZWr-Y02KRBYML_zNzk9o/edit#gid=0
This is the tracker sheet. There were a number of times where something worse could have happened for the village, but a shift or someone getting killed prevented the confusion.
Example: If Aura hadn't been killed D1, he would have gotten the wrong role back on JPants, which probably would have killed JPants' ability to try and coordinate anything from the very start.
Edit: As I dig more, it could have gone worse for Mafia as well. There were at least two people who were going to find a mafia role that got killed instead.
As I grew older, my musical tastes started becoming more personal, as happens, and my parents’ musical influences started holding less sway over me. The first CD I ever bought? Fat of the Land by The Prodigy. The second? Let’s Face It by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Very clear signs I was becoming my own person. I still enjoyed the music of my youth (a Harry Chapin song remains, to this day, my favorite of all time), but in my mind it was a thing of the past, a thing that once was but never would be again.
That remained the case until I went to Japan as part of the JET Programme. I was placed in Akita, which is very nice in the summer but very cold and very dark in the winter, especially if you don’t like winter sports (which I emphatically do not). So I had a lot of time to absorb Japanese pop culture. In terms of music, I was drawn to two musical acts in particular: Love Psychedelico and Rie fu. The former is a folk-rock band, and the latter is a purely folk singer. Upon listening to them for the first time, the influences of the artists I had listened to as a child was apparent. It seemed as if the musical influences of my parents lingered on. Who knew?
At about this time, while I was still in Japan, there was a post on the Penny Arcade website drawing attention to the song “The Mermaid,” by Great Big Sea. As was the custom at the time, I immediately procured a copy of the song and listened to it. And I was delighted! So I went and found their other music (their most recent album at the time was Something Beautiful). To my surprise and delight, their music was awfully familiar to me. Songs about sailing the high seas and working on boats abounded. It was like someone had taken Schooner Fare, and added an electric guitar and a Newfoundland accent.
Among my friends and family, I became a Great Big Sea evangel. I dragged my sister to a concert, at which she continually yelled for the band to play “Margarita.” I went on a road trip with one of my best friends to Maine to see Great Big Sea put on a free concert. I made my wife go to a show with me in New York City. She thought they were just fine, until they launched into a rendition of “The River Driver.” Watching her expression change into amazement as the song went on was a delight for me that will be hard to recreate.
To summarize, Great Big Sea is one of my favorite bands of all time, in part because the music is great but also because it is a direct connection to the music of my youth, and to my family. Yes, my entire family is from New York City (the Bronx specifically) and we’ve never been sailing and my dad gets seasick at the drop of a hat, but the music of Great Big Sea was important to me.
What I really enjoy about folk music generally, and Great Big Sea songs specifically, is that the songs explicitly tell stories. There are characters and plot and everything that goes along with that. I have always found story-songs especially compelling. It only made sense to me that the music of Great Big Sea, and the characters contained therein, would be an interesting (and flavorful) setting for a phalla. What I needed was a framing device, some kind of story to tell with all of these characters. I eventually settled on “Concerning Charlie Horse” (one of two songs from the same album about a horse falling through the ice), because the song is kind of silly and kind of sweet, and because the idea of a horse being murdered tickled me. Yes, Charlie Horse’s death is legit an accident in the song, but an accident wouldn’t make a village go on a murderous rampage. The other song I was considering using as a framing device was “Excursion Around the Bay,” which is about a woman who falls ill and dies on a sightseeing boat. That seemed a bit too heavy for the mood I was going for. Once I settled on "Concerning Charlie Horse," I needed to come up with a motivation for the mafia. Like, why would anyone want to kill a horse? That was the tricky part. But we got there in the end.
Well, this was just the Prelude, after all. You’’ll all just have to wait for Act One for your answers.
I can't express how much it makes me smile. That kind of genuine display of heart and talent is often missed in this online world and I'm not sure you realize how much you brightened mine.
I love Penny Arcade and the people in it.
This feels like a true passion project all around and its incredibly fitting considering the source.
It's like.... the culmination of all my years of Phalla. Pack it up, this was the last game
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
!!!
Was this the series finale for Phalla!?
Way to go showrunners, you stuck the landing!
Hmmmmmmm
ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!!!
Two thoughts I had reading this:
I agree with all of this pretty strongly (except suspecting H3K obviously :P ). Mafia not having their actions limited as they lose players probably would've been enough.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Stealing the vig (without knowing how to) might've given the mafia a fighting chance
It would not have. The vig item specifically could only be held by a villager.
Which equipment slot does the One Guitar go in, hand or swung way down low?
The Loaded Six-String is a back slot item, obv.