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Mafia-like games
Forking out the mafia discussion from the PAX East thread because I think it deserves its own thread.
Is there a preferred ruleset somewhere online?
Is there a preferred ruleset somewhere online?
Post edited by trogdor9 on
Comments
I'm definitely interested the idea Rym suggested of a Rym-only GeekNights special on how to run Mafia, but a blog post or some such would suffice. I'll probably end up running this at some point this summer.
I guess this would be easy enough to write that it wouldn't matter much if it had been done before, though.
Of course, I'd rather a closed-form mathematical solution that's as generic as possible, but that would take much more effort.
Can someone find a more general solution involving both Doctors and Detectives?
Mafia boss: wakes up by them self and kills another towns person at the end of the night. The other mafia don't know who is the boss. I don't think I've ever played a game where a mafia boss hasn't killed one of his own mafia. This is only good for games with loads of people.
Hooded Hangman: a normal citizen, except if this person is selected by the towns people, there is nobody to hang him, so he doesn't die on that round. I don't think I ever played a game where the hangman wasn't immediately killed the night following the fact he was revealed. Also I don't think I've ever played a game with a hooded hangman card without most accused people saying "Don't bother voting for me, you can't kill me anyway."
EDIT: Durr - it increases the chance of citizens being picked for lynching later, as compared to killing some other citizen.
Also, it seems that with Detectives there is actually nontrivial strategy involved.
If information is revealed during the game, you must rely on memory in order to access it.
You have to speak in order to be heard, and you might speak over someone or be spoken over; in other words, you need to take command of the group in order to get a point across.
You could devise a system of hand signals or other body language, but it needs to be done while the game is being played, and somehow communicated to the other people.
So the concept of a simultaneous communication method, or really any sort of note-passing or note-taking, totally alters the game.
"I am the Detective. My investigations have revealed that X, Y, ... are citizens, whereas A, B, ... are mafia. Lynch me to verify the accuracy of my words."
Player A: "I am the detctive, and player X is Mafia..."
Player B: "BULLSHIT! HE'S LYING! I'M THE DETECTIVE AND HE'S MAFIA!"
And then the game devolves into arguing - which one do you believe? And if you ask for a revelation, they can just point at random people, because you can't know any better. It then becomes a matter of who is the more trustworthy player.
Which is why simultaneous communication changes things - you can't interrupt a written message.
In other words, anyone announcing themselves as a detective is either a detective or mafiosi - never a plain ol' citizen - and so lynching them is always beneficial.
Furthermore, I would argue that whoever is first to say "I am the detective" is quite likely to be the detective - it's not in any mafiosi's interest to announce this first, because if they do so they're giving away free information, and asking to get themselves lynched.
On that note, I think in the scenario you've suggested the correct reaction is simply to remember what both player A and player B have to say, and then lynch player B, because you gain more by lynching a mafiosi than a detective, and player A is more likely to be the detective.
But yeah, having the detective divulge information and then be killed appears to be a sound strategy no matter what.
Alternately, convince me why running it in real time breaks the game. It's cool if I can do it, but if it'll totally suck I'll just run it the normal way.
Allow them to talk, and just not talk about the game... something is going to slip. For a long-term game like that, I'd go with more of a dinner murder-mystery type plot.
The only thing is that you need to make sure there's actually enough time to finish the game, I guess, and there wouldn't be unless you introduced some crazy rules.
Even one week might be a little too short for 15 players, depending on the character types.
I think what I'll end up doing is trying it the first week and then tweaking it as the weeks go on. I get eight chances here; chances are I can make it awesome after a few tries.