Werewolves of Millers Hollow + the expansion scales the game up to 18 I believe. I've only ran it for 12 myself, but it has a lot of different roles that are a bit hit or miss. I've always been fond of the Hunter and the Witch from that. Sadly I missed the night you guys played this at PAX because I had both of my decks from that on hand at the convention.
He wakes up on his own and can kill somone each night, but otherwise counts as a civilian. He's trying to kill the Mafia.
2. Suicide Bomber
If the Mafia kill him at night, the moderator wakes him up (while the mafia are still awake), and he chooses a member of the mafia to die with him in the explosion.
3. Grenade (Suicide Bomber Alternate).
If lynched during the day, he optionally flips his card and chooses any other player to die with him. Or, if he chooses to, he kills the players on either side of him.
4. Leper On the second night, whoever has the leper card dies and taps someone on the shoulder during the leper phase (before Mafia are woken up to kill (this order is important). That person dies during the next night's leper phase, and infects someone else. If this kills too many people too quickly, only have a leper phase every other night.
The werewolf expansion also includes special events for each game, which I have not tried yet, but it would possibly keep the game interesting with a group that's ran a lot of it.
Citadels is interesting to me for a similar subset of reasons. It's certainly a different niche, but somewhere between the german style board games and the human interaction element.
Trog, I think it would probably help to hand-pick your Mafia, rather than leaving it completely up to luck. Give the role to the kids that you know are clever enough to be able to protect their identity.
Trog, I think it would probably help to hand-pick your Mafia, rather than leaving it completely up to luck. Give the role to the kids that you know are clever enough to be able to protect their identity.
I agree. Often, I'm just meeting them for the first time on Sunday, so I'll have to make some quick judgements about who's clever before we actually start the game.
I like psycho killer. If you are voted dead during the day you can optionally psycho kill, and the person who accused you is also dead. I did this once to win for civilians by psycho killing the godfather that accused me.
I don't get the appeal of playing a mafia-like on a forum, but people must really enjoy it because it's quite popular. The GeekDad writers are starting up a Game of Thrones themed mafia game if anyone is interested. Few spots left.
Citadels is interesting to me for a similar subset of reasons. It's certainly a different niche, but somewhere between the german style board games and the human interaction element.
One of Citadels' most significant drawbacks is its rigidity, however. By cramming in that German board gaming goodness, it really hampers the flow and social aspect of Mafia. Case in point - if I die in Mafia, I will sit there silently and observe the rest of the game, laughing at the mischief happening on screen. If I get Assassin-ed in Citadels the time between that revelation and the next turn feels absolutely unbearable.
Given cheeses's analysis of the detective and his optimal strategy, I'm increasingly convinced that Masons should reveal themselves immediately. "I'm a mason and so are [two other players]. Lynch me to prove it. Detective, don't bother investigating those two."
You immediately get a head start in knowing who is not the mafia. Detective wastes less time that way.
Citadels is broken in that there is zero social element with even reasonably skilled players. Optimal play is actually random play for the most part, which is trivially implemented due to the cards. Choose your roles randomly and no one can even attempt to second guess you.
Given cheeses's analysis of the detective and his optimal strategy, I'm increasingly convinced that Masons should reveal themselves immediately. "I'm a mason and so are [two other players]. Lynch me to prove it. Detective, don't bother investigating those two."
You immediately get a head start in knowing who is not the mafia. Detective wastes less time that way.
That may be true, but there is a negative to weigh against it - it also tells the mafia who the masons are, which narrows down the possibilities for the Detective.
Given cheeses's analysis of the detective and his optimal strategy, I'm increasingly convinced that Masons should reveal themselves immediately. "I'm a mason and so are [two other players]. Lynch me to prove it. Detective, don't bother investigating those two."
You immediately get a head start in knowing who is not the mafia. Detective wastes less time that way.
The only problem with this is that now the mafia have better odds of picking the detective because they won't even bother killing the masons.
I don't have much experience with Mafia. Actually zero, I've always played it as werewolf and even that only few times. But the thing I wanted to question is that is it always the case that roles are revealed after death? If variation where only mafiosoes were revealed after death make strategies where one lies about their role more effective?
At least the mason and detective strategies would lose some power under them.
I wonder how viable it is to do public key encryption in your head. After all, if everyone announces a public key they can then effectively send private messages.
I played a game of Werewolf at PAX, and encountered an interesting scenario. We had a Witch, who saved a villager from wolf-death at night, but the victim had no knowledge. That means that the Witch and the Wolves were the only ones who knew the identity of the victim. The Witch witheld that knowledge from the group, and went around the circle asking each person if they would give up their voting power to the Witch in exchange for the identity of the victim. The idea was that Wolves would be more hesitant to say yes to that deal, or would try to argue against it, since both giving the Witch a vote and having them reveal the victim would benefit the villagers. Thoughts?
How does the Witch go around the circle asking people, and how do they "give up their voting power"?
Also, we need to go a little deeper into the detective's strategy, as discussed above. The most critical questions is this - to maximize the chances of winning, under what conditions should the detective announce their findings?
Based on the results of this paper, there are two rather simple cases where a detective's findings can 100% guarantee a win for the citizens: 1) If the detective has identified all members of the mafia 2) If the detective can verify more than half of the remaining players as citizens.
Basically, the citizens can win in case 2) by simply killing off all non-verified citizens, while the mafia will be trying to kill of verified citizens; since there are more verified than non-verified citizens, the citizens win.
Although these are the only ways of guaranteeing victory, this question remains - could it be beneficial for the detective to reveal themselves before 1) or 2), or should they just wait? This would be a probabilistic calculation based on the chances of getting the needed info, of winning with the current info, and of being killed early.
The Mason/Detective interplay is also quite interesting, because they can combine critical information on the identities of citizens to give victory (as mentioned in my previous post).
Based on how important it is to identify citizens, I suspect at some point it's definitely beneficial for the masons to reveal themselves, but I'm not entirely sure when this would be. This is something that requires a bit of mathematics or simulation to test properly.
Here's one important fact, though - if ever the masons outnumber the mafiosi, they can identify themselves without the need for being lynched
Consider this hypothetical game with 3 mafiosi, 3 masons, 1 detective, and 5 civilians: 1) A civilian is lynched, the detective discovers civilian, the mafiosi kill a civilian 2) A mafiosi is lynched, the detective discovers a civilian, the mafiosi kill a civilian.
At this point, it's a guaranteed victory for the citizens. Can you see why?
3) The detective identifies two civilians, and directly afterwards the three masons jointly come forward. The detective is then lynched, and the mafia kill either a civilian or mason (it doesn't matter which)
At this point, there are six remaining players, and four of them are publicly known citizens. Two days later, the citizens will have won.
How does the Witch go around the circle asking people, and how do they "give up their voting power"?
He said, to each person, "Would you give up your voting power if I told everyone who was targeted?" It's not an optimal strategy, but it forces them to lie, one-on-one, to his face. Also, you can mask it as a power trip (e.g. "I have this information you want, what will you do to get it" even though the Witch is on the villagers' team) to keep the Mafia/Wolves off guard.
As for enforcement, there is none, just like every other social contract in Mafia. I'd imagine that this strategy, if deployed correctly, could influence voting patterns, though.
How can anyone know it's the witch, and not a mafiosi pretending to be the witch? Also, this would just get the witch killed by the mafiosi, wouldn't it?
How can anyone know it's the witch, and not a mafiosi pretending to be the witch?
The witch was revealed earlier, because they had two one-time-use powers: revive a doomed man, and kill their accuser (if lynchmobbed). I don't remember who the person the Witch saved that round was, and it might have been them.
Well, if the mafia are smart, they'll just go along with the witch, but it's true that this might get them caught if they don't think it through enough.
On a similar note, the Mafia/Doctor interplay is also interesting, because if the doctor saves someone they now know the identity of someone the mafia tried to kill, which is almost certainly a citizen (a game where the mafia tried to kill one of their own who happened to get saved by the doctor would be hilarious, though). As with the masons and the detective, the doctor also has the same mechanism that others do of verifying this information - namely, being lynched.
The interesting question, then, is, what can / should the doctor do with their information? To me, it seems that there isn't actually anything the doctor can do with it unless they get very lucky and save several people. For example, if the doctor only knows the identity of one citizen, it isn't worth it for them to get lynched to verify it as the mafia will simply kill that citizen in the same night - basically, this just serves to waste a lynching.
Another interesting question is this - should the mafia then be more inclined to target people that were previously saved? If so, how much more likely?
The interesting question, then, is, what can / should the doctor do with their information? To me, it seems that there isn't actually anything the doctor can do with it unless they get very lucky and save several people. For example, if the doctor only knows the identity of one citizen, it isn't worth it for them to get lynched to verify it as the mafia will simply kill that citizen in the same night - basically, this just serves to waste a lynching.
Another interesting question is this - should the mafia then be more inclined to target people that were previously saved? If so, how much more likely?
I certainly felt rather useless as the doctor/sheriff/bluebean (could have just been me -_-), but the odds of saving someone were always against me -- the person I selected to save one night was killed the next night when I selected someone else. Even when it came down to 50-50, I saved the wrong person. Of course, I shouldn't have let it go so far. There were several votes on the remaining mafioso that hinged on me, and I needed more time to think.
Needing more time to think is exactly why this game works. ;^)
If everyone acted rationally and calmly, there would be plenty of time to think. But, the game simulates an uninformed majority working to block the actions of an informed minority. The latter sow dissent, and everyone always falls for it.
Comments
1. Vigilante
He wakes up on his own and can kill somone each night, but otherwise counts as a civilian. He's trying to kill the Mafia.
2. Suicide Bomber
If the Mafia kill him at night, the moderator wakes him up (while the mafia are still awake), and he chooses a member of the mafia to die with him in the explosion.
3. Grenade (Suicide Bomber Alternate).
If lynched during the day, he optionally flips his card and chooses any other player to die with him. Or, if he chooses to, he kills the players on either side of him.
4. Leper
On the second night, whoever has the leper card dies and taps someone on the shoulder during the leper phase (before Mafia are woken up to kill (this order is important). That person dies during the next night's leper phase, and infects someone else. If this kills too many people too quickly, only have a leper phase every other night.
Also, are you guys aware of Epicmafia, the online game?
You immediately get a head start in knowing who is not the mafia. Detective wastes less time that way.
At least the mason and detective strategies would lose some power under them.
Also, we need to go a little deeper into the detective's strategy, as discussed above. The most critical questions is this - to maximize the chances of winning, under what conditions should the detective announce their findings?
Based on the results of this paper, there are two rather simple cases where a detective's findings can 100% guarantee a win for the citizens:
1) If the detective has identified all members of the mafia
2) If the detective can verify more than half of the remaining players as citizens.
Basically, the citizens can win in case 2) by simply killing off all non-verified citizens, while the mafia will be trying to kill of verified citizens; since there are more verified than non-verified citizens, the citizens win.
Although these are the only ways of guaranteeing victory, this question remains - could it be beneficial for the detective to reveal themselves before 1) or 2), or should they just wait? This would be a probabilistic calculation based on the chances of getting the needed info, of winning with the current info, and of being killed early.
Based on how important it is to identify citizens, I suspect at some point it's definitely beneficial for the masons to reveal themselves, but I'm not entirely sure when this would be. This is something that requires a bit of mathematics or simulation to test properly.
Here's one important fact, though - if ever the masons outnumber the mafiosi, they can identify themselves without the need for being lynched
Consider this hypothetical game with 3 mafiosi, 3 masons, 1 detective, and 5 civilians:
1) A civilian is lynched, the detective discovers civilian, the mafiosi kill a civilian
2) A mafiosi is lynched, the detective discovers a civilian, the mafiosi kill a civilian.
At this point, it's a guaranteed victory for the citizens. Can you see why?
3) The detective identifies two civilians, and directly afterwards the three masons jointly come forward. The detective is then lynched, and the mafia kill either a civilian or mason (it doesn't matter which)
At this point, there are six remaining players, and four of them are publicly known citizens. Two days later, the citizens will have won.
As for enforcement, there is none, just like every other social contract in Mafia. I'd imagine that this strategy, if deployed correctly, could influence voting patterns, though.
Also, this would just get the witch killed by the mafiosi, wouldn't it?
The interesting question, then, is, what can / should the doctor do with their information? To me, it seems that there isn't actually anything the doctor can do with it unless they get very lucky and save several people. For example, if the doctor only knows the identity of one citizen, it isn't worth it for them to get lynched to verify it as the mafia will simply kill that citizen in the same night - basically, this just serves to waste a lynching.
Another interesting question is this - should the mafia then be more inclined to target people that were previously saved? If so, how much more likely?
If everyone acted rationally and calmly, there would be plenty of time to think. But, the game simulates an uninformed majority working to block the actions of an informed minority. The latter sow dissent, and everyone always falls for it.
The monsters are due on Maple Street.