Mafia 85: Return from Lockdown

[Diplomacy&Warfare]

I reckon one possible way to fix this setup is to make up another ~10 roles and randomly select from them to get the actual role list. But don't tell the players which roles are in play of course.

That's exactly what I'd recommend. A semi-open setup (which is the technical term for what you are describing) is generally much less sensitive to role claiming.

Hey, I was thinking of the same thing!
I had a bunch of role ideas:
Return what target's target returned
Always return 'failure'
Always return 'success'
Return the first other player in order to target your target, if nobody else targeted them then return 'failure'.
Mafia food delivery
^^^possibly a mechanic where the Mafia food is poisoned and if you have food delivered you have a 1/2 chance its Mafia food and you die.

[Kakarroto]

Looking back at the game after I had some time to mentally digest, I think it was a good thing that town got to know that food is ECO. That made clear that either sweet or bozo were lying so we had a clear 50/50 that couldn't be dodged.

HOWEVER, town rushing into a hammer of food, especially since he said that he had work and was asking for a bit more time (for his thoughts and for his excel list) was not so good. Sure, it kept the game quicker, but I have to say that if people are that easily to mentally check out of a game and don't have a reset (like brain did with him ignoring the mech and mechtalk and trying to get behind the game by what people said, which was brilliant, I want to add) or powering through some stuff, then honestly, I find that lacking.

I mean, if people want to have quicker games, we could do that too. Like 1 hour phases, where we all find a day when we can play and fully focus on the game, that way we can't have any real indepth analyse of mech heavy settings and can even run full item madness and mass claim isn't a full autowin for town. (It might be a bit difficult to find the right timeframe and have the game end in time, but after organizing that, it should work pretty well.)

Also, there is another option to not have a game being broken by massclaim: don't tell anyone which roles are in the game. That way it can be role balanced, there IS information for town to deduct after persons flip, AND mafia is safe from that practice. The council can check it before, if it is balanced in regards of the power roles and what mafia can do, but that way, everyone can enjoy being a PR and if there is a massclaim, mafia can just easily make up roles (or being provided by the GM of a role description that isn't already used) and pick up the PR's they want to see gone from the game. So that way, a mass claim is actually full pro mafia.

Another thing I wanted to add, though more for me and my reads, is that I shouldn't town people too much or too easily. I think I'm doing a decent job at giving people that I think are mafia enough benefit of the doubt that I accept their input and am open to change my mind if there is a major thing that challenges my perspective, but I do have big problems when I see someone as town and to then doubt my read and trying to analyse if they couldn't be mafia. For example my read on Jamie, it heavily influenced my interpretation on the list, where I put him as middle manager (because I thought food was mafia and Jamie town). I might've not done that if I only thought food was mafia and was unsure about Jamie. So that is something I should challenge more often in the future, do my townreads actually have a basis or am I just easily putting out that stamp.

Anyway, well played everyone, thanks for the game, and congrats on bozo for solid townplay for suggesting the massclaim. And I hope to see frog again, it was fun playing with your power wolfing . Our other new players D&W and babyspice too of course, though I hope to see then more involvement of you two in future games

[sweetandcool]

I think the hammer of Food was directly the result of several people mentally checking out of the game.

For example, I had literally no idea why we were hammering Food, but Town seemed confident so I decided to join it since I was being asked to.

I also came to the conclusion that in the end flipping Food as ECO ended up actually being helpful for Town. Particularly, it helped me establish my role.

But yeah, I think people wouldn't have rushed to hammer if the game hadn't become mech dependent. I think the attitude essentially was to get the game over with as soon as possible.

[Jamiet99uk]

Also, there is another option to not have a game being broken by massclaim: don't tell anyone which roles are in the game. That way it can be role balanced, there IS information for town to deduct after persons flip, AND mafia is safe from that practice. The council can check it before, if it is balanced in regards of the power roles and what mafia can do, but that way, everyone can enjoy being a PR and if there is a massclaim, mafia can just easily make up roles (or being provided by the GM of a role description that isn't already used) and pick up the PR's they want to see gone from the game.

This is known as a fully-closed setup.

It is rarely seen because it is regarded as being prone to being quite scum-sided, due to the complete information imbalance (because scum can tell each other what exact roles they have).

If used, it should only generalky feature Normal roles and not any variant / homebrewed PRs (i.e. things like Cop, Doctor, Tracker, Watcher, Godfather, Ninja, Roleblocker, and not roles like Angel or Wicked Stepmother).

[Chaqa]

I think the hammer of Food was directly the result of several people mentally checking out of the game.

For example, I had literally no idea why we were hammering Food, but Town seemed confident so I decided to join it since I was being asked to.

I also came to the conclusion that in the end flipping Food as ECO ended up actually being helpful for Town. Particularly, it helped me establish my role.

But yeah, I think people wouldn't have rushed to hammer if the game hadn't become mech dependent. I think the attitude essentially was to get the game over with as soon as possible.

Yeah, it was definitely that. When they said we'd have a 48 hour night my initial reaction was to literally ask for a sub or a modkill because I didn't want to play that long.

[Chaqa]

That blue burns my eyes.