Live Action Mafia

Thank you all for making this game so awesome. It was a blast to run. I'd appreciate your feedback - how can this game be better for future games, including the possible upcoming game?

Thanks,
Alex

JJ's boyfriend:
"
The 'live action' killing part is more viable in high school, where people pass by each other all the time, not in college, and least of all IAP.

I played a version in which the mafia gave votes to God on who to kill.
I believe most of the fun comes from the possibility for people to talk behind each other's backs. Although the idea of alibis is interesting, and we had fun coming up with how to kill, it makes it unnecessarily hard on the mafia without a better starting ratio, and boring for the townspeople if no kill happens.

Of course, some roles/abilities like Jesus and hitman will have to be replaced or edited.
"

A voting deadline that is a little later at night, like 1:30am, might give the Mafia a little more time to kill during the day.

Irene

The day would still be as long, 24 hours. Also, people might not want to stay up that late to get last-minute info. This includes me, who needs to stay up to update votes.

Perhaps giving a tutorial (like you did last year) on "HOW TO KILL PEOPLE" might be useful and prevent the whole "You can't kill me in my room debacle..."
Also, maybe having some kind of in-game interactive session would force people to come out and kill...or not kill..
Atleast you'll recognize the other players?

I think that live action mafia would be MUCH less interesting if you did not have to physically touch the person in order to kill them. I would no longer play.

I agree that it might be unnecessarily hard on the mafia as opposed to everyone else, but that's the risk you run when you sign up to play. It's not unreasonable, and is very fun.


Ideas I came up with in general (not fullproof yet):
---If there are no mafia kills or attempts (Alex is the judge on "attempt") for 4 days, the townspeople win.
---When signing up, you can tell Alex that you don't want to be a mafia (or special townsperson role) and Alex take this into account when generating roles, but there's no way to verify this (like you can't show the Role PM to anyone).

I was considering a similar suggestion, to let people put preferences for mafia/townspeople or role of lack of one. Then, I'd generate roles randomly, say, 5 times and pick the one that satisfies the most people. So, people are more likely to get roles they want but are far from guaranteed it.

Some people were against it because people would lynch them Day 1 and say "I know you would have wanted to be Mafia", which would be unfair.

How about implementing this only for people saying "I don't want to be Mafia?" I still do worry this might skew the game the same way.

Alex, overall I think that you and everybody else who designed the rules did a great job. The mid-game lack of mafia kills was not your fault and probably hurt the mafia more than anybody else. Still, it seems against the spirit of the game for the mafia to not make routine kills. I suggest the following, which I think will serve to increase the pace of the game.

1. Provide a small penalty to the mafia any day they don't make a kill. Any such rule should be a substantial incentive for the mafia to make kills every day, while not breaking the game if the penalty is enforced. Possible ideas include:
a. Following any day with no mafia kills, the moderator selects a random civilian and offers him/her the opportunity to inquire whether a particular dead person was mafia or not.
b. The town can lynch two people on any day that the mafia make no kills (i.e. players can submit a second vote, which is only considered if the mafia made no kills. In this case, the two players with the most votes are lynched.) Obviously, this would speed up the game, but I am concerned that the mafia would try to take advantage of this by manipulating the townspeople into killing two of their own in one night. (But, perhaps that's a desirable dynamic; I'm just designing these rules to maximize kills by the mafia.)
c. A randomly chosen civilian receives the vigilante power with a single bullet.
d. The following day the inspector may make a standard table mafia inspection (Is so and so mafia?) rather than inquiring "Did so and so kill so and so."

2. The townspeople receive a penalty any day they don't lynch somebody. This is easily remedied by allowing the mafia two kills following any non-lynch day.

3. I think there should only be one medkit. Two medkits plus Jesus provide two many traps against the mafia and serve to discourage them from making routine kills.



Also, I sent emails to both 4E of East Campus and to Random Hall, (I will also send one to Simmons) notifying them of this game. I expect to get several responses.
My opinion is that the larger the game the better, as long as the participants are involving themselves in the game. If we get enough players, I would suggest considering adding additional roles (I think the "lovers" is a very interesting dynamic, for example.)

Please do not take this long post as a critique to the excellent game that you devised and moderated. I am just trying to iron out small creases to make the game the best it can possibly be.

I am strongly against the idea of allowing players to request specific roles. No matter how this is implemented, discussions will come up about "Who would be most likely to want or not want this or that role." I think the moderator needs to make it very clear at the start of the game that the roles were completely random, so as to quell any speculation otherwise.

If I am a minority in this opinion and/or Alex disagrees I suggest the following as a modification: The moderator generates roles completely randomly, but if he determines the results to be substantially unsatisfactory he redoes the random generator. I still advise against this, but I think it is less likely to result in decisions being made as described above.

Would it be advisable to postselect for having at least one Mafia outside of Next?

^ Vivian likes this idea

It's tempting, but I'm going to have to suggest "no." Again, I'm just concerned about the metagaming that would inevitably result.

I'm hoping to get greater non-Next participation this time. I've emailed Simmons, Random, and 4E of EC.

Though it wouldn't be my preference, I really don't think it's such an issue if the mafia are all from Next. Plenty of non-Next people were suspected and lynched in this last game. And kills do not have to be made exclusively in the dorms!

^ however, I think the question should still be answered negative if the target being investigated is a conscript, otherwise it might make things too skewed in Townspeople's favour.

As of now, how many people are signed up for the game? How many others have indicated their definite decision to do so. I'm under the impression that there are quite a few.

Is everyone who tried to sign up in the group Players? I am not the getting the option to approve next members.

Oops, I posted from my admin account.

Eep. I think some people may have misunderstood what you meant by joining the usergroup. Maybe make a sticky telling them exactly how to do so?

That's probably going to be my fault. I was under the impression that you just had to follow the registration instructions, and Alex/the forum programming would take care of the rest. That is basically what I told everybody I invited.