The Thing Mafia [Concluded]

https://img219.imageshack.us/img219/...ingbanner2.jpg

Game Starts In:

Rules, partially (and shamelessly) ripped off of GH's Mafia classic format.

Introduction: The Thing Mafia is a spin-off of GH's classic Mafia series. It will take place in Antarctica, but will involve the usual Frontroom gang of misfits. This is a traditional mafia game with only one power role: Mafia. There are no serial killers, no vigilantes, no doctors, no third-party roles or extra victory conditions of any kind, and no Detective. It is simply Mafia vs. Town. There is, however, one very significant change in the mafia's killing ability.

Anonymous Accounts: All players in this game will be required to use Anonymous Accounts. These accounts were introduced as part of the Gameroom Anniversary, and have been used in The Copa Clash and Mafia X. When the game starts, every player's forum account will be linked to an Anonymous account, as per this post. While alive, you will make all posts in the game under this anonymous account. It takes a single mouse click to switch between your normal forum account and your anonymous account... you don't even have to log out/in or remember a password. Anonymous Accounts are mainly being used to allow for the implementation of the Doopleganger Kill mechanism, described below, with anonymity of the players only being a side-effect. Players are free to state, withhold, or lie about their real identities as they see fit. There will be no confirmation of a player's real identity when they are killed.

Roles:
The Thing (mafioso): (1)
The bad guy. The mafioso gets one kill per night, however the mafioso will have two options on how to kill:

• Option 1: Normal Kill. The mafioso kills a person and they die. Dead player's account is unlinked to their Anonymous account.
• Option 2: Doppleganger Kill. The mafioso kills a person, but takes their form. The dead player is unlinked from their Anonymous account, while the mafioso takes control of the dead player's Anonymous account and uses it as his own. The mafioso's old Anonymous account shows up as dead.

The town will not know which option was used. The night write-up will narrate a kill, but the identity of the person who died will not be part of the narration. Instead, at the end a body will be found. The townies will not know whether the body is from a new victim, or The Thing's old (now discarded) doppleganger body. The mafia have some say in how much/little they put in their kill descriptions. It is up to the town to figure out how much is their work and how much is mine.

The Frontroom Mafia (townies): (everyone else)
Are you a townie in this game? Don't fret, so is (mostly) everyone else. Unlike in some of the more role-heavy games though, the townies are absolutely integral to the success or the failure of the town in the game, since there are no power roles to do the heavy lifting. The townies will only be able to win this game if they come together and take some time out to seriously do some detective work. Being talkative will be especially important in this game, as the more you talk the harder it will be for The Thing to successfully impersonate you.

Communication: No players may communicate about the game anywhere except in the public thread. No PMs, no IRC, no IMing, no email, no carrier pigeon. This is to prevent players from establishing pre-generated code words so that other players will know if their account has been taken over. Find The Thing with good old fashioned scum-hunting, not cheap tricks.

Death: Once you are dead, you will be given a link to a Quicktopic forum where you can discuss the game with other dead players. Other than inside that Quicktopic, you are not allowed to talk about the game to anyone in any way until it is over. Sorry if this rule is frustrating, but it's the only way to make the doppleganger system work. Anyone who's account is taken over by The Thing will obviously know it because they will see their account continue making posts. So, all dead players must remain totally silent to keep the game fair.

Game procedure: The game will start with a night phase. Unfortunately, this means one person will die before they even get the chance to cast one vote. You can still help your fellow townies by talking as much as possible the first night, so that they have as much 'natural' dialog from you as possible to be able to compare later to see if you've been replaced. Voting procedure is in the usual format, i.e.:

Vote: GeneralHankerchief

If you wish to unvote, then please do so in the following manner:

Unvote: Ser Clegane
Vote: GeneralHankerchief

Voting abstain (you are present for the round and have no lynch preference) is allowed, but "No Lynch" is not. If you post in a round but do not vote, I count it as an "abstain". Additionally, after a certain amount of rounds, usually when I deem it to be endgame, "Abstain" will no longer be allowed, meaning you must vote to lynch someone. I will let you know in the thread once this threshold has been crossed.

WoGing may or may not be used, depending on how I feel when I wake up in the morning. ph33r

Joining the Game: You may join the game with the usual 'IN' post. However, using The Thing's special doppleganger kill ability will require players to impersonate other players. This can be very difficult. As such, players will have to OPT IN in order to be put into the group from which The Thing will be randomly chosen. If you want to volunteer to be The Thing, PM TinCow when you sign-up to say so. This will allow me to give that role to a person who thinks they can pull it off without letting everyone else know which players they need to be looking for more closely.

Sign-ups: (17/17) FULL
Montmorency
Populus Romanus
Death is yonder
ATPG
Mr. Stuka
Tratorix
GH
Reenk
B_Ray
TheLastDays
Ishmael
johnhughthom
Major Robert Dump
Captain Blackadder
issaikhaan
Arjos
classical_hero

Original First Post:

I was just watching the trailer for the remake of The Thing, and it occurred to me that the new Anonymous account system makes possible a new variation on the mafia game which might be fun. If you're not familiar with The Thing, the basic idea is that there's an alien which kills people, but it's essentially a shapeshifter and assumes their forms after they die, so no one knows who the killer is. This would be an interesting twist for a mafia game, which I think we can now pull off. It would work as follows:

All players use Anonymous accounts; no communicating in any manner outside the public thread. There is one (and only one) mafioso. Every night, the mafioso kills one person. However, there are two options about how the kill is handled, and the mafioso gets to choose which to use. The first option is that the kill occurs normally, and the player dies and everyone knows it when they find his body. The second option is that the player dies, but instead of their death becoming public knowledge, the mafioso takes over their Anonymous account and begins posting as them. The mafioso's old (abandoned) Anonymous account is then found dead in the player's place. Under no circumstances is any dead player allowed to talk about the game to anyone by any means until the game is over.

I'm interested to hear some commentary on this idea, as I think it could be really interesting, but it could also be very confusing and would depend heavily on strict obedience of the total silence upon death rule. Comments, concerns?

[edit]A follow-up thought on this. The success of the mafioso would depend very heavily on their ability to impersonate other players. This would require a far higher level of skill than most mafia games, as the mafioso would not only need to act innocent, they would need to act innocent in a totally different posting style. I can imagine some people who would want to play this game to hunt the mafioso, but who might not feel confident enough in their own abilities to actual play the mafioso. As such, it might be better to actually take volunteers for the role of mafioso instead of letting it be decided randomly from the entire set of players. Anyone could join, but in addition to joining they would also say whether they were willing to be the mafioso. The mafioso would then be chosen randomly from only the subset of volunteers.

Sweet jebus, that would be scary.

You know what's really scary? About an hour to half an hour ago, I stumbled upon The Thing on TV Tropes.

I kinda like the idea although I think it could be very hard for the town...

Still it sounds like fun

Good idea. think it would cut out the bias to. For example, what if Player A the mafia hates Player B the townie? He might kill Player B despite that Player B may not really have any abilities or anything that could be used against him.

Uh, well the bias would just be avoided because of the anonymous system, which has already been used twice and is not a new tool for this game. This is just an idea for a different way of using the anonymous accounts. I could see it working in larger games, but I think it would need a small game test first. As I'm imagining it, it would be a small game with player limit up to whatever the max is for small games. The only roles would be townies and the single mafioso. PMing might also be allowed, so long as no one deleted their PMs (so that the mafioso could read all the conversations if they took over the player's account). That might be a bit hard to police though, and most people don't PM in vanilla games anyway, so maybe just restricting it to public thread would be best.

More comments are welcome.

Sample banner:
https://img32.imageshack.us/img32/45...hingbanner.jpg

Not sure how much work would be involved, but could the anonymous accounts names be temporarily changed? For a small game at least, it would be a neat touch to actually name the players after the characters from The Thing.

I thought about that, but there's too few characters in the film to make that work anyway. I'd like to see this thing run with around 15 people. Since it's essentially just a vanilla mafia game with a twist, I was thinking of using the classic Frontroom setting anyway. I almost slapped a fedora on the monster guy in the banner when I made it, and I still might.

Basic background story idea: Following their victory in Mafia X, Kage and CR became immensely wealthy mafioso and founded a new crime empire in the Frontroom. They were given a job to smuggle some odd cargo back from an abandoned research station in Antarctica. They thought it would be a fun vacation, so they took their entire crew with them to Antarctica to help them get the job done. When they get there, the find the station torn to pieces and dead bodies everywhere. Yadda yadda yadda. This gives me an excuse to use the normal anonymous accounts, makes it a bit more mafia-y, and gives me a lot more opportunities to be amusing than I would get with a game that stuck to the film.

Yep, let's do the new banner:

https://img219.imageshack.us/img219/...ingbanner2.jpg

Draft Rules, partially (and shamelessly) ripped off of GH's Mafia classic format:

Introduction: The Thing Mafia is a spin-off of GH's classic Mafia series. It will take place in Antarctica, but will involve the usual Frontroom game of misfits. This is a traditional mafia game with only one power role: Mafia. There are no serial killers, no vigilantes, no doctors, no third-party roles or extra victory conditions of any kind, and no Detective. It is simply Mafia vs. Town. There is, however, one very significant change in the mafia's killing ability.

Anonymous Accounts: All players in this game will be required to use Anonymous Accounts. These accounts were introduced as part of the Gameroom Anniversary, and have been used in The Copa Clash and Mafia X. When the game starts, every player's forum account will be linked to an Anonymous account, as per this post. While alive, you will make all posts in the game under this anonymous account. It takes a single mouse click to switch between your normal forum account and your anonymous account... you don't even have to log out/in or remember a password.

Roles:
The Thing (mafioso): (1)
The bad guy. The mafioso gets one kill per night, however the mafioso will have two options on how to kill:

• Option 1: Normal Kill. The mafioso kills a person and they die. Dead player's account is unlinked to their Anonymous account.
• Option 2: Doppleganger Kill. The mafioso kills a person, but takes their form. The dead player is unlinked from their Anonymous account, while the mafioso takes control of the dead player's Anonymous account and uses it as his own. The mafioso's old Anonymous account shows up as dead.

The town will not know which option was used. The night write-up will narrate a kill, but the identity of the person who died will not be part of the narration. Instead, at the end a body will be found. The townies will not know whether the body is from a new victim, or The Thing's old (now discarded) doppleganger body. The mafia have some say in how much/little they put in their kill descriptions. It is up to the town to figure out how much is their work and how much is mine.

The Frontroom Mafia (townies): (everyone else)
Are you a townie in this game? Don't fret, so is (mostly) everyone else. Unlike in some of the more role-heavy games though, the townies are absolutely integral to the success or the failure of the town in the game, since there are no power roles to do the heavy lifting. The townies will only be able to win this game if they come together and take some time out to seriously do some detective work. Being talkative will be especially important in this game, as the more you talk the harder it will be for The Thing to successfully impersonate you.

Communication: No players may communicate about the game anywhere except in the public thread. No PMs, no IRC, no IMing, no email, no carrier pigeon. This is to prevent players from establishing pre-generated code words so that other players will know if their account has been taken over. Find The Thing by

Death: Once you are dead, you will be given a link to a Quicktopic forum where you can discuss the game with other dead players. Other than inside that Quicktopic, you are not allowed to talk about the game to anyone in any way until it is over. Sorry if this rule is frustrating, but it's the only way to make the doppleganger system work. Anyone who's account is taken over by The Thing will obviously know it because they will see their account continue making posts. So, all dead players must remain totally silent to keep the game fair.

Game procedure: The game will start with a night phase. Unfortunately, this means one person will die before they even get the chance to cast one vote. You can still help your fellow townies by talking as much as possible the first night, so that they have as much 'natural' dialog from you as possible to be able to compare later to see if you've been replaced. Voting procedure is in the usual format, i.e.:

Vote: GeneralHankerchief

If you wish to unvote, then please do so in the following manner:

Unvote: Ser Clegane
Vote: GeneralHankerchief

Voting abstain (you are present for the round and have no lynch preference) is allowed, but "No Lynch" is not. If you post in a round but do not vote, I count it as an "abstain". Additionally, after a certain amount of rounds, usually when I deem it to be endgame, "Abstain" will no longer be allowed, meaning you must vote to lynch someone. I will let you know in the thread once this threshold has been crossed.

WoGing may or may not be used, depending on how I feel when I wake up in the morning. ph33r :ninja:

I personally hate the idea of anonymous accounts because a big part of the fun in playing Mafia is you know a lot of the Orgahs to some degree or another. However, your game making it a feature is interesting for sure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n0rg3 Roink

I personally hate the idea of anonymous accounts because a big part of the fun in playing Mafia is you know a lot of the Orgahs to some degree or another. However, your game making it a feature is interesting for sure.

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This is actually something I'd like a bit of input on. I'm not actually using the anonymous accounts because I want players' identities to be hidden, I'm only using them because there's no other way to implement this 'bodysnatcher' mechanism. So, on a mechanics level it really doesn't matter to me if people know who has which account at the start. I'd be perfectly happy to put everyone's starting name next to their anonymous account. However, there is a gameplay balance issue that should be considered. If it is stated who has which account, there's a risk that stuff like time zones could be used to spot the mafioso. For instance, if the mafioso is a Brit and takes the body of an Australian, they could be caught out be having unusual posting times. Is that kind of thing too hard on the mafioso, or is it acceptable? My concern is that this will already be a very difficult game for the mafioso, and making all player identities public would increase the difficulty even further.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n0rg3 Roink

I personally hate the idea of anonymous accounts because a big part of the fun in playing Mafia is you know a lot of the Orgahs to some degree or another. However, your game making it a feature is interesting for sure.

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I don't know any of you besides Tincow (barely). :shrug:

That's how it works, right?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I definitely don't want to be the Thing though.

So I sign up here? In. I just hope I dont get Johnny again. Hehe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

This is actually something I'd like a bit of input on. I'm not actually using the anonymous accounts because I want players' identities to be hidden, I'm only using them because there's no other way to implement this 'bodysnatcher' mechanism. So, on a mechanics level it really doesn't matter to me if people know who has which account at the start. I'd be perfectly happy to put everyone's starting name next to their anonymous account. However, there is a gameplay balance issue that should be considered. If it is stated who has which account, there's a risk that stuff like time zones could be used to spot the mafioso. For instance, if the mafioso is a Brit and takes the body of an Australian, they could be caught out be having unusual posting times. Is that kind of thing too hard on the mafioso, or is it acceptable? My concern is that this will already be a very difficult game for the mafioso, and making all player identities public would increase the difficulty even further.

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Player identities should be secret. Some players might know others well enough that they could ask a personal question that only that person would know, thereby identifying the thing. Also, guys I don't think sign ups are starting just yet, this is still in the development stage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tratorix

Player identities should be secret. Some players might know others well enough that they could ask a personal question that only that person would know, thereby identifying the thing. Also, guys I don't think sign ups are starting just yet, this is still in the development stage.

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But this could be faked too. There's not guarantee people will believe me that player A is Mafia because he couldn't answer my question, unless the Mafia is the only one not knowing the answer which kinda defeats the question in the first place...

It's something worth considering. It would definitely require even more skill from the Mafioso to fake other players though

Yeah. I'll try my hand as townie first day lynch bait again. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tratorix

Also, guys I don't think sign ups are starting just yet, this is still in the development stage.

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It's ok, I'll take sign-ups. This is actually a very simple game and it's pretty much done. The only changes I would make would be balance-related tweaks based on whatever opinions people express before the game starts.

As has been mentioned, timezones are indeed something that could be a dead giveaway.

Personally me and other people in the timezone region (Aussy's included) run at around +8-10GMT, and it would be very simple, as someone not the thing, to deliberately post only at times lets say between 4pm and 6pm my time, 3-5am EST, such that the thing would be fairly hard pressed to follow if he lived in North America, where many of the players in the forum are from.

(Well on the other hand someone aspiring to be The Thing may consider such considerations to be the components of the pinnacle to which he/she aspires to reach in the goal of a very convincing impersonation :shrug:)

All in all, it sounds like a really good idea, but perhaps it may be prudent to further define rules/perimeters for players in this regard as naturally (some?all?) townie players who aren't the thing would be trying to leave behind posting clues or telltale signs that would make impersonation more difficult.

Anyway, on a whole its a very interesting idea, and I would love to be In :bow:

Perhaps as to whether people are interested in being the Thing they could tell Tincow via pm and not in thread :yes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Death is yonder

(Well on the other hand someone aspiring to be The Thing may consider such considerations to be the components of the pinnacle to which he/she aspires to reach in the goal of a very convincing impersonation :shrug:)

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That's one of the factors that I'm trying to weigh here. A wise mafioso will only take the body of someone they think they can hide well in, which should include considerations like these. This is another example of the significantly higher level of skill that would be required of a bodysnatching mafioso, and it's one of the reasons why I only want to pull the mafioso out of a smaller pool of people who have specifically volunteered for the role knowing in advance what will be required. At the same time, the mafioso doesn't have to swap bodies every time he/she kills. It's even theoretically possible to just keep the same body the entire game and treat it like a normal vanilla mafia game, though I personally hope that doesn't happen as it totally defeats the purpose of the game.

GH's recent commentary in the Mafia X thread is currently swaying me heavily in the direction of specifically stating who the real players are for each anonymous account at the start of the game. In short, GH thinks that the anonymous accounts make the game much harder for the town and give the mafia an advantage. If this game was totally anonymous, it would give them an even bigger advantage. I'm concerned that if it's totally anonymous, it will be essentially impossible to catch the mafioso and too frustrating for the town.

I rather disagree.... you're only trying to catch one person in this game.

Being completely anonymous could balance it out.

Oh, and I'd be interested to play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

I rather disagree.... you're only trying to catch one person in this game.

Being completely anonymous could balance it out.

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Yes, that's true. At the same time, 1 mafioso and 16 townies is better odds than 2 mafioso and 34 townies, which was the setup in Mafia X. Since there will always be one night kill and one lynch, to win the mafioso will have to survive 7 day phases, no more, no less.

I'd play this, now that I think about it I'm amazed I've never come across a game based on The Thing before, it's a perfect mafia setting.

Interesting idea, and I agree that the player's identities should be kept secret completely. I'm in

I'm in.

I think using the kill write-ups could also freak the :daisy: out of everyone. In the movie, people would find clothing burned with no nametags to make everyone in the base paranoid. They also just killed or burned themselves alive to prevent themselves from turning. If you do the kill write-up VERY well(Or the Mafia is good at writing) it could make most of town go into a panic.

The anonymous accounts seems like not such a good idea though...I have seen other players easily see though posting styles...Someone even spotted Kages one post and knew it was him. Lurking seems like the only way to win but I am sure people well lynch the lurkers. I think the mafia should get a one-shot ability to jump bodies as he is lynched.
Town would be down but not out and it would give the Mafia some time to remake his posting style and not just be a lucky win.

Or the thing could recruit someone who can't jump bodies...like in the movie(I recall some of them dieing from this)...I am just concerned that your throwing everything on the mafia and the few people that could(would) do it, but could be screwed over by timezones or lurking to avoid posting. I mean it is reasonable to assume that he would then jump into a background poster or even his biggest defender. But at that point people would be expecting him to act exactly the same, post the same and could you see Pizzaguy acting like Crazedrabbit? or Khaan acting like Reenk?:laugh4:

Would be a quick game...but it's up to you.:2cents:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by White_eyes:D

I think using the kill write-ups could also freak the :daisy: out of everyone. In the movie, people would find clothing burned with no nametags to make everyone in the base paranoid. They also just killed or burned themselves alive to prevent themselves from turning. If you do the kill write-up VERY well(Or the Mafia is good at writing) it could make most of town go into a panic.

---

Also, everyone has to listen to this while reading them.

So in a sense, the game no longer becomes about finding the mafioso so much as finding out the change in posting behavior night-to-night, yes? That sounds pretty interesting to me. My only worry is that the Thing would chicken out and not really use the bodysnatcher option much/at all.

As for the anonymous account issue, I would not leave the townies in the dark about who is who. Vanilla games are supposed to be difficult for the mafia - they're the only person(s) who got an interesting role. Let them work for the victory.

(In, btw)

TinCow you sold me :bow:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

My only worry is that the Thing would chicken out and not really use the bodysnatcher option much/at all.

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Well, I could require The Thing to change bodies no less than once every X turns. Or maybe something like 'changes bodies at least once during the game, with the first change occurring no later than turn X.'

I love this concept, TinCow! Pure brilliance!

Love the movie; love the idea of using the setting for mafia.

I agree that anonymous accounts are a must for this.

I suggest not making it mandatory for the Thing to change bodies. They'll probably just target the least talkative players anyway.

Good idea allowing players to decline mafia eligibility.

Now I wanna rewatch The Thing!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TinCow

Well, I could require The Thing to change bodies no less than once every X turns. Or maybe something like 'changes bodies at least once during the game, with the first change occurring no later than turn X.'

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Or you could just leave it to everyone to WIFOM the entire scenario.

Didn't sign up yet? I hereby sign up! :yes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Double A

Or you could just leave it to everyone to WIFOM the entire scenario.

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I think I will just leave it as it is, but also give a strong encouragement to whoever gets The Thing to try out the body changing system. It's probably unnecessary anyway, since I don't think any of the volunteers would be shy to use it.

Regarding the anonymity of the players, I've decided to walk a middle-ground. I realized there's a slight problem with simply naming everyone; that means everyone will know exactly which players died in the first 1-3 rounds, which will give them a strong indication of which actual player is The Thing, even if they don't know which body he is in at that precise moment. I could see this situation perhaps discouraging early-game body swapping, and I do not want to do that. Again, this is an experimental game to test out this bodyswapping mechanism. If it works well and is enjoyable, I'll consider making a Large game version of it with more roles.

So, I will not make an official notice about who has which role. However, I also will not place any rules on people revealing who they are. If you want to say, "I'm TinCow!" with your first post in the game, that's perfectly fine. If people want to mess around with that and pull a Spartacus, that's perfectly fine too. If you want to keep silent and just be Bertha, you can just be Bertha. Leaving it open like this also gives the town the opportunity to strategize in a manner they don't normally get to do in a classic mafia game. In this game, the town will actively benefit if they can organize and methodically test each other with conversation every round. So, townies don't have to just sit back and vote, despite not having any abilities they can still take actions to improve their odds of victory.

Sounds interesting. I've been wondering how it would go playing with the anonymous accounts, and it sounds simple enough for a newcomer (unless I'm The Thing :inquisitive:). Count me in!

In.

Consider this meat shield IN

I can't wait for this Thing (terrible pun intended) to start! I'm excite!

I am in as well

The game will begin on Friday. There are still two slots left open, so grab-em while they're still there. Another reminder, as per the rules post, in addition to pointing the usual public 'In', you MUST PM ME IF YOU WANT TO BE PUT INTO THE POOL FROM WHICH THE THING WILL BE CHOSEN. If you do not PM me, you will still be in the game, but there will be no chance whatsoever that you will get the role of The Thing.

:charge:

This sounds fun ^^
I'm in :)

Interesting.

Classical, he said two places. :P

So I quit. Classical can have my spot. ;)

Ok, that was fast. The game is now full. Apologies for the game not starting until Friday, but there has been a request to wait until then due to scheduling issues. The game will begin at 10am EDT on Friday:



Please be aware that this game will suffer (and the town will surely lose) if people do not post regularly. So, if you are going to have difficulty posting during the scheduled time for this game, please withdraw now so that your spot can be filled by someone who can be more active. With 1 kill per night and 1 lynch per day, the game will last about 2 weeks.

For clarification purposes, The Thing has not been chosen yet. The Thing will not be chosen until shortly before the game starts. At game start, all players will receive a PM telling them that the game has begun and that they are townies. The person chosen as The Thing will receive a second PM, informing them of this fact.

I may actually allow in-game conversation to begin prior to the official start time. That might provide some entertainment while you are waiting, and it will not prejudice anyone who has scheduling issues prior to Friday as no one will even be scum yet. As soon as I am done with the introductory story, I will assign the anonymous accounts and you can begin posting in-character if you wish. I may be able to get that done by this evening or tomorrow morning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Visorslash

Classical, he said two places. :P

So I quit. Classical can have my spot. ;)

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You got in first, so don't quit.

Prologue

(Thanks to GH for his assistance in writing this.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day breaks in the Frontroom. All is quiet.

Too quiet, as a matter of fact. As Crazed Rabbit and Kagemusha were quickly learning, there were some drawbacks to ruling over a town whose inhabitants you had just completely exterminated. Mainly, there was nobody to rule over. Oh, there were rabbits, certainly - thousands of them, and providing credence to the phrase "breeding like rabbits" - but rabbits made for dreadfully bad company, even if they could be trained to make a mean piña colada.

"You know what, Kage?" CR asked some weeks after the death of the Chief of Police, in the middle of their croquet game through JuJuBee's old office. "I think we're in a rut. We've each beaten down the Frontroom twice now and took it over for good this time, but don't you think it was a little too easy? I mean, we didn't even have to break a sweat with this."

Kagemusha stared down at the ground, hit his croquet ball (the preserved head of one of his many victims), and then looked up at his partner and nodded. "I've been thinking about this too," he said, "and you're right. Look how easy it was to conquer this two-bit town. We need to set our sights higher, really think big, you know? Somewhere that we'll really be able to make our mark aside from a subculture of a particular internet forum."

"What are you thinking, Kage?"

Kage smiled. "Today, the Frontroom. Tomorrow... the world!!!" He threw back his laugh and started maniacally cackling for a minute before calming down and lining up for his next shot.

"Hmm," CR was thinking deeply. "We'll need a few things. Henchmen, for one. My rabbits are great, but sadly when it comes to doing expendable grunt work they just can't do the job. An elaborate threatening fortified base, for another one, to carry out our evil work in peace and make all the world quiver at our might."

"Hold on a second," Kage said. "Doesn't the Evil Overlord List say something about that?"

CR cursed, putting down his stick to thumb through his trusty copy of the list. Several tense minutes later, he put the list down and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well?"

"Nothing," CR said. "As a matter of fact, there are actually quite a few points in there about certain features in the base, which makes me think it's an implicit endorsement of such a thing."

"What about the additional parts of the list? You know the next 100 and so on?"

"Eh, nobody cares about those anyway," CR said, whacking a victim's head through two wickets. "It's the same thing as with the Matrix movies. Better to pretend that only one was made."

"Okay, fair enough," said Kage, beginning to pick the wickets up. "So, any ideas for our evil lair?"

CR grinned. "Antarctica."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Crazed Rabbit and Kagemusha assembled the surviving Frontroom residents in the town hall.

"Welcome, henchmen and henchwomen," said Kage. He looked confused for a moment. "Henchpeople? Henchpersons? Ah, it doesn't matter. You exist for one purpose and one purpose only! You exist to build.... THIS!"

CR dimmed the lights and turned on the slide projector. An image appeared on the wall of the town hall.

https://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6128/karnak.jpg

"BEHOLD!" screamed Kage. "Our supreme evil lair!"

The crowd was silent. After a few seconds, one of the henchpersons raised his hand. "Isn't that a screenshot of Karnak from Watchmen?"

Kage glared at the man. "Can you find a better picture of a secret Antarctic super base? No? I thought not. That's why you're a henchman and I'm an evil overlord."

"Your job is to build this base and die trying," added CR.

More silence. After a few seconds, the same henchperson raised his hand. "Uh, don't you mean 'build this base or die trying'?"

Kage sighed. "Did he say 'or'? Did he? He specifically said 'and.' Step 1, build base. Step 2, die. Step 2 is not optional, it is an inherent follow-up after Step 1. Without the condition of Step 2 being optional, the use of 'or' instead of 'and' would be incorrect. Grammar is important. We know you are only a henchman and cannot be expected to understand simple things like sentence structure, but please do put in some effort."

CR changed the slide.

https://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1542/thing7.jpg

CR pointed at the image. "This is what we are going to start with. It's an abandoned Norwegian research station. It will provide us with basic living quarters and facilities while you lot get with building the other place. There will be a snack bar and a lounge, with an arcade and sauna for everyone of Evil Overlord rank and above."

The same henchman raised his hand again. "Sir, why was it abandoned?"

Kage shrugged, "Who knows, who cares? That seems like an entirely irrelevant issue at this point, I really can't see how that kind of information would make a difference to anything."

CR turned the lights back on and walked over to the wall with the absolutely enormous American flag. "Who put this thing here? We're not all damned Americans you know!" He shook his head sadly, "You lot are some pathetic henchpeople, you know that? Why, in my day..."

Kage coughed.

"Oh, right, yes." CR stood in front of the flag.

https://img16.imageshack.us/img16/4824/pattonthing.jpg

"Now, I want you to remember that no henchman ever built an evil lair by dying for his overlord. He built it by making the other poor dumb henchman die for his overlord. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about Frontroomers not wanting to hench, wanting to stay alive, is a lot of horse dung. Frontroomers traditionally love to hench. All real Frontroomers love to hench. When you were kids, you all admired the sidekick of the champion marble shooter, the second fastest runner, the big league bench warmer, and Apollo from the Rocky movies. Frontroomers love to hench and will not tolerate anyone getting in the way of their service to their Evil Overlords. Frontroomers play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in :daisy: for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Frontroomers have never lost and will never lose a game. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Frontroomers."

Kage whispered something to CR. CR frowned for a moment, "well, yes, I suppose that's true." He cleared his throat and turned back to the crowd.

"Now, an evil organization is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, builds as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of :daisy:. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Gahzette don’t know anything more about real henching than they do about fornicating."

"We have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best leaders in the world. You know, by God I actually pity those poor bastards you’re going up against. By God, I do. We’re not just going to shoot the bastards, we’re going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tractors. We’re going to murder those lousy bastards by the bushel."

The same henchman raised his hand again. CR rolled his eyes, "What is it this time?!" The man stammered a bit. "Uh, sir? Who exactly are we going up against? I thought you said we were going to an abandoned base and were going to be doing construction?"

CR looked exasperated. "Each other! You're going up against each other you fool! You're henchmen, you will be competing for the love and respect of your masters!"

"But, you just said we were a team..."

"YOU ARE!" screamed CR. "A team competing against each other, ruthlessly killing each other whenever it's necessary to further the goals of the team!"

"Now, some of you people, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The men and women standing beside you are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know we're proud."

"Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that construction is not getting completed because people are dying in horrible ways. We’re not delaying anything! We are building constantly and we’re not interested in whether Bertha ate Fat Tony or whether Fat Tony ate Bertha. If someone causes a problem, well, we're going to solve that problem the way Frontroomers have always solved problems, we're going to lynch someone! We're going to lynch the :daisy: out of him all the time and if that doesn't solve the problem we're gonna lynch someone else until the problem goes away!"

"There’s one thing that you henchpersons will be able to say if you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around the henchperson lounge with a new hired henchman on your knee and he asks you what did you do in the great Construction of the Evil Lair in Antarctica, you won’t have to say, 'Well, I shoveled :daisy: in Louisiana.' Because you'll have done it in Antarctica, and :daisy: freezes solid there, so it's easier to shovel."

"Alright now, you :daisy:, you know how we feel. Oh, and we will be proud to execute you guys – anytime, anywhere."

The hall remained silent for a long moment.

"That’s all."

Nobody else better abstain courteously :bow: in the first round...

This is madness... And I love it! :D

Prologue 2: Prologueier

https://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3516/thingdogs.jpg

The next day, Kage and CR assembled the henchpersons for a further organizational meeting. The big flag was gone, and in its place was only a bare brick wall.

Kage glared at the assembled crew of Frontroom misfits.

“All right, let's get to know one another. With the exception of CR and myself, who you already know, you'll be using aliases. Under no circumstances are you to tell one another your real name or anything else about yourself. That includes where you're from, your wife's name, who you lynched last, or about a game you totally pwned as scum. You guys don't say :daisy: about who you are, where you been or what you've done. Only thing you guys can talk about is what you're going to do. This way the only ones who know who the members of the team are CR and myself. And that's the way I like it. Because in the unlikely event of one of you getting eaten by an alien that’s been trapped in ice for 10 million years, not that I expect that to happen - it most definitely should not happen – it hasn't happened, you don't have anything to deal with. You don't know any names. You know my name, you know CR's name. That we don't care about. You gotta prove it. We ain't worried. Besides, this way you gotta trust us. We like that. We set this up and picked the men we wanted for it. None of you came to us, we approached all of you.”

CR whispered in Kage’s ear. Kage’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? People volunteered for this? What kind of a crew of idiots do we have here?” He shook his head and turned back to the henchpeople.

“Alright, we don’t know any of you. But you’re OK. If you weren't OK, you wouldn't be here. Okay, let me introduce everybody to everybody. But once again, at the risk of being redundant, if I even think I hear somebody telling or referring to somebody by their forum name...” Kage stared intently at the henchman who had asked so many questions the day before. “...you won't want to be you.”

“Okay, quickly.” Kage started pointing at the henchpeople, one at a time. “Luciano, Vito, Johnny, Emilio, Salvatore, Fat Tony, Frank, Bobby, Bugsy, Sonny, Rocco, Silvio, Nick, Vinny, Paulie, Luigi, and Bertha.”

The last henchman to be named frowned. “Why am I Bertha?”

“Cause you're a fat woman in a stupid outfit,” sneered Kage. The rest of the henchmen laughed.

Bertha was not amused. “Why can't we pick out our own names?”

Kage shook his head. “We tried that once, it don't work. You get four guys fighting over who's gonna be Fat Tony. Since nobody knows anybody else, nobody wants to back down. So forget it, we pick. Be thankful you're not Chickenman.”

The henchman dubbed Luigi spoke up, “Yeah, but Luigi? Everyone’s going to make Mario jokes every day.” Someone made a Mario joke, the other henchpersons laughed.

“Yeah, and Bertha is a woman’s name,” said Bertha. “I’m not even a woman! Tell you what, let me be Scarface. That sounds good to me, I'm Scarface.”

Kage sighed, “You're not Scarface, somebody at another evil lair is Scarface. You're Bertha.”

The henchperson dubbed Vito was getting tired of the whole exchange. “Who cares what your name is? Who cares if you're Bertha, Scarface, Askthepizzaguy, Hamsandwichoracle…”

“Oh that's really easy for you to say,” complained Bertha, “you're Vito. You gotta cool-sounding name. So tell me, Vito, if you think ‘Bertha’ is no big deal, you wanna trade?”

Kage pulled out his croquet mallet and gestured with it, menacingly. There was something incredibly disturbing about the yellow smiley face he had painted on one of the flat heads. “Nobody's trading with anybody! Look, this ain't a goddamn :daisy: city counsel meeting! Listen up Bertha. We got two ways here, our way or the highway. And you can go down either of 'em. So what's it gonna be, Bertha?”

Bertha scowled, “Jesus Christ, Kage. :daisy: forget it. This is beneath me. I'm Bertha, let's move on.”

Kage patted his mallet. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Any more questions?” Three of the henchpersons raised their hands. Kage ignored them. “Alright, let’s get out of here. Say goodbye to the Frontroom, you little cry babies. Next stop, Antarctica.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All anonymous accounts have been assigned and distributed. All player accounts are now linked to these anonymous accounts. You can flip between them using the method listed here.

From this point on, no more posts will be allowed in this thread by non-anonymous accounts. You can post whatever you want, but you must do so with the anonymous account. Contrary to what the story says above, I do not care whether you name yourself or not. Anyone can claim anything they want about their identity, whether it’s true or a lie. I will not reveal the real identity of any player account until after the game is over; until then it’s all just speculation.

The Thing has not been assigned yet, nor will it be assigned until the game officially starts. Until then, every single one of you is a townie. If you have not yet volunteered as a candidate for the role of The Thing, you still have almost three days left to do so.

It doesn't matter if we change the settings on the anonymous accounts does it? This default forum skin hurts my eyes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Salvatore

It doesn't matter if we change the settings on the anonymous accounts does it? This default forum skin hurts my eyes.

---

You can change anything you want, as long as it doesn't change the profile information on the account. Skin, visible posts per thread, etc. are fine. Don't change your name, avatar, etc.

Dub Dub Dub Dooby dee dap!

Geez this is going to be so much fun!

You are all so ugly!
And so am I!

I am here and I am the thing. ;)

Vote:Fat Tony. He was evil the last game and surely must be evil again.

@TC, can we change the location?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Luciano

@TC, can we change the location?

---

Only if you promise to change it back to n/a before the end of the game. If you don't switch it back, I'll have to do it and I don't like doing work.

Correction, the answer is no. All profile editing is automatically disabled for all Anonymous accounts. Thus, you will all stay pleasingly similar in perfect harmony.

It is very Zen.

Oh yeah I'm Fat Tony!

How do I already have 27 posts? I thought that was wiped after each game?:dizzy2:

Seriously TinCow? Bertha??? :stare:

Let's sing a song. This antarctic is too silent.

"How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man..."

Evil lairs in Antarctica! As good
A place as any to cackle and brood.
O think, but what of unknown Africa?
There to sibilate of vile arcana!

Guy's, it is really true: Hitler kaputt!
Time to party, can I get a w00t w00t? :clown:

But Hitler was a misunderstood guy.
For God's sake, did he really have to die?

Aiiii-eeeee! Ev-er-y-thing is made of knives!
We are all about to lose our lives! *cries*

Hey, is AskthePizzaGuy in this game?
If so, then he is probably to blame.

How much before it counts as spam, sirrah?
Wouldn't want to contravene forum law.

Boo yeah, Bugsy! That's an awesome name...not that I've ever had any other name, of course. Definitely not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Nick

Evil lairs in Antarctica! As good
A place as any to cackle and brood.
O think, but what of unknown Africa?
There to sibilate of vile arcana!

---

Oh dear. We've got ourselves a poet :laugh4:.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Bertha

Seriously TinCow? Bertha??? :stare:

---

Random.org determined who got which anonymous account. Random.org also determined which anonymous accounts were used... except Bertha. Bertha was not selected by random.org, so she was substituted instead of another account (Claudia). Bertha must be present in every anonymous account game. It's the law.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Fat Tony

How do I already have 27 posts? I thought that was wiped after each game?:dizzy2:

---

No, only PMs are wiped. If we wiped the posts, it would be impossible to read any anonymous game that had already finished.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Nick

How much before it counts as spam, sirrah?
Wouldn't want to contravene forum law.

---

I will not restrict posting frequency so long as it's not so excessive that it becomes annoying. Frequent posting can certainly be used to establish an 'identity' as a defense against impersonation by The Thing, so I do not wish to limit any strategies that involve that. Indeed, one of the reasons I assigned the anonymous accounts early was so that even the poor Night 1 victim would get a chance to establish an identity to make The Thing's job a little harder. That said, try not to over do it.

Incidentally Mr. Non-existent ten million year old malicious alien, you really don't want to kill me. It would just be giving fuel to TinCow's terrible puns, which would go something along the lines of "the alien squashed him like a bug." You don't want to have that on your conscience. Kill Bertha instead. She's got more meat on her.

Hello fellow researchers we really should have shot that dog before we came in here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Silvio

Hello fellow researchers we really should have shot that dog before we came in here.

---

Researchers? We're just here to do the grunt work the bosses are to lazy too. I ain't seen no dogs around here neither, unless you count Bertha.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

Only if you promise to change it back to n/a before the end of the game. If you don't switch it back, I'll have to do it and I don't like doing work.

Correction, the answer is no. All profile editing is automatically disabled for all Anonymous accounts. Thus, you will all stay pleasingly similar in perfect harmony.

It is very Zen.

---

I was going to try and have some fun with my location, but now I can't.

Minnie Mouse è il mouse per me!

Accontentati di Bertha!

If I work out a lot can my name be changed to Skinny Tony?:creep:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Fat Tony

If I work out a lot can my name be changed to Skinny Tony?:creep:

---

You can't do that! I keep telling you people, we need fatties to act as bait for the non-existent alien.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Fat Tony

If I work out a lot can my name be changed to Skinny Tony?:creep:

---

Go on the subway diet. But I think we should all be talking Italian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JhuOicPFZY
Hulu e stupidi i propri annunci.

Bla de Bla.

What Alien are you guys talking about? There isn't even an alien. Alien's don't exist. Thank you very much.

I'm fat

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by [MAFIA] Luigi

I'm fat

---

Excellent, that's three. Anybody else willing to put on weight for the common good?