The game setup. When I realized I might not have enough players to run the new Pokemon game and that I didn’t want to compromise with it, I also realized that I would quickly have to come up with a new game concept to replace it. I didn’t want it to be exceptionally complicated – I wanted it to feel more or less like a vanilla game. At the same time, I wanted to make things fun and unpredictable.
So I went with this setup, and interestingly enough very few of you saw its full potential. There was a Godfather-like character (Jolt, the Pirate Ninja Robot Zombie) who, instead of picking the mafia himself, had to find them and recruit them into his family. He would win as long as there was a mafia victory, no matter who took it. The Pirate Ninja Robot Zombie could scan and convert all in one turn. If the Pirate, Ninja, Robot, and Zombie all died before he did, he would gain the ability to kill at night. If he managed to be successful in getting all four, the town would have to face off against four coordinated kills per night and a five-man voting bloc.
However, I deemed that possibility unlikely. I expect one or two of the serial killers to hit each other before Jolt managed to start putting them together. Even still, 2 or 3 coordinated kills per night is nothing to shake a stick at. Worth noting is that if any of the mafia tried to kill Jolt personally, they would fail and Jolt would be notified of their identities, so he could incorporate them immediately. Jolt was also entirely immune to scans.
Which brings me to the four scanners. The Captain, Samurai, Engineer, and Exorcist each had the power to 2-turn scan and convert their counterparts, if they managed to find them. This was both to give the small town an edge over the five kills per night, and to prevent the serial killers (who had a tough job fulfilling their original victory condition, unconverted) to continue having a chance to win after being caught. If the scanners tried to convert an already-converted mafia, they would fail. Even their scans would fail against the PNRZ or an upgraded serial killer. The serial killers would be hard-pressed to win a solo victory, so I wanted to make sure it was a fair game for them and that they had chances to pursue other victory conditions – either the town or the mafia united.
The serial killers themselves were unexpected to remain in play longer than the united mafia and the Pirate Ninja Robot Zombie himself – after all, he did have night-kill and scan immunity, and if he played it cool he could coast to the endgame or until he had done his job and wasn’t essential anymore. Even still, I left a contingency in place in the event that a serial killer was the last living scum – they get an upgrade to two kills per night and scan immunity, to give them more of a chance against the town alone.
The way it played out. As it happened, that upgrade turned out to be crucial to Visorslash’s victory, so I’m glad I left it in the game setup. The way this game played out, I don’t think I would have ever predicted it. At the beginning, I predicted a coalition of three or four mafia against the town, with them either getting caught quickly enough for a town victory (or an interfering serial killer weakening them), or with them being powerful enough to smash the town. Then came the unexpected turn of the godfather-like role, the one who tied everything together, being lynched on day two. Even then, though I predicted a probable town victory, I imagined the three living serial killers would give them a run for their money. Not so. The serial killers turned out to be incredibly effective at killing each other – one per night until there was only one left, and they left that one with half the town still alive to be killed. At this point, I pictured Visorslash becoming the receiving end of an unlucky bandwagon a few rounds down, to another resounding town victory. This particularly annoyed me, because in every other large game I’ve hosted, there was a resounding town victory.
But there was one thing I didn’t take into account. The town was lazy. The only mafia they succeeded in catching themselves was Jolt. And actually, the only reason they lynched him was because Visorslash pushed the lynch himself. So the only scum Visorslash didn’t hand to you on a plate were himself and Fluffy. And Fluffy was killed by BSmith, so the town can’t even claim that as a victory. It was an extremely close game right up until the end because of the frailties of the serial killer role, but I’m glad that in the end the town stayed true to its modus operandi and failed to do anything of note.
The “Path” choices. Well, it’s not fair to say they didn’t do anything. They did have a large impact on the plot (which had no impact on the game). This part of the game I decided to just throw in there after it had started. The concept began in my mind as “I’m too lazy to give this spaceship a name, let’s just let them vote on it.” From there, I noticed it seemed popular, and I thought this might be a great way to keep the town engaged. So I made the game like a choose-your-own-adventure with regards to the plot, which (I think) made it much more fun for me to write. And I hope it made it more engaging for those who didn’t have power roles. It is worth noting that at the start I really just pictured them on the spaceship the whole time, trying to deal with the PNRZ outbreak, like a comedic version of Alien. The concepts of “rogue AI Chaotix” and the “Space Whales and Space Krakens being Lovecraftian eldritch gods” came in part from the exceptional imaginations of players like Zaccino and Fluffy. And of course, the choices you made shaped the course of the game. I think they were all going to wind up in the same place towards the end – they were just becoming different ways to bring you to the next plot point. But in the beginning (especially the choice between the Space Whale and the Asteroid Belt and between the Underwater Ruin and the Surface City) the choices really did send the story off into two branches that weren’t going to meet back up. I can’t say what would have happened because I only planned each stage of the plot when I got to it.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this game and I think you all did, too. I think, in future games that I host (and I hope, that other people host as well) which have a less-structured plot in mind, I will implement the choose-your-own-adventure system again. That was really a blast.
Re: Pirate Ninja Robot Zombie Mafia IN SPACE [IN PLAY]
Originally Posted by Visorslash
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