Askthepizzaguy Mafia II: The Revengening [Sign-ups]

[Askthepizzaguy]

I am interested in discussing the game setup with someone who will abstain from play altogether, because I want to bounce ideas off of someone.

However, if I discuss the game setup, that person cannot play, unfortunately. If someone is planning on taking a break from mafia games, and they're sure they cannot play, and wants to discuss the game with me, let me know.

[Diamondeye]

Hmmm. I am going to be away for a week in the beginning of February anyway - when do you plan on running this?

[johnhughthom]

I won't be playing any more games after Capo IV so I'd be happy to be your wall.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hmmm. I am going to be away for a week in the beginning of February anyway - when do you plan on running this?

May, according to the current hosting queue. I am favoring this game over a sequel to the Star Wars game just for a change of pace.

[Seon]

Oh my GOD, why was I not notified.

I am in. You shall not stop me.

[Sigurd]

May, according to the current hosting queue. I am favoring this game over a sequel to the Star Wars game just for a change of pace.

A large game then?

BTW... your small game is soon due.

[Askthepizzaguy]

A large game then?

BTW... your small game is soon due.

How soon>?

[slashandburn]

Burn of the Slash is Interested

[johnhughthom]

Hmmm. I am going to be away for a week in the beginning of February anyway - when do you plan on running this?

You had a lucky escape Diamondeye, you get to play the game. I've seen most of the setup and this game is going to be awesome.

Anyone who hasn't expressed their interest, do so now.



Now.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I believe I have managed to incorporate items, abilities, trading, purchases, and experience into the game without breaking the balance of it.

I have also figured out what I'm doing with personal goals and faction goals.

I have a "cherry on top" idea which will be harder to implement, but really cool if it works. After speaking with John, I am more confident this setup is a winrar, and you should join it.

A few more days of tinkering, and I'll be all set; all information will be locked in and I'll be able to assemble it all into role PMs at that point. The only thing that will get me through until May are the awesome games that are to be hosted in the meantime.

Go-go-pizza basic townie role repellent spray and Day One/Night One anti-death field.

[Sigurd]

How soon>?

Like right after Beefy's launch of his game (about a week after)..

[Diamondeye]

winrar

Isn't this some type of file?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Isn't this some type of file?

What? Are you ***** kidding me DE? Winrar is not a type of file, it's a file archiver and data compression utility developed by THE Eugene Roshal, and first released in the fall of 1993. It is one of the VERY few applications that is able to create RAR archives natively, because the encoding method is held to be proprietary. It features:

* Multithreaded compression
* The ability to create self-extracting and multi-volume (split) archives.
* Data redundancy is provided via recovery records and recovery volumes, allowing reconstruction of damaged archives.
* Support for advanced NTFS file system options and Unicode in file names.
* Optional archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a 128-bit key.

It won the Epsilon Award in 2008 at the eighth annual European Software Conference, for christ's sake.

[Diamondeye]

Hey wow I can't even tell if you're being serious or if you're copypasting wiki.

I had no idea - sue me

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That's fine, just don't sully the name of Eugene Roshal again.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Chaotix]

Listed as inspiration?

*Faints*

I would love to either play or being a game-setup-helper-type, whichever you deem more useful.

Also, I better see Bane Anded up in here!

(Ever since that game, I have had this raging obsession with all things involving purple lightsaber. No joking there. I actually bought KOTOR 1 just so I could call myself Bane Anded and run around hitting things with a purple lightsaber and shocking people to death.)

[Double A]

... my god, Chaotix, you just gave me a wonderful idea.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Johnhughthom is my helper buddy. Although I designed a good 95% of the game already, his distinctiveness has been added to our own, and some of his ideas have already been added to the game.

Chaotix, go ahead and be a player. I want to see if I can even dig some people out of retirement for this one.

[Kagemusha]

Im definetely In! Death to the town like always!

[Zack]

I'll be in.

And active, too!

[Secura]

I won't be playing any more games after Capo IV so I'd be happy to be your wall.

Ever?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Further information which will be publicly known right from the start of the game:


About Credits:

• Everyone begins with 100 credits.
• Everyone gains 10 credits at the end of each night phase, to become available starting the next day phase.
• Credits are required when voting: you must wager credits in order to vote.
• The candidate with the most credits wagered against them will be lynched.
• Credits are not transferable except through stealing.
• Credits can be used to purchase abilities:

Purchase abilities

• Steal credits: (50% chance) 1 credits for every 4 attempted to steal.*
• Faction scan: 25 credits
• Self-defense: (50% chance) 50 credits
• Defend other: (50% chance) 50 credits
• Block an action: 60 credits (randomly blocks one of the performed actions from a target; item action, purchased action, or special ability.)
• Vigilante attempt: (50% chance) 70 credits
• Steal item: (50% chance) 70 credits
• Block all actions: 80 credits
• Detective scan: (Activity, cover role, faction) 80 credits
• Self-defense: (100% chance) 100 credits
• Defend other: (100% chance) 120 credits
• Vigilante attempt: (80% chance) 150 credits
• Revive: (80% chance) 180 credits
• Scan all items: (80% chance) 180 credits

*Attempting to steal 40 credits will cost you 10 credits for the attempt, even if it succeeds. Therefore transferring credits this way is both risky and quite costly.



Learned abilities

1 successful self-defense when attacked allows you to perform a self-defense action every night, with 25% effectiveness.
2 successful self-defense actions allows you to perform a self-defense action every night, at 50% effectiveness.
3 successful self-defense actions allows you to perform a self-defense action every night, at 75% effectiveness.
2 successful defend other actions allows you to perform a defend other action every night at 60% effectiveness.
3 successful faction scans allows you to perform a faction scan every night if you wish.
2 successful roleblocks allows you to perform that action every night at 75% effectiveness.
2 successful vigilante attempts allows you to perform that action every night at 50% effectiveness.
3 successful vigilante attempts allows you to perform that action every night at 80% effectiveness.
2 successful detective scans allows you to perform that action every night at 75% effectiveness.
1 successful revive allows you to perform that action every night at 40% effectiveness.
3 successful steal credits actions allows you to perform that action every night at 80% effectiveness.
2 successful steal item actions allows you to perform that action every night at 75% effectiveness.

The anti-mafia can perform all of these actions as well and may be able to provide alibis for themselves, as such it will be difficult to catch the anti-mafia through purchase-action process of elimination. The anti-mafia can also purchase an action and perform a special action, provided they did not perform an item action as well, adding even more ambiguity to the process.


ITEMS:

• 10% bulletproof chance. (Stacks, not an action)
• 10% roleblock chance. (Stacks, ACTION)
• 10% defender chance. (Stacks, ACTION)
• 10% retaliatory kill chance. (Stacks, not an action)
• 10% bus driver chance. (Stacks, ACTION)
• 10% investigatory chance. (Stacks, ACTION)
• 10% vigilante kill chance. (Stacks, ACTION)
• (There are other, special items not mentioned here.)

If you have 2 or more of the same-type items, they can be combined for greater chance of success for a single action. They cannot be used in separate actions, unless never combined, and then given away to different people to use separately.

You cannot use two different-type items in a single night.


-Your non-action items are always switched on and require no effort on your part. (Think "passive abilities" in Fall of the Order.)
-You can choose which action item or group of items (stack) to use.
-You may only perform one action through items. However, this is not the only action you can perform.
-You can also perform an ability that you know without using items.

Thus, the anti-mafia cannot be caught through item-use process of elimination, as their murders will be a special ability that they do not need items for, and do not need to purchase.


Combined Items:

Items once used together are automatically combined. Once combined, they cannot be broken back up into their separate parts. Therefore, using them together forces the items to be permanently joined, and thus, are at greater risk of theft than separate items would be, as theft can only steal one item at a time.

That is the risk to balance the reward of item combination.



Item action stacking with other action:


Passive combination:

Suppose you pay to defend yourself, and you have a bulletproof item. The chosen action will automatically combine with the correct item to stack the percentages. 10% bulletproof plus 50% defend self equals 60% survivability, unless affected by an outside force.

Active combination:

Suppose you want to vig kill with an item, and purchase the ability as well. The actions will stack into one action. However, this is not automatic. If you use a different item to do something else, your vig-capable item will NOT be factored into your purchased kill, and therefore, your action is less effective than it could have been. It is only automatic if you do nothing with your other items that night.





Ambiguity and Balance



Not all actions in this game will have 100% effectiveness, even if they are item abilities, purchase abilities, or learned abilities. In fact, most of them will be less than 100% effective, to provide ambiguity and balance. Powerful actions will be expensive, or require hunting down many items in order to perform. Learning powerful actions may be difficult. Because even powerful actions can be blocked, or credits can be stolen, or those saving up items or credits can be murdered, and the target could be incorrect, the game should still be balanced even though everyone can technically have almost any ability, at some point.


There is a hard limit on two actions per night, whatever the source, even for the anti-mafia. No one can use an item action, purchased action, and special ability (3 actions) all in the same night. However, passive abilities or passive item abilities are not counted as actions (such as bulletproof).


Failed item actions, and failed purchased actions, and failed special actions, will not be shown in the writeup, because:

1. There will be far too many failed actions to document them all, and the write-ups will be beastly enough as it is.
2. Ambiguity is needed for balance and to prevent easy spreadsheet-style victories.

However, successful "self-defenses" and successful "defend other" actions will be shown in the writeup, provided that the attack would have otherwise succeeded if not for the defense used.

• You will be informed if your action failed outright, but never told why. (failure due to percentage chance of failure, failure due to roleblock, or failure due to innate ability of target, will not be detailed to you)
• You will be told if your action was successful, but not if it was effective. (roleblocking someone who did nothing is technically successful, but had no effect, protecting someone who was not attacked is also a successful action, but has no effect)
• There may be a way to perform a true scan. (The standard guilty/innocence scan, modified to mean mafia, anti-mafia, or other) However, this will not be a purchasable ability or a learned ability.
• Yes, even the true scan may not be 100% effective, though still useful enough to make a difference.

Scoring:

Team Victory/Main objective: 5 points
Faction Victory: 3 points
Personal Goal: 1 points
Survival: 1 point

(In general, this will be how I score the game. However, I may have to make some exceptions for special conditions which I can't discuss here)





Feedback:

If you have comments about this post you wish to make publicly, please do so here. If you'd like to object to something privately, please PM me. If you have suggestions you'd like to make privately, please PM me. I welcome feedback. In fact, if you spot something that you think will break the game, by all means contact me immediately and I'll see if you're right about it. An extra set of brrrraaaaiiinnsssss doesn't hurt this zombie guy.


Any experienced game hosts, your comments are especially welcome. This is obviously a complicated set-up.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Deeper thinking leads me to conclude the following:

It's possible to Min/Max this game and break it that way. Say, if everyone, and I mean literally everyone, goes the reviver route for example, and effectively no one tries to do any of the other actions.

As such, if I see a certain number of people doing that, and I'll use my best judgment as to how many that is, I will do something nasty like remove revives from the game entirely, to re-balance the game, or I just might make things evil and remove alignment reveals on death, or I might give extra murders to the anti-mafia as compensation for the number of revives.

The bottom line is, there's room for this game to be broken by a cheap tactic. I promise I will be as fair as possible when determining what constitutes "cheap", but in this example, I believe we can all agree that everyone being a reviver undermines the spirit of the game, and removing revives if I see that, is a fair penalty for unsporting play.

I will publicly announce any such game adjustments, and hopefully, NONE will be necessary. As the host, I am effectively "God" of this game, and pretty much my only "Commandment" so far is to follow the game rules, but I'll add "Don't try to break the game by having everyone do the same thing" as my second commandment. I think you guys are also fair enough to agree by simple majority what constitutes a fair ruling. If you think I'm breaking the game by re-balancing it, tell me. Otherwise I have to do mah job as game host and make sure it's a fair game.

If you really want to play what might be (in my opinion) a broken game, that's your business I suppose, but don't be surprised if the anti-mafia walk out. As long as the game is fair by my ruling, the game will be counted statistically. If I determine that the game is broken (and therefore, a total failure) then I will ask Romanic not to count it in his statistics thread.

Basically, the game should not be winnable by a single move. Anything that wins the game via single-move spam gets you the cheap tactic penalty and the game will have to be rebalanced. That doesn't require any thinking and also spoils the mystery and fun of the game.


I think that should cover any loopholes. I've been combing through the rules looking for game-breaking tactics and other than that one, I can't find any.


Edit: Nevermind. Min/maxing has its own pitfalls which are quite fitting.

[TheFlax]

Count me in.

[robbiecon]

Resistance is futile: In.

[Romanic]

I don't think it would be fair for the host to intrude with a cheap tactic ruling if a lot of players are picking the reviver route, without consulting each other, because they think it's the best ability around. They wouldn't be unsporting by trying to break the game.

If you are going to offer a reviver option, you should consider the implications of having many players picking this ability, because it does look like one of the most powerful option. In fact I think it might be too powerful, let's say only 5 players become revivers, with 40% to revive someone every night, this will cancel 2 kills per night (in average, but it could be more if the Town gets lucky). It's pretty much game over at this point if the mafia can't kill 3. Even if they can, they'll be royally screwed.

I'm not sure how realistic it is to see 5 revivers, but I guess it's possible given a pool of 40 players.

I think you might want to reconsider the reviver option. A game could be hard to balance once the Town starts to revive confirmed townies every turn.

[slashandburn]

How about this, after a revive the person has an automatic 25% chance to be converted to current antagonists(townies).

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I be up for this.

[thefluffyone93]

Definitely up for this.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I don't think it would be fair for the host to intrude with a cheap tactic ruling if a lot of players are picking the reviver route, without consulting each other, because they think it's the best ability around. They wouldn't be unsporting by trying to break the game.

If you are going to offer a reviver option, you should consider the implications of having many players picking this ability, because it does look like one of the most powerful option. In fact I think it might be too powerful, let's say only 5 players become revivers, with 40% to revive someone every night, this will cancel 2 kills per night (in average, but it could be more if the Town gets lucky). It's pretty much game over at this point if the mafia can't kill 3. Even if they can, they'll be royally screwed.

I'm not sure how realistic it is to see 5 revivers, but I guess it's possible given a pool of 40 players.

I think you might want to reconsider the reviver option. A game could be hard to balance once the Town starts to revive confirmed townies every turn.

Hmmm....

As it stands, without stealing credits, it will take 10 nights of the game to pass before a revive is even possible.

100 credits minus a minimum bet of 1 credit = 99 credits by the end of day one.

108 credits Day two
117 credits Day three
126 credits Day four
135 credits Day five
144 credits Day six
153 credits Day seven
162 credits Day eight
171 credits Day nine
180 credits Day ten

It actually works out that the evil peoples will have murdered most of the players before revives are able to be performed naturally through purchase. In the meantime, the mafia can steal your credits and/or kill you.... roleblock you on the night you'd be able to use your revive, etc. Then it has a chance of failure to begin with. Then you have to figure, the reviver and the revived have fewer credits to work with, and the anti-mafia can win through simply having more total voting credits than the rest of the living.

On further inspection, everyone going the revive route is probably death on the mafia team. Then you also have to figure that once the anti-mafia are destroyed, the mafia factions want to duke it out.

Even here, I'd say the game ends up being naturally balanced, come to think of it. Going all-revive probably fails as a strategy for several reasons.

It's possible to steal your way to having enough credits to start sooner, but then a lot of people will want to try stealing as an option, and that will fail often enough, and drain the mafia teams of their credits due to the cost of the action. Then you end up getting stolen from as well, leading to a giant cluster of fun. Meanwhile, you end up getting a ton of credits, then you get picked off by murder before you can spend them.

I think that with the current costs of doing business, and the risks involved, spamming any one kind of action will be counterproductive on the mafia team. Perhaps I was worried over nothing?

And still, I am staring at the setup wondering if I am overlooking the fatal flaw. If so, where is it? Must... destroy.... flaw.....