The Thing Mafia [Concluded]

[TheLastDays]

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

[TinCow]

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

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.

[Ishmael]

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 ). Count me in!

[johnhughthom]

In.

[Major Robert Dump]

Consider this meat shield IN

[B-Wing]

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

[Captain Blackadder]

I am in as well

[TinCow]

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.

[seireikhaan]

[Arjos]

This sounds fun ^^
I'm in :)

[classical_hero]

Interesting.

[Visor]

Classical, he said two places. :P

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

[TinCow]

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.

[TinCow]

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.

[classical_hero]

Classical, he said two places. :P

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

You got in first, so don't quit.

[TinCow]

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.

"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.



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.

"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 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 . 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 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 in Louisiana.' Because you'll have done it in Antarctica, and freezes solid there, so it's easier to shovel."

"Alright now, you , 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."

[Reenk Roink]

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

[Arjos]

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

[TinCow]

Prologue 2: Prologueier

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 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 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. 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.

[[MAFIA] Salvatore]

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

[TinCow]

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.

[[MAFIA] Bobby]

Dub Dub Dub Dooby dee dap!

Geez this is going to be so much fun!

[[MAFIA] Frank]

You are all so ugly!
And so am I!

[[MAFIA] Luciano]

I am here and I am the thing. ;)

[[MAFIA] Luciano]

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

@TC, can we change the location?

[TinCow]

@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.

[[MAFIA] Fat Tony]

Oh yeah I'm Fat Tony!

[[MAFIA] Fat Tony]

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

[[MAFIA] Bertha]

Seriously TinCow? Bertha???

[[MAFIA] Bobby]

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..."