Crime Family Mafia -- Feedback Welcomed

[Rolan A Doobie]

I'm working on the details of a game, and I'd like to see if there are strong feelings on the voting mechanism(s) I'm thinking about before I put the final polish on it.


A quick bit of structure....

The game is for 12 players, with the polarities reversed for the sake of flavoring.

9 Criminals would be the uninformed majority normally referred to as the "town".....while 3 Agents would be the informed minority normally referred to as the "scum". There will be absolutely no abilities or powers, other than the standard nightkill by the "scum" team.

All 12 players would be members of one of six crime families, with each family having 2 members.
- Cosa Nostra (Italian mafia)
- Bratva (Russian mafia)
- Triads (Chinese mafia)
- Yakuza (Japanese mafia)
- Cartel (Mexican mafia)
- Hell's Angels (American mafia)

The 2 members of each family can speak privately at any time, day or night.
The 3 Agents (scum) can speak privately at any time, day or night.

It's possible that through the randomization process that 2 of the 3 scum could "take over" a single family, but more likely the game would have 3 town-town pairs and 3 town-scum pairs carrying on private conversations.....in addition to the private conversations of the 3-man scum team.....all outside of the game thread.

I'm seriously considering finding some sort of temporary forum(s) to hold all of the private conversations, so that they can be linked to for the AAR. I'm thinking it would be nice if they could be easily accessed by all parties once the game is over rather than remaining buried in PM's on here.




There's 2 main elements to the voting system I'm considering using for this game.

1) All voting would be done by PM. You could change your vote as often as you like during the day, and you can claim in-thread to have voted however you like, but only votes submitted by PM would be counted.

2) There would be a "Strength In Numbers" type of approach to the voting. If both members of a family vote for the same lynch target, each of their votes is counted as 1, for a combined vote-strength of 2. If a family's vote is split, then each of their votes is counted for 0.5 instead. If one of the family members is killed, then the vote of the remaining family member is reduced to 0.5 as well.

These are both pretty drastic changes to the way voting is normally handled, so I'd be interested to get some input/insight/insults as to how you think such things would end up playing out....or if either/both of these voting elements simply make the game a non-starter.

[asudevil]

I would almost go with every vote being 1...and if both of a family votes together...they get a bonus .5 (either total or each)

[Rolan A Doobie]

I would almost go with every vote being 1...and if both of a family votes together...they get a bonus .5 (either total or each)

Maybe this is a regional/dialectal thing that I'm just not familiar with....but if you would "almost" suggest that, then you aren't actually suggesting anything and are essentially saying that you think everything is fine the way it is, right?

[condude1]

Are the members of the families public or private knowledge?

I've been trying to make a game like this, I think you've done it nicely.

[Rolan A Doobie]

Are the members of the families public or private knowledge?

That's one of the details I'm still finalizing....but right now I'm about 90% in favor of having them start out private and letting players decide what to do with that information themselves. It will give people something to talk about on Day One, and that's always nice to have.

[anaupr]

Are the members of the families public or private knowledge?

That's one of the details I'm still finalizing....but right now I'm about 90% in favor of having them start out private and letting players decide what to do with that information themselves. It will give people something to talk about on Day One, and that's always nice to have.

That sounds like a good idea to me, although i am only now involved in my first ever forum mafia game.

[I Love Italy]

I'm not really a part of the Mafia community anymore, but I think this sounds like a fine idea for a game. I see no problems with the voting system.

[Crunkus_old]

Looks good Rolan. I'd suggest using 1 and 2 instead of .5 and 1, but that's really only cosmetic.

[asudevil]

I would almost go with every vote being 1...and if both of a family votes together...they get a bonus .5 (either total or each)

Maybe this is a regional/dialectal thing that I'm just not familiar with....but if you would "almost" suggest that, then you aren't actually suggesting anything and are essentially saying that you think everything is fine the way it is, right?

Its me giving an opinion without feeling like Im "telling you what to do"

Similar to Crunkus though...I like it to be 1 vote and then a total of 3 if they vote together. So then combined they have a power of 3...and apart they have a power of 1. Your way they are a 2 together...and a 1 total if they are apart.

I personally like the whole numbers and the fact that every person counts equal with "bonus" when working together.

But I think mathematically its probably more semantics than anything else.

But your way a 2 that works together counts as a 2...and 3 that work independently LOSE...so it takes FOUR singles to counteract a pair (especially deadly if you get a scum-scum pairing)...where in my way 3 singles balance out a pair...which makes it I would think...more balanced.

[Rolan A Doobie]

I would almost go with every vote being 1...and if both of a family votes together...they get a bonus .5 (either total or each)

Maybe this is a regional/dialectal thing that I'm just not familiar with....but if you would "almost" suggest that, then you aren't actually suggesting anything and are essentially saying that you think everything is fine the way it is, right?

Its me giving an opinion without feeling like Im "telling you what to do"

Fair enough.

Similar to Crunkus though...I like it to be 1 vote and then a total of 3 if they vote together. So then combined they have a power of 3...and apart they have a power of 1. Your way they are a 2 together...and a 1 total if they are apart.

I personally like the whole numbers and the fact that every person counts equal with "bonus" when working together.

I think Crunkus was talking more along the lines of a straight doubling up to whole numbers, so instead of .5+.5=2, we'd have 1+1=4....rather than your suggestion of 1+1=3.

But that underlined bit is probably the main difference between my original plan of .5+.5=2 compared to the suggestion of 1+1=3 or 4.

I was looking at it from the perspective of a "penalty" for not working together....rather than a "bonus" for working together.

But your way a 2 that works together counts as a 2...and 3 that work independently LOSE...so it takes FOUR singles to counteract a pair (especially deadly if you get a scum-scum pairing)...where in my way 3 singles balance out a pair...which makes it I would think...more balanced.

This is definitely a fair point. Actually, I think you've made a pretty strong case for a 1+1=3 system with this bit.

I'm still going to ponder things further, and I'm definitely still interested in more opinions. Then again, I can understand the notion of possibly wanting to save some of the discussion for the actual game thread for the purposes of hunting and reads and such....