Crime Family Mafia -- Feedback Welcomed

[Crunkus_old]

I think maintaining the power of a working pair in the early game is reasonable considering the mechanism of it only working in a full pair. The pairs should be relevant to actions like night kills and such...it's part of the interest of the mechanic. It self balances because the game has built in incentives to see the pairs reduced to one off's fairly quickly. Reducing the initial power reduces that interesting aspect of the game and it simply boils down to an oddity that has little effect on game play.

If you're going to do it, I think the initial vision makes more sense. It has the potential to be more swingy...but it also makes it matter. You can't lose sight of that. Sometimes swingy is the consequence for a mechanic making a difference in the game play.

[asudevil]

But depending on how Rolan deals with ties...the scum COULD control the lynch with 6 players left ... and only 2 scum.

If the 2 scum are a pair...and the four townies are singles (cause it was 5 singles ... scum night kill a single) ... The voting power is now 2v2...depending on how Rolan deals with ties. (normally he goes with whoever gets their first...so its faster for the scum to get to the 2 than the townies...fewer to organize)

So despite still half the players being alive, the town already has lost despite only 2 mislynches (instead of the normal 3)

[Rolan A Doobie]

But depending on how Rolan deals with ties...the scum COULD control the lynch with 6 players left ... and only 2 scum.

If the 2 scum are a pair...and the four townies are singles (cause it was 5 singles ... scum night kill a single) ... The voting power is now 2v2...depending on how Rolan deals with ties. (normally he goes with whoever gets their first...so its faster for the scum to get to the 2 than the townies...fewer to organize)

So despite still half the players being alive, the town already has lost despite only 2 mislynches (instead of the normal 3)

2 things here....

1) That's a lot of worst-case scenarios piling up here. First, the odds of there being a scum pair is pretty low compared to it being 3 town-town and 3 town-scum pairs.

2) I don't think I've ever dealt with ties that way. I kinda hate that method. I use the lottery system in Ladies Night games, or I use a secret system that I say I won't make public (and never have)....or I flat out say it will be a random pick among the tied players.



I definitely want the "strength in numbers" element of the voting to matter.....not just on Day One, but throughout the entire game. Maybe .5+.5=2 (or 1+1=4) accomplishes that better.

Much thinking to do have I.

[asudevil]

A lot of worst case I knew...I am sorry for forgetting how you deal with ties.

[Crunkus_old]

But depending on how Rolan deals with ties...the scum COULD control the lynch with 6 players left ... and only 2 scum.

That scenario is completely unlikely and if they do so, the scum deserves to win.

If the 2 scum are a pair...and the four townies are singles (cause it was 5 singles ... scum night kill a single) ... The voting power is now 2v2...depending on how Rolan deals with ties. (normally he goes with whoever gets their first...so its faster for the scum to get to the 2 than the townies...fewer to organize)

So despite still half the players being alive, the town already has lost despite only 2 mislynches (instead of the normal 3)

This ignores the context of a town that thought for that many lynches that the only remaining pair was essentially the most town of any of them and ignoring the danger of the possibility that that was what was occurring. These facts exist within a context. That context IS the variant.

[anaupr]

I would definitely play this. For the voting, how about each vote counts for one, and if the members of the family vote together their votes count for a total of 3, which is plus .5 for each person.

[Keirador]

Sounds fun. Regarding the possibility of a pair being both scum, it seems that this is fairly universally thought of as a negative, but an unlikely one, so nobody's bothered. Why not just rule it out? Say that the three players are randomly chose to be the agents, and then a family is randomly chosen for them to be a part of without replacement, so if an agent is randomly assigned to Cosa Nostra, Cosa Nostra is then off the table for assignation to the other two agents. Yes, this creates an auto-clearing mechanic if a scum is caught, but 1) this set-up seems a little friendly to the mafia off the bat anyhow, so I definitely consider a pro-town mechanic a feature rather than a bug, and 2) the scum have an unblockable night kill, so they can immediately take out anybody who gets auto-cleared by their partner turning up scum if they wish to, though they'll have to sacrifice other aims to do so.

[ika42]

But depending on how Rolan deals with ties...the scum COULD control the lynch with 6 players left ... and only 2 scum.

If the 2 scum are a pair...and the four townies are singles (cause it was 5 singles ... scum night kill a single) ... The voting power is now 2v2...depending on how Rolan deals with ties. (normally he goes with whoever gets their first...so its faster for the scum to get to the 2 than the townies...fewer to organize)



1) That's a lot of worst-case scenarios piling up here. First, the odds of there being a scum pair is pretty low compared to it being 3 town-town and 3 town-scum pairs.

im going to wait for something more definitive before i give some real input. But this is something that you should consider at least. It may be "unlikely" and is a "worst case scenario" but thats IMO how you should look at setups. If that were to happen (no matter how unlikely) think about how negatively it would impact post-game.

Another way to do it, put yourself in player perspective: how would you feel about it? To lose to such thing that you really had no control over.

I always consider a worst case scenario first and try to fix it from there. If it were to be role based that makes it worst case, then thats different. But if a mechanic based thing can cause such scenario it should be reevaluated. No matter how low the odds are, if it can happen, it needs to be fixed

[Crunkus_old]

im going to wait for something more definitive before i give some real input. But this is something that you should consider at least. It may be "unlikely" and is a "worst case scenario" but thats IMO how you should look at setups. If that were to happen (no matter how unlikely) think about how negatively it would impact post-game.

Another way to do it, put yourself in player perspective: how would you feel about it? To lose to such thing that you really had no control over.

I always consider a worst case scenario first and try to fix it from there. If it were to be role based that makes it worst case, then thats different. But if a mechanic based thing can cause such scenario it should be reevaluated. No matter how low the odds are, if it can happen, it needs to be fixed

I agree in general but not in this specific.

Except it isn't just unlikely. That outcome wouldn't be something outside the town's control.

It would require the town making poor decisions and the mafia making good decisions. It's not purely a worst case scenario random set up-wise...the town also has to play in such a way that ignores this as a possibility and make several bad decisions.

The town would deserve to lose. As a town player in that perspective, I would absolutely accept that loss as something I had control over.

[Micro98]

First off, introductions: I've got previous mafia playing experience and I have heard that this is a high-skilled and interesting forum to play on and it should be nice to get to know you all. Now, to business...

The chances that there will be a scum pair is actually equally likely to the chances that there won't.

Let scum1 be placed on family1.
Now there is a 1 in 6 chance that scum2 will be placed on family1 and a 5/6 chance he will be placed in another family - let that family be family2.
Now there is a 1 in 3 (2 in 6) chance that scum3 will be placed on family1 or family2.
1/6 + 1/3 = 1/2.

Assuming the scum pair lands on family1, the families look like:
F1 = s1s2
F2 = s3t1
F3 = t2t3
F4 = t4t5
F5 = t6t7
F6 = t8t9

So the scum have between 5 and 8 votes depending upon how much townie1 trusts/agrees with scum3.

I haven't seen anywhere you posting about whether it is day or night start but I'll assume night as from my experience that is the norm.

N0: scum kill not-townie1 (townie2) - certain
D1: town mislynch not-townie1/3 (townie4) - 6/11 (raw odds only - haven't got the time right now for anything more complex looking at town strategies to deal with voting and the like, adjust depending on how highly you rat day1 scum hunting)
F1 = s1s2, F2 = s3t1, F3 = t3, F4 = t5, F5 = t6t7, F6 = t8t9
N1: scum kill not-townie1/3/5 (townie6) - certain
F1 = s1s2, F2 = s3t1, F3 = t3, F4 = t5, F5 = t7, F6 = t8t9
D2: town max voting power = 8, scum max/min voting power = 8/5, essentially townie1 swings whether the scum or the town hit their max voting power and so has to catch a scum right here or the town loses. Furthermore, if townie8 believes townie9 to be scum or vice versa and refuses to vote with them on the theory that they are townie1 in the above situation then the town's voting power comes down to 5 and the scum are at 5 themselves (6 if townie8/9 is voting for a townie) so here you get a random generator for the win if scum want it as best case scenario.

This leads me to the conclusion that optimum play is to vote as per usual and then to get everyone to pile onto the leading target at days end as there is a 3/11 (1/2 * 6/11) chance that this is what you get if you play with the voting system which I'm guessing isn't what you want as it removes the voting mechanic from the game.

This was written in a bit of a rush so feel free to quiz me about how I got any of the numbers/assumptions if you want.

Finally: whilst I am a bit of a maths nerd I insist that I am vaguely interesting to talk to and a nice (enough) guy