MafiEra Review Season 21 |OT| We're All Cult Down Here

[Sawneeks]

We've got a short one this year! Again, if you have anything you feel we should talk about, please feel free to bring it up in this thread! That's what it's here for. Now, we have a couple things we need to bring up;

1. Self Voting. It's been a topic off and on over the years as to whether or not self voting is good or even a viable tactic in games. However, with the recent increase in discussion we felt the need to ask: should we allow self-voting? Or should we not allow it?
2. Thank you to Febe for continual vote tool updates! The vote tool has been upgraded, reinforced, and more over this past year and we're always grateful for it.
3. Welcome A Wild Ambulance Appears to the OM Mod Team! He's been helping in the background a bit this season but we wanted to let everyone know that he will officially be helping out with all the threads needed for OM.
4. With that, CaptainNuevo will also be taking a step back from the OM Mod Team. He will still be around and helping out with other Mod duties (as well as McDonalds Lore Keeping) so he won't be going anywhere but we did want to say a big thank you for all the work he has put in over the years and his contributions to this community. Thank you, Captain!

Thank you:
The Thing by AllThingsPurple & Zippedpinhead
Star Trek: The Next Generation by Fanto
Nier Automata by lokiduck & Verelios
Mini Mafia VII: Nightless Mafia by Fanto & Natiko
Dad Joke by MrHedin
Russian Doll by Natiko
For running great games this season!

Spoiler: Changes from the Last review Thread

2. In regards to posting past the Day End timer it will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Posts only a minute or two past the deadline won't be harshly punished - a warning at most - but posts that are well past the deadline will come with a harsher punishment.
3. We are defaulting to the rule that all or a majority of your role PM cannot be posted in any thread unless the gamerunner says otherwise. We're going to encourage gamerunners to tell Scum, Mason, etc. chats this rule in the first post. We're also updating the wording of the rule for games to now be:
Unless the gamerunner explicitly states otherwise, players may not quote or repost conversations or posts from outside of this thread. Players may NOT quote a majority of their role PMs.
4. We are keeping the sign-up window at 48 hours! We can come back to this one later if need be.

In addition to the Permanent Replacement List we also have a Notification List for upcoming games! If you would like to be tagged whenever a game sign up begins or you would like to be a replacement for all games you don't play/spectate, please let myself, Aeleus, Dr. Monkey, or cabot know! :>

Spoiler: Current Permanent Replacement List

includes: weemadarthur, TheChuggernaut, lokiduck, Faddy, Zipped, Reki, Jman, and Hedin!

Don't look at the below spoiler text for the next season

Spoiler: No, really, I said don't look

Spoiler: You're really not going to listen to me? Fine.

A part time devil goes to the wild west with a boy named Scott, two ducks, and a monochrome bear. There's a twist involved in there somewhere, though.

 

[Sawneeks]

Hey, remember those info graphics from years ago? Sure you do! Well, Monkey, Fireblend, and Ambulance ressurected it from the grave for this year and we have a shiny new one! Here's a link since some of it is animated

 

[Funky Dude Sparks]

That mini mafia game was just...brutal

I know it was no nights.....but god it was soooooo brutal to have do that

pls less bastard games

 

[Zippedpinhead]

11 games!?!?

wow…. Just wow!

Used to love these infographics from the old site. Glad to see a return!

I'll weigh in on the rule changes when I have a second

 

[Natiko]

Welcome to the OM team Ambo! Glad to have you. Many thanks to Cap for the many, many times he handled OM duties over the years.

I love the return of the yearly infographic. It's just fun to have everything put in perspective like that. Happy to see I'm such a winner😏 Thanks to Ambo, Monkey, and Febe for putting in all that work. Additional thanks to Febe for upgrading the vote tool during the off time so hopefully that proves even more rock solid next season.

I don't really have an opinion on the self-voting rule. I could take it or leave it. It probably should have been a game specific rule for Russian Doll but that's more an outlier due to the non-standard design.

That mini mafia game was just...brutal

I know it was no nights.....but god it was soooooo brutal to have do that

pls less bastard games

Click to shrink...

That one wasn't even bastard lol

 

[Funky Dude Sparks]

Welcome to the OM team Ambo! Glad to have you. Many thanks to Cap for the many, many times he handled OM duties over the years.

I love the return of the yearly infographic. It's just fun to have everything put in perspective like that. Happy to see I'm such a winner😏 Thanks to Ambo, Monkey, and Febe for putting in all that work. Additional thanks to Febe for upgrading the vote tool during the off time so hopefully that proves even more rock solid next season.

I don't really have an opinion on the self-voting rule. I could take it or leave it. It probably should have been a game specific rule for Russian Doll but that's more an outlier due to the non-standard design.


That one wasn't even bastard lol

Click to shrink...

The fatigue is real

 

[Funky Dude Sparks]

That in game fatigue is too real friends

 

[MrHedin]

I found the thread!

 

[EvilChameleon]

So with regards to voting for yourself, I believe you should be allowed to do it, but you shouldn't be allowed to hammer yourself, if that makes any sense.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

Hey, remember those info graphics from years ago? Sure you do! Well, Monkey, Fireblend, and Ambulance ressurected it from the grave for this year and we have a shiny new one! Here's a link since some of it is animated

Click to shrink...

OH MY GOD IT'S SO UGLY HOLD ON I AM IMMEDIATELY GOING TO REPLACE WITH THE HIGHER QUALITY VERSIONS FOR THE EMBEDS
EVERYONE PLEASE GO TO THE LINK ONLY
JFC
THE ARTIFACTING

 

[A Wild Shark Appears]

I'm super happy to join the OM team. It'll be nice to contribute to the community that I've grown very fond of (though my schedule may be spotty for a while due to starting a new job).

Incredible work on the info graphics Dr. Monkey. Thank you very much to Fireblend and your wonderful vote tool. Collecting the information would have been much more painful without it.

Also I'm working on tracking stats across every single Mafia game on Resetera and OM so there may be more exciting stats to share in the future 👀

 

[MrHedin]

First of all, kudos to Monkey, Ambo, and Febe on the graphic, it's awesome. I have definitely had ideas for getting more player data out there but like most of my ideas they just remain as ideas. I can't believe I played in 10 out of 15 last year, I thought I was taking more frequent breaks.

For the self voting thing I don't really like it when people do it, it feels like a cheap manipulation tool. I do recognize that it can be a valid strategy it's just always rubbed me the wrong way. I definitely wouldn't be opposed to having a rule against it but I wouldn't push back too hard if other players want to keep it in.

Beyond that I think games went pretty smoothly this past season and I know from my end a lot of that is due to our awesome game watchers and OM team, thanks to all of you for your help and support during the games. And Ambulance welcome to the team as well!

I *think* I know what 4 of those things are in the segment that we're not supposed to read but I have no clue what the 5th might be.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

First of all, kudos to Monkey, Ambo, and Febe on the graphic, it's awesome. I have definitely had ideas for getting more player data out there but like most of my ideas they just remain as ideas. I can't believe I played in 10 out of 15 last year, I thought I was taking more frequent breaks.

Click to shrink...

the cool thing about data tho is it's just one story! This was what we had and from that I selected some things that created a story, but there are so many stories we can tell about the community at any given time. So we can KEEP DOING IT :D

 

[weemadarthur]

Historically, self voting might not be allowed if it worked against the team's wincon, and could be earning a modkill. Which would vary by mod and game and role, which is fine by me, but certainly there've been live arguments DURING games where players disagree with a mod decision after it's posted.

But it seems a valid mafia technique, and if town is letting mafia players get away with it, I don't think making a rule against the self vote is the right treatment, I think game training is better. Personally.

what new cool things can the vote tool do now?

 

[Natiko]

Historically, self voting might not be allowed if it worked against the team's wincon, and could be earning a modkill. Which would vary by mod and game and role, which is fine by me, but certainly there've been live arguments DURING games where players disagree with a mod decision after it's posted.

But it seems a valid mafia technique, and if town is letting mafia players get away with it, I don't think making a rule against the self vote is the right treatment, I think game training is better. Personally.

what new cool things can the vote tool do now?

Click to shrink...

Less about new cool things, more focused on added stability for those high octane day ends.

 

[lokiduck]

With self voting I personally think it might work best as game specific rules to help with game balancing when needed or just game runner preference, but self voting if they will hammer like EC suggested isn't bad.

Basically i'm neutral on it.

---

One suggestion I have been saying is we need a scheduler who is spoiled on all the games to make sure we have a balanced season so as to avoid situations like Seasssssoooonnnnn of the Cults *music sting.*

It'd of course mean the scheduler can't play but we could always do a rotational thing so people can play when they want to.

Andddd >> if we implement it, i wouldn't mind volunteering.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

One suggestion I have been saying is we need a scheduler who is spoiled on all the games to make sure we have a balanced season so as to avoid situations like Seasssssoooonnnnn of the Cults *music sting.*

It'd of course mean the scheduler can't play but we could always do a rotational thing so people can play when they want to.

Andddd >> if we implement it, i wouldn't mind volunteering.

Click to shrink...

We do try to balance as much as we can, but I don't think this can be solved that easily for a couple of reasons:
1. Inspiration in all things kinda moves in waves like this. I'll never forget the year there were three different short stories about a very specific situation with young Mormon men that all got big accolades that year. I know, random example, but it was so weird, you know, such a strange and specific thing. Since then I've noticed those kinds of patterns in things and here for sure. People design reflexively and as a reaction at times. X is happening so let me design Y to try to counter or change. So we end up getting a glut of games that may have some similar things, which is complicated by....
2. Sometimes we have a lot of games and sometimes we don't. If we don't have a lot, our hands are tied. Nothing we can do, no matter how spoiled or how we try to plan.

Honestly, my opinion is that we need to have these specialized weird games less often. They can be really fun but also there's so much going on that it's easy to break them and the game can either go really fast or really slow or just completely sideways, whereas in a more normal game, everything is very predictable. For a while the only time we've really had anything remotely normal is when we have minis.

But there are tons of basic setups that can be easily tweaked. We can even recycle old games and turn them into open setups, which could be really cool, actually! And that way we can always ensure more balance regardless of whatever wacky idea people are designing for.

Honestly, our biggest obstacle is that gamerunning can be hard and there just aren't that many who volunteer for it. I'd design more but I have a hard time running because my schedule can be unpredictable, for instance. Sites like MU simplify this with automated day start and end - takes a lot of the work off, but in exchange you get less flavor and such.

But if we had more people who wanted to just RUN a game, we could experiment in a lot of new ways.

Right now we have 13 approved games in queue, with a lot more normal games than I've seen in a while (that's four). Most of those are, I think, that reflexive design. One of them is mine and I know it is. One other is just a regular role madness. ALL the rest are bastard. What I want to know is: why are we so drawn to bastard games over all else?

idk. I'm not against trying! If you want to join scheduling, I'm in favor. Happy to swap you even and I could go to review team. I just think that what you propose, we already try to do, minus the spoiled part, but even with spoiling, I'm not sure we could have avoided cult glut. I'd have to go back and look at the timing and planning.

 

[Fanto]

Love the infographic with all the stats! Great work, friends!

I'm just going to make sure we get this section cropped out by itself though quick:

-------------------

Self Voting. It's been a topic off and on over the years as to whether or not self voting is good or even a viable tactic in games. However, with the recent increase in discussion we felt the need to ask: should we allow self-voting? Or should we not allow it?

Click to shrink...

Perhaps this can be something gamerunners can decide for themselves? If they choose to disallow self votes for their game, they can just include it in a game specific rules section? That would be my take I guess.

Thank you to Febe for continual vote tool updates! The vote tool has been upgraded, reinforced, and more over this past year and we're always grateful for it.

Click to shrink...

Yes, the Vote Tool's updates have been amazing, always major props to Fireblend! <3

Welcome A Wild Ambulance Appears to the OM Mod Team! He's been helping in the background a bit this season but we wanted to let everyone know that he will officially be helping out with all the threads needed for OM.

Click to shrink...

Yay!

With that, CaptainNuevo will also be taking a step back from the OM Mod Team. He will still be around and helping out with other Mod duties (as well as McDonalds Lore Keeping) so he won't be going anywhere but we did want to say a big thank you for all the work he has put in over the years and his contributions to this community. Thank you, Captain!

Click to shrink...

Aww, but still yay!

------

Also, from the spoiler for the next season's games, does the monochromatic bear refer to my Danganronpa game? Because if so, I was never formally asked to run it yet, though I am down lol. :P

 

[Fanto]

But if we had more people who wanted to just RUN a game, we could experiment in a lot of new ways.

Click to shrink...

I want to just RUN a game. :P

Right now we have 13 approved games in queue, with a lot more normal games than I've seen in a while (that's four). Most of those are, I think, that reflexive design. One of them is mine and I know it is. One other is just a regular role madness. ALL the rest are bastard. What I want to know is: why are we so drawn to bastard games over all else?

Click to shrink...

I've got 2 Normals, 1 RM, and 1 Bastard right now in the queue, so I suppose I'll continue making some Normal games for the future.

As for why we're so drawn to designing Bastard games? I think it's a combination of wanting to flex our creativity and wanting to draw attention. There is somewhat of an allure to designing an "anything goes" kind of game, and there's a similar allure to signing up for one as well, the unpredictable nature and wacky stories that can come out of them. Role Madness is similar, even if it's not Bastard, simply because the players know they are almost certainly not going to be Vanilla, so that's enticing, and personally I find it fun flavor-wise to pick out unique roles for a bunch of different characters, so that's the design appeal.

Currently, I am more in favor of trying to limit myself when designing though, focusing more on the flavor or on a theme, and trying to design a "standard" Mafia game to fit it. I really liked making the two Normal games I have ready, and I can definitely make more.

I would also be open to running more Minis and/or reusing old games as Open setups like you mentioned, that's something I'd be interested in doing as well.

 

[lokiduck]

We do try to balance as much as we can, but I don't think this can be solved that easily for a couple of reasons:
1. Inspiration in all things kinda moves in waves like this. I'll never forget the year there were three different short stories about a very specific situation with young Mormon men that all got big accolades that year. I know, random example, but it was so weird, you know, such a strange and specific thing. Since then I've noticed those kinds of patterns in things and here for sure. People design reflexively and as a reaction at times. X is happening so let me design Y to try to counter or change. So we end up getting a glut of games that may have some similar things, which is complicated by....
2. Sometimes we have a lot of games and sometimes we don't. If we don't have a lot, our hands are tied. Nothing we can do, no matter how spoiled or how we try to plan.

Click to shrink...

Yeahhhh I know the full spoiler doesn't completely solve the problem and that we def do things in bursts... i mean seasssssooon of the cults happened partly because we just happened to get inspired or had a similar idea so it happens.

I just wonder if one scheduler knowing all of the twists or mechanics to a game can try and spread out stuff when we have enough varied games in the queued. The main to fix this tho as you say is to get more game designers and I have def been working on that >:D

One of the games this season was made by one of my mentees.

Honestly, my opinion is that we need to have these specialized weird games less often. They can be really fun but also there's so much going on that it's easy to break them and the game can either go really fast or really slow or just completely sideways, whereas in a more normal game, everything is very predictable. For a while the only time we've really had anything remotely normal is when we have minis.

Click to shrink...

That is 100% true LOL I have tried to make simple games, but unfortunately they always bloom out of proportion. FUCK lol Post office Mafia started out as a simple game about a post office, but then I got the idea to hide the messenger powers and welll you know what happened.

But there are tons of basic setups that can be easily tweaked. We can even recycle old games and turn them into open setups, which could be really cool, actually! And that way we can always ensure more balance regardless of whatever wacky idea people are designing for.

Click to shrink...

I love this idea! :D I've always wondered what could be done with really good game designs that have already run, and honestly this may be a method to doing that for some games at least.

Honestly, our biggest obstacle is that gamerunning can be hard and there just aren't that many who volunteer for it. I'd design more but I have a hard time running because my schedule can be unpredictable, for instance. Sites like MU simplify this with automated day start and end - takes a lot of the work off, but in exchange you get less flavor and such.

But if we had more people who wanted to just RUN a game, we could experiment in a lot of new ways.

Click to shrink...

yeah this also might be a good idea. I love game running and designer/reviewing, despite my schedule, but it might be a good way of getting more games out there. I know a few cases where people want to make games but don't want to run them, so maybe we could set up listings where some people do one or the other if that's all they want to do.

Right now we have 13 approved games in queue, with a lot more normal games than I've seen in a while (that's four). Most of those are, I think, that reflexive design. One of them is mine and I know it is. One other is just a regular role madness. ALL the rest are bastard. What I want to know is: why are we so drawn to bastard games over all else?

Click to shrink...

LOL none of my games are currently approved but I do apologize for contributing to the bastard problem in reason seasons. I'm honestly tired of designing them to be honest, so I've been trying to make fun creative games that don't go that route, so maybe we should try and encourage designers to do that more :D

I think as a community we lean bastard because we see how fun and crazy they are and just want to do some of that nonsense ourselves. i certainly felt that way when I started but Pedro my mentor told me to make a non bastard game first and I'm glad I did that.

All I know is I'm burnt out on bastard and want to save it for games where it absolutely has to be that way.

idk. I'm not against trying! If you want to join scheduling, I'm in favor. Happy to swap you even and I could go to review team. I just think that what you propose, we already try to do, minus the spoiled part, but even with spoiling, I'm not sure we could have avoided cult glut. I'd have to go back and look at the timing and planning.

Click to shrink...

I'd love to join scheduling, but don't mind staying in review as we need a lot of reviewers as it is. Plus maybe if we have more reviewers on the schedule team they can help "balance" the order if they know a lot of the games from running or reviewing them.

Like fuck man I was only allowed to play two games last season (only did one tho) because i had made or reviewed the rest. If we don't want a spoiled scheduler, maybe a bunch of reviewer schedulers (for those with the ability to do that of course).

 

[lokiduck]

Role Madness is similar, even if it's not Bastard, simply because the players know they are almost certainly not going to be Vanilla, so that's enticing, and personally I find it fun flavor-wise to pick out unique roles for a bunch of different characters, so that's the design appeal.

Click to shrink...

Again when told I shouldn't make a bastard game first vere and I were like :D :D :D "ROLE MADNESS!" so yeah this is true.

Which is also funny because my games I'm trying to avoid doing bastard on are in fact Role Madness lol

 

[lokiduck]

Sorry for the triple posts, but wasn't one of the main things we wanted to discuss is the game labeling system?

We had two games this season that could have slightly modified names with unusual attached, so do we want to see about maybe expanding the complexity system?

Bastard can mean a lot of things and they aren't all that similar. Again a regular bastard game might be less stressful than a super bastard game and it'd help set expectations for players.

 

[Fanto]

Bastard
Super Bastard
Ultra Bastard
Omega Bastard
Geno


In all seriousness though, yeah that's probably something for reviewers to consider. I know I approved a couple of games as "Normal, but with game specific mechanics" like Dad Joke for example, so perhaps we just need to try being as descriptive as possible when labeling future games during the approval process.

Like if we're looking to differentiate Bastard games, maybe make a note of whether or not the game has it's own unique mechanics or game specific rules. Or if there are a lot of strange/rarely seen roles in a Role Madness game, consider it to be Unusual as well.

 

[TheChuggernaut]

honestly i would be fine with just a different label for a bastard game that has minigames.

 

[lokiduck]

Bastard
Super Bastard
Ultra Bastard
Omega Bastard
Geno


In all seriousness though, yeah that's probably something for reviewers to consider. I know I approved a couple of games as "Normal, but with game specific mechanics" like Dad Joke for example, so perhaps we just need to try being as descriptive as possible when labeling future games during the approval process.

Like if we're looking to differentiate Bastard games, maybe make a note of whether or not the game has it's own unique mechanics or game specific rules. Or if there are a lot of strange/rarely seen roles in a Role Madness game, consider it to be Unusual as well.

Click to shrink...

Exactly! As a game maker you want to set certain expectations and not spoil stuff, but an updated labeling system could help set the right expectations and tell games what they are in for when signing up so they know if they are a good fit or not.

We as a community love bastard games clearly, but all of us have different expectations from what that title means.

When seeing Bastard some people either expect Geno complexity or regular bastard and if it ends up not meeting those expectations they may suffer from burn out or dis interest.

And if we do the labeling system right we can keep spoilers/secrets to a minimum but properly labeling them.

My proposal would be to have complexities with an adjective and a noun lol.

So Nouns are:
Role Madness
Bastard
Normal
Open concept

Adjectives would be:
(nothing for standard)
Unusual (standard game with slight tweeks)
Mechanic Heavy (Lots of mechanics making it way more complex than normal games)
Insanity (The mods looked at it went "Yep that's a game" and approved it)

Of course reviewers and game runners can change this as needed as we will have some unusual games out there, but I think this system could stream line it and help set the proper expectations.

honestly i would be fine with just a different label for a bastard game that has minigames.

Click to shrink...

This LOL. :mothvirbrate:

 

[Alexem]

If I've learned anything over the last year, it's that I really need to stick with normal games.

On self-voting - as someone who's done it for tactical reasons before, I'm not in much of a position to throw stones as to whether it's right or wrong. I think it often tends to be a circumstantial thing, where I can understand it more if there's a serious reason behind it, as opposed to simply using it as a means to walk away from a game (as opposed to subbing out). I'd say there's merit to the idea of considering whether self-voting is liable to have an adverse effect on a game's balance mechanics during the review stage and, if that's likely to be the case, implementing a rule against it for that specific game.

 

[Natiko]

Honestly, if I had to pick a stance on the self-vote thing I think keep allowing it, but we make a checklist of questions to ask for reviewers - one of which includes "Can self-voting break anything here?"

 

[lokiduck]

Honestly, if I had to pick a stance on the self-vote thing I think keep allowing it, but we make a checklist of questions to ask for reviewers - one of which includes "Can self-voting break anything here?"

Click to shrink...

This could work.

 

[Natiko]

I think game reviewing has oft been set to the side. I'm guilty from both sides here - so don't take this as an indictment, or an absolvement. But honestly we rely on a reviewers guide made years ago. Let's make something more robust. That's more apt to help long term.

 

[Kyanrute]

wow I am big winner yaaay smol game count tho

I like self voting as a mechanic but my impression is that it is mostly used in situations that end up benefitting scum at least slightly:

1) Despondent townies self vote in a burst of anger (or other emotions) when they become convinced that there is nothing they can do to keep themselves alive. The reaction to this is WIFOM, but my experience is that rare are the cases where a self destructive self vote ends up saving the voter.
2) Scum hammer themselves in order to end the day. It stops the discussion, keeps the game moving and allows scum to refocus by cutting the losses.

There have been few instances that I can remember in which townies have hammered themselves in order to achieve the town version of 2), but it is somewhat rare, given how much of a taboo reaching hammer minus one is.

But from town POV 1) often feels so frustrating to engage with - sometimes a self vote feels like people are just abandoning the game if not working against some of its core principles (solving others and proving oneself trustworthy) and at that point it just stops being fun for me. But times two; emotion is a part of the game. Who are we to deny an emotional reaction, especially if the alternative in a no self vote world is that the person who gave up just goes AFK for the rest of the phase or starts shitposting, giving even less to analyze and think about. I don't think that people will stop being emotional in a emotional game if the self vote is taken away, but it of course is impossible to completely deny the idea that perhaps the extreme self-defeatist takes would be toned town a notch when the biggest gun in the store is taken away.

Minor boon to town (thanks to meta) and the general atmosphere in the games could (+maybe, perhaps, possibly, etc.) get slightly better?

 

[MrHedin]

We do try to balance as much as we can, but I don't think this can be solved that easily for a couple of reasons:
1. Inspiration in all things kinda moves in waves like this. I'll never forget the year there were three different short stories about a very specific situation with young Mormon men that all got big accolades that year. I know, random example, but it was so weird, you know, such a strange and specific thing. Since then I've noticed those kinds of patterns in things and here for sure. People design reflexively and as a reaction at times. X is happening so let me design Y to try to counter or change. So we end up getting a glut of games that may have some similar things, which is complicated by....
2. Sometimes we have a lot of games and sometimes we don't. If we don't have a lot, our hands are tied. Nothing we can do, no matter how spoiled or how we try to plan.

Honestly, my opinion is that we need to have these specialized weird games less often. They can be really fun but also there's so much going on that it's easy to break them and the game can either go really fast or really slow or just completely sideways, whereas in a more normal game, everything is very predictable. For a while the only time we've really had anything remotely normal is when we have minis.

But there are tons of basic setups that can be easily tweaked. We can even recycle old games and turn them into open setups, which could be really cool, actually! And that way we can always ensure more balance regardless of whatever wacky idea people are designing for.

Honestly, our biggest obstacle is that gamerunning can be hard and there just aren't that many who volunteer for it. I'd design more but I have a hard time running because my schedule can be unpredictable, for instance. Sites like MU simplify this with automated day start and end - takes a lot of the work off, but in exchange you get less flavor and such.

But if we had more people who wanted to just RUN a game, we could experiment in a lot of new ways.

Right now we have 13 approved games in queue, with a lot more normal games than I've seen in a while (that's four). Most of those are, I think, that reflexive design. One of them is mine and I know it is. One other is just a regular role madness. ALL the rest are bastard. What I want to know is: why are we so drawn to bastard games over all else?

idk. I'm not against trying! If you want to join scheduling, I'm in favor. Happy to swap you even and I could go to review team. I just think that what you propose, we already try to do, minus the spoiled part, but even with spoiling, I'm not sure we could have avoided cult glut. I'd have to go back and look at the timing and planning.

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I have another one of those normals and it's for the same reason (Dad Joke was as well). I really enjoy playing and designing bastard/different games. I think as a designer it helps as a creative outlet to put those games together. That said a couple of seasons ago I noticed that we were running a ton of bastards and it seemed like the community was wearing down and so I made Dad Joke. And I loved how that turned out when it ran, in the end there wasn't any weird mechanics going on that players had to solve, they were just solving the game. After I made Dad Joke I told myself every other game I would make would be normal just to help get more into the system (I currently have 1 normal & 2 bastards in the queue but one of those bastard was before DJ and that one is on the line between bastard and unusual). Plus normal games are soooooo much easier and quicker to design and review than the other types.

I do think additional descriptors would help with player expectations. I don't think we use unusual enough and I agree with Chugg it would be nice to know ahead of time if there are minigames/events that happen in a game.

 

[malus]

Really fun season, even though I didn't get to play all that much. Hopefully I'll have more time this year.

I don't think self-voting needs to be banned for all games, though of course if it's detrimental to a specific game's balance there's always the possibility of adding a game specific rule.

I'd also be in favor of maybe splitting up the "bastard" designation. There are certainly levels to the craziness that a bastard game can have

 

[EvilChameleon]

Hopefully this is the year I finally get My Life As A Teenage Robot Mafia submitted for review. Progress just kind of stalled since October, lol.

 

[nin]

Would love to have more normal games than bastard games. Feels like every game was bastard and whacky.


I want more normal games

 

[Zippedpinhead]

ok Self voting.

I think it needs to be addressed on a game by game basis. Its almost never a good play for town or town aligned, I have done it once forever ago (old site) and it was a moment of insane frustration where my death would have been hours later but by that time practically guaranteed.

was it the right call? no it wasn't, and for normal games, or even all non-bastard games maybe we outlaw it.

but for games where self voting can mean a ton of different things, maybe it needs to be addressed and allowed. It was definitely a scum tactic in Russian Doll, but by that same token it shouldn't have been that bad for town. However, as we saw from how it implemented it was absolutely made scum more powerful than town.

Similar to the issues with The Thing that we likely should have caught during review, this is something that should have been identified in review. It didn't but in hindsight how could we really know until it was played out.

There is a certain amount of crazy that just takes playtesting to figure out.

Hopefully this is the year I finally get My Life As A Teenage Robot Mafia submitted for review. Progress just kind of stalled since October, lol.

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Literally just replied to the game design doc in OM, I think we are close!

 

[Dr. Monkey]

Again when told I shouldn't make a bastard game first vere and I were like :D :D :D "ROLE MADNESS!" so yeah this is true.

Which is also funny because my games I'm trying to avoid doing bastard on are in fact Role Madness lol

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I tend to think role madness skews a little less toward accidental misery, though, while bastard can blow up easily. Listen, though, I'm not against bastard games! I don't mean that. There are plenty I think have worked really well and I definitely support cool mechanics born from theme, like in The Thing. That was, I thought, really well done. I just think when that's all we have, it can be hard.

Also, mafia is simply more likely to win bastard games. RM is harder to balance - a true balance - and bastard is harder to predict.

oh gosh I need to go work before I get caught up but-

I do think additional descriptors would help with player expectations. I don't think we use unusual enough and I agree with Chugg it would be nice to know ahead of time if there are minigames/events that happen in a game.

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I agree and have been advocating for this!

Oh man I have so much to say to al these replies but I gotta work. I'll be back.

 

[Hawthorn]

I love the graphic so much!!

I really like playing bastard games, or unusual/creative games, but I agree it's good for them to be interspersed with normal games. I also think there's a big difference between a game with 1/2 bastard elements -- eg, the potential for an alignment change, a tailor, etc. -- and a game where it's almost impossible for the players to figure out what's going on by reason alone, and it's almost more like they're playing an RPG with the gamerunner as the DM, all kind of creatively along for the ride together. I like both a lot, but the experience of playing them is very different. I think that some more specific description in the sign ups might not be a bad idea, of course being mindful of spoilers. I don't think it would need to have rigid categories -- just a short 1-2 sentence description of what to expect, written by the gamerunner & approved by the reviewers, maybe?

On self voting, I didn't read all of Russian Doll, but I agree it should be up to the game runner. I think it's a legitimate tactic for both town and mafia (even when combined with emotional manipulation), but not so sacrosanct a part of the game that it can't be banned if it interferes with other mechanics.

Congrats Ambulance on joining the team, and I'm looking forward to the new season!

 

[Neki]

I mean I've self voted as townie and I'd definitely self-vote as Mafia. It shows genuine frustration that is NAI and I feel like it really isn't a cheap tactic. I've seen mafia say thay they haven't been active because of out of game obligations or work (which can be true or is true) and use it as a basis to show why they aren't engaging with the game. I find self voting falls in that same category for me, you can be genuine about your frustration but there's definitely gamemanship when mafia does it and I just think that's the nature of the game. People just need to make the judgement call in-game if they're okay with voting out someone genuinely doing that as town or someone doing a little gamemanship as mafia.

 

[Natiko]

wow I am big winner yaaay smol game count tho

I like self voting as a mechanic but my impression is that it is mostly used in situations that end up benefitting scum at least slightly:

1) Despondent townies self vote in a burst of anger (or other emotions) when they become convinced that there is nothing they can do to keep themselves alive. The reaction to this is WIFOM, but my experience is that rare are the cases where a self destructive self vote ends up saving the voter.
2) Scum hammer themselves in order to end the day. It stops the discussion, keeps the game moving and allows scum to refocus by cutting the losses.

There have been few instances that I can remember in which townies have hammered themselves in order to achieve the town version of 2), but it is somewhat rare, given how much of a taboo reaching hammer minus one is.

But from town POV 1) often feels so frustrating to engage with - sometimes a self vote feels like people are just abandoning the game if not working against some of its core principles (solving others and proving oneself trustworthy) and at that point it just stops being fun for me. But times two; emotion is a part of the game. Who are we to deny an emotional reaction, especially if the alternative in a no self vote world is that the person who gave up just goes AFK for the rest of the phase or starts shitposting, giving even less to analyze and think about. I don't think that people will stop being emotional in a emotional game if the self vote is taken away, but it of course is impossible to completely deny the idea that perhaps the extreme self-defeatist takes would be toned town a notch when the biggest gun in the store is taken away.

Minor boon to town (thanks to meta) and the general atmosphere in the games could (+maybe, perhaps, possibly, etc.) get slightly better?

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These are valid points for sure, probably the best argument for banning it.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

I want to just RUN a game. :P

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more later but if you mean it, friend, let's get together and make it happen - for you and anyone else who wants. And to everyone: if you are not sure about gamerunning and want to try without fooling with the review process, WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR YOU.

 

[Fanto]

more later but if you mean it, friend, let's get together and make it happen - for you and anyone else who wants. And to everyone: if you are not sure about gamerunning and want to try without fooling with the review process, WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR YOU.

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Yeah I mean I'm pretty much always down to run games lol. If we want to start slotting in more minis, or doing the "re-runs" like you were talking about, I'd definitely volunteer myself as someone who could host them. I'd kind of like to re-run the Super Mario game I did sometime tbh, that was a small Normal game designed by Bear and it was really well balanced.

 

[MrHedin]

Currently, I am more in favor of trying to limit myself when designing though, focusing more on the flavor or on a theme, and trying to design a "standard" Mafia game to fit it. I really liked making the two Normal games I have ready, and I can definitely make more.

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For my normal games I've found that's the approach that has worked for me. I have a flavor idea and then it's somewhat easy to turn that into a normal game. With the bastards and role madness I need to have the mechanical idea first and then find a flavor that fits. And let me tell you kids, if you've played any mafia at all normal games are pretty easy to come up with.

more later but if you mean it, friend, let's get together and make it happen - for you and anyone else who wants. And to everyone: if you are not sure about gamerunning and want to try without fooling with the review process, WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR YOU.

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Only if they have to suffer through the process of writing role PMs, constantly checking those role PMs for mistakes during and after the review, and then have the panic when a player notices a mistake that was completely overlooked. I'm only 67.8% joking there.

 

[HPSauce]

I don't have much to say on rule changes. I just wanna say thanks for having me. I know I'm a pain sometimes and you've all been so welcoming of me. I'm so glad I agreed to play in the original Fate Mafia. *hugs*

 

[Maolfunction]

As far as more normal games go, I have dozens of closed and open setups for those I can run at any time if people want more of them. I don't know if they need to be scheduled, as they're small 13 player setups for the most part, and were designed to be played in between larger games by people waiting for games to end.

They can be played by people in spec chats entirely on OM while another game is going if that's something that interests people.

 

[Neki]

I don't have much to say on rule changes. I just wanna say thanks for having me. I know I'm a pain sometimes and you've all been so welcoming of me. I'm so glad I agreed to play in the original Fate Mafia. *hugs*

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HP gonna say something insightful...

 

[Reki]

there may be more exciting stats to share in the future 👀

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Not to pressure you but, looking forward to this :p

Love the infographic, good job folks. Also congrats on the promotion, and thank you Captain!

I'm so glad I agreed to play in the original Fate Mafia. *hugs*

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Been a pleasure to play with you!

Maybe not in many games nor last season but, still.

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On self-voting, not familiar with the events that sparked the discussion, but on principle I don't think it should be banned on the basis on how hard it's to deal with for the rest of players. That puts it at the level of emotional outbursts, used as clears/damning evidence multiple times, and as someone said you don't just ban emotion from emotionally charged experiences. Someone that self-votes isn't replacing out or sharing their PM to get modkilled, they're going as far as they're allowed without getting the gamerunner extra work. Most of the time, at least.

A second angle, sportmanship violation - ie playing against your wincon - is punished in multiple games though. In that case I'd look at how it's handled in other places, and I believe MU doesn't modkill for that - don't quote me there -.

So that'd only leave the "Does it break the game?" case-by-case consideration, and I believe designers are good at coming up with specific rules when needed. That's where I think it's justified, shouldn't be banned otherwise, just worked on through training as wee mentioned.

---

In regards to robust reviewers resources. Many seasons ago, some review threads used to be moved to the "Archived Game/Design Threads" category after the respective game ran, making it visible to everyone.

In a season review thread, it was asked that these threads were kept private as they may contain design ideas that could be re-used in the future. Final word was that it'd be an opt-in thing to keep these hidden, yet for the last few seasons all design threads were kept private.

That material is incredibly useful to understand what the process is like or how certain roles have been balanced in the past, for example. So I'd ask to make these public again/why they aren't - as maybe this was discussed already somewhere -.

Also yes, please, lets expand game complexity. At some point games were even classified through two axis iirc. loki's proposal sounds good.

 

[Fanto]

In a season review thread, it was asked that these threads were kept private as they may contain design ideas that could be re-used in the future. Final word was that it'd be an opt-in thing to keep these hidden, yet for the last few seasons all design threads were kept private.

That material is incredibly useful to understand what the process is like or how certain roles have been balanced in the past, for example. So I'd ask to make these public again/why they aren't - as maybe this was discussed already somewhere -.

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Personally, I don't think I've ever been asked whether I wanted my review threads to be public or not, so this is probably a breakdown in communication somewhere between OM team and Gamerunners.

I'm pretty sure most of mine are fine to make public, I'd just want to double check first to be sure.

 

[MrHedin]

Yeah it was helpful for me when I first started designing to see how others and I have no problems with any of mine being opened up.

 

[anexanhume]

I had fun playing here for the first time this season. Thanks to everyone for being so welcoming. It made me want to get back into design/running.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

In a season review thread, it was asked that these threads were kept private as they may contain design ideas that could be re-used in the future. Final word was that it'd be an opt-in thing to keep these hidden, yet for the last few seasons all design threads were kept private.

That material is incredibly useful to understand what the process is like or how certain roles have been balanced in the past, for example. So I'd ask to make these public again/why they aren't - as maybe this was discussed already somewhere -.

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Personally, I don't think I've ever been asked whether I wanted my review threads to be public or not, so this is probably a breakdown in communication somewhere between OM team and Gamerunners.

I'm pretty sure most of mine are fine to make public, I'd just want to double check first to be sure.

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I remember asking someone at some point but that may have just been for me. But I agree - let's fix this.

eta: will make a list and ask folks. may take me a minute, but will do.