August Mafia II: The Trial

Vote Jello in retaliation/self-preservation. 

voting ended an hour ago

So, let's see the write-up...

Ending town status:

Alive: 

-Angry Russian
-Chanelier
-Desperatemarlas

Dead:

-Everyone else




All players' roles and statuses:

(// indicates alive, :: indicates dead. Statuses in () indicate death, statuses in [] indicate misc. status effects.)

Guilty:



//Angry Russian - Defendant

//chandelier - Defense Attorney

::Hurdegaryp - Corrupt Police Officer



Innocent:



::Jello - Judge (Died day 4)

::Yaltanope - Criminologist (Died Night 1)

::Serrland - Prosecutor ~ Marked by Attorney [appears guilty](Died Day 3)

::wytyg - Plaintiff (Died Night 2)

::The Beautiful Darkness - Specialist ~ Marked by Attorney [appears guilty] (Died Night 1)



Independant:



::blassy - Executioner ~ Marked by Prosecutor [dies if tied](Died Night 3)

//desperatemarlas - Vigilante

Misc. notes before I post the chronology:


-When making the roles, I felt that the Judge could easily become overpowered. My original notes had the Judge stopping a death every other night, starting on night 1. I felt that this would make the game too tedius, and altered it to every fifth night starting on night 1. By the time I was actually sending out the role PMs, I altered it to every fifth night starting on night 5. This turned out to be a mistake, as the game didn't even GET to night 5, so the Judge was basically a useless role.

-The death of Hurd was a mistake, and probably ended up destroying the game as a result. I think Angry Russian might have caught on to this and Breadknife PM'd it to me, but I had already revealed his role so I couldn't turn it back. If you count up the votes from the day Hurd died, I believe it was Jello that was actually supposed to take the hit. This was my biggest blunder in the whole game.

-The last night that Blassy (executioner) was alive, she didn't send me a PM, and thus didn't kill anyone. I feel that the game probably would have ended very, very differently if she'd hit DM that night.

-The Plaintiff asked me if he could post his investigation results during the night instead of waiting for the day. That night, the mafia killed him. I got a good laugh out of that, lol.

-Angry Russian would appear as "innocent" in any investigation. HOWEVER, the Plaintiff's investigation power ignored the party and just returned "Yes" or "No" to the question "Is this player the Defendant?". Angry Russian would have appeared to be "The Defendant, an Innocent role" to a normal investigator, but to the Plaintiff he was just "The Defendant". Because it was assumed by nature of the role that the Defendant was guilty, the Plaintiff was designed as a sort of "anti-defendant". It's ironic that this is the case, because angry russian kept touting that he was innocent and for someone to investigate him...eventually the plaintiff did, and discovered him to be guilty.

-If breadknife had actually won the vote the day that hurd died, I absolutely would have written up his death.

-Two actions took place before the game started (TBD getting marked to appear guilty, and Blassy getting marked to die in a tie). Neither of these actions actually meant anything, because TBD died before he could be investigated and Blassy was never a part of a tie.

Heh...
While it backfired (sort of - since the prosecutor didn't get the opportunity to tell anyone) challenging people to investigate me was very effective in convincing people I was innocent...

I didn't know to send a message because you told me I could only kill once every other night, so....

Well in that case you performed perfectly and I really need to stop forgetting what roles I assign people.

As a gamerunner, I know keeping track of votes (even when enforcing vote in bold, which is very useful) can be difficult. (And the stress of the tie-vote... I think I mentioned I concluded I should have had "kill 'em all!", instead of the method I used in the game I had. That or kill-none, for a different setup, is far neater.)

I also personally got around the "reveal results at night" by making sure (usually cueing up the messages concerned awaiting the moment of revelation) by only giving the results when day is about to break. (Whether I'd have told an investigator "You found out <foo>, but you're dead so you don't get to tell anyone [unless you're revived]" or "You're dead, so you don't get to tell anyone [but if you're revived, I'll make sure you are resurrected with the knowledge you strove for]" I'm not sure, as it was never a decision I had to make.) Oh, and also my game didn't really have that kind of "night results are useful" thing in it.


I like the mix of roles of various kinds, including there being one-shots, one-at-a-time-shots¹ and limited roles. The "Flavourcop" role of the Plaintiff was a pivot-point, as you note. When such a flavourcop gets killed, though, it lets the "anti-Miller" (i.e. Guilty-but-looks-innocent, usually encountered as "Godfather" in a standard "Mafia"-themed game) get a free run, so I'd have been tempted to give a (maybe one-shot, or other diversionary) saving-roll feature to the role concerned. But I'm not sure what else I would have changed to add balance.

Under the theme concerned, I might have been tempted to include an "Unreliable Witness". (For all I know, this is something that would have appeared if the game had been larger, i.e. if I'd managed to re-emerge from my enforced absence earlier.) Whether being known by this role, or not, they would probably have been a 'bussing' role, wilfully (or unknowingly?) misdirecting investigative results (at least... maybe even active actions). But that would have been a bit of a 'spoiler' role (of no use to anyone) and difficult to justify without the possibility of becoming "action magnet", so as to possibly attract (mostly killing) actions to themselves at critical moments. That probably would have made the game worse, though, so just be thankful I wasn't in a position to add that.


Overall, I must say I was largely lost. (As an observer, I was not privy to any certainty arising from my own role/participation. I was given a titbit of information by someone who died, but by the time this actually keyed into anything useful it the following conclusion was inevitable with or without this, just a bit more definite.) It was only when Chand voted Jello 'in self-protection' (when it was clearly an attempt to 'hammer') did I actually get any firm idea of affiliations (probably 'anti-Town'), and by then it was effectively too late to make use of the conclusion. Could I actually have done so.

(If DM had then been quick enough and even had an inclination to do so, they could have voted Chand for a tie, perhaps, but what the next night would have produced is up for advanced speculation. DM would then have needed to follow up with a night-kill against either of the Hammerers, while the Guilty would have probably retaliated. Assuming both actions succeeded (and one did not trump the other) this would leave Jello alive Day 5 with the no reasonable fear for their own death (on the very day their Saviour-Skill starts to come into action), which might have been counted as a draw if Night 5's inevitable "last mafia kills last town" result isn't taken as the inevitable end-game. I think.)


¹ Noting that Defence Attourney, like the Prosecutor was described, seems to have been this type, not the one-shot that the description seems to say. I don't know if this was an on-the-fly 'change' or just what you meant by what you wrote.

[Hmm, did I take an hour to write that? From the intervening messages, it looks like I did. Sorry, obviously distracted.]

Yeah, jello was on the chopping block whether he survived the day or not...

Hey, I guess Dyakovo doesn't have a 'tell' when he's the mafia. Or maybe he just has several. I don't know yet.

I worked hard at trying to not appear guilty this time... It's difficult when I've been Mafia in every game I've played except one...