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Finally somebody who understands that Mafia was actually going to win if the Amadis-Darl controversy hadn't happened this way.
Don't expect the proper review post anytime soon, it's going to take a while to fit everything in. But there will be a proper end to this. I will however now take the time to talk about a few of your points.
In the meantime you guys could comment on your experiences on the game. As Apoc already mentioned, this was a type of experiment on how to expand the world of Mafia to something more exciting for everybody, not just non-Citizens. Of course, balance is always an issue if there's no template to work with, but imo it wasn't as badly balanced as some of you make it out to be. Yes, it seems like some roles were too strong or too underpowered this game <-- big emphasis on this. Things can turn out very differently if the players approach it differently, and that is usually a good sign.
Fake PMs
Most people complained about the fake PM ability. At first, the ability was designed in a way that each anonymous message would have a preceding "You have received an anonymous message:", and that there would be a town-aligned anonymous PMer role as well. This however didn't seem very useful without any other ability to actually relay proper information to the right people, so I dropped it and made the Mafia counterpart more powerful.
I don't see why the fake PM ability should be overpowered; that power loses pretty much all value once people start figuring out there's fake PMs going around.
In this game for instance, once mfc figured out he wasn't actually Insomniac, that power would render itself useless under normal circumstances. However, since all the roles were made public (particularly to Mafia), Mafia could still use ability to fake ability results, like giving the Mentalist another fake night target or giving an ability checker a fake ability.
Rule Enforcement
I was never really planning to really end the game if somebody broke a rule, but I figured that people were less likely to actually break the rules if the 'punishment' sounded severe enough. The rule that I fear most to be broken is the ghost talk one. There's no 'punishment' for a dead player in killing him or not letting him talk or vote, obviously. I do admit though I haven't thought much about the rule enforcements after the start of the game.
Private Discussions
The game would be immensely different without private conversations. I think this adds in some more depth though, especially if Mafia manages to sneak inside a trusted network as a mole. I also think that forbidding this in rules won't stop it.
3rd Party
Initially I wanted Mafia to be unconvertable, but I figured Monk would then know that his conversion target is Mafia. I didn't want to kill him in that case either, since there's an initial 5/16 chance of targeting a Mafia. In retrospect that would have been a better idea; Monk needs Mafia to kill enough town, so he wouldn't actually reveal his Mafia findings too quickly.
The 3rd Party could be revealed through alignment checks (except the Monk himself), but too late I realized that the only actual alignment checking ability was the Mentalist. Most checking roles only checked for the role name, while most roles were already known pretty early on.
Not revealing list of abilities
I figured it'd be easier to lie about your role if people couldn't just check up whether such an ability exists. This is, of course, only benefitting Mafia side. This would have also rendered the fake PM ability obsolete, which was supposed to be a trump the Mafia could play. But this can be changed if people feel too uneasy with it.
In my opinion, it also added a few short surprising plot twists (see Hellblazer being revealed as Mentalist and mfc actually believing he wasn't). This of course wouldn't have worked if people had known such abilities existed. But maybe that's too much already and only fun to watch as a spectator.
Relying on abilities
This is the main plot point. In a normal Mafia game, how would you find Mafia if you are not the Sheriff? Simple, you look at daily accusations and votes and compare them later to the roles of the deceased. Mafia tends not to vote each other if they are not obviously lynched.
Therefore, with the publication of all roles and who was probably Mafia, only one single bandwagon would form each day. Checkproof Mafia would simply join in (no way to save fellow Mafia) and there is no information gain for the town on checkproof Mafia. Benefits Mafia of course. Compare Sheriff->Godfather in original game.
Some other random facts I want to answer
The Cop cannot block the same person twice in a row. This role is definitely not overpowered as long as they don't know which townie can do what. Of course, it became very powerful once all roles and abilities were out.
All roles being revealed benefitted only Mafia. That way they could accurately plan how to use their abilities; who to block; who to kill and even who to send fake PMs to with which info. In my opinion, counting out the 3rd party, this situation would be won by Mafia 95% of the time, since Leader role would inevitably fall on Amadis or Jernemies at some point because of 100% 'trust'.
There was no Mafia member that was 100% check-proof. Vigilante is not checkproof. Coroner appears as Town-side only if he dies (alignment or ability check would make him look Mafia). Cop appears as Town-side only if checked by Mentalist. Godfather checks are inconclusive, but that by itself is suspicious anyway. And if Scientist was checked by Spy, the Spy would get "Spy" result and notice something's fishy.
Coroner's passive is twofold; appearing as Town and being able to still talk after death, to try to lead the townies away from Mafia while apparently Town-side.
Joker is not immune to lynch. He loses his voting ability if he's lynched (which is basically as bad as dying), but he stays alive. In case Mafia knows his abilities, they need to consider whether those are enough of a threat to actually still kill him.
Nave went just a little too overboard with his fake Insomniac PM idea, if he had stayed a little more under the radar I guess he could have deceived a lot of people.
mfc get off your horse already, your actions would have led town to inevitable defeat if Amadis hadn't double-crossed Darl.
klodas PMed me saying that his 'inactivity' (or not-posting) was actually part of his plan. While I didn't quite like it or believed him, there was nothing I could really do. prince_freeza kind of left LFE after he received his role.
In future, if there's enough genuine interest in trying to balance out this style of game, updates would happen much faster because of no more story videos. That was a special one-time thing (but it sadly didn't go as planned all the way because the game ended prematurely), but there will be a proper ending video.
Don't expect the proper review post anytime soon, it's going to take a while to fit everything in. But there will be a proper end to this. I will however now take the time to talk about a few of your points.
In the meantime you guys could comment on your experiences on the game. As Apoc already mentioned, this was a type of experiment on how to expand the world of Mafia to something more exciting for everybody, not just non-Citizens. Of course, balance is always an issue if there's no template to work with, but imo it wasn't as badly balanced as some of you make it out to be. Yes, it seems like some roles were too strong or too underpowered this game <-- big emphasis on this. Things can turn out very differently if the players approach it differently, and that is usually a good sign.
Fake PMs
Most people complained about the fake PM ability. At first, the ability was designed in a way that each anonymous message would have a preceding "You have received an anonymous message:", and that there would be a town-aligned anonymous PMer role as well. This however didn't seem very useful without any other ability to actually relay proper information to the right people, so I dropped it and made the Mafia counterpart more powerful.
I don't see why the fake PM ability should be overpowered; that power loses pretty much all value once people start figuring out there's fake PMs going around.
In this game for instance, once mfc figured out he wasn't actually Insomniac, that power would render itself useless under normal circumstances. However, since all the roles were made public (particularly to Mafia), Mafia could still use ability to fake ability results, like giving the Mentalist another fake night target or giving an ability checker a fake ability.
Rule Enforcement
I was never really planning to really end the game if somebody broke a rule, but I figured that people were less likely to actually break the rules if the 'punishment' sounded severe enough. The rule that I fear most to be broken is the ghost talk one. There's no 'punishment' for a dead player in killing him or not letting him talk or vote, obviously. I do admit though I haven't thought much about the rule enforcements after the start of the game.
Private Discussions
The game would be immensely different without private conversations. I think this adds in some more depth though, especially if Mafia manages to sneak inside a trusted network as a mole. I also think that forbidding this in rules won't stop it.
3rd Party
Initially I wanted Mafia to be unconvertable, but I figured Monk would then know that his conversion target is Mafia. I didn't want to kill him in that case either, since there's an initial 5/16 chance of targeting a Mafia. In retrospect that would have been a better idea; Monk needs Mafia to kill enough town, so he wouldn't actually reveal his Mafia findings too quickly.
The 3rd Party could be revealed through alignment checks (except the Monk himself), but too late I realized that the only actual alignment checking ability was the Mentalist. Most checking roles only checked for the role name, while most roles were already known pretty early on.
Not revealing list of abilities
I figured it'd be easier to lie about your role if people couldn't just check up whether such an ability exists. This is, of course, only benefitting Mafia side. This would have also rendered the fake PM ability obsolete, which was supposed to be a trump the Mafia could play. But this can be changed if people feel too uneasy with it.
In my opinion, it also added a few short surprising plot twists (see Hellblazer being revealed as Mentalist and mfc actually believing he wasn't). This of course wouldn't have worked if people had known such abilities existed. But maybe that's too much already and only fun to watch as a spectator.
Relying on abilities
This is the main plot point. In a normal Mafia game, how would you find Mafia if you are not the Sheriff? Simple, you look at daily accusations and votes and compare them later to the roles of the deceased. Mafia tends not to vote each other if they are not obviously lynched.
Therefore, with the publication of all roles and who was probably Mafia, only one single bandwagon would form each day. Checkproof Mafia would simply join in (no way to save fellow Mafia) and there is no information gain for the town on checkproof Mafia. Benefits Mafia of course. Compare Sheriff->Godfather in original game.
Some other random facts I want to answer
The Cop cannot block the same person twice in a row. This role is definitely not overpowered as long as they don't know which townie can do what. Of course, it became very powerful once all roles and abilities were out.
All roles being revealed benefitted only Mafia. That way they could accurately plan how to use their abilities; who to block; who to kill and even who to send fake PMs to with which info. In my opinion, counting out the 3rd party, this situation would be won by Mafia 95% of the time, since Leader role would inevitably fall on Amadis or Jernemies at some point because of 100% 'trust'.
There was no Mafia member that was 100% check-proof. Vigilante is not checkproof. Coroner appears as Town-side only if he dies (alignment or ability check would make him look Mafia). Cop appears as Town-side only if checked by Mentalist. Godfather checks are inconclusive, but that by itself is suspicious anyway. And if Scientist was checked by Spy, the Spy would get "Spy" result and notice something's fishy.
Coroner's passive is twofold; appearing as Town and being able to still talk after death, to try to lead the townies away from Mafia while apparently Town-side.
Joker is not immune to lynch. He loses his voting ability if he's lynched (which is basically as bad as dying), but he stays alive. In case Mafia knows his abilities, they need to consider whether those are enough of a threat to actually still kill him.
Nave went just a little too overboard with his fake Insomniac PM idea, if he had stayed a little more under the radar I guess he could have deceived a lot of people.
mfc get off your horse already, your actions would have led town to inevitable defeat if Amadis hadn't double-crossed Darl.
klodas PMed me saying that his 'inactivity' (or not-posting) was actually part of his plan. While I didn't quite like it or believed him, there was nothing I could really do. prince_freeza kind of left LFE after he received his role.
In future, if there's enough genuine interest in trying to balance out this style of game, updates would happen much faster because of no more story videos. That was a special one-time thing (but it sadly didn't go as planned all the way because the game ended prematurely), but there will be a proper ending video.
My (confusing) spreadsheet of game events (Click to View)
![[Image: ramafia.png]](http://www.vertigofx.com/jrkstudios/ramafia.png)
Quote of the Day f***ing Year (Click to View)