Boy Band Mafia

[oblivion]

Oblivion, could you please run this game design through your whizz bang game balancing spreadsheet, and let us know in your opinion how likely it is that this game has a doc (I know it does, it is me), a seer and a vigilante?

I will find it difficult to come up with any name other than yours for lynching tomorrow. Assuming I survive. Which, if you are the scum I think you are, is possible if you think that's enough to get me lynched so you win the game. If oblivion is scum, she will kill feral (most likely) or ziggy.

So...let's see what happens overnight, eh? If I'm killed everyone will know I was the doc, and things won't look rosy for oblivion. She can't kill Ani tonight. Ziggy seems to be wavering, so I think feral is for the chop. Oh, and if there is no kill tonight, it will reaffirm that I am the doc and I protected Ani.

It all looks sorted, from my perspective.

Timezones suck. Everyone starts posting after I hit the sack. Puppy woke me up. here goes.

I am not sure how serious you are, but it depends on how your spreadsheet values the seer. One spreadsheet I use values the seer at 3 vanilla town, and one values them at 6. If valued at 3, then 3 vanilla scum against 1 doc, 1 full vig and 1 seer and 5 vanilla town would be balanced at .5 (in favor of town.). 2 vanilla scum and a don against the same town team would be balanced at -1 (in favor of scum). If the seer is valued at 6 vanilla town, then the balance would be 3.5 (in favor of town) in the first case and 2.5 in favor of town in the second case.

I can't picture the kill being anyone other than one of us 3. I guess we'll know in a few hours.

For town's sake, our best chance was probably for me to be lynched on day 2 since scum didn't off me. You guys might have settled on DennyB easily if I hadn't been in the picture instead of it being an uphill slog all the way.

I would have played this game very differently if I were scum. I would have been trying to maneuver DennyB to the endgame, not myself. On day 1, I would have asked him to put a vote on Booski, and then I would have moved my vote to Ani and waited until the last minute to move it back if necessary. On day 2, I would have gone after an easy lynch. And yesterday I would not have sledged Ani and I would not have tried to save myself. I would have vastly prefered to be the lynch and let DennyB slide by as quietly as possible.

[irretating]

And yesterday I would not have sledged Ani and I would not have tried to save myself. I would have vastly prefered to be the lynch and let DennyB slide by as quietly as possible.

...except denny is a n00b and wasn't around, so you had to do what you had to do.

[oblivion]

I so badly want to be right and get Oblivion, but until a plausible explanation of the role PMs is made, MZ is most suspect. I want to hear from him, he hasn't been too active lately.

Well, the only thing near plausible is that all the roles say that your band rocks with three exclamation marks and Obi chanced her arm.
My one says that you are the seer and my town rocks. Maybe Zigmen used the same template for all the PMs?
Although MZs looks terribly like it was just parroted also.

Ok...I let this slide yesterday because feral knew that the vanilla role didn't mention a win condition, and I was hoping to use it to trip up DennyB if he was able to reconstruct the role pm based on what we revealed.

My role PM does not have 3 exclamation points. It has 4. Check yours again, Feral. How many?

[irretating]

I'm not finding this the most convincing evidence, I have to say. In my special role PM I was told my band rocks. Big deal.

[oblivion]

And yesterday I would not have sledged Ani and I would not have tried to save myself. I would have vastly prefered to be the lynch and let DennyB slide by as quietly as possible.

...except denny is a n00b and wasn't around, so you had to do what you had to do.

Uselesstwit was a n00b playing for the first time in the Spooks game. I spent the last 4 days of that game maneuvering him to endgame and I expected to be lynched on the day that scum won. I was going down quietly and without a fuss and he had his vote on me. Blip and MZ bobbled at the last minute and switched their votes to Ani, or the game would have gone another day with MZ, Ani and Uselesstwit and endgame.

[Feral_Punctuation]

The kill won't be on Oblivion in any case, because she's set up for a lynch. It would probably be on the least scummy person posssible (Twinkie or Ani). Also, if there is a don, wouldn't the value of the seer go down?

Oblivion: 3 exclamation marks.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Although my message was slightly personalized. It said something along the lines of: "you're finally town!"

[Animavore]

Yes. The value does go down. Don views as innocent. So my view is ruined.

[oblivion]

I think what it comes down to is I have wanted to believe that town faces a formidable adversary. Two n00b players plus MZ or 3 n00b players against a town that includes Twinkie, Ani and me seemed way too heavily balanced in town's favor no matter what the spreadsheets said. In fact, if I had rolled a game setup with 3 n00b scum, I would probably have rerolled the random sequence. Not sure what I would have done with MZ. He was scum in the first simple game I GMed at ratz, and made it to endgame although town won. That's the only scum role I've seen him play.

But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the most experienced players are all town.

[oblivion]

The kill won't be on Oblivion in any case, because she's set up for a lynch. It would probably be on the least scummy person posssible (Twinkie or Ani). Also, if there is a don, wouldn't the value of the seer go down?

Oblivion: 3 exclamation marks.

heh. amazing. Good thing I thought the lack of a win condition was the critical bit of info about the vanilla town role pm.

[Feral_Punctuation]

Who do you think is scum and why?

[Feral_Punctuation]

My PM contained no information about what other people's PMs contained. Why would you assume everyone's PM is the same (or very similar)?

[oblivion]

Yes. The value does go down. Don views as innocent. So my view is ruined.

Depends on if there is a don. The don's value increases scum's overall value. It doesn't decrease town's value. It's not a for sure. Using the 3 value for seer, an 11 player game would be slightly better balanced without a don.

I would say some more about game balance of small games, but I'm GMing a game at TR right now that Zigmen is playing, and I don't want to give him clues about that game's design.

[oblivion]

My PM contained no information about what other people's PMs contained. Why would you assume everyone's PM is the same (or very similar)?

because when I (and every GM I've ever discussed this with) send out role PMs, I send out 1 PM to all the vanila players using the BCC functionality. I don't individualize them. I think the PM recipient limit at ratz is 4, though, so in this case the 5th vanilla PM could be individualized, I guess.

[Feral_Punctuation]

OK. Makes sense I suppose.