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[ultron87]

Things based on Werewolf.

- I think the reset was handled reasonably well but I don't think we should have let 8 more people join up and turn it into as huge of a game as it became. I assume that size was partially responsible for how many extra kill powers were out there and thus to how out of control the game felt as a town player.

- For Role PMs if people that don't get to know each other's roles have the same role or the same sections of text it should either have no fluff or be uniquely written. As an example in Werewolf when I claimed Sleepwalker Xam immediately chimed in and echoed a specific word from the PM (somnambulism) when he claimed the role which basically let me know for sure that he had the same PM as me. It turned out that word also appeared in the wolf sleepwalker's PM, but still, it provided some legitimacy based on shared information that was supposed to be secret. This is supposed to be covered by the rule about not referring to specifics in a PM, but that's a genie you can't put back in the bottle so any safeguards to avoid it would be good.

 

[Palmer_v1]

On mobile so ill talk about WW specifically later.

An easy question i had was how everyone liked gafia boards for spectator and scum chats? This is the first truly large scale go at it.

 

[Terrabyte20xx]

We definitely need to only have one dead thread, there were to many to navigate.

 

[Hyperactivity]

I also think starting Werewolf 2 during a holiday really hurt the game.

On a personal note, I also don't like big games like that. I don't even really like 20-25 players so 30 was a bit much. I was struggling because of it. But that's really a personal preference.

Yeah, I think it's worst when creating a reads list to encompass each and every single one of those players.

Too many faces to keep track of

 

[RetroMG]

We definitely need to only have one dead thread, there were to many to navigate.

Agreed. There was a good reason at the time. (We had so few potential replacements that we wanted a way for people to have dead thread access while still getting to be replacements,) but it meant that most of the dead threads were kind of lame.

 

[Ty4on]

Yeah, I think it's worst when creating a reads list to encompass each and every single one of those players.

Too many faces to keep track of

It would be nice with some smaller main season games instead of all 20+.

Edit: meant main, not mid. We already have small mid season games

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

i like 21 to 23 players. optimal size for a main game, i think :>

 

[Sorian]

This is my only problem with it. In this case, modkilling is acceptable if people don't want to follow along, Sorian.

He gave me a punishment and I accepted it. Modkilling was never on the table.

 

[Sorian]

Number of player slots for the game: 21
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: YNNNY
Theme: Phoenix Wright
Game Category: I think it's a 6, YNNNY thinks it's a 7

If anyone else wants to mentor my game, please PM me. I don't mind the extra set of eyes.

 

[Ourobolus]

He gave me a punishment and I accepted it. Modkilling was never on the table.

I'm saying it should have been.

 

[Zippedpinhead]

I really enjoyed both games that I participated in,

A couple of notes:

-I'm glad that I was able to close a loop on outer GAFia. I don't think anyone else had seen it but it's better off not there (talking about last login times for all players)

-Arsonist gossip was awesome, and I think other neutral gossips could be fun in future games. This one needed a bit of tweaking, but was really fun to see go down

-voting for oneself, after seeing the suicidal tendencies of the werewolf town, I think that self voting should go away.

- dead thread needs to be either where you go upon death OR you go into a replacement queue. Combined dead thread is the way to go. I never went into night vale's dead thread, even after I had access (which was ever so slightly before the game ended)

-dead thread needs to be fairly reasonable with spoilers, I liked having a full spoiler thread (after my ultimate death in werewolf) but I like HP's semi spoiler-ness.

- voting for games needs to stay, but I understand it being curated down based on readiness and balance.

- 3day days /2day nights needs to be a regular thing. I find that 4d/3n just ends up with 1 whole day of nothing during the day phase (and I've never been on Mafia so I can't really weigh in on night time). I got bored and started a wasteful, anti-town game of saw, idle hands are the devil's playground and all that...

 

[Zippedpinhead]

On mobile so ill talk about WW specifically later.

An easy question i had was how everyone liked gafia boards for spectator and scum chats? This is the first truly large scale go at it.

GAFia is SO much better than quick topic! Really a great addition to our Mafia crew!

 

[Xamtheking]

Question for scale purposes
What if I have an Open Setup game with some non-traditional roles that will get somewhat bastardly?
Where is that on the scale?

 

[Sorian]

Question for scale purposes
What if I have an Open Setup game with some non-traditional roles that will get somewhat bastardly?
Where is that on the scale?

The open or semi-open nature would trump so the game would still be a 3 or 4 depending on again open or semi open. The roles aren't as bastard if everyone knows they could be in the game.

 

[Terrabyte20xx]

Question for scale purposes
What if I have an Open Setup game with some non-traditional roles that will get somewhat bastardly?
Where is that on the scale?

The open or semi-open nature would trump so the game would still be a 3 or 4 depending on again open or semi open. The roles aren't as bastard if everyone knows they could be in the game.

Keep in mind that an Open set up means everyone knows exactly what roles are in the game, while semi-open means that while everyone knows what roles might be in the Game, they don't know exactly which ones are.

 

[Xamtheking]

thing\

thing

Sorry, I should clarify.
In my game, people would know the Names of the Roles, but not what the roles can do. Like, they will know there will be a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but they don't know what the FSM can do

 

[Ourobolus]

Sorry, I should clarify.
In my game, people would know the Names of the Roles, but not what the roles can do. Like, they will know there will be a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but they don't know what the FSM can do

Well that's not really "open" then, really. It might as well be a themed game with a small, finite amount of characters.

 

[Sorian]

Sorry, I should clarify.
In my game, people would know the Names of the Roles, but not what the roles can do. Like, they will know there will be a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but they don't know what the FSM can do

That would be closed set up then and your rating would match those higher numbers depending on how mechanical or bastard you get.

 

[Xamtheking]

Well that's not really "open" then, really. It might as well be a themed game with a small, finite amount of characters.

That would be closed set up then and your rating would match those higher numbers depending on how mechanical or bastard you get.

Thanks for the clarification, I'll work on the app

 

[Xamtheking]

Actually, can I get someone to look over some stuff for my potential game before I apply? I need someone with a knack for this

 

[Ourobolus]

Actually, can I get someone to look over some stuff for my potential game before I apply? I need someone with a knack for this

PALMER CAN HOOK YOU UP

 

[Xamtheking]

PALMER CAN HOOK YOU UP

So do I send him 5 American Dollars on Paypal or what

 

[ScraftyDevil]

I don't wanna submit my Bloodborne game until I have it fully vetted, but a planning thread for it is up on OG and I'd appreciate any feedback people can give. It's not a cosplay game, so no knowledge of the game or lore is required to understand any of it.

 

[Xamtheking]

Should I send Retro a PM here or on OG if I want a board

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Should I send Retro a PM here or on OG if I want a board

Whats your game's name? I'll see if I can set you up a board.

 

[Xamtheking]

Whats your game's name? I'll see if I can set you up a board.

Town Of Czartim

...

Town Of Salem Remixed Mafia

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Town Of Czartim

...

Town Of Salem Remixed Mafia

hmmm i dont have the thingo to set you up as a board owner. i'll poke a retro for you though :>

 

[RetroMG]

Should I send Retro a PM here or on OG if I want a board

I'll answer even though Yeeny is doing it, in case anyone else is wondering.

You can PM me on either site, or you can hit me up on Steam or Google Talk. You can also message ScraftyDevil or YesNOnoNOYes. You can post in one of the mafia threads or the OG shoutbox too, but I recommend sending a PM instead.

hmmm i dont have the thingo to set you up as a board owner. i'll poke a retro for you though :>

Remind me this week to show you how to do that. Xam, I'll get you set up in the morning, if not before.

 

[Xamtheking]

Remind me this week to show you how to do that. Xam, I'll get you set up in the morning, if not before.

Many thanks

 

[Hyperactivity]

I only just now got to appreciate the excellent title of this thread

 

[cabot]

I would just like to pop in and say that I didn't leave Heist because of squidy.

I've had squidy on my arse before, in Archer. I can handle that. Obviously Razmos proves that some people are frustrated by his play, but Heist was more burnout than anything. There were a lot of emotions during and after both Woof games for me, and I feel I should've had more time to recover, that became quite clear to me as I got deeper into the day phase.

I enjoy squidy mostly, he likes Rectify come on now.

As for feedback, I do agree that Role Madness games need to be extremely careful in not going completely overboard, I remember opting out from HP very early on because I had some vague descriptions of what it would be like and I couldn't see it being balanced for that reason.

I feel Woof 2 being quite bloody compared to the first was something I didn't really expect. I'll say it wasn't exactly what I wanted but I obviously understand the conditions it was reformed under, so that's just really my thoughts (confirming I'm a guy who tends to avoid Role Madness)

Co-modding sounds good, I've always been in favour of collaberation over dictation, it's why I've signed a blood pact with Splints and CornBro. I'll also be talking to Bear with regards to Music Mafia at some point in the next month on how to make it a unique but balanced game.

I hate Ourubolous for what he has done to me

Hi Haly.

 

[cabot]

-I'm glad that I was able to close a loop on outer GAFia. I don't think anyone else had seen it but it's better off not there (talking about last login times for all players)

-Arsonist gossip was awesome, and I think other neutral gossips could be fun in future games. This one needed a bit of tweaking, but was really fun to see go down

-voting for oneself, after seeing the suicidal tendencies of the werewolf town, I think that self voting should go away.

- dead thread needs to be either where you go upon death OR you go into a replacement queue. Combined dead thread is the way to go. I never went into night vale's dead thread, even after I had access (which was ever so slightly before the game ended)

-dead thread needs to be fairly reasonable with spoilers, I liked having a full spoiler thread (after my ultimate death in werewolf) but I like HP's semi spoiler-ness.

- voting for games needs to stay, but I understand it being curated down based on readiness and balance.

- 3day days /2day nights needs to be a regular thing. I find that 4d/3n just ends up with 1 whole day of nothing during the day phase (and I've never been on Mafia so I can't really weigh in on night time). I got bored and started a wasteful, anti-town game of saw, idle hands are the devil's playground and all that...

In order:

- Yes, well done there. You were the sacrifice we all needed. I know I mixed your blood in with my hot sauce and spinach, delicious.

- Similar to insanity mechanics, seemed to be good for the spectators but a bit too devastating for players. It was clever for sure, and I think it can be bettered with discussions after the game.

- While this is obviously annoying, I do not consider it different from someone who has a super aggressive playstyle. It's just one way of playing that a majority of people probably won't like, you need to consider if getting rid of it is a general benefit or if it's restricting a player's style

- Agreed with the combined dead thread, for your reasons and the reasons others have already given.

- Dead thread spoilers this season was weird, Palmer threw me the spreadsheet instantly after dying for Woof 2, and he said in his first post that spoilers were up to the participants, then he wanted to hold back on the Arsonist Gossip (because obviously), I guess it was just a bit of 'How much do I spoil here?' it could probably use some discussion/clarification.

- I like the curated/democratic combo approach. I will eventually despise this if Love Boat gets shunned a second time.

- I personally like the shorter phases, but considering the main games are the 'event's to drive player interest and such, and will most likely contain new players over side games, I think it's better giving just a little more time for the phases.


also, I have to say this: CPR DOC IS THE BEST DOC

Seriously Palmer, love you for bringing it to my attention.

 

[Swamped]

Omg

Great subtitle XD

Lots of excellent points, I pretty much agree with everyone. I especially agree with everything kingkitty said.

This season felt...kinda short overall. Does anyone know how many weeks it lasted? Feels like it only started a month ago.

Spoiler

I do promise to type out my own feedback at some point lol

 

[Swamped]

On mobile so ill talk about WW specifically later.

An easy question i had was how everyone liked gafia boards for spectator and scum chats? This is the first truly large scale go at it.

I like it a lot. Multi-quoting is kind of a pain, but searching for posts is quite easy (I used this function in the MGS game). Worked well for the gossip chat. Only thing I would ask Retro is that he fire proofs in a way that adheres to fire code.

I really like Outer Gafia.

 

[roytheone]

I actually proposed this idea in the HP scum chat, so I will also put it here: Should we expand the "you need to post once per day phase" with "you need to post at least once per night phase in the scum chat if you are scum"? Scum inactivity can really hurt a game and make it really unfun for the other scum.

Additionally, town need far less information roles. We've had a big problem with that in multiple games now. The vanilla cop is the most powerful ordinary role in mafia - not the doctor, the vigilante, the bomb, anything, it's the cop. Giving town too much information is the no.1 way to drag a game down.

I 100 % agree with this. To many information roles will just make the game a lottery of "does scum get hit by the roles or not" instead of a game of reads and plays. Even if those information roles don't hit scum, they will still confirm townies and if you have too many confirmed townies that will seriously impact the options that scum has, which makes games a lot less interesting and fun. Games have the risk to become "follow the investigation results" or "stripe away the confirmed townies and lynch the rest", which is not that interesting imo.

- 3day days /2day nights needs to be a regular thing. I find that 4d/3n just ends up with 1 whole day of nothing during the day phase (and I've never been on Mafia so I can't really weigh in on night time). I got bored and started a wasteful, anti-town game of saw, idle hands are the devil's playground and all that...

I agree that they day phase could be shorter, but making the night phase short can be a problem, especially for main games. Main games tend to be bigger and thus have bigger scum teams. If you have a scum team of 5/6 people that are in different timezones, having only 2 days to communicate during the night will be a problem.

(As a side note, I'm actually tempted to make all game-runners read S2 Star Wars before they're allowed to mod, it's my pick for overall best main season game in terms of running, balance, town play, scum play, everything.)

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Crab, I think something useful would be if you could comment on each of the games that just ran purely from the planning standpoint as an example for potential mods(as well as he current ones). Strip all of the random player actions and modding mistakes away, and reasses them for balance.

I'm disinclined to do specific feedback in public. Running a game is hard and I don't want people to feel disencouraged / castigated. I will 100% give feedback to the gamerunners themselves by PM if required, and I will try and tailor my game design guide with what happened in mind so that mistakes made are less likely to happen again.

Obviously if gamerunners want a public postmortem I'm very happy to comply, though.

Not to toot my own horn, but what about my idea of having the mentors decide the top ~5 games to be voted on?

If there are 6 or 7 balanced games, cutting one off arbitrarily doesn't seem right. I'm pretty content to let any balanced game go through.

Things based on Werewolf.

- I think the reset was handled reasonably well but I don't think we should have let 8 more people join up and turn it into as huge of a game as it became. I assume that size was partially responsible for how many extra kill powers were out there and thus to how out of control the game felt as a town player

I agree very strongly. Werewolf should have had the same number of players on the reboot; it's unfair to those who e.g. signed up to Woof because thy wanted a smaller game that HP to suddenly flip the table on them. While hopefully a reboot is not likely to happen in the near future, any reboots that happen do need the same player count and bastard rating as when they first ran.

Some other things: I am very strongly in favour of keeping 4/3 for main season games. Having Phases start and end on the same day each week allows them to be built into RL schedules; if they change all the time I'd fin it harder to participate and I think others would too.

I agree RE: Roy wanting scum inactivity requirements too.

 

[nin1000]

Well here it goes. It was my first attempt to host a game and boy o boy did i underestimate the amount of work that goes with it. Like i said earlier in another thread i am incredibly thankfull for those that stood by and tried to save what was considered in my view a hot pile of mess sometimes. It sometimes got heated since there was a lack of communication but it all go cleared up in the end. Thanks again salva for letting me host this incredible and insane game. I wish you the best and hope the next year will be a lot better for you.

Notes that i made in the game

• Mafia should be able to have a second person who puts in the command. For example if Team Scum decides that they want to let Crab do the kill but crab does not pm me in time, i will take in the command of the scum team. ( Only after everyone agreed to that)

• Mafia inactivity, i talked to roy about that ingame aswell and agree with his position on that since it is vital for scum to communicate and i know from 1st hand how annoying it can get if there is none.

• Town down the insanity. This one is close to my heart. I love playing in insane games but i now know how incredibly annoying and dumb it can get sometimes, in terms of a game just being plain broken. Less is somtimes a lot better. Since i was new to all of this i did not really think all of this through, so ofc it all seemed good at the beginning but as the game went on, especially on night 2 i almost broke down.

• Make the time commitment even more clear for all those who want to play. This is something that was brought up in the game aswell, since there were cases were the players just underestimated how much time they would have to invest in the game.
  If you sign up for playing be sure that you will have to invest some time for the game.

• Start the day phase when you are ready. This is a personal note i made after the mess that was Night 2.

• Don't notify every single player that his or her action was successful or not. makes things more complicated than they should be.

• If you decide to run a game, be open for suggestions and try to get in contact with the other mods. Google hangouts is a miracle on that note.

All in all i am very happy to have made this experience. For those who want to run games of this size. BE PREPARED Again Thanks a lot for everyone involved i had a lot of fun.

 

[Burbeting]

In bigger games, there should be always two different deadlines for the night phases.

Deadline 1 - For the night actions.
Deadline 2 - When the Night Phase ends.

There should be 1-2 hours between those, to make sure that the Game Mod(s) have enough time to recheck all of the night actions. It would help with preventing mistakes, that happen due to being in a hurry.

 

[nin1000]

In bigger games, there should be always two different deadlines for the night phases.

Deadline 1 - For the night actions.
Deadline 2 - When the Night Phase ends.

There should be 1-2 hours between those, to make sure that the Game Mod(s) have enough time to recheck all of the night actions. It would help with preventing mistakes, that happen due to being in a hurry.

Again , Sorry burb for what i have done to you.

 

[Burbeting]

Again , Sorry burb for what i have done to you.

Don't feel too bad about it, Nin! In the end, it was most likely for the best for me to go out early.

 

[Karu]

New player here, wanted to chime in although I might be missing some perspective on the larger issues ;-)

Balancing on Nightvale was an issue in the end, but I wasn't aware of it during the game.

The whole squidyj-Razmos thing in Nightvale was unfortunate and I felt bad for him, but personally I don't have a problem with (very) hard play as long as it's reasonable (from both the gameplay and social perspective). Now.. that's obviously a subjective thing and I fully understand that- what's reasonable? Personally... I have yet to see an incident that goes even close to being too far generally speaking.


When I first went to the Recruitment thread before S4 started, we were asked what game we want to participate in. I said, I don't care, but there is certainly a thought that Crazy might be more enticing. You imagine that's were the fun stuff happens, the hilarious anecdotes discussed month later etc.

Also... I don't know when and how these were discussed before, but...
What's the deal with replacements in general? I imagine it's fucked up when a game tanks before it had any chance to blossom, but I guess, I have an inherent problem with replacing players midgame. It throws of potentially important reads and gives a potential scum a reset on behaviour & consistence.

 

[RetroMG]

Crab, should we give priority to the games that are ready to run, but didn't get picked in the voting last year? For example, Burb's Tunnel of Love game wasn't picked for S4, but he's spent the whole season refining it, and now it's pretty great. Should something be done to account for that?

 

[Ourobolus]

If there are 6 or 7 balanced games, cutting one off arbitrarily doesn't seem right. I'm pretty content to let any balanced game go through.

"~" means "about."

But yeah, if there are plenty that have been vetted, then sure.

 

[Ourobolus]

New player here, wanted to chime in although I might be missing some perspective on the larger issues ;-)

Balancing on Nightvale was an issue in the end, but I wasn't aware of it during the game.

So let's talk a bit about Night Vale.

I don't think the game was that unbalanced. Mafia was a little on the weak side, but I don't think it was that much of a problem, PR-wise. The fact that they all died so quickly leads me to believe it was a matter of the players rather than the roles. Can someone explain to me how they thought it was unbalanced?

 

[RetroMG]

I have been biting my tongue on it, but NV was reviewed by Ouro, Launch, and Palmer before it ran.

 

[nin1000]

I think for HP, Town being lucky and discovering Voldemort N1 aswell as watching swamped getting visited by Crab, who then died. Was crutial. Since he was supposed to wipe out a lot of players. It was almost destined to happen since Planning ◙ Reality.

But well Crab played very very good. I will just quote him. Thats what he posted in the scum chat on Day 3

 

[Sorian]

I was on the ground so I didn't want to say anything but trying to be as impartial as possible, I don't think mafia was undertuned in NV either. PR-wise neither side had really any strong roles. What happened with Mazre was unfortunate in terms of the win condition but inviting me night one was also a downfall regardless and just bad luck (me being a gossip made me instantly suspicious). Squidy and Razmos ate each other alive. I'm with Palmer on insanity mechanics so /shrug there. I know you said something earlier in the thread of how I could think that was a town power at all. Well, same reason miller exists. To screw with your own, also blame Ouro for election.

I think one more scum member on the team (maybe vanilla, maybe not) is really all they needed so yes, a bit unbalanced in terms of numbers but the roles were all fine. I know it's easy to say that the neutrals would never side with scum but if scum hadn't been detected so early then the neutral would have been picking off town members anyway.

I will say that Razmos' role was kind of a weird franken-hybrid though that probably shouldn't have existed. It went antithesis to itself. On the one hand, he was the godfather that investigators could not find. Playing well, theoretically, he should be the last one alive because there will never be any hard evidence to find him. On the otehr hand, he was the wolf cub, the scum member that people want to bus first so that the double kill activates. The cohesion in roles wasn't there for him, he wants to hide but he also wants to be found.

Probably my only real sticking point looking at the scum team as a whole.

 

[Palmer_v1]

I have been biting my tongue on it, but NV was reviewed by Ouro, Launch, and Palmer before it ran.

Personally, in hindsight, I wish it had been 4 scum and 1 hidden partner, and that the glow cloud explicitly knew it could recruit the hidden partner.

Mazre was probably hosed the moment he invited the town gossip to his chat. That and the sample role issue meant he was doomed regardless of balance.

Razmos was too focused on past/current issues he had with Squidyj to realize what was going on, and on the same note, it was clearly an error for Squidyj, the hidden partner, to try to bait Razmos that way.

That's 3/4 of the scum team neutered very fast. I could be totally off base(which is why I was hoping Crab would comment), but scum lost entirely too fast for it to be solely an issue of balance.

 

[RetroMG]

Razmos' role was an example of thinking too much about flavor, and not enough about game design.
Mazre's death was completely on me, and I take responsibility for it.
Karu played so low that it caught Scrafty's attention, so she investigated him. (I think this is the case, anyway.)
And yes, Razmos and Squidy ate each other.

If I had it to do over, I would probably tune the SK, probably not make him bulletproof, and I would probably have added one more scum and maybe one more gossip. (Just to muddy the waters a little more.)

On the upside, Palmer recently commented to me that while he enjoys game design, he's too lazy to actually run the games, and while I enjoy running games, I'm not very good at the design aspect, so we've been collaborating on a few game ideas for the future.

EDIT: Dammit, I came in here to find the info for Xam's game, not get caught up talking about Night Vale.

 

[Palmer_v1]

I'm disinclined to do specific feedback in public. Running a game is hard and I don't want people to feel disencouraged / castigated. I will 100% give feedback to the gamerunners themselves by PM if required, and I will try and tailor my game design guide with what happened in mind so that mistakes made are less likely to happen again.

Obviously if gamerunners want a public postmortem I'm very happy to comply, though.

I'd probably want the feedback either way. I may not RUN another game for a while, but I would be happy to help balance/troubleshoot more, so I should probably understand where I went wrong. I just thought it being public would possibly help others understand some of the nuances better than we may have. My feelings will not be hurt by constructive criticism.