How to setup and mod a game:

[Nolder]

Modkill is usually a punishment for breaking a rule whereas a Randomkill is administered for failure to decide who to lynch by a given deadline

[Blackhoof]

generally randomkills are written as natural or highly accidental deaths. for example, "the town is indecisive, constantly arguing but unable to come to a decision. suddenly, lightning strikes bob and he dies"

[DPR]

Why are you planning to modkill? That's kind of like a police cadet asking how to waste an uppity civilian...

In the game I'm playing, Locke stated that if there was no lynching by the end of the day, a random player would be killed. I assumed it was common practice. And I was asking how to write the scene.

 

All of the above comments are right on. Then, you have to decide if your scenes are going to be purely "flavor", or if they will contain clues to the game. Traditionally, scenes are flavor because any game information can skew the results toward one side or the other. However, it is popular (and inevitable because its too much fun) to throw some hints out there. If you do, keep in mind that everything you say will be taken as a hint - everything - so be very aware of what you do. Then, it's just a matter of being entertaining, which applies to all scene writing.

 

I should also note that the scenes are not actually part of the original game, but a latter addition to make it more enjoyable. You don't have to have them, though.

 

 

 

[Ironeyes]

Thanks. That clears up a lot of confusion for me.

[Basel Gill]

The idea is that a player's finesse is always more valuable than their power, per say. First, the win condition is unique in that the SK only has to survive among the last three players. Second, the lower the player count, the fewer kills necessary to keep the game moving, and the closer to victory that player is. When you get right down to it, it's the power of your argument that wins games, and being able to talk yourself in and out of situations without the benefit of roles. Does that make sense?

 

It does make sense, and it clears up a great deal. Thanks.

[Basel Gill]

Here's one other thing I have been wondering: I've seen a lot of folk saying that for your first time modding, it's helpful to find an experienced co-mod to help you run the game. How does this tie into theme? Players don't necessarily need to know the source material, but what about mods? One option I've been considering for my first game is to go completely themeless. Part of this is a theme would be one more complication for me to deal with when I've never modded before. But another reason that has me pondering is, how much of whatever theme I choose, if I choose one, would a co-mod need to know? Supposing I'm at work for the day when a hammer vote gets cast and a death scene needs to go up? And if a co-mod needs to have some familiarity with the source material, won't this reduce (perhaps drastically) the number of people who could possibly help out in modding?

[LilyElizabeth]

I don't think a co-mod is necessary. Just have someone experienced check your game over before you run it.

[Gabriel Kross]

Basel if someone were willing to assist you could supply them with useful source material, I'm doing research now for the game me and Tina are gonna be comodding

[JenLenaMom]

A co-mod doesn't necessarily have to know the theme, any more than you would expect all the players to be completely familiar before playing. What a co-mod does for a less experienced mod is provide advice and back-up for the crazy things that can happen in mafia. Looking over the set up before hand they can help with balance issues, it might seem really cool to give every player a power but you need to know how those powers interact in a game to be able to balance, etc. Also during a game they can help you deal with any unexpected kinks that always seem to arise no matter how carefully you've planned the game and help you answer players questions and if need be back you up if the players start to get unruly. Also in a very large and/or very active game having two sets of eyes is useful.

[Basel Gill]

Here's something I have been wondering of late. The number of mafia in a game is supposed to be about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total number of players, right? How do you handle this when you have more than one scum faction? Do you go for having the total number of scum being 1/4 of the whole game, or do you have each faction be 1/4 of everyone? Or somewhere in between?

 

Lets say you have two mafias of three players each. That's 6 scum total. If you have 1 scum to 3 town, then you have 24 players total. Except each faction is competing against the other scum as well as town, and is outnumbered 21-3. That's 7 to 1 odds, and considerably less than 1/4. The game sounds well-balanced for town, but each faction would see it as town-heavy. But if you go the other way, and have each faction individually number 1/4 of the total, then you have 6 scum and 6 town. Town is facing 1 to 1 odds against the total scum. The scum teams would find this well-balanced but now the game is weighted against town.

 

So do you go halfway and have 18 players total? Or can it be balanced out better with power roles? And all this is assuming only two scum teams! How do you balance out town and scum if it's three, or even four?

[Nolder]

I generally handle balance by trying to aim for about 1/4 scum roles. So in a 12 player that's 3. If you want to have say a mafia and a serial killer cut the mafia down to 2 but role them heavily and leave the town almost entirely vanilla.

 

Honestly when you start going into 20+ player range and 3+ factions you might as well wing it and hope for the best. Those will never be 100% balanced IMO.

[Alanna]

You don't need to totally double it, but I do believe each mafia team is at more of a disadvantage when there are 2 of them. I usually go with 1/4 anti-town per game, but with 2 mafia teams, I might go to 1/3.

[Blackhoof]

well, if you think of each separate mafia team as the ONLY mafia teas, and the other teams as masons, and if each team needs to be the majority, then it is balanced. providing they dont ALL get kills, that is. maybe they take it in turns or something?

[WWWwombat]

Here's something I have been wondering of late. The number of mafia in a game is supposed to be about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total number of players, right? How do you handle this when you have more than one scum faction? Do you go for having the total number of scum being 1/4 of the whole game, or do you have each faction be 1/4 of everyone? Or somewhere in between?

 

Lets say you have two mafias of three players each. That's 6 scum total. If you have 1 scum to 3 town, then you have 24 players total. Except each faction is competing against the other scum as well as town, and is outnumbered 21-3. That's 7 to 1 odds, and considerably less than 1/4. The game sounds well-balanced for town, but each faction would see it as town-heavy. But if you go the other way, and have each faction individually number 1/4 of the total, then you have 6 scum and 6 town. Town is facing 1 to 1 odds against the total scum. The scum teams would find this well-balanced but now the game is weighted against town.

 

So do you go halfway and have 18 players total? Or can it be balanced out better with power roles? And all this is assuming only two scum teams! How do you balance out town and scum if it's three, or even four?

 

I did some simulations of 2 mafia family games a while back. Here is a spreadsheet of the 39 most balanced 2 mafia setups. Please note that no roles are assumed in these simulations and even so much as adding the standard Doc/Cop combo will change the balance significantly.

 

https://docs.google....dENqYmRURXhCbVE

[WWWwombat]

I did 1000 trials for each setup btw.

[Basel Gill]

Those are some impressive stats, Womby.

[WWWwombat]

Yeah, in general 1/4 mafia is theoretically too much for a 1 faction game. That being said, my simulations use completely random lynches and therefore do not account for scumhunting or psychology. It has been shown that in real play, the town tends to win more often than theory would suggest:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29#Game_experience_and_strategy

 

As you can see, theoretically balancing even a simple game is very hard. Game theory seems not to have investigated mafia very much. Also, the psychological elements cannot be accounted for mathematically. Balancing a setup that you are running for the first time is more of an art than a science.

[Basel Gill]

That also seems to assume that all sides will make the best possible moves. I've been on the winning side a couple of times and seen some heavy what-ifs for how it could have gone a lot worse if the other team had only chosen differently.

[Sedai]

IMO it always comes down to player ability. You can never really get a game perfectly balanced, but if both sides have multiple paths to a win that's as good as you can hope for. Random org determines who wins more often then not because they set my teams.

[Ironeyes]

I'm finally going to mod a game now! Is there a set of generic rules I can adapt? So far I've just modified one from a game I played.

[Blackhoof]

well, the standard for a basic game is as follows:

 

12 players:

6 vanilla townies

1 doc

1 cop

1 serial killer

3 mafia

 

 

past that, sound advice is to keep the 1/4 to 1/3 anti-town/town ration and have no more than half the game with abilities (the latter subject to change though)

[Ironeyes]

No, I meant the rules at the front, like "Don't reveal your role pm's" and stuff. I already have the setup done and DPR-approved.

[LilyElizabeth]

No, there's no set of standard rules. Every mod is different in what they want their rules to be.

[Blackhoof]

generally i just copy a mod's rule list form another game, SAY i copied it and tweak some things to my liking.

[Ironeyes]

I copied one and changed everything so it doesn't look copied. Now I just need to get into that queueueueueueueueueueueueue...