Mafia: Information, Announcements, and Discussion

stats:
spearman 0 ATK 20 DEF; spearman can defend someone else by giving +15 DEF to target and drops to 10 DEF on himself. This way so if two spearman defend each other they both go to 25 DEF; the drop to 10 DEF makes it equivalent to a bowman but dedicated only to defense, and without an option to attack (see below).

swordsman 10 ATK 10 DEF; can only attack

bowman 5 ATK 10 DEF; can attack or defend. if he defends a target, bowman gives 10 DEF on target and stays at 10 DEF on self. He can take a "defensive stance" on himself, i.e. protect himself, and raise it to 15 DEF. Thus two bowman protecting each other go to 20 DEF (les than spearman). The idea is a bowman is a "ranged" defender and it doesn't matter if he is being attacked or someone he is protecting is being attacked, he just adds +10 DEF (like an arrow shot). A spearman is "melee" and, since fighting up close, has to kind-of-protect-himself even though he is protecting his target too. The split of attention makes the spearman defense go the way it does (to 15 DEF on target, 10 on self). A bowman is more flexible than spearman though.

shaman 0 ATK 10 DEF; modify stats; shaman can give an "aura" on someone that gives +/- 2.5 non-permanent stats of the shaman's choice each night on a target for each consecutive night he is on the target (aura gets stronger overtime). He can target himself and he can switch DEF or ATK (eg n1 give +2.5 ATK but n2 choose to do +5 DEF, or +2.5 ATK +2.5 DEF). He cannot flip from all positive to negative though (eg puts aura on a target for n1 and n2, then on n3 suspects it of being a demon. He cannot change from +5 to -7.5. He can only restart aura and make it -2.5).

Right now I would have it so shaman's only night action is to cast his aura, or attack like anyone else--i.e. there is no benefit for a shaman to add +ATK stats to himself. The aura only protects the single target it is cast on and cannot be "shared" (eg take a n1 aura of +2.5 DEF to a spearman who is defending a swordsman. The spearman goes to 0 ATK 12.5 DEF and the swords goes to 10 ATK 25 DEF).

the shaman is a class for "don't want to do anything but protect myself", as then the night order can be to selfcast his aura.

demons/soul scourge: have base of 5 ATK 5 DEF, then get adjusted for composition that town puts out:
+1 ATK per spearman
+1 DEF/swordsman
(+0.5 ATK +0.5 DEF)/bowman
(+0.5 ATK +0.5 DEF)/shaman

this way the soul scourge end up ~12-14 range in their stats. Eg 4 of each class soul scourge get 13 ATK/13 DEF, a "attack heavy" distribution like 4 spears 6 swords 4 bows 2 shaman goes to 12 ATK/14 DEF; all spearman would be 21 ATK/5 DEF (spearman cannot attack though), all swordsmen would be 5 ATK/21 DEF (three swords to kill a demon), all bowman or shaman would go to 13/13 (again 3 bows to kill a demon without stat gains, and starting night 3 two attack auras could kill a demon until night 6 where one attack aura could). The game is supposed to have a more even distribution that "all spearman" or "all swordsman"

if a demon/soul scourge attack kills a spearman, swordsman, or bowman, 1 of the soul scourge in the attack absorbs the base stats of the killed target. Soul scourge get no stat gain from killing a shaman; idea is that they eat the "physical" soul of the target and shaman work through magical auras. *actually, I guess I should give two choices: either that 1 gets all the stats or to split it up evenly; specified with the kill order*

This makes it so that the demons get stronger overtime despite losing their numbers (but only a little bit stronger), and could give the demon team a decision of splitting stats equally or trying to "beef up" one stronger demon (and risk that demon getting lynched).

main changes to be considered:
--let demons distribute eaten stats anyway they want (eg if 4 demon kill a spearman, they could choose to give +10/+5/+2.5/+2.5 or something). This is a debate between whether the gain would be "immediate" (see scenarios where townies attack a demon, but if demon gets stat gain he could survive if his attack goes first) or if the scum want to divide things up by the midday. It's better if they got to choose the distribution of stat gain, but to actually implement there would have to be time to inform them of what class they killed, at which point they could meta-game based on who is threatened in the day's lynch.

--playing around with stats: main consideration is about the bowman could maybe take a "defensive posture" on himself and go to 15 DEF on himself and not protect someone else. Also swordsman as 10 DEF or 12.5 DEF. This is playing around with single-demon vs single-bowman dynamics.

--right now since the shaman has to "maintain" the aura every night, he cannot target himself and attack at the same time. So in the interest of flexibility a shaman has an interest in putting his aura on someone else, but he could always just sit on himself every night (such that n4 he is equal to spearman with 20 DEF, and n5 he has 22.5 DEF).

--see if game could be extrapolated to other numbers of players. I want a 20% scum ratio (here 4:16), but if I only get like 18 signups I would probably need 3 scum instead of 4. I also want the basic concept (townies choose class; scum gain unique stuff when eating townies) to be easily extended to other versions of the game [not necessarily stat based like this one; could be ability driven, etc]. Games where every townie chooses a class with stats/abilities known beforehand (as opposed to GM tweaking stuff around) need to also be robust against human/player biases and try to make each class appealing on its own.

overall notes:
--ATK > DEF kills. a tie does not (so basic swordsman attacking a townie does not kill 1v1)

--lynch is plurality and kills automatically; no stats matter for lynch. tied lynch first to reach number dies. "no lynch" is option (note how no lynch can sync up with giving shaman more time for channeling auras).

--anyone can attack. So if some demon lies to a spearman/shaman and says he has an aura on them or something, the spearman/shaman can try to "add" to an attack but would just contribute +0 ATK. this also helps shaman be more flexible if they target a spearman or something

--the target that has the highest ATK stats against him will be hit first. In case of tie, the attack with the highest number of people involved goes first. So if like the demons are attacking swordsmen who are attacking the demons, it depends on the numbers involved, and thus the person who is attacked second could survive if they kill the other attacker first

--soul scourge can defend if they want, like I would anticipate an "attack plan" for 3 demons to attack a target then the fourth can either try to pick off another target or defend someone if they are scared of an incoming attack (or ate a spearman). If the demons choose to attack in a 2/2 formation, they risk not getting a kill. This is where the bowman change kicks in, as I don't really want a bowman to be killed by a single demon (demons will be around 12-14 ATK). Shaman can put an aura on himself but bowman don't have a defense, but at same time I don't want to change bowman to 12.5 DEF as then two bowman protecting each other is equivalent to two spearman, and the +15 DEF from spearman is large enough difference to make people want to choose spearman over a bowman of +10 DEF. only a +2.5 difference would make archer much more appealing that spearman.

--the general mafia vs town attack balance is supposed to be around a [(number of protectors) + 2] is needed to kill a townie, and about 2 swordsmen or 3 attackers (mix of swordsman/bowman/shaman) are needed from a town to kill a demon on n1. 2 attackers can kill another townie. Like, for instance, if a spearman protects a swordsman, the defense on the swordsman goes to 25. This is close to requiring 3 demons to kill (but may be only 2). If 2 spearman protects a swordsman, DEF goes to 40, which would mean about 3-4 demons needed for the kill initially.