Simpsons Mafia (Game Thread)

[Takhisis]

Firstly, the Springfield Police characters, which all had the opportunity to arrest players at night, sending them to jail, were not active, and this ability was never successfully used. This was particularly very damaging to the Sprungfeld team, with setting up false arrests being their equivalent to a nightkill, and unfortunate the game played out that way.

Town inactivity somehow benefits the town.

 

[Autolycus]

Yes, I have to say that my team was a bit underpowered this game, because the frame ability was useless without a cop. What exactly did framing do?

 

[choxorn]

So yeah, I had to survive and kind of got screwed because Maggie shot me, that evil little baby. At least Springfield U won to fulfill my PG... excellent.

Here's the Burns-Smithers QT. Actually, I probably don't need to post it, since classical forgot to take the link out of the role PM he posted, but I'll post it anyway.

The game was a little fun to watch, and I was hoping for a while someone would de-hospitalize me, but I still spent almost the entire game not being able to do anything. Not Excellent.

 

[Zack]

Here's the Burns-Smithers QT.

I don't know how common this is among others, but when someone posts a QT, I usually just Ctrl-F my name and then never look at it again.

 

[classical_hero]

I posted the link, since it was not in use, since you got hospitalised early and I saw that there was no chance of us realistically using the QT.

 

[Autolycus]

Having our one cop in the team relatively inactive didn't help matters.

 

[Zack]

The 2011 Mafia/NOTW Awards are now open!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=11139934#post11139934

 

[Earthling]

I'm getting Role PMs up now, sorry for the bit of a delay. Quicktopic links are also up.

For now, I'll answer/address a few things for anyone curious, but I'm thinking you all just needed to have the Role PMs and quicktopics to explain some things.

Spoiler :

Takhisis and Autolycus - and for the Sprungfeld team in general:

Sorry to say again, but it was really bestrfcplayer being less effective and then hospitalized earlier that hurt you most.

Basically, any cop (3 in total) could as a night action arrest anyone who was a "criminal." The frame basically set this up for free, but other scum/certain abilities would make those people criminal too (killing, escaping from jail, etc... so the cops could have caught some Shelbyville or someone like Itchy blind)

I'll grant the town cops, had they been very active, weren't expected to directly harm the Sprungfeld team. That was because they couldn't easily arrest you as criminals or do anything regarding your cover roles, but they could have helped the town eliminate the other non-town parties much quicker and helped the town overall.

You did really need bestrfcplayer's character as a mole and mafia cop though. Even if the town cops remained a non-factor he could have arrested people fully on his own, and you'd have had a shot as long as you were able to lead on the general townies at large.

The team really had the potential for massive overkill, removing people from play very quickly (though people could be voted free for jail) but I know it just didn't work out at all and that was disappointing. We didn't have quite enough active players in total and some character roles became non-factors due to who randomly got them.

But then again, I'm happy for players like johnhughthom and NinjaCow getting the roles they did get and played excellently, rather than not randomizing it and trying to have the "best" roles go only to certain active players.

The rest of the Sprungfeld team gave it a good effort, and even bestrfcplayer also just died a bit early, and you guys got into some funny situations, I still thank you guys for that.


Some notes for the mafia/night actions and summarizing the GM quicktopic:

This is mostly for summarizing some things for anyone who is not going to read through the GM QT, which doesn't have much, so I'm hoping this suffices.

I would say this game had higher-than-average crossfire between non-town parties, first of all. Itchy took out DaveShack on the Shelbyville team, Shelbyville got one of the Sprungfeld mafia, and Shelbyville had some various kills missed or blocked due to factors like bulletproofness (Scratchy) or abduction (Takhisis).

All that taken together hurt the scum, certainly.

I'd like to comment if I hadn't before that the Scratchyians, particularly Zack when he became the recruiter, pulled off an excellent strategy of turning the Stonecutters into a stepping-stone for Scratchyian recruitment while they were able. They did manage to recruit enough people to survive Itchy killing them in the end.

The Stonecutters overall did not pan out to much at all. That was ok for the town, because the town was given multiple avenues for someone to take leadership - if not the Stonecutters or the cops, in this case some core townies like Simpsons family Bart (Winston with many public successes) and Maggie (good calls on both daytime vig hits) stepped up. The town had and needed some redundancy and the ones who made it far had done very well.

Finally, an observation not on specific actions taken but some possible missed opportunies:

The mafia could have allied with some of the neutrals/serial killer/cult at almost any time. Even to the very last phases, it was possible for Itchy to just ally with a mafia team had they gotten in contact and they probably could have each taken victory.

This possibility was completely intentional and expected to maybe be attempted if not very successful, though it really wasn't. So that's why the town certainly had a lot of tools, even a very early alliance of mafia and third parties would not have locked out the town. At the same time, had things played differently, it would have been fun to see something like Itchy/Scratchy allying with mafia for joint victory, or any neutrals taking sides. (Though as a GM it would have been better to improve the Burns/Smithers victory conditions, I think).

There were a handful of abilities I wanted to see used that were missed most, if you didn't see them in the Role PMs or GM QT. Those would be:

Prinicipal Skinner, who could catch child characters and put them in detention (could get townies like Bart, one of the few things bypassing Bart's bulletproof-like ability, but note that Lisa and the Milhouses were also all scum).

Second, it would have been nice to see Itchy get a bomb to a couple more folks, though the Shelbyville mafia stole one and blew themselves up which was interesting enough.

The monorail, had it been built, would allow a player to be chosen as monorail conductor and gain a busdriver ability. Certainly would have been something for folks to scrap over, townies would have done best to give it to a townie with a passive or day ability and no night ability though mafia who got it could certainly make use of it.

Finally, Homer could "jump the Springfield Gorge" if he acquired Bart's skateboard. This would be the counterpart to Flanders' breakdown (Flanders getting lynched triggered the town to be upset and miss a day). If Homer jumped the Gorge, it would skip a night, as everyone would gather to see him attempt it - and he'd be hospitalized afterwards (but that would accomplish one of his mini-victory conditions).

On that one last note, for choxorn and classical_hero:

There were possibilities for anyone to be healed from the hospital. In fact it was a worry that there was too much of that, because Itchy/the Milhouses had their own personal abilities too, but it didn't work out that way. Unfortunately Dr. Hibbert, who was mayor, never used his personal ability which could have healed a couple of people. And the three-eyed fish was a one-shot to heal anyone, though that wasn't obvious before the vote. landlubber got it and ultimately gave it to a townie, which was funny though.

 

[Earthling]

And again, the link to the first set of Role PM posts is this post number here

If I had any particular requests on discussion, though I know most people probably won't read through all the Role PMs, but for anyone who is taking a look it would be nice to have some feedback on how the scum cover roles were. (the ones who had official cover roles that would affect scan abilities/etc... were most mafia plus Sideshow Bob and Itchy)

Also, happy holidays to everyone!

 

[choxorn]

So, you had 40 roles... which ones did you cut?

I'd assume the curiously absent Marge Simpson is one of them, and Luann Van Houten is probably another, just going off of Kirk and Milhouse's role PM's. I don't have any other guesses, though.

 

[Earthling]

No, Marge was never intended to be a character; Luann was possible in the outline of game design but not one of the final cut roles - more accurately the equivalent sort of role she would have been was fully realized with Helen Lovejoy, having both of those pairs was excessive and she wasn't really necessary for the Milhouse setup either.

the cut roles, keeping in mind some of the mafia or other characters abilities would have changed a little accordingly to what we had here, were: Barney Gumble, who would have been able to scan for his drinking buddies and would have replaced someone else as a Stonecutters candidate, Nelson Muntz, who could roleblock child characters, who would be a busdriver conditional on the monorail not taking effect, and Martin Prince, who had another flavor scan for intelligent characters - compare Lisa's. Actually have partial Role PMs dug up for Otto and Nelson, the others would have followed the same format and looked very much like other Innocent Role PMs too.

So good question as a reminder, here's those two - I don't think a full 40 signups was entirely expected so cutting a couple was understandable, 36 was a little sparse but it was a struggle for activity anyway.

Spoiler :

Player:
Character: Otto Mann
Faction: Springfieldian (Innocent)
Victory Condition: Eliminate all hostile forces.
Personal Goal: Prevent construction of the monorail, or else become its conductor.

Abilities: Bus Driver : Each night you may switch two players for the purpose of night action targeting. Actions that were to affect one player now affect the other and vice versa.
Items: None

Background:
You are the reckless school bus driver for Springfield Elementary. You are into recreational drugs and usually just barely on the safe side of the law, mostly failing to live up to your potential as a Brown graduate. That said almost nothing can get through your carefree, rock on attitude and you’ll do your job and see Springfield and its children through this crisis…as long as they let you keep your job.

Feel free to ask any questions about your role. Good Luck!

Player:
Character: Nelson Muntz
Faction: Springfieldian (Innocent)
Victory Condition: Eliminate all hostile forces.
Personal Goal: Bully at least three other children.

Abilities: Ha ha!: Each night you may roleblock another player. This ability will only work on children and some other characters but many adults would easily ignore or reprimand you.
Items: None

Background:

A fourth grader at Springfield elementary, you come from a poor single parent household and often deal with your own troubles in life by bullying other children. You are effectively ringleader of a gang that frequently beats up Bart, Milhouse, and many other children.

Feel free to ask any questions about your role. Good Luck!

 

[Takhisis]

No Nelson, no Marge… but the Sea Captain and other relatively minor roles left in? WTH?

 

[classical_hero]

Nevermind.