Setup Discussion Thread

[funnier6]

Can’t remember which came first, rereading the books, or the idea for the game. Cause last summer I was watching the Netflix series which either inspired me to do the game or reread the books which inspired the game. Anyway it was always gonna be based around secrets and codes. As I was planning the roles it was getting pretty obvious that there was no way I could include everything I wanted to include so that’s where you get the book change mechanism and Olaf’s and Shape-Shifter’s many roles.

I wasn’t really ultra sure about how the guardians thing would work since ya know, this kind of thing hadn’t been done since Deku’s Inception game and that was randomly assigned and not flavor related. Am kinda disappoint that we only got to the Wide Window but I can’t say I was terribly prepared for the other three anyway. That whole thing where the lynch death reflected whatever ability the godfather had was an accident but a cool accident cause it made me seem like I’d planned it lol.

Also much disappoint on the codes thing. I hadn’t gotten it all the way to where I wanted it but they didn’t get used at all lol. Well ALIT tried. And a total shame that Minish never got to forge any messages. Encoding them in different ways probably would’ve gotten exhausting so that’s not too bad lol.

The rest of Hero’s roles were Larry-Your-Waiter/secret messages, Phil/Motivator, and Duncan/something Isadora related hadn’t quite figured it out. Also Idk if everybody saw but Deku’s role was a blend between commuter and vig that changed depending on whether Ésme decided smoke was in or out.

Some things were a little bit wonky, cause you know I’m all about that flavor. So Josephine being the “cop” of the game as the grammar police even though she’s terrified of everything was interesting. A little quirk with the Incredibly Deadly Viper was that if Josephine checked him the result would just be screaming. You can probably tell but I tried to keep town from being very powerful because I know how OP town can get in role madness. I was thinking all the people sending secret messages would effectively be pretty darn investigative so Josephine wasn’t a very good cop. Sunny comes up as Imperfect from a grammar check because, ya know, to Sunny “Gak” means “look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog”. She would’ve checked Ésme and Olaf as Perfect if Ésme had grammar set to in and would have checked most of the adults as Imperfect if Ésme had set grammar to out.

Also oof, but that hypnotist role was soooo cool! At the beginning of every day storma would tell me who he was targeting and what their trigger/release word was and then he’d @ them and hypnotize them. Then he could make em do whatever! Cept it’s storma so they all had to die. D: Also if anyone had caught on and used the trigger word to hypnotize the same person, it would’ve worked. Would’ve been amazing if that had happened tbh. Then if the release word was spoken the hypnotized would be unhypnotized and need to be hypnotized again if you’re going that route. Man I love that role!

Much sorry I didn’t have everything all the way planned and rest assured it won’t happen again and lemme know if I forgot to mention something!

 

[Johnny Sooshi]

what's up lads and chads i got one singular request for talking about the setup of THEBESTZDMAFIA so here u go deku buddy time to drag up some files from 2015



In case yall didn't know, THEBESTZDMAFIA was supposed to be the best and worst game ZD ever had. We wanted to host a bastard game so damn bad and by golly we were going to make it the best bastard game ZD ever saw. It didn't quite go as we planned, but that's kind of the beauty of it. We still had fun, the Polar Bear still had fun, writing the flavor was pretty fun, inventing new roles was fun, that's all that matters is that We Had Fun.


So I admit the whole "hi friend" in the role PMs was a little annoying lol but it was worth it for the memes. I relied on Johnny a lot for most of the amazing flavor, he did all of that really well. The scene where (i think we made up this role?) the Daredevil attracted every single kill and then proceeded to dodge ALL OF THEM, he wrote that one beautifully. Most of the posts are broken now the THEBESTEMOTES are gone but the idea of a ton of filthy memers chasing down a shifting form of the dankest memes, I had a good laugh. Shoutout to Johnny for carrying most of the flavor. also shoutout to dekunut for having an emote in his name lmfao

Addressing the asshole in the room, I wanted to have a Poisoner SK but I gave it a flavor name that was super problematic looking back on it, oops, that was really dark for a mafia game on a zelda forum LMFAO. The thing about it was that after getting attacked the person would get really quiet and then kill themselves at the end of the day after I believe, but most people were so inactive that the posting restriction wasn't really noticeable. Anyway it was kind of a ****ty flavor name that's my b

Basically this game was a cluster**** of bull**** roles we wanted to throw around. We had a lot more ideas but ultimately didn't end up putting them in, but here's most of the garbage that we did put in. We wanted to put in a Judas, like a traitor who becomes mafia, but either the player never died or we just forgot lmfao. Of course we had to have a flying pumpkin. We had a Jester, shoutout to Yiga lmao. We had two cops, one was Stupid and had a chance of screwing up his results, the second was the Smart Cop who had to lynch the Stupid Cop in order to win. We had lovers who had to solve a riddle to find their lover, they both got it pretty quickly gg guys. We had a quack vig and quack doc We had TWO SERIAL KILLERS. We had a 4 target Bus Driver, which I left to Johnny to figure out how it works lmao and also we gave him complicated win conditions such as redirecting a mafia kill onto a mafia member or the polar bear never getting targeted for a lynch or NK. We had a Lyncher whose target switched every day but he was on every single lynch so we just gave him a win anyway. By the end of it I don't think anyone really cared who won anyway, especially since we crashed a plane into the thread and killed everyone

The mafia godfather was bulletproof and odd day lynchproof. There was a mafia stripper who had to softclaim "sexy nurse" before a certain time. The roleblocker was OCD and could only post in an even number of words but I forgot to count lmfao. We made the strongman a posting addict hahaha so in order to make sure the kill went through no matter what she had to post (non-consecutively) 10 times, but if she posted too much she'd OD and have a chance of dying.

The Russian was a great role and we had a wonderful time coming up with it and its ability. Sort of a either gladiator or desperado i can't remember which, but the way Rainy ended up using russian roulette was fantastic. of course the person who got shot was the polar bear hahahaha that was pure unbridled rng at its finest

Speaking of the Russian, the Drunk modifiers were hilarious, honestly probably my favorite part was how much Jamie complained about it whenever he had to be drunk. And speaking of Jamie, we invented his role as well, Damsel in Distress would call for help if (s)he was about to get lynched and a random player would be chosen to decide whether or not to save him. On top of that we made him a thing I called Schizophrenic, where he would have a random modifier each day called Drunk, Evil (another word for PGO, he'd just kill anything that targeted him), OCD, and [modified SK], if he ever changed to SK he just wouldn't be town anymore but he could lose his killing ability.

Ghost in the Machine was another role we made up, that person died super early on and then we secretly gave him the mafia QT link so he could just, see everything. He was allowed to make one post at night I think but it could only have 4 words in it due to a bad connection. It was not utilized the way we thought it would be but frankly using "hmm" as one of your 4 words is daring as **** so, still getting props

I posted these in the thread but the Godmodder (aka dreaming god) abilities were ****ing hilarious and I'm disappointed none of them really got used except the glitter one. There were abilities where the mods would lie to the players, some would do nothing at all or just do dumb **** like insist everyone refer to them by a certain name or make a player unable to post. missed opportunity, rip

So by this point you're probably going "gosh golly some of these roles seemed to have been hand picked for the perfect player!!!!" And by gosh you're right. We gave out most of the roles by hand to people we knew would play them well, and then all the arbitrary ones we let RNG sort out. The non alignment roles were easiest, JC and Tristan we thought would be perfect but unfortunately JC ended up being pretty inactive. Tristan did great though lmao mad props bud. Heroine of Time, a notoriously inactive player, had to be the posting addict. She never got to use her strongman. Jamie was the Damsel, we knew he could handle a complicated role like that and we wanted to see him become SK. I think Johnny skewed the RNG once and said he'd rolled Drunk again when he really didn't lol. Odd was the Ghost in the Machine because we knew people would kill him for the memes and so we gave him the broken role.

Surprisingly, most of the mafia survived iirc, at least for a while, and I don't think either of the SKs were killed until the ending plane crash, but I could be wrong. I think I remember we had to modkill some players for inactivity though cuz no one was a replacement since the game was so huge.


Finally, let's talk about the most important role, the Polar Bear. Tristan was so damned good as the Polar Bear. His role was designed just to **** with the game and he played it perfectly. He derailed so much **** and I loved every moment of it. Johnny and I were so excited about this role because it would confuse everything. Everyone was focused so hard on killing him lmao but he just couldn't ever die. It completely derailed the game. It was beautiful. But let's talk about the most important thing he ever did, and the badass fight scene I put in because of it. He dared to do the one thing no man has ever dared to do in the history of ZD mafia. He screenshotted his role PM. It was fantastic, it was hilarious, I lost my mind when I read it, it made everyone ignore him after that but it didn't matter. In his honor, I wrote the singular greatest piece of writing I have ever written. Shoutout to Tristan, thanks for the memes buddy



In hindsight we probably should have implemented less of these things, but we wanted everyone to have a ****ty role, not just some people! We did do tons of research about bastard roles for this and even invented our own, that was great. I loved every minute of this game, except for the inactivity. The thing that killed this game was the dwindling mafia interest that had already begun before THEBESTZDMAFIA was finished getting planned. It could've been way more chaotic, which probably would have been annoying to play but more fun for Johnny and I lmao. I do want to host another ****ty bastard game but not for a very long time and only if I have a co-mod that can stand up to Johnny's quality.
if i forgot anything in this post lmk and i'll edit the **** out of it


overall score 7.8/10 too much water

I just wanted to come in and give my take on this since I haven't visited to do so yet. The idea for the bastard game, afaik was LG's. At the time we were just trying to theory craft games and have some fun. We put a ton of time into research for the game roles though. LG is absolutely right about that. I think we spent a solid two weeks just designing everything. Bastard wasn't really something that ZD ever saw before, so we thought a big bastard game would entertain everyone. I think we ended up entertaining ourselves the most with it though.

In hindsight the role that LG mentions being a bit too dark is definitely something that a couple of edgy young adults would think up. I was in freshman year of college and looking back on it, I don't think I'd make that role organically now. It was too edgy overall, and we could probably have figured out something better for it. That said, the power of it was perfect for the game. If you don't know or remember the role, go back to the game thread and look towards the last pages for the role reveals. Not my proudest role title, but certainly a good one in terms of power.

The School Bus Driver (bus driver who can take powers A and B and chose to redirect them whichever way they chose with powers C and D) was a real cluster****. I pushed for it but it was fun af to bounce that one around and see what happened.

Stripper and Drunk were fun. People thought the strippers were a cult and that just made it more fun. Drunk was an enjoyable modifier since some of our posters really struggled with how it worked out. Likewise, addicts were fun to push onto specific notorious players who posted rarely.

The sane and insane cops were fun to use and they were based off of a lot of Dethy we played at the time.

Ghost in the Machine was one of my absolute favorites. It had the potential to be game breaking and Odd used it pretty well for the most part. He got to meddle with things only slightly, but it definitely was a great role for the game.

Godmodder was something I wished got used more, as it was just a Dreaming God with some more interesting powers. But it was really fun in the idea department. The glitter move was pretty funny to watch too.

The Russian was my favorite, hands down. The built in drunk modifier was fun, and the fact that it was basically a russian roulette version of the gladiator roll.

And finally the Polar Bear. Tristan really used the role to the best of his abilities. Tristan is one of my favorite players from ZD since he first started playing and I loved seeing how he handled this role. 10/10 would give it to him again.

All in all, this flavor was fun, the game was, if not a little bugged. Of course, bastard games should be taken with a grain of salt, but I think we were a solid one. And I'd love to host another one with LG whenever, sooner or later. If anyone has any questions, like LG said, ask us. We'd be more than happy to answer. :kcool:

 

[GrooseIsLoose]

what about a white flag game?

 

[Johnny Sooshi]

what about a white flag game?

I don't think we've ever had one. A balanced white flag game would be cool though.

 

[DekuNut]

I guess I haven't posted in here for a while, and I'm pretty behind on my games.... heh heh heh...
This time, I'm going to discuss Jumanfia, the Jumanji-themed mafia game I ran with @funnier6 on Bulbagarden back in August.
Game link

Spoiler: Player List

1. MegaPod - Sarah Whittle, a Player, Lynched Day 5/Endgame
2. ShinyRockruff204/Silverfish - The Pod, Spirit of the Absorber, Survived
3. Minish - The Elephant, a Bulletproof Spirit, Survived
4. Cyber Wolf/Jinjo - Van Pelt, the Great White Serial Killer, Killed Night 3
5. CheffOfGames - The Lion, Spirit of the Cop, Lynched Day 3
6. ExLight - The Vegetation, Spirit of the Neighborizer, Killed Day 2
7. Contrainer - The Leopard, Spirit of the Tracker, Killed Night 2
8. Calvin =) - The Thunderstorm, One-Shot Lightning Rod Spirit, Killed Night 1
9. Rainbow Cloud - Alan Parish, a Player, Lynched Day 4
10. Water Blue Man - Judy and Peter Shepherd, a pair of Players, Lynched Day 2
11. Max1996 - The Quicksand, Spirit of the Roleblocker, Lynched Day 1
12. Officer Snake/Spiritual Mask Salesman - The Tornado, Spirit of the Bus Driver, Survived
13. Laurentus - The Rhino, Spirit of the Bodyguard, Killed Night 3

THE TOWN
Initially, the town were all Vanilla Townies, or "Spirits". Each phase, one new card would be revealed, possibly allowing a townie to hvae their true role revealed to them. Thus, the town became more powerful as the game went on. This was our intention.
THE MAFIA
The Mafia started off as a regular mafia team with no powers. But, unlike the town, they didn't gain powers as the game went on. Instead,they spent the whole game powerless, trekking through a jungle that gets more treacherous with every step. To make things more balanced, I gave them an extra option for a wincon. Every phase, I would a roll a pair of six-sided dice, and would "move" a piece that many spaces on a 50-space board. If any member of the mafia were to survive until Space 50 and post the word "Jumanji" in the thread, the entire mafia team would win the game.
THE SERIAL KILLER
Of course, it couldn't just be as simple as town and mafia. We needed something to spice the game up. And that's where our dear friend Van Pelt came in. He worked both as a force of chaos and as a way to punish nameclaims, since he had two specific targets that he wanted to kill (Alan Parish/Rainbow Cloud and The Elephant/Minish), one from each alignment. This gave him a fair shot at winning without having to line up with either party. So long as he killed them and survived, he would reach his wincon, no matter the winners of the game.
THE CARDS
As previously mentioned, the Jumanji cards were able to give the members of the town their powers. But they also had the ability to cause an event to occur that would affect the whole game. This would include moving extra spaces, roleblocking players, or random player death. These were meant to cause a little extra havoc in the game outside the players control.
THE ISSUES
The main issue with this game was the amount of randomness I feel. The number of spaces moved per turn was random. The cards chosen were random. This led to a lot of unpredictability, which eventually led to the last mafia, who was playing quite well, to fail their nightkill and then get lynched. A loss beyond their own control. If I redid this game over, I would've redone the cards to have just the roles, and also maybe given a little boost to the roles the mafia made. They had some bad luck with the numbers.
I would've also made the serial killer's wincon a little nicer. Instead of having to kill both, instead just killing one and outliving both should be enough to get a win for him.

Thanks again to funnier for hosting this game with me!
The full setup document can be seen here.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

buff wolves a lot
I would get rid of the die rolling mechanic and give them actual roles to start with
and make the serial killer not be killing wolves

I like the progression from vanilla>role

well, yeah
you can't have crazy out of the box mechanics and still have a standard game of TWG
if you want it to be a more enjoyable experience you probably need to slim down the RNG just a touch, the 50 square think should just be gone, it doesn't reward good play at all and just makes town feel cheated probably
the cards could be fine with a certain implementation, perhaps players need to find their own card and you can trade with players each night? Gives wolves an advantage as they have the knowledge of 3 cards at a time and townies only have one- claiming a card to trade would alert wolves to whoever needs that role
randomness and relatively low impact comparitively perhaps

 

[GrooseIsLoose]

Could hold the sign ups here and play on Discord?

Even small messages take up a lot of space +scrolling through 100 pages isn't easy either. So how about the idea? Good? Bad?

 

[ExLight]

Could hold the sign ups here and play on Discord?

no

Discord is a quick paced media for instantaneous chatting
so discord mafia and forum mafia are completely different games in practice

we might host some discord mafia games someday, but if we do they prolly won't be announced here since they're usually way faster in every single aspect

as for taking space, idk why your phone shows signatures
try downloading another browser app

 

[GrooseIsLoose]

we might host some discord mafia games someday,

Can I participate?

 

[ExLight]

Can I participate?

sure, I guess

but why you asking me
I ain't hosting any games

 

[Chevywolf30]

I had an idea for one called Majora's Mafia.
Basically, there is only 1 mafia in at least 10 players, and town only have 3 days to figure out who. If the mafia is found in less than 3 days, town wins. If 3rd day ends and the mafia isn't found, mafia wins.
Opening flavor something like this:
The Hero of Time had already stopped Majora from crashing the moon into Terminia via Skull Kid wearing Majora's Mask. But now the Hero is gone, and Majora's Mask destroyed, yet the moon is coming down again. The citizens of Terminia figure that Majora is now directly possesing one of them, and without the Hero of Time, they only have 3 days to find out who.

 

[ExLight]

I had an idea for one called Majora's Mafia.
Basically, there is only 1 mafia in at least 10 players, and town only have 3 days to figure out who. If the mafia is found in less than 3 days, town wins. If 3rd day ends and the mafia isn't found, mafia wins.
Opening flavor something like this:
The Hero of Time had already stopped Majora from crashing the moon into Terminia via Skull Kid wearing Majora's Mask. But now the Hero is gone, and Majora's Mask destroyed, yet the moon is coming down again. The citizens of Terminia figure that Majora is now directly possesing one of them, and without the Hero of Time, they only have 3 days to find out who.

This is interesting.
Might be a bit tricky to balance role wise but sounds fun.

If you keep on going with the idea you might want to force the Mafia player to be compulsory (forced to kill and maybe do another action during the night phase) otherwise they could just not do anything to try and improve their odds immensely (wouldn’t be seen doing any nasty actions and larger player pool during day).

 

[Chevywolf30]

This is interesting.
Might be a bit tricky to balance role wise but sounds fun.

If you keep on going with the idea you might want to force the Mafia player to be compulsory (forced to kill and maybe do another action during the night phase) otherwise they could just not do anything to try and improve their odds immensely (wouldn’t be seen doing any nasty actions and larger player pool during day).

Maybe a Townie rolecop and don't allow roleclaiming? Def not a vigi. Good call on making the Mafia compulsory. I JUST joined the queue so I've got a year or more to play more Mafia games And Majora's Mask and get ideas for this.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

that is definitely playable

one thing I would consider is allowing nighttalk, actually
it favors town and needs to be considered in balance, but it gives people more time to "play" during the 3 day cycle when 3 days might be considered short by some metrics

 

[Chevywolf30]

How about this extremely bastard, extremely spicy idea: everyone, town and maf, has a compulsory nightkill and roleblock. There would need to be an extreme amount of coordination among the town to keep everyone alive. For added fun, make it trouble communicating.