Prison Riot! The Conclusion

[JimBee]

It's not so much a complaint as an expression of bafflement. At this point, my perpetual death record is statistical anomaly. Statistically, I should have survived an EB game by now, just not by dying on the first night.

Tiny explained he investigated the person next to him which was you, it was a random choice.

Statistically, there is 0.00000001% chance of surviving a mafia game, period.

[Scouty]

Statistically, there is 0.00000001% chance of surviving a mafia game, period.

Oh, goodie, how lucky I am !

[def]

Statistically, there is 0.00000001% chance of surviving a mafia game, period.

If that wasn't simply a number pulled out of your butt, I'd totally respect that It's no worry, time moves on, and def moves with it

[Dragonator]

Dragonator looks around.

Everyone finished partying without me?

So I just finished my last exam and thought I'd drop by and say a couple of things. Yay for freedom! Hinck, gotta say it took some balls to even attempt a game of this complexity, you did a fantastic job trying out the concept and I sure had fun. The story telling was humorous and crude as always, and you were on the whole extremely responsive and helpful as a host. This was a tough concept, I'd discussed co-hosting an all scum mafia game with Quarry about 2 years ago, but we just couldn't come up with a way to do it that actually worked! Overall, I think this game did work. Yes it had a few rough spots, and was a bit too random for my taste, but it was fun and almost everyone died, so that's a success in my eyes.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of changing mechanics part way through the game. That was probably my one major dislike of this set up, that some of the actions actually turned into different ones. That sort of thing can change the balance drastically, and cannot be planned for. I guess I just found a bit strange because it is a pretty major deviation from the traditional Mafia game set up. Still, it was worth testing I think, just to see how well it would work. Can't know until you've tried it after all.

My team was really great to work with, and they didn't get too concerned with my mid-exam grumpy mood which I am thankful for! Thanks for being so supportive guys, we gave it our best shot and almost made it.

I think after all this excitement I'm going to be taking a short break, just to catch up on some indexing and develop a few concepts. I've played every game since I hosted Mystery Castle back in 2008, it's about time for a break! Looking forward to a slightly more traditional game sometime soon!

[Big Cam]

Looks like we can chalk up the Prison Riot as the game that broke the dragon.

It does seem though that a few regulars are taking a break.

[Hinckley]

Looks like we can chalk up the Prison Riot as the game that broke the dragon.

It does seem though that a few regulars are taking a break.

I think a lot of regs were planning to take a break after Bloodbrick II, so I really appreciate that everyone stepped in and took the invitation and played their hearts out. After work tomorrow, I'll throw in some concluding thoughts. I'm excited to share this game from my point of view with all of you.

[Rick]

I think a lot of regs were planning to take a break after Bloodbrick II, so I really appreciate that everyone stepped in and took the invitation and played their hearts out. After work tomorrow, I'll throw in some concluding thoughts. I'm excited to share this game from my point of view with all of you.

I thought you were just happy to see us all get killed. But yeah, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the massacre game.

[Hinckley]

First thing's first: You're welcome to everyone who thanked me for the game. It's more than my pleasure. I'm glad you guys had fun, even those who didn't necessarily like the concept. I really enjoy hosting. I like creating the environment and the characters. This game was especially fun because I had a chance to create a new environment and some really fun characters. I really enjoyed putting the concept together and tinkering the mechanics together, even tinkering them to change and really had a blast watching it all unfold. At the same time, this was the most nerve-wracking time I've had as a host. I made a few mistakes and I'm OK with that. I felt pretty sloppy in a couple of places and apologize to anyone whose game that affected. Especially the two times I sent off the wrong meals. The game lasted longer than I imagined as well and life was getting pretty hectic. I paid really close attention to what was happening but not always to what I was doing which lead me to the bits of sloppiness. There were some agonizing choices to make in this too. A lot of people were invested in this and the outcome of days and nights were much more important than in a regular mafia game. That's what I think I took away from this the most: Since everyone was Scum, everyone was invested in their team winning, which is how we should always be playing regular Mafia games. Every person was focused and invested and fought with their team for their team. That's not to say I didn't receive some complaints about people's teamwork ability, but people were really invested and there was the most activity and focus I've seen in a game in a while. That lead to some serious PMs to the host behind the scenes, a couple people even had cases spelled out for their points and how they wanted the Actions or votes to go. That was nerve-wracking for me! I was really on the spot, moreso than any Mafia game I've hosted. The damn shared actions thing, (which was just a patsy for the real experiment) was a pain in the megablocks to manage. I'd like to see if it would work if each team had a kill the next time I try this. That would be only one more kill per night than one of my normal games...

To everyone in this game (feel free to include or exclude yourself from this rant being directed at you if you feel): I'm taking a break from Mafia games for a while, because of all of you. They just aren't fun to me anymore, for a number of reasons. 1) Sassing the host, especially during the game, especially in the discussion thread or in a personal manner, is ridiculously unfair. There is a time and place for it... right now! Hosting takes a shit load of time and effort and hosts are doing everyone on this forum a favor and I think everyone has forgotten that.

Um, yes. I agree with this 100%, but what I learned during this game is that it's more important to keep control of what I can actually control and not freak out when I get "sassed" mid-game. I really let some of the PMs get to me during this game and I just can't do that. I would never ignore requests or complaints during a game. I will continue to read them, but the ones who are just being poor sports will get ignored in the future. I have to stick to what I know I'm doing right and leave it at that. Listening to what a player wants is a dangerous game for a host to play. Thanks to those of you who were involved in the "game pause." I had a feeling I knew how to move forward. I just wanted to make sure the voice behind the scenes wasn't representing a majority of the players in the game. I do agree that we should re-consider our treatment of hosts, but I mostly think hosts have to start putting their foot down against "sassers" and manipulative players. The people hosting know we do a good job, and we're a group of people that seem very open to feedback post-game and have certainly shown desire to improve. If we make mistakes, we'll learn from them. My big lesson from this game is to trust myself and control my own reactions and I really need to learn to let things, especially words and "sass" from players roll off my back.

Now, to the controversies that were presented.

WhiteFang lives: There was a game day where WhiteFang neither voted nor posted and according to the rules, he should've died. Sorry that I chose to be fair to him, but he warned me before he signed up for the game that he would be gone with limited internet access. He was in Vietnam and I've lived in Malaysia and I know communication signals are notoriously shotty. He said access would be limited and it turned out he had none. I don't think it's fair to him to kill him off of the game for an unforeseen travel problem. He's proven himself a more than trustworthy person to me online and in-real-life, so I trusted that he was not blowing off the game. Killing him off would've been rude and unfair to him.

The poisoned player votes! I discussed this with def after Baritones 3. He suggested the idea of the poison death happening after voting starts. I don't remember the specifics but I chose to keep the poison victim alive longer. I found the poisoner role on Mafiawiki and the role is supposed to kill their victim the following night. I wanted to try it the way it was meant to be, but I didn't want the victim to be able to use their night action. There were three kill actions to begin with (possibly four with the random inventor) and I wanted one to be weaker. The victim being able to vote the next day is definitely weaker. It was suggested that I make the person die in the conclusion. The difference to me and the reason I chose it to work this way, was it gave the team who was losing a member a chance to prepare for being down one member and losing an action. In a fast-paced game (48 hour days/24 hour nights which mostly worked!!) I wanted to give people as much opportunity to make the most of their meals. The poison victim votes, there it is. Someone complained and said the EB poisoner victim dies at 24 hours. Well, where is it written I have to stick to EB tradition? And what other host, besides me, has used the poisoner? I'm the host, I'll set up my mechanics and stick to them. The poison victim always has to die after 24 hours but there can be four Scum teams? Outside of the meal switch mid-game (which did make me sweat) I'm against changing game mechanics mid-game. Once the first poison victim voted, I couldn't deny the other poison victims their vote. That would be really unfair.

The mid-game meal switch: The meal switching was part of the game mechanics. Some people were tripped up by the actual meal switching action and others found previously useless actions were suddenly weapons. Like I said before, the pace of this game had to keep up and with no fixed kill, I had to keep killing actions in there somehow. It was setup from the beginning to work the way it did. The antidote turned into the poison when the first poisoner died (double-metagamed to death on Night One. ) and once the weapons were all gone, I had to introduce the others back in. I did that with the informative roles. I considered doing it with the PGO and Bomb since they were already shivs, but I wanted to keep the defensive roles in. Since it was going to devolve into an action war, I wanted as many offensive and defensive actions as possible. The game mechanics called for weapons to always be present. I think the next time I'll try this, I'll give each team a kill and a block. A conversion? Nah... I should give the Townie/the only witch a double vote. That'd be hilarious if I gave one member of one team a double vote and that person became the first one hunted down. That's just cruel. Sorry to those who the bloodbath ducked over! One of those was a rule violation which totally decimated the Venus Lords. They could've kept up with the rest of the game if Fangy had only used his Day Action! Oh well, it was still an interesting ride to witness and I'm sure to participate in.

All of that being said, I really do want people to have fun with these games. I realize when I make a mistake it could kill someone's fun and they may be putting in so much work it really hurts them if they feel I do something unfair. However, this has to stay fun for everybody and I wish some wouldn't take it to such heights of seriousness. God knows I've done that as a player and I really try to be sensitive to that to my players. To put a lengthy summary on this point: I first decided to take a Mafia break after Infection because I lost so hardcore and felt I had wasted my time. I wanted to concentrate on writing and building and just other things in life. EB graphic work won't do itself you know. So, def requested that I play Bloodbrick and I did and I failed miserably. Having two hard losses right in a row, I wanted to play again and then Werewolf gave me vindication and then I was hosting again. And I overdid The Forest so I wanted to host again and then I wanted to help with Mafia School, and then Belleville and Bloodbrick II and now this... Shit. It's time to take a break and do things that don't involve the computer. There have been instances during the last three games I've hosted and the last three games I've played where I've not been having any fun. And there is a bit of personality clashing and taking-games-seriously that is causing that but I can only take responsibility for my own actions. However, it's time to take a break and let some of that go. I hope the next time I can play I'm still an intense player but more laid back with personal feelings and die hard gaming. I think Zepher's right. We all have responsibility to show good sportsmanship and call ourselves out for being dicks. It's just a game but it takes skill and you should respect yourself and the others playing and be able to look yourself in the mirror when it's done. How many apologies did I make after Bloodbrick II? If that's the way I'm going to act or that's the way others are going to react to me, it's not worth the fun sometimes. Though, most of the time it is.

Secondly, the amount of in fighting has gotten ridiculous. Bury old skeletons people. I guess that's the curse of the same people each game "I trusted blank and blank last game, I'll trust them this game" etc. Metagaming is ridiculous. The same people fight each game, the same people start PMs each game with the same people... it's so silly and tiring, and it makes you have to play every game the same. On top of that people have given up all pretense of it! It's a popularity contest. If you are friends with the person on the rest of EB, you contact them here. It's no fun for me or anyone else. The part that really bothers me is the fighting. The same people fight and get revenge on each other each game. It's boring and annoying and ruins the game for others and it's selfish in my opinion. It's metagaming and there's a reason I think there should be a rule against it. I'm not exempt I LEFT PEOPLE ALIVE THIS GAME BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY'D FIGHT AND CAUSE CONFUSION. And guess what. They did.

Ugh, we should talk about how to avoid this. I liked the teamwork aspect, but I did cringe a few times at the all-out-war aspects of this. Friends against friends and previous enemies steam-rolling other people. Fascinating, but it's supposed to be a game experiment not a social experiment. I am impressed that most of the players in this game took all of that in good stride. Some people went absolutely megablocking nuts. But, I've been there, so I won't judge. There are a lot of dangers in meta-gaming and there are several ways to look out for it. I think, however, meta-gaming the host or the players is starting to be a huge Scum tactic. Something to watch out for in the future. That'll put an end to it. Let's start voting out people who meta-game.

Who would've thought that in an all-scum-with-no-fixed-kill game, we could pull this off without actually killing someone (offensively at least).

Kudos to you guys from taking a page from the politics and diplomacy in war history books.

Hinck, thanks for inviting me to play in this game even though I'm the least experienced among all the players. It was a pleasure playing in your game, and sorry for being a prick for complaining about the slow pace of the game midway through this. Ultimately, I had fun playing and it's a very good experience to have played an all-scum game.

I have still much to say, but I'll gather my thoughts and share later.

You play hard and that's why I couldn't have done this without you. And, you continue to learn from every game and everything that happens in every game. You annoyed the shit out of me during Bloodbrick II just because I wanted to win, but you play hard and you do good work, so that's why...and that's great! I like having you in games.

Oh and thanks for Fangy for the "short but fruitful" alliance midway in the game. We were actually intent of pursuing that path and 'honoring that alliance' with the Venus guys until they got caught up with the Venus vs. Saturn rivalry.

I would love it if someone could explain all the alliances and back-stabbing. I got some weird PMs during this game. There was a lot of lying going on behind the scenes. I was so surprised how quickly everyone gave up all their info! With one glaring exception, everyone pretty much knew who was in what gang by Day Two. Except for the poor El Plutns. Poor guys still thought they were the two-man Scum team fighting an uphill struggle with no fixed actions. Pandora did call it first on their team. I forget who called it first on Saturn's Rings. Those were the writeboards I could read. It was fun seeing it unfold. I wish everyone could explain to me their thought process as it unraveled. And extra points (points?) to the worst copy-and-paste insult to Hinckley as it was being figured out. I got a "Am I the only Townie?" PM from TinyPies mid-game. Of course I couldn't tell him but I did say, "If you were, it would be totally random selection and not some odd revenge for Witch Hunt." But I loved watching everyone catch on and the way tactics started to unfold and strangely reveal themselves.

Indeed . With anybody we allied with, there was no intent to betray until after the agreement was fulfilled. We were put into a pretty good position, where both the Venus and Saturn gangs fought over us for our votes. We were lucky to avoid getting ourselves lynched and watched as you two killed each other off, only taking casualties from night kills. As they say, the best offensive is a defense. Wait, uh, yeah, just go with it .

It's very refreshing to play as such a transparent scum, getting to be evil and all instead of the usual "I'm innocent! Don't kill me! (Puppy-eyes)" . I had a great time playing as Scar (not to mention that I LOVE <3 rock monsters!), especially towards the end Thanks so much, Hinck, for playing along with it, it was fantastic!

All of that pretense was gone and everyone just got to be truly scummy. That was very cool to see and made it a very different game. Following Foog and iamded trying to get in what was left was cool to watch too. They had some great survival tactics and they kept it going almost all the way to the end. Draggy, why did you kill poor Foog?

As per the game mechanics, I did not have that much of a problem with them than in Bloodbrick II. The way everything was handled led to a more balanced game, where no one team could possibly know all the meals and know who exactly had taken them. You have to really work and even guess to get good results in this game. I really like how the shared meal distribution was handled and everything. Games are more fun when there is still a bit of mystery throughout many of its aspects; who's who, who took what, what does this do, what does that do, what does this do now after it could've been switched??? I'd like to see how this exact game mechanic would work in a normal mafia environment of Town vs. Scum instead of an all scum game.

Thank you. As long as I was going to use a Shared Action game as the fake experiment while the real experiment was slowly revealed, I needed the meals to function well and I'm glad there was a new method of doing it revealed. From my perspective it was just as successful as def's meds, yet was a new way to try out the new concept. It would be interesting to see this in Town vs. Scum. I would want there to be fixed actions for the Scum and perhaps more ways to find out who took what. But this balance worked really well for 4 Scum teams.

I can't believe I forgot to get my night action in. For some reason I was waiting for iamded's death scene before I sent in my night action, and then when the warden said he was going to conclude this, I figured it was too late anyway.

Anyway, my plan was to block Scouts and let Kiel and Zepher kill each other at night. Then I planned on trying to convince Scouts to vote for the warden, then vote for him at the last minute in order to snatch a glorious victory!

Thanks for the game Hinckley, it was a lot of fun being the only townie in a prison full of witches. I'll post more thoughts later on...

This still just kills me! I know I was distracted, but the rules did say 20 hours after the day ended. Granted, I had been announcing the days' end and requesting Night Actions at the end of the previous day threads. However, I had also been requesting people to get their Night Actions in long before the end of the day for the previous two days and I wish you would've just sent your Action in! You played a really great game and you've only survived one EB mafia game! I really did hope you would make it through this and it killed me when I was looking through my PMs and you hadn't sent in your Action. I read our PM four times and I'm not exaggerating.

I don't know what the overall conclusion for how easy it was to work out the meals' actions will be, but another side effect of having the team halved by the end of the first night (aside from still thinking we're the only scum team, as we'd only had our own team confirmed ) was that Fugazi and iamded could only find out the actions of two meals each subsequent day and had far reduced opportunities to work out what others had taken by deduction and elimination.

I thought of that everyday. And when Foog finally got first choice, another team had swapped the night. Boy did this thread get confusing when names started changing to numbers. I'm really happy that didn't happen earlier in the games. I would've been giving the wrong results to the wrong team and really megablocking things up. The things that were devised to keep any one team from steamrolling any other team really handicapped Foog and Amy. Sorry, guys. I would love to see the five of you as a team again in the future. You deserve another chance to put those brains together. Pandufus, are you ready to try playing separately? I originally wanted to give you guys the chance to do that with this one, since it was an exeriment, but it ended up being easier this way.

Thanks for inviting me to play and for an entertaining game Hinck. As usual, the presentation and narrative were great and hilarious at times. It's good you tried something new. Personally, I don't like these shared action games too much and combined with the 'gang war' concept they're too far from the traditional mafia concept for my taste (I realise a lot of people actually liked the setup a lot). Also, I somehow thought you intended the game setup to be a mystery for much longer, whereas I think most gangs (except the El Plutns for obvious reasons) found out on day 1 already. Add another day (or two) and everyone had all the gangs figured out.

The shared actions concept makes it difficult to develop longer-term strategies. Also, I feel my early death in def's previous game, didn't give me the experience in dealing with these shared action games that many others did have. You did put a lot of thought into improving the meal selection system though. I thought I had it figured out for the rest of the game when it was based on confirmation order on day 1 and voting order on day 2. As was said, you had to be lucky with your team to be spread across the meal cart order a bit in order to start learning about actions. That gave the El Plutns a disadvantage really early in the game already.

Oh, and congratulations Mars Savatrucha... "while two dogs are fighting for a bone..."

I'm looking forward to a more traditional mafia game again. I personally like a mafia game with a twist or two to keep it fresh (like The Baritones 3 for example). And I'm sure you can't wait a whole year before hosting The Forest 2.

I'm glad you got to try out the concept, at least! You were excited about trying something new with Bloodbrick II and some dick killed you off on the first night. Pfft. What megablocks would do that? This thing was plastered with warnings that it wasn't traditional. Sometimes I feel a little ripped off when I sign up for a Mafia game and it ends up being some weird concept. But, Bloodbrick II and Witch Hunt were some of the more memorable and intense games. Difference is good to mix things up. Forest 2 will be nice and traditional...whenever that comes around.

Well, this was one very interesting game! I did have fun. I was pretty hopeless, but still committed when our team was cut in two, and then I found everyone was scum and that changed the game. Pandora actually figured that out rather early, and I kept mentally dismissing that idea. That'll teach me.

In the end I'd figured out what 10 of the 17 people took on Day 1, but with so little of us left by Day 2 it was super hard trying to figure that out, so I sort of... gave up on that. I was still keeping track of what each meal did though, but then with the action mix-ups at that point in the game, I figured all the meals had been mixed up, so I stopped keeping track there since it was so close to the end-game.

I'm super stoked that I'm the one scum to actually kill a townie too, thanks for that Hinck.

Not only did you persevere, you survived to the end. This game was like Survivor, with no merge or jury. I knew you and Foog would probably stick it out and find away to survive. Telling Draggy off day after day might not have been the best tactic, but whatever you guys did, your team was represented until the end.

I just wish you would've explicitly told us to get our night actions in. I was a little thrown when you said you'd "conclude all this" in 20 hours - I figured you were already writing up a conclusion. Either that or you were going to do a write-up to conclude Day 6. I really should have put two and two together and realised that 20 hours = the deadline for night actions.

I meant Kiel and Zepher would kill each other off. I'm curious as to what would happen if it had come down to just me and Scouts. The voting would've been a draw and neither remaining meal (PGO and blocker) would've allowed for a night kill. Would the game have been a draw?

I was so happy to have found a scum on the first day! Little did I know that practically anyone I chose to investigate would've come up as scum anyway.

This is why I love you so much. You announcing you found a Scum, just like in Roman Mafia, was so hilarious. You blew the whole concept wide open. All the Scum teams knew there was something up and you and the El Plutns were still playing some other game. But, that's the type of player you are. I just thought it was funny that the only Townie pulled the day investigator med. I didn't see that coming. It would've been incredible if you had investigated one of the Godfathers who all showed up as Town. I'm considering retro-surviving you. Others seem to agree they were waiting for a concrete day end. The day lengths and voting times kept getting ducked with. With family visiting and a bunch of PMs from players suggesting better and faster ways to get through the days (and yet others asking for more time to vote Stop pestering the host!! ) the presentation became somewhat of a mess and the day ends were sloppy and delayed. I think you deserve a footnote survival. Because all you had to do to win was survive to the end. So you and Scouts would survive if you had gotten your Night Action in on time. Yet, I killed WhiteFang off for not getting his in, but at least that day there was a clear deadline. In the name of fun, I think Tierro Prius and her hated blue pal should be the two Survivors who make it into the sequel...along with Elles and Cuxun of cours. I loved the characters and names in this game. Too bad the coolest figs got killed off. Tierro's cool looking but Scar's a stupid Rock Monster.

About the game mechanics, what worked and what didn't:

-not knowing what everyone took: I think it was good in an all scum game, but I think if it was a regular town game, it would hinder the town, for whatever reason. In my game, everyone approached it in a slightly noobish way, and blabbed their actions too much. I don't think that would happen so much in future games, so it wouldn't be a problem. But that's the host's discretion.

-The ability switcher role is a good one! It could have worked in Bloodbrick I if only... and I had it in a game I hosted off site, and it was good there. I wanted it in Bloodbrick II, but I thought it might cause a headache on top of the new mechanics. I'm very glad to see it work well here

-Rick had mentioned something about the timezones leading to questions of fairness, which I both agree and disagree with (I have set my alarm for 5:45 am in order to log in for a mafia game, so you just deal with it, in my honest opinion). In this game, it seemed to be done on the basis of the vote order the day before, which certainly should encourage voting, but in an equal way, you still have to be awake and online to vote early. So, the strict order, which was a pain to host I'm sure, was interesting.

-The multiple scum thing, which was the main "experiment", well... I think it can was done successfully, but I think it's more fun without the ruse. I think the game got a lot heavier strategically when everyone laid it out on the table. I'm still confused about the claims Shadows made to my group, of Draggy backstabbing us the day I died... But they both got theirs so I'm fine either way.

Overall, I think it was a well run game, and no real complaints from me

And to Rufus/Pandora and the rest of the Plutns... There was no reason to target me night one! I've never survived a single EB game! I'm no threat! No threat!

Thanks for the feedback, def! And thanks for sticking around and playing with your team after you died. You've brought us a lot of fun twists and I'm glad you got to participate in one and enjoy it! I think in the future, I'll let people know what type of game it is when it starts. This can be really interesting if there's more thought putting into alliances and what to reveal. I would love to hear what happened with the claims Shadows made, too. I got a PM from him where he was assuming a lot of weird incorrect info and I would love to know who actually duped him. I have a feeling it was Draggy, easily the scummiest of the all-scum Scum. I would like to see how we could tweak this method of shared Actions for a game with Townies. I wonder if this setup could be done with four teams of five, a townie and a serial killer.

Having missed def's shared action game, I was itching to try this concept first hand. I had followed Bloodbrick 2 very closely, so I didn't feel disadvantaged. Of course the all-scum line-up was a complete surprise, as were some of the other twists. I'm not sure how much the other teams had the various actions figured out, but even on the last day our team still hadn't identified some of the actions. So despite our best efforts, we were still basing decisions on wrong premises and uninformed guesses. I don't think there was a problem with the game balance though -- we were just very unlucky, and bad luck can unsettle the game balance in pretty much any game.

When I first realised that we wouldn't get to know what meal everyone picked, I thought it would be a really difficult game. Of course back then we also thought we were the only scum team. It turned out to be a fun challenge, and a nice twist on the previous game.

This is a part I didn't like that much. As mentioned by others, the order changed every day (first to post, first to vote, most posts, etc). I would have preferred to have it either based on the same criterion every day (say, first to post) which would have added a layer of strategy, or make it completely random. Having it not quite random but impossible to predict was infuriating! Ah well, I know it worked well for some (Prof Flitwick always picked early if I remember correctly) so I guess I'm just being a sore loser!

It's good to see you back and I'm glad you got a chance to try out the new concept after missing Bloodbrick II. Oh, you were so screwed by the meal switcher! And I wonder why nobody picked up on the order of meal picking. It alternated every day from posting order to voting order. Did I screw that up too? I considered completely random selection, but true randomness clusters things and someone would've been favored by luck. I could take the time to setup a fair revolution of choosing in the future, so each team is represented in a fair and spread out order. Say there are 16 meals and 4 teams: each team will be represented in each unit of 4 picks. So one member from each team chooses a meal from the first four meals, and then one member from each team chooses from the next four, etc... And it wouldn't necessarily be numerical so it could be tracked who was on what team. As long as it's not first-come, first-serve again. I almost lost a boyfriend over that. I'll have to explain that some day. It's ... interesting And now you all know him! It's Griggs from Cirque du Freak, betrayed by a noob spaz...

Well first off, megabluck yeah fir finally winning, I owe a big thanks to my team, they all communicated so well and if at all I'll take maybe 20% credit fit this win, although this if the most I've participated in a mafia game and I was excited every day to log on and read up on what I missed while away.

The meals were interesting, but my complaint is around day 4 when everyone knew who everyone else was, or at least almost, then the game got dead boring. I mean the game thread would just sit there untouched for many hours, and this was because there was nothing left to discuss, no investigating to do, no fingers to point, we basically just sat around waiting to vote.

Also I think switching the night actions was kind of a dick move, some of us spent lots of time tracking meals and organizing spreadsheets to keep track, and if they can just change at any time, then wrists the pint of having meals, you could have easily just randomly assigned actions to everyone each night.

Another thing is the rules either need to be strictly followed or don't have them, if you lay out a specific layout for voting and someone doesn't follow it then it shouldn't count, if a vote is placed after the allowed time frame, then it shouldn't count, it's lazy on behalf of the player and unfair to those who follow the rules.

With those petty comments out of the way, I loved playing, this was my ninth mafia game and I feel like now I haver finally moved up a level, this is the first game I've used a writeboard and we had a shared spreadsheet. So for me this was a tipping point in my mafia experience and for that I thank Hinck and especially my teammates.

Good game overall Hinck.

Dick move? Congratulations on your first win! And you survived a long time, too! It was good to see you get to play. I agree about the vote and the rules and the enforcement. God knows I've been a tough-megablocks about it in the past. But when your team pointed out the incorrect votes and I had the decision to make (which actually didn't make a difference because the Night Actions gave the same result) I mentioned that a previous vote had been cast incorrectly that would've made a difference had I not counted that. To stay consistent and fair, the votes from Flit and Zepher really should've been counted in the first place. I should've not counted the first vote that was cast incorrectly, which was placed by one Big Cam, but again, this is why I have to ignore people who PM me or "sass" me during games. Someone complained during Baritones 3 that I didn't count Sandy's vote (even though she was voteless, I couldn't explain that). When I wouldn't tell that person why I didn't count the vote, they accused me of being overly-anal-retentive for insisting on a specific voting format. This is why I say I need to learn to tell "sassers" to go megabluck themselves if they want to challenge me when I'm hosting. I don't pretend to be above reproach and I believe I've proven that I take all feedback seriously and into account, but if you want to bitch about me as a host, save it for the conclusion. I know I've "sassed" hosts, but I at least wait until a game has concluded. Host-sassing should be treated like meta-gaming. Let's vote the megablocks off.

Thanks for inviting me into this experiment, Hinck! Your humour is really one of a kind, so at least I got giggles out of being in this game, even though for the other parts I was pretty much out of it.

I just couldn't get my head around the game, even though our gang started out strong: we knew it was an "all-scum" game by day 2, we kept getting the shivs almost daily, and we knew almost all the other meals as well. But then something happened, we were all ousted, our actions were blocked and we were killed or convicted in a row. And I still don't know what we could have done differently!

I guess that is my main gripe with the game: I went in assuming I was playing Mafia, but it turned out that none of the strategies I've learned in the dozen games I've played here applied to this game. It was refreshing, for sure, but extremely frustrating at the same time. So I was clueless for most of the time, and for that I have to apologize to my gangmembers.

But yeah, I can now say I've played in an all-scum Mafia, and I'm that much experienced as a player.

PS. I loved my character! There was just something adorable in that shark...

Thanks for playing! The shark became more fun when you added fun things for me to add to the night thread. I do appreciate that you always play your character. You're a lot of fun to have in the game even your head isn't always in it. Even though you didn't wrap your head around the concept, you certainly were a team player.

Nonetheless, I also must thanks Kiel and Scouts for allowing the both gangs to be part of an alliance to whack the other 2 factions during the mid-day process. One thing I don't understand which I don't exactly had a clue, is how did I associate myself with def's gang and ended up believed by Shadows when he hooked the 3 of us up. The best part, Kiel and Scouts didn't revealed me and played along! Though you guys thought I was the neutral for that moment. By Day 2, everyone of us almost figured out everything and it was a new level of strategy of eliminating one another! That went mental for awhile in the back scenes!

I love hearing this although I still don't see the full story! I would love to hear what happened with all of the behind-the-scenes treachery! Someone tell me! Thanks for playing Fangy. Sorry I killed you.

Congratulations on being the sole survivor Scouts! The idea of an all-scum game was an interesting one, but the downside is people may conform to Zepher's expectation, and ally with/gang up upon people based upon their rapport. I was really happy to have been invited to partake in this experiment, and hope that my incorrect voting didn't cause you too much annoyance.

You're becoming a fun character player too! I like how you take your character description and make it a lot of fun. And it is interesting that you and Zeph are complaining about people being cliquey and sticking together along meta-gaming alliances when you both survived a long time despite that! Granted, a lot of that had to do with the mid-game bloodbath, but you got you way through without having a previous alliance or friendship pull you through. How do you, and Zepher too, think you managed making it through despite all the meta-gaming? I would guess because there was no in-fighting to deal with either. You got to sit back and be diplomatic while the other meta-gamed and back-stabbed each other off.

My best guess to this is that on the day we all voted for Shadows (where you missed voting/posting), I think Shadows made a strong assumption (and a wrong one at that!) that Kiel, you, and I were on the same team. BigCam voted pretty early, so I guess Shadows mistook that as a vote from the Venus gang, while your missing vote was mistaken as a hesitant vote from the Mars gang. I'll wait to see what Shadows has to say, but I'm just going to guess that this was a ballsy move on Shadow's part to get us to turn on the Venus gang, and it failed spectacularly . Fortunate for us, BigCam had the PGO that night, so it was great that he was mistaken as a Venus gang member.

When you were included in the PM, we at first believed Shadow's story, so we assumed that since you were included, you were the neutral (to which there really wasn't any in this game). We may have been an honest team with keeping alliances, but that doesn't mean we also made a few white lies throughout . And they really saved us through and through. When we allied with TinyP, Kiel told a white lie, that I had the PGO and he the Action switcher, when in reality it was the other way around. I have to give strong credit to Kiel for being so bold and awesome here! Fortunate for us, Prof. Flitwick targeted Kiel that night. I thought for sure that I would have been targeted that night, since Prof. Flit led the charge for the vote for me, and when that didn't happen, he'd try to get rid of me. What happened there TinyP/Flitwick?

Also, Flit, I loved your roleplaying as the GLaDOs like alien, lovely !

OK, this is the best explanation I've gotten of what actually happened. Thanks for that. I have to read it with the team affiliation in front of me, though. As hard as I tried, I never committed all of the teams and affiliations to memory. This was one of the more interesting things to watch for me, though. There was a thin veil of some weird back-stabbing and treachery and I was just surprised at how votes and Night Actions would come in.

Dragonator looks around.

Everyone finished partying without me?

So I just finished my last exam and thought I'd drop by and say a couple of things. Yay for freedom! Hinck, gotta say it took some balls to even attempt a game of this complexity, you did a fantastic job trying out the concept and I sure had fun. The story telling was humorous and crude as always, and you were on the whole extremely responsive and helpful as a host. This was a tough concept, I'd discussed co-hosting an all scum mafia game with Quarry about 2 years ago, but we just couldn't come up with a way to do it that actually worked! Overall, I think this game did work. Yes it had a few rough spots, and was a bit too random for my taste, but it was fun and almost everyone died, so that's a success in my eyes.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of changing mechanics part way through the game. That was probably my one major dislike of this set up, that some of the actions actually turned into different ones. That sort of thing can change the balance drastically, and cannot be planned for. I guess I just found a bit strange because it is a pretty major deviation from the traditional Mafia game set up. Still, it was worth testing I think, just to see how well it would work. Can't know until you've tried it after all.

My team was really great to work with, and they didn't get too concerned with my mid-exam grumpy mood which I am thankful for! Thanks for being so supportive guys, we gave it our best shot and almost made it.

I think after all this excitement I'm going to be taking a short break, just to catch up on some indexing and develop a few concepts. I've played every game since I hosted Mystery Castle back in 2008, it's about time for a break! Looking forward to a slightly more traditional game sometime soon!

The mid-game meal switch turned the game on it's head and it's the place where I need to focus the most ... learning, for lack of a better way to phrase it. I saw the Actions go out and the results come back and I saw it was a major game changer and I knew it was a disadvantage, especially for your team. Sorry about that. The game pace needed it and the mechanics were setup that way from the beginning (read above). I stuck with is because it made sense, but the result did make me cringe a bit. It kicked the game into gear and got things moving again, though. I was surprised how quickly the weapons were removed from the game, half by accident and half purposely, but all removed by Day Three ... almost all. And one of the knives came from the Inventor Action coming back. I certainly understand the concern. Poor Kiel's spreadsheet suffered too. It made perfect sense to me, but how would you guys know that I replaced the informative roles with weapons? I hope to remedy this next time by just having fixed Actions. I believe we can have a setup where there are four teams each with a block and a kill. Each team could also have one tertiary role to megabluck with the game... Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing!

Looks like we can chalk up the Prison Riot as the game that broke the dragon.

It does seem though that a few regulars are taking a break.

Yup, Prison Riot! - the reg breaker...

I thought you were just happy to see us all get killed. But yeah, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the massacre game.

Obviously, I was a huge proponent of more killing in the game. However, I was surprised that it ended up being such a massacre. Although the winners never drew first blood. But, I was expecting to see two teams work together and then have to figure out how to decide a winner after the other two teams were gone. That was mostly thwarted by that meddling (winning? ) Townie, TierroPrius. We'll see her in the sequel. Blue-hating bitch.

OK, that's all I have for now. I hope this sparks some more feedback. I certainly hope everyone had a good time and takes all the advice about lightening up seriously, but...light-heartedly.

[Scouty]

but Scar's a stupid Rock Monster.

Hey, I resent that :cry_sad: !!

It would be interesting to see this in Town vs. Scum. I would want there to be fixed actions for the Scum and perhaps more ways to find out who took what. But this balance worked really well for 4 Scum teams.

If there were fixed actions, then it'd be similar to Bloodbrick II, and it was a pretty big disadvantage to the Town that the scum could easily hold two killing night actions. Perhaps a good way to make the Scum's fixed actions transparent is to make them more easily spotted by the town, which could probably be best done with fixed Town actions (informative roles and possibly a vigilante), that are rotated through the town members ONLY and be relatively untouchable by the scum (unless a townie is killed with one of the night actions). To give just the scum fixed actions and leaving the town mostly scraps (with a slight opportunity of grabbing a good action) is an unfair way to handle it. Even with hidden shared actions, it'd still be easier for scum to gather all the meals and the town to trip over each other trying to stay coordinated.

[def]

If there were fixed actions, then it'd be similar to Bloodbrick II, and it was a pretty big disadvantage to the Town that the scum could easily hold two killing night actions.

An easier solution to this is to not make a killing action as part of the actions list. I still maintain that the biggest problem in Bloodbrick II was how town approached a new game with old strategies. If we held an identical game today, town would do twice as well, knowing what to expect

[Big Cam]

Way too much stuff to quote from my phone, but I just spent 15 minutes (at work) reading your response Hinck, and I appreciate all the detailed feedback you give us, you're a great host

[Scouty]

An easier solution to this is to not make a killing action as part of the actions list. I still maintain that the biggest problem in Bloodbrick II was how town approached a new game with old strategies. If we held an identical game today, town would do twice as well, knowing what to expect

That's true, too. Though, you're saying you'd give a fixed killing action to both sides?

[Pandora]

Pandufus, are you ready to try playing separately? I originally wanted to give you guys the chance to do that with this one, since it was an exeriment, but it ended up being easier this way.

It's not a habit we'd like to get into (playing two halves of the same character). def provided us both with a great new opportunity to try it in Bloodbrick II and it was fantastic that he thought of that possibility. The same with you Hinck when you invited us to play, neither of us wanted to say no and miss out on such a great looking and exciting game (even though we weren't in it all that long ), so again it was a great opportunity - thank you.

That said, I think it's less confusing for everyone else (and much less stressful for us ) if we don't play as the same character, and instead play separately. I don't think we'd be able to play as two separate characters in the same game - we couldn't hide our affiliations from each other, so I think we'll continue playing separate games entirely from here on.

After we've hosted, that is...

[def]

That's true, too. Though, you're saying you'd give a fixed killing action to both sides?

No Scum always have a fixed killing action. Generally in a game like this, with town, the killing action is a one shot thing. It's a pistol with one bullet. In my game, I made it a gun inventor, the hope being that town has to keep giving it out night after night, for better or worse. Scum lucked into it night one, and that made the game speed by early on, so I would not put that role into a game like this again. Gun inventor is a fun role, but I would only use it when guaranteed town has it in the future. A lesson learned on my part.

In terms of Hinck's game, I think it had a somewhat similar lack of balance, with one crew monopolizing the killing actions. In the multi-scum game I played previously (and this was over a year ago, so details are fuzzy) there were teams of six, and three of those could act as killer. So, if one died, one of the other two could make a kill. If all three died, the team was in a poor position. It kept the body count high to begin with; there was only a blocker and protector role, no paranoid gun owner or bomb. In an all-scum game, all the teams should have a kill.

On our team, we had the paranoid gun owner, and we kept it with us, so we had a kill of sorts, and took out two players that way (I think). So, it wasn't too bad for us. But, since Hinck had to massage the abilities half way through the game, it showed that maybe a multi-scum game isn't the best match for an ability switching game.

[Zepher]

I was the first of the Venus Lords to figure it out, right after Pies went public I suggested it, though I thought Pies was scum. My team sassed me.

[CorneliusMurdock]

I was the first of the Venus Lords to figure it out, right after Pies went public I suggested it, though I thought Pies was scum. My team sassed me.

Congrats, you get the victory of being right.

[XimenaPaulina]

Now that was long, but thank you for this lengthy comprehensive feedback, you really were great as a host on this one Hinck (as always) even with your hectic busy life.

Kudos to you guys from taking a page from the politics and diplomacy in war history books.

It was actually just the 'luck of the draw' in the meal cart. Right from Day 1 we did not got any kill actions, only defensive abilities which we tried to keep to ourselves as much as possible throughout the game, knowing it's advantageous to our survival. It would have been a totally different ballgame if we acquired some killing actions along the way. So that was just our strategy most of the game, play defensively and with a little bit of bad luck from the El Pltns early in the game, some metagaming gang war between Saturn and Venus, and Pies allying with us in the end, we managed to get through all of this. Yes we pretty much flew under the radar but we still did our best behind the scenes in figuring out the meal abilities and successfully using our night actions to our advantage.

I would love it if someone could explain all the alliances and back-stabbing. I got some weird PMs during this game. There was a lot of lying going on behind the scenes. I was so surprised how quickly everyone gave up all their info!

....

I would love to hear what happened with the claims Shadows made, too. I got a PM from him where he was assuming a lot of weird incorrect info and I would love to know who actually duped him. I have a feeling it was Draggy, easily the scummiest of the all-scum Scum.

...

I love hearing this although I still don't see the full story! I would love to hear what happened with all of the behind-the-scenes treachery! Someone tell me! Thanks for playing Fangy. Sorry I killed you.

...

OK, this is the best explanation I've gotten of what actually happened. Thanks for that. I have to read it with the team affiliation in front of me, though. As hard as I tried, I never committed all of the teams and affiliations to memory. This was one of the more interesting things to watch for me, though. There was a thin veil of some weird back-stabbing and treachery and I was just surprised at how votes and Night Actions would come in.

Well looks like you were really left in the dark with regards to the behind-the-scenes dealings and backstabbing eh? Come to think of it, I wondered why we didn't invite you to our writeboard in the first place.

Well, as far as Mars was concerned, this is what happened:

Day 2

- Draggy is up for lynching, and would probably would've been voted out until...

- def, who instinctively knew that this is an all-scum game right from the very start, suggested it was best to team up with another gang and just take out the other two before going head-to-head with each other, and he proposed the idea to ally with Venus, with saving Draggy's megablocks from the voting as our selling point for their gang to trust us.

- So instead of easily going with the majority of simply voting out Draggy, we made a bold move and decided to side with Venus, hence our votes for Shadows.

- Surprisingly, it was Venus who failed to give their part of the deal, though in hindsight Fangy's failure to vote was understandable due to him being busy IRL and it was his crucial vote that was missed and led to a no lynch on that day. We were disappointed since our planned was foiled at that time and we 'felt betrayed' by Venus who we genuinely tried to make an alliance with.

Night 2

- After the lynch-less Day 2, both Shadows and Draggy approached our gang and started a myriad of lies (we have no way of telling the truth so it's all lies to us! ). Shadows told us that Draggy sold us out, and we should vote him the next day. Draggy then said Shadows is playing us, blah-blah-blah.. We didn't know who to believe at that point.

- Interestingly, when Shadows PMed us, Fangy was included in our PM, so we thought he misread that Fangy is with us and not Cam. We didn't correct Shadows, knowing we could use Cam as a "secret weapon".

- And our "secret weapon" did live up to the expectation as Shadows tried to kill Cam that night (who we presume he thought was part of Venus?) only to get himself killed via the PGO.

Day 3

- Fangy (who we thought was the Neutral at that point), PMed us telling us he's "working with" with Venus and we should continue our alliance with them. Even with reluctance and most probably due to Fangy's diplomacy, he gained our trust and we re-allied ourselves with Venus even if we felt they didn't fully cooperate with us the first time. We voted our Rick that day and continued our alliance up to...

Day 5

- During the aftermath of the bloodbath that drastically reduced the inmates in half, Pies contacted us (me and Scouty) since he knew it was best to ally with the two of us instead of the lone survivors of each gang. So that was our game plan back then, the 3 of us vs. the 3 of them.

- Learning from a certain Harriet from BBII on 'not to tell the whole truth to your alliances', I made a white lie to Pies telling him that Scouty had the PGO even if I had it. And lo and behold, I was surprised that Flit targeted to kill me that night and he got was killed instead. It's either Flit had no idea I had the PGO and just took a blind chance with me OR Pies told the 'other group' that I was vulnerable that night and hence the best target to get killed?!? I don't actually know what happened there, but we were happy to take our second successful PGO defensive kill.

Day 6 leading to the Conclusion

- Initially I got the Random Inventor meal (and planned on inventing a protective vest) and Scouty had the PGO so we were pretty confident that we'll survive to the end, but for some reason Hinck overlooked a minor error on the meal order so I had to take the Bomb instead. That pretty much killed my chances of surviving, and it did led to my death in the Conclusion. But I'll still take the team win even if I have wanted to survive.

- And knowing now that Pies planned to mess with us after allying with us, I think it was sweet justice that he forgot to send his night action and he got killed instead. See, sometimes the 'good guys' do finish first the game.

Well I hope that gives you an idea on what happened on the Mars side of things.

[MagPiesRUs]

It makes me so happy to hear you enjoyed that. Have you read my thoughts on the conclusion? That you deserved a win there? I can still make that happen. Also glad you had as much fun being killed by me in Roman Mafia as I had killing you.

It was a little disappointing to have went out like that, but the end of the day, I failed to meet a deadline. Ultimately it's your call to make, and I'll be ok with it either way.

Day 5

- Learning from a certain Harriet from BBII on 'not to tell the whole truth to your alliances', I made a white lie to Pies telling him that Scouty had the PGO even if I had it. And lo and behold, I was surprised that Flit targeted to kill me that night and he got was killed instead. It's either Flit had no idea I had the PGO and just took a blind chance with me OR Pies told the 'other group' that I was vulnerable that night and hence the best target to get killed?!? I don't actually know what happened there, but we were happy to take our second successful PGO defensive kill.

For the record, I had nothing to do with that. Although IIRC I told Flitwick that the Salisbury Steak contained the shiv the night before.

I really enjoyed this game. It's fun tracking my PMs as I slowly realised I had no fellow townies. There's a great conversation with iamded (who I thought I'd cleared as a townie) where I start off overexcited and lay out everything I know on the table for him, theorising that there must be 5 townies and 4 gangs with 3 members each. He thinks I must be a neutral and I get defensive about it. Eventually, I say that he can investigate me if he doesn't believe me, and he shrugs it off and says that I must be a godfather, at which point I finally click - he's a godfather himself and I really am the only damn townie in this game.

Then it got even more interesting as I kept jumping ship to different gangs as their fortunes changed, passing myself off as a humble neutral. I'm not sure how much I would've enjoyed this game playing as a gang member, locked in to a brawl to the death, but it was a lot of fun being a neutral.

Thanks for the game.

[Hinckley]

It was a little disappointing to have went out like that, but the end of the day, I failed to meet a deadline. Ultimately it's your call to make, and I'll be ok with it either way.

For the record, I had nothing to do with that. Although IIRC I told Flitwick that the Salisbury Steak contained the shiv the night before.

I really enjoyed this game. It's fun tracking my PMs as I slowly realised I had no fellow townies. There's a great conversation with iamded (who I thought I'd cleared as a townie) where I start off overexcited and lay out everything I know on the table for him, theorising that there must be 5 townies and 4 gangs with 3 members each. He thinks I must be a neutral and I get defensive about it. Eventually, I say that he can investigate me if he doesn't believe me, and he shrugs it off and says that I must be a godfather, at which point I finally click - he's a godfather himself and I really am the only damn townie in this game.

Then it got even more interesting as I kept jumping ship to different gangs as their fortunes changed, passing myself off as a humble neutral. I'm not sure how much I would've enjoyed this game playing as a gang member, locked in to a brawl to the death, but it was a lot of fun being a neutral.

Thanks for the game.

I love this post!! This is the stuff I wanted to hear about. The weird mechanics unraveling. I love it!!

As far as the win goes, I feel I got sloppy towards the end of the game as a host. You did say you were waiting for my final plea for night actions like I had done consistently on previous nights. If we can both share the blame, I think it's more the host's responsibility to stay consistent, so I think you deserve a final panel survival and an opportunity to make the sequel.

Sequel?? Ugh, I don't know...

[Rick]

Sequel?? Ugh, I don't know...

Not before The Forest 2, I hope.

[Hinckley]

Not before The Forest 2, I hope.

I would love to do the Forest 2, especially now that I have all my Fabuland MOCs here with me at home. Red Moon starts in a couple of days. Don't tell anyone, but it's basically a Mafia structure with puzzles and clues. Sounds like a copout for a mystery game, huh? Well, there's one huge twist that sets it apart. For instance, there will be no voting or lynching. I'm getting kind of excited about this one.