Gotham City Mafia: Conclusion

[ADHO15]

Please don't post role PMs. I'll post all of them in a short while along with some of my own comments.

Here is the Undercover Agents' writeboard. The password is 'scumofgotham'.

Feel free to discuss everything about the game and ask any questions. I'm particularly interested to hear what you thought about 'new elements' like picking your own role, tasks, etc.

All non-players are allowed to post here too.

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Winners

- Baby Doll - played by KielDaMan - Criminal

- Clayface - played by WhiteFang - Criminal

- Harley Quinn - played by Alopex - Criminal

- Hush - played by JimButcher - Criminal

- Killer Croc - played by JediAnakin - Criminal

- Man-Bat - played by Sirius Black - Criminal

- Mr Freeze - played by Oky - Criminal

- The Creeper - played by def - Independent

- The Mad Hatter - played by Jedi master Brick - Criminal

- The Music Meister - played by Capt. Redblade - Criminal

Losers

- Poison Ivy - played by badboytje88 - Independent

Deceased

- Catwoman - played by CallMePieOrDie - Undercover Agent - lynched on Day One

- Bane - played by Masked Builder - Criminal - lynched on Day Two

- Calendar Man - played by Bob_ - Criminal - killed on Day Three

- The Riddler - played by sok117 - Criminal - killed on Day Three

- Deadshot - played by Rumble Strike - Undercover Agent - lynched on Day Three

- The Ventriloquist - played by Professor Flitwick - Undercover Agent - killed on Night Three

- Simon The Pieman - played by Scorpiox - Undercover Agent - lynched on Day 4

- The Scarecrow - played by Peanuts - Criminal - killed on Night 4

- Mr Zsasz - played by Nightshroud99 - Undercover Agent - lynched on Day 5

- Ra’s Al Ghul - played by Fred Fred Burger - Scum - lynched on Day 6

- Black Mask - played by Brickdoctor - Undercover Agent - lynched on Day 7

- Two-Face - played by K-nut - Criminal - killed on Night 7

- Egghead - played by Captain Tamamono - Scum - killed on Night 7

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Confirmation And Discussion Thread

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Edited December 10, 2011 by ADHO15

[JimBee]

Hoorah! Well done everyone. It was fun to play, so thanks for bringing me in, ADHO and Penguin. I'll offer some more detailed thoughts later.

[CMP]

Congrats to the winners! Especially def and Kiel, who pretty much dominated everything.

Welcome to Gotham City Mafia! Your role is:

Catwoman – Undercover

At the age of thirteen, Selina Kyle discovered that the administrator of the orphanage where she lived was embezzling funds and so she confronted them. In an attempt to cover up the illegal activities, the administrator put Selina in a bag and dropped her in a river to drown (like a cat). Selina was able to escape and later returned to the orphanage. There she stole documents exposing the administrator's corruption and sent them to the authorities. She also took the opportunity to steal enough money to live on before going back to the streets. Later she became a morally-ambiguous professional thief. After encountering Batman she immediately became attracted to him.

For you to win, the Undercover Agents must outnumber the Criminals.

Abilities: use one each Night

Action: Astonishing Beauty – Your good looks mean you can easily convert any fool who’ll follow you. If you should be killed, they would likely commit suicide. Used on alternate days.

Skill: Catwalk – Your stealthy movements allow you to steal one item from your target without being seen.

You can privately communicate with the other Undercover Agents on this writeboard. (password: scumofgotham)

Please read the rules and confirm your participation to this game in the Confirmation & Discussion topic.

Please ask us any questions here if you are unsure about anything.

~ Joker and Penguin

We probably would've had a chance if I hadn't managed to completely screw myself over on Day One. But, well, that's me. Doc played it off pretty well for a while, but apparently he was on 'the list'.

The one main issue I had with this game is that the roles were tailored to the person you were playing as. I brought it up after my death about the same thing, but for alignments, but was assured that it wasn't purposely set that way. I'm still kind of curious to the thinking behind this, because we were kind of nervous in the beginning about Zsasz being taken out early for being a 'serial killer'. It was sort of a different way of metagaming, not to mention def was already curious about the whole thing on day one, thinking I was an independent because of being Catwoman.

But I must say, the scenes and comics were a great read, and one of the best takes on day beginnings/endings on EB yet. It was also nice to see many vague roles come up with vague characters - it killed us knowing every person had 2 actions to use, not to mention it was impossible for us to get a guarenteed kill unless the Ventriloquist used his skill. That's another, but much smaller thing - everybody has a bunch of actions, but we can't get a confirmed kill twice in a row. I suppose that's because we weren't the only killers in the game, though.

Oh, and as for the whole 'sheep' thing...remember, we had absolutely no idea what the whole town was organizing behind the scenes. The main thing that started it was the fact that half of the criminals would put in their votes going along with def's logic without saying a single reason for doing so, or otherwise saying 'Creeps summed it up'. It really did seem as if half the criminals were just lazing about and throwing their votes in with whatever def decided, which brought about the 'sheep'. I still kind of see it that way, though I know that most of the people I'm thinking of probably had a big hand in behind the scenes of the town.

What I also found was iritating was that def would basically do what he lynched me for every day after my death: give reasons to lynch somebody, but vote for somebody else. I know it wasn't in the same vein in which I did it, but it still really ticked me off, though it's kind of obvious considering he's pretty much the one who killed me.

All in all: a good game, however badly we failed. . Though it still wasn't the classic sort of mafia I still want to see eventually, it was a really unique experience for mafias.

[Flipz]

I've enjoyed watching this mafia game (though admittedly, I've mainly been focusing on the hosts' BRILLIANT Lego comic work, GREAT job guys!). I hope I can join in the next Mafia School so I can one day rise to the same level as the rest of you!

[K-Nut]

Damn! Well, it was fun, but due to horrible timing, I couldn't contribute much. But killed on the last night just sucks! Before I say more, I must apologize greatly to Peanuts. I felt bad when I said we had no trust, I knew we made up in PMs, but I'm still greatly sorry! My death had nothing to do with forgetting to send in my PM, did it? But just remind me to never play during this time of year again. Congrats to the winners!

[WhiteFang]

So, it's now all over! Now, I can take a moment and re-visit the whole story once more! Firstly, I will like to thanks ADHO15 and The Penguin for putting up a good show in this game for our EB players! For sure, it was definitely refreshing to have timely openings for each day and night and I appreciate the hosts' dedication to keep things current and on time. Well done.

Now to the game mechanics, the whole concept of allowing each character to own 2 different abilities to execute, certainly pose a challenge to how we can go about defining our actions. It was challenging to figure those out, until the mid-period of the games, most of the abilities are identified in the background by Kiel and def. It was modeled quite similarity in the Hogwarts mafia.

One of the notable downside was some of the undercover agents were in fact undercover agents based on their certain abilities and affiliation in the Batman universe. Like Catwoman who was never a fact that she was a criminal to begin with, but a friend of Batman and some of our night actions are also quite similar with our characters' natural abilities. If it was made random in the first place, then I will think the host could review into this before others "metagame" and leverage on the fact to associate it with the players. We should not be guessing other players' affiliations based on their character's history. A food for thought.

The players in this game that I played with, most of which are new players that I have not played with at all. To me, it was a refreshing experience. I enjoyed myself playing my cards with most of you and some of you also guarded against me especially in early days. All part of the game of life. While, I am not enjoying much, was (half) of the players or so, are clearly lazy and ineffective in launching a deterrence against most accusations. I am not referring to Brickdoctor. In fact, I think you have done very well in this. In this game, most of the private correspondence was with def and at the early stage, I almost got myself killed by him as I was messing with my own role. My mistake though, but it was ultimately figured out and I had to trust someone to work in private. I am glad def didn't went rogue despite the fact that he was independent.

I got more thoughts to add later.

[Brickdoctor]

Congratulations, Town!

This game was the most fun I've had in a true mafia game, despite the fact that I ended up being lynched for something I couldn't change after watching the Agent team disintegrate around me.

Day 1, I think, was the turning point. Just about twenty more hours, and the Agents would have been in a much better position. CallmePie was our converter, and we had planned to convert def or KDM. Then Rumble Strike had the bad luck of targeting the Riddler the same Night as Clayface, and Nightshroud couldn't kill anyone.

I was the framer. I gave KDM that false result on himself on Day 2 hoping that he would get another investigator to investigate the same person I was to test my sanity, so then I could frame the player instead, and both of us investigators would return a scum result.

Players of note, to me:

KDM and def - solely because you guys managed to arrange those teams of Townies that prevented me from being able to predict the investigator's targets.

Tammo - you were Scum? Never would've guessed. I did notice you seemed to jump at the same targets for lynches that I did, when I knew they were Town.

JediAnakin - you became less sheepish as the game progressed. Nice job.

Oh, yes, and about the un-investigatable thing: I completed a task the Night before the first investigation, which blocked that, but I have no idea why the second investigation failed.

[Scorpiox]

Congratulations town!

Before I start, I really didn't notice about Kiel's last PM, that was actually true about me missing it. Yes I was the scum blocker, not the inventor, but one of my roles was to hand out pies, the other to use them myself.

def - Good job, you practically won this for the town. Sorry for getting angry day four, but my annoyence of your attitude was nothing to do with me being scum. I genuinely was irritated by you, but I hope I didn't offend when I got angry. Sorry.

I'll share more thoughts later, anyone want me to link to the scum board here?

[JimBee]

I forgot to mention that the comics and custom minifigs were excellent. Well done, ADHO and Penguin.

True, I voted with the crowd every time, but we were right every single time, right? I *still* don't see how that made me unhelpful for the duration of the game. I knew def was the main leader, and he approached me after I was investigated on Night 2 (Sok also contacted me). I trusted him and gave him everything I knew. I even investigated Rumble Strike on Night 3, because I did suspect him, even before I knew anyone else did. I was blocked. And, I tried to kill Black Mask (no one told me he was unkillable), and I had suspected him since I joined the game.

I must apologize for bringing this up again, as I'm sure there was enough of it on Day 5. It's just really insulting to hear that I'm being unhelpful when I've really tried to be (it's not my fault that I got blocked). Def didn't tell me anything, I told him everything. And if I asked him to be a little more trusting, I'm suddenly "fishing for information". Hey, I'm just trying to make informed decisions. I know my rants didn't help one bit, but consider it the pissed-off side of me.

[Tamamono]

Wait... what? What happened? Croc killed K-Nut, but how did I die? Did I die by default?

Tammo - you were Scum? Never would've guessed. I did notice you seemed to jump at the same targets for lynches that I did, when I knew they were Town.

Yup! I was converted by FFB on Night 4.

I have so much to say on this game, but first I have to read over the conclusion several more times. I still don't understand what happened.

[K-Nut]

Wait... what? What happened? Croc killed K-Nut, but how did I die? Did I die by default?

I was actually wondering why Croc killed me, I thought I was cleared by the investigator! Conclusions should be renamed Confusions!

Edited December 10, 2011 by K-nut

[Tamamono]

I was actually wondering why Croc killed me, I thought I was cleared by the investigator! Conclusions should be renamed Confusions!

You were cleared by me! I was the investigator (I'll explain how I got the action in a few minutes, still got to gather my thoughts!)

[K-Nut]

You were cleared by me! I was the investigator (I'll explain how I got the action in a few minutes, still got to gather my thoughts!)

Oh.

[Masked Builder]

Great game everyone! I had fun this time around but I also wanted to try to change my playing style. I wanted to have more of a "helps the town" game, but seeing as I was lynched, I don't think I did too much. Well, it was fun to play anyways!

[Tamamono]

Reading over the scum writeboard now, I should count myself lucky that I lived though Night 1!

[ADHO15]

Please don't post role PMs. I'll post all of them in a short while along with some of my own comments.

It seems you've forgotten how to read in your absence, CallMePie.

My death had nothing to do with forgetting to send in my PM, did it?

No, that would have just got you penalty votes if the game carried on. You were just unlucky to be targetted by Croc on the last night.

One of the notable downside was some of the undercover agents were in fact undercover agents based on their certain abilities and affiliation in the Batman universe. Like Catwoman who was never a fact that she was a criminal to begin with, but a friend of Batman and some of our night actions are also quite similar with our characters' natural abilities. If it was made random in the first place, then I will think the host could review into this before others "metagame" and leverage on the fact to associate it with the players. We should not be guessing other players' affiliations based on their character's history. A food for thought.

Like I assured CallMePie, existing stories and relationships in the comics and films had absolutely no effect on which characters were scum. I mostly organised the roles and I was not a particularly big Batman fan before starting work on this game a year ago, so I was not too aware that Catwoman wasn't really a criminal and was likely to be working for Batman. If anything, the Agents' allegiance was probably based on their roles, which isn't great, I know.

In response to the complaints that the roles were predictable because of the characters, I personally don't think the game would have worked very well if the roles were random and Croc, for example, and investigator and Simon The Pieman was a serial killer. I tried to make the assigning of the roles to the players random by letting you pick your own character, but the character/role relationship was perhaps a bit obvious, though hopefully still a little hazy as many of the roles would suit several villains.

Oh, yes, and about the un-investigatable thing: I completed a task the Night before the first investigation, which blocked that, but I have no idea why the second investigation failed.

Hush unknowingly protected you from all actions that Night, so people were not able to investigate you.

But more on the night actions later...

Wait... what? What happened? Croc killed K-Nut, but how did I die? Did I die by default?

Yes, as you lost and The League Of Shadows' goal was going to be to detonate the missile, wiping out Gotham, I thought you could try to carry it out on your own as a desperate last attempt. Whether you died or lived and lost doesn't really matter.

PS. @ Scorpiox - there's a link in the first post.

[Peanuts]

Before I say more, I must apologize greatly to Peanuts. I felt bad when I said we had no trust, I knew we made up in PMs, but I'm still greatly sorry!

Really, there's no reason to apology, you've got every reason to be pissed when I betray you by telling your role without aksing you, especially when one of the people I tell is scum.

So, it was a great game, but I feel like I screwed it up. I strongly mistrusted WhiteFang, which lead me to believe he was lying and therefore defending Rumble Strike and killing myself. But what I didn't understand back then and still don't understand, if WhiteFang had the role to copy another role, why wouldn't he copy the investigator? And additionally, KDM had told me he had claimed that he had redirected me at Brickdoctor on day one, while Doc claimed his target had been unaltered and mine hadn't been either. Well, that's why I did what I did. I know I was no help for the town, but I felt slightly offended when you thought I'd pull of a scum flail. Am I really that noobish?

The liked the idea with the tasks; was there more behind them than giving people something to think about and distributing invulnerability for one night? What exactly was the punishment for not completing them? How many tasks were there?

Anyway, the hosts really did a good job with the game. The conclusion was interesting, I suppose Ra's was a cult leader? I had no idea there was one until now, it's good he got killed on day one.

I liked the fact we could choose our own roles, it enhanced roleplaying a lot in my opinion. I'm not sure about connecting the actions to the roles, though. I think it's a bit unfair.

There might come more, if I think of anything else.

[CMP]

It seems you've forgotten how to read in your absence, CallMePie.

Like I assured CallMePie, existing stories and relationships in the comics and films had absolutely no effect on which characters were scum. I mostly organised the roles and I was not a particularly big Batman fan before starting work on this game a year ago, so I was not too aware that Catwoman wasn't really a criminal and was likely to be working for Batman. If anything, the Agents' allegiance was probably based on their roles, which isn't great, I know.

In response to the complaints that the roles were predictable because of the characters, I personally don't think the game would have worked very well if the roles were random and Croc, for example, and investigator and Simon The Pieman was a serial killer. I tried to make the assigning of the roles to the players random by letting you pick your own character, but the character/role relationship was perhaps a bit obvious, though hopefully still a little hazy as many of the roles would suit several villains.

Oh. Damn it. That's why I like classic mafias, I can remember the rules.

I can understand that, but there's the issue: you say allegiences may have been based on roles, which in turn were based on the characters. The game would've worked a lot better had the roles been random - again, def even assumed I was Independent due to being Catwoman. That's why we also thought the Riddler and Egghead were the investigators.

[Masked Builder]

Like I assured CallMePie, existing stories and relationships in the comics and films had absolutely no effect on which characters were scum. I mostly organised the roles and I was not a particularly big Batman fan before starting work on this game a year ago, so I was not too aware that Catwoman wasn't really a criminal and was likely to be working for Batman. If anything, the Agents' allegiance was probably based on their roles, which isn't great, I know.

In response to the complaints that the roles were predictable because of the characters, I personally don't think the game would have worked very well if the roles were random and Croc, for example, and investigator and Simon The Pieman was a serial killer. I tried to make the assigning of the roles to the players random by letting you pick your own character, but the character/role relationship was perhaps a bit obvious, though hopefully still a little hazy as many of the roles would suit several villains.

I think you did a good job of it. Nobody thought I was the town doctor! They all seemed to think I had brawn but no brains.....

[CMP]

I think you did a good job of it. Nobody thought I was the town doctor! They all seemed to think I had brawn but no brains.....

Isn't the doctor more associated with brawn? Actually, I would've thought you'd've been the blocker. If nobody had revealed roles, and I survived, anyway.

[Masked Builder]

Isn't the doctor more associated with brawn? Actually, I would've thought you'd've been the blocker. If nobody had revealed roles, and I survived, anyway.

Yeah I guess so.

[Tamamono]

Wow, ADHO and Pengy, let me just say that this was an incredible game. The sets were fantastic, the characters extremely well made, the night actions all very interesting and unique, and the comic format for the Day beginnings/endings was magnificent! This was definitely the most fun I have ever had in a mafia game.

Congratulations to the winners! You guys played spectacularly, especially def and KDM. You all definitely deserve the win.

Revelation time!

I was the Braniac. Once per game (one-shot action) I had the ability to copy another player's action. That player does not lose his/her action, but I gain it.

Needless to say, I targeted sok on the first night after probing him for info the day before and got his investigator action, which I then used with the help of def (I'm not very good at picking night targets yet!).

On the second night, I investigated Flitwick, but I was blocked by Scorpiox. I'm really surprised at how much you guys tried to get rid of me! Boy, am I lucky that Nightshroud's action wasn't 100% accurate.

On the third night, I investigated K-Nut and got back a town result (it didn't stop me from suspecting him to be Godfather, though!).

On the fourth night, I investigated Brickdoctor, but I was unable to complete my investigation because 'he was with his gang all night'. This is where the downfall of Doc started.

And then I was converted by Ra's/Fred Fred! He was the cult leader for the League of Shadows team (it was titled 'Scum' in public to avoid suspicion of Ra's). Unfortunately, he had not had much luck with his conversions prior to converting me, so it was just the two of us against def's town and the rest of the agents.

It's really too bad that def caught Ra's in a lie before he could convert Fangy (who would have copied Fred Fred's ability so that we could have two conversion per night). It's even worse that I had specifically told Ra's to claim to have targeted whoever he converted the night before to avoid being incriminated.

I was really worried that I would end up giving myself away with scummy behavior in my PM conversation with def, but I think it actually turned out okay. Def, did you suspect that I was scum? I suppose Sirius Black (he was the tracker, right) seeing Ra's targeting me on Night 4 didn't help my case.

From that point on, I was careful to be extra townie. I investigated whoever def told me to (KDM on Night 5, Fangy on Night 6, and badboy on Night 7) and added useful theories and such in the Day threads like I usually do. I was really hoping that badboy had a bomb to detonate so that he could kill off half the town, but I suppose he really was telling the truth about his role.

On Day 6, def asked me to use my second ability, which was titled Egg-cellent Criminal (a backwards investigator role; I could prove my affiliation to one person per game) and would have proven that I was scum. Instead of telling him the truth about my role in hopes that he would disregard it as useless, I claimed to have a one-night-immunity type of role where I target myself. I had planned to then use my Egg-cellent Criminal skill on myself, thus making it look to Sirius Black (if he was tracking me) that I really was protecting myself.

On the subject of the roles being linked to the characters, I think it wasn't too bad of an idea. I mean, it was pretty easy to tell that Deadshot, for example, was a killer, but there were a few others that were pretty hazy.

Yes, as you lost and The League Of Shadows' goal was going to be to detonate the missile, wiping out Gotham, I thought you could try to carry it out on your own as a desperate last attempt. Whether you died or lived and lost doesn't really matter.

Oh, okay, that makes a little more sense. I had considered contacting Doc and making an alliance with him for as long as we could, but I eventually decided against it, as there would be no reason for him not to throw me under a bus to boost his townie status if he got pushed into a corner by def.

[Scorpiox]

def, when you read the scum board forgive me for ranting like hell all over it. Difficult real-life issues put me in a not-to-be-messed-with-mood, and your attitude ticked me off.

Tammo, wow, I never suspected you to be anything but town.

def, what put you on to me in the first place?

Guys, were we really 'the worst scum team ever' as def said we were?

Edited December 10, 2011 by Scorpiox

[Masked Builder]

Guys, were we really 'the worst scum team ever' as def said we were?

There is a huge learning curve when you first play as scum. It's not easy.

[Scorpiox]

Embarassingly this is my second scum game, Gertrude was also a Mafia Accountant, but she was just a vanilla anyway.