def

Alright folks. This is it. The fourth edition of the wonderful EB Mafia School, a chance for you to improve your skills or simply find some in the first place! Who is eligible? EB members who have either never played a mafia game before or have played one (ie. a relative n00b), or someone who has played mafia school games and not passed them. That is, if you have played either one or zero games. I'm looking for between 16 and 20 players for this game. As a warm up, I'm asking players to do two things: 1) Post in this thread and confirm that you can log into Eurobricks daily for a month or so. Ideally, a good, fun mafia game should take up about 30 minutes of time a day, and a really fun one can take up an hour or more. If you're Hinckley, it can take up far more Consider it as much more fun than a television show, and it doesn't seem like such a commitment. 2) PM me with your answers to the following questions (Don't post them in thread). You don't need to get them right to get into the game, but it will give me an idea of what players know about the game going into it. Questions: A) Mafia games can be easily divided into scum (bad guys) and town (good guys). In a well-hosted mafia game, which of these two kittehs are more likely to be the scum? a) b) B) In a standard mafia game, how do you get night actions? C) What is a vanilla townie expected to do? If you want to familiarize yourself with mafia, please peruse this site: http://mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Newbie_Guide As a mafia school game, the roles will only be basic ones, taken from the 'very basic roles' on this page: http://mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Roles I hope to have a lot of fun with this and find some new all-stars for future mafia games. Join in the fun and give it a try

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.

Well folks, the party can begin! The Creeper's here, and here to stay! And don't you worry about those little undercover agents, they'll be smoked out of here in no time!

And don't reply to their topics. Just report them and move on

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

I'd been wanting this for months and was able to get it last night. No regrets. It's a beautiful, beautiful set. As an adult, the first Adventurers sets got me re-interested in Lego, so I feel really good about getting this. I appreciate the review, and I remember reading it when it was first posted, since it really frustrated me that the sets weren't available in Japan, and not even posted on the Japanese Amazon site as a future release. All is well in the world... I just need that NinjaGo temple and the Pet Shop...

I'm very impressed! I find those long slopes very hard to use outside of flying machines, and I think you did something really natural with them

This is a great entry. I really think you caught the vibe of the comics. I assume you've read The Killing Joke somewhere along the way? I'm very impressed

give it another two weeks or so. My collection was split in half when I moved in August and I'm just getting the rest this weekend so, the answer is : soon!

HA HA HA! Well, I'm not too impressed with this Cam fellow's attitude. "Sitting out" is no way to conquer the underworld! HA HA HA! Vote: Big Cam Vote Tally: Big Cam 1 (The Creeper)

Looks fun - Your availability during the coming few weeks - Your previous Mafia game history - Your existing interest in the Batman theme -I'm around -I've played most of the mafias here for the past two years -I read a lot of Batman comics, particularly in the late 80's/early 90's. My favorite era is the Neal Adams 70's period, followed by the original Miller Dark Knight Returns, and next the Grant Morrison stuff, including the excellent Batman and Robin he did last year. As for a character, I like the Creeper, or Two-Face. The Creeper is not so much a bad guy though, and I like being the hero of the game. HA HA HA! Do you really think a few punks with pistols can stop me? HA HA HA!

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

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.

Ahh, I'm near misty-eyed reading this... I'm so happy to things work out this way

While you have shown exceptional skill at it in the past, I think your abilities have faded over time, and I think there is room to beat things again once more.

That was something I brought up. Scouts had his Pelly thing, Cam had his critique thing, but I would figure the other two 'grudges' were Rufus and Murdock, not you, sweet and tender Kiel. But, before ten minutes of the game had passed, we had already agreed there were no grudges between us and got to work planning how to win. The four of us have already patted each other on the back enough, but I have to say it was one of the more aggressively plotted scum teams I've ever been a part of. Everyone stuck to the same page, kept things updated. We spent a lot of time on the Google spreadsheet, and figured out how to play the odds when being equally matched and having fake alliances thrown at us. And for the most part, we were pretty straight and honest with other teams (I maintain that I'm a shit liar, which makes me bad scum). I was really pleased, and just wish I was playing a bit longer this round.

Not to hijack Badboy's great thread, but the school game I'm running soon will be open to one time players, so feel free to apply. Either Badboy was the strictest school host yet, or he had a bunch of bad apples But I hope no failing students take it too badly. The first game can be very strange, particularly on EB where there is all this role-playing, which is essentially irrelevant. It can be pretty baffling for new comers, no matter how many past games you read through. And Griggs, I thought of the game a lot like Survivor when I first played, and it's a mistake. In Survivor, the first people taken out often just suck at the game. In mafia, being taken out early is often a sign of fear. There are a lot of nuances that separate the two games, but I can totally see why they appear similar at first.

As we can now see, there was no real reason. All I knew on day one was that there were four scum teams. That's not all that much. Anytime a host chooses a really specific strange number, it should be a hint that there is an importance to it. Anyway, the bottom line is there's never a good reason to kill def. He deserves to live!

I don't know if random would make anything better. It would totally cut one strategy out of the game (keeping track of actions and trying to keep them with you; one reason our team won this game was by keeping the paranoid gun owner with us as much as possible), and a win could be simply a matter of luck. I played a game where a few gifts were randomly given out each day. By the last day, one side got two gifts and the other nothing, and the nothing-side lost that day. It was a very unsatisfying game with lots of complaints afterward. I think it's important to give the sense of responsibility to players or else there can be frustration. It's a fair discussion, creating fairness, and I think the feedback after each game lets hosts think about it from more and more perspectives. I just wish there were enough hours in the day for me to host every crazy scheme I have here

Thanks for a fun game, and what I consider a deserved win Our team worked overtime, and I was really impressed. 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!

I can't believe you guys arguing over who's better when there are real prime numbers you could be paying respect to

Huh?

Let me know when you open the Japan store. I buy almost all my Lego through Amazon

They do, I specifically remember it from when I wasn't a Fellow, but was a teacher. And I had less than 2500 posts. I could lock my own topics if I wanted to. I'm not making this up

What were you planning to host? Mafia School or a regular mafia game? I'm looking to host a school game myself, just for the stripped down mechanics and a fresh batch of players.