Snake's WWE Invasion 'Royal Mafia Rumble'

[The Icon]

Has Snake's forum just died for anyone else?

[swiftstrike]

seems fine for me.

[Mike Castle]

Have to say, the scum played well together, barring a few mini arguments. But that's better than I've seen in some games. The occasional disagreement is bound to be a problem.

 

And swift, I liked the Mexican Jumping Bean comment . I wish I'd listened to you earlier though. I think I was trying to be extra cautious of you in my mind, which led to me not giving enough credibility to your arguments. Bad idea for me it would seem.

 

I do think (Like I think Nexus said) having less players might be an idea in future games. It's great having massive games, but it leaves us with problems when/if people flake, and further issues in looking back over old posts.

 

Which means I need to re-look at my PYP game before we get to it in here.

[Jaffa]

Yeah, I was a dickhead, wasn't I?

[Mike Castle]

Nah, you let things get to you, which is natural at times. It's just about trying to remind yourself not to do so. I let it get to me at times still, it's just tough to remind yourself otherwise.

 

I did love how Chris suddenly got all worried at one point when I pretty much named all of you, only for him to stop worrying quite so much when it was obvious I was no longer pushing pretty much anyone beyond you. The fact you were all, seemingly, so desperate to get me lynched, to get rid of two for one, and despite attempting it so often, you never really succeeded, and yet still dominated the game, is rather funny

[Lawz]

Nah, you let things get to you, which is natural at times. It's just about trying to remind yourself not to do so. I let it get to me at times still, it's just tough to remind yourself otherwise.

 

I did love how Chris suddenly got all worried at one point when I pretty much named all of you, only for him to stop worrying quite so much when it was obvious I was no longer pushing pretty much anyone beyond you. The fact you were all, seemingly, so desperate to get me lynched, to get rid of two for one, and despite attempting it so often, you never really succeeded, and yet still dominated the game, is rather funny

 

I just wish my idea of lynching you with Ron being the hammer had actually been executed. I just tweaked your own idea and brought it forth a day phase, shame it didn't happen.

[Chris B]

Nah, you let things get to you, which is natural at times. It's just about trying to remind yourself not to do so. I let it get to me at times still, it's just tough to remind yourself otherwise.

 

I did love how Chris suddenly got all worried at one point when I pretty much named all of you, only for him to stop worrying quite so much when it was obvious I was no longer pushing pretty much anyone beyond you. The fact you were all, seemingly, so desperate to get me lynched, to get rid of two for one, and despite attempting it so often, you never really succeeded, and yet still dominated the game, is rather funny

 

If the game hadn't gone on, I think we'd have succeeded. There were people gagging to lynch you - we just couldn't get anything to stick. It was the main reason I wanted to lynch Family Guy. It would have looked bad for you. The difficulty was in sorting out someone getting the hammer on you without it having to be one of us.

 

One play I was particularly pleased with was getting Lawz (or Brownie, I can't remember) to step in to the argument between you and me, allowing me to get the last word. It was a bastard thing to do, since it let me get in some decent suspicion on you with no way for you to come back without looking petty.

[Mike Castle]

Nah, you let things get to you, which is natural at times. It's just about trying to remind yourself not to do so. I let it get to me at times still, it's just tough to remind yourself otherwise.

 

I did love how Chris suddenly got all worried at one point when I pretty much named all of you, only for him to stop worrying quite so much when it was obvious I was no longer pushing pretty much anyone beyond you. The fact you were all, seemingly, so desperate to get me lynched, to get rid of two for one, and despite attempting it so often, you never really succeeded, and yet still dominated the game, is rather funny

 

I just wish my idea of lynching you with Ron being the hammer had actually been executed. I just tweaked your own idea and brought it forth a day phase, shame it didn't happen.

I can't believe I accused Ron of being a SK so early... I should have waited a day phase to see what transpired. It was what I thought was breadcrumbing of a vig, and the saying he didn't want TripleA and Me discussing him being a probable power role as he wanted to keep hidden from scum... (looking back I can see his idea was to get us two to shut up, and hopefully draw a night kill, unfortunately he drew the cop to "check" and the doc to "protect" from a night kill... bah!), that did me in, as I then called him on it, forcing him to role claim, which meant I role claimed in return (which in a way scuppered some of your plans, lol Though the "You can't be a bomb, I am!" plan would have backfired spectacularly based on the whole "Well why don't you be the hammer on him to prove it?" stuff that could easily come up. Any true town bomb would go "Yeah, no problem" while lying scum would have to come up with an excuse.

 

But yeah, that I also then sort of proposed that idea was terrible, I mean the idea was relatively good, but to then accept bringing it forward a day phase... it almost did me in even when I realized it was a damned poor idea, as by that point when I backed down from the idea (upon realizing Ron was likely town, and me and him joint could scupper your game just by being alive) it left a bad taste in most people's mouth (mainly helped on by Chris, so nicely played again there).

 

I can't believe Chris played me so well though, he was on my radar early on, and then dropped him from it thanks to a single back and forth pretty much, I should have been picking up more on what he said like swift... dammit. lol

[Mike Castle]

Nah, you let things get to you, which is natural at times. It's just about trying to remind yourself not to do so. I let it get to me at times still, it's just tough to remind yourself otherwise.

 

I did love how Chris suddenly got all worried at one point when I pretty much named all of you, only for him to stop worrying quite so much when it was obvious I was no longer pushing pretty much anyone beyond you. The fact you were all, seemingly, so desperate to get me lynched, to get rid of two for one, and despite attempting it so often, you never really succeeded, and yet still dominated the game, is rather funny

 

If the game hadn't gone on, I think we'd have succeeded. There were people gagging to lynch you - we just couldn't get anything to stick. It was the main reason I wanted to lynch Family Guy. It would have looked bad for you. The difficulty was in sorting out someone getting the hammer on you without it having to be one of us.

 

One play I was particularly pleased with was getting Lawz (or Brownie, I can't remember) to step in to the argument between you and me, allowing me to get the last word. It was a bastard thing to do, since it let me get in some decent suspicion on you with no way for you to come back without looking petty.

Yeah, that was a bit of genius really. The thing with mafia is learning just when to step back from the argument, and also make sure you're arguing for the right reasons. As I've said before, arguing with someone about why that person is scum is pointless, they wont say they are either way. Which actually leaves relatively little room for trying to draw information out of someone without getting into that argument... rather tough, and something I'm yet to get the hang of truly.

 

Also, I think I've said it before... but as you guys said, Nexus' lynch shouldn't have happened. It should have been a No Lynch and a return to night. The mod doesn't have to be around at the time of the deadline for the deadline to stand. Any votes counted after the deadline don't count, and it's tough shit. But Hopefully we can chalk that up to experience for future games.

[Snake Plissken]

OK so finally I can get to my work machine..

 

First off I can only apologise for the whole of the 2 day in this game. I had some very serious personal issues going on IRL and it meant that this game very low down on the priority list, thus the game suffered due to that. I had no-one to hand off the modding to either which is what I should have done, however despite this the game itself was actually very well played.

 

The order of kills:

 

1. The Undertaker (SMS) Lynched Day 1

 

10. (Vicky Guerrero) TheRandySavage Hides behind Carbomb (Mafia) and dies as a result. Mafia also taget TRS for the nightkill. Mafia Rolecop Mike Castle to discover his bomb status. TMS investigates TripleA. Doc protects Triplea

 

8. (Big Show) Nexus Lynch Day 2 (Due to my aforementioned issues I messed up badly with timelines and what was going on, but you can't reverse a mistake so decision stood)

 

2. (The Miz) Top Man Shopper Investigates PGO

12. (R-Truth) insert_name_here - Protects PGO

15. (Bryan Danielson) TripleA - Mafia Night kill

 

20. (Christian) CoreyVandal Lynched Day 3

11. (Santino Mariella) bristep123 mafia night kill

 

9. (HHH) Chris Stone Lynch Day 4

 

3. (Kane) Swiftstrike Night Kill Day 4

6. (CM Punk) Dan Williams Lynch Day 5 - Game over

 

Most of the action happened in the first two days really. Despite him not liking the decision TripleA got his mod penalty and the flavour used was read into far too much by Mr 'I don't like flavour' Mike Castle. This then caused ructions for a fair few pages. The bottom line here is how many times have you seen a fake swerve? the use of Nexus in this was supposed to be just that, but again it didn't matter overall anyway as the Scum already knew he was town.

 

Day 2 I have already mentioned and will skip. My decision with the power of the PGO and the Bomb was mainly due to the Scum team being quite heavily powered with the Governor and Rolecop. Town just had a Macho Cop (One who can't be protected) which got a Guilty or innocent verdict the doc, roleblocker and Hider. I felt the town needed a bit more balancing. I was going to put in a couple of masons (Taker & Kane) one who was part of scum team and the other town, but I thought it might make things a bit too complicated and also the brothers would had been too easy to pick out.

 

The biggest problem though that the town faced was the scum team, they were possibly the best organised bunch that discussed everything and planned together without ego, thus allowing them to manipulate proceedings quite easily as the various elements of town continued to bicker between themselves (Castle, Simmons, Family Guy and while he was alive TripleA). If Lawz's play had of worked this game would have been done a lot earlier. I also should point out that it was a bit harsh to lynch SMS day1 for his personal issues....

 

Towns saving grace's though were both Swifstrike swapping in ( No surprises there) and Bristep123, who is an excellent addition to the game. Mike Castle's sweeping statements of '**** is scum I know it' which generally were wrong probably kepot the light off the scum for large portions of the game. I think that going forward everyone should try and discard how people played and experience level as well and treat each game as a first game. I think I mentioned that last time.

 

The other thing around the L-1 penalties. The idea behind it is a final chance to get back in thread. Also when Dan used the chance to save himself he effectively gave you an extra day as if you had lynched someone else Chris Stone was going to be modkilled overnight and with a mafia kill the game would have ended a day earlier. We definetly need to make sure that if you are comitting to play in a game that you can actually put the time to it as this obviously damaged towns chances of winning. I didn't like using the penalties, they were meant to be more threat that anything else, but then I ran out of replacements and had no choice. (But then in a large game like this we will always strugglke for extra players)

 

Anyway as for MVPs:

 

Town: Bristep123 - Played a blinder for his first ever game and had the Scum team on the backfoot until the inevitable kill came.

 

Scum: Really should be the whole team, but if I have to single one out it would be Chris B However this would have been Lawz as previously mentioned if his powerplay had worked.

 

Finally thanks to everyone for bearing with me throughout this game which was hampered by my issues during day 2 and the Christmas period which I also think caused the game to become a bit fragmented. I would also suggest that we only run large games sparringly and/or run a couple of smaller games side by side so those who want to play can. In fact we could have 2 leagues one for experienced and one for beginners?

 

Finally Below I have posted all the role PMs.

[Snake Plissken]

SMS,

You are the WWE Superstar The Undertaker, you no-sell everyones finishers. Therefore you are a Roleblocker.

Abilities:

Once per Ad Break (Night phase), you may PM the name of the person who you want to block any night actions (If they have any) for.

You win when all threats to the WWE (Town) are eliminated. Provided below is an avatar for you to use for the duration of the game.[

----

 

Top Man Shopper,

You are the WWE Superstar The Miz, and you are AWESOME! So much so you are a Macho Cop.

Abilities:

Once per night you may PM me with the name of the person who you wish to investigate. You will be returned with a Guilty or Not Guilty verdict.

As you are

[Retro Red]

Thanks for running the game Snake, for my first time I had a lot of fun. I appreciate the town MVP nod, even though I really didn't spot any of the scum before I was killed (besides Nexus, but that was almost a gimme). I thought that ChrisB played excellently, but so did Carbomb because he stayed off everyone's radar the entire game. Town lost because of very well organised scum who played brilliantly on the whole.

 

If Randy had hid behind town on night one we'd have seen a very different game, but sadly it was not to be. Losing the cop and the doctor was a nightmare on night two, and Mike didn't help things with his serial killer theory following as it forced Ron to reveal PGO when we didn't have any more power roles to lose and therefore negated his role's usefulness. Mike was also throwing out so many theories and accusations that on the occasions he was right people had a hard time trusting him. The scum were able to fuel that very well, and stopped any real movement on Brownie. Also scum knowing Mike's role from Day two gave them a big advantage because any plans Mike had to use his role were useless. Ron tunnelled on Family Guy for most of the game which proved to be wrong, and Family Guy was far too defensive of anything pointed his way to really help root out the scum so they almost cancelled each other out. Personally it took me a while to get going, which didn't help us either, and swift was too late into the game to make a real difference. The modkills were just brutal to us in the long run, as were the substitutions.

 

Still, a lot of lessons learned and I look forward to the next game.

[Chris B]

Right, talking of lessons learned, here are some thoughts for future play as town.

 

1 - Don't lurk. It's not useful for anyone. You won't get protected and scum are more likely to target you. The people who make noise? They'll get watched, tracked, protected, investigated, etc. You? You're left out in the cold when there are people trying to kill you.

 

2 - Watch out for people getting off easy. Is someone saying how much they suspect someone, but actually subtly defending them? Do they have lots of easy questions for them, and do their suspicions go along the lines of 'This guy is suspicious BUT...'? Then call them out and ask why they're not pushing someone they find suspicious.

 

3 - You will probably be played at some point. Don't take it personally and get pissed off with the town. You may not know who you're meant to be working with, but you have to work together. Question your own assumptions about everyone, but don't throw your toys out of the pram.

 

4 - Scum always know when the deadline is. Make sure you do as well.

 

5 - Work out what approach people are taking and ask them why. Is someone being very aggressive? They might just be flinging shit in every direction, hoping something sticks. Are they being quiet? They may be trying to fly under the radar, and lurking only helps scum.

 

6 - Look for contradictions. Having played scum now, it's difficult to keep track of your plays, because you're trying to get everyone else lynched. They WILL bring up suspicions about people, and then completely forget about them. If they're seriously scum hunting, they won't forget who they suspect.

 

7 - If a scum player is playing erratically, don't assume their stable-mates will have protected them. They won't want to be the final few guys with weak reasons - they'll have announced suspicion early, subtly tried to defend them, and then they'll sail them up the river.

[Carbomb]

To address a few comments on here: I did not lurk, nor did I coast. Sure, I didn't post as much as I should have, but I did make an effort to put as much as possible into my posts when I did, and very rarely did anyone question me or pull me up on any discrepancies. I don't think anyone's acting sore, but if Town didn't end up suspecting me, it wasn't because I posted nothing - I think I gave you guys potentially enough rope to hang me with, you just didn't pick it up.

[Mike Castle]

the flavour used was read into far too much by Mr 'I don't like flavour' Mike Castle.

I was right though wasn't I? Also, I actually do like flavour, I'm just shit when it comes to reading much of it. It would be hard to say I don't like flavour when you consider the Mutiny game, all things considered. I think that game had the most attempt at putting in flavour of any thus far, considering I had videos for every lynch and such.

 

Day 2 I have already mentioned and will skip. My decision with the power of the PGO and the Bomb was mainly due to the Scum team being quite heavily powered with the Governor and Rolecop. Town just had a Macho Cop (One who can't be protected) which got a Guilty or innocent verdict the doc, roleblocker and Hider. I felt the town needed a bit more balancing. I was going to put in a couple of masons (Taker & Kane) one who was part of scum team and the other town, but I thought it might make things a bit too complicated and also the brothers would had been too easy to pick out.

Regarding the town roles, I think town was still overpowered. (Incidentally, yes the Governor role was also a godfather, strictly speaking a governor isn't investigation immune. I think perhaps that role was a smidgen overpowered. One of the goons could have been made a straight godfather role while leaving the governor role in there). When you consider that town had 2 investigation roles (hider counts as investigation role, because it's meant to confirm people who look town, or in some cases, allow town to know if a certain player is scum or not), and then two roles that hurt anyone attacking them, it ran the risk of scum being stuffed almost in one night (Say the hider announces his role and that he's targetting carbomb night one. Cop targets Chris B, brownie targets Ron, and Lawz targets me. Boom, 4 scum gone pretty much in one phase).

 

I was actually discussing this with Nexus the other day (he's got a game to run on MS shortly, and so was discussing balancing etc.) and so I was going over things with him, and unless you have a real large game (25 players or so) it's best to keep it to a single investigation role. Though I will give top marks for the Macho Cop role. Anything that prevents a risk of follow the cop (Cop announces that he's the cop, doc just protects him leaving scum to run around trying to kill the doc while the cop confirms whether people are town or scum) is a plus in my book. It's one reason I like the jailkeeper role, even if it is slightly overpowered compared to basic doc/roleblocker roles.

 

With the PGO, as I said in thread, it's much better as one use. I think had you made it solely one use the game would have been relatively balanced even with the two investigation roles. An unlimited use PGO is always a bad idea because it can completely decimate one side or the other (or even both).

 

The biggest problem though that the town faced was the scum team, they were possibly the best organised bunch that discussed everything and planned together without ego, thus allowing them to manipulate proceedings quite easily as the various elements of town continued to bicker between themselves (Castle, Simmons, Family Guy and while he was alive TripleA). If Lawz's play had of worked this game would have been done a lot earlier. I also should point out that it was a bit harsh to lynch SMS day1 for his personal issues....

I agree, the scum team played a blinder. Well except Nexus going a bit nutty and not realizing he was getting a tad too aggressive. Thing is, that's just his playstyle, a bit like how I talk too much (though that's me in general) and tend to spot something and go nuts over it. (Which I need to fix... the problem with known scum tells is that the scum tend to also know not to be stupid enough to do them... as Chris said, it's likely best to catch them on inconsistancies... another reason swift is brilliant, he keeps tabs on who everyone is pushing, why they are etc. Which lends itself beautifully to catching people out. It also means he's unlikely to be inconsistant when scum too. It might be an idea for me to try a similar way, it will make it easier to pick up on things, and stop me diving around stupidly at points. Though I wont stop calling people on RVS stuff, if it drags us from RVS I'll do it regardless ).

 

As for SMS... yeah, it was rather harsh, but it's easier to say that in retrospect, or if you knew he was town. If you weren't sure... well I don't think it was lynching him because of his personal issues, just that for some they were the final straw. I think is that was the only case on him that people had, he'd not have been lynched. But I'm not about to go and re-read to check.

 

Towns saving grace's though were both Swifstrike swapping in ( No surprises there) and Bristep123, who is an excellent addition to the game. Mike Castle's sweeping statements of '**** is scum I know it' which generally were wrong probably kepot the light off the scum for large portions of the game. I think that going forward everyone should try and discard how people played and experience level as well and treat each game as a first game. I think I mentioned that last time.

Too damned right. Bristep was brilliant, I called him on a few things I didn't like early on, he responded brilliantly, and proceeded to be a great addition. Although his voting of Corey when he did was questionable (I had said I would do the honours if no other lynch could be agreed by deadline after all), but other than that it was solid play. I was actually surprised he was night killed though. I expected the scum to leave him in to be a potential easy lynch on the basis of "I didn't like Mike's idea, and you did it anyway, why would you do that when we could have lynched X who was scummier?" Or something similar.

 

Not sure about treating everything like a first game. But I would suggest don't ever assume anyone is a better or worse player than you or someone else. Someone who played like crap in one game, may play a blinder in another, and vice versa. For instance, I played beautifully in Square-Enix 3 (Or was it 4...? Ah well) over on MS, calling a scum player before anyone else ever considered them, and even after I died they almost let him get away. Then you get my play here which was, in all fairness. Shit outside of my initial reads of Chris B and brownie. Of course as has been said, it was impossible for me to ever get either lynch going as, despite my initial strong pushing of Nexus to his lynch (Which in fairness I was surprised wasn't turned on me on the basis of "You were tunnelling him for so long, how do we know you weren't just bussing him because you already knew he was scum as you're his buddy?") It meant what I thought couldn't be trusted so much after a couple of bad lynches for us.

 

The other thing around the L-1 penalties. The idea behind it is a final chance to get back in thread. Also when Dan used the chance to save himself he effectively gave you an extra day as if you had lynched someone else Chris Stone was going to be modkilled overnight and with a mafia kill the game would have ended a day earlier. We definetly need to make sure that if you are comitting to play in a game that you can actually put the time to it as this obviously damaged towns chances of winning. I didn't like using the penalties, they were meant to be more threat that anything else, but then I ran out of replacements and had no choice. (But then in a large game like this we will always strugglke for extra players)

I'd still say drop the L-1 penalties. Much as a mod kill should harm the side it's on, I think this is one of the games where it also proves that sometimes punishing the entire side they're on is a huge problem because we can't get them in and post. One person being modkilled isn't so much of an issue, 3 takes the piss.

 

That being said, I'm not entirely sure what the best other option is. Short of putting the player on an insta-ban for the next game (Whether the next game by that mod (though it's the mod's option to allow/ban anyone they wish anyway), or the next game in general. I guess that's likely best decided by everyone) I don't know how to stamp it out.

 

Perhaps a three strikes rule? If you flake on a game three times out of 10 (just as a for instance) then you're out period. That allows for people who have things come up they can't prevent to not be booted out (being taken to hospital, family emergencies, computer blows up etc.), but also forces anyone who winds up just flaking in general to be kicked aside. Thoughts guys?

 

Finally thanks to everyone for bearing with me throughout this game which was hampered by my issues during day 2 and the Christmas period which I also think caused the game to become a bit fragmented. I would also suggest that we only run large games sparringly and/or run a couple of smaller games side by side so those who want to play can. In fact we could have 2 leagues one for experienced and one for beginners?

I agree with running large games sparingly. I'd say perhaps a max of 15 players per game, which allows a few potential standby's, and anyone who wasn't in the last game gets first shout at being in the next one, which gives newbies a chance to get in on the action before the more veteran players.

 

Not sure about two leagues though, we don't have enough players for that. We struggled for 20 players in this one (when you consider that we had 3 flakes (Or was it 4) that got replaced, then 3 flakes that didn't get replaced... that means we only had 17 players out of 23/24 that stuck around fully. That would be two "leagues" of 8/9 players with a few floating. I think that's too few.

 

Anyone who wants to step up to "experienced" can always head over to Mafia Scum itself and play a more time intensive game there with a bigger variety of people. I'd say roll with what I said above, have a max of 15/16 players per game, and once they're full, people can /in as a replacement and those who show interest after it's full can get a PM for the following game from the next mod (thus anyone who wants in Nexus' game but can't get in, I'll PM first to see if they want in PYP and such). How's that sound to people?