[Snowball Bash Mafia] [Mafia Wins]

[What is?]
Snowball Bash Mafia is intended to be a fun and seasonally appropriate mafia game to round out the last of 2015 with a focus on—you guessed it—snowballs. And lots of them.

Snowball Bash Mafia has a core mechanic that serves as its underpinning: Snow forts and snowballs, or, more simply, snow! Built with the design goal of enabling player choice and interaction with regard to the game's proceedings, the Snowball Bash will allow for each and every player to tailor their phase-by-phase decisions around their preferred playstyle.

[Cool. How does it work?]
Every player in this game has their own snow fort that both grows and weakens through the numerical snow count of your fort—and don't worry, I will track this for you each phase. The numbers are still in flux as I prepare this game, but for demonstrative purposes, some numbers will be presented as example.

When you start the game, your snow fort will have 2 snow. At the start of each day phase (or each phase; mechanics and balancing are still fluctuating), fresh snow will fall and add 1 snow to your fort.

Your snow fort is very much your lifeline in this game. A large percentage of roles, if not every role, will require snow to function. That is to say, to perform actions—like a stun, jail, or whatever else—you would need to scoop 1 snow from your snow fort in order to use your role power. You, of course, have the option not to use your snow. Why would you do that, though?

The working idea is that a number (or majority) of roles will cost 1 snow to use and add that much snow to the target's snow fort. This means that you strengthen their fort at the cost of using your abilities. Having a snow count above 0 is important for your snow fort, as many roles that throw snowballs at a target will be lethal if received by a target at 0 snow. Choose your targets carefully.

The night kill for the mafia also operates under these parameters. Any target hit by a NK will receive 2 or 3 (haven't decided, but probably 3) snow's worth of damage. However, if the target survives then they will receive 1 snow to their total (this part might get removed). Unlike other roles, a night kill will be lethal to a player if they hit 0 snow at any point during the action; other roles will leave the player at 0 snow, making the next ability used on them lethal.

This is the basic overview of the mechanics, which I will streamline into a much cleaner description before the game starts.

In other words, you have a snow fort. You get snow during certain rollovers. Using your role costs snow. Targets afflicted by roles may receive snow in return. Having a high snow count prevents dying to other roles and night kills. You will be able to determine if people are using roles on you based off of your snow count. You can kill people at 0 snow when you use your role ability. Essentially, everyone is their own personal doctor, their own motion detector, and, in some cases, a vigilante. As a final note, your snow fort will cap out at a certain amount of snow (probably 5 or 6 or so). All excess snow will topple off of your fort and disappear.

[I'm still processing this. What other changes are there?]
In addition, I have plans for players to only be allowed 3 votes each day phase. At the start of the phase, you will have 3 snowballs for voting. These “voteballs” are not subtracted from your snow count, and they do not add to the target's snow count upon voting. If the target receives enough votes, they are out of the Snowball Bash.

Players will also have the option each day phase to convert their freshly fallen snow into a vote, giving them 4 votes total for that phase. This 4th voteball operates exactly like the others.

I have not decided if I will allow players to save voteballs from previous phases, but it is unlikely.

[Okay. I follow you, but are you considering other things?]
This is the base game as is, and I will run it with these planned mechanics, after balancing is done to snow numbers and roles. I have a good sense of what the roles will look like in this game, with lots of flavor and fitting elements. As observed prior, I am taking into account that each player will have unique chances to be their own personal doctor, a motion detector, and possibly a vigilante, and I will balance roles around this fact. For a hint of what's to come, much of my focus will be on disruption and building roles around the snow concept. These new roles will be reminiscent of ones you already know.

[When will this start?]
I'd prefer to start sometime around the 29th or 30th. I would like for at least 10 players, but I will start with fewer if necessary.

Rollover will happen at 8:00 PM (20:00) PST (GMT -8).

[Closing Comments]
Yeah this isn't a pretty post. Maybe I'll pretty it up. Maybe I won't. I'll be updating mechanics and rules when I get closer to starting it up. I will let the thread know in advance when I plan on closing sign-ups with at least 12 hour notice. It may take a day or two to balance, but I plan to work on that as more people sign-up. Reason for this being that the number tuning of the snow effects will require a delicate touch based upon the roles I make and how many of them there are, and I won't know how many I'm making until I know how many are playing. For the most part, you can expect the numbers highlighted under mechanics as an example to be very close to what I think will work best for what I have in mind. Ideally, this game will start before next year.

If there are any questions or comments, feel free to post or message me.

[Rules and Mechanics]

Mechanics
Snowforts start at 2 snow.
Snow falls at the start of each day phase, adding 1 snow to your snowfort.
Snow is used by various abilities to perform actions.
Some role actions that consume snow also give snow to the recipient.
Some role actions will kill a player if they are at 0 snow when receiving the action.
Snowforts cap at 5 snow.
Night kills do 3 snow worth of damage. If the night kill leaves the player at 0 snow, they die.
The mafia delivering the night kill may consume 2 snow to add 1 additional damage to the night kill.

Rules
3 votes per phase, however, you may convert the snowfall from that day phase into a 4th vote.
No Lynch and No Vote are valid votes.
Claiming is allowed, but no screencapping or quoting of your role PM.
Dead players may not speculate in thread.
If you do not post for 48 hours, you will lose access to your role for 24 hours.
Town wins if they eliminate all mafia.
Mafia wins if they out-number the town or bring the ratio down to 1:1.

Miscellaneous
I will track your snow totals and provide them in PM each phase and upon request.
Starting ratio is 3M:7T.

Yes good

SNOW ME THE F❆CK UP

Me.

count me in!

okay

ME!!!!

Me, please~

Yesss, I require more combatants.

There's no doubt that this will be fun. I'm in.

I love resource management games.

We have eight players signed up right now. My goal would be at least ten, but this can work if necessary. The main reason I am hoping for some more players is so that way the game lasts longer, thus making resource management and speculation on the snowforts more of an actual thing. Either way, I'm going to start prepping roles based around a minimum of eight players so I can begin some number tuning.

ok

<333

asdsfdsf

Oh, I said 12 hour advance notice.

I'm soft-closing sign-ups tonight at 8:00 PM PST. This means if ANYONE ELSE does sign up within a reasonable time following the closing (particularly someone I've talked to about such a thing), I'll include them. Otherwise, I'll aim to have this up and running tomorrow night. If another one or two sign-up or I'm having trouble with balance, it may get pushed back to the 31st.

That's all for now ~