[Snowball Bash Mafia] [Mafia Wins]

[Night Four Results]

Sammiya was jailed.
Sammiya was targeted for a stun, but it failed.
high seraph was killed. He was the oldest sibling. He was town.

Ratio is 2M:1T

---

Fresh snow falls on the now mostly emptied field of battle.
Mafia wins.

I WON A GAME AS THE MAFIA, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[Post-game]

Well, well, this game has finished. Before I pull out any other information for the players, allow me to congratulate both sides on playing exceptionally well. This was a tense game with a lot of back-and-forth. There were pretty accurate reads, and pretty deceptive mis-lynches led against town. It was a close battle and I'm glad I got to host it, and I hope all of you had fun despite how stressful it got at points. In particular, I thoroughly enjoyed the mayhem surrounding days two and three when the information and goals of various factions all collided at once. You'll understand this more in a moment when you read through the role PMs.

For full disclosure, some things went awry both before the game and during it. I have alluded to it previously, but hours before the planned start of the game I discovered that I had overlooked the build-up of snow and forgotten methods to decrease it. Oops! I had to quickly rebalance the game around increased snow costs for some roles, as well as a few ways for town and mafia to either expend or remove snow, including the introduction of the super night kill. In the end, I believe I was able to get it to an acceptable level of balance. It was a bit awkward. Some roles did not really have anything to spend snow on, which I tried to mitigate by making them more pivotal roles. Notably, Rasei's role was meant to grab mafia's attention and make them spend resources on removing her--which played into a certain other mechanic as you'll see.

In the end, like in Masquerade, I learned a lot of things to incorporate and tweak for future games. I hope to deliver fun and exciting games going forward, and most importantly, I hope everyone enjoyed this Snowball Bash. Momentarily I will post role PMs, action logs, and a bit of insight as to the choices I made in design, the goals, and also what went wrong in the middle of the game. This will take a moment as I'm still compiling it, so in the meanwhile, mafia, enjoy your celebration.

The game has officially ended.

Hi it was me.

Another first for me! Now to win as Mafia in a game, not a minigame, heh.
And Town...you did a lot better than you might think.I'll share with you the emotional and mental clusterfuck that is the Mafia doc once Lux gets her stuff posted up here.

Still, congratulations to everybody, and apologies top those I had a part in taking out (esp. you, Nautilus)!

Also, mafia didn't know I was Mafia until the last day phase.

Arggggg. I told you so! I told you that CURE WAS MAFIA.

Rasei wrote:Arggggg. I told you so! I told you that CURE WAS MAFIA.

The whole damn game, too. XD
To be fair...well, no. You'll see in the doc soon enough. XD

Edit: Nevermind, just noticed Cure said it already, heh.

[Role PMs]

I know Cure kinda feels the same way at times. I mean, she's a few grades under the rest of us so it's hard for her to fit in. I always try to look out for her. I know others do, too, 'cause no one wants to be the a-hole that throws a rock at a little kid, I mean cmon that's just rude and lame. The adults make her stay inside or w/e when we're shoveling snow so she doesn't catch a cold, or 'cus the snow might be too heavy for her, but she likes to go around with a shovel and pretend she's older like the rest of us, whacking snowbanks with it! It's cute!! She really does follow our examples, 'cause, like, once she sees someone getting pelted with snowballs, she'll follow up with a crazy throw like woah! She can be a bit of a brat, though. We all try to look out for her and keep her out of trouble, but, like, she has a history of totally tattling on others and getting them placed in timeout. She hasn't been doing that as much lately, and I don't miss it. Growing up with her around was such a pain--always having to deal with the youngest sibling ratting on me! But I love her very much. I just hope she's having fun playing with all of us. <3

Cure - Mafia:

I kinda dread going to school and clubs, but like Tiki the Troll is always so energetic. He's so totally into anything and everything he does, like always the first to sign up for everything and lead the group in activities. I kinda admire him for that, like I have no idea how he does it, finding shortcuts on porjects and quizzes or whatever. When we started snowball fights as kids, he was the first in our group to realize he could put ice in them. And that hurts!!!! Like, soooo knocks you out when it hits you. I've been hit by one of his iceballs and I just can't focus for a while after!! I swear, if that wasn't enough, he just never gives up or goes down without a fight, always trying to get one big, final snowball off at the people pelting him. I like him and all, but like I totally am not as eager to succeed as he is. Guy's going places!!

Tiki the Troll - Mafia:

I've sat near Ninfia quite a few times, and really like she's sooo quiet at times. Which is fine for me 'cause I don't like to be near noisy people all that muchhhh. She's won't speak up all that often in class, but when she does--oh man! I swear she's always thinking ahead of everyone. Like we'll say "oh let's have a snowball fight tomorrow!!" and she's like, "I'm there already" and she'll be outside with a shovel collecting extra snow before anyone gets there. I've only been in her house a few times for sleepovers--omg her cat is sooooo cute--but we tend to play in her yard a lot cus it's big and all. I remember the last time we had a snowball fight she called at her parents to aim the snowblower at us and omg there was like so much snow getting thrown at everyone. One kid's fort was kinda weak and fell on them, so the adults had to step in and bring them inside to warm up. Ah well, it was awesome!!! I want to stand in the way next time! though I hope my fort won't collapse. I know Ninfia's won't, though, she's too clever for that to happen.

Ninfia - Mafia:

---

Poor Kiyoko though. I think her coat is kinda old, like sometimes we'll all be outside playing and she'll run inside to get hot cocoa to warm up. I mean I love chocolate!! But that's for after you win, right? With some marshmallows and a muffin, mmm! Winner's feast! I told her I'd go shopping with her, but she said she doesn't want anything like really fancy or expensive that'll get dirty. I don't know why she's always grabbing snow from the road ewwww it's so gross, like it's full of dirt. Just use normal snow!! So much prettier. I guess she knows something I don't though. She's always been the perceptive one in school--omg I wish I had her focus. She's just kinda smart, I'm so jealous. I feel like I miss so many things. Like no one really understands what I'm thinking at times too. It's sooo embarrassing.

Kiyoko - Town:

ugh. At least I know Blaire can relate to me, like, she's totally doing her own thing a lot of the time. She's the kinda type that sometimes is in the right place, sometimes not, but like I totally get that! Sometimes you just have to hedge your bets and hope you strike double, you know? So I guess she'll just keep to herself until then, but at least when she comes out to play she sometimes gets thrown a freakin bone. I wish that'd happen to me once in a while. Like, I see her moving her snowfort around trying to get close to people, but I guess it's like me where things just totally don't work out. I can't imagine why she always moves it around, though, like hello! Look at all the snow you leave behind!! I guess she just figures there's better ways to get more or something--I mean I wouldn't put it past her, she's calculative like that. I guess she likes to throw snowballs, too--like, the soft ones I guess. They aren't packed together so hard, but she can totally hit something--girl's got a throw!

Mr. Alice - Town:

Ugggh, like seriously though, it can be kind of annoying having everyone pull pranks on you all the time. high seraph doesn't ever have to worry about that, and I'm kinda freakin bitter about it, too, like hellooo just because he's sooo mature doesn't mean he can't be made fun of too! But noooo, everyone just wants to warm up to him and be on his good side. Well I tell you what, it doesn't get you anything to be called his best friend!! But like I guess being his best friend isn't a bad thing, like everyone totally respects and admires the people he hangs around or something. He's kinda fickle though and will drop besties as quick as he makes them. That kinda makes his ex-besties mad at him, but well he totally doesn't care, right? He's been to so many snowball fights, I feel like I can't really match his experience. Like he'll mix ice into his snowballs and chuck them at people to daze them!! But he has to be the cool, mature one or something so he doesn't do it all that often. Well whatever. He may be the oldest sibling in the family, but he's still more of a dork than he is cool.

high seraph - Town:

Auuuugh this is so embarrasing. Like soooo embarrassing. I can't believe I'm doing this. Is this a joke or something? Whyyyyy, Rasei, whhhhyyyyyy? Well whatever, I guess someone has to write my biography, so it may as well be me. I mean, I know a lot about everyone else, more than they do about each other, so it only makes sense I'd write about myself, right? I mean when you look at it that way, I'm the only one that can write about me. But where to begin? Ugh there's like so much to cover. Wow I can't believe I'm so conceited, but I guess I am writing about myself, so there's no helping it. I just like to stay quiet and watch others and write about them in my diary--like any teenage girl!! I don't think that's so weird?? It does help me get to know everyone a little better, what they do and who they are, so maybe I'm a people person... ha ha ha. Yeah okay fat chance I guess. Especially when I'm wearing this coat--like hello it's so big, I might as well be a polar bear or something, but at least I'm warm. I guess the cold doesn't bother me, anyway, in this coat, so I totally can keep playing when others would be cold and wet and uncomfortable. I wouldn't wear it, really, but being the middle sibling means mom insists I set an example for my younger sibling, since my older one sure won't.

Rasei - Town:

What can I really say about Sammiya, though? Everyone in school knows who she is already! The girl's so hard-working and studious, it's impressive. Sometimes I wish I could like jump into another universe and be her sister, she's so sweet and I love her. We'll go hang out at the mall a lot and shop for books--she totally gets me, like no one else will go into bookstores with me. I swear last time we were there, she was looking at some War of Art book by Soon Zee or something. She read some of it and said it changed how she approaches things, and at first I thought she was joking? but now I'm not so sure?? like before she'd just be tossing snowballs, but now she's hurling them. She packs extra snow into her snowballs and they'll totally daze you if they hit you, they're so big!! She kinda replicated the trick and uses it on her smaller snowballs, too, the ones people like to pelt others with. I thought that was enough--but no, she'll say "hit them where they least expect it" or something and she'll go over to snowforts and just shove her boot through the top and knock some of it in!! She's so bold, like really she's just completely determined to win at all costs, either this or school, and I really respect that!

Sammiya - Town:

After what happened, I saw drandahl kind of being cornered by everyone, and it's so sad! He's really just such a friendly guy that loves to talk all the time. omg I think one time someone dared him to call alcasync, and they just talked for hours and hours. We were all like totally shocked!! I mean, I never knew alca would be the type to answer that kinda call!! He seems to like that a lot, though. I mean!!! Not alca! Well maybe? But like he's totally sociable. He'll see someone and grab a little bit of snow and toss it at them to like get their attention or something. And then him and his new friend will just talk allllll the time. It's kinda embarrassing? but also a little sweet... I mean, he seems to really pay attention to the people he's around. I saw him help out a friend of his once. He ran over with a shovel of snow and dumped it nearby, though some other times I saw him put snow next to his own pile. I don't know where he got it, though, since it wasn't from his yard, but I guess there's snow in everyone's yards??

drandahl - Town:

Poor nautilus, though, I always feel so bad for her. She's totally such a pacifist--it's so cute! I've never seen her even hit a fly, she's so sweet. She's always like, it's okay little ant you just wanted to get some juice, and she'll pick the ant up and bring it outside and it's adorable. We let her tag along for snowball fights, but she has more fun doing other things, like making snowmen and snow angels. Her snow angels are so cute--the adults always comment on how nice they make the yard look, and how kind and good-natured she is--but it's the snowmen that I love! She rolls a lot of snow into them and it shows!! They're like sooo sturdy they can take quite a few hits without falling over. I kinda want her to make one for me. I'm sure she would if I asked. She's so precious, I just want to give her a big hug and some hot cocoa so she doesn't get cold!!

nautilus - Town:

Action log coming in a moment.

P.S. Half of these diary entries were written in the last hour, so I didn't take much time to edit them, SORRY.

[Action Log]

Night Zero
Kiyoko: Commutes
Rasei: Diary Kiyoko (0 cost)
Tiki: Stun Kiyoko (1 cost, 0 add)
Tiki: Night Kill on Nautilus (3 damage)
nautilus: Snow Angel (0 cost) (Day 3 reveal)
Mr. Alice: Bet drandahl (1 cost)
Sammiya: Stun high seraph (2 cost, 1 add)

[Kiyoko]: 3 Snow
[Mr. Alice]: 2 Snow
[Tiki the Troll]: 2 Snow
[Ninfia]: 4 Snow
[Cure]: 3 Snow
[Rasei]: 3 Snow
[Sammiya]: 1 Snow
[drandahl]: 3 Snow
[nautilus]: Dead
[high seraph]: 4 Snow

---

Night One
Tiki: Night Kill Kiyoko (3 damage)
Tiki: Stun high seraph (1 cost, 0 add)
Rasei: Diary drandahl (0 cost)
Kiyoko: Dirty Snow Ninfia (1 cost, 1 add)
Blaire: Bet drandahl (1 cost)
drandahl: Befriend Sammiya (1 cost, 0 add)
drandahl: Shovel snow Tiki -> Sammiya (-1 Tiki, +1 Sammiya)
high seraph: Stun Cure (Failed)
high seraph: Bestie Sammiya (0 cost)
Sammiya: Kick Ninfia (-1 Ninfia)

[Kiyoko]: Dead
[Mr. Alice]: 2 Snow
[Tiki the Troll]: 1 Snow
[Ninfia]: 5 Snow (1 Dirty)
[Cure]: 4 Snow
[Rasei]: 4 Snow
[Sammiya]: 3 Snow
[drandahl]: 3 Snow
[nautilus]: Dead
[high seraph]: 5 Snow

---

Night Two - Start
Tiki the Troll's Bomb hits high seraph***
Ninfia: Snowblower

[Kiyoko]: Dead
[Mr. Alice]: 3 Snow
[Tiki the Troll]: Dead
[Ninfia]: 5 Snow (1 Dirty)
[Cure]: 5 Snow
[Rasei]: 5 Snow
[Sammiya]: 4 Snow
[drandahl]: 4 Snow
[nautilus]: Dead
[high seraph]: 3 Snow

Night Two - Continue
Ninfia: Night Kill high seraph (3 damage)
Cure: Snow shovel Rasei (0 cost)
high seraph: Bestie Ninfia (ex-bestie is Sammiya until D4 end)
high seraph: Stun drandahl (1 cost, 0 add)
Rasei: Diary Mr. Alice (0 cost)
Mr. Alice: Bet drandahl (1 cost)
Sammiya: Stun Ninfia (2 cost, 1 add)
drandahl: Friend Cure (Failed)

[Kiyoko]: Dead
[Mr. Alice]: 3 Snow
[Tiki the Troll]: Dead
[Ninfia]: 5 Snow
[Cure]: 5 Snow
[Rasei]: 1 Snow
[Sammiya]: 3 Snow
[drandahl]: 5 Snow
[nautilus]: Dead
[high seraph]: 3 Snow

---

Night Three
Ninfia: Night Kill Rasei (3 damage)
Rasei: Diary Cure (0 cost)
Sammiya: Stun Mr. Alice (2 cost, 1 add)
high seraph: Bestie Rasei (ex-bestie Ninfia until D5 end; Sammiya ex-bestie until D4 end)

[Kiyoko]: Dead
[Mr. Alice]: Dead
[Tiki the Troll]: Dead
[Ninfia]: 5 Snow
[Cure]: 5 Snow
[Rasei]: Dead
[Sammiya]: 2 Snow
[drandahl]: Dead
[nautilus]: Dead
[high seraph]: 4 Snow

---

Night Four
high seraph: Stun Sammiya (1 cost, 0 add)
Cure: Jail Sammiya (0 cost)
Cure: Super NK Lucas (4 damage, 2 cost)

Mafia wins.




*** Target was supposed to be Sammiya. Covering in the follow-up and final post in a moment.

i go outside and build a snow angel on a beautiful snowy day because hey, no need to defend myself with a snowman just yet. the birds are singing. the sun is shining. it's a wonderful day

and tiki throws an ice block at my head, knocking me out

off my christmas card list

"Mr. Alice: Bet drandahl (1 cost)"

Oh, so THAT'S why Blaire was so disappointed Dran didn't bite it like he very nearly did on D1! XD

nautilus wrote:i go outside and build a snow angel on a beautiful snowy day because hey, no need to defend myself with a snowman just yet. the birds are singing. the sun is shining. it's a wonderful day

and tiki throws an ice block at my head, knocking me out

off my christmas card list

READ THE DOC, IT WAS NINFIA'S IDEA! D=

[Observations and Apologies]

Skip to the bottom if you aren't interested in my design philosophy and rationale.

I started working on this game with the following goals.

1. Players would need to track their snow and choose whether to be offensive or defensive in playstyle.

2. Players could kill other players at low snow.

3. Players would be able to learn of visitors by their snow counts.

This was the base idea of the game. It's what got everyone's interest. I added more rules and goals.

4. Role powers should hit a power level where not using them in order to gain snow is a pivotal choice.

5. The sides should hit a level of balance where the game isn't abruptly ended off of one mistake, but the balance isn't forced such that a drawn out game is predetermined.

Accordingly, I did not add vigilante roles, and the protection and tracking I gave town was meant to be "weaker". The watcher (Kiyoko), flavor/role cop (Rasei), neighborizer (drandahl), and innocent child (nautilus) provided some softer ways for town to gather information. The bleeder (Rasei), commuter (Kiyoko), rolestopper (nautilus), and bookie (Mr. Alice) all roughly worked in this way to provide town with some tools to stay alive. I placed conditions on town (and mafia) to stagger powerful effects, while also making two strong roles (precious and determined) the most susceptible to mafia's snowblower. Lastly, some of town's utility could either be pro-town or anti-town (double-vote, besties, betting).

Since I knew town could in theory just sit on snowforts and ride out all the kills, I gave mafia some conditional killing power. Tiki had a bomb (more on this later), Ninfia had a conditional phase end and kill, and Cure could raze snow counts and execute lynch targets. I limited this by making Cure and Ninfia unaware of each other's powers to prevent mafia snowballing a victory with a Shovel + Snowblower + NK phase. I also made it so mafia had to outnumber town, but, additionally, gave them the option to expend extra snow to make a larger NK that would either kill a target or put them in range of a kill. I made Ninfia's role built around gathering snow for this purpose. I also made it so Ninfia's role wasn't scummy as hell if it failed, outing her. To that end, failed NKs wouldn't be announced to avoid clearing lots of players if town turtled.

Some roles that could not spend snow were built such that they'd be primary targets for snow shovels and mafia lynch-maneuvers (this happened). I also tried to compensate mafia using a NK on Cure by giving her refresh / new abilities that would hopefully cover the cost of a lost NK. Also, I personally hate roles that obfuscate alignments, thus why I had Cure be mafia from the start, I did not include alignment cops (lame), and I will try to avoid tailor and miller for the rest of my days as a host.

At any rate, these were my thoughts when I set out to balance. As highlighted before, snow removal became a problem, and in the end the flavor (which I always focus on in every game) thwarted my attempts. I could not think of a large enough number of roles that would be done through throwing a snowball while retaining flavor. I also could not, apparently, get balance down to where players were at risk of death during the night (only came close to happening once or twice). The only really cheeky thing I did was add 3 stuns, but staggered them to prompt discourse over "why are there 2? now 1? NOW 3???". Almost every mechanic I added to the game basically never got used, including the ability to make a fourth vote. So, who knows.

I did very much like the faction and information war. Mafia trying to find the traitor. Traitor trying to help mafia. Siblings realizing there were others. Neighbors trying to figure out the truth about each other. Mafia trying to decide if they should go for siblings or possible traitor targets. It was fun. That was fun. That was my main hope when I made the roles. I focus my gameplay around information wars and discovery, so that was a delight.

Otherwise, I hope the game didn't disappoint. It didn't really deliver on the planned mechanics. I feel like the balance might have turned out okay? But it's hard to tell. Maybe it was fun. Maybe it wasn't. Either way, between this and Masquerade, I have learned a lot on how to design roles and unique mechanics, and I hope to reach a point where you are all excited to sign up for more games of mine in the future. I'm working on a few right now, including Mafia: The RPG and possibly Masquerade 2.0 (much later). I may redo this game next year with better tuned numbers and tweaks. I may reuse some of the role ideas in this game (seriously, Precious was my favorite role and I spent the most time on it... and like my favorite/most designed role in Masquerade (Gambler), it died N0... sigh).

To whatever end, thank you for playing. I hope you all had fun.

---

Apologies

During this game, I made a mistake.

Tiki the Troll's bomb was supposed to hit the last town to vote on him. This was Sammiya. I had it hit high seraph. This was an organizational fault of my own which I will keep in mind for future games. In particular, since drandahl called the bluff last minute (it would have killed him), the sudden vote changes threw me off. I went to find the most recent vote and somehow missed Sammiya three times while checking the thread.

This should have been easy to avoid. I forgot ctrl + f "Vote: Tiki" was a thing. I forgot to keep an on-going time-stamped vote tally outside of the thread. I could have better structured my own vote tally to reflect this. Whichever the case, I messed up.

Sammiya should have been hit. Then the snowblower would have killed her and ended the phase.

I noticed the following morning after I had calculated the snowblower effects and sent PMs. More, Lucas now had claimed he had been hit. Shit. If I changed it to Sammiya, it clears two players, and Ninfia had already claimed snowblower... so then having it kill someone and ending the phase would make her scummy. I couldn't revert actions. I had no idea how to compensate mafia. I couldn't make Sammiya's stun not work (coincidentally, she stunned Ninfia out of the NK that night). I couldn't give mafia a new role power since I've had that happen to me as town and it sucks for speculation. I wasn't sure what to do and I had to decide fast.

I told Ninfia she could get an instant snow count on a target of her choice during the night. I also privately decided that if they killed one of the two siblings (middle and oldest) that Cure would be given the choice to convert. I did not tell them about this so as to influence their plan of action. I did not notify town of the mistake so as to arm them with an accurate read of two players.

Was this fair? I hope it was. I saw no better way to do it... until the last day phase when I realized I could've just made it so mafia had to be equivalent to town in numbers. That would be like giving mafia a free kill. I didn't think of it during my panic. It was too late in the game to say that since town had operated under the idea that they weren't MYLO necessarily.

I hope you all forgive me. I feel like a terrible host, but I tried to make it fair to both sides. I tried to make a decision that wouldn't let the game become an auto-win for either side. I don't know.

I'm sorry.

Luxaria wrote:I'm sorry.

We still love you.
<3