Narcos Mafia Game Thread (season 1)
- Thread starter D2DC
- Start date
Yeah I was posting in Spanish on purpose. I was Columbian after all. The first couple of posts were random, then when people started ignoring my posts I started replying normally but in Spanish.
I figured if certain opposing team players weren't paying attention I could use that.
In other news, Jason Bourne game is near done. Just need a few days to work out a few...complex issues.
I figured if certain opposing team players weren't paying attention I could use that.
In other news, Jason Bourne game is near done. Just need a few days to work out a few...complex issues.
Yeah, that was weird. SS made a big show on day 2 about how I was not on their team, and how I was obviously playing how a Narcos team member would. And I'm like... "yes?"
I think there was a lot of "Nobody knows really what's going on" floating around, so everyone was kind of keeping everything to themselves trying to trap people in "A-HAH!" moments. But since nobody was extending themselves, those opportunities were never presented.
I do like to think that Drixx was killed by Zarniwoop because of what I said about him on day three.
So, I have feelings about this game. So much so that in Day Two I actually wrote up a ten paragraph dissertation on how this game was different from typical mafia. But I ended up not posting it because after proof-reading it, it sort of sounded like I was shitting all over D2's game and I didn't want that.
Now that the game is over I'm okay with shitting all over it. (I kid, I kid!)
I don't claim to be a mafia expert, but I have played a large number of games and hosted my share of both complicated and simple setups. Here are a couple rules I've learned, both as moderator and player:
1) Random chance of successful actions is bad. It rarely balances anything correctly as your sample size is too small to ensure proper distribution of odds. It also feels bad as a player knowing that your game winning move might just fail not because of your ability to play, but because of a dice roll. Failing to kill the last townie because the doctor out guessed me is fun. Failing to kill the last townie because my coin flipped tails is not.
2) Players should know the game mechanics going into the game. If I don't know that the Narcos kingpin gets copies of my action log when I DISOBEY and steal his action log, then that sort of sucks the fun out of trying to lie to him to garner some much needed trust. It's not that I played poorly - I was caught by something I had no way of knowing about. Now, I was living on borrowed time anyways so it wasn't a big deal, but imagine if I had Zarniwoop's unconditional trust and got picked out because of that? I'd have been much more irritated.
Obscuring information from the players is fine, however. A good example is having a variable setup - telling the players ahead of time that team makeups will be from a certain set of roles, but not all roles will be included in the game. In this way everyone knows going in what is in front of them, and any lies told by the hidden roles are done with full knowledge of how they might be caught. (Tangentially, this is why I really love Wine In Front of All games)
3) Players need something to do during the day. The biggest flaw I think this game had was the loss of votes. This removed all agency from anyone who didn't have the word "Captain" in their title. Night one and three I did not receive any orders, so was unable to even participate in the part of the game that the whole setup revolved around. This lead to an amount of apathy that lead to a lack of posting.
That all being said, I still had some fun. Trying to communicate over to Thingy who the Narcos captain was, but that he had to kill off the informant first (who I thought was Prestige, based on zemaj's AL), was tricky, in a good way. Trying to keep Zarniwoop's trust while simultaneously ignoring everything he asked me to do was also fun, on the couple of nights I was able to do so.
Thanks @Caluin Graye - I dont mind the critique. Its my first time hosting, and I was trying something somewhat diffferent. Hopefully, it wasnt too painful for everyone. 
I completely agree with the odds aspect. I had put in various 50% chance of success/fail. And, they did not come out as I expected. Small sample size and all.
I also was hoping to get a neutral player into the mix. Which would have left everyone on a faction with 5 known teammates, and 6 other unknown players. 3 investigate normal "police/narcos", and 3 (captain, second command, and neutral) investigate "not police/not narcos". This would have hopefully led to more thread discussion.
I also wasnt sure what to divulge about game mechanics. I tried to just hint at things with my statements/flavor. I think it would have gone a lot better if I had just kept things basic, and fit the Narcos theme into the AitK format, rather than try to make the format fit the theme.
Anyway, I hope at least some of you enjoyed it. And, I will try to make the game straightforward next time around, for everyones sanity, and mine!
I completely agree with the odds aspect. I had put in various 50% chance of success/fail. And, they did not come out as I expected. Small sample size and all.
I also was hoping to get a neutral player into the mix. Which would have left everyone on a faction with 5 known teammates, and 6 other unknown players. 3 investigate normal "police/narcos", and 3 (captain, second command, and neutral) investigate "not police/not narcos". This would have hopefully led to more thread discussion.
I also wasnt sure what to divulge about game mechanics. I tried to just hint at things with my statements/flavor. I think it would have gone a lot better if I had just kept things basic, and fit the Narcos theme into the AitK format, rather than try to make the format fit the theme.
Anyway, I hope at least some of you enjoyed it. And, I will try to make the game straightforward next time around, for everyones sanity, and mine!
@Caluin Graye DISOBEY on N2 was sent to the second in command (I will double check, but I dont think I messed that up..). Thats why I was so surprised it was never discussed.
Was I the only person to disobey commands? I approached it as not necessarily a bad thing to do. For instance, if I was in Thingy's position, I'd have given an order to someone on my team (Like Shroud) and told him to disobey to steal zemaj's action log. He'd either tell me if the opposing team knew of my informant, or what point me to the informant in my team.
---
Then I'd give the same order to at least two others in my team and see if one of them lied to me.
It was your info combined with Zemaj’s info AND drixx contradicting you in the next post with no qualifications. I knew nothing about the second in command mechanic and Drixx did nothing with it. Zemaj made a mistake and gave incorrect info OR having the second in command not return narcos was one too many unknowns. We took a run at thingy the penultimate night but of course knew nothing about the second in command rule.
I liked the game. We just should have been given fewer unknowns. Full disclosure, this is coming from the guy who designed the most frustrating game of all time (half life mafia), so grain of salt and all that.
GG everyone. Thanks for hosting D2DC.
So yeah... still not sure if I was Insane Cop, or just the mechanics handled second in command differently for alignment, but that was really confusing, and I certainly would have handled things differently had it been more clear. Also the whole affect of needing to share info, but not wanting to give other team too much time for analysis of posts was crippling (for me).
Enjoyable, but frustrating enough that I'm in no hurry to do this format again
So yeah... still not sure if I was Insane Cop, or just the mechanics handled second in command differently for alignment, but that was really confusing, and I certainly would have handled things differently had it been more clear. Also the whole affect of needing to share info, but not wanting to give other team too much time for analysis of posts was crippling (for me).
Enjoyable, but frustrating enough that I'm in no hurry to do this format again
I asked D2 about this in PMs after I was killed off. The second in commands had a miller status, so returned opposite alignment results than the rest of their team.
I mean ... I relayed the info to you. Just didn't know who you were. Still ... you should have received relayed messages from me with info.
Thanks for hosting!
I was in a state of confusion most of the time. Most of the confusion was with how things worked and who was getting what information and whatnot. I was too afraid to lie about anything or disobey an order because I figured someone would find out. And then I wasn't sure what to do with the info I had. I figured my demise was coming soon no matter what I did, so I figured at least giving the Narcos my info would help some
I was in a state of confusion most of the time. Most of the confusion was with how things worked and who was getting what information and whatnot. I was too afraid to lie about anything or disobey an order because I figured someone would find out. And then I wasn't sure what to do with the info I had. I figured my demise was coming soon no matter what I did, so I figured at least giving the Narcos my info would help some
