So let's start with a little Secret History.
For those who played/Spectated BMX: The Old Chateau, you may have remembered Kooshie/Jimmmm's Dual (Explosive) Doctor role. If you didn't play or can't remember, it was a role that functioned as a Doctor by giving them an object. But if they both target the same player, those objects would react to kill the target. I loved the concept of a multipurpose role like this so I thought, hey, what if I had an entire game based around those roles. It seemed plausible enough so I started brainstorming.
I had a RMM game coming it up in the queue so I had to set some guidelines. I had to tell people what there 'power' actually did. It would be uninteresting to say: "You're a Tracker...unless you target {Flavor Name} then you're a Watcher". Plus, the only inverses I could come up with were Tracker/Watcher, Doctor/Vigilante, and Nexus/Lightning Rod. Every player also had to have some effect with every other player, but there really aren't enough situational changes that make flavorful sense for every player without getting too redundant. So the idea evolved from two players targeting one player for an effect that night to one player targeting a certain player for an effect that night to eventually players giving an item that can be combined with other players given items. Simple with a lot of design space.
My game was next up, and I knew I had to get something out there. I was going to contact eHalc, but I hadn't seen him around Mafia-land, so I talked to Axxle instead. He was in BMX, had helped me with Survivor stuff, and helped bring Mafia over. I proposed to him a set of ideas for setups to run (A SK-based one, this one, and a couple others I want to keep secret for now). He liked the Inventor one the best, so I started to flesh out a setup.
I created this one:
10 Town Inventors
3 Scum Thieves.
Simple 10 v 3 13 player setup. Since the Town was made up of Inventors, I thought a theme of actual inventors would be nice with some of them being scum. I jotted down a list of the ones that came to my head (Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Samuel Colt, etc.) and set it and the setup over the Axxle. He thought it looked good so I went further with it.
I did a bunch of research, gathering a list of 30+ Inventors that created a variety of things. I wrote down their name and what they invented and then wrote down possible combinations and their power roles. Once I had a few, I decided to explore the design space some more. They were all originally 1-shot, but then I had the idea of players having their 'Inventor' role swapped for 'Motivator' and give out electricity. If they were to target a player, all their electricity-based inventions would gain an extra shot. Thematic! I also only wanted a 13 player game, but lots and lots of combinations. So I allowed players to give out multiple items.
I put this off to the side for a bit. But then it came time for me to open a thread, so I got back to work. I named the scum 'Plagiarists', moved their 'Theif'-ing to a factional power and gave them each different manipulative power roles. I decided on a No Kill N0 start to give the town a boost. I also felt like the Theives needed power roles, but they needed to be manipulative to prevent scum from totally piecing together the puzzle. I liked the ring of 'Innovation Inc.', so that's what I named the game.
I came up with some more combinations and the setup eventually evolved into this:
Benjamin Franklin Town Inventor/Motivator
Nikola Tesla Town Motivator
Samuel Colt Town Inventor
9 Town Inventors
Thomas Edison Plagiarist Roleblocker
2 Plagiarist Redirector/Encryptor
For the 11 missing flavor names, I had some from the list of 30 people that I wanted to be in, but I wanted them to have as much interaction amongst eachother as possible to maximize the number of flavor combinations. The manipulative roles looked good, but I wanted the Encryptor because I've always wanted to see a game with that role. Too bad it never got used. I also had it so that items automatically combined themselves with each other. This gave players something to do each night instead of just sending out items.
Then one night I got thinking really hard about this game. I realized that if you were a straight up inventor, this could be really boring if you never got any items. You could never combine anything! And what if you didn't want to send an item! I then decided that everyone needed a standard power role in addition to sending/combining items. It would also be much easier to balance than just the items (besides, scum was horribly overpowered). I also realized that scum were kind of screwed AND benefited once items were claimed. Sure they could take whatever they needed from what was claimed, but they'd slowly be lynched since no one would be receiving the items they claimed to have. I didn't want a repeat of RMM4. So I had them give out dummy items instead. This also meant that players would have to manually combine items. Which was OK.
The setup then became this:
Benjamin Franklin 1-shot Lightning Rod
Nikola Tesla ?
Samuel Colt Vigilante
9 Town Inventors
Thomas Edison 3-shot Roleblocker
Albert Einstein 2-shot Redirector
Alexander Graham Bell 3-shot Mailman/Encryptor (the shots could be used for either Mailman OR Encryptor)
This looks sort of like there are a lot empty spaces, but there really wasn't. I had a general idea for what to fill those 9 extra slots, but nothing was set in stone. I began focusing a ton on combinations and would just give a spot to whoever could combo the most with other things. I sent this over to Axxle and asked if he had any must-haves for Inventors or combinations. Too early to tell, but he liked where it was going.
I slowly filled the remaining spots, switched up the X-shots on a few things, put in some much-needed things that weren't really that flavorful, but really helped balanced out the needed balance elements. This was really the big editing point, but there are so many little things I did that I won't include for sake of time and energy for both me and whoever is reading this.
Axxle had concerns that the game might be over too soon, which is certainly something I didn't want to happen. I suggested having some players start with the item they give out to help speed up combinations and give players a taste of what they are sending out. Some players didn't start with things and some players started with a certain item of the ones they gave out, but that was purely for minor balance reasons. Which may not have mattered, but it could.
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The end product was different from what it intended to be, but I still love it. I think I lived up to the OP's quotation with a game were players slowly gain information and want to share it with others, but must do so secretly (hence 2 Mailmans and multiple ways to get 1-shot Mailmans) and slyly. The game went a little too quickly for that to completely happen, but I still had a great time modding and formulating the set up. I hope everyone also had a great time playing! I'll cover more game-specific details rather than setup-specific details in my next post.
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Topic: RMM8 Innovation Inc. (Plagiarists Win!) (Read 193874 times)