Secret History of TWD Mafia Part 1...
Zombies, Cults, and Skirting the Bastard Tag
So, the big thing here was trying to use a cult mechanic and not be bastard about it. I think I succeeded, but players may disagree. There's always been a fair hesitation to accept alignment changes in "normal" games, and I really pushed it (maybe too far) with the Recruit mechanic in Dune 2. Here, I kept a lot of things in mind before doing it.
1. You can't have scum who knows his partners change alignments. That's why the Hatchet and Knife are passive abilities for the Others in their QT. It ensures they can't turn and then rat out their partners.
2. I needed a way to be able to stop it, and not just with Alarmists or Deprogrammers. There's only one "cult leader" in the game (Sophia) who can make more zombies, although we have random zombie attacks that can affect this. You are told (secretly, sort of) who that is right at the beginning of the game when you see that one of you isn't "alive" but is still playing. It is hidden in plain sight through a lot of the wording I used in role QTs (especially pointing out that some players can target dead people, talk of being bit as if it was a bad thing, etc.). I did include specific zombie killing powers, and night kills kill them automatically.
3. But I took away lynches from town! Well, I know, sort of. I even include forced lynches with certain numbers. I wanted there to be some number of zombies, no matter what. That's why Sophia got to Bite N0 if she wanted. Lynches make zombies because you aren't destroying or detaching the brain. But, in fact, once you figure it out, you can no lynch. Plus, if Others are lynched, they get killed by their partners, so it's fine from a town vs. mafia POV.
4. I wanted to force the Town and Others (and Michonne) to work together against a common enemy. This is a flavor thing, too, in TWD -- sometimes you have to work together against zombies.
Balancing a town vs scum game with zombies in the way...
So how do I make this work like a regular mafia game? Well, I gave the "mafia" some pro-town powers. I also made them fairly survivable. In retrospect, maybe they were too strong? But Sophia targeting some of the most important town roles on N0 and N1 really threw the balance out of whack, which can happen even with the best plans.
Honestly, I think the game was hard for Walkers from the very beginning. Once the living players figured out what was up, it was going to be hard to survive.
Other zombie related things...
--I think Michonne's double zombie immunity was too strong...Walkers needed a way to reduce night kills, and it just wasn't there.
--The Random Zombie Attack mechanic was completely hidden, but the town powers were there to stop them. No one really seemed to care about those town powers, though.
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Secret History of TWD Mafia Part 2...
A Guilty Kid? What?
I had the idea before faust made that random comment in a QT about the opposite of an IC, and wanted to try it. It's a tough role to play, but it had some counters, including the confirmable fruit vendor thing, and the ability to help town in a big way, to stay alive. He also has three hidden allies. Unfortunately, he died before I even got to announce him.
A really, really closed setup...
I actually see the appeal in open, or even semi-open, setups. A setup that is closed makes it harder on the players to figure things out. In trying to make this game feel like a real world struggle, I decided that would be best.
The zombie mechanic is hidden (both the Random Zombie Attacks and the Sophia thing). But it's hiding in plain sight.
I know some players were frustrated by being in the dark -- I did want that feeling to permeate the game, sort of like the world -- but I understand it can be not fun, too.
On flavor... Obviously I took some liberties. Zombies can't talk, after all. I also let people keep some ability and just modified others. I did that for fun, mostly, since not posting would have been no fun at all, and made Walkers are pretty weak otherwise.
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Topic: RMM32: The Walking Dead (Game Over.) (Read 157080 times)