Ivalice Mafia Postgame

[Radiant Dragon]

For the all of two people who asked for it, I present the postgame for Ivalice Mafia, a game that's over three years old!

Here's the game thread for reference.

Note that I no longer have any of the PMs for this game saved, and I have probably forgotten most of the non-memorable ones, so take my player summaries with a grain of salt. Also note that I'm using the older names for many users here, since I'm an old fogey and don't know anyone's current preferred name.

The Set-up:

The Town wasn't too powerful in this game, but had a good amount of lynch control with a Mayor, Persuader, Kidnapper and Lynchproof. Meanwhile, the Mafia seemed pretty strong in theory, with two roles to mess with the Town's actions and a role that could power their kills. Unfortunately, due to a combination of bad luck, incompetence and eclipse, the entire Mafia was eliminated on the second Cycle.

There were also two Independents: Gabranth protected the Town's Doctor, dying and killing the attacker instead, although eclipse was kidnapped the cycle Larsa was killed so she became an SK instead. The other Independent was a Survivor that had the goal of finding another player to win, but he got lynched off when the Town was trying to find out why the game didn't end when the Mafia all died.

Then there were the Templars, a cult that could recruit every other cycle. A cult that could recruit every night seemed too powerful, so I wanted to try and find a way to balance them by reducing how often they could recruit, but giving them an Inspector to reduce the odds of them failing a recruit. However, I made the mistake of deciding to keep their existence secret, which almost led to them winning before anyone even knew they existed (the Vigilante going inactive is what saved the Town).

SPEAKING OF MISTAKES, JB and I made a couple of mod errors that really ended up screwing over the Templars. Even with the Vig inactive, I believe the Templars still might have won had we not been such sloppy hosts. Paperblade subbed in for Anouleth but we didn't add him to all of his conversations, and he screwed up his claim because of it. Also, Life planned to use Blitz as a stool pidgeon, but JB forgot to tell everyone that Bal had kidnapped Blitz until after Life had started the wagon on him (then again, Life was the one who told Bal to kidnap Blitz so I'm not sure what happened there...).

Clan No Lynch (the Town): Winners!

Snike - Larsa, Town Doctor - Killed Cycle 1 by the Mafia

Snike struck up a lot of conversations with a bunch of people, which caused him to draw the attention of the Mafia, who killed him for a lack of better targets. This greatly annoyed eclipse, since this happened on the one Cycle she wasn't able to stop it.

Frostbite could also get around eclipse with his powers, Core could Hook her, and Lightning could redirect her to someone else (yes, this would work even though eclipse couldn't choose to use her ability on anyone else. If Frehor decided to Vig the player Lightning redirected her to eclipse would intercept it). In retrospect, the Snike-eclipse pair was pretty OP, since the Mafia had no idea such a dangerous role existed, and basically got REALLY LUCKY that Bal decided to kidnap eclipse when he did. Also, Snike could choose to protect eclipse, making the two of them almost impossible to profitably get rid of.

Psych - Mayhew, Town Vanilla - Killed Cycle 3 by Frehor

Psych didn't say too much in the thread. He got Persuaded but forgot, but then remembered before JB or I saw it so we didn't mod-kill him for it. Aside from that though, I don't remember him doing much. I don't remember if Life had been culted at this point, but he either ordered Frehor to kill him in case Strawman's lynch didn't end the game or as an easy kill to get closer to parity.

As for the inclusion of Vanillas in the game, I wanted to avoid another fiasco like Mitnala in case half the Mafia decided to claim Vanilla again. Of course, the Mafia got obliterated anyway so it didn't matter.

Excellen - Yiazmat, Town Safeguard - Lyched Cycle 4

He claimed to be Omega MK.XII (I beleive that was it's name? It's been a while since I've played FFXII) instead of Yiazmat because his Role PM mentioned someone was out for him and to keep a low profile. As such, he wanted to keep the fact he was Yiazmat secret. Unfortunately, when he told Life who he really was after Strawman died Life used the fact that he had lied as an excuse to lynch him.

Sho. M - Gurdy, Town Vanilla - Killed Cycle 7 by Frehor

Sho came to all of the right conclusions about who had been culted and why but JB and I couldn't figure out how - his logic made no sense to us. We even wondered if he could be cheating, but we didn't see how he could have been. He was given the spreadsheet by Life to serve as a back-up Town Leader and he did pretty well at it. Frehor shot him due to the possibility he might have been recruited for his info (although at that point everyone pretty much knew who everyone else was anyway).

Blitz - Migelo, Town Vanilla - Survived

Aside from a Cycle 0 post, he didn't post in the thread at all until the last Cycles. I remember he did some strategizing with Haze and Frehor in PMs, and he came up with a plan to lynch the last recruit that ultimately ended up being unnecessary. I don't remember too much beside that, unfortunately.

Haze - Vayne, Town Persuader - Survived

Town MVP, because even though eclipse was the one that did the killing, he was the mastermind that orchestrated it (also because eclipse wasn't technically Town. Details). He got Core to believe he was Shadow the Serial Killer (although to be fair to Core I never explicitly stated that all of the characters were from Ivalice), which led Core to turn to him for advice because he thought the Mafia was in a losing situation. In truth, they weren't THAT badly off, but the numbers made it seem that way since they didn't know about the Cult and other Independents.

Anyway, he played his role correctly by coming clean early, and dodged the attention of the Mafia and Cult because of it (they were hoping the Town would mislynch him). He also clinched the win for the Town in the end by Persuading Kevin to self-vote.

Frehor - Balthier, Town Vigilante - Survived

Frehor's restriction was that she would lose the ability to shoot if she killed two Town-affiliated players. I chose this

restriction (since at the time I thought plain Vigilante was a bit too strong in OC games. Still kinda do, actually.) because it was one I hadn't used before, and because it could help give the Cult a mislynch target if they learned about it (since the recruits lost their abilities).

Frehor herself mostly followed Life's and Haze's orders about who to shoot. She went inactive right when Life needed her to shoot someone to gain parity, which ended up saving the game for the Town. Like Blitz, she became active at the end and helped cement the Town's victory.

Khamja (the Mafia):

Frostbite - Dr. Cid, Mafia Inventor - Lynched Cycle 1

I believe it was Frostbite's second Mafia game, and he unfortunately didn't realize that he shouldn't claim Mafia until it was too late. Life outed his Role PM to the Town after he got it and lynched him for it.

Core - Mustadio, Mafia Roleblocker - Lynched Cycle 2

Life saw Core visit Excellen and Snike (who had died), and came to the correct conclusion that Core had performed the kill while using his action elsewhere. Core didn't make the most compelling arguments to get the lynch off of him, although I'll admit there was a lot of evidence stacked against him. He made the most out of the time he had left in the phase to try and contact people to help his faction after his death, which was nice. Unfortunately, one of those people was Haze, who tricked him into sending the Mafia's kill toward's eclipse.

Ulki - Babus, Mafia Investigator - Killed Cycle 2 by eclipse

Each faction had an Investigator in this game, and Ulki was the Role Checker. He played pretty well, trying to get the Mafia's night actions organized and I don't believe Life suspected him much, if at all. eclipse shot him on an educated guess, nothing more.

Lightning - Illua, Mafia Redirector - Killed Cycle 2 by eclipse

Lightning ignored the advice of his teammates, and decided to make Haze Persuade Life instead of helping his teammates look good to the Watcher (also there was the fact that Haze was Persuading Life anyway, but details). This led to Core getting lynched and Ulki not looking pro-Town enough to not get shot by eclipse. He also went inactive when Core and Ulki needed him to help organize night actions, which led to Core going to Haze for advice. I may be judging Lightning a bit too harshly since I don't have the Mafia PM to reference, but I remember being pretty disappointed at his play in this game.

Templars (the Cult):

Paperblade - Vormav, Templar Investigator - Lynched Cycle 5

The Templar's Investigator was an Alliance Checker. Since their recruitment would fail if they targeted a Mafia (or SK eclipse), I gave them a way to check alignments to help reduce the chance of failure since they could only recruit every other cycle.

Poor Paperblade didn't have enough info of what Anouleth had done prior to his being subbed in and contradicted Anouleth's night reports. When Sho saw this he called for Paperblade's lynch (although it should be noted that Sho didn't believe the Templars existed until after Paper was lynched). I felt he did pretty well trying to fight off the lynch (until he tried to tie it by voting Frehor; that didn't look too good), but Sho wouldn't listen to logic or reason and refused to stop pushing his case. There was also a SIGNIFICANT lack of activity going on at this point, especially on the Templar's side, so the votes to turn the lynch around just weren't there.

Balcerzak - Ba'Gammnan, Recruited Town Kidnapper - Lynched Cycle 6

By kidnapping eclipse on Cycle 0, he unknowingly set the stage for the Mafia's bloody demise at her hands a few cycles later. I did like his reasoning for doing so, though (protect her from getting shot early if she was Town, or from helping her faction if she was Mafia). He kidnapped who Life told him to, but ended up in a similar position to Paper in the end: Sho somehow guessed that he was recruited and wouldn't listen to any argument otherwise. Sho's reasoning seemed to be that his kidnapping eclipse was suspicious somehow, despite the fact that Bal couldn't have either known about her role OR have been recruited at that point.

...Yeah, I don't know.

Proto - Delita, Recruited Town Lynchproof - Killed Cycle 6 by Frehor

Went around trying to gain information early on, which is what you're supposed to do in an OC game so that's good. What I don't understand is why everyone suspected him for it. He got recruited because he was pretty active and pretty good, from what I remember. He convinced Anouleth to recruit Life because he was frustrated with how Life subbed in and took over the game (also because recruiting the Town leader when no one knows there's a Cult is a REALLY GOOD IDEA). Sho ordered Frehor to shoot him because he suspected Proto had been recruited, but I have no idea why.

Life - Llyud, Recruited Town Watcher - Lynched Cycle 7

The Town's Investigator was a Watcher. I gave the Town a weak Investigator because I knew that the other three Cops would be trying to prove their Towniness by sharing their results, so I didn't want to add another strong Cop. Nonetheless, if I was balancing this game today, I would give the Town another weak information role (probably something to help find recruits).

As for Life the player, he immediately took charge as Town leader after subbing in for Psych, and led the two lynches he was Town for. After he got recruited, he got frustrated that he was yet again scum and became inactive. Without his information and vote, the Cult struggled to recover from Sho's crusade. He ended up getting lynched once it was realized that the Templars were a Cult, since he was an obvious target for recruitment.

Kevin - Cid (the FFTA2 one), Recruited Town Mayor - Lynched Cycle 8

Kevin was the last recruit, and he did pretty well keeping suspicion off of himself until it came down to a process of elimination for who was the last Cultist. Haze realized that his defense of Life the Cycle before was due to the fact that Kevin had also been recruited, and forced him to self-vote. Kevin did as good of a job as he could of turning the lynch on him around, but Haze's Persuasion made it impossible.

Independents:

eclipse - Gabranth, Independent Interceptor/Serial Killer - Killed Cycle 2 by the Mafia

Gabranth's win-con was to win with Larsa, so if Larsa was recruited Gabranth would win with the Cult (but wouldn't count towards parity). Needless to say, this made Larsa a very powerful recruit target, but the Cult would need to go around and talk to people to find out about the pair. Otherwise, if Larsa died before Gabranth he would become a Serial Killer that took his killer with him when he died - which is the path this game took.

eclipse was understandably frustrated getting kidnapped Cycle 1, and even more so when Snike died and she became an SK. She still wanted to help the Town though, so she told Haze to get the Mafia to shoot her so she could eliminate two threats to the Town (herself and her killer). Hitting Ulki nabbed a third, unexpected threat as a bonus.

Fun fact: When I RNG'd the playerlist for this game, Snike and eclipse were given the roles of Yiazmat and Montblanc instead. However, at this point Snike and eclipse had a habit of targeting each other and I didn't want Montblanc to win so easily. So I switched them since I thought it would be funny to force them to work together.

Strawman - Montblanc, Independent/Town Investigator - Lynched Cycle 3

The last Investigator, Montblanc checked a player's character. His role required him to search for Yiazmat, and he would win if he was able to investigate him (this would also kill Yiazmat). If Yiazmat was killed before Montblanc found him, Montblanc would stick around and win with the Town. This role was the main deciding factor in my decision not to give the Town a second cop, since I was worried the possibility of Yiazmat getting shot early would leave the Town too strong on information roles.

Strawman was pretty quiet and kinda just followed orders from Life. He almost won early on by investigating Excellen, but he ended up switching his target that Cycle to someone else when Life asked him to. He claimed to Life early on, and Life ended up lynching him for being an Independent after all of the Mafia were eliminated.

Well, there's most of what I can put together so long after the fact. I remember that this was a very fun game to host, although since it was only my second I did unfortunately make many mistakes. Still, most people not-Life seemed pretty happy with the game and I learned quite a few lessons hosting it, so it can't have been that bad.

...Right?

Edited December 19, 2014 by Radiant Dragon

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

Wow

[eclipse]

Hitting mafia with my lone shot was a 1 in 3 chance. Somehow, it worked~!

[riariadne]

I don't remember this game at all

[Blitz]

Well, I actually decided that posting in thread in an OC game is a waste of tine, which is why I stopped posting, lol.

As for my comments on the game, the game was pretty much the first oc mafia game that I got to play seriously and it was really fun.

As for some comments on the postgame, Psych was killed after Life was recruited because the templars wanted to lower

And Proto was shot because he scumslipped, not to Sho, but to me and I told that to Sho. Sho decided to switch the cycle's lynch from Balc to Proto, but I thought it would be more fun to get him shot instead, so that Proto doesn't realize they are found and recruits Sho insted of whoever they wanted to receuit. We didn't know which phase recruited.

Sho had realized I wasn't recruited because of lack of info (I think), Freor wasn't recruited because they wanted her to turn into a vanilla and then lunch her by accusing recruited and as for Haze, he still had his role or it would be known the moment his role was lost. So, that only left behind Bal and Kirsche, one or the other must have been recruited and so, it was a good idea to lynch either, which is what was done.

[Blitz]

Also, thanks for writing such a long post game for such an old game for us RD.

[Radiant Dragon]

Did you remember all of that or do you still have the logs? Whichever, thanks for the clarification.

I don't suppose you know why Sho wanted to lynch Bal?

[Blitz]

I actually remembered most of it, since I really enjoyed the game, lol and I wasn't in the habit of saving logs back then.

I think it was Proto who wanted to get Balc lycnhed to get the heat off of himself and I thought it would be fun to get Balc lynched anyways, lol. Actually Proto should be better off answering that, lol. Iirc, Proto had yet another plan even after all the coincidental failures to win by getting Balc lynched which I don't remember.

[Kriemhild]

RADIANT DRAGON LIVES

And Ivalice Mafia actually gets postgame, wow

I do remember this game, vaguely, though I don't remember the details. What I do remember is that I was extremely annoyed at how Life reacted to being culted, and probably could have won if he didn't ruin everything. We could have still won, though, if Blitzy wasn't so nosy about my activities!

[Prims]

Proto joinagame

[Blitz]

he joined the eimm