Actually this reminds me of a Twilight Mafia I ran way back when TP came out.

Scum team was Zant and Midna
Town was ordinaries, three Triforce champions

Game had two phases: daylight and twilight
Anyone voted out in daylight is trapped in twilight: not dead but can't vote
Certain characters could kill people trapped in twilight. I believe they could exit twilight by voting out someone again.
Secondary win condition for mafia/town was to have more daylight/twilight hours (I actually counted actual time instead of using deadlines).
Zant had an ability to force twilight.

The actual time elapsed and secondary win condition was meant to discourage stalling/inactivity. The "voted out but not dead" was to keep people alive and participating.

Anyway the game was kind of a mess, especially when the vig (Triforce of Power) killed Zant super-early. I ended up corrupting the Triforce of Power (as is tradition) and made him the new Twilight King. That of course threw off the cop and town so mafia won. Sorry town.

Found it!

aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=2,31132,30,all

(Seems like the comma messes up the hyperlink, you'll have to copy and paste it. Sorry!)

At least the flavour is kind of good?

My idea was to go for the "people of Hyrule" versus "the servants of Ganon".

Rather than using Link, Zelda, and Ganon + sages, where alignment might be too easy to discern based on role name, we could instead use nothing but random NPCs from across the Zelda series. So we could use the Cucco Lady, the Milk Bar owner, the Running Man, the Potion-making Witch, etc. Hidden among those are various characters who might be Link, such as the Ordon Ranchhand, the blackmith's grandson, the trainee train engineer, etc. Ganon is dead/sealed in the Dark World. The Mafia are his servants, who are trying to release him from his imprisonment by sending townsfolk to the Dark World a la ALttP. A Mafia victory results in GAME OVER RETURN OF GANON.

As for game mechanics, i was leaning towards a heavy use of items. This is a Zelda themed game, after all, and everything is an item in Zelda. The armorers from the Star Wars Mafia game are an example of what I have in mind. So we can have Bottled Fairies being handed out that serve as one-shot NK protection, or Cuccos that could serve as a revenge kill mechanic. Maybe Magic Powder as a roleblocking tool?

I also had the idea of using Error from The Adventure of Link as a Celebrity, if for no other reason than to have a player enter the command:
I AM ERROR
in red text as the command in the thread to reveal themselves.

I have read Star Wars, Ace Attorney, and Cthulhu mafia, but not Harry Potter.

I have considered the idea of flipping things around and making Town the bad guys like you suggest, but I am not sure it really works well in this particular example. There are generally a lot more memorable good-guy characters in the Zelda franchise than memorable villains. Not unless we want town PRs to be Gohmas or Gleeoks.

Anyways, we should probably figure out a few basic elements of our plan before we get too deep into the specifics of roles:
1) How many players are we going to plan on having
2) Are we going to use an non-traditional set-up such as having a map or using a two-world concept like you guys suggested.
3) Whether or not we want a simple town vs. mafia set-up or to have neutrals.
4) Exactly how crazy do we want the roles to get?

I think most games run from 22 to 24 players, right? Smaller for mid-season games. Are we aiming for Season 7 main season or mid-season?

I do think the idea of a light-world/dark-world or past/future mechanic suits a Zelda-themed game, but I don't know how it would work. I am not sure that I want to do something too complicated, since I would prefer this to be a game run on the NeoGAF forums, rather then be restricted to Outer GAFia. I think that a Zelda-themed game has broad enough appeal to perhaps attract newer people to GAFia. As such, I think we should focus on mechanics that would be practical to run in a single main thread (plus Outer GAFia for Mafia and chat threads) as normal.

I did have an idea yesterday when I was playing Four Swords Adventures that could encapsulate all 3 main ideas we have had so far. 




The game would require a map, 2 maps actually. Players would be split down the middle with each half going to a different map. The first map could be the Light World, Daylight, or Present and the second map would be the Dark World, Twilight, or Past map. Depending on the end flavor it could dictate how roles interact with each other. For example:

Past/Present:
Most minor roles can not cross through time. Trackers in the present can not track people in the past.
The Link PR can travel through time.
The Ocarina of Time, if bestowed on a player, can allow them to travel in time.
IF a similar role is killed in the Past ( ie, Child Link ), then that PR in the Present ( Adult Link ) will die. This would be rare but it would allow Scum a double kill. Possibly under a certain time limit. "You feel a cold pain run through you and you stagger backwards. You look down at your hands only to see them begin to fade away. You feel like you don't have much time left. You will Die in X Day Phases. " 
Scum aren't hindered by this Time system? Maybe only a certain role can kill across time?

Dark World/Light World:
Most minor roles can't cross between worlds.
Aganhim/Ganon has the ability to drag people into the Dark World. This can possibly restrict people who should not be there? ( in Link to the Past, those who enter the Dark World without protection turn into monsters )
Zelda/Maidens can drag people into the Light World.
Giving the Moon Pearl item allows people to travel between Worlds.

Daylight/Twilight:
Very similar to the Dark/Light world
Wolf Link can travel between them
Zant can force Twilight upon people
Midna would be weakened if she were in the Light World.

Items would be used across all 3. Some would be setting specific ( Ocarina of Time, Moon Pearl ) but most would work in all the settings. Fairy in a Bottle for 1-shot Bulletproof, Cuccos as a 1-shot NK ( or Day kill? ), and so on. The masks could also be counted here as well.

Obviously this leads into a lot of issues. If the Scum Team have a PR who can kill across worlds, what happens if the PR dies? Do they lose their NK? If only a handful of PRs can move between worlds and there is a map, their movement would be reflected and be called attention to immediately. Perhaps have a handful of people move automatically every Night phase in order to obscure this? Flavor-wise it could simply be written off as the Two Worlds are in a state of flux and often merge together, causing all sorts of chaos. Items would be another thing: are they found on the map? Does someone give them out? Are they randomly handed out? If someone does hand them out can that person give it to someone in the Present if they are in the Past map? What about the Scum Team, can they receive items as well? And so on.

Other than that I'm not sure how the duality would work without splitting into 2 different boards and while that does sound fun to try out it also sounds like hell to even try and balance, let alone run. 

I'm not opposed to running a simpler game though. No maps, duality system, etc. Just a game of Mafia with items. 

Sorry about disappearing. Was away on vacation and wasn't able to check here.

I will cast my vote for items. It has been done before but it would be something that would be at home in a Zelda setting and it would allow a ton of room to work with.

Just skimming the list there are a good couple of items that can be used in different ways. Although I feel like designing roles first and then picking items would be easier to work out than just making all the items and then trying to determine roles around those items. Have items be an extra rather than the main focus.

For player size let's start with 25 Players:
20 Town
1 Neutral?
4 Scum?

I'm not quite sure how that balance is determined to be honest. Same goes for the Power Role breakdown for Town and Scum. 8 Town PRs and 12 Ordinary sound about right?

Town ( People of Hyrule ) : Link, Zelda, Shiek, Wind Fish, Malon, Talon, various Sages, etc. 

Scum ( Forces of Evil/Forces of Ganon ) : Ganon, Ganondorf, Shadow Link, Vaati, Hilda, Yuga, Bosses, Enemies, Agahnim, Veran, Onox, Nightmares ( Link's Awakening ), Ingo, etc.

Neutral: Skull Kid, Happy Mask Salesman, various shopkeepers?

Still really liking the idea of having roles that aren't ones people would normally think of. Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf have PRs that almost write themselves though, half tempted to make Ganondorf something like a Strongman or have the ability to become Ganon.

Had an idea that the Wind Fish would be a Jailer or a Gossip ( ? ). Every Day Phase the Wind Fish may select one player that will be trapped in the Wind Fish's dream for that Night, unable to take any Night Action and would be unaffected by Actions taken against them. I'm not sure if 'Gossip' is the right term for it ( the Mafia wiki is down ) but the Wind Fish, instead of being a Jailer, would have a secret chat they could invite players to for one Night on Koholint Island. If Nightmare was in play on the Scum team the Wind Fish will die if that person is invited to the secret chat as the Wind Fish would 'never awaken'. 

I'm going to brainstorm some other ideas as well..

Is there any central theme we want to aim for? Older games, Newer games, or even just Everything? If we ended up focusing on one key area it might help us narrow down Role Flavor as well as Item Selection. I'm a huge fan of the older games ( Zelda 2 and aLttP especially ) or, if either of you care about this sort of thing, we can go with a branch of the Zelda Timeline too...

I do like the bomb idea though. I feel like it's been implemented before but it's just a bomb that is passed around a number of times until it 'explodes' and kills whoever it gets passed to. It would be a lot of fun. >:)

If we end up with a Thief Role then having an Item Vendor ( or 2? ) would be best. I agree with Thief being a Mafia role, namely because if it was Town they have a higher chance to harm other Townies like you said. Now the question is would the Thief be able to use the stolen items or are they simply 'out of play' now that they are taken? I feel like it would depend upon how many items we have/what they do.

Speaking of which, the Item Vendor. Obviously they can be Town ( with a chance to help Scum by accident ) but they could also be Neutral since they do, in essence, help both teams out. I'm more of the mind to keep the Vendor as a Townie but that brings up a thought I had; what if we had 2 Vendors? Since most of our mechanics so far revolve around items having our Item Vendor die Day/Night 1 would, well, suck. It's a slim chance but it does have a chance of happening. In order to combat this I had a feeling we could either;

A) 2 Vendors. Each vendor only gives out very specific items, i.e., Vendor 1 is all about healing and protection so they give out Fairies and Health Potions while Vendor 2 is more about practicality and can give out the Lens of Truth, a Shield, or possibly be even the Bomb vendor. People can only have 1 or 2 items on their person at a given time.

B) 1 Vendor, Town-aligned. They can only give out a specific number of items from a given list. However, some players in the game automatically start with certain items. Link has a shield, Shiek has the Mask of Truth, and Shadow Link has the Fire Rod. 

C) Item explosion. No vendors but almost everyone starts with an item. Chaos!

B feels like it would be the 'safer' bet but has a high chance of Town losing their item giver at the start. 

Also, to start the list:


I'll throw up a Google Doc a bit later to get it all together so we can add stuff there. I also brought the player count down to 20 just because of the recent Mafia Fatigue that seems to be hitting everyone. A smaller game might bring in more folks. c:

I really like the ticking bomb item. If you're mafia, you can pass it to town, but then there's a risk that it doesn't explode right away and town can give it back to mafia. Hold onto it too long though and it might explode on you.

Item disclosure is always a tricky subject to tackle. No matter your alignment, you have to think about the implications of lying about an item or not. Someone with the Ocarina could claim to be Link, for instance, only to get counter-claimed by a player with the Master Sword. Would scum disclose receiving an item, in case of being caught in a lie by the vendor? Would a vendor be able to claim he did no harm to a dead target after being tracked? Harry Potter went off the rails with regards to items so it would be interesting to see where the game goes with that.

1. How about an ability for a vendor to say "I quit" and dump his entire inventory on someone else, making them the new vendor?
2. I assume vendors can use an item given to them by another vendor, or would it be added to their inventory, allowing them to vend the received item?
3. I agree that vendors shouldn't self-vend nor use their own items. I think they already have enough to do, picking an item and a target.
4. We should also limit vendors to targeting people only once, and make them vend every night.
5. Power roles should either use their power or use an item. If the town cop thinks he is in danger of being NK'ed, they can use a fairy instead of investigating. Mafia then worries about him being BP, but it has the drawback of the cop losing a night of results and having a potential talking point if/when he publicly claims (a cop with no results one night is suspicious).
6. With items flying around, power roles should be limited, otherwise the game becomes too crazy and we have to juggle night action priorities (I think in this case, power roles have precedence over item use unless they work in tandem i.e. protective item vs. a night-kill).
7. I agree about making it Hyrule Warriors-style. Referencing a specific game is unfair to those who don't follow the flavour and makes the game too transparent ("oh X must be in this game").
8. Do we want silly or serious? I'm tossing around the idea of a Zelda and Sheik masons/lovers pairing. Navi as the town gossip?
9. When someone dies, all items are lost. No looting and no drops.

Town
1. Item Vendor
2. Item Vendor 2: backup vendor? Knows identity of Item Vendor? Or competing vendor who hands out inferior items that don't quite work as intended?
3. Gossip
4. Doctor
5. Cop
6. Some sort of day-action (cop/vig) 1-shot role
7. 1-shot BP?
8. Tracker/watcher/commuter
9-15. Ordinary

Mafia
1. Thief to counter item vendor. Possible to steal OR distribute item to someone? For instance, if they steal a fairy, the next night they could give it to a teammate to save him from being NK'ed (or have him hold onto the bomb so that he lives even if it goes off.)
2. Tracker/watcher/BP to counter day-vig.
3. Godfather/strongman to counter cop/doc.
4. Special item user who can use two items/actions in one night (do faction kill while using an item)?

Neutral
1. Serial killer. Can choose to steal item after kill, but cannot kill the following night (i.e. whatever you steal, you must(?) use the next night).

Throwing this in a new post so it can be seen. I made a Google Doc and both of you have access to modify it, if it doesn't work let me know. I'm going to be adding stuff to it periodically throughout the day so it can be up-to-date with where we are. I'm also going to put it in the first post so when we need it, it will be easy to find.

LoZ Google Doc

Hmmm, yeah you're probably right on the 3 to 5 item limit. How should we limit the items given out by the way? I know we all discussed having them not be able to target someone twice but would this restriction still be in effect if the item did not go through? Say the Item Vendor targets player X but is roleblocked, should the Vendor be allowed to target Player X again? Similarly, should we inform the Item Vendor if the item goes through? Not what item they gave out, which is info I think we should keep from the Vendor, but just whether or not they were successful at all.

I think if, by the end, we feel like Town is too strong we can add Macho/Ascetic to a Townie role. While Macho would be a better fit for flavor ( Groose ), Ascetic would be the better fit with what we would be looking for as it blocks everything other than a NK. It would just be a Townie that couldn't recieve items, something that would be a negative for Town and would help balance it out for Scum.

Hyrule Warriors is pretty fun. It's scratching that Zelda itch while being short enough to pick up and play (3DS version).

First, regarding the items. I think a backup item vendor works the best because you have PR's and items flying around already, and 2 vendors would make things crazy. However, I still like the idea of an inferior vendor, so how about making the backup give out inferior items (no competition, no quality control, rushing the product to market). Vendor cannot target the same person twice, even if it's blocked. They only get "success/failure".

Does the vendor know what they're doling out, or do they just target someone and they receive a mystery item (which the recipient knows about)?

I think the item list is fine, but should be kept simple. One-shot and self-target if possible to minimize shenanigans.

The exception would be the bomb. What happens if the item vendor gets it back? What if it gets passed to someone who also receives an item? They now have 2 items, which they can't use at the same time, and if they also have a PR then that's a problem. Maybe restrict players to 1 item, and the vendor is immune to receiving items? In terms of priority we can do PR > item use > vendor > player (in case vendor and bomb target same person one night). It would suck to spend 3 nights passing the bomb away and getting failures. D:

Will look at the roles later.

A knowledgeable vendor would be a very strong pro-town role. If a cop claims during the day, they can receive a fairy the same night the doctor protects them, making them basically invulnerable. I think they should be left in the dark. Also, no one knows the backup vendor's items are inferior. We can subtly hint at it in flavour but as far as the vendor and his recipients know, they receive a perfectly functional item.

Hmm a bomb as a separate grey area would work. Perhaps it can be unwatchable/trackable/unblockable? The alternative is having it as a pseudo-RB. It's basically an extra random NK. We can make it that only item/doctor protection can prevent the bomb kill. So everyone can take a maximum of two actions: PR/item, and passing the bomb if they have it.

Since we might go with Masons maybe we can think about not informing the Main Vendor of a Back-Up Vendor? It would solve the Day Quit action problem so when the Vendor flips that information just isn't there to begin with. Seeing as Masons kind of confirm each other's Townie-ness having a Vendor know of a Back-Up Vendor would essentially give the Back-up a boost if they ever claimed. We can always let the Vendor know of the Back-Up and then [REDACTED] that info when they flip if we did want the Vendor to know. I'm a fan of keeping them in the dark though.

I'll add the bomb stuff to the Google Doc when I get time tonight.



Shield = Mirror Shield? Since it deflects?

Potion is an unblockable kill....? or is it either a RB or a kill?


I agree here, we have a lot of deaths already. Perhaps a Commuter/Sleepwalker to disrupt the Motion Detector/Tracker?


We can always go with your idea of Child/Adult form. Child Link and Adult Link being Masons or something. Although having Shiek/Zelda be lovers is great. :p



Are we restricting the Tracker/Thief and not letting them have access to the Scum NK? If it ever came down to those two I think we should let them decide between PR/Item and the NK just like Town would have to. 

I had the same idea lol. I was just waiting for Price is Right to finish before jumping all the way back in here just to see how her game worked out balance-wise.

So far it seems to be working out well. Having x-shot PRs makes it so Town isn't crazy strong if they get all the powers and some powers even have huge detriments to them ( Weak Cop ).

It also looks like everyone was just an Ordinary in that game. I could be wrong since it's still going but it really doesn't look like there were any PRs outside the items. I still like what we have going but maybe tone down our PRs here as well?

I'm half tempted to ask Sophia if we can take a look at her boards here on OG to see the details of how she balanced it all out and picked what items to use.