OK, so from responses to Bookwyrm's inquiry we can discern there are 2 people wiling to play next game for sure and 1 possibly?
Sounds about right. :-)

B-b-b-but... how can one find mafia without investigations and similar night actions results?

I think perhaps a 3-5 day break after each game before allowing the next signup to go up might even be a good idea. I have at times thought they are getting ingested too quickly, and might be very good to have some time to digest after each game before prepping to consume another. I think a week after this last one is a good idea.

I also plan to keep playing. I think we have a group of good players who who can continue to have fun playing together.

Also keep in mind that not everyone is keeping up to date with reading this thread, and just because a lot of people haven't responded that they are playing doesn't mean they won't when they get the signup notificattions/see the game signup in the threads.

I hope to see Ix and hunter and lift back in the rotation sooner or later, among others!

From my understanding, adalia was never intending to host and shouldn't have been in the list. Inconvenient a bit for the upcoming hosts, but, still, I think we should be okay.

I do hope trent still hosts, maybe if he would like, I can not participate in his game.

kryps, we could try another, perhaps more slow this time, russian roulette setup, OR a setup that has been run before, for your turn? I'd actually really be into a previously run setup.

As for my game, I wouldn't really call it a mega-anything. Again, it seems I've given the wrong impression/come across wrong. I simply wanted to make a game that could be a good, well-balanced, interesting game that has the potential to hold a lot of players. I just like games that have more players than less, in general, as long as they are well done/balanced, of course. It allows for a larger dynamic of everything, reads, role-interactions, player roles in general (hey, everyone likes being a role, right? not that mine is even close to role-madness, I don't mean to imply that), and as the games develop they get more interesting. In a 12, 13, 14 player game, I find often that things just really start to get going and interesting right as the game starts to come to an end.

So, yeah, for my game, I ideally would like at least 17 players, but of course when moderating a game the mod has to prepare for all numbers, and I am, of course. It should still be good and fun with even just 12 players, I mean, as I said, each character is unique, regardless of role, and each interaction will be significant in the narrative of the overall story and of the individual character's story that is interacted with, if they are.

Sure, I'd be a bit disappointed if only 12 played at signup, but I'm also confident it can still be quite fun and a good experience for all and in the long run don't think the # of players will be part of that, it is all about quality, not quantity, after all. So, ya, the game is not reliant on having a lot of players. Just, more players, more potential fun, in general, imo! Because it's more people having more fun in more varied ways, simple as that. BUT, also, if less people play, if I'm able ever to re-run the game, I can reveal only the characters that were involved and leave the others a mystery. And regardless, multiple runs will have completely different results anyway.

Oh, well, I guess the thing that is mega about it is the amount of flavor text that will be involved. I do consider myself a bit of a writer, though, and it will be different than my random word-vomits of stream of consciousness that you see during my play of games.

It should flow well, as well as be evocative and engaging and make you want to participate in the happenings and help unfold what happens moving forward in the small village you're all a part of and see how it all fits together more and more.

Did I mention that the sign-up thread will be a bunch of flavor setting up village and community that exists in the game (not the crisis that unfolds, that comes once the game thread goes up) and then after it all, there will be a cast of characters, and to signup, each player will choose which character they wish to play?

Yes. I had been thinking of running a game with Cold-War era spy-games flavor. With several factions, and no true scum/town dynamic (although, there would be 'town' in a technical sense). Claiming would have very real consequences, since it would based around spies and espionage, and the mechanics would be ... unique. However, I think a simple game might be best; I actually prefer simple games in many respects.

Low key surprised at the fact I was not involved in the previous shit storm.

Anyway. On to business. Is it out of the question to try to recruit fresh meat off the forums? There seem a lot of new users and mafia games might make them more akin to regulars around here. Keep in mind many are coming form communities like Steam where people are... different. So we might get a few bad apples for every golden one.

I think it is a good idea to try and do, but of course we have to make sure they read the 1st post here.

I've been trying for a little bit to get more people, the past few games, anyway.

There's this thread that I bump every so often to try and get some interest, I urge others to add encouragement for people to give it a try to the thread.

I have talked to a few people who have semi-interest here or there maybe in joining, so I think everyone should reach out to anyone they know that they think might have interest, and ask them if they want to give it a look/try playing. Almabirds said she might join/try a game with us to see how she likes it. I think there have to be others around. I do wish mrkgnao would play!

I think/hope mayyyybe some previous players could always come back too, but even so, if the number of players shrink a little I still think strong games can stil be kept up to a regular enough degree (don't always need to be banging out a game, if that is how it goes), and even get enough to actually have 16, 17, 18 in some games sometimes, too, even if that isn't happening until a year from now.

I'd return if the game finally had more to go off of and didn't stagnate for weeks at a time.

sounds quite interestingl, I'd love to give it a try! we've had a lot of odd games lately, but I don't know if standard "normal" is necessary, I think an interesting not-usual game could be great.

Balancing issues will make such a game hard to design and keep interesting. The majority of players here are marathon style. They take their time, think about stuff, etc etc.

Fast paced games would be an interesting change, though it begs the question how many people here do actually know how to properly balance them.

I just don't get it, no matter how many times I see it: How are you supposed to figure out what somebody is just by going off of what they say? It just seems to drag on and get unbelievably boring to me. It's the reason why it can be so simple to get a flawless Mafia win. Feels like it's just a drawn-out version of the roulette game, you just pick a person to lynch at random and hope you were right.
I'd give it a shot, but the question is how many people would go for it.

To my knowledge there have been only 3 flawless mafia wins and they came after much deliberation and arguing. And out of the 3, one is highly debatable since the team itself was only made of 2 members in an 11 people game where a bunch of newbies eventually gave up and left the game to burn.

That's kind of my point. All the random finger-pointing and "scum reading" off of no hard evidence whatsoever seems to me to be the equivalent of a crapshoot unless there's actually something concrete to go off of.

Here's an idea. Now, bear with me here, as it may be a stupid idea, but it's worth getting some debate over:
What if there was a mechanic whereby you could see what actions a person took (assuming that they're a power role) right after they died? This would be especially interesting in a no-flip scenario such as in the last game.

I don't think absolutely anything can be classified as hard evidence in mafia. Say you are a cop. You investigate someone. You get scum read. The question is, were you redirected? Are you paranoid? If you are not, you have to convince the players that you are actually a cop and not a scum liar. What exactly do you see as hard evidence? In my experience, unless a mod states something, nothing is hard evidence, and then there can also be mechanics where a mod would have to lie, as in a role that flips town when they are actually mafia.

Interesting, but unless the actions reveal results that are trustworthy, and again, actions can be redirected and results can be falsified, that is not really hard evidence either.

I suspect it feels like more since they've all been in the last 9 games.

Though worth noting it easily could have been 4 if you/wyrm had coerced Leonard into joining your voting bloc in the dungeon game instead of busing Quad.

Or if dedo/hunter/dess hadn't pulled off the greatest lie ever told (in forum mafia) in yog's latest game.