If I ever get around to hosting a game I certainly intend to try it (though anyone else should feel free to use the idea too) as I think it solves a lot of the issues of playing on a forum (or this one anyway);
No waiting around till deadlines, waiting only benefits scum.
No day-night cycle and pauses in participation so you don't have people who take two days to come back to the game because they didn't realise a new day had started. And no having to wind yourself up and down to get into the action (I would still probably say the counter only runs on work days say so the weekends still count as freedays where people don't have to do much and can get a break if needed).

There is a little more effort for the mod, but if you just say actions always take place at Noon (say) then all you need to do is check for PMs once a day to see what needs to be resolved. And it's quite flexible too, if you need you can just extend everyone's countdown by a day or insert free days where no actions happen if you need to be away.

And finally it allows for new powers; stunning to increase cooldown times, some kind of buff to decrease them, maybe a cop that tells you how long till someones power works again etc.


Yeah, when the game drags on that's when I start to get a little crazy and obsessive and that's what puts me off playing as it's not very pleasant...

I think it sounds like fun (both suggestions) but with the random mod-kill thingie, I think the argument against random voting apply. There's nothing to be gained from (actually it's impossible to) analysing the wagons/hammer etc later on, so scum would have an easy go biding their time with the chance of the modkill hitting town being way higher since there's a lot more of town than scum around in the beginning.

But then again that's something that really may make town go faster so they get a train to analyse and no rvs-lynch.

Yeah, agreed, that is what I meant about it possibly being exploited/unbalanced. I thought about making it a weighted probability that would make scum more likely to be mod-killed, but that would possibly disincline town to actually vote Day 1. However, a totally level probability is only unbalancing if town lets it happen, which, as you suggest, might make town go faster.

Having said all that, I actually think adaliabooks' idea is better than mine. Where mine is a bit overbearing and more black and white (lynch or die), his is a bit more subtle and allows for some wiggle room with powers and such for balancing. His way gives players a reason to get involved, not just forcing them with a rules-based Sword of Damocles. Both ways could work, but I see more scenarios where his design can work better than mine. The only way my way is consistently better is that it would be much easier to moderate.

I also thought of adding weights, maybe to ones that mirror the faction parts or have the smaller faction just a bit more likely to get hit (not sure about that, though since the town can decide to play the odds in the end and go for a random lynch if they don't have a good option). And obviously that shouldn't affect the mafia wincon.

Another idea I had in the past with a similar "clock" mechanic was to extend the randomized deadline a bit as votes pile up (maybe more if they are on the same person) or shorten it if they get retracted plus an actual ticker that gradually eats it away. I'm not the greatest fan of having RNG screwing up a well-started play so I wouldn't allow for a random end of day if something is actually happening, but just takes a bit more time since more people are involved. Still not sure how much that can be exploited, though, and by whom.

@Adalia, how will chats work? If there isn't designated off-times how should team members communicate to align? Non-stop chat?

Hmm, I hadn't particularly considered that. Either non stop or on a cycle of some sort same as all other powers (say night chat is open every Thursday and Friday or something, though that might complicate things a little much)

Perhaps on a cool-down similar to the powers? It would start on cool-down, and once it was able to be activated, players could post in the faction chat when they wanted to start talking. Some simple statement, such as 'I vote for starting a chat', or some such, but no actual game related talking until it is formally opened. After that, the chat would be open for some predefined window, like a day or two, then close for the cool-down again.

Addendum:
It might be tricky to have the chat open while the game was going on. However, perhaps role powers can't be used by those players until the chat is formally closed? Or, maybe even more insidiously, no posts can be made in the game thread by those players until they close the chat. That latter method might even make a formal time-limit on the private chat unnecessary.

I'm probably the worst person to offer his opinion here, but I'm going to pipe up and suggest that there be a "Night 0" before Day 1 begins whereby those with night actions can take them. The only disadvantage I can see to something like this is if somebody important like, say, the doctor ends up getting the bullet from the mafia, but then, this could be equally likely to happen on N1 or during the random-lynch period.

If you include an NK an N0, it's not much fun for whichever player that was. And since they've seen a role, you can't even put them on the sub list.

Strategically, I see the point, and I've used N0 in both my games as mod (though with no kill) but I think it's no fun for whichever player gets picked on.

Esp. if it were the same players getting the pre-kill repeatedly.

But doesn't the same go for the person who gets lynched D1? They don't really get to DO anything, just witness a bunch of fairly pointless arguing back and forth before karking it by the logic of "Well, your mug's the ugliest, so let's go for you."

Depends on the game, but at least there they've had the chance to try to do something before going out.

Sometimes it fails spectacularly of course, but that's part of the fun.

(Right, adalia?)

Haha, of course!

I think the difference is you have a chance to do something to prevent being the D1 lynch, but a N0 NK you just get taken out of the game.

I do see how it can help, but it would just penalize the better players who scum fear the most as they are the only ones worth killing N0.

But then wouldn't they have to contend with the doctor/some other healing role?
Even if you assume there's no doctor, wouldn't this just happen on N1 anyways?

But by N1 you have some talking to work with. You might have chosen Hyper say on N0 just because you know he's good, but maybe day 1 he is after the entirely wrong people so you choose Bookworm instead as he's made a good start at guessing who is scum.

N0 all you have is past games to go on so the same people are always likely to bite the bullet, and sure a Doctor can help there but it's still not optimal.

But how would Hyper or whoever else know who to go for on D1? There's literally not a shadow of...well, anything, really...to go off of. He'd probably change up their opinion on D2 after some night actions have been taken. Not to mention that you could kill him off to pin a nifty frame on the people he was gunning for. The only place you might get lucky is if scum is about to get voted off and his buddies try to save him, but at that, they're likelier to just bus than out themselves so easily.

I mean, I get what you're saying and I see how it could be a problem, but isn't that saying that for the lynching period, it's the opposite? "This guy's too smart, let's not lynch him. Instead, let's kill off somebody who isn't too bright since they're useless to the team anyways if they're innocent." Like, in theory, wouldn't this lead to the same problem, just in reverse?

He is a horrible human person anyway, so it's fine.

That's mostly on them, though. They have the chance to try and not allow it since there is a discussion going on. On the other hand I've also used N0 (not sure if here, though, can't remember) - especially in games where all the players know each other. Having the NK to analyse seems to help a bit with kicking off D1, at least from what I've seen.