Blah, I am sick. Somehow I find it more restful to play WoW than to work, even though the two are identical physically. Well, mental strain or something, how about? Today is level 28 day on WoW! All 10 characters are level 28 at last.
So, I am going to share with you, for your critique and interest, Heroes Mafia. I'm really excited about it, so this is fun for me! I think it should work as written now, but it's never been played, and the balance will really have to be seen through playtesting. I consider it a different game than Mafia, though it's obviously very much based on Mafia. Unlike most Mafia games, all the roles are clearly stated and people can see exactly what they do, so presenting them here won't be ruining anything. There are a TON of roles in it, so I am going to roll them out a few at a time. Since this is the first day, let's introduce the basic rules and the most important role as well as a couple others:
THE RULES
Each day, the Heroes vote a person to turn over to Primatech Paper, where they will be dealt with in some unknown way, definitely putting them out of commission. Each night, Sylar kills one of them. The Heroes win by turning Sylar over to Primatech, Sylar wins by killing them all (except The Haitian, if he is playing). There are NO LAST GASPS. There are a variety of powers that affect how many votes it takes to send someone away, so while players will be notified how many players are alive and thus how many votes would be 50%, they are advised to realize that 50% might not be the required vote count, it may be more or less for various reasons. The host doesn't reveal how many actual votes there are, to protect the anonymity of people with multi-vote powers.
The game begins with a full night, kill included. There are 8-10 players, with roles that are randomly chosen from the list below (the host may decide which roles will be used in the game). Players know what the possible roles are, but not which ones are in the game. Choosing a good set of roles is very important. Sylar needs to get very powerful very quickly, and the players need to not have good defenses against him. He is all alone, after all. No Lynch is an allowed vote.
Anyone sent to Primatech Paper or killed by Sylar will NOT have their role stated publicly. If you want people to know what you can do, you need to tell them when you are alive.
THE ROLES
SYLAR
You are a serial killer with the power to steal the powers of anyone you kill. For some reason, you are restraining yourself to a single kill each night. PM me with your choice of victim each night. When you kill someone, the next morning when the kill is posted, you'll be PMed about your new power. Your ability to use it may differ slightly from the original owner's ability, but usually it will be the same. You may always use all of your powers (subject to their particular limitations).
You are the only killer in this game, and it is your goal to wipe out all of the Heroes. This will be very hard, since they vastly outnumber you and have powers they can rely on. Because of this, you will need to plan extremely carefully and always keep all of your abilities in mind. They will help you enormously to overcome the odds, but only if you remember to use them, and use them well.
Your one other ability is not a magical one - it is sociopathic criminal intellect. With this ability, you can evade being captured the first day. If you are voted out, it will simply fail. This will of course still leave you looking pretty suspicious, but there is one other role that has this ability, and it still beats losing right away.
CLAIRE BENNET
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is regeneration. If you are killed by Sylar or sent away to Primatech, you will return to the game after another day and night have passed.
SYLAR: Since he can't permanently kill her, he can't take her power. (ed. note: the "SYLAR:" section under each character describes how his version of their power differs from the original)
MATT PARKMAN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have the power to read minds. PM me during the night with someone's mind you want to read. You will hopefully learn something useful from this!
NOTE: Host makes up thoughts for him to hear, something that gives a clue regarding the victim's power. The Haitian of course is not readable, and if Peter has Parkman's power, they just get feedback. Reading Sylar's mind is not very helpful, but gives some vague clue.
SYLAR: unchanged
HIRO NAKAMURA
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is control over the space-time continuum. This means that once in the game, you may go back in time to prevent one of Sylar's killings. This will bring that player back and take their power away from Sylar. Due to the limitations of reality, we can't actually undo everything that happened as a result of the killing, so that's all that it does. PM me at any time when you wish to use this power, night or day. Remember it only works once!
Besides traveling back in time, you can also stop time. You can also only do this once. When you stop time, you end day with the current most-voted being disposed of. You can't do this if the votes are currently a tie, but you can of course place your own vote right before doing it. To do this, just PM me during the day when you want to do it. I will check the time on your PM and lynch according to what the votes were at that moment, even if they have changed since then.
In addition to all that, you can also communicate privately with Ando, your best friend. PM him anytime.
SYLAR: He can use the stop time power once (whether or not Hiro has done so). He can use the time travel power as well, but instead of preventing a killing, he can change one of his previous kills to a new victim of his choice (losing the first power and resurrecting the victim).
ANDO
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have no special powers, except that you are Hiro's closest friend! You can PM with him all you like during the game to communicate privately.
If you are killed, Hiro will be so upset that he will make a reckless attempt to kill Sylar, resulting in his own death, and Sylar gaining his powers. Don't get killed. This does not happen if you are turned over to Primatech Paper.
*SYLAR POWER: Doesn't have one.
That's the first few roles. As you can see, everybody (except Ando) is quite powerful, though some much more than others. But most of all, they insidiously tend to be more helpful to Sylar (once taken) than to themselves. Except for Claire - she is one of a couple of really dangerous roles for Sylar to face (The Haitian is worse). Then there's Ando, a huge liability to the team (and if he tries to do the "hey, we're masons so we're good" thing, Sylar knows exactly who to target, and is guaranteed to claim Hiro's extremely strong power, and maybe get 2 kills in one).
There's a large element of randomness to this game, despite the absence of actual randomness. The people Sylar chooses to kill and the targets people choose for their various powers all mix it up to a great degree. It's not meant to be the highly structured, totally fair, game that Mafia is (supposed to be...). It's a quick bit of fun that may totally blow up in your face at times! In fact, when you see some of the later roles, you'll learn that it can do that literally. Even if it lasts the maximum time, it's still a shorter game than most Mafia. The best thing is that it creates 'stories'. You'll remember the time you happened to get that great power and fooled them all (okay, so mainly it's fun for Sylar). More to come tomorrow...
