forum mafia spy

[McJesus]

So I was thinking of how the spy role could work in forum mafia and I got an idea, what if the spy picked one person and they could see all of that person's faction pm chats (the mod would relay them to you in pm's) If the person didn't belong to a faction there wouldn't be any pm's and the godfather would be immune from spying. The threat of night chat spying would make things more interesting

[vornksr]

I've thought about how one might resurrect the spy in FM before, and this seems like it might be the best way you could implement it. It's got some potentially fatal drawbacks, though:

1) It makes the spy an almost 100% guaranteed way to detect mafia (except for the immune gf), stronger even than sheriff (since sheriff at least can be duped by framer).

2) It encourages the mafia to encrypt their night chats, which is hella annoying but a perfect workaround. (Each night, player A tells B how to encrypt his posts, B tells C, and C tells A. Since the spy can only hear one mafia player, he'll never be able to learn the encryption that his target is using... he'll have to break the code himself.)

3) It eats away at the mafia's greatest strength, which is the ability to work together and pool knowledge. Given that the mafia is the only faction never to have won a game, it seem undesirable to be implementing roles that work against them.


But I like the idea nonetheless, and I think it might be workable in the mechanic I'm planning for the FM I host. My game's going to be set on the islands of Venice, and where players live/where events occur matters. The spy could target an island, rather than a player, and "overhear" a set number of posts that took place on that island during the night. This would be less useful at first, but as the endgame approaches and the town figures out who lives where, it might become very useful.

[J]

I've thought about how one might resurrect the spy in FM before, and this seems like it might be the best way you could implement it. It's got some potentially fatal drawbacks, though:

1) It makes the spy an almost 100% guaranteed way to detect mafia (except for the immune gf), stronger even than sheriff (since sheriff at least can be duped by framer).

2) It encourages the mafia to encrypt their night chats, which is hella annoying but a perfect workaround. (Each night, player A tells B how to encrypt his posts, B tells C, and C tells A. Since the spy can only hear one mafia player, he'll never be able to learn the encryption that his target is using... he'll have to break the code himself.)

3) It eats away at the mafia's greatest strength, which is the ability to work together and pool knowledge. Given that the mafia is the only faction never to have won a game, it seem undesirable to be implementing roles that work against them.


But I like the idea nonetheless, and I think it might be workable in the mechanic I'm planning for the FM I host. My game's going to be set on the islands of Venice, and where players live/where events occur matters. The spy could target an island, rather than a player, and "overhear" a set number of posts that took place on that island during the night. This would be less useful at first, but as the endgame approaches and the town figures out who lives where, it might become very useful.

This sounds like a really interesting workaround to the issues of making the Spy totally overpowered. Definitely looking forward to seeing what you do with it!

[Fragos]

You want a good idea? There are two or more Mafia groups in Forum Mafia. The Spy should be able to watch only one of those groups - and he chooses which Mafia group he wants to watch. He shoudn'n be able to hear their chat, but he should be able to see each of their visits.

[FalseTruth]

Frankly, I don't like the idea of a spy in a forum mafia setting. Its forum mafia, and the primary goal is to encourage discussion, planning, and creative in-depth strategies. The spy is limiting and imo OP, regardless of implementation. It basically forces you to remain passive as mafia and discourages cooperation. I think it would make for a very boring game. Yes, it might work, but it is a bad idea and doesn't add anything to our current play.

[jaczac]

I agree with FT. Fms are made for large(relative) scale plans, and Mafia's discussion is too needed in the mafia's strategy. To blemish it, even a little.

[Luna]

Remember the suggestion is for the Spy to see 'pm chats', which I took to read as the action PMs (which comes with it's own set of pros and cons). I mean it makes more sense for the spy to see a chat, but I agree this really has the potential to limit the essence of Forum Mafia if the threat of a spy around stops codes and strategy discussion. If the Spy can see the just the action... there could be room for tweaking to make a viable role for testing.

Now picking one person and seeing all actions their faction takes is OP as has been hinted at before (if you target a Mafia and see Mafia actions you have a confirmed scum right there, as well as lots of possible evidence to back yourself up i.e. you also know you was roleblocked/silenced/drugged/investigated). Having a random Mafia team assigned to you at the beginning could be interesting, I think the Spy becomes a more balanced power role that could uncover some key information (hmm person A was roleblocked night 1 but hasn't claimed it, I'll keep that in mind...). If that's considered too powerful, since seeing the actions of a whole Mafia team throughout the game could be amazing in some setups, then possibly just a single random scum each night is watched anonymously, or perhaps you see the targets of all the Mafia team but you don't see what particular power (kill/block/enforced/etc.) is attributed to which target.

Some food for thought, I think it gives the Town a new set of information which isn't powerful by itself but a cunning Spy able to corroborate his data with other Townies can shed new light and evidence.

[BorkBot]

I believe Fragos didn't mean that you target a player and see their faction's night actions, but you pick a faction (a mafia family) and see their targets for that night. You don't know who is performing those actions and you don't know what those actions are. You also can't hear their chat or anything.

If the mafia factions don't have truckloads of power roles, you might see maybe 3 or 4 targets, which are not even confirmed town because they might belong to the other mafia faction.

To get any sort of definite information, you have to find a lookout to share information with. Seems pretty balanced to me.

[McJesus]

Honestly I just want to see claw fakeclaim spy and make up a bunch of messages that the different mafia's said. That would be so entertaining