The night ended with the sound of a clean execution.
Amidst the ramblings of the neutrals, who just wanted to be left alone to win with either side, they pushed hard that among them, one person in particular, was an entity capable of great violence. As Fatalis dithered, he changed his target prisoner to Nick in the final moments of the day.
The execution was swift and just.
As the decapitated head of Nick fell to the floor, dawn broke the blackness of the starless sky.
"You've done it," the Sphinx stated. "The power of the Mino-Sphere is gone. Evil has left this place."
Exhausted, ReauxTzunami and Fatalis sat down among their temporary allies, LeaD and Auckmid.
"Relax, townfolk. Be safe."
EPILOGUE
Night Actions (Google Docs): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...GdjY2RwOV9hSHc
Night Actions (Microsoft Excel): https://www.2shared.com/document/ZlK3...t_Actions.html
Night Chat Forums: https://amnesiaville.forumcow.com/
Congratulations to the Town (FrostByte, Glip, Capitalier, Goremancer, ReauxTzunami, Ubernox, Kromos, Fatalis, Chill Kidd, Cryptonic, ajkei) and the winning Benign Neutrals (LeaD, Auckmid)!
Godfather - Nick
Mafia - Bluejay
Mafia - Brendan
Mafia - Jr4life24
Town Leader - FrostByte
Town Power - Glip
Town Power - Capitalier
Town Power - Goremancer (pebrock)
Town Power - ReauxTzunami
Town Power - Ubernox
Town Power - Kromos
Town Power - Fatalis
Citizen - Chill Kidd
Citizen - Cryptonic
Citizen - ajkei
Serial Killer - CmG
Student (of the Serial Killer) - Bahkieh
Benign Neutral - LeaD
Benign Neutral - Auckmid
Benign Neutral - Dust (Rocshi)
THOUGHTS
Well, my first M-FM complete! I must say, I was ridiculously excited when it came to hosting this game. It was like no other I've seen before and just as mysterious (and occasionally convoluted) as Fragos' excellent Five-Sided Town M-FM. The possibility of completely random night actions was interesting as you never quite knew what you would receive each day. Here's hoping you all had just as much fun as I did.
The first thing I'd like to get out of the way is that the night actions were completely and utterly randomized. Nearly every single thing in this M-FM was randomized. All night actions, the lottery pills, randomized votes, randomized targets (when required), etc. There was no bias and I attempted to squash giving out any confirmed information as much as I could throughout the game. Sometimes my prompt replies led others to discern things as I did not edit myself as well as I could, but other times it led to the town over-thinking my edits and believing things that were otherwise different.
A key example of this would be two amendments I made in the mid-game. The amendment made to Option C during the Opportunity Cost day about framed targets having a 50% chance to appear in the investigation result was not a change made on the fly. It was in my notes, as I stated, but not in the file I copied and pasted from. The reasoning was because I knew that it could severely implicate scum if only one of them visited a player. I neglected to change it after the first 6-7 hours in case it exacerbated the issue and caught a scum in a lie, but once it became apparent that the day was going to end with Option C, I felt I had to include the edit so everyone knew what they were getting into (and since there was an entire day left before the option was hammered, it gave the Town enough time to change their mind if they felt the risk wasn't worth it).
The other amendment was to role cards (Bodyguard, Jester, Witch, Ghost), essentially giving them all a slight buff or rule change. This did not affect the game at any point and was mostly meant to clarify rules and to buff the Ghost (to make him be an actual hindrance for whoever killed him by allowing him to steal votes) and the Witch (as she could be tracked very easily and was susceptible to death every night, she seemed very risky to choose). No one had actually chosen any of these roles and town became a little too wary about them all of a sudden.
Now, day events. Day events were a very interesting thing to do and I loved coming up with the ideas beforehand. The actions were random enough, yes, but I knew I needed to include something that could shake up day chat and give everyone something to talk about, as I've witnessed the amount of lurkers that have been present in the past few months. It worked some days (Days 2, 3, and 4) and not others. Clearly day events that affect night actions are more fun and more engaging, as those are the ones that put the Town into overdrive mode.
There was one major drawback, however. Day 2's day event eventually lead to Bahkieh being confirmed scum and I do regret allowing that to happen, even with the Framer amendment. It was basically a free Lookout action and it gave up the Blackmailer rather easily. However, I would like to point out that little attempt was made to stifle the issue. There was very little action from Bahkieh or CmG to shift the vote, or from Bahkieh to explain his actions (which was not really discussed in the night chat, where Bahkieh could have claimed witched, or that he thought he had to use one of his two powers and the other one was worse, etc.). There were ways around everything, though Bahkieh did admit that he rarely played scum, so that explained his hesitance to openly counter the accusations.
Even with that misstep, I felt the game was fairly balanced. The game came down to a 3v2v1 scenario on the final day and, if one particular scum player had not made such a huge blunder early on, scum may have won this game instead of the Town.
Lurking did become an issue, particularly towards the end of the game. I wasn't too pleased with it, though some used it as a strategy. I had stated time and time again that if you did not have time for this game, please do not participate and to inform me of this. People were waiting throughout the whole game to play and it was unfortunate that some failed to inform me when they would not make deadlines (it also did not guarantee you were modkilled if you informed me beforehand). Please, everyone, inform hosts in the future if you cannot submit a night action in time, if you are going out of town or on a trip, if you are just simply too busy due to real-life responsibilities. It makes life easier for the host and for the players involved because if a key player is missing for even one day, it can change the entire course of the game.
Onto the randomizations, I did have to laugh at some of them. There were nights when the Town had game-changing actions to choose from and other nights when the selection was less than impressive. One particular night, Night 3, where the town told everyone to shoot whoever showed up Blackmailer (Bahkieh), Fatalis was the first to submit a night action as Town to shoot Chill Kidd instead. Chill Kidd then wanted to shoot Goremancer (a fellow Townie). Fatalis then changed his action to shoot Bahkieh, but since he changed it, Chill Kidd's action overrode Fatalis' first action. However! FrostByte role-blocked Chill Kidd that night, preventing the death of a fellow Townie by a fellow Townie.
Night 1 was hectic with three (and nearly four) bus driving actions. I had to essentially check it ten times to ensure everything was working correctly there (and I was fairly impressed with the Town figuring everything out exactly the following day).
The process took about 90 minutes every night in order to roll the actions with random.org, update all Word/Excel documents, write up PMs, the RP, the day event, and to update the Graveyard and Player List, as well as opening/closing night chats and updating Dead Chat. It was time consuming, yes, but a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. I regret not telling the players that I basically gave myself a leeway of +30 minutes every night (that I could open day chat up to 30 minutes after night ended), but they would already have their PMs by this point, so I didn't think it was absolutely necessary.
I hope everyone enjoyed the game and I hope it encourages others to try more varied and atypical setups in the future. While the average mafia setups are still fun, after you've played FM here for awhile (and on SC2), playing something new really spices it up a bit.
Now, onto the awards!
AWARDS
MVP AWARD - Nick
BEST TOWN PLAYER AWARD - Kromos
BEST SCUM AWARD - Dust
HERP DERP AWARD - Brendan
MOST MISSED OPPORTUNITY AWARD - (Tie) LeaD, Auckmid, & Rocshi
PLAYER'S CHOICE AWARD -
I got lucky that I saved this...damn you, forum roll back. Sorry about the lack of Award descriptions. I hadn't saved those...