Mafiawesome: The San Luis Penguins

[MoogleViper]

The sky, he said? Haha! Phew-ee! Whatta kidder that sheriff was. That dumb bub. You hop onto your speckled horse, sawdust, and steer her around to gallop back through the street. You take the poster out from your pack, and as you pass the body you throw it down. ‘WANTED!’ it reads, ‘$1000 REWARD’, and it has your picture on it. One measly thousand? Ha! You spit. Well, now the sheriff was gone, it’ll more than double. You kick at your horse with the spurs on your boots.

 

C’mon girl, let’s go celebrate. Yaw!

 

Gizmo, you are The Man With The Snakeskin Boots, you are evil, and one of the San Luis Six. Each night, you kill someone, just for the laughs.

 

***

The laughter from outside died down, but you were still smiling through the window. You caught yourself and guiltily looked around, relieved that the locals in this goddamn town weren’t too Christian else they woulda seen you were laughing with the man with the snakeskin boots. You Look at the alter, unaware of your fingers fiddling with your dog collar.

 

You cross yourself.

 

‘Forgive me, Father.’

 

coolness bears, you are The Pastor, you find yourself torn between the teachings of Jesus and the cleansing actions of God. You believe that evil must be purged in this town, but unfortunately you are misguided, and unknowingly evil. Each night you seek out someone for their confession, for their story, to try and make sense of it all. Doing so will prevent them from carrying out their usual night duties.

 

***

 

‘Well, whether you wanna celebrate or commiserate, hurry up and buy some gorram juice, boys. This ain’t San Francisco Beach, this is my gorram saloon!’

 

Damn-ass punks act like they ain’t never seen a boy get shot before. You return to what you were doing as they all return to their seats and start talking amongst themselves. You’ve been ‘cleaning’ the same cloudy glass with the same raggedy-ass cloth for as long as anyone can remember.

 

For once, you’re glad of your squint. All these years people been unsure whether you be laughin’ or cryin’. Boy, it sure was laughter this time. Bless your ma for dropping you an’ your head on that bathroom floor.

 

Bless her grave. Bless the shovel and bless the brains and blood you washed off it.

 

Cube, you are Bert the Barman, but everyone calls you Barbar. Nobody’s ever quite sure whether you’re serious or not, but as caretaker of the booze many see you as an estranged uncle. Your vote counts twice. If investigated it’ll come up as neutral, but you are Evil.

 

***

 

Peering from behind the crates, you slowly stand up as the man on the yellow horse disappeared in the dirt kicked up in the air.

 

‘… But I’d sure like to ask him a few.’ You return to trying to pry open the crates marked ‘tea’, having long learned that Barbar’s tea sure had a strong malty scent, all right.

 

‘Say, Charlie…’

 

‘What, Sally?’ you reply, after a few seconds of silence while you struggle to open the crate.

 

‘I wish I could help you.’

 

You stop for a second, breathing heavily, looking at your feet.

 

‘Yeah, well you’re not real and you can’t hold a crowbar for shit nor money. I wish you’d go away sometimes.’

 

‘me too.’

 

mr-paul, you are Charlie. And Sally. Well, more Charlie. Sally isn’t real but you can’t stop seeing her. Sometimes you can’t control what you do, or what you say. Each night you send me a name. The next day, that person won’t be able to vote.

 

It’s been so long, you’re surprised you haven’t forgotten how to do it. With a coupla nails clamped between your lips, you hum a cheerful tune that matches each hammer’s tap. You double-check the numbers under the word ‘sheriff’, comparing the notes on your sheet of paper with the numbers on the cloth marked with numbers at measured intervals. Tap. Tap. Tap.You whisk a pencil from behind your ear and sketch some alterations on the long, tough wood. You really oughta never got rid of that stool, as your back is killing you. Business was always bound to pick up, you tell yourself. You look at your pocket watch that your daddy gave you. It plays a tinkling tune not dissimilar to what you were humming. It’ll be soon, you tell yourself.

 

You begin to hum louder. Six shots ring out. Someone laughs, louder and louder. You rub your forehead with a sleeve. This casket won’t finish itself. Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

MoogleViper, you are Vincent, the undertaker. Business has been slow, and while you don’t agree with their principles, you agree on how the town needs to improve. You are Evil. Each night, you measure a townsfolk. You will discover their role, to report back to the rest of your schemers.

 

***

 

As you stand up and turn back, you brush the dirt off your trousers with your Barstow hat. You shut the sheriff’s door, and pull the blinds. You wish he’d at least cleaned some of his bullshit mess of a desk before he went out. You pull the Sheriff’s star from your pocket, turn it over in your hand. You spit on it. You never liked him anyway. The spittoon rattles as the star kicks around in it.

 

Good riddance.

 

Nintendohnut, you are Dirk the Deputy. You weren’t at all for this whole ‘make the town a better place’ malarkey. You are Evil. Each night you can protect one of your fellows by locking them up in your jail. Unfortunately such protection means sacrificing their night role.

 

***

 

Combined, you make the San Luis Six. You are working together, for various reasons, to eliminate any opposition. You will win when you have a vote majority in the town.

 

You can communicate to each other by any means. If you have any questions about anything at all, feel free to message me.

[not_so_tiny]

 

What I did like, however, was the fact that all roles were mentioned by name in the write-up, and the fact that all investigations appeared in the write-up, too. I think it would have worked really well, but it was somewhat ruined by the write-ups being too long and having too many fancy descriptions which, though bringing the story to life, made it hard to discern the actual important details.

 

This, it was brilliant having the names of the characters and if the write ups were less complicated it would have made things a bit easier.

[Mundi]

I hate you all.

I come out and say Gizmo could be evil and he does not get lynched on the grounds that I could be wrong and Jayseven was pulling my leg with this power.

The first day write-up says that I requested to be good and when I died it said I was good.

And you lynch someone else.

 

*pouts*

[Nintendohnut]

Hey hey hey! you missed me out of the mafia! I was a member too! I want my win to be counted!

[jayseven]

Mundi; i was frustrated throughout the game, but as dannyboy said - it was my own fault for making the write-ups complicated.

 

not_so_tiny; if someone falls into your trap, then they're evil. if you don't know whether they targetted you, or you targetted them (which, remember, is a role i gave you because you didn't have a night role) then there are clues in the write-up that signify their character.

 

Dannyboy; yes, I was egotistical with the narrative. It won't happen again The reason why clues were hard to find was a) because I named all teh characters, so the mafia would be identified too soon. I had to make a balance, and b) I don't think all the townies really knew what to do with the info they got. Jimbob got some clues that he never revealed. Not_So_Tiny never told anyone what someone getting trapped meant, which would've definitely helped. The Fish... well nobody targetted him and he didn't have a night role, then didn't want one when i offered, and never interacted with the thread. MadDog's coroner reports told him who the dead person had targetted since the game started by username, which could've been used in combination with the write-ups to give you some more information. Mundi's role was my personal favourite; I gave everyone the sort of roles that they asked for :P But nobody really believed him.

 

The 'list' of who was who;

 

Lilster - Neutral - luke

dannyboy-the-dane - neutral - pete

Zell - Neutral - zombie king. - just liked biting people. Would win when majority were zombies (I'm probably going to do a proper zombie mafia after the 'future' one)

 

 

Tellyn - ? - good - pimp moriarty - stupid investigator.

mundi - good - The Postman - INVESTIGATES - Is told the alignment they requested.

Jimbob - Good - Ernie the Editor - INTERVIEWS/INVESTIGATES - Asks for their recollection of the previous night.

dyson - good - scarlett the hussy - PROTECTS. That's it :P why did people find that so hard to believe?!

Eenuh - good - Big Riverback - CURES INFECTIONS - only eenuh could night-kill zell. Zell wouldn't be lynched if eenuh didn't vote for him. tsk!

Ellmeister - good - percy the horse. Chose two targets, then got the names of the place where they were (so in the write-up he could assume his target was one of several people, or less. On the last night he witnessed gizmo at the post-office, thus showing that gizmo was the killer. You reaaally should've just said that, dude :P would've made the game way more interesting once he was lynched!)

Fish - good - Wyatt the Prospector - If targetted, found to be evil. Could not be night-killed.

Jonnas - good - Doc Lester PROTECTS

not_so_tiny - good - Clark the Clock keeper DOUBLE VOTE, people trapped in his tower if evil

maase - (?) Good Man with Croc-skinned shoes - looking to find and kill snake-skinned boots

MadDog - good - Coroner - discovered victim's previous targets

 

***

 

Cube - evil - barman DOUBLE VOTE

coolness bears - evil - pastor - gets 'confessions'; roleblocks

Nintendohnut - Evil - Dirk the deputy; roleblocks/protects

mr-paul - evil - charlie/sally; silences the next day

moogleviper - evil - vincent (undertaker); discovered people's roles

Gizmo - evil - Snakeskin boots - killa!

Edited June 18, 2009 by jayseven
edited to be more concise :P

[Nintendohnut]

When Maase was alive, he would quote my posts and simplify/theorise what happened in combination with previous nights. Nobody else did this, and it was sorely missed. The reason I had to be vague with the clues, to some extent, was because people were identified in the write-ups, so effectively too bold a clue would mean the mafia would be dead and gone in no time. Instead the 6 mafia took out the remaining 14 players in less than 5 days :P

 

But yes! Lesson learned (and not really well executed with this lengthy post;) I need to be more concise. I promise to do that. Sorry I let y'all down.

 

This is the exact reason we silenced him one day and killed him the next. He was getting too close to the truth about us mafiosos and so we got rid of him. After that nobody seemed to really be reading the write-up. And on several occasions, when we read it, we were shitting ourselves because we were out in the open. There was indeed a lot of info in them, but after we killed Maase it was pretty easy.

 

Also: I can't believe you missed me off the mafia list there Jayseven :p The best part was, I wasn't even an investigator. I told everyone I was near the start to get MoogleViper off the hook, and after that it seemed like a good idea to continue to come up with information. I disrupted a fair few accusations towards my fellow mafiosos with a quick 'oh I investigated him, he's not lying', and after a few times it seemed to gain me the trust of most of the town. After a while I started targetting townies (because all the mafia wanted to use their roles) and then just making up things that I 'found out' based on previous write-ups, or just saying 'oh I just found a goodie so I won't say who it is'

 

Basically, I loved my role because I could be so innocent. I was always nervous that I'd get investigated and turn up evil, but luckily I was trusted enough.

[jayseven]

sorry! edited it now

 

Yeah, people forgot that you said that (but not me, oh no) -- but again, nearly every nightphase lasted far too long while I put off the writing (it would take me two hours to sort a list out, to come up with scenarios, etc). I'm glad the mafia thought they were in trouble and it's not just my imagination! Haha :P

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

dyson - good - scarlett the hussy - PROTECTS. That's it :P why did people find that so hard to believe?!

Then why the effing feck didn't he want to reveal his role?! Seriously, I followed the rest of the game, but didn't bother (if I ever did before) trying to figure things out. One thing I was certain of, however, was that Dyson was evil. Either that, or he had some special power that was vital to the town and would stop working if revealed. Seriously, dude, my backstabbing of Maase in the DIY Mafia was less suspicious than your behaviour! :p

[jayseven]

(P.S. I'm really self-satisfied with the last line's way of answering the sheriff's last line. Mmm, good shit)

[Gizmo]

*sigh* I really don't know how Gizmo was let alive all this time. It was so obvious, but he managed to escape attention.

 

Also, well played, Cube and Moogle, as I thought you were good for sure. Especially Cube.

 

EDIT: By the way, I was Doc Lester. The guy who tried to cure Dyson, but the write-up implied that I wasn't to cure him...

 

I hate you all.

I come out and say Gizmo could be evil and he does not get lynched on the grounds that I could be wrong and Jayseven was pulling my leg with this power.

The first day write-up says that I requested to be good and when I died it said I was good.

And you lynch someone else.

 

*pouts*

 

Indeed. I can't believe I lasted the whole game. When Mundi revealed me as evil, I literally posted on our mafia forum "shit, thats me dead. oh well". But Mundi revealed the method to his investigation to fast, so I was able to come up with "I requested to be mafia, but there were too many" which managed to get doubt on the info. Then I came up with some bullshit role about being a protector - I remember using the word "slippery" and everyone believed me because they didn't think a mafioso would use that word - a nice double bluff I thought :p Surprised that nobody picked up on the lack of anybody "slippery" in the write ups though! And when Maase asked me what the title of my role was, I literally opened MSWord and looked for the synonyms for "Protector" and got "Warden", which people seemed to believe. Then Ellmeister told everyone I was evil today, and we were on the mafia forum saying "Moogle hurry and tell people about Zell, we need him targeted before they go after Gizmo" but apart from Jonnas, nobody did! Sorry Ellmeister

 

This is the exact reason we silenced him one day and killed him the next. He was getting too close to the truth about us mafiosos and so we got rid of him. After that nobody seemed to really be reading the write-up. And on several occasions, when we read it, we were shitting ourselves because we were out in the open. There was indeed a lot of info in them, but after we killed Maase it was pretty easy.

 

Also: I can't believe you missed me off the mafia list there Jayseven :p The best part was, I wasn't even an investigator. I told everyone I was near the start to get MoogleViper off the hook, and after that it seemed like a good idea to continue to come up with information. I disrupted a fair few accusations towards my fellow mafiosos with a quick 'oh I investigated him, he's not lying', and after a few times it seemed to gain me the trust of most of the town. After a while I started targetting townies (because all the mafia wanted to use their roles) and then just making up things that I 'found out' based on previous write-ups, or just saying 'oh I just found a goodie so I won't say who it is'

 

Basically, I loved my role because I could be so innocent. I was always nervous that I'd get investigated and turn up evil, but luckily I was trusted enough.

 

Maase is better at these games than people give him credit for / he lets show through his personality. But yeah Dohnut, you played a blinder - everyone had you down as good from the start, so had no reason to investigate you and confirm it! The amount of times we used you to plant information :p

 

It was a good finish though, because the plan was to provide fake info to get a townie killed last day, which would give us the night to kill the last person to give majority. Luckily there was the neutral (Pete?) who did a kill for us one night, and then Zell was neutral anyway. So really, we had 3 kills (2 nights and a faked day lynch) in hand by the end!

 

Incidentally Jay, what would have happened had croc skin boots (Eenuh?) found me?

[jayseven]

Yes, you guys got very lucky very often! When i got the PMs in for this night role and I saw Ell was going to follow Gizmo, i was like "YES! The mafia are going dowwwn.." :P then I saw moogle target Zell... and I knew how it was going to go down.

 

Croc-skinned boots (maase) would've had some awesome mexican stand-off scene with you, something really awesome would've happened, and then you'd be dead. He'd claim the reward on his own brother, then spend the rest of the game roleblocking people by drinking the night away. It was a long shot for Maase, but he came close a few times - so often he'd target the same person as you :P Twins, I swear.

 

If you had died, gizmo, then the game would've been so massively different. I had wanted you to die at this point! Though the rest of the game would've been death-less and... talkey. hmm.

 

It took a month and 2 days to do this, and we only had, what, 4 nights? Lol! Shocking.

[Nintendohnut]

Our mini forum was excellent and worked very well. By the start of the last night, we knew who everyone was, and so it was easy enough to set up a lynch for whoever we wanted. I was so surprised that we all made it to the end though, the number of times Moogle and Gizmo avoided the lynch was unbelievable.

 

also Giz - Eenuh was the cheif! She healed everyone of zombie bites, including Cube (who everyone luckily thought was good)

[Zell]

*facepalm*

 

Hate to say I told you so!

[Nintendohnut]

Out of interest jay, what would have happened if Zell had bitten Eenuh (or whoever it was that could heal the zombie bites)?

[jayseven]

I think I would've allowed eenuh to heal herself. There were a few things like that, and to some extent I allowed some creative freedom. in IRC ell said he wanted dyson to target him the next night, to see how i'd deal with woman/horsey action

 

I think it's really hard to find a balance between making fair roles and making great roles; ideally I'd dish out the best roles to the most active people, but of course that would remove some mystery. I was trying to get the quieter players more into the game by giving them interesting roles.

 

But ultimately, I'm pretty happy with the amount of interest. I got all my PMs in (eventaully); the game would've been quicker if I was less hesitant to kill off slowpokes -- fact is i saw the mafia doing too well so I didn't want to make the numbers too uneven :P If i didn't rid Fish, then the game would be here for another day... Well, sorta.

[Ellmeister]

I thought it would have been funny for some beastiality action

 

I told people to trust me, didn't want to totally give away my powers and people didn't trust me. I couldn't vote so I don't think people always took me seriously. You noobs.

 

 

EDIT: AND I SAID MOOGLE WAS EVIL. and suspicious but no-one believed me after the first few days. Noobs.

[Dyson]

You all suck for not believing me. I was a protector! I can't come out and tell the town and indeed mafia that! I'd be killed in an instant!

 

And to think I had the right ideas, pssh.

[MoogleViper]

in IRC ell said he wanted dyson to target him the next night, to see how i'd deal with woman/horsey action

 

Wouldn't Dyson have died about a week later?

[Cube]

Well, my general thoughts.

 

I actually thought that the write-ups would be extremely beneficial to the town - it had a lot of information about characters.

 

I think the town made some bad choices - first, not testing out Mundi's power by lynching Gizmo. That would really have buggered us up. Gizmo's response must have fooled people as there didn't seem to be a mass investigation on him.

 

Also, you didn't seem to quiz many people. Masse was on the right track (he suggested that "Barbar's group" was evil or neutral) . I panicked quite a lot on night 3/day 4. Someone investigated me and I was zombified. So I had to ask for help. Why did nobody ask me what my "special" drinks did? I also find it odd that I revealed pretty much nothing about myself and everyone just assumed I was good.

 

I liked that, even though I appeared as neutral if I was investigated, my power (given to me on the second night) was a big give-away of my evilness. It was risky but due to good luck nobody discovered about a silencing power.

 

Anyway, Jay, the write-ups were great and I don't think they were too cryptic.

[jayseven]

Thank you cube ^_^ I am humping an effigy of you as we speak. Mmm.

[Gizmo]

Yes, credit to jay for the write ups. If anybody had bothered, there was so much info to get there. When I'm town I usually make a word doc with all my observations, with a list of characters appearing in the writes and a list of people playing. Connect the dots. Example:

 

"Jayseven targeted Cube on night 3. Cube is confirmed as the doctor. The character who targeted the doctor on night 3 was the same character who targeted Nintendohnut on night 2 and Maase on night 1. Nintendohnut didnt post during day 3, and maase didnt post during day 2. So Jayseven must be that character, and could be a silencer"

[MoogleViper]

Yeah surprisingly Maase was probably one of the most helpful townies (as in to the town not us). Quite a few times I thought one of his posts was going to lead to a mafioso being discovered.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Yes, credit to jay for the write ups. If anybody had bothered, there was so much info to get there. When I'm town I usually make a word doc with all my observations, with a list of characters appearing in the writes and a list of people playing. Connect the dots. Example:

 

"Jayseven targeted Cube on night 3. Cube is confirmed as the doctor. The character who targeted the doctor on night 3 was the same character who targeted Nintendohnut on night 2 and Maase on night 1. Nintendohnut didnt post during day 3, and maase didnt post during day 2. So Jayseven must be that character, and could be a silencer"

This is actually what Maase has been trying to do in many of the games with his "Analysis Time!" posts. It is by far the best tactic, but so far I haven't been able to get myself to do it. By hosting a mafia game, however, I have seen how important it is to write everything down. Though as I mentioned, in this particular game I found the well-written write-ups to be too cluttered with "filling" for me to find out what actually happened in them.

[Cube]

If you're playing a mafia game, you should have the time to analyse big night posts.

[jayseven]

It's like these;

 

 

... except more complicated. That's the way I've always seen the mafia games. I tried to provide all the bits so that if someone sat and connected the dots, they'd end up with answers.