Reign - The Mafia Game Thread - English Mafia Win!

Sylandra

As there is no easy way to compile all my notes/flavortext, I am just going to write the short version of all the possible twists that could have occurred. I was inspired by both Kiradawea and Celina's games in putting this mechanic together; I loved Celina's idea of giving away small one-off powers during the dayphase for events, and I loved the way Kiradawea fooled us all with Ssaliss's serial killer reveal in her game. In a game based on royal intrigue, I thought why not combine the two with notable character deaths?

And so it was that I went a little bit over-the-top. Like 80% of this wasn't even used. Ahem.

(One final note: I am a terrible TV historian and originally thought the Duke of Guise was Scottish and not French! So in my head the Scottish faction was bigger than it was, until the game started, I was idly googling, and I realized that Mary had a French uncle not a Scottish one. Thank you to Shaddus for being so gracious about your role adjustment!)

It's a bit tricky and balance was very difficult to strike, so I am certain there are some concessions I've made somewhere! But here are all the ways the game could have turned out:

Death of Vivet (Mary, Queen of Scots)

-Kiradawea becomes a serial killer.

-Allyrianne becomes an arsonist (if still in play). [ACTIVATED!]

-Ushaara gains 1-time self-jailing power. [ACTIVATED!]

-If Francis is alive, Scottish players become French. [ACTIVATED!] 

-If above is true, the ruler of France gains 1-time half-vote lynch condemnation power. [ACTIVATED!]

-If Scottish faction has separated, Scots become Survivor faction.

Death of Silvanus (Henry II, King of France)

-Lavinya joins the English mafia. [ACTIVATED!]

-Ushaara gains a one-time 3-vote power and becomes ruler of France.

-If Ushaara is dead, Celina gains a daykill and becomes ruler of France.

-If Celina is dead, no one sits on the throne of France. (Chaos reigns!)

-If the above is true, then Falmiis, Tekora, and Othero can press their claims for the crown. Winner with the most court support (ie, informal vote) gains the throne with a two-vote power. (Note: this process repeats if any of the above die. If somehow all these characters wind up dead, chaos reigns in the court.)

Death of Ushaara (Dauphin Francis of France)

-If Vivet lives, Scotland breaks from France, but remains allied against the common enemy, Elizabeth.

-Vivet gains a 1-time NK immunity.

-If the above is true, then Celina gains a new win condition: to win when all threats to France are eliminated, as well as when the Scottish faction is eliminated.

-If the above is true, then Celina gains the unlimited ability to nightkill.

-Laws of succession change. [See: Silvanus's notes above.] 

Death of Celina (Catherine de Medici)

-Laws of succession change. [See: Silvanus's notes above.]

Death of Lavinya (Diane de Poitiers)

-Silvanus gains a 1-time delayed-kill power, where he jails someone at night and they die at the end of the next dayphase.

Death of Ssaliss (Pope Pius IV)

-Naive Cop affiliation revealed.

-If Vivet lives, she gains the ability to choose between investigating nation or religion at night.

Death of Allyrianne (Elizabeth Tudor of England)

-Synkarin gains 1-time revenge ability.

-Othero gains 1-time janitor ability, if not gained prior.

Death of Synkarin (Robert Dudley)

-Allyrianne gains 1-time revenge ability. [ACTIVATED!]

-Othero gains 1-time janitor ability, if not gained prior. [ACTIVATED!]

Death of Othero (Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde)

-Synkarin gains 1-time janitor ability, if Othero did not gain it prior.

-If Synkarin is dead, then Allyrianne gains 1-time janitor ability, if Othero did not gain it prior.

Phew. I think that's everything regarding the meta-setup! A lot of this was just a rabbithole my brain went down during set-up of, 'well yes but what if even though you give Celina NK-immunity they still lynch her because she's Celina? Then what?'

I really thought the whole game was going to continue without activating Lavinya or Kiradawea, though. It was bumming me out but I was so delighted when the Lavinya turncoat scheme finally came to fruition (sorry that it was at the expense of your victory, town!).

Shaddus

My character was horribly flavorless

Sylandra

I'm sorry! You were supposed to be a badass Scotsman! I will google more responsibly in the future.

Vivet

I really like Ssaliss' flavour texts.

I'm just totally stumped, though. This is the first game I've played in months and I was hoping I could learn more to polish back up into shape, but I'm really clueless if I could have done or said anything more to help my situation. At least it was a good struggle.

Synkarin

I love that nightkills/lynches changed up the game. That's definitely an interesting twist that makes things more fun. 

I'm with you Vivet, it's an incredibly subjective game that's going to change based on the players each time, so it's hard to say how any action will really change things and if that action will actually have any effect in later games. 

So who is starting the next game?

Sylandra

Nooo, @Vivet, I think you did really well, actually! Mafia games just get so emotional sometimes that all the what-ifs pile on and you make choices that an observer might view as risky, but that in the moment your gut is urging you to do. Like, y'know, killing @Shaddus. Or telling the wrinkly old pope that he's Princess Elizabeth.

Poor Pope Ssaliss! I was going to write a fabulous death message for him, too. Involving people examining the pope's head closer and noting it had been damaged for some time...

Ssaliss

Almost makes me wish I had voted for myself there in the end!

Ushaara

Should have included a cult to really throw the cat among the pigeons! :P

Sylandra

I almost did! There definitely was canon reason to with the Darkness, and with the whole Protestant/Catholic scuffle. But I felt that was too much, and I already had created a pretty loaded kitchen sink game. )

I wanted part of the fun of the game to be figuring out what details were important to pay attention to, and which were red herrings. My mindset behind the initial mafia was this: not all Protestants are Mafia, but all mafia are Protestant. All Englishmen are Mafia, but not all Mafia are Englishmen. The exception of course being if Lavinya was led to the dark side, which I thought was inevitable because of how I dangled the red text about who ruled France over everyone's noses. But I guess that backfired by being very intimidating! I also wanted to sow doubt about whether or not the French and the Scottish were on the same side, and feed into historical 'if you're not with us you're against us' stereotypes towards the pagans and sweetly Protestant Aloysius Castleroy. To further drive home the fact that I actually am not condoning Protestants being murdered by Catholics, I not only had Chirbo's role exist, but also decided to include a fallible pope, largely for the lulz. So I don't think anyone can accuse me of anti-Protestant sentiment! (Though some Catholics might be displeased. Whoops.)

My first draft of Catherine de Medici also included her needing the Scottish to die and she was wildly, delightfully overpowered. I had to parse back.

Cyndarin

I'm so upset you did not make me OP. 

I could have really spiced up this game with a few extra murder powers

Luce

• Luce January 8 I know I don't have to roleplay, and I don't know how she acts in the show, but I decided to, and I also decided I'm making her a fusion of Mme de Pompadour from Girl in the Fireplace, Queen Victoria, and @Celina.
• Sylandra January 8

  Do it!! That sounds like a great combo. Marie de Guise is a badass in the show with withering lines, but she is criminally underused. In the spirit of Reign's flaunting of historical accuracy, I encourage you to play your character however you want. If you want to learn more about Marie de Guise historically, check out her wikipedia page!

  
  

  (Fun fact: Marie de Guise was almost a wife of Henry VIII, but all that beheading and divorce business wasn't palatable to her father, so she married James V instead.)
• Luce January 12

  I'll send my cousin's chambermaid Jehenne to track Falmiis, s'il vous plait.
  
• Sylandra January 12

  Very well, milady! She will respond with the results in a quick and effective fashion, I assure you.
• Sylandra January 14

  Your maid scurries back to you with a deep curtsey, dutifully informing you that Falmiis did not leave his resting place all night.

  
  
• Luce January 15

  On the one hand, I know I'm allowed to speak, just not vote. On the other, I'm halfway roleplaying so I feel like I really shouldn't speak.
  
• Sylandra January 16

  Do what feels right! You could type in a lisp if you wanted.
• Luce January 20

  I'll have Jehenne follow Synkarin, and bring me a glass of milk and a loaf of bread.
  
• Sylandra January 20

  Jehenne curtsies low, murmuring, "Yes, milady," as she leaves to track Synkarin's motions this night.
• Sylandra January 20

  You patiently await Jehenne's return, but something is amiss when you hear the slow footsteps approaching down the hall. "Jehenne?" you call out, once, and that is all you manage before a cloaked figure violently grabs you from behind. Just as you begin to scream, they have poured a disturbingly putrid vial of poison down your throat. With no other choice, you choke it down. 

  
  

  "Don't worry, your Highness. Your sweet daughter will join you shortly," your murderer whispers with cruel delight, and with that they're gone, leaving you convulsing upon the floor. You gag and sputter, foaming at the mouth, reaching for something, anything to save you, but it's too late...

  
  

  You have been killed, and can no longer take part in the dayphase or nightphase of the game.

I'm honestly surprised I wouldn't get a momma-bear power from Mary's death/roleclaim. My original intention was to go through a series of servants each night, but I didn't really get to do that ^^;

EDIT: dumb quote boxes

Sylandra

I really enjoyed your posts, Luce! The way you got into character was fun. Poor Jehenne.

Marie's in a foreign court so I figure her power was lessened somewhat. Plus the Scottish faction wasn't meant to be very offensive in my meta-version of events; I didn't intend to give them nightkills, aside from Clarissa who really is just an honorary Scot-buddy at this point.

Vivet

Sylandra said:

The exception of course being if Lavinya was led to the dark side, which I thought was inevitable because of how I dangled the red text about who ruled France over everyone's noses. But I guess that backfired by being very intimidating!

I think the real reason is that due to how the mafia role pages are written, it's very easy for them to just develop tunnel-vision for Mary. Then once Mary is gone, Elizabeth suddenly has an arson power. Given how the arson power works, it becomes a much better idea to use it on the remaining notables than trying to go for a direct kill - which seems to be more or less what happened in this game.

But if you don't like that, then I have a plan for you, Sylandra. Something wonderfully devilish.

Here's what you do.

1. Give Elizabeth the Arsonist powers at the very start of the game.

2. If Mary dies before King Henry II, then create a new flavour scenario. Legions of angry Scottish troops storm in to the aide of the French, pushing back the English outside and swelling the number of guards within the catacombs. As a result, it becomes too unsafe for Elizabeth to use her Arsonist powers and they become restricted.

3. Inform the mafia, very directly, that they will need to deal a serious morale blow to the Scott-French army in order to open the opportunity to use the Arsonist skills again. State very plainly that the best way to do this is to kill King Henry II.

And that's it! This accomplishes a number of things that I think would benefit the game. First, it creates a faction scenario that will actually punish the English in a noticeable way, if only temporarily. Secondly, it opens the chance for a real rollercoaster ride for the mafia, even if Mary/Nostradamus made bad decisions. You're setting them up to not only gain back their lost powers, but gain an unexpected ally too. Modtrolling at its finest.

As the cherry on top, depending on the flavour of the morale blow that comes with King Henry II dying, you can imply factional division between French and Scottish even if there is none.

Sylandra

@Vivet you are a fiend. And I cannot wait for the day you host your own Mafia game.

Sylandra

Oh sorry to double post but I realized @Yarith didn't post his night actions and those were some of my favorite to write! I hope he won't mind.

Watch: Synkarin

All night, you dream of Synkarin, and though the images shift and change that surround him, you never see another face besides his. It would seem that no one, aside from you, has attempted to target him this night.

Watch: Lavinya

You hear a gentle, silvery laugh as visions of Lavinya fill your mind, followed by the scent of a cloying perfume. To your surprise, you hear another laugh join hers--a deeper, masculine voice, one that you recall as Silvanus's. Whispers of secrets you can't quite make out spin in your head all night, and when you wake, you wonder what it all means

Watch: Vivet

At first, your dream is a nostalgic one, filled with rolling green hillsides suffused by a sweet, yet sad melody. Vivet smiles here, lying upon the emerald field, looking uncharacteristically at peace. Then, as a second figure approaches, the green grass dims in hue as if blotted out beneath a red shadow. Vivet glances up, and all you see is Synkarin's face before everything turns a gruesome, bloody red...

You wake up in a cold sweat, heart still ramming frantically in your chest.

Dying:

Just as you begin to dream of Ushaara, a sound disrupts your meditations. Your heart jumps in your chest, but it's too late--you're already caught inside a prophecy, though this time, you find you aren't thinking of Ushaara at all.

No, this prophecy is distinctly your own.

You see a world of constellations, each one taking shape of a noble in the court: the deceased Mary, Queen of Scots, and the esteemed Queen Catherine de Medici, your patron, among them. One by one, the nobles you know to be dead are snuffed out into darkness, beginning with the wrongfully killed Chirbo, then Luce, the Queen Regent of Scotland, and after that the enigmatic Kiradawea who haunted the castle walls, and so on to Vivet, followed at last by the image of Synkarin shimmering out into pitch black cosmos. In this sidereal court, there are only so many of you left burning bright.

You notice, then, that it is your stars that have begun to blink out.

One constellation among you has taken arm with bow and arrow, pointing it in your direction. It doesn't matter if that's the weapon being used on your body, in reality. Prophecy rarely recounts these things the way they really are; truth is more than a physical thing, after all. But when the arrow strikes you, instead you feel as if something strange has infiltrated your body, causing you to double over in agonizing pain.

This is where your stars dim and blow out. You are dying and there will be no escaping your fate.

You open your eyes, weakly, in time to see a cloaked figure steal off into the night as your poisoned body convulses and collapses onto the floor, shuddering as you let a final cry that dissolves into nothing.

You have been killed and can no longer take part in the dayphase or nightphase of the game.

I totally got wordier as the game went on.

Tarkenton

Wtb Sylandras to write all the missing learning lines.

Synkarin

 How does winning/losing work with mafia? Do I still technically 'win' even though I was lynched? 

Ssaliss

I believe that technically the win goes to the entire group, yes.

Vivet

Ssaliss said:

I believe that technically the win goes to the entire group, yes.

This might vary from game to game, and I feel like the mod will be explicit with this if they want their players to think one way or another (some mods might not want players to use sacrificial tactics, etc). In this situation, though, I'd definitely say Synkarin won with the mafia even though he died.

Yarith

Oh! Sorry! I've been busy! Thanks for throwing those up for my Syl!