V_V:
Just watching the very introductory link you provided (how these "scum" games work)...
"MafiaScum" is a singular message board, 'scum' is not associated with Message Board Mafia games outside of that board (I chose the link as it was quick, easy, fairly well describes general 'Mafia' play, and
was the first I found. It links back to MafiaScum the message board that person presumably plays at - and I wasn't interested in investigating further as my time is limited and there are far, far, far, far, far more MBM/W sites than I ever suspected existed. It was an errant thought I just realized I hadn't played a game in ages and hadn't seen one advertised here, despite it being perfect for message baords).
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Death often equates to elimination.
Yes and no. Yes, one is eliminated from the game proper, but in most cases (from my prior experience on other boards that were niche gaming boards) the eliminated stay "in' in the OOC thread and quite a lively discussion can form up there within certain limits. Some topics tend to be verboten, such as "no revealing unknown info" and "no asserting 'facts' outside of the play", but there can be very interesting speculative/meta conversations during the remainder of the game. Of course, some Players only want to play, where some are very interested in the side/post-play discussions.
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...if the game moves quickly, it probably missed its target audience, and is being hosted with real time mediums.
I'm specifically referring to a Message Board game. It was derived from a face-to-face congame, so yes, it's perfectly adaptable to real time mediums, but the message board variant is a
perfect fit for message board play.
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Unlike D&D, it's more difficult to replace someone in a game designed to kill/eliminate player characters.
No, it's really simple. Someone drops out, they are out, why bother with 'replacing them' for a game designed to be over in one to two weeks? Or to take a the 'real time' part out, why replace a player in a game designed to be over in 5 to 10 turns?
Most MBM/W games run with a Day-Night cycle taking one day each (sometimes two days each, maybe a bit slower if the GM and Players prefer it), I've never seen one run faster... but then until a specific game here, I'd never seen a Play-By-Post rack up hundreds of posts a day either, so sure, I could see a faster one happening.
With 10 Players, two deaths per day... that's a short game. I've seen them go all the way down to the wire with only 4 players left out of 20 that took two weeks to get to (alternating day/night turns each real day, so one elimination per real time day), and I've seen them end in one day due to very lucky choices.
The games tend to be
very fast as message board games go.
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...Due to elimination, you have a high rate of "downtime" and those players are a finite pool, even super in fashion systems have maybe a hundred users site wide.
MBM/W only needs 11 people, 10 Players and a GM. And largely in the other sites I've played it in it tends to have a strong, small group of 15-20 people.
I was just surprised that with as many as we have here, I've never seen one advertised int he sevne years I've been here (I may very likely have missed a few adverts along the way, but I check the Players Wanted daily for interesting sounding games).
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In something more niche, you'll see the same players churn up over and over. Meaning that the only solution is to build a "pyramid" of activity, or see it dry up. By that, I mean the first player to be eliminated will (potentially) seek a new "scum" game. After a while you reach a Nash Equilibrium, and that tends toward very few people needing very few games, and very many people needing very many games.
I don't think you've grasped the concept of the game quite well, a lot of what you have to say itsn't exactly on par, or maybe I'm not grasping how it pertains.
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People on RPoL don't tend to play board games.
I think you're missing "on RPoL", which is probably accurate. I've only played two board games on this site in 7 years, and I'm unsure of how many others were advertised but I passed them up (probably not very many, the logistics of running a board game on RPoL is more complicated than 'theatre of the mind' permits).
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It's the latency of those players eliminated, and also the latency of very active players (maybe in multiple games at once) having latency to juggle them.
I'm nto sure 'latency' is the word your looking for?
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As a rule, I've found D&D players don't like death; despite the fact there are easy ways to revive a character. This is due to the latency. Just the fact they have to "sit out". Even if this wouldn't be true in practice, I think it's the stigma.
Every single fanatic MBM/W player I've known (myself excluded*) was also a die-hard D&D Player and/or GM.
* I dislike the system and it's sacred cows, but I'll play D&D as a "it's the group not the game" thing.
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I hope this wasn't terribly difficult to understand my point of view. I certainly don't expect it to be easily agreed with, but I just hope it was coherent. ;)
I think the disconnect might be that Message Board Mafia/Werewolf isn't a game about "telling a story". It's pure social-politics bluff style gaming boiled down to it's most refined, it's most 'mere' state, with very minimal gameplay mechanics bolted on.
Having given it more thought, I think Greentongue may have nailed it. People will search for games and go where the games are... and as such, die-hard MBM?W players will end up on one of the dedicated boards, even when/if they also play here, so why run here when they can run/play there?
If I can get myself organized and get myself to updating my game properly, I might have to try to start up a community game here. The overhead/prep-work on a MBM/W game is super low, and running them is super easy...