Mafia Mage Wars

[Sailor Vulcan]

All the mage ability cards are hidden, so no one knows who anyone is! There are two factions:

The MANA-ickles: a secret international criminal syndicate in Etheria. They have bribed an Arch Mage into casting a spell of illusion over the entire arena, so that no one can recognize the faces of friend or foe.

The Wonderers: an organization that hires part-time private investigators determined to stop the MANA-ickles.

The objective of both factions is to kill all of the opposing faction. Each player is given a secret code name attached to their mage. Everyone knows all the code names for each faction, but they don't know which code names belong to which players, except their own.

So your code name could be something like "BookieMonster the wizard" or  "Gerbilracer the Johktari Beastmaster". These codenames are typed and printed in a list before the game (since handwriting is too distinctive). Each player has their own notecard with their codename written on it facedown.

At any point in the game, you can try to guess someone's codename out loud. If you're right, they must reveal their codename and ability card to everyone. If you're wrong then you must do that instead.
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What do you think of this variant? Feedback would be much appreciated.

[Aylin]

Wouldn't mage-specific abilities and cards make guessing easy?

[Sailor Vulcan]

I suppose you're right. I tried to make it less easy by introducing the codename thing, but I suppose that it doesn't work. Unique mage abilities like Divine Reward and the channeling and health stats of mages make it extremely easy.

How about this then:

Instead of having mage ability cards facedown, each player gets assigned a facedown playing card (they can look at their own playing card). If it's a red card, then the player is a MANA-ickle. If it's a black card, then the player is a Wonderer. Now there's no need for codenames or hiding ability cards.

Of course, I suppose this could cause everybody to stall indefinitely until they have more information. Having not the slightest idea of who to attack hurts aggressive strategies much worse than controlling strategies. So perhaps the players with the jokers should be required to reveal themselves by round 2 or 3?

[Zuberi]

So, this is essentially a multiplayer variant where you don't know who is on your team and who is an opponent? That could be interesting, but I don't really see a way to deduce a person's faction. Because of this, I think it would be best played as a 1 vs many game. One player is by herself, while everyone else is on the same team, but nobody know's who the target really is. Thus the player by herself has to bluff everyone else into killing each other until she is strong enough to take them on legitimately.

Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve the stalling issue. Nobody has any reason to initiate the first attack. Most of them don't know who to attack and don't want to pick the wrong person, while the player by herself doesn't want to reveal her identity.

One possible solution is to set an alternate victory condition. If the player by herself can manage to go 5 rounds without taking damage from an opponent, then she wins. This will promote some action as everybody makes sure that everyone else is taking some damage while they try to figure out who they should actually be fighting.

Unfortunately this might make winning as the traitor too easy by using some kind of fortress build. I'm not completely sure and I think it would need to be play tested. Initiating a fortress move would give away your identity and invoke the wrath of all your opponents working together to tear it down. Would vigilant opponents be able to respond to such a move in the time span allotted though?

[Sailor Vulcan]

What about this? In the real mafia game, the townspeople have to vote on who they think is the mafia, and that person is eliminated from the game.

So during the reset phase, all players must select two target mages, and a mage cannot attack or cast spells on a mage that they did not select during the most recent reset phase.

There's also 2 Protector mages 1 who's job it is to help those who aren't the mafia, and the second whose job is  to help the mafia.

Would that work better?

[Wise fool]

Ever played the game BANG?  Everyone's identity is hidden except the sheriff.  You find out who everyone is when the bullets start flying.  The outlaws shoot the sherriff, the sheriff shoots the outlaws, and a third party called the renegade shoots at everybody.  The outlaws win if the sheriff dies, but the renegade and sheriff can only win if they're the last man standing.  This means the renegade must prevent the outlaws from killing the sheriff but must hope the sheriff is weak enough for him to kill once the outlaws were dead.

Maybe you could do a BANG! variant on Mage Wars, where you don't know what the teams are but the two outlaws know their target right off the bat.  I'm not sure how well this would work in the arena (since it would be difficult for the renegade to try to protect the sheriff, depending on where they were placed) but it does work in the 'mystery' mechanic of not knowing who's on your side.

[Moonglow]

I was thinking about something similar to this last night, so hope you don't mind me thread hopping.  I love traitor mechanic games, Battlestar Galactica has one of my favorite elements where you've been working on one team all game and there's a small chance you might be part of the other team revealed late mid game.

I was wondering how it would work if you've got a two on two scenario - not long term alliances, but ones developed in the moment of battle.  At a point in the game there's a chance alliances might shift and the combo change.  I thought would bring an interesting dynamic to what  you'd invest buffing your ally, how you'd prepare your defenses.

Same thing though, I'd worry it would turn into a turtling competition.
 

[Sailor Vulcan]

Yeah. I think I'm going about this entirely the wrong way. Maybe I should just make a format where all cards can be cast face down as enchantments and revealed later for their total casting cost -2? Not sure if that would work though.

[Moonglow]

I guess it depends what's the main hidden element you're after - You're original idea seemed to be around teams or factions.  I think that's viable, you just need a way that swapping teams is a game changer, but not a king maker element. 

I think if you started with two teams, say green and red (for sake of arbitaryness).  What you could do at an appropriate trigger point is draw from one of the traitor cards keeping the result secret.  I don't think this balance is right, but something like:

3 cards saying: no change, stay fighting for the team you're on, you win if this team kills all other players (even if you died).
2 cards saying: conversion of faith, you are now fighting for the other team, you win if your new team kills all other players (even if you died).
1 card saying: rogue element - you no longer believe in teams, you win if everyone else is dead and you, or a creature of yours is still alive.  When you reveal this card add 6 points to your total life and 2 to your channeling.

If you change allegiance through a new status card, all enchantments, conjurations etc stay in play as normal (noone knows you're a dirty dirty traitor yet).  When you reveal your new role (possible at the normal spell reveal stages) all spells are checked for legal targets (i.e. are your spells still attached to legal targets, friendly etc). 

If someone reveals a new allegiance and you are the only mage remaining in your faction heal 8 dice worth of damage.  (thought that would balance the losing mage suddenly lowest on health and no allies).

The power of changing allegiance has a powerful effect in Etheria, and all illegal spells are destroyed.  I thought about returning them to their spellbook, but felt it would drag out the game.