Village Cult

Village Cult was the third NuzMafia game hosted on the forums. It is the first game in the Village Cult Series.

## Setup

The setup was a fairly standard Mafia game using a mixture of common and uncommon roles. There were no Third Party roles. Mafia was referred to as the "cult."

There were interesting mechanics at play. The Mafia members did not know who each other were, save for two of the roles. Players were actively encouraged to PM each other, a practice that has mostly fallen out of favor in current games. Mafia PRs were the only roles that got revealed - village PRs were only mentioned upon death as being a PR, not what their specific role is.

ArmsAreLoud was a very active participant in this game despite being the host. They frequently jumped in with responses to questions as well as advice to the players regarding how roles should be played. Most hosts are not this active in their games.

Because of the low player count, Faithfuls were not included. The Judge and Mayor were not include because Arms forgot to assign them. Unlike normal games, Village wins if they kill 2/3 of the Mafia, while mafia wins when they have more players alive than Village (unlike normal games, where they only need the same amount as village).

The game appears to run eclipse style, as no night phases are ever mentioned.

### Roles

#### Village

* Fortune Teller (Cop)
* Mayor
* Judge
* Nurse
* Veteran (Modified Vigilante)
* Faithful (Templars)

#### Mafia

* Grandmaster
* Informant (Stalker)
* Sacrifice (Mafia Hunter)

* Disguised Cultist (Godfather)
* Cultist (Goon)

### Special Mechanics & Modifications

* The Judge, instead of just getting a vote that counts for two votes, simply broke ties on lynches.
* The Veteran was able to kill two players instead of one.
* The Grandmaster seems to be an amalgamation of Godfather and a Mafia Judge, with two custom elements added in: they know the Informant at the beginning, and when they die, one Mafia member is removed from the death requirement.
* The Grandmaster and the Informant know each other at the beginning of the game.

## Players

### Village

* RitzsFTW (Fortune Teller)
* VFlowers (Nurse)
* Botherer (Veteran)
* Baron of Fate, Mehter, Kickhopper, TEA\_DEMON (Villager)

### Mafia

* Thundertwig (Grandmaster)
* Ocean (Informant)
* Luxatrum (Sacrifice)
* Xegek (Disguised Cultist)

### Exceptions

* Mehter claimed that he was simply a substitute.
* Tommi Salami posted a sign-up, but was absent for two days and was never actually included in the sign-ups or in the role reveals.
* The Faithful roles were removed due to lack of participants.

## Gameplay

### Day 1

On Oct. 9th, the game began. Xegek immediately throws out a lynch for Kickhopper, potentially as a joke. Botherer responds, saying that they should be patient and wait for some evidence before throwing out votes.

Ocean asks ArmsAreLoud if there are benefits to abstaining, and ArmsAreLoud outlines some. Botherer also adds their advice. Ocean then throws out a lynch for Baron of Fate, to which Baron responds by saying that “the quick to act are those who are evil.” Botherer proclaims support for his response, but Ocean says that their willingness to wait is suspicious.

Thundertwig responds to the back and forth by pointing out that patterns will ultimately reveal the 4 cult members. He then calls out Baron for responding wisely yet ultimately “frantically” defending himself.

An hour before D1 ends, VFlowers throws out a lynch on Xegek, essentially saying that he acted very irrationally. Baron agrees and votes as well, stating that he “vote[d] quickly, and then hid.” Thundertwig also votes for Xegek.

Village did not meet the majority, resulting in a No Lynch. VFlowers, the Nurse, was the first to die.

### Day 2

Immediately, Botherer throws out a lynch of Xegek again, only to withdraw it in the same post. After a bit of memeing by Ocean, RitzsFTW aggressively suggests lynching Ocean. Ocean disregards it as jealously of his “dubs,” but Ritzs is serious, suggesting that Ocean is simply trying to draw attention to Baron with his outlandish behavior. Ocean responds by
saying that Ritzs is just over-analyzing his actions, but indicates that
 he does have a good point.

Following
 some more memeing, Botherer responds to Ritzs and asks if he implied
that Ocean was trying to bus (“throw under the bus”) Baron. He then goes
 on to say that the Fortune Teller should only come forward with their
results if they got a confirmed cultist. He also suggests that the Nurse
 protects the captured cultist so that they can get information out of
them. Ritzs responds by saying that Botherer might be a cultist, based
on his recommendation that the Fortune Teller reveal themselves, which
Ritzs believes would result in the Fortune Teller’s death. Botherer outlines his logic and says that his reasoning shouldn’t be questioned due to his understanding of the mechanics of Mafia games.

Arms
 responds by saying that the Mafia would still have the Informant even
if the Fortune Teller dies, which would give Mafia advantage. Ritzs
 and Ocean comment that it would be far too risky to reveal the Fortune
Teller. Botherer realizes his mistake and then talks about the
unlikelihood of Mafia being unified yet. TEA\_DEMON arrives and asks who
they are lynching. Ritzs still wants to lynch Ocean and suggests that it
 might be beneficial for the Fortune Teller to out themselves. Botherer
agrees with both the Ocean lynch and the Fortune Teller revealing. Arms,
 again, posts more advice (that they should), this time regarding the
use of the Veteran.

After more memeing, Botherer reasons out
 who isn’t the Grandmaster, absolving Xegek, Ocean, Baron, and Twig of
being the role. However, Arms clarifies that the Grandmaster’s vote
counts twice and that Botherer’s analysis is wrong.

Dramatically, Ritzs outs himself
 as the Fortune Teller, claiming that Ocean is the Informant and that
Thundertwig is a Cultist. He explains that he discovered that
Thundertwig was a Cultist by checking the sign-in/sign-out times of
Thundertwig’s actual account and an alternate account that Thundertwig
apparently used to send Ritzs threatening in-game messages. He says that cult will either keep him alive to disprove him or
outright kill him — either outcome leaves Village with two Mafia members
 identified.

Thundertwig
 confirms the claim that both he and Ocean are Mafia. Botherer
then says that they need to lynch Ocean and that Ocean’s alignment will
determine who gets lynched next — if Ocean is Mafia, then Thundertwig
will be lynched, but if Ocean is Village, Ritzs will be lynched. He then
 votes for Ocean, with Baron following suit. Ocean attempts to discredit
 Ritzs claim, saying that he (Ocean) could be either the Veteran or the
Sacrifice. Ritzs asks if he can post PMs to prove his claim.

TEA questions whether Thundertwig making an alt is legal, but votes for Ocean anyway. Ocean votes for Mehter for fun. Arms rules that alts are legal (ignoring the metagaming aspect involved) but posting screencaps are not. Botherer strikes back against Ocean trying to discredit Ritzs by saying that whether or not Ritzs is the Fortune Teller is irrelevant, as the situation will result in a dead Cultist regardless of how it ends.

More memes ensue, but Ritzs and Botherer bring things back on track when Ritzs asks if discussion is over and Botherer clarifies that they just need to vote to lynch Ocean. Thundertwig then questions why Ritzs didn't come forward with his results immediately, calling his actions devious. Ritzs simply responds by saying that he was being selfish and trying to save himself.

Xegek says he sees no reason to vote for Ocean but does see one to vote for Ritzs, yet he abstains from voting out of fear that Ritzs could be the Sacrifice. Botherer responds with a full outline of all the potential outcomes of the siituation.

In the midst of some memeing, Xegek posts an image of a man with a gun sporting absurd attachments, telling Ocean that he's going to die. Botherer asks if this is a Veteran claim, and Xegek responds with multiple iterations of "yes" and "no" using spoilers, ending in a ":coolface:" in the final spoiler. Botherer pushes further but receives no response.

Arms clarifies that, if Xegek is the Veteran, then VFlowers was the Nurse. The phase shift comes and both Ocean, the Informant, and Ritzs, the Fortune Teller, are killed.

### Day 3

Village begins to seek out the rest of the Mafia. Baron suggests that they lynch Thundertwig because Ritzs revealed him as part of the Mafia, and Botherer pushes the lynch immediately. Thundertwig does not fight the lynch, but warns that the other cultists have the potential to be extremely dangerous. Arms agrees, saying that he probably doesn't know what the other Mafia can do, and Ocean adds in that town may have lost their advantage before being scolded by Arms for participating when dead. TEA asks if they're lynching Thundertwig, commenting that he feels confused by the game.

Baron says that they can't possibly ensure what Thundertwig is, but they can definitely ensure his death. Thundertwig responds by warning them about "tunnel vision" and to encourage them to hold their votes until later in the phase. Botherer then responds to a previous post by Thundertwig, saying that the Mayor can't be a Cultist, because if that were the case, Ocean's lynch would have been stopped. He also adds that he'd like to lynch Thundertwig now so that they can get rid of the Sacrifice and weaken the presumably-united Mafia.

It ends up being revealed that Arms completely forgot to announce the Mayor and the Judge in-thread, so she decides instead to simply scrap them mid-game, claiming they wouldn't be useful anyway. Tommi Salami arrives and finds that the game has moved on without him.

Botherer writes another response to Thundertwig's post, saying that they don't benefit from him regardless of whether he's Mafia or Village. He then realizes that they only have one PR left and reasons that VFlowers was either the Nurse or the Veteran.

Thundertwig posts a message to the remaining Mafia member, telling them to get into contact with him to set up a plan. Baron asks that he is mindful of not sending PMs after his lynch is confirmed. Xegek states his belief that Thundertwig is Mafia, and then Arms pushes the lynch through, revealing Thundertwig as the Grandmaster.

Arms discloses in-thread that she can't move forward with the game until she gets a kill PM from the remaining Mafia, and ultimately decides that, if they don't send their PMs within the next 37 minutes, village will win automatically. 37 minutes and a push from Ocean passes and Village is declared the winner of Village Cult.

## Reception

The game received a lot of positive reception from both participants and a single spectator. Many expressed pleasure at figuring out who the Mafia members were before the game was over, and others expressed mild displeasure at the inactivity towards the end.