Greatest Idea Mafia

Greatest Idea Mafia is a semi-open setup, based on Great Idea Mafia and Greater Idea Mafia, designed to be flexible while adding quite a few extra layers of WIFOM, a creative UPick-esque role choice aspect, and almost entirely removing the need for random votes.

In this setup, each player is dealt three cards from a deck; the same used in Greater Idea Mafia (shown below for convenience). Two of these three cards are combined to produce the player's role and alignment (more on this below) and the final card is discarded. Two cards must be used, so no player may choose a single card to indicate both role and alignment. Once every player has chosen their two cards - and there is at least one antitown role in the game (if all town, abandon or reshuffle) - all players inform the moderator of their role/alignment combination and any roles with partners are informed of their partners.

At the start of Day 1, every player's discarded card is publicly revealed.

Role List

See Greater Idea Mafia.

Possibly Confusing Setup-Specific Things

The "choose 2" mechanic can become confusing, but it becomes easier when you think of the setup in terms of all possible alignments (Town, Mafia, Werewolf, Alien, Cult, Survivor, Serial Killer, Lyncher), then think about the abilities that associate with specific roles. Many zany combinations are possible, but become simpler when (for instance) you realize a Vanilla Townie + 2-Shot BP SK is either just a Town 2-Shot BP or a Vanilla Serial Killer. Any gray areas are up to the moderator's discretion, but a good rule of thumb is to take away any abilities (in this example, the 2-Shot BP and the nightkill) and associate them only with the role itself, rather than the alignment.

When originally played at the 2013 Baltimore "Balto" Scummers meet, the Greatest Idea setup included a secret addition in the form of a Self-Aligned "Pikachu" role card, which was required to be kept and not discarded. The Pikachu was the only card that would serve as both role and alignment, and its only function/ability was that it not be discovered. If the entire game passed without mention of the correct player holding the role of Pikachu, or if that player died and flipped before this occurred, the Pikachu player would win with any other faction(s) at the end of the game. Original Face-to-Face play also included slightly arbitrary rules and mechanics thought up by Scummers at the meet in an attempt to troll later arrivals.

• If only one Mason or Lover is chosen, then they are essentially a named Vanilla Townie.
• If more than 2 Masons or Lovers are chosen, then all the Masons form one Mason group, and all the Lovers form one Lover group (rather than separate pairs). The Nymphomaniac, however, creates a separate Lover group when it uses its action on Night 1. It is possible to unite the two groups if the Nymphomaniac targets an existing Lover, however.
• The One-Shot PGO is activated on the first night during which someone targets it. Any and all players who target it in that one night die.
• On the forum, it is strongly advised to only run setups that start with at least 50% Town roles. This should also be advertised to the players. Broken setups are no fun. On scumchat or Skype or a Marathon Day, go crazy. Crazy setups ARE fun.
• The Alien faction has only a one-shot factional nightkill for the whole game. The faction was designed to appear rarely but have powerful role actions.
• The Innocent Child can choose to reveal itself at whatever moment it chooses. It is not revealed automatically at the start of Day 1.
• The Enabler affects one randomly mod-selected other player. If the Enabler dies, its Enablee can no longer use any role powers other than a factional nightkill.
• In Greatest Idea games, Judas and Saulus's alignment-change-on-lynch powers are an ALIGNMENT effect, not an ABILITY. Think of the card as 'Vanilla Judas' and 'Vanilla Saulus'.

Mechanics

• Roles are assigned to players via the Random.org List Randomizer.
• Balance is explicitly not guaranteed.
• Because of the special "choose 2" mechanic, many new and bastard roles are possible given certain role combinations. The following is a list of blacklisted combinations that should be advertised to players before a game.

1. Mafia Mason
2. Werewolf Lover
3. Mafia Innocent Child
4. Werewolf Innocent Child
5. Alien Innocent Child
6. Serial Killer Innocent Child
7. Survivor Innocent Child
8. Cult Innocent Child
9. Lyncher Innocent Child
10. Judas Innocent Child
11. Saulus Innocent Child

Setup Design

The Greater Idea setup was invented as a Face-to-Face game at the UK Scummers Meet 2013, using a constantly expanded card deck. The setup is intentionally goofy and designed for slightly shorter, less serious games - at the meet, it was frequently played at night. The initial deck was designed by ChannelDelibird but was modified and then vastly expanded by all the other attendees of the UK meet.

A small expansion of 19 cards added to the Greater Idea deck at the 2013 Baltimore meet by the attendees thereof was also intended to serve as the Greatest Idea Mafia deck (TheTrollie receives major credit for initial suggestion of the "choose 2" mechanic...at least as far as Maestro remembers. BBmolla thinks he came up with it but that's probably just because he's a selfish bastard.). CDB was going make a separate page for that game, but Maestro did so instead (with full permission), intending on using it as the basis for the first forum iteration of the game, run a short time after Balto in Summer 2013.