Neopets Mafia


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A short, portly man scurried up a long spiral staircase with an envelope gripped tightly in his hand. He was sweating profusely, and although the stairs were a difficult climb for a man of his stature, it was more to do with the intense anxiety he felt than anything else. He had news to deliver to his boss, and it wasn't good.
   When he reached the top, he paused for a long while to collect himself. With his weary, beady eyes set on the tall and strangely foreboding oak door before him, he took a deep breath and knocked once.
   "You may enter," spoke a voice from within. The messenger grasped the door's immaculate diamond handle with his stubby fingers and pried it open, stepping inside. There was a long table seating several important men in expensive suits. At the head of the table, the CEO of the company sat with his chair turned away, facing an immense window overlooking the quiet, moonlit city. It had become slightly frosted by the bitter cold outside.
   "What news do you bring, Humphrey?" demanded one of the executives.
   "Good news, I hope," muttered the CEO, still turned away. His voice had a cold, calculated tone that sent a shiver up Humphrey's spine.
   "Well, sir... It isn't what you had hoped for..."
   The room became utterly silent. Humphrey took a moment to dab his forehead with a small handkerchief before continuing:  "It doesn't look like the Neopets deal is going to go through. I gave them your proposal, but they declined."
   "Outrageous," scoffed one of the executives. "You told them we were willing to buy their pathetic site for 160 million dollars, didn't you?"
   "Yes, sir. I told them everything, but they didn't want any of it. They hated the idea of NeoCash, they weren't keen on all the new banner ads... and they didn't care about the money. They said they didn't want anything to do with Viacom."
   Another silence fell upon the room, somehow even more tense than the last. Humphrey felt his heart crawl up into his throat. He handed the envelope to one of the executives. "Here's their official letter of refusal," he mumbled. "I should get going..."
   Suddenly, the room was overcome with angry voices.
   "They don't care about the money?" roared one executive, incredulous. "How can that be?"
   "They are fools, clearly!" said another.
   "Idiots!"
   "Imbeciles!"
   "Money is everything!"
   "SILENCE!" the CEO snarled, his chair slowly spinning around to face the other members of the board. His figure was a silhouette against the moonlight, his only discernible feature being the faint blue shimmer of his monocle. "If they will not agree to a friendly takeover, then... well... we'll have to get a bit unfriendly."
   "I propose we make a tender offer," said one of the executives. "One that their stockholders can't refuse! And when we have the majority stock, I say we fire each and every one of Neopets' incompetent staff!"
   "I have a better idea," the CEO replied, a smirk spreading across his shadowed face. "How about we strangle them to death with some piano wire?"
   There were murmurs of approval across the table.
   "Isn't that..." Humphrey began to speak, but fell silent as all the eyes of the board fell upon him. He took a timid step backwards towards the door.
   "Isn't that what, Humphrey?" snapped the CEO.
   "Isn't that against the law?" Humphrey mumbled meekly. The CEO's gloved fist slammed down against the table.
   "Screw the law, I have money!"
   The executives cheered fervently. Humphrey moved frantically towards the door, but two of the larger businessmen jumped up from their seats and grabbed him by the arms before he could escape.
   "Send in our three best assassins," the CEO said to the board. "Get them on the inside, have them pick off the Neopets Team one by one. I want those fools to fear for their lives. I want them to turn on each other. And above all, I want them to regret having ever refused Viacom."
   "Of course, sir," one of the directors said. "I'll contact the assassins tomorrow morning."
   "Good. And somebody go down and scrape Humphrey off the pavement."
   "What?!" Humphrey cried. The two executives started to drag him towards the giant window. "No, please -- I'm sorry! I won't tell anyone, I promise!"
   "We'll make sure of that."
   Tears began to stream down Humphrey's increasingly pale face as he struggled to break free, but he was overpowered. The two executives hoisted him up, and in a swift, practiced motion, hurled him through the window. As the unfortunate messenger's horrified screams disappeared down the side of the Viacom building, the CEO swiveled around to face the full moon, clasped his hands together, and muttered to himself, "You will be mine, Neopets... I can promise you that."


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The Neopets Mafia Game is about to start! Please read and fully understand all of the rules below. The roster is a bit dated now, so please take a moment to post in this thread and confirm that you are still ready and available to take part in this game. Below you will find the rules; this is all the information you need to know about how to play. It's best that you keep everything in it secret, for now. In a few days or so, assuming you have confirmed your position in the game, I will send you a role PM explaining your character and any abilities you may have. Do not hesitate to send me any PMs, but please wait until I have replied to one before sending another. Once everybody has posted that they have received and understand their role PM, then we can begin! You may not receive your role PM for a while since I haven't written any of them yet, so please be patient!

NOTE TO ANYBODY NOT INVOLVED IN THE GAME:
As you are not playing in this game, do NOT post in Neopets Mafia Forum (it is made public so that you can follow along with the action). Do not post about the game around the site (and especially don't post about any suspicions you may have) and do not PM people about the game who currently involved in it.


General Structure Of The Game

At the start of the game, the players are randomly assigned to be members of either "Neopets" or "Viacom" (Town and Mafia, respectively). If you are a member of the town, you win when all the members of the mafia are eliminated. If you are a member of the mafia, you win when the mafia comprises the majority of the remaining players. There are always significantly less members of the mafia then there are members of the town, but the mafia have the advantage of knowing who the other members of the mafia are, and being allowed to talk to one another outside of the game's main threads. There may be players that are neither town nor mafia, and if you are one of them, your win conditions will be explained in the role PM I send you. Once all the roles have been assigned, the game then proceeds into a series of alternating day and night phrases, until somebody's win condition is met.

During the day, all the players are expected to post in the designated thread, where they will discuss the ongoings of the game, and argue about who is mafia and who isn't. Be sure to be very careful about the things you say. You wouldn't want to say something that makes the rest of the town suspicious of you. You will also not want to reveal your role, at least in the early going, since if the mafia know what the town's roles are, then they have a much easier figuring out which of them it would be most beneficial to kill.

All players get one vote (which they can change throughout the day phase, as their opinions changes as well), and they use that vote to vote for who they want to see eliminated from the game (aka: lynched). The town is trying to lynch members of the mafia, while the mafia is trying to mislead the town into lynching a member of the town instead (though having nobody be lynched at all often works to the mafia's advantage). Once a majority of the remaining player's votes are for a single player (for example, if there are 8 people alive, then 5 of them would have to vote for the single player for them to be lynched), then that player is lynched and removed from the game. When a player is lynched, that player's role and alignment are revealed. Congratulations to the town, if the person they lynched turned out to be working for the mafia, but if they were in fact a member of the town, then all is not lost -- vital information is gained by analyzing the events of the previous day, and perhaps you will be able to find a mafioso responsible for the mislynch. Once a player is lynched, the day ends and we move into the night phase. There will be a time limit placed on the day phase, and if a lynch is not reached by then, the day will end without a lynch.

Notes About the Day Phase:

- When you wish to vote for a player, at the bottom of your post, write VOTE: (player name). It is important that you bold your votes (use the appropriate bbCode) so that, when I go to do a vote count, I don't miss any.
- If you wish to change your vote from one player to another or to just remove your vote from the player you voted for, first write UNVOTE: (player name). Please bold all unvotes as well.
- As who has voted for who can get confusing, I will attempt to periodically keep you updated on the current vote counts. If you feel a vote count would be helpful, feel free to post in the thread that you would like one.
- Stay active. You will be expected to post a few times in every "day". If possible, I will replace people who I feel aren't active enough.
- Do not talk about the game outside of the thread, AT ALL. Don't talk about it in some other thread, don't talk about it in the chatbox, and most importantly of all, don't talk about it in private messages to one another. Only the mafia may talk about the game outside of the main thread, and even then, they may ONLY use the secret mafia board.
- If you have some question about the game, please send me (and only me) a private message about it. Note that I only have limited space in my inbox, so please only send me one PM at a time.
- DO NOT EDIT YOUR POSTS. Everything that is said is meant to be part of the public record. If you have something else to say or even if you just made a mistake in typing your previous post, then, just this once, double-posting is both allowed and preferred.
- DO NOT QUOTE MY PMs. Everything that I say to you in a PM is intended for your eyes only. You are allowed to discuss your role or abilities if you wish, but you may not use (or pretend to use) my PM to you as proof.

Once the day ends, the night phase begins. Nobody may post in the main thread during the night. If you have a special action that you can perform, send me a PM stating whether or not you wish to use it. Whether or not you have an action to perform will be detailed in the role PM I send you. It is during the night phase that the mafia will choose one member of the town to kill. If everything goes according to plan, there will be one less member of the town alive once the next day phase starts. The role and alignment of the player who was killed will be revealed at the start of the next day. There is also a time limit on the night phase, so if you have an action to perform, make sure you send it in before the deadline.

Notes About the Night Phase:

- PM me any night actions you may have before the deadline. Any actions received after the deadline will be ignored. If you wish to abstain, send a PM saying so. If everybody sends in their actions right away, we can start the next day phase sooner. Please use the following format as the subject for your night action PM:  [character name] Night Action - Night #.
- Do not post in the thread during the night phase. Unless you are mafia and posting in the secret mafia board, you may not talk about the game at all during the night.
- If you arrive in the "morning" to find out that you have died, you may NOT post in the thread. If you have died, you are out of the game, but, even though you are dead, you will still win if the people you were aligned with end up winning the game. If you were mafia, and you die, you may not post in the secret mafia board anymore, as well. I will arrange for a secret "graveyard" board, where people who have died can talk about the game without having to worry about giving anything away. If you have access to any secret forums, it is of the utmost importance that you DO NOT karma rate ANYTHING. Anything you rate will become visible to anyone in the "recent karma rates" panel.


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The Roster:

- shos (participation & role confirmed)
- soccerboy13542 (participation & role confirmed)
- Yuggy (participation & role confirmed)
- Yaya (participation & role confirmed)
- Silver (participation & role confirmed)
- Isa (participation & role confirmed)
- Shavey Dave (participation & role confirmed)
- Thomas (participation & role confirmed)
- canadianstickdeath (participation & role confirmed)
- snipereborn (participation & role confirmed)
- Jazz (participation & role confirmed)
- Harumbai (participation & role confirmed)
- Jellsprout (participation & role confirmed)

On reserve:

- Darvince
- Kooler

To reiterate, please post in this thread to confirm that you are still ready and available to take part in this game. I'll send you your role PM once I've written it, at which point I'd like you to confirm that you have read it and understand it (by posting here or sending me a PM).

Then we can get started!

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"Screw the law, I have money!"


Ready, boss.

Hi. Not mafia plz I'm bad.

This post was very good, I'm enthusastic to play already!! me is ready and is read the rules so is ready

/pun

Good stuff. I'm ready also.

/ready, waiting for pm.

Just like the last game, the mafia should only be allowed to talk at night.

Anyway, I am ready.

when I was mafia last game, it bugged me as hell, the fact that I wasn't able to talk to bmw. didn't matter much of course, but at first I thought he was going to play.. and there are three assassins here, so it'll be meaningful.. I'll leave it to dando to decide of course

Thing is, day talk is super powerful.

Personally, I'd love to have it as scum, but it can really add a lot of power, depending on the players.

Yes, day talk is way too powerful in this setup (the one CSD used). I have only seen mafia day talk in nightless setups and this setup is not nightless and therefore mafia day talk should be prohibited.

Wow! This looks like it'll be a very interesting game!

/ready for my role PM.

Daytalk isn't THAT uncommon, Thomas, but it's still powerful.

Wait, who is the guy who is guaranteed to take over me?

We have three players on reserve, we should be fine.

Ready, waiting for pm.

I am ready.

EPIC. I want to be evil!

So ready, bring it on!

/confirm
my bad for taking so long
Though I havn't gotten a pm with my role yet.

I'm pretty sure nobody has yet.

Would it upset anyone if I gave all my mafia posts a narrative flourish? I want to practice my DM skills (for D&D).

lol, as long as it won't help us decide if you're mafia or town, you are welcome

The roles will probably take a few more days to send out; I've been busy with work and Christmas stuff.

Neezles is the only one who hasn't checked in yet, but I'm not entirely sure she was serious when she signed up. Would you like to take her spot if she doesn't show up, Jell?

Sure.

/reporting for duty

*wants my role pm*