Republic (Information)

Prizyms

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REPUBLIC
a game by Prizyms
[JUSTIFY] Following support for an experimental setup in my poll, I am proud to present Republic, my newest spin on the Mafia formula. Republic is a political hybrid game focused around logical decision making, correctly drawing conclusions from incomplete information, and balancing the benefits and drawbacks of different political systems to reach victory.

This setup is explicitly designed to reward strong players who read into every action taken by the council or the dictator. Being an open setup, there is minimal unpredictable randomness at the individual level, and most information needed to determine a player’s alignment and the overall factional makeup of the council should be determinable through their actions alone - the operative word being most. Roles in this setup were carefully selected and tested to ensure that there would never be enough information at any given time to ‘solve’ the game from an individual’s perspective - players will need to use any hard facts they have on hand, as well as whatever hunches they may have, to suspect who, including those they have elected, are dissenters.

Each day under democracy, players are forced to execute a representative and elect a new one in their place, to ensure a constant flow of new information. This cycle can be broken by the installation of a dictator following either infighting among the representatives, mutual loss of faith in the council, or representatives outright supporting the rule of one over the current council, granting one player absolute power over the vote and the ability to kill the summoned player each night, in the process hiding their role to all but themselves. The citizens are also free to vote to execute any other citizen under autocracy, and can even vote to overthrow their dictator, but at a cost to future democratic stability through the loss of a seat in the council. As councils are dissolved and dictators are overthrown, which faction will ultimately come out on top?

This thread is here to provide information for prospective players, so they may better understand the setup and ask any questions they like before they commit to joining the game. Click here if you would like to sign up.

Special thanks to JKangaroo for his extensive feedback on roles and mechanics (many a night was spent fine tuning every aspect of this game) and of course a thank you to all players who voted for this experimental setup on the players’ choice poll. I look forward to welcoming you all to Republic.


Rules:[/JUSTIFY]
  • You may not edit or delete posts; you may correct or clarify what you have written with follow-up posts if need be.
  • You may not post or rate posts if you are not alive in-game.
  • You may not discuss the content of the host’s PMs with other players.
  • You may not compromise the game’s integrity by way of collusion or ciphers.
  • You may not intentionally play against your win condition without a valid reason to do so.
  • You may not present a player’s forum status and/or forum activity as a case against them.
  • You may not discuss the game with other players outside of this thread and the host’s PMs.
  • You must remain active in the game; please contact the host if you must take time off.
  • You must be civil with other users at all times; flaming is not permitted under any circumstances.
  • You must be honest with the host at all times.
Mechanics:
  • This is a 26-player setup.
  • The game will start on Day 1, followed by Evening 1 and Night 1.
  • The initial political system is democracy.
  • 5 representatives must be elected.
[JUSTIFY]Factions:
Conformist (18)

Ensure the safety of the state by eliminating all other factions.
Dissenter (7)
Seize control of the state through majority rule by equaling or outnumbering all other factions.
Revolutionary (1)
Overthrow the state yourself by being installed as dictator without being killed or overthrown, witnessing three dictators being killed or overthrown resulting in a council of fewer than three, or surviving to the final day.

Roles:
As this is an open setup, a full role list with system messages can be found here.

Order of actions:
There are three phases per day in Republic.[/JUSTIFY]
  • Day: Representatives or players are executed and elected.
  • Evening: The council meets to issue a subpoena or the dictator decides on a player to summon. Dissenters communicate via text messages.
  • Night: Usual night actions, court meeting or hearing, dissenters not in court or hearing meet in person to decide on a murder.
[JUSTIFY]Democracy:[/JUSTIFY]
  • The council meets every evening. This evening meeting is private and carried out via PM between all representatives, regardless of faction.
  • The council must issue a subpoena each evening to an individual outside the council. Three representatives must vote for a player to invite to a court meeting, interrogate them, and receive details of their alignment. If this is unsuccessful, the representatives must install a dictator.
  • A player can only be subpoenaed once. If all living players have previously been subpoenaed, or there are no living players outside of the council, the representatives must install a dictator.
  • A player can only have three subpoena votes on them at any one time. Any subpoena votes made on a player after the third will not be registered as valid votes, and will be treated as nonexistent.
  • Voting will lock at the first possible instance once an outcome is decided on.
  • The court meeting disables both participating representatives’ and the subpoenaed player's night action(s) and removes them from their night chat(s) for that night. The subpoenaed player is immune to murder and poison.
  • The court meeting in the night is private and is carried out via PM between participating representatives and the accused individual.
  • Participating representatives will be informed of the subpoenaed player's alignment when day begins, and are free to do as they wish with that information.
  • If the subpoenaed player remains silent, details of their alignment will be delayed by a day. Remaining silent is a requirement for some roles to avoid adverse effects following the court meeting.
  • Under democracy, a representative must be executed each day. Following this, another player must be elected as a representative to take their place.
  • If representatives are killed overnight, a surviving representative must be executed as usual, then a number of new representatives equal to those killed must be elected.
  • The populace may, instead of voting to execute a representative, vote to dissolve the council. In this case, the final action of the representatives will be to install a dictator from among themselves.
[JUSTIFY]Autocracy:[/JUSTIFY]
  • In the event that a subpoena is not successfully issued, the populace votes for the council to be disbanded, or it is decided by the representatives of their own volition, a dictator must be chosen by majority vote.
  • The dictator is installed during the evening, their presence made known at the start of that night, and their name announced at the start of the following day.
  • The dictator must summon any living player each night to a hearing, which is conducted in the same way as a court meeting, but only between those two. The summoned player’s alignment is revealed to the dictator
  • The hearing disables both the dictator and the summoned player's night action(s) and removes them from their night chat(s) for that night. The summoned player is immune to murder and poison.
  • Instead of receiving details of their alignment, the dictator can choose to kill the summoned player. Killing the player in this fashion hides their role to all but the dictator.
  • The dictator can be killed at night either by murder or by poison, by roles capable of doing so.
  • With a dictator active, players may freely vote for any other player to be executed during the day, but the dictator can overturn the vote once a majority is reached on any player but himself.
  • If the dictator is killed during the night or overthrown by majority vote during the day, a new council must be elected that day, with one fewer representative than the council which preceded it.
  • If the council’s maximum size is reduced to fewer than three members after three successive dictators are killed, the game ends in loss for all factions except the revolutionary, if still alive.
  • If the third dictator overthrown is also the final living dissenter, and the revolutionary is dead, the game ends in a conformist victory.
  • If the revolutionary is installed as dictator and is not overthrown by the end of the following day, the game ends in victory for the revolutionary.
[JUSTIFY]Dissenters:[/JUSTIFY]
  • [JUSTIFY]All dissenters communicate via text messages during the evening but do not submit their actions or a murder target at this point.[/JUSTIFY]
  • [JUSTIFY]Dissenters not involved with the court meeting or hearing (either as a representative, the dictator, or an accused party) meet in person during the night, where they can submit night actions and decide on a murder target.[/JUSTIFY]
  • [JUSTIFY]The two dissenters involved in carrying out a murder sacrifice their usual night action to do so. This is classed as a visit.[/JUSTIFY]
  • Murder is not compulsory for dissenters.
 

Prizyms

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How are the original representatives, and the representatives after the Autocracy is demolished, elected?
Public election with no execution that day (as a representative cannot be elected and executed on the same day.) Each player will vote for a number of candidates equal to the amount of spaces in the council which need to be filled, and those who receive the most votes will become representatives.
 
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Infected_alien8_

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Public election with no execution that day (as a representative cannot be elected and executed on the same day.) Each player will vote for a number of candidates equal to the amount of spaces in the council which need to be filled, and those who receive the most votes will become representatives.
What happens if there's a tie between two people, meaning if they were both to be elected there'd be one too many representatives?
 

Prizyms

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What happens if there's a tie between two people, meaning if they were both to be elected there'd be one too many representatives?
Nth place deadlocks (where N is the number of spaces in the council which need to be filled) will go to another vote. In this case, each player may vote for N-1 candidates.
 

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Looks fun. I look forward to the game. Some of these roles look challenging to play, so I have no doubt this will be an interesting game. Going to have to try to think through some of the strategies some of these roles might take in advance.
Instead of receiving details of their alignment, the dictator can choose to kill the summoned player. Killing the player in this fashion hides their role to all but the dictator.
I'm a little confused here how exactly does the timeline work out? The dictator gets only the alignment of the summoned player without the specific role at the time the court starts? Then at the end of the night the dictator decides if they want to kill the player afterwhich they don't learn the role if they elected to kill the player causing the role to be hidden to everyone including the dictator?

Sorry, the wording is a bit confusing to me.
 

Prizyms

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I'm a little confused here how exactly does the timeline work out? The dictator gets only the alignment of the summoned player without the specific role at the time the court starts? Then at the end of the night the dictator decides if they want to kill the player afterwhich they don't learn the role if they elected to kill the player causing the role to be hidden to everyone including the dictator?
  • Dictator has a hearing with a summoned player.
  • The dictator speaks to the summoned player, asks for a claim, interrogates etc.
  • Once the night deadline is reached and the hearing is over: the dictator can choose to either receive details of the player's alignment OR kill the player and janitor them.
This serves both to give the dictator more control over the flow of information, and also to guarantee that the dictator's murder victim is known to the public.
 

Prizyms

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So is everybody essentially a vanilla townie/mafia? Or is there more information about that coming?
Such a system would work, but would lack depth in the election process (as there is no opportunity cost to election and participating in court meetings) so I ultimately decided on a series of roles with nightly actions. You will notice that there are no 'one time' night abilities except for those triggered on death - this is intentional.
 
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Nottykitten

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The council must issue a subpoena each evening to an individual outside the council. Three representatives must vote for a player to invite to a court meeting, interrogate them, and receive details of their alignment. If this is unsuccessful, the representatives must install a dictator.​
How is it chosen which 3 representatives vote of the 5? Can all 5 vote and the 3 that vote the same person will interrogate them?
 

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All can come to an agreement on whom to subpoena, but ultimately only 3 will choose to attend court and interrogate said individual.
The answer to this is probs yes but I have to ask. Are players able to talk before/during an election of representatives? So for example on the first day can people discuss strategies or whatever or are they forced to elect representatives first?
 

Prizyms

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The answer to this is probs yes but I have to ask. Are players able to talk before/during an election of representatives? So for example on the first day can people discuss strategies or whatever or are they forced to elect representatives first?
Yes. Day 1 will end following the election.

How exactly are those 3 specifically chosen? Do they have a second vote for which 3 do it?
They will decide themselves. Exactly three representatives must vote to subpoena a player - any others can choose to vote for another player, or install a dictator. If a satisfactory decision is not made by the evening deadline, the representatives must install a dictator.
 

Infected_alien8_

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Yes. Day 1 will end following the election.


They will decide themselves. Exactly three representatives must vote to subpoena a player - any others can choose to vote for another player, remain home, or install a dictator. If a satisfactory decision is not made by the evening deadline, the representatives must install a dictator.
So, just to clarify, is it like this:

A, B, C, D and E = the five representatives
1 and 2 = non-representatives

Votecount for who to subpoena

1 - A, B
2 - E

C and D haven't voted yet.

C then votes 1.

So 1 is chosen and A, B and C go to the meeting because they were the first 3 to vote? So as soon as three people vote for the same player, the action is sent in?
 
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