Spreading the word about Mafia!

Wake

Easygoing Conservative
Jun 11, 2013
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Hello everybody! I want to play a game with you, so I'm looking for people to play. :smiliehug:

This is no ordinary game. It's a game of persuasion, deceit, and inquiry.

And, fortunately, it's made specifically for message boards like this one.


It's a game called Mafia, and originated on the website mafiascum.net/. What you do in this game is very simple, in spite of the initial learning curve. The game is played on a thread, and everyone playing posts in that thread at their leisure. The people who join in this game are called Players, and the core of the game revolves around the Town.

Let's say we have 12 players. All of them are kind, gentle, good Townies, right? Wrong!!! Two of the 12 players are Mafia, and they want to kill you. Dead.

So, with 12 players, you've got 10 Townies and 2 Mafia. What does that mean? Here is what it means:

Townies: The uninformed majority within the playerset. Each individual Townie doesn't know who the Mafia or other Townies are. They don't know who's who. Here's more on what you do as Town:

When Mafia is played online, even people who would be poor liars in face-to-face interactions can blend in with the other players. As a result, finding scum tends to involve finding "tells" related to what people do, rather than what they say - things like people avoiding mention of other players (who turn out to be their scumpartners) or jumping on vote bandwagons for reasons that thinly conceal how much they just want to see someone other than them kicked out come to mind.

Some other examples of behavior to watch for are the following:

"Lurking", or posting much less than usual so as to avoid notice

"Tunneling", or concentrating excessively on a single player out of proportion to what would be necessary

"Active Lurking", or continually making placeholder or unenlightening posts

Town players can and sometimes will do some of these things, but scum players have more motivation to do them - tunneling on a player excuses them from looking at other potential bandwagons and may allow them to distance themselves from their scumpartners, lurking and active lurking keep them from being noticed by the other players while the Town turns on itself, and so forth. Obviously if you draw Town, you want to be careful that you don't do these things or people may turn on YOU.

The important thing to remember is that Mafia is a game of finding scum, not punishing what's considered bad play. In other words, the person who commits the most scumtells (the scummiest) is not necessarily going to be scum, and in fact may have actual scum serving them up as a justified bandwagon.

Or perhaps the scummiest player IS scum. You have to use your own judgment to decide what you believe and where you cast your vote.

Mafia: The Mafia, also known as Scum, are the informed minority. Let's say John and Becki are the Scum. Becki and John both know who's on their team, and they know everyone besides them are innocent Townies. Their goal is to have their number equal or surpass that of the uninformed majority. In order to do that, they will screw with you. Blend in. Lie to you. Get other Townies to lynch you. And try to kill you themselves. Here's more on what you do as Scum:

The Mafia's greatest strength and weakness - indeed, almost the point of the game - is that they already know who the scum are. On the one hand, this is great - they know almost exactly who they have to get rid of in order to win, unlike the Town who has the additional obstacle of finding the scum on top of getting them booted out. On the other hand, they have little real reason to take scumhunting seriously - they already know who the scum are, so many of the hypothetical scenarios and accusations flying around are not particularly interesting and there's little real incentive to participate. However, NOT participating will become noticeable pretty quickly, so the scum have to "fake it until they make it".

How you interact with your scumpartners is up to you or your team strategy. Working together, the team can use their collective voting power to sway public opinion in their favor. Alternatively, they can selectively turn on each other so they don't look like they're all connected. In most cases it's best to keep as many of your teammates alive, so don't actually go all the way and throw your scumpartners under the bus unless you know you'll look more like a Townie for it.

At Night, when deciding who to kill, you'll need to be on the lookout for power roles. Being caught by a power role like a Cop can ruin your whole game unless you kill them before they investigate you.

The basic idea of Mafia is that out of all the people playing, there's a small group of betrayers trying to bring everyone else down. The betrayers are the Mafia, sometimes called "scum" or other unpleasant names. Everyone else is in the Town, otherwise called "villagers" or "innocents" or so forth.

Speaking of death and destruction, let's get down to the nitty-gritty of Mafia. The game's split into two phases, Day and then Night, and so on and so forth. During the Day the Town comes together to talk.

The Town's goal is to get rid of all the scum players. They do this by taking a majority vote each game Day for who they want to get rid of. The Mafia's goal is to outlast all of the Townies until they control the majority vote, at which time there's nothing the Town can do to stop the scum from completely taking over. They can do this by avoiding being voted out and killing players during the Night phases following each game Day. The crowd that starts the game gets whittled down until eventually only one faction remains in the game.

So strategically, the game comes down to Townies finding and voting out the Mafia as often as possible. The Mafia tries to avoid getting voted out and kill off the players who threaten them at Night. It all revolves around your voice and your vote, because that's the beauty and the strategy of this game.

To summarize, here's the Quick Guide to Mafia:

The role assignments - Town or Mafia - are randomized at the beginning of each game. Players are told their alignment via private message. It is against the rules to show a copy of your Role PM to the other players - what happens ingame is based on how the other players perceive you.

Most online games start during the Day. Players vote amongst themselves for who should be removed from the group. The player who receives a majority vote is killed and their role is revealed for everyone to see. After that, the game goes to Night. The Mafia is able to talk amongst themselves via a secure chat thread and may as a group murder one player of their choice. In addition, some special Town roles (see below) may have actions they may take during the Night, but most Townies simply wait for the next Day.

The cycle of Day and Night continues until either all of the Mafia have been removed from the game or all of the Townies have been removed from the game. In most cases, the game can be called when the Mafia gains veto power over the Day's vote - that is, when all of the Mafia voting together can prevent a majority from ever sentencing one of their own.


We're almost done on the basics of Mafia. It can be a huge and massively complex game, with billions of variants. Here's a few other basics:

*A Day phase usually lasts two real-life weeks.
*A Night phase usually last two or three real-life days.
*Lynches require a majority of votes: (numberoflivingplayers/2) +1, rounded down.
*If there's no majority at deadline, there's no lynch.
*Mafia isn't going to take up your whole day, either.

Lastly, some players have Power Roles, which grants them abilities they can use at Night. The most powerful role for Townies is the Cop. That role is so damned powerful it lets the player target and investigate one player at Night, letting the Cop learn the alignment of its target. It turns the table because now the Cop learns whether someone's an innocent Townie or evil Scum. Be careful, though, because sometimes Scum will bluff and call themselves the Cop, to draw out and kill the real one. The Doctor, however, is a role that targets a player at Night to protect that player from a single kill made during that Night. They are not told if their protection was successful. Protection from a single kill means that if multiple players try to kill someone, they will not be saved by one Doctor's protection. They're not allowed to self-target, either. The last role is typically used by Scum, the Roleblocker. This player can target another player, like someone Scum thinks is Cop or Doc, and negate that player's ability. That can really mess things up for Town. ;-)

So... that's Mafia in a very large nutshell. If you have ANY questions about about gameplay, please ask.

And me? Well, I'll be your Host. It's my job to make sure the game goes smoothly, which includes keeping count of votes and seeing that the rules are obeyed. Also, before the game itself begins, a sign-up thread is posted, where people who are interested can sign up for the game by posting it there. Once enough people have signed in, the game begins!


*I've inserted various links to the Mafiascum.net's wiki. It is extremely useful. Invaluable. Please read it. All of it. If you do, you will become a master at this game.

If you'd like to see some past games to better understand how they flow, here's a few links to look through:

Newbie 1378 - Game Over! (Town Wins)
Newbie 1375 -- Game Over
Newbie 1375 -- Game Over
 
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wake... unless you can move the game faster then the last one i did with you....its never going to hold anyone's attention.

so if you do it again... and this is just a helpful suggestion....... you need to double time it and pick up the pace......

 
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wake... unless you can move the game faster then the last one i did with you....its never going to hold anyone's attention.

so if you do it again... and this is just a helpful suggestion....... you need to double time it and pick up the pace......


It can be made faster, here, to start with until we break at normal game speed. One week sounds like a good middle-ground for beginners, until players start getting experienced.
 
wake... unless you can move the game faster then the last one i did with you....its never going to hold anyone's attention.

so if you do it again... and this is just a helpful suggestion....... you need to double time it and pick up the pace......


It can be made faster, here, to start with until we break at normal game speed. One week sounds like a good middle-ground for beginners, until players start getting experienced.

you need to speed it up so that one person gets killed off every day.

just my opinion wake.....
 
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wake... unless you can move the game faster then the last one i did with you....its never going to hold anyone's attention.

so if you do it again... and this is just a helpful suggestion....... you need to double time it and pick up the pace......


It can be made faster, here, to start with until we break at normal game speed. One week sounds like a good middle-ground for beginners, until players start getting experienced.

you need to speed it up so that one person gets killed off every day.

just my opinion wake.....

I understand, but that's not Mafia. Even one week is super-short by normal standards.

If we get around 10-13 players or more, I imagine the pace would be pretty good. Syrenn, would you please give it a try here?
 
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Can I be a rogue townie serial killer?

If we have, hm, 13 players, yes. Randomized, of course. :lol:

Serial Killer

A Serial Killer is a player whose goal is to be the last player alive. They are aligned with themselves (meaning they have no allies) and have a factional kill at Night like the Mafia. Depending on the flavor, SKs may also be called Cannibals, Psychopaths, or Arsonists (note that Arsonist has since grown to describe a unique role).
 
It can be made faster, here, to start with until we break at normal game speed. One week sounds like a good middle-ground for beginners, until players start getting experienced.

you need to speed it up so that one person gets killed off every day.

just my opinion wake.....

I understand, but that's not Mafia. Even one week is super-short by normal standards.

If we get around 10-13 players or more, I imagine the pace would be pretty good. Syrenn, would you please give it a try here?

a 13 week game????

get real wake......
 
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you need to speed it up so that one person gets killed off every day.

just my opinion wake.....

I understand, but that's not Mafia. Even one week is super-short by normal standards.

If we get around 10-13 players or more, I imagine the pace would be pretty good. Syrenn, would you please give it a try here?

a 13 week game????

get real wake......

No... Usually in Mafia one game is 2 weeks, minus a real-life day for every Day phase. However, lynches typically happen a lot faster before the deadline, especially if players are active. I think only the huge ones, like with 25+ players, are that long. Also, please keep in mind that Days 3, 4, and 5 go way faster because there are fewer living players.
 
Sounds fun, but I lack the time for that sort of endeavor! Thank you for asking though!
 
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Alright, we've got two players!

RosieS
Avatar4321





The super-short version of Mafia is this:

*Game starts with around 12 players.
*There's an informed majority factions and an informed minority faction.
*Town tries to work together in spite of a lack of knowledge, to discover the Scum.
*Scum does everything it can to manipulate the uninformed majority.
*Everyone also casts votes during the Day. A lynch happens when majority vote is met.
*Abilities and Night Kills happen at Night. Scum gets its own thread to secretly discuss its plans.
*Town wins when all Scum are dead. Scum wins when its numbers equal or outnumber Town.
*Some players have abilities they can use at Night, because of Power Roles given to them.
 
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there are enough games going on already.....but i will play if i can understand it

SB, it's tough learning it at first, but it gets very easier after two games. :D I've hosted somewhere around 50 games, so if you got some questions, please shoot. When I first started Mafia I didn't know what I was doing, either, but now the game's really grown on me because of how fun it is, once get the hang of it. :lol:

Plus, the game's very intellectually stimulating. I used to debate a lot, but it got repetitive, so I started playing Mafia and making cases against other players on why they were so Scummy, suspicious, and that was a fun challenge that never got boring. It's a game based on human dynamics, personalities, and skill when it comes to persuading and manipulating others, as well as testing your analytical skills in spotting out liars.
 

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