Spreading the word about Mafia!

[MeBelle]

Am I late to the party??? [MENTION=44124]Wake[/MENTION]

bwahahahahaa!

 

[Wake]

Am I late to the party??? [MENTION=44124]Wake[/MENTION]

bwahahahahaa!

Absolutely not!

With your joining signups, we've now got 13 players.

Player Count so far (13):

RosieS
Avatar4321
Strollingbones
Cereal_Killer
dblack
BlackFlag
R.D.
Manifold
Moonglow
Shaitra
Mertex
Syrenn
Mebelle


That's enough for a pretty good game.

But yeah, Mafia is all about human personality and skill. It'll test how apt you are at lying, discerning lies, how you deal with pressure and nervousness, and how good you are at bluffing and not revealing any tells. Oh yeah, tells are a huge part of Mafia. Sometimes players behave just a little differently when they're Scum or Town, and if you can tell the difference between you've got a good advantage.

You have to discern the good guys from the bad guys who look like good guys. That's how simple the point of the game is, but how players go about getting to that goal is what makes Mafia so enjoyable. It's intellectually stimulating when you have to use your wits to question/prod/interrogate players as Town, and lie/manipulate/blend in as Scum.

 

[Mertex]

[MENTION=36528]cereal_killer[/MENTION]


not sure if this will belong in the lounge.... it is a role playing game...and language is involved.

im not looking for you to ban me for ..... posting/saying the wrong thing.... or someone going nutz reading things that are not there into it....and reporting me.....

I'm going to create a whole new forum for it so there will be no confusion. This is only a temp thread to get the ball rolling and see who wants to go on a test drive. We'll be launching on Thursday

Am I late to the party??? [MENTION=44124]Wake[/MENTION]

bwahahahahaa!

Absolutely not!

With your joining signups, we've now got 13 players.

Player Count so far (13):

RosieS
Avatar4321
Strollingbones
Cereal_Killer
dblack
BlackFlag
R.D.
Manifold
Moonglow
Shaitra
Mertex
Syrenn
Mebelle


That's enough for a pretty good game.

But yeah, Mafia is all about human personality and skill. It'll test how apt you are at lying, discerning lies, how you deal with pressure and nervousness, and how good you are at bluffing and not revealing any tells. Oh yeah, tells are a huge part of Mafia. Sometimes players behave just a little differently when they're Scum or Town, and if you can tell the difference between you've got a good advantage.

You have to discern the good guys from the bad guys who look like good guys. That's how simple the point of the game is, but how players go about getting to that goal is what makes Mafia so enjoyable. It's intellectually stimulating when you have to use your wits to question/prod/interrogate players as Town, and lie/manipulate/blend in as Scum.

Sounds like it will be fun......

 

[Wake]

[MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION], may I ask you a question, please? ;-)

 

[Mertex]

[MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION], may I ask you a question, please? ;-)

Shoot...

 

[Wake]

[MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION], may I ask you a question, please? ;-)

Shoot...

Alrighty.

How would you rate your ability to discern a lie, or tell one? The reason I ask is because the better one is at those two things, the better they become at Mafia. In a way Mafia incorporates a lot of the elements of bluffing when it comes to Poker. Do you think, as Scum, you'd be able to keep a straight face while trying to shift suspicious Townies onto someone else?

It's the subtleties of this game that get me.

 

[pacer]

...so when does the game start?

 

[Mertex]

[MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION], may I ask you a question, please? ;-)

Shoot...

Alrighty.

How would you rate your ability to discern a lie, or tell one? The reason I ask is because the better one is at those two things, the better they become at Mafia. In a way Mafia incorporates a lot of the elements of bluffing when it comes to Poker. Do you think, as Scum, you'd be able to keep a straight face while trying to shift suspicious Townies onto someone else?

It's the subtleties of this game that get me.

I think some lies are very easy to discern....just considering the source and past occurrences. Of course, in person, it is easier, because their demeanor and behavior while telling a lie is very telling. I'm a terrible poker player though....have a hard time keeping a poker face, so I'll probably end up being one of the first ones to get killed....

 

[Ropey]

[MENTION=44124]Wake[/MENTION]

I'm in too.

 

[Michelle420]

Sounds like an interesting game, but I wouldn't be able to make the commitment that's needed.

Good luck to the players !

 

[Wake]

Player Count so far (14):

RosieS
Avatar4321
Strollingbones
Cereal_Killer
dblack
BlackFlag
R.D.
Manifold
Moonglow
Shaitra
Mertex
Syrenn
Mebelle
Ropey


Alright, we have 14. That's more than I expected, and that's good! ;-)

[MENTION=45164]pacer[/MENTION]
[MENTION=30820]Moonglow[/MENTION]

Just to make sure, should I confirm that you two are playing, too? If pacer's in we've got 15.


Hm..

Today's Wednesday, and CK says the Mafia forum should go up tomorrow, so soon it'll start. I'm writing up a game-thread OP which will start the game off, and creating Role PMs and preparing my Vote tallying system, too. (A lot of words for "I'm going to have it run smoothly for you guys").

 

[pacer]

Thank you for invite, Wake, but I will have to decline.

 

[Moonglow]

I will...

 

[Wake]

Thank you for invite, Wake, but I will have to decline.

I understand. Thanks.

Do you think you'd want to watch the game play out, to see how the game unfolds?

 

[Wake]

If it's alright with you guys, I'd like to run this first game without a heavy theme.

Usually in a themed game you get a lot of "flavor text," which is fun in itself. For example if we're playing a Star War themed Mafia game, a Vanilla Townie will receive a Role PM with a picture of Jar Jar Binks, that that's your character, and you'll also get a lot of flavor text regarding your character and the story tied up in this game. There's no real limit to the level of sophistication and creativity. A Scum player might be Darth Maul of General Grievous, too. Not only that, but a player's very abilities can be modified/augmented to suit the character in the theme!

In Mafia in Space I was a Heavy Defense Turret (Modified Doctor), and could either protect one player at Night twice in the game, OR protect two players during one Night only once.

Along the lines of sophistication, players could be given the ability to poison other, or send anonymous, secret messages. Or gain immunity to being tracked, or being able to douse players with gasoline and set them all on fire later.

 

[Ropey]

Yep, I'll just follow along.

 

[pacer]

Thank you for invite, Wake, but I will have to decline.

I understand. Thanks.

Do you think you'd want to watch the game play out, to see how the game unfolds?

You bet! The game seems a little complex so I will indeed sit back and watch how it unfolds.

 

[Wake]

Lately I've been reading through mafiascum.net, and found another article that's written specifically for beginners. If only I found this guide earlier when I started playing.

A Beginner's Guide to Being Awesome at Mafia


Motivation and Obligatory Caveats:

When people first begin playing Mafia, they often ask questions like "How do I catch scum?" or "How do I do pro-Town things?". The answers to these extremely basic questions have a nasty tendency to be longwinded and completely above what your average new player can do or is even willing to try to do - if people can even answer them at all after stepping back and thinking about it. This page is an attempt to say, in no uncertain terms, what playing online Mafia effectively is all about.

While it would be wonderful to say that going against the advice on this page should only be done at one's own peril, it would be wise to remember that this was conceived by a single notoriously opinionated person and approved by an experienced subset of the current Mafia-playing population. Your mileage may vary, but probably not by much. Similarly, this page was written within a metagame - changes in the trends of how Mafia gets played may cause some of this page to go out of date. Again, this has been considered in writing this and the effect of meta shifts should be reined in.

Now then, how does one play Mafia well...?

As Any Alignment:

Read the wiki.

Hey, you're already halfway there! In all seriousness, most people who play Mafia - and not just those who play on mafiascum.net, which hosts this wiki - have perused this wiki to some degree, especially the theory sections. By reading up, all of your newbie questions should be answered and you should have a general idea of what people look for when they play Mafia.

It's worth noting that precisely because everyone knows about the theory you see on the wiki, it is mostly outdated in practice (scum will generally avoid committing the tells listed on the wiki because they know they will be caught otherwise). However, novice scum and scumhunters will use it as their bread and butter, and one of the worst things you can do when playing with these sorts is get caught out on these tells. You likely won't actually use these tells yourself, but understanding the logic behind them (they DID work at one time, after all) should give you an idea of what kind of behaviors scum are more likely to do.

At the bottom of the page, a list of links has been provided to other outstanding theory articles. As these articles were published after this guide, they are guaranteed to be at least as cutting-edge as this page.



I don't want no scrub ♪

"Casual" has come to have two meanings - one being a synonym of "leisurely"; the other being the opposite of "competitive". Mafia is not either of these.

Mafia is not a game you can pick up and play. You need to stay focused on it until you're removed from the game. If you decide you don't want to play midway through, your options range from getting lynched to getting replaced to even getting modkilled. All of these are instances of you letting your team down, and rest assured everyone else playing doesn't appreciate it. Many people have tried to recover from burnout phases with a "nice easy game of Mafia" and found that it didn't work out.

Mafia is a competitive game, albeit unique in that players are not directly competing with each other individually. Playing to win is central to the game. On the Town's side, making light unrelated conversation with the other players, even if you like them outside the game, doesn't help the cause if it drags on for very long (especially since you may need to lynch them later). On the Mafia's side, it has been suggested that night-kills be tailored to keeping enjoyable players alive instead of making kills that will make it more likely that they will win. If that Mafia then loses, then it will come out that they essentially lost on purpose - and no victorious Town wants to hear that.

The bottom line is, Mafia is not for everyone. It's nothing personal if you don't like what you just read, but everyone will probably be happier if you stayed on the sidelines.

Note that this is NOT saying that Mafia shouldn't be fun. For Mafia, the fun comes more from the competition than the social aspects. You're more than welcome to talk to the players after the game and go from there.



They see you trollin' - they hatin' ♫

This really should seem obvious, but don't do things that are blatantly anti-Town unless you're sure you know what you're doing. Some examples would be claiming very early in the game (especially unprompted and especially if you are a power role), disobeying the Town when your actions are being "directed", faking an obstructive post restriction, etc. Some sample reasons given for doing these sorts of things include attempts to start discussion, spite, or attempting to uphold a meta ("well you should have known better; I always do this"). None of those reasons will justify the actions to anyone except yourself, and you can expect to get lynched as well as to be on the receiving end of plenty of complaints about your play in the long-reaching future.

There are, of course, exceptions to this. However, if you know if something is an exception, you probably have the experience to not worry about this part.



Stay classy, Planet Earth.

Mafia is not a pleasant game at times. After all, everyone has to make some very personal judgments about the people they're playing with, and people are going to be very wrong before it's all over (or at least told as much). While on a tactical level it may be worthwhile to push people out of their comfort zone by antagonizing them, most of the time pissing people off will make them want to lynch you - or at least think poorly of you. Most of the time, you will come out looking like a douche.

Note that it is possible to be forceful without being brutal. Finding the fine line dividing the two is key if you want to play aggressively.
Mafia is a game. Upsetting people for no evident reason - or for "psychological advantage" - may help you win in the short run, but will likely ensure that you will not be asked to play again.



Spy on your neighbors; they might be communists.

Where possible, make sure you have some idea who the other players are before you start playing. In particular, you want to have a broad idea of how they play, any defining quirks, and how easy you expect they would be to lynch. You don't want to antagonize someone without knowing ahead of time that they may react violently, or as Town you might want to be a little leery about wagons on people you think would be easy to lynch anyway. Unless you are absolutely certain, do NOT attempt to attribute a set of behaviors to an alignment based on games you have not played.



Posting vs. Not Posting; or, Pro-Town vs. Anti-Town

As either alignment there can be times when you are not sure what you want to post - or if you want to post at all. This is normal. However, posting is generally seen as pro-Town while not posting simply lets the other players continue their trains of thought without interference (which is usually only useful for scum). Note that if if the game is at a standstill, lurking is profoundly harmful to the Town.

While some people are capable of lurking as a playstyle regardless of alignment, people don't like playing with lurkers in general and frequently criticize them for looking unreadable or scummy, making them choice policy lynches/vigs as well as objects of public ridicule. (Note that lurkers are not always unreadable or scummy, although the argument that they're not making the game any easier for Town is usually fair.)

Note that you can go too far with this - there is such a thing as posting too much. If other players are having a hard time catching up on the discussion because of the immense volume of posts that flowed in while they were away, it will hurt those players' contributions as well as your ability to read those players. It is possible to use this as a tactic as scum, but it has a tendency to result in inactivity replacements/modkills as the other players prefer to just let the game go instead of reading it all and trying to make sense of it.



Go the extra mile.

What really makes contentful posting seem pro-Town is the initiative it shows in finding scum. Being proactive is the single best way to look Town, because it shows that you have enough of a vested interest in finding scum that you don't need to be prodded into doing it. This is one of the core bases of finding scum - scum neither need nor want to find themselves, so they have to find a way to look like they're trying to solve the game's mystery when in fact they already know the answer. Looking Town is, therefore, something you want to do as either alignment - it only makes sense that people who don't look Town should be considered scummy and therefore viable lynch candidates. Proactive arguments also tend to be more convincing, which is a solid reason for scum in particular to actively seek mislynch candidates.

 

[Moonglow]

Yep, I'll just follow along.

from afar...

 

[pacer]

The amount of instruction is overwhelming. Why not play the game already and people could learn as they go along?