Spreading the word about Mafia!

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[syrenn]

[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.....

 

[gallantwarrior]

Shucks! As much fun as this seems it might be, I barely have time for everything else and have had to cut way back on my visits to USMB as it is. Maybe some other time?
Thanks for the invite, though! Hope y'all have a great time.

 

[emilynghiem]

Hi Wake thank you for thinking of me and including me.

I have my hands full trying to figure out the game of life, and how to save a historic district while people gamble real life billions of dollars on political gaming instead of investing in our own country's economic, education and sustainable future.

If you could build an online game out of that, to see "which side" or which angle in the media can raise more funds or organize more resources to SOLVE political problems
IN REAL LIFE, I'd be more than happy to participate in any way to make that work!

Please keep up your creative brainstorming, I don't want to discourage you or anyone here.
I know the creative process can take many directions, and it's all for good to experiment.

Everything we do is for teaching and learning from each other, so all sharing is valuable.

I look forward to seeing where our paths intersect, as we are both open minded and open to change and collaboration with others.
That is never a bad thing, but very needed in this world, so please keep that part up!

More power to you. May all your best ideas and insights bring out the same in others.
I will keep this in my thoughts and prayers. Keep posting and sharing!

Hello everybody! I want to play a game with you, so I'm looking for people to play.

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:

Spoiler: I'm Town! What do I do?

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:

Spoiler: I'm scum! What do I do?

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

 

[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.....

Do we get to cus?

 

[syrenn]

[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.....

Do we get to cus?

i didn't cus...... i was being nice. So much for being nice. So if not cussing and being nice will get you into trouble depending on who is reading it......

 

[pacer]

 

[cereal_killer]

[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

 

[syrenn]

[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

wow... a whole new forum.


Can i have a whole new forum ck?

 

[Wolfsister77]

Thanks for the invite Wake. It sounds like fun but I don't think I'd have the time right now. I don't get a lot of time to post at USMB as it is.

BUT, great idea and maybe I'll play in a future game.

 

[Wake]

Thanks for the invite Wake. It sounds like fun but I don't think I'd have the time right now. I don't get a lot of time to post at USMB as it is.

BUT, great idea and maybe I'll play in a future game.

I'd love to have your personality aboard this game, Wolfsister.

 

[Noomi]

Thanks for the invite, but it doesn't sound like the sort of game that would hold my interest.

Thanks anyway Wake.

 

[Wolfsister77]

Thanks for the invite Wake. It sounds like fun but I don't think I'd have the time right now. I don't get a lot of time to post at USMB as it is.

BUT, great idea and maybe I'll play in a future game.

I'd love to have your personality aboard this game, Wolfsister.

I'd be killed so fast.

 

[Wake]

Thanks for the invite Wake. It sounds like fun but I don't think I'd have the time right now. I don't get a lot of time to post at USMB as it is.

BUT, great idea and maybe I'll play in a future game.

I'd love to have your personality aboard this game, Wolfsister.

I'd be killed so fast.

I doubt that.

Usually in Mafia, the Scum tend to look for whoever is perceived as the biggest threat. Mafia on MS.net is a science. It is extremely serious there. It goes beyond pattern recognition and emotional testing. Those who have reputations for being very good Town-aligned players typically get killed first by Scum.

A good Townie never lies, questions everything, and challenges the comments and actions of everyone else. It's almost like intense political debate, but geared more towards talking with people in order to discern who's lying. Even the slightest little discrepancy in someone's explanation can be latched onto by a good Townie and unraveled, like good detective work. If you're Scum leave no loose ends!

I used to suck at lying, until I had to practice it intensively on that forum... with people with double my intelligence. This one gal put me through the wringer so badly that I got nervous and tripped up on my web of lies as Scum, and she nailed me, basically. I got lynched, and deserved it! There's both Townplay and Scumplay, and in order to get really good at Mafia you have to get experience playing both sides of the game. Both sides are very enjoyable in their own rights, too.

Townies tend to play more selflessly, because the Town wins as a team. Scum is more interested in self-preservation, and isn't willing to risk losing any of its members.

 

[cereal_killer]

Is it easy to host your own game once you've played it a couple times?

 

[Wake]

Is it easy to host your own game once you've played it a couple times?

Oh, hell yeah.

The very cornerstone of this game is skill, and you can improve your level of skill to somewhere above the clouds.

 

[Jughead]

Thanks for the PM invitation this morning, Wake. It's very much appreciated. However, due to my work schedule, and spending time with Mrs. Jughead and Jughead Jr, I would not be able to commit the time required for this game.

Thanks again!

 

[earlycuyler]

Im to busy drinking beer and raising hell. But ill watch from afar and then join the next slaughterfest.

 

[Wake]

Im to busy drinking beer and raising hell. But ill watch from afar and then join the next slaughterfest.

Sounds good to me Early!

 

[Wake]

Alright.

So assuming we have 12 players, the setup will be this:

Town Cop
Town Doctor
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Roleblocker
Mafia Goon

The next thing I would do is randomize those roles, and not share that info openly. Then I'd PM each player what their roles are gonna be. For example, if westwall were playing he'd get either a VT role, a Mafia Roleblocker role, etc, etc. Only one Role per player.

Then, after each player has received his or her Role PM, they would either PM me back confirming they understand their Role, OR they'd post in the Game thread itself saying they've confirmed their Role PM.

Once 10/12 of the players have confirmed, the game begins. It'll be Day 1, and you'd likely start lobbing accusations and casting random votes in order to stir up activity while putting pressure on players to see if they get nervous. You only get nervous if you've got something to hide. I remember going through that myself as Scum, lol. Eventually you guys will cast enough votes to lynch someone. That player will die, and I'll reveal to all of you what that person's alignment and Role was, so whether the person's Town/Scum and what abilities if any.

Then the thread gets locked. Scum will be given their own private thread. It's called QuickTopic thread. There Scum will scheme and work out their strategy.

For example, here's a game I messed up HORRIBLY in. Mafia in Space. Scum was on the ball in this QuickTopic thread, and because they had something called "DayTalk" they were able to talk in it alongside the game whenever they wanted to. That means they were better able to coordinate their manipulations of the town. All three of these Scummy guys manipulated Town very well. This is their thread: Scum QT. ICENinja, Regfan, and havingfitz played masterfully.

So, Scum will use whatever abilities they've got, and so will the Town Cop and Doc. The Mafia Goon, which is basically a henchman, will carry out the kill.

At the start of Day 2 that person targetted by the goon will die, unless the Town Doctor protected that person as well.

Then Day 2 begins with added information for all of the Town to use to hunt down Scum through process of elimination.