Mafia, a game of psychological warfare- where communication and deception are the keys to victory.
What is mafia?
The general concept behind mafia is a conflict between an uninformed majority, and an informed minority. The game is divided between these two factions vying for power. The first faction is the uniformed majority; they are called the “town”. The second faction is the informed minority; they go by the title of “mafia”. The difference between the two is that the mafia goes into the game knowing each other, and knowing who is town. Meanwhile, town only knows that they themselves are town. Normal townies have no idea who else is town, and who is mafia, going into a game.
Aside from those differences the town and the mafia each have separate conditions that have to be met to win the game. For town to win they must identify who belongs to the mafia, and eliminate them out of the game. The mafia’s goal is to avoid getting caught, and gradually bump off the town until the town no longer outnumbers the mafia.
How is it played?
The game is broken into two different cycles: Day, and Night.
During the day all the players in the game talk amongst themselves and attempt to further their own faction’s win condition. During the discussion, players have the option to vote for someone they find suspicious enough to lynch and eliminate from the game, and the lynch will go through if one player gets the majority of the votes. Once a player has been lynched their true alignment is revealed, and the day ends. The Day Phase will also end if the allotted time for deciding who to lynch runs out. This is when the Night Phase begins.
During the Night Phase, all members of the town are “asleep”. So all discussion stops in the thread proper where the game takes place. The mafia then gathers in secret and decides who to night kill, and how to use make use any other night actions at their disposal. Any townies that have night abilities would also utilize their abilities at this time as well. Then once the time allotted to the night phase runs out it becomes day again. At the start of the next day the person modding the game announces who has died, and their alignment. Dead/lynched players leave the game and can no longer communicate with any of the living players.
The two cycles continue alternating until one faction wins.
A word on Roles
I suppose I should talk more about roles. Most player’s roles are considered "vanilla", meaning they have no special abilities, or modifiers. The mafia equivalent to a vanilla townie is a "Goon". Players with roles that have special abilities, typically utilize these abilities at night. To use their role’s ability the player must PM the mod of their intended target during the appropriate window of opportunity. Both factions can have special roles; some are even shared, meaning either side might have them.
There are many roles, these are some common ones:
Cop: Can investigate another player at night. The mod then informs them whether the target in question is town, or mafia.
Doctor: Can protect one other player at night, preventing them from dying.
Vigilante: Town aligned player that can perform a night kill.
Tracker: Town or Mafia aligned, selects a player, and sees who they visit at night.
Roleblocker: Town or Mafia, aligned player that chooses one player at night, preventing the player from using their night ability.
Strongarm: Mafia aliened player that makes the faction kill unblockable, (typically one time use).
GodFather: Mafia aligned player that appears innocent when inspected by a cop.
If you are having any trouble understanding how the game works then here is a simple but effective instructional flash.
http://mikeburnfire.deviantart.com/art/Mafia-Tutorial-31409818 (http://mikeburnfire.deviantart.com/art/Mafia-Tutorial-31409818)
Rules for proper play (MUST READ!!!)
1)To vote you must bold your choice, and leave it on a separate line. Example:
Vote: Grendel
2) You may do the same to UN-vote. Example:
UnVote: Grendel
Please keep in mind that you may move your vote where ever you like, but you only have one vote at any given time. Therefore moving you vote will automatically nullify your last vote.
3) It is always good to think about how close your vote puts somebody to a lynch. IF your vote puts a player one away from a lynch then please state so afterward. Because if a majority vote has been reached then it cannot be undone, and the next time I visit the thread that player will be lynched, and the day will end regardless what votes are placed after. Example:
In a 9 player game the majority decision requisites 5 votes. The player that placed the 4th vote should announce “L-1” in the same post. L-1 means that the slot is now 1 vote away from bieng lynched. This should help prevent accidental lynches.
4)Be an active poster. By signing up you are accepting a game to keep up with. If you sign up but then never contribute then you’re letting the other players down. If there are irl issues you’re contending with, please contact me instead of pretending the game doesn’t exist.
I’ve you’re buzy irl, but want to play. Shoot to post ever 24 hours with something game related. Even something as small as, “I think player x is town, and I still think that player y is scummy”
5)During the night phase nobody may post in the thread proper.
6) DO NOT talk about the game outside of the thread proper unless your role dictates otherwise. You may PM questions at anytime about mafia theory, but my advice won’t extend outside of that. The mafia may communicate outside of the thread proper with each other, but may not talk about the game outside of their faction.
7) DO NOT quote the role PM I send you. While a convincing fake role PM can be made, it’s still cheating from my perspective to quote your real one. You may paraphrase what your role is if, or when you claim it.
8) It is optimal to claim your role when put at L-1. You may claim at anytime, or even make a fake claim, but doing so when there is no need makes you a prime mafia target when otherwise you wouldn’t have been.
9) Each Day phase will last up to 1 irl week, 7 days, each Night phase will last 2 irl days. However, the day phase can be ended prematurely with a lynch.
10) Please don’t spam the game. While joke posting is all well and good, don’t forget you have to win the game at some point!
11) The term Mafia is interchangeable with the terms “Werewolf”, “Witch”, “killers”, “Mole”, and “Scum”. If somebody throws these terms around they are talking about the mafia. For example, being called “scum” is not an insult in this game; it means you’re a mafia suspect.
I personally prefer “mafia” because it stays true to flavor. While mechanically Mafia, Werewolf, and ToS are the same, and Spy fall are similar they all use a different flavor for their roles.
12) On a last note, remember this is a game where people lie to you, and you may have to lie to other people. You therefore, will be accused of lying at some point. Please don’t take things down to a personal/emotional level. It is a game after all.
I will create a new thread for the game itself once I can get enough players, my goal is 13. If I can’t get that many then I will close sign ups in 5 days. If I can’t get any more than 9 players to sign up then I won’t run the game.
To sign up, Denote it by typing "/IN"!
Also, please post your preferred name, or abbreviation, so I can use it when keeping track of every bodies votes later. :)
We need at least four more.
(Why I'm so stuck on having no less then nine players)
-Odd number set ups produce statistically more balanced win rates for both sides then even numbered ones. So that throws out 6, 8, 10, and 12.
-Also odd number sets ups are more likely to create a lylo (Lynch or lose), then a mlyo (Mislynch or lose). I would rather have a lylo because the winning team will be decided in the day phase instead of mlyo, where town loses at night. Losing at night is somewhat anti climatic, (and its more writing on my part).
Side note: Lylo would be 2 town to 1 mafia. Mlyo would be 3 town to one mafia. In mylo town doesn't lose when they mislynch, they lose that night instead.
-Proportionally I like a ratio of about a forth the population being mafia, but in any given game there has to be at least two mafia starting out. Anything below say... 7 players in a roster is incredibly mafia sided. Even then I'd say that 7 is still a bit too easy for the mafia.
In a perfectly played game of mafia with 7 players, 2 of which are mafia. The mafia win Day two. In a game with nine players the mafia win Day three. While it takes longer for the mafia to win, it prevents the game from being too short, and allots town some room to screw up. Which often happens lol.
But yeah, the magic roster numbers for me are 9, 11, and 13. I'm hoping for one of those three.
(white mage, how does this voting system work?)
You did read the OP right? x_x
Rules for proper play (MUST READ!!!)
1)To vote you must bold your choice, and leave it on a separate line. Example:
Vote: Grendel
2) You may do the same to UN-vote. Example:
UnVote: Grendel
Please keep in mind that you may move your vote where ever you like, but you only have one vote at any given time. Therefore moving you vote will automatically nullify your last vote.
3) It is always good to think about how close your vote puts somebody to a lynch. IF your vote puts a player one away from a lynch then please state so afterward. Because if a majority vote has been reached then it cannot be undone, and the next time I visit the thread that player will be lynched, and the day will end regardless what votes are placed after. Example:
In a 9 player game the majority decision requisites 5 votes. The player that placed the 4th vote should announce “L-1” in the same post. L-1 means that the slot is now 1 vote away from bieng lynched. This should help prevent accidental lynches.
4)Be an active poster. By signing up you are accepting a game to keep up with. If you sign up but then never contribute then you’re letting the other players down. If there are irl issues you’re contending with, please contact me instead of pretending the game doesn’t exist.
I’ve you’re buzy irl, but want to play. Shoot to post ever 24 hours with something game related. Even something as small as, “I think player x is town, and I still think that player y is scummy”
5)During the night phase nobody may post in the thread proper.
6) DO NOT talk about the game outside of the thread proper unless your role dictates otherwise. You may PM questions at anytime about mafia theory, but my advice won’t extend outside of that. The mafia may communicate outside of the thread proper with each other, but may not talk about the game outside of their faction.
7) DO NOT quote the role PM I send you. While a convincing fake role PM can be made, it’s still cheating from my perspective to quote your real one. You may paraphrase what your role is if, or when you claim it.
8) It is optimal to claim your role when put at L-1. You may claim at anytime, or even make a fake claim, but doing so when there is no need makes you a prime mafia target when otherwise you wouldn’t have been.
9) Each Day phase will last up to 1 irl week, 7 days, each Night phase will last 2 irl days. However, the day phase can be ended prematurely with a lynch.
10) Please don’t spam the game. While joke posting is all well and good, don’t forget you have to win the game at some point!
11) The term Mafia is interchangeable with the terms “Werewolf”, “Witch”, “killers”, “Mole”, and “Scum”. If somebody throws these terms around they are talking about the mafia. For example, being called “scum” is not an insult in this game; it means you’re a mafia suspect.
I personally prefer “mafia” because it stays true to flavor. While mechanically Mafia, Werewolf, and ToS are the same, and Spy fall are similar they all use a different flavor for their roles.
12) On a last note, remember this is a game where people lie to you, and you may have to lie to other people. You therefore, will be accused of lying at some point. Please don’t take things down to a personal/emotional level. It is a game after all.
Basically- type "vote:playerxyz", with the bold tag over it on its own line. Then to unvote you do the same thing except "Unvote:playerxyz"
Like
Vote:The Chef
Because they suck at cooking!
-------------------
Then I record it next time I post a Vote count.
-------------------
Later when you could be like, "Oh wait the chef is an npc, what am I doing?"
Unvote:The Chef
-------------------
And I'll note that change for later. :)
She looked at the badge in surprise. She couldn't tell if it was real, but Fable's reaction said enough.
"I can't say I fully trust it, as I can't really fully trust anyone right now, but even a phony cop is better than none right now.
Unvote: Max
"After this, I think I'm abstaining from voting today. We clearly need better info. Sorry, Max."
(Dang, thought we had until EOD, didn't realize we hit majority. Spoilered my post since it's kinda irrelevant now. x_x sorry, dude!)
(Oh. Well...... what do we do about him claiming cop then? Spoiler is for what I had typed up)
Rocco took a very close look at the badge before handing it to Max "Ok. How do we know it isn't a fake badge? I'm not saying you can't be a cop, but the only fur here I trust is Air"
Unvote: Max