The Mafia Discussion Thread

[Plubby]

Someone oughta do a Smokey & The Bandit mafia, just so the mafia can be called "Scumbums". Even though it'd make more sense for the town to be called that, since, y'know, Buford T. Justice is the villain of the film and the one constantly calling The Bandit, Cledus & co. that. And it'd have to be a super tiny game, unless you pad it with roles like "Unnamed Trucker Who Helped The Bandit Out"

Sousa was Junior, Scumbum-Aligned Bumbling Son Of Buford T. Justice

Do it. A thousand times do it. And pre-sign me up.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Pft, I can barely play mafia games much less RUN one. Also, just throwin' it out here, someone should do a Pup Named Scooby-Doo mafia just so one of the players can get a Red Herring role. Obviously, he'd be a roleblocker of some sort. Or no, maybe a conman. I don't know.

[Sousa]

Red Herring would clearly be a miller.

Also one role should go to the perpetual doowop singers in the background. scoo BEE scoo BEE doo... scoooooobiddydoo BEE scoo BEE doo... scoooooooobiddy DOO.

Edited February 8, 2009 by Sousa Hunts Sickos

[R.W.]

Town play on EWB continues to be awful. I contribute it to people caring too much about surviving themselves that they've actually stopped thinking, thus making them easy to manipulate.

[RoyWill Rumble]

Let me guess... Final Fantasy?

[R.W.]

No, just generally every game.

[Sousa]

I'd think he's talking about Inquisition.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

The only way a town wins anymore is if the mafia is completely incompetent or the town lucks into it.

[naiwf]

Town play on EWB continues to be awful. I contribute it to people caring too much about surviving themselves that they've actually stopped thinking, thus making them easy to manipulate.

I blame the survival standings. The games I "won" were the ones I did nothing because I had no abilities. The times I had valid info I shared it and helped the town by outing people, even though it meant I was going to die shortly thereafter. Most people are only worried about getting to the end even if it means that the other side is going to win.

[R.W.]

Inquistion, DC, Final Fantasy, CFOVM, take your pick. Town play around here sucks.

[-A-]

I agree and I think part of it is because games are still pretty big. Particularly at the beginning of games, there still seems to be a sheepish attitude of waiting for someone to produce some decent logic and then everyone piling on. Bandwagons are gone, but the 'keep you mouth shut and wait for someone to come up with something you can agree with' attitude is still there.

There's also the idea that you can go after someone for having a different opinion to you. I can totally understand that people are against No Lynches, or against pressure votes, but just because someone supports them doesn't make them scummy. There's an instinctive confrontational attitude that makes people oppose those that have perfectly justified stances that aren't the same as yours. This is a game about spotting scum - unless you can see a reason why someone would fake an opinion of this kind to advance a scummy agenda, just accept it.

EDIT: Yeah, looking back I can't really see any examples of Towns that rocked. Some people suggested Mythology Mafia, but as far as I can see the Hydra imploded, the Titans didn't play well and RW dragged the entire town to victory by playing a power role perfectly. There aren't any examples of Towns as a group playing well. Maybe WMIIA because a few guys chipped in to out scum, but we still lost.

Edited February 9, 2009 by -A-

[Hajjhowe]

I mentioned this before. People are so focused on not dying and don't realize that helping the town win is more important than personal survival. We really need to update this was a 'Guys on winning sides' if that's what it takes to stop people from being a bunch of pussies.

[Sousa]

Yeah, looking back, Tactics Mafia stands out as one of the only truly exemplary town performances of late. And maybe Jobber Mafia 3, but they were kind of helped along by the McMahon Logging Company's abject refusal to do anything right.

[-A-]

As for DC Mafia - there were a couple of things that I wanted to say at the time that I didn't because it wouldn't really have helped me. There's a noticeable change at some point near the end of the game where you switch from 'looking for scummy people' to 'looking for the best lynch target.' You can only get so far by avoiding suspicion - at some point the inactives, the newbies and those who haven't roleclaimed will be gone and being not that scummy isn't enough.

It was obvious that MPH and Hajj were the scummiest targets, but because the remaining Intergang members could believably roleclaim characters extremely unlikely to be Intergang the suspicion moved onto those with neutral roleclaims - WFS, SSTB and RW. At that point, RW, who did you think was the other scum apart from MPH? The correct play would've been to lynch MPH much earlier and that's probably where the town lost the game.

I'm not sure it's just the Survival Standings that stop people sticking their necks out, either. You obviously don't want to draw suspicion onto yourself when you're townie because that might lead to the group lynching a townie and losing ground. However, you simply can't get anything done whether pro-town or not without arousing suspicion. You'd never be able to push for someone's lynch unless you're 100% sure they're scum because you'll be implicated if they're town. You can never defend anyone because people will immediately go 'Well, if he's town we know who to look at, don't we?' You cannot do anything that's good for the town without risking appearing scummy.

EDIT: And this works for scum as well. You can't play a reserved game and try to make yourself appear as pro-town as possible because then you can't get anything done. You have to toe the line between not getting yourself lynched/investigated and actually advancing your agenda. In DC mafia I totally abused all the circumstantial evidence around me to push lynches that helped my position. Admittedly I'd never have been able to do this if it weren't for the fact that I was in an amazing position - effectively having two night-kills and being part of a group that was improbable in canon. For a scum player, any townie credibility you earn is currency you can trade in to advance your scummy agenda. If you play a solidly pro-town but end up getting lynched based on nothing then maybe you should've tried to work a bit harder to get yourself in a better position. This has the added effect of keeping you away from the scum stereotype of 'quiet, but occasionally voicing original suspicions and voting for your team-mates early.'

Edited February 9, 2009 by -A-

[Marcos]

Town play on EWB continues to be awful. I contribute it to people caring too much about surviving themselves that they've actually stopped thinking, thus making them easy to manipulate.

I blame the survival standings. The games I "won" were the ones I did nothing because I had no abilities. The times I had valid info I shared it and helped the town by outing people, even though it meant I was going to die shortly thereafter. Most people are only worried about getting to the end even if it means that the other side is going to win.

What I was going to suggest was to try and implement a town/mafia MVP rankings. Basically instead of who survived at the end of the game, we get the game runner to offer up a player from the town who was MVP for the town and an MVP for the mafia/cult/individual. It means it doesn't matter when you are lynched/killed if you have played a great game then you will get recognised for it. It will also show us who the best players are when playing as town, or playing as mafia. I don't know if it would help bring players forward, but at least they wouldn't be able to get their names of the Survival Standings just by being quiet and doing nothing.

[-A-]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. The Survival Standings can stay, we just add something else. The Power 10 helps that as well.

... speaking of which, what's the schedule for that, when does the new one start?

[D-Extreme]

the results for the mafia power 10 thread was posted up last Jan 22

So I'm thinkin the week before that we had the voting. So I guess either we should put up a new one this week or next week to vote for the

Jan 09/Feb 09 Mafia Power 10

[Pesci]

It should probably go up on Tuesday. Since that'll be the 10th and all.

I don't buy that the Survival Standings have anything to do with it either. Towns were awful long before I ever made that topic.

[TEOL]

It should probably go up on Tuesday. Since that'll be the 10th and all.

I don't buy that the Survival Standings have anything to do with it either. Towns were awful long before I ever made that topic.

If only people would treat it the way it was treated when you first made it, i.e. as a fun little statistics thing that wasn't actually important or anything. It's not meant as an insult when I say that I don't care where on the standings I am, cause I like it and I follow it, but some people around here take it way too seriously.

[-A-]

Power 10 > Survival Standings for ego massage. Getting nice comments is far better than pure numbers. And fuck the Scummies up the arse :@