The Mafia Discussion Thread

[Matt]

I did say right at the beginning of the game, which doesn't happen (much). And again there's no problem with "posting bullshit", I have a problem with "posting too much bullshit" and it turning people away from the game. I mean, it's hard enough to get people to be active in mafia games as it is.

[-A-]

I love lists, I love roleclaiming and I see them as a perfectly legitimate part of mafia that can be easily controlled by the mod. Bullshit-posting by outed dons is a matter of courtesy that's harder to legislate against. You can say 'the mafia can do everything they have to to win' but we have plenty of limitations. We don't allow people to post role PMs, we don't allow people to talk outside the game thread and we'd probably frown on someone hacking into the mod's computer to get a list of the roles. We can still set rules that over-ride the individual game to determine what makes for a good strategic game and what's fair to everyone involved.

You can say 'just ignore the outed don' but that's bad play. What you've got to do is read it and then try to ignore it. You're presented with the option of ignoring a large swathe of posts and feel like you're missing information; or read a whole load of bullshit. I don't have any problem at all with the don posting and trying to manipulate the townies (especially because he can still vote and that's an important tool) but it should be something significant and not just random rambling bullshit. Take RW in UNSC Mafia - he made a few posts of substance that were something like 'If I were in your position, I'd be remembering that...'

[MalaCloudy Black]

We'd probably frown on someone hacking into the mod's computer to get a list of the roles

Don't think anyone would go that far for mafia. Or have they already? Because that would be weird.

[Jimmy]

Mafia is serious business, you know.

[-A-]

I needed a way to keep my edge.

[naiwf]

In summary, unlynchable dons kill games when they're outed early.

You can't blame them for posting bullshit when it's a viable way of breaking the town's spirit and making the game easier for them. Mass roleclaims go against the spirit of the game? That's how most games are won. So if townies stop making lists of roleclaims and encouraging people to claim, we'll make mafia dons stop posting bullshit. Fair trade.

I'd sign up for that exchange.

[Sousa]

I've grown to love roleclaiming in games where the canon is vast enough to include a lot of different characters. It killed Blazing Saddles because pretty much every character in the movie was in the game, and I have a feeling it's going to kill Cartoon All-Stars, but a game like Movie Monsters forced everyone to think on their toes, and GoGo went so far as to claim a character that wasn't given to him as a safeclaim. Really, West Wing should stand as definitive proof that a claimfest doesn't always kill the town. It's the GM's responsibility to take steps to ensure that such activity doesn't give the town too strong of an edge, either by distributing safeclaims or just running smaller games than one would normally run.

Yes, that's right, folks. Next time you're planning a game and you go, "Hey, I NEED to include that character!"... hold up and decide if the game would be just as fun without him or her. That thinking is seriously the only thing that kept Bam Bam out of Greatest WCW Mafia.

So really, I think we as a community have started to take steps to ensure that the claim train doesn't overwhelm the game. Honestly, I'm more concerned--as I was going to mention in West Wing--about the trend toward town roles that alter the fundamentals of the game in a way that can't be anti-town. Cloudy's "Split gets the only vote" ability comes to mind, because there's no way he'd give that ability to Split if he were scum. It's a failsafe, and it lets players coast by and rest on their laurels because they can just go "Oh, I can alter the game's fundamentals in X way" and then immediately do so the next day.

I know the immediate response is going to be "Yeah, but D-Ex's ability like that didn't save him," but that's because WFS and I stumbled upon the bow that plays stok like a fiddle.

These sorts of considerations are actually why I pulled Welcome to Candor Falls from the ready list. I'm cutting out double-voters, two-day-in-a-row people, judges, and pretty much any ability that allows the player to jump in and change the game and thus confirm his towniness.

So there you go. I as a Mafia don will stop being a dick if GMs stop confirming players as town by giving them game-altering powahz. Or, at the very least, a scum player should sometimes have a double vote or a two-days-in-a-row power. Just to fuck with people.

[Ruki]

In YouPick1, I was mafia, and I was the judge. I just never used it.

[-A-]

I definitely agree on obviously pro-town abilities. What almost annoys me even more is the natural reaction to give mafia these kind of abilities just to sabotage that instinct - that's not the way to go about it because there's probably a reason those abilities are pro-town. Double voters (especially in small games) can be the equivalent of another mafioso for the team because it means the scum don't need to get to 50-50 to win, they can win when they're one player away from that.

The same applies to mafia investigators. Yes, it might be frustrating when people simply fall in line behind investigators, but the conclusion shouldn't be to add mafia investigators because they are ridiculously overbalanced. Even if we forget the possibility that you can lead the town down the garden path in-thread with your results, giving the scum investigation abilities is ludicrously over-powered. In WWE Mafia2 we'd basically identified every single player by about Day 4 and we knew most of the power roles. The only reason we lost was because Split went after my suspect play because he'd missed the fact that I'd been cleared by the town investigator. It was exactly the same in Devil's Rejects - we could investigate and kill and we'd pretty much worked out who everyone was rapidly. The best ways to play with the obsessive reliance on investigators are: conmen, faulty investigators or ... just don't put them in.

[-A-]

Actually, that reminds me of something else - the scum win condition. Sometimes it's just described as 'constitute 50% of the remaining players' but that's not always the case. The game has to continue until it's not longer possible for the town to lynch scum. That means that double voters, silencers and vote re-arrangers all affect when the scum have won. If you go into a day period and it's impossible for the town to get a majority vote against the mafia, that's a town loss. If the scum have 50% of the remaining players but there's a townie with a double vote, the day period has to continue. Any kind of enforced deadlock means a mafia victory.

[Matt]

I remember saying something like this in a game before and was told that I was wrong, the scum automatically won when they had equal players

[-A-]

You were definitely right. The 50-50 principle really only works infallibly in basic games.

[naiwf]

(N) to the Criminal Minds town.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Or any town, really.

[naiwf]

Has there been any good town play in 2009 yet outside of maybe NFL QB?

[Matt]

Some would argue that Mage Wars 1.5 was good town play, but really it was a lot of luck and the game being pretty heavily-favoured towards the town.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

West Wing was going well for the town until a point.

[naiwf]

Is that subtitled Disease Strikes? If so, I should probably take a look at it.

[Blaze09]

Yep naiwf, you hit it on the nail

[Jimmy]

Is that subtitled Disease Strikes? If so, I should probably take a look at it.

It is indeed. And it was a little in favour of the town.