The Mafia Discussion Thread

[DMN in the House]

Shit, Dawn of the Dead Mafia went well, so why the fuck not.

I've got the basics of the mafia and town down already, I just need to figure out where to slot in some of the other guys around at the time. I'll get to you on it, though. Might be a few days.

[SeanDMan]

If you need help creating a fundamentally unbalanced clusterfuck, I'm your man.

[DMN in the House]

LOL.

What I'm going to need help with is figuring out good abilities for guys. I've got to go through and figure out just who needs to be in, who adds flavor but isn't integral, and how to deal with some of the stuff going on in the fed at the time in terms of how to translate it into gameplay. Thats what I'll need help with, plus an extra person around because my computer time is sporadic at times.

[Matt]

If you just want a list of abilities, look in the resource thread about half way down the Mafia Cube.

[MalaCloudy Black]

LOL.

What I'm going to need help with is figuring out good abilities for guys. I've got to go through and figure out just who needs to be in, who adds flavor but isn't integral, and how to deal with some of the stuff going on in the fed at the time in terms of how to translate it into gameplay. Thats what I'll need help with, plus an extra person around because my computer time is sporadic at times.

Rob Black needs to be a Beloved Princess.

[naiwf]

Night killing people out of revenge is gay. Lynching them is acceptable however because you have to earn it by getting others to agree to do it.

NFL QB made me forget how awful EWB towns usually are, but this current crop of games reminded me about it all over again.

[Sousa]

Humble request: anyone who wants to play Mafia needs to at least read Mafia before so they have some idea of what they're getting themselves into.

[naiwf]

Humble request: anyone who wants to play Mafia needs to at least read Mafia before so they have some idea of what they're getting themselves into.

But being wrong about someone is a fate worst than death. If I never vote or air my suspicions, I can never be wrong

[Matt]

Unfortuantely on EWB being wrong usually leads to OMG SCUMZ unless you've been confirmed, and even then people begin to question the investigator's validity, so a second investigator has to look into him.

[naiwf]

That's why I don't rely on investigators. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong and should pay the consequences. If no one does anything though, then everyone suffers.

[-A-]

Unfortuantely on EWB being wrong usually leads to OMG SCUMZ unless you've been confirmed, and even then people begin to question the investigator's validity, so a second investigator has to look into him.

This is similar to what Blehschmidt was saying, though. If what you're saying is sensible but wrong, that's fine. If what you're saying is stupid but happens to be right, then it's still wrong. Your options aren't 'say nothing' or 'say something stupid.' Just because you can't say absolutely nothing doesn't mean you say any old random thing and use it as a defence.

[Matt]

Unfortuantely on EWB being wrong usually leads to OMG SCUMZ unless you've been confirmed, and even then people begin to question the investigator's validity, so a second investigator has to look into him.

This is similar to what Blehschmidt was saying, though. If what you're saying is sensible but wrong, that's fine. If what you're saying is stupid but happens to be right, then it's still wrong. Your options aren't 'say nothing' or 'say something stupid.' Just because you can't say absolutely nothing doesn't mean you say any old random thing and use it as a defence.

But what I was saying that it's not, unless you're like Sousa and can get away with it because people just blindly follow you. I'm also not entirely sure what you're saying in the rest of the post, it seems to have no relevance to what I said.

[naiwf]

Just to elaborate on what -A- is saying, the worst mistake that I see most towns making is that a bunch of people purposely try to be suspicious and lie about their ability, or lack thereof, or they make up gimmick posting restrictions to try and keep themselves in the game for as long as possible. They don't offer any opinions for fear of being wrong, when all they're doing is making the town more divided because they're playing for the scum in a roundabout way. I personally don't care if I win as long as whatever side I'm on does. A lot of people don't play that way and that's why the town success ratio here is so low, ESPECIALLY when vanillas don't offer themselves up. If you don't have an ability, don't want to voice an opinion and don't vote, then take the lynchwagon that's coming your way instead of making someone else die in your place who could actually help the team win.

[-A-]

Unfortuantely on EWB being wrong usually leads to OMG SCUMZ unless you've been confirmed, and even then people begin to question the investigator's validity, so a second investigator has to look into him.

This is similar to what Blehschmidt was saying, though. If what you're saying is sensible but wrong, that's fine. If what you're saying is stupid but happens to be right, then it's still wrong. Your options aren't 'say nothing' or 'say something stupid.' Just because you can't say absolutely nothing doesn't mean you say any old random thing and use it as a defence.

But what I was saying that it's not, unless you're like Sousa and can get away with it because people just blindly follow you. I'm also not entirely sure what you're saying in the rest of the post, it seems to have no relevance to what I said.

My point was - whether you actually turn out to be right or wrong is inconsequential as long as the way you originally explained your suspicion is logical. That's assuming it's not a very specific situation where one person claims to be vanilla and another that they tracked him (or similar.)

As for whether the likes of Sousa get better treatment, there are a couple of explanations. Firstly, Sousa is likely to have produced lots of original theories and thus a single mistake isn't necessarily proof of anything. If someone is quiet, simply going with the flow and then accuses one person who turns out to be town, then they are suspicious. There's a counter-point to that, anyway, in that the more high-profile you are the more people inherently distrust you despite all the evidence. Ace still jailed me in Criminal Minds despite pretty strong evidence I was town. Would he have done that with a new player? I doubt it. The more high-profile you are the more difficult is is for you to get 'cleared' because people assume you're good enough to be able to fake that kind of thing.

[Pizza]

Just to elaborate on what -A- is saying, the worst mistake that I see most towns making is that a bunch of people purposely try to be suspicious and lie about their ability, or lack thereof, or they make up gimmick posting restrictions to try and keep themselves in the game for as long as possible. They don't offer any opinions for fear of being wrong, when all they're doing is making the town more divided because they're playing for the scum in a roundabout way. I personally don't care if I win as long as whatever side I'm on does. A lot of people don't play that way and that's why the town success ratio here is so low, ESPECIALLY when vanillas don't offer themselves up. If you don't have an ability, don't want to voice an opinion and don't vote, then take the lynchwagon that's coming your way instead of making someone else die in your place who could actually help the team win.

I agree completely. I take pride in how many times I've been able to get nightkilled by the mafia as a vanilla townie, because it means the mafia is worried about me, and it means the power roles that could have died instead of me get another night to break the game open with, like in NFL QB where I died early as a vanilla after pushing the Essa lynch, and Sousa, Josh and naiwf were able to carry the town to a win from there with their powers. I hate getting lynched, but I don't mind getting nightkilled because it means I'm doing something right. And I've been wrong lots of times as town, and I've never been lynched for it, because I generally have good reasons for suspecting the people I suspect and I voice them. People don't get lynched for being wrong, they get lynched for poor reasoning behind their actions.

[DFF]

If everyone hates towns plays so much, why doesn't someone take a leaf out of -A-'s book with his newbie mafia and run a l33t Mafia with only the so-called top end players playing, effectively, newbie mafia and show those 'lesser' players how it should be done?

[naiwf]

If everyone hates towns plays so much, why doesn't someone take a leaf out of -A-'s book with his newbie mafia and run a l33t Mafia with only the so-called top end players playing, effectively, newbie mafia and show those 'lesser' players how it should be done?

If people would listen to reason you wouldn't need a game like that. Just read through the CHIKARA thread since the last night update and you'll see why it wouldn't matter. When you have a 5 person advantage and end up with no lynch about two days away from losing, despite mentioning the fact that a no lynch is the worst alternative about 4 or 5 times, it doesn't make a difference.

[-A-]

There are already a couple of games like that in the works. Zan was going to do some kind of invitational thing and Matt wants to do a tournament with seedings.

I don't think the problem is with the vast majority of players, anyway. All it takes to screw the town is for a couple of players to mess up. For the mafia, on the other hand, you can easily withstand 2 people playing shittily and win because you have 2 people who play well. Our average game size is still 20+ and even in a group of 12 townies there always seem to be at least two or three people who either totally disappear or say something so ridiculously stupid that the town would be wrong not to lynch them. It's not easy to see a way to fix that outside of having smaller games. If we don't let new guys into our games we'd never bring new people into the Cube and we'd just end up with the same 15-20 players in every game.

[Josh]

It's likely too little, too late, but I should really be replaced in all of the games I am currently playing in. My apologies to the mods of, and players in, all of those games. I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner.

[Pizza]

Ok, I kind of want someone who's for no-lynching early in games to explain why, because I see it come up a lot, and I'm convinced 99 times out of 100 a no lynch on day 1 is a bad move. Specifically -A-, because I feel he's one of the top ten or so players here, and I'd like to know why he supports it since it seems like such a fundamentally bad move to give up an opportunity to hit a scum.