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Old 02-04-2015, 09:38 PM   #1
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Interested in a Mafia Game?

"What's Mafia?"

Mafia is a party game (also known as Werewolf among other things) which at it's core is about a conflict between an informed minority and an uninformed majority.

"I know what Mafia is, why are you talking about it?"

What you may not know is that Mafia has a thriving presence online. While face to face Mafia has nice features online Mafia also offers a lot. It's so much more convenient for the members of the Mafia/Whatever faction to converse and plot when playing online. It also allows a focus on different skills. Everything is recorded, people have time to compose replies and aren't betrayed by physical tells. Finally it allows people to play it a bit at a time instead of reserving everyone's time to play a full game.

"Can you give a bit more detail than 'conflict between an informed minority and an uninformed majority'?"

Sure. Here's a quick description of the vanilla version. There are two factions Mafia and (innocent members of) Town. The game involves successive Night and Day phases. During the Night the Mafia debate who they should kill and then use their Night Action to kill them. With Day the dead person and what faction they belong to is revealed and then everyone debates and then publically votes (with the ability to switch votes at any time) for who they should Lynch which will also reveal what faction the dead person belonged to. The Mafia attempts to balance appearing to be an ordinary member of the town and swaying the vote to their advantage while the rest of the Town attempts to figure out who is a member of the Mafia so they can eliminate them in the Lynch with their greater numbers. Variants exist such as adding Roles like Cop which allows a player to detect what faction one player belongs to as a Night Action and/or additional factions besides Town and one Mafia but the gameplay still remains fundamentally similar.

Anything in green text is guaranteed to be true. Anything not in green text is not guaranteed to be true. Take paradoxical comments regarding the truth status of this statement as understood : ).

People Playing
...
I will play the role of the first person to be killed by the Mafia. I will have no other effect on the game.

Possible Roles and Role Modifiers
I will fill this out later since it depends on the number of players

A player can make one Action per phase. It is possible for them to not have abilities that allow them to make Actions for every phase. Group abilities such as the Mafia's Nightkill do not take up an action but must be performed by a specific player. Abilities can be limited to a specific number of uses during a game. Role PM's will mention any exceptions to these rules and any restrictions on legal targets.

Possible Effects of Actions
I will fill this out later since it depends on the number of players
.

The Town faction wins when there are no members of anti-Town factions alive. As it stands the only anti-Town faction that will be in this game is the Mafia. The Mafia faction wins when they form the majority of the alive players. If no one dies for two Days and two Nights the game will end in a draw between the Town and Mafia factions. Win Conditions can correspond with faciton wins or not. You are required to play to your Win Condition. The game will end when every player's Win Condition is satisfied or impossible to satisfy.

When the game starts you will receive a PM detailing your role. You may directly copy the text of your role PM to a post in the thread. You may counterfeit a role PM. Each role PM is phrased differently, even within the same role. A similar degree of difference is not guaranteed.

Once everyone has received their role PM I will post that Night 0 has begun. Each Night lasts 24 hours or upon receiving all Night Actions whichever is shorter. You may send me instructions for Night Actions during the Day. You may override Night Actions at any point until I receive the last Night Action. The mafia will Nightkill Sindri during Night 0. Other Night Actions will operate as normal even if it is the Night Action of a mafia player. I will resolve Night Actions once I have received all of them in order of priority starting with priority 0. Conflicting Night Actions within the same priority will be resolved in a random order.

After every night I will post flavour text and reveal anyone who died during the Night, the factional alignment of anyone who died during the Night and any other public information generated due to Night Actions. Flavour text is entirely incidental and carries no clues whatsoever.

After that post Day begins and everyone may post to the thread. Default Day length is 72 hours. Days will be extended or shortened by 24 hours with every majority vote for extend or shorten. At any point you may vote to lynch anyone, extend or shorten. Votes for extend or shorten are unrelated to lynching votes. Votes may be reassigned at any point.

Once the hours in a Day end you may not post. If anyone has more votes for lynching than anyone else they will be lynched. I will post flavour text for the lynching. This flavour text will also be entirely incidental and carry no clues whatsoever. I will reveal the factional alignment of anyone who is lynched.

You may not post about the game outside of the game. You may not PM other players about the game. You may PM me about the game including for private requests for rules clarifications.

You may not edit posts.

No one's role will involve a restriction on how they can post.

I will post a votecount once every 24 hour period. I will also post a votecount upon request.

For the following purposes colour the relevant text. Votes for lynching and Extend/Shorten are not legal without colouring. Do not use colour outside of the following purposes.

Lynch Vote: Red (Red)
Extend/Shorten Vote: Blue (Blue)
Question for the GM: Cyan (Cyan)

I will colour text notifying of phase changes as purple (purple).

The Mafia has access to it's own chat. We will use Quicktopic for this unless there are objections. These chats can be used at any point, including during the Day. Players outside of the Mafia may also have access to separate chats. Dead players will also have their own chat. These will be handled similarly.

Last edited by Sindri; 02-08-2015 at 12:12 AM.
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Old 02-05-2015, 02:20 AM   #2
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

I've got this PM-offer that I'm not sure if I can refuse.
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Old 02-05-2015, 02:48 PM   #3
ericthered
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Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

Mafia -- I love that game. I've never seen it done anyway but face to face, so I wonder about how well it works-- I generally rely on psychological clues and interpersonal relationships (who would kill so and so). But I suppose with enough grease it should work out. the roles will help a lot.
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Old 02-05-2015, 02:55 PM   #4
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Mafia -- I love that game. I've never seen it done anyway but face to face, so I wonder about how well it works-- I generally rely on psychological clues and interpersonal relationships (who would kill so and so). But I suppose with enough grease it should work out. the roles will help a lot.
Indeed it can be a rather different game from in person in some respects. Roles do help a lot to prevent conversation stalling.
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Old 02-05-2015, 03:16 PM   #5
Poonbahbah
 
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Location: in or about Tucson, Az
Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

I don't know if I'll join this but I will say I enjoyed playing a few rounds of mafia at this website. It also has a good rundown of the rules for those not familiar.

One question I have would be how much time are we going to have for each day/nightperiod? Never having played without roles I imagine it's much harder to figure out who is in the mafia.
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Old 02-05-2015, 04:28 PM   #6
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Poonbahbah View Post
I don't know if I'll join this but I will say I enjoyed playing a few rounds of mafia at this website. It also has a good rundown of the rules for those not familiar.

One question I have would be how much time are we going to have for each day/nightperiod? Never having played without roles I imagine it's much harder to figure out who is in the mafia.
I'll post specifics along with the rest of the format (how many players and how much information people have to juggle is something I want to know when deciding that) but I prefer a fairly slow paced style where an in game day can take multiple real world days to finish. However there will be a system where people can extend or reduce the deadline so that people (even people with jobs and in significantly different timezones) have a chance to respond to the discussion and so days don't last longer than they need to.
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Old 02-07-2015, 05:01 PM   #7
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

I've edited the first post with what rules I can without knowing the final number of players.

I'd really like at least six players. That allows for two mafioso so there is no chance of the Mafia being eliminated day 1 with 1/3 of the town being mafioso which can be balanced with role strength on the town side.

I'll just handle the role complexity myself. I'll try to show off some of the role mechanics while not letting things get to crazy.
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Old 03-05-2015, 02:46 PM   #8
acajic
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Default Re: Interested in a Mafia Game?

What's wrong with the game of Mafia?

The game contains within itself a confusing contradiction…

On one hand, a player is encouraged to approach the game with enthusiasm, competitive spirit and authentic will to ensure victory for his team. On the other hand, a player should not be too competitive, because there are always so many ways how he can easily cheat and thus acquire a non-compensable advantage.

So, basically, while playing you should be a “good sport” and play with the goal of making the game as much fun for everybody.

Also, playing conventionally presumes that a large group of people must remain in the same room for a long period of time. Moderator must be very experienced not to ruin the game by disclosing sensitive information.

These things are the reasons why the game seems to have stayed marginalized as mere children’s make-believe.

There are some online sites which attempted improve some elements of the gameplay. But they still have most all of the mentioned problems.

For example, all online sites where Mafia can be played also have an entire page with rules about what is allowed and what is not allowed during the game. “You shouldn’t use external messaging apps, shouldn’t disclose your communication with moderator, shouldn’t take screenshots and share them with other players…”

Recently, I created a promising online Mafia game that I designed specifically to eliminate the necessity for all these rules.

The goal was to make a game where everything is allowed and nothing gets broken because of it. The result is effectively a platform for studies in psychology, sociology and game theory. And above all, a truly exciting game.

This version of the game can be played quite differently than the convetional one. The recommended way of playing is in real-time. That is, as the days and nights pass in real life, so do they within the game.
The people you meet every day at work, in the classroom, in the neighbourhood are in the game with you… and they are dying, every morning, one by one… you meet with them every day, just like you normally would. Only now, there is one additional news every morning and every evening.

The link to the game is: http://exposemafia.com


P.S. This is my personal project. If you are interested in what this game is in more detail (or what it could be), please contact me on my email address listed in the bottom of the game site.

Last edited by acajic; 04-29-2015 at 02:33 PM.
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