Pulse Mafia III - FAQ & Signups [OPEN]
Jun 26, 2015 10:39:06 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2015 10:39:06 GMT -5
RESOURCES
Mafia Wiki: wiki.mafiascum.net/
Tutorial: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/610085
Green Baron's MLB All-Star Mafia [OPEN - TBD]
Replacements:
QUEUE
*To apply for a modding position, leave a comment in this thread saying you would like to mod a game. If it is your first time modding, send a pm to @touch with the title and setup of your game for consideration and approval. If you have moderated a game before, you may opt to mod independently. Games will be approved on a first come, first serve basis.
[Information on games from prior seasons can be found in the original Mafia Signup threads linked in the GENERAL INFO section below]
GENERAL INFO
Welcome to Pulse Mafia III! It's just like Pulse Mafia 1 & 2, so if you've played before then you're all set! If you haven't, this is the thread where you'll find useful information such as the FAQ (under construction), the current Signups and Queue, and other useful Resources for new players. There may be a few new things added to help keep things organized. If there's anything you don't understand, check out the FAQ. If you can't find your answer there, ask in here!
If you have never played and are interested in playing, I highly recommend you read this post so that you aren't going into the game blind. The best way to learn is to actually play, so I encourage you to sign up and get started! Here's a rather expansive guide written by the OG Game mod, Xiivi:
Coin flips:
You flip a coin (that is guaranteed to be heads 50% of the time and tails 50% based on chance alone) and it comes up either heads or tails.
Flip 1: Heads
This result had a 50% chance of happening.
Flip 2: Heads
This result had a 50% chance of happening.
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads
This result had a 25% chance of happening.
HOWEVER
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails
This result had a 25% chance of happening.
Let's jump ahead a bit:
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Heads
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
BUT GUESS WHAT
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
ALSO
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Tails, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
AND DON'T FORGET
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Tails, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Tails, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
Notice the pattern here? It's not that the results of flip 1 through 7 make the 8th flip any crazier. It's that as you continue to flip the coin, you create a sequence of events that is unlikely and hard to duplicate at will; but that sequence of events is JUST AS unlikely and hard to duplicate as all other combinations you could have gotten.
When you factor in a game such as mafia, where your chances of getting town is normally 70+%, using the roles players have had in previous games to attempt to determine their role in the current game is no better than just randomly throwing a dart and hoping for the best. You may indeed be right! But it's only because your random vote happened to correspond with the random generator this go around. Not to mention, the fact that the % of getting a non-town role varies in each game, and the fact that the player lists vary in each game, it's nothing more than a shot in the dark to chase probability.
I hope this helps players learn to play the game as this is a roadblock many seem to get stuck on!
How to successfully begin the game with no information:
When you begin a game of mafia, you are beginning in the dark. Yes, some roles may have information that others don't, but this is never to be depended upon and won't happen too often. The biggest issue is getting a feel for other players. What is the best way to get a feel for a player? The best way is to force that player to make a stance. On something, anything related to the game. Why is it important to get someone to take a stance? Because it provides something you can look back at and judge their consistency in their stances as the game progresses. The easiest stance for anyone to take, is of course their vote. A vote is something that is concrete in the game. Remember: when you accuse someone of being non-town and push for their lynch, they will ALWAYS have a response and defense. It is your goal to determine if that response and defense is convincing. The thing about voting is, that that is something that CANNOT be twisted by words. Someone can say something and explain whatever their motive was behind it true or false; same with their vote. What a vote provides though, is something that cannot be argued against. "X voted Y." Once the vote is cast, even if changes, the fact is it is something that happened that words can never change the reality of it. It allows for this: "X voted Y as the first vote in the game. X unvoted Y when Y had a couple votes on during Day 1. On Day 2 Y eventually ended up getting lynched, with X as the hammer vote. Y flipped mafia." It provides a sequence of interactions between the two players that can be researched and analyzed. Was X's RVS vote on Y an early attempt to push them apart? Did X unvote Y once a wagon had started in hopes that it would deflate and a mislynch would occur? Did X hammer Y when the lynch appeared inevitable to attempt and look more town by hammering a mafia? These are all things that need to be judged and analyzed, and you can determine the answers to these questions based on what X commented on at the time about Y and what commented on about X and so on and so far. What voting does is leave a paper trail for you to follow and analyze the events surrounding these votes. That is why it is important to urge/pressure all players to vote at the beginning of the game during RVS. Simply allowing a player to never vote, and only pop in with a non-informational post every now and then provides no stances. It provides a non-entity. It essentially allows a player to remove themselves from the game and remain an unknown. If a player is not voting or adding anything; pressure them to vote. If they only appear once every other day to avoid their prod, leave them a question to answer for when they return. Make sure that that question forces them to take a stance, on something about the actual game. If you cannot draw all players into the game, your chances of losing increase.
How to avoid being useless as town (or as a player in general):
If you never vote or comment on anything pertaining to the game that leads to you having a stance; then you are being useless. If others cannot read you or your stances, then others have no reason to keep you alive. You are simply an unknown. The overall balance of mafia allows for town to miss a few times without losing outright. If town determines on the first day that you are playing in a manner where you will always be an unknown; then it is beneficial to the town to remove you from the game to force a better player field for when the chance to mislynch and not lose is gone. Luckily it's very easy to not be useless! Simply vote and comment on something, anything. Begin the game with a random vote and never unvote throughout the whole day phase, instead only change your vote as necessary throughout the day. Simply once the game seems to have moved past its initial Random Voting Stage, keep your vote on your highest suspected person at all times. Even if it is the tiniest suspicion, keep your vote there. If your highest suspicion changes; change your vote to the new highest suspicion. If you keep this up, you will provide a paper trail for all other players to follow. Players will then be able to judge your intent behind your votes and reasoning. In mafia, you WILL be wrong at some point. Being wrong should not be something that prevents you from voicing your suspicions and defending those you believe to be town. If you are wrong, then it is up to other players to judge whether you were wrong because you are mafia or wrong because you are a townie making your best effort. Others will be wrong too. This means other will vote for you at some point, and they of course will be wrong. Simply explain and defend yourself. If someone can't be convinced, then don't let it discourage you. Continue attempting to push for your most suspicious subject and explain why they should be lynched over you. Do not get lost in only defending yourself; remember that your win condition as town is not to survive, it is to get all non-towns lynched. This means that pushing for the lynch of your top suspect should be your highest priority at all times, even if there is pressure on you. Defend yourself to the best of your ability, and continue pushing for who you believe should be lynched. Remember that non-town may be the ones pushing for your lynch, so do not feel discouraged because you are being pressured and voted. Also remember that even if you are mislynched, if you have continued voting and taking stances throughout the game, then you have left a paper trail for others to follow and analyze. The sole outcome of your lynch might only be that it makes one person very townie. That is still very useful as if townies can identify other townies, then process of elimination can be used to narrow the field for suspects. If you are having trouble narrowing down your suspects, instead of scum-hunting, look through the paper trails of living players and go town-hunting. If you can reasonably assume that someone is town, then you have narrowed your search via process of elimination. Also do not be afraid to change your opinion of anyone. One day a player might look like guaranteed town to you, and the next day when you reanalyze things they look like the most villainous mafioso ever. Be open to change your opinion, simply make sure you do so logically and back up your stances logically. If you are non-town, you simply want to approach the game as if you are a townie and come across as genuine as possible. You of course cannot be genuine, because you know the answers of who is not-aligned-with-your-faction (the majority of which will be town) and thus will have the lie about your suspicions. Simply attempt to be as genuine and convincing as possible.
Always use your power role unless you can think of a good reason not to:
The following are good reasons: "This ability is one-shot, thus I should use it when the time is right."
The following are not good reasons: "I am a vigilante and don't want to use my power because if I kill a townie I might look bad!", "I am a doctor and I don't trust anyone enough to protect them!", "I am a cop and I just can't decide to investigate!" "My role has a side effect when I use it which is bad and meant to balance the power of my role!" "I just don't see how my role is useful!"
Your reason is usually bad. Use the tools provided to you to increase your faction's chances of winning.
Grr..why can't I post screenshots & grr why does yadda yadda rule exist?
Because it's not hard for people to fake things like a mock-up of a mafia quicktopic or someone's post that they 'deleted'. Essentially, screenshots have been used in gamebreaking ways in the past, and thus banning them outright helps keeps the game fair to all players. This is what most rules exist for, to allow all players to just play the game and have fun. It's not fun if someone is PMing non-players and dead-players secretly and asking for their opinions on who is mafia. It's not fun for people to go back and delete/edit their old posts that might incriminate them as mafia. Etc...
Should we always wait to lynch until the deadline so we have the most information and stances possible? What's wrong with just quicklynching every day?
Both of these are perfectly reasonable; provided you have gotten information out of all players at least once each day phase. That is, before quicklynching, you should always allow for all players to check in and make a vote/stance/relay information they might have gotten in the night phase. You only need to quicklynch when you have very strong suspicion or a slip-up to follow-up on. Similarly, it is perfectly fine to use up all of the allotted time, provided you are actually using it. If you aren't having arguments and having votes going around and people making stances, then waiting for the deadline to come is simply losing your sense of urgency. There should always be a sense of urgency "I have this much time to convince a majority of players that X needs to be lynched. If I wait until the last minute, everyone's votes might be spread out and we won't be able to come to a consensus quick enough and miss our lynch." Discuss as much or as little as necessary, provided you keep aware of the faults of each extreme.
Is No Lynch ever a good option?
No Lynch is a good option in what is called a MYLO situation. MYLO simply means, if you mislynch, you lose. Take for example, you have four players. Let's say you know there are no Independent roles in the set-up and that there is only one mafia. If you have four players, and town hasn't lost, then only one of the remaining players can be mafia (as if there were two or more, then mafia would win). In this situation you are in MYLO. If you mislynch, you lose as lynching a townie and then having a townie nightkilled results in mafia endgaming the remaining townie. This means, from your perspective, you have three votes and a 33% chance of being correct by voting randomly. If you No Lynch in this situation, then a town player will be night killed and the next day will be a LYLO scenario. LYLO simply means, you must lynch correctly or lose. In this LYLO scenario, you now only have two options to vote, meaning your chances of voting a mafia based on random voting is 50%. Thus the odds of lynching the final mafia member has increased. Thus No Lynch during MYLO is good. In addition, Kingsmaker scenarios are ones where it is no longer possible for town to win by lynching. A scenario would be a final three players with one mafia person from one mafia family, and another mafia person from an opposing mafia family along with a single townie. Essentially the townie functions as a Kingsmaker, if he votes one of the mafia players, then the other mafia wins. If he gets lynched, the both mafias would joint-win in this situation by most standard mechanics. A No Lynch allows for the possibility of the mafia killing one another at night and the townie being the only one alive and winning. This will not happen as both of the anti-towns could simply lynch the townie instead of No Lynching and risking a loss. Thus it is purely Kingsmaker and town has likely arrived to this unwinnable situation by incorrectly lynching too many times before. In the previous game, we had a very fun Kingsmaker MYLO situation. The town correctly assumed that the most possible players in the mafia faction could be two. They also correctly assumed that there was an Independent player. Recognising this and doing the math, they could have realised that no lynching offered a more winnable scenario than lynching.
Ugh why was that role so powerful? That was so unfair!
All factions need an equal chance of winning. If there is only a town and a mafia, then the game needs to be balanced such that via random voting town would win 50% of the scenarios and mafia would win 50% of the scenarios; this includes scenarios with night actions affecting things. When you add a Cop to a set-up, you've just added scenarios where the Cop randomly catches a Mafia on Night 1, randomly clears a Townie on Night 1; etc... When you add a Cop and a Roleblocker, you now added more scenarios where the cop can be roleblocked and such. Everytime you at a role, the numbers chance and thus things need to be done to balance it to preserve the equal chance of winning. When you add an Independent, now you've added a single player who deserves an equal chance of winning as every other player; and thus you've added a role that needs a 33% chance of winning all by itself. For a mafia or town faction; a single mafia or a single townie being lynched won't cause their faction to suddenly lose. However one an Independent is lynched; they can no longer win and have lost. This makes Independent roles hard to play and hard to balance, especially if the Independent role does not have a method for killing/removing other players from the game directly. The roles that look the most intimidating or the strongest, normally look that way because at their core they are very difficult to win with and need to be amped up to have a fair shot at winning and not just some impossible role given to someone for kicks to see if they can pull off the impossible.
Really how much do I need to post?
If your posts have votes and stances and good amounts of information of your thoughts and provides you with interactions between other players; then you only need to post within the activity limits. If your posts aren't that exhaustive, then you likely need to be posting more frequently. A informative post once in the morning and an informative post once in the evening is generally plenty for a low-activity player to maintain a healthy presence in the game. Stopping in to say Hi or say something unrelated to the game is simply prod-dodging and makes you useless.
FAQ [Under Construction]
UPDATES
Below is a comprehensive changelist to help understand formatting within this thread. You can click the Spoiler Tag below to expand.
Mafia Wiki: wiki.mafiascum.net/
Tutorial: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/610085
Green Baron's MLB All-Star Mafia [OPEN - TBD]
- @jb23241
- @drag27
- Devil Marlena Nylund
- Albie
- [Player 05]
- [Player 06]
- [Player 07]
- [Player 08]
- [Player 09]
- [Player 10]
- [Player 11]
- [Player 12]
- [Player 13]
- [Player 14]
Replacements:
- @antigonerising
QUEUE
- Az's Bedlam Asylum Mafia (Thread)
- Cynthia's Identity Mafia (Thread)
- Kunt's Tutorial Mafia (Thread)
- Green Baron's MLB All-Star Mafia
- ry4n & Zeebz's ??? Mafia
- popstop & josh's ??? Mafia
- @touch's ??? Mafia (Bastard)
- Libra's ??? Mafia
*To apply for a modding position, leave a comment in this thread saying you would like to mod a game. If it is your first time modding, send a pm to @touch with the title and setup of your game for consideration and approval. If you have moderated a game before, you may opt to mod independently. Games will be approved on a first come, first serve basis.
[Information on games from prior seasons can be found in the original Mafia Signup threads linked in the GENERAL INFO section below]
GENERAL INFO
Welcome to Pulse Mafia III! It's just like Pulse Mafia 1 & 2, so if you've played before then you're all set! If you haven't, this is the thread where you'll find useful information such as the FAQ (under construction), the current Signups and Queue, and other useful Resources for new players. There may be a few new things added to help keep things organized. If there's anything you don't understand, check out the FAQ. If you can't find your answer there, ask in here!
If you have never played and are interested in playing, I highly recommend you read this post so that you aren't going into the game blind. The best way to learn is to actually play, so I encourage you to sign up and get started! Here's a rather expansive guide written by the OG Game mod, Xiivi:
Nov 20, 2012 9:25:11 GMT -5 @xiivi said:
How to understand math & mafia:Coin flips:
You flip a coin (that is guaranteed to be heads 50% of the time and tails 50% based on chance alone) and it comes up either heads or tails.
Flip 1: Heads
This result had a 50% chance of happening.
Flip 2: Heads
This result had a 50% chance of happening.
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads
This result had a 25% chance of happening.
HOWEVER
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails
This result had a 25% chance of happening.
Let's jump ahead a bit:
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Heads
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
BUT GUESS WHAT
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Heads, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
ALSO
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Heads, Flip 5: Tails, Flip 6: Heads, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
AND DON'T FORGET
Flip 1: Heads, Flip 2: Tails, Flip 3: Heads, Flip 4: Tails, Flip 5: Heads, Flip 6: Tails, Flip 7: Heads, Flip 8: Tails
This result has a ~.4% chance of happening. This is EXTREMELY unlikely to ever occur.
Notice the pattern here? It's not that the results of flip 1 through 7 make the 8th flip any crazier. It's that as you continue to flip the coin, you create a sequence of events that is unlikely and hard to duplicate at will; but that sequence of events is JUST AS unlikely and hard to duplicate as all other combinations you could have gotten.
When you factor in a game such as mafia, where your chances of getting town is normally 70+%, using the roles players have had in previous games to attempt to determine their role in the current game is no better than just randomly throwing a dart and hoping for the best. You may indeed be right! But it's only because your random vote happened to correspond with the random generator this go around. Not to mention, the fact that the % of getting a non-town role varies in each game, and the fact that the player lists vary in each game, it's nothing more than a shot in the dark to chase probability.
I hope this helps players learn to play the game as this is a roadblock many seem to get stuck on!
How to successfully begin the game with no information:
When you begin a game of mafia, you are beginning in the dark. Yes, some roles may have information that others don't, but this is never to be depended upon and won't happen too often. The biggest issue is getting a feel for other players. What is the best way to get a feel for a player? The best way is to force that player to make a stance. On something, anything related to the game. Why is it important to get someone to take a stance? Because it provides something you can look back at and judge their consistency in their stances as the game progresses. The easiest stance for anyone to take, is of course their vote. A vote is something that is concrete in the game. Remember: when you accuse someone of being non-town and push for their lynch, they will ALWAYS have a response and defense. It is your goal to determine if that response and defense is convincing. The thing about voting is, that that is something that CANNOT be twisted by words. Someone can say something and explain whatever their motive was behind it true or false; same with their vote. What a vote provides though, is something that cannot be argued against. "X voted Y." Once the vote is cast, even if changes, the fact is it is something that happened that words can never change the reality of it. It allows for this: "X voted Y as the first vote in the game. X unvoted Y when Y had a couple votes on during Day 1. On Day 2 Y eventually ended up getting lynched, with X as the hammer vote. Y flipped mafia." It provides a sequence of interactions between the two players that can be researched and analyzed. Was X's RVS vote on Y an early attempt to push them apart? Did X unvote Y once a wagon had started in hopes that it would deflate and a mislynch would occur? Did X hammer Y when the lynch appeared inevitable to attempt and look more town by hammering a mafia? These are all things that need to be judged and analyzed, and you can determine the answers to these questions based on what X commented on at the time about Y and what commented on about X and so on and so far. What voting does is leave a paper trail for you to follow and analyze the events surrounding these votes. That is why it is important to urge/pressure all players to vote at the beginning of the game during RVS. Simply allowing a player to never vote, and only pop in with a non-informational post every now and then provides no stances. It provides a non-entity. It essentially allows a player to remove themselves from the game and remain an unknown. If a player is not voting or adding anything; pressure them to vote. If they only appear once every other day to avoid their prod, leave them a question to answer for when they return. Make sure that that question forces them to take a stance, on something about the actual game. If you cannot draw all players into the game, your chances of losing increase.
How to avoid being useless as town (or as a player in general):
If you never vote or comment on anything pertaining to the game that leads to you having a stance; then you are being useless. If others cannot read you or your stances, then others have no reason to keep you alive. You are simply an unknown. The overall balance of mafia allows for town to miss a few times without losing outright. If town determines on the first day that you are playing in a manner where you will always be an unknown; then it is beneficial to the town to remove you from the game to force a better player field for when the chance to mislynch and not lose is gone. Luckily it's very easy to not be useless! Simply vote and comment on something, anything. Begin the game with a random vote and never unvote throughout the whole day phase, instead only change your vote as necessary throughout the day. Simply once the game seems to have moved past its initial Random Voting Stage, keep your vote on your highest suspected person at all times. Even if it is the tiniest suspicion, keep your vote there. If your highest suspicion changes; change your vote to the new highest suspicion. If you keep this up, you will provide a paper trail for all other players to follow. Players will then be able to judge your intent behind your votes and reasoning. In mafia, you WILL be wrong at some point. Being wrong should not be something that prevents you from voicing your suspicions and defending those you believe to be town. If you are wrong, then it is up to other players to judge whether you were wrong because you are mafia or wrong because you are a townie making your best effort. Others will be wrong too. This means other will vote for you at some point, and they of course will be wrong. Simply explain and defend yourself. If someone can't be convinced, then don't let it discourage you. Continue attempting to push for your most suspicious subject and explain why they should be lynched over you. Do not get lost in only defending yourself; remember that your win condition as town is not to survive, it is to get all non-towns lynched. This means that pushing for the lynch of your top suspect should be your highest priority at all times, even if there is pressure on you. Defend yourself to the best of your ability, and continue pushing for who you believe should be lynched. Remember that non-town may be the ones pushing for your lynch, so do not feel discouraged because you are being pressured and voted. Also remember that even if you are mislynched, if you have continued voting and taking stances throughout the game, then you have left a paper trail for others to follow and analyze. The sole outcome of your lynch might only be that it makes one person very townie. That is still very useful as if townies can identify other townies, then process of elimination can be used to narrow the field for suspects. If you are having trouble narrowing down your suspects, instead of scum-hunting, look through the paper trails of living players and go town-hunting. If you can reasonably assume that someone is town, then you have narrowed your search via process of elimination. Also do not be afraid to change your opinion of anyone. One day a player might look like guaranteed town to you, and the next day when you reanalyze things they look like the most villainous mafioso ever. Be open to change your opinion, simply make sure you do so logically and back up your stances logically. If you are non-town, you simply want to approach the game as if you are a townie and come across as genuine as possible. You of course cannot be genuine, because you know the answers of who is not-aligned-with-your-faction (the majority of which will be town) and thus will have the lie about your suspicions. Simply attempt to be as genuine and convincing as possible.
Always use your power role unless you can think of a good reason not to:
The following are good reasons: "This ability is one-shot, thus I should use it when the time is right."
The following are not good reasons: "I am a vigilante and don't want to use my power because if I kill a townie I might look bad!", "I am a doctor and I don't trust anyone enough to protect them!", "I am a cop and I just can't decide to investigate!" "My role has a side effect when I use it which is bad and meant to balance the power of my role!" "I just don't see how my role is useful!"
Your reason is usually bad. Use the tools provided to you to increase your faction's chances of winning.
Grr..why can't I post screenshots & grr why does yadda yadda rule exist?
Because it's not hard for people to fake things like a mock-up of a mafia quicktopic or someone's post that they 'deleted'. Essentially, screenshots have been used in gamebreaking ways in the past, and thus banning them outright helps keeps the game fair to all players. This is what most rules exist for, to allow all players to just play the game and have fun. It's not fun if someone is PMing non-players and dead-players secretly and asking for their opinions on who is mafia. It's not fun for people to go back and delete/edit their old posts that might incriminate them as mafia. Etc...
Should we always wait to lynch until the deadline so we have the most information and stances possible? What's wrong with just quicklynching every day?
Both of these are perfectly reasonable; provided you have gotten information out of all players at least once each day phase. That is, before quicklynching, you should always allow for all players to check in and make a vote/stance/relay information they might have gotten in the night phase. You only need to quicklynch when you have very strong suspicion or a slip-up to follow-up on. Similarly, it is perfectly fine to use up all of the allotted time, provided you are actually using it. If you aren't having arguments and having votes going around and people making stances, then waiting for the deadline to come is simply losing your sense of urgency. There should always be a sense of urgency "I have this much time to convince a majority of players that X needs to be lynched. If I wait until the last minute, everyone's votes might be spread out and we won't be able to come to a consensus quick enough and miss our lynch." Discuss as much or as little as necessary, provided you keep aware of the faults of each extreme.
Is No Lynch ever a good option?
No Lynch is a good option in what is called a MYLO situation. MYLO simply means, if you mislynch, you lose. Take for example, you have four players. Let's say you know there are no Independent roles in the set-up and that there is only one mafia. If you have four players, and town hasn't lost, then only one of the remaining players can be mafia (as if there were two or more, then mafia would win). In this situation you are in MYLO. If you mislynch, you lose as lynching a townie and then having a townie nightkilled results in mafia endgaming the remaining townie. This means, from your perspective, you have three votes and a 33% chance of being correct by voting randomly. If you No Lynch in this situation, then a town player will be night killed and the next day will be a LYLO scenario. LYLO simply means, you must lynch correctly or lose. In this LYLO scenario, you now only have two options to vote, meaning your chances of voting a mafia based on random voting is 50%. Thus the odds of lynching the final mafia member has increased. Thus No Lynch during MYLO is good. In addition, Kingsmaker scenarios are ones where it is no longer possible for town to win by lynching. A scenario would be a final three players with one mafia person from one mafia family, and another mafia person from an opposing mafia family along with a single townie. Essentially the townie functions as a Kingsmaker, if he votes one of the mafia players, then the other mafia wins. If he gets lynched, the both mafias would joint-win in this situation by most standard mechanics. A No Lynch allows for the possibility of the mafia killing one another at night and the townie being the only one alive and winning. This will not happen as both of the anti-towns could simply lynch the townie instead of No Lynching and risking a loss. Thus it is purely Kingsmaker and town has likely arrived to this unwinnable situation by incorrectly lynching too many times before. In the previous game, we had a very fun Kingsmaker MYLO situation. The town correctly assumed that the most possible players in the mafia faction could be two. They also correctly assumed that there was an Independent player. Recognising this and doing the math, they could have realised that no lynching offered a more winnable scenario than lynching.
Ugh why was that role so powerful? That was so unfair!
All factions need an equal chance of winning. If there is only a town and a mafia, then the game needs to be balanced such that via random voting town would win 50% of the scenarios and mafia would win 50% of the scenarios; this includes scenarios with night actions affecting things. When you add a Cop to a set-up, you've just added scenarios where the Cop randomly catches a Mafia on Night 1, randomly clears a Townie on Night 1; etc... When you add a Cop and a Roleblocker, you now added more scenarios where the cop can be roleblocked and such. Everytime you at a role, the numbers chance and thus things need to be done to balance it to preserve the equal chance of winning. When you add an Independent, now you've added a single player who deserves an equal chance of winning as every other player; and thus you've added a role that needs a 33% chance of winning all by itself. For a mafia or town faction; a single mafia or a single townie being lynched won't cause their faction to suddenly lose. However one an Independent is lynched; they can no longer win and have lost. This makes Independent roles hard to play and hard to balance, especially if the Independent role does not have a method for killing/removing other players from the game directly. The roles that look the most intimidating or the strongest, normally look that way because at their core they are very difficult to win with and need to be amped up to have a fair shot at winning and not just some impossible role given to someone for kicks to see if they can pull off the impossible.
Really how much do I need to post?
If your posts have votes and stances and good amounts of information of your thoughts and provides you with interactions between other players; then you only need to post within the activity limits. If your posts aren't that exhaustive, then you likely need to be posting more frequently. A informative post once in the morning and an informative post once in the evening is generally plenty for a low-activity player to maintain a healthy presence in the game. Stopping in to say Hi or say something unrelated to the game is simply prod-dodging and makes you useless.
FAQ [Under Construction]
What is Mafia?
Mafia is a role-playing strategy game in which the good guys try to kill the bad guys. There’s a bit more to it than that, but the easiest way to learn more is to go through this short tutorial here: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/610085
So, wait, how do you win?
You win when your team (referred to as your faction) wins. That means that, even if you die in the game, you can still win if your team takes it! Do whatever you have to do to make sure your team wins, even if that sometimes means putting your own life on the line. There’s no “I” in Town!
How do I sign up to play a game?
Just post in the thread! When a game opens and is accepting new players, all you have to do is make a post saying /in, and you’re in!
Signups are full, but I really want to play! What do I do?
Unfortunately, mods can’t just add on more players to their game once they're full. That would make the game unbalanced and not very fun to play. However, you can sign up to be a replacement! If someone has to leave for any reason, then you can take their place. Be advised that replacements are first come, first serve.
What does it mean if a slot is on "hold"?
A slot is on hold if a player wants to play, but is unsure if they will be able to or is still deciding. In this case, the slot is "held" until they decide. Should they decide that they do not want to play before the start of the game, the first available replacement will take their spot. If you want to put one on hold, simply reply to the thread with /hold instead of /in.
If you currently have a position that is on hold, please be advised that it is your own responsibility to followup on the held slot. If your spot is still on "hold" by game start, then the moderator should assume that you are playing the game and will grant replacements per their discretion.
What if I want to play, but won’t be around for a part of the game?
That’s totally fine! If you make it into a game, but know that you won’t be active for part of it, you can send a pm to a game mod requesting a leave of absence absolving you from inactivity penalties. Mods don’t need any real notice for this either, so you can send the PM at any time during the game should something come up. However, be advised that LOA approval is based on moderator discression.
What are absence penalties?
Mafia is a game that is more fun when everyone is talking, so you are expected to maintain a healthy level of activity within the game-thread. If you go a set time without posting in the thread (usually determined by the mod), then you will receive a warning or “prod” due to inactivity. Multiple prods may result in forced replacement or a modkill.
What’s a Modkill?
A modkill happens when the mod forcibly kills a player. If you are killed by a mod, you typically do not win with your faction and are totally removed from the game. A player is typically modkilled for breaking the rules of the game.
What are the rules, anyway?
Rules are usually game-dependent and are found in the first post of a game thread. There are a few fundamentals, such as “no talking to players about the game outside of the game thread”, but otherwise you will be told exactly what you can and can’t do unless the game is bastard.
What is a bastard game?
A bastard game is a game that is intentionally “broken”. This could mean that the game is unbalanced, that the mod lies to the players, or that the game ends up becoming something completely different than what it started as. These are fun, but not recommended for first-time players or players who like a lot of structure.
Can I mod a bastard game?
Due to the um… nature of bastard games, only pre-approved bastard mods will be allowed to host them, and only two will be permitted per year. These games are fun, but they can get pretty old pretty fast.
How do I mod a regular game?
If this is your first time modding, send a PM to me with a setup and a flavor and I’ll check it out to see if it’s balanced. If you want to know what roles to pick from, you can go here and check some out. The Mafia Wiki also has pre-approved setups for you to choose from. Be aware that balancing is hard as hell, so don’t feel bad if your setup doesn’t end up being what you’d hoped by the end. You don’t want to make a game that nobody enjoys playing!
However, if you've modded a game before, then you don't have to have your balance pre-approved. Just let me know that you'd like to mod either in the PM or the thread, and I'll add you to the queue.
What’s a flavor?
The flavor is just the narration, or the story. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game other than to make it more engaging and entertaining. You should never assume game mechanics or roles in a game based on the flavor, but instead on whether or not the game is an Open or Closed setup.
What makes a setup Open or Closed?
An Open setup is game that lets you know all the roles in the game in the OP. There’s absolutely no guesswork involved, because everyone will know all the roles in the game (but not who has them).
A Closed setup is the opposite, and does not tell anyone playing what roles are in the game, what they can do, etc. The players are kept totally in the dark.
A Semi-Open setup is a game with elements of both. These setups usually give a full list of roles that may be in the game, and how many there might be (whether or not there are that many is left up to the player to figure out).
UPDATES
Below is a comprehensive changelist to help understand formatting within this thread. You can click the Spoiler Tag below to expand.
{CHANGELIST 1.02}
- FAQ section added. [1.00]
- Thread title formatting changed to reflect when signups are open with simple [OPEN], [CLOSED], and [ONGOING] tags. [1.00]
- Instead of displaying all past games and their results, prior "seasons' will instead be linked only to prevent clutter. [1.00]
- Completed games will now display which faction won based on the color of the game. Green represents town, red represents mafia, and so on. [1.00]
- A full list of participating players will no longer be provided in the game list. Instead, a link to the game thread will be provided. [1.00]
- Games with open signups will now have their own section independent of the game list. [1.00]
- FAQ updated. [1.01]
- Altered co-modding restrictions. First timers must have an approved co-mod. [1.01]
- Added holds for signups. [1.01]
- Tutorial game bumped [1.02]
