MTG Salvation

Yes. If there's any way to avoid duplication, avoid it, for the reasons Loran mentioned.

Quote from Azrael

Yes. If there's any way to avoid duplication, avoid it, for the reasons Loran mentioned.

Although the occasional 4 cop game can be interesting Duplicating the sanities is another discussion entirely.

Quote from Turbo164

Although the occasional 4 cop game can be interesting Duplicating the sanities is another discussion entirely.

Well, unless they're run by puzzle and are obviously completely nuts and untrustable, don't do it in a mini.

:-P

Crazy French mafia.

What about a backup Doc/Cop? I take it is more common. And how many people would you expect to see a backup doc/cop?

Quote from Roja

What about a backup Doc/Cop? I take it is more common. And how many people would you expect to see a backup doc/cop?

errr, you're asking about multiple backup roles in a game? I'm not sure what you're asking.

I call dibs on Cop Mafia, before this gets out of hand >_> <_<

Quote from JodoYodo

I call dibs on Cop Mafia, before this gets out of hand >_> <_<

We've already had one....see Tv mafia by DYH (not the other tv mafia)

How does a "Clan leader" work? Granted I understand about turning players into their clan but what does that do if they were mafia? Would they still participate in the mafia discussion? Make the mafia kill? Able to keep their abilities just now have a different win condition?

Quote from loran16

We've already had one....see Tv mafia by DYH (not the other tv mafia)

Ugh... that game was a nightmare... (>_<)

Also, Roja, I assume you're talking about cults? I don't think I've played in a game with a cult before... or had much experience designing games with them, but I have heard people say that they shouldn't be able to recruit players from the mafia... but I'll see if someone who knows what they're talking about shows up to answer your question.

I'm of the opinion that cults aren't fun, and should be avoided much more often than not. Changing people's win conditions mid-game can put them in an impossible situation by forcing them to contradict statements made earlier in the game. Playing really well, and then losing because you got cult recruited would be enormously frustrating.

A cult is a group centered around a single individual, the cult leader, who recruits a new member each night. The cultists win when each living player is a cultist. If the cult leader dies, either the recruits die with him (kool-aid style), or they revert back to their normal alignments.

It's been argued that cults that can recruit mafia members are too swingy, for one of two possibilities. The cultists and mafia might turn on one another and the game subsequently goes down in flames (Random 2), or once they reach sufficient numbers they might group their votes and seize control of the lynch from the town (What we tried in Random 2).

In a game that allows mafia recruitment, the mafia member would normally keep all abilities and capabilities they had before recruitment.

These days, however, I'd tend to concur with Dragondart that the mechanic has more or less outlived its novelty and usefulness, at least as far as its original form goes. Any mechanic that relies on switching people's alignments midgame tends to be clunky and occasionally frustrating. It could use some conceptual overhaul, probably.

It is my understanding that the golden rule of "no quoting PMs" specifically refers to communications between the moderator and the players. This would mean that is players who have the ability to night talk, e.g., mafia, masons, etc., are allowed to quote PMs between each other if they chose to do so.

Is this correct/the commonly accepted interpretation? Or does the rule refer to all private communications of any kind?

Quote from Kraj

It is my understanding that the golden rule of "no quoting PMs" specifically refers to communications between the moderator and the players. This would mean that is players who have the ability to night talk, e.g., mafia, masons, etc., are allowed to quote PMs between each other if they chose to do so.

Is this correct/the commonly accepted interpretation? Or does the rule refer to all private communications of any kind?

This is something that falls entirely under the category of mod choice.
Some mods prefer no PM quoting, period, others dont care about non-role pm / role pm exchanges being quoted. I.e. Clarification on pm's would count, but you prodding him wouldnt.

Its all in the rules.

Generally speaking, players are only forbidden from quoting PMs that come specifically from the Mod.

I'm not really sure why this is the case, as it seems completely inconsistent to me. But that is usually how it works.

I think mods should not allow any PM quoting of any kind. It can create unfair situations for the mafia, and allow players to confirm themselves outside of their actual play in the game.

Quote from Kraj

It is my understanding that the golden rule of "no quoting PMs" specifically refers to communications between the moderator and the players. This would mean that is players who have the ability to night talk, e.g., mafia, masons, etc., are allowed to quote PMs between each other if they chose to do so.

Is this correct/the commonly accepted interpretation?

Quote from Cyan

Generally speaking, players are only forbidden from quoting PMs that come specifically from the Mod.

I'm not really sure why this is the case, as it seems completely inconsistent to me. But that is usually how it works.

It's probably a bad idea to presume the moderator will allow moderator PM quotation among mafia, masons, and others.

There are a number of scenarios where this could prove disastrous. If the moderator has given mafia members or masons alternate win conditions, or if they are working at cross-purposes with one another as in Sin City, PM quoting could expose sensitive information the mod and the players wanted kept confidential.

Alternatively, take the example of a cult recruitment of a mafia agent; should the contents of that PM be sharable in order to confirm that the agent will revert? Or, in the case of 24 mafia, the mafia double agent who was a number of both groups could also have been shafted by this rule.

And then there's the ordinary cases. You don't want players to be able to confirm events that happened to them during the night by posting an iconically mod-written flavor PM. So there's definitely good reason to keep mod PMs non-quotable, even among presumed friends.

Quote from Cyan

Generally speaking, players are only forbidden from quoting PMs that come specifically from the Mod.

I'm not really sure why this is the case, as it seems completely inconsistent to me. But that is usually how it works.

Not inconsistent at all. The reason PM quoting from the mod isn't allowed is generally because some mods send PMs with the same text to townies, and that gives them an unfair advantage.

Quote from goatrevolt

I think mods should not allow any PM quoting of any kind. It can create unfair situations for the mafia, and allow players to confirm themselves outside of their actual play in the game.

Quite the obvious. Mods should simply not format all the messages in a way that you can determine who is town and who is mafia based on knowing something in the PM. Then you let them quote your PMs all you want and there's no harm.

Quote from Sutherlands

Quite the obvious. Mods should simply not format all the messages in a way that you can determine who is town and who is mafia based on knowing something in the PM. Then you let them quote your PMs all you want and there's no harm.

I meant more than just mod PM's, which obviously shouldn't be able to be quoted. I'm saying that I don't think mods should allow any PM quoting of any kind, whether it be two mason's night conversations, or an anonymous message, etc.

Also, I think mods should post a sample vanilla townie role PM in the first post (or include it in scum role PMs), and then make every vanilla role PM identical, or at least vary the formatting/text of every PM to prevent the ability to confirm players based on that. At the very least, they should post the town win condition or vary the win conditions in each post. Doing this makes it so a day 1 massclaim doesn't screw the scum and scum won't be outed simply by not knowing the formatting of townie role PMs.

I guess the big difference that I was asking was for a RL version of the game. If I include a Cult leader (Ty for the correct name.) and they do choose a mafia member then what does that player do? "Awaken" with both mafia and Cult night times?

I did see that there was a rule that if the Cult leader chooses a Mafia member the cult leader dies. I may do this to ease confusion but then wouldn't the town be fighting two growing sides.

And the whole quoting thing I was going to have an index card book and have everything I need to tell players in it. (Like "You have been recruited from the cult leader, check around you to see who is part of your cult. Your win condition is to be greater then the remaining non cult players.) Show it to them when they are recruited. I'll always have the "wording" but players would be able to do what they please with "quoting".

I've always assumed the PM-quoting rule applied across the board - to mafia chat, masonries, in-game, etc. Good point that it's been brought up; something I'll be sure to add to my list of rules when modding.

Responses are appreciated but some of them are misunderstanding; I'm not asking about why the "no quoting mod PMs" rule exists, I'm asking about PMs that are only sent player-to-player.

Azrael brings up good points about roles with unusual win conditions being screwed over, but the point of contention for me is PM "quoting" is 100% fakable. The reason quoting the mod is banned is so players can't use the wording of PMs against each other. But quoting each other's PMs does not have this issue; "quoting" a PM from another player can always be a plain lie, and if it is confirmed by the other player then there's little difference between quoting a PM and simply revealing the content of the PM, which players obviously have the right to do.

The difference lies in the ability of a player to "confirm" the truth of their statement using the moderator's use of language and personal mannerisms.

Players shouldn't be able to spot an otherwise decent lie because the liar simply can't duplicate, say, Hawkeye's style of writing PMs.

I disallow any usage of PM formatting, grammar, style of writing, or anything that is not game/ability related to be used as ammo. The game should revolve around how someone has played, and their night-actions and such, not how someone's PM looks.

Well, This might not be the most appropriate place to put it, but I can't think of any place better.

Anyway, seeing as I've just been killed off in my last active game, I figure it's time for me to go on hiatus. Long enough for my time on the probation list to run out, at least (that should be mid-february, assuming it doesn't get extended for some random reason.)

Until then, I guess I'll be seeing you around...or not.

I've noticed that people have talked about IRC mafia. Where do you guys recommend playing? How long does a game typically take?

IRC games are played on the server irc.globalgamerscenter.net in channel #mafia. Games take anywhere from 30 seconds to 25 minutes, and possibly higher than that if there are more than 7 people active at once, which is unlikely.

So is the newbie queue working? I see post after post of hosts constantly looking for blood for the games they host.. From what I can tell the newbie queue was started around Newbie #20.

Newbie 20 had two replacements, however one was a player who retired.

Newbie 21 has 5 placements and is looking for a 6th. Cannot comment on a current game but already in a 12 player game that is crazy.

Newbie 22 has 2 replacements and I believe 1 was mod killed. Cannot comment on a current game.

Newbie 23 appears to have 2 replacements as well. Not going to comment as well.

I know others were talking about this topic however this is getting kind of crazy. I know I would hate to set up/plan a game only it to be ruined by activity. Granted a TON of new people ARE playing mafia, so all it not lost. Is this is a sit back and wait time?

2 replacements per newb game is not bad. That was about average before. 6 is a problem, but we've had a replacement problem in all games - not just newb ones. As long as the trend is 2 per game and not 6, I think it's working fine.

Of course these games could get up to 6 by the time they finish, and if they do we should look at the problem then.

Greatly revamped version of the article previously posted here now added to the article thread. Flame/critique at your pleasure.

Quote from Azrael

Greatly revamped version of the article previously posted here now added to the article thread. Flame/critique at your pleasure.

I'm glad that my early mafia career provided the community with so many blatant scum quotes =P

Question for mods who have used Google groups: is there a way to set permissions so spectators and mafia can both use the same group but spectator comments are hidden from the mafia (the point being it's easier to manage as one group and after the game is over permissions can simply be set so everyone can see everything) or do you have to have separate groups to accomplish this?

Quote from Kraj

Question for mods who have used Google groups: is there a way to set permissions so spectators and mafia can both use the same group but spectator comments are hidden from the mafia (the point being it's easier to manage as one group and after the game is over permissions can simply be set so everyone can see everything) or do you have to have separate groups to accomplish this?

You have to separate them, unfortunately.

Alrighty, good to know. Thanks!

Heres a ? Hope I'm asking in the right place. Looking at the roles of the game. If someone is a doctor why wouldn't they just keep protecting themselves?

Usually doctors aren't allowed to protect themselves. It is up to the creator of the game to decide if any doctors that may be in the game can protect themselves or not. Obviously one that can protect themselves is stronger. Even if a doctor can protect him/herself, there is often a good reason to protect someone else. For example, if the doctor has not been revealed, but the cop has, the doctor should protect the cop so that the mafia can't kill him or her.

Also, welcome to the mafia forum!

How often should a player expect a mod to post a votecount?

more often than I posed them last day of my newb game ;-)

1 per page @ 40 posts per page is the standard usually, unless no votes were cast imo

I just want to thank Axel for taking over the primary modding duties on HP mafia after CP's disappearance (hope he's okay). Didn't want to clutter up the sign-up thread with it, though, so I'm putting it here.

Thanks, Axel.

Same as the above ^^.

Thanks, Axel.

There was some initial confusions at first with the handling of the abilities and items, but I think everything worked out as well as it could be given the unexpected modding transfer.

Quote from kpaca

How often should a player expect a mod to post a votecount?

It really depends on the pace of play and how often votes shift.

Another thing to remember - in most games, the voting information is public knowledge. If you need a vote count, go back to the last official one and take a tally.

Quote from DYH

I just want to thank Axel for taking over the primary modding duties on HP mafia after CP's disappearance (hope he's okay). Didn't want to clutter up the sign-up thread with it, though, so I'm putting it here.

Thanks, Axel.

Agreed. That's a hell of a game to take over, and he did a great job.

I'd like to talk more about what axel mentioned in HP mafia.

For Reference:

Another interesting point about the "Masons," from a Modding perspective, was how we were to handle the Night actions. At the beginning, you see, CP wrote lots of PMs which simply had players bumping into each other in the hallways, passing items hand to hand, etc. But obviously you shouldn't be "bumping" into a painting in the middle of the Night. And if we wrote a Night PM like that, would it give away the truth? Which raises the issue of how much Mods must honor and work around the false claims of Mafia. This didn't end up being too much of an issue (there were times we had players leaving items on doorsteps instead of passing them hand to hand, and we did this for people who didn't claim to be paintings as well, etc.) but I was always concerned about being made an unwilling party to the scum false claims. If anyone had ever said anything about believing the claims because, in the Night result PMs, they never saw an actual physical body on either of them, I would have felt very sad and guilty

I would be in favor of making it so a mod has to show ahead of time a mock PM to show the flavor that is being used in his night PMs ahead of time. In other words, he could make a watching scene from a unrelated themed game (so say instead of HP, Douglas Adams. Or Star Trek for Axelrod. Etc) to show how his pms would involve other players' descriptions and the like.

Because the players should know ahead of time of the danger of being screwed by a night scene, and the mod should not be afraid of screwing a player based on the incidental flavor of a night scene.

A small question, what does MVP actually stand for?

Quote from Ecophagy

A small question, what does MVP actually stand for?

Most valuable player, I assume.

Quote from Yare

Most valuable player, I assume.

Ah right, that makes sense. Thanks.

Quote from loran16

I'd like to talk more about what axel mentioned in HP mafia.

For Reference:



I would be in favor of making it so a mod has to show ahead of time a mock PM to show the flavor that is being used in his night PMs ahead of time. In other words, he could make a watching scene from a unrelated themed game (so say instead of HP, Douglas Adams. Or Star Trek for Axelrod. Etc) to show how his pms would involve other players' descriptions and the like.

Because the players should know ahead of time of the danger of being screwed by a night scene, and the mod should not be afraid of screwing a player based on the incidental flavor of a night scene.

"Do Tyrannids wear shoes" vs Elegant Mafia, etc. I think it wise for mods who do write a lot of flavor to have a bold summary at the end, ie

"You spend the night waltzing among the daffodils, waving at people, blah blah blah Moby Dick blah blah"
Your investigation shows loran16 to be a SQUIRREL.
You receive an anonymous message: "Ceiling Cat is watching you vote."
"

If someone claims w/o being able to fake the flavour, let them hang. It's part of the game.

When flavour becomes an info leak, that's trouble. This has spoiled at least one game for me (a NK target was protected by a bodyguard, the protected target effectively was told who NK the bodyguard). That was trash, as it left me no wriggle.

Alternatively, you could just let the mechanics of the game be more important than the flavor.

I very much try not to give out any additional information in the "flavor" of a Night PM beyond letting someone know if their action was successful or not (as opposed to being Role-blocked.) The issue that arose in Harry Potter came as a result of 2 things: (1) the way CP initially handled the Night action resolutions, which didn't give away "extra" information, but placed the players in a physical setting interacting with each other, and (2) an unanticipated Mafia false-claim, which (if true) would have made it impossible for said player to "physically" interact with anyone.

My general feeling is that if players (mafia in particular) want to know how the Mod. is going to handle a Night action - for example, if the scum want to know whether or not their "kill" is going to have some kind of distinctive flavor - and the Mod. hasn't already indicated this in the role PM (which some Mods do) then it's incumbant on the player to ask. Otherwise they just have to accept whatever the Mod. comes up with.

Quote from Lordpenguin

Has anyone heard of/tried a game with a role where the player thinks his ability is different? I know about insane cops and millers and stuff like that, but I can envisage a role like a cop who also kills their target (without knowing its them that did it), or a SK/Vig who actually docs or roleblocks instead of killing. In a shorter game, it would take a while for them to work out exactly what's going on, and it appears that there are more roles than there actually are.

Just a tip, read through a whole variety of these games and you'll find that these ideas have all been tried here before.

Cops who kill can be seen with hawkeye in TV mafia (DYH version). And roles like these are a bad bad idea. In mafia a key part is that players try and do their best to win with their roles. Adding randomness or misleading roles only prevents a player from doing that for a few days and causes players to get angry. In other words, misleading players is generally not fun and is not advised to most extent.

Cops of other sanities are usualy not as annoying, because the roles are so well known that a player given a cop role can figure out his investigations are screwy and usually the mod gives hints in the role pm or investigations. And even if he doesn't, the cop doesn't want to out himself very quickly usually so he isn't likely to cause a mislynch based on poor information.

I suppose if you explain about misleading roles ahead of time it would be fine, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

Also such roles should never be in a small game, as then the players are more likely to never have a chance to a. figure out their true roles and b. use them in a way to undo the damage they've done without their own knowledge.

On a more conventional note, what's it like to have a game with multiple docs? It seems like they could get into a stalemate situation where nobody can win if they are protecting each other every night, but the mafia have the majority.

On yet another note, what's the history with BIG mafia games? Like, most people ever in one? I can envisage multiple groups of mafia, masons, a cult, lots of different roles. Considering the length of online games, this might cross over into party mafia, but it would be interesting to hear from people who have hosted or played in extra-large games.

Big games? Like what? Normals usually have 24 people around. Cropcircles' game had 28.

To my knowledge, over 30 has been tried once, with Highroller's 7th Ed mafia, and it was disastrous for other reasons (its confusing as hell to read).

It has been done probably multiple times on mafiascum however, if you want to try that there (mafiascum.net)

But over here 24 or so is the largest we'll usually have since otherwise it gets kind of ridiculous and long and annoying later in the game.

I'd advise reading DotA mafia if you want to see what happens in games with multiple docs.

multiple docs can have all sorts of effects. 2 generally helps the mafia because no-one believes in it. 3+ protective roles generally frustrates the hell out of the mafia and stalls the game due to multiple missed kills (and with that many, the town usually works out it isn't impossible)