We've had enough games now that people have been asking about a discussion thread for Mafia. So, here we are! The purpose of this thread is two-fold:

1) To be a place to set up who will be moderating the next game, and generate buzz for it before it gets started.

2) To be a place to discuss the finer points of mafia gaming. How to run an investigation, play as town, play as scum, play as a third party, and generally a little bit of everything.

This thread is NOT a place to discuss currently ongoing games. This thread is NOT a place to import any lingering resentment from mafia games past. In the case of the former, the game is ongoing, you can't talk about it outside the game thread. That goes double if you are a spectator! In the case of the later, please try and keep any drama in the game you are in. Mafia is not an easy game to play without stepping on people's toes. It is easy to become hostile with other players. Do your best to let it slide off your back like water off a duck. Everyone is playing a game, and everyone wants to win.

With that in mind, let's look at the previous games we have played:

Remote Lothal Outpost (Game 1 - @BiggsIRL )
Village Mos Erdu (Game 2 - @BiggsIRL )
Killigan's Planet (Game 3 - @Madaghmire )
Jedi Academy (Game 4 - @Truthiness )
Nowhere Special (Game 5 - @GhostofNobodyInParticular )
Fate of the Jedi (Game 6 - @Onidsen )
Crisis onboard the ISD Morpheus (Game 7 - @Visovics )
3rd Party Party (Game 8 - @BiggsIRL )
The Bowels of Coruscant (Game 9 - @GhostofNobodyInParticular )
The Wheels of Democracy (Game 10 - @JJs Juggernaut )
Sands of the New Republic (ONGOING - DO NOT COMMENT - @Visovics )

Upcoming Games:

??????

DON'T DISCUSS ONGOING GAMES YOU NINCOMPOOPS!

I regret nothing.

Man I'm excited to finally have time for another round. Especially now that no one is mad at me and I can be 100% trusted!

2 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

I regret nothing.

I regret everything, including and especially the choice to play in the first place.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

I regret everything, including and especially the choice to play in the first place.

I regret messaging ghost, but after that all the crazy **** I did, no regrets

BTW, I'm next on the GM list, if anyone wants to help balancing PM me (if you know you won't e playing), Norell is already on the case, but the more help the better

Mafia drama? Pff

Whoever had problems with me is invited to play diplomacy. THAT IS drama.

7 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Mafia drama? Pff

Whoever had problems with me is invited to play diplomacy. THAT IS drama.

@ceejlekabeejle Are you wanting to play this?

Another thing I think should be mentioned concerns the day 1 lynch/no lynch scenario.

Whatever your personal opinions may be, please don't discuss them in-thread for the game in which it is relevant. All that does is allow the scum to know your plans ahead of time. So from what I gather:

The arguments pro lynch are:
1) you have at least a potential chance of lynching scum
2) you can use it to judge voting history
3) it narrows down the list of suspects
4) the threat of lynch sparks discussion
5) without lynching, and hence discussion, Day 1 is basically a wasted day, with nothing gained, so Day 2 becomes Day 1 with 1 less player

The arguments con are:
1) the odds of lynching town are higher than those of lynching scum
2) you might hit a power role

If anybody has any others, let me know and I'll add them. The main point of this post is to lay out all pros and cons in one place, so people can understand that yes, these issues exist, but the threat of lynch sparks conversation, and thus provides at least some benefit. So I am asking you to stop discussing whether we should lynch or not lynch in the thread in which it is relevant, and instead enter all future games with the knowledge that at least acting like you're going to lynch can be useful, and that you can decide to do so or not based on what you see in the posts during the course of the game. This allows conversation to be had, and your opinion to be followed as you see fit, without endangering the effort (threat of lynch/discussion) to see who's scum by setting everybody at ease by announcing an intent to not lynch.

11 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Another thing I think should be mentioned concerns the day 1 lynch/no lynch scenario.

Whatever your personal opinions may be, please don't discuss them in-thread for the game in which it is relevant. All that does is allow the scum to know your plans ahead of time. So from what I gather:

The arguments pro lynch are:
1) you have at least a potential chance of lynching scum
2) you can use it to judge voting history
3) it narrows down the list of suspects
4) the threat of lynch sparks discussion
5) without lynching, and hence discussion, Day 1 is basically a wasted day, with nothing gained, so Day 2 becomes Day 1 with 1 less player

The arguments con are:
1) the odds of lynching town are higher than those of lynching scum
2) you might hit a power role

If anybody has any others, let me know and I'll add them. The main point of this post is to lay out all pros and cons in one place, so people can understand that yes, these issues exist, but the threat of lynch sparks conversation, and thus provides at least some benefit. So I am asking you to stop discussing whether we should lynch or not lynch in the thread in which it is relevant, and instead enter all future games with the knowledge that at least acting like you're going to lynch can be useful, and that you can decide to do so or not based on what you see in the posts during the course of the game. This allows conversation to be had, and your opinion to be followed as you see fit, without endangering the effort (threat of lynch/discussion) to see who's scum by setting everybody at ease by announcing an intent to not lynch.

Hmmm

## vote Ghost

19 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Whatever your personal opinions may be, please don't discuss them in-thread for the game in which it is relevant. All that does is allow the scum to know your plans ahead of time.

What would you like to talk about instead?

3 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

What would you like to talk about instead?

I am not quite sure. Whatever is relevant. But this topic specifically I feel is detrimental to the town. I've brought it up before. It's like saying 'I'm voting you specifically as a joke' - they both remove any pressure from votes. Each person should come in with their own opinion, sure, but they shouldn't openly debate their plan to say 'We'll say we're voting, but we might not'. It undermines the whole idea. So instead, we can discuss it here, and let everyone enter their games with the all the pros and cons weighed, an opinion formed, but kept secret. That way all votes bear some weight.

Isn't the whole point of the game discussion though?

1 hour ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I am not quite sure. Whatever is relevant. But this topic specifically I feel is detrimental to the town. I've brought it up before. It's like saying 'I'm voting you specifically as a joke' - they both remove any pressure from votes. Each person should come in with their own opinion, sure, but they shouldn't openly debate their plan to say 'We'll say we're voting, but we might not'. It undermines the whole idea. So instead, we can discuss it here, and let everyone enter their games with the all the pros and cons weighed, an opinion formed, but kept secret. That way all votes bear some weight.

If someone does not believe in D1 lynches they wont vote. So no weight to those lack of votes.

Not all joke votes are actually jokes, some will be specifically targetted but dressed as jokes. Which is why joke votes cant be ignored outright.

You seem to have decided that D1 no lynches are joke votes are bad and are expecting everyone to play in accordance with that. They wont and shouldnt.

As Cninj says its best to have the discussion so you can try and gauge motives and thus identify alignments.

I was on the fence about day one lynches, but I think you need to be pushing for one so the threat of it creates meaningful discussion. The only information the vanilla players will have to work with is what people say, and how they vote. Sometimes stuff comes out day one that is innocuous at the time but as more information comes to light it becomes a valuable or damning piece of intel.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

If someone does not believe in D1 lynches they wont vote. So no weight to those lack of votes.

Not all joke votes are actually jokes, some will be specifically targetted but dressed as jokes. Which is why joke votes cant be ignored outright.

You seem to have decided that D1 no lynches are joke votes are bad and are expecting everyone to play in accordance with that. They wont and shouldnt.

As Cninj says its best to have the discussion so you can try and gauge motives and thus identify alignments.

I don't think they are necessarily bad, I just think we shouldn't announce our joke votes as such, nor our intent to lynch or not openly during the game. By all means do what you think, vote or not, but don't announce it, and discuss the benefits of doing one or the other, while you're also trying to implement that policy. It doesn't work.

I agree also that we should have discussions. Of course: that's what the game is about. You can also discuss day 1 lynching as opposed to not lynching, if you so desire, but please don't announce what you intend to do (vote, no vote, joke vote, serious vote) while your doing it. That's my issue. Doing that lets everybody - including scum - know what you are intending to do and thus takes the wind out of your sales, so to speak, as far as threats and weight of votes go.

15 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Doing that lets everybody - including scum - know what you are intending to do and thus takes the wind out of your sales, so to speak, as far as threats and weight of votes go.

I want everyone on town to know what I am doing. Truth and honesty are friends of the light and enemy of scum.

5 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

I want everyone on town to know what I am doing. Truth and honesty are friends of the light and enemy of scum.

Only in most cases. You don't want to be honest about setting traps, nor about your plans for the night, even if you are town. So if you intend to set a trap by pressure voting, but don't intend to lynch, then announcing it undermines your effort.

1 hour ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Only in most cases. You don't want to be honest about setting traps, nor about your plans for the night, even if you are town. So if you intend to set a trap by pressure voting, but don't intend to lynch, then announcing it undermines your effort.

If you are setting a trap you should be saying exactly what you are not doing. I mean, it is a trap. Otherwise it would be a bulletin.

1 minute ago, ovinomanc3r said:

If you are setting a trap you should be saying exactly what you are not doing. I mean, it is a trap. Otherwise it would be a bulletin.

Yeah, but discussing things like day 1 lynching makes it so that if you want to set a trap for voters, you have to say your voting, and everybody acts as normal - what trap? If you want to set a trap for non-voters, you have to say you're not voting, so then nobody takes your pressure seriously. . . it's tough to determine when it is appropriate and not appropriate to do anything in Mafia. My original point was not to discuss the pros and cons of laying such traps in the same thread as you are intending to lay them, not to declare the traps as such when you lay them, and in general not to discuss policy as to how best to catch scum through voting and night actions whilst trying to catch said scum. Sure, you can be bluffing, but if you are doing so, you have to hope that the others know you are to play along, and if they know, why not the scum?

So be careful, is all I guess my argument boils down to.

Here's an interesting broad-spectrum question:

What sort of standards ought we have for sign-up lengths? That was something I was wondering about as I set up my game, and I thought it was worth discussing. Do we want to set an amount of time, to be extended if the minimum player count isn't reached? Do we just set the player count we want and close signups once the n th player signs up.

Of course, we can always leave that up to the GMs, but it might be a good idea to put together some guidelines for GMs who don't know what they want to do with it.

48 hours or until we fill.

Whilst we are at it, is it worth testing different day lengths? I think this site may be better suited to longer days, though I am wary that can take the pressure away.

9 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Whilst we are at it, is it worth testing different day lengths? I think this site may be better suited to longer days, though I am wary that can take the pressure away.

I may try that, let's see how 72 hours work out, can take pressure away, but also has more time for a scum slip up

20 hours ago, Visovics said:

I may try that, let's see how 72 hours work out, can take pressure away, but also has more time for a scum slip up

Or more time for people to simply be silent. Just as likely.

Like in the current game?