Addendum to the don't vote me in RVS, if there's a bandwagon growing on me feel free to join in for the fun of it.
1. Our ultimate goal is to survive, this means we're already entering the game with a different mindset than all the people who drew town. One of the things that people look for is mindsets; we want to emulate a town mindset as much as possible, but remember our goal is to get townies lynched and survive to the end.
2. Even though our ultimate goal is to survive, we don't want to make it obvious that it's our ultimate goal. Freaking out because someone votes you is generally seen as more scum like behavior because scum have a survivalist mentality. (This is not necessarily true; I actually have a town meta of freaking out if I'm voted and near a lynch, though it's something I'm trying to work on because it's not really helpful in games. Also, people new to the game sometimes do have strong reactions to being voted. This is mostly personality based, but in general you don't want everyone to know that you just really don't want to be lynched.)
3. Try to avoid freaking out about every little point against you. Remember you know you're mafia, but noone else knows that but me. Now this is definitely personality based. This is not to say don't defend yourself, because you should do that, but try to avoid making that all you do, so if someone is calling you scum and raising points against you try to balance the amount of defending you do with actual scum hunting. You want to look like your ultimate goal is to lynch scum.
4. There are lots of different schools of thought on how partners should interact. Some people think that you should always distance by suspecting your partner and pushing them just enough. This gets a little tricky though because if you're suspecting your partner for silly things, it can very easily look like distancing when one person flips. Remember no one else knows I'm mafia either except for you. The things I do are going to look suspicious to you because you know that but they might not look suspicious to anyone else. Some people think that defending your partner is always a good route, and being able to pull off a perfect win is amazing, but just like distancing this has to be done carefully as well. Town reading someone who legitimately looks scummy can back fire. I prefer to see how things go in a game. I'm a bigger fan of defending your partner than bussing, but bussing occasionally becomes necessary.
5. I don't get nervous at all interacting with partners though, so don't be nervous to interact with me in any way. Question me on a read, something said, etc, whatever feels natural for you to do. I won't get upset at some pushing either, though if I feel like it could look like a bus I have a tendency to push back strongly. Now, here's the thing, you'll have to figure out what you're going to do if and when that happens. You don't want to make sure that you're on my wagon just for the sake of it as people will look for who bussed and got on because they felt they had to. But, you also don't want to stay off the wagon for no reason if you decide to stay off. So, I'll leave that up to you to decide.
6. Being a newbie is a wonderful thing; you have about 5 games to hide behind with that. Often times newbies experience paranoia towards town leaders who have way more experience than they do because they feel like they're being fooled by others who know how to direct the game their way. I know I did, and it's something I see a lot.
7. Okay some people think it is a really bad thing to give middle of the road reads about people. So being wishy washy, or null reading too many people, can get you extra attention from people. It's looked at as a good thing if you are a bit more definitive in your reads, at least some of them. People think that being wishy-washy is you trying to keep your options open and vote people if it becomes an option for you to do. This isn't necessarily true. I, for instance, have a meta of waffling and getting pretty paranoid, so it is personality based, but it is something that a lot of people do look for. What I can tell you is just try to look like you're trying to figure out the game. If you like fooling people, this won't be difficult for you, but if you don't it might be a little harder trying to lynch people you know are town. Try to look invested, like you're trying to figure it out, and that will go a long way.
8. If you do make a case for someone, vote them. It's okay if you're not voting someone every second of the game, but if you're pushing someone as scum and not actually voting them, people will wonder why. I think one of my biggest mistakes the first time I was mafia was making a case against someone and not voting them. The people who were on my side beforehand were way less willing to listen to me after that.
9. You want to have your own thoughts and reasons for voting someone though. Don't just "parrot" other people's cases. You don't want to just look like a follower. Granted, you're still new, so some of this you'll be able to get away with, and there's not a whole lot wrong with agreeing with someone else's case and "being convinced" by it, but be careful about just following someone willy nilly. Also, along these lines is you want to make sure you can track read changes. Some people look for what our mod calls trajectories and this is (if I understand it correctly) looking at the progression of people's reads and if they make sense. So, if you decide that someone you were previously town reading is now scum, you need to be able to track why you've made that change of mind. (In most cases, there are some of us who are prone to reseting and changing our minds for no discernible reason, but again it's a meta that one builds over time.)
10. Act natural and have fun. Try to emulate your town game as much as you can. Try not to be too overly aggressive or hostile. If we get lynched, we get lynched. These are just stepping stones, and if your first attempt at mafia doesn't go well you can learn from it. (I got lynched in like my first 5 or 6 times as mafia before I was able to pull out one decent mafia game, and I still suck at it because I hate it.) Mostly I just try to have fun when mafia.
Okay, so, ^5, go team, and all that jazz. Sorry if I've given you useless stuff in my rambling, but this will be fun. I'm also sorry if this is overwhelming. I'll keep checking in today to see if you come around
