Commonly Asked Questions on Mafia Theory

[AlwaysInnocent]

Thanks Guys, I am not sure how or when I will finish them. But I will give it a whirl this weekend.

Doing some reading on theory is a great way to improve your game. Reading the article I talked about will give you a very good foundation on how to play. I have caught scum who were much more experienced than I am simply by following the advice there. Like I said before, all it takes is to catch one person not scum hunting knowing what that looks like and the reading will have made up all the time that it would otherwise take to learn that through experience.

It also taught me one of the most valuable lessens you can do to look townie when scum or town and that is to simply scum hunt. Scum hunting is the cornerstone of any game of mafia. If you see someone not doing that, you very well could have caught scum. Its a basic principle that scum don't scum hunt as much as town and once you get that through your head you will already be a pretty good player.

Indeed. That is the one of the most important insights.

[AlwaysInnocent]

Is it true that scum meta becomes nullified once it's apparent to everyone?
I've always wondered exactly what scum traits hold true to every single player who's ever played scum, and I'm still searching for the answer. I doubt there will ever be a one-size-fits-all scum-tell, but I do think there's something about the scum-mindset that can be analyzed more closely. I believe it might have something to do with deductive and inductive reasoning, but I may be recalling it incorrectly. If anyone has any info or input on the subject, a little light shed on the matter would be much obliged.

The scum mindset can be derived from their objective and the fact that they are

informed

, as opposed to townies. In order for the mafia to win, they need to eliminate the townies. Even if they choose to sacrifice fellow scum now and then, this only serves their long term goal: to deceive the townies into getting all the townies eliminated. Furthermore, the fact that the mafia are informed, means that they do not

need

to look for any clues (see LicketyQuickety's post above).

It does not get more general than this. Unless you want to include different mafia factions in your analysis, but I am not even touching that one.

[AlwaysInnocent]

I think abductive reasoning is the most useful form of reasoning for mafia. It can be considered a mix of inductive and deductive reasoning.