if you had to come up with a mafia curriculum

[Psyche]

So so so!

Suppose you were hired as a professional forum mafia instructor to a class of dozens of students. Along with having those students play mafia with one another as homework every night, you're asked to prepare a course syllabus that outlines the subjects in the students' course of study that they

I'm not interested in a catalog of skills required to play well at mafia, or in your prepared lectures (ty mastin).

Rather, I'm interested specifically in the set of important mafia skills that
-

can

be improved through independent study and/or instruction
- in fact are

best

improved in this manner rather than through experience. Lots of analysis techniques (though perhaps not
(Though I am very interested in including in the set skills that only partially fulfill these requirements.)

I think there is a set of skills that help characterize good mafia play that don't improve just by playing more mafia. Things like natural action resolution, setup speculation (including the sorts of possible roles and distributions of roles), vote count analysis, etc. People can go far too many games upon games without ever learning these things until they just sit down and learn them. I think that if we all come together and brainstorm this stuff, that'll be the first step to improving the resources we make available to new players and thereby shape site meta in a favorable way.

[FakeGod]

90 minute lectures each, two lectures each week, on Tues and Thurs.
Homework are due a week from when they're assigned, at beginning of the class.

Lecture 1: History of Mafia, Rules of Engagement. (HW 1 - Vocab)
Lecture 2: Expected Values and Mountainous Setups
Lecture 3: Power Roles and Modifiers, Introduction to Game Theory (HW 2 - Vocab 2 and EV calculations for Mountainous)
Lecture 4: Setup - 2v7 with Cop
Lecture 5: Setup - 2v7 with multiple ICs (HW 3 - EV calculations for various Cop setups)
Lecture 6: Setup - 2v7 with IC and Doc
Lecture 7: Setup - 2v7 with Cop and Doc (HW 4 - Breaking strategies)
Lecture 8: Lovers, Millers, and other neg utility roles
Lecture 9: Setup - Lover's Gambit (HW 5 - EV calculations for larger setups)
Lecture 10: Setup creation: Playing at God, Difference between Theorycrafting and Real-Life Play
Lecture 11: Differences cont'd (HW 6 - Design a setup)
Lecture 12: Review
Final

[Muffin]

Rather, I'm interested specifically in the set of important mafia skills that
- can be improved through independent study and/or instruction
- in fact are best improved in this manner rather than through experience. Lots of analysis techniques (though perhaps not
(Though I am very interested in including in the set skills that only partially fulfill these requirements.)

Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

• basic probability and statistics
  
• common logical fallacies and how to avoid them
  
• doing VCAs
  
• general game sense i.e. "if there are 3 scum but i have 6 scum reads, at least 3 of them are wrong" or "it's unlikely that cop+doc are in game unless scum have some pretty powerful roles as a counter" etc.

I think you can teach all 4 of these things.

But, most importantly:

• communication skills!

I think that last one is often overlooked. Mafia is at its most fundamental level a game of persuasion and communication. It doesn't matter if you're the best scumhunter ever if you can't persuade people to follow your lead. It doesn't matter if you drew the ninja card and can't be traced to the nightkill because you're going to have to try to steer town into a mislynch or two. Effective communication is an art, but it is also a skill that can be learned. It requires not only being able to express yourself, but to distill what others are saying into the salient details too.

If you're skilled at both those things (persuasion and also understanding) then you are going to be better at discerning alignments, mislynching townies, sussing out power roles, finding breadcrumbs, etc.

I think communication is the fundamental skill of Mafia in the same way dribbling is the fundamental skill of basketball: you can't do much else if you suck at it.

[BROseidon]

basic probability and statistics

Yes.

Also how to set up problems. A lot of people fuck up because they don't set up the problem correctly.

[Psyche]

Also how to set up problems.

that's the hardest part!

[Oversoul]

Why need basic probability and statistics when have gut?

[Plotinus]

combinatorics. to teach why preflip associatiatives are bad.

[Kagami]

combinatorics. to teach why preflip associatiatives are bad.

They're not bad, but some people shouldn't try to do them.

[Psyche]

cut the crap kagami

[sthar8]

logic, setup balance, how to do EV math, critical thinking, talking on the telephone, empathy

[FakedBlogger]

Scumhunting. What it is, what it could be. Give historic examples of intelligent techniques along with context analysis, even if they failed, and come up with hypothetical scenarios for better town synergy.

Until every player on the roster knows how to scumhunt the game is still in alpha stage. For it to go into beta town needs to have the whole picture about what it is scum have to do to win and how, because then they can mold themselves into instruments of scum detection.

Forum mafia will reach 1.0 when it becomes a regular thing for town to keep up creativity, concentration, skill and discipline to synergize, thereby trapping scum, and forcing them to slip + vigilance to detect it and vote on it.

[Psyche]

oh to be an instrument of scum detection

[T S O]

I'm not interested in a catalog of skills required to play well at mafia, or in your prepared lectures (ty mastin).

I laughed a lot at this.

[Psyche]

trim the turd tso

[Bacde]

Mafia 99: Rules of Engagement

Mafia 101: Generating a scumread

Mafia 103: Building confidence

Mafia 110: Working together

Scum 201: How to not bus

Mafia: 307: Dealing with Kuribo

[Alchemist21]

Roles (as in learning all the different roles that get used)

Optimization (learning how to use PR's and mechanics optimally for your faction)

Hydra Head Identification (learning to tell unfamiliar hydra heads apart without them having to sign)

Gambits (learning the different gambits that are used, when and why they are used, and what they look like from an outside perspective when used)

Meta Diving (learning how to properly perform a second-hand meta by analyzing a player across all alignments and their interactions, as well as observing the change in their meta over time to determine the reliability of a meta dive on that player)

Argumentation (similar to an argumentive writing class where you would learn ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos to form persuasive arguments).

Mafia Ethics (do's and dont's of repecting your fellow players)

[vonflare]

90 minute lectures each, two lectures each week, on Tues and Thurs.
Homework are due a week from when they're assigned, at beginning of the class.

Lecture 1: History of Mafia, Rules of Engagement. (HW 1 - Vocab)
Lecture 2: Expected Values and Mountainous Setups
Lecture 3: Power Roles and Modifiers, Introduction to Game Theory (HW 2 - Vocab 2 and EV calculations for Mountainous)
Lecture 4: Setup - 2v7 with Cop
Lecture 5: Setup - 2v7 with multiple ICs (HW 3 - EV calculations for various Cop setups)
Lecture 6: Setup - 2v7 with IC and Doc
Lecture 7: Setup - 2v7 with Cop and Doc (HW 4 - Breaking strategies)
Lecture 8: Lovers, Millers, and other neg utility roles
Lecture 9: Setup - Lover's Gambit (HW 5 - EV calculations for larger setups)
Lecture 10: Setup creation: Playing at God, Difference between Theorycrafting and Real-Life Play
Lecture 11: Differences cont'd (HW 6 - Design a setup)
Lecture 12: Review
Final

You forgot to teach the prisoners dilemma and that optimal play in 2-1-1 is to lynch the townie.