I really suck at this

[N e s s]

Any tips? I know its just a game but man, i'm really bad at this. I only have 1 MS game heres but i've played several different games on different sites.

[wgeurts]

Play a lot more and ask others for advice.
I played a lot on other sites but to get to the level your deemed okay here all you need is experience. You learn by making mistakes and seeing what works, in general this is some decent life advice as well.
And if you muck up don't fret, after all it's just a game.

To get started I suggest you play a few games and try to get people to comment on your play. See anyone's play you really admire?
Read their games and try to understand their thought process.

The wiki is also a good help though we haven't had any good articles on play in a while.

[Fro99er]

What wguerts said

Except he's underselling the wiki

[BBmolla]

You really learn as you play, you'll start to notice patterns and find scum from there.

[SilverWolf]

If you have specific areas you need advice on, that might be more helpful.

Otherwise, just play and get the experience and follow the games of experienced players you like.

[Ythan]

Pretend to be great.

[DeathRowKitty]

What wguerts said

Except he's underselling the wiki

The wiki articles relevant to actually playing the game are a far worse version of MD threads, which in turn are a far worse version of legitimate advice

[BBmolla]

Pretend to be great.

This is actually good advice.

Like in all honest I'm awful at this game and wrong at least 50% of the time.

You just need to figure out how to play that game. Maybe it's finding a townread and sheeping it. Maybe it's just being confident in your own reads even though you have no idea about anything.

[wgeurts]

What wguerts said

Except he's underselling the wiki

I'm really not underselling the latter part.

[Performer]

Any tips? I know its just a game but man, i'm really bad at this. I only have 1 MS game heres but i've played several different games on different sites.

A few excellent general tips are these:
-be open minded to advice, as there are always things to learn in this game
-try not to get overly heated in this game - it's not worth it at the end of the day
-try to have some fun with others by being sociable. Keyser for instance, posted plenty of funny images in his posts during a game that I played with him last year

My next post will talk about more specific things on how to improve. Please note these points are heavily geared to improving your town game, as I have a personal dislike of scum.

[N]

Don't play mafia if you don't enjoy it.

[Performer]

-Cops should ideally be targeting people they have trouble reading, to maximize the information gain
-Stay involved in the game. As in, try to avoid lurking or at least reduce your chance of lurking. Town distrusts lurkers
-Try to come across transparent and logical to others.
"Why did you spill water on me when you walked by?"
""It was an accident. I tripped."
"An accident...you tripped?"
"Yes. It was raining earlier and the pavement was still wet. El Nino is hitting California hard. I'm sorry. I'll buy you a new shirt tomorrow , ok?"
"Ok, deal. Thanks and I love you."
"Ok that's a little too forward."

-Work together with other town members. I can't stress this one enough. If someone reasonable requests something of you or reasonably comments on something regarding you, try to reasonably address it
-NEVER give up the town fight. NEVER...no matter what the situation, because you are innocent! If things get tough and people scumread you DESPITE you being a PR, don't give up. Continue the fight. I've seen things turn around for people wagoned, at the last minute. Sometimes whether or not you get lynched isn't as important as maintaining strength of character
-Consider all reasonable current and future possibilities. For example, in normal, balanced games, you shouldn't setup speculate about 11 Goons and 2 Townies. You should speculate whether or not PR claims have a better chance of being true or not
-Voting and/or hammering a claimed PR on day 1, is typically a horrible idea
-PROTECT your PRs. 1 purpose of Vanilla Townies (and I'd go as far to say even certain other PRs), is protecting the PRs. Without PRs, town has a much lower chance of victory
-Take in what happened from past posts, and compare that against the current situation, for in-depth analysis
-Use a wide variety of scumhunting and townhunting techniques, including meta dives, VCA, NKA, role claims, and so on

-Don't drop a case if you're being ignored. There may be a reason behind you're being ignored, and you want to root that out as soon as possible. Start questioning people individually about why they're not giving it attention. Aim for the most likely town player who happens to have more charisma than you - that's a good start
-Sometimes you should keep things concise. Wordy posting can be very user unfriendly, which can confuse people, which means you're stirring chaos by being unclear, ultimately leading to people scumreading you
-Do wagon analysis when you’re heavily wagoned
-Don’t just take someone’s word for something like a strange PR claim, like 1-shot Bulletproof Doctor in a 14-man game.
-If someone townreads you in a very odd way - like just based on 1 game they played with you - ask why they townread you. Don't just accept it if they have a bare post

-Look at analysis of actions, intent, voting, previous posts (if they make sense to you)
-Try not to fake claim, EVER. This is a very bad idea

[Performer]

Also Ness, many folks if not most folks (my opinion) do awful here in their 1st games. I almost gave up a few times too but over the past several months, I've learned much about the art and science of arguing cases. We don't just have to play this, we can play this and learn good and bad approaches to talking about a case - skills we can take into the real world to improve our lives.

[N e s s]

Does anyone have tips as to what i do if the host doesn't supply a safe claim?

[Psyche]

Don't play mafia if you don't enjoy it.

[N e s s]

Don't play mafia if you don't enjoy it.

I do enjoy mafia, i'm just bad at it...

[hiplop]

Does anyone have tips as to what i do if the host doesn't supply a safe claim?

you have two options

Counterclaim or make your own. It is very situational but the trick is to read and see if anyone has crumbed (gave clues for) their claims, and claim outside of there. Try to understand how a balanced setup looks, if there is Mafia Ninja, a tracker/watcher claim is usually a damn good fakeclaim (because "why wouldn't there be a watcher if theres a ninja"). You basically want something that will make people not want to vote you out because it seems logical. Try and separate yourself from the situation. If someone claimed x thing in that moment and you wouldn't lynch them because of it, claim that.

If you're really stuck, claim something INSANE and hope it works. Sometimes it does (see: Any Serene2 game)

[Psyche]

tragic

[SilverWolf]

Does anyone have tips as to what i do if the host doesn't supply a safe claim?

Safe claim such as the VT claim posted at the beginning of most games? That should always be there.

If you are scum and the mod doesn't provide a fake claim, then if it's a normal check the wiki use of normal rules to make sure you don't pick a role that isn't allowed in a normal-I've seen this happen more than once.

Also with modifiers-if town is flipping odd, even-pick a role and add odd, even to it. I screwed up a fakeclaim by not doing this once.

If you are a scum PR, see if you can just claim what you have. If you are a roleblocker-you can try jail keeper but make sure you have night actions that make sense-like the people you say you targeted would be town targets and play like you have that role all game.

Otherwise, get creative and see what you can get away with. Or if you want, you can claim a role that will bring out a cc of the actual role but know you will likely get lynched but could get that role outed as well.

Lots of ways to play this.

[hiplop]

If you are scum and the mod doesn't provide a fake claim, then if it's a normal check the wiki use of normal rules to make sure you don't pick a role that isn't allowed in a normal-I've seen this happen more than once.

I'm not sure if it is still the case but one time I fakeclaimed a role outside of it and got a pass because I made them think it was one of the "exception roles"! I was like universal backup or something?

[N e s s]

Well what do i do if the game is themed? I'm playing a star wars mafia right now and my host didn't supply safe claims.

My GF forgot to send in the scum kills, and i'm thinking of taking the opportunity to RC Bulletproof. Thing is i don't know what character name to say if i get called out.

[hiplop]

I'm playing a star wars mafia right now and my host didn't supply safe claims.

first thing

don't talk about ongoing games

. Seriously ruins the entire game for everyone. This is a pretty big deal. Don't do it, ever.

theoretically though, not giving scum fakeclaims in a themed game is just a dick move. In games like that the best plan is counterclaim/claim your own role if its not alignmentindicative or make up one based on some obscure character

[SilverWolf]

Well what do i do if the game is themed? I'm playing a star wars mafia right now and my host didn't supply safe claims.

My GF forgot to send in the scum kills, and i'm thinking of taking the opportunity to RC Bulletproof. Thing is i don't know what character name to say if i get called out.

Yeah, if this is ongoing, I can't answer this.

[SilverWolf]

If you are scum and the mod doesn't provide a fake claim, then if it's a normal check the wiki use of normal rules to make sure you don't pick a role that isn't allowed in a normal-I've seen this happen more than once.

I'm not sure if it is still the case but one time I fakeclaimed a role outside of it and got a pass because I made them think it was one of the "exception roles"! I was like universal backup or something?

Oh yeah, there's usually one role that can be outside the normal allowed so yeah, this is possible to do.

A lot of times, like you said, if something is crazy it'll likely be believed.

[ArcAngel9]

Don't worry.. You will get there and become better in no time.. We all did too.. Believe it or not, there is no worse player than me in mafiascum during my time. I was not only bad at this game but also had language problem, and more rage issues. the best part was.. I enjoyed the worse