Currently we have the majority rule (50%+1 is required to lynch) with hammer (the lynch is resolved once there is a majority). Years ago, before I started playing here, I was used to playing Mafia with the plurality rule rather than the majority rule. The plurality rule is similar to the majority rule that only the player with most votes is lynched, but no strict majority is necessary. We also had no hammer. This means that with 10 players, with 3 players voting for X, 2 players voting for Y, 2 players voting for Z, 2 players voting for W, and 1 player not voting, a lynch could be achieved. These votings were also very manipulable (a consequence of the plurality rule) and they always ended with the deadline.
To resolve ties, we had a mayor voting on D1 rather than a lynch (this mayor role is not to be confused with the MafiaScum mayor role). The mayor would have the ability to break ties (a kingmaker of some sort). The mayor was often the target of nightkills, because the Mafia wanted to have a scum mayor instead. Sometimes the Mafia purposely kept a town mayor alive for WIFOM reasons, to deceive players into thinking the mayor is still alive because they must be scum. Of course, there is no mayor on this site, because the majority rule makes a mayor useless.
I mainly want to compare these two voting rules: majority vs. plurality. Should the majority rule be preferred over the plurality rule? On what basis? This is interesting to me from a game theoretical perspective. I would really like to hear your thoughts about this, because I have not seen any discussion about it so far.
(There are also other voting rules, such as the Borda rule. But these are generally a lot more complex: every player must rank
all
players to vote. I don't really know how the Borda rule would play out in practice.)
