Interest Level: Realtime Mafia

[Telamon]

Hey everyone...

I've been poking through some of the past mafia games played on this site and it is incredible to me that days and nights in some of them can last for weeks. That would be simply too long for me to sustain interest in a game.

When my friends and I at school play mafia online, we do so in realtime. Meaning that a day in the game is a day in real life and night happens during the night. This results in a rather intense game and people log on whenever they have a free moment to see what is happening. I liken it to a kind of blood-bath soap opera for college students. These games often last for only 3-5 days. At the same time, because level of interest is high, any one of our games has several hundred posts and many of the posts are substantive (I've noticed that a lot of mafia games here contain a lot of one-liner posts). We usually play with 9-12 people. Games like this require more than casual dedication, though, and can be ruined if not enough people log on during the day to vote to lynch - though that hasn't been too much of a problem.

We run these game maybe once every two months on average. Would anyone here be interested in playing with a bunch of mafia-obsessed college students next time we start a game? We play using pseudonyms, so being a newcomer wouldn't necessarily single you out. I'm putting this out here since some members of our group are away for the quarter and we are having trouble meeting quorum.

If you'd like to see what these games are like, here is a representative sample:

Winter Roman Empire Mafia -
http://www.quicktopic.com/25/H/a3xYB5uKeMVYA/p-1.-1

In this game I was Nero and I completely pwned the mafia...

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PS - Have there been any "realtime" mafia games like this offered here? I would love to play in one, if enough people here are interested in the concept.

[Telamon]

PPS - I attached this poll for the purpose of giving mafia mods here a gauge to see if a realtime mafia game could potentially be hosted on mafiascum

[MeMe]

Telamon - how do you know whether or not your interest will be sustained until you give it a try? Most of us maintain activity in several games at once so that even if one game is stagnant, others in which we're participating are not.

[Thoth]

I voted totally interested. Unfortunately I'm probably from the wrong timezone to get in such a game should it run.

[shadyforce]

Potentially, I have the activity to play such games during some periods of the year. For instance, over the next week, I'll be able to logon all day, every day. I'd definitely be up for a game of RT mafia.

[Narninian]

You should start a sign-up in theme, Im guessing it would be more like RL mafia and could be lots of fun.

[jeep]

Many people here also play mafia in chat too... lots of fun.

-JEEP

[mathcam]

Ditto to MeMe and JEEP. I wasn't sure I'd like the slow pace of these games, but amongst the one-liners you also have a lot of people posting their thoughts after they've been thinking about them for a full day. This means you often get good in-depth analysis of what's really going on, a lot of good fake role claims from well-prepared scum, and in genearl, a lot of people who put a lot of time into making the game as fun as possible.

And yeah, chat mafia's great if you're looking for quickness of game.

This said, I would definitely be up for trying a game of the sort you describe, though there's fairly few people on the site that check the board often enough to make it a really fun game.

Cam

[Macros]

time zones would cause you the greatest difficulty imo, i wouldnt be playing, im not active enough anyway, but why not invite your 9-12 people here to try a game or two?

[cuban smoker]

Timezones = problems for such an international board. You will find enough players here that log in enough during the day to make this worthwhile, especially if you are clear on what is about to happen. Make it very clear what the game deadlines will be.

You could run a game like this on this forum, starting signups in the FreeMarket thread, but you need to have moderated a mini game before you do, or show substantive proof that you are an experienced online moderator. Conceivably you could try this as themed mini game, but I would not recommend that.

[shadyforce]

I fail to see how this is a theme at all. I consider this a normal game. Anyone is free to set whetever deadlines they see fit. It doesn't affect the themeness or lack thereof in my opinion, but I guess my opinion doesn't count. I believe that's up to the list mods. Anyway, since you have to queue to start a mini, I suggest maybe a normal game, but as small as your allowed for the first game anyway.

[Narninian]

good point - but it was would actively different from the norms in Normal minis.