Anonymous Mafia

[chennisden]

It's an interesting concept but around 10% of the playerbase would play too obviously.

Flavor Leaf would be instantly recognizable for example.

[gobbledygook]

What is recognizable about him

[Tchill13]

I think demand is there because look at how many alts there are

This is a great point.

I'm not sure why one would assume this would die out too soon. If anything it's a new challenge. This game would be vastly different than what players are used to.

And you'd still get credit for being good at it post game after players are revealed.

Lord knows we have to find a way to reward people's egos here lol.

[Boonskiies]

It's an interesting concept but around 10% of the playerbase would play too obviously.

Flavor Leaf would be instantly recognizable for example.

To be fair, I just had a secret alt for a bit, and everyone thought I was you.

I did get hard ID’d by Skygazer, but I agree.

There’s specific things I said that immediately I went “damn, why’d i do that”

Like, I said “whilst”, and I also have a very unique way of describing specific situations, a lot of times with metaphors relating to pop culture

[Nancy Drew 39]

I think demand is there because look at how many alts there are

Not really the same thing. What makes anonymous mafia unique is, EVERYONE is anonymous. NO ONE has any familiarity with anyone else’s meta and the stricter the rules are about this aspect of this setup, the better. Sure, people will try to guess obviously but as long as they aren’t allowed to do it publicly - similar to the ongoing game rule - the better.

And yes, because the game I was in was anonymous, I did intentionally and successfully try to hide any blatantly obvious “Nancy” tells, which I don’t usually bother to do when I just play with an alt.

[Nancy Drew 39]

I meant demand over time, similar to how marathons tend to go

I have no real opinion on the idea itself other than it feels extreme to go this route to solve a problem. I'd probably join one for giggles eventually, but I have a feeling it would take a lot of time before towns learn how to scum hunt in this type of setting so I would wait for a few games to end first.

They learn to scumhunt by relying on things other than meta. I don’t see what exactly is remotely “extreme” about this at all. The best mafia players are unreadable by meta anyway, so this is ideally what all serious mafia players ought to be eventually striving for anyway. I’m not remotely opposed to meta reads but I want to strengthen other methods of scumhunting, which anonymous games essentially forces you to.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Hot take: power roles are there to prevent mL’s, not to find scum

I think pr roles are mostly for balance, as mountainous games are generally more scumsided.

[Nancy Drew 39]

It's an interesting concept but around 10% of the playerbase would play too obviously.

Flavor Leaf would be instantly recognizable for example.

This is kind of splitting hairs. It really doesn’t defeat the purpose of him playing in an anonymous game, even if some people figure it out. The very fact, that no one would be allowed to say this is FL, is the obvious point.

[Ankamius]

You'd be surprised how much relies on knowledge of other people at least in some sense

[Nancy Drew 39]

I’m not surprised at all by this, why should I be? I just think that over reliance on meta reads, weakens one’s abilities to rely on other methods of scumhunting.

[Tchill13]

I've also seen on this site far too often the more famous better players are blindly sheeped.

A huge part of the game is manipulation. They avoid that due to who they are.

I wonder how great they'd be at convincing others of stuff if they didn't have that fame with them.

[Tchill13]

Meta truly effects the game in every aspect. Literally every aspect. Which is why I'm so opposed to it. Most of the time it's taken advantage of for the wrong reasons.

The anonymous games would be incredibly fun just to watch. Way more so Tha than the normal type.

You'd get back to the basics of the game extremely quick. It'd be very beneficial to absolutely anyone that played. It'd highlight your weaknesses almost immediately.

[Nancy Drew 39]

I wouldn’t want to entirely do away with meta, I just want to improve at scumhunting. You know to my ultimate surprise, people actually read me similar to how they would in a regular game. I expected to be mislynched but that obviously didn’t happen.

[Keychain]

When they created the game do you think they had one thought at all about the fact there would be similar patterns in interactions after a plethora of similar games?

This is a good question.

Dmitry Davidoff is commonly regarded as the creator of the Mafia game (informed minority vs uninformed majority). I had a google and found this set of rules which claims to be the original by Davidoff. The following is from the "Pointers for the Beginners" section:

For a new group, unless a clear leader emerges, the first round maybe a little slow. In the second round people who were unjustly eliminated have enough drive to prevent it from happening again. The third game is great without any reservations.

It seems natural that previous games and real life relationships are going to be a part of a game invented for use face to face and generally played multiple times in one sitting. Even if you didn't know the players beforehand, which you probably did.

The game has changed plenty over time though. For example, being adapted to forums. Regular anonymous games could absolutely be a cool thing to try for a different type of gameplay.

[Tchill13]

It SEEMS like he's talking more about experience of the game rather than "meta" of oneself or a particular player.

Regardless, I appreciate you looking that up and mentioning it. Very cool.

It's a bit hypocritical for me to talk about how the game was meant to be played at creation... When I'm trying to apply that on a website in forums lol.

Regardless we have an opportunity to create a new unique experience that would be fantastic and it just isn't being done.

[Tchill13]

Big fan of the breakdown in "pointer number 2"

[Nancy Drew 39]

It SEEMS like he's talking more about experience of the game rather than "meta" of oneself or a particular player.

Regardless, I appreciate you looking that up and mentioning it. Very cool.

It's a bit hypocritical for me to talk about how the game was meant to be played at creation... When I'm trying to apply that on a website in forums lol.

Regardless we have an opportunity to create a new unique experience that would be fantastic and it just isn't being done.

It’s neither unique or new to MU though, which is where I played my anonymous game but that game would be perfect for MS > MU, because they don’t have a lot of games with unique mechanics, that aren’t insane 12/12 mashes over there.

That particular game, HAD to be anonymous due to the supercool shapeshifting mechanic. Anyone who has any interest at all in experiencing that really interesting and fun mechanic, can only find it in an anonymous game, so people who are limiting themselves to meta-based games are cheating themselves out of experiencing interesting and unique mechanics, so maybe the detractors haven’t really taken that into account.

[Ellibereth]

I've also seen on this site far too often the more famous better players are blindly sheeped.

A huge part of the game is manipulation. They avoid that due to who they are.

I wonder how great they'd be at convincing others of stuff if they didn't have that fame with them.

The answer in one particular case would be not very good!
My performance would be orders of magnitude worse in every direction if I didn't use meta.

Regardless I think encouraging meta-free games is an excellent idea. I do disagree with the notion that it's "back to the basics". It's really about the difference in mindset between figuring out how to read/manipulate a particular person vs. figuring out how to read/manipulate an arbitrary person. Both appeal to different people (or the same person at different times!).

[Katsuki]

Psychology is vital to a game like mafia though.

When you play face to face, to people play with masks and voice changers?

Mafia was never a game that was 100% based on logic and reasoning in a purely textual context.

Especially as mafia, knowing how a certain individual/group will react to certain things is 95% to playing said faction.

[Tchill13]

I believe that the fact that you DON'T know how said players or factions will react is what makes the games more fun.

[Oversoul]

I've also seen on this site far too often the more famous better players are blindly sheeped.

A huge part of the game is manipulation. They avoid that due to who they are.

I wonder how great they'd be at convincing others of stuff if they didn't have that fame with them.

The answer in one particular case would be not very good!
My performance would be orders of magnitude worse in every direction if I didn't use meta.

Regardless I think encouraging meta-free games is an excellent idea. I do disagree with the notion that it's "back to the basics". It's really about the difference in mindset between figuring out how to read/manipulate a particular person vs. figuring out how to read/manipulate an arbitrary person. Both appeal to different people (or the same person at different times!).

I think there are certain universal traits that can point to a person being scum.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Psychology is vital to a game like mafia though.

When you play face to face, to people play with masks and voice changers?

Mafia was never a game that was 100% based on logic and reasoning in a purely textual context.

Especially as mafia, knowing how a certain individual/group will react to certain things is 95% to playing said faction.

You can’t have psychology without meta?

[Nancy Drew 39]

Ellibereth and Oversoul totally get it.

[kuribo]

Here you go here's an anonymous game


viewtopic.php?f=56&t=23352

[Nancy Drew 39]

That’s from 2013. There hasn’t been a more recent one?