Mystery Mode

[vizIIsto]

WARNING: this is a dumb idea. Please take everything mentioned in this idea with a grain of salt.

So, what if there was a mode in mafia where NOBODY knows their role?
It works just like standard mafia: there's a small group of mafioso, and a bigger group of townies.
However, nobody knows what role they are. No one. Everyone is either a vanilla townie or vanilla mafioso, but which one they are, they don't know.
Lynching goes just like usual. Majority vote gets voted out.
During the night, one townie gets killed by random choice.
Assumably, everybody wants to look the most town as possible. However, there will be no real scumslips because no one knows if they are scum. It's not always the best idea to vote out the most suspicious looking townie, because there is no way that those suspicions could be real.
Besides, mafia members don't know each other, so the argument of 'they defended x and x was mafia' doesn't count.
It's basically all random, but tests one's ability to look as town as possible.

My theoretical question is: would the mafia and the townies have an equal chance of winning when the common 7/9/15-player setups of mafia:town ratio stay the same? Or would it be more favorable for town / mafia?

[vizIIsto]

Another variation for this is one where some of the players, besides being vanilla Mafioso/Townie, are Jesters. Preferably not more than 20% of the players. Again, a player does not know if he's a Jester or not.
Now, how will the players find a mix between trying to look town (like the majority actually is) and trying to look suspicious (which both mafioso and jesters are), while not knowing who is who, and not even knowing who you are?

[Ramcius]

This can be social game maybe, but it's not mafia. There's no deduction, if no one knows their role and win or loss depends on popularity/luck

[vizIIsto]

Perhaps a mode where one person knows who everybody is (either town or mafia), but he's not allowed to speak about it? Because otherwise the game would be ruined. It's like a secret player that DOES know who who is, but he HAS to be silent about it, otherwise his side loses.

[Ramcius]

Perhaps a mode where one person knows who everybody is (either town or mafia), but he's not allowed to speak about it? Because otherwise the game would be ruined. It's like a secret player that DOES know who who is, but he HAS to be silent about it, otherwise his side loses.

What's the point of this "player", if they can't influence game?

What's is the goal of mafia? Find and eliminate all scum or survive, if you're scum. So, how you can find scum, if they themselves don't know they are scum?

[RadiantCowbells]

The only way to really accomplish what you're looking for is to give everyone town role PMs and see what happens.

[popsofctown]

This would be fully random lynching. Lynching people who "look scummy" would have no relationship with reality if no one has viewed their role pm.

Towns do somewhat better than the random EV, at least in newbie queue I don't know about the data on normal and opens. So when this has random EV exactly it will have a somewhat lower mafia winrate.

I don't find very much value in the thought experiment, it's pretty dumb.

[Ramcius]

The only way to really accomplish what you're looking for is to give everyone town role PMs and see what happens.

I've heard off site about such game and wincon was to figure out there was no scum

[popsofctown]

You can do that in a non-bastard manner, that's precisely what conspiracy is. You can extend conspiracy to more than three players if you want to.
Conventional wisdom is that mafia is probably a better social deduction game than conspiracy.

It's possibly true that if vizisto is interested in watching X people with identical information about their alignment compete to get townread, a conspiracy setup is ideal.
Something like, {7 VTs} // {5 VTs, 2 Conspirators}, town votes "conspiracy" or "no conspiracy" after the lynch.
But that's a scenario where people know their alignment.

[callforjudgement]

The only way to really accomplish what you're looking for is to give everyone town role PMs and see what happens.

I've heard off site about such game and wincon was to figure out there was no scum

There was a Large here with (for much of the game) only one scum (who had no incentive to avoid being lynched). The players decided that it was quite possible there were no scum (this was compatible with the flavour and it was known to be a bastard game), and attempted to call a draw, assuming that this was the setup. It didn't end up well, with the moderator and players ending up rather at odds with each other.

At any rate, it's a decent approximation of what an entirely-town game would look like here. My guess is that if someone did run such a game as a Large, it would be figured out within 4-5 days.

[Ankamius]

The only way to really accomplish what you're looking for is to give everyone town role PMs and see what happens.

I've heard off site about such game and wincon was to figure out there was no scum

There was a Large here with (for much of the game) only one scum (who had no incentive to avoid being lynched). The players decided that it was quite possible there were no scum (this was compatible with the flavour and it was known to be a bastard game), and attempted to call a draw, assuming that this was the setup. It didn't end up well, with the moderator and players ending up rather at odds with each other.

At any rate, it's a decent approximation of what an entirely-town game would look like here. My guess is that if someone did run such a game as a Large, it would be figured out within 4-5 days.

oh god I still have nightmares about that game

[Awoo]

Flashbacks to rocky horror show though

[vonflare]

this is easily the dumbest thread ever posted on the site

im laughing

im dying

thank you harambey

thank you

[implosion]

Surprised no one has mentioned quantum mafia by magnus_orion (I think?). It’s almost exactly this idea.

[GuiltyLion]

The only way to really accomplish what you're looking for is to give everyone town role PMs and see what happens.

I played in a game like this!

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