I have a few questions I want to ask

[Celena]

Help me. He thinks a one night game, where one of the roles is literally: "Pick a random card from the center, don't look at it, you are that card" is better than mafia. Tell me how I can convince him of the wrongfulness of his ways.

[popsofctown]

Hi Celena, welcome to the forum!

It sounds like you are referring to One Night Ultimate Werewolf, a popular game that's also in the social deduction family. Most people around this forum would agree with your opinion on whether mafia or One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a better game, although there are some regards in which that can be an apples/oranges comparison. (One Night Ultimate Werewolf is more relaxed and less adversarial since it's sometimes possible everyone will win together, for one).

It's often harder for someone to appreciate Mafia's additional opportunities for detective work, persuasion, and tactics, before they've developed some of those skills initially. If you haven't started building those skills, then a Drunk is actually no easier to "read" than a mafia, so if you think about it that way it makes sense how the Drunk and similar cards like Troublemaker would detract less from his experience. ("read" is jargon for learning whether someone is mafia or town based on their actions, without using any powers)

If you're close friends, I'd recommend getting into forum mafia (which I recommend independent of your issue, I'm just kind of a fanatic for forum mafia and think everyone should try playing it), then later on invite him to play with you (possibly as a hydra) so you can show him how you CAN sleuth people on their thoughts and actions, and I think that would improve his interest, especially if his own skills improved.

It's a slower route, but in the cases where a disagreement is about "how much fun am I having?", it's hard to convince someone they should be having fun when they're not, so there's probably not going to be an easy answer.

[Annadog40]

There is no actual question mark in your statement.

ONUW has you look at the card at the start so it isnt that. Maybe start woth Town of Salem since it is faster and more role crazyness before going for forum mafia.

[Flavor Leaf]

Help me. He thinks a one night game, where one of the roles is literally: "Pick a random card from the center, don't look at it, you are that card" is better than mafia. Tell me how I can convince him of the wrongfulness of his ways.

Ugh, Oi, oh my god, ugh, no!!!

I’ve had people say the exact same thing to me.

That’s like saying Nick Jr. is better than the shows on like HBO.

[Flavor Leaf]

Maybe I should have said TeenNick, because teennick had some hits, and I generally do think ONUW is fine, and I enjoyed Teenick when I was younger, but yeah

There’s plenty of simplistic mafia setups that are simple to grasp and are engaging.

2 Mafia Lovers, 4 VT nightless is great for association tells and whatnot.

[Donempire]

Help me. He thinks a one night game, where one of the roles is literally: "Pick a random card from the center, don't look at it, you are that card" is better than mafia. Tell me how I can convince him of the wrongfulness of his ways.

"He" is right

I've tried convincing 30 or maybe even 40 people to play this game, bear in mind these are people that play werewolf in the phone with no questions. None of them even bothered once i said the game lasted a month at best.

The quality of the game doesnt matter when it takes a week to get into a match with people you dont know and you grind it out in a month. In this case you should suck it up and accept you are the weirdo of the group. Not a bad thing

[vonflare]

try 2 rooms 1 boom, thats a good social deduction game to play irl. more depth and strategy and socialization than ultimate werewolf with less rng