Commonly Asked Questions on Mafia Theory
-
-
callforjudgement Microprocessor
- Microprocessor
- Microprocessor
- Posts: 3972
- Joined: September 1, 2011
It's possible that some setups will attract particular players. If those players have a particular town/scum bias (e.g. are particularly easy to read, helping town, or are particularly hard to read, helping scum), then that will show up in the setup results.scum· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·town-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
by zero posting in the game topic and getting carried by smith, of courseIn post 195, BuJaber wrote:To use your example, how would Ellibereth win as scum?Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
I have been part of town sweeps. It is entirely possible to achieve wolf lynches on d1, sometimes even without much in the way of bussing! If you believe it can happen, you can make it happen.In post 188, northsidegal wrote:
i fundamentally disagree with everyone who espouses the "day ones are useless" philosophy. reading people based on their play really doesn't change at all day to day, and that's not something that you can ever just ignore.In post 183, Persivul wrote:
D1 - no.In post 177, naturalbreadcrumbs wrote:In a Mountainous set-up, is it really possible for Town players, through only experience and skill, to raise the chances of a correct lynch above random selection?
After that, if VCA and NKA are properly applied - yes.Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:
1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happensShowhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
A more serious answer to the question is that a high rep town player, when randing wolf, will probably be forced to bus at some point, barring a pretty lol tier willage or extremely careful planning of interactions and night kills (in order to CREATE an lol tier willage by murdering off the people capable of catching him in the first place).In post 201, mhsmith0 wrote:
by zero posting in the game topic and getting carried by smith, of courseIn post 195, BuJaber wrote:To use your example, how would Ellibereth win as scum?
(also anon games can help with this too *shrugs*)Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
This is criticalIn post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch,
Becomes even more critical the higher density of MU players you have2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
I actually disagree with this a bit.In post 180, OkaPoka wrote:I think the more experienced the playerlist, the more likely that town lynches town from personal experience.
Personally, I believe that there is a higher peak to playing scum than playing town, if that makes any sense. Like there is a limit to how good you can get at being able to look at anyone and just knowing they are scum (barring meta) while playing scum, there is no real limit. Scum players, especially in no investigative pr setups, are just afforded much more freedom so given enough time, they could probably create an effective persona that is essentially unlynchable. A big part of playing scum in a normal game is both getting townread while not drawing night actions, but when you don't have to care about the latter, then all you have to do is get solidly townread which isn't too hard if you put enough effort into it.
When the playerlist overall is less experienced, I think that town is more favored than scum. It takes a lot more training to be good at deception versus seeing someone be awkward and realizing they don't fit in. We've been training our entire lives to lie and tell if someone else is lying, but keeping up a lie for months is really hard without at least some experience.
But your mileage may vary and this is just all speaking from personal experience.
At the lowest levels, I think you're correct, in that really bad scum play loses games easier than really bad town play, and the relative gain from improving scum play is >>> the gain from improving town play.
But I think that it's actually really hard to become townread as scum in a really high level game; if, say, >=75% of the town is quality (which is actually VERY hard to make happen sometimes), then it becomes actually kind of easy to establish a pretty good POE and force scum to bus or out themselves with their pushes, or to establish a thread environment that's just an overall nightmare to wolf in because people are accurately finding each other and making/enforcing standards around what people are saying/doing that takes the air out of the kind of space for BS that wolves tend to need to thrive.Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
like as a decent scum player it's pretty easy to win all or nearly all of your games, winning all or nearly all of your games as town is pretty fucking hard if you aren't using a program to gain a massive advantage2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
-
Nancy Drew 39 She/HerNot that Inno ScentShe/Her
- Not that Inno Scent
- Not that Inno Scent
- Posts: 14979
- Joined: January 14, 2018
- Pronoun: She/Her
- Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
You think MU players mislynch more frequently than MS players?In post 206, RadiantCowbells wrote:
This is criticalIn post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch,
Becomes even more critical the higher density of MU players you have**********We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)~the worst*******Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl~CheekyTeekyNancy-scum feels like a hot knife slicing through butter. Nancy-town feels like a magnifying glass in the sun glaring down at an insect.~Taly-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
I'm saying that MU players tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players by writing them off as POE lynches that should happen at some point. You'll pretty much never see a D1 lynch on a well connected player on MU ime.2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
-
Nancy Drew 39 She/HerNot that Inno ScentShe/Her
- Not that Inno Scent
- Not that Inno Scent
- Posts: 14979
- Joined: January 14, 2018
- Pronoun: She/Her
- Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
When you find them, how do you convince town that they’re Lhfs and not wolves? Town more often than not, fails miserably in differentiating the mislynchbaity lhfs from scum. They all too frequently misunderstand that lynchbaity lhf play, usually comes from town, way more than scum.In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:
1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happens**********We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)~the worst*******Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl~CheekyTeekyNancy-scum feels like a hot knife slicing through butter. Nancy-town feels like a magnifying glass in the sun glaring down at an insect.~Taly-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
-
-
Nancy Drew 39 She/HerNot that Inno ScentShe/Her
- Not that Inno Scent
- Not that Inno Scent
- Posts: 14979
- Joined: January 14, 2018
- Pronoun: She/Her
- Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
In post 213, RadiantCowbells wrote:Tell them they're all bad and should sheep me because I'm god
What if you’re not in the game?**********We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)~the worst*******Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl~CheekyTeekyNancy-scum feels like a hot knife slicing through butter. Nancy-town feels like a magnifying glass in the sun glaring down at an insect.~Taly-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
Figure out the case on the LHF, and effectively argue against the caseIn post 212, Nancy Drew 39 wrote:
When you find them, how do you convince town that they’re Lhfs and not wolves? Town more often than not, fails miserably in differentiating the mislynchbaity lhfs from scum. They all too frequently misunderstand that lynchbaity lhf play, usually comes from town, way more than scum.In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:
1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happens
Find the skeeziest looking vote on the LHF and vote that person
See if there are people alive who are sitting back and lurking out the phase with the easy mislynch
Meta the LHF, try and find AI tells in their town vs scum game, point out (obv only if true) how they're playing more like their town game than scum game
etc
I think it's easy for people to shrug and walk down the easiest path when left to their own devices, but if you make it difficult to just shrug and lazy lynch whoever is the worst (or, sometimes, lowest rep) player in the game, then you can see what shakes out from that. Sometimes you can see legitimately useful AI tells (in either direction) when the easy lynch becomes hard because there's actual resistance to it.
PS It really does help a lot if you can find someone interacting with the wagon in a particularly suspicious manner and focus the attention that way. Of course, sometimes you're stuck in a game with ONLY LHF's and in that case, it's simply your lot in life to sufferShowhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
FWIW I think that almost everywhere people tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players. I think in MU games (in my limited experience, since I usually just rand wolf over there and it turns out when smith rands wolf there's an even easier path for town to take than just mislynching some random LHF ) there's a bit more explicit work in terms of trying to construct a town block and develop a reasonable towncore, and then the LHF types are just part of the remainder.In post 211, RadiantCowbells wrote:I'm saying that MU players tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players by writing them off as POE lynches that should happen at some point. You'll pretty much never see a D1 lynch on a well connected player on MU ime.
I think there's also probably a bit more hesitation to take really aggressive lynches on talented players, since if you're wrong you've lost a pretty useful asset. I'm not sure if that's overall good or bad, but I do think there's at least some logic to it, even if it can be annoying for everyone else (speaking as a pretty non-connected person I'm kind of neutral on it fwiw )Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
That tendency is absolutely true but I think MU is worse than other sites in terms of just writing a lot of players off as "poe/lynchbait" and marginalizing their participation.
I think that MS has its own problems which MU doesn't, no doubt, but in terms of that MU is much worse than here.2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
-
RadiantCowbells He/himSmooth CriminalHe/him
- Smooth Criminal
- Smooth Criminal
- Posts: 70855
- Joined: February 24, 2013
- Pronoun: He/him
on the other hand in MU lylo you can expect whichever townies are left over to seriously revisit the game and try to come up with something even if they still come up with the wrong result.
on MS so many lylos where the power players are dead the town just sits around and does nothing and then eventually vote whoever they were scumreading before without considering dead townies or w/e2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.-
-
dw_ Watcher
- Watcher
- Watcher
- Posts: 0
- Joined: November 7, 2016
Hey guys. Couldn’t see a Q&A thread so is this the right place? I can start a new thread if that’s more appropriate.
I’ve had a friend host a game that included both a mafia traitor and a serial killer, with the traitor not being able to win if the rest of his faction was wiped out.
In a game with only two parties (town vs. mafia) this isn’t an issue; the game ends immediately. But is there a standard for what happens if a mafia main body is eliminated and there’s both a traitor and an independent killer still alive?
Does the traitor die immediately if the rest of the faction is eliminated?
Does their win condition change?
Do they keep playing as-is in the hope of making a 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 endgame?
Thanks-
-
mhsmith0 Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Balancing Act
- Posts: 10830
- Joined: March 7, 2016
- Location: Phoenix, AZ
typically a traitor would depart from the game the moment the rest of his team dies, although different sites might do it differently. I'd run a multiball large normal a couple years ago where there was a blue mafia traitor who'd suicide as soon as his teammates were eliminated (but red mafia still could win at that point)
I've ALSO seen games where traitor can inherit the kill AS WELL AS GAMES where the traitor CANNOT inherit the kill but just sticks around and turns it into a scum win if he's ever in the final 2 where the other one is town
so it really depends on game design, but "cannot inherit kill and suicides when his teammates are all dead" is the most common approach.Showhttp://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?-
-
Spangled Mafia Scum
- Mafia Scum
- Mafia Scum
- Posts: 1345
- Joined: May 1, 2019
- Location: brisbane
Maybe this doesn’t belong in this thread, but what ratio of town:scum should there be in IRL games vs. forum games; are IRL games more town-sided or scum-sided?
Just out of curiosity.I proved myself a coward, who would desert a dying man.
---
Check out 15.ai, it does generated voices for characters and it’s pretty neat.-
-
callforjudgement Microprocessor
- Microprocessor
- Microprocessor
- Posts: 3972
- Joined: September 1, 2011
Face-to-face/in-person games are more townsided than forum Mafia. This is mostly due to the potential to read someone as town or scum via body language (especially in response to a question directed at them).
Town:scum ratio is something it's hard to talk about in absolute terms because it depends so much on what power roles and mechanics exist. Just under ¼ of the game as scum is common for both face-to-face and forum games, but the amount of power you need to balance that is somewhat different in the two cases (and also depends on the size of the game, e.g. a 7:2 game doesn't need much power to balance it on a forum and likely needs no power to balance it face-to-face, a 10:3 game needs considerably more town power in both cases).scum· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·town-
-
chennisden Macho Pichu
- Macho Pichu
- Macho Pichu
- Posts: 8907
- Joined: February 11, 2019
- Location: sheltered in place
I think F2F is definitely more townsided
But the longer you play with one group the more scumsided it gets? itnevergets less townsided than forum
But just play with the highest amount of odd players you can and use a setup accordingly
7p we did Cop Doc and a Roleblocker sometimes and nomination at other times
9p we just did a random 2d3 setup
11p we did nomination
13p we just had a cop + doc and a roleblocker (yeah scumsided but w/e)-
-
Spangled Mafia Scum
- Mafia Scum
- Mafia Scum
- Posts: 1345
- Joined: May 1, 2019
- Location: brisbane
What do you mean by nomination?In post 223, chennisden wrote:I think F2F is definitely more townsided
But the longer you play with one group the more scumsided it gets? itnevergets less townsided than forum
But just play with the highest amount of odd players you can and use a setup accordingly
7p we did Cop Doc and a Roleblocker sometimes and nomination at other times
9p we just did a random 2d3 setup
11p we did nomination
13p we just had a cop + doc and a roleblocker (yeah scumsided but w/e)
(And the ratios are 2:5, 2:7, 3:8, 3:10 right?)
Copyright © MafiaScum. All rights reserved.