Commonly Asked Questions on Mafia Theory

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Post Post #225 (ISO) » Wed Jul 24, 2019 5:34 pm

Post by chennisden »

Yeah you're right on the ratios.

Nomination is a setup with different mechanics. I have fond memories of the setup especially since my first good towngame and the beginning of me not being the ez lhf mislynch was in a Nomination game
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Post Post #226 (ISO) » Wed Jul 24, 2019 7:51 pm

Post by Spangled »

Why does the number have to be odd?
Does that affect balance somehow?
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Post Post #227 (ISO) » Wed Jul 24, 2019 7:54 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

A 4p mylo is way harder on town than a 3p lylo (optimal town play is to give scum an additional kill, which isn't really that great for town), so if you have a normal day/night cycle with one lynch during the day and one kill at night, starting with an odd number gives a more sensible ending.

The relationship doesn't hold if you have a lot of killing/protective roles or a weird day/night cycle. (If you have a small number of killing roles, sometimes evens even works out better than odds.)
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Post Post #228 (ISO) » Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:50 pm

Post by popsofctown »

I feel like it should be mentioned that there's a quality-of-life element that is unrelated to balance. It is much harder to get three people to agree the fourth person is scum than it is to get two people to agree the third is scum. When the dayplay flow involves a deadlock like that it can be less fun for the players irrespective of how that impacts each of their win%s

but cfj is correct that there is a balance element as well
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Post Post #229 (ISO) » Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:14 am

Post by profii »

If a lyncher was used in a game would it ever be so that the lyncher had to lynch a scum (and therefore work together with town)
Or is it just kinda random
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Post Post #230 (ISO) » Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:42 am

Post by NDMath »

In post 229, profii wrote:If a lyncher was used in a game would it ever be so that the lyncher had to lynch a scum (and therefore work together with town)
Or is it just kinda random
There would have to either be
A. Another way for the scum to die
B. A secondary part to win con
Because as is it's an easier version of town.
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Post Post #231 (ISO) » Thu Apr 23, 2020 5:33 pm

Post by Knightmare491 »

This is probably a dumb question, but on the wiki it says that the target of the Jailkeeper receives a PM from the mod saying that they were BLOCKED. So is this applicable only if the target is a PR? Or do VTs need to be told that they were blocked too?
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Post Post #232 (ISO) » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:18 pm

Post by northsidegal »

where are you seeing that on the wiki page? a jailkeeper's target receiving a PM is not according to normal guidelines, nor would i consider it common usage in pretty much any other setups. i also don't really see that said anywhere on the wiki page.
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Post Post #233 (ISO) » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:20 pm

Post by Knightmare491 »

"Don't be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone."

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Post Post #234 (ISO) » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:23 pm

Post by northsidegal »

that's not really any sort of official page, it's just a personal project.
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Post Post #235 (ISO) » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:34 pm

Post by Knightmare491 »

Okie, missed that. Thank you!
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Post Post #236 (ISO) » Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:19 am

Post by Knightmare491 »

In this setup https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... of_Command
Say mafia rolled one of the officers (secondary win con isn't applicable) and get lynched, the other two officers get killed, then what happens with the PRs? Are they allowed to use their NAs or not?
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Post Post #237 (ISO) » Fri Apr 24, 2020 1:03 pm

Post by popsofctown »

In post 236, Knightmare491 wrote:In this setup https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... of_Command
Say mafia rolled one of the officers (secondary win con isn't applicable) and get lynched, the other two officers get killed, then what happens with the PRs? Are they allowed to use their NAs or not?
The sample scum motivator PM describes receiving orders as a necessary precondition to using an ability rather than a restriction limiting the freedom on the ability. Which would be the preferred reading from just reading the setup anyway, but I'd agree it's not ironclad before you read the role PM. So killing the whole command structure vanillerizes all PRs.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #238 (ISO) » Fri Apr 24, 2020 2:47 pm

Post by Knightmare491 »

popsofctown wrote:
In post 236, Knightmare491 wrote:In this setup https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... of_Command
Say mafia rolled one of the officers (secondary win con isn't applicable) and get lynched, the other two officers get killed, then what happens with the PRs? Are they allowed to use their NAs or not?
The sample scum motivator PM describes receiving orders as a necessary precondition to using an ability rather than a restriction limiting the freedom on the ability. Which would be the preferred reading from just reading the setup anyway, but I'd agree it's not ironclad before you read the role PM. So killing the whole command structure vanillerizes all PRs.
:good:
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Post Post #239 (ISO) » Sat Apr 25, 2020 6:57 am

Post by Gamma Emerald »

The only role type that should get told they were blocked is investigator roles, and they should just be given a No Result, not explicitly told a blocking role targeted them.
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Post Post #240 (ISO) » Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:44 pm

Post by BBmolla »

F2F mafia I tend to start the night with Masons at any playercount to get it started. Two Masons if 9 or less, three if 11 or more.

Generally you only want one or two PRs with night actions just because any more it makes the game an enormous fucking slog. Somehow people haven't made a Jackbox TV version of Mafia so it's 2020 and that's still the biggest problem I encounter.

But yeah, after masons I generally do Son of the Cop (Cop/Miller who disables Cop when he dies), Doc/Macho Cop, Doc/Macho Jailkeeper, and then I'll get into crazier stuff by giving Mafia a Suicide Bomber or the like.

If you have more than 13p it couldn't hurt to add another power role into the above setups which I generally play at like 9 players.
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Post Post #241 (ISO) » Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:17 pm

Post by chkflip »

How would you balance a cult?

I know how I've done it, and I'm confident with that, but I sporadically like to check the site's pulse in regard to what the unwashed masses think.
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Post Post #242 (ISO) » Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:19 pm

Post by Ircher »

The main issue with a cult is that it can grow as fast as town can get rid of people. So for a cult game to succeed, you need ways to increase the number of people town can remove at once or ways to mitigate the spread of the cult.
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Post Post #243 (ISO) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:29 am

Post by SJReaver »

One of the concepts of Mafia is 'play to wincon.'

But it seems to me that neutrals rarely win. Games are designed on the assumption that the SK is simply a hindrance for one of the other factions, clogging up scumreads and making night time more deadly.

It is fair to tell people 'play to win' and then have them start in a position where they have almost no chance of winning? It's like setting up a race and randomly deciding one of the runners has to wear a weighted vest.

Is there a way to include neutrals in the game where they are more than a condiment to the real factions, and the game doesn't become overly swingy?
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Post Post #244 (ISO) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:58 pm

Post by Vi »

In post 243, SJReaver wrote:One of the concepts of Mafia is 'play to wincon.'

But it seems to me that neutrals rarely win. Games are designed on the assumption that the SK is simply a hindrance for one of the other factions, clogging up scumreads and making night time more deadly.

It is fair to tell people 'play to win' and then have them start in a position where they have almost no chance of winning? It's like setting up a race and randomly deciding one of the runners has to wear a weighted vest.

Is there a way to include neutrals in the game where they are more than a condiment to the real factions, and the game doesn't become overly swingy?
The more factions you have, the more swingy a game is going to be. Multiball is so notorious for this that it's either banned or strongly discouraged in Normal games (I haven't checked).

Most of the time SKs have some form of benefit that helps their odds out. Usually they're NK-immune; other times they get weirder benefits (like the time I drew a role that killed and then recruited targets, in that order). They still generally lose but a lot of people enjoy being on a team of 1 against the rest of the game.

There have been games with third-party groupscum that have their own agendas, but those are usually in the really strange games and the design philosophy is likely difficult to transfer or generalize.
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Post Post #245 (ISO) » Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:36 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

Multiball is banned in Mini Normals but permitted in Large Normals. Multiball games tend to be explicitly advertised as multiball nowadays, so that the players who prefer multiball can play it and the players who dislike it can stay away.
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Post Post #246 (ISO) » Tue Jul 14, 2020 4:14 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 242, Ircher wrote:The main issue with a cult is that it can grow as fast as town can get rid of people. So for a cult game to succeed, you need ways to increase the number of people town can remove at once or ways to mitigate the spread of the cult.
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Post Post #247 (ISO) » Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:36 am

Post by Knightmare491 »

https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... s_Pressure

1. What are the no lynch rules in this setup? Is no lynch an option?(I know it would be pointless since the game is nightless, but just making sure).
2. Does there need to be a punish mechanic in case town don't reach majority/insta lynch, e.g., it happens twice and mafia auto win. Something like that?
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Post Post #248 (ISO) » Sat Mar 06, 2021 6:55 am

Post by callforjudgement »

Nightless games normally use a voting mechanism that forces town to eliminate someone every day (in order to prevent town timing out the day intentionally to manufacture a sort of makeshift deadline extension).

The rules that I use when running a Nightless are to eliminate the player with the most votes at deadline; if there's a tie, look back at which of the tied players had more votes at the most recent point in time when they weren't tied; if nobody has any votes at all, eliminate someone at random. You don't have to use these exact rules (although they're fairly good ones), but should have some way to stop town circumventing the deadline when you run a Nightless.
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Post Post #249 (ISO) » Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:03 am

Post by Knightmare491 »

But isn't that still helping town tho? ( I mean the random bit, if there is a tie, etc)
e.g. if mafia gets lynched due to the roll then town just benefit because they played badly.
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