[Attn] Gamerules - Mafia! Please read if you're new!

[MsDanya]

From the Ever Delicious GeeGee, thank you!

 

 

I had a crack at it. Might be too long.

 

Game Rules – Mafia

 

 

Introduction

 

Mafia is a game of detective work and misdirection. The rules are easy to understand in their most basic form, but have endless scope for expansion and some truly mind-bending setups have been crafted. For this reason we have newbie games to help new players get to grips with the game before throwing them out into the wacky world of advanced games.

 

Signing Up

 

You may sign up in a sign-up thread posted by a moderator prior to the game beginning. Some games may have a limited number of places or be restricted to newbie players. When the game is ready to begin the mod will create a Game Thread and PM everyone who is playing the game their role PMs.

 

Basic Rules

 

Teams

The players are divided into two teams: Townies and Mafia. The names of these teams change according to the game’s theme but for clarity in this guide they will be referred to as Townies and Mafia.

 

The Townies are the Innocent team.

• Each Townie knows s/he is innocent but is not told about anyone else.

• They win when the last evil player has been killed.

• They may only communicate about the game on the game thread.

 

The Mafia are the Evil team.

• The Mafia know each other (and by extension, who is innocent).

• They win when their numbers are equal to or greater than the Town.

• They may communicate outside the thread by PM or other means (including but not limited to MSN, email, phone, telepathy or smoke signals).

 

This is all very well, but how and when are people killed? It all comes down to:

 

Game Phases

The game has two alternating phases, Night and Day. Note that they do not correspond to realtime night and day but rather switch over when the right conditions have been met.

 

Day Phase is the phase in which all the players vote in the thread on who to lynch. When a majority is reached on one player then that player will be killed and the game will proceed to the Night Phase. Sometimes a time limit is imposed after which Day will end automatically. Who, if anyone, dies at this point is left up to the discretion of the mod.

 

During the Night Phase the Mafia, as a group, choose a player to nightkill and PM this choice to the mod. If there are any other night-active roles in the game they also PM their night choices to the mod. Once all the choices are in or after a certain time the next Day will start, usually with the death scene of anyone who died that Night.

 

 

Notes on Death

 

If you are dead you can still win if your team goes on to win. This is, of course, unless you’ve specifically been told that you need to survive to win.

 

It shouldn’t need to be spelled out but, the dead do not speak. If you are dead, you are out of the game. No more actions, no more votes, no more posting. You can make one post after your death to grumble and/or cheer your team but may not comment on the proceedings. This is not the time to suddenly release all the information you’ve been sitting on or to post an essay length dissertation on the state of the game. Sorry, you missed your chance. Mafia players may keep communicating with their team but have no powers and no voice in the thread.

 

If the game is a coroner game (you will be told this at the start of the game) then the dead player’s alignment and sometimes their role will be revealed by the mod when they post the death scene. Whether or not a game has a coroner finding makes a huge difference on how it is played. Most games are coroner games.

 

You can be killed by the mod if you are inactive (not posting) for too long without announcing an LOA beforehand on the thread as well as PMing the mod. This time is usually a few days realtime.

 

Roles

 

Sometimes players (of either team) can have special abilities that can help their team win. These roles are kept secret unless the player chooses to reveal them, they die in a coroner game that reveals roles, or someone else finds out and tells. Each role has many names and many variations so if you get one pay close attention to your role PM and don’t take for granted that it will be like the ‘default’ model.

 

The two most common roles (and the only two allowed in newbie games) are the Doctor and the Cop.

 

The Doc is a protective role aligned to the Town. Each Night they can PM the name of a player they wish to protect to the mod. If that player is targeted for a kill that Night they will instead go unharmed. Most of the time the Doc is allowed to choose themselves. Also commonly referred to as the Healer. This role is particularly powerful when paired with:

 

The Cop. This is an investigative role aligned to the Town. Each Night they can PM the name of a player they wish to investigate to the mod. The mod will reply with the player’s alignment. This is a difficult role to play because the most efficient Cop is one who can analyse the game and form strong suspicions about players. And also because revealing their role will instantly make them a target for the Mafia, but this is often necessary to convince the Town to act on their findings. Also commonly referred to as the Finder.

 

Other Common Roles

 

The Vigilante is a Town role that can kill. Most kill at Night. They may be able to kill every Night, on certain Nights or have a limited number of shots. Their job is to kill suspected Mafia, but they must be careful not to cause too a high death toll for the Town.

 

The Miller is a Town role who has no special powers in themselves. However, any Cop viewing them will be given a Mafia result. This can cause all sorts of chaos.

 

The Godfather is a Mafia role that is the opposite of the Miller. When viewed by a Cop, they will appear innocent. Sometimes the Godfather has other abilities, and sometimes this is only the name for the Mafioso responsible for handing in the group’s decision at Night, with no special powers.

 

The Role-blocker is a role belonging to either team that can block a person’s night action. They do this by PMing the player’s name to the mod. Thus a blocked Doc is no protection, a blocked Cop gets no results, a blocked Vig cannot kill etc. The blocked player may not be told specifically that they were blocked, but it is hard to keep an investigative role from figuring it out when they get no result for the Night or a Doc whose patient was killed regardless of their protection from noticing something fishy.

 

The Bomb is a player who automatically kills the player responsible for their death. They can be Town or Mafia. If they are nightkilled a Mafia will die, if they are lynched the last player to vote for them will die.

 

The Lovers are paired roles. When one dies (either from a nightkill or a lynch, but not always from a modkill) the other dies. Most often the Lovers will be on different teams. Lovers may or may not be told each other’s alignment or role.

 

The Serial Killer is a lone Mafia. They win by being the last man standing. They usually kill every Night and sometimes have additional abilities to help them overcome the odds.

 

It is possible for the Mafia to have evil versions of most roles including the Doc and Cop. A Mafia Doc might protect their team from lynches or from being killed by the Vig, and a Mafia Cop searches for Town roles like the Innocent Doc and Cop.

 

Game Variations

 

These are some common variations on the game. One or several can be in play at once:

 

Everyone Can Communicate Outside The Thread. This one quickly gets confusing as deals are struck and alliances formed behind the scenes. It can quickly get frustrating for someone who isn’t privy to all the backstage manoeuvring and can make it difficult to tell if two players are acting together because they are both Mafia or because they struck a deal.

 

More Than One Mafia Team. Very common. In this variation the Mafia spend almost as much time killing one another off as they do going after the Townies. Usually the Mafia teams do not know one another and victory goes to whichever Mafia family gains a majority of players first, or to the Town if all families are killed off before that happens.

 

Everyone Has A Role. There might be double ups of some roles, watered down versions of roles, roles linked to other roles, and roles that just plain suck to have (Miller), but everybody has one. Players are often not told when this is the case, but it is becoming common enough for people to work it out pretty quickly.

 

Game Events: Gaining popularity is the trend of introducing additional choices into otherwise normal Mafia games. These are usually resolved with a vote, either on the thread or by PMing the mod (secret ballot). The outcomes of these choices can include death, effects on roles or yet another game event.

 

Glossary of Terms

 

 

Bandwagon: When a lynch vote picks up steam as people leap onto the player most likely to get lynched. People may do this to speed the game up, to force a lynch before a deadline that promises dire consequences, because they don’t have a better idea or (after giving any of the above as a reason) because they are evil Mafia Lying Liars Who Lie and do not care who dies as long as they are Innocent.

 

Confirmed Innocent: A player who has been confirmed Innocent by a Cop or circumstances in the Game that make it impossible for them to be evil. Confirmed Innocents are usually prime targets for nightkills because the more Confirmed Innocents exist the narrower the pool of players who might be evil.

 

False-claim: a false Role-claim. Claiming a role you do not have. “Of course I look evil to you, I’m a Miller!” Or “Well I’m the real Cop and by total coincidence I viewed that person who just roleclaimed as Cop and named me Mafia, and I found out that they’re Mafia!” are common occurrences.

 

FOS: Finger Of Suspicion. You are suspicious of the person you are pointing the finger at, but not willing to vote for them yet, either because you can't, you're not sure yet or you have bigger fish to fry.

 

Kivam Gambit: Named after a risky play by Kivam and Talya in the Illuminators Murder Mystery game. This refers to a mafia team deliberately getting a member lynched in order to place another member beyond suspicion. Kivam and Talya spent the whole of the first day attacking each other so viciously that it was unthinkable that they were on the same team. They were. Kivam was lynched and revealed to be mafia and nobody looked twice at Talya for the rest of the game. Don’t try this at home.

 

LOA: Leave of Absence. Come down with something? Going fishing? Computer problems? You need to tell the mod as well as post in the thread so that you’re not modkilled for being inactive.

 

Lying Liar Who Lies: Someone who is suspected of lying or caught uttering a falsehood and is therefore likely to be Mafia.

 

Lynch: When a majority of votes is reached by players during the Day Phase and a player is formally reported dead by the mod.

 

Mafia Tell: Things you might notice in people’s behaviour that suggests they are Mafia. This includes things like changing their vote often, bandwagoning, being overly defensive or slips of the tongue.

 

Mod: The person who has created and runs the game. They are responsible for enforcing the rules, sending out role PMs, keeping vote counts, announcing deaths, determining the results of night actions and generally being a referee.

 

Modkill: When someone is killed by the mod for breaking the rules or being inactive.

 

Nightkill: When someone is killed at Night, either by the Mafia or a Vigilante (since it is hard to tell the difference from a Townie’s point of view).

 

Night Action: Anything else a role is capable of doing at Night. Night Actions must be sent to the mod for resolution. Few roles have Day Actions but the same thing applies.

 

Role-claim: When a player publically announces their role on the thread. Usually done by the Cop when they’ve found a Mafia player. Roles can be claimed falsely. A Mafia might claim to be the Doc when they’re about to be lynched to make the Town think twice about killing them, for example. Some roles are more difficult to prove than others.

 

Scum: Common name for Mafia, regardless of what they are called in that particular game.

 

WIFOM: Wine In Front Of Me. Has your opponent poisoned your wine, or have they poisoned their own, expecting you to grow suspicious and switch glasses?

You are faced with a choice, and the outcome of that choice depends on a hidden factor. On the surface, one option appears better than the others, but the situation could have been manipulated to make it appear that way and it is actually a trap. But maybe they expect you to think that, and it is actually the correct choice. But maybe that’s what they want you to think, and so on and so forth, etc etc, ad absurdum. It is a situation usually created by the Mafia to cause confusion among the Townies, but here is an Innocent example:

The Cop has roleclaimed, outing herself and one Confirmed Innocent. The Mafia are faced with two targets. The Cop can keep investigating and is very dangerous to the Mafia, so she is the obvious choice. But she is likely protected by the Doc. So they turn their attention to the Confirmed Innocent. But wait. What if the Doc has guessed that they expect him to protect her and is instead protecting the Confirmed Innocent, knowing that the Cop is safe? Guessing wrong will waste them a nightkill, guessing right will let them kill either the Cop or a lesser threat.

 

 

If I see spam in this thread I will be upset and start to cry (= I'll delete your post)

[triadruid]

Only modification I would make is to refer to Game Variations when describing the 'two' types of teams, since it's a little confusing to say there's only two, and then start describing others later on.

 

Looks good; do you think it's confusing to call the "Town" side "the Townies"? Or does this site usually use Villager/Citizen for the unpowered role?

[Barmacral]

It changes game to game, townies is how I tend to refer to them myself. You'll also notice that people here take their mafia a lot more seriously than they do at D*Con.

 

Oh and, Danya plays mafia at D*Con exactly how she plays it here.

[MsDanya]

I most certainly do not!

 

And thanks for input! Tho I think its clear with the difference between the Newbie Mafia and the regular ones? Also, it says the basic rules, that really is the basic rules of most mafia games.... But if its too confusing, I'll make sure to add it.

[Naeann]

I think it looks good Danya.  I know I played it at Dcon exactly like I play it on here.  It's even more intimidating because you can see facial expressions.

[triadruid]

It changes game to game, townies is how I tend to refer to them myself. You'll also notice that people here take their mafia a lot more seriously than they do at D*Con.

Oh, that's good to hear. On the other hand, I come from MafiaScum.net, where they play ... well, like their lives depended on it. :P

[GoodGrief]

Heh, my first draft of this had so many instances of Statement Here (usually but not always, see section X) that it looked like a total mess.

I settled for emphasising that mafia is a very flexible game and rewrote the 'Basics' section with a view to not making newbs cry. I know it's not complete, especially the roles. I just tried to include the most common, generic, broad role-types. I kinda think I should have included Masons and Recruiting Teams, even if we don't see them as often here.

[MsDanya]

we could add it at some point, I just dont think it should be too massive. Most people start getting the game after playing a couple times anyways, this one was mostly for the new people to read so they could understand the game better.

[Alys Kinch]

*peeks in* It looks good to me. *goes back into hiding*