Good idea for a thread.

I made you a banner ^_^

put it in if you like it


-thy

[This message has been edited by THYMOLE (edited 03-23-2011 @ 05:54 PM).]

I'll write a guide on how to lurk like a pro

We'll be needing that. Get to it.

and btw thy, the banner rocks

[This message has been edited by THYMOLE (edited 03-23-2011 @ 08:56 PM).]

I'll write on flavor. It's my dream to influence all forthcoming hosts to write about sex and violence intertwined with each other, with a little cannibalism mixed in between.

Nah, but seriously.

Also, good banner.

Hey i'll play an erotic mafia
-thy

and thanks ^_^
-thy

I'll write on scum play based on where some of my stuff worked in Newbie and Bon Jovi...

Guide 1 should be "Read everything properly." x 500.

I'll write about hosting.

I don't have a lot of time right, now so I'll have to write it later, but I could write about the different roles or basic gameplay.

I'd write,

Ode to Sneaky and Coldviper.

How to get lynched as town.

I'll do something to do with mechanics, since I like to experiment a bit .

So is this gonna link to PDF's or what?

Post them as posts

Oh ok, well mine is going to be super duper long, so...

The flavor guide?

Split it up into mini topics then. It will be easier for people to find what they want if it's more specifically labeled. (lik night/day post guide, role guide, themed mafias, original stuff)

I'll do mine tonight, got to get some sleep now. Haven't slept for like 39 hours straight.

If no one gets it done I will write a quickie guide explaining what mafia is this weekend. So we can stop linking to mafiascum.

Come on, I'm waiting for someone else to post theirs first so that I can copy their style and format and not risk being ridiculed for mine.

IIRC, I have a copy of the list of roles that Rot has compiled floating around somewhere. Could be useful under terminology.

Here's my writeup flavor portion just for fun that I wrote while bored on the Metro. Parts are confusing because of the context (I have a section down before this).

Well, if you actually read all that crap, or more sensibly skipped it because you think you're the best writer on Earth just like everybody else -- welcome. Whether you realize it or not, that stuff is pretty important. Reading flavor with undetailed characters, and phrases like, "Matt got out his knife. He slit Mary's throat," are boring and it DOES have an impact on how much people enjoy your mafia. (NOTE: Yes this is the same Matt and Mary. They got married, but alas, the slitting of the throat was inevitable.)

So, let's try for some practical advice, yes?

Writeup Flavor

As I said before, writeup flavor is really important. Honestly, could you really get ingrained in a mafia whose Day 1 writeup says:

"As the rays of sun shimmered over the walls of the stadium, the town found a fellow member dead; Henrz' body lay facedown, decapitated. As they debated what to do, they noticed Peter Fallon was walking around slightly awkwardly and painfully."

Yes, this is a real writeup (it's all good yo, Catabre). It was getting there with the whole sun shimmering and stadium thing, but there are several issues; 1) It's terribly short. 2) Very simple, there's no style. 3) HOW THE HELL DO YOU LIE FACEDOWN WHEN YOU'RE DECAPITATED? Let's go over these.

It's Terribly Short

Writeups should be long. Indeed, you WILL be paranoid that no one's reading them, but there are always the dutiful people who do. And writing's fun anyway. If you're terribly afraid it's all for naught, drop some hints in the flavor and players will take notice.

Very Simple, There's No Style

Give people a reason to like your damn thing. If you just say, "Mary opened her mouth and ate Matt's Penis" (yeah, it's getting pretty bad between Matt and Mary now) that's stupid! Add your own flair. It's called Flavor for a reason. Vanilla's awesome, but what if everything in the world had the exact same Vanilla flavor! Wtf! Go for something like, "Mary uncollapsed her jaws, and her mouth descended toward the snake in Matt's pants. Before he could react, she devoured."

If you want to be really fancy, talk according to the theme if you can. If it's set in ye olden days, then writeth like I! If it's about cowboys 'n cowgirls (cowgirls are really sexy, btw, but we'll get to that some other time) then talk with n' ole western draul, ya hear?

HOW THE HELL DO YOU LIE FACEDOWN WHEN YOU'RE DECAPITATED

I've seeked the advice of medical professionals Jim Baker and Sanjay Madina on the subject.

Jim Baker, M.D.: "Technically speaking, face implies direction in this particular instance. For example, facing south does not necessarily mean you [verb] south with your face. This, to a lesser extent, could be applied to lying facedown while decapitated. Despite the loss of his head, my medical knowledge leads me to believe that the rest of his body was facing the ground."

Dr. Sanjay Medina: "HE DIDN'T HAVE A FACE! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

You make up your own mind.

Please, anyone,

don't hang out with Ash when alone.

Great! and i might add that i was the one who first called him out on the Decapitated/Facedown Paradox

[This message has been edited by THYMOLE (edited 03-25-2011 @ 04:00 PM).]

Ok Ash, I need you to put this into the top of your guide

<a name="WriteupFlavor">

I'm fairly sure this should work

And it may not be necessary but maybe guide writers could plop all guides into a different format to differentiate them from posts?

A simple table would do.

Paste Text Here

<table bgcolor=#000000 border="1"><tr><td>[color=#FFFFFF]Paste Text Here[/color]</td></tr></table>

Please, anyone,

don't hang out with Ash when alone.

Ok, I'm halfway through writing a post on scum tells having searched through my vast archives to find specific examples. The problem is, all those examples are based on my play. I hope this isn't a problem?

Also, my guide will need to be open to editing because as I find and remember more and more scum tells I will keep having to update it. This wouldn't interfere with the BB Code or anything, would it?

Also, it is long. Very long.

Also, Ashrzr, do you remember who I was constantly accusing of deflection in Stranded recently? I can't and I just don't have the will power having already read like 36 pages today.

I would generally expect guides to be composed of personal opinions, so yeah, I think it makes sense to mostly or entirely link to yourself

I dedicated three links to you, you shall (not) be pleased. Also I don't know whether I need to find examples of bandwagoning and lurking... I don't know if I can.

Well i know where one of them is coming from. *twitch*

F***ing nightmares won't leave me.

anyway, bandwagoning isn't much of a successful strategy i feel. Your best shot would be to look at larger games I guess.

Lurking? The only time i can remember that being effective is Monty Python maybe. Its still a question of what defines effective

All I need is for guide writers to put this bit of HTML into their guides. Preferably at the top.

<a name="WriteupFlavor">

That would be for Ash^^^

Herr could put in

<a name="BasicScum">

Pretty simple enough right? It's so i can link to the specific part of the page instead of just going to the top.

I am just going to put it here and leave all of that to you guys. Ashrzr can always edit those tags in, yes? Then I can't be bothered. At least not today. Sorry.

Copy
Paste

It's less than a single line bud!

I'm into my 4th page of writing (with a 5th to follow, at this rate) and have already read like 80 pages of mafia...

Fine I'll see if I'm feeling gracious enough.

80 pages?

yikes

dont forget to cite sources
MLA format or i'm not accepting it.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** you!!!

joking...

So was I.

Ok, next post is the guide thingy, let me know what you guys think and whether I missed out on anything or not. I admittedly had lame stabs at humor in there, I really wasn't feeling up for writing after reading so much to find examples. If anyone thinks they can improve that aspect, go ahead.

Ok people, it’s now time for Herr Elessar’s guide to some classic scum tells! I will keep editing this post as I remember more and more, but I’ll have to start somewhere, so here goes:

1) Omitting points from replies: This isn’t such a big deal if it happens once, but if it happens more than once, then congratulations my friend/enemy, you have caught scum! Or definitely someone who has something to hide.

Ok, so the first example that I can remember of this off the top of my head would be me doing it repeatedly in Bon Jovi mafia to deal with Thymole’s arguments. The most blatant example was this:

In post 381, Thymole makes an excellent point which there is no way for me to answer properly without admitting that I have no justification for what he says, so in posts 386-389 I talk a lot about other stuff and completely ignore that. More importantly, Thymole never realizes that I didn’t answer that, so I escaped.

There are other instances of this when you might ignore certain things while answering an argument just to ensure that those things remain a mystery and therefore help you in making excuses in the long run (example pending, should be available soon).

Counter: When you begin an argument, read the first reply to it properly. Especially when you make an extremely pertinent point, ensure that it is answered. If it isn’t and you notice that, publicize the fact. In your next post, bold the same point and demand an answer. Make sure that everyone else sees the same point and asks the same questions. There’s only so much ignoring the opposition can do, and it will eventually pay off.

An example of this can also be found in Bon Jovi mafia, where I as scum raised what I thought was a great point against Abhaas Periagil in post 408. I then repeated a spin-off of that point in every argument post from then on and because he was never able to satisfactorily answer it (see post 493), with time there was enough suspicion (or mistrust) on him for no one to believe him, and I managed to be successful in my objective.

2) The Scum Claim Tango: This is my favorite one. So, someone claims a slightly suspicious claim. The very next post says something to the effect “Sounds safe, until we have more we can trust him”. What should you say? Both of you are scum!

Scum normally tend to do this because the first post after a claim more often than not sets the standards for how that claim will be evaluated. It’s probably got something to do with psychology, but I don’t have a degree in it, so I can’t find the exact term. Nevertheless, this trick works unless you can spot it for what it is, so be on the lookout!

There are a great number of examples of this:

a) Me and Newt Gunray in Monty Python Mafia

b) Thymole and Mozzarella Man in World War II Mafia

Incidentally I caught them out on this in post 429 and was proved to be right when both were scum.

c) Ferret and Thymole in Pokemon Eeveelution mafia

Yeah I caught them out on this one too.

Counter: Well this is dependent on the game situation and how much suspicion the player was under originally, but as mentioned above if the post following the claim is “Its good until we know more”, you would be well served to look into the situation a bit more and analyze the claim more closely to see if there is even the slightest inconsistency. You’ll see that that generic post is common to all 3 of the above examples.

3) Post-Claim Deflection: This is such an obvious and common scum tell that pretty much everyone knows that they should avoid it nowadays. Basically, scum make a claim and closely follow that claim with suspicions and/or a vote of their own, hence not allowing their own claim to be analyzed. Mostly it is a (bad) attempt at shifting suspicion onto someone else quickly.

As I said, every player with some experience knows that they should avoid this, but this should illustrate better what exactly the need to avoid.

I claimed in post 301 of Lego Mafia over at AoEH and then random voted Nacht Jaeger in post 316 without dealing with the suspicion on me. A Banned User then caught me out on this in post 345, point 4 and while I wasn’t scum, this is a fairly big scum tell.

Counter: This is fairly easy to tell. Does someone dispel every immediate doubt on their role before proceeding to lead the town? Do they allow their claim to be analyzed thoroughly before seeking to analyze someone else's behavior? If not, you quite possibly have someone who is scum on your hands.

4) Lurking – The biggest scum tell of them all. There will always be one scum in a game who will be doing this. The problem arises when a number of the townies seem to be doing this too, so you have to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Lurking is basically characterized by being active but not actually contributing. They are the people who place the 4th/5th vote in a band wagon based on “above reasons”, they are the people who will be in agreement with any decisions the town makes, but will never ever provide any of their own reasons as to why they are in agreement.

The best possible illustration of (unfortunately, successful) lurking would be Lazuline/Azur in Rootsburg Penitentiary Mafia or indeed Lazuline in any mafia. In this one, he posted 18 times, which was approximately equal to the average posting numbers. But 4 of those posts were one line votes, 3 of them were one line attempts at humor, 2 of them celebrated his win and the rest were all one-liners agreeing with the town. All of those 17 posts were 3 lines or under, and none of them said anything that hadn’t been said before.

Note – As you can see from the above, I hate lurking and everyone who does it and would not recommend it at all no matter how successful it is. If you want to play mafia, play it. Sitting around doing eff all is fun only up till a point (which can be reached very very quickly), and it won’t win you any admirers. Lazuline for example was at one point on top of the Hall of Fame, and yet hardly anyone would have classified him as a decent player.

In Battlefield 2 Mafia, I made 3 posts out of 609 in the game. One requested that my name in the OP be corrected, one was my claim and the third was a joke. I won the game, and Andrew Ryan who must have made like 150 posts lost. I can bet that he had a lot more fun than I did. Being active in a game makes it memorable no matter what the outcome, lurking through the game and winning makes it memorable only for the mediocrity of it all. [/sincere appeal]

Counter: There really is no way to counter lurking apart from calling out all the lurkers and checking them one by one. That is what makes it so successful. However, the active people can usually combine to spot the more blatant lurkers, so the key is to make it clear that if you lurk you are going to be under a lot of pressure.

5) Diversion of Discussion: So, you were discussing whether pressure on a person was worth it and or whether a claim was valid when suddenly someone turns up discussing something completely irrelevant? You can book them for diversion of discussion!

This is usually done when scum see that discussion might be heading onto a topic that is potentially dicey and then seek to divert discussion away from it. They do this through discussing stuff that is mostly irrelevant, usually something like game mechanics. They will speculate a lot even though it is obvious that nothing can be achieved until more is known. The aim is to stall discussion long enough to make everyone forget what they were eventually heading towards and start discussing new stuff. Does it work? Only if it’s done sneakily enough.

Henrz’s attempt in Storytellers Mafia: VII best illustrates this. He starts discussing mechanics out of the blue in post 617 when discussion is heading towards who in a group of people was most likely to be a killer (Henrz was a member of this group). He succeeded to an extent, but then he was called out in post 623 and 643 until he was made to claim and then subsequently lynched as scum.

(Example 2 pending, will be available soon)

Counter: Well, firstly, you need to look out for people who try to change the topic or propose something new out of the blue. If they do, is it relevant to the topic you were originally discussing? If not, try to see if there is any relation between where discussion was originally heading and if there’s any connection between that and the player in question. If yes, it’s time to bring on the pressure!

6) Bandwagoning: Saved the best for last, only because most of you here probably know about it anyway, so it requires no real introduction.

For those who don't, bandwagoning is when someone just adds a vote onto a person who already has some votes on them to "build pressure". While many people may be justified in doing this once or twice, when someone repeatedly does this you can take it as a sign that they may be scum and call them out on it and apply pressure on them instead.

There are too many examples of this to choose a single one. (Note, if any of you guys remember a good one please edit it in).

Counter: Keep an eye out for those guys who just hang around and are involved in every voting run but are never involved in the beginning of one. In a way this derives from lurking (the difference is that these guys might actually be useful once in a while in certain discussions), so if you keep an eye out for lurkers it won't be hard to find the "bandwagoners".

[This message has been edited by Herr Elessar (edited 03-26-2011 @ 00:21 AM).]

I would add that if you're ever going to check for lurking scum, do so when claims are being asked for. 99% of the time that's when it'll go into effect if it does at all.

Alright. Linked and added.

nice guide.

Good guide, Herr. Unfortunately, I can't remember who was accused of deflection. A lot of people have been because foraging is a core aspect of the game.

It was Rot

It was Henrz. I read through the entire thread and found it and posted it right there in the examples, goddamit. Even you guys aren't reading this?

I can find proof that rot did this as well.

We just don't know if he is scum yet.

I read the guide

No, see Rot had been going after foraging from the very beginning, not when we were going to start discussing a new topic (or were in the middle of discussing one), so technically Rot didn't divert discussion as much as begin it. If he were doing so I would be the first one to call him out on it.

I was sorely tempted to include all three of Rot's performances in each of the World War games as examples of lurking, but he didn't strictly fit the definition.

I was thinking of including overtly aggressive reaction to any allegations(counter allegations, votes, OMGUS etc.) as yet another scum tell, but I didn't think it would fit. Thoughts?

To illustrate what I mean, see this and post 42 and 46 and onwards of this thread.

Also, the first example isn't an admission of any sort, it is merely saying that actions of that kind could be interpreted as scummy.

I was thinking of including overtly aggressive reaction to any allegations(counter allegations, votes, OMGUS etc.) as yet another scum tell, but I didn't think it would fit. Thoughts?

For newbs, yes, except sometimes people like TME are like that all the time.

The Moderators’ Manifesto

This is a list of commandments that I think all normal mafia games should follow. They do not need to apply to games where there is an explicit warning in advance that the game is bastardly, or which are clearly labelled as variants in the topic post (eg kingmaker mafia, etc). These are the things that are a deal-breaker for me, and I imagine for others also, so it would be nice to know who subscribes to them.

1. No Jesters

Why would you include this role in your game? If you like to play mafia you probably don’t want to have to deliberately get lynched, so it’s not a fun role to play. It’s not fun for anyone else either because what usually happens is the Jester runs around like an idiot making sure everyone has no choice but to lynch them. It’s also ludicrously unbalanced as getting lynched is trivially easy, hence why so much of the game revolves around preventing it happening to you.

2. Don’t screw over the scum with the theme

Themes and flavour are there to make the game more fun, not to destroy the whole point of it. In no circumstances should it be possible for a player to be cleared just because they claimed a particular role name and didn’t get counterclaimed. That is not fun or challenging for anyone, and is frustrating for others involved. Very often it breaks the game balance as well, because you can build up a bloc of confirmed townies through a mass claim on Day 1, and the scum are forced to claim obscure characters or try to reinvent a villain as pro-town. This is precisely the reason why the ‘no quoting the mod’ rule exists also. It’s extremely easy to avoid this mistake as all you have to do is provide at least one likely or plausible ‘good’ character to each scum as a safe claim, and tell everyone that you have done this. The only time not giving out safe claims in a themed game is excusable is if the theme is so broad that it’s easy to make fake claims, such as Office Supplies Mafia or Periodic Table Mafia. And even then there’s not really any reason to not provide safe claims, as although the chance of getting counterclaimed as Lawrencium is low it’s still there, and is a really rubbish way for scum to get caught out through no fault of their own.

3. Or the night post

The night post should not give hints of any sort. Mafia is not a detective novel where you can figure out the killer from reading the story carefully. The flavour should only relate to things that are public information, for example the identity of the person lynched. Naturally this applies to other uses of flavour in posts by the mod as well.

4. No lying to the players

The game is played between the players, not between the players and the mod. Everything you tell the players should be true within the parameters you lay out. If for example the sanity of a Cop is not guaranteed you should indicate that this may the case. No one should ever have to second guess whether their win condition is actually something different to what they were told.

5. No alignment changes from out of the blue

This is similar to the previous point. Imagine playing really well as a townie, until the scum are on the ropes. Suddenly the mafia use a one shot conversion power and you are now on the side you’ve been devastating for the entire game. You then lose. This is obviously not a good thing to have happen in your game. Alignment changes should be used very sparingly and carefully anyway, but if they can occur in your game this possibility should be made clear. If a player’s alignment can change based on a particular condition it is only courtesy to tell them this in their role email so that they can play accordingly. This can actually be quite interesting, as the player may then have to decide whether to hedge their bets a little, or maybe even deliberately try to trigger the condition to improve their position.

6. No mechanics known only to the mod

Every feature of the game should be known to at least one player. Things like lynches requiring a simple majority can be taken for granted, but mechanics that aren’t standard should not be hidden. If a food system exists, the players should know. If one of the players is actually eating double rations, at least one player should know that this was at least a possibility.

7. No random outcomes

There is never a good reason for there to be a percentage chance of success for a night action. It better suits a game of skill that outside the decision-making of the players the game runs deterministically. It’s frustrating to lose because your protection of the Cop failed due to a coin flip. If you need to weaken a role then find other methods, such as allowing it only to operate every other night.

8. Consistency

Again, the game should be deterministic. What happens if two Roleblockers block each other and one of them is Tracked? Decide how night actions operate and interact (the same goes for other mechanics also) and do the same thing every time. Equally if there is a failed kill one night and it is displayed in the day post, any future failed kills should also be displayed. Similarly, don’t have two roles both called ‘Survivor’ with one investigating as ‘Guilty’ and the other as ‘Neutral’. All these things hamper the playing of the game because people always have to wonder whether the mod did something inconsistent. If you want variation between roles, give those roles their own names.

9. No coming back from the dead

Always a nightmare, and there’s never really a good reason for it. For example if a dead mafioso comes back to life you have a choice between them coming back as town and betraying their old colleagues, or coming back as mafia and being instantly lynched for not doing so. Lastly, killing and lynching is such a crucial bit of game strategy that it should never be interfered with lightly. This is why Iron and, especially, Unlynchable roles should be few and far between in my opinion.

10. No omniscient roles

Information is crucial to mafia, and should not be given out too freely. This is why investigative roles must be limited, and Role Cops should only be placed into a setup with a lot of thought. The worst sin here is roles which are just given information by the mod, either in their role email or later in the game. It should surely go without saying for example that before a single Day or Night has taken place no one should know that a particular player is scum. Yet it has been done.

[This message has been edited by Julius999 (edited 03-26-2011 @ 03:10 PM).]