Forum Mafia: is there interest?

Hey everyone. I'm a bit of a newbie to this forum (read: I made my account today), but from what I've seen after poking around and from what I've heard from Doctor Omega, no one really does this here. So I thought to myself "I really want to host a game. Maybe people here will want to play!" So here's a thread to see if people are interested.

For those who have played Mafia on a forum, ignore these next few paragraphs. For those who have played in real life or not at all, you may want to read.

Mafia is a game of manipulation, lies, and (best of all) murder. Each player gets assigned a role in secret and is aligned with either the town or the mafia. The townspeople (an uninformed majority) all know nothing beyond their own roles and are charged with figuring out who amongst them is in the mafia and then killing them by voting. The mafia members (an informed minority) all know the other mafia members and can communicate in secret (usually via private messages on a forum) to decide who they want to kill each night. The game goes in phases. At night, the mafia kills (and any other special roles act - I'll get to that in a bit). During the day, the mafia's victim is announced, a clue is (usually) given, and discussion and voting ensue, resulting in the democratically decided death of one player.

Beyond alignment (town and mafia), several players usually have special roles. On the town side, the most common roles are a doctor, a detective, and a vigilante. The doctor acts at night and can protect one player of his or her choosing. If that person is the target of a mafia kill in the same night, the kill fails. The detective also acts at night and can investigate one player of his or her choosing. The detective will then learn that player's role. The vigilante (unsurprisingly) also acts at night and can kill one player of his or her choosing. Vigilantes are often limited to 2 or 3 shots to prevent them from abusing their power too much. On the mafia side, there is usually a Godfather who acts as the leader of the mafia. The Godfather is special in that if investigated by the detective, he or she will be reported as a townsperson rather than a mafian. There are many other roles, but those are the biggest ones. If there's interest, I can go into more detail.

The mafia is typically outnumbered 3 to 1 (e.g. in a 16-person game, there are typically 4 mafians and 12 townspeople). The goals of the two sides are as follows: the town wants to eradicate the mafia from their midst, so they win if they manage to successfully vote (or vigilante-kill) all of the mafians. The mafia wins if they manage to kill enough townspeople so that the two sides are balanced (e.g. 3 mafia and 3 townspeople left), at which point they can tie the votes and prevent any more of their deaths.

One role I failed to mention is generally unique to forum games (if anyone has played in real life but not on a forum): the cluegiver. More often than not in these games, one of the townspeople will be a cluegiver. He or she has no active powers, but as long as the cluegiver lives each mafia kill at night will result in a clue to the killer's identity the following morning. If the cluegiver dies, no more clues will be written.

Each day and each night usually last 24 hours to give plenty of time for people to get in night actions and to discuss the clues/vote, regardless of their time zone.

===For everyone who skipped the explanation, start reading again.===

If you want to read up about the game yourself, you can do it here. If you want to see an example of a game, you can find it here (this was the most recent game I hosted - the forum that it's on has lost interest in Mafia, sadly). I tend to like themed games (the one I linked to is Oregon Trail themed), and at the moment I'm planning out a Zelda-themed game and a Pokemon-themed game, so let me know which of those you would prefer. If neither, I could also host a simple, unthemed game with regular mafia and townsfolk. Either way, I'll try to make as epic of a story as I can.

So to sum up: If people are interested, I'd like to host a game of Mafia. Let me know if you're interested and if so which theme (or lack thereof) you would prefer.


On a side note: As I said, I'm pretty new here, so if this isn't the best place for this thread, I apologize.

I've never participated in said mafia games, even on samus.co.uk, but I can vouch for Alex and this thread and say that they've had a huge turnout in the past. If I can ever get around to understanding this game, I'm definitely in. I really hope we can pull Southperry onto the mafia boat. :>

I was thinking about running a game myself, then I realized I suck at writing role PMs. <_< I support this, I play forum mafia on other sites (just got killed today in the game I... was playing.)

This thread is correctly placed, however the thread concerning the actual game itself belongs in the Shady Tree.

The writing board, then. I suppose that makes sense. Do you have any preference as to what theme I should go with (I'm guessing Pokemon from the username... >_>)?

You should do Death Note mafia! I love playing that version in real life. Any theme would be pretty cool, though. I'd play if you would set up a game.

I think we might'veeeeeeeee done one a long time ago, hosted by Felix or something. Forgot how it went. I think it failed.

Let's do it here. I'm bored of doing it on IRC.

We could do Death Note, like Mira said.

Hmm... I DO like Death Note, but I dunno - it doesn't seem particularly well-suited for a mafia game. Both Pokemon and Zelda have evil teams, while Death Note has Kira. And I suppose

 Spoiler

Misa and whats-his-face with the other Deathnote at the end.

I suppose I could try it, but I think I would prefer to host one of ideas in my first post. I'll stay open to suggestions, though, if someone can think of enough people for an evil team.

You could just do an "anything goes" (funny, that's the name of the one I just played) game where the theme holding teams together are a trait common to all characters. This makes a role name checker much more balanced, and it makes writing a fake role PM actually possible. =X

Dunno, a mashup game would be a bit odd... I'll think about it, though. Also, as a general rule when I'm hosting games I tend to not post the list of roles so fakeclaiming is easier (since they usually have names and not just titles) and I consider it cheating to quote a PM sent by the host, be it fake or not, which eliminates that issue anyway. Fake roleclaims are fine. Just don't try quote any of my PMs. I see that as equivalent to showing your card in IRL mafia, which I've never known to be a legal move. Ever.

Oh, the ones I play are completely based on claiming with full role PM.

If it is between Oregon Trail, Zelda, or Pokemon, I think the majority of people here will vote Pokemon.

I guess I'll focus on my list of characters/roles/maybe special rules for a Pokemon themed game, then. I'll probably try to get a signup thread up by Sunday, or at the very least the middle of next week. Hopefully that'll get more posts than this thread did... <_<

Also a possibility - as I mentioned in the first post, I COULD do a themeless game. While it makes for a slightly less entertaining story and whatnot, it might be better for people who haven't played before and want to try it out for the first time. Opinions on the matter?

I'd be glad to participate. I'd love a Prohobition era game. Not really interested in an anime/video game theme.

Mashup games are easier to get into, and it's more difficult to find out who's who.

I'm actually leaning more towards a themeless game the more I think about it. It would be better for getting people who have never played into it and whatnot. Having the roles complicated by special names makes things more confusing to first-timers. So... Unless there are strong objections, I think the first game I host will be just simple town vs. mafia. I won't guarantee a prohibition-era theme, but it will be a normal mafia and a normal town rather than, say, trainers and Team Rocket. I'll save the fancy bells and whistles for later.

I'm actually leaning more towards a themeless game the more I think about it. It would be better for getting people who have never played into it and whatnot. Having the roles complicated by special names makes things more confusing to first-timers. So... Unless there are strong objections, I think the first game I host will be just simple town vs. mafia. I won't guarantee a prohibition-era theme, but it will be a normal mafia and a normal town rather than, say, trainers and Team Rocket. I'll save the fancy bells and whistles for later.

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Thanks, that works well for me.[/COLOR]

I think we might'veeeeeeeee done one a long time ago, hosted by Felix or something. Forgot how it went. I think it failed.

Let's do it here. I'm bored of doing it on IRC.

We could do Death Note, like Mira said.

We did a Mafia game back in July 2008. It was hosted by Thunder or I forget his username. Me and Afrobean were the mafia, but I don't think we ever finished that game. Playing over a forum takes a while and it's hard to get everyone to stay active in the game. Stuff happens and people forget to post. I would rather just play a short session over IRC.

Well hey, just because it failed then doesn't mean it'll fail now. It's worth a try, at the very least. Hopefully I can keep things interesting enough so that people don't just forget about the game.

So, ya gonna post it?

I'd do it. Russt hasn't been here because he's lolgone for who knows how long, so a forum version would be nice.