Would anyone be interested in playing a game of Mafia (otherwise known as Werewolf?) here? For those unaware, Mafia/Werewolf is a game in which players are assigned as either townspeople or Mafia/werewolves; there is always a super-majority of townspeople, and a small amount of Mafia/werewolves. Each "night," the Mafia elects to kill one townsperson, which eliminates the townie from the game. In the morning, the townspeople (among which the Mafia are hiding) try to figure out who the Mafia are among them, and call a vote to "lynch" one of their fellows, which eliminates them from the game. Upon the player's elimination, their role as a townie or a Mafia is revealed to all. If the Mafia comes out to the same number as or majority of the remaining players, the Mafia wins. If every last Mafia member is eliminated from play, the "town" wins. I'd need quite a number of people for a game, which would play out in a thread in this forum, and Mafia/werewolves can congregate in a private forum created just for the game so they can decide their targets.
You vote for a lynch generally like this: !Username And you cancel a vote like this: #Username I used to play this game all the time on the old View Askew forums, but I got run off by one of the "old guard" because I wasn't playing the way she wanted everyone to play.
She didn't like how I ran games (I was a bit experimental, and while there were hiccups, everyone had fun, and that's ultimately what matters, so...) so she'd vote for me at the beginning of every single new game, and once even threatened to start her own game if I decided to run another one. (Forum courtesy was to have one mafia game and one draft going at a time.) Generally when I run Mafia games, I do themes. I've done The Lion King mafia, Disney villain Mafia, and even Internet Celebrity mafia.
Oooh, I'd be interested! The only mafia I've ever really done was an aborsive SCP Foundation pick-your-poison one, but I've lurked my share.
I've played lots of different versions, especially ones with fun roles like Doctor or Prostitute or Joker. Question: Is it required that the town people lynch someone every day, and is it required that the Mafia kill someone every night? As in, can you go a day or a night with no deaths (barring special role shenanigans)?
Last time I played it was an irl game, and somebody had to die each day/night. But I don't know about the forum version.
It's absolutely not required that the town lynch somebody on Day 1, although on my old gaming forum it was all but assumed someone was going to die on Day 1. The Mafia are also free to no-kill any time they so wish. However, one rule I enforced in all my games, regardless of theme or composition, was that if the vote was tied in the village at the end of the day, there would be no lynch. Another thing of note: In the games I played, there were generally three "special" roles assigned to the village: The seer, who could see if someone is sided with the village or the mafia, the guardian (like the Doctor), who can save one person each night, and the vigilante, or vig, who can kill one person a night at will. However, for smaller games, I'd omit the seer, as it would result in a very quick game.
Oooh, Mafia! I've never played the forum version (only on one of those websites set up specifically for it) but it was fun. Themed Mafia is only fun if you know the theme, though. The people I used to play with liked to do Fire Emblem Mafia a lot, and I do not know shit about Fire Emblem.
I would play! I've mostly played in themed games where every role had powers, and those were intense, but lots of fun. :)
Having never played forum mafia... I see the !lynchvote and #votecancel instruction up there, but how else does it work? Is there a non-player who assigns townie/mad and tallies up the score? Do the players chat and cast suspicions on each other? Are tangent conversations OK?
Ah, yeah I forgot to mention the Detective, which is like your Seer. We always have that role, so I thought it was standard. xD But omitting them could be interesting.
@swirlingflight: Different places run it differently. In my experience, there's a GM who assigns roles randomly, handles rules questions, and sometimes writes up a little narrative between rounds. Sometimes the players chat in public during each round's "day" phase and then only the bad guy team can chat privately during the "night;" other times private communication is run differently. It's kind of up to the GM. :) I'd actually be up for running one of these too, if we end up long-running enough to want multiple GMs. I'd probably do an everyone-gets-a-role game, which is probably not the place to start. :P
From my experience yes, yes, no. This is a bit more casual of a forum, so there might be a bit more tolerance for tangent chatter and a bit less wall-o-text in-depth analysis of every previous post in the thread to comb for contradictions and voting and suspicion patterns over time. Oh also are we doing reveal of role on death?
Generally, the person who assigns the roles is the person running the game, sometimes called the "Mayor" or "GM," and is always a neutral party in the game, serving as an arbiter. The chatting/suspicion casting goes on in the main game thread, while the Mafia have their chatter on another forum created specifically for the game (using InvisionFree or similar cheepy forum software that's quick to build and free to run). Tangent discussions within the game thread are discouraged and generally make the person causing said tangent look especially suspicious. And 90% of the time, roles are revealed upon death, but there have been instances wherein the role is -not- revealed upon death, or until certain game conditions are met, such as a person with a certain power dying, or a certain mafia member dying. It really all depends on who's running the game. Generally, I reveal all roles upon death, unless certain circumstances are met. Show of hands, who would like to give the game a try to see how it's done?