Beginner Mafia Setup

Night, and now the city wakes for real. Can’t see the stars past the street lamps, but the buildings are lit to bursting with mankind’s luminent hubris. It’s all smooth jazz and hard liquor from here on out. Gunshots. Sirens. Nothing new. It’s all just part of the rhythm of urban life, regular as breathing.




This setup is designed as a barebones game to ease newer players into mafia, and for rusty veterans to get warmed up before the next ridiculous role madness game. I’m hoping to get enough players to have both stunners so that more experienced players have something interesting to speculate on, but if not, I’ll just run a standard vanilla beginner’s game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the rules of mafia, I’ll be including general guidance during each step of the game on what each team should be doing, and what actions are available to everyone. If you’re interested in a more in-depth guide on how mafia works, please check out this guide.




MAFIA ✘ BLOOD IS THICKER

People call you the bad guys, but really, you’re just looking out for your own. All mafia members are aware of one another’s names and may communicate in private outside of the thread. Every night, the mafia convenes to select one townsperson to kill. Every day, mafia members mingle with innocent citizens and try to sway the mob in their favor.

The mafia wins when their number is greater or equal to that of the rest of the town.

TOWN ✘ STRANGERS IN A CROWD

You want these faceless specters out of your city, and you don’t know who you can trust. Town members know only their own alignment, and may not communicate with any other player outside of the thread. Every day, town members vote to select one player to lynch.

The town wins when every last member of the mafia is killed.

RATIO ✘ TBA, but between 1:2 and 1:3 M:T ratio




DOCTOR ✘ FIRST DO NO HARM

UNLOCKED WITH 6 PLAYERS ✘ Power roles can make a game really unbalanced when there are few players. If enough people sign-up, then town will get a doctor.

DOCTOR:

STUNNER ✘ NOT JUST A HANGOVER

UNLOCKED WITH 10 PLAYERS ✘ Power roles can make a game really unbalanced when there are few players. If enough people sign up, then both town and mafia will get one stunner each, in addition to the town doctor above.

STUNNER:

ACTION PRIORITY ✘ Stun > Protect > Kill




ADDITIONAL NOTES ✘

• Protection does not appear in rollover unless it successfully blocks a kill. If a kill is successfully blocked, it will appear in rollover as: NAME was targeted for a kill, but it failed.
  
• Stuns and night kill both appear in rollover as: NAME was stunned and NAME was killed, respectively.
  
• If a player is stunned out of an action, their attempted action will not appear in rollover.
  
• If a player acts and is killed in the same night, their action will go through first, and then they will die if not protected.
  • Yes, if a doctor protects a stunner and the stunner stuns the doctor and then the mafia kills the stunner, the doctor will get stunned and the stunner will die.
• I’ll include flavor text with every rollover, but there will be no hints in the flavor text. For those who don’t know my hosting style, this is probably the only game I’ll ever host where you shouldn’t analyze the flavor.

ROLLOVER TIME ✘ 9pm PST
(if this is inconvenient for anyone, what with time zones and all, let me know when you sign up and we can maybe change it)




These look long, but really, they’re simple rules with long explanations for why the rule is in place. Read just the bold if you’re lazy.

• Be respectful to other players, and recognize the boundaries of the game. Debating, lying and accusing people are part of the game, so try not to get too upset when someone is confrontational towards you. On the flipside, don’t be a jerk. Remember that, scum or town, the other players you’re talking to are real humans on the other side of the screen.
  
• Do not discuss the game outside of the thread while it is running. The exception is the mafia, who can communicate with one another freely outside of the thread.
  • This means, no posting on tumblr, twitter, facebook or whatever about the game. Anything game-related conversation should happen in the thread where everyone can see it.
    (This is an experimental rule in place as an attempt to mitigate information getting leaked. In the past, people have gotten in trouble for posting slightly-too-informative messages on other sites.)
• Mafia is a team game, and it sucks when your teammates are inactive. If you do not make a substantial post in the thread at least once every 48 hours, you will be modkilled for inactivity. I’ll make exceptions for emergencies, or if you warn the thread publicly ahead of time that you’ll be gone.
  
• Ghosts cannot participate in the game after they have died. You can post a general, “Oops, I died” or popcorn gifs, but please do not post anything that tries to influence the game. Definitely do not try to tell living players who to vote for.
  • This is kind of an honor thing because I can’t actually regulate this, but please no game-related communication between dead players and living players outside of the thread. This includes mafia. Dead mafiosos, please don’t help your living teammates.
• Bold your votes so that they’re easier to see, e.g. vote: NAME
  
• “No lynch” and “No vote” are both valid votes.
  
• You can change your votes as many times as you want.
  
• Claiming is allowed, but please do not directly screencap or reference the text in your role PM. Catch mafia through their suspicious behavior, and not because they couldn’t tell you the third word in the second sentence of the town role PM.

Wow that is a wall of text. I'll probably break it up into separate posts when I post the real game. Feedback welcome! Just comment here I guess.

I think the post was nicely done, Kiyoko.