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My First wall of text
If your not willing to read this, mafia probably isn't the game for you
When you dive into the game of mafia, it might seem pretty intimidating. Wall of Text, pages created blistering fast, people with battlecruisers and archon icons posting. Don’t fear! It’s not as scary as it seems.
The Basics
IRL (In real life) mafia is a different game than Forum Mafia. Although they are based on the same skill set, in forum mafia you are behind a computer screen.
Behind the computer screen you can’t see someone’s response. Attempting to pressure someone into making a mistake? They can just type up their posts in MS Word and make sure that they are perfect.
But how do you tell if someone is mafia?
Analysis
This is the most important part of the game. This is how you catch scum. It is incredibly difficult. However, with enough practice and a bit of work, you can do it too!
The basic premise is that there are certain ways that someone plays as mafia. Just like the person with the stupid grin after the night happened, there are people who just scream that they are mafia.
What is not mafia
Bad logic- Unless the bad logic is intentional. Not everyone is as smart as someone who reads LSB’s Newbie guide.
Bad posting- Just because someone can’t spell, doesn’t mean the’re mafia
What is mafia
Bandwagoning- This is a town trait too
Trying not to draw attention
As you can see. The list is quiet small. Everyone plays their scum game differently. In order to determine if someone is mafia, you’re going to have to go through post history.
Tip: if you’re trying to prove someone is mafia, but their posts say otherwise. They’re probably town. I know it’s hard, but sometimes you just have to give up you’re case.
Town Guides:
Ver's Mafia XXX analysis
Qatol's Mini Mafia 2 analysis
Logic
Logic is incredibly important. One of the biggest parts, yet the most underrated part, is well thought out plan. For example, this game
Note, plans work best in the theme game with lots of roles and lots of information about a setup. And every plan has its flaws.
In addition, in games with lots of roles. Logic can be used to pick out which role must be lying.For example, this game
Lets say we have three people all DTs (Detective, see appendix). And only one is mafia
Player A says: B is mafia
Player B says: A is mafia
Player C says: B is town
Who is the mafia?
+ Show Spoiler +
Playing as Mafia
The first step is to PM LSB saying. Hey, I’m mafia.
Actually. The main thing is pretend to be town. Read the town guides and play as a town. Just try not to team kill that much.
Mafia Guides:
Ace's Mafia Manifesto
Qatol's Mafia VII experience
DO NOT DO THIS: The Big No-No
Lynch all Liars
Don't lie, because if you do lie, you'll get lynched due to a metagame policy called Lynch all Liars.
The policy is put in place to try to encourage townies not to lie. If we automatically lynch everyone who lies, the hope is that the townies would no longer lie so that the only liars are mafia
+ Show Spoiler +Note: Policy Lynches suck, and aren't that helpful. But still some people may try to lynch you because of them. Not dealing with the pressure in the first place is the best way to go + Show Spoiler +Side Note: If they don't catch you lieing, they can't do Lynch all Liars hint hint
Flaming People
Remember, you're going to be playing mafia for more than one game. Don't insult people and start making enemies. Even if you're arguing with someone, try to be friendly. Maybe chat about something else at the same time.
They might be a mafia this game. But next game they might be your teammate.
Going Inactive
Not posting/Not voting destroys the game, hands mafia the victory, and gets you banned. Just don't do it
Ruining the Game
Don’t give up, (unless your mafia). Don’t give up your teammates if your mafia. Other people are actively trying to hunt out the mafia. And it’s just as bad as ruining the OSL finals. btw, Flash wins.
Doing dumb scum tells
People have this weird little theory that if you say “that sucks” that means you’re mafia.
These include
- Congratulating the doctor
- OMGUS: See Appendix
+ Show Spoiler +Note: Across the board simple scumtells don't work. But it's better to not deal with the pressure than to have to deal with a stupid lynch
Appendix: Terminology
+ Show Spoiler +- AFAIK: As far as I know
- Black: Third Party. Non-Town aligned, Non-Mafia aligned player with a separate win condition
- Blue: Blue role. Town aligned player with a special power.
- DT: Detective. Blue role that is able to determine someone's alignment at night
- EBWOP: Edit by the way of Post. Used to correct a mistake in a post. If there is a mistake, people usually just repost the post with the edits fixed because editing posts are not allowed.
- FOS: Finger of Suspicion. Used to indicate someone you are suspicious of, but you are not going to vote for them
- Green: Townie. Town aligned player with no special powers.
- KP: Kill Power. Used to express how much hits a person or group can carry out in a night
- LAL: Lynch all Liars. See above
- LYLO: Lynch Or Lose. A situation where the town has to get a correct lynch or lose the game
- MYLO: Mislynch and lose. A situation where the town can still no-lynch, however if they lynch a townie, they lose
- OMGUS: Oh my God! You suck! Voting for someone just because they are voting for you
- PBPA: Point by Point Analysis. A detailed analysis of all or a players posts (or just the important non-spam ones) Note: please use spoiler tags in long posts
- Red: Mafia Player. A Mafia aligned player who’s purpose is to kill you
- RNG: Random Number Generator. Used to express unpredictability or a way to generate randomness
- SK: Serial Killer. See Black. A role with 1 KP that wins if he is the last one standing
- Spam: 1) Irrelevant to the game posts 2) Why mafia is awesome and fun
- VI: Village Idiot. A role who wins if he is lynched
- WIFOM: Wine in Front of Me. Used to point out reasoning based on assumptions that may or may not be true. For example, Mafia would want to kill LSB. Therefore since LSB isn’t dead, he’s mafia.
Appendix 2: Text colors
+ Show Spoiler +
Blue text are official mod posts, usually they are reserved for mods
Green text are question colors. If you have a question about the game and you want the mod to answer, you post in green. You can also pm mods your questions.
Red text has no specific significance, although sometimes people use them for emphasis like LSB is mafia
If you have any questions. Feel free to post and/or PM me
If you have any suggestions for improvements to this guide, please post!
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I have been thinking lately that we should try to get the staff to let us have a wiki on liquipedia instead of making a billion threads for resources. Does anyone else think that would be a good idea?
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United States4264 Posts
Thanks for the glossary of abbreviations.
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what were you saying about LAL?
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On December 30 2010 01:30 LSB wrote:
Bad posting- Just because someone can’t spell, doesn’t mean the’re mafia
lolol
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On December 30 2010 02:22 Jackal58 wrote:
Thanks for the glossary of abbreviations.
np Felt it was needed
On December 30 2010 02:34 aidnai wrote:
what were you saying about LAL?
Whoops, thanks for noticing that
Changed it to
Lynch all Liars
Don't lie, because if you do lie, you'll get lynched due to a metagame policy called Lynch all Liars.
The policy is put in place to try to encourage townies not to lie. If we automatically lynch everyone who lies, the hope is that the townies would no longer lie so that the only liars are mafia
On December 30 2010 02:36 annul wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 01:30 LSB wrote:
Bad posting- Just because someone can’t spell, doesn’t mean the’re mafia
lolol
I admit it was unintentional but I'm keeping it!
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Logic is incredibly important. One of the biggest parts, yet the most underrated part, is well thought out plan. For example, this game
It ruins your credibility to announce that an example of a "well thought out plan" was a plan which never would have worked if luck weren't involved. Really, the era of "well thought out plans" is over. After the first few games on this forum, we took measures that closed up many of the loopholes for overpowered plans. All the recently "proposed" plans are flawed in some way. I'd advise against focusing on plans and focus instead on behavior analysis.
Lynch all Liars
Don't lie, because if you do lie, you'll get lynched due to a metagame policy called Lynch all Liars.
The policy is put in place to try to encourage townies not to lie. If we automatically lynch everyone who lies, the hope is that the townies would no longer lie so that the only liars are mafia
Reasonable advice, but town should know that policy lynches aren't going to win games. Inevitably there will be those outliers who will manage to lie every game whether they are town or not. Taking time to policy lynch every one of these players wastes precious time and allows mafia to gain the advantage and get free kills on townies. Policy lynches are good in describing over-arching themes that townies should avoid. But overall its a poor plan if you want to win games. There is no one size fits all here.
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FREEAGLELAND26781 Posts
Policy lynches rarely work.
Behavioral analysis is good.
#1 trick is person hunting/stalking though.
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United States4264 Posts
On December 30 2010 11:42 flamewheel wrote:
Policy lynches rarely work.
Behavioral analysis is good.
#1 trick is person hunting/stalking though.
And how exactly is that accomplished?
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On December 30 2010 11:41 Incognito wrote:Show nested quote +Logic is incredibly important. One of the biggest parts, yet the most underrated part, is well thought out plan. For example, this game It ruins your credibility to announce that an example of a "well thought out plan" was a plan which never would have worked if luck weren't involved. Really, the era of "well thought out plans" is over. After the first few games on this forum, we took measures that closed up many of the loopholes for overpowered plans. All the recently "proposed" plans are flawed in some way. I'd advise against focusing on plans and focus instead on behavior analysis.
Changed it to PYP2.
As for plans, I'll add in a line that says that generally their better used in theme games.
In addition, you can't just discount all plans, they are an extreamly important part of the game, and a good source of discussion of the day 1 game.
Show nested quote +Lynch all Liars
Don't lie, because if you do lie, you'll get lynched due to a metagame policy called Lynch all Liars.
The policy is put in place to try to encourage townies not to lie. If we automatically lynch everyone who lies, the hope is that the townies would no longer lie so that the only liars are mafia Reasonable advice, but town should know that policy lynches aren't going to win games. Inevitably there will be those outliers who will manage to lie every game whether they are town or not. Taking time to policy lynch every one of these players wastes precious time and allows mafia to gain the advantage and get free kills on townies. Policy lynches are good in describing over-arching themes that townies should avoid. But overall its a poor plan if you want to win games. There is no one size fits all here.
This is more to address the Aeres issue, where he got killed for lying. Yes, policy lynches are distracting, but for a newcomer, trying to fight a policy lynch is a losing battle.
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On December 30 2010 11:42 flamewheel wrote:
Policy lynches rarely work.
Behavioral analysis is good.
#1 trick is person hunting/stalking though.
Added some emphasis on the importance of Behavioral analysis
Added a side not on LYL and Scumtells
On December 30 2010 11:50 Jackal58 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 11:42 flamewheel wrote:
Policy lynches rarely work.
Behavioral analysis is good.
#1 trick is person hunting/stalking though. And how exactly is that accomplished?
Well, what I do is pick someone I think is scum and make a theory about that person.
If the person sticks to the theory. He's probably scum
If he doesn't. I'll flag him as green.
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You mean Radfield's plan? Even that one isn't a very strong plan...I'd change it to TL Mafia 2 and TL Mafia IV (Town insta win day 1). Medic list from TL Mafia V wasn't gamebreaking, but is a good plan that is still applicable. The number claiming from the Original PYP is not gamebreaking but still good.
Trying to fight a policy lynch is not necessarily a losing battle. It depends who speaks for and against the policy lynch. But what you don't want to do is encourage newcomers to bandwagon onto a policy lynch for no reason other than its a policy lynch. What I'm trying to say is that yes, mafia shouldn't lie. But no, townies shouldn't lynch all liars.
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Kk changed it to mafia 2. I'll check out that game later. Mafia IV was legendary, but its a rare event.
I agree with you about the policy lynch point. But in Insane plenty of people were arguing on both sides and it wasn't pretty for Aeres. And a lot of lurkers just took LAL and ran with it. Its one of the nonos for someone to do in their first game.
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Policy Lynches work, a lot. Look at the sheer number of people that understand that Lynch All Liars prevents people from lying without consequences. It should be noted that LAL does have exceptions, but those exceptions are usually rare that it's no surprise people get in all kinds of trouble for trying to test the limit of where a Policy Lynch may go.
The reason Policy Lynches are good most of the time is because the policies you are pushing against are strictly anti-town. Lying about your role sans DT/Medic, blatant outting of blue roles, vote switching a lot - all of those should get you in the hot seat.
The good thing about some PLs is that once the discussion happens you get another issue to see where who stands and why. Funny enough when Scum is caught lying and LAL is proposed their teammates can also be caught in a major bind. Policy Lynches are awesome majority of the time.
On December 30 2010 12:21 LSB wrote:
Its one of the nonos for someone to do in their first game.
Even experienced players should be lynched for it.
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On December 30 2010 12:21 Ace wrote:
Policy Lynches work, a lot. Look at the sheer number of people that understand that Lynch All Liars prevents people from lying without consequences. It should be noted that LAL does have exceptions, but those exceptions are usually rare that it's no surprise people get in all kinds of trouble for trying to test the limit of where a Policy Lynch may go.
The reason Policy Lynches are good most of the time is because the policies you are pushing against are strictly anti-town. Lying about your role sans DT/Medic, blatant outting of blue roles, vote switching a lot - all of those should get you in the hot seat.
You shouldn't discredit them all. There is defiantly things that a town could do that a bit of lying would help.
However, the key is that the townie just can't get caught.
The good thing about some PLs is that once the discussion happens you get another issue to see where who stands and why. Funny enough when Scum is caught lying and LAL is proposed their teammates can also be caught in a major bind. Policy Lynches are awesome majority of the time. Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 12:21 LSB wrote:
Its one of the nonos for someone to do in their first game. Even experienced players should be lynched for it.
Would you have lynched node back in the last day of Pokemafia?
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Like I said, those circumstances are usually rare. Of course I'd look at at why/how they lied before voting but majority of the time the people caught in blatant lies end up being Scum. Note that these lies usually refer to night actions and role claims. Things that they can be held accountable for. If townies are lying about their roles in a game with no PMs and then get caught lying there really isn't much they can do to save themselves. Countless time we've seen townies lie about a role, and when the actual role is capped at Night they come up with the excuse that they were just trying to draw a hit. Of course Scum would say the same thing. Let that one go and watch what happens.
I don't know what happened in Pokemafia. If it's LYLO and someone gets caught in a lie I don't see why I wouldn't vote them off unless it was some really good scenario where lying was warranted or there is someone just as scummy left.
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Pokemafia, Node was DT. Node claimed that he got two reds. Eiii and DCLXIV. After a bit of pressuring DC claimed Node was lying, Eiii claimed greenie. (They both actually were red)
Then Node said that he was actually lying, and the two people he checked were dead so he actually had no useful information.
It was at Lylo and I pushed against lynching him for lying because clearly Node was DT as there was no counterclaim.
Now that I think of it, in a LYLO situation with a generally inactive town, a fake DT claim could of been an easy way to get DCLXIV lynched.
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This is a good idea, but I don't think referring people to Mafia 2 is a good idea. That is the longest game on TL (349 pages) and was plagued with rampant inactivity. Also, Ver had a better variant of the same plan in AMW (which also happens to be a shorter thread thanks to Folca). I would recommend using either AMW, Mafia 4 (which had 2 plans - the veteran circle creation and the massclaiming + bombing "greens"), Mafia 5 (which had both the medic list and the idea of the "zodiac list" - a concept I'm pretty surprised we don't see used more often), or PYP1 (which also had 2 plans - assignment of the most powerful roles and the number claiming).
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Well honestly if Node is a DT, claimed he found 2 reds and came out thats cool.
Then he goes back on his claim.
I'd probably vote for him at this point because I can't believe a real DT would deny his claim at this point. Add in the fact that if I don't have Scum vibes from the other 2 and it's LYLO I could see the Scum doing it. Either way if Node did that as a legit DT that's just terrible playing.
I don't know if I'd fake DT claim even with an inactive town. You never know if the real DT ends up getting brave and arguing with you. Then again that begs the question of what the hell was the actual DT doing all that time if he's still alive at LYLO and doesn't have a clue to what's going on.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teachengineering.org/collection/cub_/lessons/cub_images/cub_energy2_lesson01_activity2_clip1.jpg)
