Newbie Student Mafia VIII

On April 19 2015 15:34 scott31337 wrote:


Evening - Do you mind if I call you TBD or Dwarf?

What do you think so far?

On April 19 2015 15:34 scott31337 wrote:


What do you think so far?

On April 19 2015 15:44 The Shining wrote:


I resent that. I'm American =P lolol jkjk

Nice to see you again, Dwarf. How are you feeling about this game after last?

On April 19 2015 11:07 Trfel wrote:

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. About Myself
2. Trfel's Guide to Mafia
3. Concluding Thoughts

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Introduction
Hello. I am Trfel, nice to meet you. I'm glad that you have decided to participate in Newbie Student Mafia VIII! This game should be very fun, and a learning experience for all of you. I would hope to learn, but it is difficult for one to learn when surrounded by inferior beings. Hopefully after several years of training, a few of you may be worthy to play at my level.

Anyway, the game should still be fun enough, assuming that you guys keep up your end of the bargain.

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About Myself
Besides having a world famous ego, I have several unique (and several less unique) characteristics.

I'm possibly the youngest player currently on TL Mafia. I first found TeamLiquid for its Starcraft 2 forums (I didn't play Broodwar, that was before my time). I am a trumpet player, and have been playing trumpet for about ten years. That's probably my only notable characteristic (besides my dazzling intellect, stunning looks, and impeccable mafia play, of course).

Anyway, this will be my eleventh game of mafia. My first game of mafia began on November 24, 2014. My play has changed quite a bit since then (mostly gotten worse, I guess the poor player quality on this site brought it down).

Trfel's Mafia History

1. Student Mafia IV: Town Tracker killed Night 1, town victory
2. TL Mafia LXIX: Carol of the Bells: Town Santa (alignment cop) killed Night 2, town victory
3. Newbie Mafia LX: Vanilla Town killed Night 1, town defeat
4. Student Mafia V: Mafia Goon lynched Day 2, mafia victory
5. Linux Mini Mafia: Town Doctor victorious Night 1, town victory
6. Newbie Mafia LXI: Vanilla Town endgamed Day 4, town defeat
7. Mini Mafia Down Under 2: Town Vigilante endgamed Day 4, town defeat
8. TL Mafia LXX: Guardians of the Galaxy: Town Veteran endgamed Day 7, town defeat
9. Aperture Mafia 4: Third Party Dungeon Master eliminated Night 3
10. Newbie Student Mafia VII: Town Vanilla endgamed Day 3, town defeat

There are a few particularly notable games here. By my second game (Carol of the Bells), I had improved significantly, and caught a mafia player with a solid case. The results of my case basically left the entire mafia team revealed by the end of Day 2. Note that this game switched the colors of the town power roles and mafia, I used blue in the above list for appearance and ease of reading.

Linux Mafia was a special game. Town lynched scum on Day 1, and a second scum was modkilled for failing to vote. The final scum conceded in Night 1, causing town to win with only one dead town (due to a modkill). Damdred was the clear hero of this game.

Aperture Mafia 4 was a heavily themed game. Very interesting to play in, not so relevant for this game.

I replaced into Newbie Student Mafia VII. My only experience replacing into a game. I learned that it is extremely difficult.

Anyway, several trends are clear. Of note is that in my first five games, my record was 4-1 (3-1 as town, 1-0 as scum). Of my last five games, my record is 0-5 (0-4 as town, 0-1 as third party). So I'd really like to turn things around here with a win.

Second, I've only been scum once. And my play was miserably poor. Rsoultin caught me in my first handful of posts, and I narrowly avoided being lynched Day 1. While I was lynched Day 2, ultimately due to a cop check, I highly doubt I could have avoided being lynched anyway. It's quite possible that my scum play is the worst of everyone on this site.

Third, I've played half of my games as a town power role. While I am not too familiar with mafia rules and role mechanics, I am used to being a power role. Thus, I believe it's quite hard to bluehunt me, since I feel perfectly comfortable as power role and vanilla town (in fact, I might even feel more comfortable as a power role).

Anyway, my play quality has been reduced as of late. Since Newbie Mafia LXI, my play level dropped significantly. I played terribly in Mini Mafia Down Under 2 (really about as bad as one can play a game of mafia...), and couldn't properly keep up with the thread in Guardians of the Galaxy and Aperture 4. After those games, I took a brief break, and I think I'm playing closer to my standard.

I try to play an analysis-based, logical game. However, I'm finding this to be difficult, and I'm not very good at mafia at all. Each game I do some things right, and other things horribly wrong. But I enjoy the things I do right, and try my best to learn from my mistakes and move on. In all of my defeats (and most of my victories), I can instantly point you to where I went wrong, and what actions I took as a result of that game to correct the error.

I've messed up a ton, and learned a ton. I'll keep doing my best, and still wait for that perfect game. I haven't been right on a key read in a very long time, so I have a feeling that it is time.

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Trfel's Guide to Mafia

I won't pretend to be qualified to post a guide on how to play mafia. I'm not. Not even close. But here I am anyway. I write this because I feel that most of the current TL Mafia guides are somewhat outdated (the information in them is obviously brilliant, but there are new questions that have arisen given the newer, higher posting levels that didn't exist before). Furthermore, I never found a mafia guide that actually showed newbies how to play the game, the guides felt disconnected and either hard to follow or uninformative in this regard. So, this is my attempt.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Mafia
2. Common Terms and Abbreviations
2. Tips for Playing as Town
3. Tips for Playing as Mafia
4. Brief Guide on Scumhunting

Introduction to Mafia
Mafia is a game focused on the uninformed majority (town) versus the informed minority (mafia). The game relies around a series of days, each with two phases. The day phase occurs first, in which players vote for a player to be lynched. This player is removed from the game, and their alignment is revealed. The night phase follows the day phase, in which players use their roles as they see fit to benefit their side. At the end of the night phase, actions resolve, and any players who are killed are removed from the game and their alignment is revealed. Town's goal is to eliminate all of the mafia, and mafia's goal is to eliminate all of the town. In practice, this means that mafia needs to ensure that their numbers are equal to that of town (or nothing can stop this from happening), since town can no longer control the votes.

I won't go over the rules here. That isn't really the purpose of this post. But it is extremely important that you read every word of the first two posts of this thread. They describe how the game will be played. People normally take mafia games here fairly seriously, and it is important to know the rules. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the thread or PM the host, people will be more than happy to answer.

Common Terms and Abbreviations
WIFOM: Wine in front of me. This is a reference to a scene in the movie The Princess Bride. The point is that you cannot outguess an opponent with perfect information, when your own information is limited.
NAI: Not alignment indicative.
Scum: Another word for mafia.
Bus: One mafia attacking one of their mafia partners.
Read: An opinion about someone's alignment (hence, townread or scumread).
Null: No read (or not alignment indicative).
Blue: Another phrase for town power roles, since they are normally colored blue.
VT: Vanilla town, the basic town role.
EoD: End of Day.
EoN: End of Night.
Meta: A player's normal tendencies, which can be used to help figure out their alignment
Townie/towny (I never learned how to spell this word): either a player with town alignment, or describing an action as being likely to come from town
KP: Kill power. One KP kills one person.
CC: Counterclaim.
Sheep: Follow someone else (like sheep).
POE: Process of Elimination.

Other role abbreviations: vig (vigilante), doc or medic (doctor), vet (veteran), rb (roleblocker), gf (godfather), pr (power role)

Tips for Playing as Town
I think that it is easiest to explain town play by starting with mafia play. Town starts out with minimal information (each townie knows that they are town). Mafia has constant KP, and their goal is simply to not die so that they can eventually kill all of town. In a game where no one does anything, mafia will win by killing off town in the night phases. Therefore, the necessity of playing the game is placed on town. Town needs to figure out who is town and who is mafia, while mafia only participates to avoid being lynched. To play effectively as town, you need to do two important things. First, you need to show that you are town. Second, you need to figure out who is town and who is mafia.

Showing that you are town works in a variety of ways. One of these ways is effort and activity. It is normally much harder to post as scum, therefore players who post a lot are normally (but not always) town, and players who put in a lot of effort are normally (but not always) town. Another way is through tone. If you are honest and open with your reads and thoughts, it is possible for some players to townread you based on your words alone, regardless of the actual opinions that you share. And finally, the scumhunting that you do is the easiest way to show that you are town (since mafia has no incentive to scumhunt, they only fake doing so to avoid dying).

Being honest is crucial at all times. The best rule is to be honest all the time, as a rule. Once you understand the rule and why it is the way it is, then you can break the rule sometimes, when you know that the benefits outweigh the consequences. But in general, being honest is important because it maximizes the amount of correct information that town has to work with, while preventing town from making reads based on false information.

If people start scumreading you or pressuring you, the best thing to do is remain calm. Getting upset won't do anything. Discuss the points they are scumreading you for, and explain why you did what you did. Tell the entire truth, and be clear about it. While it's important to discuss with people and make your points heard, it's also important to not spend too much time defending yourself. If you are town, any discussion about you is wasted discussion, energy that could be used to find actual scum. So you can respond to arguments against you if you wish, but once there seems to be no progress in the discussion, it's better to let it drop and continue scumhunting. Scumhunting in the face of pressure is one of the best things you can do. It shows that you aren't afraid of dying, and are truly interested in finding scum. And finally, never give up. You are never dead until the deadline actually arrives.

To new and/or inexperienced players, the best advice there is is to post often and share all of your thoughts. You don't need to provide conclusive evidence, because anything helps. Your thoughts, even if small and "unimportant", show where your mind is at (allowing people to follow your thought process throughout the game, which is very important to being townread) and provide things for town to discuss (which is extremely useful). But by posting often and being willing to discuss with people, you can quickly learn to be a more effective player, and get townread.

Two things that Palmar (a veteran player on this site) often says are that the most important quality that affects someone's mafia skill is the amount of time they spend playing the game, and that one of the most overlooked abilities to have is for a player to be able to sheep at the right times. I agree with Palmar on both of these points. From my personal experience, I've found that there is no way to spend too much time on a mafia game. There is always more analysis, more rereading to do. That said, a few hours every day is more than enough to be an effective player. And being able to listen to others and follow them when they present accurate, well-explained reads is an extremely important skill.

In mafia, being right is extremely difficult. The power of conversation, however is incredible. Different people see different things, and can help find errors in each other's analysis. In this way, the group is much more effective than individuals. Mafia is a team game, and you can't be expected to solve the game on your own. But share your thoughts and be open, no matter how confident you are, and you will still help town to arrive at the best possible lynches.

If you are a power role, be smart about it. There are plenty of guides for playing the various power roles, and I don't really care to go into it much now. In short:

• As cop: check people who you think are mafia. If you think someone is guaranteed mafia, you can avoid checking them to check someone else instead. Don't check your townreads "just to be sure".
  
• As vigilante: shoot someone who is generally suspected by the thread, or a lurker. Don't shoot someone who isn't heavily suspected or hard to read/lurking unless you are extremely confident on it. The value of a vigilante isn't necessarily killing scum, but in getting rid of a mislynch candidate and confirming the vigilante as town.
  
• As veteran: play as well as you can, and force the mafia to shoot you.
  
• As doctor: protect your strongest town read, or any claimed power roles if you think that the mafia will shoot them (they most likely will).

The final point is, be extremely careful about when you claim your role. If you have a plan involving a claim, you need to be sure that it makes sense and is worth it before you do. If you are under pressure, only consider claiming your role as a last resort (enough time left to get people to switch their votes away from you, but wait as long as possible). Even then, consider soft-claiming as a power role, but don't specify which one. if that would save you.

Finally, remember that power roles are a supplement to normal scumhunting. Your role is a bonus, but it is not a replacement for normal play. Play exactly the same as you normally would, regardless of your role. In several of my games, I changed my play because of my role, and that is a really bad thing to do because it makes your analysis weaker and less beneficial for town.

Tips for Playing as Mafia
Well. I actually have no clue how to play mafia. My one advice is to read my mafia filter here, and use it as an example of what not to do.

Since I'm town in this game, I don't really want you to know how to play mafia. Good day, I hope you enjoy being lynched.

Brief Guide on Scumhunting
This is a big topic. I'm not very good at scumhunting, so I'll touch on the basics.

I found it easy to determine what is good or bad for town to do. My first instinct was that people who do good things are town, and people who do bad things are mafia. However, the problem is that town often does bad things, and mafia often does good things.

The truly important thing for scumhunting is to figure out the mafia motivation for doing something. Ignore what people say and do, and focus on why they do it. Does their explanation and reasoning make sense from a town perspective? Why would mafia do what they are doing? (and no, the explanation of "to appear like town" isn't enough) Once you can prove why someone's actions don't make sense at all from a town perspective, and why these actions show town motivation, then you can believe that they are scum.

One example of this is finding players whose reads don't make sense. Town needs to find the scum, so they actually try to get their reads right and think about them. Mafia doesn't need to scumhunt at all, so they don't care as much about their reads. In addition, mafia has the additional motivation of keeping their partners alive, but if their partner is lynched, they don't want to look bad for defending them. Thus, players who have reads that are inconsistent and keep changing without explanation (or with an explanation that makes no sense) are more likely to be mafia. Some less experienced players play like this as town, however, so it can sometimes be difficult to identify if inconsistent reads make someone scum or not.

Another example of this is finding differences between words and actions. Town wants to be open and always tell the truth, so their words and actions should line up closely. However, mafia doesn't really care about what they do, as long as it keeps mafia alive. And mafia doesn't really care about what they say, as long as it keeps them above suspicion. Therefore, mafia players often show inconsistency between their words and actions. This is often represented in players showing constant suspicion of someone (their mafia partner) but never actually voting for them or getting other people to push for them. This is beneficial as it prevents them from looking bad if their partner is killed, but also doesn't contribute to getting their partner lynched.

Early on in a mafia game, it is hard to get accurate reads. But as the game progresses, you get more and more information to work with. It's sort of like an upside down pyramid. At the start, there is no information to work with, so people discuss about completely random things. However, people will comment on the random discussion and make (extremely weak) reads based on it, and then other people will make reads based on these reads, and so on. Gradually, the reads get stronger and stronger. Once people start to die and their alignments are revealed, and people's votes start coming in, town has a lot of concrete information to work with. Still, it helps to scumhunt at all times, even (and especially) early in the game. Even if your scumhunting doesn't directly help catch scum, it helps to show that you are town, and also helps by providing something for others to talk about and work with.

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Concluding Thoughts

If you follow my advice, town will win. Mafia is a fun game, and it's even more fun to win while you play it. I hope that this post was at least slightly useful to someone, but I realize that it's extremely unlikely that anyone is still reading this.

Anyway, this post proves that I am obviously town. I took the effort to type up this huge post, which I certainly wouldn't need to do as mafia. Furthermore, I included a history of my games on TL Mafia, allowing people to check my games and get a better meta read on me, which I wouldn't want if I were mafia. Finally, by providing a guide on playing mafia (while omitting any help for the mafia side), I help town and hurt mafia, which I certainly wouldn't do as mafia. I've also set a standard of play and expected town behaviors that can potentially be held against me later, which I wouldn't do as mafia.

Good luck, and happy scumhunting!

On April 19 2015 15:57 scott31337 wrote:

Do you have any reads?

On April 19 2015 16:15 scott31337 wrote:
I think you need some encouragement.

## Vote: TheBloodyDwarf

On April 19 2015 21:40 LightningStrike wrote:
I'm back and saw TheBloodyDwarf complaining on the lack of Europeans in this thread. Also Shining had a question which will now be answered:

Okay let's be honest here I usually get scumread for my early reads list by most people but here some thoughts on people:
OWS: Null he haven't done much yet but I know when he post more I can give more of a accurate meta read because he haven't posted much.
Shinging: Maybe Town you seem to be trying actually but I haven't forgiven you on being scum in our last game together
LeiNadk: Just a confused townie most likely he being earnest I feel with him asking questions on how to play kinda reminds me of myself on my first game on TL.
Tfrel: Null he can do most of his stuff as both alignments (Hinted at pregame he would do a really large post)
Scott: He looked so damn townie when he was scum and he looks townie here to so null.
Bourneq: Null he haven't really done much.
Also Bourneq I'm here what's your thoughts so far?

On April 20 2015 06:48 Trfel wrote:
For anyone who doesn't know Bill Murray, he's quite famous.

This is a must read.