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**First draft. I'll update this continuously over the next few days**
The Mafia Manifesto: Winning As Scum![[image loading]](http://www.scum.cc/scum.png)
Table of Contents
- Introduction:
- Game setups that favor scum
- Knowing your strengths and knowing your goals
- The Art of Trickery:
- The difference between Town/Anti-town/Scum and blending in
- The myth about scum tells
- Shadowing/Parity of other players - fitting in with town
- Double Shield: Townies playing anti-town and/or cluesless townies: keep them alive or kill them?
- How to decide who to kill.
- Denial of Information
- Using the metagame against Townies and crushing their mistakes
- Random Voting
- The Art of Arguing:
- What is logic?
- Letting logical fallacies go through and how they win you the game
- How to read arguments: Premises and conclusions, Deductive and Inductive arguments
- Misuse of terms
- Speaking for dead townies and why you should never do it
- Gut reads and why they are your worst enemy and best friend
- Convincing one player vs convincing the town
- How to pick arguments apart
- Answering questions - with a question
- The Art of Staying Alive:
- Taking responsibility
- Acting like a blue role
- Who's responsible for a lynch?
- Killing players vs killing roles
- Play like you are scum hunting
Introduction
Throughout out the 5,6 or however many years I've been playing Mafia I've seen a lot of play styles as Scum that have impressed me. When first starting out I used to get caught as scum because I only had a limited grasp of what it took to REALLY win as scum. I'm not talking about winning 1 out of every 3 games - I'm talking winning so convincingly that by the time the game is over no one is sure of who makes up the entire scum team. This guide will give you some insight into how my Scum play in Mafia has evolved over the course of time and why I just don't take people who say "I knew you were scum" seriously. Remember just like in real life - results and actions speak volumes.
This is not the only way to look at scum play. There are other ways of playing and thinking of Scum that I may outline in the future. This is just one example of a few I've tried and I've found the best success with.
Also remember it's OK to lose as Scum. It took me at least 10+ games as Scum to finally put everything together consistently. The worst thing you can do is make excuses on other people. It is a TEAM game. You must play for the Team if you want to win. Learn from your mistakes and you'll be better in no time.
Game Setups Favoring Scum
When a host creates a game they usually want all parties involved to have an equal chance of winning. There are a few choices in setups that will help you most of the time and you should smile a bit when you see them: your job will be a little easier.
Majority Lynch voting rules: If your Scum team has very persuasive players or the Town has impulsive voters this will favor you a lot. It makes the game move faster than a deadline enforced lynch and faster games favor you. The less time the town has to decide on important issues and talk the better for your team. You can force mistakes faster and if the Town isn't good at going back to piece together posts the blame for the lynch might miss you. Even better if a townie "caused the lynch" (more on this later) you get to point it out and have some fun.
Low information roles: If you are in a setup with low amounts of informative roles (Cop/Tracker/Watcher) then you have an advantage over the town. Remember at the start of the game you are in control because of this little nugget: Scum has more information than town. With these annoying roles in the game you have to work harder.
Theme games/weird rule sets: In these kinds of games Scum not only knows more information than the town, but everyone is kind of clueless at first to just how the game will work. Let the town debate about what works and what doesn't, chime in a little bit or lead them down the wrong path and crush them at night.
Absence of day killing roles: This is a double edged sword because it hurts the town too. Sadly in a game with multiple day vigilantes they've got more numbers so why do they care. The real problem with day killing roles isn't strictly their ability to put you 6 feet under: It's WHEN they can hit. I've seen far too many instances where Scum was arguing with a townie and "winning" the town over, a shot is fired, Scum dies and everything goes to hell. The reason? As Scum you tend to plan ahead of time. Nothing sucks more than some random element like a day vigi hitting an ally in the middle of an important argument. Votes start moving, role claims start coming in, townies get confirmed and Scum tears start falling. Unlike night time you have no control over this.
Of course this isn't concrete. In some setups you actually want a day killing role. Low player games are good for this. Like wise a game with a lot of town day killing power but clueless townies doesn't hurt you that much.
Knowing your strengths and knowing your goals
This doesn't always need to be discussed but as your Scum team is formed you should have an idea about what each member is capable of doing. Here are some qualities that make for a good scum team:
players are good at debating
chaotic players that aren't obvious
obvious scum to the point of destroying the entire game (the easiest to lynch but the hardest to find a trail after they die)
disruptive posters
players that incite anger and emotion
quiet/lurking players that avoid the modkill threshhold
shadowing players (more on this later)
There are probably more characteristics that make good scum but these are the essential strengths. Note that while it is obvious that something like being a disruptive lurking poster should get you lynched it's HOW you do it that earns a win. By the end of this article you'll see how.
As for your goals it's simple: to win. The way to win isn't always straightforward though. However there are 3 things as scum you should always do. These are almost unbreakable rules:
1.)Deny information - never give the town a damn thing. Whatever you know keep it yourself unless it furthers your win condition. Don't volunteer it if you don't have to. Don't even talk about it. If you are about to be lynched and the town asks you for information evaluate if you REALLY think it'll save you. It won't? Die without saying a word. Don't talk about anything. Don't talk to anyone unless it's to taunt them and make them emotional. They can't find your allies if you don't give them a clue.
2.) Play to win, survive to play - the longer the game goes on, the better the odds for the town. They still can't win unless you're dead. Play like you aren't just in the game to survive to the end. Play like if you were town with nothing to lose: you are so pro-town the scum have to get rid of you.This rule gets broken a lot by newer scum players - they try to play like they are a blue role. This thinking can be pretty bad because blue roles usually don't try to play blue - they try to play like vanilla. By trying to do this people start asking you questions and want information. Remember #1 up there? Exactly.
3.) Don't lie, and if you do don't get caught. If you get caught make the town pay dearly - this is one of the rules that if you master you'll win a lot of games off of alone. Many people mistakenly believe that all scum lie. This is furthest from the truth. Scum don't have to lie - they just don't even need to say it in the first place. You can easily win the a game just by acting like a town player would and remember: Town players never really have to lie. The main time as scum you need to lie is a forced roleclaim and even then you can twist your words to pull off some epic stuff without outright lying. Some of the most ridiculous claims, like Caller claiming he was a bus driver was an outright lie but it was worded with so much "proof" and crazy explanations of his previous behavior everyone just got lost and couldn't untangle the lie.
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FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
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you mean make up shit thats so unbelievable that nobody would believe it?
or do you mean bus L day one?
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FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
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No I mean destroying your shit so bad you had to afk yourself out of the game.
and the least you could do is get your terms right: I didn't bus L day one - we aren't on the same team so I can't throw him under the bus. I've got a special section for townies that use terms they don't understand. Easy to destroy players like you.
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On June 28 2010 13:54 Ace wrote:
No I mean destroying your shit so bad you had to afk yourself out of the game.
and the least you could do is get your terms right: I didn't bus L day one - we aren't on the same team so I can't throw him under the bus. I've got a special section for townies that use terms they don't understand. Easy to destroy players like you.
i wasn't talking about that game ze
that game i was mostly focused on trying to get L killed before I got lolthundered
i'm talking about games in general
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yeah if it's based on that last game it's hope bad townies make bad arguments and 80% of the game goes afk
but stuff like this is always good
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Fuck yall neggia, if i had my way with you...
no sorry lol, theres just ALOT to go into about this sbject, and people are just going to learn it as they go along, but i cant wait to see what you post homes.
pm if you wanna drink in the city lol
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Ok the guide is updated with the Introduction. I'll be adding more in over the next 24 hours.
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The Best Way I found to tell if Ace is Scum
Ace turns against me. The end. He did it last game and he did it in mini mafia II. But now I'm going to make this tell invalid since Ace now knows! Ace if you ever tried to get me lynched when you weren't mafia, please find it and prove me wrong because I'm too lazy to search for a time where this statement is false.
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It depends. If I think you're one of the weakest players in the game and I'm scum I probably would.
That is not the actual tell though.
The actual tell to see if I personally was scum was to check my stance:
Pro-town I used to always say do not kill anyone unless we are 100% sure. Players forgot a lot of the games where I defended players because of shoddy evidence so many times.
Scum-Ace just says well if you guys wanna kill someone go ahead but I'll put the pressure on the weakest players in the game.
Of course these tells are now slightly invalid because I've done both actions in Town and Scum roles. But when I get to the myth about scum tells everything will be clear. In general you shouldn't use tells as a basis for your argument. You need some concrete actions to hold scum responsible for first.
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well it should be pretty implicit that when a player knows what a so-called tell does that obviously it's not going to work.
For instance, there's the stupidly obvious "Why me = fry me" "tell," where a player who asks why he/she is being lynched is scummy. It should be pretty obvious that idiot townies will do this too: thus this is a null tell. However, as mafia, I will not hesitate to use it to beat on somebody.
Then there's virtually any tells that are out in the public. While more newbie scum may trip up on these tells, players whom are more experienced already know these tells and will do their best to avoid them to seem like town.
Have you noticed how the so-called "veteran" players aren't dying as much early on lately? 
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People been making me mafia so often lately I don't remember how to play town T_T.
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United States2186 Posts
I'm glad you're writing this, we've needed detailed guides for awhile and all of us have been too lazy or uninspired to write one. Getting it stickied would be nice or at the very least let's keep it bumped.
One thing I hope you'll delve into is how to control the game atmosphere and how to do it without major backlash. Most mafia players post (or don't post at all for the same purpose) simply to hide themselves instead of trying to fulfill their team's objectives. Others will sometimes push too far and get too much attention on themselves, thus getting quickly outed.
i,e I remember looking at the TMM game day 1 and thinking 'Ace is doing a good job of directing the flow of the game for his team while keeping himself just out of the main spotlight.' The town was getting led by Ace but they didn't realize it and just ended up fighting amongst themselves. Which of course is the ideal mafia scenario  .
And yeah 'tells' are pretty stupid in general. Rules of thumb about behaviors/mindests are good shortcuts to finding mafia (i,e newbie mafia players tend to overemphasize confusion or innocents will not care about how guilty they look) but if someone is raving about 'omg scumtell!1!!' you should probably run the other direction.
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On June 28 2010 23:11 Ver wrote:I'm glad you're writing this, we've needed detailed guides for awhile and all of us have been too lazy or uninspired to write one. Getting it stickied would be nice or at the very least let's keep it bumped. One thing I hope you'll delve into is how to control the game atmosphere and how to do it without major backlash. Most mafia players post (or don't post at all for the same purpose) simply to hide themselves instead of trying to fulfill their team's objectives. Others will sometimes push too far and get too much attention on themselves, thus getting quickly outed. i,e I remember looking at the TMM game day 1 and thinking 'Ace is doing a good job of directing the flow of the game for his team while keeping himself just out of the main spotlight.' The town was getting led by Ace but they didn't realize it and just ended up fighting amongst themselves. Which of course is the ideal mafia scenario . And yeah 'tells' are pretty stupid in general. Rules of thumb about behaviors/mindests are good shortcuts to finding mafia (i,e newbie mafia players tend to overemphasize confusion or innocents will not care about how guilty they look) but if someone is raving about 'omg scumtell!1!!' you should probably run the other direction.
Yes this is what I wanted to get at in the myth about scumtells section. We sometimes make the mistake of saying "you did this last time you were scum" and don't take into account certain things: different game, different players, different information, an entirely different scenario. The ideal way to catch scum is to use whats going on in the current game. Like you stated they are good for pointing you in the right direction but they should never be the meat of your argument.
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Thanks for the guide Ace :D
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Well I personally think it's much easier to play as mafia. When I played as mafia in BM's LAMM, all I did was pretend I was town, and analyze other people and see if they seemed scummy. This includes my partner.
Basically my mentality was, if I try to play as if I'm a town, then there really isn't anything town can do to catch me being scummy. I act the exact same way as everyone else, and I trust that someone else will screw up more than me (BrownBear in that case).
So like, screw strategizing or whatever, I just play town and it works okay.
I find that playing on town side is much harder because I need to catch people rather than just blending in.
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On June 29 2010 02:48 Korynne wrote:
Well I personally think it's much easier to play as mafia. When I played as mafia in BM's LAMM, all I did was pretend I was town, and analyze other people and see if they seemed scummy. This includes my partner.
Basically my mentality was, if I try to play as if I'm a town, then there really isn't anything town can do to catch me being scummy. I act the exact same way as everyone else, and I trust that someone else will screw up more than me (BrownBear in that case).
So like, screw strategizing or whatever, I just play town and it works okay.
I find that playing on town side is much harder because I need to catch people rather than just blending in.
Being mafia last game (TMMM) was such a hassle to me. I went into that game with a townie mindset ("alright, finally I get to relax and spam and troll. yesss.") And then it's like, "you're mafia". -___-. did some trolling anyway cuz I was bored, lol.
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This is good, not only because it tells people how to play mafia, but it also gives newer players some insight on what to look for when they're town.
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On June 29 2010 02:48 Korynne wrote:
Well I personally think it's much easier to play as mafia. When I played as mafia in BM's LAMM, all I did was pretend I was town, and analyze other people and see if they seemed scummy. This includes my partner.
Basically my mentality was, if I try to play as if I'm a town, then there really isn't anything town can do to catch me being scummy. I act the exact same way as everyone else, and I trust that someone else will screw up more than me (BrownBear in that case).
So like, screw strategizing or whatever, I just play town and it works okay.
I find that playing on town side is much harder because I need to catch people rather than just blending in.
Yep. A lot of the times as Scum one of the things you can do is play the "Why me if that guy/girl over there is doing the same thing?". It's a hard argument to defeat because it's based off of actions and not motives - if the accuser doesn't know your motives or doesn't steer the conversation towards it you'll escape the hangman's noose.
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EPT
