If you have a question about anything in Little Italy or Mafia, ask it here.


Mafia: Getting Started

Welcome to the DLP Mafia Forum! For those wondering what on earth they've just stumbled across, Mafia is a party game that can be played on a forum, over IRC (Werewolf usually), in StarCraft II (<3), and in real life. It is played between two teams: the uninformed majority and the informed minority. It's an interactive game which involves sleuthing and cluefinding. If that sounds the sort of thing you'd be interested in, do please read on.


What is Mafia?

As mentioned previously, Mafia is played between two teams: the uninformed majority and the informed minority. At the beginning of the game, each player is told their role by the Game Host.

The Town are told they are apart of the Town and their role. They do not know who the other Townspeople are (unless otherwise stated) and are only aware of their own role. To win, all of the Mafia ("Bad Guys") must be killed. During the day phase, all players (Mafia included) can vote on a single individual to be lynched and be removed from play.

Mafia players are told their role in addition to the roles of all other members of the Mafia ("Bad Guys"). They must work together to carefully get rid of the townspeople until they are the majority group among the remaining, living players (and voting during the day phase is made irrelevant). During the night phase of the game, they can work together to kill a townsperson.

Night and Day Phase:
The game will begin during day. During day phases, everybody will be able to use the thread to communicate and discuss who among them is guilty and should be lynched in the town square. At any time a player may submit a single vote to have another player lynched. When a player receives a simple majority of votes at any point in time, they are killed and removed from play. Players may rescind their vote at any time and cast it for someone else (so long as it is day phase). They cannot rescind their vote after a majority is reached against one player. If a majority of votes is not reached against one player by the end of the day phase, no one is lynched.

During the night phase, discussion in the thread is prohibited. The mafia can collude via PMs or QuickTopics (a private online forum) and can inform the Game Host the individual they want to kill. Roles with special Night-time abilities (such as the Cop or the Doctor) may additionally be used during this time.

At the beginning of the next day phase, if a person was killed, their name is identified by the Game Host and the process starts anew.



I'm interested. How do I sign up for a game?

Usually, we run one mafia game at a time, and you may see a Sign-Up thread sticked at the top! In the Sign-Up thread for an upcoming mafia game, you can post to signal your interest in playing. If you don't see one, check again in a few days. If a game needs replacements, it's also recommended that you PM the current Game Host that you're interested. Replacements are important, and the Host would often be more than happy to accommodate for you.

Also, the Mods (Lexicat and myself) are more than happy to help you get started, so feel free to PM us and we will get you sorted.


Glossary of Terms

Mafia, especially those featuring veterans, can feature a scintillating variety of acronyms and jargon. Although we can't list all the term out there, I've distilled a list of the most common ones that you may encounter. Use this list to decipher the indecipherable! This list is not exhaustive, but it should cover most of the terms that you may encounter. Some, you may not even encounter at all!

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Alignment: The team to which you belong. Usually, the two alignments are Town and Mafia, but in more complex games, multiple factions can be involved.

Bastard Games: A game where the Game Host lies to the players more than what is reasonably expected or introduces massively game-changing mechanics (cults or jesters). Not a good thing.

Bussing: A mafia tactic of voting or advocating the lynch on one's fellow mafia. This is used to gain credential with the towner.

Claim: A statement in which you publicly announce your role to all players. This statement can be either true or false, depending on whether you wish to lie. Also see: "Counterclaim" and "Softclaim"

Closed Setup: A game where the exact roles are not known to the players beforehand.

Counterclaim: A claim or statement in response to another player's claim. More specifically, it is usually a situation where two or more players claim the same role, or if one player claims that another's claimed action is impossible

Hunt: An open setup game without role-reveal on death.

LyLo: Acronym for "Lynch-or-Lose". A game state wherein the Town must lynch the mafia correctly during the present Day phase or they will lose the game. It is also called "Lynch-right-or-lose". Also see: Mylo.

Meta/Metagaming: A term for the knowledge of how a player will act based on previous experience. Meta affects interactions between previous players.

MyLo: Acronym for "Mislynch-or-lose". A game state where the Town will lose if it mislynches during the present Day phase. Also see: LyLo.

Night-Kill: A factional ability that the mafia typically have at their disposal. Once during each Night, a member of the mafia may be dispatched to kill another player.

Open Setup: A game wherein the exact roles in the game are known. Also see: Closed Setup.

Popcorn: A pro-town strategy in which the players choose by consensus one of the scummier players to claim first. The players then initiative a sequence of mass claiming. As each player claims, they declare the next person to claim.

Role: The character that you are assigned in the game of mafia. Roles are at the very least comprised of a role name, an alignment, any extra abilities that role may have, and a Win Condition. In games with role-reveal upon death, your role will be revealed publicly to all players upon your demise. Role-reveal is also called "Flipping".

Softclaim: A statement that hints at a player's own role without explicitly giving any information away. Usually done to dissuade others from lynching you. A softclaim only hints rather than explicitly states.

Scum: Another term for the Mafia, the informed minority and "Bad Guys". The Death Eaters to the Order of the Phoenix, if you will.

WIFOM: Acronym for "Wine In Front Of Me", in reference to this scene from Princess Bride. It is the circular reasoning that results from trying to determine the choices of an informed opponent.

Essentially, an informed opponent gives the player a set of apparently equal choices where one or more is completely wrong. In such games, one often may try to use what he knows of his opponent to make a better choice, but this often leads to recursive reasoning, as anything that one player could think of is something another player could think of, in the form of "But that's just what he wants me to think, so I'll do the opposite…but maybe that's what he want's me to think…so I'll not do the opposite…but maybe that's what he want's me to think…etc, etc.".

Such games are basically random, and therefore should be carefully considered before they are engaged in.


Further Links

What now then? From here, the whole world of Mafia is open to you. You've got loads of options! Here's a few suggestions for things you might want to start looking at once you've read the glossary.

Want a flash tutorial on how to play mafia? Check out mikeburnfire's Flash Tutorial

Curious about general forum etiquette? Read the Basic ruleset for games. Following these rules will help you fit in with the crowd.

Want to find past Mafia Games, current Mafia Games, and Upcoming Mafia Games? The Games and Variant Thread is your one stop wonder.

Want a wikipedia on Mafia terminology? Investigate your questions at the Mafiascum Wiki.

Have time for a quick read? You've played your first game of Mafia and now you want more? Study the The Beginner's Guide to Being Awesome and learn the fine arts of sleuthing.

Played a few games and now you're thinking about becoming a Host? Read up the thread on Mafia Roles and How to Create a Good Role. And afterwards, either join the Mafia Game Design Group or PM one of the Mods!

Are you a numbers geek? Want to know "who's who" in Mafia? For the statistics on the past few mafia games and which person has won the most games, the Complete Results Table is your friend.

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And always, the Mods are happy to help you find your place. We promise not to bite and will always answer your PMs.

-Lexicat and Zeitgeist-
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Mods​

 

Broken link is super broken.

And I link this all the time, there's a load of really good advice here.

 

Fixed. /10char

 

I think we should define revealless and revealed setup.

Bastard also varies from site to site. Here, revealless is normal. On mafiascum, it is bastard.

 

That's because your definition of Bastard Modding is weird as fuck. Bastard modding is when the mod lies or breaks/bends the rules for whatever reasons. A revealless setup is just a different set of rules/type of game, it's not bastard as long as it is stated that it will be a revealless game.

 

Closing this thread since we don't want to dilute and divert the actual meaning of the thread. Too many posts in here will simply distract the newcomers. If we want to discuss what to add, discuss in the Little Italy Clean-up thread.

Simple and uncomplicated is good.