General Mafia theory discussion

[Swiss]

There is. A watcher seeing a gravedigger means nothing, especially on a non-kill. There are no such "buts" or "ifs" when the Cop investigates you. When that happens there's nothing left to be interpreted or up to the player's smarts.

Edit: Yes X1, that is correct.

There are always 'ifs' and 'buts' in mafia.

Always.

 

[Omni]

VT games > quadruple-faction, resurrecting, everyone can recruit games.

Non-VT games are like... playing Smash with items on.

 

[Swiss]

VT games > quadruple-faction, resurrecting, everyone can recruit games.

Non-VT games are like... playing Smash with items on.

This is why Vanz' games are popular.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

No, they can't. Play for a bit longer and improve your scumhunting skills and your focus on what matters in a mafia game. If we're going by personal experience here then Macman's should count for a lot more than yours.

Since when does being a PR say you need to stop scum hunting? That couldn't be any further from the truth.You may have an additional tool to use, but it doesn't force or distract from actual hunting.

I franking don't care for a, who is more experianced, argument. Yes more PR heavy games are harder to balance and make not super swingy, but they have that flavor of having a lot of angles and quirks to throw in that VT games can't do.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

that VT games can't do.

And this is why you *do* need more experience.

 

[ranmaru]

Pr games sometimes become a 'you're role is scummy' game instead of 'what you have done is scummy' game. It's annoying.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

And this is why you *do* need more experience.

Whatever you say Gheb.

~

Ran that is not true.

 

[X1-12]

Fire and Ice variant

2 Fire Mafia
2 Ice Mafia

1 Fire/Ice vig (picks one element)
8 VT

Factions are immune to their own kills

What you think people?

 

[#HBC | Mac]

Non-VT games are like... playing Smash with items on.

pretty much all that needs to be said

 

[~ Gheb ~]

What you think people?

I dig.

Contract Hitman may actually work in an open set-up like F&E too.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

What you think people?

Couldn't town win by N1? Lynch one goon, goons shoot each other, vig picks right element and target.

 

[#HBC | Mac]

I disagree off experience.

Good game mods can make it work.

I was just stating what the term swingy means. balanced means theres an equal chance that town/scum will win, swingy means that most of the time (over half I guess, passed a certain threshold probability) the game plays out to be strongly in favor of town or scum

 

[X1-12]

@DH: Yeah, not that worried though


@Gheb: haha yeah that'd be sick, or this:

2 Fire Mafia
2 Ice Mafia

1 Town Contract Hitman
5 Town Contract Hitman Backups

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

2 Fire
2 Ice

1 Hitman
1 Comparison cop (Because comparison cops are pretty cool guys)
4 VTs

Amidoinitrie?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I wonder if 4 factions [Fire, Ice, Town and hitman] may be a bit too much for the comparison cop to really suggest himslelf as a role. I feel like 3 is the ideal number for the Comp. Cop to work with so I'd use either him or the Contract hitman but not both.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Ah, I see. There's also the fact that the comparison cop could find the Hitman.

But what if the Hitman were town? Sure, you're letting town have some control over the mafia kill, but it's not a whole lot. I think it works.

 

[X1-12]

well normally the mafia have no kill if hitman dies so he would just claim d1, lol.

If mafia each get a kill after his death then I think it gets too swingy.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah, the actual problem is what will happen when the hitman dies but the design of the role is pretty clearly 3rd party.

 

[Overswarm]

VT games > quadruple-faction, resurrecting, everyone can recruit games.

Non-VT games are like... playing Smash with items on.

Eh, most of my games have been well received with an emphasis on power roles. The one game that I've run that wasn't well received was Depressing Mafia, and that was just straight up mafia/town vanilla roles. It was so boring people were having difficulty playing. Most people like having power roles because it makes the game interesting for them.

It's more of an issue with the medium we play in more than anything though. In-person mafia works well for very limited power roles (like one doctor, mafia goons, rest VTs) because the players themselves can pressure inactives and ganging up on someone can be simultaneous and fierce.

In online mafia, you can't really do that without everyone else willing to put forth the effort. Someone being inactive for a few days and coming back and saying "Sorry, grandma died" or "exams/work, gotta focus" you can't really do much about. Even saying "we don't accept those excuses" doesn't work because they might be legitimate regardless of alignment.

 

[ranmaru]

Every time I re-read Time Travellers I have so much laughs. It was a truly fun, and epic game. I might re-read it today.

: D

 

[Omni]

Eh, most of my games have been well received with an emphasis on power roles. The one game that I've run that wasn't well received was Depressing Mafia, and that was just straight up mafia/town vanilla roles. It was so boring people were having difficulty playing. Most people like having power roles because it makes the game interesting for them.

It's more of an issue with the medium we play in more than anything though. In-person mafia works well for very limited power roles (like one doctor, mafia goons, rest VTs) because the players themselves can pressure inactives and ganging up on someone can be simultaneous and fierce.

In online mafia, you can't really do that without everyone else willing to put forth the effort. Someone being inactive for a few days and coming back and saying "Sorry, grandma died" or "exams/work, gotta focus" you can't really do much about. Even saying "we don't accept those excuses" doesn't work because they might be legitimate regardless of alignment.

It's funny because your stance on Smash directly correlates with the type of games you host in Mafia if we continue to use the the Smash <-> Mafia correlation. Your games were rather fun and you ran them very well.

This is where I actually verge, though. For me, interesting is tapping into the core of Mafia that focuses less on "who's got what" and moreso on the essence of lying, betraying, and trusting. A focus on too many roles that can lead into too many night actions or counter night actions tends to take away from that.

Again, this is just what I take away from Mafia. A Mafia game that has a lot of roles can be really fun; even when the game is really balanced or unbalanced. But I feel like it rewards and punishes players at random regardless of skill level. Take away most of those elements and you're left with Mafia in its purest form which is my one and only true love.

 

[Overswarm]

It's funny because your stance on Smash directly correlates with the type of games you host in Mafia if we continue to use the the Smash <-> Mafia correlation. Your games were rather fun and you ran them very well.

This is where I actually verge, though. For me, interesting is tapping into the core of Mafia that focuses less on "who's got what" and moreso on the essence of lying, betraying, and trusting. A focus on too many roles that can lead into too many night actions or counter night actions tends to take away from that.

There's definitely a balance that has to be made. Oftentimes in my games certain roles are designed to have more attention drawn to them than others. Rather than creating a playing field from scratch (or from reputation) like you would in a VT/Goon game, I've already created a playing field for people to interpret and react off of. The core of mafia is still there, but if you have a player with a Day-based voteblocking ability you get kind of a 'push' of direction.

Again, this is just what I take away from Mafia. A Mafia game that has a lot of roles can be really fun; even when the game is really balanced or unbalanced. But I feel like it rewards and punishes players at random regardless of skill level. Take away most of those elements and you're left with Mafia in its purest form which is my one and only true love.

The worst aspect overall of mafia is the direct correlation between doing well and dying fast. There isn't much of a difference between doing alright / doing poorly, but if you're actually doing a good job and reveal yourself as town through actions alone? You die almost instantly without some sort of power role to protect you. I feel like this is a kind of negative reinforcement in a way.

But again, it's all in the medium. I'll be really aggressive in face-to-face mafia and be fine if I die on N1 or N2, but it sucks to be playing online mafia in the same game for two months and read over the game three times only to be NKilled and be left to watch people that didn't do those things.

 

[Swiss]

Eh, most of my games have been well received with an emphasis on power roles. The one game that I've run that wasn't well received was Depressing Mafia, and that was just straight up mafia/town vanilla roles. It was so boring people were having difficulty playing. Most people like having power roles because it makes the game interesting for them.

It's more of an issue with the medium we play in more than anything though. In-person mafia works well for very limited power roles (like one doctor, mafia goons, rest VTs) because the players themselves can pressure inactives and ganging up on someone can be simultaneous and fierce.

In online mafia, you can't really do that without everyone else willing to put forth the effort. Someone being inactive for a few days and coming back and saying "Sorry, grandma died" or "exams/work, gotta focus" you can't really do much about. Even saying "we don't accept those excuses" doesn't work because they might be legitimate regardless of alignment.

I'm still salty you failed to understand your own mechanics and cost me night actions.

> Role allows one way time travel
> Swiss selects two nights to travel
> Not gonna accept that OR tell because you put the two nights the wrong way round, even though it was never specified you had to act as if you were talking to a brain dead 4yr old.

Give me simple mechanics blahblahblah what Omni just said

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Smash to Mafia correlation isn't very good.

Basic mafia is boring online but a lot more fun irl.

 

[Omni]

Smash to Mafia correlation isn't very good.

Basic mafia is boring online but a lot more fun irl.

One should not simply make statements without supporting evidence.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

"Activating swag!"

 

[adumbrodeus]

Honestly, doc/watcher/similar protective roles are a necessary evil in the game. While they do allow bad play to slip by in one sense, they also create a situation where mafia is forced to decide it's night actions with the consideration "what if a doc/watcher protected this target?"

This ultimately refers back to the negative feedback issue of, "if I'm doing well, mafia is gonna kill me", and therefore discourages people from playing well. Also there's the all too common issue in irl life mafia of "you're not dead yet, you're good at the game, therefore you're mafia".

This more true of the doc then the watcher, but the possibility of the doc existing improves the game a lot more then it hurts it, there's a reason that no mafiascum mountainous games have been won by town to date, and I just don't think mountainous is a good game type due to the ability of mafia to just snipe anyway whose doing well, you reach a point where in order to be balanced, you have to make it so town-favored technically that town is just better off random-lynching because nobody's personal winrate is gonna surpass the success of random-lynching.

Didn't OS run an all-VT game, and everyone hated it?

No, he ran a game with tons of chance-based roles, and it was stupid.

I think running more simple, open and largely vanilla setups like Jungle Republic, Fire and Ice, TWEWY or Portal would be pretty cool, but most mods would rather run set-ups they've created rather than simple games like those

It's not hard to make unique setups with interesting power roles without subverting the basic mechanic that makes mafia interesting.

Because pure VT games are nothing but guesswork until they catch a scum and mostly-VT games get stale after awhile. The strategies become redundant and there's no real variance in PRs.

Don't get me wrong, I think DGames could stand to be a bit more vanilla, but not that much.

Except that's not true, what makes it interesting is that like a good competative game, you're competing against somebody's mind, or multiple people's minds.

The human mind is infinitely complex and every situation is markedly different. That's what allows you to continuously replay smash but makes most singleplayer games get boring after a few times. The human mind is always a new challenge, even if it's somebody overall weaker then you.


Mafia has the same basic appeals as a competitive game.

Smash to Mafia correlation isn't very good.

Basic mafia is boring online but a lot more fun irl.

It's cause you're bad at mafia brah.

I kid I kid, but I think it definitely does suggest a more casual approach to the game, in the same way people who prefer all items matches 4 players on hyrule temple do. It's the value of the spectacle as opposed to the value of competing versus another player's mind.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

One should not simply make statements without supporting evidence.

One is removing broken stages and items, which skew results of tournaments due to how items act with spawning and such. Best you could get is food legal and maybe something else, though it is still debatable unfair one guy has no items spawn near him while the others gets a lot because of random spawning.

The other is removing a possible swing that PRs present in mafia despite being a necessity if your looking for balance, since without PRs the game on forums heavily favors scum. You don't like to look for who has got what, but that is a part of the game. You need to read into who has what to hit town where it hurt and as town to distract and turn attention away from that if you see it.

Mafia of looking into reads is always important, that will never go away unless the mod makes his set-up broken. Lying, betraying, and trusting is need with PRs as well.

It never does go away, making a VT heavy or PR game wouldn't change this, while focus changes a bit the essence is still there.

It's foolish to assume people will drop scum hunting in a balanced set-up.

I kid I kid, but I think it definitely does suggest a more casual approach to the game, in the same way people who prefer all items matches 4 players on hyrule temple do. It's the value of the spectacle as opposed to the value of competing versus another player's mind.

I mean, yeah I get why people want this stuff, but I think part of it isn't necessarily true and even then I tend to like more crazy set-ups.

If I want competitive sound stuff, I'll go play Smash, Magic/Yugioh, Soccer, League, I'll go do that. Mafia isn't that thing for me in a sense.

 

[#HBC | Mac]

I don't think the negative feedback loop for doing well -> getting nked is that big of an issue. If you're doing good and are calling out scum and get nked, that will just implicate the people who you were trying to lynch. That night kill in and of itself is valuable information for town and mafia has to consider the fact that if they killed the amazing townie that itll make them look much worse and could get them lynched.

The other is removing a possible swing that PRs present in mafia despite being a necessity if your looking for balance, since without PRs the game on forums heavily favors scum.

Where are you pulling this out of?

 

[Overswarm]

I don't think the negative feedback loop for doing well -> getting nked is that big of an issue. If you're doing good and are calling out scum and get nked, that will just implicate the people who you were trying to lynch. That night kill in and of itself is valuable information for town and mafia has to consider the fact that if they killed the amazing townie that itll make them look much worse and could get them lynched.

While it can work for the game (sometimes >_>) I'm more talking about what happens to the player. How much fun do you think Frozen Flame has on D1?

 

[Omni]

Where are you pulling this out of?

Essentially this.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Where are you pulling this out of?

I forget where it was, I think mafiascum, sighted and proven with results that all VT games were resulting in a larger win for scum % wise over town.

Even looking at it I can completely understand why.

 

[adumbrodeus]

I don't think the negative feedback loop for doing well -> getting nked is that big of an issue. If you're doing good and are calling out scum and get nked, that will just implicate the people who you were trying to lynch. That night kill in and of itself is valuable information for town and mafia has to consider the fact that if they killed the amazing townie that itll make them look much worse and could get them lynched.

There are several factors that make that not work properly in practice.

1. Dead players tend to be ignored.

2. It doesn't necessarily mean 1 or even any of their suspects are correct, merely that they show they understand the dynamic of the town for that game and therefore are going to be extremely effective at rooting out scum.

3. Mafia can also use kills to make town believe somebody is scum, and if that weighs on town, they won't weigh it heavily enough to be effective. If they weigh it too heavily, it will bite then in the a** when scum uses it to set somebody up.


Again, there's a reason why scum has won 100% of the mountainous games on mafiascum so far. It's ridiculously scum favoring.

Where are you pulling this out of?

Just run the random-lynching numbers.

Then there's the information gap.


Edit: assuming he's using reasonably standard faction numbers, which I assume he is.

 

[Omni]

I think we're comparing two different components of Smash and Mafia, RR.

I'm referring to "Items On" with "Multiple Non-VT Roles" not from a balancing perspective, but from an add-on perspective. Removing both of these things are similar because it brings each entity back to their core. As adumbrodeus mentioned it's about the value of the spectacle which influences people to add these components to the already solid core. Still, adding both of these components then becomes an issue about balance. tl;dr: I think it's a good comparison.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I think we're comparing two different components of Smash and Mafia, RR.

I'm referring to "Items On" with "Multiple Non-VT Roles" not from a balancing perspective, but from an add-on perspective. Removing both of these things are similar because it brings each entity back to their core. As adumbrodeus mentioned it's about the value of the spectacle which influences people to add these components to the already solid core. Still, adding both of these components then becomes an issue about balance. tl;dr: I think it's a good comparison.

This is completely subjective what the core is.

Though it still doesn't change that PRs are necessary where as Items are not.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

PRs are *not* necessary.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

They "aren't* but if you don't want mafia winning 80% of your games or something you'll need them for balance.

 

[Overswarm]

PRs are *not* necessary.

They are if you're looking for a strictly balanced game given a finite set of numbers. If you played a game of 12 players with 3 scum goons and 9 VTs, you'd lose two people every revolution. 12 on D1 to 10 D2, to 8, to 6, to 4 on D5 for Lylo. This gives you 5 chances to kill 3 players, meaning you can only mess up twice unless you get a chain going. Given optimal play by scum, D1 should result in a town lynch nearly 100% of the time. Unless scum messes up there really ISN'T a possibility of town "catching scum". You have no evidence or history, so its just blind luck unless you know the player personally (which can't be something you account for in balance) or the scum member makes a large mistake.

Your only options in scenarios such as that are to either A) add something like a Doctor or B) add more town players. Power Roles just fit better than mathematically finding a middle ground.


Although it would be interesting to have like a 50 man mafia game of nothing but VTs with maybe 6 mafia goons go on for a year.

 

[Overswarm]

EBWOP:

If you're not interested in balance but rather viewing Mafia as a "town has to find mafia, mafia holds all the cards so town winning has to be them out playing mafia while mafia winning just means no mistakes" then no, you don't need PRs.

 

[Omni]

EBWOP:

If you're not interested in balance but rather viewing Mafia as a "town has to find mafia, mafia holds all the cards so town winning has to be them out playing mafia while mafia winning just means no mistakes" then no, you don't need PRs.

So essentially what you're saying is that mafia is Metaknight?

I knew I was correct in my analogies.