What characteristics do you enjoy most in a Mafia setup?

[Tom]

You can put a lot in a game, and games can vary a lot. What do you enjoy most in your Mafia games? What do you prefer? Themed games or non-themed (and by extension, abundant or minimal flavor), a lot of vanilla townies or games where every role has at least a small power or trait, small games or large games, straight Town v Scum or certain variations like 1 independent role or multiple mafia families? Do you like quirky gimmicks or mechanics, or do you wish you could play more basic or text-book setups?

Personally, I really enjoy games with multiple mafia families. Fire and Ice is probably my favorite setup, and I love putting multiple families in my games.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I like mafia games where the 3rd party has a solid chance to win - whether you call it indy or a 2nd mafia fraction doesn't matter to me. I like Jungle Republic a lot for that reason as well as the FFVII Siblings because they're not just a 3rd party slapped onto a set-up but actually a huge part of the game's balance. Ideally, all fractions should have equal chances to win - it's not that bad if you don't use indies. If you use one make it fair for them please.

Themed or not-themed doesn't matter too much although I really don't care about flavour. The set-up is all that matters to me. **** flavour.

Vanillas are important and I just like that role in general. I would NEVER host a game with only PRs and from my experience set-up's on SWF were better balanced when they had 4 or more vanillas. You can do a lot without an abudance of PRs. Goon, Roleblocker and Traitor vs Doc, Cop, Miller and 5x Vanilla vs Serial Killer is imo a very good set-up that has only 4 PRs.

 

[Kirbyoshi]

I seem to draw vanilla in most of my games, wishing I was a PR, so I would have to disagree with Gheb on this point. I would have more PRs than vanillas (millers don't count as PRs) in games that I mod. I liked Monster Island for that reason, everyone seemed to have a PR of some kind.

 

[#HBC | marshy]

small simple games minimal flavor that def dont have multiscum and are just town v mafia (with all active players) are my favorite

 

[Xiivi]

Zip your lips like a padlock, and meet me in the back with the jack and the jukebox.

What do you enjoy most in your Mafia games?

Watching them and hoping people rely more on scum-hunting than set-up. :D

What do you prefer?

Anything but playing. :D

Themed games or non-themed (and by extension, abundant or minimal flavor),

I like non-themes because I never know anything about everyone else's themes anyway. Although they can be fun. Flavour is nice if you use it correctly! (As in it has no impact on anything!)

a lot of vanilla townies or games where every role has at least a small power or trait

Vanilla townies make the world go round, but no vanillas can work out like with Brass & Shrapnel

small games or large games,

Large when designing them; small when actually having them played.

straight Town v Scum or certain variations like 1 independent role or multiple mafia families?

Straight Town vs. Scum is nice, but having multiple factions can be fun as long as you don't go into "too much scum" territory.

Do you like quirky gimmicks or mechanics, or do you wish you could play more basic or text-book setups?

Basic are really fun, but seeing different mechanics is always interesting.

Personally, I really enjoy games with multiple mafia families. Fire and Ice is probably my favorite setup, and I love putting multiple families in my games.

No one cares what you think Fire and Ice sucks Tom.
Fire & Ice is okay. Masons & Monks, Friends & Enemies, etc... I like a lot better though.


I like this set-up that I just ran for those who didn't see it:
x1 Mafia Godfather
x1 Mafia Ninja
x1 Cop
x1 Tracker
x1 Miller (uninformed/vanilla flip)
x1 Grave Digger (uninformed/vanilla flip)
x3 Vanilla Townie

:D

 

[Handorin]

I like having
-3 factions
-Flavor, but not a novel everytime. Themes make it more interesting
-I think I prefer smallish. Large is can be hard to manage.
-I don't know if I like every role having something to do. It depends on the setup and how well it can be balanced in.

 

[#HBC | FrozeηFlame]

Things I love to see in mafia games:

- Games that have 3 equally balanced factions all with a very legit chance at winning and with strong influence over how the game can play out. (This can be multiple mafia families, powerful single Independents, Cults, or powered twins, etc.)

- Games with enough power roles to give players enough night info and interaction to generate good discussion, but not enough to make the game swingy, or rely on certain chains of actions to occur for a side to win

- Games with roles that allow players to get creative

- Games with very solid provided fake claims or janitorial abilities

- closed setups in general

That's really all I can think of off of the top of my head.

Oh and concerning flavour, it can certainly make games a little more interesting but I don't like it when flavour dominates game discussion or overrides scumhunting in importance. Games that introduce flavour that is too informational or in-game activities that have too much influence that divert from scum hunting tend to undermine game quality IMO.

 

[Nicholas1024]

I like:

Lot's of PR's
Frozenflame Half the game doing something besides lurking for a change.
Plenty of theme (just so long as it isn't gamebreaking. A game that can be broken with a D1 massclaim isn't fun. Although, the same applies to PR's, so...)
Large, but not huge. I like something along the line of 16 or so players.
Multiple factions are FUN. So much, that I have a tendancy to go overboard... (Ask marshy about one of my designed setups... :wink: )
Pinning a mafia with something other than my ability. (You know, I still don't think I've managed it... times when I've pinned myself into a corner as mafia don't count. )
Actually winning (really rare, for some reason...)

 

[SwordsRbroken]

I like:
Many PR's.
Multiple mafia groups.
A good theme and good flavor. (thumbs up @ ronike)
Small - medium games. Usually 12 - 14 players.

 

[Cello_Marl]

I like:

Not having the same characteristics each time.

 

[Eor]

I'm a fan of inventive roles, especially ones that can push through debate or argument. Though I'm not a huge fan of roles that force the game to mainly focus around role debates and so forth, though to be honest I can't think of any examples. Also like theme roled games, mainly those that have several "obvious" roles to characters, since in that case name-claiming is still allowed, but a mass name claim isn't because the power roles would be revealed. Also like role games where the alignments aren't obvious (Trigun Mafia, South Park Mafias, Nowhere Man mafia), so a role claim in itself for most characters won't be a "get out of jail free" card, and the mafia members don't have to scramble to find little known characters that have small reasons to be in the game (though it is always fun to have some of those characters in the game to make it harder to role claim).

So in sort I like balanced games where the main way to catch scum is to look at their posts, and not have it be related to role claiming or anything similar. I find those more fun.

 

[Tom]

Also like role games where the alignments aren't obvious (Trigun Mafia, South Park Mafias, Nowhere Man mafia), so a role claim in itself for most characters won't be a "get out of jail free" card, and the mafia members don't have to scramble to find little known characters that have small reasons to be in the game (though it is always fun to have some of those characters in the game to make it harder to role claim).

um... the experience i had in Nowhere Man makes me say that we had to scramble for claims and massclaim ruined everything

 

[KevinM]

small simple games minimal flavor that def dont have multiscum and are just town v mafia (with all active players) are my favorite

*brofists*

man after my own **** heart

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Bump because this topic is interesting.

I find that games with 2 mafias immediately screw one side over because of mass kills. SKiller, seeing as he has no teammates to take into account, is more balanced for a game, but I have never seen a SKiller win and think that the role is doomed to failure.

I feel that 3rd parties are generally shafted because the only ones that can win are the ones that piss people off. Those being Jester (objective to get lynched) and Assassin (Objective to get specific someone/group of someones lynched). Other than that, the third party win objective tends to be to survive. What other 3rd party win objectives have you guys seen?

My favorite set-ups are those that include a heavily powered mafia and a small group of town power roles with a large number of "apprentice roles" that inherit powers upon the death of a town power role. I've played two games like that and hosted one. All three were extremely interesting (one was broken by a bunch of alignment switching roles though).

It's also been my experience that the game is generally stacked against scum and that town wins waaaaay more often than scum. The margin of error is so much larger for town than for scum.

 

[Handorin]

Cult recently won the game I hosted.
I won as a risky politician in Spidermafia.
I won as the warlock in Totally Normal Mafia.

<_<

 

[~ Gheb ~]

SKiller, seeing as he has no teammates to take into account, is more balanced for a game, but I have never seen a SKiller win and think that the role is doomed to failure.

Frozen recently won a game as SK.

I feel that 3rd parties are generally shafted because the only ones that can win are the ones that piss people off. Those being Jester (objective to get lynched) and Assassin (Objective to get specific someone/group of someones lynched). Other than that, the third party win objective tends to be to survive. What other 3rd party win objectives have you guys seen?

Is that because 3rd parties are inherently underpowered or is it because the mod doesn't quite find the right balance? I think it's the latter to be honest.
Handorin already posted examples but there are some more: Mentos and KevinM both won HP Mafia as independent, Frozen won Sleepover as SK, Xiivi won in Wonderland as indy. With the examples Hando posted that would already make 7 legitimate independent wins and the Sibling teams in FFVII and TV Allstar both had a fair shot at winning as well. Same for the 3rd party of the Jungle Republic set-up (Newbie Mafia 3).

 

[Pierre the Scarecrow]

Bump because this topic is interesting.

I find that games with 2 mafias immediately screw one side over because of mass kills. SKiller, seeing as he has no teammates to take into account, is more balanced for a game, but I have never seen a SKiller win and think that the role is doomed to failure.

I feel that 3rd parties are generally shafted because the only ones that can win are the ones that piss people off. Those being Jester (objective to get lynched) and Assassin (Objective to get specific someone/group of someones lynched). Other than that, the third party win objective tends to be to survive. What other 3rd party win objectives have you guys seen?

My favorite set-ups are those that include a heavily powered mafia and a small group of town power roles with a large number of "apprentice roles" that inherit powers upon the death of a town power role. I've played two games like that and hosted one. All three were extremely interesting (one was broken by a bunch of alignment switching roles though).

It's also been my experience that the game is generally stacked against scum and that town wins waaaaay more often than scum. The margin of error is so much larger for town than for scum.

I don't know what you mean by "mass kills," but usually games with 2 mafia factions don't tip immediately in one favor or the other like you say you find they do. If you look for examples, you might prove yourself wrong!

3rd party roles do just fine as well. In the games I've read here at SWF, either the SK won the game, got **** close to winning the game, or was Junglefever. When you ask about 3rd party objectives besides either killing or surviving, you have to remember that mafia's objective is to kill and both mafia and town's objective is to survive, so you really shouldn't stray too far from the game with an independent role. Lynchers can easily be broken and not fun.

I also don't know what you mean by the game being stacked against scum. Maybe if you think that, just take a peek at the name of the game designer, and look at the other games they've designed. But if you simply go through the archives, I think you'll find that scum wins just as much as town... the fact that the margin of error is so much larger for the town makes sense, don't you think? The fact that mafia's goal is to cause x number of mislynches in the game would mean that x should be greater than y, the number of correct lynches town needs to win, especially when town outnumbers scum!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

In the games I've read here at SWF, either the SK won the game, got **** close to winning the game, or was Junglefever.

Somebody sig this!

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Cult recently won the game I hosted.
I won as a risky politician in Spidermafia.
I won as the warlock in Totally Normal Mafia.

Forgot Cult, I've seen it win. As I have with independent survivor. Dunno what your other two are.

Thinking back, SK role I've only seen dealt to a good player once and I called him on a Froidean slip Day 1. Sure enough he flipped SK and I laughed uproariously. I may be a bit biased. The only other time a SK has survived to near end game, tracker outed him and he claimed "compulsive vigilante" who had to kill every night. We agreed to lynch him when we thought the game was close to over and used his NKill as a second lynch with the threat of death to keep him in line.

I am fairly good at scum. Every time I've played in a two mafia game, I've been on a winning scum team. One was a Pokemon themed game with 25ish players which was Town vs. Rockets vs. Galactics. Rockets and Galactics ***** town in the beginning. After that it was a competition between Rockets and Galactics to see who could kill off the other first. Rockets won. The other time was a smaller game 3 v 7 v 3 I think. The other mafia was gone by the end of Night 2 due to a lucky NKill and a cop claim. The Day 2 lynch hit the final member.

 

[Ronike]

Ugh, cop claim day 1? Such stupidity...

I don't tend to like straight up multi-mafia games (ones where both sides have a kill) as our games don't tend to be large enough, but I love third party games where one side has the kill and the other side has some beastly powers (FFVII), thats fun.

 

[Pierre the Scarecrow]

Sounds more like a correct N1 cop investigation and D2 claim, but I can't really tell.

 

[Eor]

um... the experience i had in Nowhere Man makes me say that we had to scramble for claims and massclaim ruined everything

True, I just meant that in that game roleclaims weren't as obvious, in that there were a lot of minor characters and almost all of them could of been on either side.

 

[Tom]

i see what you mean now, and thats right. maybe its just that i was bellamy without a safe claim xd

 

[DtJ Jungle]

hey >:^(

i came close to winning as SK in FFVII

i got nk'd

ive only been Sk three times i think.

Nowhere man - my second game here...oh dear
Spidey - this was just my bad XD
FFVII - grr at chaco

 

[Nicholas1024]

Lol.

Venom v.s. Carnage.

PWNED!

Now if only Mentos hadn't tried to mason you...

 

[DtJ Jungle]

yah that was one crazy night

i realized i like playing in simple games

 

[Nicholas1024]

yah that was one crazy night

i realized i like playing in simple games

But does it approach the sheer insanity of what happened in N1 on that Fire Emblem mafia? The townie bus driver switches two players, both die, and both people that killed said townies die! Not to mention one of the players switched was the doctor that targeted the other player switched... (And I think another player died to boot... although I'm not sure. The link in the DG archive is broken.)

 

[#HBC | FrozeηFlame]

SK, when designed properly, definitely have legit shots at winning.

I won Sleepover mafia as a 1 time BP SK.

I was in the final 3 in Food Court Mafia as an SK.

Livio the Doublefang/Razlo the Tripunisher of Death lasted almost to the end (if not to the end, I honestly don't recall off of the top of my head) in my game, Trigun Mafia, as the SK.

 

[Nicholas1024]

I wanna play as the SK from Mini Mario Mafia. 2 NK's a night? Now how cool is that?

 

[Tom]

spam master was sk in trigun and lynched in endgame lylo iirc?

sk is perfectly fine lol

 

[#HBC | FrozeηFlame]

Yeah just went back and checked, spam master was lynched in endgame.

So yeah, well designed SK's are totally legit.

 

[Handorin]

Forgot Cult, I've seen it win. As I have with independent survivor. Dunno what your other two are.

Thinking back, SK role I've only seen dealt to a good player once and I called him on a Froidean slip Day 1. Sure enough he flipped SK and I laughed uproariously. I may be a bit biased. The only other time a SK has survived to near end game, tracker outed him and he claimed "compulsive vigilante" who had to kill every night. We agreed to lynch him when we thought the game was close to over and used his NKill as a second lynch with the threat of death to keep him in line.

I am fairly good at scum. Every time I've played in a two mafia game, I've been on a winning scum team. One was a Pokemon themed game with 25ish players which was Town vs. Rockets vs. Galactics. Rockets and Galactics ***** town in the beginning. After that it was a competition between Rockets and Galactics to see who could kill off the other first. Rockets won. The other time was a smaller game 3 v 7 v 3 I think. The other mafia was gone by the end of Night 2 due to a lucky NKill and a cop claim. The Day 2 lynch hit the final member.

Risky politician, I had to get the most total votes without ever being lynched. So I had to be scummy....but clear myself over and over. Such a pain.

Warlock, I had to guess two day (no)lynches correctly. D1, I guessed NL right. Second day, I softclaimed watcher, messed up, and finally got my lynch on the next day. It was a gamble, but I got my lynch done, which fulfilled my requirements of guessing right. (And to boot, I lynched a mafia)

 

[Deleted member]

My first game will be on a smaller game. I'll post on this again once I particapate in a few games.

 

[Evil Eye]

I wanna play as the SK from Mini Mario Mafia. 2 NK's a night? Now how cool is that?

I bet Bunglefever would target a PGO and a bomb.

 

[DtJ Jungle]

I'm so good i take myself out of the game cuz its unfair.

 

[Nicholas1024]

lol. That was win.