Counter: Open PM window, immediately load an unrelated part of the site in a new tab. I often do this myself and I don't even play.

Regarding busting people for profile stalking: You don't even have to be logged in to view profiles and see a person's status info. So even if it were banned, okay, just look at people's profiles while logged out/incognito/private browsing/in another browser/etc. In case this were a problem, the person doing the viewing could have done it as easily without anyone even knowing.

I added Ray, Sym and Lil to the game.

I am fairly convinced that there is no way to enforce profile watching or timing how long it takes to get certain information.

I also changed the rules so that I will answer some questions (within reason) after the game starts, but nothing that I feel is venturing too close to giving away something important such as role information, etc.

As for role revealing upon death - what do people think?

EDIT: Abstain/No Lynch in this game means the same thing...I just want people to use one phrase.

If you're going for classic mafia then reveal roles upon death.

Okay, roles will be announced upon death.

I think that if roles will be revealed, then Mafia should get their own hits. The lack of role reveal was balancing that out.

Although I liked your original setup better, with hidden roles and one hit for the whole Mafia team. It's unique and seems balanced.

The only possible thing that might disrupt that balance is the Detective, but Mafia can pretend to be the Detective if roles aren't revealed. It's not in their favor, but they could potentially swing it their way if things went the right way.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 11 2013, 10:15 pm by Azrael.

In the most "original" version of mafia, all three mafia members point to one target and kill that person, and roles are revealed. That was the version I always played IRL...so it makes sense that this is classic. Three hits a night...with only 12 town/town power roles (assuming I get to 15 sign ups) would mean the game would only last four turns. EDIT: and the mafia will always get a guaranteed hit in, because there are only two nurses protecting.

I just want a game of mafia without the meta BS that's been going on.

I just don't see Mafia having any realistic way of winning in 1:4 setup with revealed roles, a shared hit, and a Detective that gets definitive alignment confirmation.

I know original Mafia has shared hits and revealed roles, it's just that it hasn't been done on here before. Although the mechanics may work in real life, in that setting all meaningful communications are public, whereas here they're all private. You also don't have two days to discuss the best way to proceed, to analyze what everyone has said in detail, and to reflect on the information you have before making every decision.

It wouldn't even necessarily be that bad with both revealed roles and a shared hit, but the Detective's influence swings the game pretty far in the Town's favor. There's basically two timers counting down at the same time, the Detective and the revealed lynchings, and at the end of both, the Mafia die.

The Mafia can potentially stop the Detective by killing him before he discovers them, but statistically he is three times more likely to find one of them before they can kill him. His power also allows him to build a secret army, and once he gets a Nurse on him the game is basically over.

If you really want role reveals, there are a lot of other ways to tweak things to balance against it. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that you could give the Mafia the ability to miscolor one person at night (by majority vote or spokesman), so the Detective will see the opposite of that person's alignment if he investigates them the same night.

I'm not sure if that appeals to you, but it might offset the Town's current advantage enough to put Mafia back in the game.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 11 2013, 11:30 pm by Azrael.

If you are going to allow Azrael to keep doing that bullshit profile stalking thing to mark people innocent via time-based questions that are impossible for mafia to correctly respond to, I'm out. It's not mafia anymore, it's "who has no life and refreshes profiles the most".

Everyone will allow everyone to do that forever because there's nothing wrong with it. There's been half a dozen ways to prepare for and circumvent it already listed in this thread. There's also the fact you could simply respond "I don't trust you" and be done with it. Jesus.

If any host wanted to prevent those tactics, they'd either not use unique PMs, or they'd give the Mafia fake unique PMs to use themselves.

1. If someone responds "I don't trust you", you will go on a 2-page long crusade about how you are completely confirmed town and that the other person should be lynched because they are unwilling to share their role with a confirmed town.
   
2. You always do this "Hey you have 20 seconds to send me your role PM or you're mafia" bullshit. Fuck you. What if somebody doesn't refresh the shoutbox for 20 seconds or if it gets dropped on auto-refresh?
   
3. This behavior does not make mafia more enjoyable, it just makes it frustrating for the mafia, boring for the town, and overall annoying to play.
   

I sure would. I've killed people for less.


Then maybe I'll get an innocent person killed. I think you've just pointed out yet another weakness of this tactic.


Town's not here to make the game easy for the Mafia, if you don't want a challenge then you shouldn't sign up for a competitive game.

No, using that rationale will get somebody killed against their will even if they would have been able to present the role PM otherwise. The "weakness" is that it is detrimental to the town, but the guy who died got killed because of something that's complete bullshit, rather than logical reasoning. Subjecting somebody to that does not contribute positively to the game at all.

You deliberately only quoted half my sentence to misinterpret it, congratulations. The point was that this sort of time-based tactic makes the game unenjoyable for all parties involved. Don't tell me that I have to spend my next few minutes on SEN following your goddamned instructions like a slave or be kicked out of the game by death, and have the host condone this sort of behavior.

Oh, but I will

In

Azrael is correct: your balance is too heavily skewed in favor of the town. Changes/Recommendations I would make:

• Approximately 3:13 ratio for Mafia:Town (e.g., for 20 players, have 5 Mafia; this game would still last 5 game days / 10 game cycles if the Mafia played perfectly and the Town played horribly)
  
• 1 Nurse
  
• 1 Detective only if players >= 15
  
• Nurses cannot protect themselves

The Detective will be very effective, and it becomes much more difficult for Mafia to win as player numbers whittle down. If the Mafia happen to kill the Detective early, they deserve the advantage for doing so. Likewise, if the Town manages to sync the Nurse onto the Detective, they deserve the advantage that comes with that.

Simple solution to that: bar all players that actually put effort into playing Mafia games from participating. The lazier players / those that do not try very hard never use these strategies.

I'm against this kind of management because it cannot be managed by a host, and it can be prevented by a cautious player. Half the PMs I receive when I'm playing Mafia aren't even related to the game (mostly EUD stuff), but when I am actually Mafia, I just load up the forum index or a random topic after opening the PM (as Moose was describing above).

What I do have a bone to pick with though is the following:
Why let non-players to post? They cannot possibly contribute anything to the thread; they can only influence the game or post something irrelevant (also known as spam, which is against the forum rules). Allowing them to take part in a generic mafia discussion as the game is running does inevitably influence the game, whether it's because they change a reader's opinion or a player responds to it (which can then be behaviorally analyzed: why did they take the stance they did, how aggressive was their answer, etc.). It's the same reason you don't let dead players post.

So for clarity, you're saying that No Lynch is not an option, and any votes for it will count as an abstain?

---

And of course, if you want a co-host, I will volunteer. I co-hosted for Excalibur's game and ended up taking over when he had unexpected real-life tasks to attend to (and the transfer went okay. There was a communication error regarding one of his roles: he had a role that was supposed to downgrade to another role under certain conditions, and those conditions were met, but when he gave me the player list, he gave me the original roles, so the game continued for a while under the assumption that a player had a more powerful role than they actually did). Here is my resume:

http://www.staredit.net/topic/12577/
http://www.staredit.net/topic/14305/
http://www.staredit.net/topic/14688/
http://www.staredit.net/topic/15540/

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 12 2013, 1:55 am by Roy.

Sometimes i like to comment when I'm not playing, mostly because the fights are hilarious. Just to say that is enough. Slippery slope fallacy etc etc

That's what the shoutbox is for.

Maybe you should have spent more time planning this game before starting the sign ups?
But, to answer your concerns:

- Day 48 Hours, Night 24 Hours.
- 1 Detective
- 2 Doctors (Nurse sounds weird)
- Do not enforce PM stalking.
- Mafia get individual hits
- This game should have clues
- Ban anyone that uses screenshots or videos.
- Voting options should include: "I Kill X" and "I Abstain".

That's not gonna happen; the whole point of Kame's game is to introduce this classic mechanic.

I picked 24 hour days and nights. Since there are going to likely be many more cycles for this game than a typical one, it will take ages for any slower speed to complete.