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Underground > Creation >

Mafia - a game of paranoia

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13:56 / 31.12.02

After reading this article, it occurs to me that this game might be fun to play on Barbelith.

Mafia is a parlor game of paranoia and treachery. Here's how it's played.

A group of players gathers. it seems to me that the ideal number would be about 12 or so people. These players comprise the Village. From the Village, one player is chosen as Mayor. Ze oversees the action of the game.

The Mayor picks three people to be the Mafia, whose collective goal is to eliminate the other players from the game. The three Mafia players know who each other are. The rest of the Village does not. For barbelith purposes, the Mayor notifies each of these Mafia members by PM. 2 players are also chosen to be Detectives, more on whom below. The detectives don't know who the other detective is.

The game begins in Day, with all of the players trying to convince others of their innocence, or of the guilt of other players - for the purposes of Barbelith, these can be general conversations in a thread, or PMs between individual players. After a set period of time, the Mayor calls a vote. The Village publicly (including the Mafia, though they of course don't identify themselves as such) votes one player out (who they think is a member of the Mafia), killing hir.

Night falls. The members of the Mafia collectively decide one player to eliminate, and convey their choice to the Mayor by PM. During the Night, the Detectives are each permitted to ask the mayor (by PM) if a certain other player is Mafia, and the mayor must answer truthfully. The Detectives then use this knowledge during the day to influence conversation.

Day comes again, and the Mayor informs the village who the Mafia has killed. Day proceeds as above, and is followed by Night, and so on, until only Mafia is left or all the Mafia has been killed by the villagers.

________________

Anyone interested? I'd volunteer to run the first game, if we get a quorum together. We can clarify rules (ie, real-time periods for Night - Day) below. This sounds like a fun game of paranoia for the big brains of Barbelith, as well as a chance to interact with people you don't usually.

14:17 / 31.12.02

I'm down.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:39 / 31.12.02

To clarify; The mayor also picks the detectives yes? Why are there only two detectives but three Mafia? Wouldn't it make sense to have equal numbers?

16:58 / 31.12.02

Hmmm...I don't know why, really - those were just the rules I read. The thing is, perhaps even if there were three detectives, it wouldn't balance out the mafia - each detective is unaware of who else is really a detective. Anyone can identify themselves as one in PM or open conversation, including members of the Mafia...

16:58 / 31.12.02

Oh, and yes - the Mayor picks the detectives, who are unknown as such to each other as well as the villagers and the mafia.

17:24 / 31.12.02

Neat!

18:11 / 31.12.02

Schwa, I'd be into it.

18:07 / 01.01.03

Arrrgh I've read about this game, but I can't remember where I read about it...

Oh, anyway. The version that I heard about was just like this, only it was werewolves. It seems like the villagers and the night/day mechanism are traces from warewolf lore. So it was Werewolves instead of mafia, Villagers, Seers instead of detectives, and The Old Man for the mayor. The Old Man grants the gift of sight to the Seers, but he gives them only the ability to see werewolves and not other seers. Actually I think the seers can only ask the old man about one person per night.

Re: the question about equal numbers, it says in that article:

A Russian psychologist claims to have invented it in the 1980’s, to show how an informed minority (the "mafia") power-play against an uninformed majority (the "village").

It's really interesting to think about how playing the game online changes things, too...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:27 / 02.01.03

Count me in, bambinos.

01:55 / 02.01.03

count me in. should be interesting.

12:19 / 02.01.03

Okay, we've got about 8 people interested in it - I might post in the Conversation to get more people.

Mechanics - How long should a "day" be? Nights will last as long as it takes for the Mafia and Detectives to submit their requests to the Mayor, but the "day" in which you try to convince the other players that you're on the level (or someone else isn't) is a little trickier. A single day IRL? 2 days IRL? What's a good period that'll allow everyone to participate, but not drag on for too long?

13:17 / 02.01.03

I'll play. So long as I'm not last one to be picked.

13:29 / 02.01.03

I'm in.

14:55 / 02.01.03

I'm in.

16:01 / 02.01.03

Having had time to read the rules, I'm in. Definitely. This sounds good.

23:42 / 02.01.03

2 days of real time seems ok.

03:13 / 03.01.03

It would be kind of cool if "Day" was the week and "Night" was the weekend. First thing Monday you could find out whether you were still alive or not.

That may not work with people's posting patterns, though. Five days is also a little long, but that could be a good thing for giving time for things to develop and for stretching people's nerves.

03:23 / 03.01.03

I think I'm going to leave "registration" open for the weekend (as it would be silly to post now), and start the game monday, and sort of play it by ear from then on out. The first "day" will be short, as there will be little for anyone to act on rather than hunches.

04:47 / 03.01.03

badda-bing, badda boom.

me in too.

19:06 / 05.01.03

*bump* I want to start on Monday, and we need 2-4 more peeps. Come on!~

02:44 / 06.01.03

I'll play.

11:44 / 06.01.03

Greeting - It's Monday 1/6/03, about 14:40 Barbetime (most of my messages will occur around this time)
Players who have signed up on this thread include-

Mayor Todd
Qalyn
bio K9
grant
Persephone
Chairman Maominstoat loves a long name
Whisky Priestess
Sax
Lionheart
Jupiter Jade
Paleface
Tezcatlipoca
Duncan

You'll all be receiving PMs shortly, telling you your status in the game. If you'd like, review the rules above. The first round will proceed over the next 48 hours or so of Barbetime. During this time, feel free to use the new thread I'll make in the Creation for wild accusations, plotting, alliance forming, etc. remember that PMs are legal and encouraged. If you have someone's cell phone number, by all means harrass them that way too.

Thank you, and have a wonderful day.

Whisky Priestess

15:49 / 06.01.03

I'm presuming that as a latecomer I can't join in this game - could we start another or should that wait until the first bears fruit?
Damn! I really want to play now ... will have to find 12 bored friends I spose.

15:56 / 06.01.03

If someone else drops out in the next day, Whisky, you're in. I can't bring you in now because the "invites" have gone out, and everyone will know you are just a poor, defenseless villager.

But if someone can't play, you can have hir role.

Which reminds me: please PM me to confirm if you are indeed able to play. If you've posted on the other thread, I'm assuming you're playing, so you don't have to PM>

thnks.

17:41 / 06.01.03

If anyone besides Whisky wants to be on the "waiting list", let me know. I'm still waiting on a few confirmations, and will only wait so long before pushing the game on.

20:00 / 09.01.03

Is Duncan still playing?

Shouldn't people be required to post at least once a day if only to let us know they're still around?

20:46 / 09.01.03

People don't have to post publicly, if they don't want - they could be communicating behind the scenes. Silence can be telling...

...or not. In Duncan's case, if he doesn't post during the next vote, the villagers are gonna get the 2 for 1 special by offing him as well as whoever they vote for...

18:57 / 15.01.03

Will there be counseling offered afterwards?

19:15 / 15.01.03

Yes, definitely... I want to do full exit interviews, post-mortems, etc.

Seriously though, I want to review rules, figure out ways to improve the game/participation/etc., after we finish. If anyone's interested in doing this again, that is (and someone else wants to be Mayor).

05:31 / 16.01.03

I've been following along, and it looks wonderful. I don't have any experience running games, so I wouldn't be a good Mayor, but I'd love to be part of the next round!

08:55 / 16.01.03

For the benefit of occassional spectators who don't have the time to keep up with every development, could we have regular updates of the scores, ie total dead in each category and who was most recently bumped off? Preferably on this thread (slower moving).

11:58 / 16.01.03

Out of the original players, in order of death:
Tez - killed by the Villagers - not Mafia
Chairman Maominstoat - killed by the Mafia
Jupiter Jade - killed by the Villagers - not Mafia
Qalyn - killed by the Mafia - Detective!

Players still alive -(and their votes for this round)

Sax - accused Grant
Grant - Accused Sax
Lionheart - accused Sax
Persephone - accused Grant

bio K9 -
Duncan -
Paleface -
Whisky P -

Three of these players are mafia. One is a detective.

12:17 / 16.01.03

Thanks, Mayor! This is gripping stuff...

13:19 / 16.01.03

So the mafia keep killing until all of them are eliminated, yeah?

This seems a bit weighted towards the mafia - at least in a population as small as 12. If you don't get a couple mafia on the first two turns, they become an efficient voting bloc during the day, which is what I think is happening right now. Future games need to give detectives a bigger edge, which I think would translate into more citizens to convince - that way, a mafia bloc would be less influential during the day. Of course, I might feel differently if one of the mafia had been zapped right off, which is likelier in a smaller group than a bigger one. But still... next time round, might be a good idea to have a slightly larger village.

No star here laces

13:58 / 16.01.03

Unless the villagers eliminate one of the mafia this round, they cannot win - if two villagers are removed (one by lynching and one by murder) there will be three villagers and three mafia, so even if all three villagers vote for the same mafia member, the mafia can ensure they win simply by all voting for the same villager and tying the vote...

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