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Underground > Creation >

Mafia 2: The Early Years.

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13:39 / 28.01.03

Who's up for another round?

I'm willing to be Mayor. We need an odd number of villagers - say, around 13.

Anyone up for the paranoia?

14:09 / 28.01.03

Me! Me! Me!

of course!

I've given up my awesome mayoral powers just so that I can experience true love with a mortal woman....and true paranoia.

14:22 / 28.01.03

There's a difference?

Uh, yeah, I'm in, so long as you promise to make me mafia this time.

Kidding.

Not.

(seriously.)

17:47 / 28.01.03

I do accept bribes for placements with special powers.

Or do I?

Heheheh.

20:38 / 28.01.03

I'd play - I mean, if you need more people. And just so everyone knows, I'm not in the mafia. I used to play this game all the time and I've never once been in the mafia. never. So it's impossible.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:36 / 28.01.03

I'll play. I wanna beat my survival personal best of one round.

22:44 / 28.01.03

I'm up for it, if you'll have me. The idea of being lynched is rather appealing at the moment.

01:09 / 29.01.03

I'm in.

03:49 / 29.01.03

ME TOO! ME TOO!

I need to do more than watch...

04:44 / 29.01.03

Oooh, oooh! Pick me, sir! Pick me!

No star here laces

11:45 / 29.01.03

Sign me up please.

13:34 / 29.01.03

That's nine and one PM, making it 10.

Need three or five more.

I'm thinking about doing it with four mafia, two detectives and a doctor. How's that sound?

13:44 / 29.01.03

Delish! Is the doctor secret?

14:23 / 29.01.03

That sounds good Grant, for a game of 15-17 people or so.
------

The doctor's ID definitely should be secret.

Now, should the person being protected know they are being protected?

Should everyone else know who is being protected?

Or should the Mayor keep that knowledge secret unless the Mafia tries to whack that person?

Can the doctor protect against mob lynchings?

14:43 / 29.01.03

The doctor's a secret. I don't think the Mayor should announce who is protected... and I don't think it *could* work against lynchings. Only against the Mafia, and only obvious if an attempted whacking gets stymied by some quick first aid.

The decision to protect a villager would be made at the same time all the other PMed info goes to the mayor.

---
if it's only 13 players, would it make more sense to have three mafia a detective and a doctor?

14:49 / 29.01.03

I think 4 mafia would be overkill for 13 players, so yeah, I'd go with the 3 in that case.

Q: If the doctor foils a hit, does the Mafia get to kill someone else that night? Or are they out of luck?

15:07 / 29.01.03

Count me out. It's too exhausting. But I shall be watching with interest.

However, having said that, I was a fucking great detective. Until I died. But I think I might have got the girl in the end, as well.

Whisky Priestess

15:16 / 29.01.03

Hmm, if the doctor foils a hit does the Mafia get to try again?

I suppose for the sake of numbers they ought to be given a second go - but is the doctor told that hir protectee was attempted? I think ze should be, because the Mafia will know that the protectee was guarded. Fair's fair.

15:23 / 29.01.03

I disagree -- what's the point of the doctor if the mafia can just select another target?

Whisky Priestess

16:04 / 29.01.03

Protecting *that particular person* I suppose ... but you do have a point. Esp in the early stages it is unlikely that the doctor's choice and the mafia's will coincide. Hmm. Maybe the mafia should just have to slink away, defeated.

If the doctor is about to be lynched, can ze protect hirself from the mob or not?

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:36 / 29.01.03

Yes please. I need more paranoia in my life.

17:01 / 29.01.03

Now, the next question is, re: Doctor - If someone is protected by the Doctor, and the Mafia attempts to whack hir and they fail, does the rest of the village find out about it?

If they do, then EVERYONE knows that person definitely isn't Mafia.
If they don't then only the Doctor knows that person definitely isn't Mafia.

Whisky Priestess

17:25 / 29.01.03

I think as much should be kept secret as possible - it is a game of paranoia, after all.

17:43 / 29.01.03

Hold it one bleeding minute...

Doctor?

What's this all about? I didn't read anything in the rules concerning no doctor. Also, if a detective gets killed I didnt read anything in the rules about the mayor telling everyone what the detective's found. That sorta ruins the whole point, you know? And, might I add that I do not agree with having 4 mafia 2 detectives and 1 doctor. First off, like I said, what the hell does a doctor do in this game, and second of all, we've got 7 special types here (mafia, detectives, and doctors) and only 5 regular villagers. Let's just stick to 3 mafia and 2 detectives or perhaps even 3 mafia and 1 detective, or whatever you want, but having special types being the majority of the village kind of makes it seem uneven.

18:26 / 29.01.03

Check out the WIKI for the current version of the rules, Enamon.

Whisky Priestess

19:26 / 29.01.03

Turn a mafioso into a villager and hey presto! even stevens. Plus the detectives and doctors are also villagers - they just have that little extra skill.

19:31 / 29.01.03

Ok, I take the point about 7-5.
Let's aim for a village of 15 or more, then. If we don't get there, then three mafia, one detective, one doctor, kay?

-------

It seems like a Doctor would work best as being able to declare one person a night off limits, and if that person is targeted by the Mafia, they're out of luck - they try to whack the guy and are foiled.

I think making the failed hit public knowledge will increase speculation (and thus, paranoia), and that a doctor should be able to protect hirself... as long as it's stated ahead of time. ("I'm going to be at ______'s house, protecting _______." "I'm going to stay home and protect myself.")

It seems like the doctor's ability would only become strategically important in the latter half of the game. In the beginning, it'd just be random guesses as to who's trustworthy... and who's likely to be on the night's hit list. Protecting a detective until ze's trusted by the majority would be a winning strategy, but if manipulated by the mafia, the choice could be wrong.

A doctor could easily make a teeter-totter decision in the end-game, too.

------

None of this is written in stone; this Princeton Mafia page lists a whole mess of variants. Apparently having a "vigilante" character is a popular variant. Also, in their official rules, the mafia does not need to kill someone every night.
This might be worth remembering.

20:33 / 29.01.03

Wow. The variations on that Princeton page are head-spinning.

They advise not making it possible for a doctor (or "archangel") to protect hirself because that could conceivably lead to a tie game - with the doctor unable to outvote a single surviving mafioso, and the mafia unable to whack the invulnerable doctor in the night.

That makes sense to me.

21:14 / 29.01.03

I'm up for it.

03:08 / 30.01.03

So we've got a doctor who can only protect other players. Sounds good.

If the Mafia chooses a protected player for a hit, the hit is announced as failed, but the intended victim is not made public. Right? Is the intended victim told via PM? I think that might be fun...

If the doctor is hit, is that identity revealed to the village? I think this should be played like the detective character - revealed if hit, not if lynched. It might also be interesting if the identities of failed hits (but not each protected player) were made public at that time, if there are any. That might be too much like having another detective around, but I think it might make up for losing that bit of protection.

13:38 / 30.01.03

If the Mafia chooses a protected player for a hit, the hit is announced as failed, but the intended victim is not made public. Right?

That's an interesting question.

I was assuming that online, it'd be announced that a hit was attempted on Villager X, but that ze recovered. The mafia would know who they were hitting, and the doctor would know who ze was protecting... why not the rest of the villagers?

The revelation about who was attempted hit at the time of the doctor's death... that'd be an interesting twist, but I'm wary - I think it might do better in a bigger game. I'll think it over, though.

Whisky Priestess

15:05 / 30.01.03

I think the issue of whether we are told if any dead person is Detective or Doctor is paramount: "the dying person reveals the Truth to the village" - presumably this also includes their identity as a humble villager or special in some way.

I think the villagers *need to know* when a detective or a doctor is killed - especially if someone else is claiming to be one or the other. I don't think it should matter whether the victim was hit or lynched.

16:53 / 30.01.03

Oh yes, definitely. I don't think that was up for debate.

The dead's secrets are known, at least in this game.

(On that Princeton site, they have descriptions of a version where you don't know who dies... and versions where the players play several characters at once. I don't think either of those options would work well here.)

What iszabelle was suggesting was having a game in which the doctor's protectees remain unknown until the doctor dies.

Whisky Priestess

17:59 / 30.01.03

Hmm, interesting ... bit like the dead detective's list of innocent/guilty being made public. I don't see why not - sounds like a good idea.

00:12 / 31.01.03

The game is slanted towards the villagers a little bit if the identity of the protected villager is made public immediately after a failed hit. If we have a larger Mafia to villager ratio, that's probably a good idea. However, that ratio also makes it more likely that the Mafia and doctor will be visiting the same house on the same evening...

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