Holder of the Heel
New Member
Hello everyone! Was looking through this section in the hopes of finding one game that can be played on forums, and I don't believe I see it happening.
It's a game where players are organized by a moderator (someone has to host it and opt out of playing) into teams. You are either a town member, AKA townie AKA villager. OR you are a part of the mafia. There can be "third-party" roles players can get with various missions, but they aren't necessary.
Most players will be innocent town members, while the mafia is a small minority. But the advantage of the mafia members are that they know who each other are. Yes, that's right--town members don't know who their allies are, so anyone can be a friend or foe and they don't know it, meanwhile the mafiasos know their buddies and therefore who they need to protect.
The objective for the villagers is to vote out all the mafia members until none are left, whereas the mafia needs to hide and survive until the town members are reduced to the same size they are--so basically their goal is to no longer be a minority.
The game is split into two phases: Day and Night that will be given a time limit. During the Day, all of the players can freely cast a vote on one another, and whoever has the most at the end of the Day is "lynched" and removed from the game, and depending on the rules their allegiance will be revealed and the town can know if they made a mistake or not. The rules could also have it so that a player is lynched whenever they acquire the votes of most of the players, which is considered a "lynch-lock"--when 6 out of 10 vote for them, the Day is done and their fate is sealed.
At Night no one can post in the thread, everyone must sleep. However, the mafia gets together in their hideout, a private message with them inside, can decide on one player they can attack and eliminate from the game. Although not just the mafia can act, some villagers, or maybe all of them, can often times have abilities that can target another player during the Night phase.
For example, the typical examples are the Doctor and the Cop/Detective. The Doctor can pick one person and protect them from any attacks at Night, so if the mafia tries to wack them that Night, they fail and the player survives. The Cop is even more powerful--they can pick a player at Night and be told by the host whether or not they come up clean--a townie--or dirty--a mafia member.
There are other relatively common ones like a Vigilante that is a townie with one shot during the whole game where they can try to kill another player, or a Watcher that can see if a player is targeting at Night if anyone at all. There are countless possibilities, and either the host of the game is up front about what kind of characters AKA roles are in the game or they can leave it a mystery that the players, the town and mafia alike, must solve.
The host's duty is to process the decisions made by the players during the Day and Night and reveal the information accordingly. They post the start and end of phases (often 24 hours long, 48, or more if desirable), show who dies during the phases, gives out whatever information the Cops, Watchers, etc. ask for at Night, and they also punish players for breaking rules as they deem appropriate, such as posting screencaps of their private messages or secretly telling other players what role they are, etc.
Games can be even more fun by giving the game a theme--you don't need to call the roles you give the players townie or Cop or mafia. The entire set-up can be based off of your favorite TV show, books, or games! Just as a topical, current example: the roles randomly passed privately to all the players can be characters from the book and television series Game of Thrones, and their allegiance and abilities can be based on that character! This also presents another layer to the game--not just what are the other players, but who? I'd recommend not just making "villains" the bad guys and "heroes/protagonists" the good guys because that can make it very easy to deduce who is good and who is bad when people are asking thematic questions about each other. Themes should just be flavor for the game, icing on the cake.
This is a lot of information to take it for someone not familiar, so here are a few links with game info and places where you can see people playing the game to see as a reference:
Mafia Games
Mafia Roles - MafiaWiki
So yeah, it's a game divided into phases that keep going until either the mafia members are taken out or enough villagers are killed for the bad guys' members to match the good guys one for one (if four players are left and two are mafiasos, the town loses and the mafia wins).
Since it's a game often with arguments and deceit, the players will have to make sure they play nice and don't get personal while posting. Mafia is so much better when everyone kicks back and just tries their best to have a good time and learn about each other. It's okay to lose and okay to be wrong, especially the latter since most of the time that's going to happen, just like in life.
If you're a townie, have fun playing detective, and if you're mafia, have fun being a little mischievous.
What do you guys think? Any questions on the game? Any ideas? Any interested in playing (each thread would require a new thread, starting with a sign up sheet, and ending when the particular game concludes)? Or perhaps do have we some people that have tried it before?
It's a game where players are organized by a moderator (someone has to host it and opt out of playing) into teams. You are either a town member, AKA townie AKA villager. OR you are a part of the mafia. There can be "third-party" roles players can get with various missions, but they aren't necessary.
Most players will be innocent town members, while the mafia is a small minority. But the advantage of the mafia members are that they know who each other are. Yes, that's right--town members don't know who their allies are, so anyone can be a friend or foe and they don't know it, meanwhile the mafiasos know their buddies and therefore who they need to protect.
The objective for the villagers is to vote out all the mafia members until none are left, whereas the mafia needs to hide and survive until the town members are reduced to the same size they are--so basically their goal is to no longer be a minority.
The game is split into two phases: Day and Night that will be given a time limit. During the Day, all of the players can freely cast a vote on one another, and whoever has the most at the end of the Day is "lynched" and removed from the game, and depending on the rules their allegiance will be revealed and the town can know if they made a mistake or not. The rules could also have it so that a player is lynched whenever they acquire the votes of most of the players, which is considered a "lynch-lock"--when 6 out of 10 vote for them, the Day is done and their fate is sealed.
At Night no one can post in the thread, everyone must sleep. However, the mafia gets together in their hideout, a private message with them inside, can decide on one player they can attack and eliminate from the game. Although not just the mafia can act, some villagers, or maybe all of them, can often times have abilities that can target another player during the Night phase.
For example, the typical examples are the Doctor and the Cop/Detective. The Doctor can pick one person and protect them from any attacks at Night, so if the mafia tries to wack them that Night, they fail and the player survives. The Cop is even more powerful--they can pick a player at Night and be told by the host whether or not they come up clean--a townie--or dirty--a mafia member.
There are other relatively common ones like a Vigilante that is a townie with one shot during the whole game where they can try to kill another player, or a Watcher that can see if a player is targeting at Night if anyone at all. There are countless possibilities, and either the host of the game is up front about what kind of characters AKA roles are in the game or they can leave it a mystery that the players, the town and mafia alike, must solve.
The host's duty is to process the decisions made by the players during the Day and Night and reveal the information accordingly. They post the start and end of phases (often 24 hours long, 48, or more if desirable), show who dies during the phases, gives out whatever information the Cops, Watchers, etc. ask for at Night, and they also punish players for breaking rules as they deem appropriate, such as posting screencaps of their private messages or secretly telling other players what role they are, etc.
Games can be even more fun by giving the game a theme--you don't need to call the roles you give the players townie or Cop or mafia. The entire set-up can be based off of your favorite TV show, books, or games! Just as a topical, current example: the roles randomly passed privately to all the players can be characters from the book and television series Game of Thrones, and their allegiance and abilities can be based on that character! This also presents another layer to the game--not just what are the other players, but who? I'd recommend not just making "villains" the bad guys and "heroes/protagonists" the good guys because that can make it very easy to deduce who is good and who is bad when people are asking thematic questions about each other. Themes should just be flavor for the game, icing on the cake.
This is a lot of information to take it for someone not familiar, so here are a few links with game info and places where you can see people playing the game to see as a reference:
Mafia Games
Mafia Roles - MafiaWiki
So yeah, it's a game divided into phases that keep going until either the mafia members are taken out or enough villagers are killed for the bad guys' members to match the good guys one for one (if four players are left and two are mafiasos, the town loses and the mafia wins).
Since it's a game often with arguments and deceit, the players will have to make sure they play nice and don't get personal while posting. Mafia is so much better when everyone kicks back and just tries their best to have a good time and learn about each other. It's okay to lose and okay to be wrong, especially the latter since most of the time that's going to happen, just like in life.
If you're a townie, have fun playing detective, and if you're mafia, have fun being a little mischievous.
What do you guys think? Any questions on the game? Any ideas? Any interested in playing (each thread would require a new thread, starting with a sign up sheet, and ending when the particular game concludes)? Or perhaps do have we some people that have tried it before?
