Starmen.Net

Hi there! It’s me, your good friend Kail. I’m here to talk to everyone about Mafia! It is a fun game, and I’ve got an interest in helping people understand and improve at playing this game.

• What is Mafia?

Mafia, at its core, is a game about an unknowing majority against a knowledgeable minority. There are different roles that tip the scales in favour of the town, such as cop and doctor, or in favour of the mafia, such as strongman or godfather.

• How does this game work?

Mafia is played in cycles, and each cycle consists of a Day phase and a Night phase.
During the Day Phase, all the players of the game talk amongst themselves and attempt to further their own side’s agenda. During the discussion, players have the option to vote for someone they find suspicious enough to elim and remove from the game, and the elim will go through if one player gets the majority of the votes.The Day Phase will end when one of two things occur: When a majority has been reached for a elim, or when time runs out. This is when the Night Phase begins.
During the Night Phase, all members of the town are silenced, and any roles that specify that it can act at night will do so. This will range from Cops detecting people, to Doctors, protecting people, to Roleblockers blocking people… Chances are if you’ve got a role, you can use it at night. The night is also when the Mafia is most active, they will get to do any and all roles they have at their disposal as well as their faction kill. Once the time on the Night Phase runs out, it turns back to the Day Phase, and the game continues.
The game ends when one of two conditions are met; when all threats to the Town have been eliminated, or when the Mafia consists of half or more players remaining alive.

• You keep talking about the Town and Mafia, what makes each special?

The Town plays the part of the Unknowing Majority. The members of the Town will vary rarely know who is on their team and must use their sleuthing abilities to determine who exactly to trust and who exactly to boot out the door. The Town has the most sway in the Day phase, in which the Town Elim can occur.
The Mafia plays the part of the Knowledgeable Minority. They know exactly who to trust and conspire with, and can co-ordinate efforts to mislead the town. The Mafia thrives in the Night Phase, where they can use their abilities and nightkill to further their agenda.
There is actually a sort of third side I haven’t talked about yet, called Independents. Each Independent player is out for themselves, and has a unique win condition all to themselves. This could range from anything from “just be alive at the end of the game” to “be the only one alive at the end of the game.” The win conditions are as varied as the roles, to be sure to read over your role PM carefully!

• How do I play Mafia?

Honestly? By just jumping in and joining the discussion, either with your team of fellow Mafia brethren or in the topic proper as a member of the town. I don’t have too much more advice for you there, just don’t be shy! Speak your mind, make note of the interactions between different people, challenge anything said that you don’t think is in the best interests of your team, and act with conviction. Trust me, it gets easier the more you do it.

I think that about covers the basics, let’s move onto some terminology, with thanks to J_Spade, Rhyselinn, and Gemini_Duality for the help compiling the list!

• Alignment – Refers to which group you share a win condition with: Town, Mafia, or Independent.

• Card – A different name for a Role, used more in IRL Mafia due to the fact roles are handed out via cards.

• Claim- A claim is when you tell your role and/or alignment, often to provide evidence for a elim or protect from being elimed. Note that claims are not always true, as players will often fake claim for various reasons.
• CC (Counterclaim)- A claim to disprove a prior claim. I.e. Mafioso Imma Scum fake claims to be a cop, causing Townie Han Nest to counter claim cop. This will often result in one of the two getting elimed. Although this can get a Mafioso elimed, it also can be used to trick power roles to reveal themselves early in the game.
• Fakeclaim – Claiming to be a role you are not in an attempt to avoid suspicion or to force someone else to counterclaim. (see: Fishing)
• Massclaim – When three or more players reveal their roles in a relatively short period of time. Also, a strategy by which the town attempts to weed out mafia players by revealing any/all remaining town roles and seeing who’s left unaccounted-for.
• Soft claim- When a player hints at having a role but does not explicitly claim having it. For example, claims to have saved a player on a prior night, but does not claim doctor or nurse.

• Clear – A player who has been confirmed town, or at least not anti-town, by official means, or by trusted cop/detective/etc reports.

• Confirmed – A fact that has been stated by the host publicly (as in a Flip on death). Can also refer to a player that has all but proven their claim through their actions.

• Detection/Investigation – A Night action that will reveal a clue to you about a different player’s role or alignment.

• Indie – Independent player; has their own set of win conditions, and may or may not need to be killed by the town/mafia in order for those groups to win

• Mafiat/Mafioso – A member of the mafia. Is able to communicate with other mafiosos, and wins when the mafia controls the town vote (i.e., the mafia comprises at least half of the town)

• Meeting – When two or more players can speak freely to each other outside of the main mafia topic, as sanctioned by the Narrator (and only then!). Examples include the mafia, a jailer and their jailee, masons, and cultists.

• Out/Outting – Publicly claiming the role assigned to you at the beginning of the game. (Eg. “I claim [to be] doctor.”) Can also refer to players who reveal other players’ roles in the game, such as a detective outing a player as a member of the mafia.

• Power role – An umbrella term to refer to players with important roles, specifically investigative or saving roles, but occasionally others as well. Eg: “Don’t listen to Max McObviousMaf! He’s just trying to get a power role to counterclaim!”

• Protect/Save – A night action that blocks Nightkills on the target player.

• Role – The character class played by a player, (e.g., Doctor, Cop, Godfather), or sometimes the flavor-name of that character, as pertaining to the theme/story of the game

• Roleblock – Preventing a player from using their Night Action

• Roleplaying – This will take place almost exclusively in Themed Games; it’s the act of pretending to be your character’s Flavour. Ex. In Earthbound Mafia, you constantly yell “Say fuzzy pickles!” because you are the Photoman. This is against the rules.

• Role Reveal – When the hosts state the role of a player; usually happens when a player is declared dead or elimed.

• Scum – See: mafia, mafioso, mafiat. Not usually intended with any real vitriol.

• Suit – A similar idea to a role, though in Epic Mafia it can be “tailored” to make your appear as someone else.

• Townie – A member of the town, and part of the previously mentioned unknowing majority. Wins when all threats to the town (mafiats and harmful independents) are removed from the game.

• Vanilla – Refers to members of either side that have no day or night action.

• Visit -To use one’s night action on a player. (Player A visits Player B if they use their action on Player B during a given night)

• Win Condition – Just what it sounds like, what you have to achieve to win the game. Traditional win conditions are “eliminate all threats,” “comprise the majority,” and “survive.”

• Day – The phase where discussion occurs for all living players and elims can be made.

• Day Action – Any ability that takes place during the Day Phase.

• Flavour – Bits of language or description that don’t affect the basic mechanics of the game. Most of the writeups will be flavor, with the main game-relevant info as the key plot points.

• Flip – A role-reveal upon player death. Comes from IRL mafia played with cards; when a role is revealed, the card is flipped.
• Partial Flip – Upon player death, the player’s faction is revealed, but not their specific role/ability/character.
• No Flip – Nothing about a player is revealed when they are killed.

• FoS – Short for “Finger of Suspicion.” Think of it as a vote that doesn’t actually put the player closer to being elimed.

• Graveyard – A chat for players who have died in the game. Often contains spoilers.

• Hammer – The last vote placed that secures the elim. Think of a judge pounding their gavel to sentence someone to death, or the undertaker pounding the last nail into the coffin.

• Elim – When a player receives a majority of votes in the Day Phase, they are removed from the game. Short for eliminate/elimination, with “elimed” used as shorthand for “eliminated”.
• ME (Miselim) – An elim that hits a pro-town role.
• NE (No elim) / Abstain – A day that ends with the town either deciding not to kill anyone (Abstain) or running out of time before a majority vote is reached.
• Policy Elim – A elim that isn’t based off of suspicion but due to a player’s actions going against another player’s personal policies. Ex. “Elim all liars”
• Random Elim – When town decides to elim a person in town at random.

• Joint win – A win for multiple factions. For example, a survivor and town win.

• Kingmaker – A situation in which a player, who cannot win or has already won, decides which of two opposing forces wins.

• ELLO – Elim or Lose. The point at which the game will end in favor of an anti-town faction unless one of said faction is elimed that day.

• MELO – Miselim and Lose. The point at which the game will end if town elims a townie, because then the mafia will equal/outnumber the town.

• Modkill – A kill performed by The Narrator as punishment due to some violation of the rules. Often the result of quoting/screenshoting role PMs or communication outside of the designated channels. Don’t make us have to do this.

• Night – The phase of the game where most roles will act; the Mafia performs their group Night Kill at this time.

• Night Action – Any ability that takes place during the Night Phase.

• Nightkill – Any night action that removes players from the game during the Night Phase. This usually refers to the Mafia’s group kill, but can also refer to a Vigilante’s kill, or a Serial Killer’s kill.

• Party – A special Night Phase where players are allowed to continue talking, occasionally they are also allowed to perform a elim.

• Spectator Chat – A spoiler-free chat for spectators. PM The Narrator to join.

• Theme – When the Narrator spices up a game of mafia by assigning roles/offering flavor text with a given theme. For example, Starmen.net has hosted themed mafia games based on Mother 3, Earthbound, etc., where the roles and setting were inspired by the source material.

• Vote – Indicating to the Narrator that you wish to elim the person you vote for. When a majority of the town votes for a person, that person is elimed and removed from the game.

• Ad-Hominem Argument – An argument that seeks to discredit a player by openly mocking or insulting them, or otherwise implying that their argument is invalid because they are the one making it. (Never do this. It is in poor form.)

• Bandwagon – When the town decides to vote for one person, especially without a reason. Townies who vote for a elim candidate simply because others in town did so may be accused of “jumping on the bandwagon,” or simply “bandwagoning” for short.

• Breadcrumb – A hint, clue, or bit of information left behind with the intent that someone later may go back and find it.

• Breaking Strategy – A strategy that (potentially) breaks the balance of a game. I.e. Follow the cop. Games often will have counter measures to prevent these.

• Buddying – Attempting to make yourself appear trustworthy or gain alliances by either brown-nosing or working closely with people.

• Bussing – Also “throwing under the bus.” To make oneself appear trustworthy by drawing suspicion to a teammate.

• Chainsaw Defense – The act of defending another player by going after their attacker. Often seen as scummy.

• Doublespeak – Using intentionally obscure or convoluted phrasing and language to step around a specific subject, or avoid lying, etc. (First appeared in George Orwell’s 1984, from which it is famous.)

• Fearmongering – The act of scaring people off of a certain course of action by appealing to their apprehension of the worst case scenario.

• Fishing – Usually a mafia tactic. Attempting to “fish” for town roles, by claiming them for yourself and waiting to see who counter-claims.

• Flipflopping – Repeatedly changing your mind about an issue, either for indecisiveness or in an attempt to fit in with the majority.

• Follow the Cop – When the town takes almost all direction from the results of an investigative role when deciding who to elim.

• Gambit – A plan or strategy that has dubious chances of working for you, but that has a high payoff in the event you can pull it off. (Also “hail mary.”)

• Meta – The general agreed upon or accepted practices of the location the game of mafia is being played. I.e. Abstain Day 1, Never abstain, the mafia will be on the quieter side to avoid suspicion, so on so forth. (never abstain day 1)

• Metagaming – Using knowledge about how a player plays the game to try to deduce what their current role is. (“This guy’s gotta be mafia. He’s never this quiet if he’s town.”) See also: Tell

• OMGUS – Short for “Oh My God, You Suck!” Refers to immediately and vehemently attacking a player or their argument as soon as they post it.

• Lurking – When a player is keeping up with the game, but is staying silent. As opposed to inactivity, in which the player is not keeping up with the game. Lurking is perfectly acceptable whereas inactivity is not.

• Puppet – A player that is being manipulated in one fashion or another.

• Read – The way you feel about a person or their motivation; your gut instinct about them. (“I’m getting a pretty strong mafia read on that guy…”)

• Scapegoat – A hapless player upon whom town suspicion and blame are directed. Usually a mafia tactic to try and get the town to miselim. If the scapegoat is also mafia, this is Bussing.

• Scumbuddy – Refers to suspicion of a different player based on their interactions with a proven or suspected Mafia member. Ex. Kail was a member of the mafia, and based on your interactions with him, you’re his scumbuddy aren’t you?

• Tell – A mannerism or tic that can be noticed about a given player, and which gives something away about that player.

• Town Leader – Usually refers to the player directing the town or the discussion taking place. Does not mean their alignment is Town.

• Tunneling – When a player latches onto the idea that a different player is mafia and no amount of logic or evidence can dissuade them.

• WIFOM – Short for “Wine In Front Of Me” of Princess Bride fame. Any argument made when you are missing critical pieces of information can be called a WIFOM.

There, that covers a good chunk of them. If there are any terms you’re not sure of or aren’t included on this list, feel free to ask/post them! I’ll add them to the big ol’list.

With that, let’s move on to the second purpose of this topic, the help desk!

If you’ve got a question about playing Mafia or the theory around it, then you’ve come to the right place! You’ve got a couple options and both will result in your question hopefully being answered. First off, if you’re not playing a game, go ahead and post right in this topic and we’ll get your help squared away no problem. If you are playing a game, fire me a PM! I’ll give your answer via PM, and post the question and answer in the topic proper once the game you’re playing has finished.

I will point out that I’m willing to help with theory and rule logistics and not who you should target or be suspicious of in the very game you’re playing. Questions like that I’m not going to answer or will answer with something like “what does your heart of hearts tell you to do?”

With that all said, welcome to the topic! I hope you enjoy your stay.

Hey there Kail,

My friends keep talking about these weird role names and, like Watcher, or Tracker, or Granny or Drunk. I feel lost when people use these odd names, is there a good place to go to find out information about all these different roles?

Love,
Ultimate-Gamer

Kail, if I may help here, this should find anything you need: https://epicmafia.com/role

Yeah, I was under the impression that WIFOM meant to second guess yourself, or cause others to second guess themselves. So this definition is news to me.

So I too would like more elaboration on this topic, please.

Also, side note, if you know the answer to a question being asked in this topic, feel free to chime in! I know it says “Kail’s Mafia Bar and Grill and Help Desk”, but I’d love to have everyone discussing the theory and what have you, since some of you are going to have different points of view than I will!

Yo, Kail!
Where did the terms “mafian” and “mafiat” come from? AFAIK, the proper terms are “mafioso” and “mafiosa”, seeing as those are the conjugated forms of the word!

First, thank you very much for making this topic, Kail! I’m still trying to learn all the ins and outs when dealing with this game, but what I have seen so far is helping out lots!

I have a question and it’s concerning balancing: How does a Narrator know what type of role to give which side in a way that seems fair to all sides? Drawing from ARK as an example, at it core, I believe town had four detective-type roles and three doctor-type roles, as well as a role that would essentially give town a freebie night phase to talk amongst each other as if it were a normal day phase. I’ve been told that this was a fair setup, but I’m not exactly sure I see how. Why does town need so many detective and doctor roles? Why does a party phase ever need to happen? How does mafia, or even something like a serial killer, stand any kind of chance against a setup like this?

I might have more questions, but I would like to see this one answered first.

Kail, I want to try irl mafia, but I don’t know anybody who plays it, and only a few of my irl friends are interested in learning. What should I do?

Hello! So I’ve moved the building a game of mafia post over to the So you wanna be a Narrator topic right here since that’s probably where it’ll see the most use.

Hypocop is a thing I was leery of when I was watching it happen in the thread proper, I can see the benefits, but I can also see a bunch of downsides as well. The one that springs most readily to mind is if, as a mafia, we had no better target, I’d advocate shooting at a person who was the most accurate with their hypocops. Yeah, sure, their information is now seen as good, but that’s a thing that will only get worse with time. Best rip off the bandaid quick, all that. What’s more, if we’re the mafia is pretty sure they’ve found the cop and have access to a janitor, then suddenly the mafia is in a hugely advantageous position. Hypocop is still floating about, but now they can make one of their own the cop at basically no downside, even better if they force a second cop to try and counterclaim.

Another pretty huge downside is something we saw during Pokémafia itself: it completely removes the cop’s ability to bluff. When Evey came forward with her “detection” of Rhys, Rhys was able to cast it aside since she could argue about Evey “lying” in her hypocop reports. I wholeheartedly think that whole situation would have gone much differently if Hypocop wasn’t floating around. This isn’t even going into J_Spade lying in his own Hypocop report (why didn’t anyone question why a cult cop might lie?!) and how that helped the mafia in the long run.

I can understand wanting to use Hypocop, it puts the detections out there for the town to look at if the cops bite it before they can claim, but it requires everyone actually being on board with it and sticking to it. I also can’t shake the feeling that it comes from a place of mistrust, that the cop wouldn’t know when to come forward with their results before dying, though that’s more my personal take on the strat rather than anything I have evidence or theory for.

Hmm, good questions.

• What’s different between scummy moves and newbie mistakes?

There’s not too much of a hard and fast answer here, a lot of it is contextual. Newer players tend to either be very brash or very hesitant depending on their own personalities, which can ping more experienced players since it looks more like they are either deflecting or lurking respectively. The thing that’s worked for me was being open and frank with them, giving them some slow pitch type questions to answer. What I hope this does is acclimates them a bit more to the game while helping me gauge their answers a bit more. Newbie scum may bristle a little more at the questioning than newbie town may, since the age old wine is scum hides, town is shy. Again, this will change based on the new player themselves. Instead, try and see who they interact with in the thread proper, where sudden and unexplained changes in tune occur in the player, then press on that point. From there it’s all about if you trust the answers you got or not. I hope this helps!

• Common Scum Tactics?

This one’s a bit easier, there are a bunch listed in the Logic/Arguments/Strategies section of the first post. Outside of that, keep an eye open for people who are really just giving a token effort, or who are all “oh no, _ died last night! i am the sad now” when a new day rolls around. One other thing that has been pretty reliable for me was looking for people who give a ton of information but offer very little thought or analysis on the information they’ve presented.

i believe that they are tested in epic mafia. at least i think rhys said that once. test out a game with all your roles and see how it goes.

For Castle of Madness I didn’t specifically test it out in an actual playing environment, but I’d play it like solitaire and think about specific scenarios. Since a lot of the game was influenced by the Random Ability Switch system I had in place, I’d branch off into different paths for each reasonable result.

I’d talk about The Bus but it’s not done yet

looking through this, dont you think this would fit more on the " so, you want to be a narrator" thread?

So I got a couple questions via PM I couldn’t post the answers to here due to The Bus going on. The Bus isn’t going on anymore. So uh. Here are these.

• Difference between mafia tell and character flaw?

This one is close to impossible to answer, because the difference will vary depending on the player themself. What you can do if you are unsure is play out both scenarios in your head, one where the person is a terrified mafiat and one where the person is a frustrated townie. Weigh both in your head then compare it with how the player has acted in previous days. If you know bits and pieces about the player outside the game, that may factor into your read or meta of that person and you should be aware of that accordingly.

• Difference between a read and a personal bias?

Being self-aware. If you can answer all the right questions about why you suspect someone, it’s a read. If you have evidence stating otherwise yet stick to your guns, that’s a personal bias.

^ Especially if one’s mafia and one’s town. This is why I don’t want me and my sister playing the same game at the same time. However, wouldn’t people be suspicious of knowing too much in that case.

Ok, I understand now. Sorry for not getting it earlier. That still seems pretty OP. I still stand by the point of never playing these with my sister because leaking the alignment to each other is almost certain.

Yeah, that’s a thing that happened. That was a rough spot. xP

Xpert PSI Princess:

I still stand by the point of never playing these with my sister because leaking the alignment to each other is almost certain.

A similar thing happened with me and Legogirl in Pokemafia. She never flat out revealed what she was, but she did ask me some questions pertaining to the Pokémon ditto. This made me awfully suspicious, though I tried not to let it cloud my judgment too much. I really bugs me too, because we made a specific agreement before the game too that basically said “no talking about Mafia while both of us are living in-game.”

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it’d be hard to make a rule that said “People in the same household shall not play together” and manage to uphold it.

^ That.

Don’t get your friends/family modkilled, people. Don’t do it.

Nah, no reason to wait, how a role works ain’t a spoiler.

Millers are just players who are sided with the town who, upon investigation, appear to belong to the Mafia. In multimafia games, how they exactly work is decided by the host or hosts when they decide to include the role, since there’s no hard and fast solution that’s widely accepted or put into practice. How I would do it and now a different host would do it could very well end up being radical things.

Since I’m currently hosting a game, I guess I also get to write this next bit!

For those of you in NPBR right now, this post is zero indication as to if I have or have not put a miller in your game, nor is any other response on this subject by any player, current or otherwise, indicative of if they were a miller or not. Trying to divine an answer one way or another from whatever posts come of this is probably the most backwards way to go about forming a WIFOM, and I will reiterate that it would 100% be a WIFOM.

This topic exists so those who want to ask questions or talk about mafia can do so. It is not a part of any game currently being run.

So, The Narrator just locked the thread, without a majority vote being reached. Also, J_Spade did Seppuku. Why is the thread locked now? I was about to post on the thread…

The thread will lock as briefly as I can manage when a day ability is declared to clear up the result of the action. It’s part of the reason that faking a day ability will get you killed.

The narrators are writing up a final post, then night 1 will begin.