Important Info for Mafia Game Hosts

Marvelissa

Basic Setup Tips

-Be careful that your setup is not breakable.
If most or all of the roles are unique, and listed publicly (open setup), it is likely breakable for the town by massclaim. Replace some with VTs (if they are named ones, do not list the names publicly! doing that would fix nothing) and/or make it a closed setup.
-Make sure both sides have a decent chance of winning.
-If your game is based on some sort of theme, and you have given “good” character names to Town roles and “bad/villain” character names to Mafia/nontown roles, tell the Mafia some names of “good” characters not attached to actual roles in the game. These are called fakeclaims, and are so the Town cannot find the Mafia by massclaiming all of their characters. Don't give the Mafia only obscure names, either. The Town should not be able to use the flavor to guess who the Mafia is.
Another option is to assign characters independent of alignment. In this case, fakeclaims are generally not needed.

Types of Setups

In an open setup, all roles are listed publicly at the start of the game.
In a closed setup, the roles are not publicly listed.
In a semi-open setup, possible roles are shown, but exactly which ones are included is not.

Resolving Night Actions

Action Resolution Order/When Actions Interact or Conflict-
Actions should never be resolved based on real time.
You should use Natural Action Resolution.
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=NAR
If a roleblocker is blocked, the actions should resolve simultaneously - i.e. the blocked roleblocker should not be able to do anything but block, but their block should still go through.
If two roleblockers block each other, it should take place simultaneously. Both should be unable to perform any actions aside from the roleblock.
If two players kill each other, the kills happen simultaneously.
If a player kills a player who is killing another player, the killed player's kill stil goes through.

When Players Are Roleblocked-
You should not tell players if they are roleblocked, unless they would otherwise receive a result. If they would normally receive some sort of result (i.e. Cop, Tracker, Watcher...), they should be told “No Result.” If it would otherwise be blatantly clear to them that their action failed (in the case of a Neighborizer), you should tell them that the action failed. Otherwise, they should not be informed at all.

Lynches and Deadlines
The most common way we handle deadlines is by plurality lynch - the person with the most votes is lynched. There are a few ways to break ties. One way is to randomize which of the tied players is lynched, which I do not recommend. A more objective method is to lynch the person who has had that many votes longer.

Marvelissa

Extra~

Marvelissa

Extra~

Marvelissa

Extra~

Marvelissa

And one more~

Skelda

Looks good Lissa! Thanks.

Shannen

Thankyou Lissa

KleineMuff

Good job Lissa!

Sheldonly

-If your game is based on some sort of theme, and you have given “good” character names to Town roles and “bad/villain” character names to Mafia/nontown roles, tell the Mafia some names of “good” characters not attached to actual roles in the game. These are called fakeclaims, and are so the Town cannot find the Mafia by massclaiming all of their characters. Don't give the Mafia only obscure names, either. The Town should not be able to use the flavor to guess who the Mafia is.

I don't agree with this. It's almost as if the host is helping mafia. The players can safely fake claim without the host helping them. The host doesn't need to involve themselves with helping the mafia fake claim, and besides, in an actual game, the host does not confirm or deny character roles. The best way to solve this is to not post what specific characters are in a game at all, therefore mafia can fakeclaim on there own without the help of a host.

Marvelissa

Not really. The mafia won't know which characters are already in the game, so in such a setup, without fakeclaims, picking what is safe to fakeclaim would be basically guesswork, which I don't like. There are only so many characters in a theme, usually.

x_MG_x

Good work Lissa.

Also, wondering if you can give us a good estimate on how many mafia people should there be in games of different numbers of players (like 10 having 2 mafia, 12 having 3 mafia, 16 having 4 mafia, etc.)

Sheldonly

Marvelissa wrote: »

Not really. The mafia won't know which characters are already in the game, so in such a setup, without fakeclaims, picking what is safe to fakeclaim would be basically guesswork, which I don't like. There are only so many characters in a theme, usually.

It feels like mod-helping when you tell them who to fakeclaim.

Half the reason fakeclaiming is so risky is because you don't know who or what are in the game, so by telling them that these characters/roles are not in the game, you are giving them an unfair advantage.

Marvelissa

Sure thing Jake.

I'd say roughly:
2 Mafia for 7-11 players
3 Mafia for 12-15 players
4 Mafia for 16+ players

These are loose guidelines assuming an average amount of power on both sides.

For example, if you have a number of players on the highest end of a range (i.e. 11, 15) but a lot of town power, adding one more mafia might be better.

It kind of depends on how many PRs there are. This is just approximate.

Marvelissa

Renee, if you don't do that, the town can just massclaim and possibly break the setup.
I personally don't give role fakeclaims, just characters. They can easily claim VT if they don't want to risk a role fakeclaim, but there's no such equivalent for characters.

For example, here is what I sent to the AiW mafia:

Hello mafia of Wonderland.

You are:

CM - Stayne, Mafia Roleblocker

Awelle - Red Queen, Mafia Godfather

Nerdy - Jabberbabywocky, Mafia Role Cop

You also have a traitor somewhere in the game, helping you.

You know that these characters:
Mad Hatter
Duchess
Bill the Lizard
are not in the game and safe for you to claim.

Sheldonly

Marvelissa wrote: »

Renee, if you don't do that, the town can just massclaim and possibly break the setup.
I personally don't give role fakeclaims, just characters. They can easily claim VT if they don't want to risk a role fakeclaim, but there's no such equivalent for characters.

For example, here is what I sent to the AiW mafia:

Hello mafia of Wonderland.

You are:

CM - Stayne, Mafia Roleblocker

Awelle - Red Queen, Mafia Godfather

Nerdy - Jabberbabywocky, Mafia Role Cop

You also have a traitor somewhere in the game, helping you.

You know that these characters:
Mad Hatter
Duchess
Bill the Lizard
are not in the game and safe for you to claim.

I don't think so. I mean, I give a huge list of characters that are in the game and none of my games have broken. I have NEVER given mafia an information of what characters are in the game. Fakeclaiming is risky and shouldn't be a safe option for mafia. But maybe it's just personal opinion. I would rather do it the way I have always done it because my games are never broken.

Idontrcall

I love your list, Lissa. Very good job. I agree with Renee about the fakeclaims, though. As a host, I probably wouldn't tell my mafia names to fake claim. Let them come up with their own. It was that way in Nana's Fairy Tale game! That was a bunch of fun figuring out fake claiming fairy tale characters (Tiger Lily, anyone?).

But I guess the host can determine how they want to handle that on their own.

Marvelissa

If there is a huge list of possible characters, it is kind of different. Not giving fakeclaims might work alright then. (Though I probably would give them anyway, personally)

But if there is somewhat of a more limited range, fakeclaims are important.

I suppose it is probably somewhat a matter of personal opinion, yeah. I think a good test is to consider what will happen if the town decides to, for example, massclaim their characters D1.

Marvelissa

(To consider if the mafia can feasibly come up with characters they can claim safely in that situation, in particular.)

Marvelissa

If there's only so many characters, I don't want their claiming safely just being a guessing game about what characters I actually used. XD

x_MG_x

In my opinion, it's better to be safe than sorry. I never ever want to repeat the events of first round of the OUAT mafia where the game was easily broken due to mass claiming.

Katieeee

Marvelissa wrote: »

I suppose it is probably somewhat a matter of personal opinion, yeah. I think a good test is to consider what will happen if the town decides to, for example, massclaim their characters D1.

lolz. If the town ever did that in my game, I would re-roll everyones roles and take character names away from them.

Marvelissa

You can't exactly do that in a closed setup though

thesims3boy

Marvelissa wrote: »

You can't exactly do that in a closed setup though

I can do anything I set my heart to, thank you very much.

Katieeee

Marvelissa wrote: »

You can't exactly do that in a closed setup though

You can if the town ruins your game. Just make up new 🐸🐸🐸🐸.

It totally depends on how fun the town wants to be, imo.

I hosted a game where everyone had a specific character with a specific role attached and no one mass claimed or ruined it or anything like that.

I think having an extra long list of vts would be the best, then their is still a chance of your fakeclaim backfiring, Vs having an easy out

Skelda

I am with Lissa in this one. I always either give the Mafia fakeclaims or make their actual roles ones that aren't obviously afia. Losing because you guessed wrong isn't fun.