Mafia, also known as Werewolf (to infidels, we shall not speak of them), is a game originating in real life, but adapted for a forum setting. Basically, you have a small village of innocent people, but hidden among them is a group of nasty mafiosos, whose sole goal is to have at least 50% of the population belong to their organization so that they can control the lynch-votes. Since they cannot recruit people, the only way to achieve this is bloody murder, but not more than one per night. The rest of the town uses their deductive abilities, along with some special roles, to find these infiltrators and lynch them.
Lynch Voting:
xkcd Village is a lawless place, and the only form of justice is the old-fashioned lynch mob. Every "day" (this will be explained shortly), the town chooses a member to hang with a simple majority vote. For the more peaceful towns
, "no lynch" is also a valid vote. After the mob has strung up the citizen, his house will be investigated overnight (it would seem reasonable to do that before the hanging, no?) and it will be announced if the town hanged a member of the mafia or an innocent townie. There are no "takebacks", once a majority vote has been reached, even for one minute, the "day" is over and the night begins.You must bold your vote and place it on a separate line for it to my fault if I miss it and therefore do not count it in the official tally.
Example: I think Vox Imperatoris is dirty mafia scum because he said he was the cop, then later said he was the doctor. NB: That would be really stupid, don't do something like that.
Vote: Vox Imperatoris
I changed my mind now, it's definitely RandomGuy.
Unvote: Vox Imperatoris
Vote: RandomGuy
Night—when everything else happens:
People who are not just regular townies (that will be just over half of you), have special powers that are used at night. The most important of these is that of the mafia, but there are also other roles, which in this particular game will be a doctor, a cop, and a pair of masons (the secret society kind). I guarantee that no one person will have two roles.
The mafia confer through PMs at night only (this part requires the honor code, so please don't ruin the game) about whom they plan to kill; when they reach a unanimous decision, they will PM it to me and I will record it secretly. If you receive the role of a mafia member, you must try especially hard to blend in with the others and subtly place the blame elsewhere. Too little, and the lynch mob will eventually find you; try to take control of it on the first day, and the mob will start to wonder why the mafia hasn't killed you.
The cop is the most important town role because only he can definitively tell who is good and who is bad. At night, he investigates by PMing me with a name, which I return to him marked as either town-aligned or mafia-aligned. Protip: Do not tell everyone that you are the cop unless you really like to swim in concrete shoes. If you are reading closely or have played this before, you will notice that this means that the cop can't just say, "Lynch this guy because I'm the cop and I know." He has to be a bit more subtle if he wants to live.
The doctor is responsible for protecting the town from the mafia's attacks. He PMs me a name at night, and that person is safe from any attacks. However, the doctor himself is not protected, and he cannot treat himself. NB: If the cop and the doctor find each other secretly through subtle signs in their posts, teaming up can be a huge advantage as it gives the cop immunity enabling him to accuse mafiosos directly.
The pair of masons are a specially linked group. They have the ability to communicate with each other through PMs at night only, and they each know who the other is, but they have no other powers. Although the masons aren't as vital, it can be very helpful to have someone whom you can trust absolutely and talk to outside the thread, so they can form a powerful team in lynch debates.
Roles:
Those who have played this before are going to want a list of exactly what roles and how many will be in the game, so here it is:
12 people in all
5 Townies (Plain, no powers but that of their minds and mouths)
2 Masons
1 Cop
1 Doctor
3 Mafia members (There is no godfather or other such roles in this game).
Rules:
1. Do not talk about the game outside this thread.
2. DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE GAME OUTSIDE THIS THREAD.
3. Please stay on topic.
4. Don't lurk through the whole game; if you need to drop out, I'll keep a running tab of players who want to be replacements.
5. Conversely, don't spam the thread with low content posts; it's very annoying, especially for the lurkers, and it makes it hard to actually analyze you.
6. If you aren't part of the game, please post in a separate, forbidden to players, thread for outside analysis.
7. Once I say that it's nighttime, do not post in the thread AT ALL.
8. If you die, don't say anything for the rest of the game except a simple, "Bah, you got me," which reveals no information.
9. You may not post verbatim or quote from your role PM. Paraphrasing is fine.
10. You may not edit your posts. This is to preempt the possibility of cheating by sending messages to other people and then editing them out.
Signing Up:
I'll just be picking you on a first-come first-served basis, and once I get twelve people, I'll put the next five on a list of possible replacements.
I'd also appreciate it if you mention your status as a newbie to mafia or a veteran. Veterans are welcome, but I don't want more than 2 in this game, so I'll skip you after the first two. Please don't lie about it; if you do, I'll replace you.
The roles will be assigned randomly, with one exception, veterans will not receive "power roles". They will be guaranteed to be townies in order to prevent them from running the game themselves unintentionally. The game will also start in the day phase to give everyone at least a day of playtime. There are no time limits yet, but I may decide to implement them if the game starts dragging on forever.
Additional Resources (Sorry about the no links under 5 posts rule, mods, but these aren't mine and they are very helpful):
1. Excellent Tutorial: http://www.sitesled.com/members/mikeburnfire/mafiascum04.swf
2. A whole wiki about this: http://www.mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Good luck, new citizens of xkcd Village!
ETA:
Veteran players will now be grouped randomly with everyone else for distribution of power roles. I should not have mentioned that for the mafia to hear, but it's too late now.Replacement Waiting List (Feel free to sign up in the thread):
1. michaelandjimi
Replacements will be used if a player requests to drop out or disappears off the face of the internet. Remember, please do not post your thoughts on the game while signing up, but feel free to create a discussion thread, if there is interest.
):