, along with playing the game, I have the additional job of answering any questions that you may have about the game, basic mafia game theory and mechanics, or anything specific to the MafiaScum site itself, for those of you who are already familiar with the game of Mafia.
This being said, you should not allow your read on me to be influenced by anything I say as
IC
in response to questions or advice. Roles and alignments are randomly assigned; this means I have just as much a chance of being scum as any of you guys, and I will be playing towards my wincon, whether it be scum or town.
I will never use my position as
IC
to decieve you, and I will try my best to dissociate when I'm speaking as an
IC
, and when I'm speaking as a player.
Alongside myself as the
IC
, we have a few
SE
(
Semi-Experienced
) players. An
SE
is not a teaching role, but more of a showcase role. The goal of all established players is to set a good example in Newbie games to help properly integrate newer players.
A Quick Few Tidbits:
• Don't be afraid to ask questions. I'll happily answer to the best of my ability.
• Be active! A lively game is better than a ghost town of a game. Post as much as you can and interact with your fellow players.
• Occasionally, mafia can be a bit heated, and you may feel a bit attacked sometimes. It's a natural part of the game, but try and confine your comments to a person's play rather than the person themself. Being scum read can seem like an insult, but everyone eventually rolls scum. It's nothing to be ashamed of! Don't look at it as a "Good vs Bad" scenario. Try working with the other players to help them see things from your perspective rather than stating they are wrong.
• Don't let a mistake or a mislynch bring you down. It happens a lot. Don't be afraid to really push for your reads, and don't feel bad if it turns out you were wrong. Even the most advanced players aren't always right! It's the nature of the game.
Here are some key concepts that will help you better understand the site meta:
Spoiler:
Random Voting Stage (RVS)
Games here on MafiaScum almost always begin with what's called the Random Voting Stage (RVS). Beginning of the game, players have extremely low information (besides the mafia team who already know everyone's alignments). At this time, players generally will vote for non-serious reasons to provoke reactions from other players. Eventually the discussion will progress, and the game will get moving out of the RVS Stage.
Voting, L-1, and Hammers
Typically, L-x is how we convey how close to a lynch a player is, with x being the amount of votes needed to successfully lynch a player. You should generally always announce that you are putting someone at L-1, 1 vote away from a lynch, so that someone can't come in and accidentally vote and lynch a player before the playerbase is ready to move on to the next day. This also prevents any Mafia-aligned players from ending the day on their terms by placing the final vote to lynch ("hammer") and then brushing it away like they didn't know it was L-1. Generally, you will also see people post L-2 or L-3 (2 and 3 votes away from lynch).
Before you hammer the player, it is customary that you give an "Intent to hammer" post, so that the player can then claim their role. It is usually best to allow
other players time to react and respond to the claim before hammering.
Claiming Your Role
Unless you are at L-1 and have been asked to claim because of an intent to hammer, it is almost never a good idea to claim your role. If you are a Town Power Role (PR), you are then likely to be killed by Mafia in the night, or Night Killed (NK'ed). If you are a Vanilla Townie (VT), you may think that claiming might not matter too much, but by doing so, you will be narrowing down the field of who a potential PR might be.
There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, if a Mafia-aligned player has just claimed your role, or your role directly counters the Mafia player's, claiming early to counterclaim (CC) would directly out the Mafia player as Mafia, and the town would benefit.
LyLo
LyLo is the abbreviation of “lynch or lose.” LyLo in the Newbie Queue is when there are 3 remaining players, 2 of which are town and 1 is mafia;
or when there are 5 remaining players, 3 of which are town and 2 are mafia. In these situations the town aligned players should not carelessly vote like is done during RVS or early days, as the mafia player(s) can instantly provide the necessary votes to lynch (“quickhammer”) and win the game without the town being able to fight back. MyLo, however, stands for "Mislynch and Lose", meaning the game will end on a mislynch, but not if you choose to "No Lynch". This generally can be helpful when there are an even amount of players left in the game, and you want to narrow down the pool with some night actions.
Thanks for joining this game. I hope we all have a great time.
Here are some links you may want to look at before playing.
Fixed incorrectly nested spoiler/area tags, which was breaking the page. --P
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:46 am
by Flavor Leaf
Now that I've bored you with that giant post, to start the game off, I'd like to ask a few questions to you all in order to engage with everyone.
1. What, if any, experience do you have with Mafia. It's okay if this is your first game ever.
2. Do you have any questions for me to start this game off?
3. Do you have a favorite role or alignment? I personally like playing as a Mafia Goon the best.
Also, time to lay down my RVS vote.
VOTE: Formerfish
basically every game starts with
R
andom
V
oting
S
tage, where everyone just kind of does nonsense until something starts the game on the right path.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:49 am
by Flavor Leaf
Don't feel the need to answer the questions either. These questions generally will come up regardless to help people better their read, anyways.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:52 am
by acrimoniusalpaca
So since we have a great IC, I'll kick of my RVS with this VOTE: Flavour Leaf
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:53 am
by Korina
dojaj wrote:Hello people
Hello person
In post 28, Flavor Leaf wrote:Now that I've bored you with that giant post, to start the game off, I'd like to ask a few questions to you all in order to engage with everyone.
1. What, if any, experience do you have with Mafia. It's okay if this is your first game ever.
2. Do you have any questions for me to start this game off?
3. Do you have a favorite role or alignment? I personally like playing as a Mafia Goon the best.
Also, time to lay down my RVS vote.
VOTE: Formerfish
basically every game starts with
R
andom
V
oting
S
tage, where everyone just kind of does nonsense until something starts the game on the right path.
1. A lot. I've played a lot of irl games, and a decent amount of forum games. Enough to the point where my meta is pretty obvious.
2.
What's your role?
None.
3. Cult. Just Cult. No questions asked there. Cult.
Apart from Cult, it's Town or Third-Party.
I hate Mafia only because I just get really awkward as mafia.
I'm not aware of this abbreviation? Is it random content or...?
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:07 am
by acrimoniusalpaca
lance corporal Jones. It means role claim. Sorry if it isn't standard forum abbreviations. I use this a lot in IRL mafia.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:16 am
by LCpl Jones
In post 28, Flavor Leaf wrote:Now that I've bored you with that giant post, to start the game off, I'd like to ask a few questions to you all in order to engage with everyone.
1. What, if any, experience do you have with Mafia. It's okay if this is your first game ever.
2. Do you have any questions for me to start this game off?
3. Do you have a favorite role or alignment? I personally like playing as a Mafia Goon the best.
1. I played last year on another account, this is my new main account. I only had two games and of that one in Newbie so I was allowed back into the Newbie queue. I've played off-site a bit. I wouldn't call myself food at mafia but maybe semi experienced?
2. No
3. Mmm... Hard to say really. I don't really mind what I am, I just have fun and enjoy the game whatever my alignment
Pedit: ah ok! Thanks - not sure if it's used here or not, but I wasn't aware of it.
Btw I don't mind if you call me LCPL, Jones, LJ, anything you like, as long as I can recognize it - my name is maybe a bit long!
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:22 am
by LCpl Jones
Now that I think of it in relation to 3) I remember I was a roleblocker on an off-site game. I definitely enjoyed that game - I was outed d3 by a watcher and between us all we managed to narrow it down to 2 suspects, and we got the last scum. That game was interesting, an X/Y choose your power type, it was fun being a PR and having so many PRs on both sides as it made the game quite enjoyable!
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:25 am
by acrimoniusalpaca
I like writing out Lance Corporal Jones. The words together have a lot of Oomph.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 9:04 am
by dojaj
In post 28, Flavor Leaf wrote:Now that I've bored you with that giant post, to start the game off, I'd like to ask a few questions to you all in order to engage with everyone.
1. What, if any, experience do you have with Mafia. It's okay if this is your first game ever.
2. Do you have any questions for me to start this game off?
3. Do you have a favorite role or alignment? I personally like playing as a Mafia Goon the best.
Also, time to lay down my RVS vote.
VOTE: Formerfish
basically every game starts with
R
andom
V
oting
S
tage, where everyone just kind of does nonsense until something starts the game on the right path.
1. I only played it irl before
2. Do we randomly vote here on the thread?
3. I like it best when I’m mafia too
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 9:25 am
by LCpl Jones
Yep, all votes are done here.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 10:05 am
by Lamees
VOTE: xx2008
my random vote
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 10:07 am
by xx2008
Hello! Glad we're playing in the same game.
1. This is my second game on this site, but I have played some games irl.
2. Are you scum?
3. Town roles. VOTE: dojaj
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 10:42 am
by Flavor Leaf
Yeah, just type VOTE: Player Name Goes Vote[/-vote] whenever you want to vote somebody. Take out the hyphen after the slash, though.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:09 am
by Korina
In post 33, acrimoniusalpaca wrote:lance corporal Jones. It means role claim. Sorry if it isn't standard forum abbreviations. I use this a lot in IRL mafia.
I'm more used to hearing RC in context of role-card, not role claim.
dojaj wrote:
2. Do we randomly vote here on the thread?
Yes, all votes take place in the thread.
Some other games may have weird voting mechanics, (mine are more likely to only because I like those weird mechanics), however, all newbie (and normal games) will have you vote in the thread.
Voting is just like IRL Mafia, you don't tell the mod in private "hey, I wanna vote this player", you point/say/gesture at that player you want to vote.
However, unlike normal mafia, everyone doesn't vote all at once (or however you vote in IRL Mafia), you're allowed to vote whenever you want, and you're allowed to vote however many times as you'd like.
For example, if I really wanted to, I could vote everyone in succession (over my next nine posts), and until I unvote or revote, my vote will be on that player.
xx2008 wrote:
2. Are you scum?
I don't know who you are, but I already like you.
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 11:13 am
by Korina
In post 41, Flavor Leaf wrote:Yeah, just type VOTE: Player Name Goes Vote[/-vote] whenever you want to vote somebody. Take out the hyphen after the slash, though.
All the above are valid methods of voting.
You don't need to put the name of the player you're unvoting, only voting.
(However, mods really appricate it if you put the name of the player you're voting if manually making the VC (or Vote Count)).