[*bigtext*]An Introduction to Paranoia Paradise

Welcome to Paranoia Paradise, or as regulars here like to call it, Px2. Paranoia Paradise is Wizard's forums for playing the game Mafia. Here, you will find important information and answers to commonly asked questions. If you have any additional questions, or think this thread is missing something, feel free to contact one of the GMs.

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[*bold*]Table of Contents
[*Following is all bulleted and linked*]
What is Mafia?

Types of Mafia Games

General Game Rules

Joining Your First Mafia Game

Designing and Hosting Your First Mafia Game

Common Roles and Alignments

Common Abbreviations and Terms

Being a Better Mafia Player

Designing a Better Mafia Game

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[*bigtext*]What is Mafia?

Mafia is a game created in the 1980's in the USSR. At its heart, mafia is a battle between the informed minority and the uninformed majority. Players are generally assigned to one of the two main teams at the beginning of the game, the mafia (the informed minority) or the town (the uninformed majority). A member of the mafia knows every other member on his or her team. In contrast with this, a member of the town does not know the alignments of anybody besides themselves. However, while the town lacks knowledge, they generally make up for this with numbers. In a typical game, the town will outnumber the mafia roughly three to one.

The game of Mafia is broken up into day/night phases. During the day, the remaining living players discuss who they think is mafia, and vote on someone to lynch. Once a player has received a majority of the votes, they are dead, and the day ends. During the night, the living members of the mafia discuss who they would like to kill, and inform the game moderator. That player will die, and night ends. This day/night cycle is repeated until either the mafia or the town has been eliminated. (Generally, the mod ends the game when the mafia members make up 50% of the town, because after that it is impossible for the town to lynch a mafia member during the day). When either team has been eliminated, the other team wins the game. If your team wins, then you win, even if you are dead. Therefore, you can sacrifice yourself to help your team if you really have to.

To spice things up, besides the standard town and mafia roles certain players may be given special abilities. There may even be other teams besides just the mafia and the town. You can view a list of common roles and alignments [*link*]here.

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[*bigtext*]Types of Mafia Games

Not all mafia games are created equal. Paranoia Paradise hosts many different types of mafia games. Some may be better suited for your particular tastes than others, so keep your eye out for the right ones. These game types are as follows:

Standard: The basic game type currently. Standard games are designed for 10-14 players. Traditional Standard games cannot include new game mechanics, new roles (variations of existing roles are fine), or have any bastard elements (lies or intentionally misleading information from the mod, omissions are not considered bastard).

Standard+: A variation on the Standard game type. Standard+ games are allowed to have new game mechanics, new roles, and bastard elements in moderation. You must host at least two games before hosting a Standard+ game. Please denote if you are designing a "+" game when registering to host.


Extended: Extended games are designed for 16 players. Extended games have no design limitations. You must host at least one game before hosting an Extended game. The current extended list will be auto applied to all Player's Choice votes as long as it is green lit. If you wish to switch your currently registered extended game with one designed specfically for the Player's Choice, just PM the person in charge of running the Player's Choice vote.

The Player's Choice and Extended List Top Game will cycle in between running games. Such that when a Player's Choice ends, the game top listed on the Extended List will run. When that game ends, another Player's Choice vote will be held.

Because of the larger size of the Extended games, Hosts may be required to recruit players to run their games. It is now part of the Hosts responsibility to ensure their game can start smoothly as well as run smoothly. If a Host cannot generate enough players to staff their game or trim some of the excess from the game, they may be skipped over on the list.

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General Game Rules

Before you get started on your mafia game, there are some game rules that you should probably be aware of. If you are currently designing a mafia game, feel free to copy these rules and modify them as you see fit. Changes to the general rules should be noted in colored text in your mafia game.


Voting

All official votes must be bold and in a noticeable color (ex. red, green, purple, etc). Please try to stay away from voting in colors that are extremely bright and hard to read (ex. yellow) or colors that will blend in with other text and the background (ex. black, gray). An example of a proper vote would be "Vote: Player".

Please unvote in between votes. It makes the moderator's life a lot easier when doing votecounts.

If you want to unvote, follow the same procedures for voting, except post "Unvote". Your vote will be removed.


Lynching

When a player has over half of the current living players voting for him, that player is immediately lynched, and the day ends. Trying to change your vote after a player has already passed this threshold will have no effect.

If the deadline for the day passes, the player with the most votes will be lynched regardless of whether the votes constitute an absolute majority or not. If two or more players are tied for the most votes, the most recent vote will be removed. This process will be repeated until the tie is broken.


Deadlines

Each in-game day will last approximately 7-14 real-life days. Each in-game night will last approximately 2-3 real-life days. Both of these deadlines will be determined by the moderator running the game. Days and nights may be extended in case a player needs to be replaced, or if the mods find it prudent.

Please be active during the day. Each player is required to post at least once every 72 hours. If you do not post during that time period, you will be prodded once. If you do not respond to this prod within 48 hours, then you will be either replaced or modkilled.

If you become too busy or are going on a vacation where there is no internet access, and cannot post once every 72 hours, please either request that the moderator replace you, or announce a V/LA (Vacation/Limited Access) by telling everybody how long you will be gone for.

Players are expected to send the moderator their night targets before the time night ends. If you do not send in a target, it is assumed that you are not using your ability. However, even if you do plan on not using your ability, please send the moderator a message anyways. This allows the moderator to end the night early and helps speed things up.

The mafia don is responsible for sending in the mafia's nightkill each night, as well as the mafia member performing the nightkill. If the mafia don is dead or away, another player may send in the kill, but if there is a conflict then the don's kill choice will take precedence.


Communications

Do not post in invisible or white text in the game thread.

Do not attempt to obscure information in your posts using ciphers or other means of encryption.

Do not edit your posts in the game thread. If you really must clarify something, put it in another post.

Do not quote your role PM to anybody. Paraphrasing it is fine, but copying and pasting it is not.

Unless your role specifically allows you to, do not talk about game relevant information outside the game thread. This rule includes but is not limited to messages in your forum avatar, forum signature, IRC, private messages, and instant messaging.

Do not talk about game relevant information to people in the game or outside the game, even after you are dead. You might not permanently be dead.

Do not post in the game thread if you're dead, unless your role specifically allows it. Dead men tell no tales. Some mods may allow you to make one "Bah I'm dead!" type post, but in general please refrain from making posts when dead.

Do not post in the game thread at night, unless your role specifically allows it. You're supposed to be asleep.


Other Rules

Do not use meta-strategies that are against the spirit of the game, such as trying to tell whether or not someone is town based on the way their role pm is worded. What exactly constitutes as a meta-strategy is up to interpretation by the moderators.

Do not sign up for the same game under more than one account. Signing up for different games under different accounts is fine, but signing up for two spots in the same game will be punished heavily.

If you have any issues with a current game, either contact a GM that is currently not playing in that game, or wait until the game is over before bringing up the issue. Do not make a public post about it while the game is still running, as that may ruin the game for everybody else.

The moderators reserve the right to change the rules and replace/modkill anyone as they see fit. This rule is here just in case something unexpected happens in the game that needs to be dealt with immediately, and should normally not be invoked.

If you ever have any questions about the rules, feel free to send the moderators a private message. They will answer any questions they can.

Have fun! (Okay, this isn't actually a rule.)

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Joining Your First Mafia Game

So, you understand what mafia is now. (If you don't, you can read "What is Mafia?" [*link*]here. Alternatively ask one of our more experienced members for help.) So now, how do you join a mafia game on Paranoia Paradise? To do so, you want to head over to the "Mafia Games" section, which can be found [*link*]here. Look through the threads there and find a game that is still taking signups. Post in that thread that you are joining the game, and the moderator will add you to the list of players for that game. If there are no games that are currently taking signups, then you may have to wait until a new game gets the green-light to start. Alternatively, you can ask to be a replacement in a currently running game. If one of the players in that game becomes inactive, you will take over for them.

Once the game starts you will receive a private message containing your role. Your role pm will contain important information, as well as some not so important information. Role pms will generally have two aspects to them, mechanics and flavor. Mechanics are the game relevant stuff. For example, part of a role pm, telling you are a vigilante, meaning you can kill players at night. The other aspect of a role pm is flavor, which are the story related bits involved in your role. Your flavor generally contains information such as what character you're representing in the mafia game, and justification for why you might have the abilities that you have. You can usually safely ignore this aspect. For example, the part of a role pm telling you that you are Batman is flavor. You don't actually need to pretend to be Batman (unless you want to). A final aspect that the role pm will contain is a win condition. As you may have guessed from the name, your win condition tells you what you need to do to win. Generally, your win condition will be to eliminate all players of opposing factions, but this may change from game to game.

After you have received your role pm, you will have to confirm that you have received a role in the game thread. This can be done by simply posting "confirm", or something along those lines. This is done to make sure that the moderator did not mess up and that everybody has gotten a role. Once all players have confirmed, the game starts with either the first day or the first night, depending on how the game has been designed.

Once the game has started, everything is up to you! Go forth and catch those evil mafia members, or successfully elude the town if you are one of those evil mafia members. Argue your little heart out.

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Designing and Hosting Your First Mafia Game

Alright, so you've played in a few mafia games, and you're getting the hang of this whole shebang. Now, it's time to try your hand at designing your own mafia game. First of all you'll need to decide which game type you want to design a game for. You can find a list of game types [*link*]here. If you are new to designing it is recommended that you shoot for a simpler game type, as more complicated games are generally reserved for those with more hosting experience. After you've figured out what game type you're designing for, follow the guidelines for that game type. If you're designing a 12 player game, don't put 14 people in your game. While still following guidelines, you want to make your game interesting, but balanced.

To make your game more interesting, you probably want to include some non-vanilla roles. While all vanilla games may be the purest form of mafia, many people do not like them as much. Throw in some power roles to spice things up, maybe add a doctor or a cop, or some variant of those roles. You can look through the rolebank [*link*]here for more roles that you could potentially add. But don't go overboard with roles. More complicated roles generally tend to make the game harder to balance, and having a few vanillas in the game is never a bad thing. If you're designing a more complicated game, you may want to modify some of the [*link*]general game rules to fit your purposes. Otherwise, just copy and paste the rules into your game.

Besides making your game interesting, you also need to make your game balanced. Balance is a key point in designing, because whether or not your game gets the green light to run will largely be based off of how balanced it is. Put yourself in each person's place, and think about how hard it would be for their team to win. You want the town and the mafia to have roughly equal chances of winning. Self aligned roles will generally always have a harder time winning than either the town or the mafia, so you may want to give them some perks to aid them, you don't really want to make it harder than it already is for them. In addition to gauging the power level of each team, also take a look and see if there are any broken interactions in the game. For example, if there is a cop and a doctor in the same game, the cop can roleclaim and be protected every night, which makes it very hard for the mafia to win. Try to avoid broken interactions between roles such as the cop-doctor combination. If you really have to incorporate those into the game, you should add countermeasures, such as giving the mafia a roleblocker, or making the doctor not able to protect the same person twice in a row. Finally, take a look at your game and assume the worst case scenario. Maybe an important role that one team relies on dies extremely early. Or maybe the town vigilante is trigger happy and happens to kill a member of the town every night. Does this make the game seem unfun? If it does, you might want to fix that. Spread out the power for a team a little so one death won't ruin it, or make that vigilante a one-shot or a two-shot to prevent him from going on a killing rampage.

Once you have finished your roles and balanced them, the next step is adding flavor. Flavor also serves to make a game more interesting. Come up with a theme for your game, and design characters to represent your roles. Having a moderator tell you that you are a vigilante is a lot more boring than having him tell you that you are Batman. Come up with a story for your game. There has to be some reason why there are two groups of people trying to kill each other. Just remember though, don't make flavor have too much of an impact on your game. For example, if you are designing Super Smash Bros Mafia, don't make your bad guys the obvious Bowser, Ganon, and Mewtwo. If you do, then the mafia team can easily lose if the town forces a mass claim. Instead, maybe the Pokemon are actually the mafia and the bad guys are Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Lucario. If your mafia really has to be the obvious bad guys, at least give them fake claims. If you tell Bowser that Peach isn't a role in the game, for instance, then he can claim Peach without fear of being counterclaimed. That way, he won't paint and obvious target on his head by being forced to claim Bowser.

After your game has been designed and flavored, it is time to move on to hosting your game. First, you want to find a Backup Moderator (BuM). A backup moderator is someone else who has the game's design file, helps you with your moderator tasks, and can take over for you should you happen to go inactive. (This shouldn't happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry.) If you are inexperienced, you probably want to find a BuM that is relatively experienced to help you. You also want to contact one of the GMs and get someone to review your game. You can find the current list of GMs and Approved Reviewers here. Once your game has been approved, it will show up on the queue [*link*]here. When it reaches your turn, you can host your game.

When hosting your game, you generally make a game thread and take signups. When your game is filled, you can move on to hosting it. Assign the roles you designed to players randomly, and send each one a role pm telling them who they are. The rest of the game is just doing administrative work so that your game runs smoothly. Do votecounts every once in a while, and make sure to carry out all game interactions. Your BuM may aid you in these tasks. Hopefully, everything will go well, and you will have successfully hosted your first game!

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Common Roles and Alignments

This is a list of common roles and alignments you will see in mafia games around here. Note that many games will use roles that are similar but not exactly the same as, roles that are in this database. Some games may even use roles that are completely new creations. If you think a role should be in this database but isn't, feel free to contact one of the GMs about it.

Basic Roles

Basic roles have no special abilities. The only basic role is the vanilla role.

Basic Roles Show
Vanilla: The vanilla role is the standard role. Vanilla players have no abilities. The mafia version of the vanilla town is often refered to as the mafia goon.


Investigative Roles

Investigative roles provide players with information about the game that they normally could not know for sure as a vanilla, such as night targets or alignments of players.

Investigative Roles Show
Cop: The basic investigative role. Each night, the cop investigates a player and learns that player's alignment. Cops are almost always town aligned, but in complex games with more than one alignment, can be mafia aligned. Town aligned cops are extremely powerful, and caution should be exercised when adding a cop to your game. More complex games may have cops with varying degrees of sanity, which will alter their investigation results.

Tracker: Each night, the tracker follows a person, learned who (if any) that person targeted (if any). Trackers can be either town or mafia. Town aligned trackers are generally used for checking claims and trying to find the mafia nightkill. Mafia aligned trackers are generally used for finding the town's power roles.

Watcher: The watcher is the reverse of the tracker. Each night, the watcher watches a person and learns who (if any) targeted that person. Watchers can be either town or mafia. Town aligned watchers are generally used for checking claims or trying to find the mafia nightkill. Mafia aligned watchers are generally used for finding the town's power roles.


Protective Roles

Protective roles are roles that prevent players from being killed.

Protective Roles Show
Doctor: The basic protective role. Each night, the doctor protects a player. If that player is the target of a nightkill, that player will not die. Doctors are almost always town aligned, but in more complex games doctors are sometimes mafia aligned. Doctors are extremely powerful, and often times restrictions are placed on them, such as not being able to protect the same person twice in a row, and not being able to protect themselves. A doctor that can only protect each person once is sometimes called a hypnotist.

Martyr: Each night, the martyr may protect a player, preventing that player from being nightkilled. However, unlike the doctor, if the player the martyr is protecting is the target of a nightkill, the martyr will die. Martyrs are almost always town aligned, even in more complex games with multiple killing roles.

Bulletproof: The bulletproof cannot be killed at night. However, he can still be lynched. Bulletproofs are generally town aligned, however in more complex games where there are killing roles outside the mafia, the bulletproof can be mafia.


Disruptive Roles

Disruptive roles are roles that prevent other players from using their abilities, or from doing specific game actions.

Disruptive Roles Show
Roleblocker: The roleblocker is the basic disruptive role. Each night the roleblocker roleblocks a player, preventing them from taking any night actions. Roleblockers can be town or mafia. Town aligned roleblockers generally attempt to block the mafia nightkill, while mafia aligned roleblockers try to find and block town aligned power roles.

Rolestopper: The rolestopper is the reverse of the roleblocker. Each night the rolestopper rolestops a player, making all night actions targeting that player fail. Rolestoppers are generally town aligned, but can also be mafia aligned.

Jailkeeper: The jailkeeper is a combination of the roleblocker and the rolestopper. Each night, the jailkeeper jails a player, preventing him from taking any night actions, but also making any night actions targeting that player fail. The jailkeeper can be both mafia or town, but is more commonly town aligned.

Untouchable: Any non-lethal night abilities that target the untouchable will fail. That means that the untouchable can't be investigated by a cop, but can still be killed by the mafia. The untouchable can be either town or mafia aligned. A town aligned untouchable is generally less powerful than a vanilla town, while a mafia aligned untouchable is generally more powerful than a mafia goon.

Ninja: The ninja is a role specifically designed to work against trackers and watchers. If the night actions that the ninja performs will not be seen by trackers or watchers. Ninjas are almost always mafia aligned and come with no other abilities. If they perform the mafia nightkill, the kill becomes untrackable and unwatchable. However, in very rare circumstances, the ninja may have another ability that they can perform without being tracked or watched, and can be either town or mafia aligned.

Voteblocker: Each night, the voteblocker voteblocks a player, preventing that player from voting the next day. Voteblockers are almost always mafia aligned, but can be town aligned.


Killing Roles

Killing Roles kill people. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

Killing Roles Show
Vigilante: The basic killing role. The vigilante can kill a person each night. Vigilantes are almost always town aligned, as mafia aligned vigilantes are usually extremely overpowered.

Bomb: When the bomb dies, he takes another player with him. There are a lot of variations on who the bomb can kill. Bombs can be either town or mafia aligned, and are sometimes refered to as vengeful townies.


Communication Roles

Communication roles are roles that allow players to break the normal rules of communications. Being able to talk at night, or being able to talk outside the official game thread are two examples of this.

Communication Roles Show
Networker: Each night, the networker recruits a player into his network. Players in the network can talk to eachother outside of the official game thread. Networkers can be either town or mafia aligned.

Masons: Masons always come in groups. Each mason can speak to other masons outside of the official game thread, and know eachother are confirmed town. Sometimes, a mason traitor will be part of the mason group. The other masons think the mason traitor is town aligned, but he is actually mafia aligned. Mason traitors are only allowed to be present in extremely complex games, and are very powerful. Masons are almost always town aligned.

Lovers: Lovers are a special type of mason. They can speak to eachother outside the game thread and know eachother's alignments. However, when one lover dies, the other lover will commit suicide. Lovers almost always come in pairs and are almost always town aligned.

Neighbors: Neighbors always come in groups and can speak to eachother outside of the official game thread like masons. However, they do not know the alignments of other neighbors in their groups. Unlike masons, which are very powerful, neighbors are a pretty low power role. Neighbors can be either town or mafia aligned.

Insomniac: Insomiacs are players who can talk in the official game thread at night. Insomniacs can be either town or mafia aligned.


Other Roles

Roles that do not fit into any of the other categories go here.

Other Roles Show
Miller: Millers are players that do not give the correct result when investigated. For example, a town aligned miller will show up as scum when investigated. Mafia aligned millers are called babyfaces. Millers are usually town, but may sometimes be mafia.

Charismatic: Charismatics are players with more than the ordinary amount of votes. Depending on the moderator in question, they may either have two seperate votes that they may place, or one vote that counts for twice as much as the ordinary amount. Charismatics can be either town or mafia aligned.

Jack of All Trades: The jack is a player with two or more abilities. These abilities are almost always one-shot and can be anything ranging from investigating to killing. Jacks can be either town or mafia aligned, but are more commonly town aligned.


Mafia Roles

These roles are mafia specific, and only make sense on a mafia aligned player.

Mafia Roles Show
Don: The mafia don is the mafia player that is responsible for sending in the nightkill to the moderator. Mafia dons can have other abilities, such as being bulletproof.

Poisoner: The poisoner changes the mafia nightkill. If the poisoner is the one to make the kill, then the person that he targets will not die immediately. Rather, they will die on the following night instead.


Third Party Roles

These roles are roles that belong to neither the mafia nor the town. Rather, these roles come with their own alignments and win conditions.

Third Party Roles Show
Serial Killer: The serial killer is the basic third party role. The serial killer can kill one player each night, and wins if he is the only player left in the game. Because it is extremely hard to win as a serial killer, often times, serial killers will have other beneficial abilities to help balance them, such as being bulletproof. Serial killers are self aligned.

Survivor: The surivivor is another common third party role. The survivor wins if they are alive at the end of the game, regardless of whether or not the town or mafia wins. Surivivors generally have no other abilities. Survivors are self aligned.

Jester: The jester wins if they are lynched, and loses if they are nightkilled or still alive at the end of the game. Jesters are not very common, and are generally frowned upon as a role, since trying to get yourself lynched generally makes the game unfun for other players. Jesters are self aligned.

Cult Leader: The cult leader is the head of a cult. Each night, the cult leader may send a cultist to recruit one person into their cult. That person loses their old alignment (and sometimes their old role) and becomes cult aligned. Cultists can speak to eachother outside of the official game thread and win by eliminating all competing factions. Generally, mafia members cannot be recruited into the cult, and if a cultist attempts to recruit a mafia member, the cultist dies. Cults are generally frowned upon, since they are usually extremely powerful and hard to play against, but do appear every once in a while in games. A good balancing move would be to inform the players of the game that there is a cult presence, so the town is not totally blindsided halfway into the game by a secret cult. Cult leaders are obviously cult aligned.

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Common Abbreviations and Terms

Like every other good game, Mafia has a list of game specific terms. If you are unfamiliar with the game, then it may be helpful to check out this list. If you see a term that this list is missing, please don't hesitate to let the GM's know.

(Please note that this list is for game specific terms. Certain terms like tl;dr and QFT may be used sometimes during mafia, but are not mafia specific and therefore will not be included on this list.)

Common Terms and Abbreviations Show
Bastard: Usually refers to a role, a game, or a moderator. A bastard role or game is one which contains lies, or is confusing or misleading. For example, a Paranoid Cop, which is a cop that always gets guilty results regardless of whether or not his target is actually mafia, could be considered a bastard role. A bastard moderator is a moderator that likes designing bastard games. ex. "PariahKing is such a bastard mod!"

Claim: To have a player paraphrase their role. (Don't quote your exact role pm if you are claiming. It will get you modkilled). ex. "I claim cop. I investigated Player X last night and he was scum!"

D1, D2, D3, etc: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and so forth. Used to refer to a specific in-game day. ex. "On D3 you said this, but on D4 you went against what you said and did this! How do you explain that?"

EBWOP: Edit by way of post. It is against the game rules to edit your posts in mafia, so if a player wants to correct or clarify something, they will make a new post doing so. ex. "I thikn Player X is mafia." "EBWOP: I think Player X is mafia."

FoS: Finger of Suspicion. A player will use a Finger of Suspicion to indicate that he or she things that somebody is mafia. Fingers of Suspicion have no effect on official votes. ex. "I thought that play was very scummy. FoS: Player X"

Hammer, Hammering, etc: The vote that will lynch a person. For example, if it takes three votes to get somebody lynched, then the third vote is the hammer vote. Sometimes, the term "hammer range" is used to indicate the point where the remaining living mafia members can all pile on votes to get somebody immediately lynched. ex. "Don't hammer Player X! We need some more time to discuss and don't want to end the day prematurely."

IGMEOY: I've Got My Eye On You. Similar to a Finger of Suspicion (See FoS). This term is generally used to indicate that a player has done something questionable and will be watched more carefully in the future. Usually carries less weight than a Finger of Suspicion. ex. "That post was really scummy. IGMEOY: Player X"

L-1, L-2, L-3, etc: Lynch minus 1, lynch minus 2, lynch minus 3, and so on. The number of remaining votes necessary to lynch a player. For example, a player who is at L-3 requires three more votes to lynch. ex. "Player X is at L-3, so nobody else should vote him until we have some more time to discuss."

LaL: Lynch all Liars/Lynch all Lurkers, depending on context. Some players have a policy that lying/lurking is never beneficial to the town, and therefore all liars/lurkers should be lynched. ex. "Did player X just tell a lie? LaL!" "Player X has been lurking a lot lately. LaL!"

Lylo: Lynch or Lose. A situation where a mafia member must be lynched, or the town loses the game. ex. "We have 3 living town and 2 living mafia. Therefore we are in lylo."

Mass Claim: To have every remaining living player claim their roles (See Claim). A mass claim gives the town more information to work with, but is also extremely dangerous due to the fact that it reveals all of the town's power roles to the mafia (see Power Role). ex. "It's currently lylo, so I think we should mass claim right now."

Modkill: When a moderator has to kill a player in a game for non-game related reasons. Players are generally modkilled for breaking the rules or going inactive for extended periods of time. ex. "Player X was modkilled for quoting his role pm."

N1, N2, N3, etc: Night 1, Night 2, Night 3, and so forth. Used to refer to a specific in-game night. ex. "Player X was killed N2."

Nightkill: A kill that happens during the night. This normally refers to the kill that the mafia gets via the game rules. ex. "Even if Player X is nightkilled, we will still win."

OMGUS: Oh My Gosh, You Suck. An OMGUS vote is a vote in response to somebody else voting you with no real reason to back it up. ex. "Player X, you voted for me? OMGUS. Vote: Player X"

Power Role: Any role that is not a vanilla town or mafia goon. Power roles all have some sort of special ability. ex. "If you are a power role, you should probably claim if you are about to be lynched."

Scum, Scummy, etc: A player that is scum or scummy is anti-town. This generally refers to mafia, and the terms are sometimes used interchangably, however it could also refer to other anti-town roles that the town needs to eliminate, such as serial killers. ex. "I think Player X is acting very scummy right now."

Town Pants: A player who has town pants seems to be town. This term is most often used in a negative way. Saying that a player is doing something to obtain town pants generally means that the player isn't actually a member of the town, but is doing something that seems positive in order to trick everybody else. ex. "You only voted him to try to buy town pants."

WIFOM: Wine in Front of Me. Wine in Front of Me refers to use of reverse psychology. For example, a mafia player might try to WIFOM the town by doing something stupid and then claiming that a mafia player would never do anything so obviously stupid. This term refers to a scene from the popular book/movie "The Princess Bride". ex. "Saying that a member of the mafia would never do such a thing is purely WIFOM and should not be considered a valid defense."

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Being a Better Mafia Player

This post is currently a work in progress, and will be updated once it is written.

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Designing a Better Mafia Game

This section contains information on how to make a better mafia game. Both newer players and more experienced designers alike can benefit from the guidelines listed here. If you think something should be added to this post, feel free to contact one of the GMs.

Things to Avoid

The following is a collection of common pitfalls that new designers often fall into when designing a game. If you want to design a better, more balanced game, make sure to read the following list of things to avoid, and to keep them in mind. Note that these are not rules, but merely loose guidelines. You can break them if you want, but if you do, you must exercise great caution in making sure that your game is still balanced.

Things to Avoid Show

Bastard Elements: Most mafia games rely on the fact that the moderator is more or less a 100% trustworthy source of information. While in more complex games, including a little bit of misleading information may improve the game experience by making players a little paranoid, too much bastardism is never a good thing. All it does is make the game aggravating for the players, as they begin to feel that the moderator is not seeking to make a fun and interesting game and is instead just trying to screw with them. An extremely bastardized game tends to make players feel like their actions are pointless and that the moderator is actively working against them. If you have to include bastard elements, keep them in moderation.

Broken Role Interactions: Make sure your game cannot be broken if two or three roles decide to act in tandem. Consider all possible scenarios, and if a situation where two players working together makes the game extremely difficult to win for one alignment, then you probably should consider changing the setup. This generally occurs with investigation roles, especially the cop. The cop is one of the most powerful roles in the game, and can easily become broken when combined with a doctor. If the cop decides to claim, and receives doctor protection every night, then the game becomes extremely difficult to win for the mafia. If you spot a broken role interaction, there are usually many ways to remedy the problem without significantly altering your setup (such as simply making the doctor not able to protect the same person twice in a row), so don't worry too much.

Flavor Problems: Flavor is meant to have very little, if any, game relevance, so when designing a game, take care to not make it breakable by flavor. If you're creating a mafia game based off of a popular franchise, a common mistake is making all of the obviously good guys the town and all of the obviously bad guys the mafia. For example, if you're designing a five player Harry Potter game, do not make the town Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore, and then have the mafia member be Voldemort. If the town decides to force a mass claim, then the mafia player almost instantly loses. Either mix up the story a little and have some good guys be mafia and some bad guys be town, pick more morally ambiguous characters for your roles, or give the mafia members fake claims, so that they can safely claim a town sounding role.

Non-Standard Alignments: Sometimes, a player will try to create roles that are not town or mafia aligned, and have seperate win conditions. Often these roles fail, and for good reason. At its heart, mafia is a struggle between the town and the mafia alignments. When introducing more alignments into the mix, great caution must be taken to ensure that it does not mess up the game dynamic too much by drawing focus away from finding the mafia. Currently accepted self-aligned roles, such as the survivor and the serial killer, are generally okay because their existence does not significantly change the way the game is played.

Similar Role PMs: Before you finish your game, you need to make sure that the town aligned players in the game do not all have similarly worded role pms. If a town player paraphrases a line in his role pm, and everybody realizes that they have the same line in their role pm as well, then the game will quickly fall apart for the mafia, as they would be the odd ones out, without that line in their role pm. This often happens when a moderator just copies and pastes the same vanilla role a few times and changes the name, or when all of the town has the exact same copy-pasted win condition. This problem can easily be remedied by simply posting a sample pm at the beginning of your game, so everybody knows what a vanilla role pm looks like.

Too Few Vanilla Roles: Many people consider the vanilla role to be boring, but it is a necessary part of the game. It is hard to verify that somebody is vanilla, so the existence of vanilla roles allow the scum to fake claim safely, preventing the game from being broken by mass claims. In addition, vanilla roles are simple, and teach newer players the value of analyzing player interactions, instead of relying on a power role as a crutch.

Too Many Killing Roles: In mafia, the ability to kill, even if it is only a one-shot kill, is extremely powerful. Take a look at how many players the game is being designed for, then judge how many killing roles should be included. If the game is designed for 12 players, don't have a Serial Killer, a Vigilante, as well as a three person Mafia. In this scenario, the game could potentially be over after the second day, and nobody wants that. You need to allow more time for information on players to pile up to have a good game. Always consider the worst case scenario for your game. If the worst case scenario involves the game ending after only two days, or even one day, then something is definitely wrong.


Problem Roles

The following is a list of roles that generally make the game unfun or imbalanced. These roles should almost never be included in a serious game, and if they are, they must be balanced around extremely carefully.

Problem Roles Show

Cults: Adding a cult greatly changes the dynamics of your game, often for the worse. Unlike a mafia team, the cult actually grows over time, as it inducts new members. A player that was town aligned today could become anti-town tomorrow if he gets inducted into the cult. This makes it extremely hard to judge whether a player is scum or not, because you cannot rely on their past actions as tells. In addition, if the moderator does not inform the rest of the players of the existence of a cult beforehand, the cult will usually stay hidden until midgame when a cultist is killed, at which point the game basically becomes of mad scramble of "Guess and Lynch the Cult Leader or Lose". Even in games where the cult is announced, the existence of a cult still places a large amount of pressure on the rest of the players, and generally makes the game experience unfun or imbalanced.

Death Millers: Death millers are players who do not display the correct alignment when killed. For example, if a town aligned death miller is killed, the moderator would inform everybody that he was mafia aligned. Death millers are almost always frowned upon because a large part of mafia analysis is based on the alignments of dead players. The reason why this is true because the alignment of a dead player is one of the only certain pieces of information that everybody in the game has, and messing with this can have profound consequences on your game.

Jesters: One major goal of any alignment in mafia is to not be lynched. Every player in the game tries to find out who is mafia and who isn't, or at least pretends to try. Players who do not are generally met with a lynch, which gives them an incentive to at the very least pretend to help the town. However, the jester role messes with this balance, because there are no repercussions to being lynching if you are a jester. This generally encourages the player to be unhelpful and spammy, which detracts from the rest of the game. And if the town does decide to lynch the jester to prevent him from being distractive, then the town loses out, because that lynch could have been put to use gathering more information and potentially killing a mafia member. Generally, including a jester in your game makes the game an unpleasant experience for the rest of the players in the game.

Post Restricted Roles: Posting restrictions can come in many forms, ranging from not being able to post more than a certain amount of posts each day to not being able to post certain information. Posting restrictions should usually not be implemented in any game, as they normally lead to a negative atmosphere. A posting restriction severely hinders a player's ability to communicate and interact with other players, which greatly increases the frustration of a game. Post restricted players may find it hard to get their point across, and may therefore more apathetic towards the game and less active.