Mafia Philosophy

I don't really believe in winning on a personal level. This is meant to be a team thing and I've never seen a mafia game won by a single person. Yeah, it's awesome when you're one of the last alive on the winning team, but it really comes down to whether you did something. Compare The Christmas Mafia 2011 to The War Room Mafia 1. I consider myself a winner of both games, despite the fact I survived the first, but died in the second. The thing is, in TWR Mafia 1 I was teamed up with a couple other people. We collectively pulled of a strategy that allowed us to win, at the cost of my life. I was willing to take a bullet for the team if it meant that we would win. And we did. So I now consider winning to be, "did you do something to bring your team to victory?"

On the topic of Day 1 lynches, I usually stay away from them. Too often I see valuable and useful roles killed off because people randomly start going for the "spray and pray" approach. Now, if someone can convince me in-game that killing on Day 1 is useful and can provide an acceptable target, I'll usually follow along. But I'm not usually one to point the first finger. I want to have some little thing to work off of first.

With massclaiming and name claiming... I have problems with massclaiming. Mainly, it doesn't work too well. Especially since the people that do claim to one person put their faith in that one person. It is so easy for that person to die with that information unshared, or for that person to be mafia. I never go along with massclaimings. Usually they're a bunch of lies.

Name claiming is another matter. I allowed nameclaiming in all three of my Falconwing games because until the last game no one had the information available to weed out fake names. You could literally call yourself anything and get away with it. Sourcandy's role in the third game was to catch people doing a mass name claiming and call them out on it if they lied about their name. That is... not how she used that role.

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Originally Posted by Lavender Frost

I avoid random Day 1 bandwagons a lot of the time. It usually ends up giving the Mafia a headstart and allows them to kill another townie at night therefore having 2 townies down by Day 2. While I agree votes are a way of getting info, On Day 1 it's really just a random lynch most of the time.

I usually hate mass claims a lot too. I usually host games with themes that are well known ( ex Hunger Games) where it's way too easy. It usually makes it too easy for mafia to win and I like both sides to have an equal chance at winning.

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You mean it makes thing easier for the town.

Though, has a situation ever occurred where the town claimed to a mafioso or at least the confirmed townie got converted? Would really suck for the town then instead of the mafia...

Honestly, I feel mass claiming is not in the spirit of the game, since mafia games are about weeding out who's suspicious through their actions and overall behavior, not about whether their claims seem "townie" or not. It gives way too much of an unfair advantage to a side, and the game just essentially becomes "follow the leader".

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Originally Posted by Iteru

PichuBoy my scenario had the person want the day 1 lynch. It would be a completely different scenario if they didn't.

Generally if you want a day 1 lynch, you really can't be surprised or angry if it's you. People should be prepared to face the consequences of their own strategy.

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That's irrelevant to the scenarios I posted. Whether someone wants a Day 1 lynch or not, it's still not a good idea. I could easily say "Player A is a cop who wants to random lynch", and they still both play out exactly the same way.

The only time you should ever lynch someone Day 1 is if you can be sure they're mafia. Usually, that translates as "Have they scumslipped?". The only other time I'll be tempted to lynch is if they're HIGHLY suspicious (e.g. doing things no town in their right mind would do), but even then, there's no harm in keeping them alive for the time being, and so I probably wouldn't lynch them.

Also, on the subject of massclaiming - the whole point is to be able to weed out the mafia. If someone has been 100% confirmed as a town member, then as the town, you should claim at least your role. It's not like the mafia suddenly have to start scrambling around for a good roleclaim - if that's the case, they deserve to be lynched. Every mafia member should have a fake name-/role-claim prepared as soon as they start, and if they don't prepare, then they face the consequences.

The best thing to do if you have all the roleclaims is first to try and work out pairs of roles that would be broken if they both existed on the same side, or at all. You can then safely bet that one of them is anti-town. Then, roles that are similar, or identical - again, that's usually the case of one town role and one mafia role. By that point, you probably have a pretty secure amount of trustworthy people, and THEN you start weeding out suspicious people WITH these trustworthy people. But don't rely on claims alone, go back through the days and scumhunt.

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Originally Posted by J J M

Though, has a situation ever occurred where the town claimed to a mafioso or at least the confirmed townie got converted? Would really suck for the town then instead of the mafia...

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In FMAB mafia, the confirmed townie/claim collector got converted and sure enough, townies with particularly nifty roles started dying off. It also happened in Disney Princesses mafia, although we won right after we converted Paperhorse (her reaction was awesome).


I don't like massclaims because, besides giving the town a major advantage, I think it unfairly places the burden of finding mafia on a couple of townies. The rest of the town (or a large portion of it) will then wait for the confirmed townie to tell them who to lynch/who to target with their action and, once they have been told, will follow without question. Also, with how popular massclaiming is, it gets old really fast.

As for nameclaims, I hate it when they are allowed in a game (unless it's a theme where the name of the role does not in any way indicate alignment). If you're mafia, you often have to claim a minor character (which raises eyebrows) or claim one of the major characters and risk getting counterclaimed.

I don't mind lynching on day 1, as long as there is something behind it. It could be something small, but anything besides "You don't like blueberries. U TOTES MAFIA." Maybe this is horribly bloodthirsty of me, but no lynches = snoozefest.

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Though, has a situation ever occurred where the town claimed to a mafioso or at least the confirmed townie got converted? Would really suck for the town then instead of the mafia...

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In the Hetalia Mafia, all the claims got into the hands of the on-death converter due to the fact that he faked a PM that proved his fakeclaim, that being a 1x tracker, which convinced the mason that he was innocent.

...AXIS POWERS HAVE TAKEN OVER THIS THREAD!

I don't mind name claims depending on the situation. There are games where I shouldn't have allowed it, like Supernatural Mafia, but I don't see the harm of letting people name claim in the Havendale series where I'm the only one who knows the characters or in a game like Hydra Mafia, where the characters are neither from a specific universe nor representative of the alignment. Usually I see them on the same level as mass claims, though, in that they make games boring and give an unfair advantage to the town.

I don't really like depending on a town leader to direct me on what I'm supposed to do in the game, that's why I dont like the massclaiming thing even for roleclaims. It does make it a little boring.

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Originally Posted by Luminosity

In FMAB mafia, the confirmed townie/claim collector got converted and sure enough, townies with particularly nifty roles started dying off. It also happened in Disney Princesses mafia, although we won right after we converted Paperhorse (her reaction was awesome).

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Originally Posted by Belarus.

In the Hetalia Mafia, all the claims got into the hands of the on-death converter due to the fact that he faked a PM that proved his fakeclaim, that being a 1x tracker, which convinced the mason that he was innocent.

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This pretty much proves claims aren't the least bit reliable in any way...

Here's a question. What is everyone's overall playstyle like? Are you an instigator? Do you like to be everyone's friend? Are you a more forward person, or do you hide in the back.

Me, I find my style to be flexible. I'll alternate between being friendly and nice to a more aggressive tone depending on the feel of the game. When I play as mafia (and sometimes as town XD) I tend to sink into the style of being manipulative. I will gather the info and allies that I can, pit them against each other, and watch the slaughter happen. I'll team up with others and we'll use our abilities in tandem. I'll lie and deceive and pretend to be your best friend before putting a knife in your back, if I have reason to.

Call me weird, but I find this to be so much fun.

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Originally Posted by Ryuutakeshi

Here's a question. What is everyone's overall playstyle like? Are you an instigator? Do you like to be everyone's friend? Are you a more forward person, or do you hide in the back.

Me, I find my style to be flexible. I'll alternate between being friendly and nice to a more aggressive tone depending on the feel of the game. When I play as mafia (and sometimes as town XD) I tend to sink into the style of being manipulative. I will gather the info and allies that I can, pit them against each other, and watch the slaughter happen. I'll team up with others and we'll use our abilities in tandem. I'll lie and deceive and pretend to be your best friend before putting a knife in your back, if I have reason to.

Call me weird, but I find this to be so much fun.

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Ugh... I remember this last part last december...

I usually alternate between all except agressive. Since I've only won one mafia so far, you can tell I need more experience to start playing good.

In mafia games, I tend to be an observer. I prefer having a night action that lets me gather information (like cop or spy) and carefully choose a few people to trust with my information.

I try to be aggressive in games, regardless of alignment. Mainly because... I'm just a loudmouth in real-life. But also because I think it's more fun to be really active in the discussions.

I tend to be a bit quiet, but I can get more aggressive when the situation calls for it. I like to both choose others to trust, and mislead others, but it all depends on the context. I tend to avoid overly risky situations unless winning or a teammate's/my survival is on the line.

I am usually working at the backstage and trying to find an ally who to trust and share suspicions and information. That works quite well when I get an informative ability which is quite often. Sometimes I trie to act as townie leader, with varying success though.

On the subject of role and nameclaiming I think it makes the game quite hard for the mafia and easy for the town. I have been either directly collecting the claims, been the claim back up or been otherwise involved in finding out the fake claims in 9 (!) almost subsequent games. (Well in two of them to town didn't really actively try to collect the claims) The reault of these games have been town victory in all but two games. (And I rather would not talks about these games, thank you)

I actually like to observe play styles, and see if I can match them to the usual mistakes the mafia makes. I'm also more of a logical player. If I get X, I try and find a reason for Y. If something happens, I always want to have scenarios played out in my head, so I can easily piece things together when I get more information.

Also, I never trust anyone. I'll be honest and upfront about my ability and information, but at the same time I could still suspect the person of being mafia. I'm careful with what I share, but if I'm willing to share, the mafia thing they've tricked me. That tends to keep me around. Also, playing observer until something happens is fun. You stay quiet an barely contribute until something catches your interest and you go off on it. Mafia tend to not kill the aggressive types, which seems like the opposite of how it should work.