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Mafia Philosophy

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Question: Would a role that can affect other roles be bastard?

For example, a gun neutralizer... That can turn serial killers into survivors, And vigilantes, paranoid gun owners, grannys, etc into vanillas?

I would not, because I don't even consider alignment converters to be bastard. If you told a player they were a serial killer but they fired blanks every round - that would be bastard in my opinion.
 
Bastard is largely defined by hosts lying or omitting crucial details to the players.
For example, the Tailor role is bastard because the Tailored flip is a lie.
Hiding a Cop's sanity could also be considered bastard.

Bastard is also defined by roles that are OP, like Saulus or Cult roles. Basically, if it would be in the Ubers tier for Smogon, it's bastard.
 
Question: Would a role that can affect other roles be bastard?

For example, a gun neutralizer... That can turn serial killers into survivors, And vigilantes, paranoid gun owners, grannys, etc into vanillas?
By my definition, no. Changing one's role is not bastard but changing one's alignments is.
Serial Killer -> Survivor is indep -> indep so that doesn't count as an alignment conversion, although it is a win condition conversion... that is still beneficial so no problem with that.
I had a role once that turned a Serial Killer into a Vanilla... though there was no SO in that game.
This is bastard because we get a conversion of indep -> town. Still, bastard is a relative term that has more to do with what the players themselves should or shouldn't expect. So just stating "There might be alignment conversions" in the OP is enough for the game to not be considered bastard.
Bastard is largely defined by hosts lying or omitting crucial details to the players.
For example, the Tailor role is bastard because the Tailored flip is a lie.
Hiding a Cop's sanity could also be considered bastard.

Bastard is also defined by roles that are OP, like Saulus or Cult roles. Basically, if it would be in the Ubers tier for Smogon, it's bastard.
Agreed with the above part. However you can still state "there is a Tailor" or "Cops may have sanities" to get past that.

Saulus is not bastard because it is OP. It is bastard because the host has omitted the crucial detail from the mafia that they cannot completely trust each other. And because it is an alignment conversion. The latter also applies to Cult.
 
question: should voteless count for town parity?
think about it: say you have a voteless, 2 other townies and 2 scums. It may seem like LYLO, but in actual fact the town can at best no lynch, so it's a scum win, correct?
 
question: should voteless count for town parity?
think about it: say you have a voteless, 2 other townies and 2 scums. It may seem like LYLO, but in actual fact the town can at best no lynch, so it's a scum win, correct?
I wouldn't count it for town parity.
In fact, I calculate whether a game state is some kind of -YLO with a case-by-case scenario.
 
It's why I don't like voteless. Apart from anything else, it's surprisingly hard to balance. In my opinion, if someone's vote needs to be nerfed, make them a half voter.
 
I don't like voteless because it is a role that's inherently weaker than everyone. Same would go for Miller or Singer but at least those can do something with their vote. In all these cases, claiming your role can work well too.

Half-voter I've never tried and don't feel like is a good role by itself. However I had a KoP voter in RM with someone being able to +1/2 someone and -1/2 two other people. A person whose vote counts for -1 probably is good too, although it feels more like a scum role.
 
I'd keep the game going depending on the roles. Town could still win if Mafia doesn't know about the Voteless and one of them ends up bussing their partner. Maybe the Mafia would end up nightkilling the Voteless, thus the game is in a winnable state again for Town. This doesn't take into account that the other roles could be vig or doctor.
 
Town could still win if Mafia doesn't know about the Voteless and one of them ends up bussing their partner.
I believe that case should be an auto mafia win because mafia actually has vote parity and should know that.
Maybe the Mafia would end up nightkilling the Voteless, thus the game is in a winnable state again for Town.
This is fair and I would continue the game in this case.
 
I believe that case should be an auto mafia win because mafia actually has vote parity and should know that.

This is fair and I would continue the game in this case.

But that's if they really know they have vote parity. If they don't I don't see the harm in extending the game for at least another phase.
 
Alright, this is a post I feel like I should've made a while ago, but here we go. Introducing the Standard "Zexy Rules" :)

1. Forum Rules and War Room Rules apply.
2. Day phases will last 24 hours and Night phases will last 24 hours. <weekend phases may last 48 hours instead?> Votes and actions will be locked as soon as the deadline for each phase passes. Votes/actions at :00 count, those at :01 don't. If the host(s) are sure that they won't be able to update, they may extend the phase in question straight from the beginning.
3. Please be active. You may be subbed out at the host(s)' discretion. If no sub is available to take your place, you may be modkilled.
4. <which claims are/aren't allowed>. No quoting or screenshots of any conversation with the host. <note an exception for Spy results, but exact wording of actions shouldn't be allowed in my opinion> This includes exact wincon wording and posting fake data that supposedly comes from said sources.
5. If you change your username mid-game, please state your old and new ones in-thread and mention the host(s).
6. To vote, use the following format: "VOTE: <PLAYER>". To unvote, use "UNVOTE: <PLAYER>".
7. <whether outside chat is allowed or not>
8. Rules are subject to change. The host(s) will make sure to mention you if that happens.
9. Please, let's keep it civil. It is just a game.
10. Hyper-Majority rules are in place. This means that if, at any given time in a Day phase, at least 2/3 of the players alive are voting for the same person, the Day phase will end as soon as possible with that player lynched. Night phases may also end early if all night actions are sent and at least 8 hours have passed.
11. No loophole abuse at all, please. You may ask the host(s) if a specific action you are unsure over would be considered a loophole in private and they may let it slide. However, obvious loopholes that are clearly outside the nature of the game abused without informing me beforehand may be faced with a zero-tolerance policy.
12. The most important rule. Have fun!

So, you may ask, what is this about? It is a series of suggestions I would like to make on mafia hosting conduct (which is part of mafia philosophy). These are just suggestions based on my own personal opinion. Just something I bring to the table for discussion, a template on what game rules could be to achieve more clarity, less questions on technicalities and most importantly, less loopholes. Anyways, let me explain a bit more:

1. is obvious.
2. is based on my idea that with all the promising games in the Queue, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some games with shorter phases so we can get through them more quickly. The whole thing about things locking at :00 has been brought up a long while ago and universally accepted, it is extremely anti-mafia to not have something like this in place.
3. I believe is better than the occasional "please make X posts per phase or show activity in Y hours" rules, because I've seen that in practice, counting whether everyone has posted and how much is troublesome. Penalties for inactivity can also mess up the game, imagine an YLO situation where some townie gets +votes and scum get a free win by stacking their votes on said townie.
4. the thing with this one is that all conversations with the host, not just role PMs, should not be quoted. There have been situations of people clearing themselves by quoting their own night action submissions, and the loophole lies in that the quote has an arrow link to the conversation and thus wasn't fabricated in some mafia QT. For the record, I know of at least two communities that have resolved this; in MU, this kind of quoting is outright banned and in Feed The Beast, a user has actually made a suggestion post like this that's universally accepted and states that "quotes with arrow links" are a NO. (special mention to that person, Fred, who has given me the idea. Although he probably won't ever see this xD). There can also be loopholes in the night action wording (especially the investigative ones!) Discussing exact wincon wording can be troublesome too. And if Alex Kaz's case in TWR Season '16 has taught us anything, lying about these things but presenting them as quotes can be bad too. Note that spy results should be an exception to this.
5. and 6. should be obvious. 7. depends on the game. 8-9 too.
10. is just my suggestion in an attempt to make games shorter when the phases don't need to be long. Props to @Elieson; for thinking of this, I immediately liked the idea and am starting to embrace it in my own games now. There can still be some trouble with hyper-majority in cases where people have votes of altered count (ex. Alex Kaz being voteless) and the final 3 LYLO becomes an outright hammer with hyper-majority which may be bad sometimes. Still not as strict as the "votes in LYLO are locked" policy I've seen elsewhere. The point is that you should never ever vote lightly in LYLO anyway.
11. covers any more loopholes that may exist despite me trying to close almost everything I've seen before with all the above rules :)
12. is that witty final rule that should always be around to lighten up the mood :D

Anyways, this is just what I've come up with to minimize loopholes for the most part, to be honest, as they have ran rampant a bit too much lately. Another thing I may be doing is revealing wincons and sample role PMs.

Another thing I feel like I should note is that I have tried to word everything in a neutral manner which means the above template can be used by whoever may want to, and is not affected by the number of hosts either (I actually went back there and reworded the parts I had to be changing between "I" and "We" all the time as I almost always ended up forgetting something and editing it later).

Finally, you should just know that I'll be using that basic template in 99% of games I may host alone and you may see lots of parts of them in games I'll be co-hosting (although I will probably drop things like 24 hour days and 8-hour nights/hyper-majorities if they cause trouble to my co-host(s)' schedule).

And I think this mass of words is over, for now. There, posted. I was thinking of doing it after MSW but I think the timing is better now that TWR Season '16 (which seemed to have way way more loopholes) is over :)
 
2. is based on my idea that with all the promising games in the Queue, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some games with shorter phases so we can get through them more quickly. The whole thing about things locking at :00 has been brought up a long while ago and universally accepted, it is extremely anti-mafia to not have something like this in place.

This might be alienating to say, but I think that games should start as 48 hours in every first Day Phase, and depending on the activity and posts in the first Day Phase, it is either kept or lessened to 24 hours in the next Day Phase. There could be some quota of quality posts to fill, and even though there would be some shitposts there and there, it doesn't need to be that strict. Honestly I think it could be really hard to implement, like, what if a game heats up with lots of posts in a 24 hour Day Phase? Do you announce a phase extension? What if the subjective decision of the host to shorten the phase, or even extend it isn't agreed about with the players?
 
This might be alienating to say, but I think that games should start as 48 hours in every first Day Phase, and depending on the activity and posts in the first Day Phase, it is either kept or lessened to 24 hours in the next Day Phase. There could be some quota of quality posts to fill, and even though there would be some shitposts there and there, it doesn't need to be that strict. Honestly I think it could be really hard to implement, like, what if a game heats up with lots of posts in a 24 hour Day Phase? Do you announce a phase extension? What if the subjective decision of the host to shorten the phase, or even extend it isn't agreed about with the players?
48h Day 1 with all other Days being 24h is being used a lot too. The point is that there is not much info and that D1 is the Day phase with the most players alive. I believe that basing the length of the rest of the game's day phases on D1 activity and a host's subjective decision isn't a good idea under any case.

Now, just to be clear, I wouldn't go with a 24-hour day for a bigger game, but then there are some Small Games that never really need 48h days, not even early on. There just isn't much to discuss.

Another thing I forgot in the above post; I was thinking of a "No Lynch doesn't exist" policy, with ties being resolved with an RNG lynch.
This is very important for some games which are balanced with that in mind (the standard 9er with just a Cop is designed to always get to LYLO and never get to MILO, but allowing No Lynch would mess that up).
 
48h Day 1 with all other Days being 24h is being used a lot too. The point is that there is not much info and that D1 is the Day phase with the most players alive. I believe that basing the length of the rest of the game's day phases on D1 activity and a host's subjective decision isn't a good idea under any case.

That's true, it really depends on how the Day starts.

Another thing I forgot in the above post; I was thinking of a "No Lynch doesn't exist" policy, with ties being resolved with an RNG lynch.
This is very important for some games which are balanced with that in mind (the standard 9er with just a Cop is designed to always get to LYLO and never get to MILO, but allowing No Lynch would mess that up).

agreed
 
11. No loophole abuse at all, please. You may ask the host(s) if a specific action you are unsure over would be considered a loophole in private and they may let it slide. However, obvious loopholes that are clearly outside the nature of the game abused without informing me beforehand may be faced with a zero-tolerance policy.
This should be a standard War Room rule.

Don't look for loopholes in the rules, peeps!
 
Alright, this is a post I feel like I should've made a while ago, but here we go. Introducing the Standard "Zexy Rules" :)

1. Forum Rules and War Room Rules apply.
2. Day phases will last 24 hours and Night phases will last 24 hours. <weekend phases may last 48 hours instead?> Votes and actions will be locked as soon as the deadline for each phase passes. Votes/actions at :00 count, those at :01 don't. If the host(s) are sure that they won't be able to update, they may extend the phase in question straight from the beginning.
3. Please be active. You may be subbed out at the host(s)' discretion. If no sub is available to take your place, you may be modkilled.
4. <which claims are/aren't allowed>. No quoting or screenshots of any conversation with the host. <note an exception for Spy results, but exact wording of actions shouldn't be allowed in my opinion> This includes exact wincon wording and posting fake data that supposedly comes from said sources.
5. If you change your username mid-game, please state your old and new ones in-thread and mention the host(s).
6. To vote, use the following format: "VOTE: <PLAYER>". To unvote, use "UNVOTE: <PLAYER>".
7. <whether outside chat is allowed or not>
8. Rules are subject to change. The host(s) will make sure to mention you if that happens.
9. Please, let's keep it civil. It is just a game.
10. Hyper-Majority rules are in place. This means that if, at any given time in a Day phase, at least 2/3 of the players alive are voting for the same person, the Day phase will end as soon as possible with that player lynched. Night phases may also end early if all night actions are sent and at least 8 hours have passed.
11. No loophole abuse at all, please. You may ask the host(s) if a specific action you are unsure over would be considered a loophole in private and they may let it slide. However, obvious loopholes that are clearly outside the nature of the game abused without informing me beforehand may be faced with a zero-tolerance policy.
12. The most important rule. Have fun!

So, you may ask, what is this about? It is a series of suggestions I would like to make on mafia hosting conduct (which is part of mafia philosophy). These are just suggestions based on my own personal opinion. Just something I bring to the table for discussion, a template on what game rules could be to achieve more clarity, less questions on technicalities and most importantly, less loopholes. Anyways, let me explain a bit more:

1. is obvious.
2. is based on my idea that with all the promising games in the Queue, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some games with shorter phases so we can get through them more quickly. The whole thing about things locking at :00 has been brought up a long while ago and universally accepted, it is extremely anti-mafia to not have something like this in place.
3. I believe is better than the occasional "please make X posts per phase or show activity in Y hours" rules, because I've seen that in practice, counting whether everyone has posted and how much is troublesome. Penalties for inactivity can also mess up the game, imagine an YLO situation where some townie gets +votes and scum get a free win by stacking their votes on said townie.
4. the thing with this one is that all conversations with the host, not just role PMs, should not be quoted. There have been situations of people clearing themselves by quoting their own night action submissions, and the loophole lies in that the quote has an arrow link to the conversation and thus wasn't fabricated in some mafia QT. For the record, I know of at least two communities that have resolved this; in MU, this kind of quoting is outright banned and in Feed The Beast, a user has actually made a suggestion post like this that's universally accepted and states that "quotes with arrow links" are a NO. (special mention to that person, Fred, who has given me the idea. Although he probably won't ever see this xD). There can also be loopholes in the night action wording (especially the investigative ones!) Discussing exact wincon wording can be troublesome too. And if Alex Kaz's case in TWR Season '16 has taught us anything, lying about these things but presenting them as quotes can be bad too. Note that spy results should be an exception to this.
5. and 6. should be obvious. 7. depends on the game. 8-9 too.
10. is just my suggestion in an attempt to make games shorter when the phases don't need to be long. Props to @Elieson; for thinking of this, I immediately liked the idea and am starting to embrace it in my own games now. There can still be some trouble with hyper-majority in cases where people have votes of altered count (ex. Alex Kaz being voteless) and the final 3 LYLO becomes an outright hammer with hyper-majority which may be bad sometimes. Still not as strict as the "votes in LYLO are locked" policy I've seen elsewhere. The point is that you should never ever vote lightly in LYLO anyway.
11. covers any more loopholes that may exist despite me trying to close almost everything I've seen before with all the above rules :)
12. is that witty final rule that should always be around to lighten up the mood :D

Anyways, this is just what I've come up with to minimize loopholes for the most part, to be honest, as they have ran rampant a bit too much lately. Another thing I may be doing is revealing wincons and sample role PMs.

Another thing I feel like I should note is that I have tried to word everything in a neutral manner which means the above template can be used by whoever may want to, and is not affected by the number of hosts either (I actually went back there and reworded the parts I had to be changing between "I" and "We" all the time as I almost always ended up forgetting something and editing it later).

Finally, you should just know that I'll be using that basic template in 99% of games I may host alone and you may see lots of parts of them in games I'll be co-hosting (although I will probably drop things like 24 hour days and 8-hour nights/hyper-majorities if they cause trouble to my co-host(s)' schedule).

And I think this mass of words is over, for now. There, posted. I was thinking of doing it after MSW but I think the timing is better now that TWR Season '16 (which seemed to have way way more loopholes) is over :)

I'd personally never allow users to copy/paste a message I send them, as a host (not RolePM, not Results, not anything, unless I specifically give them permission to otherwise and state so to them with a "Include that I said you may copy this" disclaimer).

@Rule 4: If you're gonna allow users to copy/paste their own RolePM posts, then as long as Mod-posted quotes are omitted, IMO it should be ok. You can bullshit anything you want, even in a quoted message. I'd say leave that open to interpretation, because users should be aware that they're simply quoting a message that they "say" they "sent".

Quoting received messages through Spy/Courier should be allowed, as long as the "Quoted From" is omited. If it's included, hell I'd just punish the player right on the spot. Add this in as a "theoretical" 4.a: disclaimer.

@Rule 7: HyperMajority is fine with me (you know my stance on it). I'd approve Final LYLO (2:1 or 2:0:1) being fine with a Hammer, as people don't toss around votes willynilly in this scenario (and if they do, they're not being smart). Usually, Vote-modified roles (Voteless, Mayor/Doublevoter, Hated, Loved, etc) have their modifier removed in cases of MILO/LILO to promote fairness, depending on the game size and setup. This is an alternative to include in game design that I highly suggest all users at least be aware of, before going too far.

This should be a standard War Room rule.

Don't look for loopholes in the rules, peeps!

Stop you!
 
I don't like voteless alone either, but I think that it could be use to help out balancing other roles to make some interesting combos.

For the original roster of SSB mafia, Zexy and I had Greninja as a Voteless 2x Ninja Vigilante Survivor. Voteless alone is bad, but adding it onto other roles such as this can help balance a bit.
 
I don't like voteless alone either, but I think that it could be use to help out balancing other roles to make some interesting combos.

For the original roster of SSB mafia, Zexy and I had Greninja as a Voteless 2x Ninja Vigilante Survivor. Voteless alone is bad, but adding it onto other roles such as this can help balance a bit.
Well, when most people say that they don't like voteless they think of a voteless-only townie.

Voteless indeps are a much different story. In indeps, voteless prevents them from messing up town/mafia with their lone vote at -YLO. It can also make the game a bit more challenging for them because their wincons are a bit easy. A Survivor that can't vote someone to save themselves and a Jester that cannot save themselves is a bit harder.
 
Hosting Little Town of Salem made me reconsider some parts of my mafia philosophy. While researching on how the automatic system of ToS works, I found some interesting bits:

Independent factions and pure independent: There are actually two major categories of "independents" based on wincons, understanding this and implementing it can really change the way some games are played: some independents, like Serial Killers, could be factions, just like the town and mafia, except the faction only has one member. All factions are by definition opposing one another. In which case the win condition for every faction can be

"You win when all other factions are eliminated while at least one member of your own faction is alive, and nothing can prevent this from happening."

The other kind of independents are truly independent, being able to achieve their wincon alongside any faction.
A case where this would make a difference is the Serial Killer. TWR Season '16 Mafia in particular comes to mind, as the game had both kinds of indeps; a Serial Killer and a Jester. The classic Serial Killer wincon is "kill everyone but yourself". But should that wincon be the best? I don't think so. The Serial Killer shouldn't have to kill a Jester who's stuck in the game to win. In Little Town of Salem, it definitely didn't work like that, and I think it's better that way, otherwise we just establish a double standard and make the lives of Serial Killers even harder. If town can just lynch mafia/SK to win, ignoring roles like Survivor/Lyncher/Jester still in the game, why should mafia/SK not do the same?

From this point onwards, I will try to make clear which independents are factions and which aren't, with all the wincons reflecting that as well.

A few more interesting things I picked up from Town of Salem that could apply to mafia as well:
1) Draw if no deaths happen for two consecutive days (I'd add "and nights"). There can be situations where two or more factions are waiting on another to make a move because whoever moves first has some disadvantage (the most simple scenario would be a plain game's MILO; town can No Lynch so that mafia kills a townie and brings it to LYLO where town's chances are better; but mafia can no-kill so that MILO, which benefits mafia more, stays up) This should not be decided out of "which faction gets bored of waiting first" but rather a system that would force a draw that forces a faction to move.
2) Resolving some stalemates as wins: ToS has a stalemate detector for Final 2 situations that may just hand the game to one of the two, basically the one who deserves to win more for reaching that point. For example, it prioritizes Arsonists to Serial Killers to Mafia to town killblockers. Although Night Immunity is also taken into acccount (more on this later). It also resolves all anti-town VS Bus Driver scenarios as anti-town wins, but that's because there is no self-targetting for killing roles in ToS; in regular mafia this is allowed and can thus be resolved through a WIFOM phase.
3) Night Immunity. The concept (which is similar to an infinite Bulletproof but can still be bypassed) is interesting, I agree that some of the roles like Arsonist/Serial Killer would have a hard time winning otherwise if they need to be afraid of getting killed every single night too. You might see similar concepts for independent factions in some of my later games too. You may also see roles like Serial Killer/Werewolf which basically don't just kill a role each night but also be a Granny/make their target a Granny, mass killings are fun after all :)

Finally, I'll try to rework (if not outright take away) the early night end rule. Upon re-thinking of it a bit because of Greek Mythology and ARC-V, it seems like it can be loopholed by a killing role as follows:
KILL: A
UNKILL: A
KILL: B
UNKILL: B
KILL: C
UNKILL: C

If any of the three kills would result in an endgame (while the other two wouldn't) and all the other roles have acted and 8 hours have passed, I'd have to process each kill at the time it was input and endgame a 33/66 situation against their favor into a 100/0 one. It has also been exploited by players who make sure their action input timing is a favorable one when it comes to phase updates in any way.
 
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