Tips For Mafia Hosts

[Mekkah]

Tips for hosting a mafia game! Please post and discuss more in this thread as to further improve the quality of future games.

You need time, and lots of it. People like seeing timely updates as it keeps the game in a momentum. You also need the time to organize the game properly, to make everything easily readable.

That brings me to my next point: make spreadsheets to keep track of roles, items, actions and all that jazz.

Don't go overboard creating new things just for the sake of it. Old roles such as bodyguard are being used because they work well.

Know that a good portion of your roles will likely not make a significant contribution to your game, and some won't be used at all due to being killed or negated too early. Also, keep in mind they likely will not be used the way you intended them to be. Different people have different mindsets.

The above is why you should not rely on one role to stop another from being broken. A role is broken if it affects the game way too much. The game of mafia is, traditionally, one of a non-united majority versus one (or more) united minorities. An extremely powerful neutral throws off this balance. If you include neutrals in your game, you should make sure they are mostly working for their own goals, not just for the strongest party at any point of time.

You can upgrade or degrade roles in several ways by adding restrictions or secondary uses. For example, turning a role (killer) into an item (gun), you allow the item to be passed around among team members, but you also allow it to be stolen. Other nerfs include only enabling it on certain nights (such as odd/even), limited use (1-timers, for example), only on certain alliances or types, with delays, etc. Or you can make them stronger by allowing them to target Smogon users in an anonymous game, or have multiple targets, etcetera.

As a host, you must make sure not to give people information they are not supposed to know as to not ruin false claims and stuff. Make sure you know beforehand which part of a role (and interactions with other roles) are supposed to be hidden and which are supposed to be known.

You may want to rig roles so that teams are evenly seeded, rather than having all the veterans in one team.

 

[Yoshi King]

I think something all potential hosts need to watch out for are sundry players that will wreck their games. I hesitate to suggest this since it clearly singles out people, but I think having a blacklist of people who wreck mafia games stickied on this forum will keep people who have previously wrecked them out of the games, and serve as a warning to others not to fuck up and waste the time people put into this.

Also on team balance- this should be obvious, but don't rig the game in favour of one team by oversaturating it with people. (even if they're only villagers)

 

[Toothache]

Team balance is not necessarily about numbers, though. Villagers should have a clear majority at the start of the game, and of course a good variety of roles assigned to them, as well as villager roles to help make up the numbers, since one of the villager's main strengths is the ability to control the lynch.

On top of this, what information each side has gathered also proves a factor. Traditionally, the village are numerous but disorganised, unable to know 100% (beyond roles such as an inspector) whether anyone is truly on their side or is false-claiming.

As such, it is difficult to give a truly balanced side for the villagers. The mafia sides should be roughly equal in size, and of course, the combined total of mafia should not outnumber the villagers at the start of the game.

Assuming only 1 kill per side, and one lynch, the numbers of mafia should be roughly 40% of the village side. So for a game of 45 players, 10 mafia per side, and 25 villagers makes up a good example of numbers for each side. The mafias are usually organised very quickly, meaning the villagers are the last to organise generally, and of course, it is easier to mole the village than it is to mole a mafia.

Using 45 players as an example number, and with 1 kill per side and a lynch, a game could go down to as many as 15 game days, assuming one player was the last man standing. With optimum killing, the mafias can potentially outnumber the village on day 6 - the village having lost 12 of its members, and the mafia having 7 members each, making the vote 13 villagers vs 14 combined mafia. This is also assuming the mafia ally, if they dont the vote could not be controlled until even later. And this does not include neutrals, or the possibility of mafia crossfire.

So, even with a large majority of villagers, it is not the only factor to consider. With a balanced distribution of role types on each side, a village or mafia side should have roughly an even chance of winning. But then, mafia at its heart is a game of luck. Things can go very wrong and change completely if the village lose the inspector and bodyguard n1, for example.

 

[Jackal]

Neutrals are really the big thing here. People like to get extravagant with their neutrals when designing a game, because there are pretty much no restrictions and its the easiest way to show some creativity. Be warned though, too many neutrals or neutrals that need to 'just survive' is the worst thing you can do. Neutrals need to have a purpose OTHER than to fuck over the team with the least of his friends on it cause he doesnt have a specific goal he just needs to sit around and do nothing.

 

[Shiv]

Picking the right theme:

Picking a theme isn't nearly as easy as it sounds like. Generally, you don't just pick any random thing and make a mafia game out of it but rather find the appropriate theme for your game. I'd recommend using one of these two types of themes:

Open Theme: When I'm talking about an open theme, I'm talking about themes which don't have many restrictions. In these themes, it is easy to fake claim which makes the game much more interesting. They also leave the hosts a lot of room in role creation because you can pretty much create anything and find a character that fits the role. Examples of this would be Mafia Mafia and Apocalypse Mafia.

Closed, Large Theme: This sort of theme has its own charm. Its not easy to fake claim in these themes but the storyline can make it very interesting because it is completely based off an actual series. However, with these themes its best to pick something which has more than enough characters that you can use. You don't want to be in a situation where you're adding in characters mostly because you NEED to. Also, in this, flavour text for night/day posts is very important because at times the game itself may not be that interesting. Examples of this would be Zelda Mafia and DBZ Mafia.

Personally, I'd recommend going with the first one but the second one can have great results too (I have an idea for a theme in the second category myself which looks very promising). You have to make sure that your night/day posts and role pm's aren't dull with the second one though or the game tends to get very boring. Simpsons Mafia for example sort of went down those lines.

Co-Hosting:

A co-host is probably the most important thing to have. It does not matter how many games you've played or how good you think your game is. Its great to have someone to hear your ideas and give you critical comments on anything you create. Plus, you need someone there who can update days/nights when you can't.

I suggest you run the game as 50-50 endeavour. While creating the roles, its natural for one person to be more creative but the other should be able to help balance the game. At times, you let your own creations be more powerful than they should be mostly because you like it that way :)

While running the game, I suggest you take turns doing day and night or one or just try and do it together (me/hip took turns while me/brain generally did them together). If you do it together, one person can send out PM's while one can create the main post or however you wish. Of course, at times people may be busy so the co-host can handle it! (For example, both me and brain had to go away for like a week in between our game. The other person handled it in those periods and nobody felt a thing.)

Do not, trust me, do not have a semi-inactive co-host. Super Mafia had that and it ended up in a 2 week holdup while SD was away. It would probably have happened in DBZ Mafia too had thunda ever got busy with anything.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets:

This is probably your most important tool while hosting a game. All your info should be kept in a google spreadsheet, it makes things so much easier.

Also, its best to update night/day actions using them too. If you need an example spreadsheet for this, you can check out the Apocalypse Mafia Postgame. Brain really came up with great spreadsheets for that.

Also, make sure your game is complete before you start it. People generally forget stuff like Priorities which is actually a major component. Try and get EVERYTHING done before you start it.

I'll add in more stuff later if I think of something else but this should be good!

 

[Hipmonlee]

About balance..

The point of mafia games is the mafia try to hide among the villagers, while the villagers try to work out who they are. This hasnt really been happening. Or at least when it has been happening it hasnt had significant impact on the results of games.

At the moment, the mafia/wolfs are dominating games, and basically, they have no reason to include the village in their plans. The mafia have to work together to beat the village, and once they have started working together, it makes sense for them to continue it until the village is removed. A 50/50 shot at winning is better than one in three.

So yeah, games need to be more heavily weighted in favour of the village.

Also it would be good to think of ways of making it harder for the village to unite. I have some ideas that I will use in my next game, but it would be cool to see some people adding some new quirks to their games to deal with this issue..

I'll probably add to this a bit more in future. Maybe talk about neutrals a bit..

Have a nice day.

 

[Mekkah]

To expand on the mafia vs village issue, at the moment it is more like the village is generally a mafia that is twice as big as one mafia. With the anonymous system, it is easier to reunite the village, and easier to keep everyone isolated so that if a mafian tricks you into believing you are village, the consequences aren't big. A Hip said, a way to solve this is to make the village easier to infiltrate. Also making sure that their powers are balanced so that there's no need for the mafia to collaborate.

 

[eric the espeon]

I know I am new to this but I have been lurking a lot and have a suggestion.

Due to the complexity of role PMs in the more recent games it has been harder to fake them (especially for the less experienced players, like myself, those who don't know much about the theme or those who are just playing casually and can't be bothered to think up and write up a massive role PM.) this in turn seems to have made fewer people try to fake claim because the other person could easily ask for their role PM. Maybe one way to make fake claiming more easy and common and so help the Mafia infiltrate the village would be to cut down on the flavour and make the role PMs have simply what powers you have and the name? I know that flavour is nice but if its harming gameplay..

 

[West]

To expand on the mafia vs village issue, at the moment it is more like the village is generally a mafia that is twice as big as one mafia. With the anonymous system, it is easier to reunite the village, and easier to keep everyone isolated so that if a mafian tricks you into believing you are village, the consequences aren't big. A Hip said, a way to solve this is to make the village easier to infiltrate. Also making sure that their powers are balanced so that there's no need for the mafia to collaborate.

Tips to help mafioso to break the isolation:

• Giving the mafia safeclaims(a role name that is not in the game) and falseclaims(the role Pm for it if it would be)
• Toying around with Cops' sanities. (Making them paranoid, naïve, insane, etc)
• Death Millers, Millers, framers, Godfathers, bus drivers, etc.

 

[Thorns]

Messing with a cop's sanity isn't great, since we usually have 3 factions. Inspecting yourself to test your sanity isn't fun either. In larger games, paranoid cops and naïve cops could work.

EDIT: now that this thread has been stickies, I'd like to add some things in hope of people considering it.

Village
My games contained (but might not in the future!) these basic villager roles. Thanks to GreenPikachu who sent Avatar the PM that was forwarded to me.

Martyr
Hooker
Bodyguard
Inspector
Twins

You'll generally want 3 of these roles in your game at MINIMUM so the village have a fighting chance. Ways to balance an overpowered village include
1. If you include twins, make them ALWAYS turn into Serial Killers.
2. Make your hooker's priority lower than that of a killer's.
3. If a martyr targets an idling player, nothing happens.
4. Don't give out an entire role PM for inspectors (hide details like items or special win conditions, perhaps?)
5. Replace an inspector with a role name inspector.
6. Have a single mafia faction (like if you had two mafias of 4 have one mafia of 7)

Mafia
1. Split the mafia into groups.
2. Include another faction (I have not seen mafia v mafia v mafia v village done before).
3. Give the village a (limited) vigilante.
4. Include a sheriff.
5. Give mafia members conflicting win conditions (Itchy and Scratchy. This would only work in larger mafias I guess)
6. Give them no items (if included).

there's more but that's all I can think of for now. I'm still new to mafia, having hosted two small, similar games.

 

[West]

4. Don't give out an entire role PM for inspectors (hide details like items or special win conditions, perhaps?)

I believe normal Cops should only get a Guilty/Innocent result instead of learning everything. I'd save the role name for Role Cops and the flavor name for the Flavor Cop.