Hello, denizens of GAF! This is the Official Thread of NeoGAF Mafia! It's a fun game which you can actually play in forums post-by-post, so we're welcoming people to sign up to our ninth season! Each “season,” we start a new batch of games, with a new batch of game-runners, and each game having a different set of roles and flavor. Currently, we're taking sign-ups for Season 9 - and we want you to take part! It's a fun game and a great way to meet new friends on GAF. We're extra friendly to new players.
- We are now taking sign-ups!
- New players will always get priority!
- If you're not sure what mafia is, read on!
Don’t feel like reading? Watch this.
--------------------------------
| Part 1 - the Basics |
--------------------------------
First and foremost: Mafia is really, really easy to learn. You can learn the rules by the game's first "turn" and be a pro by the end of your first game. New players are welcomed, and I hope you join myself and other GAF players after reading this. The vast majority of our players had their first mafia games here, too!
Mafia is a game of deduction and deception. Invented in 1986 as Ма́фия in the U.S.S.R. by Dmitry Davidoff, mafia is a party-game with a rather morbid turn. In mafia's most basic form, players are assigned by the game-runner to one of two alignments: the majority to the Town, and the minority to the Mafia (known as the Werewolves in some versions). If a player is assigned to the Town, they know only their own alignment. If a player is assigned to the Mafia, they know the alignments of the other players assigned to the Mafia too. The alignment of everyone else remains a mystery.
The game alternates between a Day Phase and a Night Phase. During the Day Phase, all living players discuss and vote on who will be lynched. When the majority vote for a player, that player is lynched and are dead and out of the game. The game then enters the Night Phase, where the Mafia discuss and choose a kill, informing the game-runner when they've done so. The game-runner then starts the next Day Phase and announces which player was killed.
Town wins by lynching all the Mafia. Mafia win when they are equal to or outnumber Town.
---------------------------------
| Part 2 - Additions |
---------------------------------
If you got through the above, you're ready to play mafia. Congratulations! However, mafia is an infinitely flexible game. The rule-set described above is the 'core' of mafia, and is the simplest it can be. However, most mafia is played with the introduction of new roles, alignments, and mechanics.
For example, most games have Town Power Roles, which have abilities aside from just voting. The most common Town Power Role is the Cop. This player counts as a Town Villager (the ordinary role) in almost every respect - they start the game not knowing the mafia, and win when there are no mafia left - but have an extra ability: each Night Phase, they can select one person to Investigate. The game-runner then tells them if the player they Investigated is Innocent (Town) or Guilty (Mafia). This is a powerful but intuitive role found in many games.
That's not all! There are protective roles, like the Doctor, who can select one player each Night Phase to be immune from kills for that night; third-party roles, like the Lyncher, who wins if they can lynch a specific target; mafia power roles, like the Godfather, who appears as Innocent when Investigated; and so on. The core rules themselves can even vary, with Nightless setups (a Day Phase is followed by another Day Phase) popular in the mafia community.
This is means you play to your tastes - a game can be batshit crazy with many bizarre roles, or it can be the simple basic game.
Here is an excellent primer to both playing mafia and the most common roles: http://cataldo.freeshell.org/mafia/mafiascum04.swf. Well worth reading!
----------------------------
| Part 3 - Flavor |
----------------------------
Mafia isn't just restricted to the basic setup! The game's theme is infinitely customizable. You may have wondered about the mention of Werewolves earlier - this is because the second most common version of the game simply calls the Mafia "the Werewolves". This theme extends to all the other roles - the Cop becomes the "Seer", and the Doctor the "Priestess".
This flavoring is also important to another part of mafia: the death scenes. When a player is killed during the Night Phase, the game-runner informs the other how they died, in full and gory detail. After all, how could we sleep at night without knowing that the player Sorian, with the Town-aligned role of Annoying Beanie-man, died at the hands of a sabotaged toaster that rendered his wounds unhealable even to the famed Elixer of Perrier? Don't be afraid to experiment!
Live mafia games are also occasionally hosted on our Discord server. See below for more information on how to join Gafia Discord.
Who’s in Charge Here?
I am RetroMG, and along with a team of moderators and gamerunners, we’ll be overseeing this season of NeoGAF mafia. Please feel free to reach out to me, or any of our other moderators (They will be listed below) with any questions. (Or just post in here. The community is very friendly.)
Signing up is simple. There's a (really short) sign-up form below; just post your sign-up in the thread and you'll be in! We have priority weighting based on how much you've played before, so if you're new, you're guaranteed a game. Don't worry if you miss sign-ups - you'll be added to the waiting list, which gives you priority next season. Some players also find they can't keep up and have to drop out, which means replacements are drawn from the waiting list, so you may still get to play this season!
Mafia Takes Time
Please be aware that NeoGAF Mafia is a significant time commitment. Ordinary games last about two months, although some special cases will be different (if so, this information will be in the games list). You will need to post at least once or twice a day for that time, although we understand if you have to miss a day every now and then. Please don't sign-up unless you can do this.
Outer Gafia
Playing in NeoGAF Mafia also requires an account at Outer Gafia. What is Outer Gafia? Well, in Mafia, some players are allowed to communicate outside of the regular game thread. (For example, the Mafia team is able to communicate privately from the rest of the players.) On NeoGAF itself, we have no way of locking other players out of these discussions, so we host them on a separate site called Outer Gafia, which is run by the community. Since any player may or may not be invited to a discussion on Outer Gafia during a game, ALL players are required to sign up on Outer Gafia.
Prior to signing up, we also ask that you read these player behavior guidelines.
SIGN UP FORM:
While we will do our best to ensure that you get your preferred game, we cannot guarantee it. Thank you for your understanding.
GAF Mafia has a gender pronoun policy. Because players have to refer to each other throughout the game and we don't want to misgender anyone, we'd like to know your preferred personal pronoun - be it he, she, they, ze or any other. Other players will refer to you by that pronoun, and this will be carefully enforced. We'd also like you to respect the other players by being careful to use their chosen personal pronoun too. You are free not to disclose your preferred pronoun, in which case other players will refer to you as they.
Most GAF games follow the same ruleset, and vary only in the number of players (approximately 18-27), the range of roles, and the flavor used. At this time, we will be running two games in order to begin the season. These games have been carefully reviewed to make sure they're balanced and fun. I'd guess we'll have enough players for at least 2 games, with a possibility of a third game if signups really take off. If you list a preferred option for which game you would like to play, we will try to get you into the game of your choice. We cannot guarantee this, however - but we'll do our best. If not, you'll still end up in a fun game, I promise!
Your time-zone doesn't matter that much, it's just so people know roughly when you're likely to post.
