The Mafia Discussion Thread

[TEOL]

The problem with lurking is that it requires no skill whatsoever. There's always *someone* posting who will be more suspicious than you, and getting the town to start lynching all lurkers instead of the active suspicious guy is an incredibly hard task.

I can speculate at all manner of things as to why the games drag: people relying too much on power roles, townies having this ridiculous notion that winning = surviving the game, people afraid to cast bandwagon votes, and so on. Eliminating lurking may help increase activity, but it's really just one problem out of many.

That said, I'm going to try a new strategy next game: every time I fail to get a lynch via deadline, I replace/modkill all players who haven't posted that day phase. I think a line needs to be drawn between lurking and complete inactivity, and that's the line I'm gonna draw.

Which doesn't solve the problem of people who post just to look active without contributing anything.

[Gongsun Zan]

...the town could lynch them?

[TEOL]

I'm talking people who go on at length about the state of the game, then either don't vote or vote for someone who has no suspicion on them and refuses to budge random townie being killed be damned. Neither of these qualifies as inactivity so much as just stubbornness, but they cause no lynches to happen just as much as lurking.

[Noah]

I remember in Mafiaville, how I was indy and had to be the last man standing to win but I still tried my best to be active.

Maybe I wasn't as active as say Cloudy but I tried to be a fair bit more active than I was in any game previously and tried to look like I was really trying to help the town.

[R.W.]

The day phase is the Town's weapon. If they choose to piss it away, the scum players should not be penalised.

A no lynch is rewarding the town's lack of decisiveness. Killing a random townie encourages the scum to deliberately sabotague activity in a game. It gives them an incentive to not be active.

And so if the Town use their day phase properly and are active, they'll either drive the scum into activity which could cause slip-ups, or notice the people who aren't being active.

[TEOL]

Yeah, I'm not sure what this argument against the 'kill a random townie' method is supposed to be.

'Killing random townies will make inactivity an obvious scumtell! How could that possibly be fair to the town?'

[Sousa]

Activity's going to drop off considerably for me for a couple of days while I try to fix my home computer and complete beaucoup d'tasks at work.

[Benjamin]

Lynch Sousa in every game!

[Sousa]

Nah, I'll probably be nightkilled in every game.

[Commander Sheepard]

The day phase is the Town's weapon. If they choose to piss it away, the scum players should not be penalised.

A no lynch is rewarding the town's lack of decisiveness. Killing a random townie encourages the scum to deliberately sabotague activity in a game. It gives them an incentive to not be active.

And so if the Town use their day phase properly and are active, they'll either drive the scum into activity which could cause slip-ups, or notice the people who aren't being active.

I tend to agree with this. Not to mention that if the same few people keep trying to stall the lynch vote, (hopefully) the town will notice this and go after those people, if for no other reason than to avoid a random death. Which really accomplishes what the end result of more town activity. Of course, sometimes no matter WHAT, the town may not ever get active, but that's just how people are.

[oldskool]

Whatever happened to 'Random Person Dies' in comparison to just 'Random Townie'. That way it forces the scum to post just as much as the town does.

Or just have the person with the least posts killed. If that wont inspire activity, I don't know what will.

If it's random player dies, the town has MORE reason to sit on their hands and do nothing because by & large they're going to lynch someone randomly anyway, so why put the effort out there & look bad if you lynch a townie (or if you fail at attempting to lynch somebody and then you look bad for trying to bandwagon someone) if you can do nothing & let an equally random someone get modkilled?

[Benjamin]

Does anybody else confuse Sheep and Pleatherface sometimes? Damn Eddie Guerrero banners

[Commander Sheepard]

TBH, I didn't even remember that I HAD an Eddie Guerrero banner until last night after I donated. I was looking around at my profile stuff and was like "Oh yeah, that's what my signature looks like".

[Sousa]

I can't tell anybody apart who has a dead wrestler in his sig. That goes for Bigsheep, Pleather, and Hailtothechimp.

Somebody want to make me an "RIP Jumpin' Joey Maggs" sig?

[Commander Sheepard]

Anybody wanna possibly replace LCS in Divine Comedy?

[D-Extreme]

Hmmm...count me interested. I hope you secured the PM I sent you earlier

[Gongsun Zan]

Anybody wanna possibly replace LCS in Divine Comedy?

Can I come back in just so I can get Norro lynched?

[Sir Alan LCSugar]

Yeah, replace me.

[Benjamin]

So, just in case, I'd like to know whether it's common to notify / hint at the person you're giving the cop / doctor / anything else role to that they're insane / paranoid / etc. If it is common, how much do you actually hint at the person?

Heck, I really want to ask, is it nessecessary?

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Definitely not necessary. Generally I don't hint at it, a knowledge of the canon would indicate that you're probably not the sharpest needle in the haystack.