Kag Mafia II - A Fool's Venture: Town Victory

KAG Mafia II: A Fool's Venture
Spring is coming

"They call us fools for bringing joy and laughter. Slapstick, humor, comedy--we accept what philosophy has taught since ages past and never verge onto cruelty. It is those who maim and kill for joy and laughter that are the fools."
--Japer Qęczykal, Insider of the Court in response to allegations against the honest opinions of tyranny.​

Spoiler: What is this?!//Disclaimer

What you see here is a take on Forum Mafia in the KAG Forum-as requested and continued by a few members, brainstormed, and with source references taken from the Bay12 Games Forum, with complimentary notes from the KAG forum. As Forum Mafia differs from actual Mafia (in IRC/Webchat or Reality), this is a starter's take on how it would work in this kind of environment.

The game will take 9 players - their roles as town/mafia will be randomly chosen and the setup of roles is as below.

This material/source and format of this OP brought to you by Bay12 Mafia

*Game-Moderator note: Words in Italics or colors are used for 'flavor' or eye-candy. Those are just details used to spruce up the game.


Player List Fools "Fools" [9/9]:
- Apronymous
- Hella > Jailkeeper; Killed N3
- UnnamedPlayer
- Sir_Walter
- Stevedog
- Superblackcat
- norill
- Vampire
- Ej > Vanilla Mafioso; Lynched D3

Replacement Queue:
- Mazey
- GUNINANRUNIN

Spoiled Spectators Audience [0/?]:
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===+=++=+===​

Notes
If this is your first time playing, keep in mind that games of forum mafia take several weeks, and can sometimes run longer than a month, and that you are expected to be able to play continuously through that time. If you can't anticipate being able to play for that long for whatever reason, then maybe forum mafia isn't for you.

~~~
Gameplay and Concept

The game of mafia has a simple concept. A large group of players known as the town plays against a smaller group of players known as the mafia. In this setup, there are nine players, with seven town and two mafia.

Before the game begins, each players is given a role and an alignment by the moderator. There are two alignments in this setup: Town and Mafia. The town outnumber the mafia, but each individual member of the town does not know the alignment of any of the other members. The mafia know the alignment of everyone on their team and they can discuss the game privately in a special mafia chat. The mafia has access to a nightkill that they may use in the Night phase, while the town occasionally has roles with abilities that are used during the night.

Once everyone has a role, the game begins in the Day phase. During the Day phase, players may discuss the game and each player has a vote that they cast publicly to lynch a player. At the end of the day after some predetermined amount of time, the player with the most votes is lynched. Lynching does two things: it reveals a player's role and alignment, and it removes a player from the game. Once lynched, a player is no longer allowed to post in the thread.

Once the day ends, the game proceeds to Night. During the Night, discussion is prohibited. The mafia team picks a target to nightkill. If available, any town power roles use their actions as well. At the end of the night, the target the mafia chose to nightkill has their role and alignment revealed, and that player is removed from the game in a similar way to being lynched. Once the night ends, the game proceeds to another Day.

Both teams win by eliminating the other. However, due to the nature of the teams, they win very differently. The town win by finding and lynching the mafia, while the mafia win by avoiding being lynched and nightkilling.

Potential Roles

Vanilla Townie - A member of the town with no special abilities.
Vanilla Mafioso - A member of the mafia with no special abilities.
Cop (Town) - A cop may choose to inspect a single player during the night and learn that player's alignment.
Jailkeeper (Town) - A combination of a Roleblocker and a Doctor, a Jailkeeper both protects and blocks the target from acting during the night.
Role Cop (Mafia) - Much like the Town Cop counterpart, the Role Cop investigates a single other during the night to learn their role, instead of their alignment.

The only role that receives the success of their results in this setup is the Cop and Rolecop. All other roles are not informed if they were successful or not.

One of the following setups is used:
1. 1 Mafioso, 1 Mafia Role Cop, 5 Vanilla Townies, Sane Cop, Jailkeeper.
2. 1 Mafioso, 1 Mafia Role Cop, 6 Vanilla Townies, Sane Cop.
3. 1 Mafioso, 1 Mafia Role Cop, 6 Vanilla Townies, Jailkeeper.

*Note: All role PMs, unlike the first KAG Mafia, will be individually constructed per-person as to counter...copy-pasting your role 'to prove as town', to explain in brevity.

 

Rules

• Joining - All that is needed to indicate a player willing to play is a note of 'In' (bolded), or if interested but not able to play at the moment, they could enter as a 'replacement/willing to replace'.

• Voting - Votes are cast in red and should include the name of the targeted player (abbreviations are fine). Other colors may be ignored.
  - Tiruin
  - Vote Tiruin
  - Tir
• Are all acceptable ways to cast a vote if the target is clear or comprehensible enough.
  • If you want to remove your vote, you may put unvote in red text. You must explicitly state this. It is possible to put the name of the player you were voting afterwards, but it is not recommended as it can lead to confusion.
    
  • If the day ends with two or more people having the same number of votes, there will be no lynch (except in special circumstances regarding votes and abilities tied to votes--none of which exist in this setup)
    
  • It is also possible to vote for a no lynch, which in turn skips the Lynch-phase after every day and proceeds straight to the Night phase.
• Death - When you are dead, you are prohibited from posting in the thread. You may make a single 'bah' post after you die, however, it must not contain any game-related information. There will be a Quicktopic thread for the dead to chat over the game.
  
• PMs - PMs between players are prohibited. You may freely PM the moderator to ask game-related questions, however, what the moderator may reveal is limited.
  • Do not quote any direct correspondence with the moderator, including role PMs and rule-related queries.
• Edits - Editing posts is prohibited. Do not edit your post for any reason, even if your post comes out as a train-wreck of formatting, spelling, punctuation, and/or grammar. The preview button exists; use it.
  
• Replacements/Activity - If you find yourself unable to play, you may, and should, request a replacement. We may try to talk you out of it if it's for any other reason besides you not having enough time to play.
  • Prods may be requested for a player. If they have not posted in the thread within 24 hours, excluding weekends, they will be prodded.
    
  • If you stop playing altogether without notifying me, you will receive a warning after 48 hours, and a forced replace after 72 hours.
    
  • Please be active. The greatest killer of any game is poor activity.
• Day/Night Length - Days will last 72 hours, excluding weekends, or until all votes have been placed. Nights will last 24 hours, or until all night actions are received. Neither of these include weekends. In the possibility of extensions in play, a day will last at most, a week's time from day start.
  
• Extensions/Shortens - There are a total of Two extensions per game-day, with a mandatory 24-hour extension added whenever the Moderator announced a replacee coming into play (and in regular games, when day actions such as day-kills go off). A player may vote for an extension to increase the length of the day. It requires >33% of the current number of players to request an extension for an extension to be granted. A player may also vote for a shorten. It requires >50% of the current number of players for a shorten to be granted. Extensions increase day length by 48 hours, while shortens will immediately end the day as soon as possible. There is no limit to the number of extensions that may be granted with one exception. If an extension goes through and players do not make use of it there will be no more extensions on that day. If you request an extension USE IT!
  • Votes for extension/shorten are done in boldface. Extend, Extension, Extend it up yo, Shorten it out y'all are acceptable ways to vote for an extension/shorten.
    
  • Extensions/shortens can be opposed by declaring the opposite (1 shorten cancels 1 extend request and vice versa), or stating directly: opposition (Oppose Shorten/Extend, I oppose this notion!, My Oppose goes to this), and they count against the total number of votes for an extension/shorten. Extensions count as opposition to shortens and vice versa.
  • If the game is in a LYLO [Lynch or Lose] or MYLO [Mislynch or Lose] situation, there will be no formal deadline. >50% Players must vote to end the day, or votes must not change for 24-hours. Votes to end the day may, at the voter's option, be contingent on the lynching of the player being voted on, and will be considered null should a different player gain the majority vote.
• External Participation - While the game is ongoing, if you are not a player, an IC, or a mod, refrain from posting too much in the thread as it may disrupt players.
  • Play to win! There is no hopeless situation, so don't ever give up. And remember, be bold! You learn nothing and you gain nothing by holding back.
• Miscellaneous - Use of cryptographic hashing is not permitted. If you want to have hidden/obfuscated messages in your posts for later use, come up with them using your own wetware.
  • Unspoken Rules - As inferred, but needing to be stated: any talk in-mafia threads are bound to their related threads, only. No talk in any other method (other than the designed channels set by the moderator) such as IRC or so forth is permitted. Even banter of such is not allowed-as long as it is related to in-game discussion. Please refrain from doing so.

Resources and Guides

The Mafiascum wiki. Lots of theory, terminology, and game analysis.
An Interactive Flash tutorial by one of the Mafiascum.net people. Helpful visualization!

Spoiler: CEAs (Commonly Encountered Abbreviations) and Other Terminology

Alignment - Who you share a victory condition with. Town-aligned, Scum-aligned, or third party alignments.

Bandwagon - Multiple votes on a single person. Can be justified, or unjustified. Unjustified bandwagons are scummy. Joining bandwagons blindly or without reason is also scummy.

BM - Beginner's Mafia (Or, Bastard Mod, a Mafia game with a purposefully unreliable moderator, or misleading information)

Bus - (noun: the bus ; verb: bussing, throwing him/her under the bus) When a mafia member attacks another one in order to make themselves look like a loyal townie when his or her scumpartner gets lynched.

Cult - A group of players that share a win condition, know each other, and can communicate freely. They are generally a second type of scum, although rarely they can be town-aligned. Instead of a kill, they can recruit players into the cult. There is generally a cult leader, who is in charge of recruiting.

FoS - Finger of Suspicion, writing someone's name in blue signifies a great deal of suspicion. It's kind of like a fake-vote, or the threat of a vote. Good for getting attention.

FTD - Failure to Deliver. The act of promising to post more information at a later time, and then failing to do so. A very difficult action to justify as town, because it means you are either lazy or lying, it is therefore seen as a pretty solid scumtell.

IC - Inexperienced Challenged, players who are too experienced to justify playing in a Beginner's Mafia, and act as mentors/guides for the Town or the Scum.

Lurking - Purposefully not posting, so that you have few or no posts that can be analyzed. Generally a "good" strategy for scum. Lurking is different than simply being away or unavailable. A good way to tell if someone is lurking is to check their profile's last active time, and compare it to their last post.

LYLO - Lynch or Lose, a situation where Town only outnumbers Scum by a single person (e.g. 3 town vs. 2 scum). During LYLO, Town MUST lynch Scum or instantly lose.

Masons - A group of town-aligned players who know each other to be town-aligned. They can communicate with each other freely.

MYLO - Mislynch and Lose, a situation where Town outnumbers Scum by two people (4 town vs. 2 scum). During MYLO, if Town lynches Town, Scum will win after night-killing town, making it 2 town vs. 2 scum, which is an instant scum win.

NL - No Lynch, to choose to end the day without lynching anyone and see if any information is revealed in the night.

OMGUS - Oh My God U Suck, a vote on someone else simply because they voted or attacked you

PFP - Posting From Phone (or Profession), throwing up a short post to prove you aren't lurking, when you are too busy at the time to make a more complete post.

PL - Policy Lynch, lynching someone for reasons other than scumminess. Variants are Lynch All Lurkers, Lynch All Liars, etc. Also see: Org.

PPE - Pre-Post Edit, typically done when you go to either Preview or Post and notice that someone else has posted before you. PPE is shorthand for acknowledging the "Warning - You may wish to review your post" message.

RIA - Refuge in Audacity, acting really crazy or really scummy to make people think that you couldn't possibly be scum because of how crazy you are. This never works. Neither does sarcasm in general, really. If you want to be sarcastic, make it painfully obvious you are being sarcastic, with <sarcasm>fake sarcasm tags</sarcasm>. Even still, it's not a good idea, because Mafia is SERIOUS BUSINESS

Role - Also called Power Role, any special powers you have. Cops, doctors, roleblockers, and godfathers are examples of classic roles. Some roles are alignment-specific, some aren't, and some can be for any alignment.

Rolefishing - Any question or attempt to learn information about someone's role. Typically something done at the beginning of the game. Typically a scum move, because it is in scum's advantage to find and lynch powerful roles. Can be acceptable later in the game, or in special circumstances where it is beneficial for town to learn someone's role. The reason it is scummy is because the really powerful town roles want to stay hidden so they don't get lynched by scum, and bringing attention to them by rolefishing risks their secrecy.

RVS - Random Voting Stage, the early-early game, shortly after the game begins, where people randomly vote each other and ask each other different questions, trying to find any good reason to suspect someone.

Scum - Mafia, or someone who isn't aligned with the Town. The Informed Minority.

SK - Serial Killer, a third party role with a nightkill, and who is hostile to everyone.

Survivor - a third party role whose win condition requires that they be alive at the end of the game. Normal players can die and still win as long as their team as a whole wins, but a survivor must actually be alive at the end.

Third Party - an alignment that is independent of scum and town. Has a unique victory condition, and is typically a lone wolf type character.

Town - The anti-Scum. The uninformed majority.

Vanilla - Someone who doesn't have a power role. "Vanilla Town", "Vanilla Scum", etc.

WIFOM - Wine In Front Of Me, the circular reasoning that results from trying to determine the choices of an opponent who acted with full knowledge that his behavior would be subject to scrutiny.

WoT - Wall of Text; a really really long post. Sometimes unavoidable, but generally you should try to keep them to a minimum. Sometimes scum use them to seem more active then they are.

Massclaim - When everyone starts roleclaiming, or saying they are a power role.

Spoiler: A List of Common Scumtells

Scumtells are things that someone does or says that imply that they're scum. Usually the reasoning is that it's bad or not productive for townies to do it, so it can be hard to distinguish signs of being scum from signs of being a noob. This is one of the reasons scum almost always win beginner's mafia games.

Note that scumtells are very very subjective; there's no simple way to distinguish a scumtell from a noobtell from being justified and/or lazy. Whether a justified, non-scummy version of a scumtell should still be called by its normal name varies from person to person. (Someone might describe their voting of someone who voted them as "not an OMGUS," other would say it's "a justified OMGUS" for instance)

In any case, common scumtells include:

Bandwagoning: Voting for whoever has the most votes or seems most likely to be lynched, despite having poor/no reasons or not wanting them lynched previously. It implies that you don't care who gets lynched, you just want someone gone, which is generally the case for scum.

OMGUSing: Short for Oh My God You Suck, by the way. Voting or otherwise applying pressure to whoever's voting you. It implies that you're really concerned about being pressured/lynched and want them to stop, which is more a scum thing. A townie would, in theory, be more open to the notion that their fellow townie is attempting to scumhunt at them, and less concerned about being found out.

Defending/Chainsawing: Defending just means what it sounds like: saying things to defend another player's actions or words. Chainsawing or chainsaw defending means attacking someone who's attacking another player in an attempt to get them to stop. The idea in both instances is that townies don't know if their fellow players are innocent or not, and hence have no real reason to defend them from legitimate persecution. Scum, on the other hand, know they're on a team and so are prone to not wanting their buddies found out or pressured.

Lurking: Not posting. Especially suspicious in the case of Active Lurking, which is trying to look active while not actually doing anything (posting frequently but with no substance, for instance). The idea in either case is that townies actually care about finding scum, and so should be doing things. Scum don't care, they just want some random guy lynched so they can kill someone at night.

Trying Too Hard To Appear Townie: There's no official name for this one, but being too concerned about your image; specifically avoiding things that might be seen as scumtells. The idea is that scum are very concerned about being found out, and so want to act nonscummy. Townies know they're not scum, so they're less concerned about LOOKING nonscummy and more concerned about finding scum.

Passiveness: This is when a person refuses, simply hasn't or seems reluctant to take a stance, such as lynches. Scum will be concerned about their image, and thus don't want to be seen supporting a town lynch or an attack on a town.

Backtracking: When a person changes their stance on a subject after stating it, such as supporting a lynch and after doing so claiming that they didn't do it. This is very suspicious, and is often a sign of scum wanting to retreat their position so as to be able to save their face.

Lying: Well this should be obvious, right? It happens when someone fakeclaims (says they're a cop/doc, but is just town for example), fabricates evidence and stuff like that.

Rolefishing: Trying to find powerroles (cop and doc in vanilla Mafia), often via questioning.

Miscellaneous (per situation)
- Resigning yourself to being lynched.
- Saying something like "there's no way for me to avoid being lynched so I won't bother trying"
- Blackmailing the town, like "You can lynch me, but you'll be sorry when you see I was town all along!"
- Voting yourself for any reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

Spoiler

• People are accusing me of being scum! I'm about to get lynched! What do I do?
  The first and most important order of business is not to give up.
  One, two votes isn't much. Even if someone's got a bandwagon on you and people are writing walls of accusations, do not lose hope. You can still turn this around, no matter how bleak it appears. Fight them with your own arguments, and search for people you may think are scum, and try to turn the votes against them. About the worst thing you can do is give up, whether you are town or scum; you are harming the town by making it lose another member, distracting them from hunts for the true scum, and worsening your own game as well.
  The other players have nothing against you: it's just how the game goes. Even if you foul it up and people yell at you for it, once the game is over we're all friends.
  There are still people who give up, saying things like "You'll all be sorry when you find out I'm just town afterwards!" and "I'm not even going to try, there no way to stop this". Don't be that guy. Not only is it rather selfish, it will simply deepen your grave. You have to get out of it with real, meat-laden arguments, and these empty threats and remarks will only make you appear more scummy.
  
• Do I have to post so much? I can't be bothered.
  Yes, you do. You have to be an active player to scumhunt effectively, and with a lurking playerbase you might as well just hand it to the scum. There is always something to say; even if someone said what you wanted to, say it anyways in your own words. Always ask questions, always observe.
  This is a very demanding game. If you don't have enough time, then perhaps you should look elsewhere.
  
• How do I even tell if someone's scum anyways?
  This is, in fact, a difficult question. The game involves a lot of observation, and often it's more about intuition.
  You can often tell with the help of the List of Common Scumtells, provided below, but don't make the mistake of overusing it. Not every accusal against you is an OMGUS, and not all attempts at logic are WIFOM. If in doubt, always remember Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Don't take anything for granted.
  
• What's all this wine stuff that players keep talking about? Does Mafia cause alcoholism?
  They are likely referring to the concept of WIFOM. It's a name for the kind of circular reasoning that you'd find when scrutinising scum motives, and is described in the CEAs (Commonly Encountered Abbreviations) and Other Terminology. It goes like this:
  
  A: Why didn't our most active player get killed? It would be the scum's goal to kill the most active players to remove accusal, wouldn't it? The only conclusion is that [active player] is scum!
  
  B: Or is it? What if the scum wants to keep the most active player to draw suspicion on him? The scum could then head the attack on this player, thus pushing themselves into a position of trust amongst the town! I've got my eye on you, A!
  
  A: No, that isn't right! Clearly, they would stay in the background, and the people who go for the bait like me would be attacked by the scum, thus making themselves appear insightful! B, how dare you do this to me!
  
  B: Or perhaps the scum would be someone voting for a person that isn't the subject of a bandwagon, thus appearing both inconspicuous and independent! [lurker], you are scum!
  
  As you can see here, both A and B are making wild speculations on the motives of the scum. Their votes and eyes are all over the place, and nothing is really getting done. It distracts from real scumhunting, which is seeing people play and making observations from that, not speculating on how people would or would not play.

 

inb4 UnnamedPlayer

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 4, 2014, Original Post Date: Apr 4, 2014 ---

Apparently /color and /user are ntural enemies in the wild ca't nest together well. Just to be clear on that (without people having to quote me to see it) UnnamedPlayer[/user].

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 4, 2014 ---

And... I accidently put a [/user] on that out of habit.
Great.
*gives up*

 

Could someone educate me on how the formatting is done on this forum? I'm a bit lacking in knowledge on that. :)

Also, on conversations: Everything will be revealed aftergame, but in regard to how this forum uses PMs and such: Can others view a conversation when the link is posted?

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, but... yes?

No they cannot*.
*Unless they're forum staff**.
**Don't quote me on that.
If you started the conversation (or whoever did set the conversation to "Allow anyone in the conversation to invite others") than you can allow people to see the conversation by clicking "Invite more" (in the box showing all participants in the conveesation). Alternatively (and in my opinion, preferably (no having to look at signatures you're familiar with, no additional clutter in your inbox, available to everyone[/i ], et cetera) you could just quote every single post in each conversation and stick each set of quotes under a spoiler that say which player it's the conversation for.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 4, 2014, Original Post Date: Apr 4, 2014 ---

More bbcode fail... *froths at the mouth* damn this mobile device and edit prohibition!
*shakes a fist of furry*

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 4, 2014 ---

Actually, FBB seems to be online right now. He could probably answer a wider variety of question about this than I could, presumably more clearly too.

 

Thanks for that.

...@UnnamedPlayer: For posterity, THAT is why I advise using Quicktopic. :P

 

You messed up that @, but there <-- that should do it.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 4, 2014, Original Post Date: Apr 4, 2014 ---

Although now that I think of it, I already tagged him in my first post and he hasn't been online since then.
*facepalms*

 

^
*Apronymous likes this.*

 

In it for the long run

 

Also Quicktopic is unsearchable and unsee-able by any search engine. c:

Also thanks guys for that conversation thingy.

 

IN

 

Aye, countbme in

 

use bolding yo
also countbme?
I can only conclude you're on your phone.

 

Nice conclusion

 

While roles are still on the table, dibs on vanilla mafioso.

 

do we really need 2 Hellas? im not sure if we even need one
also in

 

If anything we need three Hella's.
Slap him on one more time.