An edited repost of http://www.belltreeforums.com/showt...ver-Town-Win&p=1913288&viewfull=1#post1913288
This is a general guide to how you should play, but everyone will develop and evolve their own playstyle. Nothing here is to be taken as gospel because of the nature of the game.
At the heart of it, Mafia is a game of lying. There is a group of people, some of them are lying and some are telling the truth. Your job is to figure out who is lying, and if you are doing the lying, to convince the rest of the group that you are telling the truth. In addition, Mafia is not for the faint-hearted or overly emotional. While not occurring every game, sometimes people can get into very heated arguments with one another. People can get very emotional playing Mafia, as it is a high-intensity endeavour. That being said, playing Mafia is an excellent way for developing thick skin, improving your patience, and making yourself a stronger person mentally.
Town
As Town, you must remember that your objective is to find and kill Mafia, not to find and worship confirmed Town players. Mafia are playing the stalling game, thus common heuristics of Mafia can be split into two broad categories:
Obviously this is not a definitive list, and many of these can also be done by poor town players who don't know what to say. However, they are good traits to pick out as starting points in your investigation. Rarely will mafia make a blatant slip up in a single post, but you will often find a sentence or post that stands out that is key to unraveling their motives. You also need to recognise which posts are important, as the contents of those posts will give you the best indication of their alignment. You don't necessarily look at what people are doing, but how they are doing it. That's why you should always go back and read someone's posts when you gain new information (such as a flip) in order to have better context.
Survival-wise, the ideal scenario is mafia get to sit back and watch town kill each other. In order to blend in, mafia need to feign interest in the town agenda. They'll pretend to be useful while contributing nothing. Methods that mafia employ to do this include rephrasing old arguments, posting random lists of people (town or scum), or recapping recent events. When a town is disinterested or inactive, mafia can simply lurk. In this scenario, you will likely find multiple scum hiding among the inactives while passively agreeing with the lynch or opposing it without any real attempt at stopping it (often throwing blame around after the mislynch). However, lurking is only one potential indicator, and doesn’t conclusively prove that a player is mafia. Remember though, that townies often go inactive too.
Indecision and an unwillingness to commit to a position are also key mafia traits because of their perceived need to keep their story straight and avoid self-contradictions. Naturally, if they don’t take any definite positions, they have nothing to defend or be consistent with in the future. Furthermore, mafia feel uncomfortable pointing out who they think is mafia, because they are always conscious of the fact that they cannot give an impartial answer (they KNOW who is innocent and who is guilty). Not accusing anyone also helps them avoid being thrust into the spotlight in the future. Look for people who are acting like politicians and trying too hard to keep their options open.
In terms of pushing their agenda, the mafia’s goal is to force enough town mistakes to ensure a win. This is generally accomplished by overloading the town with useless information and promoting an atmosphere of confusion, doubt, emotion, and a lack of transparency and direction. Try to look for players who are content to stir the pot while pooping in it at the same time.
So armed with the above information, you think you've found a mafia member. That's great, but how do you convince the rest of Town? For all they know, you're mafioso. That's why your first priority is to establish your own innocence.
It gives you a credible position from which to push your agenda.
It is hard to get people to listen to you if they suspect your motives. There are times where townies will ignore persuasive, logical evidence based on an (irrational) fear that you might be trying to trick them. Establishing your innocence allows you (and town) to focus on hunting the mafia instead of wasting time defending yourself.
It reduces the room in which mafia have to operate - they can't attack you without serious repercussions.
Very often, the mafia spreads doubt by exaggerating the importance of town mistakes. They will try to discredit people and destroy town confidence. By establishing your innocence, you deny mafia the chance to attack you.
It reduces the number of suspects for town.
This one's pretty obvious, but especially towards lategame where there are fewer players, the best way to find the mafia is by figuring out who isn't mafia. Every player who establishes their innocence gives the mafia less room to hide. The more people acting in obviously innocent ways, the more exposed the mafia become. Furthermore, if you can ensure that you won’t be the lynch target, you increase the town’s chances of lynching correctly and ensure that they don't get distracted debating your innocence.
To establish your innocence, remember the three things town benefits from - clarity, transparency, and direction. Don’t repeat points of what other people have said. Read the entire thread before posting, and don’t go back to old points unless you have something new to add to the discussion. Offer conclusions and clear opinions in your posts instead of rehashing existing information or being indecisive.
This is forum Mafia, so there is a permanent record of everything said. Everytime a player dies, their alignment is revealed. Go back and re-read all of their posts with this new information in mind. When you read, you need to get a general idea of the major events that are occuring in the thread. Identify the main players in these events. Who is pushing the big issues, and who is avoiding them. Look at which players are trying to direct the flow of the thread. Look at what a player is trying to achieve with their posts. However when examining motivations, don't fall into thinking that you are drawing evidence from the data when in fact you are making too many simplifications about certain behaviors. If there are multiple ways to explain someone’s behavior, consider all of them instead of jumping to the one that suggests that they are mafia.
Don't read too many posts in succession, your mind will go numb and you will lose focus. Especially if there's a lot of spam and fluff. Take a step back and look at the whole picture. Also when rereading, don't get caught up in the moment. A Mafia game is a dynamic continuously evolving discussion, not a novel.
Even if you are obviously innocent, you're useless if you appear confused and lost. If you speak without having a clear goal in mind, you impede the town and decrease everyone else’s productivity. This paralyses town analysis and decision-making and allows Mafia to hide in the chaos. Because of activity rules, people have an unnatural urge to post everything on their mind so as to not appear inactive. A game is hardly active if it's the same 6 people repeating themselves. You don’t have to be a super-active poster to prove your innocence or be useful to the town. Post with an agenda that is clear so people can see you are innocent. Avoid posting reflexively or impulsively. Your posts should flow naturally together while indicating that you are helping town.
When trying to find information, don’t ask questions hoping for a slip-up; ask questions intending to force the mafia to give up information. Before asking a question, you must have a realistic expectation of what the answer will be. Many people ask open-ended or direct questions that have zero chance of bringing out useful information. You must predict the answers to the questions before asking them in order to avoid pointless questions. When making your analysis on people's posts and behaviour, make sure it's drawn from facts and consider all possible explanations. Confirmation bias is dangerous and all players, good or bad, can be guilty of it. Just because someone makes stupid posts does not mean they are mafia. Oftentimes, the people who make the blatantly bad posts are not really mafia; they are just careless townies. Townies are frequently bored, while the mafia are not. On the other hand, townies usually aren’t afraid to post, while the mafia are. When you are considering whether a post was made by a mafia or a townie, make sure to consider the motivations behind the words.
On voting: Don't casually throw a vote around. Just like your posting, make sure your voting is also deliberate. Your vote should convincingly express your opinion and intimidate the mafia. Votes are not be something to be ignored. If you are not using a vote to express that player X is 100% Mafia, you should be using it to draw out information. You may be surprised how well votes force people to talk. Seeing how people react to your vote also gives you an indication of what bandwagons people are willing to jump on.
Generally, two types of lynching systems are used: majority lynch and plurality lynch. It is important to distinguish between the two as each system calls for different strategies from the town and the mafia. In a plurality lynch system, the player with the most votes is lynched, regardless of whether or not he had a majority of the votes. This system encourages people to vote according to their own reads and promotes polycentric discussion among multiple candidates. In contrast, in a majority lynch system, a player is only lynched when he obtains a majority of the total votes. This system promotes a focus on fewer targets and forces a consensus in order to lynch.
Similar to what I said before, there is a record of every day's voting. When someone flips, re-read the vote list to see who voted for them. If someone flips scum, look for fellow Mafia members that may have voted elsewhere to try to save their buddy, or have jumped on the bandwagon to look innocent.
What not to do: Refrain from insults, spam and one-liners. Avoid speculative posting. When pushing someone you suspect, don't argue with them. They are never going to agree with you, because nobody wants to be lynched. If it appears that your target is successfully convincing town not to vote for them, re-evaluate. Are you still confident in your case? What if you're wrong? If you're still convinced you're correct then you intimidate the target and convince town, not the other way around.
Don't repeat yourself unless your original point was spammed into oblivion. Don't try to say everything and reply to every point. Stick to the important points. If you are accused, argue your defence in a calm, logical and constructive way. It's not scummy to redirect attention to someone you suspect, because it keeps town discussion going. Don't go ALL CAPS RAGE and blaming other things such as inactives and making yourself look the victim.
If the die were in your favour, and you rolled a blue role, the general knee-jerk reaction is that you are too important to the town to risk being lynched or shot by the Mafia. This can cause people with blue roles to lurk and exhibit posts that suggest fear. This ironically makes it even easier for mafia to find you, as they just have to shoot into the list of lurkers. A good player with a blue role will appear exactly like he is a townie, though this is not easy to do. Regular townies should avoid directing blue roles, as it gives mafia information. Making detective or medic lists is generally unhelpful. Remember that Mafia can have access to Roleblockers who can interfere with blues.
This should be very obvious, but never roleclaim as a blue. It does nothing for town, and you've just stuck a very large "shoot me" sign on your back. If you are in a tough spot and are thinking about roleclaiming, stop and then think again. Do not roleclaim out of a panic just because you have a few votes for you. If you are truly town, you should be trying to argue your way out of a lynch, not needlessly giving up information on your role. Chances are, if you are truly that suspicious, your claim won’t be taken seriously anyway. If you are roleclaiming, why are you doing it? How does the town benefit from your claim? If there is no clear benefit to your claim, then don’t claim. Claiming you took a hit during the night is encouraged as mafia usually have that information already. Claiming you shot player X as a Vigilante, when you have no more bullets left is also good, especially if you hit a red, as you're giving information that Mafia can't punish.
Town power roles
Detective/Cop
Cops are very strong provided that the player can read the thread well and can breadcrumb their investigations. As cop, you should be investigating scummy players. You're looking for mafia, NOT trying to confirm innocents.
So let's say an innocent was just lynched. As a Detective, I would be checking the lynchwagon. Especially if it was one of those notorious "people just hopped on a wagon that was stupid" lynches. Check the person that led the wagon to the lynch. You get useful information out of this. You either find out if it was a scum-led lynch, or a clueless townie who should be avoided in the future.
Don't investigate ultra-scummy players that are certain to be lynched. Vigs are likely going to shoot them anyway. Also if Mafia have a Framer, and the scummy player is town, guess who's getting framed. Take this example case: Two trusted strong town players have been pushing for a lynch of X. Y makes a ridiculous cop claim flips the bandwagon over to Z. Z flips blue. Mafia have a framer. Now, if you were Mafia, would you frame Y, Y or maybe...Y? In this situation, checking Y would yield absolutely no information.
As a cop, never claim, unless town is in a really really bad spot. Even if you're about to be lynched, don't claim. Talk your way out of the lynch. Claiming is useless, because if you claim, and town let you off, you've all just taken a one-way trip to WIFOM town. Now town will talk a load of crap about whether or not Mafia will kill you, who should protect you...meanwhile Mafia have a roleblocker and you've just screwed yourself out of a night, someone else will die (hopefully not the medic) and the next day, you're still in WIFOM town. Just don't claim. Make sure you have breadcrumbed your investigations, so when you do flip blue, town at least can work with that. Only exception I guess is if you've found scum and are certain to be lynched.
Vigilante
Here are the targets you should shoot
Priority 0: Shoot scummy people. Some people think that you shouldn't shoot people that are certain to be lynched next day. Nonsense, shoot them so town can move on to a new set of suspects. Don't risk leaving it to the lynch, because anything can happen to turn a lynch around. You might not even be around the next night to shoot.
Priority 1: Shoot people that are talking nonsense. Activity doesn't make someone pro-town. You shoot people that are saying one thing but doing another. Shoot them Night 1 if the rules allow it. Along with this shoot players that will help untie clashing role claims, or clashing scenarios. If you're in a situation where the death of one player confirms something about another, shoot. This is one of the few times where it helps to take matters into your own hands.
Priority 2: Shoot lurkers as it establishes an awesome town meta. If people know other players will kill them for inactivity, and the threat of a modkill leads to a ban then they won't sign up. People that are defending themselves are much more likely to be valuable than people that don't. So shoot the people that lurk when called out all the time, and shoot the people that won't contribute after repeated prodding. They are USELESS to the town - kill them before it hits lylo where you have two people who have said nothing all game and you know nothing about.
Priority 3: Hold your shot if none of the above apply - wait until you have more information.
Again, avoid claim unless you have to. Either claim near LYLO and explain the past kills, or claim without shooting and then say you're going to shoot a super scummy player that night. Clearly, don't do this if there is a roleblocker or scum doctor. If you have no more shots left, then claim your hits. This will essentially make you confirmed town and dangerous for scum. If there is a serial killer in the game be EXTRA careful about claiming. They are usually 1-shot bulletproof they will be more than happy to let you kill people and avoid killing you as long as it ends up being a balance between Town and Scum. Also remember that SKs like to claim Vigilante too.
Veteran
Veteran is pretty easy to play - just play as standard outspoken town. You're there to soak up hits and make mafia waste shots. Sometimes if you overdo it, scum will realise and avoid hitting you, so compensate for that. If you get shot, claim it the next day. There will be a death missing and you should help town piece together where all the hits went.
Doctor
Again quite simple - protect people who are making sense and who you are getting strong town reads off. They are the ones most likely to be targeted. You shouldn't be claiming because it's very hard to prove yourself, especially in non-PM games.
Mafia
Mafia should read all of the above to see what to avoid doing.
At the start of the game, you possess the information advantage over Town. Don't give this up lightly, as information can come back to haunt you when Town start piecing things together. When you are about to reveal a piece of information (such as a role claim, hit claim, etc.), you should ask yourself how this claim benefits your agenda. If your claim casts suspicion on a player or doubt on a situation, while making you appear like you are trying to figure things out, then by all means claim. However, if you are not currently under heavy suspicion and your only answer is "it makes me look pro-town", it is probably not a good idea to reveal the information.
You may often see that townies who are generally accepted as "pro-town" early in the game can hold a disproportional influence over the town. You might think to yourself, "we need to prevent that from happening, or at least, become that person". While the first part of that statement is correct, the second is not. Although the temptation of appearing to be the most "pro-town" player may be great, you often cannot hold this status for long enough as mafia for it to truly benefit you. Town players who gain the "pro-town" status usually are able to hold onto it because their motives are consistent throughout the game. However, as a mafia, the longer the game goes, the harder it will be to keep your story straight, and the easier it will be for you to lose your status. In other words, "town credit" decays over the course of the game. Against a competent town, don’t expect that you can set yourself up for a free win by acting too pro-town early in the game. Many newer players will often erroneously overvalue town credit. In reality, town credit is very fickle and won't save you from a lynch.
In many games, the weakness of a Mafia team can be traced to the decision-making process with regard to defending teammates. When attacked, many Mafia will usually react on the fly without thinking things through. They may not be able to accurately judge how much support an accusation may get, and thus are not quick enough to decide what is the best course of action. This is a mistake you want to avoid. Before giving your opinion on one of your fellow Mafia members, assess the presented case. Do not mindlessly jump in and defend or waver over an indefensible accusation, as it may implicate you in a future lynch. On the other extreme, do not simply sit there and watch a teammate die if the case is weak. Generally, there are two things you can do to help ease the focus off your ally. You can either dismiss the case by attacking it head on (i.e., dismissing the accusations as fallacious), or distract the town (i.e., bring up another suspect). In keeping with the above advice, determine how strong the case against your ally actually is and plan accordingly. Sometimes, a combination of the two works best. If the case is weak, you can often get away with acknowledging it then quickly dismissing it while moving on to a different topic.
What if you're the one in the spotlight? There is never a concrete or easy way to avoid getting lynched. Nevertheless, be calm and logical when defending yourself against accusations. Don’t immediately accuse your attacker for voting you. More often than not, a person will get lynched for overreacting to the accusations. Remember that you do not need to convince everyone (including your attacker) that you are innocent, just enough people to save yourself from being lynched. Small but vocal groups can be influential to turning lynches around. It is easy to think that you are doomed because the entire town is voting you off. While this may be the case, usually it is only a few people who are actively pushing the lynch. Gaining favor with a few influential players is usually a better strategy than attempting to persuade each individual voter, many of whom will be sheep who will follow the influential players.
You're Mafia and you need to kill, but you have limited KP every night. You should prioritise your kills in this order:
1. Posters that are making sense and are on the right track, or who town trust
2. Town members that are known to be dangerous analysts
3. Blue roles (especially cops and medics)
4. Confirmed townies (as in, Town members who actually proved their innocence)
Your first priority is to kill players who are on the right track. As mafia, you need to stall and keep the town in the dark. Just because a player may not be the town leader doesn’t mean their ideas cannot be influential. Kill players before they develop their reads fully, because then it will be too late. Do not take the unnecessary risk of thinking that "I can outargue this player". Your second priority is to focus on players who are traditionally strong town analysts. These players have a serious possibility of ruining your game if they end up being able to get their reads right as they will command automatic respect. Don't wait until they are correct in order to shoot them. Some of these players hide their reads until they come out with an ironclad case - in which case you are too late. Other players may be wrong initially, but will eventually piece things together and swing things against your favor if you leave them alone for too long. Shoot these players before they ever get to that point.
Your third priority is to kill dangerous blue roles. As the game goes on longer, cops tend to have a larger effect. Investigations become stronger when compared against all the other information in the thread, while remaining medics in a smaller pool of players makes a game-changing save more likely. Roleclaims also become more powerful and compelling when matched with good gameplay. If you choose to ignore the blue roles, they will eventually come back to haunt you. Thus, when there are no bigger kill priorities, you should attempt to shoot blue roles, as this not only reduces the threat of late game blue roles, but demoralises the town. Hunting for blue roles is somewhat complex and I won't post about it right now, but in general, a newbie blue mistake is to hide and express fear of becoming a high profile target. Blue players are ones who are not really aggressive in the thread, but still try to contribute to the town without sticking their neck out. Also, blue players often have a habit of talking about and discussing the rules pertaining to their role. Lastly, it is important to kill off confirmed town players. Especially as the endgame approaches, live confirmed townies are a headache because you know you won’t be able to get them lynched. Unless they are unwittingly sabotaging the town by having a bunch of followers blindly following their incorrect reads, keeping these players alive isn’t going to do you much good. You want to go into the endgame with a bunch of lurkers whom nobody knows anything about.
So how should you post as Mafia? Similarly to town, every post should have a purpose, but a different purpose of course. You want to keep the town confused while avoiding responsibility for it. When deciding how and what to post, you need to consider how the town is doing and react accordingly. Is the town being dominated by aggressive players, active posters, thoughtful posters, or inquisitive posters? Are the players generally cooperating on figuring things out, or is there a lot of tension and drama in the thread? The more things go the town’s way, the more important it is to intervene and cloud the thread. When the town is allowed to focus on one or two key topics at a time (without the same points being repeated over and over), then the town is in a strong place. Lack of doubt, inflammatory posting, and strong town leadership is incredibly dangerous.
To mess up a thread, you can incite known aggressive players to do the work for you. If you can get a player emotionally invested enough in one train of thought, they can likely cause the chaos you need without linking you directly to the bad atmosphere. If something goes wrong, the town will generally blame the most vocal and aggressive person, even if someone else was really behind the chaos. By letting other townies do the work for you, you allow them to take the fall when town realizes they were on the wrong track. Inflate unimportant matters such as whether or not to no lynch on the first day. That's a whole day wasted. When you see an important or dangerous post, try to crowd it out. Ignore it, post something else. And post misleading analysis. Push mislynches on suspicious townies if you can build a credible case against them.
Many times, Town is not destroyed by direct Mafia intervention, but by sheeping and a lack of critical thinking. When town tends to base their accusations off of flawed assumptions, punish them by feeding their conviction in their own misconceptions. Here are some examples of bad plays that you can take advantage of:
Lynching for information. Townies will frequently come up with reasoning such as "lynching X will give us the most information". While it is sometimes true that lynching a mafia will lead to more juicy information, lynching a townie almost always tells you nothing. Since mafia has nothing at stake when a townie is lynched (except when they had a teammate on the line as well), town cannot gather much information from a mislynch.
Meta speculation about game balance. In closed or semi-open setups, town often spends time arguing about how the host balanced the game, either in role balance, or player balance. More often than not, this discussion is just time wasted that could be used to hunt mafia and pressure people. Debating these things only disorganises the town and distracts them from achieving their overall goal.
Overthinking and conspiracy theories. When mafia let one of their own get lynched on purpose, this is called throwing your teammate under the bus, or 'bussing'. This tactic should rarely be employed, but players will often discuss it when debating lynch candidates. Simple explanations are often the most correct, but this is often forgotten. By playing on the town's fears and allowing them to run with these conspiracy theory-like ideas, you will often lead to wasted days and mislynches.
Inexperienced mafia teams often suffer from a lack of cohesion and planning. Though the team may have one or two active members, the rest often suffer from fear of posting. Because of a lack of communication between the mafia, they are stuck more in the mindset of individual survival, rather than looking at the bigger picture of how they can be working together to push their agenda. The first step in having a cohesive team is to appoint and listen to a head. While the mafia head doesn't need to approve every single post, they should be guiding the mafia with a broad strategic overview. How do you want the game to unfold? What happens if one of your members is attacked? Take note your team composition and your individual players' strengths. It is important to have at least one player who has a high profile and can keep the thread under control. Use this to gain political support in the thread. If you do not have enough high profile players in the thread, you risk being helpless against a lynch. Mafia have different needs in different situations. For example, there are some instances where strong, clear logic benefits the mafia (eg. when a mafioso is under attack, but the accusation is full of logical holes), and some instances where confusion, blind aggression, and a lack of clear logic is more beneficial instead (eg. when townies are likewise accused). Because these different situations require different types of players, it is good to have each of your members specialised for a certain role in order to maintain a consistent persona. Have some players play the logical role, while some players play the chaos-inducing role. That way, one player will not have to carry the burden of having to rebuff all the possible town attacks or be accused of playing inconsistently and toward a mafia goal.
This is a general guide to how you should play, but everyone will develop and evolve their own playstyle. Nothing here is to be taken as gospel because of the nature of the game.
At the heart of it, Mafia is a game of lying. There is a group of people, some of them are lying and some are telling the truth. Your job is to figure out who is lying, and if you are doing the lying, to convince the rest of the group that you are telling the truth. In addition, Mafia is not for the faint-hearted or overly emotional. While not occurring every game, sometimes people can get into very heated arguments with one another. People can get very emotional playing Mafia, as it is a high-intensity endeavour. That being said, playing Mafia is an excellent way for developing thick skin, improving your patience, and making yourself a stronger person mentally.
Town
As Town, you must remember that your objective is to find and kill Mafia, not to find and worship confirmed Town players. Mafia are playing the stalling game, thus common heuristics of Mafia can be split into two broad categories:
- Survival
- Hiding/Blending in
- Posting long but contentless posts
- Lurking
- Indecision
- Not wanting to point fingers
- Avoiding responsibility
- Apathy about who is lynched
- Pushing their agenda
- Promoting confusion
- Avoiding contributing new ideas (ie. rehashing old ideas to try and look useful)
- Making a big deal about nothing
- Cherrypicking town mistakes while ignoring contributions
Obviously this is not a definitive list, and many of these can also be done by poor town players who don't know what to say. However, they are good traits to pick out as starting points in your investigation. Rarely will mafia make a blatant slip up in a single post, but you will often find a sentence or post that stands out that is key to unraveling their motives. You also need to recognise which posts are important, as the contents of those posts will give you the best indication of their alignment. You don't necessarily look at what people are doing, but how they are doing it. That's why you should always go back and read someone's posts when you gain new information (such as a flip) in order to have better context.
Survival-wise, the ideal scenario is mafia get to sit back and watch town kill each other. In order to blend in, mafia need to feign interest in the town agenda. They'll pretend to be useful while contributing nothing. Methods that mafia employ to do this include rephrasing old arguments, posting random lists of people (town or scum), or recapping recent events. When a town is disinterested or inactive, mafia can simply lurk. In this scenario, you will likely find multiple scum hiding among the inactives while passively agreeing with the lynch or opposing it without any real attempt at stopping it (often throwing blame around after the mislynch). However, lurking is only one potential indicator, and doesn’t conclusively prove that a player is mafia. Remember though, that townies often go inactive too.
Indecision and an unwillingness to commit to a position are also key mafia traits because of their perceived need to keep their story straight and avoid self-contradictions. Naturally, if they don’t take any definite positions, they have nothing to defend or be consistent with in the future. Furthermore, mafia feel uncomfortable pointing out who they think is mafia, because they are always conscious of the fact that they cannot give an impartial answer (they KNOW who is innocent and who is guilty). Not accusing anyone also helps them avoid being thrust into the spotlight in the future. Look for people who are acting like politicians and trying too hard to keep their options open.
In terms of pushing their agenda, the mafia’s goal is to force enough town mistakes to ensure a win. This is generally accomplished by overloading the town with useless information and promoting an atmosphere of confusion, doubt, emotion, and a lack of transparency and direction. Try to look for players who are content to stir the pot while pooping in it at the same time.
So armed with the above information, you think you've found a mafia member. That's great, but how do you convince the rest of Town? For all they know, you're mafioso. That's why your first priority is to establish your own innocence.
It gives you a credible position from which to push your agenda.
It is hard to get people to listen to you if they suspect your motives. There are times where townies will ignore persuasive, logical evidence based on an (irrational) fear that you might be trying to trick them. Establishing your innocence allows you (and town) to focus on hunting the mafia instead of wasting time defending yourself.
It reduces the room in which mafia have to operate - they can't attack you without serious repercussions.
Very often, the mafia spreads doubt by exaggerating the importance of town mistakes. They will try to discredit people and destroy town confidence. By establishing your innocence, you deny mafia the chance to attack you.
It reduces the number of suspects for town.
This one's pretty obvious, but especially towards lategame where there are fewer players, the best way to find the mafia is by figuring out who isn't mafia. Every player who establishes their innocence gives the mafia less room to hide. The more people acting in obviously innocent ways, the more exposed the mafia become. Furthermore, if you can ensure that you won’t be the lynch target, you increase the town’s chances of lynching correctly and ensure that they don't get distracted debating your innocence.
To establish your innocence, remember the three things town benefits from - clarity, transparency, and direction. Don’t repeat points of what other people have said. Read the entire thread before posting, and don’t go back to old points unless you have something new to add to the discussion. Offer conclusions and clear opinions in your posts instead of rehashing existing information or being indecisive.
This is forum Mafia, so there is a permanent record of everything said. Everytime a player dies, their alignment is revealed. Go back and re-read all of their posts with this new information in mind. When you read, you need to get a general idea of the major events that are occuring in the thread. Identify the main players in these events. Who is pushing the big issues, and who is avoiding them. Look at which players are trying to direct the flow of the thread. Look at what a player is trying to achieve with their posts. However when examining motivations, don't fall into thinking that you are drawing evidence from the data when in fact you are making too many simplifications about certain behaviors. If there are multiple ways to explain someone’s behavior, consider all of them instead of jumping to the one that suggests that they are mafia.
Don't read too many posts in succession, your mind will go numb and you will lose focus. Especially if there's a lot of spam and fluff. Take a step back and look at the whole picture. Also when rereading, don't get caught up in the moment. A Mafia game is a dynamic continuously evolving discussion, not a novel.
Even if you are obviously innocent, you're useless if you appear confused and lost. If you speak without having a clear goal in mind, you impede the town and decrease everyone else’s productivity. This paralyses town analysis and decision-making and allows Mafia to hide in the chaos. Because of activity rules, people have an unnatural urge to post everything on their mind so as to not appear inactive. A game is hardly active if it's the same 6 people repeating themselves. You don’t have to be a super-active poster to prove your innocence or be useful to the town. Post with an agenda that is clear so people can see you are innocent. Avoid posting reflexively or impulsively. Your posts should flow naturally together while indicating that you are helping town.
When trying to find information, don’t ask questions hoping for a slip-up; ask questions intending to force the mafia to give up information. Before asking a question, you must have a realistic expectation of what the answer will be. Many people ask open-ended or direct questions that have zero chance of bringing out useful information. You must predict the answers to the questions before asking them in order to avoid pointless questions. When making your analysis on people's posts and behaviour, make sure it's drawn from facts and consider all possible explanations. Confirmation bias is dangerous and all players, good or bad, can be guilty of it. Just because someone makes stupid posts does not mean they are mafia. Oftentimes, the people who make the blatantly bad posts are not really mafia; they are just careless townies. Townies are frequently bored, while the mafia are not. On the other hand, townies usually aren’t afraid to post, while the mafia are. When you are considering whether a post was made by a mafia or a townie, make sure to consider the motivations behind the words.
On voting: Don't casually throw a vote around. Just like your posting, make sure your voting is also deliberate. Your vote should convincingly express your opinion and intimidate the mafia. Votes are not be something to be ignored. If you are not using a vote to express that player X is 100% Mafia, you should be using it to draw out information. You may be surprised how well votes force people to talk. Seeing how people react to your vote also gives you an indication of what bandwagons people are willing to jump on.
Generally, two types of lynching systems are used: majority lynch and plurality lynch. It is important to distinguish between the two as each system calls for different strategies from the town and the mafia. In a plurality lynch system, the player with the most votes is lynched, regardless of whether or not he had a majority of the votes. This system encourages people to vote according to their own reads and promotes polycentric discussion among multiple candidates. In contrast, in a majority lynch system, a player is only lynched when he obtains a majority of the total votes. This system promotes a focus on fewer targets and forces a consensus in order to lynch.
Similar to what I said before, there is a record of every day's voting. When someone flips, re-read the vote list to see who voted for them. If someone flips scum, look for fellow Mafia members that may have voted elsewhere to try to save their buddy, or have jumped on the bandwagon to look innocent.
What not to do: Refrain from insults, spam and one-liners. Avoid speculative posting. When pushing someone you suspect, don't argue with them. They are never going to agree with you, because nobody wants to be lynched. If it appears that your target is successfully convincing town not to vote for them, re-evaluate. Are you still confident in your case? What if you're wrong? If you're still convinced you're correct then you intimidate the target and convince town, not the other way around.
Don't repeat yourself unless your original point was spammed into oblivion. Don't try to say everything and reply to every point. Stick to the important points. If you are accused, argue your defence in a calm, logical and constructive way. It's not scummy to redirect attention to someone you suspect, because it keeps town discussion going. Don't go ALL CAPS RAGE and blaming other things such as inactives and making yourself look the victim.
If the die were in your favour, and you rolled a blue role, the general knee-jerk reaction is that you are too important to the town to risk being lynched or shot by the Mafia. This can cause people with blue roles to lurk and exhibit posts that suggest fear. This ironically makes it even easier for mafia to find you, as they just have to shoot into the list of lurkers. A good player with a blue role will appear exactly like he is a townie, though this is not easy to do. Regular townies should avoid directing blue roles, as it gives mafia information. Making detective or medic lists is generally unhelpful. Remember that Mafia can have access to Roleblockers who can interfere with blues.
This should be very obvious, but never roleclaim as a blue. It does nothing for town, and you've just stuck a very large "shoot me" sign on your back. If you are in a tough spot and are thinking about roleclaiming, stop and then think again. Do not roleclaim out of a panic just because you have a few votes for you. If you are truly town, you should be trying to argue your way out of a lynch, not needlessly giving up information on your role. Chances are, if you are truly that suspicious, your claim won’t be taken seriously anyway. If you are roleclaiming, why are you doing it? How does the town benefit from your claim? If there is no clear benefit to your claim, then don’t claim. Claiming you took a hit during the night is encouraged as mafia usually have that information already. Claiming you shot player X as a Vigilante, when you have no more bullets left is also good, especially if you hit a red, as you're giving information that Mafia can't punish.
Town power roles
Detective/Cop
Cops are very strong provided that the player can read the thread well and can breadcrumb their investigations. As cop, you should be investigating scummy players. You're looking for mafia, NOT trying to confirm innocents.
So let's say an innocent was just lynched. As a Detective, I would be checking the lynchwagon. Especially if it was one of those notorious "people just hopped on a wagon that was stupid" lynches. Check the person that led the wagon to the lynch. You get useful information out of this. You either find out if it was a scum-led lynch, or a clueless townie who should be avoided in the future.
Don't investigate ultra-scummy players that are certain to be lynched. Vigs are likely going to shoot them anyway. Also if Mafia have a Framer, and the scummy player is town, guess who's getting framed. Take this example case: Two trusted strong town players have been pushing for a lynch of X. Y makes a ridiculous cop claim flips the bandwagon over to Z. Z flips blue. Mafia have a framer. Now, if you were Mafia, would you frame Y, Y or maybe...Y? In this situation, checking Y would yield absolutely no information.
As a cop, never claim, unless town is in a really really bad spot. Even if you're about to be lynched, don't claim. Talk your way out of the lynch. Claiming is useless, because if you claim, and town let you off, you've all just taken a one-way trip to WIFOM town. Now town will talk a load of crap about whether or not Mafia will kill you, who should protect you...meanwhile Mafia have a roleblocker and you've just screwed yourself out of a night, someone else will die (hopefully not the medic) and the next day, you're still in WIFOM town. Just don't claim. Make sure you have breadcrumbed your investigations, so when you do flip blue, town at least can work with that. Only exception I guess is if you've found scum and are certain to be lynched.
Vigilante
Here are the targets you should shoot
Priority 0: Shoot scummy people. Some people think that you shouldn't shoot people that are certain to be lynched next day. Nonsense, shoot them so town can move on to a new set of suspects. Don't risk leaving it to the lynch, because anything can happen to turn a lynch around. You might not even be around the next night to shoot.
Priority 1: Shoot people that are talking nonsense. Activity doesn't make someone pro-town. You shoot people that are saying one thing but doing another. Shoot them Night 1 if the rules allow it. Along with this shoot players that will help untie clashing role claims, or clashing scenarios. If you're in a situation where the death of one player confirms something about another, shoot. This is one of the few times where it helps to take matters into your own hands.
Priority 2: Shoot lurkers as it establishes an awesome town meta. If people know other players will kill them for inactivity, and the threat of a modkill leads to a ban then they won't sign up. People that are defending themselves are much more likely to be valuable than people that don't. So shoot the people that lurk when called out all the time, and shoot the people that won't contribute after repeated prodding. They are USELESS to the town - kill them before it hits lylo where you have two people who have said nothing all game and you know nothing about.
Priority 3: Hold your shot if none of the above apply - wait until you have more information.
Again, avoid claim unless you have to. Either claim near LYLO and explain the past kills, or claim without shooting and then say you're going to shoot a super scummy player that night. Clearly, don't do this if there is a roleblocker or scum doctor. If you have no more shots left, then claim your hits. This will essentially make you confirmed town and dangerous for scum. If there is a serial killer in the game be EXTRA careful about claiming. They are usually 1-shot bulletproof they will be more than happy to let you kill people and avoid killing you as long as it ends up being a balance between Town and Scum. Also remember that SKs like to claim Vigilante too.
Veteran
Veteran is pretty easy to play - just play as standard outspoken town. You're there to soak up hits and make mafia waste shots. Sometimes if you overdo it, scum will realise and avoid hitting you, so compensate for that. If you get shot, claim it the next day. There will be a death missing and you should help town piece together where all the hits went.
Doctor
Again quite simple - protect people who are making sense and who you are getting strong town reads off. They are the ones most likely to be targeted. You shouldn't be claiming because it's very hard to prove yourself, especially in non-PM games.
Mafia
Mafia should read all of the above to see what to avoid doing.
At the start of the game, you possess the information advantage over Town. Don't give this up lightly, as information can come back to haunt you when Town start piecing things together. When you are about to reveal a piece of information (such as a role claim, hit claim, etc.), you should ask yourself how this claim benefits your agenda. If your claim casts suspicion on a player or doubt on a situation, while making you appear like you are trying to figure things out, then by all means claim. However, if you are not currently under heavy suspicion and your only answer is "it makes me look pro-town", it is probably not a good idea to reveal the information.
You may often see that townies who are generally accepted as "pro-town" early in the game can hold a disproportional influence over the town. You might think to yourself, "we need to prevent that from happening, or at least, become that person". While the first part of that statement is correct, the second is not. Although the temptation of appearing to be the most "pro-town" player may be great, you often cannot hold this status for long enough as mafia for it to truly benefit you. Town players who gain the "pro-town" status usually are able to hold onto it because their motives are consistent throughout the game. However, as a mafia, the longer the game goes, the harder it will be to keep your story straight, and the easier it will be for you to lose your status. In other words, "town credit" decays over the course of the game. Against a competent town, don’t expect that you can set yourself up for a free win by acting too pro-town early in the game. Many newer players will often erroneously overvalue town credit. In reality, town credit is very fickle and won't save you from a lynch.
In many games, the weakness of a Mafia team can be traced to the decision-making process with regard to defending teammates. When attacked, many Mafia will usually react on the fly without thinking things through. They may not be able to accurately judge how much support an accusation may get, and thus are not quick enough to decide what is the best course of action. This is a mistake you want to avoid. Before giving your opinion on one of your fellow Mafia members, assess the presented case. Do not mindlessly jump in and defend or waver over an indefensible accusation, as it may implicate you in a future lynch. On the other extreme, do not simply sit there and watch a teammate die if the case is weak. Generally, there are two things you can do to help ease the focus off your ally. You can either dismiss the case by attacking it head on (i.e., dismissing the accusations as fallacious), or distract the town (i.e., bring up another suspect). In keeping with the above advice, determine how strong the case against your ally actually is and plan accordingly. Sometimes, a combination of the two works best. If the case is weak, you can often get away with acknowledging it then quickly dismissing it while moving on to a different topic.
What if you're the one in the spotlight? There is never a concrete or easy way to avoid getting lynched. Nevertheless, be calm and logical when defending yourself against accusations. Don’t immediately accuse your attacker for voting you. More often than not, a person will get lynched for overreacting to the accusations. Remember that you do not need to convince everyone (including your attacker) that you are innocent, just enough people to save yourself from being lynched. Small but vocal groups can be influential to turning lynches around. It is easy to think that you are doomed because the entire town is voting you off. While this may be the case, usually it is only a few people who are actively pushing the lynch. Gaining favor with a few influential players is usually a better strategy than attempting to persuade each individual voter, many of whom will be sheep who will follow the influential players.
You're Mafia and you need to kill, but you have limited KP every night. You should prioritise your kills in this order:
1. Posters that are making sense and are on the right track, or who town trust
2. Town members that are known to be dangerous analysts
3. Blue roles (especially cops and medics)
4. Confirmed townies (as in, Town members who actually proved their innocence)
Your first priority is to kill players who are on the right track. As mafia, you need to stall and keep the town in the dark. Just because a player may not be the town leader doesn’t mean their ideas cannot be influential. Kill players before they develop their reads fully, because then it will be too late. Do not take the unnecessary risk of thinking that "I can outargue this player". Your second priority is to focus on players who are traditionally strong town analysts. These players have a serious possibility of ruining your game if they end up being able to get their reads right as they will command automatic respect. Don't wait until they are correct in order to shoot them. Some of these players hide their reads until they come out with an ironclad case - in which case you are too late. Other players may be wrong initially, but will eventually piece things together and swing things against your favor if you leave them alone for too long. Shoot these players before they ever get to that point.
Your third priority is to kill dangerous blue roles. As the game goes on longer, cops tend to have a larger effect. Investigations become stronger when compared against all the other information in the thread, while remaining medics in a smaller pool of players makes a game-changing save more likely. Roleclaims also become more powerful and compelling when matched with good gameplay. If you choose to ignore the blue roles, they will eventually come back to haunt you. Thus, when there are no bigger kill priorities, you should attempt to shoot blue roles, as this not only reduces the threat of late game blue roles, but demoralises the town. Hunting for blue roles is somewhat complex and I won't post about it right now, but in general, a newbie blue mistake is to hide and express fear of becoming a high profile target. Blue players are ones who are not really aggressive in the thread, but still try to contribute to the town without sticking their neck out. Also, blue players often have a habit of talking about and discussing the rules pertaining to their role. Lastly, it is important to kill off confirmed town players. Especially as the endgame approaches, live confirmed townies are a headache because you know you won’t be able to get them lynched. Unless they are unwittingly sabotaging the town by having a bunch of followers blindly following their incorrect reads, keeping these players alive isn’t going to do you much good. You want to go into the endgame with a bunch of lurkers whom nobody knows anything about.
So how should you post as Mafia? Similarly to town, every post should have a purpose, but a different purpose of course. You want to keep the town confused while avoiding responsibility for it. When deciding how and what to post, you need to consider how the town is doing and react accordingly. Is the town being dominated by aggressive players, active posters, thoughtful posters, or inquisitive posters? Are the players generally cooperating on figuring things out, or is there a lot of tension and drama in the thread? The more things go the town’s way, the more important it is to intervene and cloud the thread. When the town is allowed to focus on one or two key topics at a time (without the same points being repeated over and over), then the town is in a strong place. Lack of doubt, inflammatory posting, and strong town leadership is incredibly dangerous.
To mess up a thread, you can incite known aggressive players to do the work for you. If you can get a player emotionally invested enough in one train of thought, they can likely cause the chaos you need without linking you directly to the bad atmosphere. If something goes wrong, the town will generally blame the most vocal and aggressive person, even if someone else was really behind the chaos. By letting other townies do the work for you, you allow them to take the fall when town realizes they were on the wrong track. Inflate unimportant matters such as whether or not to no lynch on the first day. That's a whole day wasted. When you see an important or dangerous post, try to crowd it out. Ignore it, post something else. And post misleading analysis. Push mislynches on suspicious townies if you can build a credible case against them.
Many times, Town is not destroyed by direct Mafia intervention, but by sheeping and a lack of critical thinking. When town tends to base their accusations off of flawed assumptions, punish them by feeding their conviction in their own misconceptions. Here are some examples of bad plays that you can take advantage of:
Lynching for information. Townies will frequently come up with reasoning such as "lynching X will give us the most information". While it is sometimes true that lynching a mafia will lead to more juicy information, lynching a townie almost always tells you nothing. Since mafia has nothing at stake when a townie is lynched (except when they had a teammate on the line as well), town cannot gather much information from a mislynch.
Meta speculation about game balance. In closed or semi-open setups, town often spends time arguing about how the host balanced the game, either in role balance, or player balance. More often than not, this discussion is just time wasted that could be used to hunt mafia and pressure people. Debating these things only disorganises the town and distracts them from achieving their overall goal.
Overthinking and conspiracy theories. When mafia let one of their own get lynched on purpose, this is called throwing your teammate under the bus, or 'bussing'. This tactic should rarely be employed, but players will often discuss it when debating lynch candidates. Simple explanations are often the most correct, but this is often forgotten. By playing on the town's fears and allowing them to run with these conspiracy theory-like ideas, you will often lead to wasted days and mislynches.
Inexperienced mafia teams often suffer from a lack of cohesion and planning. Though the team may have one or two active members, the rest often suffer from fear of posting. Because of a lack of communication between the mafia, they are stuck more in the mindset of individual survival, rather than looking at the bigger picture of how they can be working together to push their agenda. The first step in having a cohesive team is to appoint and listen to a head. While the mafia head doesn't need to approve every single post, they should be guiding the mafia with a broad strategic overview. How do you want the game to unfold? What happens if one of your members is attacked? Take note your team composition and your individual players' strengths. It is important to have at least one player who has a high profile and can keep the thread under control. Use this to gain political support in the thread. If you do not have enough high profile players in the thread, you risk being helpless against a lynch. Mafia have different needs in different situations. For example, there are some instances where strong, clear logic benefits the mafia (eg. when a mafioso is under attack, but the accusation is full of logical holes), and some instances where confusion, blind aggression, and a lack of clear logic is more beneficial instead (eg. when townies are likewise accused). Because these different situations require different types of players, it is good to have each of your members specialised for a certain role in order to maintain a consistent persona. Have some players play the logical role, while some players play the chaos-inducing role. That way, one player will not have to carry the burden of having to rebuff all the possible town attacks or be accused of playing inconsistently and toward a mafia goal.
Last edited:
