In the most recent mafia games to date, I’ve seen Town make the exact same flawed mistakes time and time again without any change whatsoever. So much so that these mistakes have led to the Mafia players taking advantage of them and leading to the Town’s ultimate demise. I wanted to address some of these nuisances I commonly see from townies no matter what degree of experience they may have.
1. Unhelpful Posts
One of the most common unhelpful posts I see is what’s often referred to by the poster as a “gut feeling”; this can better be translated as an Incomplete Thought. The “Gut Feeling” is often typed out in one of these forms:
The problem with the GF is that it’s an incomplete thought, aka not helpful to Town. When you’re making a read on someone, it’s best to read into said player’s posts and form an opinion of what their alignment might be. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a gigantic text wall of verbal vomit, but rather you can say what’s on your mind to try and get the Train of Thought moving for other town players as well. The Gut Feeling is also an issue because you yourself haven’t provided a clear pin point on why YOU think said player is town or mafia.
Here is an example of what is far more complete, helpful thought instead of a Gut Feeling.
Sweet, simple, and only took about 3 minutes to type out. There is no guarantee that the read would be correct, but you have successfully contributed an original thought to the table and will lead to further discussion.
2. Contributing Information
Being a Team Player: Ultimately, Mafia is a social game. You, as a Townie, are in the Uninformed Majority. You do not know anything for certain: which is why you need to play detective and put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The problem is that the minute you stop contributing discussion, you are not allowing your fellow teammates (The Townies and Blues) to learn anything about whether or not you’re innocent. This can lead to you potentially getting lynched, helping the Mafia win.
Without contributing anything to the game, you are basically leading to Town losing the game. If nobody steps up to the plate and starts trying to solve the puzzle, who is expected to solve it? One of the more experienced players? That won’t work, because eventually the Mafia will just kill the experienced players, leading to less voices that will figure out who the Mafia is.
You, as the Townie, have nothing to fear. You do not need to worry about looking suspicious, since you have nothing to hide. Nor do you need to be careful about what you say. Basically, you don’t need to filter your posts unlike the Mafia does. This doesn’t mean “post worthless content”, but rather you can do whatever the heck you feel like. So it begs the question; why aren’t you contributing?
Giving Value to your Posts: This ties into the “Gut Feeling” kind of posts in that while its important to share your thoughts with the Town, providing 1-Line posts with no substance is merely clogging the thread. It is important to take a step back before posting your thoughts and think: is this something that I feel would help my team and provide discussion?
Once again, compare the example posts above to get a taste of what I mean by this. You can say more with less, just make sure that you are providing quality posts over quantity.
Now. Giving value to your posts doesn’t mean you should try and force being helpful for the sake of being helpful. Genuinity goes a long way as a town player; contribute thoughts on other players that ping you as scummy. Which goes into my next point…
3. Recognizing Scum and Getting Them Lynched
I feel like it’s most important to say here that there isn’t a clear, definite way to find scum. As a matter of fact, I don’t often manage to pinpoint scum without using the reads fellow town players have contributed (hence the importance of contributing).
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a sheep, it’s just that my point of view is influenced by those I trust. You should still do your own analysis of players, but you should work with other towns players to develop bigger ideas.
That being said, whenever I’m scumhunting I often look for a post in the thread that feels, well, suspicious to me. Something that feels as though it isn’t of a protown mindset. Then, you begin to speculate; form theories as to why said player would come from their perspective, what do they hope to accomplish from their posts, etc. Get inside their head, look for patterns in their posts, and think logically about whether or not this player is scum.
Another way to scumhunt is to actively ask players questions and observe the responses. Poke and prod players on what their thoughts are, who they think is scummy, why they think they’re scummy, and form a basis off that. You can form a treehouse around them that you can destroy later in their own hypocrisy.
Alternatively, another method for finding scum which I often use is doing the inverse; figuring out who I trust and deducting scum through the process of elimination. Finding several players which you can trust are ultimately one of the best tools you can use as town, because now you’re making a team effort.
It’s also important to note that as the game progresses, your reads should adapt to whatever new information is gained. Always keep an open mind, because the minute you stop thinking about who the mafia might be, they slip under your nose. It’s the old saying of “trust no one, not even yourself” in game form. While Billy might be read as protown by everyone on Day 1, he could still easily be mafia and slide under the radar for the rest of the game using his political support. While this might sound contradictory to the point I made earlier, you do need to know your reads could very well be wrong. Doesn’t mean you can’t town read someone still, just that you need to be cautious.
You’re never going to be 100% certain that a player is scum, but you’re going to be aiming for the player that is most likely to be scum. A scummy player can actually be a Townie who had good intentions, while a Mafia player can look Townie while pushing a scum agenda. Give or take, it’s about finding out who is most likely to be mafia using what’s been provided.
4. Vote, Vote, Vote!!!
As a Townie, your vote is the most powerful weapon at your disposal. Town absolutely needs every vote possible to be able to catch the scum, because not every Town player is going to agree on who needs to be lynched.
This is where you come in! In order to best utilize your vote, you must analyze why you’re voting for someone before you actually go through with it. Before you vote, ask yourself the following: Who am I going to be voting for? What reason am I voting for them specifically? Where did they say something that made me suspect they are scummy? Why exactly are they scummy because of it?
If you answer all of these questions logically, then you will come to your own conclusion. If you think they’re scummy based on the reasons above, and you genuinely think based on their situation that they will flip scum, then vote for them. If you feel uncertain about the lynch, speak up about it and potentially suggest a better lynch. You might be correct, and you might be wrong.
5. Concluding thoughts
If anyone wants to contribute their own ideas to this thread, you’re free to. I just hope that this helps new players in getting started from here on out. This is by no means meant to be a concrete formula for playing as town, but rather act as a roadmap for how to get started.
Further reading:
This link contains plenty of articles on improving town play.
1. Unhelpful Posts
One of the most common unhelpful posts I see is what’s often referred to by the poster as a “gut feeling”; this can better be translated as an Incomplete Thought. The “Gut Feeling” is often typed out in one of these forms:
The problem with the GF is that it’s an incomplete thought, aka not helpful to Town. When you’re making a read on someone, it’s best to read into said player’s posts and form an opinion of what their alignment might be. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a gigantic text wall of verbal vomit, but rather you can say what’s on your mind to try and get the Train of Thought moving for other town players as well. The Gut Feeling is also an issue because you yourself haven’t provided a clear pin point on why YOU think said player is town or mafia.
Here is an example of what is far more complete, helpful thought instead of a Gut Feeling.
Sweet, simple, and only took about 3 minutes to type out. There is no guarantee that the read would be correct, but you have successfully contributed an original thought to the table and will lead to further discussion.
2. Contributing Information
Being a Team Player: Ultimately, Mafia is a social game. You, as a Townie, are in the Uninformed Majority. You do not know anything for certain: which is why you need to play detective and put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The problem is that the minute you stop contributing discussion, you are not allowing your fellow teammates (The Townies and Blues) to learn anything about whether or not you’re innocent. This can lead to you potentially getting lynched, helping the Mafia win.
Without contributing anything to the game, you are basically leading to Town losing the game. If nobody steps up to the plate and starts trying to solve the puzzle, who is expected to solve it? One of the more experienced players? That won’t work, because eventually the Mafia will just kill the experienced players, leading to less voices that will figure out who the Mafia is.
You, as the Townie, have nothing to fear. You do not need to worry about looking suspicious, since you have nothing to hide. Nor do you need to be careful about what you say. Basically, you don’t need to filter your posts unlike the Mafia does. This doesn’t mean “post worthless content”, but rather you can do whatever the heck you feel like. So it begs the question; why aren’t you contributing?
Giving Value to your Posts: This ties into the “Gut Feeling” kind of posts in that while its important to share your thoughts with the Town, providing 1-Line posts with no substance is merely clogging the thread. It is important to take a step back before posting your thoughts and think: is this something that I feel would help my team and provide discussion?
Once again, compare the example posts above to get a taste of what I mean by this. You can say more with less, just make sure that you are providing quality posts over quantity.
Now. Giving value to your posts doesn’t mean you should try and force being helpful for the sake of being helpful. Genuinity goes a long way as a town player; contribute thoughts on other players that ping you as scummy. Which goes into my next point…
3. Recognizing Scum and Getting Them Lynched
I feel like it’s most important to say here that there isn’t a clear, definite way to find scum. As a matter of fact, I don’t often manage to pinpoint scum without using the reads fellow town players have contributed (hence the importance of contributing).
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a sheep, it’s just that my point of view is influenced by those I trust. You should still do your own analysis of players, but you should work with other towns players to develop bigger ideas.
That being said, whenever I’m scumhunting I often look for a post in the thread that feels, well, suspicious to me. Something that feels as though it isn’t of a protown mindset. Then, you begin to speculate; form theories as to why said player would come from their perspective, what do they hope to accomplish from their posts, etc. Get inside their head, look for patterns in their posts, and think logically about whether or not this player is scum.
Another way to scumhunt is to actively ask players questions and observe the responses. Poke and prod players on what their thoughts are, who they think is scummy, why they think they’re scummy, and form a basis off that. You can form a treehouse around them that you can destroy later in their own hypocrisy.
Alternatively, another method for finding scum which I often use is doing the inverse; figuring out who I trust and deducting scum through the process of elimination. Finding several players which you can trust are ultimately one of the best tools you can use as town, because now you’re making a team effort.
It’s also important to note that as the game progresses, your reads should adapt to whatever new information is gained. Always keep an open mind, because the minute you stop thinking about who the mafia might be, they slip under your nose. It’s the old saying of “trust no one, not even yourself” in game form. While Billy might be read as protown by everyone on Day 1, he could still easily be mafia and slide under the radar for the rest of the game using his political support. While this might sound contradictory to the point I made earlier, you do need to know your reads could very well be wrong. Doesn’t mean you can’t town read someone still, just that you need to be cautious.
You’re never going to be 100% certain that a player is scum, but you’re going to be aiming for the player that is most likely to be scum. A scummy player can actually be a Townie who had good intentions, while a Mafia player can look Townie while pushing a scum agenda. Give or take, it’s about finding out who is most likely to be mafia using what’s been provided.
4. Vote, Vote, Vote!!!
As a Townie, your vote is the most powerful weapon at your disposal. Town absolutely needs every vote possible to be able to catch the scum, because not every Town player is going to agree on who needs to be lynched.
This is where you come in! In order to best utilize your vote, you must analyze why you’re voting for someone before you actually go through with it. Before you vote, ask yourself the following: Who am I going to be voting for? What reason am I voting for them specifically? Where did they say something that made me suspect they are scummy? Why exactly are they scummy because of it?
If you answer all of these questions logically, then you will come to your own conclusion. If you think they’re scummy based on the reasons above, and you genuinely think based on their situation that they will flip scum, then vote for them. If you feel uncertain about the lynch, speak up about it and potentially suggest a better lynch. You might be correct, and you might be wrong.
5. Concluding thoughts
If anyone wants to contribute their own ideas to this thread, you’re free to. I just hope that this helps new players in getting started from here on out. This is by no means meant to be a concrete formula for playing as town, but rather act as a roadmap for how to get started.
Further reading:
This link contains plenty of articles on improving town play.
Last edited:
