MOD NOTE 06/07/21: Content in this post is outdated and is not an accurate reflection of the current state of TBT Mafia. Please see the TBT General Thread 4.0.
Welcome to The Cellar! Use this thread as your first stop here to learn how to play Mafia, get information, or ask questions. Regular Mafia players are more than welcome to use this thread as a hub for discussion about past games and hosting as well.
You'll also find information on game types, hosting a game, and the guidelines you're expected to follow in order to hang out here.
Mafia is a game of the uninformed majority versus the informed minority. To elaborate, the game is divided into two teams: the Town and the Mafia. Mafia know who each other are, and can coordinate their actions privately. Town players on the other hand don't know anything other than their own role. To compensate, there are many more Town than Mafia. The objective of the game is for Town to eliminate by killing or "eliminating" all the Mafia before it is too late. The game is divided into repeating phases of Day and Night. Day revolves around voting for a player to be lynched. Night is reserved for the Mafia to make their kills and certain players to use their special abilities.
The Town's win condition is achieved through killing all the mafia through voting during the day. Everyone is given 1 vote, including the mafia. Whomever has the most votes during the day is eliminated, and out of the game forever. There is only one catch: The town members only know their own role, not anyone else's. So, the town needs to determine who to trust and who not to trust by reading into a player's motives.
The Mafia's win-condition is to survive until they equal or outnumber the town. This is achieved by killing players at night. The Mafia must also manipulate the town players into trusting them so that they avoid the elimination; they need to blend in with the crowd until they equal or outnumber the town players. The Mafia's kill per night ratio is (often) determined by the number of mafioso's divided by 2 rounded up.
This game requires a level of time commitment. You should try to put in at least 30 minutes daily of solid effort. As part of the commitment, Mafia requires a great deal of reading. Most people are quite poor at reading comprehension and playing Mafia is a great way to improve your reading ability, as well as your writing and ability to think and argue logically.
Game Types
We have 4 game types of Mafia at TBT: Official, Experimental, Newbie, and Just For Fun games. You can find information about each game type below. New players are recommend to start off by joining a Newbie game, however they are welcome to join in other games as well!
We ask that players confine themselves to only playing a maximum of 2 games at a time, and likewise encourage hosts to reject player signups if the player is already alive in 2 other games. (including Just For Fun games) This is for the sake of keeping inactivity from being an active problem in games. The more games you take on, the less attention you can give to each game. If you're not careful with keeping up with every game you're playing in, you could potentially harm the game for other people, so please be considerate when signing up for multiple games.
Official Series
Experimental Series
Newbie Series
Just for Fun Games
Hosting Guidelines
In order to create quality games for the entire community to enjoy, it is recommended that first time hosts seek out someone to co-host with them and balance their set-up. Hosting is a thankless task that can actually be very fun, but it requires you to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's easy for a first time host to think "the more unique roles I include, the more fun the game will be!" This kind of thought process is usually a recipe for an unbalanced and generally unfair game.
For this reason, you a required to read the guide below before you may begin to host a game. It includes valuable advice about how to create a vanilla game of mafia, as well as what is expected of you as the host. When you set-up your game for the first time, please make it clear that you have read the hosting guide below.
Note: The guide is mildly outdated from a time when balancing was a bit different. We don't always follow the KP formula anymore and some hosts may opt to close the thread during the night phases. It's best to seek out help from an experienced host if you're not sure.
Hosting Tips and Guidelines by KarlaKGB (Required Reading In Order to Host!)
Useful Links
Encyclopedia Maftannica: A useful compilation of general terminology we use during Mafia games.
TBT Mafia History Thread 2.0: A sporadically updated list of former TBT Mafia Games. Can be useful for reading into a certain player's meta, but given the site update several months ago it isn't as easy as it was before to do Meta analysis.
Quicktopic: An online chatroom website used by hosts. Often used as a chatroom for the Mafia.
TBT Mafia General Thread 3.0
Welcome to The Cellar! Use this thread as your first stop here to learn how to play Mafia, get information, or ask questions. Regular Mafia players are more than welcome to use this thread as a hub for discussion about past games and hosting as well.
You'll also find information on game types, hosting a game, and the guidelines you're expected to follow in order to hang out here.
Introduction to TBT Mafia - What is this and how do I play?
Mafia is a game of the uninformed majority versus the informed minority. To elaborate, the game is divided into two teams: the Town and the Mafia. Mafia know who each other are, and can coordinate their actions privately. Town players on the other hand don't know anything other than their own role. To compensate, there are many more Town than Mafia. The objective of the game is for Town to eliminate by killing or "eliminating" all the Mafia before it is too late. The game is divided into repeating phases of Day and Night. Day revolves around voting for a player to be lynched. Night is reserved for the Mafia to make their kills and certain players to use their special abilities.
The Town's win condition is achieved through killing all the mafia through voting during the day. Everyone is given 1 vote, including the mafia. Whomever has the most votes during the day is eliminated, and out of the game forever. There is only one catch: The town members only know their own role, not anyone else's. So, the town needs to determine who to trust and who not to trust by reading into a player's motives.
The Mafia's win-condition is to survive until they equal or outnumber the town. This is achieved by killing players at night. The Mafia must also manipulate the town players into trusting them so that they avoid the elimination; they need to blend in with the crowd until they equal or outnumber the town players. The Mafia's kill per night ratio is (often) determined by the number of mafioso's divided by 2 rounded up.
This game requires a level of time commitment. You should try to put in at least 30 minutes daily of solid effort. As part of the commitment, Mafia requires a great deal of reading. Most people are quite poor at reading comprehension and playing Mafia is a great way to improve your reading ability, as well as your writing and ability to think and argue logically.
Mafia is a game of the informed minority versus the uninformed majority. To elaborate, the game is divided into two teams: the Town and the Mafia. Mafia know who each other are, and can coordinate their actions privately. Town on the other hand don't know anything other than their own role. To compensate, there are many more Townies than Mafia.
At the beginning of the game, you are PM'd your role. The game is divided into repeating phases of Day and Night. Day will generally last 48 hours and revolve around voting for a player to be eliminated. Each player (including Mafia) get one vote, and players must figure out who the Mafia are, and convince others that they are correct. At the end of the day, the person with the most votes is eliminated, and their alignment and role are revealed.
Night is typically 24 hours long and is reserved for Mafia night kills and players with special abilities. Usually, players discuss the results of the lynch at night, and make plans for the next day. When night ends, everyone will be informed of who died during the night. The new day will begin, and discussions for the elimination begin anew.
Mafia is a game of logic, intuition, persuasiveness, reading ability, emotion, and will. In short, its a thinking man's game. There are many different ways to approach the game and every game is a very different experience. 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 to develop thick skin, improve your patience, and make yourself a stronger person mentally.
Be warned - Mafia requires a time commitment. This generally depends on the player, but at minimum 30 minutes a day of solid effort is required. As part of the time commitment, Mafia requires a great deal of reading. Most people are actually quite poor at reading comprehension and playing Mafia is a great way to improve your reading ability, as well as your writing and ability to think and argue logically.
At the beginning of the game, you are PM'd your role. The game is divided into repeating phases of Day and Night. Day will generally last 48 hours and revolve around voting for a player to be eliminated. Each player (including Mafia) get one vote, and players must figure out who the Mafia are, and convince others that they are correct. At the end of the day, the person with the most votes is eliminated, and their alignment and role are revealed.
Night is typically 24 hours long and is reserved for Mafia night kills and players with special abilities. Usually, players discuss the results of the lynch at night, and make plans for the next day. When night ends, everyone will be informed of who died during the night. The new day will begin, and discussions for the elimination begin anew.
Mafia is a game of logic, intuition, persuasiveness, reading ability, emotion, and will. In short, its a thinking man's game. There are many different ways to approach the game and every game is a very different experience. 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 to develop thick skin, improve your patience, and make yourself a stronger person mentally.
Be warned - Mafia requires a time commitment. This generally depends on the player, but at minimum 30 minutes a day of solid effort is required. As part of the time commitment, Mafia requires a great deal of reading. Most people are actually quite poor at reading comprehension and playing Mafia is a great way to improve your reading ability, as well as your writing and ability to think and argue logically.
Game Types
We have 4 game types of Mafia at TBT: Official, Experimental, Newbie, and Just For Fun games. You can find information about each game type below. New players are recommend to start off by joining a Newbie game, however they are welcome to join in other games as well!
We ask that players confine themselves to only playing a maximum of 2 games at a time, and likewise encourage hosts to reject player signups if the player is already alive in 2 other games. (including Just For Fun games) This is for the sake of keeping inactivity from being an active problem in games. The more games you take on, the less attention you can give to each game. If you're not careful with keeping up with every game you're playing in, you could potentially harm the game for other people, so please be considerate when signing up for multiple games.
Official Series
- Large games with experienced hosts and often complex roles/setups
- Game Size: >9-30 Players
- Must be an approved host or have an approved host balance your setup
- Up to Host and Playerlist discretion to reject someone via Wisdom of the Crowds
Experimental Series
- Game types that are potentially unbalanced/untested
- Game size: >9-30 Players
- Must be an approved host
- Up to Host and Playerlist discretion to reject someone via Wisdom of the Crowds
Newbie Series
- Beginner games for new players to get introduced to Mafia
- Players ideally should move onto other game types after playing up to 3 Nub games
- Game size: 7-20 Players
- Must be an approved host
- Ideally, Wisdom of the Crowds should not be in effect for Newbie games. An exception should be if the moderator feels a certain player should be barred from signups for any number of reasons.
Just for Fun Games
- Generally experimental ideas, or game designed for low player counts
- Game size: 3-15 Players
- Create a thread anytime (please use common courtesy however, it's rude to start a game when there's already 4 games ongoing)
- Approved host list does not apply, but common courtesy does.
- Wisdom of the Crowds generally shouldn't apply.
Hosting Guidelines
In order to create quality games for the entire community to enjoy, it is recommended that first time hosts seek out someone to co-host with them and balance their set-up. Hosting is a thankless task that can actually be very fun, but it requires you to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's easy for a first time host to think "the more unique roles I include, the more fun the game will be!" This kind of thought process is usually a recipe for an unbalanced and generally unfair game.
For this reason, you a required to read the guide below before you may begin to host a game. It includes valuable advice about how to create a vanilla game of mafia, as well as what is expected of you as the host. When you set-up your game for the first time, please make it clear that you have read the hosting guide below.
Note: The guide is mildly outdated from a time when balancing was a bit different. We don't always follow the KP formula anymore and some hosts may opt to close the thread during the night phases. It's best to seek out help from an experienced host if you're not sure.
Hosting Tips and Guidelines by KarlaKGB (Required Reading In Order to Host!)
1. Game size
This is a relatively easy choice to make, and really is up to you. The smaller the player count, the faster the game will go. As a general rule of thumb, Mini Mafia games should not exceed 20 players. As for normal Mafia, there's no real upper limit. I've played in 100 player games before and they worked, but that's a LOT of work and generally unadvisable. 35 is the upper limit I'm personally comfortable with. Larger games will also let you have more roles (and more variety), but you also run the risk of having more inactives.
2. Rules and Themes
So theme, or style refers to both a cosmetic and rule deviations from the norm. For example, TBT Mafia IV: Red Revolution had a historic Russian Revolution theme, but the general gameplay and roles were standard. TBT Mini Cell Mafia on the other hand maintained standard role names, but followed a drastically different playstyle. Games like Fire Emblem Kingmaker and Animal Crossing Mafia had both cosmetic themes and gameplay changes. Themes to consider are things like multiple Mafia families, hidden role counts etc...the main thing to keep in mind is keeping the setup balanced, as often you can't use the same formula and concepts as you would for a standard game.
3. Role Counts
This is probably the most difficult part - attaining good balance, because nobody wants to play a game to realise a week later that there's no way they feasibly could have won. As a general rule of thumb, aim for a ratio of 1 Mafia per every 5 players, and roughly 1.25 blue roles per 5 players. I also rank the common blue roles as Vigilante > Doctor > Detective in terms of how many there are. I also think it's equally acceptable to have more Doctors than Vigilantes.
The standard Town roles are Vanilla Townie, Detective, Doctor and Vigilante. Standard Mafia roles are Goons and the Godfather. When you add new roles to the game, you have to consider how they will interact with other new roles, as well as the standard roles.
If you know there will be a veteran host who won't be playing in your game, you can PM them and ask them to look at your setup and give feedback.
4. The Opening Post
This is the face of your Mafia game, and is the information centre. A nice tidy layout is recommended that is divided into distinct sections: Introduction, Rules, Playerlist and Roles. There is a general OP template that is used by most hosts, which keeps things nice and consistent.
While most hosts have a beautiful looking OP when they first put their game up, they often neglect it and don't keep it updated. This is bad as it's much easier to check the status of a game when you have links to the relevant Day/Night posts, and you can see which roles have flipped. Links to player profiles are useful (I prefer to link to filters, which I believe are even more useful to players).
5. Your role as a host
As the host, your job is to answer player questions and keep the game moving along by making the relevant Day/Night posts. Oh and enforcing the rules. Other than that, you should have a minimal thread presence. Nor should you attempt to influence a game (eg. by choosing night actions for inactive players, helping Mafia pick targets).
Players will attempt to get information out of you. Avoid discussing the game with players (I am guilty of this myself as I spend a lot of time in IRC, with the other players). Do not give them any information. They will try all sort of tricks to tease information out of you. Also, do not volunteer information unless explicitly asked for. This is more applicable to crazier setups as you get more interactions between roles, but it's up to the players to ask the right questions, not for you to deliver the result they expect.
If you are asked a question in private, reply privately as well. The only exception is if you think the question is so critical to the way the game will play out, that in the interests of fairness you need to inform everyone. This is largely down to your judgement, but it's rare that a situation like this will come up.
6. Big Don'ts
NEVER hand out the role list. To anyone. Everything leaks. The risk is not worth it.
DON'T rush the Day/Night posts. Double, triple check everything. The votelists. The actions. Make sure you resolve them correctly. Nothing will mess a game up more than killing the wrong player. As there's never a solution to these that will satisfy both parties, you're better off just avoiding this situation.
DON'T change the rules halfway through a game. This includes how certain roles behave. It's really annoying to deal with as a player. Taking the time to make sure you have a balanced setup before the game starts is the best way to avoid having to make big changes.
7. Final words
Hosting is generally a thankless task. You get people badgering you to put posts up. You get people questioning why certain things didn't happen as they expected. And god forbid you screw up. You WILL screw up at some point, if you host enough games. When that happens, take a step back, freeze the game if you have to, and think about the best way to resolve it. Consult other veterans who are not part of the game. Most ****ups are salvageable, so just remain calm and work through it. Every game is a learning experience for everyone, host(s) included. Have fun
This is a relatively easy choice to make, and really is up to you. The smaller the player count, the faster the game will go. As a general rule of thumb, Mini Mafia games should not exceed 20 players. As for normal Mafia, there's no real upper limit. I've played in 100 player games before and they worked, but that's a LOT of work and generally unadvisable. 35 is the upper limit I'm personally comfortable with. Larger games will also let you have more roles (and more variety), but you also run the risk of having more inactives.
2. Rules and Themes
So theme, or style refers to both a cosmetic and rule deviations from the norm. For example, TBT Mafia IV: Red Revolution had a historic Russian Revolution theme, but the general gameplay and roles were standard. TBT Mini Cell Mafia on the other hand maintained standard role names, but followed a drastically different playstyle. Games like Fire Emblem Kingmaker and Animal Crossing Mafia had both cosmetic themes and gameplay changes. Themes to consider are things like multiple Mafia families, hidden role counts etc...the main thing to keep in mind is keeping the setup balanced, as often you can't use the same formula and concepts as you would for a standard game.
3. Role Counts
This is probably the most difficult part - attaining good balance, because nobody wants to play a game to realise a week later that there's no way they feasibly could have won. As a general rule of thumb, aim for a ratio of 1 Mafia per every 5 players, and roughly 1.25 blue roles per 5 players. I also rank the common blue roles as Vigilante > Doctor > Detective in terms of how many there are. I also think it's equally acceptable to have more Doctors than Vigilantes.
The standard Town roles are Vanilla Townie, Detective, Doctor and Vigilante. Standard Mafia roles are Goons and the Godfather. When you add new roles to the game, you have to consider how they will interact with other new roles, as well as the standard roles.
If you know there will be a veteran host who won't be playing in your game, you can PM them and ask them to look at your setup and give feedback.
4. The Opening Post
This is the face of your Mafia game, and is the information centre. A nice tidy layout is recommended that is divided into distinct sections: Introduction, Rules, Playerlist and Roles. There is a general OP template that is used by most hosts, which keeps things nice and consistent.
While most hosts have a beautiful looking OP when they first put their game up, they often neglect it and don't keep it updated. This is bad as it's much easier to check the status of a game when you have links to the relevant Day/Night posts, and you can see which roles have flipped. Links to player profiles are useful (I prefer to link to filters, which I believe are even more useful to players).
5. Your role as a host
As the host, your job is to answer player questions and keep the game moving along by making the relevant Day/Night posts. Oh and enforcing the rules. Other than that, you should have a minimal thread presence. Nor should you attempt to influence a game (eg. by choosing night actions for inactive players, helping Mafia pick targets).
Players will attempt to get information out of you. Avoid discussing the game with players (I am guilty of this myself as I spend a lot of time in IRC, with the other players). Do not give them any information. They will try all sort of tricks to tease information out of you. Also, do not volunteer information unless explicitly asked for. This is more applicable to crazier setups as you get more interactions between roles, but it's up to the players to ask the right questions, not for you to deliver the result they expect.
If you are asked a question in private, reply privately as well. The only exception is if you think the question is so critical to the way the game will play out, that in the interests of fairness you need to inform everyone. This is largely down to your judgement, but it's rare that a situation like this will come up.
6. Big Don'ts
NEVER hand out the role list. To anyone. Everything leaks. The risk is not worth it.
DON'T rush the Day/Night posts. Double, triple check everything. The votelists. The actions. Make sure you resolve them correctly. Nothing will mess a game up more than killing the wrong player. As there's never a solution to these that will satisfy both parties, you're better off just avoiding this situation.
DON'T change the rules halfway through a game. This includes how certain roles behave. It's really annoying to deal with as a player. Taking the time to make sure you have a balanced setup before the game starts is the best way to avoid having to make big changes.
7. Final words
Hosting is generally a thankless task. You get people badgering you to put posts up. You get people questioning why certain things didn't happen as they expected. And god forbid you screw up. You WILL screw up at some point, if you host enough games. When that happens, take a step back, freeze the game if you have to, and think about the best way to resolve it. Consult other veterans who are not part of the game. Most ****ups are salvageable, so just remain calm and work through it. Every game is a learning experience for everyone, host(s) included. Have fun
Useful Links
Encyclopedia Maftannica: A useful compilation of general terminology we use during Mafia games.
TBT Mafia History Thread 2.0: A sporadically updated list of former TBT Mafia Games. Can be useful for reading into a certain player's meta, but given the site update several months ago it isn't as easy as it was before to do Meta analysis.
Quicktopic: An online chatroom website used by hosts. Often used as a chatroom for the Mafia.
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