Mad? I don't care really. I just think that the mafia games would be better if people didn't allow slackers to slack.

I don't really like large Mafia games--they take too long and fatigue sets in among the players after about 4 days--so I avoid them. I also like less complicated setups. Power roles minimize the importance of actual scum hunting. The sweet spot for me would be 13-15 players with 2 town power roles and 2 scum with 1 power role.

when are MXVI signups?

ND said tonight? likely this week

Depends on whether they are on a regular schedule or ghost ratings schedule

The *rules* should punish lurking so the players don't have to make an in-game choice between optimal play and optimal lurker-punishing. If a townie is even slightly more confident in scumreading an active player than a lurker, if scum thinks NKing an active townie is even slightly more helpful than NKing a lurker, are they really going to target the lurker for the sake of disincentivizing lurking across games?

Relying on players to punish lurking when they have much more immediate incentives is a good way to guarantee that it won't happen.

Lurker punishing is (usually) optimal play.

The minimum post rule is arbitrary, and as such, it's folly.

The vote requirement rule at least makes some sense in that it requires a decision by a participant.

The minimum post rule is designed to cut people out of the game who simply don't want to play or coerce those who genuinely don't have time to play to find a replacement. It's not designed to punish lurkers.

Right. If they don't want to play, they can not vote and be modkilled. It screws up the game for everyone else, and they'll be banned from playing in the next game (at least). Social pressure is the best solution. The "significant post" rule is too ambiguous.

Importantly, the guide document should briefly describe the time commitment involved so potential players are forewarned and have no excuses, emergency situations excepted.

The "significant post" rule is pretty plain. It means that if you post anything other than "##VOTE ___" in your post, it is a significant post. It is up to the players to decide what significant means to them, but for a GM, that is what it means.

I would propose a change to the voting rule, to remove "UNVOTE" as an option. Thus, players would need to put a vote up, and could later change to a different lynch candidate - but no option of unvoting.

Theres actually a mafia role called Paralyzer, where they can force the votes to be locked after entered. Or on EM there is a time limit and anyone can lock the votes by "kicking" our version of this is to just vote ##END but being unable to change votes would help mafia alot. especially at the end of the game in a 5 way.