If we start before next Friday (9 days), I can't really join in.

yebellz, sign up if you want.

@y2k: next Friday seems to be the tentative start date. Anything earlier would be very detrimental to me.

I am 100% behind a start date of next Friday.

actually, i don't think i'm able to make it. i think i'll watch this one.

INTERESTED IN MAFIA 2:
---------------------------------------------------
GM: captainmeme
1. President Eden
2. Chaqa
3. WardenDresden
4. VashtaNeurotic
5. Gtlblx
6. krellin
7.
8. uclabb
9. Slyguy
10. jmo
11. damian
12. y2kjbk
13. pjmansfield99
14. Socrates Dissatisfied
15.ghug
16. Gobbledygook
17. DoubleCapitals
18. Vallk
19. YJ
20. Diplomat33
21. TheMinisterOfWar

Can we throw it to monday?
And yeah ye, join!

Monday as in 5 days from now, or 12 days from now?

Not trying to be a jerk, but the game only takes a couple of weeks and it seems like we have more than enough interest for a game (and will again in a few weeks). It's not clear to me why we should wait two whole weeks unless the GM wants to wait until then.

Look, those of us who were in the first game know what a time commitment it is, and it's best to start on a Friday so the first day happens over a weekend (more time).

This Friday (tomorrow) is too soon.

Sorry, I have to sit this one out. It's really quite a large time commitment. Comparable to playing an intense full press game. I guess its like playing a public press 17-player world variant, in terms of scope.

I would like to share some thoughts, however:

1) Stay organized and civil. Make lists and digests of key facts (votes, deaths, revealed actions, claims, etc.). Managing and analyzing information is the key tool of the town. Don't be lazy, or you'll just be helping the mafia. Think and analyze this data! The downfall of the town in the first game was players in the endgame allowing themselves to be played by the words of the mafia, while being too lazy/ignorant to logically analyze the voting history.

2) Have everyone keep a public statement of who they find suspicious and who they feel is innocent. Some justification and/or expression of the confidence for each would also be helpful. Condense this info into a list. This may help guide the vote/promote discussion much better than a voting bloc. It also creates a record of people's thoughts that can be a source for analysis, and it gives a discreet avenue for the cop keep a record of his investigation results should he unexpectedly die.

3) The voting bloc can hurt the town as much as it helps it. If people are just blindly following a leader, then it's not very productive. Perhaps the most revealing consequence from the last game was when I broke from the bloc, precipitating the lynch efforts by abge against.

4) Get rid of lurkers and those who aren't participating. Whether they're mafia lying low or just townies that aren't actively contributing, they aren't helping the cause by not thinking and playing. Even if you don't have strong hunches, you can help out by organizing information, analyzing data, or just mediating civil discussion.

5) A outed cop is not much more valuable than any other strongly confirmed innocent. The cop should just be perpetually role blocked until he's either dead or the game is over, so his skill is nullified when revealed. It's probably best for the cop to never reveal (unless a force-win situation is possible), and just keep his suspect/innocent list up to date should he wind up dead.

GO TOWN

My advice:

talk on day one, make your accusations, maybe even vote to lynch a guy.

but in the end, dont lynch anybody. Lol

One thought: I think ties should be resolved with either a double lynch or a no-lynch.

So as a GM, I didn't see any issue with the tiebreaker resolution we had. My sole concern was that it would be too pro-mafia in a final-4 situation, but Vashta got the jump on abgemacht; he just couldn't convince anyone to join him. That's not the fault of the tiebreaker system, imo.

That said, I find mayor elections to be a great way to handle tiebreaking as well, and would recommend it for this game. I just didn't want to muddle up the first game with too many mechanics.

I wasn't in the first game, but I feel like the tiebreaker system that was in place is not the best idea, especially considering all of the reasonable alternatives people have proposed.

I do think tiebreaker due to timing is a bad idea. Firstposting is not a skill that should be relevant in Mafia IMO.
I don't think no-lynch for a tie vote is necessarily mafia friendly. It's just something that everyone has to keep in mind. In a final 4 situation, I assume being 1 mafia 3 town (if there are 2 mafia 2 town they won already), a no-lynch is definitely better than a mislynch. 1 mafia 3 town is a lynch or die situation, so town just has to realize that they can't split the vote or mafia will block them. It's hardly a disadvantage for town if they aren't stupid.

On the other hand, double lynch on tie is just ridiculous. This makes it so that town has the power to double lynch whenever they want with proper planning, which heavily favours town. If you want to incorporate multiple lynches every day, you have to balance accordingly and/or make it a special power role.

I was curious what people thought about those morning posts that people were making in case they got killed. It seemed wildly unfair to me- that's definitely not something one can do in face to face mafia.

I thought it was clever. Not sure I'd say it's unfair; I almost lost the game because of it.

It's kinda like webDip. Online you can talk during builds/retreats.

I'm saying that it was unfair in that it unduly helped the town.

Sorry, let me elaborate.

It almost lost me the game because I was an idiot and used it wrong, not because it gave the town an unfair advantage.

Now, I suppose with more thought, the town could use it very powerfully (for instance, the cop could use it to reveal his investigations without revealing himself if he's killed).

The problem is that it is logistically very hard to get people to stop talking during the night phase.

"I'm saying that it was unfair in that it unduly helped the town. "

THE TOWN LOST?!!?!?

If it does give some advantage to the town, it is offset by the fact that we don’t have facial expressions and voice to hear when questioning people. Text-based mafia is not the same as face-to-face, so if mechanics change, that’s not necessarily bad.

I don't agree. Maybe this is the case with poor mafia players, but it really isn't that hard to lie. The number one advantage for mafia is "local alliances," where you form coalitions with the players sitting next to you. There is no sense of adjacency online, so if anything the mafia is even weaker.

Even worse, online every vote and argument is recorded, so there is no hiding one's inconsistencies. Playing online clearly is at best a wash and likely favors the town.

You forget that the mafia can talk during night as well in the general game tread, and out their fake suspicions as well to mislead the town. Plus, the first game showed that players do not pay very much attention to such last words ... so I dont think it is an advantage for town. It is a difference to the face to face variant, but that difference can be used by mafia as well as town

uclabb, I assure you it is *far* easier to lie with text alone, when facial expressions and voice inflection do not come in to play. That's why the notion of, "Oh, I guess my sarcasm didn't carry over in the text" is so prevalent on the internet, and why "emoticons" were created to convey nuance to words where expression and tone of voice would otherwise be an important part of communication.

You are right, online everything is recorded, but you can still hide in the enormous amount f posts and information and spam. The volume is way too much to analyse everythng ... except if your days have more than 24 hours and you hove no RL ...

" Playing online clearly is at best a wash and likely favors the town. "

<sigh...> the town lost, you do realize that, right?

INTERESTED IN MAFIA 2:
---------------------------------------------------
GM: captainmeme
1. President Eden
2. Chaqa
3. WardenDresden
4. VashtaNeurotic
5. Gtlblx
6. krellin
7. uclabb
8. Slyguy
9. jmo
10. damian
11. y2kjbk
12. pjmansfield99
13. Socrates Dissatisfied
14. ghug
15. Gobbledygook
16. DoubleCapitals
17. Vallk
18. YJ
19. Diplomat33
20. TheMinisterOfWar


So, a couple of things:

Regarding the God Thread:

There will be one, but dead players and non-playing observers must PM me specifically requesting to be given access to it in order to be given the link. When a player dies, they'll be given a link to the standard observer thread by default, not the God one.

Any dead player or non-playing observer can PM me at any time asking for the God thread link.

In the standard observer thread, there will be a couple of rules to make sure people who have access to the God thread don't ruin it for everyone. I think these are fairly obvious, but I'll state them anyhow.

- No posting links to the God thread
- No spoilers if you know for certain an alive player's role (either by having read the God thread or being mafia/cop)


Regarding the tie-breaker:

First vote is not going to be the tie-breaker this time; I think I've made that clear. It will either be no lynch or a mayor - it depends on the number of other roles that are given out, as I do not want to over-complicate it by adding another if there are already plenty.

Regarding Night-Talking:

This will be allowed in the next game, just as it was in this one.

Regarding dead people talking:

This will not be allowed, nor will dead people +1'ing thread posts be allowed, as these can both influence the game. This time these rules will be enforced more than last game.

When people say "morning posts" they mean the ones right before night ends and the result is announced?

Nothing wrong with that.