I suggest adding the Cultists :)

I did confirm. I can confirm again.
/comfirm

Honestly, with this many players it's good to have a serial killer, or two maf teams to speed up the game. I personally like a serial killer more than two maf teams though.

Cultists change the game entirely.

I think we should try one without the SK at some point, and this is as good a time as any. I'm sure uclabb or PE has an essay prepared as to why, but basically it sucks.

Star-crossed lovers are an interesting idea. How would the turncoat work exactly?

I think turncoat works best like this. They can't participate in mafia discussions, the town must kill them to win (as they are like a mafua player), the show up as town on copscans and they know who the mafia are but the mafia doesn't know who they are. May need revision.

I like the star crossed lovers.

Please please please no sk. Mafia is a 2 team game, not a 3 team game

^!!!!!!¡!!!¡!

Official Entrants:
---------------------------
ghug: confirmed
bo_sox: confirmed
stupidfighter: confirmed
uclabb: confirmed to play as SK
tvrocks: confirmed
Vashta: confirmed
Mintyboy4: confirmed
Jeff Kuta: confirmed
y2k: confirmed
Maniac: confirmed
Yoyoyozo: confirmed
captainmeme: confirmed
Fluminator: confirmed
ALEXEXTREME: confirmed
thdfrance: confirmed
phil_a_s: waiting for confirmation
OB_Gyn_Kenobi: confirmed
Sandgoose: confirmed
pjmansfield: waiting for confirmation

Uclabb is the SK? What?

Who's ready for another SK for hire scenario?

It was a joke.

I think we'll have an "SK" type thing, but it will be different.

The problem with the SK is having a third "team," not the specifics of the rule

Role*

Eh, I liked the SK as a player and as a GM I like it. I don't think the game is restricted to 2 "teams". That's like arguing Diplomacy can only be played with 7 players, even on variants.

As a former Mafia administrator I can confirm that Mafia is most definitely not limited to 2 or even 3 teams.

Turncoats are a little different to how it was described here. They are villagers. They appear as villagers to themselves. Mafia do not know them. But if the Mafia try to kill them, they turn into a Goon/Plain Mafia instead of dying. They appear as Turncoat on Stalker Reports, but Copscans have them as townsided because they are townsided right up until they are "shot". After they turn into a Goon/Mafia, they are the same as any other Goon/Mafia.

I agree three team games aren't as fun. but SK isn't a team. I guess I can understand why players don't like the role, given that it's hard to win with.
However, with big games, it is usually a good idea to have more than 1 NK a night.

I generally dislike roles that have their win conditions potentially change midway through the game. Hence why cults are sort of awkward. Do you really want to hunt down the cult if you are likely to be recruited into them down the road?

I would have this discussion, but I've had it thousands of times before on the mafia site I used to run. It was the equivalent of "WTA vs PPSC" here. Absolute purists always preferred 2 teams only, but people who wanted to have fun were happy with more parties. I was usually in the latter.

Conversion Roles [Cultists, Yakuzas (mafia sided role which kills itself and simultaneously picks a player to convert to the Mafia) and Freemasons (townsided Cultists)] vs No Conversion Roles was another big argument.

my 2c (note that i am not able to play and thus the gm should feel free to disregard none, some, most or all of this as he sees fit)

mafia is not limited to 2 teams... but it should be IMO. the core dynamic of the game is numbers vs information (town vs mafia), and the tradeoff of one for the other as the game advances to its end state. adding the sk removes the information advantage from the mafia and thus distorts the core dynamic. it's worthy to note that the sk also decreases everyone's odds of victory in a balanced game, which IMO makes it a less fun role.

conversions are actually even worse IMO and it's to the point that if i ever find myself in a game with conversion roles, i give up on trying to win from the start. win conditions that change as the game goes along make it unbearably difficult to play to one's win condition in my experience.

with all that said i reiterate my disclaimer

I hate the idea of cultists as well. There isn't a real good strategy how to stop them unless you get lucky and kill the leader early.

Cultist games usually have roles like Shrink, and Freemasons, to balance them out. "Reverse Mafia" is how they're known.

I'll go back to observing this game to see if I could enjoy it in this format now though. My font of Mafia knowledge can stop derailing Chaqa's game :P.

I am in!

Official Entrants:
---------------------------
ghug: confirmed
bo_sox: confirmed
stupidfighter: confirmed
uclabb: confirmed
tvrocks: confirmed
Vashta: confirmed
Mintyboy4: confirmed
Jeff Kuta: confirmed
y2k: confirmed
Maniac: confirmed
Yoyoyozo: confirmed
captainmeme: confirmed
Fluminator: confirmed
ALEXEXTREME: confirmed
thdfrance: confirmed
phil_a_s: waiting for confirmation
OB_Gyn_Kenobi: confirmed
Sandgoose: confirmed
pjmansfield: waiting for confirmation
guak: confirmed

Wait...guak is playing. Oh guak, how I love thee, let me count the ways. First off, you are closest we got to a win as SK. Your press is fair, you methods clever, and you never try to talk about the weather. Thank you for joining.

Pj dropped back out.

ghug: confirmed
bo_sox: confirmed
stupidfighter: confirmed
uclabb: confirmed
tvrocks: confirmed
Vashta: confirmed
Mintyboy4: confirmed
Jeff Kuta: confirmed
y2k: confirmed
Maniac: confirmed
Yoyoyozo: confirmed
captainmeme: confirmed
Fluminator: confirmed
ALEXEXTREME: confirmed
thdfrance: confirmed
phil_a_s: waiting for confirmation
OB_Gyn_Kenobi: confirmed
Sandgoose: confirmed
guak: confirmed

The point is that three + player games and two player games are fundamentally different. I would like to play a game of mafia that is simply town against mafia, with the best team winning.

Two games ago had PE as SK- when he was outed he (correctly) worked with the town and gave the town an easy win. This was too bad for the mafia- they didn't do anything wrong, they just got unlucky that PE was rational and got found early. Specifically, there was nothing wrong with their strategy.

Last game, guak (rightly again, I think) as SK shot early and often for the more outspoken players. Good for him, and he almost won, but this led to clear perverse incentives for all players to speak less, not more, and the relative paucity of discussion in the game reflected that. The game ended in a (disappointing, I think we can all agree) stalemate exactly because it was a three team game, not a two team game.