# MAFIA: The Game - Ideal for Beginners \[Game in Progress\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [July 14, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099 "2015-07-14T00:45:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/241 "2015-07-20T23:52:54Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > **Dante G** and **Sario** , I’m not sure what pro-Town purpose you think is served by casting unjustified votes this early in the Day. If you have no idea who to vote for at the end of the Day and have to pick someone arbitrarily, fine. (snip) I have to disagree on this: the first Day is in truth the only Day where most voting is, necessarily, random. Almost no one has information about anyone else (with the obvious exceptions of scum and masons). So, any lynch during the first Day is probably going to be an innocent Townie. In our advantage is, therefore, having copious information about everyone and, especially, about the reasons everyone has to vote for someone. I agree that **Dante** looks scummier both by neglecting to explain himself and acknowledging that he is voting randomly (the latter because it leaves a poor trail). So, here’s hoping that we have stumbled upon a newbie Wolf who left himself wide open to lynching. ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/242 "2015-07-20T23:53:25Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > This strikes me as the weirdest post of the game thus far. It doesn’t really make any sense grammatically or otherwise. And although I think I can see from the context who he was referring to, nobody actually made any statements as blunt as “scum would avoid engineering a tie” or “avoiding a tie is pro scum” (which actually seem to be mutually contradictory statements). Misrepresenting the statements of others is pretty scummy. late night tired post full of disconnected thoughts and neuron firings pretending to be thoughts ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/243 "2015-07-20T23:56:59Z")
[QUOTE=Thing Fish] vote Chronos [/QUOTE] Wait. You quote a post where **Chronos** says: 1. We can’t use tiebreakers for good info if the First Mason isn’t involved 2. So we shouldn’t engineer ties on purpose if we don’t know who the First Mason is 3. So it could possibly be worthwhile for the First Mason to declare, but he’s not convinced And you latch onto 3 as scummy because 1 and 2 would make more sense? He just pointed out 1 and 2, right in the post you quoted. He presented exactly the rationale that you’re voting him for not presenting. It would have been more helpful for him to provide a less complete analysis? ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/244 "2015-07-21T00:02:44Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > What do you want to know, exactly? What did I mean by “vote” when all **septimus** said was “go on record?” Right. To me, “vote” implies that those on the losing side will be expected to abide by the majority decision, while “go on record” doesn’t. It seems self-evident to me that encouraging everyone to express an opinion on this issue (and “do what seems reasonable to you at the time” is certainly a valid opinion) will make it more difficult for scum to backtrack in the future. Trying to shut this discussion down thus has plausible scum motivation, and that combined with slightly misrepresenting another player’s comments pinged me a wee bit. My own opinion: The extent to which ties are pro-Town depends on who is presently confirmed. At the outset of the game, assuming that the Masons steer clear of getting involved in tie votes, it seems that they are somewhat pro-Town. I wouldn’t endorse “engineering a tie” as a strategy for Day One, but if one appears likely to spontaneously develop, I wouldn’t be upset, and I would be somewhat suspicious of any last-minute efforts to avoid the tie. If the Alpha Wolf is killed while the Masons are still undeclared, obviously ties become more helpful to scum than town. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/245 "2015-07-21T00:14:20Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Wait. You quote a post where **Chronos** says: > > 1. We can’t use tiebreakers for good info if the First Mason isn’t involved > 2. So we shouldn’t engineer ties on purpose if we don’t know who the First Mason is > 3. So it could possibly be worthwhile for the First Mason to declare, but he’s not convinced > > And you latch onto 3 as scummy because 1 and 2 would make more sense? He just pointed out 1 and 2, right in the post you quoted. He presented exactly the rationale that you’re voting him for not presenting. It would have been more helpful for him to provide a less complete analysis? No. I assume you meant to say: 1. We can **only** use tiebreakers for good if the First Mason isn’t involved. This is what \*\*Chronos \*\*actually said, and it is true. But 2 and 3 don’t follow from that at all. Assuming for the sake of argument that engineering ties would be worthwhile if we knew that the First Mason wasn’t on either bandwagon, we still don’t need to know exactly who the First Mason is at the time of the vote. We just need to assume that the First Mason will keep himself out of the tie. So having the First Mason declare would be a massive benefit for scum while doing Town no good at all. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/246 "2015-07-21T00:19:37Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Similarly, I must have missed the post where Chronos said “we should engineer a tie”, or anything that could reasonably be interpreted as such. It’s more of the “blah blah tie” discussion that is distracting. Not a direct suggestion to force a tie. > [@Bayard](#): > > Are we intended to look for clues in **storyteller’s** narratives? For example, “the miller” unveils the bodies. We have an actual miller (or at least someone who works at a mill) playing the game – **Biotop**. If it is a clue, I’d have no idea what to make of it. Is looking to the moderator’s posts for clues potentially useful, or a fool’s errand? Nah, unless otherwise stated, the opening of Days and Nights are just fluff, what we call “color”. No hints. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/247 "2015-07-21T00:20:36Z")
> [@Precambrianmollusc](#): > > Apologies been dealing with buying a house and tomorrow will be boxes, lots of boxes. > Still trying to get my head around the tie break, I still have the feel that the tie break provides more in of to the wolves in the early game, but can see the point , if the first mason is in one group, and the tie goes the other way , we ( well the first mason will know) know alpha is in the other group. > If the tie goes the way of the first mason group, then we know the other group did not contain the alpha wolf. > I think that is what chromos was trying to explain to me. > > yeah trying to engineer a tie is going to be fun. :smack: No. First Mason trumps Alpha Wolf. If the First Mason is in one group, that group wins regardless of how the Alpha Wolf votes. That outcome gives no information at all to Town and possibly (depending on how the Wolves voted) a little bit to scum. Therefore, if there is going to be a tie, it would be pro-Town for the Masons, especially the First Mason, to try not to be involved in it. If there is a tie and no Masons are voting on either side, we know that there are probably Wolves on the winning side (though it could also be that no Wolves voted on either side and the tie was broken randomly). ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/248 "2015-07-21T00:49:22Z")
I’m not going to change my vote or anything at this time. I’m still trying to learn how all you guys play. I’m not new to mafia at all, just new to you guys. As for my post that was so cryptic and telling, all I can say is that I basically chattered too much. Didn’t really pay attention to every thing that I was saying and ended up saying something stupid. My mistake. Was just trying to be vocal. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/249 "2015-07-21T01:26:41Z")
Yes, but consider this scenario: Voting for\*\* Alice: \*\*Bob, Carol, Don, Ethan, Francis Voting for **George** : Hans, Ian, Jan, Kim, Larry We near the end of the voting. Furthermore, say the Alpha is one of these players. Alpha does not know if the First Mason is one of these players or not. What does Alpha Wolf do? One of three things. It seems to me. 1.Alpha bolts. Huge red flag raised. 2. Scum friend of Alpha breaks the tie either by joining in or dropping out. Huge red flag. 3. Alpha stays put hoping that the First Mason is among the group. A huge gamble as we have seen that it is pretty important for the FM to NOT be involved in the tie. Alpha is thereby exposed by masons to be among four or five. So Alpha Wolf benefits by being nowhere near a tie. And that may even raise a flag. ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/250 "2015-07-21T02:03:54Z")
I am firmly on the side of no ties. (Because of headaches from all the what-ifs). Actually, I just plan on ignoring the issue and voting for the person I find the most wolfish. Right now my FOS (finger of suspicion) is on the Dante voters for taking what seems like a easy path. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/251 "2015-07-21T02:41:49Z")
Another reason the Alpha Wolf might not bolt from a tie is that he could hope a second or third mason is on the same voting side he is on, and thus it would not be possible to tell if the vote was won because of the mason or the wolf. But masons would be able to eliminate all others on the losing side of the vote as being Alpha Wolf. If we assume First Mason will stay out of tie voting, all voters anytime on the losing side of a tie vote are not the Alpha! If the First Mason is exposed or dead and the AW is still on the loose, any tie will\*\* always\*\* eliminate those losing vote players from consideration by us as AW, no matter what we assume. The last hour of the day with a tie vote could prove very informative. ---
**Author:** ![Sario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sario/32/18580_2.png) [@Sario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sario)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/252 "2015-07-21T03:43:16Z")
I’m still working tie scenarios through my head, but to me it seems like both alpha wolf and first mason would want to avoid ties so as to avoid becoming a target. The alpha of course has to worry about being lynched, but the first mason has to worry about getting NKed if s/he gets outed by a tie break. ---
**Author:** ![sangfroid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/253 "2015-07-21T04:50:14Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > **Dante G** and **Sario** , I’m not sure what pro-Town purpose you think is served by casting unjustified votes this early in the Day. If you have no idea who to vote for at the end of the Day and have to pick someone arbitrarily, fine. But these votes aren’t going to generate any useful discussion; how can we “chatter” about\*\* Dante’s \*\*real motive was in casting a vote which he preemptively declared to have “no reason”? Getting to cast votes which they don’t have to justify is exactly what scum want to do. > > And **Sangfroid** , the fact that **Nonsuch** disagrees with the case against\*\* Dante G\*\* (who you yourself aren’t currently voting for) doesn’t make him scum. If he is Town, it is pro-Town for him to honestly share his opinions. And the fact that **Dante G** then agreed with him also strikes me as a total null tell. Seems like quite a bit of a reach to smudge these two for acting “scummy/chummy” (how do you do the strikethrough, by the way)? Yeah, I agree that **Nonsuch** may just have been expressing a straightforward opinion - the timing just seemed peculiar to me. I haven’t played mafia here before and not at all in some time, but I have vivid recollections of scum using the early opening day(s) of games to fling names in all directions (typically with specious reasoning or none at all) and having that strategy be fairly effective. Tough call, first day. Gotta lynch _somebody_, and Town often seems to take the first few “friendly-fire” type hits before any substantial patterns in voting emerge. In unfamiliar territory, I tend to err on the side of caution, though this approach certainly has risks of its own. IMO, if the Town isn’t too lynch-happy early on, sometimes the wolves get careless. Sometimes. Oh, and for some reason here at the SD, what I’ve found on other vBulletin boards as a [strikethrough]strikethrough[/strikethrough] is actually [del] [del]delete[/del] [/del] here. Not sure why. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/254 "2015-07-21T04:52:06Z")
> [@Precambrianmollusc](#): > > Apologies been dealing with buying a house and tomorrow will be boxes, lots of boxes. > Still trying to get my head around the tie break, I still have the feel that the tie break provides more in of to the wolves in the early game, but can see the point , if the first mason is in one group, and the tie goes the other way , we ( well the first mason will know) know alpha is in the other group. > If the tie goes the way of the first mason group, then we know the other group did not contain the alpha wolf. > I think that is what chromos was trying to explain to me. > > yeah trying to engineer a tie is going to be fun. **Vote Precambrianmollusc** For this post, which makes it seem like he/she hasn’t read the thread, combined with frequency of posting about nothing interesting or arguing for surpressing discussion. I’ll change my vote if I get a satisfying explanation. And I agree that Dante G looks suspicious from whatever little we have gotten to know him. (Btw, is there any kind of multiquote system here?) ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/255 "2015-07-21T04:53:08Z")
> [@Plumpudding](#): > > **Vote Precambrianmollusc** For this post, which makes it seem like he/she hasn’t read the thread, combined with frequency of posting about nothing interesting or arguing for surpressing discussion. > > I’ll change my vote if I get a satisfying explanation. And I agree that \*\*Dante G \*\*looks suspicious from whatever little we have gotten to know him. > > (Btw, is there any kind of multiquote system here?) Edit: It’s not a vote. Sorry guys, not very good at formatting. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/256 "2015-07-21T05:02:03Z")
> [@Dante\_G](#): > > Well obviously I want Town to win the game, but you have to think - everyone in the game is going to answer as such. So me saying it does not hold anymore credibility than my previous statement of neutrality. I can see where you would consider it somewhat scummy to say what I said, but this early in the game, no one player is any more believable than another. I am quite drunk, but this looks mostly like blabber to me. This is not proper reasoning. You’re on my list, you’ve been on it since you failed to show up earlier than you did, and you haven’t even tried to explain that. Even if you turn out to be a very confused villager, you haven’t actually contributed in any meaningful way yet, so I think it would benefit town over the long run. Please tempt me to change my vote. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/257 "2015-07-21T05:03:54Z")
> [@Dante\_G](#): > > Total Scum move, Jimmy. LOL Oh, here is another post I really don’t understand. I just want to highlight it. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/258 "2015-07-21T05:25:39Z")
On the discussion of ties, why would the first mason be worried about NK’s? Yeah, maybe the first mason dies, but so what? Who cares, apart from the eventual super-enthusiastic beginner? He’s a vanilla town with a small portion of information, certainly more than most, it’s still galaxies away from a wolf. They can’t strategize hidden away from all of us, and they have no powers. We, the general public of our village may even learn some of what the masons know, for the benefit of us all. _If_ it ever comes up… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/259 "2015-07-21T06:07:04Z")
Some have suggested that First Mason avoid voting for a Lynch leader to avoid getting involved in a Tie. But First Mason mustn’t carry that too far: Scum will be looking for a Townie who avoids voting for the Lynch leaders. So, IMO, the Masons should just vote as they would without considering tiebreaking. (Perhaps First Mason should lean _very slightly_ to tie avoidance toDay when votes are mostly random.) A big problem with Town trying to learn from ties is that Masons cannot reveal their deductions without outing themselves. And even if just one Mason (2nd or 3rd) reveals what he’s learned, that revelation will give clues to the identity of First Mason. But I strongly disagree with Chronos’ suggestion that First Mason reveal himself early. However I don’t suspect Chronos for thinking out loud: it would be rather brazen for a Wolf to make that suggestion! Similarly I accept Dante’s explanation: [QUOTE=Dante G] As for my post that was so cryptic and telling, all I can say is that I basically chattered too much. Didn’t really pay attention to every thing that I was saying and ended up saying something stupid. My mistake. Was just trying to be vocal. [/QUOTE] The “cryptic and telling” comment did seem very bizarre. But what could the Scum motive have been? Wolves aren’t making cryptic self-incriminatory remarks Day 1; they’re sitting in the corners laughing as Townies bloody each other. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/260 "2015-07-21T06:23:29Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Some have suggested that First Mason avoid voting for a Lynch leader to avoid getting involved in a Tie. But First Mason mustn’t carry that too far: Scum will be looking for a Townie who avoids voting for the Lynch leaders. > > So, IMO, the Masons should just vote as they would without considering tiebreaking. (Perhaps First Mason should lean _very slightly_ to tie avoidance toDay when votes are mostly random.) > > A big problem with Town trying to learn from ties is that Masons cannot reveal their deductions without outing themselves. And even if just one Mason (2nd or 3rd) reveals what he’s learned, that revelation will give clues to the identity of First Mason. But I strongly disagree with Chronos’ suggestion that First Mason reveal himself early. However I don’t suspect Chronos for thinking out loud: it would be rather brazen for a Wolf to make that suggestion! I mostly agree with this, other than the importance of masons, and regular townies in general. > [@septimus](#): > > Similarly I accept Dante’s explanation: > > The “cryptic and telling” comment did seem very bizarre. But what could the Scum motive have been? Wolves aren’t making cryptic self-incriminatory remarks Day 1; they’re sitting in the corners laughing as Townies bloody each other. This I don’t agree with. He has posted a total of seven posts in an already six page thread, not even reasonably explained himself, and five of his posts are in my record-keeping document already. If he’s town, fine, he in my opinion seems very confused, if he’s not there’s not a lot lost, no offense. Same goes for everyone right now. I’m keeping my vote for Precambrianmollusc for now, because some of his/her posts have also pinged me and I like to keep things a bit interesting, but I’m very tempted to change that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099.md?page=14)