# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/101 "2015-07-18T19:55:17Z")
And if the alpha stays out of the lynch tie pool, then that provides information, too. Example: Suppose that Mason 1 is already out, and the two people Town deems to be most suspicious are Alice and Bob. Mason 1 declines to vote for either, and Alice and Bob each get, let’s say, five votes. Alice dies. We don’t know whether the Alpha was voting for Alice, or if the Alpha was abstaining, and the tie was broken by some other Mason or Wolf, or if all of the tiebreakers were abstaining, and the lynch was random… but we do know with absolute certainty that the Alpha did not vote for Bob, and that’s five people the Seer can choose from and be assured of getting an accurate investigation. ---
**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 18, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/102 "2015-07-18T20:03:03Z")
But we don’t know if the alpha stayed out of the lynch pool so we cannot conclude anything from the seers investigation. only the wolves can conclude , or at least narrow down on who may be masons from the ties lynch . ---
**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 18, 2015, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/103 "2015-07-18T20:06:47Z")
Although these discussions of all the various permutations are useful ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/104 "2015-07-18T20:49:48Z")
Re-read what I wrote. In such a case we can’t point to one specific person and say “That must be the alpha!”, but we can rule out some possibilities as the alpha. If the detective can guarantee that e’s never investigating the alpha, then the alpha becomes powerless, and it only takes a few known non-alphas to make that happen. It is true that the Wolves can get more information from this trick than the Town can, but they couldn’t pin down anything from it, either, and if you’ve got a trick that will give information to both Town and Wolves, that’s usually good for Town. It gets even better if more Masons are known to the Town. Suppose, for instance, that _all_ of the Masons are known, and we have a tie. Then we know that either there is at least one Wolf on the side that got the lynch, or that _none_ of the wolves were involved in the lynch. That would be _huge_ information. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/105 "2015-07-18T20:50:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One other sort of secret message that comes up occasionally is called “breadcrumbing”, and is most often used by the Detective (called the Seer in this game): The Detective usually wants to stay hidden for the first few cycles, because they’re a very powerful asset to the Town, and priority number 1 for the Scum to kill if they can. But staying hidden also means that they can’t communicate the results of their investigations, and if the Detective dies before communicating that, their results are useless. So sometimes a Detective will attempt to hide their investigation results in their posts, in such a way that they won’t make it immediately obvious that they’re the Detective, but that the Town will be able to figure out the messages if they die prematurely. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this, since it’s a very fine line between the Town being able to figure it out after the fact, and the Scum being able to figure it out before, but some folks try it anyway. The other thing that goes with this is avoiding accidental breadcrumbing. If you’re the Seer, and you investigate player A night one, don’t say something like “Player B is 100% town to me.” Because after you die, we 'll read your posts and say, aha, the seer has an town result on Player b. And then by extension, if you are a vanilla town, and by day 2 you have called 3 players 100% town, you’ve just told the scum that you are NOT the seer, as you could not have 3 results already, and the real seer would have been careful not to say such a thing, hopefully. This is all pretty next-level stuff, but it’s something to be aware of. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/106 "2015-07-18T20:54:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Re-read what I wrote. In such a case we can’t point to one specific person and say “That must be the alpha!”, but we can rule out some possibilities as the alpha. If the detective can guarantee that e’s never investigating the alpha, then the alpha becomes powerless, and it only takes a few known non-alphas to make that happen. > > It is true that the Wolves can get more information from this trick than the Town can, but they couldn’t pin down anything from it, either, and if you’ve got a trick that will give information to both Town and Wolves, that’s usually good for Town. > > It gets even better if more Masons are known to the Town. Suppose, for instance, that _all_ of the Masons are known, and we have a tie. Then we know that either there is at least one Wolf on the side that got the lynch, or that _none_ of the wolves were involved in the lynch. That would be _huge_ information. I think it’s good to note that these are, by and large, corner cases. We definitely need to keep our eyes open for an opportunity like this, but mostly we just need to play mafia and trust in our analysis. Note that, for example, in your last scenario, it relies on the wolves not noticing such a configuration and hopping on the bandwagon. It’s worth it to them to ninja lynch a townie and sacrifice one of their own in exchange for not publicly 100% clearing a huge swath of townies. ---
**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 18, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/107 "2015-07-18T21:03:29Z")
Probably one of the best things that would come out of the discussion around the actual result of a tie lynch would be a wolf being caught with perfect information during the discussion ---
**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 18, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/108 "2015-07-18T21:53:26Z")
Lunchbreak at the mill… Fascinating discussions so far. Hope we hear from everyone soon. Information at this stage is in short supply. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/109 "2015-07-18T22:07:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **JSexton** : > > I think it’s good to note that these are, by and large, corner cases. We definitely need to keep our eyes open for an opportunity like this, but mostly we just need to play mafia and trust in our analysis. Note that, for example, in your last scenario, it relies on the wolves not noticing such a configuration and hopping on the bandwagon. It relies on no such thing. To avoid revealing information in such a situation, the Scum would have to be on neither bandwagon and also not be in the set of players who didn’t vote on either bandwagon, and that leaves no place for them to be. They can try to minimize the amount of information revealed, but even that helps the Town: It’d mean voting based on something other than the public information in the thread, which would mean they’d have to justify votes based on weaker reasons, which is makes it easier for conventional Scum-hunting to find them. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/110 "2015-07-18T23:10:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It relies on no such thing. To avoid revealing information in such a situation, the Scum would have to be on neither bandwagon and also not be in the set of players who didn’t vote on either bandwagon, and that leaves no place for them to be. They can try to minimize the amount of information revealed, but even that helps the Town: It’d mean voting based on something other than the public information in the thread, which would mean they’d have to justify votes based on weaker reasons, which is makes it easier for conventional Scum-hunting to find them. I don’t understand why you snipped my last sentence and then responded as though I had not said it at all. That’s really disingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/111 "2015-07-18T23:11:25Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > Lunchbreak at the mill… > > Fascinating discussions so far. Hope we hear from everyone soon. Information at this stage is in short supply. Editing posts is not allowed, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/112 "2015-07-18T23:16:00Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > Editing posts is not allowed, I believe. Per post 39, post editing is allowed. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/113 "2015-07-18T23:17:32Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Per post 39, post editing is allowed. …Albeit possibly frowned on by other players. 🙂 ---
**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 18, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/114 "2015-07-18T23:19:26Z")
But editing is frowned upon, at least by me. ☹ All this strategy around tied votes is giving me a headache. Too many what-if’s for me to grasp. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/115 "2015-07-18T23:26:13Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Per post 39, post editing is allowed. Ah, thank you. I’m used to that being forbidden. The Sdmb is so gosh darn trusting! ---
**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 19, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/116 "2015-07-19T00:18:47Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Query to experienced Mafiosos: how many werewolves are there likely to be? 5 seems like a lot, but apparently that is how it is? I guess I haven’t balanced a game in awhile, but I was expecting 4. ---
**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 19, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/117 "2015-07-19T00:21:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if the alpha stays out of the lynch tie pool, then that provides information, too. > > Example: Suppose that Mason 1 is already out, and the two people Town deems to be most suspicious are Alice and Bob. Mason 1 declines to vote for either, and Alice and Bob each get, let’s say, five votes. Alice dies. We don’t know whether the Alpha was voting for Alice, or if the Alpha was abstaining, and the tie was broken by some other Mason or Wolf, or if all of the tiebreakers were abstaining, and the lynch was random… but we do know with absolute certainty that the Alpha did not vote for Bob, and that’s five people the Seer can choose from and be assured of getting an accurate investigation. Blah, blah, Chronos back to his massively outside the box thinking. 😃 I agree with jsexton. The best idea is to just play mafia like normal. Even more so with this being a newcomer game. If an opportunity arises to use the tiebreaking system to our advantage, we can. But I am guessing most folks will just vote for whome they think is scum, not forcing a tie. Chronos, do you want to pull out your scum finding program/script as well? 😛 ---
**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 19, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/118 "2015-07-19T00:22:28Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > Ah, thank you. I’m used to that being forbidden. The Sdmb is so gosh darn trusting! I usually leave editing open as well. If people can pull of “secret messages” via editing-within-the-time-limit, that’s pretty smooth. Hardly worth the risk, I imagine. Our editing isn’t open indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/119 "2015-07-19T01:24:17Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > All this strategy around tied votes is giving me a headache. Too many what-if’s for me to grasp. Glad it’s not just me. 😕 I suppose it’ll be clearer if/when it comes up. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/120 "2015-07-19T01:31:24Z")
Sorry guys, I had to go to a _lamb_ dinner at my grandma’s… I agree with **Chronos**. The tiebreaking mechanic could potentially be very helpful. As long as there is a possibility for information, there’s potential for a hanging wolf. As long as we manage to keep everything in order, there’s a good possibility to mine a few nuggets of gold. I’m really happy **Bayard** volunteered to do spreadsheets, since I’m terrible at it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099.md?page=7)