# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 360
**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 22, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099/360 "2015-07-22T12:51:37Z")
Rules are rules. For example, consider check-and-raise in poker. Some outlaw this ploy, some don’t; but what makes no sense is to not outlaw the ploy and then feel abused if someone uses it. Part of our task is to debug the rules. > [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Taking the idea to its logical conclusion: > > All the Masons identify themselves and abstain from voting, then EVERYBODY ELSE VOTES FOR THEMSELVES. We lynch wolves five days in a row and go home. > > It’s a brilliant plan, except for the part about being no fun. The **Biotop** - **Chronos** - **Thing Fish** plan is brilliant, but it’s not going to be adopted so further discussion of it (including the rest of this post 😉 ) is off-topic. Anyway, it wouldn’t guarantee victory even if all Townies cooperate. One second before EOD a Wolf will move his vote to force a misLynch. We Lynch him Day 2 of course, but Day 3 Wolves cause another misLynch. Wolves would take care to expose their scummiest-looking Wolves and Kill the towniest-looking Townies. On Day 9 after 4 mislynches, it would be 2-1 and Scum would have 67% win chance. That’s with all Townies cooperating; if even one Townie refuses to be “herded,” Scum might win easily. The last-second vote shenanigan could be avoided with a rule proposed 3 years ago by **sachertorte** : > [@Let's improve how we play "Mafia."](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-improve-how-we-play-mafia/624501/47): > > … My previous mode of moderation was to set a hard deadline and say that no votes after that time count. I would change this to say that Day will end at between the hours of 16:00 and 20:00. All votes before 16:00 will certainly count. All votes up to the previously unannounced End of Day will also count. Votes after the surprise end of Day will not count… But I don’t recall seeing this excellent concealed-EOD policy applied yet in a real Mafia game. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-game-ideal-for-beginners-game-in-progress/725099)._