# The Forbidden Weird Wild West Mafia Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 3, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170 "2009-08-03T15:16:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/161 "2009-09-18T14:06:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Just want to point out that it would be inanely stupid for a 1 on 1 not to be a Scum win, at least for color reasons. Think about it. The only reason the Scum kill at Night instead of during the Day is that they don’t want anyone to know they are Scum. But, at 1 on 1, there’s no one left to find out that won’t be dead. Yeah, but not everything in the game makes sense for color reasons. (In fact, at least in this game, pretty much every time Town tried to divine something from the color they chased up a blind alley). ---
**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:** [September 18, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/162 "2009-09-18T15:14:07Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The reason I suspected a 3rd party was entirely based on the unreveal. I’m still not sure why you did that, Mahaloth. I was very surprised there was no resurrection component to this game. And I couldn’t picture Scum with that power. 1 vs. 1 would be scum win for this game, anyway. Reaction to the delayed reveal has been mostly positive, but I can see how you wondered about a third party. Anyway, it allowed some color related things and ensured no night time conversation of strategy. - It allowed the dead to send a message to town in the morning through their ghost. Almost everyone did it, too, though I forgot to ask Meeko for one when he died as it was a short nighttime. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/163 "2009-09-18T15:16:00Z")
Oh yeah. Would you have allowed MHaye (for instance) to pass on the results of his investigation, if he’d tried? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/164 "2009-09-18T15:16:09Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Yeah, but not everything in the game makes sense for color reasons. (In fact, at least in this game, pretty much every time Town tried to divine something from the color they chased up a blind alley). That’s what happens when the mod gives the Scum the ability to write a significant portion of it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/165 "2009-09-18T15:25:07Z")
(continued) My reasoning is based on the fact that this seems to havebeen a fairly standard game of Mafia, and that, in the standard setup, Scum should win when there is only one other Townie left, based on color reasons. The other reason would be that the only two options are stalemate or Scum win. And allowing a stalemate seems Gastardly to me. Still, I do think it would be nice if Mahaloth would tell us what the tie mechanism was going to be. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/166 "2009-09-18T15:30:08Z")
He said in the spoiler thread that scum would win a 1 on 1. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/167 "2009-09-18T15:50:05Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > 1 vs. 1 would be scum win for this game, anyway. Not if it was Me Vs NAF since he could just force me to vote for myself. ---
**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:** [September 18, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/168 "2009-09-18T15:53:09Z")
> [@](#): > > The other reason would be that the only two options are stalemate or Scum win. And allowing a stalemate seems Gastardly to me. Personally, I prefer a simple coin flip as tiebreaker, which would mean that 1v1 could go either way. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/169 "2009-09-18T15:53:41Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Not if it was Me Vs NAF since he could just force me to vote for myself. I think that was the Voice of the Rule-Maker speaking - you would have won at 1 vs. 1, do not pass go, do not collect $200. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/170 "2009-09-18T15:54:37Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Not if it was Me Vs NAF since he could just force me to vote for myself. How cool would that have been? 😃 I am surprised that I made it to endgame. That’s never happened for me before as a townie. ---
**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:** [September 18, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/171 "2009-09-18T15:57:30Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Oh yeah. Would you have allowed MHaye (for instance) to pass on the results of his investigation, if he’d tried? No. > [@BigT](#): > > That’s what happens when the mod gives the Scum the ability to write a significant portion of it. 😃 They didn’t write a significant portion of it. I don’t think it was the note or the method of death that bothered too many past day two or so. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/172 "2009-09-18T19:04:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, I prefer a simple coin flip as tiebreaker. Coin flips. Ugh! Have I mentioned that I hate anything being decided by randomness in Mafia? Mafia has enough random elements in it already. Sure, I won as scum once based on a coin flip (and actually, we only had a 1 in 16 chance of losing at that point since there were four scum and four town remaining with no power roles–scum were all goons from the start and the town was down to all vanilla), but I will always hate using random things to determine player outcomes. Fortunately, I haven’t had to use it in Inblourious Gasterds yet. (Kills are mandatory and will be decided by [random.org](http://random.org) if it comes to it, but even those slow in getting their actions in have done so when I’ve pinged them. And I’m glad for that.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/173 "2009-09-19T05:31:28Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > No. > > They didn’t write a significant portion of it. I don’t think it was the note or the method of death that bothered too many past day two or so. Well, there’s my lack of experience with the game showing again. It was significant for me, as it got me all kinds of confused. It always surprises me how simple the setups turn out, based on how complicated they seems. There’s probably a lesson in that when I can finally get the time to play. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/174 "2009-09-21T17:27:39Z")
> [@Hoopy\_Frood](#): > > Coin flips. Ugh! > Have I mentioned that I hate anything being decided by randomness in Mafia? Mafia has enough random elements in it already. Sure, I won as scum once based on a coin flip (and actually, we only had a 1 in 16 chance of losing at that point since there were four scum and four town remaining with no power roles–scum were all goons from the start and the town was down to all vanilla), but I will always hate using random things to determine player outcomes. I concur. I do not put randomness in my Mafia rules (except the one where everything was random). Having random results reduces the players’ ability to deduce what happened. I dislike closed rules sets for the same reason. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/175 "2009-09-21T22:41:10Z")
> [@](#): > > I concur. I do not put randomness in my Mafia rules (except the one where everything was random). Having random results reduces the players’ ability to deduce what happened. Well, there’s a difference between “That guy didn’t die. Did that mean my kill failed, or that I was blocked, or that he was protected?” and “Those two were tied in the vote, and the moderator told us that ties get resolved by coin-flip, so I guess my guy got lucky”. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/176 "2009-09-21T22:51:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Well, there’s my lack of experience with the game showing again. It was significant for me, as it got me all kinds of confused. It always surprises me how simple the setups turn out, based on how complicated they seems. There’s probably a lesson in that when I can finally get the time to play. We did mess up at one point with one of the notes though. In the color, Mah always wrote \_\_\_ is 100% dead, so on one of the notes we wrote 50% hoping people would think that the person wasn’t totally dead. Unfortunately town took that 50% to mean that 50% of scum was dead. Coincidentally…they were right. Also, near the beginning there was a big mess over whether scum had supernatural powers or not. So, for our first NK, we included some supernatural elements (pentagrams), oddly though, no one really spoke of that. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170/177 "2009-09-22T02:13:54Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I concur. I do not put randomness in my Mafia rules (except the one where everything was random). Having random results reduces the players’ ability to deduce what happened. > > I dislike closed rules sets for the same reason. I just want to point out that my idea for a mini is in fact fully open. It’s also…um…completely insane. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-forbidden-weird-wild-west-mafia-thread/505170.md?page=8)