Live Action Mafia

A game of sneakiness and paranoia
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 12:48 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 3 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:24 pm 
Hello! Some friendly advice before game start, in case you find yourself the only mafia at game start:

- You have a conscription power! Lucky you. This means you get to pick another player and make them mafia. Try not to do this in front of other players. The people in this game who have historically been dedicated mafia are me (jamb), kmath, Lucy, and pravinas, so if you have no idea what you're doing you might want to pick one of those. (*puts on an innocent face* I mean, not me. Did I say me? I wouldn't be any good as mafia. Also I'm a terrible liar, so if I seem like I'm telling the truth, I definitely am. I'm not good as town either though, so don't bother killing me.) If you do have some idea what you're doing, or want to figure it out for yourself, you could also mix it up and make a less predictable conscription choice. (The players I just mentioned will often get suspected by town if they're still alive after a few days.)

- Read advice in the mafia forums from past games. Previous mafia have lots of wisdom on how to make kills and use powers correctly. For example, there's some slightly outdated advice at viewtopic.php?f=159&t=3995 copied off your most revered godly ksedlar.

- Be wary of people pretending to be on your side. If someone suspects you're mafia, they might pretend that they're your serial killer. Lucy did this so convincingly once that I almost brought her in on my plans.


Top
  
 
PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:26 pm 
Oh, and here's "How to be a Serial Killer," coauthored by isaacg in IAP 2017, which seems to have been wiped in the Great Forums Catastrophe of 2017. Happy killing!

----------------



Make a kill on any day that you can.

Even if you think there's a ~50% chance you'll get caught for it, it's valuable for Team Evil to have you making kills. The average serial killer in the past year has made less than one kill (some got caught in a disarm, were lynched without having made kills, or attempted to kill someone who didn’t die) so if you make even one, you are an above-average contributor! Make kills as often as you can, e.g. days 1 and 4.


Who to kill?

- You want to get rid of investigators, so if you suspect someone is an investigator (because they were proxying to you, say) kill them. Even if you just kill a proxy of an investigator, that will force the investigator to find a new proxy, who may be a bad guy who can kill that investigator.

- You want to get rid of players who are talking a lot and making good points; anyone who seems like they're being really helpful to town, is a good person to get rid of.

- Eliminate elected players. Mayor and police officer have powers that benefit town a lot, and it takes a while to gather petitions to elect new ones, plus the new ones might be mafia. (Note: the mafia will likely be doing this too, so as a serial killer you probably don’t want to run for elected office; it would put a target on your head and cause mafia to waste effort killing you.)

- If someone seems generically well-trusted (they caught a mafia earlier, or did something else useful to town), kill them; well-trusted people help town coordinate and make good decisions. BUT if someone is provably trusted via their role being revealed (as a Gay Knight or Innocent Child, say), you don’t want to kill them; mafia have Trap and Slaughter abilities to kill role-revealed players for free, so you should expend your energy killing those whose role is not obvious.


How to make a good kill?

- Read intros to figure out where your target will be. Classes, and other times when people are outside of their living groups are good opportunities. If you're killing in a class, also make sure that no *other* players will in that class, who might see you. Try to make sure that they actually come to that class before you go out of your way to kill them there.

- If you're in a location where lots of other people go, such as Vassar street, and there's another player, and there's no one else around, feel free to kill them on the spur of the moment. Don't do this in your living group, or near your class, or anywhere where people know you're there.

- Don't kill where any other players are around. If you're seen, you're screwed. Even if you're caught and don't care if other people see you making a kill, remember that your target may be a mafia who'd disarm you, and you definitely don't want other people to see that. If you *do* get seen making a kill by player X, immediately run and post on forums "X is mafia and just killed <target>!" because they'll be doing the same to you and at least this way you can force town to spend some investigations figuring out who did it, and maybe get them killed too.

- Ask NPs for help. Anyone who has played Mafia before, but isn't currently playing, will understand that the game is more fun if serial killers are able to make good kills. Such people will often be happy to give you advice, let you in side doors, scout for you, or lie on your behalf. You could even ask them to let you practice making kills on them. If an NP who hasn't played before sees you make a kill, take a second to explain to them that you'd appreciate if they didn't say who did it. NPs are a good way to get into living groups such as ET (if you don’t know anyone there, ask Pesto at achester@mit.edu). For getting into Random, you'll need NP help as well. For getting into EC, tailgating a resident coming in or out is most effective (there's no security at EC).

- Make kills that anyone could have made. For example, many people will have horrible alibis for a kill made in the halls between classes ("uh, I was walking down the infinite a couple bulidings away from the kill") but most people will have solid alibis for a kill made in the evening ("I was in my living group around 7 other players, so none of us did it"). Look at people's schedules in advance to figure this out. Note that it's fine if your alibi is horrible too; if you're not one of the first ~5 people investigated you'll usually be okay. "I was asleep" is a great alibi iff 3 other people post it too.

- Position yourself such that the person won't have a chance to notice you before you kill them. Ksedlar is well known for texting your name to everyone right before you kill her. Sammyluo is well known for running away or shouting your name when he sees you. You can avoid this by lurking just past a door, wearing a disguise, wearing a tent, or killing someone who you run into by chance before they've had any time to react.


What should you do with your investigations?

- Get as many investigations as you can. You won't look suspicious for dropping everything and heading to a kill site before day end, since normal investigators and group investigators want to do that to investigate a kill that day.

- Obviously, if you investigate someone guilty for making a kill, they're probably on your team. Don't report the positive investigations to town. Contact them and tell them you investigated them positive and offer to help them in any way they need. (Note: if someone contacts you saying this, don't necessarily trust them, because a townie can *also* contact a serial killer or mafia saying they have a positive investigation on them and want to team up. So this is a one-way trust.)

- In general, you don't want to report useful information to town, so either keep your investigations to yourself, or report investigations that you didn't actually make (i.e. if you investigate X not-guilty, report that Y is not-guilty because this might be false and thus unhelpful to town, whereas X-not-guilty is definitely true and thus helpful to town). That said, be careful because if someone else ever checks whether Y did it and finds that they did, you're going to be under fire for having made a false investigation. If you think you're going to be caught like this, consider killing your proxy so that they can't say who gave them the false investigation.


What if I've found a mafia?

Coordinate!

- Consider claiming to have investigated them negative for kills they made, so they don't get caught. (Warning: if you do this too much, and you later get caught as a serial killer, town might specifically re-investigate all the investigations you claimed to have made and find the other serial killer like this.) Similarly, consider claiming to have been together, thus giving them an alibi.

- If they need a person dead but can't make a kill that day, maybe you can make that kill for them, or vice versa. If you absolutely trust the other person, share information with them about other people’s roles.

- Try not to be coordinating with them too obviously. If you constantly disappear to talk to each other, and you give each other alibis frequently, and you advocate not to lynch each other, people will notice the association and lynch you both. Plus if one of you is caught, people will consider the former alibis/investigations as less than nothing.


How do I act innocent?

- Think of yourself as innocent. Tell yourself in front of the mirror that you're innocent and scared and don't know who's making these kills and are afraid you're going to die next. Imagine who you would suspect if you were innocent, and talk about this with other players. (Don't forget that you're mafia, though.)

- In general, talk to other players a lot, because they tend to trust people more who they talk to more. (This is somewhat justified, because Team Evil usually has less free time to spend talking to townies, since they're busy making kills and plotting with each other.) Talking in person is typically the most valuable, if you can avoid giving yourself away.

- When you're alone with another player, make sure you paranoia text about this to other players.

- Vote to lynch along with the town consensus.

- If you're claiming investigator, try not to let anyone except your proxy know this, because you should be scared that you'll get killed for having your role known.

- Don't lie about things unless you absolutely have to, because webs of lies are confusing and fall apart easily.

- If you think that another bad guy is definitely either caught or about to be caught, lead the lynch mob on them and get as much credit as you can for having "caught" them.

- When kills happen, seem surprised and sad that the person died, and don't post your alibi earlier than you normally would have noticed the death posting.

- You're innocent and don't want to be lynched, but you're not much afraid of being lynched, because there are plenty of townies. Only bad guys are afraid of being lynched.


Top
  
 
PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:31 pm 
(If things from the above don't make sense, it's because they're partly from the IAP game rules and partly from a previous game in which there were only serial killers and investigators and both, no mafia or other roles. Most of the general ideas hold.)

Others should feel free to chime in with strategy. Before game starts, of course. After game starts all the townies should be giving misleading, awful advice to the Mafia. :twisted:


Top
  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 3 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group