Mafia Rules Discussion

[Jamski]

I think the current speed of the game is fine. I don't really want to cut swathes through the village every night, and then bump off a handful each day for good measure.

-Jam

[Spaced Cowboy]

How about everyone votes for (x) mafia and only the top voter gets whacked?

[Nubclear]

Docpiling I stopped plyaing because of that.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I'm trying to fins a way to minimize Docpiling, without going to a hidden ballot.

[Tuberski]

I, personally, have already found a way.



ACK!

[alva]

How about you can't vote for the same person back to back ?

It would make things more confusing though.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Prolly too hard to enforce.

[Jamski]

Simple way to stop docpiling.

If you don't like it - don't do it.

-Jam

[Rasputin]

but what about everyone else, the regulars always docpile. almost like it organsied

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by alva
How about you can't vote for the same person back to back ?

That wouldn't stop successful docpiling.

[Jamski]

but what about everyone else, the regulars always docpile. almost like it organsied

Well, the regulars are always saying "We want to avoid docpiling" "We hate docpiling" and then it happens again and again anyway. We must assume that either
a) People naturally docpile, because if everyone votes for someone else, you don't put yourself in danger, or
b) People like docpiling.

What do you think?

-Jam

[Skanky Burns]

Docpiling is done because it is the safest thing to do this round. You make it less likely you will die this turn and more likely that the person you vote for will be killed so they can't return the favour Rah-style next round.

Docpiling will continue while it provides these advantages.

[Rasputin]

all the more reason for secret voting

[Urban Ranger]

Looks like Snowfire has the best idea so far.

[SnowFire]

However, a public vote may be controverted by a PM vote. (I post on the forum, "I vote rah," but send a PM, "just kiddin', it's Skanky.")

Terrible idea. Why bother with public votes then? The point of public discussion is to try and figure out who really did it. Why would you want to hide your thoughts on that matter? And does it make any sense, flavorwise? (Discussion: "We should hang Jeb!" "Yup, Jeb's the murderer!" Result:"Er... okay... so we kill Fred now?!")

I don't really get it

Wouldn't everyone vote for everyone each round?

I assume this was in response to my suggestion. No, you wouldn't, unless you were being a psycho. If there are people you suspect more than others, vote for them. The villagers want to win, and that's more likely if they actually vote for those they think are the Mafia...

The biggest problem is that bookkeeping would be slightly tougher, since people would be offering votes like "I vote yes for Harry, Harriet, & Henrietta; no for everyone else." You'd have to keep counts for each suspect.

[Jon Miller]

I like the multiple votes

with some percentage (like 51 or 60) being required to kill someone

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

you could have it so that everytime someone votes they ahve to put down all their votes

votes only last one day, as determined by the GM

Jon Miller

[alva]

I assume this was in response to my suggestion. No, you wouldn't, unless you were being a psycho. If there are people you suspect more than others, vote for them. The villagers want to win, and that's more likely if they actually vote for those they think are the Mafia...

Well, yes and no although the object is to kill the mafia as quickly as possible, most people try to look out for number one.
They don't really care how many villagers stay alive as long as they stay in.

Edit: fixed quote.

Wow, editing has become really fast

[Jamski]

They don't really care how many villagers stay alive as long as they stay in.

True. And the villagers don't like to help other villagers stay alive - incase they are keeping the mafia alive without knowing it.

-Jam

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by SnowFire
However, a public vote may be controverted by a PM vote. (I post on the forum, "I vote rah," but send a PM, "just kiddin', it's Skanky.")

Terrible idea. Why bother with public votes then? The point of public discussion is to try and figure out who really did it. Why would you want to hide your thoughts on that matter? And does it make any sense, flavorwise? (Discussion: "We should hang Jeb!" "Yup, Jeb's the murderer!" Result:"Er... okay... so we kill Fred now?!")

Simply so that the public votes can be used to mislead people. You won't know who changed their vote to whom.

Alternatively, people could also publicly campaign for voting for a certain somebody, but all voting would be by PM.

[Adagio]

Another idea I just got 2 minutes ago

It does look like Rah's idea... maybe it is, I'm not sure if I understand his idea 100%

Each player belongs to a group. When the game starts, each group has ~3 members. Each group only has one vote. The members in the groups then need to give reasons for each other, to persuade the other members of the group to vote for the person, this member believe is a mafia. In the end, each group has to post one vote.
I believe this makes votes based on clues more important, since evidence is needed to persuade the other members of the group.

This requires the members in each group to be living in the same timezone (or at least online at the same time)

[Jamski]

I like your idea, ADG, but I'm not sure its "mafia" anymore. The trouble is that we just can't rely on people checking the thread - not even once in 24 hours. Yes, there are strange people that simply join a game and then don't care about it. We could be waiting forever for groups to make a decision.

If we add the idea of mafia "groups" there is also the problem of what a group does if it thinks the mafia is one of its own members...

Its a nice idea, if we were all sitting at a table, but unless the players can be somehow convinced to hang around the thread the whole day, I can see it turnng into a very slow game.

And now I feel like a bastard for jumping on your suggestion, sorry

-Jam

[Adagio]

The 24 hour rule still applies:
If a group fails to post their vote before time runs out, we wont wait for them, they just fails to influence the votings then... That's their problem
If two of the members in a group believes it's the 3rd member of the group that is the mafia, then they're still able to vote for him (This is a Democracy afterall )

If there is a group of 3 members where only 1 member is active, that just means he's the only voter for his group, which means he controls the 'group'

I know this might not be 'Mafia' anymore, but we could just try to start it as a new game. Instead of making it "Mafia XXXIV" it could just be some new game with some new name.

[Jamski]

The problem is with a group with TWO members, when one member thinks the other is the mafia.

-Jam

[Adagio]

In such cases we could make it possible for members of one group to join another group instead (Join a group with 1 less member than his/her group, or switch with a member of another group)

[Adagio]

And in cases where there is no majority in a group, and they can't agree on a vote, they just send both votes to the GM, who'll make a random draw to chose who they vote for...

[J Bytheway]

The usual proposed solution to problems such as this in voting systems (the problem of two-party systems arising in Democracies, which is closely related to docpiling) is to change the voting system to single transferable vote. This does make more work for the GM, but in most cases it probably won't be a significant increase. In any case, it introduces a different set of voting strategies, which could give the game a new twist.

[Ljube]

I still think reinstating change of votes would solve the problem of dogpiling.

Dogpiling was never such an issue while you could change your vote.

[Jamski]

I think docpiling has seen a large reduction in recent games.

-Jam