This post was largely Copy Pasta'd from a Mafia Forum I run with.
If you take nothing else away from this post, it should be that (1) Mafia kicks a** and that (2) you should sign up double-quick.
If you're a visual learner, head here.Q. So, what's the game all about then?At its heart, mafia is a conflict between two teams - a small team of people who know each other, and a large group of people who don't know who else is on their team. Both teams want to remove members of the other team from the game until only their team is left. There are two ways a player can be removed from the game - either by being voted off by a majority of players during the day phase of the game, or by being "killed" by somebody (or somebodies) at night.
Because the small team has the ability to kill people every night they are referred to as the mafia. And because it's generally agreed that making a habit of nocturnal murder is, at best, morally dubious, the opposing team is usually called the town.
Q. Wait ... the "day" phase? What's that?The day phase is just the name given to the periods of the game when people are allowed to vote. Normally this lasts for either a pre-set length of time or until the players agree on how they're voting. They can either agree to vote somebody off - or to lynch them, as it's normally phrased - or vote to go to the next day without lynching.
Q. ... the mods?The game moderators. The people who run the game - who assign people to teams, who post to announce when a day phase has ended or begun (and who has died at night), who try to make sure everybody follows the rules of the game and who do lots more stuff that we haven't mentioned yet.
Q. So I win by surviving to the end without being voted off or killed at night?No. Mafia is a team game - you win if your team wins, even if you die before this happens. And if your team loses, you lose - even if you're alive at the end of the game. There is no individual winning or losing, unless they are the Serial Killer.
Q. Serial Killer?They are a role on their own side; refer to the role guide for specifics.
Q. Okay, so I need to help remove people on the other team ... how am I supposed to do that?If you're working for the town, you need to try to lynch the mafia. This means you need to look for suspicious behaviour, and then if you think you've found somebody suspicious, try to persuade other people to vote for them. Of course, none of the other town members know you're innocent, so they'll be thinking of trying to get you lynched.
If you're with the mafia of course, you want to get rid of townies. You get to kill a townie every time the day ends (more or less ... read on to see why this isn't completely true), but you can also try to get them lynched during the day.
Q. So during the day people argue about whom to lynch, and at night the mafia kill people, and the game ends when one side is completely removed from the game? Is that it?That's the basic idea - but there's more to it than that. People on both sides can also have "roles". These give people special abilities - they might be able to do things, or have secret knowledge, or be immune to another role's actions, or something else completely.
The roles used in any game can vary depending on the mods, but there are a few standard ones.
For examples, refer to the role guide.
Q. Wait a minute ... how do the mafia agree on who to kill without giving themselves away on the thread? Are people allowed to talk off of the thread?Yes and no. Some people - like the mafia - are allowed to talk to some other people outside the game thread. However, in most games, most people are not allowed to do so. This is an important thing to remember - unless the rules state that you can talk to somebody about the game outside the thread, you shouldn't do it. If the mods find out you are talking outside the thread to people you shouldn't be, you may be modkilled.
Q. Modkilled?When the mods step in to remove somebody from the game, we say that that person was 'modkilled'. This is normally done because the person in question has broken the rules of the game in someway; it may also be done in cases of inactivity. Being modkilled isn't just bad for the person being killed - it is also very annoying for other people playing, and can often seriously damage your team's chances. If you don't want to put in the time to play, you shouldn't really sign up.
Q. Hmm. How long does all this take?Normally games can last about a week - sometimes longer, but hardly ever as long as two weeks. Of course, the game goes faster when the people playing have time to post more.
If you want to try the game but aren't sure you'll have time to commit to a longer game, you might consider signing up for a mini - these are generally smaller games with fewer people and rarely last more than a week.
Q. I was following the current game, and I didn't understand what was meant by ...There's a lot of jargon and shorthand to keep track of in the game. Here's a quick list of the most widely used stuff - don't be afraid to ask the mods about anything else you need explained. This list will be updated as necessary.
Role Reveal - a game in which the mods will reveal the role and/or team alignment of players when they die.
Confirmed Town - somebody who has been investigated and found innocent by the Finders, or has been proven not mafia in some other way.
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