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Mafia

Mafia is a popular game played by people from Board 8,CE or PotD on AIM or on the Message Boards themselves.

Learn more about it at the Mafia Wiki.

If you get randomly invited into an AIM chat group playing Mafia, you should probably check out the Newbie Guide first.

Mafia in a nutshell[]

A summary of mafia provided by Luis Sera:

Ok, you have your set number of players, and occasionally a theme. If the games on Board 8 there's always a theme, so in addition to your role you will have a character. As Cokes said it's a game of the uninformed majority (the good guys) against the informed minority (the mafia). It is the job of the town (good guys) to get rid of all of the mafia, it is the job of the mafia to lower the numbers of the town by killing them, until they are in a position where the town cannot possibly kill all of them. The mafia generally make up between a quarter and a third of the total players in the game, depending on roles and balance.

The game goes in two phases, day and night. During the day the topic is active and everyone posts to discuss the game and votes for who they think is mafia, with the mafia themselves trying not to get lynched and subtly shift attention onto townies. The player with the most votes is lynched and is out. In the night phase the mafia chooses a player to kill, and any other night actions are used.

The most common role is vanilla (no powers) but there are special variants given to the town and mafia to make things more interesting. For example, towns usually get a Cop (scans another player to find out whether or not they are town or mafia) and Doctor (can choose a player to protect from the mafia), the mafia might get a Godfather (cops scan them as town) or Roleblocker (blocks another player from using their night action).

That's it in a nutshell really, but it goes into a little more depth than that.

Sir Chris explains Mafia[]

As town, it is like being Sherlock Holmes. It isn't all about logical deduction, it is also about being in the right place at the right time to trap mafia in their own web of lies. Mafia players far too often make the mistaken assumption that power roles are the true aim of the game, but as town you can find scum, the anti-town faction, just as easily as reading posts very carefully. Because mafia has to trade something to look like town, it is that shred of contrived falsehoods that makes them obvious. You look at what they say, you look at how they vote, you learn, through experience, what you would do as scum and see if you recognize it, if town isn't doing well, you look at that and see who has been in a position to take control of it, who has been silent. It is a fact that a successful town member only has one true formula for success: Be active, be attentive, and be aggressive.

Scum is about control, and making town believe they have it. For me, when I am at my best, my job is to have a war with town over lynching a town and then finally relenting. You see, winning an argument in mafia, especially a hard fought one, is such another intellectual high. "Finally, the guy I thought was scum had gotten some support. Sir Chris really fought me hard on this, but he relented after my logic, cool." Yeah, I relented into a town lynch. Then, tomorrow, I come back and am like, "Dude, I didn't want this guy lynched, but you had it your way, ##vote player" and in that player's OWN mind, the person who knows they are town, they can't help but think (and let's assume the whole 'SIR CHRIS IS ALIVE KILL IT doesn't exist yet) "Man, I am not scum, but Chris really fought tooth and nail yesterday, I can see it his way." Basically, your job as scum is to kill people who you think can outargue you and then be the most reasonable town ever.

Awesome AIM games archive[]

External Links[]

  • The Mafia Wiki
  • Board Mafia Archive: fettbox.byethost8.com -- Also has links to various Mafia help sites and Shaduln's Mafia Assistant .exe

Bidoof's Mafia Adventures[]

How to play certain roles, illustrated by Bidoof comics:[]

How to play a Vigilante:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/554/00vigqn9.jpg

How to play a Mafia member:

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/5529/00mafct1.jpg

How to play Bulletproof:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7523/00bullnm9.jpg

How to play a Cop:

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/821/00copww6.jpg

How to play a Jester:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/1268/23054583qo0.jpg

How to play a Bomb:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/518/bidoof2hh9.jpg

How to play a Roleblocker:

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9568/00roledf7.jpg

How to play a Doctor:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/391/00docjp4.jpg

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