How to win as Mafia: Calculated Inaction

[Lord Gurgi]

So you've started a game. You say your role is mafia? Well congratulations, you probably just won. But here's a guide to help you win more easily. Always keep in mind, that playing as mafia is a game of waiting. Wait long enough, and the town will kill itself.

1. You don't want to lynch the people you call scum. You want the town to lynch the people you call town. Towns tend to look at successful wagons for scum. If you're not on them, you'll do better.
   
   
2. Do not call the strongest members of the town scum, rather pick on weaker but more neutral figures. If you pick on people that are too easy, you will eventually run out of valid scumreads, and if you only pick on the strongest members of the town, it will likely turn on you. Attack the people that can't defend themselves. Newbies are a good choice.
   
   
3. Early on, post a lot, and frequently. Most people will subconsciously treat active players as town. Almost nobody will suspect you for this on its own.
   
   
4. Call out lurkers. They are easy to lynch, but don't try to lynch them until later in the game. Their wagon will provide good escape later if you need it. Be sure to make this a long-term campaign. If you notice the flow go against your allies or your scum-calls begin to push the lurkers.
   
   
5. Outline rough suspicion of your dumbest partner. Do not push their wagon, just list them as neutral-leaning-scum or something to that effect. Meanwhile, defend your other partner from significant attacks. This will separate your team in the minds of the town.
   
   
6. Defend the strongest players of the town. Pick one in particular to defend excessively. If you die, this will tie you to them and allow your team to lynch them quickly. As a note, generally, if you build a meta for defending people you will do well in all your games.
   
   
7. For lynch on the first day, push the second or third most popular lynch. Do not try to make your wagon fail, but hope that it does. After that, continue to push reads that are less likely to be lynched. If one of your reads becomes a major lynch though, lynch them. Do not back down.
   
   
8. If you notice someone acting scummy, and no one else has yet picked up on it, take the opportunity. If you lynch an unexpected person the next day reverts to earlier lynch prospects much of the time. Essentially the town loses a day.
   
   
9. Kill the stronger members of the town at night. Nobody analyses night kills anymore, and if they do just bury them under a mountain of WIFOM logic. It actually works.
   
   
10. Taper off your posting as you go. Do not suddenly disappear, just gradually reduce your rate of posting. Try to keep large but infrequent posts at first, but later shorter posts will do. You want to appear like you are losing interest in the game. You also want to have an excuse for dodging the nightkills. Living too long being too town will be problematic.
    
    
11. Do not fear people who are getting things right. Even if they are right about everything, there will be idiots that refuse to believe well reasoned and logical cases. Don't mistake being caught for being lynched. Stay calm, and it is critical that you do not suddenly change your reads. Don't underestimate the ability of a town to eat itself, or to change off of a correct wagon at the last second. Often you can survive a day or two after you should if you play calmly.
    
    
12. Claim vanilla. Do not try to gambit. Conservative is the best way to play scum. If you claim earlier than you need to, you will likely be believed in today's meta. Of course, extreme circumstances call for extreme measures, and in some cases claiming a power role may allow you to live longer than you deserve. But keep in mind 11) you are not always in as bad a position as you think.
    
    
13. Attack players that do not know how to defend themselves properly. Start with a case that is factual, but weak. When the player overreacts and digs themselves deeper and deeper, you will have a good wagon to sit on. If it sees lynch, you have lynched someone that everyone agrees deserved it, and if it doesn't you have a plausible distraction from the main lynches.
    
    
14. Don't underestimate the power of subtle praise. "That's a great point" and "I didn't notice that" or even "I'm sheeping X, who is obv-town" helps building false confidence in townies. This will make the townie think you are town, and if they turn out to be wrong they get the blame and their confidence is shaken. It is generally good to leave the responsibility for the town's lynches on the town.
    
    
15. The town tends to believe that it ought to win. They are wrong, but you can take advantage of this. If someone has been on many of the major wagons, you have just found a free lynch target. Similarly, if there is someone that seems to be causing the town not to succeed, they are a good target. Generally, the mafia should be encouraging the idea that the town is being conned by their leaders.

I am also taking suggestions for additional strategies that work.

[SpyreX]

I feel some bitterness and/or frustration oozing from this post.

But, yea.

I'd add:

14.) If you can feed the fire without being obvious, feed it. Nothing kills a town as perfectly as a town-on-town fight that takes over everything.

[Ether]

I think this is a useful guide.

I also think a flood of complete idiots is about to start linking to it and declaring things like attacking lurkers and defending people to be scumtells.

[ChannelDelibird]

Because 13) is unlucky, I presume.

Good article. I agree with it.

[AGar]

I think this is a useful guide.

I also think a flood of complete idiots is about to start linking to it and declaring things like attacking lurkers and defending people to be scumtells.

The only difference between that and what they've been doing though is now they have a link.

[Faraday]

Defending people is very scummy. Something only scum would do, they know everyone's alignments! Town don't!

(this is good, and not inaccurate ++)

[SpyreX]

13.) Scum will skip #13 in lists because they are bad at numbers.

As an aside, which one as town hurts you the most because of the sheer volume of truthfulness?

#9 by far here.

[Seraphim]

Watch scum meta change completely now based on this topic.

[chesskid3]

why would scum meta change because of this topic?

Scum meta doesn't haev to change until town meta improves

[Seraphim]

All player guides immediately become outdated the minute they are posted. Town meta naturally will adjust to all possible scum advice.

[MagnaofIllusion]

This is a great guide ...

to things to look for in lynching Lord Gurgi.

Keep it bookmarked.

[Vi]

My first thought was "great, now I have to update my guide".

--

This is actually a good, readable article, although it's pretty calculating even for me. I'm tempted to stuff it on the wiki.
The only thing I disagree with is 12). Vanilla claims only work if there's a chance your wagon will go away instead of going to a lynch, or if you make it prematurely. If you're really, really in trouble, you should claim a role.

Actually I disagree with 9) too. In our present Normal climate scum tend to go up the creek if they miss hitting a power role with their NK more than once. This is, of course, up to judgment - leaving a Mason with bad reads alive in order to kill a Vanilla with good reads is not necessarily bad play.

All player guides immediately become outdated the minute they are posted. Town meta naturally will adjust to all possible scum advice.

Not immediately. Just shortly after the tells enter circulation. They should still be good for another month at least.

Plus as Xyl said,

skill

is what happens when you trounce someone as scum, show them how you did it, and beat them again doing the same thing.

[Benmage]

Not a perfect guide. But damn good.

A lot of people could do some improving by reading and trying to follow this.

I agree that claiming VT or PR is definitely situational.

Why are we helping people play scum again? Its already too easy.

[Faraday]

Plus as Xyl said, skill is what happens when you trounce someone as scum, show them how you did it, and beat them again doing the same thing.

Assuming you're playing against people remotely competent, of course.

[Lord Gurgi]

Thanks.

I feel some bitterness and/or frustration oozing from this post.

Well not really. It's just too easy to win as mafia. Unless you're playing against some really good players, you should win as mafia every time.

14.) If you can feed the fire without being obvious, feed it. Nothing kills a town as perfectly as a town-on-town fight that takes over everything.

While I agree, I don't think it should be in the guide because people can never do this properly. Even I can't. I prefer a hands-off approach. The town will kill itself if left alone long enough, better not to be connected.

All player guides immediately become outdated the minute they are posted. Town meta naturally will adjust to all possible scum advice.

I wish this were true. I used to believe it, I used to hate that it was the case. Now I wish it were true. I think that the pure volume of threads here that are filled with the pure gold of mafia theory, mafia ought to be losing more, not less. Play has gotten worse and I think that's precisely because player guides are not incorporated into play.

The way I see it, player guides function sort of like the telephone game. First you have the game itself giving experience to the guide writer. For our purposes this is perfect knowledge. Then some of this knowledge is lost in the writing because of imperfection and simplification on the part of the writer. When the reader takes in this information, he then misapplies it and misunderstands it to some degree. These misapplications lead to misconceptions on the correctness of the tell on the part of the reader as well as others who witness the tell. Essentially, the original knowledge is often completely lost and the interpretation of events becomes flawed.

This is actually a good, readable article, although it's pretty calculating even for me. I'm tempted to stuff it on the wiki.
The only thing I disagree with is 12). Vanilla claims only work if there's a chance your wagon will go away instead of going to a lynch, or if you make it prematurely. If you're really, really in trouble, you should claim a role.

Yes, I will agree with that. I will amend that. Excepting severe circumstances, conservative is the best way to play it. However, usually if your lynch is moving that speedily, you're caught. Then you should follow 11).

Actually I disagree with 9) too. In our present Normal climate scum tend to go up the creek if they miss hitting a power role with their NK more than once. This is, of course, up to judgment - leaving a Mason with bad reads alive in order to kill a Vanilla with good reads is not necessarily bad play.

I'm inclined to believe that power roles no longer have the reliability that they once did. Now we can debate this, but I think that relying on power roles will more often than not backfire on a town. I don't know what the rate of sanity is for cops and other investigative roles, but I can't imagine it is very high. Besides that, I wasn't specifically urging killing better players, but stronger members of the town. I say that meaning people unlikely to ever see lynch, power roles, and people who are simply good at the game.

The truth is that you can kill the players who would recognise that you're playing mafia well. The truth is if you're doing it right, they can't decide before you have the opportunity to kill them. Then you run rings around the remainder. I'm sure many of you have been killed early and watched the town lose with startling efficiency.

[Albert B. Rampage]

I only read the first half but damn, this is awesome. Fantastic. Well done, Gurgi.

[Albert B. Rampage]

This should completely replace whatever Vi has wrote on the topic prior.

[Charnel]

I’ll add 13 then:

13) know your enemy. Meta is more important as scum then as town.

Some people are followers. Make a catchy case and put the 3rd vote on someone and you’ll see them coming.

Some people can’t have it that they are attacked. They make idiots of themselves when you unfairly attack them. If you make sure that you are logically sound, the town will disregard them later. Keep annoying such a player and it will be a cursing fest in which you look the good one.

Some people get lynched. Simple as that, there are players who almost always get lynched in the first three days. Don’t push them early, town is going to shoot itself in the foot there anyway, also without your help.

Contrary to the above, there are people who never get lynched. Either be fast in discrediting them with some clever case, or don’t start with it and kill them N1. Once they are settled, there is no way an attack on them isn’t going to backfire.

There are many subtilities here, of course, and each player should be handled differently. But if you know them all well, don’t be scared to abuse that knowledge.

Then, meta is important in knowing what tells your town prefers. Point such tells out in others while avoiding them specifically yourself. If you know your town isn’t bothered by classic scumtells (wagonning and OMGUS for example), be as scummy with them as you like, as long as you are pointing out some hip motivational scumminess one someone else.

[shaft.ed]

nah, meta can be made up after the fact

[Vi]

Actually I disagree with 9) too. In our present Normal climate scum tend to go up the creek if they miss hitting a power role with their NK more than once. This is, of course, up to judgment - leaving a Mason with bad reads alive in order to kill a Vanilla with good reads is not necessarily bad play.

I'm inclined to believe that power roles no longer have the reliability that they once did. Now we can debate this, but I think that relying on power roles will more often than not backfire on a town. I don't know what the rate of sanity is for cops and other investigative roles, but I can't imagine it is very high. Besides that, I wasn't specifically urging killing better players, but stronger members of the town. I say that meaning people unlikely to ever see lynch, power roles, and people who are simply good at the game.

The truth is that you can kill the players who would recognise that you're playing mafia well. The truth is if you're doing it right, they can't decide before you have the opportunity to kill them. Then you run rings around the remainder. I'm sure many of you have been killed early and watched the town lose with startling efficiency.

The sanity rate for Cops in Normal games is 100% barring Millers and Godfathers. Not that I can downrate Godfathers too much after txtMafia.
Outside Normal games the sanity rate for Cops is... more or less the same actually, unless you're playing in an UncertainKitten game.

This should completely replace whatever Vi has wrote on the topic prior.

Albert B. Rampage, classiest man alive.

[Parama]

I hope this entire post is supposed to be sarcastic, because...

You don't want to lynch the people you call scum. You want the town to lynch the people you call town. Towns tend to look at successful wagons for scum. If you're not on them, you'll do better.

You want to lynch the people the town calls scum who aren't scum and kill the people the town calls town who are town. It helps when the town's not letting the mafia speak for itself and is trying to push mislynches by itself.

Do not call the strongest members of the town scum, rather pick on weaker but more neutral figures. If you pick on people that are too easy, you will eventually run out of valid scumreads, and if you only pick on the strongest members of the town, it will likely turn on you. Attack the people that can't defend themselves. Newbies are a good choice.

Better option:
Find one weak player to call scum, one average player to call scum, and one strong player to call scum. Push hard on the strong one, but end up voting one of the other two by the end of the day.

Early on, post a lot, and frequently. Most people will subconsciously treat active players as town. Almost nobody will suspect you for this on its own.

Tell people this and they'll spam a thread. Tell them to post only when they have something to say and they'll lurk. Tell them to post when they have to look like they have something to say, and they'll probably do a damn good job fooling townies.

Call out lurkers. They are easy to lynch, but don't try to lynch them until later in the game. Their wagon will provide good escape later if you need it. Be sure to make this a long-term campaign. If you notice the flow go against your allies or your scum-calls begin to push the lurkers.

I don't know what time period you're from, but Lynch all Lurkers is usually a bad strategy. You tell them to get active, and then when they post substance you look for the holes in it. They've stopped being lurkers by the time you have grounds for lynching them, but it's easier to lynch an inconsistent townie than a lurking townie.
Though if you can catch a bad townie active lurking...

Outline rough suspicion of your dumbest partner. Do not push their wagon, just list them as neutral-leaning-scum or something to that effect. Meanwhile, defend your other partner from significant attacks. This will separate your team in the minds of the town.

It really seems like optimal D1 scum play is to bus a partner to death and have that partner set up several subtle links... to townies. I think you SHOULD push your worst partner as soon as possible. Townies don't expect that, and the abundance of "OMG WIFOM" claims seems to be lessening as time goes on. Defending a partner can end up looking like "speaking for them" which is seen as a strong scumlink because... well, it is! Don't defend anyone too hard unless you're claiming you confirm them as town; and don't ever try to confirm a partner as town. That's suicide.

Defend the strongest players of the town. Pick one in particular to defend excessively. If you die, this will tie you to them and allow your team to lynch them quickly. As a note, generally, if you build a meta for defending people you will do well in all your games.

Disagree, find one strong player to push suspicion against and try to rally the other strong players behind you. I personally see excessive defending of another player as a scum to town link; scum just don't defend each other very much these days.

For lynch on the first day, push the second or third most popular lynch. Do not try to make your wagon fail, but hope that it does. After that, continue to push reads that are less likely to be lynched. If one of your reads becomes a major lynch though, lynch them. Do not back down.

If you keep pushing lynches other than the most popular, town's going to catch on eventually.

If you notice someone acting scummy, and no one else has yet picked up on it, take the opportunity. If you lynch an unexpected person the next day reverts to earlier lynch prospects much of the time. Essentially the town loses a day.

This is good.

Kill the stronger members of the town at night. Nobody analyses night kills anymore, and if they do just bury them under a mountain of WIFOM logic. It actually works.

This is also good.
Though aim for confirmed townies if they're at least halfway decent. I did win a game once by leaving an idiot confirmed townie alive until MyLo and endgamed them.

Taper off your posting as you go. Do not suddenly disappear, just gradually reduce your rate of posting. Try to keep large but infrequent posts at first, but later shorter posts will do. You want to appear like you are losing interest in the game. You also want to have an excuse for dodging the nightkills. Living too long being too town will be problematic.

I don't think everyone is capable of this. Partly because there's lots of people who find games more interesting as they go on.

Do not fear people who are getting things right. Even if they are right about everything, there will be idiots that refuse to believe well reasoned and logical cases. Don't mistake being caught for being lynched. Stay calm, and it is critical that you do not suddenly change your reads. Don't underestimate the ability of a town to eat itself, or to change off of a correct wagon at the last second. Often you can survive a day or two after you should if you play calmly.

Agree; a random number generator can usually do as good or better than the average townie at finding scum so <.<

Claim vanilla. Do not try to gambit. Conservative is the best way to play scum. If you claim earlier than you need to, you will likely be believed in today's meta. Of course, extreme circumstances call for extreme measures, and in some cases claiming a power role may allow you to live longer than you deserve. But keep in mind 11) you are not always in as bad a position as you think.

I think scum dying D1 should claim a PR and wait for it to get counterclaimed. They're already dead anywho; town tends to lynch claimed vanillas quickly on earlier days.

[chesskid3]

are you saying that ABR is classier than CHESSKID?

[Seraphim]

I want add a corollary to one of these:

Defend the strongest players of the town. Pick one in particular to defend excessively. If you die, this will tie you to them and allow your team to lynch them quickly. As a note, generally, if you build a meta for defending people you will do well in all your games.

Besides linking them to you, this will also get them on your side.

This also works for VI players. If you defend one, dismissing their play as stupid but town, even if you're insulting, you can get that player on your side later. Keep 'em around for LYLO if possible, then you can coerce them into voting the other guy for your win.

[Kublai Khan]

1. You don't want to lynch the people you call scum. You want the town to lynch the people you call town. Towns tend to look at successful wagons for scum. If you're not on them, you'll do better.
   
   
2. Early on, post a lot, and frequently. Most people will subconsciously treat active players as town. Almost nobody will suspect you for this on its own.
   
   
3. Call out lurkers. They are easy to lynch, but don't try to lynch them until later in the game. Their wagon will provide good escape later if you need it. Be sure to make this a long-term campaign. If you notice the flow go against your allies or your scum-calls begin to push the lurkers.
   
   
4. Defend the strongest players of the town. Pick one in particular to defend excessively. If you die, this will tie you to them and allow your team to lynch them quickly. As a note, generally, if you build a meta for defending people you will do well in all your games.
   
   
5. For lynch on the first day, push the second or third most popular lynch. Do not try to make your wagon fail, but hope that it does. After that, continue to push reads that are less likely to be lynched. If one of your reads becomes a major lynch though, lynch them. Do not back down.
   
   
6. If you notice someone acting scummy, and no one else has yet picked up on it, take the opportunity. If you lynch an unexpected person the next day reverts to earlier lynch prospects much of the time. Essentially the town loses a day.
   
   
7. Taper off your posting as you go. Do not suddenly disappear, just gradually reduce your rate of posting. Try to keep large but infrequent posts at first, but later shorter posts will do. You want to appear like you are losing interest in the game. You also want to have an excuse for dodging the nightkills. Living too long being too town will be problematic.
   
   
8. Do not fear people who are getting things right. Even if they are right about everything, there will be idiots that refuse to believe well reasoned and logical cases. Don't mistake being caught for being lynched. Stay calm, and it is critical that you do not suddenly change your reads. Don't underestimate the ability of a town to eat itself, or to change off of a correct wagon at the last second. Often you can survive a day or two after you should if you play calmly.
   
   
9. Claim vanilla. Do not try to gambit. Conservative is the best way to play scum. If you claim earlier than you need to, you will likely be believed in today's meta. Of course, extreme circumstances call for extreme measures, and in some cases claiming a power role may allow you to live longer than you deserve. But keep in mind 11) you are not always in as bad a position as you think.

WTF? THIS IS MY TOWN GAME!

but, anyways..

15) Don't underestimate the power of subtle praise. Stuff like "That's a great point" and "Shit, I didn't notice that" or even "I'm sheeping X, who is obv-town" helps building false confidence in townies, then when it results in a mislynch their confidence is shaken and they'll tend to start WIFOMing their reads.

[GreyICE]

All player guides immediately become outdated the minute they are posted. Town meta naturally will adjust to all possible scum advice.

Nine times out of ten, town meta is to plant pants firmly on head and insist that they're right in the face of all sense or reason.

2. Do not call the strongest members of the town scum, rather pick on weaker but more neutral figures. If you pick on people that are too easy, you will eventually run out of valid scumreads, and if you only pick on the strongest members of the town, it will likely turn on you. Attack the people that can't defend themselves. Newbies are a good choice.

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... =5&t=17458

Please explain that one to Fonz for me, he seems to think that I'm going to auto lynch him if he ever says someone who might not have played the game too often is scum.

Defend the strongest players of the town. Pick one in particular to defend excessively. If you die, this will tie you to them and allow your team to lynch them quickly. As a note, generally, if you build a meta for defending people you will do well in all your games.

White Knight!

If you notice someone acting scummy, and no one else has yet picked up on it, take the opportunity. If you lynch an unexpected person the next day reverts to earlier lynch prospects much of the time. Essentially the town loses a day.

Oh lawd. I swear towns have this rule "If one day 1 wagon flips town, LYNCH THE OTHER ONE!" Yeah, because you jokers got something right day 1? LOLNO

Kill the stronger members of the town at night. Nobody analyses night kills anymore, and if they do just bury them under a mountain of WIFOM logic. It actually works.

Holy hell its true. You could go far lynching the strong scum reads of every night kill.