The following roles have no place in Mafia...

[Iammars]

4. I dont think cults are awesome. I may never play a cult game by choice again, actually. The opposite of cults, finding masons... now those I like.

Like "you're a lodge leader, once per game you may recruit a mason to your lodge. You win with the town"?

Usually8 they can only recruit nonpower roles or just vanilla townies, but yes.

[armlx]

Jesters without a vig is just dumb. They just become dead vote space.

Random cops are bad, as are the variety of quacks that kill their target (not protect if targetted, kill if not, thats a fine balance). But both are ok in all cop/doc games.

[Sarcastro]

Random roles are the only ones I am prepared to say don't have a place in mafia. Any other role - even cults, as much as I dislike them -

can

be appropriate in some games. Making blanket statements isn't really helpful, in my opinion.

[Adel]

I don't like roles that have any random element to the result of a night action - I hate random cop results, random doctor results, and any other role that could somehow be randomized. I hate open setups with random role assignments only slightly less.

[Norinel]

I think the main problems with 1, 2, and 4 are all pretty diminished once people know the option's out there. But if the main advantage of putting those roles in the game starts out with someone going "heh heh" ("Heh heh, they didn't realize I didn't cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die that their mason buddies were pro-town", "Heh heh, now I have an excuse to stupid and unhelpful", etc.), I don't see the point.

But I think a Roles Stoofer Says Has No Place in Mafia Mafia might still work out just because people know they're coming.

[Mr. Flay]

I hate open setups with random role assignments only slightly less.

Huh? What does this mean?

[Adel]

like a role that has a 50% chance of being a cop or a 50% chance of being a doc

[Oman]

Letting everyone know:

If I ever play in a game in which you mod, and you put a random role in I will beat you severly and sic Albert B. Rampage on you. There will be death, and pain.

[Yosarian2]

Scum masons
Upon being told I can night-talk with my "buddies" or that I'm pro-town with x and y my "co-masons", I have one question for my mod: will you 100% guarantee me that my co-masons are pro-town?

The mod really should never answer that question, IMHO. If a player dosn't know how their role works or what it's supposed to do and they ask the mod, fine; but if the mod didn't want to specifically say "You know your co-masons are pro-town", he shouldn't answer questions like that on request either. He should figure out what he wants the players to know, what he wants players to suspect/guess/be hinted at, and tell them exactally that and no in advance, either in the role PM or in some in-game mod post.

[Primate]

I think it is silly to want clues that your mason partner is scum. If the PM doesn't say he's town, he's got just as much chance of being scum as any other person in the game, and all the clues you should need are in his posts. You might as well ask for clues as to whether any other random townie in the game is scum. And if you assume that your mason partner is town just because you assume that's what a mason role does, despite the fact the mod hasn't told you anything of the sort, then that's only going to hurt you.

[Mispeled]

I agree with most of what was said here, except that I don't see what the issue with survivor win conditions is.

[the silent speaker]

I am pro-survivors and pro-cult; I am of the opinion that win conditions should have more variety than two goats butting heads. As far as mutable win conditions go, I see it as not greatly worse than zombieing back into a game as a replacement for another player. (Of course, you have to play to win with your current alignment.) However, if you reveal information that was yours as part of a previous alignment -- the names of your former cult buddies once you've been deprogrammed, for instance -- I will BURNINATE you.

I used to be more tolerant of randomness (though a cop must always have a determinate sanity) but back when I ran Simpsons Mafia I created a quack who protected if his patient was targeted, but had a risk (not a certainty) of killing when not. (He was told this.) I thought it would offer the opportunity for interesting strategizing: did he want to try to protect the person he thought was the scum's likely target, hoping to stop an attack, or did he want to hit the likely scum, hoping for no attacks? But Locus Cosecant thought differently, and heartily disliked the role. I still think there are some places for it, in large games anyway, but not so many as I would once have welcomed.

[armlx]

TSS: If it had been a certainty of killing it would have been better. I even remember thinking that when I first read through that game, which was pretty good from what I remember.

[Guardian]

Jester -- Open setups only.

Scum Mason (unless Masons are

explicitly

told: "He/she may be Scum") -- yeah, fine.

Survivor win conditions (except for an SK) -- Disagree, survivior is fine.

Millers, who do not know they are Millers (unless the existence of a Miller is publicly announced to the Town at the start of the game) -- yeah, fine.

Any random role -- yeah, fine. Distribution of roles randomly can be great fun, though. C9++, created my fiasco, is, intellectually, one of my favorite setup ideas.

[Oman]

Wait...Guardian supports random cops and random docs...

I hate you now.

[Guardian]

By yeah, fine, I mean disallow them.

[Nemesis]

Discuss:

1. Jester
   
2. Scum Mason (unless Masons are
   explicitly
   told: "He/she may be Scum")
   
3. Survivor win conditions (except for an SK)
   
4. Millers, who do not know they are Millers (unless the existence of a Miller is publicly announced to the Town at the start of the game)
   
5. Any random role

You will never see any of these in a Stoofer game.

Ok, but all Stoofer games will lack the paranoia that gets Sane cops lynched because they might be a Cult leader that doesn't die when trying to recruit scum, he just fails. Plus he's unnightkillable with a post restriction that he must claim cop.

That paranoia is funny.

Anyway:

Jester - Kind of messes with people trying to find scummy people. So I guess that one has no place is mafia. (Although it adds an interesting spin on the game. A day 1 claim of scummy is always funny to see and jesters add massive WIFOM options.)

Scum Mason (unless Masons are explicitly told: "He/she may be Scum") -Hate, hate, hate... This one is out.

Survivor win conditions (except for an SK) - It's not game destroying, but isn't a particularly nice role. I don't really have a problem with it.

Millers, who do not know they are Millers (unless the existence of a Miller is publicly announced to the Town at the start of the game) - Is nasty, that one should be out too.

Any random role - I like random roles... Although I'm not sure which random roles in particular you have in mind. Ones with dice rolls at the end of the day which make something interesting happen are interesting. Ones with a 25% of killing yourself when you didn't actually know that 25% existed, is a pain in the ass. But if someone knows there is a 50% chance they can protect someone, 25% chance they will do nothing and 25% the person will die, they can choose how and when to use their ability. On the other hand, targetting people without being told what could happen is fairly bad, I'm not that keen on those.

-----------

Cults - Ewwww. Out.

----------

Exceptions: Any game called "Bastard Mod Mafia" all bets are off and any game that points out obviously that such roles exist. Also, strong hints or roles fitting makes them ok because they are guessable.

As long as the mod wasn't bastardly to me while lying about it, I don't mind.

If I have Masons in a game where there is a possibility for one or more of them to be scum, I won't call them Masons...

Now I need to make up a new rolename...

Brotherhood was used somewhere, although it's not on the wiki here. I'm sure I learned masons = confirmed town, brotherhood = talk at night... I'm just trying to remember where.

2. Scum masons are fine. More then that, the possibility of scum masons is absolutly necessary, IMHO.

Posting: "You are in an ante natal class with X and X, you don't know what weird cravings they are getting." Doesn't confirm them as town, but it doesn't confirm them and that's fine, even if they are town.

On the other hand posting: "You share a room with X and X, you are with them all night and are a light sleeper, you know they arn't doing anything at night." is 100% wrong if they are scum or even power-roles because of the lie you just told. People only know what their role is because of what the mod tells them. It's totally wrong.

There's nothing wrong with calling someone a doc and making him a vig, either. At least, not in a large game where he's got a fair shot of figuring it out before he wipes out a third of the town, heh. It kind of a nasty surprise, sure, but it's also fun and requires people to think about what's going on; and of course, you've got to balance the game with the ASSUMPTION that the paranoid doc will knock off a good guy or two before he figures out his role, but that's ok.

Bah, then why do you even assign roles? Why not give everyone the same pm:

Congratulations, you have no clue what you are, who you are, what you do or what you want. You can target someone each night, but you have no idea what it does... You have no idea what you win with or whether it is even possible to win at all. Good luck.


The game is based on the mod's pms and posts. It gives the game structure. If no one knows what they are doing, then the game is messy. It's ok if people are half expecting the game to get messy, but bastard modding is generally bad.

1. The only worthwhile use for the existence of the jester role is to get someone to say "wait! he might be a jester!" when the clueless-noob attracts all the votes on day one.

The last time I remember seeing the "are you a jester?" was at MBF in an ongoing game. (And it was a question, which made it doubly awesome.)

The beauty of masons imho is that they know they are each town so it provides an end-game impediment that scum must find and eliminate. If I don't know my mason buddies' alignment I don't see the point.

Yep, the usefulness of masons is pretty much all about the alignment confirm, IMO. Otherwise they don't do anything useful and just have something to do when the game goes to night. (Unless they do have other roles and the cop is one of them and investigates his mason buddy and uses him/her as a way of logging his/her results. Although being paired up with an investigation immune scum would really hurt then.)

The mod shouldn't lie to the players.

I totally agree. Unless the game is "Bastard Mod Mafia", in which case all bets are off. But the clue is there... A regular game with the mod lying all over the place is totally wrong.

However, if you reveal information that was yours as part of a previous alignment -- the names of your former cult buddies once you've been deprogrammed, for instance -- I will BURNINATE you.

But you still know. Replacing while knowing who is scum is bad... I'd prefer the role to be mod killed rather than to be replaced by someone who knows all the scum's alignments.


Edit:

Whenever I use quote="name" more than 5 times, I have a 75% chance of messing up the tags... You should make that one of your laws Stoofer. *Sigh.*

[Mr Stoofer]

Ok, but all Stoofer games will lack the paranoia that gets Sane cops lynched because they might be a Cult leader that doesn't die when trying to recruit scum, he just fails.

You've never been in a Stoofer game, have you?

[Yosarian2]

Posting: "You are in an ante natal class with X and X, you don't know what weird cravings they are getting." Doesn't confirm them as town, but it doesn't confirm them and that's fine, even if they are town.

On the other hand posting: "You share a room with X and X, you are with them all night and are a light sleeper, you know they arn't doing anything at night." is 100% wrong if they are scum or even power-roles because of the lie you just told. People only know what their role is because of what the mod tells them. It's totally wrong.

Let me put it this way; if I were going to create a randomised game design for the next 100 normal games on mafiascum, I would have it set up so, if there are masons, there is, say, a 1/20 chance one will be scum. And yeah, you don't need to lie to the player, just say "You are masons with X and Y." Scum masons shouldn't be so common that masonhood is worthless, but everyone should understand at all times that it is a perfectly reasonable possibility.

There's nothing wrong with calling someone a doc and making him a vig, either. At least, not in a large game where he's got a fair shot of figuring it out before he wipes out a third of the town, heh. It kind of a nasty surprise, sure, but it's also fun and requires people to think about what's going on; and of course, you've got to balance the game with the ASSUMPTION that the paranoid doc will knock off a good guy or two before he figures out his role, but that's ok.

Bah, then why do you even assign roles? Why not give everyone the same pm:

Congratulations, you have no clue what you are, who you are, what you do or what you want. You can target someone each night, but you have no idea what it does... You have no idea what you win with or whether it is even possible to win at all. Good luck.


The game is based on the mod's pms and posts. It gives the game structure. If no one knows what they are doing, then the game is messy. It's ok if people are half expecting the game to get messy, but bastard modding is generally bad.

Eh, an insane doctor is only borderline bastard modding. Another one of those things that's just there to make players more paranoid, to make them avoid trying to break the game with "day 1: cop claim, doc protects him" stratagies, ect. And basically what ends up happening is that the town loses a person or two, and then the doc realises he's really a vig and the town gains a vig. Which isn't a balance problem in a 24 person game or so.

[Yosarian2]

Oh...and on a side note, one of the big problems with Jester roles is that they don't really work, because the town dosn't have any reason to NOT lynch him. I mean, if someone claimed Jester day 1, I'd lynch him anyway, because the town's better off with him dead even if he's telling the truth.

[Nemesis]

Scum masons shouldn't be so common that masonhood is worthless, but everyone should understand at all times that it is a perfectly reasonable possibility.

I agree with this. The only thing I dislike about scum masons are if the mason is told by the mod their partner is a townie and (s)he isn't.

There's nothing wrong with calling someone a doc and making him a vig, either. At least, not in a large game where he's got a fair shot of figuring it out before he wipes out a third of the town, heh. It kind of a nasty surprise, sure, but it's also fun and requires people to think about what's going on; and of course, you've got to balance the game with the ASSUMPTION that the paranoid doc will knock off a good guy or two before he figures out his role, but that's ok.

Bah, then why do you even assign roles? Why not give everyone the same pm:

Congratulations, you have no clue what you are, who you are, what you do or what you want. You can target someone each night, but you have no idea what it does... You have no idea what you win with or whether it is even possible to win at all. Good luck.


The game is based on the mod's pms and posts. It gives the game structure. If no one knows what they are doing, then the game is messy. It's ok if people are half expecting the game to get messy, but bastard modding is generally bad.

Eh, an insane doctor is only borderline bastard modding. Another one of those things that's just there to make players more paranoid, to make them avoid trying to break the game with "day 1: cop claim, doc protects him" stratagies, ect. And basically what ends up happening is that the town loses a person or two, and then the doc realises he's really a vig and the town gains a vig. Which isn't a balance problem in a 24 person game or so.[/quote]

Doc sanities arn't that uncommon, I'm not keen on making a doc a full fledged vig without any hinting in a role pm. It has all the problems of Miller, Mason with a "confirmed" mason buddy that is actually scum and Paranoid Gun Owner.

I tend to dislike any lies the mod tells. The more unexpected and bastardly, the worse it gets.

Roleblocker to Doc would be a fairly mean one, vig to doc would be another. Doc to vig would be really really really bad if it was unheard of, and even though it has been done before, it still sucks.

Oh...and on a side note, one of the big problems with Jester roles is that they don't really work, because the town dosn't have any reason to NOT lynch him. I mean, if someone claimed Jester day 1, I'd lynch him anyway, because the town's better off with him dead even if he's telling the truth.

People don't like lynching them though. Maybe it's something about the Jester actually winning and the rest of the people playing for second place or something.

If a 3 person mafia game with a SK, townie and Jester was going, then the townie wouldn't want to lynch the Jester. (For the sake of this example, self votes arn't allowed.)

[Mr. Flay]

Scum masons shouldn't be so common that masonhood is worthless, but everyone should understand at all times that it is a perfectly reasonable possibility.

I agree with this. The only thing I dislike about scum masons are if the mason is told by the mod their partner is a townie and (s)he isn't.

I have

never

seen this happen (except maybe the first game, when mole got his title), and I would yell at any mod who did it. That's called "lying to your players".

Oh...and on a side note, one of the big problems with Jester roles is that they don't really work, because the town dosn't have any reason to NOT lynch him. I mean, if someone claimed Jester day 1, I'd lynch him anyway, because the town's better off with him dead even if he's telling the truth.

People don't like lynching them though. Maybe it's something about the Jester actually winning and the rest of the people playing for second place or something.

If a 3 person mafia game with a SK, townie and Jester was going, then the townie wouldn't want to lynch the Jester. (For the sake of this example, self votes arn't allowed.)

It's pretty much a policy lynch, I think. No reasonable mod would make the Jester the ONLY winner in that situation, so it gets the distraction/desperate scum out of the way and let's the rest of the game continue. I would not consider that a 'second place" win in any way, shape, or form.

[Adel]

how about Jester Cult Recruiters who win once 3 of their recruitee's have been lynched while thier recruitees have the typical cult win condition?

[Axelrod]

All you people saying Scum Masons are fine: I assume you

don't

mean that it's fine for the Mod. to say "You are Masons with X and as such you know him to be town..." when X is scum.

You just think it's okay for the Mod. to say "You are Masons with X, and you guys can Night-talk and stuff" and if the Mod. doesn't

say

that your partner is guaranteed to be town, you just have to always assume that he might be scum. Yes?

If that's what you mean then it's just a terminology dispute, as I just don't think you call the latter group "Masons" to begin with. They are just people who can talk to each other at Night. "Mason" should imply trust.

[Mr. Flay]

"Mason" should

imply

trust.

QFT

(emphasis added)

.

However, it does not

guarantee

trust. That genie has been out of the bottle for a long time...same as with Cop results being trustworthy and Godfathers being NK-immune.