Rules
In normal internet contexts, I think brevity is the soul of wit. However, since mafia is a text-based game that is by its nature rule intensive, I have erred on the side of too MUCH information rather than not enough. It’s not that complicated, but as the game progresses, you may find that returning to the rules may make your job easier.
Please note that while this is a Normal game, there are
SIGNIFICANT
differences between the way I am running this and the way many games are run. For the largest practical difference, please take special note of the "How Lynching Works" section. I understand many will be uncomfortable with this change, and to a certain extent you are my guinea pigs, but please bear with me.
General Information
1. This is a mini-normal setup. All normal setups follow the same basic rules. For our purposes, these rules are:
a. This game will have at least one Mafia faction, and no more than two.
b. This game does not HAVE to have any other roles other than Townies and Mafia.
c. If the setup has other roles, they will mostly be standard. Standard roles for this game are as follows: Bomb, Cop, Cult Leader, Doctor, Godfather, Mason, Miller, Role blocker, Serial Killer, Tracker, Traitor, Vigilante, and Watcher. These roles will be defined in a section below.
d. Other roles may be included. However, there will be no more than 1 or 2 of these.
2. If roles are included in the game they can be: day actions, night actions, or both. They can be permanent powers (i.e. you can use them every night, day, etc.), every other (e.g. you can use it on days 1, 3, 5) or they can be one, two or three shot powers.
3. All choices that demand random generation are done using random.org.
How Lynching Works (Read Carefully!):
1. Each day and night will have a certain announced deadline.
2. At the end of each day at the deadline the person with a PLURALITY of the vote will be lynched. In the event of a tie, there will be NO LYNCH.
3. If at any time a majority vote for one person, the day does NOT immediately end. Rather, it starts a 24-hour timer at the "hammer" post. At the end of this time, the person with the plurality of votes will be lynched. Please note that I will make every effort to tell you when the hammer post has been made, but it is your duty to know. In the event of a tie, the original person who got half the vote will be lynched – no matter what.
4. A plurality simply means "more than the others." So if there are 15 people and the votes are 4,3,3,2,2 the person with 4 votes will have the plurality even though he does not have the majority.
Other rules:
1. Have fun.
2. Please bold your votes. For example,
Vote: Zoraster
3. If you want to change your vote, please bold an unvote for the player you were voting and then vote for the new player. For example,
Unvote, Vote: Karzai
4.
Bold
is for your communication with me in the thread. Please do NOT use bold at any other time. I suggest italics and underlining as alternatives.
4. If you are lynched or killed, you may post a "bah!" post. You may not post anything of consequence.
5. If you have a question for me there are two options. I will not respond to any questions, unless they are either:
a. Bold the word "mod" in the thread. For example
Mod:
What does rule X mean?
b. PM me.
6. Any questions asked of me in the thread will be answered in the thread. Any questions PMed to me about a person's role PM will be answered by PM. Any questions asked of me by PM NOT about that person's role will be made anonymous and then posted as a Q&A in the thread. I will keep outside communications to an absolute minimum.
7. Never quote anything that I PM to you. Never even mention the exact word or order or syntax or anything from a PM. In fact, for all intents and purposes, you should pretend you somehow divined your role without need for a PM. I will come down HARD on this as quickly as possible if I think it even comes close to the line.
8. Treat this game as a commitment and be considerate of me and your fellow players.
9. No small or invisible text, editing of your posts, etc.
10. Do not discuss this game outside the thread at any time, except if your role specifically allows you to do so.
11. Players may be prodded at ANY TIME as long as it is not abusive and obviously absurd. To ask for a prod, simply bold the request:
Prod: Zoraster
.
12. YOU ARE EXPECTED TO PARTICIPATE FREQUENTLY. Obviously there are exceptions. You might have a vacation to go on or a busy weekend or whatever. That's fine. But recognize that as a general rule, you cannot simply read and act on everything every three or four days. This is a major reason why people end up going inactive in a game -- they simply get behind.
13. I am the "decider." I'm willing to consider an appeal to my judgment, but I have the final word.
14.
I’ll take the color red. No one else may use this.
15. Finally, the game is called only if there is only one theoretical result. For example, Doc and Vig vs. 2 goons will not end a game (doc protects mafia target, vig shoots goon is a plausible series of events). 2 goons vs. 2 vanilla townies will, on the other hand, be called.
Lurking and Activity:
1. This game thrives on active participation. Some value lurking as a strategy. I view it is as a way to kill interest in games.
2. "Passive" Lurking is not acceptable. Passive lurking is simply only posting the absolute minimum to avoid being prodded or kicked. Posting something like, "Sorry guys! I'll post soon!" is NOT a post that will count positively toward your activity. Nor is “someone else already said what I was thinking.” Say it anyway!
3. "Active" Lurking is acceptable. This is where your posts theoretically might be designed to seem helpful, but are not really. The distinction is fine. If all you do is post absolutely irrelevant material, then I may take action
4. I reserve the right to remove anyone at any time from the game for non-participation AS I INTERPRET IT. While the next rule mentions time limits for posting, I will rather take the totality of the participation into account, weighting it toward more recent activity. For example, if someone participates heavily for the first half of a day and then only posts sporadically in the second half, I'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
5. Prods not picked up and acted on in a substantial way within 48 hours of being sent will be acted on by me.
6. Put a post in bold if you're going on vacation leave. If I suspect you are using vacation leave as a way to lurk, I will remove you. But for the most part, I'm pretty lenient. I understand things come up. The farther ahead you let me know in advance, the better everything will be.
Order of Actions:
1. Roleblocks
2. Protections
3. Kills
4. Misc.
5. Investigations
Standard Role Definitions*
(these use "night" as the default period, but please see rule 2 of General Information above). Unless otherwise noted, roles are sided with town:
1. Vanilla - Sided with town. Wins if town eliminates all anti-town members (i.e. SKs, Cultists and Mafia)
2. Goon - Sided with the mafia. Wins with mafia.
3. Bomb - If killed at night, he will die, but he'll take the person who killed him down with him. Note that this version does NOT include if lynched.
4. Cop - Investigates one person each night. She will get a result of either "innocent" if the person is NOT sided with the mafia or "guilty" if the person targeted is sided with the mafia. Please note standard roles include Godfather and Miller.
5. Cult Leader - is THIRD PARTY. Only wins if all remaining players are cult. Cult Leader can recruit one person each night to become cult themselves. These players are "cult members" and do not retain their power roles. Cult Leaders can only recruit non-mafia players, and will die if recruiting mafia players. If the cult leader dies at any point for any reason, the remaining cult members will recognize that they've been brainwashed and return to society as VANILLA town members (they no longer retain their power). Cult members do not know the idenitity of the cult leader.
6. Doctor - Protects one person each night. If someone tries to kill that person, the doctor will save.
7. Godfather - Sided with the mafia. Any cop investigation on him turns up as "innocent." Not immune from night kills.
8. Mason - Masons are a pro-town group that can communicate with each other at night. MASONS MAY NOT CLAIM MASON DURING THE DAY. Masons who try this or try to circumvent this rule will be modkilled. (e.g. "I'm that thing that we can't talk about with my partner Y" will end up in a mod kill). Masons cannot recruit.
9. Miller - Millers are town sided, but if investigated by a cop, she will turn up a "guilty" result.
10. Role Blocker - sided with the mafia. Can target one person at night. If the target is a power role, they will be prevented from using their power. Limited shot abilities ARE used even if role blocked.
11. Serial Killer - third party role. Wins if he is the only survivor. May kill on night 1 or 2. Must kill on night 3 or beyond.
12. Tracker - Follows one person each night. The tracker sees wherever that person went at night. If Tracker follows Person X and X is a doctor who visits Y, then the tracker will get a report that says X visited Y. Please note: Vanilla players and players who choose not to target anyone will randomly be assigned who they visited. If the mafia have more than one player left, then the tracker will see only one result. A mafia power role will show only as visiting her target. If the power role is the only mafia member, the tracker will see the mafia member visiting two targets.
13. Traitor - Traitors win with the mafia (and thus are sided with the mafia), but they are not PART of the mafia. They come up as GUILTY to cops. They do not meet with the mafia at night. If there is a traitor, the mafia will know that there is a traitor, but they will not know who the traitor is. The traitor will not know who the mafia members are.
14. Vigilante - Sided with town. May choose to kill one person at night.
15. Watcher - Similar to tracker. Watches one person each night. The watcher sees whoever visited that person at night. Unlike the tracker, the watcher will see EVERYONE who visits at night. Only one mafia member visits their kill victim at night. Please note that vanilla players and players who choose not to target anyone will be assigned a person to visit at night at random.
*Please note that these definitions are NOT the same as the information being sent by PM. Additional Information may be included. As always, you may not quote or quasi-quote any PM that I send.
One last piece of advice: I wrote these rules BEFORE I decided if roles would be used, and, if so, what roles would be used. Therefore, while I encourage you to interpret everything I say as a "clue," consider that the role definitions were used by me as a parameter for when I was designing my setup as much as to let you know what to expect from each role.
