The following roles have no place in Mafia...

[cicero]

"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.

I know I'm new but this here eez ... not my opinion.

Most things shouldnt be ruled out in mafia but I like Flea's opinion. If it isnt confirmed townie, it isn't really a mason. Call it something else. The real superpower of the masons is the confirmation more than it's the night talking. That's why you want to hide who the masons are until near end-game.

I definitely oppose scum masons in groups larger than two players. Scumdon't need to be in on knowing who the other masons are too. That invalidates the mason power 100%. So in addition, without compelling reason, scum masons should only be a factor in groups of two.

Some seem to think the key thing about masons is night talk. I completely disagree. If my mason buddy is unconfirmed I have pretty much nothing to say to them. But if I know certain players are town, I dont even need to talk to them. I already have something useful to go on.

[Axelrod]

"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.

I guess I just don't see this (I mean, I

see

it, but don't believe it should be that way). To me, a Mason is a different kind of animal than a Cop or a Doc or whatever. His town-ness is what

makes

the role what it is. As opposed to "random night-talking dude."

[Mr. Flay]

A Cop's investigation power is what

makes

the role what it is, though. So does that mean Paranoid and Naïve Cops don't have a place in Mafia?

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you guys, in principle. However, in practice, Mason has not meant "guaranteed Pro-Town" (without the obligatory statement to that effect in the PM) in a long time. And when it does contain that phrase, it should be able to be relied upon (

Boycott All Liar Mods

).

[Nemesis]

Call it something else.

I don't see it happening. Although some mods do leave the word "mason" out of role pms.

His town-ness is what makes the role what it is. As opposed to "random night-talking dude."

Yeah, masons that don't have mod confirmation of each other's alignment are pretty much vanilla townies that can talk at night.

They lose most of their strength. But they are slightly more interesting than vanilla townies... However, they are as fine as vanilla townies because they arn't broken/pointless/etc.

[cicero]

They aren't broken. But if they aren't pointless, they are pointless's roommate.

[Nemesis]

No, because they are still townies and therefore still vote and try to find scum. They just arn't as interesting/powerful.

[Glork]

They aren't broken. But if they aren't pointless, they are pointless's roommate.

They're merely underused and severely misused. The vast majority of people don't know how to masontalk properly.

[Nemesis]

Enlighten us?

(Given that your mason buddy could be scum, what would be the point of masontalking? To have a good idea of their alignment or to give them snippets of role without actually giving them a reason to kill you?)

[cicero]

Sorry - there may be some way that magic uberplayers can use any situation to their advantage, but stupid cicero can't figure it out, which is why Glork and I as unconfirmed mason partners would look something like this:

Glork: Come to quickboard to chat.

Cicero:

Glork: did you get my PM?

Cicero:

etc.

[Nemesis]

I think talking to them to gauge their activity is a protown thing to do there, just for the sake of doing something...

[cicero]

I think talking to them to gauge their activity is a protown thing to do there, just for the sake of doing something...

One can find a justification for anything I suppose. But it hardly constitutes "power".

[Nemesis]

No, it's not a powerful thing to do. Just moderately useful and pro-town. Kind of like a gender cop in most games.

[Thok]

I have no problem with scum masons in a theme game where the theme suggests the possibility of a scum mason. Sangreal, for example (which had an Illuminati member in the group of Freemasons, which was a possibility suggested by anybody who bothered to research the source material.)

They have little to no place in a normal game.

[Kelly Chen]

I would only use masons with guaranteed sanity, because when you don't guarantee sanity, the odds that your partner is innocent (and thus the primary value of your role) has to be estimated based on what you think the mod (or mods in general, recently) is likely to give you. As the setup designer, I want more control over the balance than that.

Though "mason" itself (without any special characteristics other than the possibility of being scum) is already practically on the list of roles you won't see in a Kelly game.

edit: "innocence" not "sanity"

[Nemesis]

Though "mason" itself (without any special characteristics other than the possibility of being scum) is already practically on the list of roles you won't see in a Kelly game.

What else is on that list?

[somestrangeflea]

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.

This shall be used for all unconfirmed Mason groups

in my games

on MafiaScum!

[Kelly Chen]

Though "mason" itself (without any special characteristics other than the possibility of being scum) is already practically on the list of roles you won't see in a Kelly game.

What else is on that list?

The roles in the OP are higher on that list.

Not sure what else at the moment.

[Yosarian2]

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.

Generally speaking, if a jester gets lynched, he just wins and is removed from the game; it's not like him winning means everyone else loses, or has to play for "Second place" or whatever. It's like how both the town and the survivor can win if they all survive; if the jester gets lynched, then both him and the town can win together, or both him and the scum win together.

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.)

Right. Except in the game, self votes ARE allowed, so what happens in that situation is the jester votes himself, the SK votes the jester, and the jester and the SK both win and the town loses. That's why, if someone claims jester, you want them dead ASAP; and you don't really care if they get lynched or vigged, just so long as they don't make it to endgame.

[Ectomancer]

I am completely with everyone who has said Masons should be guaranteed innocent. A Mason is an informed minority (town side). If a mod neglects to put into the PM at this point, that your partner is 100% confirmed, then the role itself is open to doubt, causing PM's to the mod to occur, etc. It is silly. Uninformed minorities who can talk at night need a different name.

Sample PM: You are Jane Doe. Your role is

Blogger

. At night you can post and read other Blogs.

The mechanics of the blog is up the Mod. You can post a list of other Bloggers for them to send Blogs to, or request that all Blogs are routed through the Mod, who then distributes to other Bloggers.

[mole]

I am completely with everyone who has said Masons should be guaranteed innocent. A Mason is an informed minority (town side). If a mod neglects to put into the PM at this point, that your partner is 100% confirmed, then the role itself is open to doubt, causing PM's to the mod to occur, etc. It is silly. Uninformed minorities who can talk at night need a different name.

The trouble is that a lot of the power of the "scum mason" role is in the presumptions people make about masons being innocent. Kelly hits the nail on the head--the balance effect of adding unconfirmed masons to your game is heavily dependent on what other mods do: if mods only use the new name when they have mafia masons in the game, it's going to be pretty obvious. We'll also need mods who are willing to add unconfirmed masons who are all innocent to some games.

[Primate]

Whut.

We already have two names for them, 'confirmed mason' and 'unconfirmed mason'. Why go to effort to put across new names for them?

[mole]

Yeah, that too.

[Adel]

We'll also need mods who are willing to add unconfirmed masons who are all innocent to some games.

I had four unconfirmed mason in my last mini-normal. All were town.

[Norinel]

It's kind of a metagame paradox now, though. Mods who see the primary value of masons as confirmedness now have to explicitly confirm because of the prevalence of scum masons, so the only mods who have unconfirmed masons are the ones who are open to scum masons anyway.

(I'm all for the middle ground of letting masons know precisely how confirmed they are, rather than making it a matter of metagame guessing- Masons and Monks is a good example, since you know the odds of a mason being a werewolf)

[The Fonz]

Actually, a suicide cult would be awesome.


Imagine a cult leader who a) dies if he recruits scum b) wins by having x number of followers (say, four in a large game) at which point all five players commit suicide and the game continues with whoever's left. If the CL dies, all the cultists return to being town.