The Future of Mafia

[Linkcat]

Light Mafias will of course be numbered sequentially. They just won't be a part of the main series.

There is no ban on long posts. What I want to prevent is people condensing what would normally be 50 posts into 15 posts to try to get around the restriction. The post limit rules can really just be read as, 'Don't make a large amount of posts.' Numbers are subject to change. A percentage rule is too hard to implement and doesn't actually solve the problem.

[killsdazombies]

It would be nice if this limit is a soft limit. Sometimes you get into an argument with another player and you end uptrading a page worth of posts each over something, and players that are getting bussed may need more posts to defend themselves.

And by soft limit I mean that you're allowed to bend that limit under circumstances like once a game. Really I just disagree with a hard and fast post limit

[Espithel]

Linkcat hates breadposting confirmed

[ddevans96]

This honestly seems like a better method than trying to please everyone with every mafia. Thoughts?

Part of my point is that this is an unrealistic goal - I think what we should be trying to do is please most people with most mafias. The mafia community here is already pretty small, splitting it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The level of mafia we had before was actually pretty nice, it was middle-ground, with a good mix of skill and activity levels but there wasn't a divide. Over time it started to separate, but I don't see it as unreasonable to find ways to get the groups to comfortably coexist again. If making two groups is desired, I think forum/chat rather than forum/forum is ideally

Having all mafias allow discussion outside the thread and no talking during night phase, casual and hardcore players having some level of understanding for the other group, and gearing all setups to allow for both depth and familiarity would probably solve most of our issues. Essentially Espi's points are all pretty valid - we should be avoiding to mimimize those:

- There are too many posts and too many things to follow. oot/no night posting, player understanding
- The games drag out for too long and I lose interest. setups
- There are too many roles/people to track (I hated role madness back in the day) setups
- My role is boring. I'm a scrub so I need a role to be useful. setups - also this mentality just needs to end
- The community is too punishing. If I talk, they'll criticise me and then I'll be lynched for fumbling. player understanding
- The community is too harsh. They're so aggressive and it puts a dampener on my mood. player understanding
- The community doesn't talk. If they don't talk, I can't make opinions about them. player understanding, setups
- Having discussion outside of thread makes it really hard for me to catch up if anything happens. this is really the only one my points don't cover -
 oot thread discussion should ultimately be moved to in-thread but starting some discussions in chat makes them more palatable for less active players
- Having discussion inside of thread makes it really hard for me to understand what's going on because I can't just ask someone for a quick TL;DR and get a quick answer in the chat. oot/no night posting

[CleanOnion]

I don't think we're splitting the community at all - there's no reason that players can't participate in both. I would say that not providing a Light Mafia is more splitting than to do so, as I know that I'm unlikely to participate in Regular Mafia

A trial run can't hurt.

[ddevans96]

I would say that not providing a Light Mafia is more splitting than to do so, as I know that I'm unlikely to participate in Regular Mafia

That's exactly why I dislike it. Many casual players would agree with you, and we'd have a very small number playing regular mafias. At that point we'd basically just be down to light mafias, because forum mafia with that few people is unfun, even with high activity. So nothing really changes, a group of the playerbase is unhappy, just the other side.

I far prefer designing mafias that work for both sides.

[RootRanger]

Completely agree with what's already been said. Mafia was much more fun when it took itself less seriously. See root's pokemon mafia, best one imo

Oh thanks! Anyone is free to re-host it (probably with a couple balance changes regarding voting power lol)

[killsdazombies]

Dd brings up a valid point, though it is based on an assumption that in the event of their being two mafia, people will only play the casual one. I'm not quite sure I agree with that, but it's something we should consider

[Linkcat]

The problem is, there is no mafia that works for both sides. I made this topic to try to figure out a way to create such a mafia, but I see now that it's just not feasible. No matter how well designed a ruleset is, a significant portion of players simply don't enjoy games with a high volume. If we take a middle-of-the-road approach, these players won't know if they'll enjoy the game or not, so they just won't sign up. The polls show that we'll lose people from the other end as well.

The idea of the split mafia system is that every person who has any interest in mafia will be able to look at one or both of these types of mafia and think, "This is the mafia that I want to play." I expect most people to sign up for both types. Another way to look at it is that we are continuing to refine the way we play mafia now, but as this moves further in a certain direction, we are creating a new line of mafias that capture what we've lost along the way. I don't see this hurting the normal mafias, and I'm not really sure a moderate mafia would match the player count of either of the split mafias. Light Mafias offer two more benefits. First, they'll prevent burnout by having more relaxed games as breaks between serious ones. Second, they're easy to get into for people who may consider trying out mafia, but are put off by a higher level of commitment and volume.

I've just realized that what mafia has lost is the essence of being a fun forum game that anyone can join. That's the kind of forum game I want to provide, just as much as I want to provide some intense games of Mafia.

[Espithel]

It makes you wonder if Mafia is the correct fun forum game when it is so reliant on people attempting to play the game in a skillful manner.

[CleanOnion]

It makes you wonder if Mafia is the correct fun forum game when it is so reliant on people attempting to play the game in a skillful manner.

Hence the necessity for Light Mafia, imo

I'd wager that Mafia is far more skilful than it is fun, normally. LM could be more fun than it is skilful, but that comes down to the players.

If it's not the correct fun forum game, then surely that's why we have a Forum Game Organizer rather than Mafia Organizer

[ddevans96]

The problem is, there is no mafia that works for both sides.

I just fundamentally can't understand this being the case. Both earlier mafias here and newbie games at mafiascum strike this balance. Why can't we now?

That being said, if split mafia is to happen, normal mafia should not have any restrictions on post volume, and light mafia's post count should have a soft, proportional limit - that is, if someone's post count is too high compared to everyone else, then it should be throttled. But if there's a hard limit of say 15 posts and 4-5 people are 12+, that limit is detrimental to gameplay.

If I turn out to be right and normal mafias do have a small amount of players, please post this link to Micro Games on mafiascum somewhere more prominent as a reference to hosts.