wD Mafia Master Post

[Squigs44]

What I have seen work best is that the mafia NK is required after night 5 or so (depends on game size). That means Mafia can hold the NK early, but late game they are the ones required to break mylo.

[damo666]

epic mafia used to rule that if any side did a no lynch 3 phases in a row they lose
and if mafia no kills 3 nights in a row they lose

if both sides no lynch and no kill 3 times in a row the game is a tie

The tie could never come into effect since one side would have already lost under the prior rule. ##vote brainbomb

[Jamiet99uk]

meteor rules are really annoying

I am not sure what you mean by "meteor".

epic mafia used to rule that if any side did a no lynch 3 phases in a row they lose
and if mafia no kills 3 nights in a row they lose

if both sides no lynch and no kill 3 times in a row the game is a tie

This was the solution I applied in practice in the game - I declared that if three day/night cycles passed without a death, the game would end in a tie. It seemed reasonable.

[Jamiet99uk]

Apologies if what I did was considered unsportsmanlike. We'd previously discussed holding the kill in the scumchat, so I assumed that was an option in general, and I didn't consider that the game being at mylo would change things. I was not planning to continue to hold the kill in an effort to get town to just lynch before a NK went through, and I wasn't trying to delay the game in any way. I was just trying to cause confusion and attempt to implicate a player who wasn't online at the time.

There is absolutely no need to apologise - you acted entirely within the rules. This is purely a discussion for the future, not the passing of judgement on the ethics of the game which has just ended. You were perfectly within your rights not to put in a kill.

[Jamiet99uk]

What I have seen work best is that the mafia NK is required after night 5 or so (depends on game size). That means Mafia can hold the NK early, but late game they are the ones required to break mylo.

I have also seen at least one approach where both the lynch and the NK are mandatory all of the time - to the extent that, if there is a tied vote, one of the tied wagons is lynched any way, using a die roll or coin toss.

[brainbomb]

how bout town gets 1 no lynch per game
scum gets 1 no kill

[Jamiet99uk]

how bout town gets 1 no lynch per game
scum gets 1 no kill

I don't think that's a good solution, myself, I'm afraid.

What is this "meteor" you were talking about?

[brainbomb]

https://epicmafia.com/topic/72177


https://amp.reddit.com/r/epicmafia/comm ... lly_works/


It is a tie if 3 days and 3 nights all result in no decision.

[Hellenic Riot]

The way meteor rules work elsewhere is that the town or scum will have the "meteor" on them after three days & nights of no action, and if they don't take on that phase then the game ends with everyone losing.

In reality how this plays out is that town make sure to NL first at mylo, because this means the final phase of the 3 & 3 will be on the mafia and therefore the mafia will be forced to kill. Whereas if the mafia NK first then the meteor ends up on the town. Then if it gets to the final phase and they NK/NL anyway then it goes down as breaking the rules and the people who do it get punished for throwing the game.

There are exceptions to the rules, such as cases where if the mafia make a kill then it's autoloss for them, and therefore the onus is always on the town so you can't force the scum to solve the game for you; but in general that is how the rule is applied.

[Hellenic Riot]

Of course there are other game modes such as "Must Lynch" or "Action Required" which just remove the option of NL'ing or NK'ing entirely, but they can be a bit prescriptive and take options away; and of course if you can end up in the scenario where scum making a kill would cost them the game then that game mode really sucks. And what to do in the case of a tied-vote becomes a problem (nobody wants to be lynched by a dice roll)

[Fluminator]

So, time for a rules discussion.

During the mini-game which just ended, at MyLo, the remaining Mafia member decided to no-kill, for one night phase, while Town were pursuing a no-lynch strategy. The next night there was a kill and the game moved into the final phase.

There was a debate about this in the God QT at the time. Several people took the view that it should be against the rules for Mafia to withhold their kill if the game is in MyLo.

The current master rules that we have do not say this.

Thoughts?

If the mafia stop killing townies, then the town wins. Most places I know assume the mafia have to kill at mylo.

[worcej]

So, time for a rules discussion.

During the mini-game which just ended, at MyLo, the remaining Mafia member decided to no-kill, for one night phase, while Town were pursuing a no-lynch strategy. The next night there was a kill and the game moved into the final phase.

There was a debate about this in the God QT at the time. Several people took the view that it should be against the rules for Mafia to withhold their kill if the game is in MyLo.

The current master rules that we have do not say this.

Thoughts?

If the mafia stop killing townies, then the town wins. Most places I know assume the mafia have to kill at mylo.

I agree with this.

[Jamiet99uk]

I am absolutely not willing to make GM calls, purely on the basis of "assumptions" people may make, which are not reflected in the rules.

Either the rules forbid no-NK at Mylo, or the rules do not forbid no-NK at Mylo.

It appears that we have yet to reach a clear community consensus on whether to update the rules?

[foodcoats]

On the one hand, I want to say, "Whatever is decided is fine, as long as it is documented and clear for the players as to how situations are adjudicated." I think no-lynches and no-kills are strategic options that give rise to interesting situations. I thought it was "interesting" that, in Jamie's Simpsons minimafia, town was incentivized to force a draw by consecutive no-lynches if scum withheld the NK to maintain their POE advantage.

But on the other hand... when actually playing, and not just spitballing in a GT or a forum thread and thinking theoretically... no-lynches and no-kills really, really kill the momentum of the game. They create lame, boring situations where the game stultifies. When there is a no-lynch, there is basically 48 hours of rehash.

I think it would be most interesting overall to say town-must-lynch and scum-must-kill. Rand the lynch or the kill if there's a tie. It keeps the game moving forward.

[Hellenic Riot]

I feel like a hard-rule is a bad idea when some setups can have scenarios where mafia killing at Mylo is autoloss for them (generally these only occur at 4 way mylo), so perhaps it would be better for a setup-dependant rule; or a rule that excludes the 4 way situation.

[Foxcastle]

I feel like a hard-rule is a bad idea when some setups can have scenarios where mafia killing at Mylo is autoloss for them (generally these only occur at 4 way mylo), so perhaps it would be better for a setup-dependant rule; or a rule that excludes the 4 way situation.

Can you give an example? I'm having trouble imagining one.

[Hellenic Riot]

I feel like a hard-rule is a bad idea when some setups can have scenarios where mafia killing at Mylo is autoloss for them (generally these only occur at 4 way mylo), so perhaps it would be better for a setup-dependant rule; or a rule that excludes the 4 way situation.

Can you give an example? I'm having trouble imagining one.

Generally the scenario would be where there are 2 PR's, a VT, and a mafia claiming VT. The PR's could be known or they could be unknown (IE they've claimed as PR but not which one). If those PR's include an Oracle (reveals someone's role on death), a watcher or tracker (visitation mechanics), a bomb (blows up a mafia on death), or something else with an effect upon death; then killing wrongly would inevitably result in the mafia being confirmed and therefore losing - And if there's a doctor as well then it might not even be possible to kill anyway.

[Foxcastle]

I think we should clarify in general whether the mafia team can withhold their kill, since that doesn't seem to be in the rules. I think they can hold has been the way of things, and keeping it that way makes the most sense.

This question in specific, though, seems like such a rare edge case that I'm not sure we need to convene Parliament over it.

I am opposed to giving the mafia one-time no-kill option. That basically turns it into an expendable power, and that will actually increase it's use. ("Hey, scummates, how do we want to use our no-kill this game?" would likely become a routine question, for example.)

I am opposed to forcing town to kill (even on ties) during the day phase. Doing so eliminates MyLo, and the fact that MyLo has its own special little abbreviation like that indicates that it's integral to the game and should not be eliminated. Besides, eliminating MyLo seems to throw the balance decidedly in favor of the mafia team. Obviously, a GM should be able to amend this for their setup if they so desire.

I think if you generally force the mafia to submit a kill order, you will eventually run into game scenarios where holding the kill is actually the mafia's best move, and they will then be asking if they can roleblock themselves or trying to find creative ways to waste a kill so that it doesn't go through. That's silly, and is just going to swing this pendulum back the other direction when we then convene Parliament to fix that problem. A mafia-must-kill rule would also preclude some interesting and fun scenarios that are available if the mafia can hold the kill, or when no-kill is legitimately the best move (in the early or mid-game).

I think a cycle in which town and mafia both hold their kills (especially late game) is actually a violation of the mafia's win condition. So I would be in favor of a rule that mafia cannot withhold their kill at MyLo; or, more generally phrased, mafia cannot hold their kill after a day phase in which town does not lynch. So the rules would read:

Mafia Vote: The third level of voting refers to Mafia members choosing their factional NK (nightkill) target during Night phases. The mafia members will use their separate QuickTopic thread to discuss this. Please make your votes in bold, like so: kill Zultar (< b > kill Zultar < / b >). Mafia NK will be decided by majority vote. In the event of a tie, the oldest vote will break the tie. The oldest vote determines which member of the Mafia team actually performs the kill, unless the mafia team designates someone to make the kill. The Mafia team may choose to forego the NK, except in cases where town did not lynch a player on the preceding day.

If mafia executing a kill at MyLo would be autoloss for them because there are a lot of PRs about, well, sometimes that's the way game goes. Maybe town played well/got lucky, or mafia played poorly/was unlucky. If there is no risk of being caught by PRs, then I don't see how the mafia giving up the advantage of choosing who to kill in favor of participating in a lynch that they don't control makes any sense, and that could be construed to be playing against their win condition.

[Chaqa]

My general understanding of it was mafia can hold their kill until MYLO, then for game progression reasons it is on them to make the kill.

Realistically, we probably don't need to worry about this as a scenario if it's only happened once in 6 years, and just leave it up to the GMs to decide if their setup warrants clarification.

[damo666]

No restrictions.

If each side want to go down a stalemate path the result is ....

guess what?

Stalemate.

Stalemate => draw or no result or whatever you want to call it.

A threewise repetition seems a reasonable measure of both sides willing to accept stalemate.

Is there any reason this cannot be adopted as a standard rule or why this would not be a particularly unwanted rule. Seems harmless enough.