Now that the game has started and I am now responsible for teaching seven of you how to play a game, I will say the following first.
I will be a completely impartial source of advice that I will freely give at every opportunity, whether I am asked for it or I decide to give it on my own. You can trust that everything I have to say will be given in good faith, even if it comes at a personal cost to me in this game. If you do not listen to what I have to say, for any reason, you will severely hamper your ability to learn how to play the game. So, to reiterate,
Listen to what I tell you.If you don't, then what's the point of me being here?
For those of you who don't know what to do, games usually start with the Random Vote Stage. You should pick a target randomly, vote them, and ask them a question. The sole purpose of this is to get conversation going when there would otherwise be no reason to do that. I'll start.
jaxler, let's say you're the Cop. You want to catch scum during the night with an inspection. What do you look for?
Ideally you should ask game related questions in the RVS. Asking what kind of flavor of ice cream is a player's favorite does absolutely nothing to help you find scum, which is your primary goal.
And because it bears repeating:
Your primary goal is to find scum. Everything you do should help you towards that goal. And I do mean
everything.
If you're scum, you will obviously have a different goal:
Avoid detection until the end of the game. The best way to do this is to look like you are trying to find scum.
Since many of you are going to have no idea what to do and will mangle scumhunting in just about every possible way, it does you no good to hold back. So be bold, and just do the best you can. Ask lots of questions, try to get a good feel for how the game is played. I'll be there to help you when you go wrong.
Additionally, before anybody else does anything, I will stress the importance of activity. You should be as active as possible. A good guideline is to get one good post in a day, but if you can post productively more often than that it's generally a good idea to do so. As a player, town or scum, being active and visible is very much an asset, as you're out there making yourself readable, and this is considered a town quality. While there are very good personal benefits to being active, the reverse is detrimental to the whole game. Low activity makes games hard to play or outright kills them. This is fun for absolutely no one, so make a good effort and be active.
If you played a Beginner's Game before you probably recognize this spiel, but it's good all the same.
obolisk0430: If, as scum, you had the opportunity to switch the vote from an Innocent with you next on the list to a fellow Scum with you no longer having any suspicion on you, would you do it? Assuming you asked him if he wanted to be sacrificed and he said no.
Probably not. If I got people to lose a mafia guy, I would lose a mafia guy from the mafia team. If I don't do it, a Townie dies, and I will PROBABLY die later. This is my first mafia game ever, so there is not a chance in hell I could somehow manipulate the Townies using the newfound trust. At least the way I'd do it, a Townie dies.
I suppose now is as good a time as any, since I don't actually know what either of you are getting at.
Communicating clearly and effectively is extremely important in a mafia game. The easier you get your point across, the quicker you can get others to come to your point of view, saving time that would be spent otherwise by people asking you what you mean, to clarify what you said, and so on and so on. If a player has to spend longer than he or she may want to try to parse meaning from your post, he or she may end up deciding not to. If you have good arguments, or if you think you have good arguments, this is obviously something you don't want to happen.
Communicating effectively is something I'll probably get into later, once some real arguments start getting tossed around.
obolisk0430: As a citizen, If the vote was You-2 Suspicious guy-1 Innocent guy -1 and you where voting for the random guy, would you change your vote to the innocent guy to prevent being lynched? Then consider the same question except someone else says they will also vote for Innocent Guy if you vote for him.
Vote gaming to avoid a lynch is an incredibly scummy thing to do. While it may save you in the short term, come the next day you will be ruthlessly lynched. There's no good reason for someone who's town to do it; lynches are valuable town resources and it wastes two.
It's only really something scum will do, if it's at lylo, and they think they can get away with it. It's worked in the past, but it does make people really, really, really, really absurdly ridiculously angry.