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[zombie urist]

General beginner's mafia discussion.

Please don't talk about on-going games.

Spoiler: Beginner's Games Archives (click to show/hide)

Here is the archive of Beginner's Games that have been played on this forum.

The more recent games are more polished and are better places to learn how to play the game. We reworked the system to include playing ICs again in BMXXI, so the games from then on have more hands-on training and direct advice.

Beginner's Mafia I
Beginner's Mafia II
Beginner's Mafia III
Beginner's Mafia IV
Beginner's Mafia V
Beginner's Mafia VI
Beginner's Mafia VII
Beginner's Mafia VIII
Beginner's Mafia IX
Beginner's Mafia X
Beginner's Mafia XI
Beginner's Mafia XII
Beginner's Mafia XIII
Beginner's Mafia XIV
Beginner's Mafia XV
Beginner's Mafia XVI
Beginner's Mafia XVII
Beginner's Mafia XVIII
Beginner's Mafia XIX
Beginner's Mafia XX
Beginner's Mafia XXI
Beginner's Mafia XXII
Beginner's Mafia XXIII
Beginner's Mafia XXIV
Beginner's Mafia XXV
Beginner's Mafia XXV Redux
Beginner's Mafia XXVI
Beginner's Mafia XXVII
Beginner's Mafia XXVIII
Beginner's Mafia XXIX
Beginner's Mafia XXX
Beginner's Mafia XXXI
Beginner's Mafia XXXII
Beginner's Mafia XXXIII
Beginner's Mafia XXXIV
Beginner's Mafia XXXV
Beginner's Mafia XXXVI
Beginner's Mafia XXXVII
Beginner's Mafia XXXVIII
Beginner's Mafia XXXVIV
Beginner's Mafia XL
Beginner's Mafia XLI
Beginner's Mafia XLII
Beginner's Mafia XLIII

[zombie urist]

Why do BMs have only two ICs in play?

Since NQT's seen fit to mention the one currently in play I suppose I can too.

Week one we had total absence of IC Griffinpup, replaced after a week.  By that time we had absolute minimal interaction from the other IC, Deathsword.

Then Darvi, Griffinpup replacement was active for one week, with an almost total absence of the other IC for that week (1 post was made).

Then Darvi went silent again, for -two weeks- (save for a single oops post about forgetting the game at the end of the first week of silence).

We -need- to see normal play.  We newbies.  We need diversity and balance.

Has a BM consisting of around 40-60% experienced players been considered?  That way if one or another is 'distracted' or not as experienced as one might hope an IC is, if stuff comes up - there's more balance and flow.  Newbies have a greater chance of seeing effective playstyles, of seeing different things caught, of interacting with experienced players who are actually there to play and who actually care about the game - and those experienced players are not 'just' surrounded by newbies.

I'm in two other games with a far higher percentage of experienced players - no two experienced players are playing the same way.  Often everyone is making mistakes, misunderstanding things, people catch certain details but miss others, people think different things are Scummy.

I think BMs need more of that 'real balance'.  Do what you see fit with the extension rules or any other rules - but apparently people, -experienced people- some of them have trouble tracking vote counts.  Mods need to update frequently.  Mods need to follow the rules/expectations/guidelines set in the OP - if the OP says nights last for 24 hours - Don't set them to be 48 hours with no explanation.  Change whatever you think needs changing in the set up of the BM game - but what I think it needs MOST is the balance of a larger number of experienced players to the inexperienced ones.  And I feel that's a critical need.

The other half of the 'testing' that a BM does is give new players an idea if they like Mafia or not. It's one of the main reasons you get new players flaking at a higher rate than veteran players. Some people find that they just don't enjoy Mafia, don't have the time for it, can't handle the stress, whatever. And they bow out, usually never to return.

Not saying veteran players don't flake out as well, but generally they at least know that they enjoy the game and intend to go for the entire time.

So I agree that a Beginner game should have more built-in capability to deal with people dropping out than a standard Mafia game does. Whether that's a kill switch, a more robust replacement system, concrete rules for modkills of absent players, or something else. Been too long since I've run a BM, so I'm not sure which is best. Probably a combination. (Pretty sure I only ran the first one, though I've had beginners in a few of my normal games).

If the majority of players are going to be non-beginners, why bother even keeping the beginner format?  It would be easier to attract the massive number of ICs if it was a mod chosen setup rather than the same not particularly interesting semi-open/open one every time.

A cancel game vote would only make sense on a unanimous vote from the players (with absent players counted as voting in favour), otherwise the town can just vote to end the game if they get into an unfavourable situation.

Weird experimental idea: Pro-Am Mafia.  The setup requires 14 people - 7 beginners and 7 experienced players, but uses the Sprint setup.  Each beginner is paired with an experienced player, and the pair is then assigned a quicktopic and a playerslot.  Both players are then playing the same role.

The beginners all have a chance to talk about the game with their partner, and there's built in redundancy which should mean that playerslots don't fall silent when someone flakes.

[Imp]

Weird experimental idea: Pro-Am Mafia.

I'd sign up to try that set up.

[zombie urist]

Also on the subject of ICs I think the quality of ICs really only started going down around BM40. I think Shakerag set a bad example by replacing out in BM39, but to be fair he have personal emergencies. In the future though ICs should probably realize that BM's take up to 1.5 months to complete and will require ~2 hours of participation a day.

I can't really fault anyone for not having that much time though.

Pro-Am mafia might work and someone should give it a try, but I worry about conflicting personalities. (esp since a few ppl on this subforum have pretty big egos)

[Leafsnail]

There could be some kind of Beginner Supremacy Clause where the Beginner has the final decision on the vote their slot makes.

[Tiruin]

Also on the subject of ICs I think the quality of ICs really only started going down around BM40.

I believe BMs should rather focus on teaching by fire and what to say rather than what to do--especially how Jim teaches. First teach the basics and the structure of how any general person can play, then take it off from there.

Pro-Am mafia might work and someone should give it a try, but I worry about conflicting personalities. (esp since a few ppl on this subforum have pretty big egos)

The concept of a team holds. Work together or perish alone.

[Lenglon]

Weird experimental idea: Pro-Am Mafia.  The setup requires 14 people - 7 beginners and 7 experienced players, but uses the Sprint setup.  Each beginner is paired with an experienced player, and the pair is then assigned a quicktopic and a playerslot.  Both players are then playing the same role.

The beginners all have a chance to talk about the game with their partner, and there's built in redundancy which should mean that playerslots don't fall silent when someone flakes.

I think this would become a lesson in frustration.
"Wait, who is X's partner again?"
"What did you mean by that?" "Well, my partner said it, not me, so I don't know the answer."
"So X wants to vote Y, but A (x's partner) wants to vote B"
14 players is a lot of people to keep track of.

[Leafsnail]

"Wait, who is X's partner again?"

"So you're too stupid to read the OP or votecount posts, I take it."

"What did you mean by that?"

"Well you can clearly see that my partner said it and not me due to the fact he was posting from a different account.  I don't understand why you're even asking that.  However I can give you some insight due to the fact that we share a quicktopic."

"So X wants to vote Y, but A (x's partner) wants to vote B"

This is as much of a problem as mafia teams being divided on what action they want to do - it's a lot easier to make a decision if you know the other person is on your side.

[Imp]

7 -roles- sounds easier to keep track of than the 9 which BMs currently have.

A vote for either player is a vote on both players, because it's a vote for the role.

Someone says something you want to question, but you're not sure who their partner is?  Just ask that person.  Their partner should recognize their own partner's name and jump in if needed, as well as the targeted person answering as they please when they can.

A sample votecount post might look like this:

Player1/Player2:  Player7/Player8, Player11/Player12, Player3/Player4
Player3/Player4:
Player5/Player6:
Player7/Player8:  Player9/Player10, Player13/Player14, Player1/Player2
Player9/Player10:
Player11/Player12:
Player13/Player14:

Not voting:  Player5/Player6

As a recently brand new to Mafia player - I don't believe the pairing looks ANY more confusing than the original time I saw a real votecount.  I was confused originally, it got sorted out.  Exactly what a BM is about and for I think, and this isn't -that- much harder.  It's both more and less to keep straight, to my perception - equals out as different, not worse.

Edited to add:

This can be further helped by regular vote counts, all showing the paired names.

Difficulty in pairings by having the understanding that it's a 'newbie' game - if a pair cannot agree on some specific course of action at -all-, be that who to vote for or who to night kill or something not to talk about,  the OP will contain suggestions that the experienced player 'cooperate' with the newbie, so the newbie can learn through direct experience why the IC's suggestions might have been good ones, and TOO, if it's the newbie having a problem with their IC, allow the newbie to 'request replacement' for their personal IC - and for that IC to 'have to bow out' if their newbie wants them gone - unless the newbie's so crazy they try to do that then split....then let the IC back in and junk the newbie who's probably already disappeared I guess.

Unique problem players can be handled as unique problems?  But if the OP makes it clear that if there's a difference of decision, the pair should go with the newbie's choice if the pair cannot agree on the same choice, that will probably resolve most of those problems that may or may not occur, and the newbie is likely to quickly get information to realize that they were foolish (or smart) to not cooperate with their specific IC.

[Toaster]

It's worth noting that a 7 player game with two scum is heavily scum sided.  Given that you'd suddenly have four people working together in a quicktopic plotting things out, it's even more so.

The only solution I could think of would be making two odd/even SKs, but that's not a simple game.

[Shakerag]

Also on the subject of ICs I think the quality of ICs really only started going down around BM40. I think Shakerag set a bad example by replacing out in BM39, but to be fair he have personal emergencies. In the future though ICs should probably realize that BM's take up to 1.5 months to complete and will require ~2 hours of participation a day.

Dude, what the hell.  How does replacing out because my mom was dying set a bad example?

[zombie urist]

Sorry dude, "bad example" was a poor choice of words. Replacing out in extreme cases due to unforeseeable circumstances is fine, but recently IC's have been replacing out when they shouldn't have signed up in the first place.

[notquitethere]

Hmm. Most people know pretty quickly if mafia is for them or not, hence the high turnover of replacements in BMs. Education is on the job, anyone who plays mafia a few times will pick up all the basics. I think the main problem is game-fatigue in those that like the game in theory but in practice find it drags on too much. A set up with shorter days or, alternatively, fixed term days so the players know what they're letting themselves in for.

[Jim Groovester]

So, what's the problem with Beginner's Mafias?

Before we start proposing solutions let's figure out what the problems are.

[notquitethere]

I think they're too slow, which discourages new players. Mechanically they're not interesting to many experienced players (who might otherwise not mind playing with beginners), and though the replacement system is supposed to keep games well stocked with players, it typically doesn't and there isn't a good replacement-list-solution. Delaying games for long periods while the replacement list is populated is bad because new players typically want to play now and they might not have the same inclination a month later, yet starting a BM with few replacements is a recipe for absent players in the mid to late game.