What Is Mafia?

Contributors: Sunset, Aaron, Sari

Mafia is a strategy game that is hosted here on Beat Arcade often by members and staff alike. In Mafia games there are various alignments which will be trying to come out on top, which is often killing or outnumbering those of the other alignment. If you like backstabbing, big-braining, and making enemies, then you’ll love mafia!!!

Find our game rules and queue on the server!

Game Mechanics

How does it work?
Announcements and sign-ups for games happen in the discord! Sign-ups usually last from 24h to 48h. We run both standard setups using standard roles/mechanics and custom setups using custom roles/mechanics.

Phases
After sign-ups end each player is assigned a role and an alignment. Each game is divided into two phases, a Night Phase and a Day Phase.

During the Night Phase, Mafia members will choose one member of the town to kill, and any players who have “night actions” submit them to the Game Master (GM). Additionally nobody can speak in the game's channel during the night phase.
During the Day Phase, all players begin discussing within the game’s channel where they will each vote on who they wish to lynch. The player who receives the majority vote is lynched, signalling the end of the Day Phase.

Alignments
There are three different alignments: Town, Mafia and Third Party.

  • Town members will be tasked with eliminating all non-Town factions. Usually they will not be able to communicate with one another outside of the game (unless your role specifies otherwise) and will not know who other Town players are.
  • Mafia members are a minority, they have a goal of becoming the majority in the game (as they can then win every vote). To aid them in this, they will have one Night Kill, an action where they choose a player that will die that Night Phase. Unlike the Town, the Mafia team will partake in meetings with each other every Night Phase, meaning they will know who each other are (as a rule of thumb, however certain roles do not follow this).
  • Third Party contains a plethora of roles, each with their own independent win condition (survive to the end of the game, convert players to become a majority, your target player dying/surviving, etc). Due to the chaos they can bring, normally this will be limited to 1 player a game.

For a full list of the standard roles we use, as well their alignments and mechanics, check them out here.

Game Hosting

Can I host a game?
Anyone can host a mafia game on Beat Arcade, provided they have shown to take mafia games seriously by partaking within them. Alternatively, you can opt in to co-host with someone who has previously hosted a game, to better learn how to be a Game Master. You can host up to a maximum of 3 games in the queue, this includes any games you co-host. For newer GMs, we have put together a guide to hopefully help you with your exciting new games, here you go!

Game Master Guide
NB: These are guidelines for newer GMs to help them to streamline their games and answer any questions. None of these steps will be mandatory, any questions give us a shout.

We have decided to not make this mandatory anymore, however you are still allowed to implement a cooldown in the chat if you wish to do so. A recommended time would probably be 1-2 minutes between each post. This will be particularly useful if your game starts to get chaotic. Remember, you're the one in control here :)

Other things to consider will be things such as the lengths of your phases, how voting works and the such. Generally 24 hours for both phases and having players voting in the format [Vote] (Player Name) is sufficient. The latter is extremely important, as it's easier to count votes! Whatever you choose to do, be certain to communicate this clearly in your Rules.
Another good voting mechanic is the Final Vote. I generally use this for when the game is starting to come to a close i.e. players are more certain in their reads and want the game to finish quickly. Again implement as you choose, however generally I have any Final Votes locked in and once everyone has used their Final Vote, end the phase immediately.

Setup advice, etc.

Unsure on what will be best for your game? Look no further! Hopefully these tips will help you with balancing your setups, whilst keeping them fun!

T/M/TP ratio
First of all, you obviously need the most Town players. In terms of size, going Town > Mafia > Third Party is advisable, with Third Party being probably 1 player until you reach a game size of 20+. A 3:1 Town:Mafia ratio is normally good, so for a 10 person game, a good setup will have 7/8 Town (depending on if TP exists or not), 2 Mafia and 1 Third Party. Out of these, we advise that 2 of your Town are Power Roles and 1 of your Mafia is a Power Role.

Roles and Balancing
So you have your setup, you need some roles! We'll stick to normal roles for this guide, so make your way to https://epicmafia.com/role and have a good look through everything. However for a normal game, it'll be best to include specific roles, to avoid skewing things one way or another too much. Here is an example setup, based on the numbers we discussed earlier:

Town
Cop
Doctor
Blacksmith
Vanilla Town x 5
Mafia
Hooker/Fabricator
Mafia Goon x 1

In terms of balancing, it is always best to try and make sure a lot of the roles compliment one another. For example, a Gunsmith/Blacksmith paired with a Fabricator will be good, as it means the Fabricator will be able to hide items in with real ones. A Fabricator on their own will be useless, as everyone will know the items are fake. Try also to not stack protective roles or killing roles too heavily on one side, otherwise it will make it difficult for the other faction to stay alive/kill anyone. Another role to consider is the Godfather, which can be a good counter to the Cop, as they always appear innocent on reports.

That's a wrap!

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