Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Mafia and Werewolf: A guide

Mafia and Werewolf are without a doubt the two most popular forum games here on CF, to the point where people get mighty pissy about them. There have been many people suggesting there should be some sort of guide to these games, for a few reasons - for new players, the games can seem kind of intimidating (they're complex, and cliquey); for older players, some of you are forgetting what it's about; and for hosts, there's a few things that should supercede artistic licence.

If you are planning to play the game, for crying out loud read this it's not that bloody long. And WW/M are totally worth like two minutes of your time. No matter how serious people get about them, they're still both just games, and they ARE intended for fun :D

For ease of navigation, I have split this section into three parts: Werewolf and Mafia basics, playing Werewolf and Mafia, and hosting Werewolf and Mafia.
The first section is obviously intended for new players but you should still read it. It contains things such as what the game actually is, basic rules, and signing up.
The second section is a set of generic rules for each game. Bear in mind that each host of the game may alter these rules, but this is the basic gist of it.
And the third section is for people wanting to host in future.

=== Basics ===
=== Playing ===
=== Hosting ===
=== List of Games ===


If you think there's something that needs to be added to this guide, let me know and I'll add it.

=== Basics ===

Werewolf and Mafia games run in the forum games section. Each lasts for about two weeks. Whenever one finishes, the next host opens a signups thread for the next game. There'll be a list of numbers - simply copy and paste the most up-to-date list and add your name to it to play.
Simple.

Werewolf and Mafia are, theoretically, the same game. They consist of two phases, day phase and night phase, and each phase lasts 24 hours. There are a certain number of players, and out of this number there are a small number of mafia or wolves. The mafia all know who the mafia are. The other people do not. The goal of the non-mafia is to eliminate all the mafia from the game, and the goal of the mafia is to equalise the numbers of mafia and non-mafia - such that they can essentially force a win.
In the day phase, everybody votes for a player. The player with the most votes at the end of the phase will be eliminated from the game.
In the night phase, the mafia kill someone. That person is eliminated from the game.

Some people may also have roles. People with roles can do extra actions at night.

You may notice I said they're "theoretically" the same. Well as it happens, on CF, each game is played kind of differently, and they have different settings and stuff.
Werewolf is the more serious of the two. No matter the game, your character (if you decide to roleplay) will end up in a small village and be thrown in the shit by a wizard. The game plays as described above, and the roles are fairly standard. Werewolf has been ended by Frosty - a replacement game will likely follow.
Mafia is a bit different. It's more roleplay-inclined, the setting changes from game to game, and the roles and game mechanics get changed regularly. It's less serious, and games tend to be slightly crazier.

So that's the basic gist of Werewolf and Mafia.

BUT WAIT!

Two things.

For one, if you aren't gonna play, don't sign up. That is, if you're gonna sign up and then never look at the thread again, don't sign up. Or I will hunt you down and kill you. That's called vegging, and it's frowned upon so hard that if you do so you will explode from all the death stares.
Don't do that.
For two, while the games are obviously intended for having fun, if you're gonna be stupid in them then don't sign up. The aim here is for everyone to have fun, and if you're just being stupid you're ruining the game and nobody wants that.
===============

=== Playing ===

This section contains three things: Firstly, there's a general rule guide. If you're hosting and you don't know where to start planning your rules, start from here. If you want a rundown on how each game roughly runs, start from here.
Secondly, there's a guide to - well, not exactly "rules", but more "community guidelines" for the games.
Thirdly, at Capps' request, there's a glossary of game terms :D Be hip with the jive, yo!

Rule guide spoilered for length:


Next, I said I'd say some guidelines to playing. By no means do you have to follow them, but...

1. Don't be an arsehole. This is like the golden rule I mean come on. If you feel yourself getting pissed at someone, back off. It's just a game, don't be an arsehole.
2. Actually play the game. I don't care if you're posting in the thread once a day, if you're not getting in there and playing then you really shouldn't be signed up to the game, taking up a spot someone who would actually play the game would like.
3. Being TOO nice. "Oh I don't really want to vote today, everyone is just soooo nice!" Don't do this. That is just dumb. No matter how nice people are, several players are the 'bad guys', and if you keep doing stuff like this you're just letting the team down, man.
4. Being a stupid. No, this isn't about you being naturally stupid. This is about playing the game stupidly. Werewolf and Mafia are games based on logic and deduction. Not "He posted a lot so I am voting him." Not "I randomly generate every vote I make." Not "I don't like you very much." And while we're there...
5. Yes, the game is about logic and deduction. So if someone posts some logic, don't just go "lol I don't like logic, you are a wolf". Actually read it. It's not that hard :I
6. Play to win. Did you know that if you are mafia or a wolf then you will have to evade detection by other players? And do you know how you do that? You lie through your teeth. Yes, you may have to be deceptive in this game (even if you are not mafia). Do not shy away from lying because you think it's not nice. That is just dumb. You are a dumb if you think that is a thing which is good.
7. If you are an important role, don't be a stupid. For example, if you are the seer or detective, it is probably a bad idea for the rest of your team to announce yourself on the first day. You will not be protected. You will most likely be killed. And that is letting the team down.
8. Please don't just take things at face value. This game is about logic, deduction and deception. If someone claims to be a particular role, be suspicious of them. Be suspicious of everyone.
9. If you post lots of analysis, a) spoiler it for clarity, that is, wrap it in

[spoiler]

tags, and b) include a summary at the end of it for people without time to read it all.

It's also been recommended that if you're into playing you might wanna read some of the MafiaWiki articles. For example, there's an FAQ, and... other things which I will link to later >_>


And finally for this section is the glossary of terms.
Experienced players will use some things like this and you should like, not just ignore them.

Town/townie - Someone who is not mafia aligned.
Mafia/wolf - I should not need to explain that these are the bad guys.
Lynch - When someone is lynched, they have been killed in the day phase, by a collective vote by the players. Someone who gets lynched is called the lynchee. Or the "poor sod" if you are so inclined.
Metagaming - Referencing a previous game as evidence that someone is mafia, or town.
Vegging - When someone signs up, but doesn't play. Or just lurks. People who veg are called veggers. They should be SHOT.
Bandwagon - When there are a lot of votes on one person, that's a bandwagon. If you jump on said bandwagon, then you are bandwagoning.
Role action - Some people have special roles, and those roles might have a special action. Any actions specific to one role are PM'd to the game host who then executes them.
Role revealing - Publically or privately disclosing your role.
Endgame - The very end of the game, no matter who wins.
Lylo - A situation in which if the town lynches wrong they will lose.

(If there's something here I've missed, let me know)

===============

=== Hosting ===

If you want to host a game of Mafia or Werewolf, simply PM the person holding the host list! That person is me :D
Sometimes we don't like people signing up tooooo far ahead, so you may have to wait a bit before you can sign up. It's also pretty much mandatory that you've played at least three games.

The current list of game hosts:



Hosting is a BIG responsibility. If you're gonna drop it halfway, don't sign up. Don't even think of signing up. If you are the host, you will have to manage the pre-game details, record the in-game vote tallies, compose the phase summaries, come up with decent flavour for everyone involved, write an epilogue when the game is over (in due time), manage the night phase actions, coordinate things so that nothing gets screwed up, etc. As the host, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure the game is fun for everyone, and games that don't run smoothly aren't fun.
It's also recommended to draw some kind of death scene for everyone involved. Whether you draw it yourself, or kidnap an artist, whatever. You don't have to, but it's recommended.

Feel free to team up with someone else in order to cohost a game! There have been numerous team games before, and they all run pretty smoothly.

You can fiddle with rules, roles, and game mechanics as much as you please in your game, within reason. Bear in mind that Mafia is more inclined to dramatic changes to rules and roles than Werewolf.

If you are going to host, follow the ~magic hosting rules~ below for maximum enjoyment. If you fail to follow them I will throw you out a window.
Here:

~ Basic Hosting Rules ~
1. Don't hostveg. If you are hosting, you're damn well hosting for the whole time the game runs. If it runs for two weeks, you're damn well going to update every single day of that two weeks. If you're going away, don't host; if it's unexpected, get someone else to step in.
2. Don't confuse the players. Explain the mechanics of your game, explain the roles, explain the rules, explain everything. There's nothing saying you have to DIVULGE all the information in the game, but don't neglect to include important things. If you're adding new mechanics, explain them.
3. Don't screw up the game mechanics. Feel free to change them, but make sure it still works. And for crying out loud, don't forget to actually explain how your game runs. (Anyone around pre-MXX knows what I mean >_>)
4. Be organised!
5. Post the rules in any threads relevant to your game. Don't just post them in the signups, don't neglect to post them in the signups. Don't just go "you know how to play", or "just go look at a previous game's rules". POST THE RULES. And while I'm talking about it, post your mechanics too, or it'll be confusing as all hell.
6. Pleeeease don't screw around with who gets what role. It doesn't matter too much if you do, but it can be kind of unfair to some people.
7. Make sure there's a list of roles, rules and PLAYERS in the first post of the game thread. And keep it updated! Cross out dead players, list the known roles next to the names. Hell, some people actually link to their death scenes.
8. At the end of the game, post an epilogue! As well as finishing off the story, you might want to summarise the game - note key points, reveal all the roles, describe what happened etc.
9. If you are using the services of an artist, and they're lagging behind, it's probably a bad idea to extend the phase by any significant length for them to catch up. People will wait for art :D

~ Role Rules ~
1. Be creative! Make cool roles! :D
2. Keep the game balanced. If you add a town role which knows who all the mafia are and can attack three people a night then your game is gonna be WAY too easy for the town to win. Likewise, if you have 10 mafia and 25 players it ain't gonna go down well. A good rule is that there should be around about one mafia per four townspeople. However, on CF the rates of mafia victory are higher than expected >_> So for a 15 player game, you're looking at three mafia, up to a twenty player game, when you probably want four. If you went past 25 I guess you could include five? It's up to you really. Just make sure it all balances out. If you add town power roles, you can add more cool perks for the mafia.
3. Work out some kind of night action order. Do the mafia kill before the mercenary, or does the mercenary attack before the mafia? If the merc attacks the last mafia, and vice versa, what happens?
4. Keep the numbers of roles steady. The more roles you have, the more hard it is to balance the game - but too few roles is just lame :P
5. It's expected you'll send out role PMs to the players. Send them for all players - not just ones with a role; this lets them know that the game has started. Make your role PMs clear and easy to understand - include what the role does, and how they win as that role.
6. Don't hold up the phase just because someone hasn't sent in an action. Send them a stern PM about vegging and then continue.

~ Basic Hosting Guide ~
1. Work out how many players you want, and how many mafia you therefore need.
2. Work out the roles you want, and see if they are unbalanced or just right.
3. Figure out the game mechanics you will use.
4. Write up a summary of the rules, roles and mechanics.
5. Post your signup thread when it's your turn!
6. Using something such as the random.org list randomiser, randomly allocate your roles to the players.
7. When the game is full, open a new thread for playing in and send role PMs to all players.
8. Start the day phase!
9. When the phase is over (in 24 hours or so), announce that the phase is locked and begin writing a death scene. When the death scene is posted, night phase begins.
10. Players should PM the night phase actions to you. You must manage these and make sure that you don't screw anything up ( >_> )
11. Execute the night actions just before day phase. Before you send ANYTHING make sure you know exactly what happened that night - did the roleblocker block the seer? Did the mafia successfully kill?
12. Send out night notification PMs. It's polite to send a PM to anyone who got saved from death, but you don't have to.
13. Summarise the public part of the phase in thread. It's now day phase! Make sure that the game didn't unexpectedly end while you were busy.

And that's everything I think. If I've missed something, let me know; if there's any questions, feel free to ask! :D

I applaud you, Matt. Maybe now we'll get some more players to the game since they know what's going on.

Out of question, but how long did this take to write?

Hour and a half, maybe? Bit longer?

I feel this is relevant

Awesome! This is really helpful, Matt! Now I can prepare for hosting my Mafia game. :P

niceeeee

lylo and mylo might be good things to add to the glossary section.
anyway good work on the guide

e: also on a somewhat unrelated note, i will love any future host who kills off the wizard permanently.

Don't make a role whose sole objective is to survive and give them no powers to affect the game if you don't want someone to strategically veg :P

Also, I think that with the amount of Mafia / WW wins, I'm guessing that CF's balance is skewed somewhat toward the Mafia. It's not just about starting Mafia roles, but potential Mafia roles. In a 3 Mafia game with a conversion and a Traitor, you're looking at 5 potential Mafia... 1 of those is all but guaranteed, the other is a chance.

Frosty would kill you first.

It seems to be Werewolf more than mafia that has wolf wins - I think it's pretty close to 50/50 for Mafia iirc

I think our mafia are too powered up >_> for example, having a detective-immune, a stalker, and a conversion is gonna be powerful.

i just realize that the tv tropes page for comicfury werewolf might be kinda nice to link here

Woah, there! We haven't updated that thing in months!

oh this is more of a request
but i think its really nice and great when hosts are making their epilogue posts to not only reveal the remaining roles and stuff, but actually give us a brief summary of the entire game. just like key events, changing points of the game, and other interesting things you as the host noticed.

You should make one for Mafia. Also, about time a guide was made.

=== List of Games ===

Mafia	Host		Victory			Thread ID	Theme
============================================================================================
I	Sprite		Town			4943		Vanilla
II	Sprite		Town			5118		Mafia vs Wolves vs Village
III	Sprite		Cultists (3rd party)	5411		Vanilla
IV	Matthew		Traitors (scum)		5686		Traitors in the Mafia
V	Sprite		Town			6071		Apocalypse
VI	Matthew		Mafia/Idiot/Survivor    6352		Role madness
VII	Capps		Town			6703		Blood hotel
VIII	Potsie		???			7257/7125	Mechanical mansion
IX	Matthew		Mafia/Idiot      	7634		Vanilla
X	Sprite/Matthew	Mafia			7962		Wolves vs Mafia/Kevinsters
XI	Sarah/Zomburai	Town			8279/8277	Cyberpunk
XII	Sprite		Town			8792		Valve
XIII	Matthew/Xsera	Mafia			9004		Mansion
XIV	Frosty/Xsera	Mafia			9286		Ocean liner - Fantasy vs Mystery
XV	Sprite/Matthew	Double Agents (scum)	9459		Double agents
XVI	Meed		Town			9723		Return to Mansion
XVII	Sleepy		Town			9922		Office
XVIII	Spinnerlink	Town			10125		Closed vanilla
XIX	NekoSuave	Mafia			10272		Movie
XX	Matthew/Ally	Mafia			10457		Game show! :D
XXI	Thatguy/Matthew	Town			10869		Monastery
XXII	Sprite		Town			11097		Super High School Level Mafia
XXIII	Lee V./Nightsky	Mafia			11291		Noir
XXIV    Kojiru          Mafia                   11528           Science!
XXV     Matthew/Thatguy Town                    11703           ??
XXVI    Paul/OFools     Mafia                   11885           -
XXVII   Loungegecko     Town                    12177           Suspect everyone! Trust no-one!
XXVIII  NekoSuave       Town                    12329           Lockdown 
XXIX    Sivrus          Mafia                   12524           -
XXX     Matthew/roku    Mafia                   12655           SWITZERLAND
XXXI    Nightsky        Mafia                   12873           Winter
XXXII   Ranger          Mafia/Mafia             13268/13269     Twin towns
XXXIII  Sabrini         Town                    13535           Infection
XXXIV   Cynic           Town                    13810
XXXV    MatthewJA                               14049

WW	Host		Victory		ID		Introduced here...
=====================================================================================
I	Linden		Wolves		2797		Werewolves, seer, guardian, traitor, villager, general rules
II	Linden		Village		2872		Ghost
III	Superpie	Wolves		3018		-
IV	Magravan	Village		3154		-
V	Tamdrin		Wolves		3237		-
6	Jacob		Village		3352		Improved flavour text, ranger
VII	Frosty		Wolves		3509		Pictures, werewolf-v, framer, villager-v, naive seer, sheriff, hunter, bodyguard, the wizard
VIII	JimiRaffety	P. Village	3682		Chemist, mayor
IX	Cyborg		Village		3753		Public roles
X	Kristy		Wolves		3948		Mercenary, vigilante, alpha wolf, fraud wolf
XI	Superpie	-		4120		Ghost hunter
XII	Frosty		Wolves		4680		Stalker wolf, metagamer, medic, spy, idiot
13	Ranger		Wolves		4965		Player-selected roles
XIV	Sarge		Wolves		5561		-
XV	Lalaland/Matt	Wolves		7049/6986	OOC
XVI	Matthew		Wolves		8627		Signup thread, mayor voting, easter bunny, scapegoat, neighbour, covert werewolf
XVII	Sprite		Wolves		8967		Corrupt vigilante, amnesiac, baker, LAV
XVIII	Macey		Wolves		9501		-
XIX	Xseraphiim	Town		9668		-
XX	Frosty/Kristy	Wolves		10328		Veteran only
@I      Bio/Haim        Town            12962           -

The themes part of that is really useful. It will help me come up with a creative theme that hasn't been done yet (I have a good one!)

The "Traitors in the Mafia" one sounded like it was really interesting. And this'll help me a lot for the next game. Thanks, Matt. :)

I'd like to sign up for another hosting.