More logic, less guessing?

This is another common objection to the game of Mafia / Werewolf:

"The game is fine in general. The only thing that bothers me is that there is so much guessing and randomness.

It would be far more interesting for there to be more clues that could help the ordinary citizens make a decision about who are they going to vote for on a public lynch."

This is a valid objection. I can understand this kind of thinking.

But again, this is coming from someone who doesn't see the true appeal of the game.

I blame the video games.

Children are raised to look at the screen or a console and ask it: "Give me what I need to know. Give me the input. I will process it and give you back the output via mouse, keyboard or joystick." 
To do that, you need logic and dexterity. This conversion of input to output is what the entire game skill consists of. How good you do it and maybe how fast you do it.

In this game (the game of Mafia), you don't have that screen, that console which gives you the clearly defined input you then have to convert to output using logical reasoning.
The input is not given to you in a plain, formatted way, prepared for you to process it as simple and as quick as possible.

You have to search and dig for that input. Your input will be vague and untrustworthy.

You have to get the others to talk about the game. Ask questions that will put them on the edge. Detect, for example, if they are playing the conversation down or if they are maybe acting generally uninterested in the game. Both of these could be clues that you are talking to a mobster.
Depending on how competitive your games get, maybe you'll even secretly go through your friends messages to find clues.

And you will still have to produce some output, you still have to vote or perform some other actions. You don't have a luxury to say: "I've done all I can do. This was a perfect play on my part. I am a master at this game."

This game is no chess. It's more like poker. You can do everything right, and still lose. Still, does that mean poker is pure luck?

Other than logic and game theory, you mostly use Soft Skills.

If we gave players more reliable informations, players would turn their heads to the screens instead of to each other. The point of the game is to do exactly the opposite. We say: "Look away from the screen and towards the living people!"


To get more into the proper mood for a Mafia game, you need to watch a movie like "The Thing":

Noone asked these poor people whether they would like to get more clues to decide who is the alien and who is human. Or if they think it's fun that most of them die by the end of the movie. But still, they are managing.


I'm not saying that the game cannot be improved. The original objection was that there was not enough  "tangible" information circulating around. The way I see it can be accomplished is by adding more power roles or adding some kind of time constrained transient abilities to ordinary citizens. If we gave more information to everyone, it reduces the necessity for communication between players.

We have to be careful, though. None of the newly added roles or features should give birth to a strategy that dominates all other strategies. It only makes sense to add more things that will contribute to the richness of the game. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish.



Another thing that can help you to embrace the randomness is to imagine a game of Bingo. But with a twist!

It can be any kind of twist. For example, a game of Bingo where you can trade numbers on your ticket with numbers on other players' tickets. Additionaly, let's say there are some players who get to see a number that is about to be drawn some time in the future but only after they trade one of their own numbers. There are players who randomly rarely see a future number without having to trade anything to get that information. There are players who can forcibly exchange one of their numbers for yours, but they can't see any future numbers. And all sorts of special abilties like this.

In the end, it's still a game of Bingo. It's still largely a matter of luck. But by playing it smart, and assuming that others are also trying to play smart, you can increase your chances of winning.

Live vs. Online

Werewolf / Mafia is traditionally played live, among a group of people gathered in a single room. Since a long time ago, the game can be also played online.

Some of the basic differences between live and online games are:

• While playing online, there is no need for gathering all players at the same place. In fact, online games usually consist of players from all around the world.
• When playing an online game, there is no need to keep your eyes shut and pretend to be asleep.
• While playing a live game, you have rich communication, which is what the game is all about. With online games, usually it's just typing. (DailyMafia.Com introduces video chat, but still...)
• In an online game, the doctor phase, the detective phase, the mafia phase, etc. They can all run in parallel.
• Some online games don't need moderators.
• In live games, the rules are simpler to enforce. As a player, you can try to peek during the night phase. That's about it... While most online Mafia games have entire pages dedicated to listing out rules. Mostly rules that prohibit stuff. A simple screenshot can make an entire game pointless.
• ...

ExposeMafia.Com recognizes that the live version of the game is "superior".

It's not right to say that one game is superior to another, so just a quick clarification. Here is a list of some games ordered by superiority (inferior to the left, superior to the right):

Rock-Paper-Scissors < Tic-Tac-Toe < Checkers < Chess

In terms of Game Theory, it is a question of the number of game states and the richness/diversity of the Pareto optimal front.

However, even though live Mafia is superior as a game, it implies bigger organizational difficulties. For one, the necessity to keep a group of couple of dozen of players in one room for at least an hour. 

Second, the moderator is a weak spot - a single point of failure.

There are much more to be mentioned.

ExposeMafia.Com tries to eliminate these difficulties and keep all the good stuff. It eliminates any possibility for cheating. You can play live games, where the site simply replaces the moderator.

Short vs. Long

When it comes to playing Mafia or Werewolf games online you get to choose whether you want to play long games or the short ones. This is not some official, well established division. Just a classification of mine.

The short games you can play on various sites (like EpicMafia.Com or Town of Salem) or you can play it in any online live chat rooms. Playing Werewolf on IRC channels is allegedly also popular.

Basically, players are typing to each other inside a chat room. The site or the IRC bot assumes the role of a moderator and delivers role specific information to the users.


There are also the long games which are almost exclusively played on online forums (MafiaScum.Com, TeamLiquid, MafiaManiac.Net). The pace at wich the day and night phases exchange in the game matches the day and night cycles in real life.

Although not immediately obvious, playing short games requires more effort than playing the long ones.

When playing a short game, you attention must be exclusively focused on the game for at least an hour. During that time you are constrained to remain at one location and wait until you are eliminated from the game or the game is over.
When playing a long game, the line between you playing a game and living your everyday life is blurred. For only a couple of minutes per day you actually have to do something you wouldn't normally do. That is, log into the game and submit your vote or action. (The important thing to notice is that the game is not your interaction with the site. You log into the site only to submit what you've already decided. The game is all that is happening between your logins.)


You come to the classroom one morning and find out who got killed last night. You meet your friend in the evening, while you're having a drink, news arrive about who got voted out of the game.


ExposeMafia.Com suggests the approach of a long game, although there is no reason why we couldn't support short games, too.

What do I do?

Some people get disappointed with the game when they get a basic innocent game role. For the entire duration of the game, they have no special abilities. All they can do is vote. Often in these situations, they start lacking enthusiasm to carry on with the game.

This occurrs because the game of Mafia is based on a different paradigm than a conventional game.
When a game starts they often cry: "Who am I supposed to vote for? I don't have any information yet. Am I supposed to just guess? That doesn't sound fair... or fun."

First of, it is not true you don't have any information. You know, for example, that out of 10 people playing the game, 2 of them will certainly be lying to your face if ask them particular questions. If just this is not enough to get you at least a little bit interested in the game, then this game truly does not match your taste.

Second, innocent people will die, this cannot be avoided. Especially in the beginning of the game. Getting rid of the mafia/werewolfs has always been a dirty business.
This is why the innocents outnumber the baddies in the beginning. They have a head start.

The thing that has been highlighted over and over again is that the game is a competition between teams, and not an individual fight for survival. So, the normal way to approach the game involves terms like "natural life expectancy". According to a scientific research of a Mafia game, natural life expectancy for a Detective is R/4, where R is a total number of players. So, you are counting on the fact that you will die. The skill is to estimate when and make the most of your role for the sake of the team.

Third, a player can get confused into thinking that their interaction with the site (or the moderator) is the main focus of the game. This is why they are disappointed with the basic role - the moderator is withholding so much from them.

The art in the game is to form a, so called, "collective intelligence". You, as an individual player, may not have any special powers. But you always have to keep in mind that there are players on your team that do have them.
There are players on your team that do possess reliable information that can guide your voting. You just have to choose who to trust. If you don't trust anyone, the game collapses into randomness. Randomness is good for the baddies because they all vote for the same person on daytime voting. In other words, if everyone does nothing and there is no communication, the mafia will win.

As long as you focus on the fact that you cannot do anything because you don't have any special powers, your teammate's special powers are not benefitial to the team.

Also, keep in mind, if an innocent has to die, it's better for it to be a basic Citizen than any of the power innocents (Detective, Doctor, ...).

When you have a power role, naturally, your goal is to reach out to people you consider innocent.

On top of these broad and vague things you just read, there are a lot of concrete tactics and openings that will be presented in future posts.

It's childish

People play Mafia/Werewolf games in various social happenings and everyone comes out with different impressions.
There is a whole spectrum of feelings about this game. If the organizer/moderator does a good job, the game can turn out interesting and you can have a great experience.

However, there are various reasons why this game can leave someone completely unimpressed. No game is made to suit everyone's taste, of course.

But, when you understand the essence of the game you can learn to tell if someone doesn't like it because it generally doesn't match their taste or because of the technical difficulties that occurr while the game is being played.

For example, as the night phase comes players are required to close their eyes. While listening to moderator's instructions and keeping your eyes closed, some people (including me) feel funny inside.

People don't want to be treated like children. Closing their eyes and bahaving according to moderator's instructions reminds them of a childrens' game of make believe or a game of hide and seek.

Most would agree that this is one of the reasons why some people don't like this kind of games. And I would add that this is an example of a technical difficulty causing someone's contempt for the game.


ExposeMafia.Com has a mechanism that enables all kinds of public, private and anonymous activities that do not require any weird stuff like pretending to be asleep or enganging in any kind of storytelling orchestrated by a moderator person who may or may not ruin the entire game in a second by accident.