The Mafia , also known as Werewolf , is a party game created by Dmitry Davidoff in 1986 that modeled the conflict between two groups: an informed minority (mafia), and a majority not know nothing (innocent people). At the beginning of the game, each player is secretly given a role affiliated with one of these teams. The game has two alternating phases: one, where the mafia may secretly "kill" the innocent, and two, where the surviving player debates the mafia's identity and chooses to remove the suspect. The game continues until all mafia are eliminated or until the mafia defeats innocent people.
Video Mafia (party game)
History
Dmitry Davidoff (Russian: ?????????????? , Dmitry Davydov ) is generally recognized as game creator. He was the date of the first game of spring 1987 at the Department of Psychology of Moscow State University, spreading to the Moscow University classrooms, dorms, and summer camps.
Andrew Plotkin gave the werewolf theme rule in 1997, arguing that the mafia is not a great cultural reference, and that the werewolf concept corresponds to the idea of ââa concealed enemy that looks normal during the day. The Mafia and the so-called Thing variant have been screened in science fiction writers workshops since 1998, and have become an integral part of the Clarion and Viable Paradise annual workshops. The Mafia Werewolf variant becomes widespread in major tech events, including the Game Developers Conference, ETech, Foo Camps, and South By Southwest. In 1998, the Kaliningrad Middle School from the Ministry of the Interior published a methodical textbook Nonverbal Communication. Develop role-playing games 'Mafia' and 'Killer' for courses on Visual Psychodiagnostics, to teach various methods of reading body language and nonverbal signals. In September 1998, the Mafia was introduced to the Graduate College at Princeton University, where a number of variants were developed. The werewolf theme is also included in the French adaptation of the Mafia, The Werewolves of Millers Hollow.
In August 2000, a user with the alias "mithrandir" from The Gray Labyrinth, a website devoted to solving puzzles and puzzles, runs a mafia game that is adapted to play on forum boards. Both The Gray Labyrinth and the sister site MafiaScum claim that this is the first mafia game to run on forum boards. From there, the Mafia has spread to various online communities.
In March 2006 Ernest Fedorov runs the Mafia Club in Kiev, using a patented variation of his own rules. The club arranges matches, level players, and prize awards (including Sicilian trips for their tournament series champions).
In June 2006 the Rockingham school investigation was launched after parents complained about the traumatic impact experienced by the Mafia class on their fifth graders. Davidoff responded to the report, saying that as a parent who has been studying child psychology for 25 years, he feels that the game can "teach children to distinguish right and wrong," and that positive messages about being honest â ⬠<â ⬠< ⬠In late 2013, Michael "Thingyman" Harders founded Game of Mafia Champions, a special series of invitations where players from various internet communities play in a series of mafia games, culminating in the last game, where the best player of the year is determined. The series was first hosted in the Two Puzzle section of Two Poker Forums and Other Game Sections and has since been moved to the Mafia Universe. The Mafia is called one of the 50 most historically and culturally significant games published since 1890 by about.com. Maps Mafia (party game)
Gameplay
In its simplest form, the Mafia is played by two teams: the mafia and the innocent. Direct game requires moderators who do not participate as players, and identity is determined by handing out cards. At the beginning of the game, every mafioso is given the identity of their teammates, while innocent people just accept the number of mafioso in the game, and do not know which mafia and innocent players are.
There are two phases: night and days . At night, certain players secretly take special actions; during the day, players discuss and select "lynch," or eliminate, one player. These phases alternate each other until all mafiosi are eliminated or until the mafia defeats innocent people.
Some players can be assigned a role with special abilities. Particular common roles include:
- detective - an innocent person who can learn a team from one player every night;
- doctor - an innocent person who can protect a player from being killed every night;
- barman - mafioso that can undo the effects of other role capabilities every night
Andrew Plotkin recommends having two mafiosi, while Davidoff's original rule suggests a third player (rounded to the nearest integer) into a mafiosi. The original game of Davidoff did not include roles with special abilities. In the rule for "Werewolf," Plotkin recommends that the first phase is the day and that there are a number of odd players. These specifications prevent players from being killed before the first day and in most scenarios ensure that the game will end dramatically on the death penalty without going through anticlimactic killing.
Night
All players close their eyes. The moderator then instructs all mafia members to open their eyes and recognize the accomplices of their hands. Mafia members choose "victims" by quietly pointing to their targets and showing unanimity and then closing their eyes again.
A similar process occurs for other roles with nighttime action. In the case of a detective, a moderator can show innocence or guilty targets by using gestures such as nodding or vibrating heads.
The night may be accompanied by a player who tries gently to cover the voice made by signaling.
Days
The moderator instructs players to open their eyes and announce who is "dead" the night before. Discussion takes place among live players. At some point, a player can accuse someone as a mafioso and ask others to choose to punish them. If more than half of the players do, the defendant is eliminated and the night begins. Otherwise, the phase continues until the death penalty without trial occurs.
According to some rules, the role of dead players is revealed; according to others, it is not. In both cases, dead players are not allowed to try to influence the rest of the game.
Because players have more freedom to negotiate, the days tend to last longer than the night.
Game theory
Mathematical learning
The Mafia is an elaborate game for modeling, so most of the optimal game analysis assumes (a) that there are only municipalities and mobsters and (b) that city dwellers never have the probability of identifying a Mafia better than chance. The initial treatment of the game is concentrated on the simulation, while more recent research has tried to obtain a closed-form balance solution for perfect play.
In 2006, computer scientists Braverman, Etesami, and Mossel proved that without detectives and with perfect players, this random strategy was optimal for citizens and mafia. When there is a large number of players big enough to give both groups the same chance of winning, they show that the initial mafiosi number m needs to be proportional to the square root of the total number of players P , that is . With the simulation, they assert that 50 mafios will have almost 50% chance of winning between 10,000. Mafia's victory opportunity is
which is a good estimate when the right side is below 40%. If any detectives are added to the game, Braverman et al. proves that the number of mafiosi must remain at a fixed proportion of the total number of players for their chance of winning to remain constant.
In 2008, Erlin Yao obtained special analytical limits for the probability of winning the mafia when there were no detectives.
In a paper from 2010, the formula is for the possibility that a mafia victory is found. In addition, it shows that the parity of the initial number of players plays an important role. In particular, when the mafios number is fixed and the odd player is added to the game (and the bonds are solved with coin pieces), the chance of winning the mafia does not go down but rises with the surrounding factor. (equality within unlimited number of player limits).
Live game results
In a live game (or videoconference) in real-time, innocent people usually win more often than suggested by game theory. Some reasons for this have been put forward:
- The physiological stress of continuing lies lowers the mafioso's early ability to deceive innocent people, more than just a perfect game model will predict, especially if innocent people can make the city emotionally involved in game results :
If you try to pretend to be shocked or angry, it's much harder to do in a long time. People who are accused of doing something they are trying to hide will start pretending to be angry - 'How dare you ask me that?' But it will start to turn into an objection rather than a shock, because it is psychologically very difficult to imitate emotions.
- The information revealed by the mafiosi voting pattern is then told to them in the game. One of Max Ventilla's fans, has said that "If villagers are allowed to keep pencils and paper, they always win."
- As players become more experienced, their strategic sophistication and the ability to see and use fraud are increasing. They will usually get better in the skills needed to play innocent people faster, become more often villagers than mafiosi.
- The Metagame aspect: Dimma Davidoff has said, Past connections will always be outdone by future collaborations. When playing multiple Mafia games with the same person, more useful is known to be honest than deceit. Davidoff assumes that it is very important that he thinks the benefits of playing the role of mafioso honestly, outweigh the disadvantages.
But, the Mafia can win in the live game; their best chance of winning occurs when the mafioso establishes a relationship with their innocent neighbor and convinces the neighbors to honor the bond with impartial analysis. Game designers Salen and Zimmerman have written that the social game game that appears in the Mafia (combined with fears of elimination) creates the ideal conditions for this.
Optional roles
These additional roles are given different names in many versions of the Mafia, for a thematic sense, or historical reasons. Also, the same role-names can have different functions in different versions of the game. The following is a general list of the type roles found in the Mafia variant; Since the specific names vary by environment, they are definitely incomplete.
Role of Investigation
Additional variations exist, sometimes even with more specialized or complex abilities. There are many special roles, and many moderators are designing new roles for each game. Some commercial variants are shipped with blank cards to allow for this adjustment.
Variations
Naming various roles, factions, and other game elements depends on the theme and has unlimited variations. Common alternative themes restyle mafia as werewolves, worshipers, murderers, or magicians, with other roles that are renamed appropriately.
Over the years, players have created Mafia variants that include additional rules. Some of them are listed here.
Variations on winning conditions
If there are many mafiosi as innocent in phase-day, then the victory of the mafia is immediately declared, under the original Mafia rules. Other variants suspend this rule, and only declare the game after each member of one faction has been eliminated: this makes the game more easily explained, and executed.
Electoral variation
Candidates for the death penalty can be freely allowed to make speeches for their own defense. Typically, each player must choose, can only choose once and can not choose his own. But some variants have a more complicated process of selecting players to be executed. The original 'Mafia' Davidoff allows some day-to-day execution (per day), each requiring only a handful of actions.
Voting varies, but any death penalty usually requires an absolute majority of voters, or votes cast. So voting is usually not by secret ballot for some candidates with the highest vote count being omitted; more common for voting to be resolved openly either by:
- A nomination or series of structured elections to finally offer a choice between two candidates, or
- Option to smuggle (or not lick) one suspect (with a new suspect created if the last survived the vote).
Tied sound
Deadlocked elections can be solved by many or by killing players with a special role of scapegoat.
The special case of one mafioso and one innocent person can be decided randomly or ordered to win the Mafia - this is more prevalent in the live game.
Optional variant of lynch
The Innocents can choose not to kill anyone during the day. Although generally uncertain of Mafia identity, Innocents are more likely to randomly kill mafioso than the Mafia (at night). Therefore, not punishing anyone (even randomly) will usually like the Mafia.
However, when the number of survivors, No Kill can help the Innocents; for example, when three Innocents and one mafioso remain - generally called MYLO, or Mislynch and Lose for losing innocent people on their own lynch - choosing No Lynch gives 1/3 the chance to kill the mafioso the next day instead of 1/4 chance today (assuming a random death sentence).
Mafia assassination method
Some variants require that all Mafia members choose the same victim independently to kill in order to succeed. This can be achieved in the following ways:
- By waking Mafia members separately.
- By calling the names of all the surviving players and needing a living mafia to raise their hands when the name of the victim is called out. In this variant, mafiosi just "wake up" (open the eyes) at the beginning of the game when they identify each other. This variation also allows other roles to take their actions by simply raising their hands when their target names are called.
- By asking them to write their murder. Under this variant, Innocent players write the word 'honest' on a piece of paper; Mafia members write the name of a player to be eliminated. If all mafia records have the same name on them, the player is assumed to be killed by the Mafia.
In some online versions of the game, certain players (Godfather or designated mafioso) must send murder.
Other variants require polling at night as secret and unanimous, but allow multiple players to be added to the execution queue to ensure unanimity.
Many families
Some independent mafia groups or werewolves act and win independently, providing faster games and the potential for cross-border between factions.
Attribute
In this variant, players are given two cards: the first one contains their roles, the second is the attribute. The initial attributes are derived from roles that can be applied to Mafia and Innocent alignments like Anti-bullet (can not be killed at night), Mayor (has two voice on lynch), and the conjoined twins (better known as siblings or lovers).
Quantum Werewolf
This variant was developed by Steven Irrgang and is used for puzzles in the CISRA Puzzle Competition 2008. The difference from the standard Mafia game is that players are not initially assigned roles, but on a daily basis are given probabilities that describe the current state of the quantum game. Any player with a non-zero probability of being a seer or a werewolf doing the right evening action (which may not be effective if it is later determined that the player does not have that role). When a player is killed, the wave function collapses and the players are given an updated probability.
Train the Mafia
The traditional Mafia was revised and much modified by Copenhagen Game Collective to be played on underground metro. In this variation, 'hanged' players are expelled from the train (at the next stop), and have to wait in shame for the next train - a kind of 'next' train - to join the second game intertwined.
Invisible City: Rebel vs. Spy â ⬠<â â¬
A mobile location-based mobile variant for Android, designed for downtown play. The two factions are: Rebels, the majority; and spies, informed minorities. These rules superseded the eviction by laps. Each player is assigned individual missions each round. Some missions are very important and if one of them fails, the round goes to Spies, but only one player knows which mission is critical.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf
In this stand-alone game published by Bezier Games, players simply "sleep" and close their eyes for one night at the beginning of the game. They then have one day of discussion, with one death sentence without trial. No players are eliminated during the game. There are no moderators, so everyone can participate as a city or village member. When playing this game, three role cards are used more than the number of players; when everyone randomly pulls out their cards, three additional cards are placed in the center of the table. To start the game one of the players, with eyes closed, will act as a "caller" on a single early night, going through a once night role: Werewolves and Mason (if playing) will identify each other, Seer will check one player card or two cards midfielder, Robber will steal another player's role card and replace it with his own card, Troublemaker will blindly swap the two-player role card, Insomniac wakes up to check whether their role cards have been swapped, etc. The game ends in a single vote, with villagers winning if one werewolf is caught, and a werewolf wins if no werewolves are killed. This game can be played with at least three players. Play time can be as short as five minutes per game
Play online
Mafia can also be played online. The game can be played on an IRC channel, where the bot assumes the role of a game moderator and player interaction is done through textual communication. Being IRC is not a broad way of communication, these Mafia games are limited to a limited number of people. Since 2008, many other Mafia game sites have been formed. These sites are an attempt to reproduce live mafia games, and the duration and mechanism of the game is almost the same as when the game was played traditionally.
Playing mafia-like online games opens up the possibility of long-term games, as in the forums. In such a game, one day in real life usually corresponds to one day in the game, so the player logs in every morning to see who was killed during the night.
Online games have several advantages. No need to gather a lot of people in the same room, so organize and play Mafia games faster and more comfortable. Removing human moderators and the need for players to close their eyes eliminates the possibility of revealing information by mistake. Playing online also allows the mechanical role to be too complicated to use in the physical version of the game.
The lack of online play is the lack of face-to-face communication, which many consider the most important aspects of the Mafia. Some sites set up Mafia games with web cams, so face-to-face communication is maintained. Durable online mafia games that are usually played through online forums do not always have these shortcomings. It's just a correlation that people who communicate through forums usually do not know each other in real life.
In traditional Mafia games, all players are in one room. There is no way to communicate with other players personally. With online games, this is not the case. Many Mafia game forums and game sites have rules that require only one communication channel to be used for all game related discussions. Thus prohibit the use of alternative channels to discuss the game. These rules are clearly only declarative because there is no way to enforce them efficiently. It is very difficult to enforce these prohibition rules during long games on players who communicate with each other personally in real life. All forums support different types of game settings, so it's worth setting up a forum game without restrictions on private messaging.
Personal communication problems are revealed primarily in trying to prevent players "dying" from participating in the game. Most online games consider this a rule violation. Because, in the general case, this rule violation can not be proven, gameplay on most sites depends heavily on the honesty and integrity of players.
See also
- Assassin (game)
- Bang! (card game)
- The Resistance (game)
- Hitler's secret (game)
- Wink kill
- Ultimate Werewolf
- The Werewolves of Millers Hollow
Note
References
External links
- Original mafia rules
- The Hungarian Mensa Society - the first related Mafia page on the Internet
- Werewolf on BoardGameGeek
- Mafiascum.net Wiki
- The Princeton Setlist
Source of the article : Wikipedia