Ok, so we just started a new mafia game, but I was thinking that part of the problem with playing mafia on a forum is that its a bit too easy to lie. When you play face-to-face, the mafia has to conceal its intentions in real time (ie hide smirks and other twitches when they defend themselves, not make much movement during the night as they decide who to kill etc). This adds a bit of an "
evidence trail"
, and from watching CSI, I know that while testimony may be false or misleading, the evidence never lies. On the forum, there's a whole lot of testimony, but no (or at least, not much) evidence.
So, I was thinking about lies and that lead me to think about those puzzles where you know that everybody is either a liar or a truth-teller. One of my favorite books growing up was Raymond Smullyan's The Lady or the Tiger which featured a whole bunch of these riddles. In addition to the liar/truthteller attribute, he also introduced the sane/insane attribute. So, a liar always lies about his beliefs, and a truthteller always tells the truth about his beliefs. But an insane person's beliefs are all false, while a sane person's beliefs are all true. So a sane liar ends up telling lies about his true beliefs (ie anything he says is false) and an insane truthteller tells the truth about his false beliefs (ie anything he says is also false). A sane truthteller tells the truth (he tells the truth about his true beliefs) and an insane liar tells the truth (he lies about his false beliefs). The riddles consist of some investigator asking people questions or getting statements from people about themselves or other people, and then reasoning out who is a liar, who's insane etc.
So I was thinking that in addition to your town(truth)/mafia(liar) role, you would get an insane or sane attribute as well. These could match the roles, or not depending on the game, but it would make sense for the doctor to be truthful, but possibly insane, the serial killer to be insane and a liar, normal town folk to be sane and truthful etc. During the day, you wouldn't be able to post just anything. You would be required to ask questions that are answerable with a yes or a no (or a don't know), and which are directed at a specific player, or you could answer another player's questions, subject of course to your personal attributes. Questions would not be allowed to directly reference other player's roles (So you couldn't ask somebody if they were the doctor), and each player would start with a limited number (say 2) question credits. Each question you ask costs a credit, but each question you answer earns you a credit. So you don't have to answer a question that is aimed at you, but you have an incentive to do so (ie you get to ask more questions).
Now, obviously, the mafia stands to gain nothing via the new rules (since they pretty much know everything already) while the town stands to gain quite a bit. But perhaps we can compensate for that by having a larger number of mafia, or possibly by having two rival mafia gangs who are trying to destroy each other as well as the town.
What do you guys think about that? Could it work? Would it make things too easy for the town?
The other idea I had was to have a simulation of a LARP (live action role playing game). There would be a map of locations around the town. In order for the mafia to kill someone, they would actually have to have a member of their gang move into the same location as the victim and be alone (no witnesses). Whenever you went somewhere, or took an action in the location, you would have a chance of leaving behind some evidence of that action. For example, if goon garrots a townie in the saloon, he has the possibility of leaving behind a button or something in the struggle. The townies would need to have tasks that they need to accomplish as well so that they have a reason to move around the map and provide opportunities to be killed etc.
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