Bruhmoments's Brief Guide to Day 1

## **Brief Day 1 Guide -**

You have two goals:

1. appear town to other players
2. scumhunt and formulate who you suspect

There are no 100% rules in mafia. But here are some rules of thumb you can use to guide you and act as a compass when you are uncertain. Another disclaimer is that these rules are level 1 rules to read level 1 townies and level 1 mafia. Of course more experienced players know these things and a lot of them are pretty easy to fake to be honest. But even good players will slip up so the rules are useful.

### Things that are generally townie (do these things! town read others who do these things!)

1. **Typing out a frame 1 message.** This may sound stupid but honestly, lots of mafia don’t do this. Posting a long sentence message that was pre-typed overnight shows that you spent some time overnight doing something useless rather than talking to your mafia teammates. Many mafia are too lazy to do this so it's a little townie.
2. **Giving susses and voting early.** A good townsperson should always be thinking about who is sus and communicating who is sus to the rest of the town. Having a good suspicion signals to the other town that you are thinking and makes you seem pro town since town’s goal is to think and deduce who the mafia are. Even voting early based on silly tricks like someone who said f 3rd or someone who said a fluffy message 10-15 seconds after the frame 1ers is a starting place. The other great thing about early votes is that you get to watch for how people react and bandwagon. And in the late game, people can go back to d1 logs and see who voted who in the early game. Would a mafia really vote one of their teammates super early in the game and risk someone bwing on and getting their teammate condemned d1? Forcing people to suspect others gives the logs good information - mafia typically don’t want to sus their teammates too much or push too hard for their condemn especially early game.
3. **Being open to other people’s susses.** A true townie should always be listening to other players and considering their suspicions. If you find someone’s sus convincing communicate that you agree and say why! Always be open to changing your mind about your susses and communicate why you have changed your mind to show that you are thinking like a townie and trying to help amplify the voices of players with good ideas.
4. **Being observant.** People who notice details like player a is bwing silently or player b is saying lots of fluffy things. Point out these details that make people suspicious and then try to get town to vote those suspicious players. Always try to be proactive and push people you suspect.
5. **Don’t be reactive.** If some other player begins suspecting you don’t immediately become angry. Try to tell the other player that they are wrong and that you are still trying to formulate your suspicions. Don’t immediately suspect someone because they vote for you. They maybe be town being proactive and suspecting people they maybe sussing you using a heuristic (did you say f 3rd?). Try to be as objective as you can in coming up with your sus and then tell the person who is sussing you and the rest of the town your reads. If you are getting bw’d tell the town that you need a second to get a good list of suspects then explain to the town why you suspect them. This may convince good listeners that you are thinking like a town and they may try to defend you.
6. **Caveat.** Quiet players may also be power roles, so be careful! These players may try to “soft” when you suspect them that they are important something like "I'm not the vote." - so try to pick up on these things. If someone lives too long after softing they are PR make them reveal their role - that’s suspicious! Mafia should have noticed they're soft too! Then it’s ok to make them RR. Condemning a PR before another player has disputed their claim is generally a bad idea.
7. **Peacock.** Town players will often do things that may appear risky or extreme to you that makes them stand out a lot. They may fake claim cop d1 or claim that they themselves are mafia and want to vote out another one of their teammates. They may spam or use CAP LOCKS to get people’s attentions. Generally things that make a player stand out a lot and attract attention to themselves - especially if it is to try to draw suspicion on another player are townie. This peacocking shows that the player isn’t afraid to attract attention and is passionate about who should be voted and doesn’t want to be led by mafia. These players that intentionally stand out and risk annoying the town and being voted up for simply being annoying could be mafia bluffing - but tend more often to be town trying to push their suspicions.

### Things that are scummy (look out for these things to get your early suspicions don’t do these things if you’re town!)

1. **Having a lazy first message that looks blendy.** Mafia if they are chatting and deciding the night kill will often just hammer without pretyping anything. Then a bunch of town will frame 1 post something. Then the mafia will wait a bit then slink in around 10-15 seconds after day starts with some fluffy message like RIP, f, or some reaction to something someone else said.
2. **Being reactive.** Players who automatically suspect people who suspect them appear like they were not actually looking for scum but instead are just upset someone has correctly suspected them and are desperately trying to get people to not vote them. Players who are voting early and generating information with their votes are generally townie. Trying to punish this townie behavior by just voting someone because they voted you doesn’t help the town. Aggressors on d1 are more often town.
3. **Demonstrating no thought.** The laziest way to play mafia is to try to blend in and not attract any attention. The way most mafia will do this is by not really suspecting people with original thoughts that much but instead just agreeing with other people or jumping on their bandwagons. If you’re mafia and you see 2 others have voted for a random town - isn’t it tempting to just vote that random town too? No effort required and maybe town will ML! People who seem apathetic to who should be condemned and just mindlessly vote with others should be suspected. They are not generating any information by conveying their suspicions and thoughts and appear to be just blending in and avoiding attention.
4. **Being in the middle of a bandwagon.** The people who are first on a bandwagon are probably the ones who were thinking about the susses and making reads. The people who take a lot of time to join a wagon or refuse to similarly appear to be thinking. The people who randomly jump on in the middle silently? They don't really seem to be thinking at all. Maybe they want an easy ML? Maybe they know that the player is mafia and don't want to seem like they didn't want to vote them in case they actually get condemned? These players in the middle of vote orders are more suspicious.

These are just some random thoughts I have. These are obviously just rules of thumb - nothing works 100% of the time. Good players know these things and use them to their advantage even when their mafia. But you can try to use these principles to get you started when thinking about who to sus and who to read as town and even how to behave yourself! Always try to communicate with others, push you susses, generate information, and listen to the other players to see has good ideas and who you should try to support! Anyways good luck out there gamers - have fun!

**-the totally not toxic Bruhmoments :)**