PrivMafia Wiki

## Rules

Mafia is a social deduction game. Players will be randomly put into one of three predominant factions, the town who are an uninformed majority, the mafia who are an informed minority, and Third Party characters who have their own win conditions.

The objective of the town is to eliminate all of the mafia. The objective of the mafia is to achieve parity or a majority amongst the players. The mafia are allowed to talk to eachother in private, the town must have all conversations publicly.

The game operates two different phases; a night phase and a day phase. During the night phase, players are to send orders privately to the moderator for night time activity. The mafia can try to kill one person of their choice, while town will predominantly have investigative roles in order to help them uncover who the mafia are.

During the day phase, the players report back and have the option to reveal any information they attained during the night. From there, players are encouraged to discuss the situation as much as possible to help identify the mafia. Each day, the players can vote on whether they want to lynch anyone. If more than half of the players vote to lynch a player, that player will be lynched and removed from the game. Succesfully lynching all of the mafia members is the main route for them to achieve their objective, although town usually also have a vigilante who has the option to kill a player every night phase.

### Roles

**2F1T:** Will be given two falses and one truth on a chosen players character (Spongebob is yellow, he is a circle and he is a lawyer)

**Blocker:** Will be able to block one player from using their ability

**Bodyguard:** Able to protect a player. If successfully protected, you will die in their place

**Cop:** Visit a player and you will discover their alignment

**Copycat:** Copy the ability of a player and use it on someone else

**Doctor:** Choose one player to protect, if they are chosen to die, you keep them alive

**Dreamer:** You will either dream of three players, where one will be town, one mafia and one random. Or you will dream of one player and they will be town

**Driver:** Select two players, anyone who intends to visits one visits the other instead

**Framer:** Visit one person, they will be aligned to mafia on a cop report (doesn't include dreamer)

**Godfather:** Show up as town on any investigative reports (including dreamer)

**Impersonator:** Allows mafia to take control of a player's tweets for a day phase

**Journalist:** Visit someone, you receive their report

**Justice:** Choose two players, you will be told if they share an alignment or not

**Lawyer:** Choose a player, anyone who visits them will be told they are aligned to town

**Post Mortem journalist:** Choose a player who has died, you receive their last report before they died

**Report corruptor:** Choose one player to visit, you will alter their report

**Report protector:** Choose one player to visit, their report will be protected and cannot be destroyed or corrupted

**Report thief:** Choose a player, you will steal their report for yourself

**Reverse Journalist:** Receives previous report of whoever visits

**Rider:** A random player is added to a players night order (If a watcher visits a rider, they will be given an extra random report on someone and who visited them)

**Role watcher:** Choose one player to visit, you will be told the role of whoever visited them

**Self shield:** You will be able to protect yourself from death

**Shielder:** Prevents anyone from visiting this player for that night

**Tracker:** Visit someone and find out who they visited that night

**Vigilante:** You have the ability to nightkill someone

**Watcher:** Choose one player to watch, you will be told which player(s) visited them

## History

In early mafia, games used to average 10-12 players, with mafia usually consisting of 3-4 members. The same roles (vigilante, journalist, doctor, cop, tracker, watcher) were usually used in every game so that players could get their feet wet and start to become comfortable with the basics of the game. SOW, the creator of the game, moderated all 10 games in Season 1, introducing new themes from Game 3 onwards to keep players engaged and add a new dynamic to games which is completely unique to standard social deduction games - theme knowledge. Game of Thrones: War of 3 Kings featured the first ever 2 faction mafia game, with 2 separate mafia groups competing against eachother and town to become 50% of the lynch vote. Throughout the first season, roles such as framer, justice, rolecop and dreamer were introduced, which have become staples of mafia games ever since. Games were very slow as players got to grips with the different roles and how to navigate the day phase, or often simply forgot they were playing. One day phase lasted 24 full hours due to inactivity, which would be completely unheard of in the modern era.

## Popularity

Mafia exploded in Season 2, as the average players per game increased from just over 11 in Season 1 to just under 19 in Season 2. This can be attributed to a recruitment drive from influential members of the community, with several players such as Mafuzzy, Anton, Junior and Cian becoming regulars from Season 2 despite the withdrawal of PM, Jamie and Taylor, arguably the three most influential players from the first season. Since then, the game has continued to expand with several new additions each season. As of November 17th, 39 different players have competed in at least 1 game. Games tend to average 21-23 players on average, with 12 players having hit 30 appearances. The games usually last around 2-3 days, with the game really picking up on Mafia Sundays, which have become a tradition.

### Players

* Ajinkya
* Alex
* Anton
* Ben
* Bradley
* Cian
* Ciaran
* Dan
* Dec
* Frank
* Gab
* Grill
* Harry
* Haz
* Holz
* Ibrz
* Jamie
* Junior
* Kai
* Louis
* Mafuzzy
* Malte
* Matt
* Mowlid
* Oliver
* Osaid
* PM
* Poscar
* Rae
* Sam
* Sean
* Seb
* SOW
* Taylor
* Tom
* Towells
* TJ
* Z

## Evolution

As the player pool increases, players and moderators have continued to innovate the game in order to keep players engaged. New roles are constantly being created, sometimes even by mafia players during games seeking a way to conceal their malicious power. In early seasons, there was a huge emphasis on needing guilty reports in order to decide on which players to lynch. Players were very skeptical to lynch, with Jamie famously having 2 guilty reports on him while town stood idly twitching their thumbs in S1G10. As the player pool was smaller, there would also be greater attention paid to power claims and how they matched the character. PM was an early season specialist at determining how likely someone was to be mafia based on how irrelevant their character was in the specified theme. The main dilemma for mafia group chats would be how they could make their claims match their powers. As the number of average players per game effectively doubled 2 seasons on, the number of weak town powers were handed out increased, thus reducing the significance of character claims as a means to decipher who is mafia. This coincided with the rapid improvement of Holz in Season 2, who stressed that player's behaviour should be the primary form of deducing who is mafia. Suspicious behaviour no longer meant being responsible for a town lynching or a weak character claim, but instead more attention was placed on how mafia-like a player's tweets felt. Holz's sixth sense for sniffing out mafia members saw him crowned Best Town and Best Overall player for Season 2, but most importantly signalled a shift towards the behaviour test era. The popularity of deadchat, a group chat for dead players where the state of play is discussed, has also added another dynamic to the game. Players are aware that any blunders are likely to make them a laughing stock in deadchat. The atmosphere in deadchat towards the end of games has been compared to a big Champions League tie under the lights.

### Terminology

The growing popularity of the game has led to certain phrases, which would mean nothing to people outside of the game, becoming household. Big Dogs was a phrase coined by Louis, which refers to a select group players who have a history of being competent mafia group chat leaders. Big Dog Theory is the idea that one of these 5 (Holz, Sam, Louis, Harry, Anton) are mafia every game, as moderators would manually intervene if they felt the random draw had made a mafia group too weak or too overpowered. The theory has led to some controversy as there's no reason one of them HAS to be mafia every game, however when any of the Big Dogs are alive late on in games with others being dead as town, people do grow suspicious one of these is at the wheel.

Deep Block Mafia refers to the mafia faction playstyle mastered by Sam, where the mafia players with less timeline influence deliberately avoid the timeline in order to steer clear of major suspicion. This can involve refusing to give a power or character claim for hours when asked on the timeline despite being online. This was a particularly effective strategy in the earlier seasons, where simply being inactive wasn't a good enough reason to lynch a player. While Sam has made the phrase his own, there is undoubtedly a hint of Deep Block in everyone's mafia playbook, as arousing suspicion with the character claims available and fake power claims is an inevitability.

Mod clearance is one of the most frowned upon moves in the game. Often, a moderator will make a human error with a report as they struggle to process 20+ orders a night, and will issue a correction afterwards. Players will often tweet these moderator corrections out, which is acceptable only on occasions where there's no cost to the player in question to not revealing the report is a correction. Corrections can often clear players as it's the only occasions where we can 100% know a player is telling the truth, because lying about a moderator correction is punishable by instant elimination from the game. Therefore, it's encouraged to not reveal unless absolutely necessary, i.e. your original report would have got someone wrongly lynched.

Deadchat hindsight is the idea that players in deadchat are overly critical of alive players because they already know who is town and mafia. Players have grown to understand deadchat abuse is part and parcel of the game, however this phrase is often used as a defence for players who feel like the remaining mafia were not as obvious as deadchat made out.

Behaviour test has always existed in mafia, and is simply an analysis of whether or not a player is playing town-like. Players such as Holz, Louis and Alex place great stock in analysing player's behaviour tests, believing that certain players have clear town and mafia tells. Louis often refers to the idea that an overly convoluted story or play that would be deemed incredibly suspicious to others is actually an indication they're town, as a mafia groupchat is unlikely to instruct them to say this. Behaviour test has become more valuable in recent seasons as new roles have been created which make a guilty report less clear cut. Framers, report corrupters, report falsifiers, insane and paranoid investigative powers are often included in games, where town players will end up with a guilty report against their name. Behaviour test is therefore important to help determine how believable the person is.

## Controversies

### Wheelgate

S3G8 - Archer saw arguably the biggest controversy in mafia history. In Junior's modding debut, with the game finely in the balance, Junior decided the outcome with a basic misunderstanding of probability. SOW, a town rider, chose to ride the mafia killer as the town vigilante was dead and it was town's only hope of salvaging victory. The target of the second ride, and therefore second mafia kill, would be decided completely randomly. Junior opted for an online random wheel to determine the outcome of the game. The wheel landed on a mafia teammate, prolonging the game despite mafia's inevitable eventual victory. However, the controversy came when Junior decided to respin the wheel as a result of deadchat claims that the wheel was biased as all the segments of the player names weren't bunched together. The wheel was respun and this time landed on a townie, ending the game immediately. Junior received backlash post-game, with mafia winner Harry agreeing that the decision to respin was based on faulty logic.

### WriteupGate

WriteupGate was the divide in the community caused by Holz and SOW's disagreement over the latter's repeated disregard for delivering post-game writeups. A rank of each player's performance is customary after games, with every moderator usually posting within a week of the game's conclusion. SOW had already failed to provide a writeup for the S1 and S2 finales, however the lack of a writeup after S4G8 proved to be the final straw for Holz, who questioned SOW's leadership. As the creator of the game, Holz realised that overthrowing SOW would be an ardouous task, so eventually relented with his protests. The dispute left bad blood between the two however, with both refusing to budge from their position. WriteupGate formed the basis for the S5 Community Shield, where a group of loyalists led by Holz sought to end SOW's reign of terror.

## Rivalries

### PM vs Jamie

PM and Jamie dominated Season 1, particularly as town. They shared 4 of the 9 MVP's awarded that season, as well as the best overall player award with 29 votes each. The two would often end up on the same side, however it was clear they were in direction competition to be considered the consensus best player in the game. The rivalry fizzled down in later seasons as both took sabbaticals from the game, however both will be remembered for their early influence on the game.

### Sam vs Louis

While the two share a mutual respect for eachother, they have often butted heads about who is the better mafia player. Louis felt he was snubbed for awards in the early seasons meanwhile Sam hoovered up Best Mafia Player for each of the first 3 seasons, firmly cementing himself as the best Mafia faction player of all time. With 8 Mafia faction MVPs between them, this rivalry has culminated in both being inducted into the Mafia Hall of Fame. Despite their rivalry, they combined for the two most dominant victories in mafia history, winning as mafia in S1G3 and S2G10 without a single member of their team being lynched, dubbing themselves "The Untouchables". In season 5 they both continue to go strong.