IlluminatiLizard and Meteornate's guide to playing as Mafia

## Openings (outdated for current meta)

Day 1 is the one of the most important parts of the game for everyone, and this includes you. Whichever team comes out with an advantage in the day 1 game is likely to win the game, which is why that team needs to be you. The goal of town during day 1 is to figure out how everyone acts when they have no information, or at least should have no information. Your goal as mafia is to prevent town from getting that information or making that information heavily misleading. A good goal for town on day 1 is to leave with players they're confident in that can lead the push on the mafia based on the info they've gathered. A good goal for you, if you can manage to do it is to be the player town is confident in. There are 3 main styles of opening.

### Useless Help (Low risk, little advantage gained, easy to do)

Using this style of opening is very simple. You try to have the appearance of being helpful, while actually doing nothing. For instance, giving summaries of the game that are unnecessary, excessively discussing the setup, or focusing too heavily on coasters. You do not interfere with the towns opening, but you don't actually try to scumhunt either. Here, you do not so much try to prevent town from gaining an advantage, or even give yourself an advantage. Your primary goal is to be an uncontroversial player that is ignored by town, and it is unlikely you will be condemned early on in most games of an average skill level if you use this opening. This is a particularly good strategy in games with unskilled players. However, it is not recommended for more advanced games, as skilled players will realize you have no opinions of your own and accuse you of blending, or simply being bad town.

### Chaos (High risk, moderate advantage, easy to do)

This style of opening simply involves trying to make day 1 useless. Supporting a no condemn, starting "joke" votes, and making "joke" claims, and accusing many different players without focusing on a specific one are all good examples of this strategy. Your primary goal is to get a mislynch or a free kill, and remove day 1 as a source of information for town. This strategy is very risky, as you do nothing to make yourself less suspicious. It is possible to get condemned on day 1 using this strategy.

### Legitimate Help (High risk, large advantage, hard to do)

This style of opening involves actually helping town get an advantage on day 1, with the goal of getting them to trust you. You should behave like you would as town here, starting random votes and question players about the way they vote on those random votes. You may also consider pushing a vote on your own teammates here. To use this strategy, you must know how day 1 should be played as town, and have a decent knowledge of how to avoid suspicion as mafia. If you do it poorly, you will simply end up sabotaging yourself. If done correctly though, it can lead to a practically guaranteed win.

## Gathering Information and Finding Power Roles

One of the biggest threats to you as a member of the mafia tends to be power roles. Power roles are typically given some manner in which they make it more difficult for mafia to manipulate town as they wish. As such, one of your goals as a member of the mafia typically will be to try to find and kill the players who have a power role. In order to do that, you and your fellow mafia will need to fish for information of your own on who the power roles might be, as well as know how to dissect that information once you have it.

### Fishing for Information and Using it

One of the easiest ways to gather information about who the power roles are is through fake claiming. If a person falsely claims a power role, sometimes the real power role will counter-claim the individual. A mafia fake claiming a power role when they are being pushed is one of the simplest ways to gather information on power roles for your team. Sometimes, when a person falsely claims a role, the real role may not wish to immediately counterclaim. In some instances, such as if a fake claim looks hard to believe or if an audacious town member decides to push the condemn anyway, a mafia fake claiming a power role may be condemn in spite of their claim. In that situation, there can still be ways to figure out who the real version of that power role is.

Whether the person who does the fake claim is a member of the mafia or merely an audacious town member, there is always one person who knows that the claim is fake when it occurs. That person is the one who actually is that power role. As a result, that player may say or do things which may not make sense initially when the claim is made. If someone is making a relatively believable fake claim for an information role, such as cop, the real cop may be hesitant to vote based on the fake report, since they know the person claiming it is not actually cop. For other power roles, the real power role may continue to push the fake claimer as fake, despite there not being anyone counterclaiming or any particular reason to disbelieve the claim. One issue with this form of gathering information is that, if the individual doing the fake claim is town, it can be difficult to recognize these slips until the fake-claiming town has retracted their claim or died. The basic rule for trying to find power roles through fake claims as mafia is to look for individuals who have more information on what is happening than the rest of town does during the fake claim.

### Unusual Behavior

Because power roles are more unique, a player with a power role often is able to make more risky plays or do things to look somewhat "scummy". This is because mafia are more likely to keep people alive who they think they can get mislynched, so a good power role player will attempt to try to look like they might be mislynchable at some point. As such, one thing mafia can be looking out for are players who are deliberately trying to look somewhat bad. A very simple example that players often run into is that players with a power role may try to be more quiet to avoid being targeted. Of course, there are never any guarantees, as sometimes non-power roles may do these things either unintentionally or to try to throw off mafia, but there are a few things in particular for which one can look.

One example of unusual behavior here is to look for players who have too much information. In other words, these are players who make comments which don't seem to make sense for a town to say at the current stage of the game. For example, it may be very strange if a town adamantly asserts that another town, who is generally agreed to have been looking bad for a while, is definitely town. This may instead be explained by the town making the adamant assertion being an information role, such as cop, who has checked the bad-looking player and has the added information, which the rest of town does not have, that this other person is town. When looking for a power role in this way, it is particularly important to look at the reasons which a person has justifying their assertion. If a person has a string of logic as to why they are confident someone is town, they may just be a generic player with a good read. However, if they are unable to justify their assertion beyond it being essentially a "lucky guess", they may be hiding that they have the additional information of a power role.

There are some power roles which are considered "uncc'able" power roles. These roles typically allow a player with that role to do something to either kill their counterclaim or make provide information that mafia cannot realistically replicate without being very lucky. These individuals are especially likely to exhibit unusual behavior, because they know that mafia cannot counterclaim them, and they cannot be condemned, so their biggest threat is dying at night. Some of these include ones which can allow for a single player to make an executive decision, such as shooting a gun or overturning a condemn. In that instance, the player with that role may ask unusual questions, such as asking for the role of a player who is not currently going to be condemned. In these situations, you might be able to kill the power role with that ability before they are able to use it, thereby setting town back significantly. Alternatively, you might try to manipulate that player specifically in order to make them shoot a town or make a bad overturn.

One specific type of unusual behavior, typically referred to as soft claiming or merely "softing", involves when a player makes unusual or specific comments or behavior which hint at their role. A simple example is that players with a role that gives an item, such as a gun, knife, or vest, may make comments hinting to the recipient that they are the one who gave them said item. Alternatively, a governor might hint to his role by suggesting that the condemn is going to get overturned if he gets voted. Some softs are more subtle than others. By paying close attention to the comments which each player makes, mafia might be able to pick up on some of the more subtle softs to manipulate or remove players with power roles without the rest of town realizing what the mafia was doing.