Game Design

From Mafia Games Wiki

Mafia is a game and should be fun! In order of importance it should be enjoyable to play, read, and moderate.

Here are some points to think about when designing a mafia game:

• Without a gimmick Day 1 will involve the same discussions over and over again. Give the players something else to talk about.
• The game should reward good play and punish poor play. For example, lynching scum should never hinder town.
• Ideally games should last no longer than 8 Days and no fewer than 5. Plan your player roster and potential kills accordingly.
• Too much randomness is bad. As much as possible the players should control their fates.
• Do not put too much power in any one role's hands. The game balance should not swing dramatically if one player dies or fails to be killed.
• Third parties can be fun, but they also can easily screw up the balance of the game. If they have too much information or power they can throw the game to one side or the other despite how well town and scum played. Most likely third parties will pretend to be town in order to avoid being lynched and will use their powers and knowledge to gain trust with the town. This can be devastating to scum. Third parties aren’t default neutral, you need to think about how they will likely play and to what affect, and add that score to town or scum.
• At some point there will be a mass claim. Ideally a mass claim should not help or hinder either side. You don’t need to give scum their false claims for them, but you need to ensure they have room to be creative.
• As best you can make decisions on how to deal with events beforehand. Have a plan for handling lurkers, board outages etc.
• Too many confirmable townies make for an unbalanced game. This includes anyone who can prove towniness, not just mason. Avoid this, or scum will be toast in the end game. Remember one for one trades are bad for scum. So a role like doctor is pretty much confirmable, because it is generally not worth it to counter claim. A good rule of thumb is the more powerful the role the harder to prove yourself pro-town.
• If you have a closed setup, be aware that players can handshake using there role PMs. Typically you can avoid this by making repeated information (win conditions, vanilla town PM) public.
• Town players are mystery solvers. They need to be given the tools to solve the mystery. Make sure that all information is attainable in some way or other. If the masons have a secret win condition and the town has no way of knowing that is unfair to town.
• The goal for scum is to deceive town. They need to be given the ability to do so. Things like too many detectives, no believable false claims, too many confirmable townies, overpowered third parties, prevent them from lying effectively. It doesn’t matter how creative a player is, if he will be caught regardless.

More thoughts can be found in the article on Guiding Principles for game design.