The Grand Mafia Synod

On the other hand, the disruption of that strategy could be the first break in trying to figure out who is mafia. In a way trying to even out the votes so nobody gets lynched is a good way to try to provoke a mafioso into revealing themselves. Then again, having a specific "no lynch" vote is a different matter.

I agree that a no lynch option is a bad idea. I am vehemently opposed to any sharing of screenshots though.

You are though. At least if you vote Blaat the people who want to kill Blaat get their votes counted. "A fool in play"? And how does voting no lynch mean people have to think about their voting choice more? If anything, it's less. If we allow it, I can just see it becoming the default option for people who don't want to think. Doesn't sound very tactical to me, and at least with random voting you have a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 chance of actually lynching a mafia member.

Oh, hello. I wish there was a better way to ensure I'm not missing interesting threads.

I, personally, will use (and have used) /Nolynch primarily as an official "Abstain", and leave it up to the mod to extrapolate whether that's all that it is or whether it's a "negate all other vote-counts". There are so many possibly complications in Mafia (not all of which I'd wish to see inflicted on this little community of players, at least without warning) that it might be a balancing act.

And then there are daylight roles that pertain to voting (whoever <X> votes for gets two official votes, which the Mod tallies, even if the township don't yet understand how that happened). And in variants of Speed Mafia (i.e. over some form of live chat, rather than forums/newsgroups) as well as time-limited days (and nights!) there's often a "lynch once there's more than Players/2 votes cast", or something similar.


Anyway, poll items:

Sharing screenshots privately - I can't see how we can stop sharing anything privately. And screenshots are (with a little care) easily-enough faked. She-ep, you already picked up on the strategy I was planning to use for the whenever-I-get-round-to-it time that I mod. Send everyone townie role info, suitable for roleclaiming, then to the exceptions to the rule (not just mafia!) send a "Ignore that, this is really you" to individuals/groups who need it. I was going to keep back whether I told the general population about this, or not, according to whether I needed to re-balance the game one way or another.

...publicly - I have grown up (in Mafia terms) in a "no modquoting" culture. Sometimes it's rather strict (don't use the (themed!) role-name given to you, or the character name associated with it) and sometimes it's "don't copy, or pretend to copy, the paragraph of text", but you can legitmately summarise the same. Screenshots would be modquoting as defined by the whole spectrum of bannable behaviour. Modquote==modkill has been my expectation.

Nolynch - Already covered, above. Take it as "I officially abstain", if you wish. (Note also my propensity for saying "/in", and similar. That's a spill-over from Speed Mafia where it's found to be important for people to easily distinguish a "meta" chat with less serious. e.g. you don't want to mistake "I've just been considering whether to vote Charles" with "I've just been considering whether to /vote Charles"...)

Voting for oneself - I don't see a problem. Of course, once people start wondering about the existence of a Jester character. (Usually, though, the rule for a Jester would be that where a final vote would tip a stated balance and end the day-phase, a self-vote does not count for this purpose. Regardless of whether that's a Jester voting for themselves or not, of course. In this distinctly non-speed mafia environment, "tipping point" doesn't seem to apply, though, so I'd substitute "sniping" (getting in with a potentially important lynch-vpte just before day-end) as something to try to account for by similar means.

Communicating with the dead - Except where sanctioned by mod-granted role (or negated by ressurection), no way for anything resembling game-info. I have to concede no issue with more passive comments (especially given the time-out on the "Particpated [New]" thing, if you don't talk on a thread for a length of time definitely less than the time a game might exist), but beware of anything that the Mod might wish to punish for. A dead person can't now be modkilled, of course, but if a now-dead detective ends up (accidentally, even) revealing information they discovered on the night that they were assasinated (i.e. never got a chance to reveal) then the Mod should be allowed to (semi-)randomly picking another player to modkill to either even things up or even to be punitive.
(Note, night-time communications should be similarly kept ungamey. You don't know if you're dead until everyone 'wakes up', but you might have already been targetted for being killed.

Forwarding GM messages - You can forward things? Personally I'm still against modquoting (and this is definitely it), but I also know that you can't stop stuff going through private channels. Since my first game, however, I've been adamantly opposed to back-channel communications. Always allowing, of course, those that might ever arise from what role/associations a Mod might give me, where that applies, e.g. mafia, mason, neighbour, lover, town-cryer, etc... (And then there are several possible roles where the Moderator must be the mediator, i.e. "word of god"-style messages (assuming unreliability isn't built in to the originating role) but with anonymity for the source.


Erm, what else? Oh, I'll think of something, I'm sure. And I'm not yet sure how bastard-mod I'm gonna be in my own, potential, future game, just to try to mitigate some practices that I dislike. (Not counting the potential Halloween game (well, that's the theme, but it doesn't ahve to be then), that I've already laid groundwork for. I've already gotten that tied down pretty much, leaving just adjustments according to the numbers that'll end up playing so that it balances better. But I'm hoping you'd not find too frustratingly confusing.)