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Hi folks. I have never really paid any attention to the Mafia community on TG, and when I became a moderator I knew Podima basically covered all of TGR and just left it all to him. That was a mistake. I'd like to help this community in any way I can. One thing that I think we might like to talk about is explicit safety rules in Mafia games, whether they're run in TGR or just recruited here and run offsite. I understand that the format requires players to not discuss the game outside of the strict structures of the game itself, to avoid leaking secrets that give away the central idea of Mafia. However, maybe it would be good to state clearly for everyone involved that inappropriate interactions can and should be exposed, either to the gamerunner or if that is not satisfactory, to mods? Any mod or any admin, anyone a player is comfortable with. If that's not a good idea or seems unnecessary, OK, help me understand and let's figure something else out. If you'd rather not clutter up this thread with this discussion, we can also talk in the general TG feedback thread that is running now.
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Mar 22, 2023 19:14
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 20:18 |
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My impression has been that the Mafia community is great and trouble-free and part of that is that I have literally never seen a report on a Mafia game, not even once. I always thought there was some degree of RP though, maybe I need to like, lurk a Mafia game or two to get a better feel for what it is. Basically a party game where someone or someone's is secretly the werewolf, maybe someone's got a silver bullet, you have to avoid killing the innocents or the werewolves win, kinda thing right? But then you have to try and guess who is lying based on what they post, and they have to post things, and.... there's gotta be a detail or two I don't get or it'd just be a random guessing game. Anyway yeah I see y'all are recruiting for some new games perhaps I'll just watch one and see how it goes.
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Mar 22, 2023 19:27
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It is heartening to read such positive stuff if there's a DARK SECRET then someone PM me and I'll keep your identity private something that has come up from reading SAD threads and before that QCS threads is that SA is a very big place, we have like 70 subforums, and small out of the way corners occasionally need a flashlight shone in them, hopefully all is well here and it sure looks like it but I have resolved to be a little more proactive and I hope nobody feels insulted!
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Mar 22, 2023 19:45
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saladscooper posted:This. I understand the impulse to insist we can take care of ourselves, and we probably can - in the few months I've been a part of this community I've grown to trust everyone I've played/modded/observed with - but the point of having this kind of infrastructure in place is to prevent bad actors from taking advantage of that trust. Having a point of contact not directly related to a specific running game would be a great way of setting that up. Yeah this is about having tools that you don't anticipate ever needing but reasonable people aren't really gonna object to, it doesn't have to be made a huge deal of but maybe like one sentence in the OP right after you say "keep secret stuff secret no cheating no out of game talking about the game" you could also say "unless someone is being gross or abusive in which case of course tell on them immediately, tell the organizer or a mod or someone" and that'd be that?
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Mar 22, 2023 19:54
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Sandwolf posted:Would you be willing to be a point of contact outside the community for people who have issues within the community to come to? We will also have some in-community folks but it's not a bad thing to have a higher authority to be able to go to. Yes, absolutely. I haven't asked her but I'm certain Antivehicular! would too, and any future TG/TGR moderator, and any SA admin. This goes for everything that happens on the forums, and anything off the forums that is happening to/by forums posters, or related to on-forums stuff.
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Mar 22, 2023 20:40
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I generally avoid betrayal games after some uh, let's say embarrassing experiences with Diplomacy and the computer game Dominions. I'll lurk a game and if it seems like a thing I'd enjoy then perhaps I'll join in the next time!
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Mar 22, 2023 20:46
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I'm fine with changing thread titles and moving threads etc. whenever y'all need that done. You can alert me or another mod to the need by using the report function or via PMs. IKs get vetted by the mod team, it is a low level of authority but enough that a discussion behind closed doors has to happen. IKs can either be across a whole subforum like TGR (Podima was this for years) or assigned by using the admin powers to just a single thread (Framboise is now an IK for just the main magic thread in TG). So in this case probably there could not be a "Mafia IK" unless they voluntarily didn't do things to non-Mafia threads in TGR. Either way, if an IK is in order, I'd want to bring in Antivehicular to the discussion and we would do normal sensible things like looking at rap sheets and post history and stuff before requesting granting of IK powers. And yes an IK is a mini-mod but they can't see reports or the mod forum, they can give six hour probations without prior approval but longer probations go in the queue and are approved by admins so IKs typically don't queue longer probes. They also have the buttons that let them move threads, change thread titles and icons, and maybe one or two other things. It is supposed to be a low key low pressure thing that doesn't require a ton of work or vetting and is low drama if someone needs to be IKed because they didn't work out, although obviously that sometimes uhhhh, doesn't work out that way ugh.
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Mar 22, 2023 22:46
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We might want a general IK for all of TGR again, it could be a person clued in to what needs doing for Mafia games but also like, the occasional thing for CYOAs and other game room stuff.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:09
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Prags is suggesting we could have multiple IKs for TGR if that made sense, there's not like a limitation or anything, so "TGR forums IK specifically for Mafia" is a title that could exist.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:36
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Yeah we don't get reports. Podima proactively paid attention to threads in TGR and maybe issued a sixer here or there so "no reports" can't be absolutely assumed to mean no problems: and after what happened with Podima, I am currently in the mindset that it's better to go out and talk to people and see if there's problems than it is to just assume silence means all is well. I poked my nose in here today basically just to connect with this community and ask if safety tools are a good idea and learn what's up and that seems to have sparked some good conversation. I'll help keep things chill in whatever way makes that work though and if that means the status quo is fine that's also OK!
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Mar 23, 2023 04:17
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If you guys offer us one or a couple or three candidates I would like to then chat with them via PMs just to make sure we're clear on roles and responsibilities etc. Also I'll just say it out loud, we're gonna look at rap sheets and a little posting history and make sure the mod team feels like it's a good fit. That's not some kind of grueling test, just like a two minute conversation where me and antivehicular go "hmm they seem fine" at each other. It is a volunteer position so it is OK to say "I volunteer" here. If you're thinking about it but have reservations, I can chat about them with you, too.
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Mar 23, 2023 18:02
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how about "comfortably retire," or "ascended to a higher plane of existence," or "win the game early by not having to play any more"
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Mar 23, 2023 19:44
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I got the impression the primary role of an IK for mafia would be opening and closing threads as part of the way the game works, and maybe renaming or moving threads too. No?
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Mar 23, 2023 20:48
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Ok the idea here is to get ideas and have a chat as a community, we don't need to have a referendum on whether or not Ecco is cool/good/etc. which seems a bit of a harsh thing to subject them to. It sounds like generally folks feel an IK for all of TGR is a good idea and that restores the status quo we had for a couple of years; it sounds like the having buttons and ability to open/close threads aspects of a Mafia IK aren't needed, and if the community needs leaders who can suggest nicely to someone to slow their roll a bit from time to time, those people don't necessarily need to be officially sanctioned by SA mod team IKs.
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Mar 23, 2023 21:43
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MockingQuantum posted:okay explain it for the neophyte, how do these numbers math out to 7 people I have never played Mafia before but my read is there are 9 players in this game, two must be scum, one may be doctor, one may be cop, and the rest are just civilians.
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Mar 23, 2023 22:13
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STONE COLD 64 posted:Ive been using Vote and Execute lately personally, lunch never felt right to me launch them (into the sun)
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Mar 23, 2023 23:37
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wins32767 posted:Leperflesh, this is why you need to set a deadline. for what? STONE COLD 64 posted:Leperflesh play a game with us it's rare we get so many games recruiting at once I want to watch a game first, see how it goes; and then... I'll be honest, probably not, but never say never.
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Mar 24, 2023 05:03
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I've seen threads get far more angry at one another - like, this week - but the contentiousness here seems to me to be more a matter of a few people using textual styles of communication that allow for either a jokey or a hostile reading depending on where the reader is coming from; and, what some posters may have seen as a steamroller towards setting up an IK from among a group of posters they don't recognize and objecting to that. So both substantive disagreement that has been working out as people discuss in earnest, and, some hostility, a little genuine and a little based on mutual misunderstanding. This is normal. Moderation can help by reminding people to be kind, be forgiving, listen to what people are saying despite the tone they're saying it in. chaoslord posted:I took it as a joke about what happens in mafia games when you don’t set a deadline. In mafia games the stated question is always “who should be dunked?” and you have X days to do it, the deadline helps move things along somewhat. When the deadline for that is way too long or if one doesn’t get set things tend to go off the rails more often because a bunch of people want to seriously work toward an answer and others are thinking “we have a week to figure this out I can Ah, OK, I get it! My take right now is that there is something close to a consensus that Mafia specifically does not need an IK with buttons, but that TGR could probably use a more general game IK. It would be fruitful to talk to folks who use TGR for non-Mafia purposes when finding such a volunteer. If this is a "consensus" that actually you don't agree with but feel pressured to agree with, let me know privately and I can communicate that anonymized back to this thread.
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Mar 24, 2023 16:12
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for five days” and it can lead to butting of heads and such
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The main spot of contention seems to be this: Some folks felt it made sense to suggest a long-time wise veteran of many a Mafia as an IK, because experience, and it'd be someone they knew well. Some folks felt a person who didn't play Mafia much any more or perhaps represented a group of friends they were not integrated with would not be a person they'd implicitly trust with sensitive issues. These are both valid viewpoints. They both come from a place of wanting to help and be good. They are well-intentioned and heartfelt and we can recognize people saying each of these things have good in their hearts. And there is no deadline. We can agree today not to make a new IK and change our minds next month or in six months or whenever, after more consideration.
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Mar 24, 2023 16:18
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oh you're a SAD IQ you'd be perfect, you do it, if you can handle the trashfires over there this'd be a piece of cake I'm kidding
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Mar 24, 2023 17:51
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Scientastic posted:Isn’t the core of this that you can be combative and test the limits in a game (because it is a game) but if someone says you’ve crossed a line, you need to acknowledge that, apologise and try not to do so in future? I have yet to see anyone specifically disagree with this. Early on there were a few posts about how much needs to be said, like, verbosity; and things like a contact list or safety people or w/e have been floated as ideas and mostly knocked down as maybe not necessary, although that's certainly not set in stone. But basically yes everyone or almost everyone agrees in principle with this and that's great. It's a win. Everyone should take that win.
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Mar 24, 2023 19:15
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I like half of you half as well as I should like, and like less than half of you half as well as you deserve
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Mar 24, 2023 20:02
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that is a good point it is possible to be viciously polite, but it is difficult to be viciously kind
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Mar 24, 2023 20:10
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Mar 24, 2023 20:14
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what on earth is happening in here now EccoRaven are you saying MS-DOS game SkiFree natively drew a window dialogue to display high scores, or, is that actually a windows 3.1+ game? This is not an epic own I'm just the kind of person who notices hidden inaccuracies in people's statements and becomes suspicious.
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Mar 24, 2023 23:21
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EccoRaven posted:it's the windows 3.1+ version, the game was just released on MS-DOS so I thought I'd be cute in describing it ok ok maybe you're not a scum but I have my eyes on you, one more slip up and you'll prematurely win the game by not having to play any more right to the moon
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Mar 24, 2023 23:33
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Sandwolf posted:(pulled off a ninja edit on this post) this post was reported for ninja edit lmao
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Mar 26, 2023 06:19
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Some of the posts from the last few days reminded me of this PYF thread, PYF Time Something Awful Helped You / Saved Your Life: A Good Vibes Thread. I bet there's a few stories of folks who found this community (or helped create it) that could be reposted over there, if you felt so inclined. Heartwarming stuff!
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Mar 28, 2023 00:15
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Hey folks! The admins are trying to reboot the old idea of a monthly announcement highlighting things going on around the forums of general or widespread interest, and pragmatica in particular mentioned "games open to general entry/recruitment" as a thing to include, including Mafia! It looks like the next announcement is scheduled for April 1st. Yes, yes, april fools, but this isn't actually a joke. If you'll have a Mafia game open for recruitment on the 1st and you'd like me to request a sentence about it with a link, PM me and I'll be happy to ask Prags to include it!
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Mar 28, 2023 16:54
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could be funny imo
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Mar 28, 2023 17:13
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Ok well, there wasn't a strong call for it so I didn't request links in the announcement but it looks like Prags took the initiative anyway lol! Might get some newbies!
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Apr 1, 2023 17:24
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Per Sandwolf's request, we're moving this thread to the main TG forum!
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Apr 5, 2023 17:44
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What did they used to say? "Goon love is the best love"? My congratulations on the nuptials, and may you both have a long and successful marriage.
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Jun 4, 2023 06:55
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feed it to your crab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMswHf-NIbM
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Sep 16, 2023 01:29
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I didn't want to step on your toes, Opopanax, but mafia folks are of course welcome in the general TG secret santa too!
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Nov 21, 2023 17:56
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I would never ship someone a package of bees in december, it's way too cold in the northern hemisphere and in the southern hemisphere it's too hot, the right time for bees is early to mid spring but if I did ship bees I would definitely want to provide a tracking number
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Dec 9, 2023 00:56
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Mar 15, 2024 01:02
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 20:18 |
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I've been reading this discussion carefully, as a non-mafia player but it's important that we run safe games here on SA. With tabletop RPGs we can have safety tools that allow a player to redirect the current scene and everyone can agree without needing to particularly interrogate the reasons why, and that works because of the cooperative/collaborative nature of the game. It is not "bad" or "wrong" to just retcon a scene or situation when someone's in trouble. The example I always use is a person with arachnophobia doesn't have to discuss why they are being triggered by the giant spider that just dropped on them, but the GM can quickly agree to change the monster in the room and everyone else really shouldn't have a problem with it. But Mafia is a competitive game with winners and losers, the players are trying to get something from one another, and that layers on top of the social construct of the "game between friends" and adds complexity. The boardgame thread just got done having a longish discussion about the validity of resigning in various games, spawned from an earlier discussion that popped up in the Magic thread, and in both cases the question interrogates the ideas of the social meta, the individual's right or responsibility to choose not to continue to participate in something that isn't or has stopped being fun for them, in conflict with their responsibility not to ruin or end a game that requires them to stay in in order to run to completion and provide the fun for the other players. I've seen this in another context with complaints about games with "kingmaking" features. You're not going to win, you know it, but you can still strongly influence which of 2+ other players will win, and how do you decide whether to do that, is it OK, is it expected, how does that feel? One of the key aspects of those conversations that stand out to me is the different ways these different games do or don't explicitly provide tools. In some games, players get eliminated as part of the expected structure, and that means resignation is partially or completely supported within the rules. You can scoop and walk in a multiplayer magic game, there are some very specific gamestates/steps where you can't, and the tournament rules as they stand today specify that in order to minimize the disruption caused by a player resignation. But you "can't" (supposedly) scoop and walk in a lot of different board games, because there's no rules for what to do with, say, the territory you have on the board, your cards, things you have on the table affecting the other players in various ways. When players do that anyway, other players can get mad about it. Online. There's lots of people posting about how that sucks and others talking about how the obligation to keep a game fun for other people doesn't outweigh their desire to not have a bad time for maybe an hour+ more as a cost. So what doesn't get discussed as much, but ought to, is the responsibility the other players have or the group has collectively for the happiness and well-being of all the players within the game. If someone's having a bad time, even if that's caused by the rules - they rolled poorly, or got attacked by three other players because they have a resource they all want, whatever - where does the spirit of competition get limited by the social expectations that our casual boardgame night is supposed to be a fun time between friends? I've been at a table where we realized Lars was annoyed and not having a good time, Cris was probably going to win, and we just agree the game's done now, let's do something we'll all enjoy. That can feel very unsatisfactory if you were 80% to getting your engine going and thought you were gonna come from behind and especially if you just invested 2.5 hours into this game. But sometimes Jan and Ben need to go home now and we're out of time, too. It happens. It also happens that Lars just hasn't got the temperament to play Diplomacy. Gets upset every time, ruins the game, man. We love Lars, he's our pal, the other five of us want to play Diplomacy, we don't wanna exclude Lars, but we gotta somehow. Sucks. In fact, sucks more than ruining one game of Diplomacy by either insisting he play it out, or putting a ton of pressure on him to resign, or swap out, or otherwise just having the whole room focused on Lars while he feels angry and embarrassed. Yeah. It's challenging to hash that out and figure out what to do but it's not OK for the fun that the other five of us are having to come at the expense of our friendship or Lars' wellbeing. This isn't a chess tournament where the expectation is that every player plays as hard as possible and if you can't hack that you don't belong here. Right? What I'm getting around to here is that there can be explicit in-game tools, either built into the structure of the game (in poker you are supposed to fold a lot) or into the group's social contract (at our boardgame weekends you can just say you're having a bad time and we'll play something else). For the latter, inspiration can be had from RPG safety tools. You've been discussing the open door idea: a player can get up and leave, at any time, for any reason, and by making this explicit up front you can destigmatize it and reduce the emotional load from doing so. But that shouldn't be the only remedy.You can and should also have the X-card, tone conversation, and pre-game lines and veils conversations if you want. You should allow for a pause: we can stop tonight's session and pick it back up next week to give the GM and the players a chance to talk, emotions to cool, and time to figure out if any restructuring needs to be done to make the game continue to work for everyone. I gather there's pressure not to "break kayfabe" for want of a better term - as you engage in arguments and interrogations in advance of a vote, you want all the players to stay within their roles. But you can see that someone's getting maybe IRL upset, not just roleplaying as being upset, and that should invoke safety tools that take precedence over immersion. You can pause a game. You can put a thread on timeout. You can step in and say, out of character, "OK this is getting a bit too intense here: regardless of the in-game imperatives to uncover the scum and/or not let anyone figure out you're scum, we have another imperative to protect players and that one is more important." I don't play Mafia so I'm providing generalities, but perhaps those of you that do can figure out structural options to help protect players from excessively unpleasant and unfun situations in-game. Open door shouldn't be the only option. Anyway please continue to figure this stuff out in the spirit of collaborative competition. We want mafia games that are challenging and satisfying and fun and safe. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 16:39
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