Sometimes it's fun to kill

Okay, this post is a little less gloomy. A friend suggested I write a book on this topic, but I figured there's no market for this sort of thing, so I've decided to give my readers some potentially valuable information for free.

First off, I'm talking about the game Mafia. For those who don't know what it is, I'll explain the rules in the next four paragraphs. If you know how it works, skip them.

So basically it's a game for large groups of people, who are each assigned 1 of 4 characters, usually with playing cards. "Mafia" players try to kill as many other people as they can, "doctors" have the chance to prevent the death of a player, and "detectives" can find out through the game facilitator whether a player is mafia or not, and the rest are "civilians" with no special abilities.

The facilitator may weave an intriguing tale about secret mafia members living in a town who whack usually unsuspecting people in their sleep every night. So when it's "nighttime", everyone closes their eyes. The facilitator will then instructs mafia members to awake to do their deed. The killers then agree amongst themselves to pluck off one unlucky person, usually performed silently without alerting their neighbours of their dirty deeds. Once the facilitator is notified of the target, he or she orders them to return to sleep. Then the doctors' eyes are opened when called upon. They select one person to be saved the same way one player is offed by the mafia. Next, the detectives will wake to finger one player (nothing sexual). They then look to the facilitator to see whether their suspect is mafia or not. If they're lucky, the facilitator will nod. If the player is not mafia, he or she will shake her head. They all go back to sleep.

Next, everyone awakes, and the facilitator announces who has died in their sleep. If somehow the doctors chose to save that lucky guy or girl, the potential victim instead lives on to the next round and the mafia's attempt that night is futile. Some versions of the game allow the fresh corpse final words to the crowd, which may be crucial in some cases. I don't play like that though. I should also mention that mafia members may kill themselves off at night, and doctors may heal themselves as well. Detectives are allowed suspect themselves as well, though the answer would be pretty clear that they're not mafia members.

After the morbid announcement, the town's survivors debate amongst themselves, trying to identify the mafia members. Then two people are elected, each with a nomination and finalized with a second, and must each give a statement of defense to prove their innocence. Afterwards the survivors minus the two suspects vote on whom to execute. The one with the majority vote is killed and his or her role is revealed (nighttime deaths do not result in corpses' role revelations). Nighttime then follows, and the entire process is repeated until either all the mafia members are slain or if surviving mafia members are equal to non-mafia players, whichever comes first.

Now, my reasons for loving this game. The rules are few and simple, and there's a lot of flexibility with the rules as long as you don't outright break them. For example, paying close attention to sounds when your eyes are closed to pinpoint mafia members, announcing your role to everyone without revealing your identity card, or committing suicide when you're in the mafia. Knowing the tricks without actually cheating makes one a very powerful player, and recognition of your wits can affect your chances in the game as well. So for those who are power-hungry and have the smarts to back it, this game is for you. But personally I enjoy it mostly for the people-reading aspect.

I'm a bit of an introvert. I like to be alone, I like to be left alone, and I can even be alone when I'm in a crowd. Selective attention is something I've learned to master over the years. However, I'm still a very socially alert individual. I'm often able to put myself in other peoples' shoes, to understand their behaviour when I have all the facts. In real life, I clearly don't have all the facts, but in Mafia, everyone has roughly the same facts. Chances are there are no ulterior motives; you play to win, and you work with those on your team to make that happen. Personal grudges may come into play, but that usually doesn't throw the game off too much. So once you have a good sense of how people behave in a game, you can identify their roles, and act accordingly to get the results you need.

All this talk is hard to relate to if you haven't tried it, so I'll give a snippet of one game I played just yesterday at 3 in the morning.

So we were down to 7 players total, up to 2 mafia members remaining, possibly 1 detective remaining, 3-5 civilians alive depending on the unknowns, and the doctor was around because I kept saving myself. Now I take full advantage of the nighttime regardless of my role. If I'm mafia, I kill strategically, or I might even have an entire silent conversation with my teammates. But if I'm not, I like to communicate blindly with people on my side without knowing who they are. I move around, I gesture, I make noises to throw people off, all kinds of things. In this particular case, I pointed at myself vigourously when the detective was up.

Morning came. A civilian was killed off. I don't remember whom, because my attention was held by a set of unwavering eyes, staring at me intently. It took me a few seconds to understand what's going on. At first I thought he was mafia, but there was no reason why he'd stare me down. To mark his next victim? To instill fear? No way. He was smarter than that. Which means my reasoning wasn't smart enough. I was signaling to the detective before, so this must mean that he was the guy I was communicating with. I nodded with a smile and he turned away. I now have a teammate. I might've been assuming things of course, but my assumptions were soon confirmed. He had tried unsuccessfully to have me executed one round earlier, but had ceased completely this time. He even supported me when others accused me. This leaves the remaining 4 players as unknowns to me.

Then one guy, whom I'll call A for now, accused his own girlfriend of being a mafia member. His reasoning wasn't all that logical, more like a random shot really. I didn't think too much of it, since couples quibbling isn't that uncommon. What did get my attention, however, was the subtle support given by another girl (B), who isn't a close friend of A. There was no valid reason for the two to accuse her, especially one after the other, and so I tentatively linked the two as teammates. Since civilians don't open their eyes at all during nighttime, and the only other team out there must be mafia, I assumed they were so. I announced my suspicions.

Of course, people don't take turns to talk in this game, so during this time, or sometime before or after, I was nominated once by a third guy in the group. I figured he was a civilian because it seemed like he didn't know whom to trust and he was genuinely asking for logical reasons whenever someone fires an accusation. My detective friend persuaded him to take back the accusation, but to no avail.

However, the detective and I did manage to put A on the chopping block because I accused and the other guy trusted my instinct, or at least my identity. To further drive home my point, I raised my hand and told them I was the detective. The civilian dude asked me how they could trust me on that, which was a valid question. I explained to them that if I was lying, the real detective would call me out on that and rightfully accuse me of lying. This didn't happen. But then the civilian suggested the detective could have died in his or her sleep, which was possible since the role is not revealed in this case. I countered that I knew better than to make such a claim if there was even a possibility that the real detective, if it wasn't me, would contradict me. Even if I really wasn't a mafia member, lying to them and being proven so would destroy my credibility completely.

There was no reason for the true detective to contradict me, of course, and that was one reason why I did what I did. I didn't claim to be a doctor either because that role would have less weight on such claims; I would know as much as the other players, technically. Another reason is that if I claimed to have the power to identify the mafia, there would be a chance that the bad guys would try to silence me at night, but I would just save myself and we would all survive to the next round. If I claimed to be the doctor, they might hesitate to kill me because I would foresee that and I wouldn't need to trust someone else to save me, which was not so in the case of me being the detective. It was better that the real detective remained hidden.

The smart thing for the mafia at this point would be to claim to be the detective. In their perspective, it would appear that I was truly the detective since no one else spoke out. Of course, this would have to be thought out on the spot and communicated between the members somehow secretly. If both of them announced that they were detectives, both would likely be lying, or at least one of them would be, but their unity would once again cast doubt on their roles. Maybe if one was persuasive enough and both knew enough to argue it through, the rest, except for me and the real detective, would buy the lie and the loser of the argument would definitely be proven to be a liar.

If only one person spoke out to contradict me, assuming I was indeed the detective, I would have no support but my own words, in which case it may be a free for all. However, in this case I was not the true detective, and if someone tried to contradict me, the detective and I would know for a fact that the arguer is mafia. There's no other reason to contradict me otherwise.

But this did not happen, and the civilians were not entirely convinced. So the real detective revealed himself to the public, which damaged my credibility even though the he told them I was checked. Since there were two seemingly anonymous killers in the open, for us to be unified publicly would appear suspicious, especially when the detective and the doctor are never awake at the same time. Of course, he didn't know I was the doctor, and conceded that he had no idea what I was doing, so I reasoned with them and told them exactly what I was doing.

At this point, I suspected either A or B to second me. Assuming I'm correct in my suspicions, the mafia team cannot afford to have both members put on the chopping block. That would be a definite loss to them. And seeing as I was an influential townsman, it would only be a matter of time before I convinced them to turn against B. To try and accuse another townie would require logical evidence to back up their claims, and doing so without a solid reason would make it look like they're just trying to pull someone else down or to pass the blame. So the wise thing to do at this point would be to second my nomination. Just one more vote and I'm on the chopping block with A. And it happened as I expected.

First, A said I was probably not mafia after he himself was chosen, and almost immediately after B seconded me. I kept quiet about this particular suspicion until afterwards, just to prove to the rest that I was right. If I had said anything, they wouldn't second me and my claim would not be confirmed. But they made two crucial mistakes on their own anyway.

A's claim that I was probably not mafia puts himself in a bad position, especially after I accused both A and B. Saying I wasn't mafia suggests that I shouldn't be nominated. If he wasn't suspected of being a mafia, people might go with the suggestion. If he was, it would appear to be a poor attempt at hiding my identity as a mafia member. He had hoped that the townsfolk would pick up on this poor attempt at reverse psychology, but I saw through it and added it to my reasoning later.

Second mistake. A should have seconded the nomination, not B. If he had done it instead, the identity of the second mafia member would remain relatively unknown. I would certainly have some doubts myself. But since B came to his defense in securing me on the chopping block, I was convinced that she was also a mafia member, which I then divulged to the rest. After A was executed by our vote, he still maintained that I was not mafia, which further supports my suspicion that he's using terrible reverse psychology to have me voted off. So I don't know if he's a smart player or not, but I'm not going to call him dumb based on that. I can be respectful when I want to.

So the rest of the game progressed as expected. 4 against 1 and the mafia team killed off A's girlfriend during the night. She was mostly inactive throughout, and this kill would seem to contradict my earlier statements to the less experienced players. Clearly the more practical move would be to kill off me or the detective, since we were obviously unified against the mafia. This would either be a very amateur move or a very intelligent one. Killing one of us would likely support the theory, since its supporters are being targeted. The counter-argument for this move would be grounded on the same reasoning, that it was the same as admitting that the theory's correct. So the safe move would be to kill off an innocent bystander. But it all proved futile. The detective checked B at night, and the three of us nominated her as the prime suspect, and we were proven correct in our speculations.

I suppose even this detailed account might not do the game justice. The participants definitely affect game play; one of my friends stated that when he played with a different circle of friends, they were less creative and it wasn't fun because they always stuck to the same methods. So another key factor is cleverness and creativity. I find playing mafia akin to writing a suspenseful mystery. You see things through the reader's eyes, and you try to take in every detail, manipulating these facts to get at the ending you desire. Of course, not everything happens to your liking, but that's all part of the excitement.