on mafia madness servers i am somewhat of a maverick. i routinely test new bullstuff strategies on an unwary and aggravated playerbase who generally reject my messages until i shoot them enough times. my most recent success is claim or die and the widespread learning of the /claim command. however, there are limits in metagame development that i alone cannot overcome, ideas so radical that any attempt to implement them will leave me banned or devoid of votes by unwitting fools who cannot see my grand vision. the following transcription is the full evolution of the mafia madness metagame if we assume the culture around the game will change significantly to favor the highest level of play possible and why the culture has not and likely will not change.
first the ruleset i am operating in must be understood, as changes in this ruleset may invalidate this entire brown townysis. one cannot just read the mafia madness rules and take them literally; they are now more precedent based than literal interpretation due to the metagame changing and the failure of any coders of note to update them. the most notable change is any majority vote by alive players allows whatever the players voted on to happen, regardless of rules, unless there is potential evidence of a ventriloquist loving about. the most frequent conflict hosts have with this rule is that it may lead to flimsy and random gunvotes and such, but from what i've seen most successful mm servers employ this and it is widely approved by players. this is, as of now, the only rule contesting the proposed meta with any significant following.
knowledge of fundamental game mechanics is necessary, but mafia madness theory hasn't established itself well, so a primer lesson is in order. the goals of the town are to achieve information on who the antagonists are and kill them, while the goal of the antagonists are preventing the town from knowing who they are and killing the town. the game thus is about how quickly the town can discover the antagonists before too many town-aligned roles die. as such, the town is usually on the defensive, waiting until an antagonist strikes or they gather enough information through role claiming or investigations before killing anyone. a town informed of who the antagonists are will, on average, steamroll them with its advantage in players. since the town is continuously becoming more informed over time, noncult* antagonists are forced to act before the town finds and kills all of them. something important to note is because the goal of both sides is simply to kill all opposing sides, the amount of players left alive on each is irrelevant so long as the other is fully dead.
*the cult grows in strength over time assuming it recruits every night, eventually overpowering the town, but that is irrelevant to my proposal. consider any situation in which time passes as one where the cult wins.
playing defensively and relying on investigative roles or antag actions keeps the game at a glacial pace due to the slow, nightly nature of investigation. during this time, antagonists essentially act with impunity as they are not actively threatened by anything except promises of a future investigation or a gunvote, in which case the antag still can fire the first bullet if an engagement is imminent and potentially escape. antagonists also benefit far more from nighttime abilities and nighttime visibility, the cult most of all, so simply waiting invites the antagonists to use these advantage to disorganize and kill the town. night, although offering benefits to the town through investigation, is more valuable to antagonists than the town. thus the town's goal is immediately setting out to find and execute the antagonists before they are allowed to act in order to either kill them or force their reveal as quickly as possible, preferably before the first night.
so the town gains from rapidly gathering role information and using it to put pressure on the antagonists, thus what needs to be known are the ways to acquire this knowledge. the failure of investigative roles introduced claim or die, forcing the mafia to put themselves in a more vulnerable position as uncontested town roles become cleared. however, claim or die, once completed, has little followup. the town knows who the antagonists potentially are, but frequently waits until nightfall to begin the investigative process, allowing the antagonists to disrupt the town far more efficiently. what should instead occur is the killing of players claiming contested roles until the role is no longer contested.
seasoned players might wrongly contextualize these votekills in the current metagame and culture, wherein votekilled people flee for their lives or shoot back at their fellows regardless of alignment. for this advanced votekilling to work, each member of the town has to think of themselves as part of a collective instead of as individuals; the practical difference between the two being individuals will fight to keep themselves alive while collectives will expend players, including themselves, to win the game. members of contested roles need to willingly accept their deaths and participate in the shooting of their role-fellows until there are no longer counterclaims.
antag strategies to counter my proposal while still retaining elements of rooftop manipulation are inefficient and easily countered themselves, and the only real way for the mafia to succeed is successful Flash Mobs during the initial spawn phase when everyone is climbing to the roof, or retreating into a fortified area and preparing to deathmatch it out. all roles that act during the night are invalidated, removing a hefty advantage antagonists held beforehand. the roofside massacre removes any protection the mafia once held in counterclaiming, forcing them below the roof. however, once below the roof, the town is able to simply vote in a kos on anyone below the roof and count whoever is missing in the event that there are no visible counterclaims. towns can theoretically look at the player list to discover any missing persons once the initial clearing through claim or die/votekilling is successful. possible counters via obscuring claims with crazies/ventriloquists are solved easily by everyone immediately claiming their role after spawning, allowing the town to rely on the claimed role for vent cases and crazy knifing.
resistance to my suggestions of turning the town into a well-oiled killing machine is significant and caused by the players falsely believing mafia madness is a game about individuals instead of a collective. this is due to the nature of the game; every player is able to win, and the only alignment certain is a player's own. additionally, dying is in itself a chore as the player must wait for the round to end with nothing to do but observe. this causes individuals to view dying as always negative and actively avoid it and is why this strategy will not be implemented in the near future.
so if i ever votekill you and you didn't do anything thats why
