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Malazan Mafia is slowly dying

Poll: Malazan Mafia is slowly dying (13 member(s) have cast votes)

Is Malazan Mafia slowly dying?

  1. yes (5 votes [38.46%])

    Percentage of vote: 38.46%

  2. no (4 votes [30.77%])

    Percentage of vote: 30.77%

  3. maybe (4 votes [30.77%])

    Percentage of vote: 30.77%

  4. I just like to MOD (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

Vote Guests cannot vote

#1 User is offline   Tattersail_ 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 03:46 PM

Some people return and have a game or two.

Some people play every game if they can.

Some people prefer a simple game.

Some people prefer a complex game.

Some people prefer to Mod.

The forum only goes to Mafia 31.

Sign ups and those that may play a game today.
Spoiler


Promising, of those that are in the oldest game there are 5 players that may involve themselves in a game every now and then.

Mafia 32

Spoiler


Mafia 33
Spoiler


Move on to the 60's 70's...

Mafia 60
Spoiler


Mafia 67
Spoiler


Mafia 75

Spoiler


Mafia 87

Spoiler


Mafia 100 (which had as many returnees as possible)

Spoiler


10 players that play.

Posting levels have plummeted.

Modkills have increased.

Gone are the days we can get 15 players to sign up regularly, who actually want to play and have time to.

D'rek is missed in my opinion as her games were awesome. Valuable player and Mod. Gone.
Other people who ran good games have gone.

We're left with Shin and Tapper of the old school who run decent games and Blend and Gnaw of the new age but that's it really. Shin/Tapper seem to have a lot less time and I can see them fading away just like D'rek.

Mafia MOD thread doesn't have a lot of games ready to go like the old days.

As a player, from my point of view, it feels like there are players ready to play, wanting to enjoy a good game and others that aren't interested but just make up the numbers. I may not express it right but the question stands.

This post has been edited by Tattersail_: 22 April 2016 - 03:46 PM

Apt is the only one who reads this. Apt is nice.
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#2 User is offline   Gust Hubb 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 05:07 PM

Yeah from my end real life came crashing in with the divorce and busy rotations. I really want to play still, but as you said games aren't as fun anymore either.

I feel like the same thing happened to the site over all. People grew older, the number of malazan books coming out decreased, not to mention the central series is complete.

Gone are the days of tons of activity, mafia or otherwise
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#3 User is offline   Trull's son 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 05:32 PM

I am the definition of an occasional player. I frequent the forums often enough, though I rarely post content or comments. I join the games that seem interesting to me when I can reliably say that I have a week or two of free time to play in the evenings. The games are always fun when I have time to take an active role in them.

The issue with this last D&D game, for my own infrequent posting, is that we pushed the start of the game back for a while right into my university finals. A concrete start would have fixed my own infrequent posting issues. So at least on my part, I can't speak for the old guard drifting away (though I've seen quite a few leave from the good old days when the site was blue and white and weird around ~2007), but from my end the lack of participation in Mafia is purely a scheduling conflict.

I think Gust Hubb is right. In general, the forums have quieted down over the years with fewer Malazan books published.
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#4 User is offline   Grief 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 06:31 PM

Site activity as a whole is lower than it was in earlier days. This has also been reflected in mafia. Players stop being able to play so much for whatever reason, and aren't replaced by an influx of new people in the same way that they used to be.

This has been going on for some time; I can remember people commenting on it years and years ago. I'm not sure this means there's nothing we can do about it though. The general state of mafia here is something I've mused on at various points, and I do think there are some things that might make a bit of a difference.

So, here are Grief's greivances with Malazan Mafia, accumulated over some time (they probably won't be a surprise).

1. Stop signing up if you can't actually play. Stop letting people sign up if they can't actually play. This might seem counter-intuitive in terms of increasing activity. However, too much low-posting creates a vicious cycle; it becomes easier to hide and so there's less incentive for everyone else to post. I think we would see more activity (and better games) with a smaller core of active players than we do with those active players supplemented by people "signing up to make up the numbers". Almost nothing annoys me more about mafia on this site than playing in games with people not contributing -- it hurts their team, and the quality of the game in general -- as I'm sure some of you are aware by now. When I see sign up threads with several people "In as a low poster", it puts me off signing up. I'm sure many of us have low-posted, and sometimes it's a result of circumstances outside of our control, so this isn't to point fingers. I do think it hurts the games though, and it isn't always caused by unexpected factors. Even if we end up with smaller games, we can probably adapt to that -- the fundamentals of mafia don't require that many people -- and the games will be higher quality. A higher quality of play will then hopefully encourage people to play more, but even if it doesn't I think this might be an improvement. It would also help people to improve at the game, since active games are more demanding. Again, this could be useful for encouraging people to play.

2. I think there's a bit of a problem with high TMDI games and game design. High TMDI games often seem more interesting to mod than they are to play (for example, because people just have no idea what's going on). I enjoy how inventive the community is, however, we very rarely refine these inventions. In my whole time on the site, I could probably count on one hand the number of times that people have actually went back to a High TMDI game and tried to fix the issues it has. In terms of game mechanics, the community doesn't learn from its mistakes in this way (though individuals will obviously get more experienced). Sometimes these experimental games work very well first time of course. Often, they could use a bit of tweaking -- in terms of balance or mechanics -- but this rarely happens. The result is that high TMDI games can be a bit of a mess.

This ties in to another problem. To me, mafia should encourage you to post. At it's core, it's a social game. High TMDI games are often too focussed on off-thread mechanics -- or don't give players enough information, or a proper spark to start the game off -- and this stultifies their activity. I'd consider this a basic problem with a lot games here. This isn't meant to be a general disparagement of high TMDI games (and definitely not of the people who create and mod them; I have a ton of appreciation for the time you take to do that). It can be very fun to play more complex games, and most of the games I find most memorable have been mid TMDI or higher. And complex games don't have to lose their focus upon on-thread activity, so I'd consider this something we could try to improve.

A couple of suggestions that might help:

A. People -- and especially the more active and experienced mods -- could collaborate on a design guide for High TMDI games, to try and help ensure that the games encourage activity and maintain the core of what makes mafia work. A public discussion on what people like, and what makes games work, would be useful imo. I'm not the most experienced mod, but a couple of key suggestions would be making sure that the game is still mostly determined by on-thread action, and making sure that the game design has a spark for activity (this is the reason that lone FM are common in faction games).

B. Try to re-run and polish game mechanics, rather than starting over from square one on each experimental game (of course, there's still absolutely space for this too; I just think that refining previous games is something that this community notably lacks). This way, we'd hopefully build up something of an oeuvre of High TMDI mechanicss that are well understood, and can be adjusted to suit a given number of players while staying well balanced. We could revisit experimental mechanics, and get an idea of which work best -- and which people like best -- and how to balance them.

This won't necessarily mean more players, but I think it might help, by helping our games in terms of activity (by having fewer games that stunt it), and by making them less disorienting to newcomers.

3. Why so few cult games? I'm not talking mind-bending mechanical monstrosities, which is where we do seem to find cults. I'm talking about other forms of low TMDI game, aside from the standard M&P. Cult games in particular have something of an advantage over killer games in terms of activity; players don't die off except through lynching, and there are essentially an increasing number of symps to give people clues. Mixing up the Low TMDI games could be helpful I think. As it stands, I feel like there can be a bit of a dichotomy here between very standard M&P and very complicated high TMDI games.

4. We could advertise and recruit more actively. Mafia is tucked in a little corner of the forum, which was fine when we were more vocal and active (indeed, that's one of the reasons we're tucked away iirc) but the result has been that mafia posts are a rare sight outside of this subforum (you never see them even casually in the Groove or Happy threads, for example). I don't think there's any reason now that we shouldn't post a bit more pro-actively -- in the off-topic area like the Inn or the new members area -- to try and encourage people to play. I'd be happy to use my admin powers in various ways if people thought it would help.

Cougar said:

Grief, FFS will you do something with your sig, it's bloody awful


worry said:

Grief is right (until we abolish capitalism).
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#5 User is offline   Blend 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 06:54 PM

I blame Venge.
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#6 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 07:08 PM

I blame brood.


But on the whole, forum activity is dropping off, and has been for sometime, less fresh meat is appearing so when users do drop off the map there's not much replacing them. This reflects on the mafia player base as well.

Crazy game mechanics put me off as a rule, and I would imagine it would be very intimidating for a newb to step into a high tmdi game.

Get back to basics, meet and potatoes, maybe throw in the odd twist but nothing spectacular, bring it back to the masses versus the killers.
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#7 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 22 April 2016 - 11:12 PM

As others have said, forum activity is dropping off, and as older, legendary players get on with their lives and do whatever it is people do, they end up not having time to play anymore.

With less new blood, there are less replacements than those leaving via attrition.

I agree partially with Grief's number 2, as well. I know that I have been guilty of throwing out Dresden games, some of which were pretty well balanced, some of which were not, and one of which were I was forced to Modkill the true wildcard role *cough* silencer *cough* that broke the game.

I also wouldn't be adverse to helping, maybe quarterly, run/mentor some newbies in a short tmdi-1 game so they get their feet wet a bit.

I'd also like to do a new Dresden game after Peace Talks come out, but I'd like it to be much less complex for the mods and more so for the players, to encourage interaction on thread.

Edit -> I also found the game became less fun when the vast majority of people could say 'This is Obdigore, this is how he plays when he is scum/not scum/whatever', and just get me killed because they could figure out who I was. Whats the point of Alts if everyone knows who people are?

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 22 April 2016 - 11:16 PM

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#8 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 23 April 2016 - 12:33 AM

Hi. I am not sure whether I should be posting here, given that I am a relative newbie and probably one of the reasons for the decline of Mafia, low poster that I am.

But I really agree with a lot that Grief has said upthread. I don't really know all the legendary old players, but if they are gone/irregular then I would say some Mafia advertising might do some good? One of the first rules I read when I joined up was not to talk about Mafia outside the Mafia game thread. As a result of which I never mention the game. Ever. So, less visibility. It seems to me, if acticity is down, it would be better to have 10-12 dedicated players who will put on a good show rather than 18 players who won't.

Another more personal point:

I don't play Mafia the way you guys play Mafia. I don't play it as a separate tab on my work computer as I don't have a work computer. My work is quite different from the majority. I play Mafia at other times, and this affects my posting. Weekend breaks seem silly to me as those are the times I could play the most.

Related to this, there is another aspect: Some Mafia games are based on another media/theme like Legend of Korra, D&D etc. I think it is sort of presumed that players will have a basic idea what extra wrinkles these themes add to the game. This is not necessarily true. I had no idea what either of those two things were. So in games like these I would love an embedded link explaining briefly what the theme is and how its relevant to the game

I am not sure I made much sense. But this was what I was thinking off when I went to bed last night. Its 6 AM here. If this was a Mafia game, my active window would extend around 3 more hours
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#9 User is offline   Coltaine - 

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Posted 23 April 2016 - 09:53 AM

Hello everyone,

as a new member of the forum I would like to add my opinion. I have read about Mafia here before, I think it was the announcement of Mafia 131 or something. But I didn't know what it was. And lt looked damn confusing. A lot of rules, voting against players and what was the goal?

Now after reading half an hour Tappers Mafia 101 I know that I have known the game for years as "Die Werwölfe von Düsterwald" or "Les Loups garous de Thiercelieux", a card game. Other names for fractions and classes, but nearly the same game. Oh, and without complicated version like D&D. Maybe also less rules. I have not read everything.

I wouldn't mind a game. A simple game. The Mafia 131 D&D Thread confused me a lot.

But I think a good way to recruit some new players from the new members is to give them a short introduction. Explaining the basics with a short post for everyone who don't know Mafia or just knows it under another name.

Like:
"Mafia is a game we play in our community. It's played with normally more than 10 people. Every player is assigned to a faction and a class. Some of the classes have a special ability. The goal of the game is to eliminate the other faction(s). The game is divided in days and nights with a specific period of time. One day for each or more.
Normally in the simple games there is one large faction the town and a smaller faction, the scum. The scum players can kill one person during the night to eliminate the town fraction. They have to vote about it or decide concordantly.
And all players (town and scum) are voting at the day time for one person to be killed. The town players try to identify the scum players by there voting behaviour or with the help of the ability of some classes and kill them through the daily vote. But they don't know who belongs to them for sure. You need a majority to kill someone.

The classes of the game are explained before the game starts. Normally there is a healer who can save/revive someone, someone who can check identities or guard people, someone who can kill a player of his choice,...

You don't have to vote for someone to get killed, but you have to stay active in the game. If you stopped posting for a specific amount of time (several days), the mod of the game can kill you.

There are a lot of different ways to play the game, but the specific rules are posted before the game starts.
Some games are played with the real accounts and some are played with game accounts, named after Gods or someone else.

For more informations look into the General Mafia Rules by Path-shaper and Mafia 101 by Tapper "

Something like that. Improve it if you want. I'm sure it is not perfect. I may have also mixed the rules with the card gamePosted Image
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#10 User is offline   Itwæs Nom 

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Posted 23 April 2016 - 12:47 PM

I'll just note that Blend's first D&D-127- was the best possible introduction to mafia for me I could have wished for
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#11 User is offline   Tapper 

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Posted 25 April 2016 - 10:02 AM

Slowly dying is perhaps a bit too pessimistic. However, numbers are dwindling and it is only reasonable to keep this into account when designing games. I also think we (and I have to look in the mirror and accept I'm probably suspect #1) harmed ourselves as well: by introducing game concepts that are not easily accessible.

M&P, or the standard versions that have been developed elsewhere (see Thingyman's post regarding the championship) are a much better way to provide a stable format that players can easily learn but are still as hard to master as any mafia game.

All in all, I doubt it will be difficult to have 12-13 players for games - rustling up 18 and replacements however is beyond our current community. And like Grief points out: the general player group gets older, with less time and other commitments. I don't think mafia will go the way of the dodo - we do have new players, who have the same enthusiasm as we did and have, just not as many.
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#12 User is offline   Shinrei 

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Posted 26 April 2016 - 01:42 PM

Re Venge

My next Sengoku game is going to feature the Cult of Oda Nobunaga as its main feature.
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#13 User is offline   Kanese S's 

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Posted 28 April 2016 - 09:45 AM

We are all slowly dying.
Laseen did nothing wrong.

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#14 User is offline   Vengeance 

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 12:59 AM

Unfortunately my work has gotten extremely busy. Well unfortunate for my ability to play mafia not my ability to earn a living :) . We are hiring a new guy but he doesn't start until the end of May. I hope to be able to start playing again in June. But I think the days of rapid posting and page long cases are done.

I think that perhaps we have become a touch to reliant on tmdi. I know that for a long time our play as town has been less then staller. We have grown used to roles helping us out and less reliant on towns ability to verify actions and find scum. I think we should take some time to refocus on the classics roles and interactions.

I agree that a core of players who will constantly post and be able to play is better then begging people to play in order to meet numbers. I remember a time when a small core would play 1 or 2 quick games a week.
How many fucking people do I have to hammer in order to get that across.
Hinter - Vengy - DIE. I trusted you you bastard!!!!!!!
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#15 User is offline   Lady Bliss 

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 04:45 PM

View PostVengeance, on 30 April 2016 - 12:59 AM, said:

Unfortunately my work has gotten extremely busy. Well unfortunate for my ability to play mafia not my ability to earn a living :) . We are hiring a new guy but he doesn't start until the end of May. I hope to be able to start playing again in June. But I think the days of rapid posting and page long cases are done.

I think that perhaps we have become a touch to reliant on tmdi. I know that for a long time our play as town has been less then staller. We have grown used to roles helping us out and less reliant on towns ability to verify actions and find scum. I think we should take some time to refocus on the classics roles and interactions.

I agree that a core of players who will constantly post and be able to play is better then begging people to play in order to meet numbers. I remember a time when a small core would play 1 or 2 quick games a week.


A small quick game might be fun. I agree that we need to play more M&P games. It also might not be a bad idea to do more altless since that seems to have drummed up more posting.
"If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?" - Shylock
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#16 User is offline   Mentalist 

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Posted 06 May 2016 - 05:19 PM

Re: advertising. Basically we need another WIN thread in the Inn and do recruiting from idle-time spammers there. That's how teh mafias here originally spiked, back in the teen games.
The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard
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View PostJump Around, on 23 October 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

And I want to state that Ment has out-weaseled me by far in this game.
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#17 User is offline   HiddenOne 

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Posted 06 May 2016 - 07:27 PM

new blood is fresh & tasty
HiddenOne. You son of a bitch. You slimy, skulking, low-posting scumbag. You knew it would come to this. Roundabout, maybe. Tortuous, certainly. But here we are, you and me again. I started the train on you so many many hours ago, and now I'm going to finish it. Die HO. Die. This is for last time, and this is for this game too. This is for all the people who died to your backstabbing, treacherous, "I sure don't know what's going on around here" filthy lying, deceitful ways. You son of a bitch. Whatever happens, this is justice. For me, this is justice. Vote HiddenOne Finally, I am at peace.
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#18 User is offline   Shinrei 

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Posted 19 May 2016 - 12:19 PM

View PostHiddenOne, on 06 May 2016 - 07:27 PM, said:

can someone give me a summary of what people have said



Fixed
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#19 User is offline   Vengeance 

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Posted 19 May 2016 - 12:23 PM

View PostMentalist, on 06 May 2016 - 05:19 PM, said:

Re: advertising. Basically we need another WIN thread in the Inn and do recruiting from idle-time spammers there. That's how teh mafias here originally spiked, back in the teen games.


What you suggest is chaos! Those were the years of fire and brimstone. Blood ran wild through the warrens!
How many fucking people do I have to hammer in order to get that across.
Hinter - Vengy - DIE. I trusted you you bastard!!!!!!!
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#20 User is offline   Mentalist 

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Posted 19 May 2016 - 12:49 PM

View PostVengeance, on 19 May 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

View PostMentalist, on 06 May 2016 - 05:19 PM, said:

Re: advertising. Basically we need another WIN thread in the Inn and do recruiting from idle-time spammers there. That's how teh mafias here originally spiked, back in the teen games.


What you suggest is chaos! Those were the years of fire and brimstone. Blood ran wild through the warrens!

And yet we came out of it stronger. In the end, when there was no more WIN to be had, we retreated to the Mafia subforum. And there we prospered.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 19 May 2016 - 12:50 PM

The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard
THE CONTESTtm WINNER--чемпіон самоконтролю

View PostJump Around, on 23 October 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

And I want to state that Ment has out-weaseled me by far in this game.
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