I keep seeing these threads in the Real World section of the forums that either advertise for or host this apparent forum game called Mafia. So, I gotta ask...

What the Nil is Mafia? And how does one play?

I keep seeing it all the time and for some reason it never hit me to ask until now. I would've asked in the thread advertising the latest game, but considering how quickly those get flooded I didn't want to clog it with a question requiring a long explanation.

In one of its simpler forms it's a game in which some players are "town", and some players are "mafia." Every game "night", the mafia choose to kill someone. Every game "day", everyone elects to lynch someone - i.e kill the player with a majority vote against them. There are more townies than mafia. The townies win when every mafia is gone, and the mafia win when they outnumber the town. The town thus has to carefully read people's posts (or just roll dice, apparently!) and figure out who the mafia are, while the mafia have to try and convince the town to lynch other townies without giving themselves away.

The town also frequently has some roles which can help them, like a policeman who can check one person at night to find out if they're innocent or mafia, and a doctor who can target people at night and prevent their deaths if they're targetted by mafia.

Pretty much Shiri hit the nail on the head. Its a fun game, the mod assigns roles to everyone and the town side has to eliminate the mafia. The mafia side has to elimate the town. The mafia side knows who the other mafia are, the majority of the town does not know who is town and who is mafia (also known as scum). The town side has to figure out who the maifa is by role abilities, deduction or just dumb luck.

www.mafiascum.net

If you have enough time to play you should sign up for the next game. It's a lot of fun, and very time consuming.

Uh...but be warned that people can get pretty aggro and not to take it too seriously if they do...

Ooooooh, that might be a turnoff for me then, considering how pretty much everyone here's witnessed how I react to such posts. I probably shouldn't subject myself needlessly to such aggro - don't want to create more drama.

You know, 'cause the internet is such cereal business and all that.

That was my point of concern, yeah...it's a lot worse than Zenobia roleplay being interrupted.

Well, depends if you were the one spending days raising her.