[Poll] What is Mafia to you, mostly?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

It's all in the poll. I'll spare you a big wordy post and just let you take it away, gang.

[Long Con]

Mafia is a community.

[Sloonei]

[tutuu]

"Mafia is a game with ambiguous boundaries and rules that are shaped to a host's vision."

voting for this feels silly, the "that are shaped to a host's vision" at the end feels like an unnecessary addition just to make it sound more pleasant to read, but when you think about it it doesn't mean anything or give any credit when compared to the first option

If your Mafia game has clear rules and boundaries those are also obviously shaped to a host's vision

the only difference to me between these two is "clear rules and boundaries" and "unclear rules and boundaries"

both of these are mafia games, sure, but the first one is a well designed mafia game and the second one is a badly designed mafia game

i don't see how having rules and boundaries being unclear can ever be better than having them clear

you can have a mafia game that allows for a lot of deception and unorthodox surprises and mechanics while also having clear rules and boundaries, and that's what you should strive to do

[JaggedJimmyJay]

What I mean for the first option to convey is:
“Mafia is a game with clear boundaries that do not change regardless of the host or manager. If the boundaries change then the game is no longer Mafia.”

[tutuu]

yea thats different, adding the addendum of "u cant change stuff" changes the thing a lot

in this case, i would vote for "Mafia is neither of those at all and is something else entirely (please specify)."

let me think how i'd word what is mafia to me then

[tutuu]

after some addendums from jay, i will vote for option 3 now

the addendum to the second option is:

"In this case I mean for “ambiguity” to mean changeable or dynamic (implied not mid-game, but from game host to game host)
A game can take many possible forms (but each one should still be clear)"

so basically option 1 is mountainous and option 2 is non-mountainous

[JaggedJimmyJay]

To be more general:

Someone who chooses option 1 may not have “mountainous” in mind necessarily. They may have some other or broader definition for What Is Mafia (which could include roles, most commonly cop, doctor, etc). However, anything that deviates from that definition is then Not Mafia. It doesn’t matter what a host envisions the game to be within the chosen theme — if it doesn’t adhere strictly to the definition, it isn’t Mafia.

Someone choosing option 2 has no strict definition for What Is Mafia. They have an ambiguous idea of the general concepts of the game and then build a precise game around that ambiguous conception in accordance with their personal vision.

Option 3 would then be a blend, or something “in between”. Perhaps Mafia does have a strict definition, but it is a very broad one. A host has a lot of room to be creative without leaving the boundaries of What Is Mafia.

I dunno what #4 is, but I like to include “other”,

[JaggedJimmyJay]

#5 is “I like turtles”

[G-Man]

Mafia is my mistress.

[NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME]

I like turtles

[dunya]

Mafia is a community.

a family.

[juliets]

Mafia is a community.

a family.

Bingo.

[Dyslexicon]

I see many have voted "Mafia is both of the above in equal parts", but has not voted both of the above parts in the poll. I find this to be contradictory and untrustworthy behavior. I posit that we go ahead and yeet them all in an orderly fashion, with clear boundaries and rules, as envisioned by Jimmay, before this turns into an anarchistic cult game where we all end up as turtle hating tree stumps.

[tutuu]

lolol

[TonyStarkPrime]

I don't think in practicality the one that everyone is voting for is accurate to how we play games

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I don't think in practicality the one that everyone is voting for is accurate to how we play games

Do you think we play within a consistent game structure?

[TonyStarkPrime]

Short answer: yes, very much so.

To me, the vast majority and perhaps total sum of everything we would call mafia games fits within a very limited scope. There are very few formal variations between games and those variations are often only allowed under certain conditions, or with caveats. I can think of no game that has run in my time which has not fit well within the standard boundaries of mafia (Inception, grasslands probably the closest for the multiple threads thing) and thus I think the idea that mafia could ever be both in equal parts just doesn’t correspond to how we view mafia.

[TonyStarkPrime]

I think the amount of rules that would have to be broken before a game ceased to be mafia is very small.

[Marmot]

I think the amount of rules that would have to be broken before a game ceased to be mafia is very small.

And then Mafia? happened.

[TonyStarkPrime]

Mafia? ceased to be a mafia game

[TonyStarkPrime]

The fact that there is fairly general agreement that mafia was not a mafia game is support for my theorem

[JaggedJimmyJay]

If Mafia is defined exclusively by a core structure:

Informed minority versus uninformed majority

then most of our games deviate from that structure the moment independents are introduced. Only heists consistently apply. A new rule then needs to be generated that must be, by necessity, ambiguous. Independents are highly inconsistent in their style, design, and win conditions.

Informed minority versus uninformed majority with the possible inclusion of independent persons who may or may not be invested somehow in that conflict and always pursue unique goals

However, I don’t think most folks truly view the game that way. It’s a norm, or it’s a prototype, but in the end the game is truly defined case-by-case by the hosts who create games. Can those games be generalized with some consistent descriptive definition or rule? Perhaps they can, but I think that definition would have be very general — so general that the subjectivity of the matter renders it less appropriate. If no two people have a conception of Mafia that is truly the same, then it begs the question:

Is my conception of Mafia based upon a structural expectation alone, or is there a general structure adapted in my cognition by my own experiences with the game? Does my conception change with time?

My answer to the latter question is definitely “yes”. As such, I don’t think I can select the first poll option. I can consider the second poll option, but it demands that I discard any notion of structural expectation. I can’t do that either, even if my conception of the structure is ambiguous and ever evolving.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Maphier is about specchat memes.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Tony is right, though.

The core of "mafia" for me is a large and largely uninformed "town" faction trying to find one or more smaller informed "mafia" factions and eliminate them, primarily by voting them out while the mafia faction(s) try to stay hidden and eliminate the larger faction, primarily through periodic "kill" abilities and voting them out.

So while "the host's vision" may call to mind out there setups like my Zootopia or LC's World Asunder or Tutuu's Magic, those games are obviously mafia to me.

I don't consider something like ChickaChicka123 mafia. I had fun with it but it wasn't mafia in my book. Neither are meme games where everyone is mafia or some of the later Hybridity games.

[Hally]

mafia is about shitposting. everything else is secondary

[mansnicks]

Depends on the site.
Though, truth being told, most sites have almost all their games just be a combination of just several standard roles; with mechanics being the same always. Some sites even play some same setup over and over, though I think those are mostly "werewolf" sites.
I answered 3rd because it depends on the site so it seems, but truly - 1st is the 'correct' in most sites.