So Do You Come Here Often?~ Intro's etc.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Welcome aboard, JOH2k5. What was your username in the Mafia Universe tournament? Sloonei represented rateyourmusic, a now dead Mafia community from which both he and I hail.

oh n/m, it was the same username

[sig]

'Lo, ladies and gents.

Sloonei recommended this site to me after he kicked my tail in the big inter-website mafia tournament thingie.

Currently reading through last year's Flash mafia and Battlestar Galactica mafia. Liking what I'm seeing so far.

Reading through BG, god bless you that is what 100+ pages :P

Also welcome to TS!

[Jackofhearts2005]

You said you played in the mafia championship with Sloonei; what community are you from?

I've played on HCRealms.com for about ten years, now. It's not entirely dead but the player base and participation rate have shrunk.

There was a time when a new mod could run a game with an obscure theme and get 35 sign ups. Now, I see experienced mods struggle to fill 14 player games and even games with only 7 players end up with 1 or 2 only posting once or twice.

Some of my favorite games were the massive off the wall games we used to play. Like a guy ran a Crisis on Infinite Earths mafia (any comic book fans in the house?) where some 40ish players were divided across 5 game threads, one for each Earth. You could only use abilities on people at your Earth and if less than 3 players were on a given Earth, the thread was closed and those players were instantly killed and their character names hidden. The big scum boss got more powerful as these threads were destroyed.

Anyway, you just can't do that kind of thing on HCRealms anymore. I look at the Flash and BSG games and it reminded me of our old epic games I enjoyed so much.



I noticed a couple things that look different from what I'm used to. Some games don't let you change your vote? Is roleclaiming usually not allowed? You vote on the thread and in polls? Dead players can chat on thread to a degree?

[Tangrowth]

You said you played in the mafia championship with Sloonei; what community are you from?

I've played on HCRealms.com for about ten years, now. It's not entirely dead but the player base and participation rate have shrunk.

There was a time when a new mod could run a game with an obscure theme and get 35 sign ups. Now, I see experienced mods struggle to fill 14 player games and even games with only 7 players end up with 1 or 2 only posting once or twice.

Some of my favorite games were the massive off the wall games we used to play. Like a guy ran a Crisis on Infinite Earths mafia (any comic book fans in the house?) where some 40ish players were divided across 5 game threads, one for each Earth. You could only use abilities on people at your Earth and if less than 3 players were on a given Earth, the thread was closed and those players were instantly killed and their character names hidden. The big scum boss got more powerful as these threads were destroyed.

Anyway, you just can't do that kind of thing on HCRealms anymore. I look at the Flash and BSG games and it reminded me of our old epic games I enjoyed so much.



I noticed a couple things that look different from what I'm used to. Some games don't let you change your vote? Is roleclaiming usually not allowed? You vote on the thread and in polls? Dead players can chat on thread to a degree?

Wow, nice, you've been playing a while.

That's a real shame. It's never fun with mafia communities take a dive like that. Many of us here have experienced a similar situation. I was introduced to mafia on Lostpedia in 2010 (I'm actually a newbie still if we're talking just LP-based players around here) and a good chunk of the players here migrated from that site and a couple of mafia-only sister sites (The Piano and RevolutionMafia) after participation at those places gradually died away. While those sites were active though, I introduced mafia to another forum I had frequented much longer (ProgArchives) since none of them had played it before and I really fell in love with the game. Unfortunately, that forum is incredibly difficult to host mafia on (PM restrictions among other things) and many of the people I knew for a while gradually drifted away from frequenting it too often, and I stopped frequenting it myself as well, so mafia died off after I hosted two games since no one else picked up the torch.

So when the Lostpedia-affiliated communities were struggling to fill games, much in the way that you describe actually (I remember our community's peak time when 30-40 player games filling in a few days on The Piano, and we've never quite matched that here even), I formed this site to try to bring together as many folks as I could from the LP-based community which had already established a solid mafia base and a bunch of mafia newbies from the PA community, along with as many other contacts from my RL that I could convince to try it out.

Since then we've had waves of activity, but finding out about the Mafia Championship last year was simultaneously a boon, as well as feeling like an isolated mafia planet and suddenly realizing there's an entire universe full of so many other mafia planets out there. It really opened up my eyes. 2015 was probably our best year yet, and I along with a few other solid members here specifically reached out to RateYourMusic and played a bunch of games over there. Their community is now defunct as well since RYM OT got shut down, so while some folks tried to keep it alive through a new forum (PWYW), it hasn't really been sustaining itself. We already had a couple of RYM folks migrate here before all of that happened because we hosted a crossover event with them last year (Talking Heads game), so we have some RYM folks now here too.

So we've been through one big merger of two communities, and more recently, one small migration.

To answer your questions, those are all habits that developed back in the Lostpedia days, and I for one never even knew there were other ways to play other than what we all had experimented with (because we love doing that around here) until playing on RYM and checking out and talking to other communities at the Championship this year and last year. So I would say the following attributes are all still typical, but we've gradually introduced other approaches around here after being introduced to them:

- Games historically featured non-changeable votes, but this tradition is the one that seems least pervasive anymore... I'd say it's a 50/50 shot these days. Depends entirely on which host you play with probably.

- At the Lostpedia-based communities, games were pretty much always open setup role madness; many games featuring role secrets and crazy role/game mechanics, back in those days it was odd if hosts had vanilla roles in their setups. Nonetheless, however, things turned sour in some early LP games because of mass role claiming and outing, so a bunch of the players decided it would be better to institute a no claiming or dumping information rule, and that rule stayed in tact for quite a while. It was pretty well established when I joined LP mafia in 2010 so I never knew anything different until being exposed to other sites. Since the beginning of last year, as a host I've been experimenting with closed setups and allowing infodumping, and other hosts have started doing that more and more as well. So I'd say open setup role madness with no claiming or dumping is still typical, but the games here are gradually becoming more diverse.

- Regarding voting, again just what many of the LP folks are used to, we always had polls at LP, RM, and TP, so we always voted via poll where it would also track the order of your vote and such, and we've become spoiled by it. :P Typically it's suggested to describe your vote in the game thread as well, but as long as you cast your vote in the poll, it's not necessary to say anything about it (generally frowned upon not to though).

- Dead players chatting in the thread is another way I've noticed we're different than the vast majority of sites (and again, it's an LP thing), but the huge caveat is that they are in no way allowed to say anything that can be construed as on topic, so it's usually pretty limited.

Let us know whatever other questions you have!

And I'm really looking forward to playing a game with you too, as I'm sure others are as well.

[Long Con]

I'm an old LP member. This is my first game. Ikkl Genius brought it to us, and we basically developed the game in more and more radical ways, completely unaware of the larger Mafia community that existed. Except for a vague awareness of mafiascum, which, it was generally agreed and taken on faith, was an unpleasant place to play.

Yeah, 2016 was a little quieter around here... do you think it will pick up again?

[Tangrowth]

I'm an old LP member. This is my first game. Ikkl Genius brought it to us, and we basically developed the game in more and more radical ways, completely unaware of the larger Mafia community that existed. Except for a vague awareness of mafiascum, which, it was generally agreed and taken on faith, was an unpleasant place to play.

Yeah, 2016 was a little quieter around here... do you think it will pick up again?

I think so, for sure. This year has been quieter in general than I was expecting given all that momentum we seemed to have in 2015, but based on my observations, results from the survey we send out a couple of months ago, and just talking with folks, I'm thinking what's most likely contributed to that is we just saw the biggest chunk of our 'core' base of players going on some sort of hiatus during 2016 than we ever had previously.

However, the last month or so especially, it seems evident that activity has started picking up again, and some players have been around again after being absent or semi-absent. You, me, Golden, etc. are all here more than we were for a while before, and I'd say based on the rate that games have been filling up we're definitely on an upswing, which is oddly timed because historically this is always the toughest time of the year for us (and summer was usually the best).

I also know there are things in the works behind the scenes; as much as possible we're trying to plan things for the future here to continually make this place more appealing, and the feedback we got from the survey was immensely helpful in spurring a lot of conversation we've been having among the admin/mod team the last couple of months. In addition, now that I temporarily have some more time I'm trying to revamp the scout team so we can find a real solid community to reach out to and try and partner with (though it seems Jackofhearts might have done that some of that work for us already ), etc. I've been also trying to recruit new folks and old timers as much as I can, and I know I'm not the only one.

[Long Con]

Well, it's good to be back. Maybe I'll just take summer off for the most part, since that's the time that is hardest to commit to Mafia for me.

And welcome jackofhearts2005... and thanks for the history of your name. Have you ever considered just being Jack of Hearts?

[Tangrowth]

Well, it's good to be back. Maybe I'll just take summer off for the most part, since that's the time that is hardest to commit to Mafia for me.

And welcome jackofhearts2005... and thanks for the history of your name. Have you ever considered just being Jack of Hearts?

It's good to have you back!

I know the feeling; although I've been here all year and relatively active, I haven't been able to commit nearly as much time here as I'd like for most of the year until the last couple of weeks. It's been real nice being able to finally do so.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Heh. The vague awareness of Mafiascum as the only other online mafia site and that it is an unpleasant place to play mirrors our awareness exactly pre tournament.

HCRealms also rarely has vanilla roles but our roles are generally not revealed at all except in name only through nightkills/lynches and then in full at the end of the game. Having setup knowledge is usually reserved for specific mafia variants like Texas Justice or One Night Ultimate Mafia. Should be interesting trying out a home brew game with an open setup.

Infodumping is one of the main things I dislike about that community and there has been heavy resistance to restricting roleclaims. The plethora of powers has lead to an attitude of "waiting for info" or "pressure votes" that get removed when someone name claims. I'm okay with a couple townies being able to self confirm with name claims but I've also played games where the theme and player count were so restrictive that there was no room at all for false claims and any townie could self confirm. That's not much of a game, IMO, and it's frustrating that some players have no idea what to do without roleclaiming or a cop to follow.

[Tangrowth]

Heh. The vague awareness of Mafiascum as the only other online mafia site and that it is an unpleasant place to play mirrors our awareness exactly pre tournament.

HCRealms also rarely has vanilla roles but our roles are generally not revealed at all except in name only through nightkills/lynches and then in full at the end of the game. Having setup knowledge is usually reserved for specific mafia variants like Texas Justice or One Night Ultimate Mafia. Should be interesting trying out a home brew game with an open setup.

Infodumping is one of the main things I dislike about that community and there has been heavy resistance to restricting roleclaims. The plethora of powers has lead to an attitude of "waiting for info" or "pressure votes" that get removed when someone name claims. I'm okay with a couple townies being able to self confirm with name claims but I've also played games where the theme and player count were so restrictive that there was no room at all for false claims and any townie could self confirm. That's not much of a game, IMO, and it's frustrating that some players have no idea what to do without roleclaiming or a cop to follow.

Sounds like you'll fit in real well around here then.

[Long Con]

Heh. The vague awareness of Mafiascum as the only other online mafia site and that it is an unpleasant place to play mirrors our awareness exactly pre tournament.

Ahhhhh, that's too funny.

HCRealms also rarely has vanilla roles but our roles are generally not revealed at all except in name only through nightkills/lynches and then in full at the end of the game. Having setup knowledge is usually reserved for specific mafia variants like Texas Justice or One Night Ultimate Mafia. Should be interesting trying out a home brew game with an open setup.

Infodumping is one of the main things I dislike about that community and there has been heavy resistance to restricting roleclaims. The plethora of powers has lead to an attitude of "waiting for info" or "pressure votes" that get removed when someone name claims. I'm okay with a couple townies being able to self confirm with name claims but I've also played games where the theme and player count were so restrictive that there was no room at all for false claims and any townie could self confirm. That's not much of a game, IMO, and it's frustrating that some players have no idea what to do without roleclaiming or a cop to follow.

It has been a very long and difficult battle around here, trying to balance "no infodumping" with "game censorship". Too many times, I have seen a role-checker type of role who KNOWS someone is Mafia, and they get too frustrated trying to get that player lynched... so they drop a post that says something like "I'm 100% sure that this person is bad" in one way or another. Once something like that is out, it never goes away, and everyone else can easily put the pieces together that it was said by a role-checker... and then the game is tainted by infodumping, and the role-checker never really even meant to do it.

You just gotta make a case. If you KNOW someone is bad, then cobble together any convincing-sounding thing you can to sawy hearts and minds - I think that those players who "have no idea what to do without roleclaiming" just need to play harder, do more research, and be more creative. Which is why I support the "no infodumping" side of things.

And it is very much a "spirit of the law" thing, rather than the "letter of the law", which is why some players still go to far and accidentally infodump. To me, a game should be played within the desired parameters that a Host wishes, and it's not good sportsmanship to try and find a loophole in any rules or roles that the Host didn't intend. But I'm rambling now. It's cool to see that you seem to be someone that will enjoy The Syndicate, Jack.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Sounds like you'll fit in real well around here then.

That's my hope.

Went ahead and signed up for a game.

There is a Christmas game open on the realms that could use some more players if anyone wants to try something different and try to siphon off a couple more players for the Syndicate.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569190

HCRealms also rarely has vanilla roles but our roles are generally not revealed at all except in name only through nightkills/lynches and then in full at the end of the game. Having setup knowledge is usually reserved for specific mafia variants like Texas Justice or One Night Ultimate Mafia. Should be interesting trying out a home brew game with an open setup.

Infodumping is one of the main things I dislike about that community and there has been heavy resistance to restricting roleclaims. The plethora of powers has lead to an attitude of "waiting for info" or "pressure votes" that get removed when someone name claims. I'm okay with a couple townies being able to self confirm with name claims but I've also played games where the theme and player count were so restrictive that there was no room at all for false claims and any townie could self confirm. That's not much of a game, IMO, and it's frustrating that some players have no idea what to do without roleclaiming or a cop to follow.

It has been a very long and difficult battle around here, trying to balance "no infodumping" with "game censorship". Too many times, I have seen a role-checker type of role who KNOWS someone is Mafia, and they get too frustrated trying to get that player lynched... so they drop a post that says something like "I'm 100% sure that this person is bad" in one way or another. Once something like that is out, it never goes away, and everyone else can easily put the pieces together that it was said by a role-checker... and then the game is tainted by infodumping, and the role-checker never really even meant to do it.

You just gotta make a case. If you KNOW someone is bad, then cobble together any convincing-sounding thing you can to sawy hearts and minds - I think that those players who "have no idea what to do without roleclaiming" just need to play harder, do more research, and be more creative. Which is why I support the "no infodumping" side of things.

And it is very much a "spirit of the law" thing, rather than the "letter of the law", which is why some players still go to far and accidentally infodump. To me, a game should be played within the desired parameters that a Host wishes, and it's not good sportsmanship to try and find a loophole in any rules or roles that the Host didn't intend. But I'm rambling now. It's cool to see that you seem to be someone that will enjoy The Syndicate, Jack.

Oh, but I love game mechanics discussions.

The realms usually allows info sharing like "I copped LC as mafia" but tempers it with fairly common misdirection powers, millers (townies copping as scum), cloaks (scum copping as town) and the occasional naive/paranoid/reverse/random cop that's info can't be trusted anyway. Plus there's nothing in the OP saying there is a cop at all or that character X is the cop so if character X is dead, the guy claiming cop could be lying and then use all of the above as an excuse when the accused flips town. And then there is always the possibility of a scum info gatherer trying to string up an opposing scummer to look good.

We've hit the somewhat paradoxical point where an info gathering role is required to get much of anything done but "I copped JoH as mafia" only leads to my death like 50-75% of the time.

[Long Con]

There is a Christmas game open on the realms that could use some more players if anyone wants to try something different and try to siphon off a couple more players for the Syndicate.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569190

LOL I tried... and then posted a thread in the new member forum, and:

You have been banned for the following reason:
SpamBot

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

[Jackofhearts2005]

Haha. Probably happened if you linked to the Syndicate in your first post. Sent a message to a mod to unban you.

[Long Con]

Haha. Probably happened if you linked to the Syndicate in your first post. Sent a message to a mod to unban you.

Thanks, that's exactly what I did.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Okay. You've been moderator unbanned but Quebbster (mod) wasn't sure it went though and might need admin approval.

I can click on your profile now without the site erroring out so...you're probably no longer banned.

[Long Con]

Okay. You've been moderator unbanned but Quebbster (mod) wasn't sure it went though and might need admin approval.

I can click on your profile now without the site erroring out so...you're probably no longer banned.

Still banned on my end.

[juliets]

Leave it to LC to get banned with his first post.

[Tangrowth]

Sounds like you'll fit in real well around here then.

That's my hope.

Went ahead and signed up for a game.

There is a Christmas game open on the realms that could use some more players if anyone wants to try something different and try to siphon off a couple more players for the Syndicate.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569190

Sweet! I'll register and try this out myself if anyone besides Mr. Ban over there wants to join us.

[Sloonei]

I'm getting in the Christmas spirit with the HeroClickers.

[Golden]

Leave it to LC to get banned with his first post.

Legitimately amazing!

He has a knack. It's like a callback.

[Tangrowth]

I'm getting in the Christmas spirit with the HeroClickers.

I'm still awaiting activation, but whenever I get activated I'm totally signing up.

[Tangrowth]

Leave it to LC to get banned with his first post.

Legitimately amazing!

He has a knack. It's like a callback.

It is pretty funny.

[Jackofhearts2005]

I'm getting in the Christmas spirit with the HeroClickers.

I'm still awaiting activation, but whenever I get activated I'm totally signing up.

That message is kinda misleading. They really should change it.

The steps are
1) Register
2) Post something without a link to the new player forum
3) Get autoconfirmed/banned

[Tangrowth]

I'm getting in the Christmas spirit with the HeroClickers.

I'm still awaiting activation, but whenever I get activated I'm totally signing up.

That message is kinda misleading. They really should change it.

The steps are
1) Register
2) Post something without a link to the new player forum
3) Get autoconfirmed/banned

Oh, okay! Thanks for clarifying that. I figured it was similar to this site where the admin activates every new member.

[juliets]

I'm getting in the Christmas spirit with the HeroClickers.

I'm still awaiting activation, but whenever I get activated I'm totally signing up.

How odd. I saw your name on the site as a "new member".

[Tangrowth]

Are You New? Welcome! You have taken then first step in becoming a member of HCRealms.com, The HeroClix Community! Before we can give you full access of the site; drop into New Member Forum and introduce yourself! Once we've determined that you're a real, live, person (or zombie), we'll grant you access to the full site automatically. BTW, don't post links ... the system will think you're a SpamBot and automatically ban you. Thanks!

[Long Con]

Are You New? Welcome! You have taken then first step in becoming a member of HCRealms.com, The HeroClix Community! Before we can give you full access of the site; drop into New Member Forum and introduce yourself! Once we've determined that you're a real, live, person (or zombie), we'll grant you access to the full site automatically. BTW, don't post links ... the system will think you're a SpamBot and automatically ban you. Thanks!

Pffft, as if I read the rules. I'm unbanned now anyway.

[Long Con]

Are You New? Welcome! You have taken then first step in becoming a member of HCRealms.com, The HeroClix Community! Before we can give you full access of the site; drop into New Member Forum and introduce yourself! Once we've determined that you're a real, live, person (or zombie), we'll grant you access to the full site automatically. BTW, don't post links ... the system will think you're a SpamBot and automatically ban you. Thanks!

Pffft, as if I read the rules. I'm unbanned now anyway.

No, wait, I'm not... I was just not signed in.

[Jackofhearts2005]

Apparently an admin needs to unban and the mods are a bit more active/chummy with the mafia board than the admins. Should get fixed in the next day or two.

You're no longer super banned. You're just on double secret probation.

[Long Con]

Nice!

[Sloonei]

What's the unbanning status of Long Con?

[juliets]

Looks like the game filled up without LC

[Sloonei]

Butts. I was looking forward to some long cons in that game. MP and I will do our darndest to represent the Syndicate well, or die trying!

[Tangrowth]

Butts. I was looking forward to some long cons in that game. MP and I will do our darndest to represent the Syndicate well, or die trying!

[TheFloyd73]

I suppose I didn't introduce myself here the first time, so I guess I can make a second impression.

Hello, I'm Floyd, and I made fool out of myself during the Talking Heads game.

[Tangrowth]

I suppose I didn't introduce myself here the first time, so I guess I can make a second impression.

Hello, I'm Floyd, and I made fool out of myself during the Talking Heads game.

Good to see you, Floyd, welcome back!

[juliets]

Hi Floyd, glad to have you. Hope you'll play another game soon!

[Marmot]

I suppose I didn't introduce myself here the first time, so I guess I can make a second impression.

Hello, I'm Floyd, and I made fool out of myself during the Talking Heads game.

I make a fool out of myself in most games I play.

Welcome back bud.

[Doober]

yea not sure who i am lol been so long. hi

[Doober]

yea not sure who i am lol been so long. hi

[Tangrowth]

Hello, Doober! Wow, it's been ages. Hope you've been doing well!

So good to see you again.

[Marmot]

yea not sure who i am lol been so long. hi

I recognize your name, probably from the RM chat.

Welcome aboard!

[Golden]

DOOBER!

[juliets]

hi doober! Welcome!

[Doober]

i guess some do remember me lol yes RM. been so long. hi all

[Fredwood]

Howdy I'm Fred.

I've played and ran games off and on a super casual mafia site that is a bit stagnant, someone posted a link and as I still had my one risky click for the day, here I am. I'm ready to get bulldozed a bunch of times, I like to think I'm a better moderator then I am a player but eh, I'm here now.

[thellama73]

Howdy I'm Fred.

I've played and ran games off and on a super casual mafia site that is a bit stagnant, someone posted a link and as I still had my one risky click for the day, here I am. I'm ready to get bulldozed a bunch of times, I like to think I'm a better moderator then I am a player but eh, I'm here now.

Hi Fred! Welcome aboard. I look forward to playing a game with you soon, and I promise not to bulldoze you too hard (unless you are bad, then I'm coming for you).

[juliets]

Hi Fred! Glad you're here. Sounds like your a friendly mafia player so you'll fit right in to our group. I saw you have signed up for a game so have fun! Let us know if there is any way we can help you.

[Marmot]

Howdy I'm Fred.

I've played and ran games off and on a super casual mafia site that is a bit stagnant, someone posted a link and as I still had my one risky click for the day, here I am. I'm ready to get bulldozed a bunch of times, I like to think I'm a better moderator then I am a player but eh, I'm here now.

Excellent! I just bought myself a brand new bulldozer yesterday, and I've been looking for a good opportunity to use it.

What's your favorite bulldozing technique?