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RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
by Val the Moofia Boss
I have played over a hundred games of forum mafia with a group on MMO Champion for over a decade. I would like to bring the joy of forum mafia to my fellow HQers. Note that MMO-C mafia games could get crazy elaborate with all of the different powers and rules, so for this first game I just start with a simple setup with few to no roles.


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General explanation
► Show Spoiler

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Tip: Do not get upset if you get lynched. Particularly if people did not believe you were town when you actually were, or if someone made something up and accused you of being town, or if people didn't really know who to vote for, etc. This is the nature of mafia. I remember the first few times I played mafia and got killed, I became a little upset, but then quickly it became "whatever". If I died, no biggie, new game to sign up for will come in a couple weeks. To me, signing up to play mafia, dropping votes, shooting the breeze with my internet friends, etc, became a lifestyle rather than a game I was super invested in "winning" every time, though if I did make it to the late game then I would sit up straight and start paying more attention.

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List of players who have signed up. The game would need at least 10 players.

1. Acrux
2. Stack of Turtles
3. Tangerine
4. LemonDemonGirl
5. Bhaalspawn Jr
6. SpellSword
7. Rusty Shackleford
9.
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RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 20:44
by Acrux
Sounds fun. I've never played it on a forum before, I'm game to try.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 20:49
by Stack of Turtles
I've been thinking about doing exactly this, but I have hosting responsibilities lined up elsewhere already so I didn't really want to start one myself just now... so obviously I want to join.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 21:32
by Tangerine
I'll play.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 21:38
by DemoGraph
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Welp, I'll have to pass.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 19th, 2026, 22:26
by Tweed
I'd only end up being killed on principle.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 01:10
by Acrux
Val might need to start randomly signing people up for this.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 01:16
by rusty_shackleford
@Turtle Adventurer

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 01:17
by Val the Moofia Boss

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 02:08
by LemonDemonGirl
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
1. Acrux
2. Stack of Turtles
3. Tangerine
4. LemonDemonGirl
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 04:08
by Algol
I'd do it, but I don't think I understand the... process?

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 04:18
by Val the Moofia Boss
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:08
I'd do it, but I don't think I understand the... process?
It should become clear when the actual game begins. Basically during the day you just post, shoot the breeze, pressure people with votes to get them claim something, the day ends and somebody gets lynched. In your night thread or channel you submit your night actions if you have any. And then day begins, and the loop repeats until either all of the scum die or the scum achieve majority voting power.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 04:52
by Algol
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:18
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:08
I'd do it, but I don't think I understand the... process?
It should become clear when the actual game begins. Basically during the day you just post, shoot the breeze, pressure people with votes to get them claim something, the day ends and somebody gets lynched. In your night thread or channel you submit your night actions if you have any. And then day begins, and the loop repeats until either all of the scum die or the scum achieve majority voting power.
So it's like roleplaying as Mafiosos? Will there be, like, instances where we simulate gunfights with dice rolls and etc?

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 05:15
by Val the Moofia Boss
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:52
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:18
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:08
I'd do it, but I don't think I understand the... process?
It should become clear when the actual game begins. Basically during the day you just post, shoot the breeze, pressure people with votes to get them claim something, the day ends and somebody gets lynched. In your night thread or channel you submit your night actions if you have any. And then day begins, and the loop repeats until either all of the scum die or the scum achieve majority voting power.
So it's like roleplaying as Mafiosos? Will there be, like, instances where we simulate gunfights with dice rolls and etc?
There are usually no dice rolls.

In the public game thread during the day, the players on the mafia team want to try to pretend to be town. The common strat is for the mafian players to try to appear like they are trying to find who the scum are, so they will post "reads" of all of the other players, mixing in some of their teammates as scum reads or as town reads, and ofcourse mixing in town players (aka people the scum know are not on their team) in with the scumreads and trying to throw shade at them. And then people are posting their theories as to who killed who or who is teamed up with who and trying to pressure other people to vote their way. Ofcourse, town players are also pushing forth their reads of other players and theories of what's going on and voting and trying to persuade other people to vote their way so that scum do not control the narrative. The difficulty for the town players is that most of them do not for sure which other players in the thread are also town.

As the game progresses and more dead bodies appear and people "flip" (the game host reveals what the player's rolecard was upon their death), the town gains more and more information, and is by process of elimination is able to narrow down to who has to be the scum (since other players are getting confirmed by cop investigations or watchers proving that person couldn't have killed so and so, therefore he is unlikely to be scum). So this endgame is usually the most critical part.

If you want examples of what the mafia game threads look like during the day phase, you can look through these MMO-C mafia game threads. The first day starts off with people randomly voting each other and shooting the breeze, and then as the deadline nears people start trying to get a concerted train on a person going, and then start seeing how other people react to that train. And then when the day ends and someone is lynched, the next day people start scumreading other people based off of the prior day's ending trains. "Kalarion was lynched yesterday and flipped scum! Rusty and Red7 must be scum given that they didn't hop on Kalarion's train and were instead trying to push/deflect onto this other person and get them lynched instead! Vote Rusty!" and so on down the rabbit hole.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 05:56
by Acrux
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:52
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:18
Algol wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 04:08
I'd do it, but I don't think I understand the... process?
It should become clear when the actual game begins. Basically during the day you just post, shoot the breeze, pressure people with votes to get them claim something, the day ends and somebody gets lynched. In your night thread or channel you submit your night actions if you have any. And then day begins, and the loop repeats until either all of the scum die or the scum achieve majority voting power.
So it's like roleplaying as Mafiosos? Will there be, like, instances where we simulate gunfights with dice rolls and etc?
It's a social deduction game. There are similar variants like Werewolf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 07:00
by logincrash
I'm not gonna play for now but I'll follow the thread to see how it all shakes out. Might join the next one.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 08:33
by DemoGraph
DemoGraph wrote: January 19th, 2026, 21:38
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Welp, I'll have to pass.
Srsly. I've been doing 2 posts/day in ALL the threads on this board. I highly doubt that I'll be able to manage 5/day in this one thread without copypasting Bloomberg newsfeed.
Especially considering that I have very limited Mafia experience, and I have no idea how to troll people without visual clues.
Plus, you know, RL might interfere.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 09:44
by Stack of Turtles
DemoGraph wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 08:33
DemoGraph wrote: January 19th, 2026, 21:38
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Welp, I'll have to pass.
Srsly. I've been doing 2 posts/day in ALL the threads on this board. I highly doubt that I'll be able to manage 5/day in this one thread without copypasting Bloomberg newsfeed.
Especially considering that I have very limited Mafia experience, and I have no idea how to troll people without visual clues.
Plus, you know, RL might interfere.
speaking from forum mafia experience, post mandates are really dumb and counterproductive, but you won't have any problem meeting it. You don't have to have any content.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 10:22
by LemonDemonGirl
Among Us

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 11:59
by Jordy
Vote: DecadeRiptide

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 12:03
by Bhaalspawn Jr

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 16:12
by Acrux
Jordy wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 11:59
Vote: DecadeRiptide
This Mafia game turned into REAL LIFE!

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 16:19
by Jordy
Acrux wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 16:12
Jordy wrote: January 23rd, 2026, 11:59
Vote: DecadeRiptide
This Mafia game turned into REAL LIFE!
Game?

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 16:37
by SpellSword
Sounds fun @Val the Moofia Boss, I'd be happy to play. Image

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 28th, 2026, 02:25
by Classix
@Val the Don, Fuhgeddaboudit

Wish you well on this my man, I want to get involved but I can't keep up with post requirements along with Iren's PbP. Perhaps at some point I could join you guys when schedule and time available works out in my favor. I'll be slickin' the hair back, adjusting the collar and laughing at all your jokes in the meantime to not arouse suspicion.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 28th, 2026, 23:33
by rusty_shackleford
I'll signup

still need more peoples

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 30th, 2026, 22:33
by Val the Moofia Boss
I will begin randomizing the roles and open the game thread tomorrow. Last chance to signup!

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 31st, 2026, 21:56
by rusty_shackleford
You had to be there. :pipe-thinking:
Image

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 31st, 2026, 22:36
by rusty_shackleford
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Is this perhaps a bit excessive for a small group?

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD

Posted: January 31st, 2026, 22:44
by Val the Moofia Boss
rusty_shackleford wrote: January 31st, 2026, 22:36
Val the Moofia Boss wrote: January 19th, 2026, 20:39
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Is this perhaps a bit excessive for a small group?
Trollposting gets you most of the way there. And then as the games goes on and people starts formulating theroeies and patterns and arguing for them and lined start being drawn, people will naturally post a lot. Very easy to meet.

The problem id that too often we had people sign up for games, but then they were practically not even playing at all. They were deadweight and making it harder for town to win becase these inactive players were bloating the threshold needed to lynch someone, making it harder for the other active town players to get a lynch off. Town's only hope is to lynch every day and hopefully get scum in the process. Scum can win by picking people off everyone not on their team at night, so to them it doesn't matter if lynches happen or not. It is unfair for town to have people they are scrutinizing and need to pressure, but they first have to waste precious days getting rid of the deadweight.