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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
The game will alternate between day and night phases. During the day phase, living players vote for who to lynch. Day phase will last 48 hours, or until someone is pushed over the majority of votes. Minority lynch is in play, so if the 48 hour deadline elapses, then whoever has the most votes will be automatically lynched, and then it will become night. To vote to lynch a player, you must - one a separate line by itself and in bold - write "Vote: player". Or it will not be counted. Like so:
Vote: Val
During the day, players may post in the game thread and discuss as much as they like. Once someone is pushed over the majority lynch threshold or 48 hours elapses, it becomes night and no more talk is allowed in the game thread during the duration of the night. Night will last up to 24 hours. During this time, players will input their night actions in their private threads (if they have a night action, like killing someone) and can discuss in their private threads (if they are in one). If all night actions have been submitted, then night may end earlier. Then day will open up with an announcement by the game host as to who died.
Dead players can no longer post in the game thread or in their team chats until the game is over. Dead players will be given access to a dead thread where they can continue to discuss the game and laugh at the living and root for their teammates. Sometimes dead players can get resurrected, or there are shamans who can ask the dead thread a question.
The day/night loop will continue until either 1. the town players eliminates all hostiles, or 2. a scum team becomes the majority of the surviving playerbase. Generally, if you are a town player or on a scum team, then you are considered to have "won" along with your team, even if you died. So if you were town and died but the other town players eliminated all hostiles, then you won. Independent players like survivors however generally only win if they make it to the end or accomplish their objective. Depends on what is on their rolecard.
Once signups are closed, players will be PMed their rolecards with their character name, actions (if they have any), and win condition.
Directly quoting or reposting a screenshot of your rolecard to the game thread or in conversations to other players outside of your team channel is forbidden and will result in a mod kill. This is a game of wits, of teams trying to successfully coordinate without being on the nose, big plays to get other people to out themselves or to convince the playerbase to vote one way, etc. People will make up stuff about their rolecards or their alignments or make up how they got a guilty result on another player when that is not true. Getting concrete information about who is actually who undermines that.
Failure to make at least 10 posts per game day will result in a modkill.
Do not PM other players about the game, as that is considering cheating. You must only talk about game stuff in the official game threads or channels.
Examples of basic rolecards and night actions:
- Vanilla townie (VT): a town player with no abilities.
- Cop: a town player who at night can investigate other players, and receive from the game mod a hard confirmation whether or not the target was town. (This result can sometimes be skewed if the target had a passive that makes them appear innocent, like a mafia godfather).
- Doctor: a town player who at night can select a target and protect them from a night kill. Cannot doc the same target consecutively.
- Watcher: a town player who at night can pick a player and watch who visits them (ie sees a cop or a doc player visit that player, but won't know their roles).
- Tracker: a town player who at night can pick a player and watch who they visit.
- Scum: a player who is a member of a scum team. At night, they might be selected to carry out the scum team's one nightly kill.
- Godfather: a member of a scum team. Has a passive that makes him appear innocent to cop investigations.
- Roleblocker: a member of a scum team who can select a target and prevent that target's night actions (if they have any) from activating.
- Survivor: a player whose only objective is to survive to the end of the game, regardless of whether town or scum win. They might have other powers to help them like a bullet proof vest which stops one night kill launched at them.
- Serial killer: a lone scum player who has their own night kill and wins if he is the last surviving player. Sometimes has additional powers to help him like a BPV.
- Rolecop: a player who can investigate other players and determine what power(s) they have, but not their alignment. Can be town or scum.
- Jack of All Trades (JOAT): a player who has multiple actions like being able to doc, cop, watch, roleblock, etc. Usually only has one charge of each action, or must rotate through all of his actions before being able them again. Can be town or scum.
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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.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
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20.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
This Mafia game turned into REAL LIFE!
RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD
Posted: January 23rd, 2026, 16:19
by Jordy
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.

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.

RPGHQ Mafia #1: the First One - SIGNUP THREAD
Posted: January 31st, 2026, 22:36
by rusty_shackleford
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
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.