Glossary of Mafia Terms

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Glossary of Mafia Terms

Active Lurking: A mafia technique of appearing to be participating, typically through fluff posts, fanning flames, and asking questions, without really providing any value or opinions.

Bandwagon: A swing in votes to lynch a player where those who are voting are not justifying or explaining their vote. Similar to ‘sheeping’, which is when a player follows others in voting for a perceived popular candidate, and does not vote based on their own analysis in the game.

binary: Often results when two people claim the same role where it is clear that one of the two people is lying. Generally applied to any situation where the loyalty of two players is perceived to necessarily be in direct opposition.

Blue Vote: The go-to color when anything secondary needs voting on, usually something that leaves the player in far better shape then a red vote. Such as immunity or an election.

Circle of Trust: A pro-town group of players who trust each other as townies and communicate privately. They trust each other either through a mason group or investigation. Letting a mafia into a CoT will compromise it.

competing narratives: 2 narratives that to one degree or another explain the same situation, behavior, or circumstance. Players will often try to ascertain whether competing narratives are equally plausible. A data point that can be explained with competing narratives that are more or less equally plausible is in that context generally considered weak evidence.

Confirmation bias land: Seeing a preferred interpretation in every data point seen...often even when it directly contradicts the original narrative. The player is sometimes accused of being in confirmation bias land.

Cop: Generally speaking, an investigative role. Often refers to one that determines alignment directly, but the “cop” comes in many related variations.

Dipole: When a lynch vote comes down either by design or simply by circumstance to two different people. Generally used to encourage focus near the end of the day, force people to pick a side, reach consensus, or to choose between two people who are linked by a binary situation.

Doc: Generally speaking, a protective role. Usually has the capacity to block a night kill in some fashion.

Godfather: The leader of the mafia. Classically, this role is a mafia who comes up innocent on investigation. This trait can either be its own role, or as a balancer for a larger role.This role can also be used to label a player who “owns” the mafia kill.

Identity Reveal (ID reveal): When one player, or a group of players, claim the name of their role or secret identity without being specific as to what if any role abilities are possessed.

IR: Investigation reveal. When one player, or a group of players, claim a particular result will occur if they are investigated by a cop.

Low-Information Game: A Mafia game in which the players are given little information about hidden mechanics. These games are often characterized by extensive discussion of various plan to deal with the lack of information. Some mafia members intentionally focus on the mysterious (thus interesting) game mechanics, allowing them to participate without taking a stand on the lynch.

Lurking: A play-style characterized by minimal observable participation. Mafia may lurk to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Townies may lurk for the same reason. Some town players tend to lurk at the beginning, and then become active after sufficient data is available. Some mafia players tend to lurk until the vocal town leaders are lynched, then step in as the new leader.

Lynch: A feature common to almost every mafia game that utilizes the very best in mob logic to kill off one player each day as decided by votes. Lynch votes are often analyzed later in the game to establish patterns

Mass Reveal: A gambit wherein every participant must make a claim on the same characteristic. Roles, loyalty investigation results, what have you. There are scenarios wherein this makes sense, others where it seems suicidal for the town, and still others where the risk to reward is debatable.

Miller: A role. An innocent townie that turns up guilty on investigation. Can be otherwise vanilla, or a trait applied as a downside to a particularly powerful ability.

Mod-kill: Shameful removal of a player due to rule-breaking. Usually saved for major offenses, as it messes with game balance.

Narrative: A hypothesized, implied, or inferred set of game states and player motivations that form a story which explains a given situation, behavior, or circumstance.

Nazi Tea: What scum proverbially sit around sipping while letting two townies have at each other, sometimes with a nudge of encouragement here or there.

Power Roles: Abilities given to players that have a variety of effects. Mafia often search for townies with Power Roles in order to kill them and weaken the town. Power Roles are used to make the game more interesting and are often used by GMs to balance their games.

Role Blocker: AKA the “prostitute” or “dancer.” A basic role that stops other’s night actions. Is often a mafia role on its own.

Role reveal: When one player, or a group of players, publicly claim what their role in the game is.

scum: A member of a faction working against the town. They are less numerous, and often have communication advantages and sometimes but not necessarily, a night phase kill. Also, scummy or scummish as an adjective.

scum neutral: The perception that a given data point, behavior, circumstance is explainable easily by a player being mafia or town.

Scum Trap: A series of actions, often chaos, that are meant to induce different reactions in townie and mafia players. The trap layer hopes to use these reactions to gauge player’s alignments. Typical mafia traps include: trying to create a fake bandwagons, claiming a false role, or even acting scum-like in order to see other player’s reactions. Traps are generally very dependant on the roles in their variant, and the ability for townies to communicate outside thread.A well made trap can catch one or more mafia. A poorly made one can kill the trap layer. A miserably made one can destroy a town. If a townie spots a scum trap, smelling it is considered rather rude.

SK: Short for Serial killer. A third party player with a night kill, with the goal of eliminating both the townies and the mafia.

Straw man: Misrepresenting an opponent’s position and then refuting the misrepresented position is known as setting up a straw man for an easy take down. It is a logical fallacy, but can be effective in an environment when people are talking over one another and looking to others for opinions and arguments.

TBR: Three Bullet Rule. Whenever a player votes or repeats a vote, the group collectively encourages each other to list 3 short bullet points underneath their vote to remind people of the reasoning behind their vote. More detail may exist else where in the posts, but a TBR summary at the bottom of every vote is useful for summary purposes and encouraging people to routinely explain their own voting behavior and reflect upon the behavior of others.

Tells: Behavior that suggests something about the player’s alignment or role ability. Some townies create false doctells or coptells to draw attacks from the mafia.

town: A member of the most numerous faction at the start of the game. This faction tends to not know who each other are (with occasional exceptions). Also used an adjective to describe qualities or behaviors perceived as being beneficial for this faction.

trace/tracer: investigative action or role, identifies the target of target player’s night action.

Tunnel Vision: Having a specific purpose and driving at that purpose heedless of any logic or arguments that do not support achieving your purpose, which is typically that of getting someone lynched.

Vanilla: A term used to describe a player with no Power Role. This can apply to townies and mafia members alike.

vote tally: A tabulation of the current cast votes in a game.

vote whipping: The behavior of voting for a player to encourage them to answer a question, participate, or otherwise engage in debate.

watch/watcher: investigative action or role, identifies any players that target a specific player with a night action.