Hosting Tips & Tricks (Slightly Outdated)

First off I'd like to thank and congratulate all S-FM/M-FM players and hosts; there's been a lot of enthusiasm surrounding these games, and some truly fascinating developments.

With so many people now being given the opportunity to host, I thought it would be helpful if a few tips and tricks were put down in writing. After hosting a couple of games, playing in a lot and judging lots of setups and helping people, I think there are some really valuable lessons to be learned and pitfalls which hosts should be wary of in the future.

Obviously this is just based off my own experiences and observations, hosts have control over how their games actually play out. There are a few guidelines which hosts need to stick to when suggesting setups, though, and a few things which can potentially ruin your game. I'll be seperating S-FM and M-FM since they are two wildly distinct games.

Simple Forum Mafia (S-FM):

13 players or less.
Must stick to the rules of a 'normal' Mafia game as much as possible (see the Setup Requirements thread on the Setup Approvals forum).
The game must stick to a single game thread, and a single Role Cards/FAQ/Rules thread.

How to get a setup approved:

As you can see from some previous S-FM games, the occasional custom role or mechanic has been allowed. Most of these were approved before we could lay down the stricter guidelines, but even so a simple custom role or mechanic may still be allowed. If you really feel the need to create a custom role, then there are two main criteria it will be judged on;

1) How simple is it?
2) Is there any need for it? Does it bring anything to the game which can be achieved in a more standard fashion?

S-FM is all about giving a host the chance to test themselves out, and giving players a small and quick game. In this era of the forum, the main FM games have now become wild beasts devouring countless hours and involving insane rules. Fun, but not exactly full of instant gratification. The M-FM games have now, by seemingly popular demand, found a niche as fairly complex games in their own right – they don't last as long, but they're a good place to experiment. S-FM is there to fill a different niche, the niche which M-FM was originally designed to fulfil. They don't have to be action-filled slugfests with lots of killing and power roles, but they need to use as many standard conventions of Mafia as possible. They need to let players pop in and out, not requiring as much thought.

If we take one abstract example; if you want to create a powerful Mafia overlord-type character who has the powers of a Godfather and also a Consort, and you pair him up with a Mafioso... what have you achieved? It may seem like a 'simple' custom role, but all that happens is confusion as players bounce between games and forget what role has what abilities. In a S-FM a player should be able to look at the roles list and instantly give themselves a summary of the game. Instead of 'Mafia Consort Overlord + Mafioso' it should say 'Godfather + Consort' – exactly the same results occur, the Mafia get to block and kill at night, but no one needs to remind themselves of the rules.

'Non-normal' roles (like the Bus Driver, Witch, Jester, Cultist, etc.) will be allowed... but the host needs to explain the reasoning behind their decisions to their appointed judge before it gets approved. If your possible roles list includes fifteen or more non-normal roles don't get annoyed if you don't get approved, even if you didn't include any custom roles.

Tips on S-FM hosting:

a) 13 players is a maximum, not a minimum

I know lots of people want to host, I know it seems thrilling and you want to include as many people as possible. The reality is, though, that more people does not equal a better game. The mark of a good host is how concise they can be. If you have a meticulously designed setup for 13 players then fair enough. Don't feel the need to pad out a game. Instead of thinking 'hmm I only have 11 roles, what can I add?' you should consider the players and the sign-ups. If there's only room for 7 or 8 players then you'll probably attract more sign-ups. I think I speak for quite a lot of people when I say that I'm more intrigued by a smaller and intense game when it comes to S-FM; if I want to sift through hundreds of posts I'll play FM and M-FM.

b) Keep up the RP, but keep it short

What some players don't realise is that the theme and RP isn't just for them; being a host is a lonely responsibility, and writing RP is their way of injecting a bit of flavour into the game. In FM and M-FM the RP can be whatever you want, but in a S-FM game you need to let the players skip it and give them a simple Roles List and Graveyard every day. This doesn't mean you should can the RP entirely, but once again the mark of a good S-FM host is how concise they are. A paragraph and a short piece of music should suffice, if you really want some RP.

Mini Forum Mafia (M-FM):

20 players or less.
May have a thread for each day/night cycle, and a single Role Cards/FAQ/Rules thread.
Multiple custom roles and mechanics are allowed, but not many.
Limited approval process – dependant on how many games are running, approvals may be staggered.

How to get a setup approved:

People see M-FM as their chance to try out some crazy stuff and come up with lots of their own custom roles. The rules on hosting a M-FM are less restrictive but this doesn't mean you need to take advantage of that. Remember when this game was about a Town trying to decipher who the Mafia were via a logic puzzle while the Mafia tried to survive through deception? Remember when you were either a Mafioso or a Citizen? The basic tenets of this game should remain as intact as possible; any really experimental setups need to have a lot of thought and work go into them. Don't be crazy for the sake of it.

My golden tip here remainds the same; be CONCISE. Identify what you want your game to be about. Look at all the custom roles you're adding in; pick your favourite one or two and build the rest of the game around them. If you want your game to centre around a special cult which interacts with the Mafia and Town in unusual ways, then do you really need to create some special neutral killer? Likewise, if you've got some creative killing roles, do you feel the need to have two mafia teams or Town PR's which can kill?

Tips on M-FM hosting:

a) 20 players is a maximum, not a minimum
Remember what I said about S-FM? Well, it's doubly true for M-FM! Though it's harder for a host to resist the 20 player cap. People have even asked me if they can increase the cap past 20. I said it before and I'll say it again, more players do not always equal better games! There have been a plethora of hosting mishaps already. It's a damn hard job. Do you realise how many ways that roles can interact with each other? The more you add in, and the more custom roles you add, just leads to bigger and bigger headaches.

The thing is, M-FM is not synonymous with 'bigger game'. All it means is that you have more freedom in your setups. At some point in the future I'm going to host a M-FM game with less than 10 players because I will have the freedom to try something quirky and new, whilst keeping it manageable for myself and the players. Maybe something with 6 or 7 players, with no traditional investigative roles but roles which discovered RP segments which gave clues as to who the bad guys might be... the larger your M-FM game is, the simpler it has to be.

b) Themes and RP

Honestly, just go nuts with your RP segments. You still want to be careful with what you reveal though; doing justice to your favourite films, books, games, etc. is tempting but ideally the RP should not reveal information about the game. I know that I just mentioned an idea which does exactly that in my last point, shush. Anyway, the point is this; if your game is specifically designed to include certain RP, then you can discuss it with your judge. I'm guessing that most people just want to have some awesome RP accompany their game though.

Be careful when it comes to RP names. I regretted it when I did M-FMIII, but that's mostly because I didn't start with a clearly-defined policy on what would be revealed in the graveyard. After all the S-FM and M-FM games that we've been through so far, though... if you're going to give out RP names, make them insignificant if possible. If there is a confirmed Investigator named Bob in the setup, but there is an Investigator possible in the hidden roles list, then realise the consequences. Bob knows he is the confirmed Investigator and will probably call anyone else who claims the role Scum. If the other Investigator gets his role card and his name is Alfred, then he knows that there is a second Investigator in the game.

So, basically, if you want these kind of names in the game then speak to your judge. Quite frankly the easiest solution is to not make a SINGLE RP name public; you can ban people revealing their RP name, of course, but you should also not include any RP names in the roles list. You may be really proud of the way that an RP name syncs up with a Role, but let people discover that during the game when it comes up in the Graveyard or the game finishes.

General Hosting Tips:

a) How to use the automatic vote counter.
The easiest way to keep track of votes is with the automatic vote counter. To use it, a tag must be used in your opening post: [L]#[/L], where # = votes needed to lynch. The next day, the [RESETCOUNT][/RESETCOUNT] tag must be used to reset the previous day's votes.
A Mayor may be selected by using [MAYOR]playerid,#[/MAYOR]. The player ID can be found on their profile page, and # is the number of votes the Mayor's vote is worth.

b) Stay out of the game, seriously

When I said that being a host is a lonely responsibility, I meant it. You're the one checking the thread the most, you know what's happening, you're really excited, yet you can't speak to anyone about it. I thought I was bad in M-FM I and III, but I really tried to rein myself in. Do not interfere with the game. If someone asks a question, officially (I advise making players use green writing or something similar), then if you think it needs a public ruling then say something. Even then, keep it concise. Most rules questions can be answered in the FAQ. I've seen far too much interruption by hosts on occasion as they see some slight rules interpretation by a player and answer it way too pro-actively. You need to let the players police themselves to some degree. EVERY TIME A HOST POSTS SOMETHING, THEY GIVE ALL THE PLAYERS EXTRA INFORMATION. You know where you can buddy up with the players? In the dead chat. You know the best way to stop people mis-interpreting your rules? Keep them as normal as possible.

c) Night Chat/Dead Chat

An issue of controversy in the past, a solution was found very quickly, yet some hosts have made the same mistakes as previous ones because they didn't listen to feedback. Since hosts are not being given control of the sc2mafia forum, the best way is to create your own secret forum somewhere on the internet. It's quick, free, and easy. There are two popular ways which have been used. A free forum can be made here;

https://forumcow.com/

Edit: forumcow is down for maintenance at the moment, following some issues. An alternate site to use is

https://forummotion.com/

and a free message board can be made here;

https://quicktopic.com/

I believe forumcow.com to be the best overall solution. It's very user-friendly, as the Admin you can create forums and groups at will and restrict the viewing of certain forums to groups or individuals. Creating accounts for your players takes practically no time at all and does not require a valid email. Creating a full-functioning forum with hidden sub-forums, user groups, etc. really does only take a couple of minutes once you're familiar with the setup.

What's important to note is that, unless you remember to specifically alter the standard forum, members can probably see the post count of other members. The solution is ridiculously simple. Don't let anyone that can potentially use this information onto the forum. Mafia chat tends to be anonymous (because making up names is fun!) but it doesn't really matter if the dead people in the graveyard can see the Mafia post count. The main problem is the Jailor or other town roles which have a night chat. Don't put them on the same forum. Either take the multi-forum approach (and simply make multiple forums so everyone has their own seperate forum completely) or give the Jailor a quicktopic.com board. Personally I think I will be using the multi-forum approach in the future, I feel more comfortable with it, and you can limit access to the night chats during the day as you see fit.

d) Hidden Roles

There has been a trend of recent M-FMs and S-FMs to have a completely open roles list full of power roles which can kinda prove themselves. This is a design choice; it is completely up to the host. This is a forum game though, even in SC2 public games there's usually random and hidden roles. Giving the town a full roles list full of power roles (especially if you give each role a public RP name on the roles list) will probably be detrimental to the game. As some of you know I absolutely despise mass role-claims, but it frequently becomes the best strategy. Give the scum somewhere to hide. Make the Town think. Most importantly of all, consider which roles can prove themselves easily.

e) Don't bribe or threaten your players

This is all about you, as the Host, being lazy at design. If you want a role or faction to be played in a certain way, don't come up with the role then invent dozens of rules about what they're not allowed to do or say. My philosophy has always been that, when designing a game, you make it completely undesirable for a player to play a role any other way than you want them to. There are some creative strategists on this forum, people will play roles in unusual ways. This doesn't become a problem until it breaks the game. I'm going to use a couple of abstract examples, which may or may not relate to previous games.

The Town and Mafia winning together – if the Town victory condition is not 'Wipe out the scum' and the Mafia victory condition is not 'Wipe out the Town'... you're probably going to host a boring game. As soon as you get into territory where surviving members of the 'Town' can win with the Mafia if they co-operate then you've undermined the fundamental point of the game. These are just forum games, made up by the community for the community, a win means nothing in the real world. Regardless, everyone wants to win, and we will take the easiest route to winning, even if it means we don't feel satisfied. If you say to your players 'Well 95% of you can win this game immediately, but if you choose not to I will give you an imaginary bonus point' your players will invariably say 'No we'll take the win'. Game over, snooze fest. This isn't the players fault – it's too counter-intuitive to not take the easy win.

Mod-killing people for revealing things – aside from the previous 'RP name' issue, if you have to threaten your players with a mod-kill for revealing themselves then something has gone awry. There are some obvious griefing tools (like a Mafia revealing the names of all his team-mates), but even then I refer you to rule a) Stay out of the game, seriously. Let's look at a role like, hmm, well they rhyme with 'Covers'. Instead of trying to police the players, design the game so that the players police themselves. Limit the information you give the players before you limit what they can do with it. It's like saying to a Spy 'Okay, here's the Mafia chat, and here's the names of all the Mafia. Oh but you can't tell your fellow Townies who the Mafia are'.

f) Too much rope and they'll hang themselves

This tip is really just a summary of some of the previous points.

Your job as Host is to give the players an entertaining experience. You need to subtly funnel them down a certain path for maximum enjoyment. This is a forum game based on players talking to each other, you can't design a level like you can in an FPS or RPG. You can't give the players complete freedom though. People need to have the environment crafted for them. Imagine in Call of Duty if you loaded up a multiplayer match and the goal wasn't to 'Kill the Enemy Team' but 'Enjoy the Scenery'... forum mafia is a game, and gaming boils down to competition, and competition needs a losing side and a winning side. In a game about deception and lies you need to sit the players down and say 'You are in team X. Defeat team Y, watch out for Z.'.

g) Don't be desperate

Yeah there's a fine line between promoting your game and simply being rude and obnoxious to everyone...

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If you have any further hints you'd like to share based on your own hosting and playing experiences, PM me and I can add them in.
If you disagree with anything you read, also PM me and we can discuss it - the thread can then be further updated with better tips and tricks.