It seems my intent has been misunderstood. My point is not to debate about this specific guy (who is an online friend who literally spams me to get Halo lol so he DEFINETLY isn't "not an internet person" btw lol), nor was it about forcing people to play FM; I don't have an FM dungeon to lock people in just yet xD. My example was there just to make my thought process apparent. I am well aware that this specific person can just not like mafia-like games and that's very much fine lol, and I'm probably never going to talk about it again with him... at least until that FM dungeon is ready : ]
That said, your reply is a very nice one, baker. You're cool :P

I rather wanted to analyze the correlation between "intellectual curiosity", understood very broadly as the desire to uncover truths, and the taste for Mafia, along with how Mafia influences intellectual curiosity when it is consistently played. I notice Martin said "whether it be for fun or actual intelectual challenge". I find those two elements go hand in hand, and wonder what other fun could be found in the game; of course, there's the social aspect that's also fun, but it seems to me that if you don't like the concept of stabbing your friends in the back, you'd rather just go play less evil social games, or even do other social activities if you're not much of a game person (apparently that exists...!). As for the pure trolling aspect, few people actually play the game on the long term with this in mind. This leaves us with intellectual curiosity as a core requirement for enjoying the game IMO.

And by the way, I am not trying to say Mafia players are inherently intellectually superior to other people: that would be extremely silly lol.