We have been invited to participate in Season 7 of the Mafia Championship!
Here’s the full text of the invitation (it’s long, so if you don’t want to read the entire thing I’ll summarize all the important bits below):
Full Invite Text
INVITATION TO THE MAFIA CHAMPIONSHIP (SEASON 7)
Ahoy there!
I’m very excited to invite your community to participate in Season 7 of the Mafia Championship.
The Mafia Championship is an annual forum-based tournament series that pits representatives from various online Mafia (aka Werewolf) communities against one another as they compete to determine the Internet’s greatest forum Mafia player. Each participating community democratically elects one person to represent them and be their “Champion”.
The tournament first started back in 2013. Since then, 320+ different communities and 50+ different nationalities have been represented.
It’s a super fun event that has created many new friendships and close bonds between communities. I hope that you would be interested in taking part
DO YOU ACCEPT THE INVITATION?
If your community wishes to participate, please confirm your participation to Lissa as soon as you can to ensure yourselves a spot. Currently, the plan is to accommodate 150 communities this season. If there is further interest, additional communities may sign up as substitutes; generally there are some replacements needed both before and during games.
If your community agrees to participate, the deadline for selecting your representative is April 27, but the sooner the better.
The games will take place on Mafia Universe. If it’s okay, I can link directly to the general discussion thread regarding this topic on Mafia Universe.
Important notes
- You may decide yourselves how you want to elect your representative, but we highly recommend some sort of democratic process (public nominations followed by a poll usually works out well).
- In addition to electing a representative, you should also name an alternate who will be asked to step in if the first choice needs to back out.
- Your representative should be prepared for having to read upwards of 500-600 posts per 24 hours during the early stages of the game. Additionally, there’s a requirement that each player must make at least 10 posts per Game Day. Only active players should apply/participate. I repeat: Your chosen player needs to be able to promise a good amount of activity on a daily basis.
SEASON 7 FORMAT
The tournament structure
- 150 communities will participate, each sending one representative.
- QUALIFIERS: 10 Qualifier Games will be played, consisting of 15 players each. I.e. every representative plays in one Qualifier Game. The players themselves vote post-game to determine who is deserving of advancement. 1st and 2nd place will advance to the Semifinal Games.
- SEMIFINALS: A Jury consisting of finalists from Season 6 will select 25 additional players to advance to the three Semifinal Games. From each game, five players will advance to the Finale Game based on a post-game player vote, just like in the qualifying phase.
- THE FINALE: The Finale Game is played. Once it has completed, the players vote to determine who shall receive the title of Season 7 Champion and a winner’s certificate signed by Dmitry Davidoff, the creator of mafia.
This year’s setup: JOAT2
The setup is called JOAT2 and features 15 players.
The setup consists of the following:
3x Mafia Goon
2x Town Jack Of All Trades (9x Doctor, 9x Motion Detector, 9x Tracker)
10x Vanilla Townie
Note that the Jacks Of All Trades must use all three actions before repeating an action, i.e. they are rotating. This does not mean they must use the actions in the same order every time.
Relevant mechanics info
Day start.
Majority lynch is enabled Day 2+, but majority is not required at any point in order to lynch.
Tied votes will result in a player being lynched at random from among the tied players.
No outside communication. I.e. you may not contact the other players outside of the thread (unless you are Mafia and wish to speak with your teammates).
Phase Lengths and Deadlines will be up to the players themselves (I’ll organize your representative into a game with deadlines that suit their preferences).
Thread is locked during Night Phases.
Votes are automatically locked in at LYLO.
Mafia factional kills are assigned. They can be tracked, watched, roleblocked, etc. (In this setup, that means they display as an action to the Tracker and the Motion Detector actions.)
Mafia share a factional Night Kill, which is a single standard shot for their faction. The mafia faction kill is mandatory.
Mafia may communicate at any time.
Each individual player may make a maximum of 150 posts per day phase (this restriction is lifted 2 hours before day end).
The game will have a host to oversee everything and make sure everyone’s following the code of conduct, but otherwise the game is completely automated (automatic votecounts, thread locks and reveals roles automatically, the bot receives and processes actions, etc.).
SEASON 7 TIMELINE
There will be 10 Qualifier Games, and your representative plays in just one of these. They will have start dates ranging from late April to mid-June. So in other words, as long as your representative can play sometime during that period, they should be good and I’ll make sure they get scheduled into a game that suits their schedule well. I.e. if your rep is busy until June, that isn’t a problem.
The Semifinal Games will be played in July, and the Finale Game sometime in August/September (whenever we can work out something that suits everyone).
If you want to get in contact with me ASAP, you can find me on Discord (Lissa#8083).
Kind regards,
What is the Mafia Championship?
The Mafia Championship is a cross-community event pulling hundreds of players from various Forum Mafia communities to determine the best FM player of the year. It blends the competitive nature of the game with the networking opportunities granted by such an expansive experience, allowing people to make new friends and meet new communities through the world’s largest Forum Mafia event. Players of all sorts from all kinds of sites are able to play with each other to learn from each other and strive to earn the title of Champion.
What is the tournament setup?
Each community picks one representative to send. All games are played on Mafia Universe, and will be moderated automatically by a bot. There are qualifier games, each with different day and night lengths, throughout the months of April, May, and June, from which a player voted as the MVP will advance to the semifinals. A total of 25 other players, selected by a jury, will also advance, rounding out the final slots in each of the three semifinals. As in the first round, a post-game vote determines which five players from each semifinal will advance to the Finale. After the Finale game has ended, the players vote on a MVP to be crowned the Season 7 Champion, who will recieve a signed certificate from the creator of Mafia, Dmitry Davidoff.
What is the game setup?
This year’s game is a setup known as JOAT2, and it features only 3 Mafia Goons, 10 Vanilla Townies, and 2 Town JOATs, each of which can Track, Motion Detect, and Heal - however, they must take all three actions at least once before they may repeat an action.
What does our representative need?
First of all, in order to be a representative, you need to be willing to commit to being active in your game/games over the course of the summer. If you do not make the required minimum number of meaningful posts on any given day, you will be removed from the game. Additionally, MU is also a lot stricter than we are here on the rules, so you must commit to reading them, following them, and not discussing the game anywhere with anyone until it is over, no matter how much you think it couldn’t possibly hurt.
The invitation cites that representatives should be willing to read around 600 posts per 24 hours, and that those who are not willing/able to do so should consider not applying. Personally, I’ve been in games with a much higher post volume, so although I don’t want to scare anyone away, do be aware that you may end up having to read even more posts per day than that in the early parts of the game.
However, our representative is also responsible for choosing which games to apply for. As games start throughout the months of April, May, and June, it is possible to be busy for a sizeable chunk of those months and still participate by choosing an earlier or later starting time. Additionally, the phase lengths of each game may be different - generally, games will run with phases as low as 12-hour days and 12-hour nights to phases as long as 72-hour days and 24-hour nights. Choose whatever you feel most comfortable participating in.
Should the Representative be chosen to move on to either a semifinals game or the Finale, they will need to be available for those as well. The semifinal games are expected to run in July, while the Finale should run in August or September, depending on players’ schedules.
Although it is not required, I also encourage anybody who wishes to be our representative to participate in one of the pre-season practice games held on Mafia Universe. Their forum is formatted quite differently than ours, and becoming familiar with the setup and the automoderator will help the transition into the Championship game much easier. It may also be a good idea to play in at least one or two other MU games if there is time before your Championship game, to continue building a feel for the site and its meta.
How will we choose a representative?
Because I have done all of this before, am currently the de facto liason to other communities, and was the one who recieved the invite on behalf of CD, I will be running the process of selecting a representative. However, it will be an entirely democratic process.
Nominations
Nominations will be open starting immediately and ending at 2020-04-11T03:59:00Z. To nominate a player, the following requirements must be met:
- All nominations must be submitted directly to me via Private Message.
- The nominating player and the player being nominated must both have been a participant in at least one complete game on CDFM in the last year. The full list of CDFM games may be found here.
- You may nominate no more than two players.
- You may not nominate yourself.
You may discuss nominations with others here or elsewhere, but are not required to disclose who you are nominating if you do not wish to. I will hold on to my two nominations, and may nominate anybody I feel deserves a nomination after the other, private nominations have all been submitted. Once all nominations have been submitted, those nominated will be revealed and may accept their nominations. There is no advantage to receiving multiple nominations.
Accepting Nominations
Once nominations have been revealed, all nominated players will have until 2020-04-13T03:59:00Z to either accept or deny their nomination. There is no shame in denying a nomination, and may be done if you will be unable to participate in the championships or do not wish to for any reason. After all candidates have accepted or denied their nominations, voting will begin.
Voting
The way voting occurs will be based on the number of players that accepted nominations. The exact method is subject to change up until voting starts, but I anticipate there will be two rounds of voting. During the first round, you will likely be able to vote for as many players as you would support to be our representative. The top players from this vote will move on to the second round, which will run on a different voting method that ultimately leaves only one representative (either FPTP or STV, dependent on the number of players left at this stage). More details on this will be given next weekend. The chosen representative will represent Chief Delphi in Season 7 of the Mafia Championship.
Backup Representative
Whoever comes in second place in voting may choose to take the place of our Backup Representative. If our Representative must drop out for any reason, the Backup Representative will take their place in the Mafia Championship. Much like nominations, the spot of Backup Representative may be denied by a player for any reason. If this occurs, the third place player will be offered the spot, and so on.
If I’m not the Representative, how can I participate?
There will likely be a spectator Discord set up, where you may discuss the games with other players if you wish. Additionally, I believe that the pre-Season practice games will be open to any player that wishes to participate, so don’t be afraid to make an account on Mafia Universe and join in to get a taste for the setup this year. The Championship is a great time to meet other players on other sites and improve as a Mafia player.
4