A Social Mafia?

1. Describe the social interactions which you observed during play. In what way did these interactions emerge from within the formal elements of the game?

Mafia, a game of survival, outwit and outlast. The primary objective of villagers is probably to pray not to get killed, and to correctly identify the mafias... while for mafias their goal is to survive and kill off the villagers. One word to describe all the social interactions that are going on... make belief!

The notion that social interactions are all internally derived is definitely true in mafia. You 'kill' and 'accuse' as a mafia and villager only within that magic circle. The moderator has absolute power, but only within the game.

It is interesting to look at the different interactions between the roles in the game, hence let us look at each individual role and how they behave in the game.

Villager: ahh.., the poor innocent victim. In the game, especially during night time, they have no control over the game at all. They are simply sleeping, waiting to be killed. Come daytime they have to utilise collective power to kill off the murderer. But often is the case where the murderer is not spotted during the first 'daytime'.

When observed carefully, one realise that villagers themselves have no special powers to change their circumstances. And once dead... they remain... dead. No revive potions or anything... just 'ghosts' that have no effect on the outcome of the game. (very much like 'dead players' in coounterstrike and its likes) So what gives them some form of control? The externally derived role they brought in... notice there would always be one person who is first to be killed off? It's no mere coincidence... something must be going on prior to the game, such that the decision is made to kill off this person first in every game! Hence the idea of pre-existing friendship, rivalries, do play a large part here. It can be said... villagers are essentially playing the role of themselves, though limited in power within the magic circle, but themselves nevertheless. That is to say, if I were a villager... i am zhonghao the villager, not samwise gange the villager of kydor or something.

Mafia - It's fun being Mafia man! Killing in stealth, accusing in day... it's the most interactive role in the game (or maybe it's the moderator? It depends... again.. externally derived role of whether the 'mafia' is loud and brash himself!) Mafias must make use of the interaction in the day to keep themselves alive. They can choose to be the cold silent killer, or the loud accusing 'villager'. But whatever it is, they use interaction as a strategic tool to outwit and outlast the game. Hence this verbal killing is an interesting aspect of the game and emerges from the survival instinct of the mafias.

Moderator - He's ominicent about the whole thing and keep all interactions within context. It would be chaotic if the players bring in 'personal vendetta' into the game (although this could possibly be more fun!) but the moderator is the keeper of the magic circle. One thought I had was about his presence. Yes, it seems the game mechanics do need a moderator of sorts, but I felt it somehow broke down the 'surreal' aspect of the game. Meaning within the context, the moderator isn't suppose to be existing, but yet he is interacting with the role players in the game. It reminds me of those strange literary context where certain authors might insert themselves into the plot when he's not supposed to do so. (I read this book, The French Lieutenant's Woman, during EN1001E and yeah, such a case happened) So the moderator is really a unique role in the social interaction, a somewhat inbetween of a internally and externally derived element.

2. Using Sutton-Smith's categorization of social play roles, discuss how the players' roles changed during the course of the game.

Basically it's a matter of attack and defence, under a verbal jujitsu. The role of the mafia is more of the attacker, pyschologically killing off the villagers. He would be in a counteractor position during daytime, but he would do so by 'defensive attacking'. That is he would try to divert attention away from him and continue killing off innocent villagers even during daytime.
In a way, this game doesn't have much role changes, simply due to the fact that villagers are essentially powerless against their own fate. I see this as a flaw in the game, and killing off of people during the daytime is often due to external driven reasons rather than internally driven. Perhaps question 3 would properly answer question 2 too.

3. Suggest a modification to the game which will alter the social dynamics that emerge during play.

What the group "carmikaze" did is perhaps the best modification to the game - Vampire. The bitten villagers are given some power of sort (though it's evil powers they're having.. but, power nevertheless!) There are more role changes as villagers don't simply die when they are killed. One thing that I do not like about most social games are that the first one to be out of the game, stays out. Yes, the winner enjoys the most out of the game, but the loser? He would have to sit through the whole game, essentially stoning. Not exactly fun for this guy.

I believe if a game can incorporate on the fly role changes of the players as characterised in Sutton-Smith's, the game would probably sustain more player interest.

As of now I'm not sure if the vampire mod works well as I have not play tested with the group... but I believe it will surely make the game much more fun!