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+--- Thread: Mafia Championships 2018 (/showthread.php?tid=3159)
Mafia Championships 2018 - RobotNerd277 - 04-22-2018
Someone sent me an email containing this:
Quote:I'm hosting a very big mafia championship tournament, featuring 170 different online communities, and would like to extend an invitation to your community, so I'm hoping this is the best way to go about this.
It's a super fun event that's been running since 2013 and it's built a lot of awesome relationships between communities and has even led to several romantic real life relationships if you'd believe it. Essentially, the concept is that each community democratically elects one person to go represent them in the Championship. I'd be stoked to see you guys represented, so if this invitation intrigues you, feel very free to share it with your fellow community members.
If you have any questions, please do let me know.
Link to the invitation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9x7nJkSPmv1ZtSKFdSmLsvD4DQoX13i2MA9VG5p4W4/edit
I got this invitation via a different mafia community I'm in, but wanted to spread it to Eagle Time, but I'm not even sure if Eagle Time is interested in being considered a mafia community for this at all.
So I guess, a few questions:
- Are you interested in doing the thing?
- Are you interested in who does the thing?
- Do you think Eagle Time is enough of a mafia community to justify sending someone? I know it once was, and I intend to revive the community, and I hope it could be considered one now, but it is admittedly in a significant lull right now. I understand arguments for and against.
That last question needs to be answered soonest, so if we decide by Friday that we do want to send someone, we can do a quick democratic process to decide who gets to do the thing.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Sunspider - 04-23-2018
1) I shouldn't represent us; as much as I enjoy Mafia games, I am not great at 'em.
2) If folks want to represent the community, I'm down for letting folks elect themselves as candidates at least?
3) I see us as Mafia enough to participate.
I was in another community that sent folks to participate in this event some years back. As I understand, it was a really good time! I'm certainly not Mafia material enough to represent this community, but ET is definitely an online game making and storytelling community.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Mirdini - 04-23-2018
Oh hey, it's this thing again.
For the record I got PM'd about this way back in 2013 when it apparently started and I forget if I talked to the person responsible in IRC or what because I can't seem to find a PM'd reply. I had a couple of objections to the thing conceptually that I still hold, but iirc some of our more mafia-hungry folks did at some point self-select to participate in one of these (I remember beruru, specifically? Who isn't around here anymore, which fair enough).
To Thingyman's credit it seems they've shifted the focus of the event from PRESTIGE to community building which does ameliorate/nullify the concerns I'll be listing below, so if anyone wants to go for it feel free to announce your candidacy.
To clarify, way back when in 2013 the message I got was
Thingyman Wrote:Hey there :)
I'll keep it short:
I'm trying to gathers players from many different sites to play together in a game of mafia reserved only for the best of the best players. And I was curious to know if you could help me find out who the consensus top players are on this site? If you could give me a short list of people who are widely considered to be the best players, that'd be really awesome.
Any help is greatly appreciated :)
Thanks in advance
Kind regards,
Thingyman
I think most folks who know MSPAFG/(to a much lesser extent) ET mafia history can see why this rubbed me the wrong way and led me to decline (or not answer at all? heck if I know anymore). The concept of a "best of the best" player is elitist, which is bad enough, but I think it's also inherently harmful to running fun community mafia games, for a number of reasons:
a. Most pertinently in a mafia sense, it leads to 'meta' play about players in games, in which certain people are deemed UNLYNCHABLE or given special preference simply because they have such a ~reputation~ rather than anything they specifically do in the game they're playing in.
b. It discourages new players from trying stuff out, especially when one of those 'best' players starts attacking them in the games and everyone else dog-piles on because the 'best' player surely must know what's right! (Never mind that that best player may well be in the mafia :v).
c. It helps support a sense of elitism/'best play practices' among veteran players that also discourages new players from joining or even playing in the games. It's not particularly fun to play in a game when people start throwing around 5-letter acronyms and telling you to stop doing a thing you didn't even know you were doing.
Now, while MSPAFG was not incredibly bad about these things it definitely got pretty hairy and then recovered a bit (because we thankfully realized what kind of jerks we were being) before the MSPA forums unceremoniously imploded. After that we had a bit of a continuation on ET/Chocolate Pi but burnout from the long consequences of the stuff above on MSPAFG plus a lot of us getting busy enough lives that we can't check a forum thread more than once a day (if that) means that the OG MAFIA CREW of Eagle Time is pretty much outta commission these days (die-hard mafia folks who aren't on ET anymore excepted). If mafia does happen it tends to be a For Goofs game that no-one needs to care about too much.
Anyway, apparently I still care because I went and wrote this LONGPOST and congrats to you if you've read through all of it. As mentioned way above, Thingyman seems to have turned this event into a community-building thing, which is neat and if anyone's way into mafia it should be a fun time. In summation, I can concur with Sunspider's points that if anyone's interested enough to want to 'represent' Eagle Time they should feel free to post in here and start a good ol' rip-roaring ELECTION CAMPAIGN. Those can be pretty fun :>
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Mirdini - 04-23-2018
Fair warning though, you'll be playing with folks from all sorts of communities that probably have a significantly more hardcore mafia culture than ET currently does. Which will definitely involve being able to read and post a lot (Thingyman says as much in that invite document) as well as probably a little of the maybe-unpleasantness I mention in the previous post. That's not to say it won't be fun, and I think I trust the mafia universe mods to step in if things get really ugly, but mafia-er beware!
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - RobotNerd277 - 04-23-2018
For what it's worth, I'm applying/coordinating the application process as part of my university's mafia club, and I feel like I prooobably shouldn't apply to be the representative of two distinct communities. I'm totally down for coordinating elections here though (although this is a forum-style discussion and therefore requires less third-party structure, as opposed to an email-based discussion which is what we're doing at my school).
The competition does look really fun, and I'm reading through the archives right now, and seeing a bunch of usernames that I personally recognize as Fun and Cool people that I've enjoyed playing games with in the past (mostly from Flight Rising). Like, while it is competitive and there's a lot of passion and excitement, I think that mostly translates to having a lot of fun playing together.
Also, afaict, the way they select "best player" is that after the games, other players vote on who played well. While winning and losing has something to do with it, it's more about how you interact with others, which I think isn't too bad. I guess it has all the drawbacks of any other popularity contest, but it could be a lot worse. Though I guess you're right about it has a chance of bringing back a weird meta to the home community, like, if everyone decided you're the "best" then the consequences you're fearing could definitely happen. It looks more like the phrasing has evolved into sending a "representative" rather than a "best player" over time, which strikes me as a lot less toxic.
@Sunspider - You should totally run to do the thing, whether or not you think you're any good. Unless that means that it wouldn't be fun or may even be unpleasant or stressful for you to participate. I mean, do whatever you want, I just don't think "being good" is as relevant as "having fun."
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Thingyman - 04-23-2018
Hi guys!
Thanks for sharing the invitaiton, RobotNerd.
@Mirdini
Mostly I just wanted to pop in to say I understand your reaction back then and to say thanks -- it was your feedback that made me change both the focus of the series and also how representatives were elected. And with excellent results. We also made an entire site and venue for the series since then, which has served as a gathering place for people from many different communities, and many truly significant bonds have been created there and in connection with the series :)
Back in the beginning, in 2013, I came from a competitive forum myself and I was still very new to "organizing an event", but the experience of Season 1 taught me a lot and most importantly it showed me the true value of the series - the connections, as mentioned above.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - CSJ - 04-25-2018
I enjoy casual mafia and IRL equivalents (eg; all of the Werewolf games, ESPECIALLY One Night Ultimate), though the 'Hardcore Mafia' deal irked me. People can and do take these silly bluffing games way to seriously. I played a bit of mafia back on the MSPA forum (and maybe a bit in CPI forum? I haven't been back there for a while) and elsewhere so if peeps are Keen on this I'd happily participate.
That said, I would highly encourage us to come up with some cool pseudonyms or something; I agree with Mirdini that the srs types obsess over personalities and other meta stuff and from experience, having some kayfabe between us and them should help keep it fun.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - kilozombie - 04-25-2018
(04-25-2018, 09:58 PM)CSJ Wrote: »People can and do take these silly bluffing games way to seriously.
To each their own. I'm in love with serious mafia even if I suck at it, and simplifying mafia down to "a silly bluffing game" is the same sort of reductionism that leads to, say, video games being treated like they're "just for kids" or, on the other side of the spectrum, "just mindless violent sinful things".
I really enjoy taking the concept of "you don't know who's bad and who's good" to its extreme. Baseline, that's already the plot of, say, mystery novels, which you'd be hard pressed to call entirely silly, even if there are some that have more fun with it than hard-boiled seriousness.
edit: Also, pseudonyms are great! Even online, you can set up a forum with some pseudonym usernames for everyone and keep that meta stuff out of it. One of my favorite casual mafia groups had a much more serious version that did exactly that.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - CSJ - 04-25-2018
I'm exaggerating. Being nuanced wouldn't be as fun to write. :P
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Reyweld - 04-26-2018
I am all for someone else representing us in this Mafia Championship Shindig Or Whatever, and clutch my ballot with excited fervor, anticipating potential candidates.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - RobotNerd277 - 05-01-2018
I'm supposed to get back to Thingyman today about whether we're doing this. As far as I can tell, it looks like most of us think that in concept it's reasonable for us to do the thing as a community, but there are a lot of misgivings that people have as well.
It looks like CSJ is the only interested party in terms of actually doing the thing with "if peeps are Keen on this I'd happily participate."
So, are we Keen on this? I think I am, but I'm not sure what sense I get from the rest of yall.
Votals :P (lmk if I'm misrepresenting you)
Excited about someone doing this - RobotNerd, Reyweld
Generally in favor - CSJ, Sunspider
I, robotnerd, am not sure what your stance is - kilozombie
Leaning against, but not objecting - Mirdini
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Mirdini - 05-01-2018
Eh I wouldn't say I'm even leaning against, I'm just neutral
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - CSJ - 05-01-2018
(05-01-2018, 10:56 PM)Mirdini Wrote: »Eh I wouldn't say I'm even leaning against, I'm just neutralI hate these filthy Neutrals. With enemies you know where they stand but with Neutrals, who knows? It sickens me.
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - seedy - 05-03-2018
“Mirdini” Wrote:After that we had a bit of a continuation on ET/Chocolate Pi but burnout from the long consequences of the stuff above on MSPAFG plus a lot of us getting busy enough lives that we can't check a forum thread more than once a day
this isn’t really related to what this thread is about but personally a lot of the reason I didn’t really move over to chocolate pi is cuz some of the subsection that specifically migrated there either had the vibe of never really liking me very much and/or were semi-secret misogynists.
I’ve been branded a “serious” player (I just like it best when everyone is “trying to win” on at least some level because I think the fun of the game arises from that). a lot of problems back then got blamed on “seriousness” and it ignored the fact that some people were and still are just assholes. those people are gone, but interpersonal drama and letting people get away with stuff cuz they did something cool in the past is something that will never be fully outgrown
anyways sorry this is really unrelated to the thread, I just didn’t and still don’t like all the blame that was heaped on the “serious playstyle,” it got uncomfortably intense and personal at times
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Thingyman - 05-03-2018
If anyone is interested in repping Eagle-Time this year, please let me know before the week is over.
A little video to hopefully get you hyped about this season - would love to add your community's name to it :D
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Mirdini - 05-04-2018
(05-03-2018, 04:40 AM)seedy Wrote: »snip
yeah that's entirely fair/a good point, playing 'seriously' is fine/tbh good. It was when that lapsed into cliqueishness/essentially hazing newbies that it became a problem. Which tended to happen because people were being thoughtless jerks, not because they were taking mafia seriously. 'Taking mafia seriously' was the defense they'd use for being assholes, which yeah unfairly maligns playing seriously/the fact that the game is best when everyone's trying to win at least somewhat (which is a sentiment that I agree with).
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - CSJ - 05-06-2018
Final countdown. If there's anyone who wants this chalice and knows more about modern mafia meta here's your chance
Otherwise, I, Wedgeboi shall ascend from Eagletown to rep on this shindig
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Mirdini - 05-07-2018
godspeed, wedgeboi
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Reyweld - 05-08-2018
Go forth, brave CSJ!
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - CSJ - 05-08-2018
Go ye heroes, go and die
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - SinkingSailor - 05-15-2018
eeeh good luck i guess
RE: Mafia Championships 2018 - Thingyman - 04-18-2019
Hi everyone :)
The 6th annual Mafia Championship starts in 1½ weeks. Mirdini was already kind enough to share the invitation with you guys on Discord, I've been told, but I thought I'd post it here as well for good measure, in the hopes there might be one brave volunteer out there: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9x7nJkSPmv1ZtSKFdSmLsvD4DQoX13i2MA9VG5p4W4/edit
This year we're aiming to have 187 communities participate. I'm hoping Eagle-Time will be one of those again. I was very happy to see you guys participate for the very first time last year :)
Paranoia might be affiliated with this community? Not sure. They are at least affiliated with some of your sister communities, and they're one of the representatives this season :)