Welcome to the Underground, my dear snail! I'm davepetasprite^2 and I will be helping you get started on what to do in this wonderful section of ours.

Before you do jump in, you might want to read the Guidelines first! They are really helpful when it comes to what to do and what not to do during your stay here.

This guide will be separated into three parts, the Underground Workings, the basics of Mafia, and how to make a successful Mafia game! This post will be focused on the first two parts. The last one will be located at the next post.

Now that's out of the way, let us move on to the first part of the guide, the Underground Workings.​

So first of all, I once again welcome you to the Underground! If you still haven't noticed it yet, this is the PokeCommunity's own mafia forum, where all of the mafia games are hosted on. First off, you can't just join a game willy nilly, since most of the time, the game has already started. You'll have to wait for a new game to pop up. If you see a green tag that says SIGNUPS, then thats a game that just started and can be joined. Remember that once you joined a game, you must play it until you get killed or the game ends unless you want to be removed because of inactivity.

If you do want to make your own game, you must reserve for a slot first. Send a banner, which is a little image with the title of your game on it, to the moderators and wait for your game to be placed on the Game Index, which you'll have to wait till it is your turn to host the game. If you are the next host, you then create the game, with the Creation Guide to help you.

If you want to chat along with us, and join in with all the crazy people, you may do so on our Skype Chat (PM a Moderator to get added). If you don't fancy that sort of thing, we do have the Underground Hangout, which we are mostly talking about phase changes, other UG stuff, and additions.

Now that's mostly how the Underground works, now let's get to the good stuff, the basics of Mafia.​

For those who have no idea of Mafia, the mechanics are simple. Everyone will be split into two teams, the uninformed majority known as the Innocents, and the informed minority known as the Mafia. The roles are randomly assigned to each player, and some of them will get special abilities, called Night Actions. They are basically powers that can help or hinder your team. They may able to inspect your alignment, kill one player, save one player, etc etc.

The game has two phases, day and night. On the night phase, the thread will be considered "locked" and no one can reply in the thread. The Mafias, however, can talk in PM or Skype to decide who gets killed in that night in which the Mafia Leader then PMs the GM their kill, while on the other hand the other people with night actions PM their actions to said GM.

On the day phase, the innocents that the mafias chose to kill will be announced, and the innocents try to think who is mafia. Of course that would be too easy, so the mafia can join in and try to sway their judgements. In this phase, everyone votes as to who will be lynched for that day, and after that, their alignment would be revealed and the night phase starts again.

Most of the games here have varied rules and add twists and turns to their mafia game. If you want to know more of them, you must consult the GM of the said game.

That's basically the gist of it, but if you have anymore info, you may approach me, or the moderators of the section to help you out.

That is all for this post but stick around since the next post will tackle about making your own mafia game.​

Now that you know how the Underground works and how to play Mafia, it's the time to make your own mafia game!

Before you do, make sure to read the Underground Guidelines, and see the Game Index first since it'll be a long wait till your game comes to life.

Now, I would divide this guide into 2 steps. Planning, and Maintaining. Both of these steps are crucial if you ever wanted to make a successful Mafia game.

Still interested? Then, let's go to the first step, Planning.​

Now, before even trying to make your thread, you must have atleast played a single game of Mafia, whether it be a vanilla game, or a game that is has been altered. That would certainly help you in knowing what to do, when you are the boss of your own.

If you have finished your first mafia game, congratulations my dear snail, you have now the experience you need to make a game. Now, the first step on the road to your own position as boss of the mafia game is that you have got to think up of the story first. I don't know about you, but the people here are very critical when it comes to the storyline. It may not seem much, but the storyline makes or breaks the activity on your game. If you decide to not to add a background to your game, you are just looking for a fast, unsatisfying, boring game, and you don't want that, trust me.

I would suggest going in a theme, look for something people would be interested in, it could be based on a fandom, mythology, or even something your targeted audience have in common.

Now that's out of the way, think what mafia mode you would like to play out, a vanilla game, where everything is basic, with your usual roles and no twists, or you can play out a varied game, wherein you aren't constricted with the normal roles, and you can add your own spins and twists in your game.

I personally suggest you go with the varied gamemode, because playing vanilla over and over again can get a little bit frustrating. Atleast with this gamemode, you can use your creativity, and your personal flair to spice up your game and make it unique.

After that, if you so choose to use the varied gamemode, think of the roles. There's a lot of potential in making roles other than your typical Detective, Doctor, Roleblocker, and Vigilante. My only opinion is you have to make your roles balanced. This is where you must focus on the most, since the roles might be too overpowered or useless, and that would make your players really upset.

Now that's done, all you got to do is to make your thread, wait for your potential players, and there you have it. Planning phase is complete. But that doesn't mean your work is done. You have got to work at keeping your game alive until the end. This is where the maintaining phase begins.​

You thought it was over right? Well, there's still some work to be done my dear snail, and this is the most time consuming part.

First, you have to PM your players their roles. For a newbie snail like you, it shouldn't be a problem, but as for experienced alpha snails like me, it becomes a hassle because you have to PM each and everyone their roles, and if your games are very popular to the masses, well, that's a lot of PMs to sort out. I suggest you also donate to the forums as well, since a small PM box will be a huge problem for a GM.

After that, you start with Night Zero, most GMs start with this phase so that the game can properly start, and the tension can begin. However, you are not obliged to follow this route. You may start with Day One, if you so choose, but most of the time, players would most probably abstain the first phase because they don't know who to vote for.

After you receive the night actions from your chosen players, you have to switch the phase to Day One, and this will continue on and on until you have reached the end. It seems simple enough but it's not.

Now here's the most important part, so listen well. Read all of the posts in your game. This would really help when you have to count the votes, since you would have a slight idea who are they targeting. Sometimes there would be technicalities and some indifferences, and you should take note of that.

After careful observation and your tactical skills, you have finished the game and your work is done. If your gameplay style attracts the attention of your players that much, and is very active in the discussion, perhaps you may write up a sequel for your game, with more twists than the last one.​

Finally, for a tl;dr, you only need to take note of the following if you want a successful game!


Also, here are some helpful tips to ensure a successful game.


And that's all you really need to know, my dear snail! Thank you for the time that you spent reading this guide, it means so much to us. We look forward to betraying you in your upcoming games!​