Part of the problem of the games wanting to run at the current desired speed is that it eliminates some of the potential player pool that we have already.

An idea I have (which would probably require more members to even try, so it'll remain theoretical for the moment) is to have two different speeds of games running. A slow game for people who can't or won't commit to posting more than, I don't know, once a week, and a fast game for people who want to post every day. In theory, this would eliminate the frustration of the fast-lane players, plenty of action, but on the flipside, not put off the slow-lane players, coming back to the game they wouldn't have three pages to battle through.

But, like I say, I don't really see that it's possible to try this out unless there are more players, and even then it'd need them to be fairly evenly split into slow/fast types.

As stated earlier in the thread, fixed deadlines of /some/ nature are already part of the plan for Mafia: the Musical. Input for how long those fixed deadlines should be is still welcome, though

I like Carmine's idea. I haven't been around in a good while, so can't pretend to know why noone signs up any more, but if I had to guess, it would be that the remaining people are probably slower or busier players who really don't want to join a game and then get griped at and be the one to spoil the game for inactivity. This 'slow players' discussion does seem to be rather heated. And then there are those, like HC, who don't want to because they expect to be upset at a slow game, which is also understandable.

Maybe for now, as opposed to 2 full games running at two different speeds, (since we don't have many people) the players just as they sign up write out how often they think they can post for that game. Then everyone knows when they sign up how fast it looks like it'll go, and the paces (if there are any people in general, or the mod, have a problem with, they can discuss it ahead of time and that player may decide he'd be too slow, and then drop out.) Of course, life happens, and it's possible someone suddenly can't keep up wth the frequency they claimed, but maybe it would help some in sign ups. I get the feeling we have enough players for a game, but they're all too wary to join. Maybe this would curb the fear a bit?

I dunno, but just out of curiosity, what did happen to the old way? Mafia used to run very smoothly, 1 small and 1 large game, pretty contunually. Did we lose a bunch of people moving around so much?

I think we had perhaps between two and three times as many active users as we do now (just guessing). After Scene got pulled down over and over and over again we lost quite a lot of people.

I think part of the problem that I'm trying to highlight is that it's really not the writing-a-post that takes the time: it's the reading-all-the-other-posts and trying to keep track of what's going on. If everyone involved is playing at the same pace, then the ideal situation is that there will be a vaguely limited number of posts between each time you get to the thread, giving time to read and post. But if some people are angling for a fast-paced snappy game, they have a tendency to post a lot, bouncing off each other, and players who can't or won't play at that speed end up getting further and further behind, not quite having enough time to catch up on the posts and formulate their own post the first day, not quite having enough time to catch up at all the second, etc. etc...

You may be right about the minimum speed, though mafiascum games always seemed to run at a crawl and for the most part reach a satisfying conclusion... but that may not still be the case, and as I recall they had a ridiculously high drop-out rate as well, just a larger playerbase to cover it.

Following on from Das' "ballsy and gutsy" comments, I think a lot of the pacing issues stem from conservative play. Yes, players do need to make more risky plays as Das' says; but it seems to me that at times, even voting seems to be regarded as risky play.

I know it shat Das' that he got attention for sticking his neck out Day One of LA - but I would have been equally happy to see the players responding by piling votes on either Das' or Tick or both as a result.

Part of the problem as I see it is that Conservative Play - keeping a low profile - is rewarded in the game. Drawing attention to yourself usually results in being eliminated.

An attitude to cultivate could be : that in the early, slowest, most confusing stages of the game, the Town has the advantage of numbers. They can afford to sacrifice themselves knowing that scum can be identified later by their voting patterns. Scum however, cannot afford to sacrifice themselves in the early stages of the game.

Thus - Conservative Play benefits scum more than the Town. Thus it should be in the majority of the Players' interests to play fast and loose and not fear an early lynching.

Dilemma:

Some players lose interest if given "just" a townie role.

BUT

Players with a "power" role have a vested interest in not drawing attention to themselves so that they can survive longer and be more useful, and so play conservatively.

Solution: Don't be so obvious with your tells. If you act on your interest in staying alive longer, the mafia will often correctly identify the conservative players (who aren't them!) as power roles and kill them.

On the "townie is boring" issue, I think this is another incarnation of our dependence on power roles to guide the game. This really shouldn't be the case, mafia at its purest is just plain townies and mafia and that should still be a fun game of deceit and deduction. A town dependent on good investigations for a win is one which isn't making the effort to find the mafia the hard way (ie the entire point of the game). Particularly in LA, it felt like no one was willing to act on less than decisive evidence.

Once we shake the idea that only power roles can tip the balance, then no one's going to be so disappointed with a townie role that they basically drop out. It's still a position in a game where you're supposed to be hunting mafia, and a useful cop result can be outshone and will be outnumbered by solid pro-town plays.

It might help us to get more practice with a known 3 mafia, 7 plain townie game. I can go for that (without time limits)

My thinking was that every new game has some new twist on a role (my game included), and that this encourages the belief that townie roles suck.
That in turn can lead to players who are plain townie getting disenchanted in a game.