Opinion poll regarding "Mafia"-style forum game

[poison]

The poll question summarizes the point nicely; if someone (not necessarily I) were to host a forum version of the famous party game "Mafia", would you be interested in joining? Theme could be decided later -- it may become an age of sail themed game (base play would remain the same, only difference would be narrative) or it may remain "mafia" vs. "innocents". If you're not interested, why not? Could something be done to entice you to join, even for one game?

 

A brief breakdown of how it would be played on a forum:

1. Sign-up phase. The host posts a topic with the rules and information they intend to use for their game. Forum members post in the thread to indicate their intended participation. This phase lasts no less than one week (I've found about 10 days is best; more and people lose interest or go inactive, less and potential participants may miss the thread).
2. Sign-ups close, roles are assigned and distributed. No further sign-ups are allowed/accepted*, and a random number generator (https://www.random.org/ is a wonderful site) is used to assign roles. Roles are distributed via private messaging; "mafia" roles all know each other, whereas "innocent" roles do not.
   • Due to the rule requiring moderator approval for the first 5 posts, there should be some leniency regarding sign-ups closing, but that is up to the host.
3. Night 0. Host "dies" in some horrific fashion, the town goes mad, and Day 1 begins.
4. Day 1. All players discuss and vote in the thread to witch hunt logically and democratically kill off one player. Ties are decided by rules set before the game begins.
5. Night 1. After the Day phase has been resolved, any player with an ability ("mafia", certain special "innocent" roles) private messages the host with their action and their target.
6. Day/Night cycle repeats until either all "mafia" are dead or the "mafia" outnumber and/or logically overpower the town (depending on rules this may occur at a tied player count as well). 

 

 

If you want more information, the original party game was created and popularized in the USSR by Dmitry Davidoff in 1986. It consists of an informed minority trying to "kill" the ignorant uninformed majority. Many studies have been done on the base game, as well as its many variants. Two handy links would be the Wikipedia.org article, which has a wealth of information regarding everything from the original to mathematical breakdowns of role distributions, as well as the original rules, which has....well, the original rules posted by Davidoff himself, as well as his comments on various aspects and tips for beginners.