FTF's Definitive Forum Hosting Guide (WIP)

[ForgotToFlush]

FTF's Definitive Forum Hosting Guide

by FTF (duh)

---

Sections:

• Introduction [x]
• Before the Game [x]
  • The Setup Approval Process [x]
  • Pre-Game Planning and Administration [x]
  • Flavour and Flavour-related Pitfalls [x]
  • Signups and Recruitment [x]
  • The Game-Thread [x]
    
  • Roles and Confirmations [x]
    
  • Takeaways [x]
    
  
  
• During the Game [x]
  • Starting the Day
  • Vote Counts
    
  • Activity Management and Substitutions
  • Resolving the Day
  • Resolving the Night
  • Ending the Game
    
  • Takeaways
    
  
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
  
  
  • Host Errors
  • Host Interventions
  • Mechanical Issues
    
  • Activity Issues
    
  • Outside-Of-Game Issues
    
  • Outside Contact and other forms of Games
    
    
• About the Author

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Introduction

This guide serves to assist new and/or inexperienced hosts by teaching them the tricks of the trade necessary to successfully run a game on the PS! Mafia Forums. For those with experience hosting on the chatrooms, the transition might seem daunting, due to the lack of automated processes and need for continuous observation and record-keeping. However, you will soon find that with the right organizational systems in place, that hosting here can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for you, the players, and the wider community.

You may ask the question, "Why Host?"
Well, in my humble opinion, hosting games for your fellow community members is an incredibly rewarding experience for multiple reasons. If you enjoy creating and testing your own setups, then hosting allows you to watch your friends and peers enjoy your artistic expression. It provides the opportunity to see how players attempt to solve your mechanical puzzle, which is an invaluable form of data for the setup creation process. If you're more interested in hosting pre-existing setups, then in a similar vein, you are still able to watch and observe player interactions, game mechanics, and puzzle solving. Being a host is akin to being a spectator, and I've enjoyed watching a multitude of games as a host, alongside other spectators. Furthermore, hosting is a valuable service to the community we've all invested so much time and energy in to. After all, without hosts, there wouldn't be any games to play. 

The decision to write this guide was made due to the sore lack of any centralized information hub for hosting on these forums. As a former member of the Approval Team for the forums (responsible for greenlighting and adjusting games to be hosted), there were many times I found myself answering similar questions for prospective hosts or making similar critiques across different proposals. There are many excellent attempts at playing guides and tutorials, both for the forums and the chatroom, which should share some overlap in terms of usefulness. However, hosting on the chatroom and on the forums are widely different experiences, so this guide should help to fill the gap in literature.

You can choose to read this all in one sitting, but (ironically enough) I know long bodies of text can be intimidating to mafia players. Hosting is an iterative process, so feel free to proceed at your own pace while using this guide as your companion/reference material. Preparation makes all the difference, so spending extra time making sure your ducks are all in a line, isn't a negative thing. 

In terms of this guide's foundation, it is largely based on anecdotal evidence. We lack true statistical data for many of the claims made in this guide. Despite this, I stand by my claims due to my long tenure as Queue Manager and Approval Team Member. The "About the Author" section goes into detail about my accomplishments, experiences, and qualifications, so I hope it raises your confidence in this guide. 

The main body of the guide consists of two major sections:

"Before the Game" deals with the preparation needed before the game ever starts. This will include important pregame administration required to ensure that your game runs smoothly. An important element of hosting is setting expectations for how the game should play out, not only for the players, but also for yourself. Clearing this up pregame will save you stress later!

"During the Game" goes into detail about everything you should be doing during the game for your players to have an enjoyable and competitive experience. Additionally, the actions described will allow you to keep on task and increase your chances of game completion. Forum Hosting is a large time commitment, and host neglect is a big factor in terms of creating no-contests. As a host, you are aiming to provide a rewarding experience for your players, and having your games draw to a fair conclusion is an important determinant of player retention for the community.

"Frequently Asked Questions" should help with tricky scenarios that do unfortunately come up, or should answer common questions that the uninitiated may have regarding hosting. 

I hope you find this guide useful for your hosting ventures. I'd love to see new hosts continue to pop up on the forums, and that you get to enjoy hosting as much as I have. 

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Before the Game

• The Setup Approval Process [x]
• Pre-Game Planning and Administration [x]
• Flavour and Flavour-related Pitfalls [x]
• Signups and Recruitment [x]
• The Game-Thread [x]
  
• Roles and Confirmations [x]
  
• Takeaways [x]
  

---

Before you start following the processes listed in this guide, you should evaluate your own hosting capability. Ask yourself if you have enough time to see a forum game through to its completion. Depending on game size and cycle lengths, this can be anywhere between a week and a month. Ask yourself if you have the energy to keep up with the game throughout the whole process. Forum games require constant attention to run smoothly. You need to be able to check in several times a day to update things like vote-counts. You also need to be able to be on time for your own deadlines, with enough time to resolve day results as well as night actions. It isn't a bad idea to shelf your hosting aspirations until you're sure that you can commit fully! If you can set aside the time and energy required, then it's time to start setting things up for your game.

---

[ForgotToFlush]

The Setup Approval Process

The decision to host first begins with choosing a setup and having it approved. The following factors and more are all constituents of the setup decision: mechanical complexity, player enjoyment and demands on the host.

For beginner hosts, it is recommended to start your hosting career by running setups with low mechanical complexity. At this stage, I recommend learning how to go through the motions of hosting, so reducing the mechanical burden associated with action heavy, complex setups will facilitate this.

Player enjoyment is an important factor, because it acts as a predictor for player engagement during the game. Player engagement will lead to healthier activity, which will lead to more enjoyable outcomes. If players feel invested, then they will be less likely to become disinterested and inactive. As such we seek to choose a setup that won't alienate our own players. As simple as this goal sounds, it does require finesse to understand how players would react to certain mechanics. Bastard mechanics may cause players to lose interest if they aren't well designed, especially if they aren't pre-announced. Beginner hosts shouldn't try to overload on these mechanics, as they require a deft hand to implement. We want our players to feel like they have agency in the game. That is, they can play the game and have an impact. Any mechanic that affects their ability to do so is therefore detrimental to their ability to enjoy the game. My point on agency should clue you in to an issue with the other side of the coin: what if our setups are too simple? Forum games are a long time commitment for the majority of players involved, so we don't want to trap them in a game that's boring! You can see now that choosing a setup requires forethought for what will work in the forum environment. Consider the time commitment of the players, the agency the setup can provide, and the affect that the mechanical interactions can have on enjoyment.

With the above two criteria in mind, I often recommend hosting near-vanilla setups as a beginner. I view these as games that are mostly vanilla roles, with one, or several, impactful power roles that offer agency and some degree of mechanical flavour to improve player engagement. It's fine to make your own, or to host existing ones. I've included some examples below:

Traitors vs Trackers [x]
Journalist [x]

Another important note about choosing a setup or roles/mechanics for a setup, is how they interact in the forum environment. To illustrate this point, I can draw on several examples. We love roles like the Day Vigilante in the chatroom. However, what happens if we try to bring that role to the forum? Well, we'd need someone capable of monitoring the game thread for the entire day cycle, otherwise the Day Vigilante is stuck waiting around for the Host if they would like to resolve their action. As such, this is a huge blow for day roles in the forum environment. Yes, they are possible to implement, but doing so requires compromises, caveats and concessions (the three deadly C's!), which harms player enjoyment. What about setups like Nomination, or Modified Execution? Well in the chatroom we find them to be enjoyable and skill testing, with a high degree of agency for individual players. The glaring issue with these setups in the forum environment is the lack of a night cycle. The lack of a night-kill as a form of player count reduction means that these games take twice as long as traditional setups! This is an important thing to consider when choosing setups, as it is a deterministic factor in game length, and the expected time commitments to be made by you and the players. Keep in mind the limitations of the forum when choosing or designing a setup as it will affect the playability and engagement of your game.

So now you've picked out a setup. It isn't too boring, nor is it too overwhelming, there's some fun interactions between roles, and everything should be feasible for the forums from a host perspective. What's next?

Enter: The Approval Team.

In order to make sure that your hosting details are ready and that you are adequately prepared for the job, it needs to be approved first. An approval team member will examine your game proposal, help you flesh out any additional details you may have missed, and schedule a time for your game to be hosted. To facilitate this, your proposal should have the following key features, necessary for its approval:

• Game Name, as well as other pertinent primers
• The Important Numbers: cycle length, deadlines, start date, expected run time
  
• Vote Mechanics
  
• Ruleset
  
• Setup Information

The Game Name is the easy part. It's as simple as using the setup name, or anything flavour related that fits. As for other information you can include, feel free to introduce your flavour if you have any (we'll get into a discussion about flavour do's and don't's later), a setup description, or any other priming information that you think the reviewer or the players would appreciate knowing. This part is flexible, so feel free to play around with whatever works for you. Once you've created an introduction that sets the stage for the game, then it should suffice.

The Important Numbers encompass several key features of forum games. Cycle lengths determine how long your day and night cycles will be. The most commonly used ones for the PS! Mafia Forums are 48/24 (48 hours for the day, 24 hours for the night) and 72/24 (72 hours for the day, 24 hours for the night). Choosing too short of a cycle length might make it difficult for your players to participate based on their schedule, while cycle lengths that are too long may lead to lulls in activity, especially later on in the game. Don't be ashamed of sticking to the conventional routes I've listed for your first few games, and feel free to adjust once you get a grasp of how players handle different cycle lengths.
Deadlines refer to when your days and nights end/start. Pick a time that you can comfortably meet, and don't forget to set aside extra time to resolve things like the day and night results. Players appreciate timeliness of results, so give yourself some breathing room here to save yourself future potential headaches. Additionally, try to choose a deadline time which is practical for both you and the players. If all your players are from a certain part of the world, then you might want to look at time zone conversions to see how they're affected. Quiet deadlines make for very boring days!
Start Date and Expected Run-Time are meant to help the players understand exactly how much time they will be committing to the game by signing up. For calculating expected run time, I've found it helpful to give two figures, one of the absolute minimum run-time, and an estimate of the absolute maximum run-time. Feel free to give an average of the two values instead, as any sort of estimate is useful for players when making their sign-up decision.

Vote Mechanics should address day results and how they are resolved. You should answer questions such as plurality versus majority, what happens in the event of a tie, if no-vote is enabled, and the presence of other special vote mechanics.

Your Ruleset needs to be comprehensive, logical and defensible. For any potential host-player conflicts, you need to be able to refer to the rule-list in order to determine the best course of action. Having these standards established beforehand communicates to the players what their behaviour in the game should look like. The ruleset should cover important topics such as toxicity rules and appropriate punishments, activity expectations, sportsmanship, post etiquette, and what occurs during extenuating circumstances. Don't be afraid to be firm here, as you need to communicate your standards and it is the responsibility of the players to abide by them if they choose to sign up. However, any unrealistic or overbearing rules may be addressed by the reviewer. For beginner hosts, there are no issues with borrowing rulesets from other games, but if you choose to do so, make sure you read and understand them and their purpose. Don't copy-paste a ruleset and then never read it!

The Setup Information should tell the reader everything they need to know about the setup you've chosen. Include setup specific mechanics, the factions, roles and quantities involved and the win conditions for those factions. Additionally, you may find it helpful to include sample role PMs, which can provide visual examples for the players.

After you've gathered all of this data, put it together to form your game proposal, and leave it in the Game Proposals section of the forum [x]. A member of the Approval Team will look it over and forward any feedback they may have to you. Additionally, you may be asked to craft a sample introductory post for your game thread, and we'll address what that looks like later on in the guide. Additionally, I've put together a template for making your proposal which can double as a sample game thread intro post [x]. Soon enough, your game will be approved and we can move on to the next section!

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Pre-Game Planning and Administration

Now, you should have an approved proposal and a date picked out for you to open signups. Our next step in pre-game preparation involves the administrative tools which organize the massive amount of information you'll be dealing with, and will streamline the hosting process:

• Host Sheet
• Vote-count Sheet
• Game Discord Server
• Role PMs

Additionally, at this stage you can sort out your game flavour, but we'll discuss that more in its own dedicated section. 

The Host Sheet centralizes critical game information in an easy-to-read format. It should include key details such as the players and their affiliations, night actions and their resolution, and the current status of each player. I've included an annotated example of a host sheet I've used previously:

SPOILER: Click to show

The bolded names in the player list also serve to keep track of players who meet things like activity requirements or pre-game check-in requirements. By having all your information in front of you, the host sheet minimizes the risk of a host error. At a single glance, complex game-states and conditions are broken down and laid out visually for ease in user navigation. You can see where there are overlapping actions while resolving the night phase, or see how close a faction is to winning the game. Yours does not need to replicate this format perfectly, feel free to play around with what works for you. However do your best to remember to at least include the players and their roles and factions, as well as a record of the night actions. 

The Vote-count Sheet isn't strictly required, but from my experience, it eases the burden of having to create manual vote-counts. The VC Sheet will centralize the vote-counts for each day in the game. By supplying a link without edit permissions to the spreadsheet (through a service like Google Sheets), players can not only keep pace with the current day VC, but also reference past end of day VCs. Included below is another example:

SPOILER: Click to show

Here, it is possible for our players to keep track of the current wagons and how the votes are shaping up. Additionally, by supplying a link to the sheet, players can receive live updates. We'll go over how exactly to post vote-count updates in a future section, so setting the sheet up now will adequately prepare you for later on. Not everything pictured is strictly required, but at minimum you need to be including the players, who they're voting, and some sort of visual indication as to which wagon is leading. Feel free to edit and maintain previous end-of-day VCs with new flips and alignment reveals as the game progresses. 

The Game Discord Server is, while not strictly necessary, a vital tool for facilitating clear communication between you and the players, as well as helping you manage activity and substitution requests. Traditionally, forum messages and posts were used almost entirely for host-player communication, but the advent of Discord increases the level of convenience for those who may have trouble checking the forums consistently. We can use a dedicated game server and a customized set of roles to host graveyard or spectator chats and update our players regularly. Below is a diagram illustrating this concept:

SPOILER: Click to show

In terms of roles and permissions, you'll want a ping-able Player role, with read-permissions for only your announcements channel. This will allow you to directly notify the alive players of any game updates. Then, Dead Player and Spectator roles for their respective channels will allow you to filter those individuals into the suitable channels, where they can talk about the game without spoiling those players that are still alive. You can set this all up before your sign-up thread goes live, so people can join the server after signing up for your game. Ensuring that all your players have joined the server during the sign-up process allows you to have multiple forms of communication with the players, which will be invaluable in the event of any mid-game issues.

Sorting out Role PMs beforehand is useful for maintaining host integrity, while useful for players to grab a greater handle on the game setup. They should include, at minimum, Role name, alignment, abilities, win condition(s), and other relevant factional information such as partners or factional communication. Doing this beforehand allows for seamless distribution when starting the game. Additionally. preparing them now means you can include them in your Signup Thread, providing players with an example of what they should look like.

SPOILER: Click to show

Good evening user:
Role: Tourist
Alignment: Town
Abilities: Each night, you must target one player to visit.
Your associates: Your fellow townsfolk.
Win Condition: You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated.

Good evening user:
Role: Mafia Goon
Alignment: Mafia
Abilities: Factional Nightkill, Factional Communication. No special abilities.
Your associates: Your fellow Mafia members.
Win Condition: Control at least 50% of the player base, AND all other threats have been eliminated.

This seems like a lengthy amount of preparation, but I promise that doing it all beforehand ensures that the subsequent hosting experience is easier and more convenient. With it all out of the way now, we'll take a brief moment to discuss Flavour, and ways of implementing it that will potentially save you from headaches later on.

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Flavour and Flavour-related Pitfalls

For many hosts, flavour adds enjoyment to the setup creation process. It is commonplace for hosts to introduce their favourite media works as game-flavour. This can be done at every level of the game, including writeups, roles and abilities, as well as special mechanics. Flavour can spice up an otherwise routine setup as well, and overall allows hosts to add more flair and charm to their games, which helps to make games more memorable. 

However, there are problematic ways that flavour can be implemented, and this in turn creates opportunities for angle-shooting. There are several different workarounds that can be used to mitigate the risk of angle-shooting, which vary in terms of extremity. Additionally, less extreme measures can be grouped together, creating more fail-safes against angle-shooting behaviour. These are not strictly necessary, and may not even be desired for the type of gameplay that you are trying to produce. However, for beginner hosts, maintaining game integrity is good practice for future, more mechanically complex games that you may want to host, so please consider the merits of all approaches presented. 

Issues with flavour often arise when players attempt to metagame the setup, using knowledge of the flavour source media (e.g. the antagonists are aligned with the scum faction in terms of flavour. It is important to note that this is not necessarily an issue, if people using this knowledge is a gameplay pattern that you want for your game. However, this creates an unfair advantage for those already familiar with the source material, creating an information disparity, which may contribute to unhealthy gameplay. So, for the sake of working with a blank slate, the first measure introduces fake-claims, as a basic form of safeguarding. This reduces the information disparity that may negatively impact the scum-team. While it does not reduce this disparity for the townsfolk, if the existence of fake-claims is public knowledge, then it serves to deter the rest of the game from trying to garner information using flavour claims or other flavour-related information. 

As an alternative approach, random assignment can be used when matching flavour to roles. If this random assignment is also made public, then it should also serve to make flavour-related discussion a fruitless activity. However, this hampers the ability of the host to make roles that are inspired by the flavour. 

We can also look at hiding the flavour from the players. This completely circumvents the ability of the players to metagame, and the flavour can be revealed as the game progresses and players are eliminated. while it means players cannot enjoy the flavour as they receive their roles, they will be able to as they play the game. However, if the roles are also themed around the flavour, then players may be able to intuit how a role matches up to the source media. This is a corner-case issue, but it is one that can potentially introduce metagaming behaviour. 

On the other side of the coin, we can look at making the flavour public. By publishing a list of all the flavour names from the beginning (maybe even with some fakes) then the ability to metagame based on flavour information is severely limited. This also introduces counterclaim scenarios, but this may be undesirable if it happens early on. If fake ones are added to the list, then giving the scum faction knowledge of which ones are fake, circumvents this issue. However, this approach suffers from the same drawback as making flavour private, as players can still potentially metagame using role descriptions. Consideration must therefore be made by the scum team as to whether or not fake ability claims are viable for their individual roles. 

The final approach is the most extreme, but the most effective one at ironing out undesirable metagaming behaviour. By use of an outright ban of flavour discussion, you can ensure that the problem never arises to begin with. As a rule of thumb, I strongly suggest that the ruleset for your game has rules against angle-shooting, so expanding that rule to include flavour discussion is a simple addendum. In theory this seems simple, but trouble may arise in any case where this rule would need to be enforced. Repeated offenders may require serious action to be taken against them, which is an intimidating prospect for beginner hosts. 

Your decision to include or not include flavour should ideally consider all the implications of that decision. These approaches are not comprehensive, so feel free to tailor a solution so that it works for you and your game. Next, we'll talk about setting up Signups and Recruitment.

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Signups and Recruitment

Given your work in the previous sections, making your sign-up thread should be easy. Simply navigate to the appropriate sub-board and make a new thread. Then, fill out your thread using the information you've already set up beforehand. In general, my sign-up threads tend to follow this structure:

1st Post: General Game information, including the Game Name and Important Numbers
2nd Post: Ruleset
3rd Post: Setup Information and Sample Role PMs
4th Post: Player-list

You don't have to follow this structure exactly, as it's my personal preference. Feel free to experiment with your presentation, just ensure that you inform players of requisite information in a manner that is consistent and clear. Doing so establishes proper guidelines for what's appropriate for your game.

As for Recruitment, make sure to mention in your title that this is a new signup period and that you are accepting players. Then, spread the word by posting about it in the PS! Mafia Discord, or by leaving some messages on the server during downtimes. Additionally, message any of your friends that might be interested in playing. We're all enthusiastic about filling our games, but try not go too overboard when advertising, as this may turn players off from joining.

While advertising, make sure to highlight key elements of your game that may be appealing, such as unique mechanics, or new setups. Usually, 1-2 weeks are allocated for the signup process, so try to maximize your time to ensure that your game fills. Furthermore, don't stop after your game fills. If there's more interest than you initially expected, then you can bring people on as substitute players. Having commitment from subs early on saves you the headache of having to do a lengthy search later on in the event that activity issues arise. Additionally, as people join, ask them to join the Discord server you made for the game, so they can receive announcements from you as well as having a direct line of contact other than forums. All the while, don't forget to regularly update your player-list. 

With a full player-list, and hopefully a couple subs in reserve, we'll look at setting up your game thread next. 

---

[ForgotToFlush]

The Game Thread

After your game has filled, you're going to want to set up the Game Thread before the start date agreed upon by you and the Approval Team. This will allow you to ensure that your game-start is punctual. Remember to answer any last minute game-related questions your players may have, and then proceed as follows. 

The Game Thread and the Signup Thread are functionally very different, but in terms of looks, they're nearly identical. Many hosts often consolidate the two, and start their games within the Signup Thread. For the sake of clarity you can choose to split yours up. Just ensure that the players know that the game itself will be happening in a different thread. I've seen many occurrences where players would post in the wrong threads, thinking the game had started. 

Again, this is personal preference, but I simply copy the 4 posts outlined in the Signup Thread into a new thread to make the Game Thread. Additionally, if I'm doing flavour, then the 5th post will hold the Flavour Introduction. In the title, mentioning that it's Night 0 will usually signal to players that they should begin to respect game integrity, as the game will be starting soon. 

And that's all there is to it! We'll come back to the Game Thread very soon, when the game is about to start, but for now let's proceed to send out roles and collect confirmations. 

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Roles and Confirmations

At long last we've reached the final stage of the pre-game preparations. With the game about to start, pick a time, usually 1-2 days in advance of your start date, to distribute roles. That time in-between the role distribution and the actual game-start should be used to collect confirmations. 

Role distribution begins with random assignment to determine who gets what. Be sure to use a method that is defensible, and ensures a proper randomization of roles. Personally, my method of choice relies on the role list that you would have set up as part of your Host Sheet. The player-list can be inserted into an online list randomizer (I'm a fan of random.org), then scrambled and pasted back into the spreadsheet alongside the role list. Each player should then be randomly assigned to a role. 

With our role assignment now determined, you should inform the players that roles will be distributed, by mentioning it in your game's discord server and/or the game thread. Send out your pre-prepared Role PMs to the corresponding player. In the subject line of each message, you can include the game title and the role name for an additional level of organization. Be sure to double check that you don't send out any duplicates. For scum factions, feel free to either make them a scum-chat or offer them the option of making their own, with you included.

After you've completed distributing the roles, make another announcement via your preferred medium and request that your players confirm their roles. Remember to set a suitable deadline for them to do so, usually 24-48 hours. Additionally, remind your players that they can and should reach out to you if they have any questions regarding the game. This can tell you which parts of your game may not have been explained properly. If multiple people ask the same question, then a public explanation of that question and its answer might be needed. Confirmations have traditionally never taken any specific form, with many hosts choosing to simply take replies to the role PMs as confirmations. This is more than adequate, and should give a general indication of who is absent. For those who did not confirm, you can choose to either enact substitutions during this pre-game phase, or within the early stages of Day 1. Players who have not confirmed should not be left for much longer than this, as this can have severe impacts on the game quality. We'll get into the nuance with substitutions and how best to execute them later on in the guide. For now, let's just recap the key takeaways from this section.

---

[ForgotToFlush]

Takeaways

Consider your personal levels of commitment when deciding to host. Ensure you are in a suitable position to host, with enough time and energy to dedicate to the game.

Work with your setup approver as much as you need. Take any critiques in stride and iron out potential issues with your game.

When going through your pre-game preparation, ensure that you are consistent with your policies and practices. Doing so adds integrity to your game, and allows you to enforce your rules more easily. Additionally, adequate pre-game preparation will make your hosting life much easier.

When considering flavour, make sure it is implemented in a way that does not create undesired angle-shooting issues.

Communicate frequently with your players after they have been recruited by announcing important deadlines and answering any questions they may have.

---

[ForgotToFlush]

During the Game

• Starting the Day
  
• Vote Counts
• Activity Management and Substitutions
• Resolving the Day
• Resolving the Night
  
• Ending the Game
  
• Takeaways 
  

---

-

---