The four schools of play | Mafia Game Academy

Mafia and civilians can be found in different ways. Traditionally three large groups of tools for determining players' colours are singled out: logic, the non-verbal side and psychology. Players who prefer one of the groups are assigned to one school or another. In our Academy logic is represented by two schools (counting and position), non-verbal behaviour by the school of emotion, and psychology by meta-play. Together that makes four schools.

Why know the schools

The author of "Mafia in the Style of Zen" widened these groups, taking in as many neighbouring concepts as possible that help improve play. Terminology is needed to give the red team an advantage over the black one and a broad field for intellectual work. The mafia does not need this knowledge to win at inexperienced tables: it wins because of the town's mistakes. The higher the combined level of knowledge of all participants, the harder it is for the black team, because it has to stay one step ahead of the civilians all the time.

The real struggle begins when everyone at the table understands what is happening and what to do to win for their team. Instead of exploiting mistakes, a stage of genuine confrontation begins. The winners are those whose skill at passing for red non-verbally is stronger than the skill of spotting an act, and whose level of thinking is a step above their opponents'.

An endless road to the sky

The mafia selects tools to outplay the town. The reds adapt to the blacks, take their possible actions into account, and the blacks pick counter-strategies. Then it all repeats at a deeper level. A vivid example of this cycle is the appearance of the second line of play. At first the mafia had no false sheriff; he appeared as an answer to the actions of the real leader of the civilians. The red team created rules for the reveal and actions of the real sheriff, which help tell him from a mafia player. The false sheriff adapted to those rules. And so on. (The second line, also called a version of the game, is the presence of two sheriffs with their own checks and their own black trios.)

The school of counting

Counting is the most important tool of play by logic. You know the number of reds and blacks, subtract the known reds and get the blacks by remainder. Counting is pure mathematics that starts from irrefutable data. It lets you avoid losing in the current round, find blacks by remainder and, having worked out one mafia member, determine the other colours.

The weakness of the school: a black can throw off the count (give up one of his own as black, create a third line of play), and then the mathematics leads to a wrong conclusion. So counting must be checked against moves and position. In detail: the lesson "Counting and the remainder method".

The school of position

Position is the dry residue of a speech: whom the player considers red or black, whom he plays with, whom he suspects. It lets you assemble a red team, make checks that give several colours at once and find the mafia by inconsistencies. A good player of the positional school notices the shortcomings of mafia teams, conflicts and illiterate handing out of colours.

The weakness: people mix up basic notions ("I will play" and "red" are quite different things), and positional play falls apart. In addition, the author notes that someone called positional play "correct", and now one can be proud of superiority over those who play "incorrectly", although far from everyone knows the actual rules of positional play. In detail: the lesson "Position and the focus of attention".

The school of emotion

Judging a player's colour by non-verbal signals is called by the author the most powerful weapon at the table, provided it is a trained skill and not a 50 percent guess. Players who read emotions well are excellent with either a red or a black card: for example, they can find the real sheriff by his posture on the night the mafia meet. The simultaneous presence of several strong players of the emotional school shifts the win percentage towards the town, if the "readers" are listened to.

Nevertheless, the author does not advise leaning on this style: it kills a game based on persuasion, riddles, intrigue, logic and social dynamics. The main point of the school is to learn to defend against being read, so that your colour cannot be determined from non-verbal signs. In detail: the lesson "The school of emotion" at the second level.

The school of meta-play

The prefix "meta" means "between, after, through". The school of meta-play deals with analysing and managing a person's thoughts, decisions and actions. Every civilian has his own vision of the situation, a kind of outline map of the game. A red needs to read the speaker's colour from that map; for the mafia the task is to make it appear red on the map of the player's world. Meta-play techniques are the basis of the riddles posed to the town: schemes, impossibilities, illogicalities. The mafia sets traps and false signposts, and the civilians solve them. In some regions the school is called motivational. In detail: the lesson "The school of meta-play" at the second level.

Do not attach yourself to a school

Within the three groups there is more information than they require, because some tools cannot be assigned to just one. Position, for example, is the extract of a speech supplemented by arguments. A player's moves are used for both logic and psychology. That is why the author asks you not to attach yourself to a school as such, but to take, adopt and develop the methods of identifying players that suit you.

The reliability rule

All schools are built on facts and interpretations. Only the sheriff and his checks give one hundred percent certainty. The rest depends on cognitive distortions and the level of play, so any conclusion should be checked by at least two schools: if counting and position agree and emotions do not contradict, the decision is more reliable.

Application

Adapt to the civilians.
Remember the moves the mafia is capable of.

Questions for self-check

List all the ways you know of finding the mafia by logic, non-verbal behaviour and psychology.
Which school is stronger in you and how does this affect your choice of line?
Why is the mafia "always a step ahead" and how can the reds catch up?

Practice

Take a recording of a game and decide for each of five players which school he used: counting, position, emotion or meta-play. Then find the mistake the school made. Repeat three times with different games.

Typical mistakes

Choosing one school and ignoring the others.
Treating emotions as proof (reliability on this basis stays below 80 percent).
Giving up counting "because it is boring".
Confusing a school with a role: any school can be played for reds and for blacks.

Source of the idea. The introduction "Foundations of decision making. Introduction to the schools of play" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020) and the chapters on finding colour from "50 Shades of Red" (2021). The description of meta-play is shortened and retold for the Academy; the full techniques are given in the corresponding lessons.