You see mafia....everywhere! But what exactly is it? Well, I'm glad you asked....
Mafia is a strategy game. It's a mind game. It's a role-playing game. The point of the game is to win. But how do you play?
You are sent a role by the moderator (mod). The moderator leads the game. If you have questions about anything, you should ask him or her. This role has all of your information. You can either be a town player, a mafia player, or a 3rd party player:
Town: You are part of the majority. You are essentially the "good" guys. The way to win the game for you is to kill all mafia/3rd party. You can think of it like real life. If a mafia comes into your neighborhood, you would "win" only if they were gone, right?
Mafia- You are the minority group here. Your goal is to be the last people. If you are equal or outnumber the town then you have succeeded. You have a "kill" that you can do each night, which can be coordinated through talking with your fellow mafia partners. We shall explain more in-depth later.
3rd Party- 3rd Party is not used every game, but it can be an interesting dynamic if used. The goal of a 3rd party player is to survive until the end. They do not any alliance with either town or mafia. They can have killing powers like the mafia, or can be a normal player.
How a game works:
The mod will randomly pass out roles to all players involved. Your role will have your alignment. If you are mafia, you will have a list of fellow mafia members. Town members most likely will not know each other.
Day: When the day starts, most likely there won't be much evidence to go on, so Day 1 is a random day that's only real use is to look for early scumtells. A scumtell is a slip up by scum (mafia) that reveals themself in one way or another.
Common Scumtells:
Bandwagoning: If there are 5 people voting one person, and you vote for that person too, there is nothing wrong with that. But if that vote stops, and a different vote occurs, and you vote that person too, than it starts to look like bandwagoning. Once 4 or 5 big votes happen, and you are on each one, it starts to get scummy. To counter-act this, whenever voting always try to have a good reason behind it, instead of doing it just because other people are.
Submarining: Posting often is a good thing. When you don't post for awhile, people become suspicious. In theory, if you were mafia and you submarined, you couldn't say anything stupid and condemn yourself because you aren't talking. That fool-proof plan can backfire though, as people start to realize wehn a person hasn't posted at all in the mafia game, but is posting a ton in the regular forums....
Anyway, back to the day....
So once you get past the randomness and have some decent leads, your job is to "lynch" the person each day who seems the scummiest to you. A lynch is reached by a majority vote. If there are 19 people in a game, 10 votes are needed to lynch someone. Once someone is lynched, the mod will write up a end scene showing the person getting killed, and then night will start.
Night:
At night all action players will send in their actions. To be an action player is to be a player with an ability at night. (These abilites will be detailed in your role pm). However, you can also be a regular player with no abilities at all. Some common roles are:
Cop: Has the action of investigating one person each night. The mod will inform the cop of his selection's info during the night.
Doc: Has the ability to "save" one person from a potential kill. Any kills directed at that player become void.
roleblocker: Has the ability to block one person's night action from happening.
Masons: A group of 2 players who know each other to be town and can talk to each other at night.
Mafia Godfather: Leads the mafia, and sends in the kill for the mafia.
Back to the night. The mafia have a kill ability, meaning they can talk at night and decide on one person to kill.
When day starts again, the cycle repeats. Now that you have more information, you can make wiser decisions on who to lynch!
GOOD LUCK YOUNG PADAWANS!
Ask questions (in the appropriate places), make stupid mistakes, and post things you shouldn't; it's ok, when you're new that stuff happens to everyone and though you may get yelled at for it (speaking of mistakes...) no hard feelings will be carried over and you WILL get your question answered. Unless you do something BIG like post your scum buddies names after you die or something, if you ruin someone's game intentionally after all the time and effort they put into it you deserve to no longer be allowed to play here (ie, blacklisted) and be flogged repeatedly with something pointy and sharp. 
