Games

=Games= 

The first game of Mafia was started by Krazz sometime around late 2008. Since then, nearly 200 games of Mafia have been played on the Canucks Community, hosted by a wide variety of players.

The CDC forum regularly deletes obsolete topics that have not been replied to for long stretches of time. As a result of this, many remnants of Mafia's early games are now extinct from the forum and unrecoverable. In efforts to prevent losing traces of the game's history and evolution, contemporary Mafia scholarship places a heavy importance on the archiving and preservation of individual games.

To make matters more complicated, CDC changed the number of posts per page, making earlier record-keeping of game length unusable. Games are now recorded by approximate post count; pages of gameplay are counted and then multiplied by 20 (30 for older games).

Attempts to catalogue games of Mafia have been undertaken notably and extensively by Master Radishes, who created—and has maintained—a detailed list of all games played on the forum. Amongst his other contributions, Master Radishes is credited with being the first to recognize the importance of separating Mafia into numerous distinct eras for study. He has identified various "series" in Mafia's history, each one marked by different roles, set-ups, participants, and hosts. Other scholars have proposed and followed other conventions of separation, but the practice of separating is now universal.

Series One
''Krazz introduced Mafia to CDC White Noise sometime around late 2008 and GMed the first dozen or so games. The first 16 game threads were lost by the time these records began. Little is known/remembered about this time, but generally game quality was fairly low as almost all the players were new to Mafia and took time to figure out the ins and outs of the game. That said, certain players learned quickly and came to dominate games, most notably the legendary BauldyAuldy and Hugh Jass/MastahTJ, famed for their personal rivalry. Several current players also first played during this time, the oldest of which is VICanucksfan5551.''

All primary sources of these games have been lost, and results can only be known through the doxographical literature, which comprises namely Master Radishes' historiography.

Series Two
''After a break, Krazz re-booted Mafia. After only a few games, he stepped away again, and allowed Puckman to take over GM duties. Games never reached high activity levels, and eventually other players started their own series of games.''

Series Three
''This series started concurrently with previous series, as MastahTJ didn't like the way the other games were being run. Puckman graciously stepped aside and let this series of games become the main one. This series was characterized by usually featuring two Mafia teams. The first SK win occurred in Game 27.  Anothergame started but never finished. Low activity levels ensured another die-off of Mafia.''

Series Four
''After some time, Krazz returned to revive the game. Despite a dedicated core of players, games never reached high levels of activity.''

Series Five
''T-rex930 and Seguin revived Mafia to great success. The games became larger and more active than before, although short of current standards. This series also saw the earliest attempts at moving away from purely vanilla games - for example, the Cult saw its first introduction, as well as the alternate Sheriff roles.''

Series Six
''Krazz returned to revive Mafia again. Although games remained small by current standards, several of the most memorable games for older players occurred during this time. Advanced skills of deception were refined during this series, paving the way for the current tendency toward crazy Mafia scheming. This was also the heyday of the Serial Killer - three different players won within a six game period, after a long history featuring only two previous victories.''

Series Seven
''T-rex930 came back to again revive Mafia. This series saw games grow to new heights - games became bigger, longer, and much higher in quality of play. Many current regular players got their start during this time. After a history dominated by Krazz and T-rex930 as GMs, many new players took turns GMing games. Many memorable games took place during this time.'' After an unprecedented run of games, the regulars agreed to take a short break to "recharge" their batteries.

Series Eight
''After only a month's break, Mafia was revived yet again, and this time would be taken in whole new directions. GMs got very creative with their games, creating themes and unique twists and roles to liven up the traditional format. Activity levels reached new heights - the longest and largest games of CDC Mafia history have taken place during this series. These games featured a large and active core of regular players.'' †  Game ended prematurely due to accusations of cheating. Not counted in statistics.

† †  The winning Town faction was a second one which occurred during game events.

Series Nine
''After a short break, games restarted again and quickly re-captured some of the old magic of S8, with several long and intense games. This series had two games subsequently break the record for most posts (#171; #179), but at the same time had two games tie the record for fewest rounds (#176; #182), saw several periods of long waits between games, and had several games (unrecorded) that never started or never finished. There were also several large controversies over cheaters, trolls, etc.''

† Invitational game played over PM convo

Series Ten
''After the final game struggled to even get started, there was an extended break over the holiday season, until games started up in the new year. Activity levels dipped, aside from a brief peak mid-series, but a dedicated core continued to play on.''

Series Eleven
''For about a year and a half CDC Mafia struggled to maintain momentum. S10 had petered out in autumn 2017, with a brief but failed attempt to reboot it in the winter. In summer 2018 there was a brief resurgence, but for the next year games were still few and far between. Perhaps, however, this was a blessing in disguise, allowing players to recharge their batteries, as the three largest games - by far - in CDC history were played during this period, as well as several other large and notable games. As of summer 2020, this pattern is still holding true - no large runs of games, but each one has something memorable about it.''

This season also saw the first Serial Killer victory (game 213) in four years, and an attempt by Ceres to introduce 'Werewolf' as a variant to 'Mafia'.