I hadn’t properly noted that if we reject this team, we’ll still be picking a three-person team in the next round. That makes a bit of a difference to my thinking.
I agree that we’ll get our info from votes and debate. But as we don’t get to read body language, votes are more useful than reading nuances into text. However, votes won’t mean anything until we have a mission result to give them context. (E.g HookerChemical’s disapproval of this team will be looked at quite differently in the event of a failed mission as opposed to a successful one.)
It also strikes me that as we need three successful missions, and the spies are unlikely to fail this one, we should get on with this one and force them to play catch-up in subsequent rounds - thus more likely to expose themselves.
I disagree with this, but won’t explain why until after the first mission succeeds or fails. It gives the spies too much strategy.
Look at it this way. We’re pulling three names out of a hat no matter what on this mission. By rejecting three teams, we gain an extra three votes of information, in addition to the mission results.
Election day has passed, but you can still vote no on JBravo’s team.
I don’t understand your reasoning here. If we agree with your premise that rejecting the first three teams is the right strategy, then what information do we get from the voting?
I’m inclined to accept this team, because I’m on it. Any future team that does not include me has a marginally higher chance of including a spy than this one does. I am operating on personal information, sure, that I have no way of transmitting… but I can’t pretend I don’t have that information when deciding my own vote.
I am willing to reconsider approving the team if somebody can give me a reason why that would make sense from my perspective - I’m new to the game and not at all clear on the strategy - but so far I don’t see what information would accrue from everyone just agreeing to reject the first three teams.
This is fine, though completely random would have worked just as well. I think it is wise to accept this team because:
I know it has at least my vote to succeed.
I think spies are unlikely to reject this mission as it is the first one. If I’m wrong, at least I’ll know who the spies are.
I know you all can’t know I’m on the side of good, but I do and we should proceed with this plan even if you, for some reason, suspect some of us on the team.
I think some of you guys are still thinking in terms of a Mafia game. In Mafia, there are more total rounds and you also get useful data at the end of every one. Every time a player is lynched, his or her alignment is revealed. Every time an alignment is revealed, everything that person said or did can be mined and examined.
In this game, it’s fairly rare that you’re ever 100% certain of any player’s alignment. If you are, it’s because they’ve somehow managed to out themselves (think about how often that happens in Mafia) or because a very unlikely series of events has happened (every member of a mission is a spy, every member of that mission votes “fail”).
Otherwise, we’re never going to be completely sure. The “long game” is a lot different here than in Mafia, and taking actions that might pay off in a Mafia game once a lynch has confirmed an alignment isn’t going to have the same weight. And, for my part at least, the reasoning behind those actions won’t be as convincing.
I’m not saying data gathering is useless in this game, mind. Just bear in mind that we’re unlikely to ever be able to get a true read of anybody’s alignment.
I haven’t played much Mafia, but I agree with this assessment. 100% certainty is hard to come by, which is why all data is important. Which is why I’m stressing the need to watch more votes. Accepting too many teams is a common error for new groups. In new groups, the spies have a very high win rate because of this, in my experience.
With 6 spies and a new group to the game, the Resistance is already at a severe disadvantage. Given random picks, if you’re not in the team (and Resistance), there’s only a 12% chance the team is safe. If you’re on the team (and Resistance), that chance more than doubles, so I see why you’d vote for it.
I’m calling it right now - Hooker is a spy. The only reason I can think of for making this mistake is because Hooker has been thinking, “there are six players who aren’t on my team.”
A spy would know how many bad guys there are as he would have a PM with the full list. Either HookerChemical is a resistance and misread MentalGuys in-thread comment or he is a spy deliberately “making a mistake” as a gambit. I’m going to lean towards the latter, and am putting HookerChemical on heightened suspicion.
MentalGuy’s OP explained the process of determining the number of spies quite succinctly:
His later clarification made it explicit:
[Also the rulebook for the game itself makes it quite clear, but I assume not everyone has access to it.]
Saying that there are six spies is such an odd mistake to make, unless you had an “us” vs. “them” mentality where “us” = 4 and “them” = 6. In other words, I’m going along with Johnny Bravo’s suspicion about HookerChemical.
Usually, mix-ups are just mix-ups. I’ve seen a lot of Mafia players lynched because they misspoke or got confused.
I get the odds of a spy-free three-person team to be 17% (6/105/94/8 = 1/6). But for any Resistance member who’s not in the team, those numbers are (5/94/83/7) which is the 12% HookerChemical gave. (If you’re on the team, then it’s only (5/9*4/8) which is a magnificent 28%.)
I do get where HookerChemical is coming from, but the problem is that there has to be debate in each round. If we all signed up to go through three rounds of voting before accepting, then we’d just have three rounds of unanimous “Reject” votes. And this would tell us nothing. Even if we assume that in each round the people on the team vote “Accept” and everyone else Rejects, then we still haven’t learned anything.
I’m all for debate and further voting rounds if it generates info - but that means there has to be actual debate. I mean, it’d be nice if the Spies lined up to be the only people who voted for teams they weren’t in - but they might not.
Hooker - if we reject this, and you’re nominated for the next team, how will you vote?
I’d be really interested to hear from anyone else who thinks it might be a good idea to Reject. I think that, as formulated, we don’t get useful information. We would if there were genuine debate but I don’t see what the two sides of the debate are meant to be. Especially now that its been made clear to the Spies what we’d be watching for.
Here’s the reasoning behind rejecting the second and possibly the third, even if I’m on the team. I’ve broken down the numbers. In a 7 player game, if you’re on the mission, the chance of it being clean are 50/50. If you’re not, the chance is 20%. That’s a huge difference. That’s the size I’m used to playing with tabletop. In a larger game, it’s much worse, as shown above. Sure, the chance of a clean team has doubled, but it still sucks. We need more votes.
One of the issues is that information is essentially equal right now. Spies should be thinking “how should I look like Resistance? By rejecting.” Thus, they would fit right in while sending a false signal that they’re Resistance. Given an inexperienced group and no established meta, the signal will be difficult to interpret, but I’m still against the team and would be against at least the next one on this mission as well.