# Mafia: Baker Street \[Game in progress\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 7, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752 "2014-02-07T14:39:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/141 "2014-02-13T18:08:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You contradict yourself. If Scum will vote for Townies for no reason at all, then the one who kills a guy for no reason is likely to be Scum voting for Town. > > But in practice, we don’t see much of that around here. Around here, if someone votes for someone else for no reason, it’s usually just evidence that the person doing the voting is **Askthepizzaguy** : Most of us won’t vote for anyone without a reason, regardless of our alignment. > > Also, vote analysis is a tool, yes, but it should not be overestimated. You’ve never seen my vote-analysis program in action, but I say in all seriousness that I believe it to be the most accurate analysis possible, given the data of who voted and unvoted for whom on which days. And the skilled players around here can still fool it. Just analyzing who votes for whom isn’t enough: You also need to analyze their reasons for it (something a computer can’t do). And to do that, there need to be reasons. Your vote analysis tool is a complicated way of guessing that scum will behave the same way every game, and can be fooled by simply voting randomly. Your tool is invariably based on the assumption that scums will vote in X way. When townies vote that way, which they will, since they aren’t trying to avoid the assumptions made by your tool, and scums vote Y way, your tool has become obsolete and counterproductive. I know because I made several vote analysis tools, and worked with someone else who was a computer programmer who had also made his own vote analysis tool, and it works until the scums recognize your tells and/or simply do random things. Random, that is actually random, cannot be analyzed by any tool. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/142 "2014-02-13T18:14:06Z")
Further, overthinking day one reasons for voting when the votes are random, is also an attempt to analyze or give reasons for essentially random behavior. Simply making up a justification for voting someone. Post facto justifications are just that, attached reasons which didn’t affect the decision to begin with. The decision was made, and then reasons were attached, is still a random vote. ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/143 "2014-02-13T18:26:16Z")
Seemingly random votes are only as good as the reactions to them. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/144 "2014-02-13T18:31:28Z")
There’s another weakness with vote analysis tools. I’ve posted a lot today. Some players have a preference which makes them much more likely to vote for high-posters. That is their justification, but they’ll then attach a reason, pick on some flaw in the talker’s posts, to give a reason to vote for the talker. Now, the talker is going to be a talker, more or less, every game. So the success of their voting strategy is wholly dependent on the idea that this player got randed a scum role. And since this player has the same chances as everyone else, this vote which has a meta-reasoning for it and a post facto justification, is also… tada… a random vote. Or at least, a vote with no more than a random chance of being correct. The same applies to players who vote for people who don’t post much. It is a chosen justification for voting which is, ultimately, just as random as any other kind of random voting. Any assumptions made by your analysis tool which include a behavior that is common to a particular player will also give false positives more times than not, simply because that player has a higher chance of being town than scum. When the ultimate outcome is that you have not improved your odds of being right, the tool is also, nothing more than a post facto justification for random votes. Since that’s what we’re going to end up doing one way or the other, at least until there’s a voting record, I suggest we not quibble so hard over random voting. Embrace the chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/145 "2014-02-13T19:05:32Z")
…I’m not really sure where you’re going with that argument, **pizza**. Yes, random voting will defeat any attempt at vote analysis, whether done via computer, or by humans. Scum want to defeat vote analyses, and so there’s a reason for a Scum to vote randomly. But why would a Townie ever want to vote randomly? Townies don’t want to defeat vote analyses; Townies want to _help_ the analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Jan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Silver\_Jan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Jan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/146 "2014-02-13T19:07:46Z")
I personally don’t like “random” votes but voting on D1 with little reasoning behind it seems fair enough, usually there is a bit more to go on as the Day progresses (and it’s usually wrong) I think that if players want to reveal their clues it is up to them but in my case I would like to keep it confidential for now because it might come in handy later on. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/147 "2014-02-13T19:16:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …I’m not really sure where you’re going with that argument, **pizza**. Yes, random voting will defeat any attempt at vote analysis, whether done via computer, or by humans. Scum want to defeat vote analyses, and so there’s a reason for a Scum to vote randomly. But why would a Townie ever want to vote randomly? Townies don’t want to defeat vote analyses; Townies want to _help_ the analysis. What tools does town have to not vote randomly right now? 1. No one has died and flipped town or scum 2. There’s no vote record, save for Askthepizzaguy. You’re welcome. 3. There hasn’t even been a detective result yet. 4. Some players haven’t even shown up to the party. You can’t analyze something that isn’t there. Attempts at analysis come later. The trouble will come when random votes won’t work anymore and the reasons have to be based off of real reasons. Saying this guy doesn’t behave the same way as the others is the best thing you could possibly come up with for day one and it’s still going to be nearly as reliable a reason to vote as a random number generator this early. Later, reasons will have depth to them. We can’t get to later until we get past the now. And if there’s votes placed on scumbags now, that places pressure on the scum team, even though we don’t know exactly what we’re doing. I don’t need to know if I’m right, I don’t need to have justifiable reasons to vote for Darth Sensitive. If he happened to be scum, and someone else voted him today, I just made his whole opening miserable. And I’m delighted to be a part of that. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/148 "2014-02-13T19:18:10Z")
Pizza: Happily giving the bird to scumbags and saying come an’ get me since 2008. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/149 "2014-02-13T19:23:28Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Potentially false clues could be lost to us forever, yes. > > Remember that this game can be solved simply by lynching the correct persons and in many setups there are no clues and no detectives and town still wins basically half the time. Town over-reliance on gimmicks is one of the reasons why scumbags who are suspected of being guilty avoid being lynched- there’s usually some excuse. Oh, I can prove I wasn’t at X that night, I have a decent alibi, whatever. > > In a typical vanilla game they have no such bogus alibis and they die when the majority suspects them. > > There’s no defense to a group of people lynching you for the hell of it. But in many games town is destroyed because they place their faith in the power of their role abilities to save them or help them deduce things, and this causes town to be more predictable- the scum team can anticipate who is about to be lynched and therefore, their voting record becomes harder to analyze because they can smell the way the wind is blowing, and then their night actions also become more accurate because town’s movements are usually straightforward. > > If the scums don’t know who is about to be lynched and cannot talk their way out of it, there’s no defense, no alibi, and no bamboozle. Yes, in overly powered games town does seem to rely on power roles to a ridiculous extent. What does that have to do with the scums ability to “smell the way the wind is blowing?” And why would scums not “know who is about to be lynched” in a mostly vanilla game vs a powered game? This makes no sense to me. > [@Mahaloth](#): > > Does anyone have a clue that would be bad to post? I’m favoring posting all of our clues based on mine. Several folks have brought up the fact that \*\*STORYTELLER \*\*himself said that posting your clue might be damaging to your team. If your clue cannot damage town then post it. > [@Mahaloth](#): > > Call me cray, but I’m tempted to just push that we go ahead and state all of our clues. It might not be the safest move, but I’m up for a bold move. And here you go again. Urging town to do something that the \*\*MOD \*\*has said could be a bad idea and you don’t care. **Vote Mahaloth**. I don’t subscribe to the “scums wouldn’t do that” line of thought. > [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > It’s been about 9 hours since we started play. The following players appear to be discussing things as a group: > The following have posted once and left > > **TexCat** - who asked a question to DaphneBlack > **wevets** - who spoke to IS and had an opinion on game strategy > **Darth Sensitive** - who only responded to my vote and waffled about his own clue > > Pizza says a first caught scumbag is you. > > **Unvote Darth Sensitive** > > aaaaaand > > **Vote Darth Sensitive** [COLOR] This is ridiculous. Voting someone because they only posted once in the first 9 hours of the game. Some of us have real lives. I didn’t even know the game started til this am, when I started reading. And it’s false that he waffled on his own clue. He clearly stated it would not help unless we did a name claim. > [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Dizzy, my point is that the game doesn’t really begin until we start having a voting record. > > If we all abstain from random voting, it will be day two and we’ll have one dead townie to show for it. > > Then, we have day two to random vote. It’s going to be random until we have an actual reason to vote for someone, which will largely be based on who voted for whom later on, when and why. > > I’m willing to be on record as supporting candidate X for death, because, and now. Why all the talk and defense of random voting. You have made multiple posts about random voting, which is meaningless in this game, as you are the only person who has posted a random, obviously joking vote. **[COLOR=“Blue”]vote Pizza** For, not for his random vote on **Darth** , but for his ridiculous vote on \*\*Darth \*\*and for spamming the thread with posts on random voting. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/150 "2014-02-13T19:24:24Z")
I see Chronos has also voted, looking back. Woo hoo, two votes on record. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/151 "2014-02-13T19:26:43Z")
**Vote Sinjin** Welcome to the game, your opening vote sucks and so do you! ----\> (meaning, OMGUS) ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Jan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Silver\_Jan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Jan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/152 "2014-02-13T19:32:10Z")
I see\*\* Sinjin\*\* has it right, it’s an early D1 vote but it has a reason behind it. I have already started thinking about why **Pizza** has posted so much about random votes, is it to have a high post count so that he looks involved while pretty much saying nothing because he is scum. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/153 "2014-02-13T19:32:55Z")
> [@Silver\_Jan](#): > > I see\*\* Sinjin\*\* has it right, it’s an early D1 vote but it has a reason behind it. I have already started thinking about why **Pizza** has posted so much about random votes, is it to have a high post count so that he looks involved while pretty much saying nothing because he is scum. If you vote me, you’ll get to see that theory disproved within the span of this first Day. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/154 "2014-02-13T19:34:45Z")
The reason I posted so much about random votes is the inordinately high number of people who have posited the opinion that random voting is bad, and since I do it routinely on day one (as do the rest of you, just in denial about it) I felt the need to demolish those biases. I am certainly willing to pay the price for that in votes. Just like the last game on here, where I stated my opinions and they got me votes and they were also incorrect. Bring it on, it makes me giggle when I get mislynched. It makes those games where I am scum and survive the entire time ever more glorious. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/155 "2014-02-13T19:36:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I doubt if Storyteller is sadistic enough to use pro-Scum meta-clues like that. The post almost pings me. \*\*Storyyteller \*\*was sadistic enough to do something similar in the “Blade Runner” game. He gave clues to each of the masons about the scum team and the PFK team which eventually led to the demise of the PFKs who ignored his advice about leaking information. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Jan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Silver\_Jan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Jan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/156 "2014-02-13T19:39:57Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > If you vote me, you’ll get to see that theory disproved within the span of this first Day. > > 😃 I’m not ready to vote for you because I think you are just being Pizza. You even said that would happen once the voting gets started. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/157 "2014-02-13T19:50:01Z")
> [@Silver\_Jan](#): > > I’m not ready to vote for you because I think you are just being Pizza. You even said that would happen once the voting gets started. How I behave is often directly related to the thread. If there’s a lack of voting or direction, I almost invariably pick a direction and a vote and encourage others to follow me off on some random direction. If we’re talking game theory I’ll jump right in and offer my not subtle opinions on it, at length, particularly if the discussion is not just between me and one other person, but several people with differing opinions to my own. Now, if things start picking up, and others get their feet wet and take a chance and ask for someone to follow them in a given direction, or the discussion moves to who is scummy and who is not, and there is more than one topic being discussed, you’ll see me move more into normal player mode. I’m sort of like a gas. Full of hot air, stinky… no, I mean, I expand to fill empty spaces. It’s been fairly empty so far, with the exception of some posters discussing the clues and game theory. So I’m all over the place. I’ve also had many hours of free time which is about to end, for I have four 10-hour plus shifts in a row for the next 4 days. Less pizza-gas is coming soon to a theater near you. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/158 "2014-02-13T21:05:33Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > And here you go again. Urging town to do something that the \*\*MOD \*\*has said could be a bad idea and you don’t care. I said I was tempted, not that we should definitely do it. I didn’t realize the mod said it could be a bad idea, where did he say that? Anyway, I don’t think I have a pattern of doing something the mod tells us is a bad idea and then not caring. Do I? Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/159 "2014-02-13T21:09:22Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I said I was tempted, not that we should definitely do it. I didn’t realize the mod said it could be a bad idea, where did he say that? Post #55, when he restated the rules without flavor. "I will state for the record that I have by various means attempted to ensure that public reveal of certain clues or other information may not always benefit the side of the player given the clue. " ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752/160 "2014-02-13T23:03:12Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Post #55, when he restated the rules without flavor. > > "I will state for the record that I have by various means attempted to ensure that public reveal of certain clues or other information may not always benefit the side of the player given the clue. " Thanks, I did not see that. Proceed to vote me for skimming, though I swear I haven’t been. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-baker-street-game-in-progress/680752.md?page=9)