How many mafia games have you played with mod-provided cover roles where an investigator is told the cover role info and not the true info*?
*Excepting of course when they investigate someone with a role like godfather or miller that specifically fools investigators, but even then, they’re not really being told the cover role info.
First off, sorry for being late. I’d thought I’d posted a note that I’d be out for the Presidents Day holiday weekend, but apparently I missed this game.
I’m going to respond to posts as I read, since I’m less likely to forget to respond to something this way.
Next, I’m going to keep my power(s) secret for now. I do think it’s useful to reveal my clue since it’s about scum:
CLUE: One Scum player, a woman, has a power that targets protective roles. If her target is protected, the player doing the protecting will die.
This could very well be true. The tricky part is if this is a false clue, what part is false? Is it a total red herring? Or is one part of it wrong? I guess this a strong hint that a protector should really only target someone they’re willing to trade their life for.
This is an excellent tactic, but not very helpful since our clues can be false. We’d have to separate out lies given to players by the moderator from lies created by players to look like the moderator’s lies. That’s going to be tough.
Any good mafia game designer puts in mechanism or elements that prevent a mass-claim from unbalancing the game. That doesn’t mean we should not do a mass reveal, just that we shouldn’t expect to win simply because we did a mass reveal.
Since town generally needs information, lacks it, and gains it by trading numbers, a mass reveal that results in a few mislynches or kills isn’t really much of a disincentive. The problem in my view is that a mass reveal may speed up the game too much by moving the game-state closer to mid-game when we’re still fumbling around in the early game.
Better to do a mass reveal in mid-game when we have enough information to judge the quality of the additional info we’d receive. That does make it easier for scum to adjust their claims, but it’s a tradeoff.
I generally agree with your post, but I wanted to comment on this part. Unfortunately it works both ways. Townies get trapped by the lynch as well. We need to allow for players to try to avoid the lynch, if only to move the pressure around. I’d rather see three players be under lynch pressure and pick the one I think is most scummy than have one player take all the heat and die without fuss.
Multivoting is very pro-town, if the players use it well. Ideally, each player votes for every player they think is suspicious enough to be lynched. And does not vote for players they think are not suspicious enough to be lynched. If all players do this, the lynch will tend to be players that arouse some suspicion from many, rather than a player has strong suspicion from a few.
Think about that. Players often have conflicting playstyles or philosophies or mannerisms, etc that trigger responses from certain other players. This typically leads loud arguments that aren’t really related to alignment. In a single-vote game, these personality conflicts often dominate the voting, which leads to a couple players strongly advocating another’s lynch and some others following along who don’t have strong opinions (someone has to be lynched, right?). That is a recipe for mislynch.
In a multivote game, a player who is only mildly suspicious can still get votes. Scum might be able to avoid the loud conflicts, but it’s really hard to avoid all suspicion. As a group, we’re fairly good at picking out suspicious behavior, especially when we’re not personally involved.
Multivoting multiplies the voting power of that group skill much better than single voting. Instead of having (for example) 9 town votes vs 3 scum votes, we’ll have 27 town votes vs 9 scum votes. It’s much harder for scum to overcome an 18 vote differential than a 6 vote differential without being obvious about it.
And the other advantage of multivoting is that players must account for who they are not voting for. In a single-vote game, a player can always explain their lack of a vote by “I thought X was more suspicious”. Can’t do that here. When we lynch scum, every player who did not vote for the scum needs to account for why they didn’t.
My theorizing matches that. I even had a game the required players to have a number of votes equal to the number of scum (mod-disclosed that number each Day). While the theory is correct, most players don’t have the time or skill to come up with N good votes. But a free-form system like this works well. Players vote for who they think is suspicious enough to lynch, and have to be ready to explain their lack of a vote on scum as well.
Bah, that is putting an unfair burden on your algorithm. No one expects a human player to be able to reliably detect scum vs town. Especially skilled scum vs skilled town. An algorithmic scum hunter is one tool that can be used; never the only tool. I’d certainly love to see its results.
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Phew, that takes me to the bottom of page 2. I’ll post this now and have to come back later.
I find it highly unlikely that I was given a clue about a person who does not exist in this game, and even less likely that I am scum.
If you are trying to convince me that I’m scum, you’re wasting your time. I know it goes without saying that you have that in abundance, but there are more productive uses for you.
Feels familiar.
Having two sets of matching clues thus far suggests to me that the chance of a scum and town player sharing a clue increased dramatically. There’s no way ONLY town got matching clues.
Why not?
The fact that there are matching clues at all suggests the game host is thinking outside of the box.
Why are you putting Storyteller back in the box by insisting it can only be the case that a scumbag has an identical clue to a townie?
Further, why wouldn’t a scumbag alter his or her clue to make certain it isn’t a duplicate, especially if they apparently get a bunch of sample clues to compare things to (with their teammate’s actual clues, and potentially, cover role clues as well).
All you’d have to do is alter a few words or invent something out of whole cloth (not difficult).
I think if you’re using this as a scum-detection method, it’s a poor one, and if it is at all effective, particularly given the points I just mentioned, it would really only be confined to the pair of players with identical clues revealed so far. In all other cases, it would be a complete wash.
I’m not dogmatic on this point, but I simply am not following why it must be a certain way.
This is not at all dissimilar to how I was asked why I won’t vote for Langdale pike, people at least pointed out there’s still a chance he could be starting scum even if he’s not Moriarty. What’s your reasoning? Or is it just gut?
that’s a dangerous assertion. if i am lynched, would you then lynch Scáthach when i flip town? if she and i were both town that would be great for scum.
** vote Astral Rejection **
what do you people think of the possibility that not only do scum have correct clues but also all the correct clues?
I recall seeing several players pointing out that there is a limit imposed by the game host through the game rules as to an absolute maximum amount of fake clues. Somewhere between 0 and 50 percent of the clues are fake, but no more than that.
Unless the game is half scumbags, in which case they’ve already won the game, it’s not possible for this to be true.
I don’t think scum have the only correct clues because I know I am town and my clue is correct. I do agree though that Town most likely have matching clues, I think it would be game breaking if Town and Scum were paired off with the same clues.
Because otherwise the clues are a masonry, and we’ve just cleared four townies. You wrote a lot of words to say “nuh uh!”
With two pairs each of matched clues, I believe it’s likely at least one player with a matched clue is scum. I don’t understand anything else you’re implying.
Nice straw man. I’m not currently voting for anyone on the basis of their clue, so your argument really kind of breaks down there. We also haven’t seen all the clues, so it’s possible that we have yet more matched clues.
We’ve got a real bad case here for voting for me because you dislike my line of reasoning, not because you can demonstrate it’s scummy.
Sorry, I missed how this was established. How do you know your clue is correct?
Pizza, I think gnarly means that the Scum might know everybody else’s clues in addition to their own. While that would fit with the flavor of Moriarty sending out all the invitations, I don’t think it would make much sense as a game mechanic, since it would give them too much information.
And obviously, I’m not trying to convince you concerning your own alignment. But this isn’t a private discussion, and anyone else in the game can also read what I’m writing, and draw their own conclusions about it. You’re encouraging the Town to make dangerous assumptions, and whether you’re doing it deliberately or not, Town needs to be warned of the potential danger.
On another note, welcome, Pleonast, but I trust you understand that your uncharacteristic reluctance to claim, especially when we’ve already had a claim to our presumed primary power role, doesn’t do anything to make you look less suspect.
Because my clue says that some players may have duplicate clues.
On to page 3…
Huh? Votes don’t need to be random. No one is suggesting we not vote at all.
There’s 22 players. If there’s 6 scum, that gives us (22-6 - 6) / 2 - 0.5 = 4.5 mislynches (that is, the 5th mislynch loses the game). That’s a very hard and would mean we have a lot of power roles to balance out that many scum.
If there’s 5 scum, that gives us (22-5 - 5) / 2 - 0.5 = 5.5 mislynches (the 6th loses). I’d call that the “standard” number, where we have to get half the lynches right.
If there’s 4 scum, we’d get 6.5 mislynches. That’d mean we have fewer power roles, but more numbers to make up for it.
You’re entitled to your suspicions, but keep in mind that lynching players who are doing things that help town while giving passes to those who are doing things that do not, leads to games where both town and scum do things to hurt town. I’d rather try to make scum feel like they have to do pro-town things, so that everyone is taking pro-town actions.
Note that I’m not saying you are advocating lynch pro-town players or giving passes to anti-town players. I want to point out that your statement could lead to that situation and I’d like to discourage it.
Hmm, “scum will vote for townies for no reason”? You have already voted for a player for no reason.
vote Askthepizzaguy for doing what they say scum do.
You need to rethink how you do your analysis, then.
The purpose of vote analysis (by human or algorithm) is to distinguish scum from town. Townies vote in a certain way: they are trying to vote for scum. If scum deviate from that in any way, it’s theoretically possible to discern it. Voting random is certainly a deviation from pro-town voting, because townies don’t vote randomly.
You’ve hit a false dilemma. Analysis does not have to be perfect to be useful.
And even if a player is voting another because they post a certain way, the reason they claim they voted is important. Ultimately, the difference between town and scum is motivation, and sussing that out involves not only what they do, but what they say, and especially if there’s not perfect alignment between what they say and do.
But we do have something: we have the posts of the players. That is not a lot to base a vote on, but it is something. Something more than nothing.
I don’t have anything against random votes, because they jumpstart the process. But you really overstretch their usefulness when you claim that random votes are all we have.
Yes, the moderator has said revealing clues could be bad for the team you’re on. That goes both ways: scum could be hurt just as much as town. Why don’t you care about that?
Mahaloth has a higher tolerance for risk than you do. As a player often willing to take high risks, I don’t appreciate it when players get voted for simply being willing to take a risk.
I should note that scum are often much more averse to taking risks than town. After all, scum have a smaller margin to work within, while losing a single townie has low impact to town. If we’re going to be voting players for different risk tolerance, we’ll find more scum in the low-risk group than the high-risk group.
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And that’s it for page 3.
Oh, and for any of our latecomers trying to catch up, here are my notes so far, where I’ve tried to capture all votes and unvotes, all claims, and (subjectively) the starts of all the major discussions:
Clues:
Chronos: James Moriarty, the Scum leader, can lose his Godfather status under some conditions.
Idle Thoughts: <benefits Scum more than Town>
Johnny Bravo: <potential mislynch if false>
Astral Rejection: <best sat on>
Captain Klutz: <Useful if true, dangerous if false>
Dizzymrslizy: Scum players have all been given complete, detailed false identities, including clues.
septimus: One Scum player, a woman, has a power that targets protective roles. If her target is protected, the player doing the protecting will die. <something Scum probably already knows>
Silver Jan: there may be more than one player with the same clue. <might come in handy later on> <looks accurate>
Darth Sensitive: <only relevant if there’s a name claim>
gnarlycharlie: All ties are resolved via random.org.
Askthepizzaguy: A man named Langdale Pike is in possession of false information that should be ignored.
Scathach: All ties are resolved via random.org.
Lightfoot: <irrelevant until names are claimed>
Rules
Clarification of rules
Sample PM
First PM confirmation (by Diggit)
Day 1:
Start of Day 1
Inner Stickler doesn’t get point of clues
Pizza proposes sitting on clues until just before lynch
Pizza votes Darth for improper Sith name
Chronos reveals clue; advocates for multivoting; objects to random votes; does not plan to use vote-analysis program
Idle Thoughts claims Estelle Anderson, vanilla; thinks his clue would benefit Scum
Johnny Bravo’s clue might lead to mislynch if false
Astral Rejection has a clue that’s best sat on, opposes mass claim
Darth votes, unvotes Pizza to defend his honor
Chronos votes Mahaloth for pushing for clue-claim without providing his
Captain Klutz’s clue is useful if true, but dangerous if false
Johnny Bravo points out that Townie clues might be less than 50% reliable
Captain Klutz points out possibility of recruitment to Scum
Pizza unvotes and revotes Darth for lack of engagement
Dizzy posts her clue
TexCat thinks Scum might have info on what roles have what clues
Scum probably already know septimus’ clue
Silver Jan’s clue could come in handy later
sinjin votes Mahaloth for urging something the mod warned against; votes pizza for spam on random voting
pizza votes sinjin, OMGUS
sinjin calls out Astral for defending Mahaloth
Dizzy attempts to vote for Sinjin for being aggressive
wevets examines all players; votes Inner Stickler for being noncommittal; votes Chronos for being townier-than-thou; votes Idle for unforced claim; votes Astral Rejection for stacking the deck; doesn’t think the clues warrant too much worry
gnarly catching up; posts clue
septimus thinks cover-identities clue might be false; reveals clue; half-kiddingly votes Idle for being only revealed female
Johnny Bravo votes Idle for revealing without copy/paste, prediction that Scum will vote for him
Astral votes Silver Jan for post in general
Idle posts full role
Pizza feels good about Inner Stickler for being engaged; sees DaphneBlack as trying to sound engaged, not being more wary; thinks Mahaloth feels natural; doesn’t know about Chronos; thinks Idle’s vanilla claim scores him Townie points; finds Astral organic; thinks Daphne is quick to hand out Townie card; thinks Chronos’ vote does nothing to find Scum; finds TexCat natural but wants more from her; thinks DaphneBlack is lying about not knowing who Estelle Anderson is; neutral on Captain Klutz; unsure how to read Johnny Bravo
Pizza thinks metaclues likely false; reveals own clue; thinks Silver Jan is playing safe; doesn’t subscribe to what sinjin said; thinks wevets is independent of Daphne; thinks wevets and Idle both feel townie; finds Astral worthy of following
Pizza votes Silver Jan and DaphneBlack for above reasons; unvotes Darth to not spread too thin
Pizza would never vote for Langdale Pike
Idle says his having a helpful-to-Scum clue is evidence of innocence
Daphne votes Septimus, didn’t like his vote; votes Silver Jan for avoiding responsibility
Astral votes Daphne for Pizza’s reasons, third vote
Inner Stickler votes DaphneBlack for reaction to Idle’s claim
Daphne votes Astral for seizing on third vote
Diggit thinks sinjin’s attack on Mahaloth looks townie
Diggit votes Daphne for protesting too much
Chronos votes Pizza for illogical attack on Daphne; votes Astral for agreeing with Pizza
Captain Klutz votes Silver Jan for suspecting Pizza but thinking he’s just being Pizza
Pizza gives Chronos +1 scum point for vote post
septimus unvotes Idle, votes Daphne for Pizza’s case; pinged slightly by Chronos
Vote count
Johnny Bravo unvotes Idle, needs to reread cases on leaders
TexCat votes septimus for wishy-washy remarks
TexCat votes Gnarly for risking helping Scum with clue while not helping Town
Scathach apologizes for low participation
Scathach’s clue refers to lynch ties, but he suspects it’s false
Scathach’s clue is the same as Gnarly’s
Dizzy fixes vote for Sinjin
Silver Jan’s clue looks to be accurate, Scum might take advantage of it
Astral calls shenanigans on Scathach and gnarly having identical clues
TexCat votes Scathach, thinks duplicate clue might be from a Scum cover
Scathach votes TexCat for inconsistency in her voting
Johnny Bravo posts read-through; votes Daphne Black for trying to save herself; votes Diggit for low and uncommented participation
Daphne claims Sherlock Holmes
Silver Jan’s clue is that players might share clues
Darth votes gnarly and scathach over duplicate clues
Idle votes Septimus for S’s reasoning on first vote for Idle
Astral unvotes Daphne for claim
Daphne votes Diggit for bandwagonning
Silver Jan votes Dizzy for not doing much besides goading Pizza
septimus unvotes Daphne for claim; votes TexCat for aggressiveness; votes Idle for flailing in response to original vote
Lightfoot checks in
Johnny Bravo unvotes Daphne for claim, but speculates that there is no genuine Sherlock
TexCat votes Silver Jan for “Scum wouldn’t do that”
Silver Jan votes TexCat for voting for both leaders, strange vote on Jan
Daphne unvotes Silver Jan for being less waffly
TexCat reminds that Scum have dual clues
Silver Jan questions dual clues
Rysto votes Astral for voting based on a bandwagon he’s on
Dizzy votes TexCat for slip
Johnny Bravo thinks the flavor text would add credibility to a claim
Diggit unvotes Daphne for claim; speculates Holmes might have a cover story
Daphne thinks flavor text would prove nothing, given likelihood of Scum covers
Septimus claims vanilla
gnarly votes TexCat and Darth for not caring between him and Scathach
Vote count
Inner Stickler unvotes Daphne; votes Pizza for calling out unusual Day setup then forgetting about it
Rysto is interested in where Astral is placing his votes
TexCat unvotes Gnarly, Scathach, Silver Jan to focus on Septimus; finds Septimus downplaying danger of Scum, bandwagonning, smudging, disliking aggressive play
Silver Jan unvotes TexCat, mistakenly thought she’d caught a slip
Chronos votes Captain Klutz, Pleonast for low participation
Chronos questions Silver Jan’s response to TexCat
Lightfoot votes Pleo for nonparticipation; sys her clue is irrelevant until names are claimed; votes Johnny Bravo for tone, his concern over his clue
Darth unvotes Scathach due to shifting analysis of probabilities
Captain Klutz points out his vote
Chronos unvotes Captain Klutz
Mahaloth votes Pleo for laying low
Lightfoot sees Town motivation concerning duplicate clues
Astral Rejection’s character is female
Pizza votes Diggit, “Lead on, Holmes”
septimus suspects that one of TexCat and Dizzy are scum, votes Dizzy
Pleonast checks in, posts clue
Astral thinks one duplicate clue is Scum
gnarly votes Astral for dangerous assertion; proposes that Scum might have all the correct clues
I am concerned that with relatively little time left, the votes are spread pretty thin. We need to start moving toward a consensus.
I am not sure what is to be done about this. Of my three votes, I’m inclining more toward Diggit as time goes on, pretty much on the basis that Astral and septimus are contributing more to the game. Diggit is classic lurker right now.
Would it be possible to get a recap of the case on Diggit?
I’ll look into unspreading my vote later tonight. I’m just a little busy at work for now.
One-offs don’t really help town overly much when the vote is close, since that gives scum undue power over who dies.
My case on Diggit: low participation, jumps in with a bandwagonny vote on me, abusing Shakespearean quotation,* continued lurking without much engagement with general trends of the day. Classic under-the-radar Day One behavior.
*This is a joke.