Mafia - Game in progress [Edited title]

[fubbleskag]

fuck, I only have a few minutes left - apologies in advance for typos/etc. my thoughts after a first read through, in no particular order:

I’m inclined against Pizza’s plan; initially simply because it seems like his normal “hey everyone, look at me” nonsense (no offense), but also because it seems overly complicated for it’s even remotely potential upside, which I honestly think we would never see in this particular player base. having said that, it has certainly spawned some refreshingly new D1 discussion - so, thanks? even if it turns out that I’m misunderstanding or underrating his plan, I can’t be bothered to follow along - I have enough trouble keeping up to these games as it is, I certainly don’t need yet another dataset to try and keep straight.

everyone keeps saying that Pleo does a D1 claim as a rule; I’m pretty sure I’ve played with him at least more than one other time and this pattern wasn’t on my radar, so I can’t be sure that his ‘out of character’ move has any meaning or not. however, assuming for the moment that it is out of character, my only question would be whether there is a scum power role that desperately needs to survive D1 for some reason?

USC being sick is a scum tell, and your passing shot at Chucara without a vote bothers me. (all kidding aside, good luck and feel better, etc).

I’m perfectly okay with people laying out as many votes throughout the Day as they want in order to put their suspicions on the record, but I think there should be some reasonable expectation to whittle this down at some point to make it clear the distinction between your suspicions and your lynch preference.

in the case of Ender v. Red, I’m honestly getting legit pro-town motivation vibes from both of you; can’t we all just get along?

@LightFoot

Prior bad acts should not carry any weight- at all- ever- play this game not the last one

qft

@GuiriEnEspana

@ Johnny, are there any people in particular we’re waiting to hear from? ValSalva, **Meeko **and **fubbles **maybe? Lack of participation D1 is usually more an indication of life than alignment. **Meeko **mentioned having some issues. Is **ValSalva **even playing, I don’t think she’s confirmed yet. **Fubbleskag **is just lurking, probably scummily.

Choie, I’m sorry for being obsessed with you, this is now my third post in which I mention your name, it must suck being stalked and scum. If your style as scum is to sit back and twiddle your thumbs while others do all the legwork, keep it up.

two things bother me here; I’m trying to discount the first, but it’s difficult. 1) you pass off lack of participation on Day 1 as a non-tell, yet in the same breath accuse me of not only lurking, but doing so ‘scummily’. 2) your comments to/about choie. all very smudge-y…

and.. I’m out of time.

vote USCDiver
vote Chucara (‘pancakes’)
vote Guiri

[GuiriEnEspana]

Having a bad day, are we? Are you just bothered that you were called out or do you really think you see a contradiction in my post?

I voted choie, I think she’s scum, how’s that smudging?

Day ends sometime next week, there’s no rush, unless you plan to disappear until N1 now you’ve got a vote down…

[Stanislaus]

@USCDiver

[OOG]
So I’m scheduled to be admitted to the hospital a couple of times over the next 6 weeks for a stem cell transplant. I anticipate a bunch of time sitting around my house or in the hospital watching TV and surfing the internet while waiting for my bone marrow to start working properly. But there is a chance I could be Genuinely Sick and unable to participate. Hopefully I’ll be fine, but if it becomes apparent I won’t be able to continue, I may have to ask for a sub.
[/OOG]

Best wishes, Diver.

[Stanislaus]

@GuiriEnEspana

Well it pushed both A and B further into the lead over C, D, E and F. If I really am happy to see either of them lynched, that makes sense. If it then turns out that B or C was scum and A was Town, I’ll expect to have my motivation questioned. If B ends up being lynched due to a last minute vote switch, I’ll have less claim to town cred.

A & B’s increased lead is a fair point, but in fact most votes come down to a 2- or maybe 3-way contest in the end. (If it’s a 3-way contest, assume you’ve voted for all three.) So increasing a lead over stragglers doesn’t make much difference to the question of who gets lynched.

When it comes to questioning motivation when A is Town and B is scum, isn’t much easier for Scum when they’ve voted for both? “Yes, sadly, my vote for A was misguided. But see how I did vote for B? Why are you attacking me, when there were people who voted for A and not B?” Much, much easier than explaining why you helped Scum by stretching the Townie’s lead.

[GuiriEnEspana]

Sure, it’s easier for scum to vote both but that’s preferable for town too - the scumbag effectively nullifies their own vote and has no influence on whether their partner is saved or not. A single vote switch could invert the situation and condemn their scum-buddy but they’ve taken a stance on both candidates so must sit back in silence.

[Enderw24]

@Red_Skeezix

Then, let me clarify for you: In no where in my post did I ever say voting up to 8 times would net all scum and third parties, only one. Do you see the difference yet?

Actually yes. I do now.

So you’re advocating for a system where you guess 8 times into a pool of 27 people, hope to fish out one scum and call that system a success? I would call that a horrific failure, actually. Let’s assume 5 scum, therefore 22 non-scum, whatever the alignment may be. Maybe you’re thinking that guessing 1/3 of the players would net you at least one scum about 1/3 of the time.

Would you like to know the math on your proposal?

1 - (22/27 * 21/26 * 20/25 * 19/24 * 18/23 * 17/22 * 16/21 * 15/20) = 85.6% of the time you’ll find at least one scum in any random pool of 8 players.

If you throw in 3 3rd party people to the mix it gets even worse. Now it shoots up to 96.4% of the time you’ll hit at least one non-Town with your guessing.

Now before you say “great! We’ll find non Townies over 96% of the time with my method!” realize that you’ll ALSO find Townies with your method 99.999954956%
of the time. That’s not exaggerated. That’s the calculation.

Maybe you’re saying (in fact you did say above), that 8 votes during a day is going to provide a much deeper level of analysis for us later on. Ok, so ToDay I vote for 8 random people. On Day 5 you want to go back and look at my record from Day 1.
Here’s what you see:
I’ve hit 1 scum (which I’ll do 96.4% of the time)
I’ve hit 2 Townies (which I’ll do 99.99995% of the time)
And my 5 remaining people have yet to flip, thus making my accuracy undetermined.

What did this font of knowledge get you? The only thing it proves to me is that I can perform within expected statistical parameters given any 8 random guesses.

That’s not going to get you any closer to hunting scum or determining if I’m scum for the way I’ve been hunting scum. And it’s not how I wish to play Mafia.

[Babale]

Alright, I have about 40 minutes to respond to half of page 6, page 7, and page 8 :eek:. I sure hope this works!

First, good luck Diver. Come back to us as healthy as possible very, very soon!

Now, to the business at hand.

@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies

Voice your suspicions
Vote your suspicions
Poke holes in other people’s cases/ideas when compelled to do so
Digest feedback from other players and adjust your play when compelled to do so
Try not to fall behind and have attention to detail as much as possible

This is how I intend to play.

This +1. I understand the reasoning behind the Pizza Plan, but I still think it can do more harm than good. The way I see it, if we stop ourselves from adapting to the situation by making rules about when its OK to believe a claim rather than just calling it as we see it, the only people we are hurting are ourselves. We’re making our actions much more predictable to Scum, and we’re risking ignoring a true claim just for the principle. Are late claims less likely to be true? Sure, and I think we can all judge that for ourselves, rather than follow a rigid code. Even if the rigid code allows some flexibility, its still limiting in a way that I don’t like.

@orthohedron

I suspect those people who at this early stage in the game try to justify votes as anything other than arbitrary guesses on day one may be up to something. Therefore I vote wombat99. amidoinitrite

Wombat’s vote wasn’t something I’d hail as a stroke of genius, but you just voted for him because he gave a reason for voting? Not to mention that you gave a reason for your own vote. By that logic, I should vote for you as well?

@Chucara

Occasionally, knowing a players playing style helps me pick who is not playing like they normally do.

I don’t mind voting, but I see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to lead to towards anyone in particular.

In the interest of at least having a vote for now:

vote orthohedron

Because pancakes - that’s why

I really, really hate this vote. This is exactly why I don’t like Pizza’s plan. This vote did absolutely nothing. If Orthohedron is lynched and found to be Town, we learn nothing, because everyone who voted for him will say “I was just following The Plan! And pancakes!”. If he flips Scum, we still learn nothing about the people who voted for him (except that whoever started the vote is either Town, Third Party, or really bad at being Scum. And even that could be a ploy).

So I’m going to Vote Chucara because for some reason his joke vote has garnered enough support to make Orthohedron come too close to the block. Technically, Chucara wasn’t the first to vote for Orthohedron, but Pizza voted for Orthohedron following Chucara’s vote, not anyone else’s.

Note that other people have made votes that are just as stupid and empty, but I’m choosing to vote for only one of them. This is because multiple votes tend to fog the record, based on the games I’ve read through. Unless I have a good reason too, I will stick to a single vote at the time.

@Askthepizzaguy

I think he is too.

On the pizzaguy scale of scumminess, you currently rate a 1/10. Enough to be voted day one because, in all honesty, the midichlorians told me to. If this were poker I’d call this my ante. You’ll know when I place a solid wager.

Pizza, here you state that you don’t believe that your vote is pointing to Scum. You believe that he barely registers on the Scum scale. That means that, unless you have some reason to believe that Orthohedron is 3rd party, you think he’s Town. And yet:

@Askthepizzaguy

I wish to second the nomination of orthohedron.

You not only vote for him; you second the nomination. This means that, if Orthohedron were to be tied for first, you would vote to lynch him (the guy who you really DON’T think is Scum) as opposed to anyone else. ANYONE else. You don’t think he’s Scum, but you’d lynch him over anyone else? How the hell does that make any sense?

Remember when I said I’d only use 2 votes if I had a special reason too? Well, here it is. Until you two can convince me that randomly voting for someone who you really don’t suspect and declaring that unvoting him late on would clearly be Scummy is somehow ProTown play, I’m voting for you both.

Vote Askthepizzaguy

[Babale]

NETA: I finished my post before the deadline AND didn’t get twenty simultaneous posts? You guys are slacking!

[Suburban_Plankton]

@orthohedron

So, why all the hate for orthohedron?

I think it’s the way you just sit there, all straight-faced. It makes people nervous.

@Babale

So I’m going to Vote Chucara because for some reason his joke vote has garnered enough support to make Orthohedron come too close to the block. Technically, Chucara wasn’t the first to vote for Orthohedron, but Pizza voted for Orthohedron following Chucara’s vote, not anyone else’s.

I don’t like this vote at all. It’s obvious **Chucara’s **vote was a joke. Sure, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count, but it’s not like we’re close to the end of the Day…I’m willing to give him an opportunity to come back with something a bit more substantial.

And I don’t see where **Pizza’s **vote enters into things here. How is Chucara responsible for the way Pizza votes? If you think Pizza’s vote is bad, you should vote for him, not for the person who voted before him (and I realize you have voted for him, but for a different reason).

Finally, where do you get that **orthohedron **has “come too close to the block”? He was never the vote leader at any point, and in any case there are still over 6 full days to go before EoD. He was never in any danger.

This vote is altogether far too opportunistic.

vote Babale

[Pleonast]

@USCDiver

I can sort of see this in the early Days when associations between players are not very strong and you may have 3 separate suspicions. But later on in the game, many times I will have a list in my head that looks more like “If X is scum, then Y and Z probably are, too.” But then if X flips town, I have to go back and re-evaluate everything. If I spent the previous couple of days with votes on X, Y, and Z then now I have votes for Y and Z on my record when I may not actually think them as being Scum on their own. In fact their scumitude was strictly predicated on the scumitude of some one else. Now the voting record is less than clear. We all know it is difficult to go back and re-read hundreds of posts from the early Days, but it is easy to go back, check the vote counts and try to find patterns. With a large number of multi-votes the patterns can become lost in the noise and can easily be obscured by Scum.

You’re missing the strength of the multi-vote system. When you think players X, Y and Z are scum, you should have votes on them. You’re putting your suspicions in a real form that has consequences, which is something scum often avoid doing.

Then when you later change your mind, you remove your votes (or don’t revote). The lack of votes indicates your belief that they should not be lynched.

Vote for players you think should be lynched; don’t vote for players you think should not. And the vote record will capture your views perfectly, as opposed to posts where it’s often not clear what the intent is.

@Stanislaus

Let’s say I vote to lynch Town 3 days running. Looks bad, right? But I can still say, “I also voted for A, B, C, D and E - they’re still alive, so for all you know they’re (mostly) scum and I’ve got an overall pro-Town voting record. It’s not my fault that other people disagreed with those cases and voted Town instead. Blame them, not me.”

Stop here, this is the problem. If you vote for a player, it is your fault. Doesn’t matter what your other votes are.

1. If you voted for a player, you wanted them lynched. Period. You are responsible for your vote, no matter what your other votes are, or who else voted for whoever.

2. If you did not vote for a player, you did not want them lynched. Period. You are responsible for not voting them, no matter what your other votes are, or who else voted for whoever.

The complaints about multi-voting seem to be mostly complaints about players trying to avoid taking responsibility for their votes and lack of votes. Their scummy excuses are the problem, not the multi-voting.

[fubbleskag]

@GuiriEnEspana

Having a bad day, are we? Are you just bothered that you were called out or do you really think you see a contradiction in my post?

I really do see a contradiction in your post.

@GuiriEnEspana

I voted choie, I think she’s scum, how’s that smudging?

I had overlooked your vote on choie, I apologize.

@GuiriEnEspana

Day ends sometime next week, there’s no rush, unless you plan to disappear until N1 now you’ve got a vote down…

Now you’re just being a dick.

[fubbleskag]

@Enderw24

[a bunch of math]

pardon me while I slip into a coma.

[gnarlycharlie]

be well, USCDiver.

@Babale

<snipped>

This +1. I understand the reasoning behind the Pizza Plan, but I still think it can do more harm than good. The way I see it, if we stop ourselves from adapting to the situation by making rules about when its OK to believe a claim rather than just calling it as we see it, the only people we are hurting are ourselves. We’re making our actions much more predictable to Scum, and we’re risking ignoring a true claim just for the principle. Are late claims less likely to be true? Sure, and I think we can all judge that for ourselves, rather than follow a rigid code. Even if the rigid code allows some flexibility, its still limiting in a way that I don’t like.

aside from Suburban’s point about opportunism, i also don’t like how you have twisted Pizza’s words. he might well be scum but he has stated that these are guidelines. calling them rules misrepresents Pizza.

Vote Babale

[Johnny_Bravo]

I’d like to state that I agree with choie’s comment that pizza’s “take-chargey” attitude is somewhat suspicious. While it’s true that Pizza’s strategy isn’t necessarily pro-scum, it’s also true that being ‘the guy who implemented the plan which we are using and is, therefore, the nominal leader’ is a very powerful position from which to make subtle anti-town plays.

I’ve never played Mafia but I’ve played a lot of the Battlestar Galactica board game, which pits Humans (townies) against Cylons (scum), and I’m definitely seeing an overlap in bad-guy strategy.

Since I’ve learned from reading this thread that voting and then later changing your mind can be seen as very suspicious, I’m not going to actually name a vote for pizza right now. I just want to voice my perspective.

I also kind of want to vote for Enderw24 because he made me read math, but I’ll refrain from an “OMGUS” vote.

[Astral_Rejection]

@Johnny_Bravo

Since I’ve learned from reading this thread that voting and then later changing your mind can be seen as very suspicious, I’m not going to actually name a vote for pizza right now. I just want to voice my perspective.

This shouldn’t be true if you can justify your actions. You need to vote for whomever you think is most likely to be scum, and your opinions on that will obviously change as Days progress.

To everyone else: I’m gonna be about as MIA today as I was yesterday. Got a couple of shows coming due soon, so I’m a little extra busy lately. Plus, I’ve got a late shoot tonight. I’ll catch up around 10 or 11 tonight, although I’ll follow along as best I can until then.

[Enderw24]

Hooray! I can count to potato!

[Askthepizzaguy]

I weep at the way my ideas are being deliberately misrepresented, and how some folks won’t give it a chance for even half of day one on a random game.

That said, you’re entitled to your own way of playing it.

As for Babale, you got it completely wrong. When I voted for ortho it was because his post which I quoted pinged me.

Which means for the first time this game, I got a whiff of something on my scumdar. I don’t think he’s unlikely to be mafia.

It’s just that, how sure can you be that he is mafia on day one?

If you place heavy bets on a ping, you’re a bad poker player and a bad mafia player too. People often accuse me of being too certain I’m correct. I simply think some bets are better than others, and push hard on my heavy bets. And then people are rubbed the wrong way by my personality so they assign additional negatives to my behavior which may or may not be there.

I’m betting a vote. I didn’t build a fancy ass case nor would I be unpersuadable. I’m just saying going by instincts alone, that vote is worth placing. We’ll see if the midichlorians have it right in due course.

But your vote and Silver Jan’s votes are simply loud complaints about typical day one behavior.

I voted for Red Skeezix as the first vote of the game.

How the hell do you put reasons for that? He hasn’t voted yet. There’s nothing to analyze.

Inventing reasons at that stage is frankly, horse shit.

But I’m still going to vote. You know why? Because that’s how we play the game.

Silly bananas, man.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Don’t forget that Pizza wasn’t the one to suggest implementing his plan, I believe that was Guiri in this post: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15925710&postcount=160

Though I may have missed an earlier reference. Regardless, I think it is prudent to resist the temptation of making him out to be the sole scummy scapegoat at this time wrt The Plan. I don’t think putting it all on Guiri works either. If they’re in cahoots it is a big fat gambit. I’m more interested in what is said about The Plan which is much less tainted by metagaming.

[USCDiver]

@fubbleskag

damnit, my “SDMB Mafia” toolbar extension for Chrome got lost in the rebuild - this is going to take longer than I thought.

I was just thinking how useful a Mafia Greasemonkey script could be, but I don’t have the foggiest clue how to write one. Care to share?

@fubbleskag

USC being sick is a scum tell, and your passing shot at Chucara without a vote bothers me. (all kidding aside, good luck and feel better, etc).

vote USCDiver

Thanks, I guess… so you’re voting me for not voting for Churcara? Even though I’ve said I don’t think skimming is a scum-tell?

@Pleonast

You’re missing the strength of the multi-vote system. When you think players X, Y and Z are scum, you should have votes on them. You’re putting your suspicions in a real form that has consequences, which is something scum often avoid doing.

No, I’m not missing what you believe to be the strength of the system, I just disagree with you. In the scenario I outlined, I would only believe Y and Z to be Scum IF X is scum. So I need that piece of information before I would place a vote on them. It’s rare that I find two or more players individually suspicious enough to warrant a vote (I won’t rule it out, but it is rare). Additionally the voting record is one of the best ways we have of looking back for potential patterns of behavior to catch Scum. I’m yet to be convinced that having multiple votes doesn’t muddy the waters and/or make analysis of voting patterns exceptionally difficult.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@Johnny_Bravo

I’d like to state that I agree with choie’s comment that pizza’s “take-chargey” attitude is somewhat suspicious. While it’s true that Pizza’s strategy isn’t necessarily pro-scum, it’s also true that being ‘the guy who implemented the plan which we are using and is, therefore, the nominal leader’ is a very powerful position from which to make subtle anti-town plays.

What position is that, might I ask?

Who is leading whom? I asked people to place votes in a mafia game.

I didn’t say who to vote for.

I also said later, we should discuss the candidates who have been voted and then decide which of them is the scummiest.

This is not a new idea. Everything I’ve suggested is stuff town does. The problem arises when town doesn’t do it. Or forgets things like “hey! the scum could save their partner, why not make the leader in the lead by two votes or something?”

Simple shit. All I’ve done is remind people of the basics of the basics. We should adhere to some really first-grade level mafia principles when we play.

And the word “should” is not an ironclad rule either.

None of this is hard to grasp, so I don’t appreciate being deliberately misrepresented.