Just as Masons may be able to narrow down the field of possible Alpha Wolves in the event of a tie, so Mafia may be able to narrow down the field of possible First Masons. And First Mason’s tie-breaking power, if he’s still alive, could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in the end-game.
On balance, is it best to encourage or discourage ties? I’m going to reverse my earlier opinion: Since three of the top four tiebreaking powers are Town (3 Masons vs 1 Alpha Wolf) I’m afraid that the Wolves are more likely to get useful information from a tie than Scum are.
Perhaps it’s good to go on record about how we feel about ties. I’m presently inclined to Discourage Ties.
I agree about recording. We should discuss this liberally and post an opinion.
For instance, if there is a tie then the wolves will know with certainty that the First Mason is NOT on the losing side. And if a wolf is on the losing side, then he/she will know there is at least one mason on the winning side. Right now it seems to me identifying wolves is more important than not exposing masons. But I’d like to hear from the more experienced players.
I agree with what septimus said up above - in the early part of the game at least, I suspect wolves would get more information out of a tie than town would. Maybe later on, town can use it to ferret out a wolf from a smaller set of players.
On topic - I think the point at which we take a vote on whether or not to encourage ties in future votes is the point at which the tiebreak discussion goes off the rails. It seems clear to me, at least, that the relative merits of a tie or a non-tie depend very heavily on exactly who our candidates for lynch are. Not all ties are created equal, and I don’t know that establishing an abstract consensus at this point is helpful for Town, it being my general perception that mayhem is bad for Town and that this could cause mayhem.
So my vote is: no voting on whether or not to discourage ties at this point. Do what seems reasonable to you at the time. Like guerrilla warfare, or the Dragon Army, only apparently with ferrets.
On a purely practical level, trying to engineer ties sounds like herding a bunch of exceptionally willful and stubborn cats. I’m trying to imagine a process that doesn’t end in a morass of finger-pointing, accusations and counter-accusations. Might be terribly fun for the people following along, less so for those of us trying to stay alive and kill scum.
The tiebreaking rule does us no good unless the First Mason is abstaining from the vote, since if he’s on one of the sides, then the only information gained by anyone is a hint as to who he is, not to who any of the Wolves are. So we shouldn’t go out of our way to engineer ties until and unless the First Mason is declared. It might possibly be worthwhile for First to declare on Day 1 just so we can do this, but I’m not at all convinced of that.
Oh, and just to start off, Vote Dante G
pending an explanation for just what he meant by “not trying to tip my hand in favor of any side just yet”. If he gives a reasonable explanation for what he meant by that, I will unvote him. If he doesn’t give an explanation, or gives an explanation that doesn’t seem reasonable to me, my vote will remain until and unless I see a better candidate.
Apologies been dealing with buying a house and tomorrow will be boxes, lots of boxes.
Still trying to get my head around the tie break, I still have the feel that the tie break provides more in of to the wolves in the early game, but can see the point , if the first mason is in one group, and the tie goes the other way , we ( well the first mason will know) know alpha is in the other group.
If the tie goes the way of the first mason group, then we know the other group did not contain the alpha wolf.
I think that is what chromos was trying to explain to me.
This strikes me as the weirdest post of the game thus far. It doesn’t really make any sense grammatically or otherwise. And although I think I can see from the context who he was referring to, nobody actually made any statements as blunt as “scum would avoid engineering a tie” or “avoiding a tie is pro scum” (which actually seem to be mutually contradictory statements). Misrepresenting the statements of others is pretty scummy.
Are we intended to look for clues in storyteller’s narratives? For example, “the miller” unveils the bodies. We have an actual miller (or at least someone who works at a mill) playing the game – Biotop. If it is a clue, I’d have no idea what to make of it. Is looking to the moderator’s posts for clues potentially useful, or a fool’s errand?
Continuing on this theme: Who said we should hold a vote on whether to encourage ties? septimus and Biotop said that it would be good to get people to express an opinion on whether ties are desirable or not, and that seems hard to argue with, particularly on Day One when there isn’t much else to talk about.
A good moderator should not be hiding meaningful clues in the flavor text, especially not when the game is billed as having no hidden mechanics. And Storyteller is a good moderator. Stuff like that is just his way of having fun with us. He always works in jokes from the game into his Dawn/Dusk posts.
The only reason anyone made any note of Biotop being a miller is that the Miller is a standard role for Mafia games. Basically, a Miller is the opposite of the Godfather: He’s Town, but if the Detective ever investigates him, he’ll look like a Scum. Having an actual real-life miller in a game (albeit in a game without that role) is therefore amusing.
Dante G and Sario, I’m not sure what pro-Town purpose you think is served by casting unjustified votes this early in the Day. If you have no idea who to vote for at the end of the Day and have to pick someone arbitrarily, fine. But these votes aren’t going to generate any useful discussion; how can we “chatter” about** Dante’s **real motive was in casting a vote which he preemptively declared to have “no reason”? Getting to cast votes which they don’t have to justify is exactly what scum want to do.
And Sangfroid, the fact that Nonsuch disagrees with the case against** Dante G** (who you yourself aren’t currently voting for) doesn’t make him scum. If he is Town, it is pro-Town for him to honestly share his opinions. And the fact that Dante G then agreed with him also strikes me as a total null tell. Seems like quite a bit of a reach to smudge these two for acting “scummy/chummy” (how do you do the strikethrough, by the way)?
Eh, I guess he did kind of say that, albeit for some hypothetical future in which the First Mason is verified. Sorry,** JSexton.**
More recently, he said
This strikes me as very weird and potentially scummy. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the First Mason (and, to a slightly lesser extent, the other Masons?) to just try to avoid being involved in tie votes? Sure, we would have to wait until the Masons are confirmed one way or the other to get information from such votes, but that seems far preferable to having a power role out him/herself on Day One. I’m having a hard time viewing that suggestion, even with the hedge of not being “convinced”, as plausibly having a pro-Town motivation.
**
vote Chronos**