I don’t think it’s him. He was around at end of Day; if he’d put the extra vote on he’d presumably have said so, so people were aware of that going into Night. Seems more like a vote charger to me, though when/why someone would charge Story is a mystery.
I guess that will get sorted out eventually.
Here is why I think what I think.
(Simplified to assume 2 factions, 20 players, 5 of which are Scum. Play with the numbers as you please.)
On DayOne, even one lynch is unfavorable for the Town. It’s easy to see that under the above conditions, Town only has a 25% chance of lynching Scum.
If Town takes 7 lynches, the best they can realistically hope for is 2 Mafia (and that’s at a little worse than 2.5:1 odds - if you start with 4 mafia then the odds are almost 2.5:1 exactly).
Even if Town makes these unlikely odds, I would not consider ending DayOne having traded 5 Town for 2 Mafia the best opening play – here comes an almost sure night kill by the Scum, by the way – especially in the context of an actual game, where you lose the advantage of discussion and analysis after a lynch.
Do you still think I am incorrect and Town should take 7 lynches?
Further, in the context of the specific game the analysis is similar: say Town had 4 possible Scum targets out of 16 players. Taking 2 kills (the day lynch and a night kill by a “town-aligned” player), the odds were 2.5:1 against killing 1 Scum and 20:1 against killing 2 Scum.
Disclaimer: Math is not my strong suit.
The reason taking the 7 lynches is good is because they are nominally Town directed as opposed to the scum kill at night which is 100% scum directed.
normally the ratio is 1:1, but if you allow town to kill 7 on the first day that makes it 7:1.
In other words, the only way (nominally) for Town to kill scum is via Lynch. Giving them 7 is a BIG advantage.
sachertorte,
I think I see the point you are making, but I’m not sure it outweighs the risk (since Town is basically picking at random in this hypothetical).
If I had real math skills, I might be able to figure it out better. In any case, thank you for the response.
Heh. You’re assuming that random is bad.
Let’s suppose that the ratio of Town to scum is 3:1, that is for every three Town, there is one scum. Then one can expect by pure chance that 3 town would get lynched for every 1 scum. Sounds bad right? Not really.
In a normal game for every scum lynched there is a corresponding Town killed during the night. Similarly for every town lynched there is one town killed during the night. Therefore one town lynch and one scum lynch nets 3 dead Town and 1 dead scum. Not bad, that’s considered a push.
So if the ratio of Town to scum is about 3:1, then a bunch of random lynches will be somewhat of a push (the night kill makes it slightly less proTown, but still, close enough for government work), but when you factor in the reduction in the number of nightkills:
Warning Math:
1 kill: with 3:1 ratio *
E(deadTown) = .75 + 1 = 1.75
E(deadScum) = .25
1.75/0.25 = 7
7 kills: with 3:1 ratio *
E(deadTown) = 5.25 + 1 = 6.25
E(deadScum) = 1.75
6.25/1.75 = 3.57
- Note: this is an approximation for illustration purposes only. Obviously each kill changes the ratio of Town to scum, but it’s close enough in my opinion. I think the expectation takes care of it, but I’m not sure.
So many Town directed kills really mitigates the effect of the night kill.
And that’s completely ignoring the informational gain from so many town directed kills.
sachertote,
Very interesting!
I think I see a few issues:
First, I think correct way to model the problem (if it were purely random), is a hypergeometric distribution. Sounds fancy, but it is basically the classic “picking marbles from an urn without replacement” scenario. I think you touch on this when you note that each kill changes the ratio of Town to Scum, which is both true and something that a hypergeometric distribution accounts for.
That is why I linked to the results of such a calculation, and based odds on that.
Second, on DayOne, a town player is (for all intents and purposes) voting at random, but a scum player is not. I don’t know how to account for this outside of thinking it must certainly skew the results, making a more favorable town outcome less likely than a truly random result would. (It may be possible for Scum to make it quite likely to come up with 7 dead town. If you start Day Two with 7 Town and 5 Scum, the game is already over.)
That is why I consider the town-favorable outcomes even more unlikely than the numbers suggest.
Third, and perhaps the most difficult to accurately model, is the actual gameplay effect. Since this is a Day One action, and there are so many, anything can be covered by a “oh, it’s just a Day One gut-feeling vote”. Granted, there is some information to be discovered there later, and some effect by how the actual voting was implemented, but I would contend it’s less clear and less valuable than the normal process.
That is why I consider the number of votes less important overall than the certainty of the votes and the information they reveal.
Fourth, and another actual game-play problem: the most important thing Town has is a Detective (ignoring some sort of crazy super power role). Under normal play, he could investigate between each “pair” of killings, and each investigation shifts the balance of the game in Town’s favor. I think Town greatly suffers here, having lost several investigative opportunities between votes.
That is why I do not consider a “loss of Night actions” devastating to Scum, it hurts Town greatly as well.
All that being said, I’m happy to have read your take on the hypothetical. Like all things mafia, proving the correct answer is elusive!
Well,maybe it was a bad play, but I knew Pleonast was scum. Luckily for me Pleonast made a few questionable comments which I was able to jump on.
I think possibly what gave me away as detective was the same scum power that allowed them to lynch an extra person.
OK, now I can say:
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH Pants why didn’t you claim? The Doctor could have protected you, gotten you at least one more Night, and probably more unless the Scum found the Doctor very quickly.
Story, answer my question! I am so baffled by your play this game.
Should I shorten the Day at this point? I’m not sure.
The problem was I had no useful info, everyone I investigated had been killed.
Which question? I answered everything honestly in the game thread.
- Why I claimed: (1) because I thought it was time for most of us to claim and start making judgments about the game state; and most importantly (2) I knew I was likely to get pressure during the Day, probably sufficient to force me to claim, and I thought getting my claim out of the way early offered the best opportunity for it to be discussed in a reasonable and unhurried way. I disagree with your post above; I see nothing anti-Town about self-preservation. A Townie shouldn’t want to be lynched, because if a Townie is lynched, it’s a mislynch and bad for the Town. In particular, a Townie power role should work very hard to avoid getting lynched. In that, at least, I was successful! “Slamming” the group with your claim as you suggest above only works if your claim is a slam-dunk, one guaranteed to get people to back off: Detective, Doctor, or Mason. As you saw, my claim was barely sufficient to keep people from voting me, even made under no pressure, with a whole Day to discuss it, and even though the rest of the case against me was mostly garbage. Had I waited until 24 hours before the deadline to claim, I’d have been lynched.
I’m not very good at Scum hunting, or at Town hunting for that matter, but I do have a pretty good sense for what way the wind is blowing. Had I not claimed on Day Three, I’d have been lynched. How would that have been a good outcome, for me or for my side?
-
Why I wanted to re-read the case against Wolverine: because I wanted to be sure that Astral had accurately represented both the substance and context of Wolverine’s actions before acting on the case. I think your finding this Scummy was confirmation bias, Normal, because I’d expect any Townie to look carefully at a case made by another player before decided whether to accept it.
-
PARTIAL CLAIMS ARE NOT SCUMMY. Just look at my own particular case to understand why. Why should I have told the Scum what else I could do?
I do not understand why the Scum killed me, if they did, by the way. I would have had to do a pretty convincing two-step to stay off the block Day Five, and even if they hadn’t lynched me, the resulting focus on me could have been helpful to the Scum. Maybe they thought I was hiding a good power in my pocket… which brings me back to #3, above.
Yeah, my point is that your claim (IMO, and the evidence would seem to bear me out) made you more likely to be lynched, and not less. It also, I think, muddied the waters as regards the honesty of those voting for you.
You were likely to draw heat for actions that turned out to be in a scum’s favor, but it wasn’t definitely going to happen. Townies neglect the obvious leads all the time; you might easily have slipped by. And even if you didn’t, you could have spent the first few days of the Day (not up to 24 hours before deadline, but maybe 48 or so) evaluating the attacks on you for honesty – the claim truly makes that more difficult. Just look at how I reacted to it, and I’m obviously not scum.
You obviously felt like you were just getting the necessary unpleasantries out of the way, but I think you neglected to take into consideration how other townies might see it. It was designed to ward off consideration of your actions, rather than to invite it, and that’s not something that reads easily as town-motivated.
(And yes I know partial claims are not scummy, in themselves. Depends on the circumstances. Given your situation, however, I would most likely have offered a full claim when the time came. It’s not about telling the scum, it’s about giving the right indicators to the town. Avoiding mislynch is as important as protecting information, I think. Maybe more so.)
My guess is
Scuba_Ben
Astral
Meeko
as scum.
Scuba_Ben because of special ed’s behavior. Will very much suck if this is the case since Scuba Ben is not playing.
Astral for gut reasons.
Meeko, also for gut reasons, but also for being extremely non-confrontational.
**Meeko **has such a strong motivation to improve his play style, I wonder how much of the change in his play we’re seeing in this Game is related to improvement vs being scum.
I agree. It would certainly suck to punish him for playing more coherently and focused. But I’m out here, not in there. 
How does Chronos know in post #1053 that the death of Victoria Mars is the cause of the consecutive nights? He’s also pretty quick to try and make sure that everyone thinks this is exactly like Harry Potter Mafia, so whatever you do lock yourself into thinking that way.
He is correct though
Hope it’s not Astral or I’ll have to recalibrate my scumdar.