Scum mafia: On Cecil pond [Game Over]

The Game Room
2021

Chronos, thanks for the game. I’ll be sure to ask questions about my role earlier next time.

This week as been a bear. So forgive the indulgence of blowing off a bit of steam here. I’m probably not nearly as irked as I’m going to sound. I say this as my opinion. I don’t feel that town was dealt a particularly bad hand. Town certainly played poorly enough on our own.

Imagine the same set up but with 2 masons and a detective. Sounds reasonable? yes? balanced perhaps?

Now the detective is a semi-confirmable role, or at least it paints a nice big target on him. At the very least it tells the Town SOMETHING about him.
Also the detective can investigate. Lets say the detective pulls off 2 investigations then claims.
Bam! that’s 5 players where we have information on them, which is bigger than 4. With the potential for more.
It is my opinion (and only my opinion) that 4 masons isn’t nearly as powerful as some are making it out to be. Quite frankly, when Drain said she was surprised at the number of masons I was expecting 5. 4 left me with a huh?

Also, to the point where town needs to figure out that 4 masons precludes a detective, I don’t feel that it is proper to approach balance this way. You can’t look at the result and make conclusions based on it. One can’t look at the set up and say “well, the town should be able to figure it out because of the 4 masons.” It doesn’t work that way. Are you telling me that with 4 masons there can’t be a detective of some sort? at all? Ever? In the situation, town is loathe to eliminate a detective claim. I agree that town needs to be willing to lynch claimed detectives, but really, town got lucky on that one. A clean detective claim survives at least one more day. I see no other way for town to play that situation. That they would be wrong is besides the point.

That in addition to the power that a false cop claim wields makes for an unbalanced game. It ultimately didn’t affect this game. But it should have:
D4: we lynch someone who is not KellyCriterion
D5: KellyCriterion frames someone as scum

Lack of cop is doubly bad for town. I think the game balance only looked at one side. Again, it ultimately didn’t matter to this game as it played out, but such setups should be assessed differently in the future.

And that doesn’t even go into the craziness that would have ensued due to no doctor. No doctor, means no dead doctor, which means a living scum cop claim can live through the night for a good while.

We’ve had a game with no detective before, and afterwards there was quite a bit of discussion about it. The central point was that when scum is caught, there is no reason not to claim detective. Simply put, scum should claim detective. At that point there is nothing to lose, and possibly things to gain (out the real detective). If there is no detective, then it’s a get out of jail free card for scum.

2022

What is the rationale behind vanilla town trying to get night killed? So that they can prevent the power roles from being killed?

2023

Well, with 4 masons and a cop there could be as many as 8 confirmed Town by Day 4. At that point the game is over, I think.

2024

Thanks, Chronos I enjoyed the game and good work with the color.

I was worried when Rysto picked up his vote today since we’d talked about Am building a case against him once he picked up the first vote. Besides that I think it went pretty well for a first time scum team. I was continually surprised how much I got away with in building terrible cases. I never posted a full case against Alka and he kept calling me on it but the rest of the town ignored it.

I think the game way pretty well balanced since the size of the masonry was countered by not having a Doc but the threat of one kept us from killing Drain immediately.

I’m off to the spoiler board now though.

Go Scum!

2025

Thing is Sach, us scum didn’t know there wasn’t a detective either.

Vanilla town objectives are to work out who the scum are, make good cases against them, and to contribute positively to the game. This helps other players get a town read on them, so they avoid being a good lynch candidate. As a result scum have to think about killing them.

2026

This ignores the fact the cop might be forced to claim on Day 1 or 2 to avoid being lynched, or might get NK’ed before they can claim with their results.

2027

While these aren’t optimal results for scum, they aren’t nearly as bad as you imagine. Lynching me wouldn’t have killed me, but it would still waste a lynch. I did the math, it was essentially a lateral move for the game as a whole. NK on diggit would have given town another half-day, but it is certainly less powerful than a real doctor.

Also, the idea that Diggit was so threatening to scum is off-target. Scum don’t need DiggitCamara dead to win. And there was no mechanism by which DiggitCamara could become confirmed town. Again, DiggitCamara’s role was functionally inferior to a doctor.

What I’m saying is that a scum detective claim is a 100% certainty. There is no reason for it not to happen. Losing a NK to a diggit was what a 1:3 shot at best?

2028

By the way, I was arguing honestly earlier when I said “at least one scum must have voted for Kelly” was a poor argument. It was a big red flag that should have gotten somebody looking over my history, but it wasn’t enough for a vote IMO. story’s argument(the fact that it was a late, weak and unsupported vote) was much better and one of the reasons that I kept going on that “voting for me for voting for scum is stupid” was because I wanted to frame the argument in that way, and away from story’s original argument(before all of the other voters became known) that the vote, regardless of Kelly’s alignment, was scummy.

2029

Traditional Cop? Sure.
Weak Cop? Not so much.

I’m fine with having a game with no cop. But notice of this fact has a very powerful affect on the game. Imagine the a game with no cop and no one knows it. Now imagine the same game where everyone knows it at the beginning. The games are very different. I say the former is harder for Town.

2030

Not the point. A scum false claim of detective is a given. It doesn’t matter that there is no detective, scum is still going to try a detective claim (at least they should). In other words, there is no RISK involved with scum attempting a detective claim under duress.

2031

Without a doubt. The more open a game is, the more it favours Town. Game designers must always keep this in mind.

2032

Look. I’m not trying to diminish your accomplishments. I’m commenting on game design.

2033

BTW, I have a basic game that could be played any time. Nothing too special, but the theme is kind of wacky.

2034

If that was directed at me, so am I. :slight_smile:

2035

If there had been a full cop claim at any point, one of the masons could have countered by revelaing the size of the masonry.

If there had been a weak cop claim, town would have had to assess it, but it doesn’t automatically buy a mis-lynch. Town need to assess each claim, and each player, on their merits. Town shouldn’t be afraid of lynching claimants if they think they are scum.

2036

Cookies, glad to see you weighing in here. I have skimmed your post, because I Want to get this out first, and re-read later.

**Cookies, do you feel you have a better than average shot of ““understanding”” me ? **

2037

What amazes me about our play is that even when sach pointed it out, we didn’t actually do the mason voting analysis that everyone thought led us to Freudian. And we should have. Because if we had, we wouldn’t have killed Freudian at that point. And sach did in fact tell us how to.

I think that’s emblematic of a flaw most of us have when we play this game - we compartmentalise too much. We didn’t make the link between Summer play and Winter play, and town often make the mistake of not following up on each other’s cases. The reason Rysto lived was because we took out the players calling most vocally for his lynch. If the remaining town had picked up that ball, we’d have been in trouble. But as a rule, we seem reluctant to do that - we all pursue our own pet cases.

sach - I take your points about the extra town power roles not being so powerful.

2038

Cool. I just want to make sure.

2039

Pretend I Was a mason for this game. … I think I was.
How exactly would I have known this was the right play ?
Related: Why did other town assume we had a Cop and Doctor?

2040

No, I don’t think so, unless we’re talking about the best place to get brunch in the Virginia Highlands or which side of Ponce the nicer loft apartments can be found.

(Atlanta stuff for kids following at home…)