Mini 419: Farkle Mafia (Game Over)

[Seol]

Awesome, two games in one!

Firstly, the Farkle. I've got a few quick questions about how it works:

Firstly, "I" got skipped because, it appears, bird111 isn't on the site anymore. Is that opportunity to play now lost or was I bumped down the list?

Secondly, what happens if someone wins the game? Do we play another game today?

Because from a strategy point of view, there are two things to realise here, if I understand this correctly. Firstly, within limitations, we can choose how many powers are granted each night.

Secondly,

we can control who gets them

- by having all other players deliberately bust each turn.

Now obviously the second one is something we don't want to be considering

at this point

, because obviously at the moment there's no-one who I trust to be town sufficiently to consider their being a tactical advantage to Farklefixing. Come later in the game, this might well be something we want to think about - if not to hand the game (meaning Farkle, not Mafia here, obv) to one player, at least force certain players to throw their hands. However, I strongly doubt that an effectively random distribution of Farkley goodness is to the benefit of the town in the long run compared to the alternative.

In case you're worried about such a plan backfiring, I'd point out that it's resilient to being undermined by someone deciding not to bust at an advantageous moment as it's currently looking totally impractical to try and make marker on a single turn, and the moment someone tries we can lynch them.

But like I said, we don't want to consider that yet. What we do need to think about is whether we want additional Farkles on a given day. But that's not so simple, so I'll wait until the mod confirms whether this is or isn't possible before I start to work out what the best approach is (my gut leans towards extra Farkles being a good thing, at least at this stage of the game).

Mafia thoughts will follow shortly too. This one looks interesting, for sure.

[Seol]

I don't think fixing the game is in the spirit of the game.

What are you scared of?

[Seol]

ebwodp:

It probably isn't in the spirit of Farkle to Farklefix. It is

most definitely

in the spirit of Mafia to Farklefix.

If I want to play Farkle fairly, I'll do it in WSOGMM. Here I'm trying to win - winning Farkle can help in that, and fixing Farkle can help in that too.

[Seol]

Why?

[Seol]

I think that if there is a potentially breaking strategy in a game, then it is our

responsibility

to exploit it, in the same way as we use any other information or tactics at our disposal to catch the scum.

And yes, I think it's entirely possible that the mod had taken into account the fact that we can fix the Farkles. After all, this is a team game where we try to work together to catch the scum, and it's a game where we're playing Farkle as a subgame. It's not exactly a huge leap to apply the working together to catch the scum to the Farkle itself. I've designed games with subgames in them before with the expectation that the players "break" them - it broke the subgame, sure, but not the game.

But if not, then that's an oversight in the game design, however to decide not to exploit it on principle is

actively damaging to the town

. Now I'm not saying we necessarily

should

be going down this line, at least not yet, but "it's not in the spirit of the game" is a silly reason not to.

My objective is to win. What's yours?

vote: Coron

[Seol]

You're against breaking strategies? OK... well, we're on an impasse on that point anyway, so position noted, I won't argue it any further.

What are your thoughts about controlling the

number

of Farkles per day, if we can?

[Seol]

Big booming voice - The eleventh commandment: Though shalt not Farklefix, or results will be lost that day.

Don't try to break the game, in other words.

Seol, you'll have to wait for the next revolution.

Fair enough. I can understand why you're saying this - it would probably have made at least one aspect of the game really quite tedious.

Yes, yes.
and the point is moot anyway, because I was correct.

Correct about the mod's intentions. I still contest the "spirit of the game" point (I'd argue that anything within the rules is fair game), but that's irrelevant to this game now and maybe we can take it up in Mafia Discussions later.

I still don't like your objecting to Farklefixing - as I said, that's an anti-town position, a point which you haven't tried to refute.

Coron, I know I'm asking what is potentially an impossible question for you to answer correctly, but do you think you'd have the same stance if you didn't have significantly more points thatn everyone else? How about if we were trying to Farklefix for you?

It's worth pointing out I wasn't advocating Farklefixing today, and I don't think Coron thought I was either...

Everyone else - no point discussing Farklefixing any more. Let's move on.

[Seol]

We need a vote count because we have very little time to lynch. We don't want to risk no-lynch,

especially

with two kills last night.

Unofficial votecount:

Cogito Ergo Scum (3): Kilmenator, Nocmen, Dagger
Coron (2): Thesp, Seol
Nocmen (2): Cogito Ergo Scum, Coron
ThAdmiral (1): a3maniac

Not Voting (2): ThAdmiral, Adele

It's 6 to lynch, no published rules on how lynches work at deadline (so we don't know if it's half majority or full majority required). We ideally want to hit 6 but it may be that 3 is sufficient for a lynch.

So, for example, a vote for Thesp is probably a vote for no-lynch at this point (not that I want to vote for Thesp). As such I'm only going to consider changing my vote to Nocmen or Cogito.

In respect of Nocmen, there's the slight tell of commenting on night 1 deaths and SK/vig speculation, there's the dice-based random vote (divestment of accountability), and I'm not to keen on his CES vote either.

In respect of Cogito...

Hang on, this actually is Cogito Ergo S

c

um, ie not the Cogito we know and love to hate, isn't it? I was originally "fixing" the spelling in the votecount. Well, that changes things, I'm considerably less inclined to vote him now.

CES, who are you really? Are you an alt for the original CES, or for someone else we know? If this is common knowledge I apologise, I haven't been around much recently and am thus behind the times.

I don't like his arguing the Coron lynch without voting Coron. CES, why are you doing that?

That just leaves my current vote-holder, Coron. I only see one reason to vote him - ie, his position re Farklefixing - but apart from that he's talking good sense, albeit quite tersely and keeping his cards close to his chest (ie, being typical Coron). The Farklefixing position

is

antitown but his reasoning is valid and I've seen townies object to breaking strategies on a fun basis before, and Coron taking such a position doesn't suprise me in the least. As such, I don't think he's a good lynch.

unvote, vote: Nocmen

.

[Seol]

The purpose of using a gimmick is to hide your identity from the other players, so excuse me for not answering to your first question.

It is? I did the whole gimmick thing

terribly,

then.

As for the second one, I'm not completely sure why I'm not voting Coron,

Huh? You're

not sure

why you're not voting him? Did you forget about post 109 or something?

By the way, for the sake of good order, I make it Coron's turn to Farkle. Not like it's going to make a damn bit of difference today...

[Seol]

I am willing to go either way, but I am more interested in at least someone winning the Farkle game first.

Farkle Rules: 10,000 is the first marker you want to reach. If this marker is reached, the one who surpasses it first gains an ability of their choice off of a list. Another marker will be given.

If no one reaches the marker by the end of day 1, the highest score will be awarded an ability.

If we don't have a winner of the Farkle game, the person leading (currently Coron) gets a choice. We won't miss out on Farkle abilities by not finishing the game.

Our pressure at the moment is the deadline. Which is currently

today

, we don't know when. We're nowhere near lynching without that deadline, and unless that deadline changes,

we are not finishing the Farkle today

.

We should be very wary of letting Farkle get in the way of playing Mafia.

[Seol]

First, the Farkling -

Original Roll String: 6d6

6 6-Sided Dice: (2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1) = 15

Secondly, we don't have a deadline any more but we really ought to, y'know,

play mafia

. I'm happy with my vote on Nocmen for now but this feels like a game 80% composed of lurkers who are only here for the Farkle...

[Seol]

Take out the 1 for 100.

Original Roll String: 5d6

5 6-Sided Dice: (4, 3, 4, 2, 4) = 17

[Seol]

Take out the 1 again. I don't have a good feeling about this...

Original Roll String: 4d6

4 6-Sided Dice: (2, 5, 5, 6) = 18

[Seol]

Yep, thought so. Farkled.

[Seol]

Nocmen's claim does at least explain the kill discussion tell (people discussing specific notable events that happened overnight are more likely to be responsible for those actions). I have no doubt that he was responsible for the death of DW last night, so that means one of two things - he's the vig, or he's the SK.

I wouldn't lynch someone I know wasn't an SK.

What did you mean by this?

I can see good meta-reasons why a vig would fire night 0.

Maybe. I'd like to hear Nocmen's reasons though. Why did he fire, and why did he fire at DeanWinchester?

Also, since he's revealed, it's best to keep him alive. We can tell him who to kill each night, and basically make him the town's second lynch, even if he's the sk.

You're Pie, aren't you?

Are we going to get into aggro-vigging v informed lynching arguments again?

That said,

Unvote

. If the mafia are dead and the game isn't over yet, we know who to lynch, at least.

Keeping scums alive is an undervalued tactic.

It's not a tactic I value.

I'm willing to argue the strategy in detail if necessary, but am wary of them clogging up the thread.

Keeping my vote for now. I'll do a more thorough review shortly.

PPE:

At first, I was concerned about my role because i thought it was not optional, as in I was forced to kill every night. However, I soon realized that it was optional to kill in my role, so I was just lucky that I hit scum last night.

What lead you to realise the kill was optional, and when did you realise this?

[Seol]

I wasn't paying attention when I read my role. After the crash, I went and reread everything I had to not get my roles in each game confused after a week hiatus or so. That's all I can really say to my past thought, poor reading comprehension made me take the chance that did pay out.

That does actually make sense, and if it's a lie, it's a

very

clever one. Furthermore, it only makes sense if you are a vig, not an SK.

unvote.

And saying I wouldn't lynch someone I knew wasn't an SK was sort of sarcasm, I was just saying I wouldn't lynch myself because I know I wasn't an SK.

I thought that was what you meant, but just wanted to make sure.

[Seol]

As uncomfortable as I am with claimed vigs who fire N1 being left alive, I do find your argument here very compelling.

Is that because they're likely to be SKs, or as a metagame pressure to stop vigs firing night 0 to weaken vig claims for SKs who fire night 0?

...that is the most lame excuse in the world as far as I'm concerned, a SK who wanted to claim vig would claim that most likely. I don't really understand all the unvoting, heck I was about to place my vote there.

I'll explain my reasoning in a bit more detail then.

If he'd said he always fires on night 1 due to meta-strategy or whatever, then fine. If he had a beef with DeanWinchester for out-of-game reasons, then fine. If he said he was a compulsory vig, fine. Those are all reasons a townie vig might fire night 0, and those are all also common excuses from SKs claiming to be vigs.

He didn't say that. He said he fired because he

thought

it was compulsory, but later realised it wasn't. This gave me a problem, as the only time I can see re-reading a role PM in detail is when it's going to make a difference to your play, and the only time to do that is at night. But if he re-read it at night, then he'd have realised in time to take back the kill, so that doesn't add up. In fact, when I saw that argument, I thought "Gotcha!".

But there's an invalid assumption there - that being there

was

another time to re-read role PMs, ie recovering from the crash.

If he's the SK, the thought process "oooh, I don't have to kill if I don't want to, that didn't occur to me" doesn't fit, because SKs want to kill (yes, there are certain odd situations where they might not, but that mostly applies to night 0 and he didn't choose not to fire then). In other words, for him to have had this thought process is in itself evidence he is town. Of course, it's possible he didn't have that thought process, and it's just another excuse. I have problems with that, though.

If he's the SK, there are two possibilities. Either he had a pre-prepared explanation for his justification for the "vig kill" night 0, or he didn't. But, of course, he didn't know there was going to be the crash when he sent his kill in - so whatever his explanation was, it wasn't the "I re-read my role PM when the site recovered from the crash". If he did have a pre-prepared explanation, then he must have noticed the opportunity to drop that pre-prepared explanation when the crash happened and decided to switch to this one, and yet despite having come up with this justification as a cover plan,

not brought it up until directly questioned thereon

.

If he

didn't

have a pre-planned explanation, then he either came up with it after the crash - which means a) he didn't come up with a strategy at the beginning of the game when he was deciding his nightkill, but suddenly realised the need for a day 1 claim strategy midway through day 1 and b) came up with this intricate and clever lie at that point - or he came up with it when being pressured to justify his actions, at which point he didn't come up with any of the standard excuses but remembered the crash from over a month ago and came up with that as an excuse for realising he wasn't overeager.

Now, none of these are impossible. However, they're not, IMO, very plausible - they require a great deal of ingenuity and in most of situations where he's an SK it also requires a change of mindset. Thus,

if

his justification for the kill is a lie, it's a

very

clever one, and the two most likely scenarios for him coming up with it as a lie have additional problems. If his justification for the kill is the truth, that strongly indicates he is town.

There might be some flaws in that thought process, but it's good enough for me at the moment.

[Seol]

The fact is if he's working for us, the town, it won't matter if he's a serial killer or not. If, after we've killed all the scum, the game does not end, we know he's an sk and we kill him then.

"Working" for us by upping the kill rate is not a good idea. Yes, that tilts the town-controlled kills to scum-controlled kills ratio in our favour, but we don't want the game shortened unnecessarily. If we have two (or even three) kills a night for the rest of the game, and there are no cross-kills, I'm pretty sure we just simply lose. Haven't done the math on that one yet though.

Also, how do we know when we've killed all the (other) scum?

If he is the SK,

we should lynch him now

. I'm of the opinion it's highly unlikely he is the SK, but generally speaking (and certainly in this situation) if we think there's a good chance he is, keeping him alive is a REALLY BAD PLAN.

I don't see how the mafia knowing who he's going to kill helps them anymore than it helps us. Especially if it happens to be one of them who's in his sights!

It means that they don't kill someone who's dying anyway, and if they have any abilities (like a doc, roleblocker, or worst case a redirector/bus driver) they can keep that person alive or possibly even turn it into a second kill.

You'd rather have him shooting wildly, maybe killing our doctor or cop?

There's an argument that a vigilante, who's pro-town, is better equipped to make a pro-town choice than a selection of his peers

some of which are guaranteed to be scum

. His judgment may not be as reliable, but his motivations are. There's no reason why he should necessarily fire at all, after all.

But the most fundamental argument here as far as I'm concerned is - How can we sanction using the vig as a second lynch when we can't even agree on the first lynch?