Pick Your Power: Double Deck (GAME OVER)

[Fishythefish]

I don't have a great deal of time for this game between now and around 72 hours time. I'll check in now and again, but won't be putting in any effort posts.

[Fishythefish]

Oh. Er... I forgot the damn self-vote.

Ah well. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known, but so it goes.

[Fishythefish]

48 hour lylo.

I'm really sure that gerry is scum.
- drealmer is town. Max, you asked some things about our hood last night; it was pretty active given my semi-VLA. I'm still phoneposting, but will give excerpts from the hood to show you dream is town when I'm at a computer later today.
- Max and Verna are not scum together. I simply don't believe our hood is just about setting me up. Again, I'll go into a bit more detail later.

[Fishythefish]

Fish/Drealmerz:

Did Maxous ask you both to pass along the contents of your PT?
If yes, why did you refuse to share?

He did (more or less... not full contents, but at least some posts). I'm going to share (here), when I get home in about 3 hours. When I asked the mod about sharing before, they said mass quoting was not ok, and there are some hefty posts in there, so sharing takes way more effort than can be done in 5 minute posts from a phone, which is where I've been since the end of the day. I realise this is a crappy time to be inactive, but I'll have a good run at this game tonight.

[Fishythefish]

Yeah, I get that. But if you are saying that is easy - it isn't. Try imaging how difficult it would be to explain a strong read you have to someone who can't see the thread.

[Fishythefish]

I'm now here, and will be active for the next 5 hours or so. First, on dreal, a quick timeline of our hood and the bits that really jumped out at me as obvtown. Happy to give more detail on anything that jumps out as interesting. Here's the first page summarised:

--- dreal neighbourised me on Saturday January 21st ----

1-3) Hello from dreal: dreal tells me I'm his strongest TR, discusses alternative options for the neighbourise (Vecna, Max), and tells me Max has neighbourised him.
4) My first post; a bit of a thought dump. I tell dreal I think he's town based on the thread and the king of diamonds pick. I say we should lynch Kison rather than TWIE, and give a full set of reads (which, looking back, were pretty damn accurate).
5) dreal posts something not terribly interesting about Max being more likely to shuffle as scum. I can't recall the context for this, if any.
6-8) dreal asks about why I prefer Kison; dreal is leaning TWIE and felt that TWIE might be manipulating me in the thread in our "live" conversation. Here's the first bit of a post that really pinged me as town; most of it is paraphrased because I'm paranoid about being mod-killed, but I've kept a key bit verbatim (italicised):

I think TWIE is more likely scum, but I need to think it through more (which I'd prefer to do with you in here if you agree? we could do it in the main thread, but

I just don't feel "safe" there

. especially with the high proportion of scum in the thread)

I really empathised with this sentiment at this moment. The thread felt a really

difficult

place to share opinions as town; the game was near half scum, and TWIE was being rather difficult as well.

In the same posts, dreal floated the idea of a LUV lynch. He made the points that Max was a potential ally, we'd get loads more info from a LUV lynch than a TWIE/Kison lynch, and LUV was his top SR.
9-13) dreal does some wider scumhunting, comparing Max to Vecna; to summarise; he thinks Vecna is scumhunting more and that if either, Max is more likely scum. At this point, we are both in a tricky place with reads, where PoE means that some decent townreads are likely scum. dreal seems to be struggling to fill a scumteam, and considering lots of options.
14) I say that Max's decision to shuffle or not is pretty much NAI given the hood convos around it. I explain why I prefer Kison to TWIE as a lynch; questioning the cop guilty is probably overthinking things. I say TWIE+Kison is unlikely. I say LUV is a good idea, we can get Max on board, and I'll push it in the main thread.
15-27) We go back and forth a bit on Max and Vecna. dreal asks about our PT; I say it started well, has stalled slightly, but that's as much my fault as Max's. Not much interesting here.

By this point:
- dreal has pinged me a few times as town; the best example above.
- Our hood has driven a scumlynch through.
- dreal is obviously genuinely uncertain about who scum are, and is really trying. He's throwing lots of stuff out, but very clearly in a "thinking things through" kind of way rather than a "see what sticks" kind of way.

--- Night 6 began on Monday January 23rd ---

[Fishythefish]

Hood summary 2/3

30: I say things will be tricky if gerry and Dunn are both town, as they are going to be hard to break from their tunnelling
31: dreal says he'll break the tunnelling with willpower and shouting. He is energised by the scum lynch, and determined to win. This is one of many places where dreal reads super-genuine. This is either because a) he is less inhibited in the thread, and his towniness shines through, or b) he has awesome acting talents. I'm very sure it's a). If b), I don't see why he wouldn't present this face in-thread.
32: Not quite sure what I'm replying to, but I say Grey is likely town; the replace-in-and-shoot play would be a bolder scumplay than I've seen (on a side note, it is very painful reading back all the correct reads on townies we mislynched yesterday).
33: I wring my hands about TWIE/Kison a bit more, noting that Kison was all over LUV early game.
34/35: dreal resolves to be more active in the thread; I egg him on. At this point, I was really keen that dreal carried over some of his energy to the thread - especially if I died - to both drive lynches and be read as town. He kinda has, but in a more wally and less convincing way.
36: dreal sorts through his reads. He has gerry as very town (he knows badtowngerry, as he refers to gerry), me as very town, Vecna as town, Kison as town, TWIE as scum, and 2 of Dunn/Grey/Max as scum. History has not been kind to these reads.
37: dreal suggests that Uzi shooting Dunn would have been good if Dunn and gerry were town, so perhaps Dunn is scum.
38: I say that if Dunn/gerry is town-on-town, scum wouldn't want to defuse it.

--- Day 7 began on Wednesday 25th January ---

39: Slightly oddly, dreal suggests a gerry kill today as gerry can't be in LYLO.
40: I say that would be weird, given dreal's townread (which I'm kinda sheeping at this point, as a pretty crap reader of players like gerry)
41: dreal says that he almost called for no voting in the thread. Just a little window into things he's thought but not said.
42: A quick and rambling post from dreal, mostly saying we shouldn't lynch gerry, and that Grey should shoot Dunn (which was impossible)
43,44: no content
45: dreal can imagine lynching gerry after all if I'm still hard-townreading Dunn. Slightly off-the-cuff suggestion of lynching them both.

dreal did nothing big during this day to make me thing he was town. The tone is convincing - it reads very much as super-honest stream-of-conciouisness stuff - but the content is meh.

--- Night 7 began on Friday February 3rd ---

[Fishythefish]

Hood summary 3/3

48: I apologise for my stupid hammer. I say we should come out of the gate fast on D8, as it's 48HLYLO. I say for me, it's super simple - not dreal, not Max+Vecna, so gerry.
49: dreal is very annoyed at the double townflip. He says:
* He was half expecting/hoping the game would be over
* Dunn and Grey did nothing and (summarising) were at fault for their lynches
* The flips have really thrown him. He wonders about me being scum, and why Vecna and I are still alive. He asks if I think he was right/wrong about his "trying to implicate fishy/Vecna/dreal" post.
This is another post in the "amazing acting or town" category. The post reads so much like it comes from town who was riding high, has been brought crashing down by some townflips, and is now struggling.
50: I say why I'm town. I'll break this out into a separate post, since the reasons are relevant to everyone in the game.
51: dreal says thinking I'm scum was probably all-over-the-place paranoia.
52-58: I do basically nothing (this is all last night). dreal posts a few things; the conclusion of which is Max+gerry.

[Fishythefish]

So, to recap:

- dreal posts things which show a mindset which a) is town and b) would be hard to fake as scum. If he's scum in that PT, he's *brilliant* scum, and I don't see why he'd be so much better than in-thread.
- dreal is clearly thinking really hard about who is scum. He's definitely not finding this easy, but the scumhunting is obvious.
- dreal and I drove the Uzi lynch, which wouldn't otherwise have happened.

dreal is town.

[Fishythefish]

50: I say why I'm town. I'll break this out into a separate post, since the reasons are relevant to everyone in the game.

Here's why I'm obviously town:

- I rigged the jack of spades. This, entirely predictably, gave town a sane cop investigation, which is the reason Transcend never got mislynched.
- I rigged the two of clubs. This, entirely predictably, prevented a scum kill.
- I rigged the jack for a night, and the two for a day. At night, the two would have killed ICs and not prevented a scumkill. At day, the jack would have given us the terrible voting shenanigans spades provide.
- I was on LUV all game, in a way that made him much more likely to die, and drove his final lynch.
- I called out both the cards we know scum lied about - the Ace and Six of Clubs - as scum, early and often. Scum would not have outed these strategies; this lead to TWIE's investigation on Kison being a guilty, Uzi being lynched as the obvious AoC holder, and contributed to Maria's lynch (though honestly I can't remember how much; it drove my vote but I doubt it was critical).

It's quite possible my actions in this game have done more for the town than anyone else.

Pedit: cheers, Max. I'm really, really not scum. Also, nor is dreal! If you end up in LYLO with him, do not vote for him.

[Fishythefish]

Vecna, are we going for Dreal or Gerry?

I can kind of see this having a bad effect, but... dreal is lynchproof today.

[Fishythefish]

Max: well. Preplanning 3 person LYLO is silly and plays into scum hands, but if it's you/Vecna/dreal (and you are town) I want you to have a good hard think about the nightkill, tear your hair out, and then make the right call. I'll be doing the same if I'm in

any

LYLO tomorrow.

Fish/Drealmerz:

Did Maxous ask you both to pass along the contents of your PT?
If yes, why did you refuse to share?

Just to clarify on this, the interaction Max and I had was:

Max: could you copy/paste (or paraphrase) a couple of posts from the other PT?
Fishy: Yep, I'll just check with dreal
Fishy: Yep, I'll do it when I have time to do it properly

I'm sorry I chose a crappy time to be low-activity for 2 days.

[Fishythefish]

I see no reason for delay (but won't vote before Vecna weighs in).

[Fishythefish]

Well, I don't see any words from gerry as likely to change my mind. But sure, I guess I'm supposed to be in favour of discussion and stuff rather than quicklynching. Let's not get anywhere near the 48 hour mark, though.

Speaking of which: deadline is 4 in the morning for me. I'll be around briefly in 12 hours, then for a few hours this time tomorrow.

[Fishythefish]

VOTE: gerryoat

...im not really too keen on Fish giving out voting advice for tomorrow...
...Remember this tomorrow Fish if im the kill instead tonight - especially since me being the kill would make little sense, unless im correct...

My view is that giving out advice for tomorrow is fine, commenting on what you would do tomorrow is usually foolish, and the night kills at the sharp end of the game are always worth thinking about.

[Fishythefish]

(As an aside: I expected to feel some trepidation laying down that vote, but actually I don't. That's because if gerry isn't scum, the remaining scum have played a really brilliant game and deserve their victory. Whereas if gerry is scum, I'd be really pissed off if he won by acting as a tunnelled townie for most of the game.)

[Fishythefish]

Well played those scumbags. By the end, I was coming round to Vecna over Max (that TWIE kill) - but dreal's hood performance was masterful.

[Fishythefish]

Well, by that point you basically has this sewn up. I'm sure your way would have worked too

[Fishythefish]

TL;DR: drealmer is 100% town. If drealmer is not town and we lose the game because of it, I will buy a deck of mafiascum cards, select the cards drealmer holds, and eat them.

I might die in 48 hours time, so I think this needs saying now. drealmer neighbourised me yesterday (note for Max: about an hour after I told you he hadn't ).

In that neighbourhood, drealmer is obviously town. He's very clearly trying extremely hard to win this for the town. The Uzi lynch yesterday was his idea (I likely wouldn't have pushed it without him). Think of the most obviously town scumhunting display you have seen. drealmer is about that townish.

This hasn't quite carried through to the thread. The reasons are pretty clear to me; he feels less inhibited in a neighbourhood with one friendly, responsive player to talk to, who he reads as obvtown. In this thread, where the players are nearly half scum, and it's quite hard to get the town on board with ideas, he struggles to get as much traction (his word).

So, I know nobody listens to a dead townie. But if I die, please remember: I can see posts that you can't see. I don't throw around super strong townreads lightly; this is the strongest townread I can imagine based on posting alone. drealmer is town, and if you lynch him, you'll regret it.

looking forward to it

Alas, if I did carry out this promise, I think I'd be breaking the rules for out of game incentives.

[Fishythefish]

No objections to PTs being released.

Many thanks to the mod. The game was well designed, with small exceptions you've already noted (48 hour lylo was kinda silly ), and the running was perfection. Would play again.

Congratulations to the scum. A very well played game. MVPs for me are Vecna and dreal from the scum, and giga from the town.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first game of mafia in three years, and hope to play with many of you again.

For my part, I'm happy with my game except Day 7. On that day, I had the interesting experience of running out of scumreads. I didn't react well, and ended up allowing 2 of my 3 top townreads to get lynch. I should have pushed more to lynch people I had lesser townreads on, perhaps manufacturing a case to do so. It's one point where my "say exactly what you are thinking, all the time" playstyle falls down.

I'm not sure if the site has changed, or my memory is rose-tinted, but this game had more players than I remember who make no real effort to catch scum and explain that they've done so.

Which powers did you like/dislike?

I thought the disablers were boring. Heavy handed compared to roleblocker. Card specific powers - rig, revive - were fun. I thought pre-game that rig was very strong; it essentially meant that the most protown powers could be activated 1/4 of the time, rather than 1/13. That was born out in the game.

Do you think the setup was within the realm of balanced and not favouring one side too heavily?

Yep.

Would you play in a future version of this setup?

Very yes.

What new powers/modifiers would you like to see in future versions of this setup?

- Card thief: name a card and a player. If the player has the card, steal it. (I think massclaim was really strong here. I'd like it to be more punished!)
- Joker (not fully thought through). There is only one of these in the deck. Play this as any other card, then discard it.

[Fishythefish]

What if the draft and card picking happened before alignment? Scum would lose the ability to coordinate picks but card picks would no longer be alignment indicative. That would pull the teeth out of massclaim.

In the first Pick Your Power game hosted by SpyreX, number selection happened before alignment and draft choices occurred before knowing your scumpartners, but in all subsequent PYP games, number choice and draft choice have happened after alignment/partner knowledge.

Personally, I think the coordination of picks allows for more interesting flavours of manipulation for creative scumteams and also enables another form of scumhunting for savvy townies -- there are a lot of inferences you can make about what scum may or may not have picked, especially when the town has a few flips under their belt. Even number analysis can be handy at times, for example; town should have concluded that it's quite unlikely TWIE is scum picking 12 after Uzi who also picked 12 flipped scum. Does town really think scum are willing to double up on such a high number and sabotage their draft position? Maybe some scumteams with very deceptive/forward planning players might, but most won't consider this longterm gambit.

And for scum, the looming presence of massclaim late in the game and to a lesser extent card cops means they can't just go out and pick every pro-scum power there is (without coming under heavy scrutiny/fakeclaiming a lot of cards), but instead have to draft

some

town-looking cards and strike a balance between making

some

pro-town looking moves while sneaking by as many pro-scum moves as possible without coming under fire for it.

I think too much interesting gameplay is lost if coordination of picks is to go.

I definitely agree. It's cool that scum can try a strategy, and town can try to guess at it.

I played in that first PYP game

[Fishythefish]

Give card - pass one of your cards to another player.

Fun for passing bad cards as well as good.

[Fishythefish]

Yeah, I was thinking of it in concert with Card Spy particularly

[Fishythefish]

Ooooh! Nice.

[Fishythefish]

Another big issue I found with the game was Day 1 generating over 90 pages, which I feel like directly led to replacements (Magna) and indirectly led to a couple other replacements by trapping some players in permanent catch-up mode. I'm not sure how to mechanically solve something like this, or if there's even anything that can be done about it, but it really does make the game almost unreadable for players replacing in (and makes it harder to find replacements in general). After the first couple of Days and once more information was in the game, it became a lot more readable and people were spamming less, but I'd really like to hear about what other mods have done to combat this issue.

Has anyone tried bankable deadlines? It feels like making deadlines short, ie; one week but you can bank any unused time to carry over to the next Day might encourage town to make accelerated decisions early in the game to build up more deadline time for future days, but it might be one of those things that works better in theory than in practice. D1 in this game still achieved a lynch in 4 and a half RL days, so this might not actually solve anything. Night start is the only other mechanic I can think of to accelerate the start of the game and get to phases where confirmed info exists sooner, but I'm not really a fan of Night starts tbh.

Any other ideas or is this just a playerbase thing that needs to be accepted these days?

I can't think of anything you can do about this. You can shorten D1 in various ways, but it was the rate of posting, not the length of day, that hurt (and nearly made me replace out - v glad I didn't). And there's just no way to stop people posting that I can see.

From a player's point of view, some combination of 1 replace out and some annoyed posts about it seemed to help a bit.

Actually, it might be a bit controversial, but one thing you could do is simply ask nicely. Just a post like "Some people are posting so much that the game is hard to follow and I'm worried about replacements. If they could slow down a little, it would be much appreciated".