Mod Quoting

[PolarBoy]

Aye, Speedy.

This is one of those reciprocal relationships where each side could do only enouch to blame the other if something went wrong, but I think it's better to go a step beyond.

On the one hand, a mod should write PMs in such a way that quoting is useless, or at least less useful(See Black and White, mini 76, or any of a number of newbie games for comepletely opposite approaches to the same concept). That way it stands to reason that any sort of communication based on minor details is also useless.

On the other hand, it's not really in the spirit of the game to use minute details of the wording of PMs to back up your alibi. Besides that, I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you don't try to ruin a setup, you can make it playable even if it isn't, but if you try to ruin it you can make it unplayable even if it is.

Meanwhile I'm working on "Scrubbed Mafia", a highly standardized set of rules and roles such that there are no grey areas. I don't think it's possible to make it perfect, but I can darn well try.

[PolarBoy]

That was easily the lamest thing that happened in both Princess Bride Mafia and Calvin and Hobbes Mafia(Both in the theme park)

Actually I concur with PBug, the no-quoting-the-mod rule is a necessary evil at best.

[PolarBoy]

No, and actually mentioning it was rather unfair, as I never read more than the first day. My apologies.

[PolarBoy]

Not entirely true Norinel; in Black and White(mini 76), it was noticed by the players that the rules said:

If a rule is not explcitly stated by the mod, it is not a rule.

It was also noticed that no rule mentioned the discussion of Role PMs. This was generally thought to be a gross oversight on the moderator's part. Much hilarity ensued.

Dasquian, that's the idea behind

Scrubbed Mafia

, a project I'm working on. It's a whole book of standards for things like Role PMs and rules concerning night actions charted down to minute details. This means that anyone could make a perfectly legitimate looking role claim. It also means that you can predict with clinical accuracy what will happen on a night, given that you know the roles and choices. Something like that anyway. I haven't really got more than the basic idea worked out. It also has occured to me that it would be a lot of overhead unless the book was used for several games.

[PolarBoy]

Actually part of the purpose of the book is to eliminate rules concerning mod-quoting. If scum can fabricate an unquestionably authentic role claim of any and every role available in the game then quoting provides no advantage; smart players wouldn't bother requiring it.

The second thing though--what happens in unusual circumstances--would be hashed out in full.

Heh, I guess I made it sound like there was a partial draft of

Scrubbed Mafia

in existence. It's only a concept right now.

[PolarBoy]

unless they outguess you based on the assumption that no one would claim to be mafia unless it hurt the town to lynch him.

[PolarBoy]

To illustrate JEEP's and Thoth's point: It is not noble to slide in with your cleats up.

With that being said, there is a difference between breaking the rules and invoking a game mechanic. Ask the mod if you aren't sure which something is, but it's usually a safe bet that if it's in the actual rules post it's a rule, whereas if it's in your role it's a game mechanic.

[PolarBoy]

I'm starting to think that it's important to make role PMs as different from one another as possible, even among similar/same roles.

Or, you can make them so similar that it would be extremely easy to predict what the roles say.

I've tried both approaches. See Black and White(Mini 76) for an example of the former. In my opinion it was quite effective. The latter I've only attempted offsite, and gotten mixed results.

One problem I've noticed is that people seem to approach their role with a lot of preconveived ideas. For instance, my flavorless roles didn't include names(Except for the mafia), simply a terse description of what the role does followed by what the role wants. So the pro-town vigilante role looked like this:

Every night you may choose another player. This player will die. You win if all members of the mafia are dead.

On seeing this role, a player assumed that, since the word "town" was not used, but the word "mafia" was, that she was a member of the mafia. And if that's what a pro-town role with an ability looks like, consider what a townie with no abilities looks like:

You win if all members of the mafia are dead.

A player who received this as a role responded with "So when do I get my role?"

So I have certain doubts about the flavorless approach.

[PolarBoy]

Although it is true that content is sometimes intentionally omitted for the sake of intrigue (Cop variations are the textbook example of this) there is none missing in this case. Rather the content is not made explicit.

In fact I would even concede this point if the motivation was written in a standardized format such as "(Town)" with nothing else; that would look like something must be missing. But it was written as complete, longhand statement, and the message was titled "Mafia Role".

I think if I ever compile the scrubbed mafia handbook I will probably make it explicit in any games I run with it that the roles will be terse. Hopefully this will dispel the concern that I wrote only part of a role and then accidentally hit the "submit" button when I fell asleep.