Mod Quoting

[mathcam]

Not if what they desire is an instantaneous end to the day. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to come up with an example where the mafia would be willing to sacrifice one of their own to stop some information from being revealed, or something to that extent.

Cam

[Malaprop]

Talitha: good counterpoint. All in all, it's a difficult situation.

And, ya, circumstances for this being an advantageous play would be pretty rare.

[jeep]

Play advantage. If it gives the player advantage, don't end day right away (even if you will mod-kill and end day).

-JEEP

[olio]

So, the do-not-quote-mod-pm's is mainly directed against "say what's the third word in your role pm" questions? I claimed in Boca del Inferno and I'm still bit unsure if I did it right. I didn't get modkilled though. I know I should've asked mod before posting, but I felt the lynch coming.

with joy, Olio

[Norinel]

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.

I think the really interesting question is how you can do it without reducing the possible scope of roles and claims. With a finite scope, it's easy. (The Newbie games, obviously, or if someone were to post a list of the roles that could exist.)

[Norinel]

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.

I think the really interesting question is how you can do it without reducing the possible scope of roles and claims. With a finite scope, it's easy. (The Newbie games, obviously, or if someone were to post a list of the roles that could exist.)

So, the do-not-quote-mod-pm's is mainly directed against "say what's the third word in your role pm" questions?

Both that and copypasting directly from the pm.

Discussing running games is bad, but the two common general schools of thought are either anything short of specific wording is okay and it's okay to discuss what pms say but not how they say them.

[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.

[rolandofthewhite]

Is it considered a mortal sin when you reveal too much information and are subsequently mod-killed? Or can it sometimes be seen as a noble thing, sort of a "taking one for the team" kinda' thing?

Like, for example, if I wanted to sacrifice myself to reveal a very important piece of information to the town, and I was mod-killed, would it be looked down upon by everyone, or would it be sort of respected?

[jeep]

Breaking the rules is never "taking one for the team" it's cheating. If you destroy the integrity of the game too much, the mod will have wasted all the time to design it. Modkilling is generally reserved for cheaters (with some notable exceptions... like Bambi's killer, but that's a different sort of mod-kill).

It would definitely not be respected.

-JEEP

[rolandofthewhite]

Gotcha'.

Not that I was planning to do it, of course. Just wondering.

[Talitha]

I dunno.. I once considered doing exactly that kind of thing. My role said I had to post something, and I was considering not posting it and taking the mod-kill. I wouldn't have felt like a cheater...

[Thoth]

I think it's something to check with the mod if you're in doubt. It depends on whether he intends a modkill as just one of the mechanics of the role or as a necessary evil to get rid of someone breaking the rules.
One of the roles I was thinking about using in a game (should I ever enough continuous access) for instance was a cop that's somewhat stronger than usual (things like knowing he's sane, maybe something else like ability to protect someone on odd nights next to his investigation), but one that dies as soon as he claims or hints at his role. This would make the reveal/not reveal decision a bit tougher, knowing that you'll die after you post, but it's certainly with the intention that the player claims at some point.

[jeep]

That might make him MORE powerful because he's immediately confirmed innocent and no one will have a chance to place any doubt on him.

-JEEP

[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.

[jeep]

Nice clarification.

-JEEP

[halo freak]

if someone almost quotes your pm word for word. are you allowed to suspend (request that they don't post in the thread until you send another pm) them from the game while you consult a more experienced mod and make a decision on wether to mod kill them or not.
has it ever happened before. (i would still let the others talk and leave the thread open.)

[halo freak]

if someone almost quotes your pm word for word. are you allowed to suspend (request that they don't post in the thread until you send another pm) them from the game while you consult a more experienced mod and make a decision on wether to mod kill them or not.
has it ever happened before. (i would still let the others talk and leave the thread open.)

[halo freak]

ps i am all for that moderator hand book idea

[Yaw]

That reminds me, I meant to comment here when the game in question ended. So now that it has...

The role in question, as posted in thread at the end of the game was:

Ferry Owner (rite): This is your ship. Although you have nothing to do with the mafia, you have to admit that under the circumstances things don’t look good right now. You could say you’re out of your depth (pun intended). You’ll have to rely on your brains instead of any special abilities. You win when all evil has been removed from the game.

The quote that prompted the mod kill was:

If it helps, my role PM said that I had to rely on my brains rather than any special abilities.

At any rate, it's arguable. I discussed it with Cam at the time, and various people have expressed opinions in support or otherwise since. It's a grey area here.

What it came down to for me was two points. The first was that the quote in question had "my role PM said..." as a lead in. That told me there was some intent there to come close to quoting the PM. The second was the part of the PM that was quoted. Looking at another one of the roles:

Student (Candice): Part of your exchange to the university in Dar es Salaam involves research on Zanzibar. Too bad your first trip to the island was on this ship. As a student, you have only your wits to help you in this situation. You win when all the evil players have been removed.

It was the thematic similarity here that also influenced my decision. Rite was being bandwagoned at the time, and this quote would have resulted in an unvote based not on a defense, but on a comparison in thread of role PMs. This in a game where role PM quoting was explicitly outlawed in the rule post. If not for both of these points -- if rite had come that close to quoting a part of the PM that couldn't be recognized as significant by another player, or had he not set it up with the lead-in to explicitly tie the information to his role PM -- I probably would have let it go.

At any rate, I wanted to write that up to try to elaborate on some of the subtleties that should be considered with respect to mod quoting, and also to point out this idea of a theme between role PMs that do not contain exactly the same wording. Hopefully both mods and players can learn something from this.

if someone almost quotes your pm word for word. are you allowed to suspend (request that they don't post in the thread until you send another pm) them from the game while you consult a more experienced mod and make a decision on wether to mod kill them or not.
has it ever happened before. (i would still let the others talk and leave the thread open.)

I wouldn't do this, because it sends a message that the player has come close enough to modquoting to warrant the review. If you then come back and say what he/she did was ok, you've effectively legitimized the information in the quote under review, which is exactly what you don't want to do. Better not to say anything until you have a decision, and not to mention it at all if you decide it isn't modkill worthy.

[Dourgrim]

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. This prevents a "quote" from meaning much of anything at all (since it's easy to fake a quote if you really want to, although I've never tried) and removes any gray areas that might arise otherwise.

[jeep]

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

-JEEP

[Stewie]

Or you can restrict what people can quote greatly. For my next game, I'll keep it to:

1. You can claim your role name
2. You can claim what your role does, paraphrasing
3. You can't quote flavour.

Or to make it even easier, I won't send in any flavour.

[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.

[halo freak]

i agree that 'you win if all members of the mafia are dead'. is too 'empty' as this could apply to any town role and not just to a townie so i think that there is a fine line between to much information and too little. different mods will have different opinions about how much content to put in their roles.

[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.