Mini 817: Chosen (Game Over!)

[hohum]

I'm currently seeking replacements for both Archon and Nuwen. It may take a while because the request backlog in the replacement queue has grown considerably. You guys can help though. If you know someone reliable you'd like to play with please have them PM me.

Never mind.

Herodotus replaces Archon

Raivann replaces Nuwen

[Herodotus]

Oh sweet Zorblag is joining. This game's awesomeness meter just went up a factor of 10.

Agreed.

I don't have my role PM yet, but I will say that I found Archon to be strongly townish when I first read the game this morning.

[Herodotus]

/Confirmed.

[Papa Zito]

Hurrah. Thank you hohum and replacements.

[Zorblag]

Welcome to the game Herodotus and Raivann. As you're replacing in after the game started we know that even if you're scum you didn't take part in the process of deciding which four players to exclude from being the chosen but just so that we've got more to work with I'd love to hear your thoughts about which four players from the following list you would have picked were you scum not to be the chosen and very briefly the reasons why:

Archon
AshMC1984
BloodCovenent
afatchic
MiteyMouse
nadroj15
Nuwen
Papa Zito
TDC

To everyone, Mini 780 - Chosen has just ended. The setup for that game is almost identical to the one that we're using here. If people have time skimming through and seeing how it effected the game would be something that I recommend.

I'm approaching this game with a similar attitude to how Albert B. Rampage approached that one. So long as we never lynch the chosen, the town can't lose this game. It'll be good to lynch scum if we can but town wins even if it mislynches every single time so long as the chosen is still around.

In that game they didn't spend much effort in the first couple days figuring out who the chosen was likely to be; I think that they should have and I'm trying to do that now. If others think that this is a poor plan I'm happy to listen to arguments that I'm being an idiot here.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Herodotus]

Troll, I'm finding the guessing of the chosen one to be a bit of a distraction. If the town *were* to correctly guess who was the chosen, that would be an auto-win, but I just don't think that's possible. At best -- even if we were to successfully navigate through the WIFOM, which is unlikely -- we'd have four candidates. Talk me through how this is better than scumhunting. I could be convinced, but so far, I'm not. I'll read 780 when I can.

[TDC]

Well what's even better than mislynching non-Chosens is lynching nobody.

Though I guess scum are not forced to nightkill either, so that would just make the game never ending. Still, seems a bit of a flaw in the setup that we don't have to lynch (rules post explicitly allows no-lynching)?

[Raivann]

/confirm. Hi all , will post w/content shortly

[Herodotus]

Well what's even better than mislynching non-Chosens is lynching nobody.

strictly speaking, it's not better than lynching definite non-chosens, but it is better than lynching anyone who might be the chosen.

vote: NoLynch

[Zorblag]

I don't expect to figure out who the chosen is right away. Mostly likely we won't be sure until they get mislynched or the game ends. What we can do today is rule out likely suspects and those we do rule out will be the better lynches. Clearly we should be scum hunting at the same time and looking for scum everywhere, but especially the first few days of the game we should be lynching scummy players who also have a fairly low chance of being the chosen. As the game goes on I suspect the WIFOM will build up and it will get harder to take advantage of this principle.

When we do hit scum we'll have their list of people they would have excluded as the chosen as well as their actions to look at when deciding both who their partner is likely to be and who the chosen is likely to be. I don't expect the list that the scum will end up giving to be the least bit honest but if they have to give reasons now we're tying them down to particular viewpoints that we can test against how they react to the rest of the game as it happens.

For the no lynch idea, I view that more as a last resort that we can use if we get down to a place where we're not sure about who is likely to be the chosen and we don't have a good feel for who is scum. Town can always force a draw in this game by not voting so long as the chosen is alive. I often play games not to lose rather than to win so I did think about simply recommending that the town always vote no lynch. The eventual reason that I didn't was that there is a general site rule that we're supposed to play to win. I'm taking that to mean that as long as acting gives us a reasonable chance of winning rather than losing we should do that instead of taking the draw through inaction.

If I do get killed before end game I suppose I should let everyone know that I have no trouble with town voting no lynch and going for the draw if they aren't pretty sure they can get the win. I just think that right now we aren't at the stage where we have to play defensively as we do have the advantage going into the game so long as we can determine a set of people who almost certainly aren't the chosen.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Herodotus]

I think I would theoretically want to exclude:

afatchic
MiteyMouse
Nuwen
TDC

based entirely on my prior impression (without having done any research) of those players' relative levels of experience or skill. If I anticipated that people would guess they would be excluded, I might do basically the opposite.

[Zorblag]

For the record, I'm writing Archon's play off as a null tell as, like I said, I consider him to be scum bait when he's town. That means that I'm automatically excusing any omissions he made about people he played with because I don't think that he was aware enough to give an accurate list. I do think that the no lynch vote by Herodotus is a bit scummy as even though the lynching dynamic is not the same as in a typical game I think we can do better, but I also think that Archon was particularly likely not to be excluded from being the chosen so I'll have no interest in voting for Herodotus on day one.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Herodotus, do you have any experience with Papa Zito? Same question in reverse to Papa Zito.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[TDC]

based entirely on my prior impression (without having done any research) of those players' relative levels of experience or skill.

You mean from this thread? I don't remember playing with you.

[Herodotus]

I want to hear from Raivann regarding Nuwen's opinions. Do you agree or disagree with them?

---

I do think that the no lynch vote by Herodotus is a bit scummy as even though the lynching dynamic is not the same as in a typical game I think we can do better, but I also think that Archon was particularly likely not to be excluded from being the chosen so I'll have no interest in voting for Herodotus on day one.

I don't see how it's scummy, but okay.

Herodotus, do you have any experience with Papa Zito? Same question in reverse to Papa Zito.

No.

based entirely on my prior impression (without having done any research) of those players' relative levels of experience or skill.

You mean from this thread? I don't remember playing with you.

No, from either GD, your join date, your # of posts, or reading other games you've been in. I haven't played with any of the four I named.

[Herodotus]

By the way, almost every post Ash has made has been scummy.

fos: Ash1984

[Zorblag]

Herodotus, would you find voting no lynch on day one of games without some special dynamic scummy in general? If you need a more specific one how about a mountainous nine player game with two scum?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Herodotus]

Herodotus, would you find voting no lynch on day one of games without some special dynamic scummy in general? If you need a more specific one how about a mountainous nine player game with two scum?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

In that case, nolynch would be bad for the town (although I'm not sure the scum would be bold enough to try it in general.)

[Zorblag]

So here I also see no lynch as bad for the town in that it doesn't make the town more likely to win than a well debated lynch would. I don't have any problem with people not voting yet; I'm holding off till I hear the answers to my questions. What I don't like is that you've voted no lynch there which is probably a worse play for the town than simply withholding your vote given my current take on the setup.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Herodotus]

As I see it, the town has a good incentive to never lynch.

[Zorblag]

Ah, and I guess I should add that I find Herodotus to be competent based on previous experience. If it weren't for that I'd just call the no lynch vote anti-town. When a competent player makes it I find it scummy. In this game it's less clear that no lynch is the wrong play but I still think that it is and that given what I've said about strategy thus far today competent players shouldn't be voting no lynch. If anyone gives an argument to the contrary for any of the points there I might change that opinion.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

If town never lynches then they can't lose. If town never lynches then they can't win. Assuming that town wants to win rather than simply draw it's in their interest to lynch scum. At the start of the game the information provided from mislynches is much more valuable than just letting scum kill whoever they want other than the chosen to get to the same stage. If we can rule out people as likely chosen ones it's in our best interest to lynch at the early stage of the game so that we've got a better chance of winning by lynching at the later stages of the game.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[TDC]

Troll: Considering that Nuwen also was in the other game, do you think that our lists have any value if she was scum?

[Herodotus]

I should provide a little background. The first time that I heard of this setup being run, around February of this year, I looked over the rules and thought to myself "as long as the Chosen is never lynched, the town wins... NoLynch every day would appear to be the ideal strategy. Eventually the scum will NK every townie but the chosen, then the town wins." I PM'ed the mod to tell them the setup was broken. They responded by telling me that lynches were mandatory, i.e. the game would stay in day until a lynch happened. When I replaced into this game, I assumed the same rule would apply here. It wasn't until 131 by TDC that I checked the rules and realized it didn't.

My feelings about NoLynch are mixed -- it appears to be the ideal strategy, but it's obviously not fun. I'm not sure what to make of labeling it a draw.

[Zorblag]

I do think that the lists have value even though Nuwen was in the other game. Unless Nuwen was scum in this game her being in the other game doesn't change anything at all. Even if Nuwen was scum (and Raivann is now) the four players that Raivann lists will give us information later on to look at when determining if he was trying to manipulate us.

Herodotus, again, if we never lynch then the mafia can eliminate townies until they're down to the point where there's one townie and the chosen one left in addition to themselves. If they then don't choose to night kill any more we're at a draw. Unless the town chooses to kill at some point the mafia never have to lose. I think that it's much better for the town to get information from the lynches to use in a possible end game situation provided that we can be fairly certain that we aren't lynching the chosen than it is to simply let the mafia kill whoever they find most useful to kill to get us there.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh