Pick Your Power II - Looks like the wine is gone (SCUM WIN)

[Fate]

Ohh yea and Fate pretending to be Porkens is the best thing I've ever seen ever, btw.

You know what would have been EVEN BETTER?

If I had pretended to be his scumbuddy and outed two scum.

Would've been epic.

[Hoopla]

Overall thoughts?
What would you change?
What would you keep?

I know the impact of scum being able to talk before the draft really helped. A lot. Even more than I thought it would - with that said, although the scumteam played well Hoopla by far gets my MVP of this game. He, really, ran this show and ran it well. Kudos.

Hi SpyreX, I love the PYP franchise - it's one of the most creative and exciting types of set-ups I've seen. Mostly because the town always has information and there is a real chance they can luck out with numbers and expose scum in their groups if they aren't careful.

For most of the game I argued number theory, because it's what I thought I'd do as town - and I genuinely believed it, which is perhaps why I looked convincing. Even when I'd get in debates with people about the importance of numbers, I took it personally and

wanted

to prove them wrong which gave amazing security to me because I could appear so sincere.

Contrary to what seems to be being said, scum didn't win this as convincingly as everyone thought, and the town were probably one smart lynch away from breaking the game wide open, which made it incredibly tense on the last day. My dwindling town stock actually worked to the teams' advantage in the fact that a soft defense on StrangerCoug reaffirmed Fate he must be scum, which was very rewarding to me, seeing such an obvious tactic work so fluently.

Fate played a stellar game, and it took a lot of nerve to not break down and claim after being wagoned to L-1. From the scum perspective, we had Fate pegged as bomb for basically almost the entire game, which made the top order fairly easy to target without fear.

~~

I think 17:5 (scum knowing each other pre-draft) is a far superior to any other PYP variant I've come across. Multiple scum groups introduces a large element of luck and makes it about cross-kills. 17:5 allows for many creative scum strategies, and because the town is only working against one force, they can predict with more cetainty, what is unfolding beneath their eyes. I hope 17:5 gets run again, but I'd get rid of some of the roles that scum tend to benefit from, such as governor (wayyyyy too powerful) and vengeful, and I'd use these;

Cop
Bomb
Bulletproof

3-shot vig

(to minimize the absolute, FUCK WE'RE SCREWED aspect of the scum getting the vig. Although, if not tampered with, I think towns will develop tactics to deal with the vig - ie; a townie going for vig at 3/4 to know the role is above them, or maybe vig claimed D1/2)

Tracker
Watcher

(Both of these are great town roles that serve no benefit to scum)

Doctor
Role-Cop
Weak Doctor

(good town confirming potential)

Roleblocker
Neighbouriser
1-shot Redirector

(more value to the town, potentially moving a kill onto scum)

Jack-of-all-trades

(makes kill speculation more interesting wondering who it comes from - also more powerful to town than scum)

Nurse

(especially good if both doctor are in town - comes in as regular doctor)

Universal Back-up
Empowerer

In my opinion, there is enough power here for a town to overcome a beefed up scumteam. I also think in future PYP games, that if alignments are known pre-draft, it will put more pressure on scumteams to 'double up' on one number in the future, jeopardising their chances at good roles. This was a large reason why I pushed that theory so hard - if I got a mislynch on someone near the top on a good role (or my own lynch), it would mean town would be too scared to consider number analysis genuinely in the future. It was something we needed to do after we left ourselves very open all picking a different number.

A town clued in to number analysis can put a lot of pressure on scum pre-draft

feeling

like they have to double up, which is already a win for a town marginalising their roles chances. I really think as scum this game, we were able to exploit the numbers because nobody really understood/thought about them - but they actually contain a lot more merit and information than most would expect. Good towns should win this set-up more often than not, in my opinion.

I have some more thoughts about the game, and about what drove us to decide the things we did as scum. You might be surprised to know we strongly considered doubling/tripling up on one of our X numbers to get some protection from number analysis - thank god we didn't, because it is wayyyy easier to win just by trying to get as good as possible roles as you can. But in the future, this optimum scum strategy will become more obvious, and teams will have a lot more at risk by opting for this tactic, and may very well have to double up to give themselves some safety (a town bonus).

[Fate]

There's a chance of Jack vig, you've suddenly taken out of the equation which I can't work out - so if you go for SC and it's a Jack/Fifi scumteam, it's an automatic loss.

I just reread this.

Damn.
You.

[Hoopla]

Our scum-QT had almost 600 posts of hardcore planning. I'm happy to post it if my scumbuddies want it revealed.

[Fate]

Contrary to what seems to be being said, scum didn't win this as convincingly as everyone thought, and the town were probably one smart lynch away from breaking the game wide open, which made it incredibly tense on the last day. My dwindling town stock actually worked to the teams' advantage in the fact that a soft defense on StrangerCoug reaffirmed Fate he must be scum, which was very rewarding to me, seeing such an obvious tactic work so fluently.

Meh, if I had somehow come to my sense and lynched Jack based on numbers, likely hood, it would have been something like this imo:

Lynch Jack->
NK Wolf/Ellie

5 (TM, Devo, Me, Wolf/Ellie, SC) Lynch Fifi
VK Me(unless I was smart enough to not be on the lynch), NK Ellie.

Devo/TM/SC vs. Hoopla/Faraday -> Lynch Hoopla (ideally),
NK ????

So unless I saw vengeful kill coming and survived until endgame (which would have been worse, actually because of my link with Far) It would have been a lesser than stellar endgame team vs. Faraday, who looked town to a lot of people.

Same result? More days? Again, I'm a bit disappointed in myself it didn't go this far, but the town's margin for errors was so thin.

[Fate]

Our scum-QT had almost 600 posts of hardcore planning. I'm happy to post it if my scumbuddies want it revealed.

I'd really like to see it, if only to fully appreciate the genius that we were up against.

This is all I have to offer: http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/spQEsffKE3HA

I don't need Faraday's permission because he's lying scum

[Hoopla]

I still think if this set-up was run again with slightly tweaked roles, the town would have a much better chance of winning. They were a bit unlucky getting a lot of vanillas, and lost decent powerroles early. With a game now played under this set-up, I think future scum teams would not be able to pull off some of the things they did this game with any certainty (ie; gambling and taking the vig at 7th place, and picking 5 different X numbers without any real worry).

[Hoopla]

Our scum-QT had almost 600 posts of hardcore planning. I'm happy to post it if my scumbuddies want it revealed.

I'd really like to see it, if only to fully appreciate the genius that we were up against.

This is all I have to offer: http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/spQEsffKE3HA

I don't need Faraday's permission because he's lying scum

I've already seen that - we had Faraday update us with screenshots.

[Devotress]

I grieve for the loss of the poor wine. farewell, we tried to save you.





I really need to examine this game to find what made me so scummy, I'm obviously not the greatest player. Glad I wasn't a lylo loss lynch or anything, I was scared of being that. Would have been had I been higher on the draft I suppose.


I'm linking this game when someone brings up number theory in the next pick your power

[Faraday]

Our scum-QT had almost 600 posts of hardcore planning. I'm happy to post it if my scumbuddies want it revealed.

I'd really like to see it, if only to fully appreciate the genius that we were up against.

This is all I have to offer: http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/spQEsffKE3HA

I don't need Faraday's permission because he's lying scum

Hey Porkens

[Faraday]

J
FARADAY WHY DID YOU TALK TO PORKENS AFTER YOU KILLED HIM!

Well tbh, I was like 'It'd be fucking hilarious if it turned out it was Fate pretending to be Porkens pretending to be Fate' and I didn't want to take that chance.


Anyway I think the town had good chances of winning this despite not doing well in the draft (and not doing well in the draft is kinda bad luck/their own fault)

Fifi could easily have been lynched day 1, but I think myself and Hoopla voted fefifofum in quick succession. No one seemed to consider we were moving a wagon off fifi instead of bouncy.bouncy.

The scum team were excellent though, credit to Jack/Hoopla/Socrates for their master strategies all game, I was just happy to tag on and agree or disagree as the case may be.

I've no problems posting the qt. Soc isn't around I don't think but I doubt anyone would have any problem with it.


GG all.

And woot, I'm 2 for 2 in Pick Your Power.

[Faraday]

I'm linking this game when someone brings up number theory in the next pick your power

The funny thins is if we'd followed Hoopla's plan it'd have been a COMPLETELY different and harder game for the scum

[Faraday]

I'd also disagree w/ the fact that allowing scum to talk before unbalances the game. I mean the town happened to do really badly in their draft picks here. No one went for Bulletproof/Doc/Roleblocker.

I know if I'd been town I'd have taken the empowerer too. Guaranteed Night kills are really fucking strong for a scum group.

[Devotress]

I'm linking this game when someone brings up number theory in the next pick your power

The funny thins is if we'd followed Hoopla's plan it'd have been a COMPLETELY different and harder game for the scum

Well yah, would have hit a scum day 1 on socrates, and would have made whose the vig alot easier to figure out.
But still, this game did a good job proving that scum are all over the draftboard, knowing what 4 other people are going to pick doesn't put you any average amount higher in the draft.

[Devotress]

Any significant amount higher, I ment to say. Scum did have a slight better average placing.

[Hoopla]

I'm linking this game when someone brings up number theory in the next pick your power

The funny thins is if we'd followed Hoopla's plan it'd have been a COMPLETELY different and harder game for the scum

Well yah, would have hit a scum day 1 on socrates, and would have made whose the vig alot easier to figure out.
But still, this game did a good job proving that scum are all over the draftboard, knowing what 4 other people are going to pick doesn't put you any average amount higher in the draft.

You can't say if you were town, and were able to peak at 4 other people's numbers pre-game, it wouldn't improve your chances at getting a higher pick. Scum have this advantage 5 times, as they have 5 unique numbers that have the advantage of ruling out 4 possible number clashes for each number. You'd be surprised how much it helps. Though, for future games, scum doing this tactic is going to be more difficult to get away with, as town

now

know it is optimum scum strategy.

Also, here is our QT: http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/HYZvf2WcGPe/p01.589

[Devotress]

I kinda can say though. You guys did have a bit better placing, but look at the positions.

1,7,9,16,21

That is not a top end loaded enough scum team to warrant a strategy of lynching the top picks.

[Hoopla]

It's subject to fluctuation - this was just one small event. If scum had 4 picks in the bottom 10, it wouldn't prove that it is a bad scum strategy, just unlucky. There is an element of luck involved, but knowing a significant chunk of numbers does a lot to improve your chances.

Also, if I was offered 3 picks in the top 9 instead of taking the chance at the draft, I'd take the first option. There was more scum than random at the top, so I think a number-lynching strategy would have been justified!

[Devotress]

Reading your quicktopic you guys even talked about who you should kill to leave groups alone to be good targets for number lynching. I can't see how you can have participated in that quicktopic and think it's a good idea for town to make heavy use of number analysis.


I'm not arguing you guys didn't have ANY advantage in the draft. Just not a significant enough average placing to warrant lynching people baed on being in the top of the order.

[Hoopla]

We thought number analysis was going to be more important than it was. It was why I argued it so much, because if I died it would look like scum were trying to manipulate a favourable number-position in the draft, which in turn would tarnish any number-based analysis and make it unreliable - a goal we wanted to achieve because we took the 'grab as many high picks as we can' method.

[Fate]

@Faraday: That gambit would've worked a lot better if I had thought of it first. I posted it in, then PM'd Spyrex asking if I could use another name, THEN posted as Porkens. -_-'

@Rest: I want to give out some critique and welcome all to do the same. I think one of the points of post-game is to help improve. Not trying for any personal attacks here so please don't take them that way.

Things that contributed to towns loss:

Fate: Didn't pick vig didn't pick vig, etc. That would've nullified the scum strategy, and made my WIFOM pick of bomb solid when I refused to claim. Also letting scum (Jack+Hoopla) guide me toward SC with little resistance after I first proposed Jack be lynched. Also failing to check the QT after Wolf claimed to see that Faraday didn't mention Jack's name even once as a possibility (I'd like to think I would've seen that). Lynching Bouncy was pretty bad too, BUT:

Bouncy: A role investigation on Jack would've ended it, on Socrates it would have let us know for sure he wasn't the vig, etc. Please, please don't do random.org next time.

Pom: Activity isn't really something you can just "improve on" it is a matter of circumstance. I'm not saying you could've done anything about it, but this is a list of things that contributed to town's loss. If you weren't as scummy then Socrates fake guilty would've looked worse.

Devotress+TM: Townies that we needed on the last day. If you were more protown my Town list would've had you two instead of Jack+Far on it. (nah Far would've still been on it ;P) Looking back TM's L-1 vote with "not like I'm going to be able to reverse it now" was pretty bad. If you saw it from a different angle your input would've been nice.

Ellie: You're in the same boat as me. We got worked over pretty bad, but at least we can say we nailed Hoopla in the end (but we failed to adjust our play based on that read. I did anyway).

RayFrost: Stop having your name show up on random.org!

CKD: You were in this game? (See Pom)

SC: A victim of circumstance. With better posts you could've shone light on the Jack/Fifi team (which was my original 50% shot theory), but Jack tore apart your posts and I followed on to his reasoning. If you give scum a good target it is easy for them to look town.

That's all I can think of for right now. Kudos to DP for claiming before he was killed, we might've been able to piece it together if Devo+SC didn't act scummy.

@Spyrex:
The game was a lot of fun, thanks for modding. I loved it especially since it was face paced, nightless, and interesting. I neglected a lot of my other games to post in this one.

Suggestion: It has been said before, but scum being able to talk before the draft was HUGE. To put it from a different perspective:
What if there was a large theme game in which scum could talk and form a strategy and choose what PR roles they got to have?
And then conversely Town had no discussion and got random PRs?

But other than that, /pre-in for next!

[Fate]

)

Needless to say PLEASE LOOK HERE BEFORE YOU POST.

I screwed it up and RC not SC got killed.

"Oh"

I just read this. I mean, obviously my first reaction is anger. Then I feel as if, 'well people are human.'

Then I just feel sad. Like we lost the game on a fluke

[Faraday]

"Oh"

I just read this. I mean, obviously my first reaction is anger. Then I feel as if, 'well people are human.'

Then I just feel sad. Like we lost the game on a fluke

I don't think it would have affected the outcome of the game at all. The vig hunt went down because Recoyote was killed.

[Fate]

Outcome? Debatable.

The major turning points involved SC:

1. SC acted scummy
2. Faraday proposes Fifi/SC team and I buy it.

I'd like to think RC would've acted that way. As it was mentioned in your QT, SC was kept alive as buffer between Jack and fifi. If SC wasn't there it would be an easy decision to lynch Jack and have him vig Fifi.

I still think we would've hunted the vig because two townies had died in a row. Even Hoopla suggested that D3 we "ask the vig to claim so we can direct their kill." Then you guys would've tried the fifi claiming guilty gambit thing, and then we could've gone from there.

Modslip or not, you guys deserved this win. I'll be the first to admit *hats off*

[StrangerCoug]

I am disappointed. Seriously.

I'll talk when I get over losing. I have other, more optimistic stuff to take care of.