Deadline Lynching? Part II

[Nemesis]

I'd say it depends on the numbers. Trying to avoid a WIFOM arguement I'd say...

With a deadline that requires half the majority with 6 votes halved, 3 scum have a huge advantage obviously. With a decrease in Scum : Townies there is a point at which Scum would seriously be suspicious all voting one way. But any lynch that has a chance of hitting scum is better than no lynch. If the deadline removes the town's only chance of killing scum then that can only favour the scum.

I'd say any deadline favours the scum really. (Although obviously the more said the more chance the town usually has.)

It totally depends, I've never seen a 3/4 majority used. Although it favours the scum slightly, with enough players it could work properly.


But deadlines should really speed up the game, if you can extend them then do so, don't force people to rush as that also favours the scum.


I feel I should point out. I've never played or modded a game. I've read about 20 games here though, so although I'm a n00b it doesn't mean I'm an uninformed n00b. But my suggestions/comments could be totally wrong.

[Nemesis]

I agree with you about the significance of lynching someone. (Rare occassions give the town a bigger chance of lynching scum but they are at lynch or lose.)
But a hlaf-majority lynch in most cases strongly favours scum. Any lynch is better than no lynch and although a half majority lynch favours the town more than a full majority deadline I still see scum having the advantage as soon as a deadline is put in place. It is very easy for someone's scum buddy to deflect a new bandwagon if a deadline exists.

Extending a deadline favours the town. The town has no other things concerning deadlines that helps them, I don't think.

[Nemesis]

Although that is true the downside is people panic. Some people do not like haste voting. The main thing is Mafia can stall fairly easily. The amount of active people without scum are barely enough to lynch at the start of the game. I've seen games in which many people were replaced due to inactivity and the mod decided to mod-kill people because of the amount of inactivity. A deadline on the first few days of a game can give scum a choice between lynching a townie or not voting and saving a scum buddy. If all inactive players are replaced or prodded until they are active then maybe that kind of deadline would favour the town more than a half majority deadline, however all deadlines favour scum.

[Nemesis]

I think you should set a deadline, then every 2 hours after the deadline reduce the number required to lynch by one.

That is an interesting variation. But if the mod is european then Americans/Canadians could have a weird deadline time and vice versa. But that is the only bad thing about it. (Depending on the number of people left alive it can be altered so no real problems there.) The person bandwagoned before the deadline would have a lot of work to do. People might actually defend themselves properly instead of attacking someone else and creating a new bandwagon, time wouldn't allow it.

I belive there are at least 4 better types of deadline than the commonly used two.

[Nemesis]

8 Hours is actually ideal for a big game, if it was 12 hours at the start of a big game then it could take the deadline about a week to be effective, it is a deadline after all. If 8 hours is not enough in that kind of game for the town to use their numbers effectively then the town is responsible for giving the scum an advantage. In smaller games then I'd say at least 12 hours. I guess there'd be a min number of votes to lynch though. I don't think any mod is going to let 1 or 2 votes settle a lynch that would usually require 17 people.

[Nemesis]

That deadline is a practical one. I don't really like the best way of defending oneself to be voting for someone else but that I guess cannon be helped.

This is another of the many deadlines better than the commonly used ones.

[Nemesis]

In Simpsons Mafia I did a kind of mirror-reversed version of that deadline lynch: there was no minimum fraction of the whole town (voting and non-) as long as there were at least three people, but I upped the fraction of those who

were

participating needed to be considered consensus. (It was four fifths of the cast votes, but I think for future games three fourths might be better.)

Simpsons Mafia is a good example of a game which has a lot of inactive players. (You modkilled/replaced about half the players.) A full majority deadline could have resulted in a no lynch if there were no modkills.