How to win as Mafia: Calculated Inaction

[chkflip]

I question people, change my mind, draw conclusions, post frequently, and change my vote often and I rarely get lynched. Just saying.

This.

[Lord Gurgi]

So this has been in rotation for a month and a half, is town winning every game yet? Or are people ready to admit that meta doesn't adjust as robustly as theory says it does?

[Magister Ludi]

I'm of the opinion town should blather around day one and then a few days out from deadline switch and speed lynch the person with the lowest post count. Do it again day two. By day three mafia won't be lurking. If consistent, over a vast period of time and games mafia will have to become more active or die.

[Lord Gurgi]

That never happens in practise. Talk to TheFonz.

[Magister Ludi]

Yeah, I know. Which is unfortunate. Its hard to bring myself to that mentality in a game also.

[Lord Gurgi]

Well that's also because most lurkers aren't scum. I mean, you don't cut off your nose because it has a pimple to bring the rest of the face into line.

[Magister Ludi]

Thats only because town is larger than scum. Most active people aren't scum, most middling people aren't scum, most lurking people aren't scum. Its just, one play style is clearly more anti-town than the others.

[Lord Gurgi]

That was the point I was trying to subtly put across. Glad you got it. Lynching groups of people isn't effective because the averages aren't in your favour.

[Magister Ludi]

No, but if lurking is 50% more anti-town than any-other play style and scum do it in equal if not more a proportion of the time than any other, lynching from lurkers is the best strategy.

[Lord Gurgi]

No, because you need to kill all the scum, not some of the scum. You'll probably catch a scum from lynching lurkers but you'll have nothing to work with once you're out of lurkers, unless you plan to lynch everyone who opposed lynching lurkers. Also you'll have lost by then.

[Magister Ludi]

The point is by lynching lurkers, you force lurkers not to lurk, which forces them to pretend to be more towney, which grows harder as the days roll on by. If you don't lynch lurkers, you're forced to confront them eventually.

Of course the strategy is to kill all the scum. Yet I'd rather be in lylo with the two highest posters in the entire game rather than the two lowest.

[Lord Gurgi]

Why do people assume that once towns lynch lurkers the game will become easier for the town? I mean, the active scum will just laugh at you as you hand them the game. Or the scum will start pushing for lurker lynches themselves. Going after objective elements of the town will always backfire.

[GreyICE]

I'd tend to agree to some degree. Broadly speaking, however, vigilantes should shoot someone whose not posting much.

[[Low Key]]

They should also shoot non-engineers, just sayin'

[Mr. Flay]

Why do people assume that once towns lynch lurkers the game will become easier for the town? I mean, the active scum will just laugh at you as you hand them the game. Or the scum will start pushing for lurker lynches themselves. Going after objective elements of the town will always backfire.

There's an element of the game that isn't just about 'finding the scumz' though. Enjoyment of the game, pace, replacement hell... all of these things are ALSO affected by chasing/killing lurkers. Just because it's not 100% (protip: no tell is) doesn't mean it's not useful to put pressure on lurkers.

[Lord Gurgi]

There's an element of the game that isn't just about 'finding the scumz' though. Enjoyment of the game, pace, replacement hell... all of these things are ALSO affected by chasing/killing lurkers. Just because it's not 100% (protip: no tell is) doesn't mean it's not useful to put pressure on lurkers.

I think that 'finding the scumz' would go a long way towards enhancing enjoyment of the game. But, even then, putting pressure short of lynching lurkers will never be very effective, and usually adds very little to the town. If you're pressuring lurkers as a major objective for the town, you are not getting any valuable information except whether the person in question is a diehard lurker. If you're not pressuring lurkers as a major objective for the town, they will continue to lurk and you will at least gain something out of your other activities. The real thing to do is for mods to start putting lurker vigilantes into their games.

[Iecerint]

I agree with Ludi.

Gurgi is a nice man, though.

[Ghostlin]

This one's obvious, but never claim Cop Day 1.

[ric]

Play has gotten worse and I think that's precisely because player guides are not incorporated into play.

i agree but only partially. as someone who used to be semi active on this site (life got busy and i came back just to check up tonight (shouts to ether!)) i will say that the vast vast vast majority (if not all) guides don't deal with political theory very well.

most guides will say things like 'people tend to think xyz when this happens' which may or may not be true but it misses the point of one of the greatest games ever created almost entirely. mafia is fantastic because it is dynamic. it gets its dynamism from interesting political context(s) of each and every game, which is more than just what people tend to think.

most/all guides are teaching about moves in terms of fork in the road propositions. you are going along a road; you may choose x or y (or z, etc) and here is how people will think about that and here are some more forks.

the guides dont teach about asserting your will onto other people, asserting your will in such a way that affects a desired result in an opponent or the group, how to read a political landscape, how to write a narrative that flows like water, how to establish a character and operate from underneath that character.

i find that reading other games and playing in them is invaluable and cannot be replaced but i have not yet seen a guide discussing strong language, or parsed out lines of argumentation that encourage trapping, and the advantages and pitfalls of this stuff in terms other than the general 'what people think' or 'what makes good scum/town/etc' or 'what moves you may make which stay consistent and smell good'

[The Fonz]

That was the point I was trying to subtly put across. Glad you got it. Lynching groups of people isn't effective because the averages aren't in your favour.

The problem is that lurking people produce far fewer other scumtells, by dint of the fact that scumtells other than lurking tend to be found in posts. So you have to be willing to lynch lurkers, or at very least, count small scumtells from players who are also posting sporadically as much bigger deals than from players who are giving lots of content.

Xyl made a really good post in a similar thread a couple of years back. People are a lot more inclined to remember 'scummy' things people have done, than townish things they haven't. Scumminess by commission rather than by omission, as it were. The guy who's trying but makes one illogical argument or opportunist-looking vote is likely to be labelled as scum by several people. The guy who stays in the background, takes a couple of popular, non-controversial stands and doesn't stick his neck out is likely to be tagged 'neutral read.' I mean, I bet in every large normal game, you'll be able to find a list of all the players (which are scummy in themselves) with at least one entry that says 'Hasn't posted enough to get a real read. Neutral.'

I mean, that's the whole point of this thread, isn't it?

The point is by lynching lurkers, you force lurkers not to lurk, which forces them to pretend to be more towney, which grows harder as the days roll on by. If you don't lynch lurkers, you're forced to confront them eventually.

Or you get to the stage when there's only lurkers and scum left, scum having killed the townies who're trying if they haven't been at each other's throats to the extent of getting each other lynched already. And Ludi's right. Often merely applying pressure with the credible threat of lynch is enough to stop lurkers lurking. The key word being 'credible-' if they make an 'I'm going to lurk, either lynch me or learn to live with it' ultimatum, you lynch them.

[Lord Gurgi]

I suppose that depends on the type of lurker. I mean, when I talk about calculated inaction I am not speaking of lurking your way to victory. The idea is to forever be that guy that seemed town early in the game but hasn't done much recently. But I take your point. I am not too sure what the solution is to this dilemma. Ideally there would be some non-lynch method that the town can use to eliminate lurkers. A lurker-vigilante or an additional lurker only lynch, etc. I feel like if the town is forced to split their time between pressuring lurkers and actually scumhunting, they'll spend even more time working against themselves than normal. As I've said earlier, when I'm scum lurker lynches are the greatest thing. They're a worry free place to park your vote. On the other hand, expecting the mod to fix certain playstyles isn't a great solution either. Then again, I'm increasingly suspicious of how much lurking should be recognised as a playstyle. I mean, I wouldn't let the kid that sits in the corner in Super Smash continue to play just because that's how he wants to play. Play the game or don't right?

When it gets down to it, lynching lurkers is less efficient than other activities for the purposes of getting information, likely to be abused by scum, and is just as likely as random lynches to catch scum.

[Adam-12]

I will not be faulted for bumping this post.

[Mr. Flay]

You will be if it has to do with an ongoing game.

[Adam-12]

No sir. I just happened to find this post and found it very interesting and even more interesting now that time has passed, hence the re

gurgi

tation.

[Adam-12]

However, I can understand the possibility that this thread should be locked if you feel that the topic of this thread is a concern.