either with the [.b] tag or with the [.vote] tag. Unvotes are unnecessary to change your vote.
3.
Put all votes on a new line
If you disregard this rule, I may or may not count the vote.
4. A majority of votes is needed to lynch. A lynch (unless otherwise altered) ends the Day.
5. This setup uses A Day section and a Night Section. It is a Night start game.
6. The deadline to lynch is 14 days. Failure to get a majority will result in a no lynch.
7. Nights will have short deadlines depending on the time of week, what's convenient for the mod, etc. But don't expect to have a lot of time to decide. Scum have daytalk, so they should already be discussing.
8. I reserve the right to change, add or delete any rule in the game. I reserve the right to modkill or force replace or take any other actions I see as necessary.
Activity
1. This game revolves around activity. You are expected to post at least once a day. A prod will be sent out if you have not posted in the past 48 hours (and you were capable of doing so).
2. If you are continually prodded, the moderator may replace you.
3. If you wish to go on Vacation leave, please post it in bold in the thread with your expected time out. Simply setting yourself as VLA on the site is INSUFFICIENT.
Moderator Error
The moderator is fallible. If you see a problem with a vote count, mention it in bold in the game. If you have another problem, please don't hesitate to PM the moderator.
Game Specific Rules
Basis of Game
Unless stated otherwise, each player will receive 10 cards, one each between 1-10. Each time a power is attempted to be used, a player must play at least one card and
may play more than one.
If he plays more than one, the TOTAL of his cards will be used. If his power comes into conflict with another power (e.g. doc vs. night kill), the higher total wins. If a player runs out of cards,
he may not use his power.
Night Start
This game is a Night Start game, beginning on Night 1.
Conflicting Actions
In any conflicting action there is an
offensive
power and a
defensive
power. For example, in a cop investigation on a godfather, the cop is the offensive power and the godfather the defensive. Or in a night kill versus a doctor protect, the night kill is offensive, the doctor defensive.
In a tie between two powers, the
defensive power always wins.
Note: Powers may be defensive in some regards and offensive in others (e.g. a jailkeeper roleblocking someone is offensive, but protecting against an action is defensive).
I will answer hypothetical questions about whether your role is an offensive or defensive role in a certain situation by PM ONLY.
Total Points Played Report
Unless there are 5 or fewer players, every
odd
day there will be a "total points played" report at the start of the day. This will add together the point values of all played cards in the game.
Setup Composition:
You know this setup has: at least two investigative roles, at least one protective role, a single mafia team, no third parties, at least one town bulletproof (role PM below), and at least one Townie. All town roles will be roles familiar to an experienced player, though mechanically modified to fit the theme.
Spoiler: Sample Scum PM
Spoiler: Town PMs
Last edited by zoraster on Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
Post
Post #2 (isolation #2) » Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:24 am
Postby zoraster »
Clarifications
Sometimes there is confusion about the rules. When I think something needs to be clarified, I will post it in this section.
1. Despite the fact that a VT plays cards trying to guess who is town, he don't go anywhere at night unless another action makes them. For example, if a VT picked a PGO, he wouldn't die or anything. Think of the VT guessing game as something for a VT to do at night while power roles do other things.
I am writing this with a heavy heart. Something deeply personal has come up in my life. I will be unable to think mafia, let alone play it, for at least the next four days, and perhaps more.
Mod, it is up to you what you do with this slot. If you want to wait on me, keep in mind that four days is a very rough guess, it could be many more, and I make no promises. I'm sorry to force you to look for a replacement like this.
I hope your hopes and prayers are with me for the next short while, guys, it's a great community here and I hope i'm able to get back as soon as possible.
Regards,
Ludi
I'm really sorry to hear this. Don't sweat it. I may search around for a good replacement; when things like this happen the last thing I want is for a player to feel like they need to have to worry about getting back to mafia. Either way, you're welcome to play in my future games when life is more stable.
Post
Post #1107 (isolation #37) » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:11 pm
Postby zoraster »
Okay. I miscalculated. I thought there was a way for town to get a draw.
Night 4 Results
Cogito Ergo Sum the Town Miller was killed
Endgame
Day 5: No lynch
Night 6:
SpyreX the Townie is killed
Day 6:
Fate the Town Bulletproof is lynched
Night 7: Mafia restock
Day 7:
Darox the Townie is lynched
WINNERS:
Zang the Mafia Tailor
GreyICE the Mafia Bulletproof
LLamarble the Mafia Roleblocker
Thoughts:
1. The trackers were exactly the same. Lurconis took a somewhat vague statement I made and mistook what it actually meant. It was a fair mistake to make. That said, putting two of the same role that work slightly different is something that seems like it’d make sense as a way to have two of the same role, but I’d probably give some reason to believe I was doing that first as it’s kind of a bastard move without some warning. You don’t really want two roles confirming each other on the basis of they’re the only ones who know how a tracker would work in that situation or whatever, though.
2. So obviously this setup was super role heavy. The main reason for this is that I wanted to maximize the chance for conflicts to occur, the premise behind the game. I felt I could get away with this in part because of Stoofer’s 3rd law, which is basically that at a certain point, more power roles end up doing more harm to town than good. I don’t know how much I believe that, but it is true that there is diminishing returns from each additional town role, especially when it comes to roles like trackers. The setup also created a lot more false readings, etc. than normally would happen. It made any action less certain. Additionally, night start serves to help scum a little (though with so many investigations, it’s not a HUGE help).
3. That said, if I had it to do over again, I would make two changes. First, I think the backup (who only had three cards: 2, 5, and 9) was overkill. I already had all this power in the game, I’m not sure that there was any purpose or need for a backup to remove swing – which is the best reason for a backup. Second, I would change some of the roles to work MORE with the mechanic. I think a tracker should have to beat WHATEVER it was supposed to track, for example, rather than just the night kill. The way it worked here meant that the conflict was really only with the nightkill, and that was too narrow a thing.
4. The mafia were given the fake claims of Watcher and Jailkeeper. Had town massclaimed D1 it would have given 4 investigative roles (cop, 2 trackers, watcher), 2 protective (doc+jk), 1 killing, 1 anti-town town role (miller), 1 or 2 BPs (I thought the Mafia BP might well fakeclaim as BP). Keeping in mind that in a 12p game of mafia (night start, remember) the town gets 3 mislynches, that’s still a fair proposition for scum.
5. The game certainly turned on a town error, but I think scum played tremendously. This is especially true of GreyICE who basically strong armed his way to victory in the final day. Town was in trouble at this point already, of course (Zang would have been hard to lynch), but it worked out well.
6. There were a few times where the mechanic came into play. The biggest was LLD’s Even Night Vig vs. the Roleblocker. The scum went all in on the roleblocker to block LLD.
7. I think I’d like to run the mechanic again, but with the changes above (though obviously different roles). I’d also make a few other changes: (a) I’d do an 18-22 player game (more roles but less of the chaos of this game); (b) I’d use the same number of cards; (c) I’d use quicker weeklong deadlines. I think the bigger game would suit it better. The more this game becomes about managing your cards for maximum effect, the better. With the game having only 13 players, it just doesn’t last long enough and the chance of dying at any time is large enough that spending all your cards quickly is the best bet in almost all situations. With more players and more played Days, it’d become more prudent to save some cards. One other thing I’d consider regarding that would be to allow double actions that work at half power, but that needs more thought.
8. A more minor story: I liked the idea of the Miller that actually had a chance of coming up innocent to the cop. It makes the role a LOT more interesting to me. I’m kind of off the regular miller, but yeah.
9. Anyway, I don’t know how you players felt about the game as I know it was crazy, but it was a blast to observe. Scum had some choice words about how town sided I made the game in their scum QT. I can’t entirely disagree, but I refer to points 2 and 4 in my defense. Yes, the game turned on a town error which was unfortunate, but I hope people still had fun and would like to try the game again.
Last edited by zoraster on Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post
Post #1110 (isolation #39) » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:25 pm
Postby zoraster »
I thought it was a clever way to put in a backup (he's less powerful than whatever role he's backing up, but he has versatility, and is at most a 3 shot backup), and that's what was my undoing. It was clever, so I sort of shoehorned it in when really it was unnecessary.
EDIT: Also, I'm on the wrong computer for the role PMs, but I'll put them up tomorrow.
Post
Post #1142 (isolation #46) » Mon Oct 17, 2011 1:48 pm
Postby zoraster »
I'll copy what I sent to Vi:
zoraster wrote:Okay, so you remember how I had two trackers. Day 1 and virtually everyone is claiming. Yos claims first, Lurc eventually CC's and says:
In post 404, Yosarian2 wrote: On the other hand, if I track a town power role who's doing something and spend any points at all, then I see what they're doing.
I actually had that clarified with Zoraster during night 0 and was told I have to outbid town power roles to track them. His lying about this made me realize he was scum that was why i kept my vote on him.
I wanted to go ahead and counter claim once I noticed people were going for a massclaim. I don't want any other possible town PR's to out themselves when there is no need.
I attempted to track Darox night 0 but failed to track him or he didn't go anywhere this does not make him town or scum it makes him vt or someone I didn't outbid be it town or scum.
The thing is... I don't THINK I said this. I can see where he got confused, but i didn't say it. In fact, his tracker works exactly like Yos'. It tracks everyone except the night kill, and then it will track the NK if it plays higher. These are the only interactions iwth Lurc I could find in sequential order:
zoraster wrote:
Lurconis wrote:Clarification question if I happen to target say a cop or a roleblocker etc.. and my card is higher I can track them as well correct not just the killer?
Eitherwar I target dorax and use my 6 card
Yeah. You track anyone. I was just showing that if the mafia kill is higher than your card, you won't track them to the kill. But if say darox is the tickler and you visit him to Zoraster, you'll see that.
zoraster wrote:You did not see Darox visit anyone last night.
zoraster wrote:
Lurconis wrote:You probably can't clarify further but just in case I would have received that message if I hadn't bid high enough or if I had bid high enough and he didn't go anywhere correct?
Correct.
So my question is this: I didn't mislead him, right? He misread my comments?
Post
Post #1145 (isolation #47) » Mon Oct 17, 2011 1:53 pm
Postby zoraster »
for what it's worth, and I know I'll take some flak for this, but I've nommed GreyICE for cunning manipulator. I think insofar as that award is really meant for someone who manipulates people into doing something, GreyICE really succeeded in doing that.
Lurconis wrote:Clarification question if I happen to target say a cop or a roleblocker etc.. and my card is higher I can track them as well correct not just the killer?
Eitherwar I target dorax and use my 6 card
Yeah. You track anyone. I was just showing that if the mafia kill is higher than your card, you won't track them to the kill. But if say darox is the tickler and you visit him to Zoraster, you'll see that.
From Lurc's question, it's pretty clear he's got a wrong notion about what his role does and your answer doesn't really address it. That seems like tacitly supporting his understanding of the role to me.
Maybe. As I said, I can understand how he misunderstood it, but without him asking me to clarify it further, I was kind of stuck. Otherwise it would have been me saying "oh hey, wait wait wait. You and Yos are BOTH town, silly." I certainly didn't intend to mislead him, whatever the result was.
In post 1145, zoraster wrote:for what it's worth, and I know I'll take some flak for this, but I've nommed GreyICE for cunning manipulator. I think insofar as that award is really meant for someone who manipulates people into doing something, GreyICE really succeeded in doing that.
Getting Spyre to vote for the wrong person is scummyworthy?
Sure. I'll leave it to the judges whether he deserves the actual scummy, but his play here was very good. I'm not stingy with nominations, and I see no reason others should be either.
In post 1149, Llamarble wrote:There wasn't any possibility of us running out of points on the last day anyway because of our theft-power, so I wasn't worried about that at all.
Yeah, but your target had to have cards left for the theft power to work.
Post
Post #1186 (isolation #52) » Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:38 am
Postby zoraster »
As I've stated before, I think unseconds (or unnominations) or whatever are fine and good. Better than the committee gets all the information and opinion.
Post
Post #1193 (isolation #53) » Wed Oct 19, 2011 3:05 am
Postby zoraster »
In post 1188, Yosarian2 wrote:I really don't agree with the nomination for GreyICE; he didn't play badly, and he did a pretty good job with the day 3 game, but this town loss was pretty much entirely self-inflicted by the town self-destructing. The funny thing is, this setup is incredibly balanced in favor of the town; really the only way the town COULD lose this game would be to be absolutely determined, without fail, to force all the major power roles to claim and then to systematically lynch all of them in sequential order, combined with the extreme bad luck of the scum randomly killing the town cop on night zero. You ran this setup 10 times, town would probably win 9 of them.
I know what you mean, so this is going to sound unresponsive, but I think it's important anyway: I don't necessarily disagree that town could win all future iterations of this setup as the expectation would be for a setup that looks like what it did. I know you mean that in a hypothetical world where town doesn't know the previous iterations or whatever, but the expectation is important.
The tracker thing makes me think, and it's a reason why in my first thoughts post I say I actually think giving two same roles different mechanics would be a pretty good idea. But I'm not sure it clears Lurc like you says it does. Let's say Lurc is scum fake claiming and that for whatever reason I didn't provide him a fake role pm (which I would have done), so he gets it wrong at first. He argues about it. Then you say, "ask the damn mod!" so he says "okay" then he takes an hour or so and fakes like he talked to me (or actually talks to me, doesn't matter). He comes back and says, "whoops. you're right!" That seems totally doable as a scum because if he knows he can clear himself by confirming it, he could plausibly do it. Yes, it's WIFOM, but it's effective. scumLurc in that position would, after all, know he was being lynched or vigged the next day if he doesn't do this.
I don't, by the iway, disagree that townLurc should have asked, etc. I thnk it increases the chance of him not being lynched marginally but increases the chance of you not being lynched dramatically.
---
GreyICE wrote:There was so much wrong with this setup. I don't care about the cries of the PRs being nerfed, they really weren't. Cop? Investigates two of the three scum correctly, guaranteed, and can beat the tailor for 3/3. Tracker? Oh sure, doesn't track night kill unless it wins. Tracking the tailor is an epic disaster if the tailor flips, as it gives you another free scum lynch, and nothing the tailor does can dodge the tracking. Same for the roleblocker - LLD wagoned to claim D2? If she's RBed N2, and either tracker sees Llamarble, which they do on a 1 hello day 3 lynch. Doctor was the only nerfed one.
I agree the setup is somewhat town sided, and especially so given the backup as I've mentioned before. But I do not think it was egregiously so.
The cop is powerful, yeah. But the tailor gets to pick who he clears (which should theoretically given scum a more than 1/3 chance of giving a false result to the cop) or even to target someone else to give a fake guilty on a townie if they know the cop is likely to investigate there. This is huge in terms of the cop. Of course he has to beat the cop which decreases the effectiveness, but it's still quite a large effect. The game isn't to keep 3 scum alive, it's to keep 1 alive. A single false innocent by a confirmed cop (e.g. cop dies) is a huge boon to scum. A false guilty (from miller or tailor) is pretty valuable as well given that town only have to get three mislynches to win this game.
Tracking the tailor or roleblocker could be damaging, of course, but mitigating that is the fake claims provided -- Watcher and Jailer. You didn't use those claims, which makes sense with how the setup unfolded, but the fake claims were there for a reason. However, as I've said I think the mechanic works better if there's more interactions and trackers had to beat whatever they were tracking.
I'm not totally disagreeing with either of you, by the way, but I think neither are complete pictures. I strive to provide a great deal of balance in my games. I think I usually achieve it to an extent, but when it comes to first runs of complex mechanics, which is what I spend most of my time doing, it can be a challenge. I have yet to have a game where I thought everything I did was perfect. I hope you'll forgive me and try out the second version of Outwitted whenever it comes. My precision with a second iteration of a game will be far better, and I think the changes I've outlined will make it more fun generally anyway.
EDIT: Oh, and as for GreyICE's nomination... I hope it works like any other body of work nomination. If he has no other performances recommending him, he'll be tossed out. But his performance here is worthy of consideration taken together with other work.
