Brightest Day Mafia, Part 1 - GAME OVER

[GreyICE]

...and that's why we use Natural Action Resolution I can see it would be more work, but when people are told throughout the game that things are being done one way, it's disconcerting when mods announce on the final day "haha we messed up, we're actually running this game completely different from how we've been saying from the beginning". Sometimes that doesn't make a difference, but in this case BB misunderstood your messages as confirmation that Tans was not recruited (thus making him town).Personally, I think the fair thing would be to just refer him to NAR as had been done throughout the game, and if he was asking questions specifically about how the mafia vanillizer role worked, then just tell him he doesn't know OR that "it depends on what the vanillizer's role PM says".

Uh, Kast. Blackberry was the MAFIA COP. That meant he found out if players were a member of the mafia.

He had no ability to say if a player was recruited.

Also we followed NAR order resolution, just not the golden rule bullshit that leads to the roleblocker fiascos, etc. So investigates were ALWAYS going last.

Which still didn't matter since Blackberry got 'not mafia' if he investigated any cult member.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Also we followed NAR order resolution, just not the golden rule bullshit that leads to the roleblocker fiascos, etc. So investigates were ALWAYS going last.

Grey then you don't understand how NAR works. The Golden rule is there to make sure that logical conflicts are resolved in a manner that makes sense. The list only comes into play after using the Golden Rule.

There is no reason for a Roleblocker to be Non-Redirectable just because it appears on the list earlier. It appears on the list earlier because in case of conflict between a Roleblocker and Redirector targetting EACH OTHER the roleblock should have precedence.

The way NAR was misused this game was bad. No offense to the Mods but it was one of the two things that were not handled well (most everything else was well done), the other being not following the explicitly set rules or amending them immediately when one was broken.

[GreyICE]

Yeah, the problem is that the golden rule is highly noncondusive to running games quickly, and 90% of the time no different than following the list. The other 10% of the time it's usually fine. More importantly, simultaneous resolution solves all dueling roleblocker possibilities.

Given that my quick review of the action finds 2 instances of dueling roleblockers and like 0 instances of the golden rule changing something, I think we went with the relevant portion.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Yeah, the problem is that the golden rule is highly noncondusive to running games quickly, and 90% of the time no different than following the list. The other 10% of the time it's usually fine. More importantly, simultaneous resolution solves all dueling roleblocker possibilities.

Taking the time to actually use NAR to resolve Night actions isn't that long a process. I know, I've run large Non-Vanilla games with instant Nights. This is really a non-started problem, IMO.

I'll take your word for the action resolution bit. I don't really care to go verify.

[Toogeloo]

I preferred to just give the mafia two extra kills to be used at their discretion, since their fakeclaims were intentionally worse than the cult's. And making them janitor kills just made it that much more fun.

Then you should have just given the Mafia two extra kills instead of a Role that did it. "Twice during the game, your faction can kill an additional target at night." Trying to balance the team with the role leads to a situation like what happened to me.

[GreyICE]

Yeah, but the point about making it a role is that the role brings skill to the game. It's like saying 'well if you want the town to have a cop, why not just let all the townies vote on who to investigate each day?'

Your role especially brings up some interesting questions. If you're wagoned, do you fakeclaim something that's confirmable, guaranteeing your lynch eventually, but possibly keeping you alive 2 critical night phases? Does the scumteam sacrifice a less valuable role to increase your towncred?

It's generally assumed that the town has to work to protect their PRs, yet scum feel they should get the effects stock rather than face similar problems?

Every now and then I think scumteams really have this feeling of entitlement. No, all of our claims need to be provable, risk free, and safe (Busdriver? Oh come on, how often do two people really know they've been busdriven? Almost never. You could fakeclaim busdriver for a year). No, our PRs shouldn't matter.

AHEM.

The stock 'double day' game is 13:3, all Vanilla. This was err... 15:6. PLUS CULT. Yeah, we made life difficult for the scumteam. It was balanced by them being SO FRAKKIN ENORMOUS.

[danakillsu]

Yeah, somebody go find me a scumteam LARGER than 6 in a game of this size or smaller that has other non-town factions. I'll bet you can't. That's because I pretty much maxed out the scumteam size. If you can't handle slightly worse fakeclaims than the cult (which, need I remind you, are still better than a lot of fakeclaims you'll see out there), then you just plain under-performed. Trying to say that the fact I gave an ability to a player rather than the team just dragged you down too much is ludicrous. And...what GreyICE said.

[Andrius]

Re: NAR
i just like how i was told my RB would burn through everything, while other people were told something completely different
toast blocking me and me blocking toast did nothing- i'd still be able to shoot through him

The best example I could give is Stars Aligned. 7 scumbags. 21 town - whoever (Magna) decides to go 3rd party.
though i dont see where you're going with that argument because no mod would be stupid enough to put 7+ scumbags in a SMALLER game than this lol

[GhostWriter]

It should be noted that I not only enjoyed playing this game (when I could, sorry about that, I think I was moving at the time I was killed), but enjoyed reading it. GG and all that jazz, can't wait for part 2. Also, I apologize for the fucked up Ganthet claim. That was entirely my fault, good sir. I said he needed to be a GL. He was supposed to still be blue.

[Kast]

Uh, Kast. Blackberry was the MAFIA COP. That meant he found out if players were a member of the mafia.

He had no ability to say if a player was recruited.

This might have been the source of the problem. Mods didn't realize what BB was asking and BB didn't realize what mods were answering. I'm not referring to anything to do with BB's INVESTIGATION. I'm referring to his QUESTION about how the MAFIA VANILLIZER ability works. He was told the vanillizer is a miscellaneous ability and that it would not stop a jailkeep ability.

Whichever mod answered BB probably thought this was good enough for a

HYPOTHETICAL

answer, but in actuality it was understood as

CONFIRMING

that the vanillizer did not roleblock a jailkeeper ability. BB's question was essentially, "Mods, is it possible that Tans is a member of the cult?" and he was essentially answered, "yes" instead of "you don't know that" or "it depends how the mafia ability is worded". Without seeing the exact question and answer, I dunno if it was entirely BB's misunderstanding or what; but even in a general sense, it doesn't seem right for mods to answer questions about an unflipped mafia ability to townies, especially when it's a question that mods didn't want to directly answer for the mafia.

(Busdriver? Oh come on, how often do two people really know they've been busdriven? Almost never. You could fakeclaim busdriver for a year).

This is a horrible fake claim without a redirection power attached. It's auto-suicide to claim bus driver. You

NEED

to lie about

TWO

people's night actions repeatedly. You also need to justify why you didn't save the dead town PRs, etc. etc. It's a claim that's designed to be exposed as fake. Swapping the BG claim with any one of the mafia claims would have improved the fake claims immensely.

Though to be clear, I don't think that complete fake claims are

that

important to be given to mafia (they're more important in a no-vanilla game). We can make up and BS claims if needed.

The stock 'double day' game is 13:3, all Vanilla.

This doesn't sound right. 9:3 all vanilla is fairly balanced. Adding in double day helps town much more than mafia.

5-6 mafia is a good number for a game this size with single mafia and single 3rd party group. With the third party group having no dedicated kill, it pushes towards a 6 mafia game. For a game this size, having two 3-4 man mafias with a solo 3rd party (lyncher/SK/survivor/misc.) is pretty normal and balanced. Cutting out the third party, converting one of those mafia teams to a cult, and making it double day leaves the remaining scum team underpowered so increasing numbers to 6 is fair.

I don't think anyone is complaining that the mafia team was a bad size...

@Janitor-
-Was the janitor the type that means NOBODY learns the identity of the body or was it the type that still shares some info?
-Would mafia have been told anything about the body?
--If we learned the name and role of the dead player, that would pretty much make the "bad fake claims" arguments moot since we could steal fake claims from dead towns.
--What would have been announced if we janitor killed the Cult Leader?

[Andrius]

-Was the janitor the type that means NOBODY learns the identity of the body or was it the type that still shares some info?
-Would mafia have been told anything about the body?

Neither. I asked this pre-game in the Mafia QT.
It was a full-janitor-noone-knows-who-died deal.

[Kast]

tanstalas attempts to steal Andrius's role

(fails)

.

?

[Kast]

vezokpiraka freezes ToastyToast.

Lol, so Vezok lied to everyone about his N3 target NOT being Toast?

[Kdub]

Good game. I think the cult balance was actually quite OK. I don't think it was especially unfair for us, we just got unlucky with night actions on N3. I still would have preferred a recruiter+backup or two co-recruiters, but it's a minor point. I guess the WL powers might have been a bit much, but they never really came into play so I can't comment on how balanced those might have turned out.

I do think the mafia were a bit too strong. They played poorly for the most part in the early game, yet still probably would have won if not for Killjoy. I think having 5 mafia instead of 6 would have been decently balanced with the powers they had.

Regarding safeclaims, I am not a flavor expert so I can't comment on how good/bad those were. I think it is a legit point that in a vanillaless game, the scum need to have stronger ability safeclaims than normal. If I were designing this game, I would have strongly considered putting duplicate town PRs in the setup. That opens up any plausible pro-town role as a believable fakeclaim for the scum. It's a mod meta thing that I think theme mods should do more often. Once you've put duplicate PRs in one of your games, players are aware that all future games you run might have doubles (even if they don't), so it buys you a lot of freedom in what safeclaims you can give the scum.

There were some minor modding issues that have already been mentioned here and in the dead thread. The late modscene after Ludi's death, non-standard NAR, me being told about my winning chances when I replaced in, etc. None of those things ruined the game, and I still had fun, but it's worth pointing out for future reference.

[Kast]

None of those things ruined the game, and I still had fun, but it's worth pointing out for future reference.

This

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

9:3 all vanilla is fairly balanced.

Nope!

2-11 mountainous is unbalanced

in favour of the scum

[Toogeloo]

Yeah, but the point about making it a role is that the role brings skill to the game. It's like saying 'well if you want the town to have a cop, why not just let all the townies vote on who to investigate each day?'

Your role especially brings up some interesting questions. If you're wagoned, do you fakeclaim something that's confirmable, guaranteeing your lynch eventually, but possibly keeping you alive 2 critical night phases? Does the scumteam sacrifice a less valuable role to increase your towncred?

It's generally assumed that the town has to work to protect their PRs, yet scum feel they should get the effects stock rather than face similar problems?

Every now and then I think scumteams really have this feeling of entitlement. No, all of our claims need to be provable, risk free, and safe (Busdriver? Oh come on, how often do two people really know they've been busdriven? Almost never. You could fakeclaim busdriver for a year). No, our PRs shouldn't matter.

AHEM.

The stock 'double day' game is 13:3, all Vanilla. This was err... 15:6. PLUS CULT. Yeah, we made life difficult for the scumteam. It was balanced by them being SO FRAKKIN ENORMOUS.

Difference being that this game is about numbers. If town loses the cop, they don't lose the numbers game. If the scum team is "balanced" around a role able to make up the difference in kills, and they lose it on the first lynch, it's a severe blow to their inherent balance.

[tanstalas]

tanstalas attempts to steal Andrius's role

(fails)

.

?

[GreyICE]

9:3 all vanilla is fairly balanced.

Nope!

2-11 mountainous is unbalanced

in favour of the scum

11:2 can be considered theoretically balanced with practical problems achieving theoretical results (consistent playerbase so scum can't shoot strong players, the problem of most people avoid 11:2 like the plague, the fact that all our testing is done with 10:2 which has one less lynch, etc.)

In any case 9:3 all vanilla should be won by town roughly one game in 40. If that.

Double days obviously favors town significantly, that's why the game can increase to 13:3 from 11:2 all vanilla.

In any case, yeah. Your understanding of balance is horribly off, Kast (this is why 90% of all players should never role speculate - they couldn't balance a setup to save their lives).

[danakillsu]

Andrius roleblocks tanstalas.
...
tanstalas attempts to steal Andrius's role (fails).

[danakillsu]

Look at this.
I threw out a nom for ToastyToast, since I think he was one of the main positive influences on the town. I know there were others of you that caught some scum, but ToastyToast stood out to me personally.

[GreyICE]

Difference being that this game is about numbers. If town loses the cop, they don't lose the numbers game. If the scum team is "balanced" around a role able to make up the difference in kills, and they lose it on the first lynch, it's a severe blow to their inherent balance.

And if the town is balanced around a cop, it's a severe blow to the town to lose their cop N1.

It's the same difference. At the end of the day your role chopped one day phase off the game. That's major, but good play can make up for that from town or scum.

The scumteam was not 'balanced' around anything. It had 6 power roles. It had the tools to deal with a mass claim. If they fucked up and lost their tools or didn't use them properly, well, then they didn't play well.

[tanstalas]

Andrius roleblocks tanstalas.
...
tanstalas attempts to steal Andrius's role (fails).

But... I did steal his roleblock...

[Kast]

And if the town is balanced around a cop, it's a severe blow to the town to lose their cop N1.

It's the same difference. At the end of the day your role chopped one day phase off the game. That's major, but good play can make up for that from town or scum.

I'm not claiming balance was off, but this argument completely misses Toog's point.

Think of it like this: a chess game is balanced if both players start with the same pieces. If you remove the queen (2 shot extra night killer) from one team, it is no longer balanced. If you remove the knight (town cop) from one team, it would ALSO be unbalanced. However, the degree of imbalance is much less in the second case.

[GreyICE]

Then I think Toog is overestimating how crucial his role was to scum success. Scum still made it to MyLo with his role dead.