Self-Voting: is it always a bad idea?

[Yosarian2]

I've only self-voted once, and it was because I was town, there was a large bandwagon on me, we were 5 minutes from the deadline, and I wasn't at enough votes to be lynched. I self-voted to prevent a no-lynch, because in my opinion lynching a townie is far worse than a no-lynch.

This is probably one of the most woefully misinformed statements I have ever heard in my life.

And a no lynch is better than a townie lynch because...?

It depends. If there are a number of confirmed innocents, and the town is in the process of narrowing down the last few scum out of a limited pool of possible scum, lynching a townie out of that pool IS better then a no-lynch. Or, if person X is a townie and everyone thinks he's scum, it might arguably be better for him to be lynched today rather then to have a no-lynch today and have person X lynched tommorow.

That being said, that is one of the few times it makes sense for a good guy to self-vote. Generally, every vote cast on a bandwagon that goes to a lynch gives the town information, and when you vote for yourself, that's one less bit of information the town gets from your lynch. Also, around here it's quite common for a bandwagon to build up, get close to a lynch, and then fade away for any number of reasons; giving up prematurly is bad for the town. Not only that, but if you fight as hard as you can but are lynched anyway, you might at least force the scum to work a little harder in order to lynch you.

[Yosarian2]

I do not agree, however, with the people who think that a townie should always play to keep themselves alive. In my opinion, a vanilla townie shouldn't care about being lynched in the early game (the information gained from the bandwagon far outweighs the loss of a townie, especially if the town plays properly), since the town's top priority is to kill the scum (NOT to survive).

The only strong argument I can see for townies offering defense on D1 or D2 is that it makes it harder for the scum to distinguish power roles.

No, I can't agree with that. The best reason for a townie defending himself is that if if he does so sucessfully, then, on day 1 with 5 scum out of 20, the town now has a 5/19 chance of lynching scum instead of a 0% chance of lynching scum. Sure, there's also a risk of outing a power role, but it's generally better to take that risk in order to have a chance of lynching scum then to just roll over and die.

[Yosarian2]

Right. Surviving is not more important then winning; however, defending yourself is still important, because the side that is better at not getting lynched generally wins.

[Yosarian2]

Lynching a townie is always worse than no-lynch.

Well, no, not always; in some situations, if a significant part of the players in the game are (or will be) confirmed innocents, it's better to lynch a vanillia unconfirmed townie then to no lynch, because it narrows down the list of possible scum and increses the odds of either the town lynch scum or the cop investigating scum later. Some games really come down to a process of elimination, where if the town can investigate/lynch/vig or otherwise chip away at the number of "unconfirmeds" fast enough, they will win, just because the scum have less and less room to hide.

The higher the power level of the game is, the more your typical "scummy looking unconfirmed vanillia townie" becomes a burden on the town rather then a help.

[Yosarian2]

Uh, Yos2:

Lynching a townie is always worse than no-lynch. Lynching someone of unknown alignment is invariably better.

He means from one's own perspective, lynching oneself is worse.

He's not saying that lynching an unknown Vanilla Townie is worse than No-Lynch. In fact, he states that lynching the unknown is better.

I know. But I'm saying that if you get to the stage of the game where the town has several confirmed innocents and is trying to find the scum through process of elimination, it could be (at least mathmatically) better for the town to lynch a vanillia townie people are suspicious of then to no lynch. This is true

even if you are that vanillia townie and you know you are a good guy

, because at that point keeping you alive will only make it harder for the town to figure out which of the unconfirmed are scum, lower the odds of sucessfull lynches in the future, and let the scum kill off one of the confirmeds overnight with no gain to the town.

Of course, the better solution for you would be to try to lynch someone ELSE in the unconfirmed catagory, someone who might actually BE scum. But if that's not going to happen and you're really stuck in a last second choice between no-lynch and hammering yourself, hammering yourself might increase the town's chances of winning more then a no-lynch would(especally if a no-lynch would put the town on "evens" in a situation where there's only 1 scum killing group and no town doc or vig left).

There are a lot of other factors, of course, and you've got to think very carefully and mathmatically before making a decision like that, but there should theoretically be times when it would be the correct pro-town move.

[Yosarian2]

But the thing is, the question was initially if

self-voting

is called for. Since you know yourself to be innocent, it seems that voting for someone you know to be innocent is silly. Re: the arguments that lynching unconfirmeds is a good thing, such a case is ideal if and only if you have a

significant

numbers advantage, which is pretty rare.

Well, not really as rare as you think, especally if you're also considering the whole "odd vs. even" thing, in a situation where the town dosn't have a vig or doctor left.

For example, you've got a choice; you can either hammer yourself, or you can let the day end in a no-lynch. Say that if you hammer yourself, it will put the town on evens, and the only way for the town to change that would be to intentioanlly no-lynch again and give the scum another kill to get back on odds. So, the question at that point is; is it better for you (a townie who much of the town is suspicious of) to hammer yourself, or for the scum to get a extra nightkill later?

Like I said, there's a lot of number-crunching and careful thought involved, you should NEVER do it as an emotional reaction to something, but it seems to me like there are some situations where, distasteful as it is, it's a better option for a townie to self-hammer rather then allow a no-lynch to happen.

[Yosarian2]

Peers: No, I don't think so. It might be better to hammer someone else to end the day early just to stop the game from dragging on, but if you're town in that situation, no way should you hammer yourself. That's pleanty of time left to defend yourself/attack someone else and change the town's mind. Bandwagons get up to lynch -1 all the time and then die out.

Besides, if you hammer yourself, that only gives the town info on you, which is worthless since you're dead; if someone else hammers you, that gives the town info on that person instead, which is clearly more useful.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah; I've got to disagree with Mr. Flay here. If a person honestly thinks that voting himself, or even lynching himself, is in the best interests of the town, then they're not violating their own win condition at all. They're usually wrong (although perhaps not always), but that's not relevent.

[Yosarian2]

Actually, I'm saying it DOES make the game less fair to your fellow townspersons, especially in a Newbie Game where a) the size of the game is smaller to begin with, so you have less time to recover, b) bad play is already rampant, we don't need help from the supposed 'experienced' people in how to screw things up for your side.

Not all theories have merit. Not all plays are good ones. Outside of a few VERY specific and unlikely scenarios, I still have yet to see a good reason why a pro-town player would self-lynch.

Of course not all plays are good ones, but that's not for the mod to decide.

Either allow self voting, or make it just not work. If it's a legal move in the game you're playing, then you should always have the right to figure out if it is the correct move or not.

Anyway, I'm not sure why you keep insisting that it's always a bad move. Here's a simple scenerio, and one that's not especally unlikely in a newbie game:

5 players left; one scum has been lynched, so there's one left. Cop claims, has two confirmed innocents. You are not one of them.

All the town has to do in order to get a 100% guarenteed win is to lynch one of the "unconfirmed" people today, and lynch the other one tommorow. However, if the town fails to lynch, then the scum nightkill, and the next day there's 4 people left with 2 unconfirmeds, which drops the town's chances of winning all the way down from 100% to 50%.

In that situation, the correct move, the ONLY correct move, is to lynch yourself if you can't get the town to lynch the other unconfirmed. Yes, you know you're town, but that dosn't matter; if you lynch yourself, town wins; if you don't, town might not win. In fact, in that case, you should probably be banned from being an IC if you DON'T hammer yourself, if we're going by that rule.

You can say that that's a very specific example, and it is, but only because it's so clear cut. There are any number of situations where a self-hammer is at least arguably better then a no-lynch.

Getting away from specifics; either it's a legal move, or it's not. If it's a legal move, then it shouldn't be banned; if it's not, then it should just be set up as impossible in the rules (like moving your king into check in chess.)

[Yosarian2]

I'm worried, though, that I'm just going to get people arguing "but I didn't THINK it was stupid/being an asshole!". Which is a fairly dumb defense, but it puts the onus back on me to argue with people when they're being bad ICs. I was trying to avoid that, but apparently I can't...

In that case, perhaps the rule should only be enforced if someone reports it (as was the case in the incident that spurred this topic's revival). That way you have someone else who

also

thinks the IC is doing poorly, and you can judge if there's a valid reason for thinking that.

That dosn't really work, though, because most newbies won't know to report it. Unless you mean the mods should report it?

Anyway, I tried to post this before; if this is going to be an official rule, you probably want to be a little more clear then just saying "idiots and assholes", so , instead of that, you could make the rule like this:

"IC's are expected to be good examples for newbie players, and to demonstrate through their behavior proper mafia play without acting in any fashion that is inappreate or detremental to the game. Anyone who, when ICing, does not follow this rule, may not be allowed to IC anymore, at the list mod's discression."

[Yosarian2]

Yos2: We're back to "What if I didn't feel it was detrimental?", though. I'll concede that there was some loopholes in my original 'rule', but this isn't really any better. *sigh* I've only banned a few people from ICing, and usually it's for repeated, egregious stuff.

Well, problem is, whatever the rule is, it's going to have to be up to the list mod's discression. I agree that it's very much sub-optimal to have a rule that's subject to debate in a case like this, I just don't see any way of avoiding it.