Mini Normal 1843 - Endgame

[mastin2]

Basically Friends and Enemies -_-

Yes, which is a balanced game.

So if you have a setup which is "basically" Friends and Enemies, yet there is AN EXTRA TOWN PR CLAIM, that tells you......

...

what

, exactly?
(Hint: if it's Friends and Enemies, it's Friends and Enemies. If it's NOT Friends and Enemies, then something on

both sides

will be different: the scum will have something aside from all goons, and the town will have something of an appropriate strength to counter said not-goon. If it APPEARS that it's Friends and Enemies, yet only

one

side is different, wellllll......)

[mastin2]

[quote="In post 3832, BlackVoid"The outsized importance that Cloud placed on his role wasn't really something I found to be alignment-indicative. Cloud was an epic-mafia player. I wasn't expecting him to be rational. Delaying claims on weak roles I assumed was just one of those silly things that EM players would do.[/quote] Free tip: never attribute to stupidity what can be assigned to malice.

Sure, yeah! You'll actually hit town more often than not by taking that approach!

But it feels oh SO satisfying to claim the moral high ground in regards to "lynching the stupid", and in the rare cases where the stupid is actually scum, all the better!

(The sad thing is I'm only half-joking.)

[mastin2]

If it APPEARS that it's Friends and Enemies, yet only one side is different, wellllll......)

Except we didn't know what the last scum role would be.

This is the GOLDEN RULE of setups,

especially

Normal ones. (It may apply to themes which aren't role madness, but it's especially prevalent in Normals.)

Occam's razor: assume the

simplest

explanation (or in this case, setup) is the correct one.

With most reviewers, this will prove to be true. (I mean, most mods come in with ridiculously-PR-heavy setups, but most reviewers tend to try and get them to basically cut the number in half--if eight or nine roles in the game are PRs for both alignments, it's not really a good game, whereas 3-5 roles for both alignments is the general standard.)

The simplest setup is USUALLY the correct setup.

Which is simpler: the game has three masons and no scum power, as it so appeared (a known, balanced setup)...
...Or that by some WEIRD convenience, it just so HAPPENS that the last scum is a PR (one that wouldn't overpower the scum--hint, with a claim of 1x BG, any of tracker/roleblocker/rolecop would do exactly that for them because 1x BG is no match for ANY of those), and that the UNPROVEN CLAIM which was BUILT to allow town to die (1x BG = can let the town masons die) is there as a counter to it?

To put it another way, you have a player who deliberately stalled their claim and strung it along while hinting at dozens of different things, only to when they finally claim claimed something entirely unprovable that would dissolve the pressure on them.

Which is simpler? That the player in question is town who claimed in the scummiest way possible for no foreseeable gain...
...Or that the claim was handled that way to serve a scum agenda?

[mastin2]

Also, mhsmith mentioned during the game that BGs are not a role he approves of--so he'd never put a ONE SHOT BG in the game. At least one of the masons actually bothered to do mod meta research on mhsmith, so someone

really

shoulda caught on to that fact.

[mastin2]

(There was also how Cloud lived to see lylo--Jaaack wasn't cleared by role. Only by play. Cloud was 'cleared' by role AND by "play"--his end-of-day stunt post-Rask mislynch was something which 'towned' him up. The fact that Jaaack, a known VT claim only cleared by play, died over Cloud, someone who "should" have been cleared on both play and role, should have been a hint, but the only two players who could have spotted this were havingfitz and Creature.)

[mastin2]

Also, Cloud claimed to have not used the shot on like D3 or so.

The masons were outed D1.

That alone should have been evidence Cloud was faking it--a real 1x bodyguard, post-mason claim, would have used the shot up immediately.
The reason Cloud didn't claim to have used up the shot is because Cloud needed to be "helpful"--he needed to be relevant. He needed to have his shot be available, so that his life held meaning. A bodyguard who has used up their shot(s) and is still alive is 'too convenient', and would be lynched...but the fact of the matter is, a real town bodyguard would have used their protection WELL before Cloud claimed to have.

I could be mistaken since I didn't read the full game, but I don't think anyone grilled him on this, so much as asking, "So...why do you still have that shot?"

I can understand the thought of not using an X-shot role on N1 if there is no information available. But not using it for TWO days, when there IS information available, was basically a scumclaim in of itself.

[mastin2]

(Basically, this is why I strongly encourage looking at the motivation behind actions--what was the town motivation in Cloudkicker refusing to claim a role he hadn't used which was virtually useless yet he insisted was super-duper-mega-important, stalling for as long as humanly possible? I mean, I suppose you could come up with something, but it'd be contrived and convoluted.

What was the scum motivation in Cloudkicker refusing to claim a role which was virtually useless yet he insisted was super-duper-mega-important, stalling for as long as humanly possible, only to reveal it was one-shot yet on DAY THREE with masons outed on D1 he still had it available?

Quite obviously...so that he'd be able to survive longer.)

[mastin2]

I'd actually say that holding it for the last mason alive, as mentioned in dead thread, is actually most optimal given that theory role. But then again no one really grilled him on why he didn't do that instead, so *shrugs*

That, too.

After he claimed 1x-Bodyguard, and he said he still had his shot, IF people wanted to believe him, they should have flat-out told him: don't use it while both masons are alive. Use it when there's only one left.

And that way, when the mason failed to die, or the mason did die, there would be reason to cast a really strong suspicion on Cloud. (Because no way do we give the scum a 1x strongman or a 1x roleblocker against a 1x BG. NO reviewer would EVER pass that. So, failure to protect would be a scumclaim. Failure to die wouldn't necessarily be a scumclaim...but then you have the mason alive an extra day, and the nagging question of WHY both the mason and the BG are alive.)

So yeah. Optimal play with a 1x BG that still has that shot is to wait until there's only one mason left and to use it then.

I don't really blame people for not bringing this up, though--this isn't exactly theory 101. It might not be the most advance thing in the world (concepts like hunting motivation are higher-level than this I'd say, for instance), but it's like...theory 202 at the least.