Is it really fair...

[Locus Cosecant]

...to let the scum simulkill each other? I mean, look at Mini 140. We won there without lynching a single scum That's just not right. It seems to me that, in order to make up for the inherent weakness of the SK's starting postions, you should let him strike first in the 1 on 1 mafia vs. SK battle. That would help even the playing field, plus remove unfortunate situations where the worthless town does everything wrong and then lucks into an undeserved victory, like we did in Mini 140.

[Phoebus]

What about fairness to the town?
It's their only chance and as a standard rule of thumb, all the night actions happen at the same time, unless there are totally extenuating circumstances or a certain mod.

Is there any reason why you added the poll in here?
It's not a fad, you know.
If you MUST add one (unnecessary in this case) you could've phrased it better.

I see this as a poll just for the sake of making a poll.
Superfluous.

[mole]

I agree that my win was completely undeserved, so I'll speak in general about this. The situation can still come up when the town plays better than we did--if the mafia get lucky and don't kill each other off too much during the night, for instance.

Usually, the SK has the advantage of being immune to the first attack on their life. It's (like all things) up to the mod though--Fletcher just decided that the game would go well without that bonus. In my only game as SK (Quantum Mafia) I was able to hold on to this for the whole game and win the shootout.

If you don't have (or have lost) this advantage, though, you still have options:
1. Lie low and hope the mafia thinks you're a townie. I've yet to see this happen, though--the real townie will be trying pretty hard to expose both scum so he gets a shootout.
2. Lynch the other scum. This one is probably more difficult, since once the other scum feels threatened he's going to push for a no lynch and we're back to the shootout. You might be able to pull it off if the townie thinks you're a vigilante, or that all of your family is dead, or something.
3. Lynch the townie, so even if you do kill each other, he doesn't get to win. We also did this in Quantum, but the mafia didn't know that I'd beat him in the shootout.
4. Kill the other guy first. In 140, if tawana had killed justin instead of halo, the mafia had a pretty good chance of winning. We both thought the other was scum, and one careless vote would have ended the game for us.

[halo freak]

the town was not completly usless as you said you managed to protect the right person and stop a night kill the town would have lost if you had not done this.

As for the whole timing thing i think that it should remain simutainious. it doesn't happen very often and i work alright in most situations. i think that if you made the rule that the person who submitted their choice first gets it carried out first would put too much pressure on people to submit it fast. i think it is important that mafia and masons get to discus tactics and plans for the next day it makes the day more intesting.

[justinl]

The way that game played down wouldn't have been fair any way... If we hadn't no-lynched then it would have been unfair to force the town to pick between who they wanted to win

[justinl]

I mean, if i had played better tawana would have not known who was scum..

I guess i should agree with locust though huh, that way i can say i won 8)

[shadyforce]

Having 2 rival mafia groups does make the game a bit of a lottery. It doesn't make if any more or less fair, because on average, each faction should win a proportionately fair amount of the time, but the variation is much larger. Just because you come across an extreme example doesn't mean the whole line should be moved. That only makes things worse, not better.

Conclusion: trust that the mod knows what he/she is doing with regards to balancing and accept that especially with setups having more than 1 evil faction, there can be a lot of variability and extremes happen.

[SpeedyKQ]

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I think most mods grossly underestimate how much it helps the town to have rival mafia groups that can kill each other at night.

[Phoebus]

I beg to differ.
I am sure that mods balance this by making larger scum groups or giving them powers. I do.
In the end, it's how players play it that makes the difference.
Every mod *does* know what s/he is doing.

Here, the result was different.
In mini 101 which I ran, in a similar situation, the mafia won due to a lucky hit and clueless SK.

Actually, it should speak of an ideal balance - where all sides have an equal chance at winning in endgame. Once it reaches there, nothing is in the mod's hands.

[Mastermind of Sin]

I think the game ran fine...i also think that we would've won anyway if LosCs hadn't goaded everyone into lynching me on faulty evidence......even scum were confused as to how that happened...anyways, I agree with Phoebus...

[mathcam]

If the mod wants to give the SK an extra ability, then yes, I think giving them a "first strike" against mafia is one way to do it. I peronsally usually give SKs one or two night-kill immunities depending on the size of the game, and have experimented with other ways of bumping them up.

But to propose a rule that mods have to do it that way? Nope.

Finally, nowhere in the rules of the game does it say that each player should have an equal chance of winning. I'm quite happy to play an un-boosted up SK, knowing full well that it will be a hard win, and that if I

do

win, it's worth being proud of.

Cam