Posting in twilight - what is the default rule?

[mith]

It will happen eventually. But then, I've been saying that for three years.

[Commodore Amazing]

I'm assuming mods will be able to mess with things in case there are players whose vote doesn't count, who can vote multiple times, etc. That doesn't sound easy.

[Mr. Flay]

Scum who can converse in realtime while the 'town' is still discussing what just happened is an advantage that is not intended, in my opinion.

Indeed. But that doesn't answer why you think they shouldn't be allowed to begin their conversation when the mod *doesn't* allow (in-thread) twilight conversation.

Nor does it really matter, since that's

not what CA said!

He said he talks after the lynching vote has been put on, during twilight. As far as I can tell, he hasn't implied that he only does this in games where the mod has outlawed twilight talking.

And at least one

other

person does this and hasn't weighed in, because somebody taught CA that this was acceptable behavior. In my world, Night starts when the Moderator sets the title thread/opening post to say so...*shrug*

[Yosarian2]

I do NOT agree that twilight allows mafia to begin their conversation, especially when the mod allows twilight conversation. Scum who can converse in realtime while the 'town' is still discussing what just happened is an advantage that is not intended, in my opinion.

I agree with Dourgrim and Stoofer.. I suppose now we need to ask jeep to implement some sort of PM-freeze for when a player's thread is open. And here I thought we worked on the honor system with regard to night/external conversation.

Um, we do work on the honor system; obveously, we have to, because there's really no other way to prevent intentional cheating, except the fact that it would ruin the game for everyone else playing it.

No one is trying to cheat here; we're trying to clarify the rules, as there seems to be some disagreements/misunderstandings there.

[Dourgrim]

For the record, I didn't mean to insinuate that anyone is "a cheater" or anything with my above statement. I just meant that talking outside of the thread at any point that is not Night (except for BJ's games, which are apparently much different) shouldn't be allowed... and, since Night and twilight are inherently different (the Town can't talk in the thread at Night, but everyone can talk in the thread during twilight), it seems a natural leap of logic to me.

Perhaps I'll have to be more specific in my rules set from now on... disturbing this is even an issue.

[Yosarian2]

Yeah, that's what I always though too. I suppose it wouldn't be hard to clear that up, though...just put into your rules: "Night starts when the mod says night starts".


On another question, we do have some people who have played in a lot of games on a different site (FBG'S) where mafia talking during the day is allowed. I'm curious...how does this change mafia stratagy? DOes this change the balance of the game at all?

[Fritzler]

Well, it could, because if they could jump on a vote at the exact same time in a lynch or lose situation, but I don't think it changes it a great amount.

[PolarBoy]

I hope that you have more than one twilight rule (besides no twilight) when you instate the automatic vote counts. I'd like to see a "one post" twilight rule, as well as a 24-48 hour twilight rule. But I agree that twilight shouldn't be arbitrated by when the mod happens to be online.

[Mr. Flay]

If you encompass IM in "mafia can talk during the day", then it makes almost-instantaneous bandwagon jumps possible. Granted, this doesn't matter much until the endgame, but it reduces the endgame (which is already a mafia advantage, because they know they're at that point, and the town usually doesn't) even further in the mafia's favor.

[Yosarian2]

(shrug) Well, perhaps, but I don't really like the idea of a game win/loss being determined by "is a townie on the bandwagon going to log on before the last scum does" questions anyway.

[inHimshallibe]

On another question, we do have some people who have played in a lot of games on a different site (FBG'S) where mafia talking during the day is allowed. I'm curious...how does this change mafia stratagy? DOes this change the balance of the game at all?

Yes. Although I haven't experienced such as a wolf yet, I've read the threads, and I think it makes a difference in play, but maybe not balance. In fact, bad guys at PackMentality (the FBGs' game site) are pretty juiced, but each side probably wins an equal amount of the time.

It's set up a bit differently, though - you notice I mentioned threads - bad guys have an entire separate forum for themselves. This is made possible by there being only one game at a time. Very quick games.

But, I'll let one of the more experienced players from PM to take over from here - I'm just a representative .

[mith]

I'd like to see a "one post" twilight rule, as well as a 24-48 hour twilight rule.

I don't think the first is a good idea without a time limit for obvious reasons.

For the second, I can't imagine it would be much harder to code the way I've got it in my head (but then, I doubt I'll be writing much code anyway ). But why would we want this? Depending on how it was done, one obvious exploit is that you could have cops refusing to reveal their results until after their lynched. That is not within the intent of the game.

[mith]

Mr. Flay: I know what CA said. I was talking about what you said.

I do NOT agree that twilight allows mafia to begin their conversation, especially when the mod allows twilight conversation.

The only reason you gave was that the Town and the Mafia shouldn't be talking at the same time. But the statement quoted has an "especially" thrown in there, which implies that you also believe that the Mafia shouldn't be talking during twilight even when the Town is not allowed to either. I just want to know why.

In my world, Night starts when the Moderator sets the title thread/opening post to say so...*shrug*

As I'm arguing in the other thread, in my world the moderator is only there to organize what the game play has already dictated. The moderator does not decide when night happens, the players lynching someone does. The moderator is just the impartial third-party there to confirm that this has indeed happened.

I don't mind mods allowing twilight talk, it just does need to be clearly defined in the rules, and I think it's a bit unfair to overreact to players interpreting the rules differently.

(Just to be clear, I don't talk in twilight as Mafia either, I'm just playing devil's advocate for the most part.)

[Mr. Flay]

Mr. Flay: I know what CA said. I was talking about what you said.

I do NOT agree that twilight allows mafia to begin their conversation, especially when the mod allows twilight conversation.

The only reason you gave was that the Town and the Mafia shouldn't be talking at the same time. But the statement quoted has an "especially" thrown in there, which implies that you also believe that the Mafia shouldn't be talking during twilight even when the Town is not allowed to either. I just want to know why.

I suppose it's because I've never been in a game that didn't allow twilight talking, therefore while the possibility exists, it's not something I've ever been confronted with (do I talk during twilight or not, since the town can no longer speak?). That's why I phrased it that way; I suppose if I were in a game like that, I would ask the mod for clarification.

In addition, I tend to play/run games with somewhat of an unusual ruleset (just not this one), so it's not always entirely easy to say when lynch has occurred... extra/forced votes, lynchblockers, etc. Waiting for the mod makes it completely unambiguous, in my opinion; all of my role PMs, as far as I can recall, have said "you may talk only at night", except the ones that didn't allow scum to talk at all...

[Mackay]

What is so ambiguous about "once lynch is reached, it is night"?

I get mad when people talk during twilight, to tell the truth, because I don't consider it to be "twilight", but night already. As mith said, the mod is just the person who lets the town know what stage things are at. And I think that giving information after your death is a far worse form of cheating than mafia talking once lynch is reached - and I consider a person dead once they reach the required number of votes. To think I could've been throwing out information this whole time...

[the silent speaker]

Mackay's point is why I explicitly allowed the mafia in Simpsons to talk during twilight. The fact that townies may not have twilight exactly down is why I also explicitly allowed the town to talk until I locked the thread. The limbo area is not really day anymore, but neither is it really night either.

[mathcam]

But the players can't accurately tell when it is twilight, can they?

To me, this is the key point. Mackay, how does one know what the "required number of votes" is? What if someone has an extra hidden vote to dispense? Or if someone's role gives them the ability to require 2/3 majority instead of 1/2 majority to lynch? Unless that information is made public, which the mod presumably would not want to do, there's no way for the players to know. If a mod says at the beginning of the game something like "There are no roles in this game that alter the number of votes needed to lynch, so I'm enforcing a strict moratorium on twilight posting," that's one thing. Witout such a disclaimer, though, the only way this can sensibly work is for the day to be over only when the mod locks the thread.

And, really...twilight posting has been around forever, and there are exceedingly few cases where someone has used posting after their death to their favor. It's a pretty big risk...someone with the intent of posting information after their death (first of all, this would be pretty unlikely to be helpful in the first place) has to hope that they can make it on between the lynching vote and the moderator to enact the plan.

Cam

[Norinel]

o me, this is the key point. Mackay, how does one know what the "required number of votes" is? What if someone has an extra hidden vote to dispense? Or if someone's role gives them the ability to require 2/3 majority instead of 1/2 majority to lynch? Unless that information is made public, which the mod presumably would not want to do, there's no way for the players to know. If a mod says at the beginning of the game something like "There are no roles in this game that alter the number of votes needed to lynch, so I'm enforcing a strict moratorium on twilight posting," that's one thing. Witout such a disclaimer, though, the only way this can sensibly work is for the day to be over only when the mod locks the thread.

I'm trying to partially solve that problem in Star Wars Quotes Mafia; remind me when the game's over and I'll explain further.

[mathcam]

FOS: Narninian

for such a blatant misquote. I clearly began that sentence with a "t", and for you to suggest otherwise is downright appalling.

Cam

[Commodore Amazing]

Speaking of downright appalling,

FoS: Cam

for calling Norinel "Narninian."

[Mackay]

Mathcam:
I think you know you are speaking of the exception, rather than the general rule. If a mod posts "6 to lynch" I do not think it is unreasonable for the town to consider a player lynched once they receive 6 votes. In the uncommon case that there is a different number of votes required to lynch, the mod can notify the town. In fact, saying "X is not lynched, carry on" makes much more sense to me than remaining silent and letting the town believe that they

are

conversing in twilight.

I know that people do not generally reveal information after they are dead, but I also "knew" posting in twilight was wrong, and was shocked to see the results of the poll. The point of posting is to share information. If you agree that information should not be shared once lynch numbers are reached, then what is the point of allowing twilight posting? And if you do

not

agree with this, then what do you have against cops revealing their results after the lynching vote is placed on them?

If your key point is "the players can't accurately tell when lynch is reached" then the argument is pretty weak. In the

majority

of cases lynch will be reached exactly when the majority of votes are reached. I think that "people shouldn't talk once they're dead" is a more pressing issue. But maybe that's just me.

[Stewie]

Twilight is something imaginary, much like the equator line. A day starts when the night results are posted, and the night starts when the day results are posted. Therefore, the period of time between the night results and the day results is called "day" and it includes what you call "twilight." During this period of time everyone is allowed to post in the game thread, and nobody is allowed to communicate outside the game thread, unless the moderator specifically said that you could communicate during the day.

The reason for my definition of day and night is simple: the players do not know when the requirements to end the day are met just like they don't know when the mod got all the night choices in. The town has a rough idea, which is dependant on the mod's vote count. However, an active player plays roughly five games at the same time. It is a pain in the ass to check vote counts on five games to see if the day ended or not. Furthermore, as Cam mentioned, there are many other factors which need to be considered. Likewise, the mod can't say "ok, I got all the choices in, so I'm opening the thread. However, I don't have my game notes with me, so I will post the night scene later today." It makes no sense for people to start day gameplay without all the information they need from the mod, just like it doesn't make sense to start the night gameplay until the mod posts all the information.

To answer the poll question: I played here for around two years, so not only I assume it is allowed when it is not mentioned, but I also assume it is not mentioned, thus I always post in twilight if I have something to say.

[Mackay]

You are drawing a false connection between the beginnings of day and night there.

At the beginning of a day, nobody but the mod knows when the choices are all in. Therefore, it makes sense to begin the day when the choices are in - that is, when the mod posts that it is day.
At the beginning of a night, it is obvious that a person has reached lynch. And who said anything about needing to go through and count the votes? It is generally pointed out by several people in any given game, when a person is close to being lynched. In every game there are helpful people and vote counts.

I'm the opposite of your story, Stewie - I've spent the last two years

not

playing here. =) But I don't recall twilight posting having 'been around forever', as mathcam claims - though I can barely remember most of the games I played here.... I probably suppressed the memories of my atrocious playing.

Perhaps I am just overly strict. But I would favour both not posting in twilight unless it's specified that one

can

, and mafia not communicating until the mod states that it is night - for the very 'people don't know for sure it it's really night' reason.

[Stewie]

You think that people will never get confused and accidently post something meaningful when they thought that the lynch was not reached? And how is it obious to them? What if there's a game trigger that makes people need half the votes to be lynched? Or if a person requires an extra vote to get lynched? There are even roles which have extra votes. There's too much room for error, and it's hard to draw a line between what's intentional and what's accidental. It makes a lot more sense to allow it altogether, it enhances the game anyways.

[Mr Stoofer]

The point of posting is to share information. If you agree that information should not be shared once lynch numbers are reached, then what is the point of allowing twilight posting? And if you do

not

agree with this, then what do you have against cops revealing their results after the lynching vote is placed on them?

Personally, I see nothing wrong with people posting information as the victim is dragged to the lynching tree. I have no problem with a cop saying, as he is being strung up - after I'm dead, lynch X because I know he's scum.