Deadline Lynching? Part II

[Mr Stoofer]

A little while ago I started a discussion here about

deadline lynching

, and in particular which rule people preferred out of:

• A full majority is required to lynch at deadline
  
• A half majority is required to lynch at deadline

But one thing that wasn't discussed was: which rule favours the town, and which rule favours the scum, or is it neutral?

[Nemesis]

I'd say it depends on the numbers. Trying to avoid a WIFOM arguement I'd say...

With a deadline that requires half the majority with 6 votes halved, 3 scum have a huge advantage obviously. With a decrease in Scum : Townies there is a point at which Scum would seriously be suspicious all voting one way. But any lynch that has a chance of hitting scum is better than no lynch. If the deadline removes the town's only chance of killing scum then that can only favour the scum.

I'd say any deadline favours the scum really. (Although obviously the more said the more chance the town usually has.)

It totally depends, I've never seen a 3/4 majority used. Although it favours the scum slightly, with enough players it could work properly.


But deadlines should really speed up the game, if you can extend them then do so, don't force people to rush as that also favours the scum.


I feel I should point out. I've never played or modded a game. I've read about 20 games here though, so although I'm a n00b it doesn't mean I'm an uninformed n00b. But my suggestions/comments could be totally wrong.

[Thoth]

The half-majority lynch favours the town I think. Especially in the first 2/3 days missing a lynch (even a townie lynch) is a huge disaster for the town. When only half-majority is needed that usually doesn't happen.

[Nemesis]

I agree with you about the significance of lynching someone. (Rare occassions give the town a bigger chance of lynching scum but they are at lynch or lose.)
But a hlaf-majority lynch in most cases strongly favours scum. Any lynch is better than no lynch and although a half majority lynch favours the town more than a full majority deadline I still see scum having the advantage as soon as a deadline is put in place. It is very easy for someone's scum buddy to deflect a new bandwagon if a deadline exists.

Extending a deadline favours the town. The town has no other things concerning deadlines that helps them, I don't think.

[halo freak]

I think the full is better. I makes people get more panicky about getting the lynch done. I creates leaders of the game and forces people to act differently.

[Nemesis]

Although that is true the downside is people panic. Some people do not like haste voting. The main thing is Mafia can stall fairly easily. The amount of active people without scum are barely enough to lynch at the start of the game. I've seen games in which many people were replaced due to inactivity and the mod decided to mod-kill people because of the amount of inactivity. A deadline on the first few days of a game can give scum a choice between lynching a townie or not voting and saving a scum buddy. If all inactive players are replaced or prodded until they are active then maybe that kind of deadline would favour the town more than a half majority deadline, however all deadlines favour scum.

[Yosarian2]

It depends. Half-majority lynches are much easier for scum to manipulate; the scum often have a half-majorty by themselves. On the other hand, requiring a full majority is hard if there are several inactive townies.

(shrug) I would say a half-majority is better for the town. After all, even if it's a half majorty lynch, the town could still put together a full majority 5 minutes before the deadline anyway, right?

[BabyJesus]

I think you should set a deadline, then every 2 hours after the deadline reduce the number required to lynch by one.

[Thoth]

I think you should set a deadline, then every 2 hours after the deadline reduce the number required to lynch by one.

That's an interesting variation. Would like to see someone use that in a game.

[Mr Stoofer]

I might try that in Mafia 45. Not sure who it would favour.

~thinks~

At the time of writing, the poll is pretty evenly balanced betwen the 3 options.

[Nemesis]

I think you should set a deadline, then every 2 hours after the deadline reduce the number required to lynch by one.

That is an interesting variation. But if the mod is european then Americans/Canadians could have a weird deadline time and vice versa. But that is the only bad thing about it. (Depending on the number of people left alive it can be altered so no real problems there.) The person bandwagoned before the deadline would have a lot of work to do. People might actually defend themselves properly instead of attacking someone else and creating a new bandwagon, time wouldn't allow it.

I belive there are at least 4 better types of deadline than the commonly used two.

[mathcam]

I think it could be fixed pretty easily by (somewhat dramatically) increasing the number "2." Consider the example where there's no votes on anyone and the deadline hits in the middle of night (say all players are North American). By morning (or even mid-night), we've reached the situation where it takes a single vote to lynch someone. Whoever's up first gets to choose the kill. Not only does this ruin a day's effort, but it's also fairly unplausible from the point of view of a "real-life" game.

Maybe 6 hours? This would give players ample time to react to the shortening majority rules, and would probably provide for some interesting game dynamics.

Cam

[MeMe]

I like it -- but think that 12 hours would be even better.

[Nemesis]

8 Hours is actually ideal for a big game, if it was 12 hours at the start of a big game then it could take the deadline about a week to be effective, it is a deadline after all. If 8 hours is not enough in that kind of game for the town to use their numbers effectively then the town is responsible for giving the scum an advantage. In smaller games then I'd say at least 12 hours. I guess there'd be a min number of votes to lynch though. I don't think any mod is going to let 1 or 2 votes settle a lynch that would usually require 17 people.

[Mr. Flay]

I keep meaning to post the "plurality deadline" that I stole from DS & Polotet to the wiki...anyway, here it is:

Normal lynching rules apply under normal circumstances (more than 50% of the players voting for someone). Deadline means that half the prior number of votes are required (rounded up), but the player who is to be lynched still has to have 50% or more of the

cast votes

.

It's easier to see than explain, which is part of why I haven't posted it yet:

If there are 15 living players, 8 would lynch normally, and 4 votes minimum will lynch under deadline. However if 5 or more other votes are scattered about, there's no consensus of the group and no lynch occurs. 4 other votes (even if they are all on one person, achieved later) would still result in a lynch. If 6 votes are cast for one person but everyone else (9 people) are scattering their votes, still

no lynch

. Usual rules about ties apply.

I find this allows players to help decide a lynch even without actively voting, by removing support from someone else. It also makes people take a more definitive stance on whether to lynch or not, which helps the town slightly to offset the ability of scum to manipulate reduced lynching numbers. So far it's had about 50%/50% success in killing scum at deadline, but it's a small sample.

P.S. With the pace of games on this site, I can't really see measuring anything in hours and having it be fair. Even I can't get on for 12-24 hours at a time, sometimes.

[Nemesis]

That deadline is a practical one. I don't really like the best way of defending oneself to be voting for someone else but that I guess cannon be helped.

This is another of the many deadlines better than the commonly used ones.

[Einsteinmonkey]

Or you could take hostages and shoot 1 every hour after the deadline, until they comply with your request

[the silent speaker]

In Simpsons Mafia I did a kind of mirror-reversed version of that deadline lynch: there was no minimum fraction of the whole town (voting and non-) as long as there were at least three people, but I upped the fraction of those who

were

participating needed to be considered consensus. (It was four fifths of the cast votes, but I think for future games three fourths might be better.)

[BabyJesus]

Or you could take hostages and shoot 1 every hour after the deadline, until they comply with your request

this is a quality post

[Einsteinmonkey]

Or you could take hostages and shoot 1 every hour after the deadline, until they comply with your request

this is a quality post

You forgot invisitext

[Iammars]

Or you could take hostages and shoot 1 every hour after the deadline, until they comply with your request

this is a quality post

You forgot invisitext

No invisitext on this site.

[Nemesis]

In Simpsons Mafia I did a kind of mirror-reversed version of that deadline lynch: there was no minimum fraction of the whole town (voting and non-) as long as there were at least three people, but I upped the fraction of those who

were

participating needed to be considered consensus. (It was four fifths of the cast votes, but I think for future games three fourths might be better.)

Simpsons Mafia is a good example of a game which has a lot of inactive players. (You modkilled/replaced about half the players.) A full majority deadline could have resulted in a no lynch if there were no modkills.

[CoolBot]

Deadline lynches hurt the town, and I really can't see a way they can't be. So the town has a good incentive not to reach the deadline, and start voting. Deadlines shouldn't be short, since that only encourages panic voting, but a proper deadline can jumpstart the game.

Scum usually don't need an incentive to lynch someone, so the deadline doesn't need to encourage them.

[Yosarian2]

Deadline lynches hurt the town, and I really can't see a way they can't be. So the town has a good incentive not to reach the deadline, and start voting. Deadlines shouldn't be short, since that only encourages panic voting, but a proper deadline can jumpstart the game.

(shrug) I've got to say, though, some of the most fun I've had in mafia games has happend during the crazy scramble to try to put something together when there's 6 hours left until deadline and the main bandwagon up until that point has just suddenly turned out to be a confirmed good guy. That's why I like the half-lynch better; it really gives the town mor options when that kind of thing happens, and can make the run-up to a deadline a lot more exciting, especally if you've already got enough votes on you for a deadline lynch and have a limited time left to convince some people to unvote you...

[Thesp]

I tried a "shrinking majority" rule in a ocuple of my games that I liked, where every hour after the deadline the number required to lynch someone decreased by one until someone was lynched. Of course, I had another mechanic in there making some people easier to lynch, so recounting "ties" was a pain, but otherwise I like the concept.

I do think it depends on the crowd you play with and their activity as to whom the half-majority rule favors.