Mini 517: Tree Stump Mafia: Game Over

[Adele]

I still feel like the main complaint here is that a "weak" player was replaced with a strong one - which can happen with any replacement - not that a stump was replaced at all.

For the record, I appealed at the idea of

any

replacement.

Second, more important - there was

nothing

we could do as scum to get rid of Glork. He couldn't be nightkilled even on those one-in-eternity occasions that we went to night.

How relevant is this, really? He was in for one lynch (no stumps) before you went to night, and if he had vanished at that point it wouldn't have affected the outcome in the slightest.[/quote]Brushing awkward bastards under the carpet is a vital part of mafia play. And you bet your boot if I'd had a choice between dropping him and... even

you

, well, it probably would've been him.

[The Fonz]

Adele, why did you kill Mars and not mith?

It'd be cool to know (I know you're probably gone for the night now).

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

I only thought it was mith because I can't imagine somebody deciding to kill me over mith when he is such a vastly superior player.

sorry mithy.

Lovebacksies?

[Mastermind of Sin]

I still feel like the main complaint here is that a "weak" player was replaced with a strong one - which can happen with any replacement - not that a stump was replaced at all.

Not at all. If Glork had replaced d3sisted, there would not have been any problem. I could have cast doubt on the legitimacy of his words because it was still possible that he was scum. The problem was that a tree stump was replaced. I don't care who they were replaced with, because whoever it was would be listened to more than the person who disappeared. Even if Battle Mage came into the game instead of Glork, I would've appealed the decision.

[mith]

Brushing awkward bastards under the carpet is a vital part of mafia play. And you bet your boot if I'd had a choice between dropping him and... even

you

, well, it probably would've been him.

I think you're missing my point. Glork's impact on this game was on/during the last decision of Day 2. It didn't matter that you were unable to kill him Night 2 - if you had gotten rid of

both

of us, you still would almost certainly have gotten lynched.

I could understand the "unkillable" complaint if he had come in earlier in the game. But in this situation, it seems like a bit of a red herring.

I don't care who they were replaced with, because whoever it was would be listened to more than the person who disappeared.

I don't think this is necessarily the case. We simply don't know what SP's impact on the game would have been had he stayed in. As I said, he didn't lose interest because we weren't listening to him, or because we were calling him names. He just vanished.

(As for the mod-confirmed aspect, there are plenty of situations in normal games where a player could be replaced and are "confirmed innocent". Would you argue that they shouldn't be replaced either?)

I think I'll leave it at that - we're probably going to have to agree to disagree, as both sides are probably a bit biased by alignment. I think I would have the same view on this as a neutral party or as Mafia, but it's hard to say for certain. Something that should be resolved in some way if the setup is going to be run again, of course.

[Mastermind of Sin]

"confirmed innocent" is not the same as "mod-confirmed, unkillable, unlynchable, innocent"

[Mastermind of Sin]

I'd just like to clear up a few things now that the game is over.

1) I did not, and I will never use RL circumstances to attempt to gain favor in a mafia game. When I speak of RL circumstances in a game, I am stepping outside of my alignment completely.

2) Following up with 1, I did intend to complete my massive analysis that I had promised, and I told the complete truth regarding that. There were no "stall" tactics involved there.

3) I'd just like to point out that some of the following discussions have led directly to me leaving the site:

Glork, I'd appreciate it if you don't automatically add derisive comments to everything you say, especially when you're wrong.

Overdefensive much? Go find one other "derisive comment" I've directed towards you in this thread. I'm pretty sure I made two extremely long posts analyzing nearly 30 pages of the game and stuck strictly to business. And instead of responding to any of the content in those long analyses, you're choosing to get hussy over one comment pointing out the fact that I think you're scum.

So yeah. I want you lynched. You're behaving very typically from what I'd expect from MoS-scum right now.

And regardless, that comment didn't help anything. You appended it to a comment that was completely wrong, on top of that. If you want to point out that you think I'm scum, present cases and vote me. Don't just go around shouting that I'm scum. That doesn't accomplish anything. Everyone already knows you think I'm scum, because you posted a case. There is absolutely no reason to be obnoxious about it, Glork. You know better than that.

Sure it did.

You see, I am an egocentric, arrogant, vocal, and extraordinarily stubborn bastard of a mafia player.

I like saying things that make me feel that I have control over a game.

You're still scum, and now I am considering making a snide comment in every single post I make, simply to antagonize you.

Of course, that would hurt if you were town. But since you're scum, I'm okay with putting you on edge.




Have a good day, sir.

I do not join mafia games to be treated with disrespect, especially after I politely ask a person to treat me less derisively. I do not need to deal with bullshit in that regard, so it is clear that my presence is no longer welcome enough on this site that I could be extended even that simple courtesy.

[JDodge]

Possibly derisive comments MoS made before asking for other people to be "courteous" to him:

(To Korlash)

...hello, logic please? When you find scum, you vote to lynch them. It doesn't matter if it's the first fucking page. You don't just sit around and say "hmm, we need another 8 pages before we can lynch this scum we found!" That's not how the game works. Quagmire is acting like scum, so I'm going to vote for him. Just because he slipped up trying to find a way to act blatantly scummy and get away with it on Page 1, does not mean that we can't lynch him.

(To DGB regarding Quag, myself and scot)

DGB, it's far more compounding the cheating for you to take actions that were based on cheating and analyze them as if they weren't. You're just ruining the game by acting like the actions of cheaters were based on something other than cheating. You're far more guilty of compounding the cheating than anyone else, and I'm not going to stop discussing it until you realize this.

(To DGB)

I'm being stubborn because I refuse to let you make cases off bullshit. You're being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, as far as I can see. You have no logical basis for not relenting this point. If you think that saying you will be stubborn is going to get me to call of the dogs, think again.

I'm wary of DGB because a game like this strikes me as one where insanity

(as opposed to stupidity, in the case of Quagmire)

could be a highly effective strategy for scum.

(To Adele)

*facepalm*

Does someone else want to field this one? I need to go bash my head into a wall. Excuse me.

(To DGB)

Thank you for playing the semantics game, DGB! I'm sorry, but you haven't won a prize this evening. Charlie, tell her what she would've won! "Well, MoS, the winner this evening would receive a paid cruise to the Bahamas, where they can chillax and try to make sense of their life!" Please come and join us next time, on "Useless arguments that don't really mean anything", hosted by yours truly, MoS!

Respect is a two-way street, MoS.

[mith]

MoS, regarding what Glork said:

1. "Seriously. Why haven't you people lynched MoS yet?" is not derisive toward you

at all

. If anything, it's derisive toward the people it was directed at (the rest of us), but I certainly didn't feel disrespected by it. That kind of statement is a rhetorical tool, nothing more. (Likewise with the second Glork-post you quoted. There's nothing disrespectful there.)

2. Looking back, the second post from Glork was a bit over the top, though again, "antagonizing" people and trying to get a rise out of them is common (expected, even) in a Mafia game. Thing is, as far as I'm aware he didn't know what was going on in your life at the time. He didn't follow through and antagonize you at all after that post, particularly after you shared what was going on.

3. As JDodge points out, you have been as much or more derisive, both before and after Glork's comments and your response. That in itself doesn't excuse anything he or anyone else does - and if you've been trying to change how you talk to other people, great - but when you act a certain way people are naturally going to assume they can act the same way toward you.

You're a good (often great) player, and I respect you as a person, but you take things too personally sometimes, and I think you are doing so here. I hope you'll reconsider - both how you view what happened here and your intention to leave the site - but if things IRL/etc. are such that comments like that are upsetting you, I wish you the best in dealing with that and know that we'll be glad to have you back if/when you return. You're a part of this community, and it wouldn't be the same without you.

[Adel]

my two cents worth:

1. the setup was balanced.
2. inactive stumps ought to be replaced like an inactive living player
3. if I was Adele I would be pissed off at my partners for adopting sub-optimal tactics regarding role PMs, unless either one of them are liars and cleared it with her before hand or at least apologised for it later... in which case it would be gravy.

Good game y'all, and thanks for replacing in Glork.

[Glork]

I'd been at a general loss of words regarding the post-game discussions, since my replacement into the game had apparently been a hot topic, but I do feel obliged to respond to MoS.

Mostly I want to re-hash points 1) and 2) that mith made. If I had the time, I could probably find fifty posts in which I ask why Player X isn't dead yet. That's been very typical of my playstyle for literally

years

, and nobody has ever found it the least bit "derisive."

I understand how the second one could be taken as over-aggressive, but I maintain that being a hyperaggressive, somewhat-antagonizing hardass is a playstyle with which I've found success in the past. I often put suspected scumbags on edge -- I even do it to arbitrary players whom I want to get a read on (such as PJ D1 in Kingmaker II -- which, incidentally, was one of the factors that led me to PookyScum). It works. I think it is perfectly within "the spirit of the game." I realize that it creates conflict. Once again, I'll cite the postgame of Graduation Mafia when mlaker called me the "JP Morgan of mafia" because he was upset that I was pushy and domineering over the game (one in which I also found success, hitting two scumbags on days one and two).

I am not the kind of person to ever state that the ends justify the means. But in this case, I don't think "the means" were out of the question. It's completely true that I had no idea what your RL situation was, and I was treating the game as, well... any other game. I respect as much as anybody that meatworld almost always takes precedence over games, and I can honestly say that if I'd known beforehand that you were going through a bunch of crap, I wouldn't have tried to antagonize you. I'm sorry that my timing was so crappy, but I did drop the whole "antagonizing" thing once it became known (aside from responding to your temper-tantrum post after you got lynched).

Though admittedly biased, I also feel that you took my comments too personally. I do wish to apologize for having upset you, but I also stand by my actions and words, and I do not plan on altering my play in most game situations, if I so decide to be antagonistic in-game.




Anyway, good game to all. Thanks, Thok, for letting me replace into the game, thank you to all who played, and sorry I couldn't be a bit more thorough and complete during my time here.

[Mastermind of Sin]

If anyone felt upset by what I had said, I would immediately respect any request on their part to NOT make comments like that. Even if I felt that my posts were NOT being derisive, I would at least make a conscious effort to control my comments from then on. Glork consciously became MORE derisive and arrogant in response to a simple request. There's a huge difference there.

my two cents worth:

1. the setup was balanced.

Definitely not.

2. inactive stumps ought to be replaced like an inactive living player

Definitely not.

3. if I was Adele I would be pissed off at my partners for adopting sub-optimal tactics regarding role PMs, unless either one of them are liars and cleared it with her before hand or at least apologised for it later... in which case it would be gravy.

Good game y'all, and thanks for replacing in Glork.

I hope you meant "partner", cuz I didn't do anything like that in this game.

[Adele]

Brushing awkward bastards under the carpet is a vital part of mafia play. And you bet your boot if I'd had a choice between dropping him and... even

you

, well, it probably would've been him.

I think you're missing my point. Glork's impact on this game was on/during the last decision of Day 2. It didn't matter that you were unable to kill him Night 2 - if you had gotten rid of

both

of us, you still would almost certainly have gotten lynched.

I could understand the "unkillable" complaint if he had come in earlier in the game. But in this situation, it seems like a bit of a red herring.

I think it's the same problem as cop+doc in setups - the fact that he's

both

mod-confirmed

and

unkillable is a pain in the backside that's bigger than the sum of its parts.

3. if I was Adele I would be pissed off at my partners for adopting sub-optimal tactics regarding role PMs, unless either one of them are liars and cleared it with her before hand or at least apologised for it later... in which case it would be gravy.

I'm

seriously

pissed off at Quagmire (or

was

; the game has ended, and already it's seeping out of my memory like from that book "The Giver"), but am a member of the apparent minority that thinks that MoS' course of action is both ethical and potentially beneficial.

[Mastermind of Sin]

*sigh*

Again, I didn't attempt to forget who my scumbuddy was in this game. This setup was different, and I thought that the nightless aspect would require that I know who my scumbuddy was in order to play better. I just forgot who my scumbuddy was

on accident

.

[Adele]

...Wait, but if that happened, why not just look up your role pm?

[Mastermind of Sin]

Because I didn't realize I had forgotten. I

thought

I knew who my scumbuddy was. There was no realization that I could have been wrong on that point. I must have just gotten confused during the duration of the game.

[mith]

my two cents worth:

1. the setup was balanced.

Definitely not.

Sigh.

(Btw, Thok, 4-8 has an EV of 17% for the town.)

[Glork]

*sigh*

Again, I didn't attempt to forget who my scumbuddy was in this game. This setup was different, and I thought that the nightless aspect would require that I know who my scumbuddy was in order to play better. I just forgot who my scumbuddy was

on accident

.

Honestly, I don't buy that in virtually every game, you naturally forget your scumbuddies' identities. I never have, and I never will. Even "out-of-game," you have every reason to lie about this, because it protects an entire subset of games you play (those in which you are groupscum) without hurting you in any of the other games.

I have, on rare occasion, forgotten the identity of

one

of my scumbuddies, but unless I'm mistaken, that has always been when said scumbuddy was one among several players with whom I had never played (meaning I didn't have a well-developed sense of identity of any of these players).

[Mastermind of Sin]

my two cents worth:

1. the setup was balanced.

Definitely not.

Sigh.

(Btw, Thok, 4-8 has an EV of 17% for the town.)

Moutainous != Nightless + Talking mod-confirmed innocent dead people that mafia can't get rid of

[Mastermind of Sin]

And Glork, think whatever you like, but I really think less of you for actually believing I would lie about shit like that. No fucking "meta" is important enough to lie about a game outside the game. Maybe YOU can't forget who your partners are, but YOU don't average 25 games at once, either. When you're playing 25 games at a time, plus an ever-rotating set of newbies while your longer games go on, it's very easy to forget who your partners are, as long as they don't try to contact you during the night. So don't tell me I'm lying to protect some sort of meta. That's ridiculous, and you know me better than that. At least I thought you did.

[JDodge]

And Glork, think whatever you like, but I really think less of you for actually believing I would lie about shit like that. No fucking "meta" is important enough to lie about a game outside the game. Maybe YOU can't forget who your partners are, but YOU don't average 25 games at once, either. When you're playing 25 games at a time, plus an ever-rotating set of newbies while your longer games go on, it's very easy to forget who your partners are, as long as they don't try to contact you during the night. So don't tell me I'm lying to protect some sort of meta. That's ridiculous, and you know me better than that. At least I thought you did.

You're being derisive.

And if you can't remember your role because you play in 25 games at a time, perhaps you should take that as a clue to

play fewer games at a time

.

[mith]

my two cents worth:

1. the setup was balanced.

Definitely not.

Sigh.

(Btw, Thok, 4-8 has an EV of 17% for the town.)

Moutainous != Nightless + Talking mod-confirmed innocent dead people that mafia can't get rid of

...read, please? The 38.7% (and 17%) were calculated for the Tree Stump setup (which is neither Mountainous nor Nightless). Vanilla 3-9 is 16.45%. Nightless 3-9 is 50%.

That Tree Stumps can talk has no bearing on the

EV

. It does make it more difficult on the scum, as I already said. We expect a town will do better than random in a normal game, and we'd expect them to do more better here because of the stumps, but the balance itself is in the EV.

[MeMe]

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