Trepa Mayfield
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Sept 1, 2009 21:44:23 GMT -5
According to Sach's Law, "It is impossible to create a tiebreaking system that is fair to all groups in all situations.". Thus, the goal of a moderator should be to make a tiebreaking system that discourages ties, thus avoiding having to be unfair.
Sach tried this in Not-so-simpletown, which is why the law is named after him. Of course, irony prevailed, and the game ended in a critical tied situation. But I think I can build on his proposal.
Here's how I think it should go:
"If the Day ends in a tie, the moderator will break it according to his or her whims."
As such, neither group would have any way to even attempt to game the system.
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Gir!
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EVIL Demon Goddess Mod
What? Kat is sweet and innocent!
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Post by Gir! on Sept 2, 2009 7:16:19 GMT -5
They could try to bribe the mod.
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Post by Mister Blockey on Sept 2, 2009 14:47:47 GMT -5
I can see that pedescribe, but only if the mod has a set plan beforehand, they just don't explain it.
Reason being, as a moderator, I often find myself endeared to, or rooting for one side or another in a game I'm hosting. Many of my rules are put in place to keep myself honest, which I do feel I've managed consistently, however that is definitely due at least in part to planning for contingencies ahead of time, before I make a gut decision which may be biased.
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Trepa Mayfield
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Does Not Follow Directions
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Sept 2, 2009 15:05:13 GMT -5
They could try to bribe the mod. I don't know about you, but if I got money from moderating, that'd be a win-win.
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Death By Irony
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The Former Mandate of Heaven/Current Gastard Night Mod
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Post by Death By Irony on Sept 2, 2009 20:51:46 GMT -5
I'm a bastard. Tie = No Lynch in all of my games. Of course that can be gamed by both sides, but they do it at their own peril.
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Post by Pleonast on Sept 4, 2009 11:34:33 GMT -5
I'm a bastard. Tie = No Lynch in all of my games. Of course that can be gamed by both sides, but they do it at their own peril. That's not being a bastard, that's being a good designer. Tie break systems should be simple and transparent. That way the players can know what effect their actions will have. Let them game the system; manipulating events to help your team is an essential part of Mafia. The main drawback of tie==no lynch is that you have to make sure the game can't stalemate. Hmm, speaking of which, I forgot to run a stalemate check on the Conspiracy 3 rules set. I hope that doesn't come back to bite me.
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Post by sachertorte on Sept 16, 2009 11:16:23 GMT -5
Wow. A Law named after me.
Yes, I'm still trying to find a good tie-break rule. I understand the draw of tie == no lynch, but I don't like it because it sets up an artificial barrier to switching the lynch from one player to another.
We've tired many variants but all have their problems. Pleonast's tie leads to all tied players getting lynched might have some merit, but his D&D game showed it to be too powerful for town. (Though it might be less powerful if everyone is limited to one vote instead of multiple as was the case in that game).
What I don't like is resolving the tie based on randomization. At that point we might as well decide the outcome of the entire game based on a coin-flip. I think giving one player tie-breaking power is a plausible solution. In other words, an otherwise vanilla player gets the power to decide all ties. Then at least the result is player determined.
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Post by Guy Incognito on Sept 16, 2009 19:12:39 GMT -5
What about making it random, but predetermined. So only the Mod knows who will get it. Let's say there are 20 Town, and 5 Scum. Use Random.org to give each player a different number between 1 & 25. In the event of a tie, the lower number dies. You could even make sure that #'s 1-5 have 1 Scum. 6-10 have 1 Scum, and so on. Nobody'll know if they have a high, or low number.
That way, if you end up at the end of the game, 3 players, one Scum, and a 3 way tie, then the tie breaker was randomly determined before the game even started.
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Post by special on Sept 16, 2009 21:49:44 GMT -5
What about making it random, but predetermined. So only the Mod knows who will get it. Let's say there are 20 Town, and 5 Scum. Use Random.org to give each player a different number between 1 & 25. In the event of a tie, the lower number dies. You could even make sure that #'s 1-5 have 1 Scum. 6-10 have 1 Scum, and so on. Nobody'll know if they have a high, or low number. That way, if you end up at the end of the game, 3 players, one Scum, and a 3 way tie, then the tie breaker was randomly determined before the game even started. It's still random though. The best solution is to probably be upfront and do something like lynch the first person who got to that number of votes. Or maybe just kill the person who caused the tie either by voting or unvoting...though, that might make a vote late in the Day risky. hey, it might encourage early voting.
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Natlaw
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Post by Natlaw on Sept 18, 2009 16:12:07 GMT -5
I think making it a role is the best option, so it makes it a player decision.
It could be a solo Hangman role or have it spread out like the masons having the power to tie break (or scum when all masons dead) in Evil Dead. Or combine it with the Governor role: decides what happens on tie and can stop the lynch (which is no often used I think).
The draw back of 'first to get to the peak' is that it's a scum advantage as they can co-ordinate that (happened in Undying War).
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Post by Guy Incognito on Sept 19, 2009 11:48:49 GMT -5
I agree with the draw back of "first to get to the peak", but at the same time, it can help get the Town players to vote, in an attempt to stop the SCUM from doing this. (and I do realize that this is very flawed logic)
I haven't been in that many games where there was a tie. I'd say my favourite that I saw was starting a dusk thread, where only those 2 can be voted for. If a SCUM is in that group, then they either have to bus, or take a stand.
My least favourite was "If there's a tie, then nobody gets lynched".
What do people think of "in the event of a tie, they both die"?
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Post by BillMc on Sept 19, 2009 17:59:59 GMT -5
Well if both (or all) candidates are town, then the scum could manipulate it to a multiway tie and get a load of town lynched in one go.
Tho that would kinda give Governor roles some more incentive to step up and save someone.
Could also add some uncertainty by maybe a 50/50 chance of the person causing the tie to also die if the lynchee is town; if its a 3 way tie, then 66/33 chance etc
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Post by Guy Incognito on Sept 20, 2009 12:01:23 GMT -5
That's a real good point BILL, with the SCUM controlling the lynch. The other thing, is if there's one SCUM and one TOWN. And if only one is lynched, then the other is likely to be lynched tomorrow, the SCUM could use it as a perfect opportunity to BUS, while still killing the town.
Hmmm. I'm thinking that a dusk thread is probably the best way, although it is flawed.
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Post by Mister Blockey on Sept 20, 2009 12:54:26 GMT -5
I actually prefer the peak method. It's not as easy to work out when you have complicated voting systems, but in a standard system lynching whichever person in the tie who reached the highest number of votes first is actually incredibly hard to game. The points where it hurts town are points where one or more town players, almost always including the lynchee were playing poorly in the first place.
The only time I don't use that method is in my three clan games, but that's a definite balance issue. Allowing ties to prevent the lynch completely allows for the possibility for the tide turning against a dominating team.
Yes the scum can game the peak method, but when they do so it's so blatantly obvious they might as well hand over a confession in the process.
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Post by Guy Incognito on Sept 20, 2009 13:00:18 GMT -5
Thats a good point. All the problems with any method that revolve around the fact that SCUM have P.I.S., the Scum still have to show their hand somewhat. Giving the TOWN an edge if they try it.
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Post by Pleonast on Sept 22, 2009 12:32:23 GMT -5
Have a tie result in a multiple lynch has been tried by me. It's a huge advantage for the Town. Think about--the lynch is the Town's power. Making it more effective, by eliminating multiple players and giving the Town more information, helps the Town a lot. It means once the Town has a core of confirmed players they can immediately eliminate the unconfirmed before the scum can strike back, instead of the usual lynch-nightkill-lynch-nightkill cycle.
It's extremely overpowered. The only reason it didn't break my Munchkin Mafia game was that some Town players had to be alive to win.
On the other end, ties resulting in no lynch is an advantage to scum. But it's self-balancing. Scum cannot act against the Town out in the open, without revealing themselves. So even the scum will have to try to avoid having the votes in a tie. In player the forces a tie will be either lynched or Vig-killed.
Ties-is-no-lynch has the advantage of simplicity. Simple for the players, simple for the moderator. The peak method is hard. I'd never use it as a mod because I wouldn't want to have to calculate it. Even with my detailed vote counts, it's not simple to see who and when the peak was reached. Breaking ties by who reached the tying number first is easier to compute, but still not as simple as tie-is-no-lynch.
Of course, I prefer a multiple vote system to a single vote system, so complexity is in the eye of the beholder.
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