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Post by storyteller0910 on Dec 9, 2009 12:52:55 GMT -5
Welcome, anyone watching who wants to discuss unspoiled, or who is spoiled but can hide it very effectively. Potential subs should also hang out here.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 10, 2009 13:46:40 GMT -5
I'm joining the peanut gallery. Also, if you find you need a sub, I'd like to throw my hat in that ring.
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Post by NAF1138 on Dec 10, 2009 14:10:35 GMT -5
I'm spoiled as heck, but I wanted to say hi anyway.
Sup?
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Post by Pleonast on Dec 11, 2009 11:09:12 GMT -5
I'm spoiled, but there's a few comments I can make here instead of there, so in the interest of keeping this thread interesting... We could do worse than let Tom try to find scum and support his vote. At least we would know such a lynch was not scum controlled. Yikes! That is very anti-town. How are you going to find scum when players can simply play "follow the mason"? Scum have an easy out if this tactic is followed. The power of the town, especially in the early game, is diversity in thinking. Putting the lynch in the hands of one player puts blinders on the town. If the everyone is going to follow the mason, if I were scum, I'd let him live until at least mid-game (besides the fact that most of the town's protectors/trackers/watchers etc will be focused on the mason). That's premature. Why don't you let the known mason say if there's more masons or not? And like "follow the mason", making the mason hammer the lynch gives every scum an easy excuse for not hammering. The voting for lynches is a primary information source for the town. By corraling it into a predefined procedure, it takes away information. Without the cop-outs, scum have to make calculated decisions (and take risks) about who to vote for and whether or not to hammer. With them, scum need not risk much at all.
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 11, 2009 11:57:06 GMT -5
I agree with Pleonast. I've always felt that the role of Masons should be judge, not prosecutor. While catching scum in the early game is nice, the real goal is to generate information for the endgame. Playing follow Tom Scud removes this. Though, I'm willing to bet that not everyone will follow Tom Scud, and that in and of itself generates information.
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Post by NAF1138 on Dec 11, 2009 12:28:55 GMT -5
I agree with Pleonast. I've always felt that the role of Masons should be judge, not prosecutor. While catching scum in the early game is nice, the real goal is to generate information for the endgame. Playing follow Tom Scud removes this. Though, I'm willing to bet that not everyone will follow Tom Scud, and that in and of itself generates information. That's my thinking as well. I don't know that it matters what the plan is during the first couple of Days, as long as town gets to talking about it and doesn't just follow it blindly. Everything generates information as long as there is discussion, so even bad plans are better than no plan at this point. I think that having no fixed end point for the Day is going to guarantee that there will be discussion because nothing can move forward if without it. Playing follow Tom Scud will likely be close to impossible because of this. Day 1 might last an awfully long time, I hope the players are prepared for that.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 11, 2009 12:32:18 GMT -5
I'm not spoiled, and I'm still pretty much learning how to play, so don't be surprised if I make some naive observations.
sach, thats a good point. At this point in the game, the confirmed should not be leading the town, but letting the town play out suspicions. Having a confirmed is a benefit here, especially since it provides a way for the actual merit of suspicions to be evaluated. In the space hijack game, on day 1 chucara caught some votes simply because he stated that he was not 'the boss of mafia'. Having someone trustworthy to say, "Hey guys that idea is rediculous", can go along way to preventing mislynches for dumb reasons.
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Post by Pleonast on Dec 11, 2009 12:52:39 GMT -5
I've never played in a hammer game and I'm interested to see how the pacing goes. One of the problems I see with Mafia is a low level of posting followed by a furious number right before the deadline. By replacing the deadline with a player-generated end seems like it would fix the pacing issue.
I'm concerned that it might be possible for scum to play a delaying tactic to prevent the Day from ever ending. I think that would normally be extremely difficult, but you never know what unusual circumstances might occur.
Things to consider for the next game I run.
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 11, 2009 14:01:28 GMT -5
I'm also curious about the undefined end of day. I believe we have had hammers before, but if I recall correctly, they were all in advance of the 'deadline.' This is the first game I've seen by us that had no deadlines at all.
I think Christmas will mess up the pacing of the game. Overall, I think it will be good since it looks like Day 2 or 3 will be super duper long to compensate for Christmas and New Years. But, I also think that these holidays will muck up any evaluation of the success/failure of the no deadline mechanic.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 11, 2009 14:21:31 GMT -5
The more I think about it, I think giving Tom the sole hammer is a bad play. There's just too many circumstances where having a single authorized hammer is risky. Ie, what about a simulposted 6th vote?
A problem I forsee with hammer voting: if the game gets to three handed and all the players vote at the same time, the outcome could be random (assuming it's played by server time).
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 11, 2009 15:28:57 GMT -5
Well, Town just lynched someone on the Giraffe Boards Game on three votes of 14 (less than 25%) so Tom Scud certainly isn't deviating far from the norm.
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Dec 12, 2009 16:16:38 GMT -5
Technically, I'm spoiled, but I will be as careful as Pleonast.
Sinjin is totally pinging me with this whole pseudo votey thingy. It looks like a shiny distraction, and she's already smudging everyone who disagrees with her.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 14, 2009 1:17:54 GMT -5
Scum starting a distraction would be a dumb move for scum in this game since it has indefinite days. Having town spend forever hashing out the details of a distraction goes a ways towards town getting organized. It usualy takes town a couple of Days before they get their shit together and providing them with ways to do so doesn't get scum any closer to mislynch.
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Post by CatInASuit on Dec 14, 2009 8:50:15 GMT -5
Well, although I have the spoiler link, I'm not spoilered yet.
First thoughts: They are getting waaaay to hung up on the hammer mechanism. The chances of getting 6 people to agree on a victim on Day 1 is low enough, let alone 7. Psuedo votes, are just going to confuse matters. Best thing to do is play the game as is and watch how people vote. Limiting TS to be the hammer does not help as well.
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Post by storyteller0910 on Dec 14, 2009 13:49:31 GMT -5
Well, early returns are suggesting that this setup (with the threshold and no set end time) may not actually be functional, at least not with this particular group of players. Without that artificial deadline to force them to start voting and getting to business, they're just contenting themselves with doing nothing. I'm starting to wonder if anyone will ever get to seven votes.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 14, 2009 14:08:34 GMT -5
They might get to seven, although at this rate it'll be 2010 before it happens.
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Post by storyteller0910 on Dec 14, 2009 14:14:52 GMT -5
The problem is, I'm not sure where the momentum will come from. Typical games go like this:
First 40% of the Day: Blah-blah-blah-setup-voting-strategy-grudges-mass claim?-should the vig kill?-joke-talk about the color-blah-blah-blah. Maybe a few one-off votes.
Second 10% of the Day: A few folks notice that it's practically halfway to the deadline and nothing is happening. Feeling a bit of time pressure, they throw out a few votes on the basis of limited evidence.
Third 30% of the Day: Those initial votes spark more substantive and specific discussion. Votes pile up.
Last 20% of the Day: HOLY CRAP THE DAY IS ENDING!!!! VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE.
In this game, so far, there doesn't seem to be any motivation to move past that initial phase. Town is guarding their votes jealously and has no reason to stop doing so, and of course Scum has no good reason to climb out on a limb and get the talk started, since the talk might wind up being about them.
I'm worried.
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Post by NAF1138 on Dec 14, 2009 14:46:35 GMT -5
The problem is, I'm not sure where the momentum will come from. Typical games go like this: First 40% of the Day: Blah-blah-blah-setup-voting-strategy-grudges-mass claim?-should the vig kill?-joke-talk about the color-blah-blah-blah. Maybe a few one-off votes. Second 10% of the Day: A few folks notice that it's practically halfway to the deadline and nothing is happening. Feeling a bit of time pressure, they throw out a few votes on the basis of limited evidence. Third 30% of the Day: Those initial votes spark more substantive and specific discussion. Votes pile up. Last 20% of the Day: HOLY CRAP THE DAY IS ENDING!!!! VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE. In this game, so far, there doesn't seem to be any motivation to move past that initial phase. Town is guarding their votes jealously and has no reason to stop doing so, and of course Scum has no good reason to climb out on a limb and get the talk started, since the talk might wind up being about them. I'm worried. Don't be. I think it's way too soon to be worried. The thing to remember is that the pace of a game like this is going to change the way the game is played. Day one is going to last a long time. Weeks or months. Long. It's the nature of the beast. As long as people keep playing you should be ok. They will get their act together eventually.
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 14, 2009 14:49:13 GMT -5
I can see why you are worried, but I don't think it will be as big a problem as you think. There is a non-zero risk of abandonment, but I think the players will vote and lynch at some point simply to move the game along. It might take a bit more time than we are used to, but it will happen.
More worrisome is the combination of the lack of deadline AND holidays/end-of-year madness. Together, I think it is more troublesome than either alone.
Never underestimate the power of boredom.
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Post by NAF1138 on Dec 14, 2009 15:01:37 GMT -5
So, on another subject (while we wait for something to happen), I had an idea this morning for an open ended voting system that might solve the problem story is concerned about with this game. Tell me what you all think.
Implement a call to vote. It's the way "live action" mafia is usually played. At any point during the Day a player can publicly call for a vote, if this call is then seconded by another player the Day moves into vote mode and all players have 24 hours to place a vote. Every player must vote at this point. At the end of the vote period if one player has reached the vote threshold they are lynched, if not the game continues.
Votes placed outside of the vote period do not count toward anything.
What do you think? It only works in an open ended game like this, but I think the ease of calling for a vote would help things move along. My only question is that I am not sure what to do with players who do not place a vote before the deadline. Put them on record as voting no lynch?
Also, do you let players change their vote during the vote period. In live mafia that isn't a proplem, you just have everyone vote at the same time. I suppose you could have all the votes PMd to the mod who would then publish the vote count all at once, but that seems less than ideal.
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 14, 2009 15:32:17 GMT -5
Interesting. But I don't see how that is functionally different from the current system other than requiring people to place a vote of some sort by a certain point in time. I would twist it even more and put up a particular player for lynching: "I, sachertorte, nominate NAF for lynching." Followed by "I, storyteller, second the nomination of NAF for lynching." Then the Town would vote to lynch NAF and NAF only, requiring some threshold (50%?) to lynch him. Failure to lynch NAF results in NAF being 'exonerated' for the Day an unable to be lynched that Day.
It would set up interesting schemes by scum. I would imagine scum would try to nominate scum early in the Day, when Town is unwilling to lynch someone on scant evidence or reasoning. But doing so puts that player in jeopardy.
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Post by Pleonast on Dec 14, 2009 15:54:48 GMT -5
An voting idea I'm currently thinking about is hammer threshold countdown. On the first day of a Day, the threshold is equal to the number of players. Each day thereafter (at noon or some other time convenient for the mod), the hammer threshold decreases by one vote. Eventually, the Day will end, even if it's resolving an all-way tie at zero votes.
This might take too long at the beginning. Maybe put a max hammer threshold at 14 or something.
This gives players control of the pacing, while putting a clear deadline in the future.
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Post by Pleonast on Dec 14, 2009 15:58:01 GMT -5
I would twist it even more and put up a particular player for lynching: "I, sachertorte, nominate NAF for lynching." Followed by "I, storyteller, second the nomination of NAF for lynching." Then the Town would vote to lynch NAF and NAF only, requiring some threshold (50%?) to lynch him. Failure to lynch NAF results in NAF being 'exonerated' for the Day an unable to be lynched that Day. Oh, that is a neat idea! In fact, I could see doing an entire "Parliamentary"-themed mafia game, with a nice list of "rules of order" for players to use against each other.
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Post by NAF1138 on Dec 14, 2009 18:09:25 GMT -5
I would twist it even more and put up a particular player for lynching: "I, sachertorte, nominate NAF for lynching." Followed by "I, storyteller, second the nomination of NAF for lynching." Then the Town would vote to lynch NAF and NAF only, requiring some threshold (50%?) to lynch him. Failure to lynch NAF results in NAF being 'exonerated' for the Day an unable to be lynched that Day. Oh, that is a neat idea! In fact, I could see doing an entire "Parliamentary"-themed mafia game, with a nice list of "rules of order" for players to use against each other. That sounds surprisingly fun. I like sach's twist on the call to vote as well.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 14, 2009 23:32:12 GMT -5
I'm surprised that no one is mentioning that town players should claim even if they get hammered, I think story said discussion was cool until he ended the day. I mean if a town player has data and has five votes and is planning to claim and two scum jump in for the hammer, he should at least get that data out, including a full description of the role with any questions and answers that they got from story. If I were in the game I'd be advising people to type that crap up and pm it to themselves so if they have a chance for a "last words" post they can get it out there.
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Post by storyteller0910 on Dec 15, 2009 20:04:15 GMT -5
Wow, twelve hours and one (two sentence) post to the game thread. Yikes.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 15, 2009 23:12:17 GMT -5
Eh, I wouldn't be too worried, I think all the games that I follow (Colorless, Marvel, House) all had kind of a Tuesday slump.
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Post by Trepa Mayfield on Dec 15, 2009 23:26:43 GMT -5
Eh, I wouldn't be too worried, I think all the games that I follow (Colorless, Marvel, House) all had kind of a Tuesday slump. Ya know, I can never recognize you with that avatar. I'm too used to your Roland one. Dunno why.
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Post by Red Skeezix on Dec 15, 2009 23:37:31 GMT -5
That is kind of funny, since I always think of you having the Quote one.
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Post by sachertorte on Dec 16, 2009 10:02:41 GMT -5
Kind of slow. Its hard to know whether this is regular slow or 'the day is never ending' slow.
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