Not reading your role PM

[shaft.ed]

I'm going to bring up this topic again, because I feel nobody ever created a good argument against it.

If some people may recall, I created a policy where I would never look at my role PM until night one -- a policy I still live by currently. Can this be a valid strategy?

Note to self. Include day 1 Jester in my next game.

Also the possibility of getting a role with day powers should be taken into account. Thus not reading your role PM you've missed a cycle to investigate, protect, vig etc etc. Or you may be a confirmed mason lynching your partner.

Deep South really prevents this strategy FWIW.

[shaft.ed]

I think people are simply refusing to consider this a valid strategy because of "spirit of the game" arguments, except for Yos2, who's trying to put together a logical argument.

Quag you skipped my reply. If you're going to do this, you need to at least consider the liklihood of your mod using Daypowers.

[shaft.ed]

I also still don't agree that there is any advantage in not knowing you're a power role or scum. There are a lot of decisions to be made at night if you have an action and not playing day 1 in that proper frame of mind could cause you to make suboptimal decisions.

perhaps if you know you're playing a mountainous game this would be a slight advantage. But I don't see it being a great benefit in an unknown setup.

[shaft.ed]

shafted, I did already respond to it:

The arguments here seem to be predicated on quite a bit of 'what-ifs' that are so uncommon in the game of mafia it makes it almost an invalid argument. It's tantamount to arguing, "well, you should never drive your car, because the chances you'll get into a car accident are incredible," which of course is ridiculous.

Of the past few years when I haven't been reading my role PM day one I've run into day-powers a grand total of 0 times. Perhaps I've been lucky, or perhaps they're just not utilized often, but insofar this is not something I should be concerned with as I'm playing.

To put this a different way, let's assume I'm playing with an A-Hole Mod who purposely assigns me a dayrole just to catch me in a trap and vindicate his disagreement with this strategy. What did I really miss? One usage of a dayrole? I'd argue my time is better spent scumhunting and such instead of spending the entirety of D1 trying to consider who I'm going to investigate/kill/rb/etc.

Sweet I got to be a part of a meta shifting conversation. Day powers are now the new Nurse with no Doc.

[shaft.ed]

I also still don't agree that there is any advantage in not knowing you're a power role or scum. There are a lot of decisions to be made at night if you have an action and not playing day 1 in that proper frame of mind could cause you to make suboptimal decisions.

perhaps if you know you're playing a mountainous game this would be a slight advantage. But I don't see it being a great benefit in an unknown setup.

Disagreed again... playing as a townsperson gives me a clearer picture of the game instead of being clouded with things like "who do I think is the cop" "who is the doc" "is there an RB in this game" etc.

Those are all things I think when I play as vanilla.

When I'm the cop I think "I am the cop" not "who is the cop"

[shaft.ed]

If everyone played like you, how would you know what you are lynching? There would be no tells. Day 1 would be a complete popularity contest, random phase, or battle of who is least stupid

This is pretty much Day 1 in a nutshell. The only difference is that sometimes you can draw information from all of the crap that goes on after the fact. If noone's reading their PM, it's of little value.

[shaft.ed]

The problem would be that there would be no information to be drawn from D1. The game might as well started with night and given scum an extra night kill.

But Quag obviously isn't operating in an environment where he should assume that noone is reading their role PM.

[shaft.ed]

^I agree with Yosarian2^

[shaft.ed]

I think he's made a VERY good argument!

I guess he didn't read his role PM

[shaft.ed]

I dunno, I think this is too gross of an oversimplification to take it seriously... It's still more worth it in the long run to look like a townsperson on day one, regardless of who's who. Other than "I might bus my scumbuddy or defend him," how does your strategy differ whether or not you've read your role regardless?

There are all kinds of strategic options you can go with. The entire advantage of being mafia comes from knowing who is who. You're throwing that away if you are scum and you haven't read your PM. For example I was in a game with an atrocious partner. I could tell they were going to be lynched early in the game. So I did a decent job of making a case against him that I probably wouldn't have as town and tying as many of his defenders to him as physically possible. In the end this helped me win the game when a day before LyLo mislynch drove itself due to the seeds I had been planting since Day 1 and I was able to convince a confirmed cop to vote the other way a LyLo because I didn't have to get my hands dirty.

It just seems to me that you are playing this way because you want to look like town. Thus there is no advantage to be gained if you are actually town. And when you are scum, you're throwing away the inherent advantage of the role, informed minority. Your argument is that said information is a detriment because it makes you play differently. But that's the whole point of having it so that you do play differently.

[shaft.ed]

With that said, you're really only giving up your informed minority in the small portion of the game where it doesn't really matter. As you said yourself, sometimes you want to bus your partner, and sometimes you want to defend him -- except in this case you're doing it blindly.

Doing things blindly really seems suboptimal to me. I don't know why you feel so insecure about your scum game that you have to play in this manner. And you've basically replied as though the difference is rather subtle between reading and not reading your PM. It seems as though the strategy may be a thing that works for you, but I have a feeling you just like stirring the pot. I personally wouldn't try this because it would remove quite a bit of enjoyment from the game for me.

I'm still not decided how I feel about this practice from a mod's perspective. I like players to have freedom, but at the same time, if EVERYONE decided to play in this manner the game would be completely non-functional on Day1. I will most likely combat such tactics with a prevelance of roles that would greatly benefit from reading their PM pre-game rather than flat out blacklisting players.

[shaft.ed]

Even though Adel didn't say anything inflammatory I feel like she's trying to troll me.

Not likely. I lose my bet if you get banned before Dec. 12th.

Is Kmd finally going to win an avatar bet then?

[shaft.ed]

People who don't read their role PM and don't

tell

people that they didn't read their role PM would be a bigger problem.

After Tree Stump I, where the majority of day one was a me vs. the rest of the town fiasco that ended up in my policy lynch, I didn't tell any mod of any game I played in that I didn't read my role PM day 1. So I guess I'm a plague to mafia.

I thought that was apparent by now.

Really Quag, the more I think about this, the more I think that not reading your role PM is fine as long as you aren't violating explicit game rules (ie lying to the mod depending on confirmation procedures). If you feel like you play better that way, then go for it. Different strokes for different folks.

[shaft.ed]

Being completely blind is the opposite of what you should be going for, as one of the biggest sources of towntells is exactly the certain knowledge that you yourself are town. Without that, no, you will not play as a townie would.

This is a complete reach here. What kind of player is going to say "I might be a townie but I haven't read my role PM." Of course anyone in the game not having read their PM is going to play as a townie by default.

[shaft.ed]

Ha, so you think being scum in a forum game will have similar ramifications to a persons life as going to prison for drug trafficking?

Back to your original point. What are these town tells of "exactly certain knowledge" that said player is a townie?