Policy Discussion: Newbie Games

[Mert]

We could ask IC players to follow a game (or read it after it's finished) and comment on it afterward in-thread, rather than give continuous advice throughout someone's newbiedom? Perhaps they could be asked to follow it and make notes as they go along so their view isn't tainted by knowing roles after the fact?

Meh, I dunno - depends what IC players do and don't have the time/effort to do, really.

[Cubsfan4ever]

7-0. Ok, the obvious downside is that there would be no ICs to "help", but do we need them? The mod is by rule experienced, and can field any general questions. We've got various guides and information that could be put together more concisely for reference. And this would greatly simplify the queue. ICs could still be around as late-game replacements, or even possibly in some sort of "advisor" role (though that would have to be thought out carefully).

this one, the experienced players (why are they called inexperienced-challenged players btw?) don't really "help" the newbies, they more or less just attempt to dominate the game

[CoG888]

cubsfan: its in the wiki - http://www.mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=IC

As a newbie, I was a bit intimidated by the number of pages/posts of a full size game. I thought the 7 player size was a more comfortable learning environment, and not as big of a commitment for my first game. Now, I feel confident that I can handle a Mini, but I still do not want to tackle a large game with complicated roles. I like Mert's idea of having 7 player C9 games available and strongly encouraging that newbies play there to gain experience, but drop the IC ratio.

Perhaps Newbies could be restricted to one game in a C9 forum (or the normal mini forum, if they have played elsewhere). When that game is finished (for them at least), they would be allowed to play in up to 2 simultanious games in the C9, mini, or mini theme forums. Then after 3-5 completed games, they are free to play as they feel comfortable.

"IC" players would be encouraged to participate in the C9 games, but their role would not be to teach newbies per se, but would be available to answer questions. I think "Newbies" with a game or two under their belt would be able to answer some questions themselves.

[IH]

I'm with Patrick. Normally 4-3, 5-2 when we start to get backed up. I could live with 5-2 if the backlog is more-or-less permanent now, since town hardly ever lynches IC and NKs IC right off the bat.

(Raises hand)

3-4 ftw. 5-2 if we have more than two games backlogged.

5-2 is just not the same quality of play as 3-4. 5-2 is generally more newbies arguing with each other, while the ics try to smooth out things, while 3-4 is more Newbies asking questions, or doing stupid things while the IC's correct them.

IC's are a must I believe, because Newbies just won't be ready for other games like they would be with just an "advisor". They'd be ready for more newbie games, but the quality of play in minis and such will spiral out of control methinks.

[Adele]

Speaking as someone who

still

can't handle bigger-than-minis, perhaps my input's not the most valuable...

[Kelly Chen]

In my opinion the problem with 7-0 isn't that the poor newbies will have no guidance or finish games in 5 rl days, but that (I am almost positive) newbies are more likely to flake than ICs. So the ICs can serve as a kind of backbone to keep a game from completely collapsing.

[Thok]

In my opinion the problem with 7-0 isn't that the poor newbies will have no guidance or finish games in 5 rl days, but that (I am almost positive) newbies are more likely to flake than ICs. So the ICs can serve as a kind of backbone to keep a game from completely collapsing.

Also, IC are extremely helpful to get newbies past the day 1 random voting stage. Once you get past that most newbies are OK (there are the perpetual "I have no clue what to do" newbies, but I'm not sure anything can help them short of repeated hits with a cluestick.)

[MrBuddyLee]

I think the basic IDEA of a newbie game is to lead them through the logic of things the first time around. I don't think that'd be practically possible without at least two ICs. The odds of both scum being IC are only 5%, so that's not really worth worrying about.

A high-quality, fun newbie game should be the goal--getting people hooked is probably #1 priority. I don't think you can ensure a decent quality of play without ICs.

One final thing... I think mods should be given free reign to aggressively replace ICs who shirk their duty as participant/guide in newbie games. Lurking ICs should be shown the door early D1 imo.

[M4yhem]

I thought it already

was

two to five. It was in all the games I've been in, I'm sure of it...

I think two to five works fine. One to seven would work too. You need at least on IC in the game; unless you want games that end with a lynch on page two to become the dominant theme.

Also, pimp the wiki. Not enough people read it. I read it before I ever played and as a result, I didn't have to ask what a fos was. Of course, I still lost my game, but at least I knew the basics, y'know?

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

the 3:4 ratio isn't that far off from 1:1 ratio, and by having the ICs in an advisory position, you'd probably free them up to advise more games than they would otherwise be able to play.

[Mr. Flay]

Yeah, but the ratio isn't as important as the total number of ICs needed, and you've effectively doubled that. Most of our ICs are already doubled-up on games, and I wouldn't want to advise in more than two games.

4/3, 5/2, or 7/0 all seem fine to me. The rest seems like overkill.

[IH]

Flay, why 7-0? We've already established it won't be a learning game with 7-0 to try and bring them up to quality for their next game...

the only reason if it would be 7-0 is if someone is at pre IC status, such as completed five games, and less than three months, or more than three months and completed 3 games.

[Adele]

Yeah, but the ratio isn't as important as the total number of ICs needed, and you've effectively doubled that.

...no...

Say in a given month you've got 28 newbies coming in.

1-on-1 advisor requires 4 games, with 28 ICs to cater to them (assuming ICs only advise one)
3:4 setup requires 7 games, with 21 ICs to fill up the IC slots.

Ratio is God.

[Mr. Flay]

Alright, so it's a 33% increase in IC requirements, while also adding the burden of PMs from their advisee, watching a thread they cannot post in, trying to help the newbie with the game without solving it for them,

and

(and this is most important to me) it's a totally artificial setup which goes against one of our

core

rules for the site, which is that you don't talk about ongoing games with people who aren't playing.

I think that's much more dangerous than a 7-0 game with some players who've played 1-4 games before on MafiaScum. You haven't established the danger of 7-0 to me, IH.

[mith]

Right. I think moving to 5-2 (except in the rare case where we've got 4 newbies signed up and a 5th doesn't join for several days) is the best course for now, and then we'll consider running a few 7-0 as a trial.

(Keep discussing, though...)

[IH]

Ok, look. A 7-0 will not be a learning game persay for a newbie, unless there are other newbies who have played before, but most of these people are brand new players playing now.

They will have NO idea how to go about it, especially if left on their own. If they do start discussion, they will not know the logic to go about how to keep a good game running. Not only that, when they do finish, they will leave the newbie game with little chance of knowing the basic mechanics and logic as one should when leaving their first newbie game.

The whole point of newbie games are to teach the newbies how to go about tricking others as scum, and finding scum as town. To prepare them for OTHER games. If they play one or two 7-0 games, they will think they're ready to branch out, only to STILL be as clueless as they are in their first game.

They'll only be wasting their time trying to learn I believe. IC's are a must in newbie games methinks. I'd say Advisors are not a good idea either, mostly because a newbie will begin to rely on them, and it just won't be the same experience. At least the way it is now it ACTUALLY feels like a real game.

I strongly object to a 7-0 setup.

[Patrick]

I agree with IH here. 7-0 sounds like a nightmare. Newbies will learn very little, and the lynches will be quite randomish. I'd forcast an even higher scum win %. I would strongly object to seeing a significant portion of newbies becoming 7-0.

[MrBuddyLee]

I started an 11 newbie game on another forum and it was a disaster. They had no idea how to go about starting conversation and found the whole "you're scum no you're scum" thing silly and had no clue who to vote for.

It's essential imo that they be given a few players to help get the game rolling. That's before taking into consideration that you'll want someone in the game to point out logical mistakes, concepts like WIFOM, and the risks of various actions.

[Yosarian2]

Eh, I once played in a game where none of the players had ever played mafia before. They can be kind of fun, although of course they're tactically terrible. I remember leading the entire town into lynching a person day 1 within a few hours just because we didn't like him, leading the entire town into anothe bad lynch day 2 for no good reason, and then getting lynched on day 3 for leading the town, all while I was pro-town.

Although, come to think of it, that's kind of still how I play.

[mith]

Ok, look. A 7-0 will not be a learning game persay for a newbie, unless there are other newbies who have played before, but most of these people are brand new players playing now.

They will have NO idea how to go about it, especially if left on their own. If they do start discussion, they will not know the logic to go about how to keep a good game running. Not only that, when they do finish, they will leave the newbie game with little chance of knowing the basic mechanics and logic as one should when leaving their first newbie game.

1. Judging from the not-a-bot comments on admin activation, I'd say the split of completely new newbies vs. newbies who've played somewhere before is roughly 50-50.
2. Again, I think you are giving newbies far too little credit. A lot of people have the impression that newbies are completely helpless until they've played a few games - I can even understand where this impression comes from, as we've certainly had plenty of cases of new players getting into a larger more complex game and completely screwing it up.

But to suggest that a new player, given the proper resources, can't possibly work out how the game works without an IC to guide them? I mean, there is definitely evidence that an all-newbie game isn't completely doomed (otherwise, the GL and brunchma games would probably have never taken off, and this site wouldn't exist). I am convinced that if we put together a

good

newbie-friendly guide (which we don't have, at least as far as strategy goes) a 7-0 game would work just fine, but the fact is that we can't know for sure without trying it.

The whole point of newbie games are to teach the newbies how to go about tricking others as scum, and finding scum as town. To prepare them for OTHER games. If they play one or two 7-0 games, they will think they're ready to branch out, only to STILL be as clueless as they are in their first game.

The "whole point" of newbie games is to:

1. Teach newbies the basic rules. (Something a well-written guide and an experienced mod can do.)
2. Filter out the players that are going to flake within a few weeks of joining. (Irrelevant for this discussion.)
3. Teach newbies the basics of catching scum and/or acting innocent.

Even if I agreed with your statement here (that they can't do 3 adequately in an IC-free game), 7-0 games would accomplish the first two goals more efficiently than with ICs.

But I don't agree. How would a well-written guide be any less effective than an IC in teaching the basics of strategy? One could argue that the guide would be even more effective, because of the conflict of interests inherent in a player also acting as teacher.

And let's face it. Some of the players that have acted as ICs have done a terrible job of teaching. A bad IC can do a lot more harm than a good IC can do good.

[mith]

(I would also add that starting up a game with all new players that

already know each other

is naturally going to lead to at least a few lynches for silly reasons. That's not an issue we have with our newbie games here.)

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

It's not a 33% increase in IC requirements because an IC does not have to be fully dedicated to the game, an IC does not have to read every post or come up with suspects/innocents/all that other stuff they do if they were actually playing in a game because there will be newbies who already know how to do that. The workload will vary by newbie but the maximum it could be would be how much an IC would be doing in a newbie game, I'd say there'd probably be newbies who wouldn't need much guidance at all and that would free up their ICs to double or triple up on guidance. The variability in newbie ability to play should account for the % increase in IC requirements so that overall IC req should not move that much from where it is now.

They don't have to always watch the thread, just reread what the Newbie wants help on(this will vary from newbie to newbie, again the workload can't go above what they would be having if they were in the game). There's no reason they can't "solve" the game for the newbie if they outline carefully each step in their thought process that led them to their conclusion and allow the newbie to ask them any questions on that thought process that the newbie would have, that would help a newbie learn much more imo than playing a game with a newbie because in a game, your goal as a player is in conflict with your goal as an educator.

I don't think it conflicts with that core rule because the IC advisors would be in a way part of the game, also the core rule was designed so that players don't get an edge, like it'd be unfair for Mafia 1 in game X if some player had like 7 really amazing scumhunter/debate/psychic/superhero buddies to chat with who would give him incredible ideas and stuff, the rule was designed to give each player a level playing field. By providing each player with 1 IC advisor, you are maintaining the same level playing field.

[Mr Stoofer]

Who here wishes they had had an IC adviser in their first game? Not me.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Me neither.

[gorckat]

As a gamer (of the pen and paper RPG variety, that is) one of ym favorite sections of all RPG games is in the Introdution- the part with a few pages of dialogue showing how the game works...it very effectively (when well written) shows both the flavor of the genre, the mechanics of the system and how the game works in general.

I grokked the (old?) Flash tutorial pretty well and devoured the wiki articles (when I could find them). When I have time, I get a blast reading Day one of just started Newbies and also the post-game of just finished ones (to see how the endgames play out).

Perhaps a sample game (really just an already played, high quality C9) can be put up as an illustration of play...the players' roles could be revealed to the reader (so they can see the tactics at work without having to read through to the end) and it could be formatted for maximum readability (make sure all the quote tagsand stuff are correct).