Mini 456: Ultimatum Mafia - Game Over!

[mneme]

unnom: all
nom: Spinwizard (challenger)
nom: Vandamien

[mneme]

Oh, and Nom Count! (curse me for not being able to count to 25...)

Mneme 2 (Carrotcake, Stoofer)
Stoofer 1 (Sparks)
Spinwizard 1: (Mneme)
Van Damien 1: (mneme(2nd))

[Stewie]

I also nominated SpinWizard, so you'd be tied with him.

I'd be nice if those three people posted something... although to be fair, it hasn't been that long since day started, so I'm more critical of useless posts than lurkers, at the moment.

[VanDamien]

I'm pretty suspicious of the whole nominate plan, and this is why. If we're nominating the challenger, especially this early, we're effectively giving either scum team a pass to challenge. If we're nominating the challengee, there's no reason for scum to jump on the challenge for safety, but they happily can with the majority already having stated who they prefer to be voted out through the nomination process.

[DanMonkey]

Random Nomination: Stewie

Still kind of confused as whether this nominates him for challenger or challengee, but I assume it means challengee.

[Stewie]

I'm pretty suspicious of the whole nominate plan, and this is why. If we're nominating the challenger, especially this early, we're effectively giving either scum team a pass to challenge.

Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean when you say a "free pass"?

[Yosarian2]

I'm pretty suspicious of the whole nominate plan, and this is why. If we're nominating the challenger, especially this early, we're effectively giving either scum team a pass to challenge. If we're nominating the challengee, there's no reason for scum to jump on the challenge for safety, but they happily can with the majority already having stated who they prefer to be voted out through the nomination process.

Huh?

I think the idea is that we take someone who looks suspicious and make him be the challanger, on the theory that that will give us information about someone we find suspicious, and give us a chance to lynch that person if we so choose after a debate. I don't understand at all how "that gives either scum team a pass to challange". In fact, the scum might be more hesitant to offer challanges, as that puts them at risk, although there's obveous WIFOM potential there.

[Yosarian2]

Anyway, on the theroy that active lurking and keeping your head down is a probable scum stratag for this game, might as well start out with this one:

i also agree

vote:dylan

for challanger until he makes more of a contrabution

[mneme]

The scum don't want to either offer or receive challenges -- as both give scum a chance of dying that staying out of the limelight Van Damien's post is nonsensical. I don't know that it's scummy, but I'm happy enough with my vote anyway.

The single bandwagon is idea is that we make them be the challenger -- this lets us make a fairly decent run-off based on who they point to. Their challenge can go either way, but if the winner -refuses- to challenge, the town's best recourse is to have someone challenge them and lynch them like the scum they probably are.

I actually mildly prefer the double-bandwagon approach -- but as long as people are clear on their "first" votes and their second ones, both approaches can be used in harmony, so it's all good.

For those who get it -- the point of the bandwagon is partially to let the town get a better say in who challenges who, rather than have it be entirely random. But the primary point is in fact to let us get more info each day than what people thought of two players, one of whom was now dead. With luck and good play, we'd get people's opinions on a lot of other players each day -- which should make it posisble to play mafia, not just survivor, even with these wacky rules.

Sorry about missing your nom, stewie, I'd missed it in the shuffle.

[Mr Stoofer]

The scum don't want to either offer or receive challenges -- as both give scum a chance of dying that staying out of the limelight Van Damien's post is nonsensical.

Yes, various people have said this in various ways and I agree.

But I'm a little bit more suspicious of it than you guys. I think the Scum mindset will be cautious about challenging -- for fear of drawing attention to oneself -- so "a free pass" may represent VanDamien's thinking that this would be a useful way to select one of the two possible "victims", without looking scummy.

nominate: VanDamien

[VanDamien]

The scum don't want to either offer or receive challenges -- as both give scum a chance of dying that staying out of the limelight Van Damien's post is nonsensical. I don't know that it's scummy, but I'm happy enough with my vote anyway.

The same coould be said for the townies, especially with two scum groups that could be cross-challenging. I find it nonsensical and WIFOMy to say that scum will act a certain way. What, make everyone belive they'll keep their heads down so that if you go on the atack and do bing the spotlight in your direction that it must mean your town? That's a line of thinking I don't think I'll be following.

[The Fonz]

No, that's not the case. Town ought to be fairly happy to challenge someone they're confident is scum. VD, what would you propose as an alternative to this pseudo-voting, that would still produce useful information? I really can't think of anything, so am happy with what we're doing right now.

[Mr Stoofer]

Stoofer strategy v2.1 (

changes from v2.0 in red

)

(a)

During the Day, we nominate players to be the Challenger

and Challengee. Nominate up to 2 people. Also, please un-nominate expressly.

(b)

If a majority (i.e. 7+ players) nominate one player ("the Nominee"), he must become the Challenger.

(c)

If the Nominee does not make a Challenge, then we let the Mod enforce the rule below; and everyone will vote to evict the Nominee.

If no one has volunteered to be the Challenger, then the person with the least recent post at deadline will be named the Challenger.

(d)

If nobody gets a majority, we let the Mod enforce the same rule.

(e)

Unless

(c)

applies, the Challenger will challenge the person who has

made the fewest

substantive

contributions

the most nominations (apart from the Challenger).

[Mr Stoofer]

I'll also

un-nominate mneme

and

nominate dylan41985

Nomination Count

dylan: 2 (Yopsarian2, Stoofer)
Van Damien: 2 (mneme(2nd), Stoofer)
Mneme: 1 (Carrotcake)
Stoofer: 1 (Sparks)
Spinwizard: 1 (Mneme)
Stewie: 1 (Dan Monkey)

[The Fonz]

(e)

Unless

(c)

applies, the Challenger will challenge the person who has

made the fewest

substantive

contributions

the most nominations (apart from the Challenger).

I assume the logic here is to penalise vote-hopping? I don't see this as being that useful. I'd still rather just let the nominee challenge whoever they like. I think we learn more from who they nominate out of choice than by directing them.

[Yosarian2]

The scum don't want to either offer or receive challenges -- as both give scum a chance of dying that staying out of the limelight Van Damien's post is nonsensical. I don't know that it's scummy, but I'm happy enough with my vote anyway.

The same coould be said for the townies, especially with two scum groups that could be cross-challenging.

The difference is that a townie may be willing to risk his life if it means getting rid of someone he thinks to be a scumbag, wheras scum would much rather just sit back and let townies challange other townies if possible. Again, like I said, there's lots of WIFOM involved, a scum might be very active and agressive just to look pro-town, but that's all right; it's much easier to figure out the alignment of someone who's being very active and agressive then to figure out the alignment of a semi-lurker. If we ignore lurkers, that could very easily cost us the game, just like it cost the town the game in MAD.

[The Fonz]

*Ah, my bad, I see now 'the player who has the most nominations' means that you're suggesting double-nomination, rather than 'nominate the person who has

made

most nominations' which is how i misread it.

For the record, i still prefer single-nomination.

[DeanWinchester]

We need to avoid using the terms town and scum. They simply don't apply.

We have:
1. A group of three that knows each others identity.
2. A group of three that knows each others identity.
3. A Group of Six that do not know each others identity.

Even the biggest group has a 50/50 ratio. So Town/scum terms don't really apply.
This nomiantion system does not help the group of six. It gives the groups of three an advantage because they can help control the group of six without making challenges themselves.

If the group of six can figure out who is in the group, it's game over. We can use our superior numbers and the, over looked, rule that you can only challenge once untill everyone has gone atleast once.

Anouther issue with this nom theroy is that won't the person nominated to be the challenger most likely lose anyway?

This whole nom system is a way for the groups of three to take control of the game and make it like a normal game of mafia.

For the group of six to win we need to figure out who is (or most likely) in this group and abuse our numbers.

We can set this up so every vote is between us and one of the groups of three. With our numbers we can win every vote. All we have to do is survive one dead lock vote and of course never make the mistake of challeging one of our own.

This nom theroy puts the group of six in a situation where we have to nom each other as opose to going after the smaller groups. The smaller groups can not afford to chalenge each other or they will lose to our numbers.

For the group of six this day is lylo for us, kinda. We need to get a challenge between us and any group of three and win the deadlock. If we can acomplish that we win because every vote will then be between us and one of the smaller groups or small group vs small group, which we are fine with because we will have the numbers to make the debate go our way every round

@ The rest of the group of six: If we lose one of us today it going to be hard to win. If we can get one of the smaller groups today it will be incredibly hard to lose.

Note: If the challenge ends up with one of the six and one of the three's we will almost know imediately who is among the six because neither of the small groups can afford to give us numbers. Thus they can't afford to vote for one of the six to win.

@Mr stoofer: I don't think you are in the group of six. This nom theroy sucks.

[The Fonz]

Nominate: DeanWinchester

That whole spiel above basically comes down to 'If we can figure out who is town, we win!' and 'Townies should avoid voting for one another!' which is tautological. So it's an awful lot of words, contributing basically nothing (apart from the suspicion of Stoof).

[Mr Stoofer]

We need to avoid using the terms town and scum.

Why, because you don't want to think of yourself us a scumbag?

un-nominate dylan, nominate DeanWinchester

[Yosarian2]

Dean: How does keeping track of votes help the scum? (And yes, they are scum; a group of 3 people who know each others identy and want to lynch everyone else are scum, by defination; scum groups don't have to kill. The "uninformed majority" is town, even though they're not quite a majority.) The alternate is basically "some townie decides on his own to go after someone he thinks is scummy" and in the past, in games with daykills, that hasn't worked out to well for the town.

Even the biggest group has a 50/50 ratio. So Town/scum terms don't really apply.
This nomiantion system does not help the group of six. It gives the groups of three an advantage because they can help control the group of six without making challenges themselves.

So, you're suggesting the nomination system helps the scum manipulate the town? In a sense, that's probably true, but by that very process of seeing who votes for who and who wants to put pressure on who, we get information about everyone in the game. The way mafia works is that scum try to manipulate the town and town try to catch them doing it. If you don't have people expressing opinions about who should challange who, then I don't really see how the town has a chance to figure out who's scum.

If the group of six can figure out who is in the group, it's game over. We can use our superior numbers and the, over looked, rule that you can only challenge once untill everyone has gone atleast once.

Well, yes. If the town figures out who the scum is, they win.

Anouther issue with this nom theroy is that won't the person nominated to be the challenger most likely lose anyway?

Probably. The idea is that we want the two most scummy looking people to challange each other, in the hopes that at least one (and perhaps both) of them are scum, perhaps scum in different groups.

This whole nom system is a way for the groups of three to take control of the game and make it like a normal game of mafia.

Town wins normal games of mafia far more often then "lone cowboy" type games of mafia. So making this game more like a normal game of mafia probably improves the town's chances.

For the group of six to win we need to figure out who is (or most likely) in this group and abuse our numbers.

Well, right. DO you have a better idea about how to figure out who is town then through some kind of voting system?

This nom theroy puts the group of six in a situation where we have to nom each other as opose to going after the smaller groups. The smaller groups can not afford to chalenge each other or they will lose to our numbers.

Huh? How does voting mean that "the six will nominate each other"?

For the group of six this day is lylo for us, kinda. We need to get a challenge between us and any group of three and win the deadlock. If we can acomplish that we win because every vote will then be between us and one of the smaller groups or small group vs small group, which we are fine with because we will have the numbers to make the debate go our way every round

Um, that would only be true if we knew who all of the members of the town were. In any case, you're trying to make it sound like each vote will have 6 townies on one side vs. 6 scum on the other side; the point you're missing is that the groups of 3 want to lynch each other just as badly (or perhaps even more badly) then they want to lynch townies, as the informed groups are probably actually bigger threats to each other then anything else. So we're not at lynch or lose, because even if we lose a townie or two the scum will tend help us lynch the people in the opposite scum group.

@ The rest of the group of six: If we lose one of us today it going to be hard to win. If we can get one of the smaller groups today it will be incredibly hard to lose.

Neither of those statemets is at all true.

Note: If the challenge ends up with one of the six and one of the three's we will almost know imediately who is among the six because neither of the small groups can afford to give us numbers. Thus they can't afford to vote for one of the six to win.

...

Because scum never vote for each other in order to look innocent, amiright? And townies never accidently vote for other townies?

You're not making much sense here.

[Mr Stoofer]

Actually, Yosarian2's analysis has persuaded me that DeanWinchester is probably completely clueless (and therefore his post tells us little about his alignment). My nomination on him stands though.

[dylan41985]

nominate DeanWinchester

[/b]

[mneme]

Yosarian's analysis/explication is a good one. The very idea that in trying to manipulate the town, the mafia won't give us about as much info as they get advantage is ludicrous (and in any case, they get to do the same thing with random challenges, only we get to pay much more for it (<50% of a townie dying) then.

That said, several of Dean's slips make me think he's scum -- clueless scum, but scum none the less.

And Stoofer, your last proposal pretty much matches mine, aside from a couple of very minor points:

1. How the challenger is chosen. Why not this:the challenger may wait until right before the forced challenge unless a majority challengee is chosen. If both majorities are reached, they should challenge the chalengee.
The distinction is in fact entirely one of order -- the first candidate to reach majority is the challenger, the second, if any, is the challengee.

2. How to proceed if no challengee is chosen, or if the challenger refuses to challenge. I can go either way on this. Simply having one of the bandwagoners challenge simplifies things a bit -- otherwise, you need multiple levels of enforcement. OTOH, it sets a deadline appropriately to default to the base rules. It mostly doesn't matter -- in a way, a majority nominating someone as candidate is equivalent to declaring them outlaw -- anyone can challenge them and expect to win (which is what gives the nomination system its teeth -- since people who vote contrary to their last expressed nomination are fairly likely to have been bussing a fellow scum).

unnom: spin
nom:

[Stewie]

If the group of six can figure out who is in the group, it's game over. We can use our superior numbers and the, over looked, rule that you can only challenge once untill everyone has gone atleast once.

For the group of six to win we need to figure out who is (or most likely) in this group and abuse our numbers.

We can set this up so every vote is between us and one of the groups of three. With our numbers we can win every vote. All we have to do is survive one dead lock vote and of course never make the mistake of challeging one of our own.

I like this idea. Obviously, you are in the group of six, because when you refer to this group you say "us" and when you refer to the groups of three you say "them." I will come out and say that I am also in the group of six. The other four guys should do the same, and the game is ours.






Seriously though,

nom: deanwinchester

. That's an idealistic plan, but we have no info in day one, and therefore no way to know who else is town (I fail to see why we can't say town and scum - ratios don't matter, it's just terminology). I agree that they are half the players, but it's two different groups.

My other nom is already on spinwizard, stoofer.