Mafia 74: Minimally Flavoured - Game over!

[The Fonz]

Vote: Snaps the pirate

Fake post restrictions are annoying: discuss.

[The Fonz]

Okay, not a joke vote.

unvote; vote egruntz

You may not agree with the random vote phase, but I really dislike your suggestion of a "no-lynch".

Just because you don't derive anything useful doesn't mean others don't or can't, and pushing for a no-lynch on day one (and your stated assumption is that there automatically WILL be one, which also tells me you haven't read many games here, if any) is in my view counterproductive and rather scummy. You're making a lot of assumptions about what will occur, and jumping to a conclusion without enough evidence.

Additionally, you're a killjoy.

Unvote, vote: BooKitty

Kitty, you're an experienced enough player. You must have noticed the 'townsperson' underneath his name, right?

[The Fonz]

Look, random voting is an essential part of the game and I'm going to doubt anyone's mafia playing ability who doesn't realize it.

Hi. I'm the Fonz. I believe random voting to be stupid and pointless. Pleased to meet you.

Like now, egruntz said "hey, guys we should no lynch" everyone reacted and now The Fonz said "he is a newbie so don't pay attention" These are two of the more important pieces of evidence right now(in my opinion) and both have happened due to the random voting phase, so quit your bitching, kthnx.

Jumping on a newbie simply for being a newbie is scummy. Do you disagree?

Anyway, back to important things,

Vote: The fonz

You wrote off a newbie that obviously wasn't even a newbie and then you voted someone for attacking the guy's idea, which was obviously terrible.

How was he 'not even a newbie?' He suggested a day one no-lynch. THAT'S, LIKE, THE VIRTUAL DEFINITION OF NEWBIE. Pretty much the first thing you learn in newbie games is why we don't no-lynch d1. If you don't know that, you're clearly a newbie.

Kitty, you're an experienced enough player. You must have noticed the 'townsperson' underneath his name, right?

Surely. Do you think that the only use of a vote is to cause someone to be lynched?

Surely. Do you think the best way to explain how mafia works around here to a n00b is to vote them? Or were you hoping to provoke a newbie meltdown? You know better than that.

Unvote, Vote: The Fonz

Fonz, surely you noticed that though it says townsperson under his name, he's talking like, and now told us, that he's played a lot on other sites. That was a pretty shaky reason to go after Bookitty.

And that matters how? He's new to the site, he's making all the classic newb mistakes which everyone knows aren't scumtells, BooKitty jumped on that.

[The Fonz]

@The Fonz:

As you may have noticed, there's an entire section of this site devoted to newbie games. If you play in a regular game, you take your chances just like everyone else, in my opinion. I am happy to try to teach people, but I'm not patronising new players and condescendingly changing my playstyle and attitudes in order to shelter them from real play when they feel ready to play in a non-newbie game. It's fine if you choose to do so, but both of you are making the classic newbie mistake of overreacting to one vote as if it were the end of the world, and I'm guessing you don't regard yourself as a newbie, Fonz.

How Iam

I

overreacting? I placed one vote, same as you did. Is it your position that people should NOT vote when they find something scummy?

In addition, if the only reason for a vote, in your view, is to cause someone to be lynched, that's a pretty odd belief in itself. I don't agree at all, and I doubt many players who engage in scumhunting tactics would agree either.

Don't you dare try to lecture me. That's the classic strawman. You attribute to me a position I have never once advocated, (that the only reason to vote is to cause a lynch) and indeed you still feel it necessary to appeal to authority to knock down the strawman.

Egruntz is not the only person with "Townsperson" under his name in this game.

Yes, but he's the one you've opportunistically jumped upon. You're attacking a newb for dropping newb tells. That's scummy.

He is, however, the only person who came into the game and began sharply criticising other players for engaging in an activity he doesn't like or approve of, while at the same time arguing for a no-lynch, which might be a newbie mistake, as you say.

Yes, and his posts reek of newbie-not-really-understanding-what's-going- on. Not scum.

By your logic, I should not have engaged him at all on this topic, for fear of provoking a "newbie meltdown", whatever that is. He didn't seem uncertain, or unsure of himself, and he deserved to be addressed on that level. Your protective attitude toward him doesn't seem to be justified, considering that he seems quite able to make articulate arguments on his own behalf.

Well, certainly, I feel like the default setting for

pro-town

vets encountering such behaviour is explanation of how the day works, why people random vote, and so on, rather than attack.

By extension, your argument indicates that if someone engages a "Townsperson" in argument and votes for them for making something you consider a newbie mistake (and egruntz clearly still does not view his argument for no-lynch as a mistake, since he is still arguing for it),

Of course he's still arguing it, BECAUSE NO-ONE HAS EXPLAINED why it is pretty much universally considered a bad idea to no-lynch day one, and all the kind of things we take for granted as being obvious round here which he obviously hasn't encountered playing elsewhere (see: considering D1 no-lynches to somehow be the norm).

I've seen far too many D1s end in exactly that kind of 'newbie meltdown' because a hurt, confused newbie ends up lashing out, not understanding why it is everyone jumped on them for (from their perspective) no reason in the first place, then having more people piling on due to an 'OMGUS' reaction, and so on. And then some vet goes 'oh, in retrospect, we should have spotted the 'townsperson' tag and gone into 'talk to the n00b' mode. Woops.'

@ Egruntz: the reason that day one no-lynches are considered bad by everyone round here is that the lynch is the one kill that is under town's control [well, excepting potential vigs], and provides us with evidence in the form of a voting record and people's comments to go with later.

You may well argue that a lynch based on very little information is more likely to hit town than scum, and you'd be right. But a scum nightkill is CERTAIN to hit town rather than scum, so lynching is the only way for town to win. Not to mention that one dead scum does more harm to the mafia than one dead townie does to the protown side.

In addition, if a town player is lynched, you can then look back at the record: who appeared to genuinely convinced of the lynchee's scumminess, who appeared to hide behind someone else's argument, who defended him, and so on. You have genuine information to go on.

No-lynch, and you're in the exact same uninformed position you start the game in, with one more town player dead. Hence, it is always in the town's interests to lynch day one.

[The Fonz]

I stated this:

In addition, if the only reason for a vote, in your view, is to cause someone to be lynched, that's a pretty odd belief in itself. I don't agree at all, and I doubt many players who engage in scumhunting tactics would agree either.

In response to this:

Surely. Do you think that the only use of a vote is to cause someone to be lynched?

Surely.

Ah my bad. That's a messed up quotation, I guessed I musta somehow quoted you twice and left that one word undeleted somehow. My response was simply the question. I can totally see how you drew that conclusion now. I was really pissed at what i saw as being attacked for an argument that wasn't mine. My defence of egruntz was not based on agreeing with him, but on not believing him to be scum trying to gain an advantage by forwarding the ideas he was.

I

don't

believe the only reason to vote is to lynch. I never have. Though without the ultimate threat of lynch behind it, a 'pressure' vote is pretty worthless. (I've been attacked from both sides on this in the past- from the 'there are reasons to vote other than to lynch' and the 'claiming not to desire the lynch of someone you're voting is fundamentally dishonest' crowds. Contra to your argument above, I've seen significant support for both amongst MS vets, but that's by the by).

[The Fonz]

These questions open to anyone:

Do you feel egruntz' comments more reflect on his inexperience on this particular site, or on his probable alignment?

I think it's a bit of both, maybe he plays a different style at other sites. Also, he might be scum trying hard to be a townie, or townie trying to affirm his allignment with everyone else. I'm personally leaning towards the latter right now, but not by a long shot (say, 45% for A and 55% for B)

45% is a much higher probability of being scum than a random lynch. If you actually believe there's a 45% chance of him being scum, you should be voting him.

[The Fonz]

These questions open to anyone:

Do you feel egruntz' comments more reflect on his inexperience on this particular site, or on his probable alignment?

I think it's a bit of both, maybe he plays a different style at other sites. Also, he might be scum trying hard to be a townie, or townie trying to affirm his allignment with everyone else. I'm personally leaning towards the latter right now, but not by a long shot (say, 45% for A and 55% for B)

45% is a much higher probability of being scum than a random lynch. If you actually believe there's a 45% chance of him being scum, you should be voting him.

45% isn't high enough for me. I prefer to be reasonably sure, y'know?

Short of a claim that doesn't add up, I don't think you can ever really be more than 50% sure that someone's scum on day one. If a theoretical town had a 45% chance of hitting scum with every lynch, it'd win.

[The Fonz]

*THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT*

Setup speculation is baaaaaaaaaaaad, and can lead to players unwittingly revealing their roles, which helps scum to direct their nightkills with greater accuracy. Please stop. All of you.

[The Fonz]

I don't have any certainty as to whether egruntz's stance on no-lynch was a true newb-tell, or a newb-scum tell, and some other things he's done seem fairly pro-town to me. I'm waiting to see more from him before I draw any conclusions in that regard.

Why is it, that just because I think differently than you, that I'm automatically either a newbie or scum?

Really

.

Because that day one no-lynch is bad for town and benefits scum is something that is basically universally accepted, taught in newbie games, and so it's assumed that anyone advocating it cannot both be pro-town and know what they're doing. I explained it earlier.

[The Fonz]

We're not out to lynch the antitown players. We're out to lynch the scum.

Serial Killer

SKs are scum. They're just not groupscum.

And in any case, in my mind an antitown player is one whose survival makes a town win less likely. So I'd argue with 'we're not out to lynch antitown players.' (After all, I

am

currently running a meta of 'Lynch all Albert B. Rampages' for exactly that reason).

[The Fonz]

Xylthixlm, you've been making me uneasy lately. Could just be your playstyle, but I'd like to hear more out of you that just one liners,

Ask yourself: is it clear where Xyl stands on the issues, yes or no? Acknowledging that what you're attacking is fairly likely to be playstyle, and attacking it anyway, pings my scumdar in a having-cake-and-eating-it kinda way.

and you've been way too focused on the way that snaps has been writing rather than whats actually going on in the game.

Disagree: don't see how writing eight words on the subject is 'focussing.'

Something like this:

egruntz is trying very hard to be helpful to the town.

Sometimes a player that appears to be trying too hard to help the town, actually

is

trying to help the town. I get the feeling this is the case with Egruntz. There has been much make of his seeming "newness", yet he tells us he has played before. Mafia playing up newbie tells to gain a bit of FoI is ploy that has been used before.

Currently my highest suspicions are Disciple Slayer and Egruntz.

So in summary: You think egruntz really is trying to help the town, but you also think he might be mafia.

Is not 'focussing on how he writes' but drawing out the much more important point that Snaps wrote a nice paragraph on how he gets the feeling that Egruntz is genuinely trying to help the town, then lists Egruntz as one of his top two suspects anyway.

Also this:

Sufficiently bad idiots can be antitown without being scum.

really struck me the wrong way. Lets leave the stupid people alone and go after the scummy people, shall we?

Vote: Xylthixlm

You're voting him for holding a position i fully support. REALLY bad town players can be as harmful as scum. Though players who are actually that bad are rare, thankfully.

More to the point, simply because someone acts detrimentally to the town, doesn't mean they're

not

scum. The Rampages and Disciple Slayers of this world do sometimes get antitown roles.

That said, you shouldn't lynch them when there are actual viable scum candidates around.

Unvote, vote OGML

[The Fonz]

True, but here's the rub. I've also seen YogurtBandit, in particular, defended on the grounds that 'That's just how he plays' when he was scum, and ended up costing the town, several times.

[The Fonz]

And THIS is why no-one jumped over mills. Same reason I didn't like people jumping on Egruntz.

Oh, and had-whatever your name is, grow a pair and make a case on someone.

[The Fonz]

hasdgfas- You're quite right. I read through your player-by-player, and got a strong 'Wow, this is like, the most wishy-washy thing ever' vibe because you didn't state any particularly strong suspects or votes. I forgot about the post further up the page. My apologies.

[The Fonz]

FoS: everyone voting for Diciple Slayer

Bandwagoning and calling Mills an idiot doesn't make him scum and it seems that people are just jumping on him cause he is an easy lynch.

Not why I'm voting for him. I didn't like his unreasoned vote for the Fonz (reasons to come later), and then his switch to me with a well reasoned argument, but all well after the egruntz situation was more or less discussed through.

This, I think, is actually the best reason any DS voter has. The being annoying, lurky, and offensive thing is just who he is. Voting for someone on one side of a big row, then turning round and pretty much adopting that player's reasoning to vote the person on the other side of the argument, however, is a real WTF moment.

That said, I do still see the possibility of opportunism in Kitty's intitial Egruntz vote- i still find her more likely than average to be scum, she's just not in my top couple of suspects lately.

[The Fonz]

Xyzzy, answer me this. How many times have you seen an actual scum suggest a D1 no-lynch? How many times have you seen town do it?

My answer to that question is a) never and b) lots.

[The Fonz]

In general I consider 3 kinds of tells:
Tells caused by the difference in objective between town (searching) and scum (hiding); for example, lurking or only making uncontroversial contributions

This is a pretty good one- though I'd distinguish between uncontroversial and non-useful: there are things which advance the town's cause without being controversial.

Tells caused by the scum knowing who is scum and who is town; for example, jumping on the townie out of two bandwagons

True, although WIFOMable.

Tells caused by the scum deliberately trying to manipulate the town; for example, arguing for a bad move like nolynch

Here's where you lose me. Since scum will never actually be able to convince towns to no-lynch D1, there is no possible advantage to scum in advocating it, plus it gets you attacked and draws attention to yourself. About the only reason scum might do this is because towns know this, and they want to wifom themselves into looking town.

[The Fonz]

That's simply untrue. Not proposing action X is superior to Proposing action X for scum from a game theory perspective. If there's no benefit to the scum of doing something, perfect scum won't do it.

[The Fonz]

But there is no benefit, since there is no way scum can possibly convince town to no-lynch day one since 'you must lynch day one' is pretty much the first thing newbies here learn, and is treated pretty much the same as a divine commandment.

[The Fonz]

No. It's not small. It's nonexistent. Pushing nolynch actually has a negative average payoff for scum.

[The Fonz]

No. It's not small. It's nonexistent. Pushing nolynch actually has a negative average payoff for scum.

Do you think that town players act irrationally by considering scummy something that scum don't actually do, or do you think that scum players act irrationally by doing something with a negative average payoff?

The former.

[The Fonz]

Fonz:

As Xyl said, anything that hurts the town is scummy, regardlss of intention.

Disagree; and in any case, Egruntz' suggestion did not hurt the town. Had anyone agreed with him, maybe; but that was never going to happen.

Motives are important, but they're difficult to determine day one; pure scumminess is the most effective technique. Obviously we'll probably be wrong, but we get great info, and lynching someone for not being protown is almost always good for us in endgame.

Wrong. WRONG!

Lynching people because they disagree with you on game theory, when they are almost certain not to be doing so from any kind of ulterior motive, invariably hurts the town.

[The Fonz]

Sadly, it's also a very common scumtell. Town tends to be calmer because they can win even if they're lynched. They have no scumbuddies to protect. ?

I smell a 'too defensive' argument...

Anger, if anything, is a town tell.

[The Fonz]

Fairly useless, Rishi? Possibly. But also my strongest suspicion. There is time yet to avoid a no-lynch.

[The Fonz]

There are sufficient votes on Eteocles to avoid the no-lynch whatever. I'm going to stay with OGML for now.

[The Fonz]

I'm also in a few games for now, so I'm sorry if I ever mix something from one game into another.

Anyway, I don't know who to vote for as of now. Although some people come straight to mind (mills and ds), I'm hesitating to vote for them thinking that they may be a retarded townie who doesn't know what they're doing. If I vote someone I

personally

find suspiciously too townie, then I might be accused of scum.If I kill off an inactive, I might be killed for not even bothering to know who/what they are, but it might also help the game by getting rid of an inactive.

Finally, if I vote for a no lynch, it means an instant loss for the town, and we still get somone killed, so it's not town enough.

Again, read the damned thread. Mills and DS have been replaced, and Mills' replacement has claimed cop. This shit is important.