Mini 551- Mod Abandoned

[Imat]

I blocked Elias...Just throwing it out there...sorry to ruin your chain, but he seemed the most Scummy...

[Cavebear with a toothache]

Heh. Nice chain of blocks

you've got going there

you had going there before Imat messed it up. I gotta admit, after seeing Khelvaster's intricate rules for night actions and learning of at least one and possibly two other roleblockers, I was half expecting something like this.

I'm a roleblocker. Before everyone (who hasn't already) blurts out who they blocked, can we get a confirmation of who are roleblockers and who are not? If we let a scum get the last word on who they allegedly blocked, they can tinker with the results of the block chain making it seem like any one person was or was not blocked. I'm not sure of the full implacations of this, but I think it's important enough to get the RB claims first and the actions later. Also, I want to hear what SensFan has to say about his night/investigation before we establish if he was blocked or not.

[Korts]

Also, this brings up the credibility of SF's claim. with so many roleblockers, will town have a cop at all?

And an offtopic question: what's with all these nibblers all of a sudden?

[Xylthixlm]

With this many roleblockers, it's not a surprise for the town to have a cop. The surprise would be giving that cop a PR - after all, having so many roleblockers around is enough of a handicap.

[Cavebear with a toothache]

Off topic: the Nibblers

[ting =)]

I'd just like to re-ask:

Is the mafia nk blockable?

[Xylthixlm]

In most games, I'd say "of course", but there's a chance that the mod has done something to stop the obvious breaking strategy. Of course, if he

hasn't

...

[jerubbaal]

Oho, this is kinda neato. I'm a roleblocker too. I'm beginning to see what Khel's got going here. There might be a way to break this setup, so I think we should mass-claim and I bet that we can set things up in a way that will help us narrow down who scum is. I'm betting good money that you can block the mafia NK. I have to go look over Khel's rules and all, but I'm working on a grand scheme of epic proportions. This might be the first setup I ever get a chance to completely break. Details to follow.

No one else should claim who they blocked. I think that's the key to figuring out this whole mess.

[ting =)]

Another question:

If the scum nk is blockable, then do you have to block all the scum in order for the block to work, or just one of the scum?

[Xylthixlm]

Normally the scum choose one person to make the kill, and you only have to block that person.

[ting =)]

If player 1 blocks player 2 who blocks player 3, do both player 2 and 3 get blocked, or does only player 2 get blocked?

[ting =)]

Forget that question, I just read the first post.

[Xylthixlm]

jerubbaal: No need to get complicated on the breaking strategy. Whenever you have a large number of identical roles, the correct solution is usually to either circle them or pair them.

[jerubbaal]

Circling should work alright, but reading Khel's description of how RBing works with the stack is going to make this rather difficult. Apparently RBers do block other RBers, but only in relation to roles with relevant night actions (like the SK used in the example, presumably, also mafia NKers). The fact that we have to calculate out from relevant action roles makes it nigh impossible to disentangle where those action roles actually are, since they are probably not going to claim (at least the one we're interested in, the mafia NKer, and I suppose the SK, if there is one in this setup. Could easily be, since we could have roleblocked them, as many of us as there are).

Khel

, in defining how your RBs work, you reference "distance from the SK." Could you be a little clearer on how "distance" works in this case.

Also, to anyone who was blocked (or Khel, if he can tell us), do you recieve flavor indicating that you were blocked? If so, that helps us quite a bit.

Regardless, we should simply be able to look and see where the system falls apart, or the claims that people are making simply don't hold together.


Anyhow, I would support a massclaim at this point, from anyone who hasn't yet claimed. If we do have power roles out there beyond roleblockers, the field has already been sufficiently narrowed that the scum wouldn't have any trouble finding you as is.

As far as my blocks last night, I blocked Joubert. With his action yesterday, I thought the chances of him being scum were pretty high.

[Cavebear with a toothache]

Before everyone (who hasn't already) blurts out who they blocked, can we get a confirmation of who are roleblockers and who are not?

No one else should claim who they blocked. I think that's the key to figuring out this whole mess.

As far as my blocks last night, I blocked Joubert. With his action yesterday, I thought the chances of him being scum were pretty high.

Way to not take your own advice, or mine.

Again, SensFan's information here is important. If we can detect a discrepancy between his info (on whether or not he was blocked) and the block chain, we know SOMEONE is lying.

Either we get SensFan to reveal his results now, and then try not to let a scum get the last chance to reveal their block. The alternative would be that we decide that SensFan is trustworthy. In that case, it would be better to leave him for last and use that information to narrow down the possible liers amongst the roleblockers. How many are willing to gamble on SensFan being a genuine cop at this point?

Claims and blocks at this point:

Cogito Ergo Scum -- Roleblocker, tried to block Elias

Elias_the_thief -- Confirmed Roleblocker

, unknown block, dead
jerubbaal -- Roleblocker, tried to block Joubert
Joubert -- Unknown
Korts -- Roleblocker, tried to block CESc
Imat -- Roleblocker, tried to block Elias
SensFan -- Cop
Shanba -- Unknown
ting =) -- Roleblocker, unknown block
Cavebear with a Toothache -- Roleblocker, unknown block
Xylthixlm -- Roleblocker, tried to block Korts

Joubert and Shanba, claim please, and if you're roleblockers, leave out who you blocked for now.

[ting =)]

I don't think that we should have posted our targets. At this point, scum could just fake-claim roleblocker and say that they blocked that person too.

Circular blocking won't work. By khel's rules in post 1, every other person at the end of a line ending with a non-roleblocker(fakeblocker or scum or vanilla) will not block.

[jerubbaal]

I don't think that we should have posted our targets. At this point, scum could just fake-claim roleblocker and say that they blocked that person too.

Circular blocking won't work. By khel's rules in post 1, every other person at the end of a line ending with a non-roleblocker(fakeblocker or scum or vanilla) will not block.

That's kinda the point. If we can find the pattern in the roleblocks, then we can potentially figure out who is scum. I just want Khel to clarify on exactly how his whole confusing roleblock stack thingy works. It seems kinda arbitrary in the order it executes.

Cavebear, I ended up deciding that we just need to get all the information out there and try to put it together into a composite picture. I do really think that a mass-claim is the absolute best thing for us at this moment.

[ting =)]

@jeru. I don't support a mass claim. It's bad enough that we had to narrow the field down for the scum by a large number of people claiming roleblocker. You could argue that the PRs are exposed enough already that it won't matter, but I disagree.

Also, we can't figure out anything from the pattern in circular blocking. Nothing in the mod posts indicate whose blocks worked. You won't be able to deduce anything from having everyone forming a circle and blocking.

[Korts]

At the moment, I'm inclined not to believe SF's claim, and I also doubt the PR. Yeah, go ahead and point out that I was the one who believed him Day 1. Please.

[Xylthixlm]

Shanba is V/LA.

[Khelvaster]

Normally the scum choose one person to make the kill, and you only have to block that person.

In a game where the person making the nightkill matters, this is how things are done. Since it would be bad for the mod to hint to the scum whether or not who made the NK matters, I require it in all my games. The scum do have to choose one person to be the NKer.

If player 1 blocks player 2 who blocks player 3, do both player 2 and 3 get blocked, or does only player 2 get blocked?

2 is closest to 3, so first 2's block on 3 is stacked, then 1 on 2. This means 1's block happens first, which blocks 2. 3 has no blockers, and his action goes through.

To anyone who was blocked (or Khel, if he can tell us), do you recieve flavor indicating that you were blocked? If so, that helps us quite a bit.

In keeping with the flavor that I gave to the roleblockers, I probably should have told the people being blocked that they were blocked. However, I only realized after sending the roles off that the flavor suggested that people knew they were being blocked. I then realized doing this would lead to a breaking strategy involving circling, so I didn't tell people.

I was so excited that I had finished my flavor text that I forgot what real-game implications of this would be.

In short, my answer is no, and I should have thought more about my flavor text.

Khel, in defining how your RBs work, you reference "distance from the SK." Could you be a little clearer on how "distance" works in this case.

This was an example. of how distancing would work. Pretty much, the "final" person in the roleblocking chain is at the bottom of the stack, and then each roleblock in the chain goes on top of the stack from there.

[Xylthixlm]

Khelvaster needs to learn to not explain himself in detail as a mod. He just confirmed that circling would be a breaking strategy if blocks were public. That means that the scum aren't roleblock immune. And

that

means that pairing is a breaking strategy.

So: Pair off all the players except SensFan and one other. Lynch SensFan. Each player blocks the player they're paired with. That way, the night kill is guaranteed to be blocked, unless either the unpaired player is scum or two scum are paired together.

[Joubert]

When I first read Cogito's post asking Korts if he's a roleblocker "too", I lifted an eyebrow, but now seeing the majority being roleblockers, it explains it all...

I'm also a roleblocker, and my target was Imat...

At least we have a lot of questions answered and some games mechanics clarified for now. So as expected, only the Mafia goon sent to kill have to be blocked, which is obvious. And with that many rolebockers, there's still good chances that the killer is blocked, but there's also good chances that any blocker of a killer is blocked itself. This may have caused Elias' death, apparently...

The circling or pairing strategy is not fool-proof, since any anti-Town could just assume he blocked someone already blocked. Blocking someone twice doesn't bear any special effect...

I'm also wondering how the priorities are decided among the groups of same precedence. According to the game's mechanics, roleblockers are all on the same "level" in the stack. My guess is that all roleblockers block at the same time, regardless. Killers are resolved after roleblockers, so only roleblockers that weren't blocked get to do their blocking successfully...

That is, if I understand the staking process correctly, which may not be the case...

[Xylthixlm]

Say A and B are paired. Come night, A blocks B, and B blocks A.

Now assume A is scum, and tries to kill instead of blocking. Now B is blocking him, and no one is blocking B. So there is no kill. The same logic applies if B is scum.

The net result is that the scum can't kill at night unless two of them happen to get paired with each other. That's a huge advantage for the town.

[ting =)]

I like Xyl's plan so far. It won't help us find mafia though. Stay alive, yes. Find, no.

Also, there's something else. After lynching, we have an odd number of players. One player will not be paired. That makes for two cases where it won't work, but still the best plan so far I think.