Adel wrote:
In my games I use "¬" as a flag for who will be lynched at deadline. The flag only moves to another player once that other player has more votes than the current vote-flag holder. I came up with this system after reading a game where player X had five voes and player Y had four votes. Right before deadline, someone unvoted player X, and player Y was then lynched because he had been at four votes for a longer period of time.
Yeah...I don't like time-based deadline tiebreakers at all. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that issue in the next game I mod...perhaps "tie at deadline means no lynch" would be a good plan.
Over the last few months I've changed my mind regarding if a specific time should be given at all. It seems to penalize players who have a schedule that doesn't let them be on during the last few hours (or hour) before the deadline strikes.
Somethimes I think that a 24 hour window is the best way to go, so long as the time chosen to lock the thread is left to chance and not game events, and is not predictable.
At other times I think the clarity of a specific hour within a specific day is the best way to go since it is clear and simple.
I think that for deadlines it is a good practice to have a rule stating something to the effect of "Votes and unvotes that accur after the deadline will not be counted." that way if can't be there to lock the thread at the specific deadline time the players will realize that while they can still post since the thread is unlocked, who will be lynched has been determined.
(nods) That's a good idea. The alternate idea is just to state in your rules that the deadline dosn't actually happen until the mod comes into the thread and announces end-of-day, like "Deadline will be at some time after 8:00 PM tommorow, whenever the mod is avalable to lock the thread". The ambiguaty should be eliminated, though; having one or the other, and having everyone know which one, is probably best.
That's similar to my draft rule- deadline hits at X, but until I post the lynch and lock the thread then no one is dead. Votes/unvotes after X will not be counted.
Can someone explain to me why editing vote counts on the top of each page is considered bad? I do it all the time, and I think it´s more handy because you don´t have to search for the votecounts, and if it appears on every page there is also consistency. If you only want to see votecounts you just have to jump from page to page, and if you decide you want to see what happened after a certain vote count you can just scroll down. It also limits the amount of mod posts while it is ensured that what the mod says is read.
Leaving mafiascum temporarily or not due to circumstances
1) don´t agree, see above
2) agreed
3) this (the scum kill) depends on a lot of things. About the cop result I agree, but I don´t think it´s always necessary to confirm you received the scum´s night action. For example, if the night is not deadlined you can wait until you got their night action. And if the scum use a quicktopic to talk, you can say that you did not receive an action yet in that topic. I think it´s easier to say that you did not get an action, instead of saying you did get the action. If the scum agree on a night kill, and no one sends in a kill, that´s the fault of the scum, not the mod, but this way the mod can help a bit to prevent it.
4) agreed. I usually make a new post the first time I announce the deadline, and then I put the time of the deadline in the votecounts and in the first post.
5) agreed
Yosarian2 wrote:Yeah...I don't like time-based deadline tiebreakers at all. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that issue in the next game I mod...perhaps "tie at deadline means no lynch" would be a good plan.
I've started doing this and it works pretty well (ties at/above the deadline threshold indicate lack of consensus, so No Lynch). It also punishes town further for having to go to deadline, which I support.
I prefer to use some shade of red to indicate the most lynchworthy; Adel's sigil is hard for me to discern.
I think that for deadlines it is a good practice to have a rule stating something to the effect of "Votes and unvotes that accur after the deadline will not be counted." that way if can't be there to lock the thread at the specific deadline time the players will realize that while they can still post since the thread is unlocked, who will be lynched has been determined.
(nods) That's a good idea. The alternate idea is just to state in your rules that the deadline dosn't actually happen until the mod comes into the thread and announces end-of-day, like "Deadline will be at some time after 8:00 PM tommorow, whenever the mod is avalable to lock the thread". The ambiguaty should be eliminated, though; having one or the other, and having everyone know which one, is probably best.
I always use the latter; otherwise it would be possible to deadline-lynch Player A, then have someone come in thread and throw an actual hammer down on Player B. Killing Player A not in keeping with the intent of game mechanics, in my view.
I still
write
"11:59:59 PM on Such-and-such-a-date", but deadline actually hits when I close the thread, just like Twilight.
Lawrencelot wrote:Can someone explain to me why editing vote counts on the top of each page is considered bad? I do it all the time, and I think it´s more handy because you don´t have to search for the votecounts, and if it appears on every page there is also consistency. If you only want to see votecounts you just have to jump from page to page, and if you decide you want to see what happened after a certain vote count you can just scroll down. It also limits the amount of mod posts while it is ensured that what the mod says is read.
It makes it completely unambiguous that this is an 'official' vote count, not a player count.
If I only want to see Vote Counts, I can filter by the mod's posts. Nothing could be simpler (your way requires 100+ page loads for some games).
It ensures that no one misses the count because they are already reading farther down the page.
A multitude of mod posts has never been a problem for me in reading a game, as a player.
The only time I edit another player's posts to reply is when I see the thread VERY soon after their question, and can avoid a separate post for a 1-2 word reply.
3: One thing I've done in games with multiple nightkillers is flip a coin to see who gets the kill (or just give it to whoever sends in their NK first). The second NKer on the scene gets a message that the person they were going to kill has already been killed.
The reason I flip a coin for it is because the information gained from knowing that there's another killer is a nice bonus, and I don't want to give that all the time to people who send in their night actions late, 'cause I encourage people to send in their night actions promptly. Maybe I should LIFO this or something?
I suggest not telling the second killer that the person was already dead. Night action resolution is fairly abstract anyways - putting in little bits of realism isn't worth it.
#mafia@irc.globalgamers.net
"Xyl was completely berserk" -dramonic
"Xyl's ruthless policy lynching won the game." -Vi
Lawrencelot wrote:3)<snip>For example, if the night is not deadlined you can wait until you got their night action.
Few things suck worse as a vanilla townie than checking a thread/watched topics every day not knowing when night will end.
Ergo, nights should be publicly deadlined, after which it follows a simple pressing of "Quote" and typing of
Kill/Investigate/Protect/Roleblock/Spoon: Player
should be done.
In the case of a QT being used, there should still be some sort of agreed upon way of communicating to the mod the info he'll need and a mod confirmation that it was in fact read.
Solution to stating deadlines: Final deadlines at daybreak by a formula.
Solution to deadline lynch problems: No lynch by deadline is no lynch.
On the issue of prodding, in my games, it is up to the players to ask for prods. Because of this, I announce when prods have been picked up. I feel that if the player is going to get away with lurking, I should not be complicit as the mod. Morally, it is not right nor fair for a player whom the town knows to be hiding to have their actions hidden by the mod.
(11:26:07 PM) thesheamuffin: I'm counting gurgi because I would probably make out with him if I were drunk enough
I support the comments from the original post, as well as Mr. Flay's addition of the Not Voting list - I haven't yet played in a game where the mod wasn't listing them, but have come across a few whilst spectating or data-mining, and it makes keeping track a lot harder.
And perhaps one more to add: in my first game a player was cleared because they flaked out just before the deadline, and when they weren't around the next day, it seemed likely they hadn't been around to send a night kill in either. I think I've also seen the reverse happen: an absent scum player who was implicated by the lack of night kill. Maybe it isn't that common, I don't know, but I'm in favour of hardcore mods who prod everyone during night-phase and seek replacements before it is over, to rule out this kind of meta-gaming element.
Fenchurch wrote:I'm in favour of hardcore mods who prod everyone during night-phase and seek replacements before it is over, to rule out this kind of meta-gaming element.
Absolutely necessary to avoid just what you described. If they didn't post for 75% of my deadline threshold before nightfall (usually 48-72h), but don't have a nightchoice, I ask for a PM overnight just to make sure they're still around.
some mods (Guardian was the first person I noticed) state in their rule set that night moves that are not submitted will be randomized. To not make the move you have to pm the mod saying so. I like it: little mod effort and total transparency.
It doesn't really matter to me if a mod edits the first post of each page to put in their vote count or if they do it in a separate post altogether. The OCD neat freak in me would prefer it to be a separate post, but that's just because it looks more clean. I don't think this conversation really has any bearing on the game itself/quality of the moderator and ultimately just boils down to personal preference.
That said, the best vote count I've seen produced in recent times was from (I think) charter, though it may have been SensFan, who managed to not only post a thorough and detailed (and accurate) vote count as its own post, but nine times out of ten he made it the first post of each page (and when it wasn't the first it was generally one of the first five posts). Now that's dedication, and was much appreciated for a variety of reasons.
2) Role/faction/name reveals
Outside of specific game setups (or a newbie game run by a newbie mod on a third party site), I haven't come across a mod who doesn't do a full exposure upon a player's death. And for good reason.
3) Confirm when a night action is recieved
I disagree with this point. A mod should state in the opening rules that, unless otherwise notified, all actions should be considered received. For two reasons. First: To have the mod tell each player/faction with a night choice that they received their nightly PM is burdensome on the moderator, not to mention insulting. The mod wanted to run the game in the first place - assuming that they looked over your night PM and rushed into the day phase without accounting for all night activity (or lack thereof) is to say that they're sloppy or potentially biased (against a player/side/whatever). Second: Giving a player a line or phrase that might hint as to why their night action did or did not occur (e.g. "No result available/received" to a cop) would be giving the player something to work off of in terms of determining other roles in the game when they shouldn't be privy to such knowledge. Even if the phrase is as generic as possible, the player might make incorrect assumptions and base his play off of it, and thus the mod has affected the game in such a way that was unintended, unnecessary and inapropriate.
Adel wrote:some mods (Guardian was the first person I noticed) state in their rule set that night moves that are not submitted will be randomized. To not make the move you have to pm the mod saying so. I like it: little mod effort and total transparency.
I'm thinking about trying this out. It takes away the "oh day started and that guy wasn't replaced, they must be vanilla" speculation.
Adel wrote:some mods (Guardian was the first person I noticed) state in their rule set that night moves that are not submitted will be randomized. To not make the move you have to pm the mod saying so. I like it: little mod effort and total transparency.
Why is this better than a valid choice from a real player? If you need a replacement, get it when you need it, not when the players notice you need it.
Because maybe a player will flake during a night round/right at the end of a day? If that player does not have a night choice, the mod would have no clue and it wouldn't be until a little while into the following day that the mod would notice that player's absence. An observant player could easily connect the dots.
"This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent." In re Davis, 557 U.S. 952, 955 (2009) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
Adel wrote:some mods (Guardian was the first person I noticed) state in their rule set that night moves that are not submitted will be randomized. To not make the move you have to pm the mod saying so. I like it: little mod effort and total transparency.
Why is this better than a valid choice from a real player? If you need a replacement, get it when you need it, not when the players notice you need it.
I do everything I can to ensure all players are active and submitting night actions. But I'm not going to leave a game in the night phase for days until who knows when waiting on a replacement. This will increase the problem creating more lurkers, less participation, and thus more flakers.
It's not better than a valid choice, but it may be a way to remove role inferences from night replacement situations.
I must be exceedingly lucky. I have had maybe TWO players in my entire modding history miss a night choice... and that was before I started sending nighttime prods.
1) As a player, I absolutely disagree. Having a vote count edited into the first post of each page gives me a pretext for the page when rereading. I usually keep a history of vote counts in my notes, an occasional copy/paste that takes little effort. One problem I've seen with mod-post vote counts is that you don't always get one on the page and so need to keep another tab open for quick reference. Also, iso on mod posts doesn't give you much sense of the context and requires constantly opening the individual posts in extra tabs. Flay's concern about knowing that a vote count is actually the mod's is simple to work around. A unique formatting for vote counts and a rule that promises swift modkill for faking one suffices.
IMO, far worse than editing the first post is the mod who doesn't post a VC often enough. Nothing worse than stopping mid-page to check the vote count and having to go back three pages to find it. At least when one is edited into the first post, you've got a good schedule to work with.
However... as a mod I have adapted to the preference of the majority of players, which seems to be for mod-posted counts. Sigh.
2) I think this depends on the game. I agree for normals, obv, but themes can be fun with less-than-clear reveals. I posted alignments and flavored role names but not an indicator of the role's powers in my last game, to mixed reviews.
I do not color-code my reveals by alignment but I do color code my posts: flavor in one format, candid text in another, important info (like reveals, deadlines, prods, etc) in a third.
3) Absolutely. As mod, I quote and respond to every night action even if the response is simply "rc'vd". I also repost the mafia NK target in their quicktopic. I do not share non-kill mafia results with other mobsters though.
4) I'm a firm believer that activity-related or arbitrary deadlines are bad business. I'll never run a game without automatic deadlines. I put them in the first post, the opening post of each day phase, and in every vote count: day, date, time, time zone, and GMT modifier. Same with night phase deadlines (except at end of day). I've never tried anything but no-lynch at deadline without majority. It seems to be a good practice for inspiring activity.
5) Though it is more work, I've liked using auto-prods instead of requested ones. It helps to have vague activity requirements (I say three days rather than 72 hours) and then round up when skimming for needed prods (so someone who posted 3.5 days ago would not get a prod). I agree that any prods should be noted in the thread. I don't say whether a prod has been picked up, but I'm explicit about replacements.
I think I'm a little more strict than the norm about prods/replacements, which seems important when using auto deadlines. Second prod in a day phase means post within 24 hours or be replaced. Qualifying for a third in one day is auto-replacement, as is fourth overall. What are others' standards in this area?
