Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[doll]

Games are just training simulations of actual events with most of the risk and danger cut out, like play fighting in cubs etc.

I don't think most people would agree with that (they haven't in the past, anyhow), but at present that's how I see it.
I think Imp has more or less outlined why I've gotten into mafia from the other side (to develop rather than learn to recognize naked compliance techniques and good form in lies)

[fillipk]

Yeah. It's nice to be able to say "Here, go look at these things if you want to improve!" It's bad to give people the impression that if they just want to play and have fun that they're not welcome. After all, it is a game.

I agree with this but that doesn't mean I'm going to let them ruin the game for everyone else because "it's just a game." I'm okay with people trying crazy gambits in an attempt to win, even if it's unoptimal.  But if they start throwing a tantrum, trying to lose or just plain apathy, I don't want them in my game even if we don't have a lot of activity.

[doll]

This may or may not be the right place for it but I'm a selfish person and this serves my interests so I'll post it here anyway:

The two largest mistakes I made in P25 which I would like to excise from my play are 1) being wishy-washy about the justifications for my actions by justifying them with material which had not occurred to me at the time of those actions and 2) failing to maintain the energy necessary for aggressive play and then attempting to revive my aggressive play D3 without first setting the ground of doing such by building, maintaining and re-extending that energy required.

2) is fairly self-explanatory, at least if you understand what I am saying (to myself) there, so I'll not explore it further.

1), however, explores an essential truth.
When Leafsnail asked about why I claimed, I listed my reasons and continued to dilute them by introducing new material. At the time of the claim I had not thought "well what actual mechanical benefit does my role bring" in such a sense that would bring my mylo/lylo comments to the fore of my decision making process. IO comments on this in deadchat, and he correctly identifies it as an area of weakness. If I had not spun in extra fluff which was not part of the actual process at hand that I was describing, I would have a more truthful and ardent account of my actions and activity, which would in many ways serve to reinforce and establish my position both in terms of honesty and as believable town.
In other words, it is better to stand by a mistake openly and decisively (without claiming that it was not a mistake) than to dilute the strength of the mistake at the time of the recounting, since regardless of the positive or negative balance of the 'mistake' in it's impact on the game, the clear and forceful existence of such which can then be commented on in post either by involved or external parties will drive the game onwards towards reads, progress and activity.

[Tiruin]

This may or may not be the right place for it but I'm a selfish person and this serves my interests so I'll post it here anyway[...]

Selfish, he says.
I enjoy listening to your thoughts alongside everyone else's self-reflection and insight making :3 It's more you posting your insights which helps Mafia theory (because that's what its essence is).

All of which are nice notes! Thank you for that it does follow that the more you say to reason about a notion that other people can understanbly reason out too could dilute one's point, but it also gives direction to what one may mean thereafter.

[doll]

So this is a serious question and one I've been thinking about for a long time:

Is there any reason to look at your role-PM in mountainous mafia?

Outside of a bastard/etc. where other players may not anticipate your wincon, is there any reason to look at your role-PM on Day 1?

[Tiruin]

So this is a serious question and one I've been thinking about for a long time:

Is there any reason to look at your role-PM in mountainous mafia?

Outside of a bastard/etc. where other players may not anticipate your wincon, is there any reason to look at your role-PM on Day 1?

It just hit me, I've no idea what "mountainous mafia" means as I had thought it was a game type and searched in this board with the engine; it's mentioned a lot by various people, so apparently it's a term I have no idea about.

[doll]

Mountainous Mafia appears to be a term for Mafia games where the only roles are Vanilla Townie and Vanilla Mafia.

[Persus13]

Well, not lynching your scumbuddy by mistake is pretty important. Otherwise, there's not much of an incentive.

[webadict]

So this is a serious question and one I've been thinking about for a long time:

Is there any reason to look at your role-PM in mountainous mafia?

Outside of a bastard/etc. where other players may not anticipate your wincon, is there any reason to look at your role-PM on Day 1?

Well, there is one... if you're mafia, you would want to kill people, and the only way to do that is to check your PM.

[Leafsnail]

There's an argument for not looking at it until night one. Mafiascum GMs used to make you respond to your role PM with your role name for this reason (also to confirm that people were still available to play).

[doll]

Well, not lynching your scumbuddy by mistake is pretty important. Otherwise, there's not much of an incentive.

This doesn't matter in mountainous though, because unlike setups with roles, there is no advantage to ending the game with multiple mafscum so you should never compromise your position to avoid the lynch of another player (and it's tremendously difficult to compromise your position to avoid the lynch of another player without actually compromising the position of both players anyhow).
The only reason scum ever need to 'play as a team' so to speak is when they are facing powers which (may) prevent them from winning the game with one player, since otherwise any game which ends with at least one scum alive is a scumwin and the best way to do that is to have very towny scum and the best way to do that is to have scum with very towny information models and playstyles.

There's an argument for not looking at it until night one. Mafiascum GMs used to make you respond to your role PM with your role name for this reason (also to confirm that people were still available to play).

Given that it is technically infeasible to avoid checking your role for the night, the question then becomes:
Is there ever any reason to use scumchat in mountainous mafia?

Every spec of information you have as scum makes your play less like your actual town play.
In writing this though, I've had insight into the issue and the insight is that persuasive position is more important than technical position re: information, and thus that an increased information base is very useful to scum seeking to influence other players.
To give an example which might highlight what I mean, there was a period in P25 where both Leafsnail's and my play greatly deteriorated compared to our previous efforts in the game (and his latter efforts) and during that period neither of us did a thing which was out of character for being town (since, indeed, we were town, and playing the way each of us would play town at that time) but both players made a number of mistakes which weakened the town and furthermore drew suspicion onto us. It is not in avoiding this that an informed scum player has the advantage, but in recognizing this in other players and so being able to influence those players more effectively by targeting their actual position without having to hedge their bets against multiple possible stances.

Also I suppose, one's relative confidence in the quality of their play over that of others would lead them to play differently for given roles. A player confident they could reduce their chances of taking a scumkill without giving out unacceptable reads might have reason (in their mind) to check that they are a town PR, just as a vanilla townie might wish to increase their nightkill chances (and be confident that they can out WIFOM scum).
I suppose the point I've come to is that scumhunting is not very important at all for town's ability to win the game with optimal players since optimal players don't leak as scum, but perfect players can simply persuade other players regardless and moot the whole issue - in other words, I'm looking at edge cases which don't exist and have been trying to step back and apply play insights from those stances onto the game as it occurs (imperfectly and suboptimally).

[Persus13]

Well, not lynching your scumbuddy by mistake is pretty important. Otherwise, there's not much of an incentive.

This doesn't matter in mountainous though, because unlike setups with roles, there is no advantage to ending the game with multiple mafscum so you should never compromise your position to avoid the lynch of another player (and it's tremendously difficult to compromise your position to avoid the lynch of another player without actually compromising the position of both players anyhow).
The only reason scum ever need to 'play as a team' so to speak is when they are facing powers which (may) prevent them from winning the game with one player, since otherwise any game which ends with at least one scum alive is a scumwin and the best way to do that is to have very towny scum and the best way to do that is to have scum with very towny information models and playstyles.

This is true. However, multiple mafia alive means it is easier it is for Mafia to win, so often the optimal strategy is to keep as many mafia players alive as possible. Scum can avoid the appearance of playing as a team and not target each other, especially in a larger game, although it can be a delicate balance. As for compromising your position to avoid the lynch of another player, sure that's suspicious, but there's a big difference between that and not leading a lynch on a player in the first place.

You're probably the person who had talked the most about Mafia theory since NQT left and its nice to have that again, even if I disagree with you a lot of the time.

[Leafsnail]

Knowing who your partner is just gives you a statistical advantage because you can direct the lynch away from them. If you don't do it in a super obvious way it's pretty unlikely that you'll be decisively called out on it (especially since many townie behaviours look quite indistinguishable). Interestingly there's some argument that it's better for the town to select lynches entirely at random for this reason.

But the more important thing is if you don't read your role PM you're just not playing the game. Scumhunting is irrelevant if people don't know they're scum, so you're just trying to argue that you shouldn't be lynched. It's against the spirit of the game, and if people ever started doing it there'd have to be specific countermeasures against it (same goes for selecting lynches at random using a verifiable method).

[doll]

But the more important thing is if you don't read your role PM you're just not playing the game. Scumhunting is irrelevant if people don't know they're scum, so you're just trying to argue that you shouldn't be lynched. It's against the spirit of the game, and if people ever started doing it there'd have to be specific countermeasures against it (same goes for selecting lynches at random using a verifiable method).

"just trying to argue that you shouldn't be lynched" is basically half the game, with the other half being 'just trying to argue that someone else should be lynched'.
Hoping that someone will slip information in a way which will allow you to infer that they are scum and further hoping that this method won't produce false positives (e.g. fillipk in both P25 and RMM D1) isn't a valid method in any regard.
You are both correct, however, that leading a lynch on a non-mafia player is optimal over leading a lynch on a random other player.
It's very easy to lead a lynch on any other player at any time, it's easier to attack (another) than to defend (yourself), it's easier to avoid suspicion for attacking town than it is to avoid suspicion for defending scum, and the relative (in)validity of any argument for lynching another player is a universal trait and so does not distinguish your efforts, since the same methods could be used on any player regardless of alignment.

In this case, it seems like the best thing for scum to do is to leave unresolved suspicion on every player, which benefits any active and uncompromising effort any player undertakes. Being certain of their position and able to co-ordinate as a team, scum are by far the strongest candidates for the ability to make such an effort. This is, of course, why good town play is a scumtell and therefore not indicative of scum.

[Mephansteras]

This also ignores the fact that even in a Mountainous game, Mafia still has a power. The Nightkill. Which must be decided upon by the team.

So, no, not looking at your PM ever is not a valid tactic. And not looking at your Role PM day one is not in the spirit of the game and I'd be rather cross with anyone deliberately playing that way in my game if I was running a Mountainous.