Simple Mafia 3

[oblivion]

In this case, Town seemed mostly convinced that Ani was the seer, but chose to send a message even though it could potentially harm Town in this game. Ani, I hope that's not lost on you, because Town choosing to lessen their own chances of a win in order to tell a player they're way out of line is not something done lightly.

It's stupid if you ask me. They should of followed my flash of brilliance and voted Normal, who put up no resistance to the plans, along with me. I was disgusted to find out I was dead that next morning. I don't like playing by boring rules. If town can't see a ploy when it's right in front of them then they don't deserve a win.

I've seen it done at other times. In a fairly closed mafia environment where the same players play again and again, sometimes it comes down to town policing mavericks for a few games.

Some types of maverick play will also keep GMs on their toes. I recently GMed a game where a town player decided that he could singlehandedly prevent town from losing the game with a sacrifice play that would invoke a godkill. He made the sacrifice, but town lost anyway in part because they discounted everything he said. Drawing the godkill was considered to be such poor judgement that they simply wouldn't accept any of his reasoning.

Also, the final scum in that game played brilliantly. It was one of the best scum endgames I've seen.

[Magicziggy]

Thanks Oblivion,

You're dead right about me highlighting my role. I wanted to highlight the fact that role blockers were part of the game. Noted.

I did feel the pressure to vote ani based on lynching liars. Seems reasonable if it happens again.

I was entirely convinved that Ghat was town because of the semi-call for a restart. I wonder how well that would work to stave off an attack he were actually scum.

There is no metion of zigmen and Higgs. I found their by-play quite confusing and made me feel that it was one or the other, or a very intricate double scum play. They were never able to convince each other and that was a problem for town. I would have shot Higgs if i had been vig on night 3.

[Animavore]

Lynching liars only makes sense when there is no reason for the lie. I laid out my plan and even guessed one scum right.

[Feck]

In this case, Town seemed mostly convinced that Ani was the seer, but chose to send a message even though it could potentially harm Town in this game. Ani, I hope that's not lost on you, because Town choosing to lessen their own chances of a win in order to tell a player they're way out of line is not something done lightly.

It's stupid if you ask me. They should of followed my flash of brilliance and voted Normal, who put up no resistance to the plans, along with me. I was disgusted to find out I was dead that next morning. I don't like playing by boring rules. If town can't see a ploy when it's right in front of them then they don't deserve a win.

Town are trying to find players who are being devious and dishonest ...... So why when we find a dishonest and devious player would we assume that it must be a town ploy not a Scum ploy ? outing yourself as the seer before you had a confirmed scum, Fos'ing another town player, letting scum know we had a role blocker How in hell were we meant to guess what your 'cunning 'plan was ?

I thought that one of Higgs or Zig was scum .

I did mistake role tells for scum tells ,I will be more careful with this in future .To be honest I think I would have voted to lynch poeple who were town every day

[oblivion]

Thanks Oblivion,

You're dead right about me highlighting my role. I wanted to highlight the fact that role blockers were part of the game. Noted.

I did feel the pressure to vote ani based on lynching liars. Seems reasonable if it happens again.

I was entirely convinved that Ghat was town because of the semi-call for a restart. I wonder how well that would work to stave off an attack he were actually scum.

There is no metion of zigmen and Higgs. I found their by-play quite confusing and made me feel that it was one or the other, or a very intricate double scum play. They were never able to convince each other and that was a problem for town. I would have shot Higgs if i had been vig on night 3.

I didn't mention them because I don't really see any lessons for town in their play, except possibly Zigmen's, and that's something that comes with experience with a player.

Mafia is a game of probabilities for the most part (except when you're dealing with an Ani gambit ). You consider all the possibilities, and you base your play on the likelihoods. So how does that factor into the interactions between higgs2 and Zigmen?

Zigmen had one thing right - Ghat's day 2 was 100% pro-town. He should have gone way down the list of likely scum as a result. If that had happened, then higgs2's instincts about who were the remaining scum might have gotten more traction. Both were right about something and wrong about something. One of them probably should have filled the power vacuum in this game. Sometimes a town player needs to step up and take the lead, and the only way that happens is when the player is generally recognized as being right more often than wrong. It wasn't going to be Zigmen because he's an unknown quantity here, and his style of play can be problematic. But, Zigmen's suspicions of higgs2 were vocal enough that she wound up putting effort into defending herself at precisely the time when she needed to be putting the puzzle together and trying to get town to follow her.

But basically, day 2 was a total fiasco for town and day 3 was a shambles as a result. It was going to take some heroic play to get back into the game after day 2.

[charlou]

There is no metion of zigmen and Higgs. I found their by-play quite confusing and made me feel that it was one or the other, or a very intricate double scum play. They were never able to convince each other and that was a problem for town. I would have shot Higgs if i had been vig on night 3.

I had actually PMed oblivion with a night action on Higgs (with added Kapow for emphasis), but I withdrew it and abstained because I was unsure if I had the right one, and I thought better to wait for day four events to unfold and have one less player to reduce the odds of a wrong hit. Like oblivion said, though, I didn't consider that we were at end game already.

[oblivion]

Lynching liars only makes sense when there is no reason for the lie. I laid out my plan and even guessed one scum right.

Your plan exposed two town specials. That's why you looked scummy. Trying to force specials to out is a very common scum gambit. It almost never works to town's benefit. The only time specials outing makes sense is in the late game, when clearing some players will increase the odds of lynching scum.

It could have made sense or Charlou to out on day 3, for instance. the game was going to end on night 3 unless she targeted a scum player. She didn't need to survive the night - she just needed to nk scum.

[charlou]

Lynching liars only makes sense when there is no reason for the lie. I laid out my plan and even guessed one scum right.

Your plan exposed two town specials. That's why you looked scummy. Trying to force specials to out is a very common scum gambit. It almost never works to town's benefit. The only time specials outing makes sense is in the late game, when clearing some players will increase the odds of lynching scum.

It could have made sense or Charlou to out on day 3, for instance. the game was going to end on night 3 unless she targeted a scum player. She didn't need to survive the night - she just needed to nk scum.

I had that in mind on both day 2 and day 3 .. esp day 2 when I was getting a few votes for lynching. I thought if that didn't change I'd out myself so I didn't get lynched so I could still go ahead and hit ... Feck - oh dear ... on night 2. Day 3 - again, I didn't think we were so close to end game. I'd actually thought the game would go an extra day if there were equal number of mafia and town left.

[oblivion]

In these 12 person games, if there are two night kills then the endgame is going to happen early. If 6 players are left and 2 of them are scum, you are already at do-or-die.

[Zigmen]

Grats Scummers and thanks to Oblivion for all the insights! Also thanks to you all for your kind welcome~

Oblivion is quite correct about many things. Lynch all liars is something that most of us take very seriously. Nutty gambits rarely pay off. And, in my instance, she was very kind to not spell out my mistakes in complete detail.

I post WoTs (Walls of text). I theorize some far fetched ideas that are often wrong. I often get tunnel vision on a particular player. That, and I have never been scum (except I subbed for one day as a scum), so I just miss out on many of the scum tactics. That's why i am quite possibly one of the worst Mafia players I know.

And I am happy to be involved with this training program because I really do need to get some help. I'm usually lynched for looking scummy, though I've never been scum.

Ghat wins my MVP award for being able to shake suspicion even while our seer has FoSed him.

And of course Charlou for whacking the Don!

And the scum team did what scum teams need to do: let town self destruct while appearing to be anti-scum. Well played, Scummers 8)

[oblivion]

In this case, Town seemed mostly convinced that Ani was the seer, but chose to send a message even though it could potentially harm Town in this game. Ani, I hope that's not lost on you, because Town choosing to lessen their own chances of a win in order to tell a player they're way out of line is not something done lightly.

It's stupid if you ask me. They should of followed my flash of brilliance and voted Normal, who put up no resistance to the plans, along with me. I was disgusted to find out I was dead that next morning. I don't like playing by boring rules. If town can't see a ploy when it's right in front of them then they don't deserve a win.

Town are trying to find players who are being devious and dishonest ...... So why when we find a dishonest and devious player would we assume that it must be a town ploy not a Scum ploy ? outing yourself as the seer before you had a confirmed scum, Fos'ing another town player, letting scum know we had a role blocker How in hell were we meant to guess what your 'cunning 'plan was ?
<snip>

I agree with your logic except for the part where you said it was a bad move letting town know he'd been blocked. But, in my experience, when a town player learns that he/she was blocked, it is to town's advantage more than scum's advantage for the blocked player to out. The thing is, you don't have to out as a special to do that. "Someone tried to block me last night." is all that is needed. If the blocker is town, then he/she now knows that blocked players learn about the block, which can be very valuable. Scum are less likely to volunteer that they were blocked than town are. Also, if the player is the seer, then letting that be known is just as important as hiding info about their views in the game day threads is. In this game, if Ani hadn't outed and had been nked, then letting town know he'd been blocked would eliminate any speculation that one of the obvious view candidates had been viewed as town. Obvious view candidates are the mayor and players who have drawn some foses.

Without knowing my full game design, you guys needed to make some educated guesses about how I had balanced this game.

After night 1, you knew that scum had at least one special role - the don. This was a clue that town would have at least 3 specials this time. The question was "which ones?"

In this game, I thought that having the 3 most powerful town special roles (seer, vig, and doc) would overset the advantage of a scum player who views as town. So I went with 2 of the most powerful roles and a lesser town special role. That should have balanced things well for town. And I was a little concerned when Uselesstwit was offed that town would have a romp despite Ani losing his night 1 view to a block.

I also wanted to introduce the dynamic of a town blocker because it's a little less common than a scum blocker. There's a tendency to assume that any blocker is scum. But, it's not anywhere close to a given.

As a GM, I try to set the game up in such a way that both sides have a good shot at winning, and so that the possibility of nasty surprises exist for both teams. One thing I can't design is player genius or dumbfoolery, and that's why nearly every mafia game, no matter how simple, will surprise the GM as much as any of the players.

[Feck]

Thanks for all your hard work Oblivion ..I'm sure Gm'ing games around here will give you lots of surprises

[oblivion]

Thanks for all your hard work Oblivion ..I'm sure Gm'ing games around here will give you lots of surprises

I appreciate all the thanks, but I feel unworthy of them.

These games have been simple to design and to run. For me, the hard work is the flavor, since I tend to go overboard making the flavor consistent with whatever flavor source I use. I can write a nightfall or daybreak post in 2 minutes instead of 20, and a sudden lynch-vote switch or a late change of mind about a night kill doesn't mean I need to do a complete rewrite to fit the kill info to a particular character. Just "Joe Blow got shot. Joe Blow was <role>."

The surprises are awesome, though!

[colubridae]

But, in my experience, when a town player learns that he/she was blocked, it is to town's advantage more than scum's advantage for the blocked player to out. The thing is, you don't have to out as a special to do that. "Someone tried to block me last night." is all that is needed. If the blocker is town, then he/she now knows that blocked players learn about the block, which can be very valuable.

Is it a smart move for scum to claim early that they have been blocked?

[oblivion]

But, in my experience, when a town player learns that he/she was blocked, it is to town's advantage more than scum's advantage for the blocked player to out. The thing is, you don't have to out as a special to do that. "Someone tried to block me last night." is all that is needed. If the blocker is town, then he/she now knows that blocked players learn about the block, which can be very valuable.

Is it a smart move for scum to claim early that they have been blocked?

Any time I learn I was blocked, I say so in my first post of the day. I don't care what my role is. If I were scum and my kill didn't happen as a result of me being blocked, saying so first thing like that could cause suspicion to fall elsewhere.

I almost got lynched once because the GM forgot to send me a PM to let me know I was blocked. I was town. The blocker was town, and someone else had revealed they'd been blocked the day before. It was the GM's fault that I didn't know I'd been blocked and she had to try and make that right by posting in the game thread without clearing me as town in the process. Tricky.

Another tricky thing is that not all GMs notify players that they were blocked. The role blocker is working blind unless someone speaks up about being blocked. The first time I was a town blocker the players didn't learn they had been blocked. When I outed at endgame, I was suspect at first because none of my blocks had stopped a kill and nobody I'd blocked could corroborate my story.