Simple Mafia 3

[charlou]

I told you who to vote for on day 2 and why. You should've followed my lead instead of Zigmen's bizarre logic. My plan was unambiguous.

The ultra quietness of the two remaining scum during and after that fiasco should have alerted us to them. Ah, hindsight .. always 20/20 ...

[Feck]

I actually voted for Normal on day 2. I don't know why no one looked back on my posts and followed it through.

Due to a case of being shot in the head

[Animavore]

Well I hope people will learn in future to go with my crazy schemes rather than being so distrustful

[Feck]

Well I hope people will learn in future to go with my crazy schemes rather than being so distrustful

Um ...No

[Uselesstwit]

well done, scum. Sorry I couldn't be around to help more. Damn that vig.

I would like to know, what I did that made you kill me on night one. I was trying to look scummy enough to get a view from the seer not a bullet. Ah well, it's not like I'm the only one with a half thought out plan this game.

And for my teammates, I switched the kill to dp because when I reread the posts it looked like he was playing like he did when he was the seer. I was special hunting, just not very well.

[Uselesstwit]

oh, and thanks for another game oblivion. This really must be a rather thankless job, especially a game like this where there's lots of drama.

[colubridae]

oh, and thanks for another game oblivion. This really must be a rather thankless job, especially a game like this where there's lots of drama.

definite thanks oblivion

[charlou]

well done, scum. Sorry I couldn't be around to help more. Damn that vig.

I would like to know, what I did that made you kill me on night one.

Because you switched your mayor vote from Higgs to me for a rather feeble reason. Simple as that. The switch also made me suspicious of Higgs. Wrongly as it turns out. heh.


Big DITTO on the thanks to oblivion.

[oblivion]

You're welcome! This game was interesting to GM, and it proved what I've always believed about mafia - the game revolves around how strong or weak the vanilla town players are. I thought there were lots of good mafia lessons to take away from this game.

I wrote up a critique while the game was ongoing. Anyone interested?

[colubridae]

you bet

[normal]

You're welcome! This game was interesting to GM, and it proved what I've always believed about mafia - the game revolves around how strong or weak the vanilla town players are. I thought there were lots of good mafia lessons to take away from this game.

I wrote up a critique while the game was ongoing. Anyone interested?

Go on then. Stop teasing

[Uselesstwit]

You're welcome! This game was interesting to GM, and it proved what I've always believed about mafia - the game revolves around how strong or weak the vanilla town players are. I thought there were lots of good mafia lessons to take away from this game.


I wrote up a critique while the game was ongoing. Anyone interested?

Out with it already!

[oblivion]

I'm capturing thoughts as the game progresses, so there may be some repetition, etc.

Day 1

RNG votes - tend to look scummy. Day 1 votes may be somewhat random, but claiming to use a random number generator will ping scumdars in most of the mafia communities where I've observed and played. Also, the day 1 lynch isn't nearly the crapshoot that it may appear to be at first glance. If the lynch isn't a scum player, it is almost invariably a town player who has either inadvertently dropped some major scum tells, or a player that the general consensus of town (as seen by their lynch votes) feel town could do better without. This means that newer players, distracting players, players who are unpredictable, etc., are disproportionately lynched on day 1.

That said, new players often get some benefit of the doubt for the first game or two. Mafia players aren't totally heartless.

If you find yourself a frequent day 1 lynch, see if you can figure out why, and think about modifying your style of play if the reason you are lynched is something you can control.


People who are not experienced with special roles often drop special tells. For some reason, they can't resist talking about specials - and often about their own role. Experienced scum know this and watch for it. In this game, one of Magicziggy's earliest posts was a classic:

"Let's assume three mafia players and 9 town.
May be a variation on the special roles."

And whaddayaknow, his special role was a new variation in the Simple Game series. He was the first person to bring up specials in the game thread, though special roles later became a hot topic for everyone.

Also, many scum tells and special tells look similar. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a vig kill another town special in mafia. Consider how many people fosed Ani, MZ and Charlou at various times during this game.

Colubridae's gambit:

Scum

do

not

move

in

herds

None of the scum players left a vote on Colubridae. But not even that was a scum tell, because several town players didn't vote for Cole either. Town can never devise traps for scum that will compare to the ordinary, random traps that take place every game day. Learn to watch for the random traps, and once and for all calm down a little about voting patterns. Look at this game's scum votes and explain the vote pattern tells to me in hindsight. I really want to know.


Day 2

Cheerleading:

"Nice shot, vig" etc. At Ratz, it's not a good scum tell because town players do it in droves. But, in most games, it's scummy enough to draw a FoS if not a lynch vote. (I once nailed a scum with a night kill because of some "Nice shot"/"aw man" type posts in response to the GM's night results OPs.

Animavore's gambit:

This made me go back and check my PMs several times on day 2. I considered PMing Ani to be sure he understood what "your view was blocked" meant, but decided that as GM I needed to back off and see what unfolded. If it was a misunderstanding of my PM, at least it wouldn't be likely to happen again in another game.

Ani was caught out by the "lynch all liars" meme. It's not unheard of for a vanilla town player to set a trap like this one, but it rare and it carries some unique dangers - among them getting lynched. The reason for this is that scum are far more likely to use such a gambit in order to draw more specials out into the open. And that is what happened in this game. Magicziggy revealed he was the role blocker.

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.

Ghat - you played this very well. As the vanilla town player you were absolutely right to vote your own lynch in this situation. It's one of the few situations where a self-vote makes sense for a town player. Odds were good that Ani was a scum player trying to trick the town seer and/or other specials out into the open. It's a fairly common scum ploy.

Look at the scum reactions to Ani's ploy, though. Each was hedged in ways that the town player reactions were not:

"I may not get a chance to be on for the remainder of the day.

I see no reason to not take your word for it right now."

"So Ani... Is insane or lying?" - missed the obvious, "telling the truth"

Day 3

Neither town nor scum seemed to understand that it's nearly endgame. there are 6 players left. 2 have to be scum. If town is lynched, then that will make 3-2 going into the night round. If the vig doesn't hit scum, it will be game over.

Scum actually considered a sacrifice bus-lynch at the start of day 3, which would have given up the possibility of the game ending on night 3 or even day 4. A sacrifice lynch was an option, but it shouldn't have been considered so early IMO.

Also, I saw no sign that scum were thinking ahead about who they would like to have around at end game, though the day 2 special-bonanza did keep them busy.

[charlou]

Useful insights there. Cheers.

[Animavore]

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.