Mafia 85: Return from Lockdown

[Frogsterking]

worcej ISO really reinforces my gut that he is mafia.

Interesting. So I read it and I came to the usual conclusion that I can't really read him. He mostly didn't do anything notable except his townread of Frog. He doesn't strike me as the type to be impressed like that, but I just don't see a scum motivation for him to lie.

The only thing that would make him more likely scum to me is if the top wagons were all town when he voted Chaqa.

So I townlean him, but not sure.

Buttering up is the scum motivation to lie

[Kakarroto]

Calling them "directed PR actions" obscures the fact that you can't even properly direct your own action because you don't know what it is and you won't be able to determine what the results mean without cross-referencing. Read the setup and think about it!

wat? What did you put into your food? I think I named it in a pretty neutral way that doesn't misrepresent it, given I thought about the naming only for a couple of seconds. That post feels totally out of the world. What a very strange thing to hang on.

Sorry if I misrepresented you, Kak. The thing is that there is a narrative throughout the thread right now where some people are saying they want to control their own PR action choice. My point is that everyone needs to realize that is a meaningless choice for town, or an illusion of freedom. Our best chance of getting to a place where townfolk can make meaningful, impactful choices with their targets is by collaborating on N1 to get the maximum information and figure out our roles.

We need to fight back against the “muh freedums!” argument, because ultimately not collaborating with town as soon as possible reduces ALL of town’s ability to make meaningful, powerful effects with their actions. Some people may not yet understand just how pointless choosing a target is tonight (for town, anyway; scum have much more info and can make decent directed moves tonight).

I've seen no proof that not following the directed system will lead to totally meaningless gameplay and information.

I've noticed quite the fanatic perspective of you where you seem to have no doubt about the directed system and totally disregard any other options. It looks to me that you've shut down your thinking and booted up a propaganda script.

No one even considered the information loss for the target choices we would suffer if we don't choose the free way system, as far as I remember and can tell.

I feel like you want to drown discussion about this topic.

I do not trust you, and I trust even less zealous followry of a fanatic worldview.

[Kakarroto]

I think any role madness game is probably flawed, and I've run a lot of them. But tbh I just don't think it's fun to just play logic puzzle with who said who and what result. It sounds tedious and like one or two people get to figure it all out and the rest of us just have to go along with it.

yeah, that sums up my thoughts about the directed PR actions regarding fun.

Well, not the logic puzzle thing, I like some of those. They are pretty neat. But as a group effort in a command system where most just simply follow orders and give up their thinking, it's kinda not what I want from a mafia game. It just drags the fun out for most.

I DO like winning though, so I'm not completely disregarding taking part. just fyai

I want you to explain your vision of fun, Kak.

Example: tonight, you pick me. You get “Success.”

Okay, go ahead with the explanation of the fun this is for you and the other town members.

was there a successful nk? Then I know I'm not the doc
was there no nk? Chances are I AM the doc
do you claim your action didn't work? Pretty sure I'm curfew enforcer
is there no breakfast news show? I'm not the news host

nothing of the above happened? lets see if you got an increased vote. If not, I'm not the lobbyist.

so lets say there WAS an nk and you didn't claim your action didn't work. Lets also say there was a breakfast show and you were in the vote pool that had an increased vote count.

I could be curfew enforcer, news host and lobbyist. And mail man, to not forget it. Well a bit much, but lets say I target someone else and get another success.

Chances of being mail man go down.
If no claim their action was blocked, chances go down that I'm the curfew enforcer.
If breakfast news show happens and that target is ALSO is in the group of increased vote count, I'm pretty sure I'm lobbyist.

Now I can choose who I want to give increased voting power.

Looks pretty fun to me, wouldn't you say?

========

Now lets compare it to the directed system:

XYZ told you to do action B. XYZ told you to report what you get. XYZ ordered you to do action C. XYZ ordered you to report what you get. XYZ commanded you to do action D. XYZ commanded you to report what you get.

WOW so much fun ... isn't it?

[Kakarroto]

OK...so look...what's the fun of a game wher FIVE scum know their powers and 13 town don't?! is like watching babis plaing with fire pokers next to wood stove.

IT's fun to place some money on it, but we know how will end.

It's not like after N1 that people know nothing about their role. There is some information everyone gets and you can think things out from there, at least a handful possibilities. There are I think two or three roles who would know immediately (or from people claiming) what role they are. N2 adds to the information gained from N1, depending for some roles it can lead to them knowing from the return, like if they get two different outcomes, they can strike roles from their list.

Hmm ... thinking about that, it's not too bad for town to not share. I think the biggest advantage would be forcing mafia to fake their messages. Hmm.

Is that enough to present mafia the information of our all messages though?

Okay, yes, this is it! This is the fun! Now, is it more fun if you have MORE or LESS information? Which version is more fun as a townie?

read my previous post regarding fun.

you also missed (I even go so far as to suspect you of intentionally overlooking) the part where I say in that quoted post that if we DON'T do the directional system everyone would still get good information. Look at that and tell me what you think about that!

[Kakarroto]

how's the game chage if we all know our roles? is it over?

well, if we all definitely know our role and claim, mafia has to fake claim. That would make (at present) five 2-people-groups (so ten people) we aren't sure of their alignment. Depending on WHEN at the game we find out all our roles, lets say we are so genius and do it on D3 (but unlucky enough to not get even one mafia voted out), that would leave us to those 10 peeps plus 6; then we would be in lock-win, right?

If it takes us until, say, D6 until getting one mafia, we would be at ... bad example, we would've lost (if there's no save that is). So say lets say we get our roles straight on D5: we would be those 10 peeps (5 mafia/5 town) plus 2; we would have five 50/50's; well that's all if we have no special information about those 10 peeps from PR roles. Very unlikely. But just to think it out:

if we misvote one pair on that day, we would be 11, 10 on the day ... and still lose since mafia can just block us.

if we get the 50/50 right on that day, we would be in much better shape: three 100% towns plus 8. Mafia takes one of those 3 out, we are at four 50/50 plus 2 100% town. If we get it wrong there, 4 mafia 5 town, after Night ... well, if we have not the doc, we would be losing again. So yeah, depending if doc is alive and depending on if mafia has their roleblock or not, it's still a pretty bad situation.

So yeah ... I'm not seeing the big advantage for town knowing all roles when mafia can just fake claim, at least if we don't get it by D3.

Hmm ... hmm ... I want more thoughts about those, people. Give me your opinions and what you think about all that.

Exactly! We do not auto win! We just increase our chances of winning by working together!

do we actually increase our chances by doing that directional system? I heavily question that statement.

[Kakarroto]

The most important thing to consider, in my opinion, is that we can’t draw any meaningful clues from our returns without cross-referencing to other claimed returns. If we don’t claim, we basically throw away our powers. I suspect scum will not throw away theirs!

I think that if we don’t all claim, we make it harder for ALL town players to fully understand the meaning of their powers (consider getting a “town” return in isolation; who are you and what do you know?). Whoever does not claim actively deprives others of the fun of their role - and deprives themselves of the chance to learn valuable information and contribute to a shared Team Town victory!

Also, given that scum aren’t all vanilla goons, we are extra pooched if we don’t try to use our powers!

I contest that "we can't draw any meaningful clues from our returns". There is at least one role that immediately knows who they are and we didn't vote that role out.

Oh great, one person in isolation will know they are the Pollster or whatever that role name is! This will help us win the game by… uh…

Sorry, help me here Kak. What’s the thing the Pollster does when they figure out who they are and single-handedly win?

I've made a detailed analysis of the roles with their return message group. Look at that, think about that, talk to me again.

Until then I disregard this speech of you here as volatile propaganda

[Kakarroto]

A question for all the good people…

Who thinks that scum don’t care about us mass claiming?

SCUM CARE ABOUT TOWN MASS CLAIMING
1.
2.
3…

SCUM DON’T CARE ABOUT TOWN MASS CLAIMING
1.
2.
3…

what is this question? That's from the same guy that criticised that my naming of the 'directed PR-actions'? OF COURSE mafia cares about a town claiming, in all cases. If it hurts them or if it's useful for them. They absolutely care, but do they love it or do they hate it? Well THAT is a question you DIDN'T ask.

You are very, very strange and I expect you to have a very agenda with all this phrasing and rephrasing. I don't see what brain sees in you that he has you as lock-town and you should be very closely scrutinized!

Okay, I’ll rephrase. Do you think scum will ENCOURAGE or DISCOURAGE mass claiming?

that's hardly better. I expect most mafia to not say much about it or don't show a strong opinion. There could be a mafia promoting it heavily without questioning or thinking about it in hopes to get townread (kinda like what you are doing) (though I give it is possible a town could do the same thing), and there could be a mafia speaking against it.

Still, I believe the vast majority of mafia would be in the undecided/silent/"I do what is best for town" category.

[Kakarroto]

Assuming we ALL chose to participate in the directed PR system:

Plus assuming there will be no roleblocks for town because curfew enforcer hits sicko (I first thought they would act in the same phase but it turns out the curfew enforcer is faster so there is a chance that mafia RB is town RB'ed), PLUS assuming NK is saved by doc:

openly towncleared:
news host (+gets info on their target out)

openly towncleared if target claims:
paper delivery boy
door darter

openly towncleared if no counter claim or copy from mail man:
a) private investigator
a) middle manager (plus two info that needs sorting but that can be done)
b) detective
b) internal affairs
b) electoral comission officer (plus two useful info that needs more sorting since one useless info is mixed in)
c) ruber driver
c) pollster

outs the sicko if docsave is one of the above and if lobbyist finds out their role with no further claims of success/failure:
curfew enforcer

depending on the role/alignment of the target, a few more peeps are outed. That would be a pretty fast game for town.

but this is the best case scenario. We shouldn't expect that to happen.


===============

Assuming two town don't participate in the directed PR system:

Plus assuming sicko RB's a town role (randomly) plus assuming curfew enforcer doesn't hit sicko, plus no doc save:

random chance for town roles not to participate:
roll 9 (hits ECO)
roll 10 (hits middle manager)

random chance for sicko to hit town:
roll 14 (hits lobbyist)

random chance for curfew enforcer to hit:
roll 19 (hits lobbyist too, what are the chances)

random chance for mafia to hit:
roll 7 (hits mail man)

openly towncleared:
news host (+gets info on their target out)

three people claim alignment return:
looks good but one mafia is hiding unknowingly to town since ECO didn't participate

two people claim role return:
looks good but one mafia is hiding unknowingly to town since middle manager didn't participate

two people claiming target:
appears to be town and are actual both town but might cause shade if one of the upper two tiers flip mafia

a bunch of successful/failure claims (including doc, lobbyist and some fake claims)

after EoD people know that lobbyist was rb'ed though


so with that scenario, there seemed to be quite the chance of misinformation happening and mafia hiding while getting to know some good detective/private detective



So it seems to me, the directed system isn't fool proof, especially when not every town participates.

any thoughts?

Democracy isn’t fool proof. Do you prefer dictatorship?

what?

If anything, the directed system looks like a dictatorship to me, or rather an authoritarian system. And I would roughly compare the free for all system as being liberal (though it could be also seen as anarchic). But what have political systems to do with my scenario?

Is this the only question that popped into your mind about it? Did you even read that post?

My point there, in case you missed it, is that the directed system can also make holes for mafia to hide in but gives mafia all that juicy information. If done half-hearted, it would do a lot of more damage than good.

And I'm not sold on that it would give us a good situation even if we had some ok to good situation (with rb targets, mafia reactions, etc.).

[Kakarroto]

Probably both. Particularly when the massclaim is not a clear path to town victory, I see no reason why the scumteam would willingly place themselves all on one or the other side of this debate.

Okay, but what outcome do you think scum would prefer?

I would think the massclaim. CC's tend to be worrying as scum and this has the potential to generate some, if rather slowly. Although tbh, they'd probably prefer a botched massclaim attempt. It gives them more information about people's roles while putting them at very little risk of getting CC'd, as Kak noted in his simulation earlier (I think). I don't like the way this is headed.

big townpoints for bob

[Kakarroto]

NICE!!! WE AGREE!!! TOWN SHOULD MASS CLAIM BECAUSE IT IS BEST FOR TOWN!!! YEAH BUDDY!!!

I'm still not gonna go along with your plan

You don't want what you yourself admit is best for town? Why?

that's actually a good question. Not for how chaqa react, because I could see both maf-chaqa and town-chaqa to just double down on his worldview. But it shows food wanting to know chaqas reasoning and motive. I mean sure, could be faked as mafia, but that is more likely a town sign.

[Kakarroto]

Ok, caught up.

First, this is the current state of where people stand:

Directed PR-actions D1 over free-for-all?

YEA: bozo, damo, Jamie, heart (and if I'm not wrong, food too? didn't really vote but I think his stance is quite clear)

NEY: lfischl, sweet, bob, chaqa

??? (explain below): BK3K (does what group thinks is smartest - so I think YEA but only in majority?)

=====

(ney but would still follow if majority is up to: lfischl, sweet) (lfischl retracted his support I think in post number 1384?)

(9/19 voted)

I'm currently uncertain on the fence. However with what I've read and think about it, I tend more to NEY. After I woke up I was thinking it might be fine, but foods strange stance made me ponder.

But let me list advantages/disadvantages:

-) If reaching 100% role-knowledge early enough, town autowins (well that is also true if we don't use the system, but I guess it can still be counted as an advantage?)
-) scans/actions are saved for later/don't require special effort saving
-) mafia needs to pin in their options early if they want to fake claim
-) speeds up finding out own role (effect starts only after SoD3 though)

=====

-) gives mafia information for their nk (starts with N2 if we reveal D2; N3 if we reveal EoN2) which probably helps their PR hunt
-) takes initiative away from town which might probably lead to decreased fun/morale/investment
-) it's not a slam dunk win chance


Hmm ... maybe I'm overlooking something but that kinda sums it up, no? Please tell me if I'm overlooking something.

That tradeoff between giving mafia information and forcing them to lock their fake messages is the crux, I think. I'm not sure I value that high enough to handshake it.

Saving the messages can easily be done if people are diligent posting them when they are voted out. There are also ways to hide them in your posts, some people would call it 'crumb', so I wouldn't be too worried about that.

I also think that the "finding your own role", or how much it speeds it up, is overrated by some people here. It shouldn't take too long to have a grasp on things and have at least a probability for two to four roles. People should be able to work with that.

Yeah, hmm, I'm not convinced it's a good idea to use the system. Especially not if we just blurt out what we got on D2. I'm on NAY for this one.

Feel free to enlighten me if I'm overlooking something or am wrong with a perspective.

I agree there is a trade-off, but in my opinion getting as much information publicly available as soon as possible will benefit town more than mafia, because we can quickly sort players by possible roles and find out which groups the mafia are hiding in. All that is needed for this is mass claiming results, but assigning targets has the added benefit of forcing the mafia to comply or possibly being caught be some of the more unusual PR actions.

what do you think of presenting the information in the mass claim at EoN2 instead of SoD2? With the added clause that any town that gets voted out claims shortly before EoD2?

At what ratio would you draw the line of it costing too much between how many people mass claim to how many people don't? Like if only 5 people take part on the 'mass claim' (if it even can be called it at that point), would the claim cost be too high and help mafia more?

[Kakarroto]

Assuming we ALL chose to participate in the directed PR system:

Plus assuming there will be no roleblocks for town because curfew enforcer hits sicko (I first thought they would act in the same phase but it turns out the curfew enforcer is faster so there is a chance that mafia RB is town RB'ed), PLUS assuming NK is saved by doc:

openly towncleared:
news host (+gets info on their target out)

openly towncleared if target claims:
paper delivery boy
door darter

openly towncleared if no counter claim or copy from mail man:
a) private investigator
a) middle manager (plus two info that needs sorting but that can be done)
b) detective
b) internal affairs
b) electoral comission officer (plus two useful info that needs more sorting since one useless info is mixed in)
c) ruber driver
c) pollster

outs the sicko if docsave is one of the above and if lobbyist finds out their role with no further claims of success/failure:
curfew enforcer

depending on the role/alignment of the target, a few more peeps are outed. That would be a pretty fast game for town.

but this is the best case scenario. We shouldn't expect that to happen.


===============

Assuming two town don't participate in the directed PR system:

Plus assuming sicko RB's a town role (randomly) plus assuming curfew enforcer doesn't hit sicko, plus no doc save:

random chance for town roles not to participate:
roll 9 (hits ECO)
roll 10 (hits middle manager)

random chance for sicko to hit town:
roll 14 (hits lobbyist)

random chance for curfew enforcer to hit:
roll 19 (hits lobbyist too, what are the chances)

random chance for mafia to hit:
roll 7 (hits mail man)

openly towncleared:
news host (+gets info on their target out)

three people claim alignment return:
looks good but one mafia is hiding unknowingly to town since ECO didn't participate

two people claim role return:
looks good but one mafia is hiding unknowingly to town since middle manager didn't participate

two people claiming target:
appears to be town and are actual both town but might cause shade if one of the upper two tiers flip mafia

a bunch of successful/failure claims (including doc, lobbyist and some fake claims)

after EoD people know that lobbyist was rb'ed though


so with that scenario, there seemed to be quite the chance of misinformation happening and mafia hiding while getting to know some good detective/private detective



So it seems to me, the directed system isn't fool proof, especially when not every town participates.

any thoughts?

There is a lot of interaction between roles, so the results will vary based on what role is being targeted by each role, and by what roles target mafia vs. town, so I don't think we can know for sure how effective the plan will be without running a large number of simulations. However, based on my experience with these type of games, I feel the probability is high that the plan will help town, and I don't think there is that much downside in that the mafia can't benefit that much. Maybe they could NK some of the better roles earlier, but we need to know who has what role to effectively use the roles while we have them.

hmm, I accept this as your opinion, but I see possibilities that the mafia choose flashy return messages to be considered in a pool of potential high value roles (for example the role or alignment return messages) to avoid the dayvotes. If they get to D5 without any of them being revealed, it's do or die for us.

Maybe I'm wrong and just been too cautious, but something rings in the back of my head and tries to warn me about it, I just can't put my finger on it.

[Kakarroto]

we need to know who has what role to effectively use the roles while we have them.

I will quote bozo to continue to drive this point home. None of the returns we can get can be "trusted" in isolation. No one can actually conclude "I'm the detective!" if they get an alignment return, for example.

If you don't understand this, please read the setup.

it is however by far not as dire as you paint the situation. There are many roles who can get to know what they are by D3 without sharing their return messages.

With your definition of isolation it would exclude messages of what other peeps make happen to a target, but those things (the food delivery, the paper subscription) can and should be shared in the free way system, so if they don't hit mafia, the sender will know who they are.

You either keep silent about this, haven't read the setup close enough yourself, or didn't think enough about it. Well maybe you've forgotten about it, but if it's that, see it as a reminder.

[Kakarroto]

Im not sure babyspice is experienced enough at forum mafia to consciously know that tying the vote is better for scum there.

Hi everyone!! Sorry for the late post, just getting caught up on everything now. going to take me a bit to read it all but ill post my thoughts once I've gone through the pages

hi still here and reading, promise i will vote before the day ends

okay popping back in, ive read most of the thread and I'm going to ##vote Just

However I have a hard time fully believing that they read most of the thread, and they never posted any thoughts after saying they would do so.

Who is friends with this person and how do they usually play mafia?

hi okay i have never played mafia before on a forum like this so please keep that in mind lol

yesterday i spent like 2 hours reading but couldnt get through it all, saw that most people had voted for just and i didn't want to cause a tie by voting for someone else

i genuinely did not realize that i had tied it , i had to leave right after i voted for a work staff party so literally put in my vote then had to go and realizing now that is not the move lol

i will explain why i did eventually vote just , I thought his argument against bozo made it seem like he was lying and trying to pin blame on someone ( the whole saying he was online when bozo said he hides his status), im not familiar with his gameplay but I thought some of his posts were a little sketchy, but then Kakarroto said that was somewhat common so I questioned it a little. But then at the end it seemed like if I voted for someone else it would have the chance of creating a tie

my thoughts on everyone else (honestly based on the first 30 pages, ill read more today so this is probs somewhat outdated) were that i initially thought sweetandcool was maybe scum bc he entered saying he was town and jumped on Kak to vote him out immediately after he said something (but also maybe this was a joke bc it was still D1)

brainbomb was being very silly so i thought that he was just goofing around and not scum, but then i thought maybe it was sus that he was wanting to pair w sweet and others bc i thought sweet was scum?

then jamie came in really hot and so i thought maybe he was being defensive and wanted to participate so people wouldnt think he was scum

frogster was very active in the forum which i thought was interesting bc he was a new player but then realized he had played before. i felt like he was town just trying aggressively to figure things out, the only thing i thought was kinda weird was when someone asked how he plays as scum and he says he ghosts the forum... like why would you admit exactly what you do as scum. that made me not trust his answer and then not trust him a little.

lfischl im very curious about. its interesting that everyone here has played so much together that they know how certain people tend to play, and they thought lfischl was being suspicious.

I first thought that this sudden gigantic post might've been the result of prodding and/or coaching in the mafia chat. That there is a not so low possibility that someone there told babyspice to make a big read list to condense some things about some players into it.

Then I read the blue part and I think mafia wouldn't write that, especially not when being coached.

[Kakarroto]

[snipped the quotes, follow the link if you want to see 4 pages of quotes]

this is interesting and makes me think Jamie-food-lfischl are all scum together possibly.

just a theory but it could just be that Jamie busses lfischl at EOD and doesnt join partner foodcoats on the Will wagon.

you had food as town and suspected jamie

I think of jamie as pretty town and food not low chances of mafia

I give you that I can see this possibility. Have an indepth look at food again and check your townread of him. I'll do the same with jamie. Maybe you've struck gold here, brain.

[Kakarroto]

Foodcoats,

given the fact Jamie did eventually scumread lfischl, and did choose lfischl over Justaguy named will, when you reread Jamie from early on, do you find it strange that there was this whole dialogue of me putting words in his mouth, where I understood his post to imply he scumread lfischl, when he was really just asking me for reasons to join the wagon?

A. why is he considering joining the lfischl wagon with me if he doesnt scumread lfischl at all?

B. why did you feel Jamie needed to be defended here, and given he did eventually turn on lfischl do you think this should be looked into further?

I'm not in the mood to read isos right now, my main goal is to convince everyone to act pro-town by coordinating night actions to get the most info for town to do POE tomorrow.

I am also planning to go into tomorrow with a fresh and clear head because I was so wrong about Will, so revisiting Jamie and lfischl is definitely a possible agenda item.

Also I wasn't defending Jamie so much as getting annoyed at how you were misreading his statements.

how big does you being so wrong about will influence your opinion of being correct that the directed system is fully pro-town? Where do you get your confidence that the directed system is fully pro-town?

[Kakarroto]

This really isn't a great post

yes, you said so (or at least hinted at it) before

anything special you want to point out about it?

I think the bit about proceeding with caution is a bit that scum like to play

fair, but that was only a part of that post. Anything else you noticed? Is the rest more null or more town?

[Kakarroto]

yes, you said so (or at least hinted at it) before

anything special you want to point out about it?

I think the bit about proceeding with caution is a bit that scum like to play

Also it feels like the goal of the first paragraph was to imply that you don't know scum roles. This post just stood out to me.

ah ok, that is actually a pretty solid point. I can see where you're coming from. I like your reasoning. I mean I know that's not what happened, but I totally can see your perspective.

[brainbomb]

worcej posts that feel scummy to me

basically everything on pages 42, 43 and 44 is all just pedestrian type of fluff that scum does to convince people theyre involved in the game. None of what he says there is what I am used to seeing from him when hes town

[sweetandcool]

worcej posts that feel scummy to me

basically everything on pages 42, 43 and 44 is all just pedestrian type of fluff that scum does to convince people theyre involved in the game. None of what he says there is what I am used to seeing from him when hes town

I agree about his posts being fluffy, that's what I meant by there not being much of note.

I'm not entirely sure this makes him scum, but when they time comes I may well follow your lead.