Topic: Futur-mafa-rama Day 4: When will it end??!

[Khushrenada]

Wow, so much to comment on. Let me start by thanking everyone for their expressions of respect. I know a lot of players have found my gameplay unique/crazy/interesting/exciting to watch but I always try my best to prove myself each game and live up to expectations. Sometimes I focus more on the failures. I'm still kicking myself over the Nuclearspeed/Stabby confusion. But, it's nice to hear so that I can hopefully use it another game. I actually don't like to post on a first day and say protect me I'm the best player or don't vote for me, I'm too valuable if I'm on your side. There are quite a few good players in this game and there are a lot that deserve respect as good players also. But sometimes I have to use that reasoning.

So, now let me address those who have posted:



Thatguy:

I knew you were doing something with Stabby to protect yourself but I wiah I had no known more. I really didn't communicate with Stabby as much as I did with others like Spak, ShyGuy, and Blackfootsteps. It probably was for the best though. When I had correctly deduced Shyguy as Zap, he sent me a message asking for info to prove Vudu was mafia. Since I knew you were doing something with Stabby to protect your identity, I told him to ask Stabby. Then, I thought about that for a moment and realized that the whole point of the townie alliance was trust. We wanted people to reveal their roles and trust us. Therefore, we should trust them also. And since Shyguy had pretty much confirmed himself as the vigilante, I just sent him a message saying the roles of the alliance and that we had investigated and confirmed Vudu as mafia.

I never heard about the back-up plan. If I knew there was doubt about Nuclearspeed, I would have tried to talk to him. The other problem with Nuclearspeed was that he sent me a message asking if I knew the doctor was going to protect me that night. I didn't know how to respond to that and the last thing I wanted to do was endanger Blackfootsteps or say the wrong thing. BFS said he had never spoken to Nuclearspeed so I thought he must be going after someone else. Therefore, I just quickly cut communication with him and started the vote. It just seemed so suspicious like a mafia godfather frustrated with a failed hit.

I'll comment more on the stabby point in my strategy post. One thing I was going to mention in the dead thread then stopped because I realized it was too much information was that Athrun was complaining about his death. I was going to say something along the lines like, at least it was just a townie role and not an actual name role. But then I realized that could endager Stevey and changed it to something else. The same goes for Day 2. People wanted BFS to go but I stuck with Dasmos. Again, a name role was saved while just a townie role was lost. Really, every name role that was saved made the alliance more powerful. We almost made it the whole game without losing one name role. Just Ziodberg didn't make it.



ShyGuy:

Are you referring to your blackmailed killer role?  Yes, if the whole strength of the mafia had been playing things would most likely have been different. Really, we only facing a two man mafia for the most part. Then when we exposed Vudu on the second day, it was pretty much a one man mafia. There were a lot of circumstances that just went right for the townies. It will be some time before we see something like this again I think.



Thatguy 2:

That's the problem with being a good player. The weaker players target you because you're good and the good players target you because you're a threat. I won't go into further detail about my thoughts in this matter since it might make me a further target but I have mentioned in the past how I choose my targets.

I wasn't really waiting for a game to build trust with other players. Just one where people took a chance on me. People don't seem to realize, if I'm on you're side, you can trust me. I was just waiting for a game where I could live a few days and get a win. I haven't had a win since Mafia 11. I've never even had the chance to go far. I've hated games where I've done a fair bit of work for the win but die and can't claim victory. Frankly, you showed more trust than me. I had nothing to lose sharing my role. You did because of the consequences of my role.

Commented on the bandwagons, will talk about new players later.




Spak:

Actually, this I'll comment on later also.



Patchkid15:

(I'll just comment on all you postings.)

Yes, this was Mafia 16. TVMan just decided not use the number with it. This is why when I host, I send people a message even if they are just a townie. Less confusion that way.

To sum up your advice, I'd say Just Trust Me. Also, even when I'm mafia, I've often been quite nice to the townies. I've helped worked hard to root out another mafia if there is one, or provide advice or see to it that some live over others. Really, I'm a nice guy.



Zach

(I'll just include all your comments together)


What? C'mon. Where's the love? I've always liked you and try to keep you around.

Now this I can't remember. What did I do to you your first game?

Yeah, I'm talking about you. When you did that, I just sick. I had made back-up plans to have myself killed by Decoyman to make him look innocent. At the same time, I was counting the days and numbers. When you pulled that move, I looked at it and said, man, that is one logical arguement. I'm screwed. So, I sat there thinking about how sad it was that things were going to be undone to soon and that I had made you a low priority target. Of course, genius and inspiration soon came to me and I was able to figure out a way to ruin your arguement. But it was hard work and for a result that might not come. It came down to a coin toss. It was just luck. Had that coin gone the other way, I think victory would have been much tougher. Even just trying to get people to vote with me, that took effort. It was only fun once it was tied and I won. But up to that point it was just a fight for life.


The doctor role isn't a problem. I'll comment on that in awhile. I'm also not sure I will be a first hit all the time. Quite a lot of players who have played before weren't around this game. Plus, there's always the danger I'll have protection now and that the hit will be a waste.


I don't know. I trust people all the time. When I get start to get suspicious of someone is when I create trouble and paranoia for myself. But, there are a lot of circumstances where I know I can trust a person. And there are some where I know to keep a healthy dose of skepticisim.


 

[that Baby guy]

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I wasn't really waiting for a game to build trust with other players. Just one where people took a chance on me. People don't seem to realize, if I'm on you're side, you can trust me. I was just waiting for a game where I could live a few days and get a win. I haven't had a win since Mafia 11. I've never even had the chance to go far. I've hated games where I've done a fair bit of work for the win but die and can't claim victory. Frankly, you showed more trust than me. I had nothing to lose sharing my role. You did because of the consequences of my role.

You really were wise to head to me first, or at least, in your first wave.  Like I said at the beginning, before we really started, I saw you in the Wornstrom role.  I was almost certain you'd wind up with it this game.  I don't know if TVman secretly hand-picked some roles, or what, but I had played out a few scenarios in my mind about what could happen with a connection like the one we made, and I think it worked out that you and I were on the same page:  Identify and save every townie role, using your role as both a hub, and as something to keep you honest for the entire game.  See, I knew that if we found just one or two other townie roles, and you 'defected,' that you would die the very next die from votes, and I know you knew it too.  Although this is the route I had figured on, I still wasn't entirely sure if we could find other townie roles fast enough before you would get hit.  In the end, I decided that even if you wound up in the mafia, I could still put up a convincing enough argument without any bonds with other players, since they were already looking to vote you out.  Not only that, but I knew that would be able to reveal myself in that situation, and appeal to the Dr. to protect me, since it would be certain the mafia would know who I was at that point.

Anyways, things worked out, and we both had the same game plan, for the most part.  While you could throw your role around and garner trust because everyone knew you didn't want to die, I would do some lesser scoping, for the safety of having investigations, and also, I spent most of my time pondering who to investigate (2/2 woo!!).  Essentially, I was right, the number of letters in oohhboy's name can't be trusted, plain and simple.

For that bit, I formed did my best to form a list of players who seemed to always play suspiciously.  Essentially, the list was Vudu, Dasmos, BlackFootsteps, oohhboy, and 18 Days.  Not that I don't think everyone plays well, it was basically that I would have a hard time determining whether or not these players were townies, and if I thought they were townies, I thought that these people would be the toughest to get a role out of.  If I had to go on, I'd probably add Zach and S-U-P-E-R, at least initially.

Anyways, Vudu was first, and successful.  I feel bad for him, in that respect.  It would have been much better to have found 18 Days at this point, just for fairness.  On the next day, I wanted to vote BFS, because he seemed to be pressing me to find out who had particular jobs.  Luckily, everyone else disagreed, but unfortunately for Dasmos, he was a townie caught in the line of fire.  Still, two down, three to go for me.  At this point, we were approaching night two, when BFS had basically revealed himself to Khush, so I moved on, to oohhboy.  After that, we knew who all the role townies were, with 18 Days, oohhboy, and NuclearSpeed seemingly brains, and we all know what happened at that point.

Khush, do you have the first PM's you and I sent this game?  I went through a couple hundred, I think, and ended up deleting those.  I wanted to reread them, so if you do have them, do me a favor and send them back to me.

Edit:  And yeah, I think it was a bit unfair for the Brains on this one.  Perhaps we should start it over, and let everyone have their starting roles back.  We could try to play this thing out again.  Vote Sir_Stabbalot

[Khushrenada]

Comments on the game.


I think TVMan had a good game planned. But I will point out some things that might be useful for any future games he hosts. First of all, make sure the sides are balanced. When you look at it, there were 16 players, 4 were mafia. So, a quarter of the players were mafia. So to give the townies an edge, you gave them quite a few roles. The problem was, the abilities of the roles may been too powerful. Consider, going under the assumption that the mafia never loses a member, the soonest the game can be won is 4 days. Not bad. But that means Fry must survive, Leela can't be hit, the doctor never protects a target, the vigilante never kills them or a townie, and the mad scientist doesn't use his ability. Of course, there is the Wormstrom possibility but I'm not going to get into that. So, chances are, that the mafia will lose some members. Each member lost makes it harder to win the game. Especially with so many powerful townie roles. The mafia could only hope that Leela and Fry get voted out since they couldn't really hit them. They had no protection against those roles. The mafia had to try and locate Wormstrom but the only way to most likely have done that was by a lucky hit. They had no way to investigate. The investigator has a 9/15 chance of locating someone with a role at the start of the game. That number also fluctuates. Moreover, the godfather's ability to pose as a townie is limited because only 5 people are townies. The townies are quite powerful especially if even a couple worked together. The mafia has no counter for this except their numbers.

So, my advice is to be concious of the number of roles you give out and the number of townies. Often, I wait before revealing roles until an amount of players has joined that will support the roles. I also try to have at least half the roles or just under as townies. And I try to give each side a bit of an edge. So, there is usually a counter for every ability. Not all but most.

So, that is the best thing to remember for most games. One thing that you have to be aware of also is how a role can be abused. When I read about the Wormstrom role and realized what I had been given, I most likely played it in a way you did not expect. So, when I use or create a role, I try to think of any way I could abuse that role or break the game with it. Ever since the double protection in mafia 5, I always try to examine my roles. If I find something that could be done, I make a new rule or revise it. Even then, roles have been used different then I thought once in awhile but on the whole, the game ends up quite fair.

The final thing is something you couldn't do much about. Player turn-out. Sadly, not many were able to join. In such a case, you may have to cut a role. I've had to do that in the past. I didn't like it but what can you do? The numbers just won't support the roles.


Lastly, rules. I don't like killing a player due to inactivity either. I always want players to have the chance to play and not have their actions decided by the host. Because of this, if you post a rule, you have to live by it. As a host, you know the roles and can see how things are being played in the game. It can be easy to root for people and tempting to help them out. But you must remain impartial. You're chance to influence the game was with your rules and if you have them posted, you have to follow them. Even if people aren't happy with a rule, they can't argue that you're deciding the game. The rule was always posted. But, if you don't follow your own rules, then people can call into question the fairness of the game.

You did stick to the rule so I'm not calling that into question. But, if you are aware of a situation that is about to arise, then you may want to comment on it. For instance, if someone was approaching the deadline for not voting, I'll post at the beginning of the day, people who need to vote or will die. That's all you can do. Just keep reminding people of the rules.

[Khushrenada]

No, I ended up deleting a lot of the correspondence between us. As we kept refining our info, I started deleting old messages since we had the most correspondence between each other and they didn't seem neccesary anymore. What is it you're looking for? I may remember it.

[that Baby guy]

Just the first three or four.  The few where we basically revealed ourselves.  The start of the jumbo-alliance.

[Khushrenada]

Oh, it was something along the lines of me asking if you wanted to work with me. I promised to reveal my role if you revealed yours. Then you sent something back about how you've heard stories about me already and should just vote me off now but it must be my lucky day since you will agree to the swap. I send you my role and reveal that I don't have to worry about death from mafia on day 1. Also, I can work with either mafia or townie since I have the potential to win with one or the other. You write back saying that it doesn't surprise you. You expected me to get the role and that it suits what you've heard about me. You then reveal you are the investigator. I can't believe that I found the investigator before the game has begun and we start to talk about people to investigate.

Nothing specific but that's how I remember the details.

[that Baby guy]

Yeah, alright, that was how I remembered them, too.

I have to ask TVman:  How did you decide the roles for this particular game?

[Athrun Zala]

short and interesting game!

outline:
*logs on very late on Day 1*
*sees has been bandwagon-ed*
*?*
*PROFIT*

Quote
Originally posted by: Khushrenada
One thing I was going to mention in the dead thread then stopped because I realized it was too much information was that Athrun was complaining about his death.

actually, I was complaining about bandwagons in general rather than MY death...

(there are more things to comment, but that'll be later...)

[Zach]

Quote
Originally posted by: Khushrenada
Zach

(I'll just include all your comments together)


What? C'mon. Where's the love? I've always liked you and try to keep you around.

Aww thanks.  Dont get me wrong, the love is there, but I do have to admit that ever since then their has been a little bit of friendly rivalry.  I wouldnt just kill you out of spite.  But if a truly fitting situation came up (in other words, one that would be as much fun as the SF mafia was).  I would be lying if evil thoughts wouldnt cross my mind.

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Now this I can't remember. What did I do to you your first game?

sorry, guess I wasnt clear.  It had nothing to do with you, I was just using you as an example.  In my first game I didnt really know what was going on, and I was betrayed by mafia.  I have to admit, it was pretty embarassing.

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Yeah, I'm talking about you. When you did that, I just sick. I had made back-up plans to have myself killed by Decoyman to make him look innocent. At the same time, I was counting the days and numbers. When you pulled that move, I looked at it and said, man, that is one logical arguement. I'm screwed. So, I sat there thinking about how sad it was that things were going to be undone to soon and that I had made you a low priority target. Of course, genius and inspiration soon came to me and I was able to figure out a way to ruin your arguement. But it was hard work and for a result that might not come. It came down to a coin toss. It was just luck. Had that coin gone the other way, I think victory would have been much tougher. Even just trying to get people to vote with me, that took effort. It was only fun once it was tied and I won. But up to that point it was just a fight for life.

Well im glad I did a good job of screwing you up.  You just came up with this elaborate story that I could not fight against.  All I had was "I investigated him, he was guilty" it turned out to be the truth, but it was not as dazzling as your lie.  It was fun anyway.  I have to admit I had a good laugh.

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The doctor role isn't a problem. I'll comment on that in awhile. I'm also not sure I will be a first hit all the time. Quite a lot of players who have played before weren't around this game. Plus, there's always the danger I'll have protection now and that the hit will be a waste.

I would like to see your reasoning on this, if your gonna pm everybody starting an alliance, that makes you an instant target.  The only way to do something like what you did  (and not be killed instantly) is to have protection.  Without a doctor role, you would have to be a lot more sneaky about forming an alliance.

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I don't know. I trust people all the time. When I get start to get suspicious of someone is when I create trouble and paranoia for myself. But, there are a lot of circumstances where I know I can trust a person. And there are some where I know to keep a healthy dose of skepticisim.

I guess we just have different strategies, I may trust someone to an extent, but  I make sure to never give my role without being fairly confident that the person I am giving it too is really on my side.  especially if I have an important role that makes me a target, or like in this game where leela is pretty much just a trap for the mafia to fall into.  If the mafia had realized I was leela, my role would be null.

I was kinda weary of you.  I kinda thought that wornstrom would be a logical choice of a role for you to give if you were mafia.  Its not a *good* role, so nobody would believe that you would lie and say you were wornstrom, but they would still trust you because at the moment you were on their side.  I almost told you that I was wornstrom, since part of me wanted the mafia to attempt a hit.

All the stuff about not trusting you? dont worry about it, friendly ribbing.  I just know how well you can influence people in this game, so I make a note to be very careful about what you say.

 

[nickmitch]

Quote
Originally posted by: thatguy
Yeah, alright, that was how I remembered them, too.

I have to ask TVman:  How did you decide the roles for this particular game?

Well, I wasn't playing favorites, if that's what you're implying.