Team Mafia 2018 Results and Postmortem

[Patrick]

Thanks to all the organisers for running the event, not an easy thing to do. Random comments on stuff:

1) Having played with both tokens and people choosing their own alignments, I definitely preferred tokens. They still give players a measure of control over what they get, and provide a talking point in games, but without confirming multiple people as town. Letting people choose their roles allows for pseudo confirmation of a non-trivial number of players, and while you can argue they might pick scum to surprise everyone, I don’t think it’s especially plausible (and don’t think anyone really did this?) I say this as someone who benefitted, and still didn’t like it. I can imagine the frustration of some of the noted strong scum players, having to enter games with a huge target on their heads.
2) I never really wrapped my head around the rules about how much we could discuss other teams alignment preferences, especially after the rule update, so I mainly steered clear of it to avoid a potential modkill. I don’t know if that kind of rule can ever be implemented in a completely clean way, which to me is another argument favouring tokens, to remove some of the focus on who would pick what.
3) I struggled with 15 players to keep track of, but that’s more my preferences than anything else. I generally stuck to 12 of fewer when I was playing more regularly.
4) Probably nitpicky but I think flips should happen as soon as possible after a lynch. I have in mind mainly the last lynch of White Flag, where it was held back without particular reason, and I can say that had I been in Davsto’s shoes that would have cost me most of my night’s sleep. A similar thing happened in previous team mafia for the last lynch in my game. Players get invested, and the emotions are real. Note that I’m not criticising mods who aren’t around exactly at deadline to do the flip – everyone has different timezones and commitments away from the site.
5) The tiebreaker method was great. Would have loved even more if my team had been in contention for the top spot, but great method nonetheless. I’d take that over a ratings based tiebreak.

It’s forever ago now, but in my game…
Props to Cheetory, Kagami and Eddie Cane for catching Mulch and making themselves appealing nightkill targets
Props to implosion, Spiffeh and Kmd for giving me Vanilla results. Major slops to Chara for giving me a non-Vanilla result, but good job on protecting Eddie =P
Props to Ether for inventing the Neapolitan role, and for keeping on top of things as a mod.

Definitely enjoyed playing as an investigative for a change, it affected my play but I think people not knowing me very well and some others obvtowning worked nicely, keeping me middling enough to never come under suspicion nor ever be a likely nightkill target until it was too late. Implosion and Spiffeh were people I thought wouldn’t come under immediate pressure but people might be paranoid about later, Chara I barely thought about because I assumed Ginngie had just scumclaimed (lol) and Kmd I was fishing for a VT result, and picking someone who didn’t seem likely to have been cleared by anyone else. All my speculation about Chara being masons with Ginngie, or a weak investigator who’d cleared Ginngie or Firebringer looks funny now, but it was one of the reasons I avoided investigating either.

Anyway, thanks to all involved in playing and running. I can’t say I loved the current meta, but I don’t regret taking part. See you all next time, probably.

[Patrick]

Yeah I know it's not a new role, I discussed it with Ether ages ago after I had a Vanilla Cop in a game of mine that actually functioned like today's Neapolitan.

[Patrick]

From town to scum favouring, I'd probably rank them

White Flag
Ether Normal
Alisae Theme
Beeboy Inventions
mhsmith Normal

With the qualifier that it's really hard to tell for the theme and I definitely don't remember every role.

[Patrick]

Yeah, maybe White Flag just looked worse from our perspective than it really is. Having to mislynch 5 townies just felt like such a long road, and the only reason scum came close to pulling it off was the modkill.

Maybe the way Ether Normal turned out also makes it look more townsided than it is, though. If the Neapolitan gets killed early, town has almost nothing, and even in the scenario we got, the forced win evaporates if the scum roleblock is still available, while throwing suspicion on the doctor as a bonus. I feel like most towns wouldn't predict a second roleblocker when trying to break the game.

[Patrick]

momo still needs to give permission, not being on site doesn't matter.

That seems really boring. To the point that I'd recommend that next time, the rule is just that PTs will be released, and people should be aware of that going in. To me part of the interest of team mafia is working as a team and seeing how other teams work. The method used here pretty much ensures that most of that never sees the light of day, since we know few teams will bother getting all 5 members permission, even if those members don't mind, and banned / flaked members prevent permission being given as well.

Nothing to do be done here since people were told it would be anonymous, but would be suggestion for next time.

[Patrick]

It wouldn't have altered anything I said (and in fact I was playing under the assumption it would all be public), but I can see how it would be different for some people, especially those with more ties to the site.

Maybe a good half way would be at the end to say that all PTs will be made public unless someone on the team objects. That way those with stuff they don't want to out are still safe, but the PTs of teams who just don't care or have someone who flaked get released.