Provable randomness

[vettrock]

What is the problem with using the provable randomness. It is is provable, everyone knows it is random. What advantage are you trying to gain? I don't get this. I've used the ice tags before and no one said anything, but I understand it is illegal now.

[zoraster]

That isn't a new policy, though it varies from mod to mod.

[saulres]

The reason as explained to me when I asked years ago, if I'm remembering right, was that randomness doesn't allow people to get reads on you by analyzing your voting history.

[Vampirate]

Imo there's no such thing as no information, even someone voting and backing up their own random vote can be used in a case.

Someone is randomly voting and has proven as such. Well here's a good question, why is that person doing that action, does the person believe that by not voting absolutely randomly will make them a target? If so why.

[Ether]

I don't care about one person making a random vote. But in theory, if the whole town decides that the best move is to lynch randomly, I would rather that it not be able to do this.

In practice, this is an edge case and you can get something pretty random without the dice tags. Just pick some stocks or something and see whether they go up or down in a certain timeframe. It's slower, but it's public and it's not really predictable.

I've never actually seen a town try to lynch randomly, anyway. Has it ever happened? The most relevant (and badass) thing I've ever seen dice used for was in Kingmaker, when Yosarian2 played Russian Roulette with his daykill to threaten people to shape up.

[hitogoroshi]

In some endgames, random voting is the right call. If you have LYLO and there's no universal townread, random voting is surprisingly strong. All town need to agree on the scum; a single wrong town vote loses it. Is that really going to be better than, e.g the 40% you get coinflipping in 2:3 lylo? Now of course, if people in 5p CAN pick a risk-it-all townread, that person has 50% base and can improve it with reads. But if town is divided, verifiable randomness can be the best move, which is a really unfun, anti-climatic way to win a game.

Really, the problem with verifiable randomness is that

town can come up with a plan for everyone to follow, and scum can't secretly make their choice non-randomly.

So town trades away their ability to use their greater numbers on reads, but it disrupts scum influence and crucially eliminates means scum can't COMBINE their influence. Because scumhunting is not that much better than randomness, the gamestate can reach points when this enforced mass plan is better than scumhunting. Boo!

One dude random voting isn't really the problem. The problem is that verifiable randomness allows plans that aren't really healthy for the game. Banning all verifiable randomness is just the smart solution because it's bright line enforceable whereas "no mass plans involving verifable randomness" really isn't.

And yes, as Ether notes, it needs to be "no verifiable randomness" and not "no dice tags" because there are a TON of ways to generate a sufficiently random number.

[Magua]

In addition to what hito says about breaking strategies:

In a game where the majority of the focus is on the actions and reads of the other players, allowing a player to take an action that is provably uncontrolled is antithetical.

A lot like how "To confirm, reply via PM with the name of your role" became a thing after Quagmire, it's really there to keep up at least a pretense that people are actually playing the game, instead of trying to meta-play the game. Someone can RVS vote someone else for any reason, but if they can point to a dice tag as the reason for their vote, they have complete abdication of their action.

[TheButtonmen]

Town on average in the early portions of the game lynches worse then randomly, in fact setups are generally created to be slightly town favouring which means dice tags are the optimal strategy if they're allowed.

[saulres]

Town on average in the early portions of the game lynches worse then randomly,

The thing is, information can be gained from those bad lynches. If they were all random, you'd get nothing, and be in end game with hardly anything to work with.

[TheButtonmen]

You never stop lynching randomly so it's okay!

[Vampirate]

My ultimate take is verified randomness should be heavily discouraged but not banned.

In a sense, someone who uses the dice tag to prove themselves has thus said 'my vote does not matter and I have 0 opinion on anyone. In my view this is scummy in itself.

Thus if the dice tag is heavily discouraged but someone uses it anyways, than that person runs the risk of being scum read right there.

Also, if the town uses the dice for voting, it basically eliminates actual information in the game. Why should anyone talk if everyone uses the dice tag?

At this point, it's actually exploitable with the mafia.

[Vampirate]

Town on average in the early portions of the game lynches worse then randomly,

The thing is, information can be gained from those bad lynches. If they were all random, you'd get nothing, and be in end game with hardly anything to work with.

This is why in essence, it should be heavily discouraged but not banned, anyone using it runs the risk of being scum read by that same reason.

[Magua]

My ultimate take is verified randomness should be heavily discouraged but not banned.

In a sense, someone who uses the dice tag to prove themselves has thus said 'my vote does not matter and I have 0 opinion on anyone. In my view this is scummy in itself.

Thus if the dice tag is heavily discouraged but someone uses it anyways, than that person runs the risk of being scum read right there.

Also, if the town uses the dice for voting, it basically eliminates actual information in the game. Why should anyone talk if everyone uses the dice tag?

At this point, it's actually exploitable with the mafia.

Your point of view is fine (and, as a mod, you are free to allow dice tags if you wish), but does not match up with experience.

[Vampirate]

The biggest reason to heavily discourage dice tags is.

If everyone uses them, why play mafia?

Mafia is all about subjectivity, by everyone going completely random except scum, you're just gambling then.

[Magua]

You've just outlined exactly why some mods don't allow them.

[Vampirate]

Don't get me wrong I love to gamble (more when money isn't on the line), even in mafia games depending on theme, role etc, but yeah.

[TheButtonmen]

When you can go from this;

My ultimate take is verified randomness should be heavily discouraged but not banned.

To this;

At this point, it's actually exploitable

You begin to understand why they shouldn't be allowed.

Dice tags let players generate confirmed information, the entire point of mafia is that players don't have confirmed information which is why masons / innocent children and what not are so powerful. Dice tags eliminate the entire point of a informed minority vs a uninformed majority because they destroy any potential for the scum to leverage their voting block and there will always be that player who will abuse them as much as possible.

[Vampirate]

When you can go from this;

My ultimate take is verified randomness should be heavily discouraged but not banned.

To this;

At this point, it's actually exploitable

You begin to understand why they shouldn't be allowed.

Dice tags let players generate confirmed information, the entire point of mafia is that players don't have confirmed information which is why masons / innocent children and what not are so powerful. Dice tags eliminate the entire point of a informed minority vs a uninformed majority because they destroy any potential for the scum to leverage their voting block and there will always be that player who will abuse them as much as possible.

Actually I was arguing the other way around, if people use Dice Tags for their decisions there would be no real information one way or the other, essentially the game is played in the grey which is a scum advantage, not a town one.

[TheButtonmen]

You're thinking too small; the power of dice tags in voting isn't one player using them, it's when literally everyone uses their results.

[Vampirate]

You're thinking too small; the power of dice tags in voting isn't one player using them, it's when literally everyone uses their results.

And that's what i'm talking about.

If everyone is a true perma RVS, there is no information.

Also, just remember in lylo, one vote is doom for town, one 'random' vote is even worse.

Here's another question, if everyone uses the dice, how can any lynch reach a majority? Essentially you're relying on 51% of 9+ players on getting the exact result every single time to lynch someone, do you realize how exploitable that is if the town is on a constant non lynch. And of course the scum will find ways around this.

Essentially everyone using the dice all the time is basically town playing the lottery, the odds are actually against them.

[TheButtonmen]

One player rolls a dX where X is number of players in game, the result is public and confirmed so it can't be faked.

All players lynch the chosen player.

No non-lynchs.

[Vampirate]

One player rolls a dX where X is number of players in game, the result is public and confirmed so it can't be faked.

All players lynch the chosen player.

No non-lynchs.

You were talking about EVERYONE doing it though, and if everyone does it, town is screwed.

Also, playing devil's advocate, what if you're in lylo and it's the mafia's turn to roll?

Lastly, may I see the actual dice in effect here, i've actually never seen it, how is it done.

[TheButtonmen]

Who's turn it is doesn't matter, that's the entire issue!

The information produced by the dice tag is confirmed, it can't be faked, it can't be edited. The dice tags reduce the game down to a simple matter of EV and give how many of the more played opens are designed dicing is actually playing to win which is incredibly lame and hence why they were banned.

[Vampirate]

Who's turn it is doesn't matter, that's the entire issue!

The information produced by the dice tag is confirmed, it can't be faked, it can't be edited. The dice tags reduce the game down to a simple matter of EV and give how many of the more played opens are designed dicing is actually playing to win which is incredibly lame and hence why they were banned.

Again please use it here, I want to see it first hand, also please explain how to use it in code. Thanks.

[TheButtonmen]

Back in my days if I remember correctly the newbie setup had a 55% Town EV and town won approximately 46% of them (aka town did 9% worse then if they just lynched randomly). The correct town would have been to just have a player go 1dx (where x is the number of players alive in the game) and everyone lynch slot X on the player list.

If dice tags are allowed then they make open setups incredibly dumb if players are truly playing to win (and that isn't even touching on their other uses for roles in games).