No Replacements and the Blue Shell Mechanic

[KuroiXHF]

Camn seems scummy.

[lynch]Camn[/lynch]

[Rob14]

Let's imagine a scenario where the government posts someone inside everyone's house with a gun to ensure their safety. Have they solved the problem of safety? Yes. Is it desirable? No.

The amount of moderator intervention necessary to make this work is on a scale only previously seen in the most bastard of bastard games. You're talking about adding a mechanic that requires new rules just to govern how players interact with the mechanic to prevent game-breaking. And then you probably will still need to intervene beyond what your ruleset explicitly allows as people test the waters.

And you're doing all this to fix the relatively minor problems of replacements (don't see the issue, but I respect your opinion), and lurking (which this mechanic actually makes worse - no-one lurks for an entire game day, and even if they did, the prod + replace system corrects the issue faster than a modkill under your system).

I'm not hating. I'm just summarily rejecting the notion that this mechanic is anything but bastard. It's a level of moderator intervention that is rarely seen even in bastard games. If you want to run it, go nuts, but please just mark it for what it is.

[popsofctown]

It does not fit into existing mafia paradigms at all. But it may work as it's own paradigm. And I don't think there's a super obvious point A to point B to point C argument that a game with this kind of moderator intervention is more or less pure than a game in which a mod intervenes to correct a vanilla townie's lack of contribution to the game by substituting a new player into that slot.

[callforjudgement]

As long as the modkill strips the player of a win condition, you don't have to worry about tactical modkilling.

There's no incentive for a player to allow themselves to be modkilled.

In theory, you're correct.

However, I frequently see players throw the game to benefit the rest of their faction, or town as a third party. (Most often this is accomplished via tactical replacement, although you sometimes get power roles playing against their win condition.) It's totally against the rules and gets punished now and again. This doesn't seem to stop it, though, and although some examples are really blatant, it's often hard to prove, so players get away with it.

FWIW, the reason that modkills on town typically end the day is to prevent the "breaking strategy" of requiring all townies who would be lynched to intentionally get modkilled (so as to add an extra lynch). I don't see why anyone would do that, as it forces them to lose

and

breaks site rules, but nonetheless it did happen.

[Katsuki]

Remind me to take a look at this sometime camn

Though, there are rulesets that stimulate no replacements, death if no post in gameday (2day minimum quicklynch), and not sure about other things.

I'm not a huge fan of bonuses upon modkills though, a modkill alone is enough punishment imo.

Just my thoughts on OP.

[callforjudgement]

@Katsuki: the bonus goes to the side that gets modkilled as compensation. It's an interesting idea, at least; I don't know whether it can be made to be effective or not.

[Aronis]

OK... This it just straight from my head.... But I wanna pound it out.

I hate lurkers.
The only thing I hate as much as lurkers? Replacements.
I want to somehow design a mechanic that can accommodate a no-replacement, no-lurker ruleset. Like BaM, but better.

To start from the top, my thoughts are as follows:

Rules:
Normal EXCEPT:
1) NO LURKING. POST OR PERISH.
If you fail to post during a normal gameday, you are modkilled. Quicklynch days excepted. And the player is blacklisted for 6 months.

2) NO REPLACEMENTS
None. If something comes up...you go out in a blaze of glory. Suicide or victory.

Now, doesn't that Bork the game? Won't scum preferentially kill off active townies leaving a nice lurkertown to eat later on? (Which happens anyway!!)
That is where the Blue Shell mechanic comes in.
For every modkill..the faction suffering the modkill is rewarded somehow with a night action or something. A dayvig. A 1-shot bulletproof. Whatever, per mod discretion, for rebalance.

The goal? To encourage good townplay. To encourage vigging, lynching, and nightkilling LURKERS as the means of their destruction.
Most especially, to encourage scum to nightkill lurkers.

Can this work?
Has it been done?

Please discuss.

I havent read the rest of the thread, but you're rewarding a faction for getting modkilled? That's a rlly bad idea, imo. If I'm town, why not run the scummiest person to L-1 and then when someone gives intent to hammer, if they're town they will intentionally quote their Role PM to get modkilled and give town the free action with the understanding that they would die either way and that getting modkilled is better then being lynched for their faction. Not to mention you are punishing scum for making good night kill choices.

[callforjudgement]

Intentionally getting modkilled loses you the game, though.

I do admit that people have a tendency to intentionally lose the game in order to help out their previous faction, but I don't see why.

[Nachomamma8]

Being modkilled means you lose. Being modkilled means you are blacklisted from the game style for 6 months. Intentionally getting mod killed is playing against your win condition which is against site rules.

I agree there are kinks to work out, but people intentionally getting themselves mod killed isn't one of them.

[popsofctown]

Ideally you would want each Blueshell to have a strength somewhere between "0" and "equal strength to the impact of losing the faction member". It's just BaM with some damper on the swing.

If one of your Blueshells ends up being a little better than the impact of losing the faction member, that's probably not where you want to be, but I don't think it's the end of the world either.

[kuribo]

I can't help but feel this would result in tactical modkillings, which is so bad I'm honestly terrified.

It was an intended mechanic of both Polite Mafia and Uncouth Mafia. And I'm presently trying to convince DGB for us to run Uncouth 2 / Polite 3, so it would be in that too.

[kuribo]

Being modkilled means you lose. Being modkilled means you are blacklisted from the game style for 6 months. Intentionally getting mod killed is playing against your win condition which is against site rules.

I agree there are kinks to work out, but people intentionally getting themselves mod killed isn't one of them.

Suppose I'm raging and I replace out. It's happened before. Now I'd just tell the town go fuck themselves and lurk to get them a benefit on the way out. I'd "lose" anyway if I replaced out, except without giving town a perk.

A six month blacklist by one mod would be nothing to me because I only play every six to ten months anyway.

[kuribo]

Further it encourages "if you're town, you should get yourself mod killed since it would benefit us more than you being alive"

[Nachomamma8]

Being modkilled means you lose. Being modkilled means you are blacklisted from the game style for 6 months. Intentionally getting mod killed is playing against your win condition which is against site rules.

I agree there are kinks to work out, but people intentionally getting themselves mod killed isn't one of them.

Suppose I'm raging and I replace out. It's happened before. Now I'd just tell the town go fuck themselves and lurk to get them a benefit on the way out. I'd "lose" anyway if I replaced out, except without giving town a perk.

A six month blacklist by one mod would be nothing to me because I only play every six to ten months anyway.

People going out in a blaze of glory because they're pissed at the game is part of what this game style encourages.

People who only play once every six months are usually not the chronic lurkers that camn is annoyed about.

Although, maybe a three strikes system (can't play for 6 months, can't play for 12 months, banned from the style) would be beneficial?

[callforjudgement]

I've seen people replace out for perfectly legitimate reasons. I've seen people replace out for petty reasons for which they shouldn't have replaced. I've also seen people just flake and disappear.

Trying to handle all these groups correctly is difficult. A large punishment for replacing out might work against the second group, but has problems against the first and third.

Failing to moderate a game to completion now has the penalty that you can't join any new games until it ends, which is a clever way to punish the second group whilst having little effect on the first or third. A six-month ban, though, disproportionately hurts the first group.

[Nachomamma8]

But it isn't site wide; it's just for the game type. So, if legitimate reasons come up, you get mod killed and don't join things for 6 months and then you move on.

As an alternative, I was thinking of a one-shot suicide bomb inventor as one of the early benefits but unfortunately too much death

[camn]

There is never too much death

[kuribo]

There is never too much death

What are things I say when drunkened by the murdercock?

[popsofctown]

I have no idea why there is still no tempbanning for replacing out of games. It's probably a really good idea.

[Davsto]

I have no idea why there is still no tempbanning for replacing out of games. It's probably a really good idea.

Because sometimes people have genuine reasons to want to replace out, and I'd much rather have a replacement in a game than a player who doesn't want to play/doesn't have any motivation/actively despises playing at the time due to a family incident/is feeling upset by playing with players they clash with etc etc etc.

You could argue we could ask people why they replaced out and only punish them if the reason is "genuine", but then that leads to people having to make up crises to replace out of something they don't want to play which is kinda ehh.

[callforjudgement]

If people have a genuine reason to replace out from all the games they're playing at once, then the same reason probably prevents them coming back to the site for a while. So a short ban for that isn't really a punishment for a genuine replacement.

OTOH, if people replace out from a subset of games, that's a more complex situation. There are potentially good reasons for that, but in most situations where there

is

a good reason, there's typically another player at fault. "I'll replace out rather than playing with X" situations might be overblown, or might be the fault of the player making them, but they might also be the fault of X.

[kuribo]

Sorry your mom got cancer and was murdered on her deathbed right in front of you while the doctor threw feces at you, but you replaced out of a game and can't play for three more months.

[kuribo]

In case it's not obvious by my tone, it's always been my position that asking the list mods and admins to decide what reasons are "good enough" puts them in an unbelievably shitty position.

Well, sorry your ex tried to murder you glad you're okay but that's not a good reason.

[chilledtea]

If they replace out of too many games (more than 2 for eg) after Day 1 keep a penalty, like a month ban or 2 weeks ban.

Extreme cases are rare and if so it is worth the game ban imo.

[kuribo]

If theyre temporarily site flaking, a two week ban wouldn't affect them anyway.