Always On (Photo of Prize is Up!)

[Fate]

Least? Scum needed a lot more than that for this game to be even pretend balanced.

You put in town PRs on the reasoning that "scum could coordinate better" but scum with daytalk is nothing new and has always been a marginal advantage. TOWN with unlimited and secret daytalk shifts the whole paradigm and now scum are often an uninformed minority and this is A HUGE town advantage.

One that warrants not only more scum power and info but I think just more scum. Its basically more towwn sided than even face to face, but even if you couldn't. Predict the extent town would use this mechanic and scum wouldn't, the amount of power in this game is absurd for town.

[zoraster]

Some in depth thoughts:

1. Thought town did a did terrific job. Scum needed to be way more active. I think this is a case where trying would have gone a long way.
2. Replacements are super tricky in this mechanic. Matt's play against Molla illustrates why. It's impossible for a replacement to fully get what their predecessor(s) did, claimed, etc. That seems like a pretty difficult structural problem to solve. Theoretically I could go with a reinforcement concept instead of a strict replacement one, but I worry about the tactical implications of that.
3. I liked the two scum group setup here. I thought it was a fun way to do multiscum. I originally had 2 in sicilian, 3 in new york. I thought scum needed more power than that so I went 4:1, but ultimately it needed to be at least 4:2. I think that would have been a good mix. A roleblocker may actually be appropriate here, since taking away a town power role doesn't take away the primary scum hunting method of the game.
4. There was some talk about the power roles on town. I don't think they were crazy. Gunsmith was truly powerful, but he got false positives on MoS and the vanilla cop. He got a false negative on Nacho (scum doc). Vanilla Cop was only situationally useful since all the mafia power roles were primed to claim those roles (they were told there were no town versions of their specific role). Tracker is a fairly weak role. Vigilante... was powerful, but I needed some extra killing involved. At one point I had sicilian mafia with a 1-shot Day Vig, which might have been fun, but I didn't want to get cross killing in.
5. Speaking of the vig, that was a pretty major error on my part. As it turned out, it harmed a different team that the rule initially was designed to help (i.e. vig would not fire if two or fewer scum alive). It did have a slight investigative nature to it, though.
6. It was unfortunate we had some personality conflicts at first. I did what I thought I could do to resolve those without the game blowing up. I appreciate GI stepping out when it became apparent his presence was a problem.
7. Still, I really enjoyed the interactions in this game. I loved watching those Google Meet Ups. It took all I could not to get involved in them. Some of you guys really cracked me up.
8. This was another example of a game where random.org kind of let me down. Ideally, there would have been a wolf in the scumhaus, but it gave them all town, and that made them a pretty difficult core to take down. I'm on my work computer now, but I'll post the RGAM later today.

I'd like to run this game again in the future, but I think it needs a little time cooling off before doing it again. I'm planning on running another large in between, then I'll evaluate whether I can get back to this.

My next large game, I believe, will be titled

The Hand of Mod

. It's my first true bastard game, but it'll be quite different than your typical mindscrew bastard game where the intention is entirely to confuse. Instead, it'll basically be a game where the mod plays a more active role in balancing and shaping the game as the game goes on, more or less mod improvised. It's still in the drafting stages as I'm trying to make sure that I can make the game so that it's always in town and scum's best interest to play well.

My next game, period, is a mini theme titled

The Detectives

. It's a pick your power game where every town player will get to choose from a list of investigative roles, with no limit on how many there are. Mafia will get to choose as a group from a list of roles as well. I'll put up an announcement soon asking for pre-ins, but PM me now to get put on the list. That game can go up in sign ups starting tomorrow (but may be in a few days after that).

[zoraster]

and Fate, I don't disagree. I had said that before. What I meant by "at least" was that scum needed to at least know the numbers of the other side if not their powers. Not that that would have made the game balanced.

[Fate]

I see. /prein for next ofc

[zoraster]

By the way, the Detectives, mentioned above, is posted in Upcoming games. http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p4309254

PM me to pre-in for that. I think it'll be a lot of fun. The game shouldn't run very long, with fairly short deadlines and heavily night centric. Which is good because depending on what town and mafia pick, it could be a blow out for either side.

[GreyICE]

6. It was unfortunate we had some personality conflicts at first. I did what I thought I could do to resolve those without the game blowing up. I appreciate GI stepping out when it became apparent his presence was a problem.

Or really more to the point, Reckoner has a problem acting like a decent human being and I happened to get the brunt of it

[Mastermind of Sin]

4. There was some talk about the power roles on town. I don't think they were crazy. Gunsmith was truly powerful, but he got false positives on MoS and the vanilla cop. He got a false negative on Nacho (scum doc). Vanilla Cop was only situationally useful since all the mafia power roles were primed to claim those roles (they were told there were no town versions of their specific role). Tracker is a fairly weak role. Vigilante... was powerful, but I needed some extra killing involved. At one point I had sicilian mafia with a 1-shot Day Vig, which might have been fun, but I didn't want to get cross killing in.

Wait, so Nacho actually *was* a doc? Did he actually protect me? xD

5. Speaking of the vig, that was a pretty major error on my part. As it turned out, it harmed a different team that the rule initially was designed to help (i.e. vig would not fire if two or fewer scum alive). It did have a slight investigative nature to it, though.

Yea, I decided to use it as information rather than a disadvantage to my role, and it turned out to be probably more useful than letting me continue killing would have been. There's an off-chance that I would have kept missing and hurt the town more than I could help, but knowing there were only two mafia left REALLY helped us strategize as a town, even though it took a lot for me to convince people that I knew this for a fact without revealing to anyone that I couldn't kill anymore.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Real Prize
A real life prize will be given to the player that makes the best use of this mechanic. The more ways you contact others, the more unusual they are, etc. will all be taken into consideration.
Receipt of a prize may be conditional on giving me a mailing address. Real Prize is solely the responsibility of Zoraster. No backup moderator will be responsible for the distribution of a real prize should something happen to the moderator.

Is this decided, or are you looking to gather more information about communications that you weren't privy to first?

[zoraster]

It has not been decided yet, but no one spoke up so I figured I'd get to deciding it when I'm not scrambling to put together the Auction League (so, like... tomorrow).

[Mastermind of Sin]

Yea, was just curious. No worries.

[kdowns]

MoS, I think easily wins the top prize.

[MattP]

Not necessarily, I had sex to get Trollie to tell me his role

[esuriospiritus]

heh, I think I made a similar horrible awful joke to Pie at one point.

[InflatablePie]

>_>

>__>

[esuriospiritus]

<333

[Mastermind of Sin]

(>^.^(>O.o)>

[zoraster]

Real life prize has been ordered! It should be there by 9/19. I'll let the recipient tell us when he or she gets it (hopefully they entered their address in correctly on the contact sheet!) Take a photo! Hopefully the recipient won't think it's too lame...

Listmod, please keep this thread open until at least October

[Amrun]

who won?

[MattP]

Idr if I even put an address, and if I did it is prob wrong

[Mastermind of Sin]

who won?

The only addresses I remember being listed were myself and Reck, but that includes anyone in Scumhaus as well. I guess we'll find out soon enough...

[Mastermind of Sin]

[Amrun]

Congrats!

[zoraster]

awesome. Although that photo file is freaking huge, MoS.

So yes... I ended up giving it to Mastermind of Sin. I really had three choices:

1. MoS for being so enthusiastic and setting up so many of those chats.
2. Scumhaus for generally being pretty awesome and really getting involved
3. MattP for actually being the most successful at using it to scum hunt.

In the end, I went with MoS because I think he helped tie together the whole game best. Scumhaus was a good second choice, but I couldn't really figure out who there was individually the best, though Reck's 1 on 1s were a good try. Also, it seemed less fair to those who don't happen to live with a billion other scummers. And Matt used his WELL, but in the end MoS' made the game more FUN for everyone (including me, and hey... i like being entertained). Thus, I thought MoS deserved it.

I hope it makes a good addition to your house, MoS. Display it with pride!

[Amrun]

Even in the beginning, he listed 8 bajillion contact methods. I think it's well-deserved.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Thanks!