Ethics of conceding

[callforjudgement]

You could argue that if a win actually is automatic, the mod should just call the game there, rather than needing the scum to call it.

More of an issue is situations in which the win isn't mathematically automatic, but the only way in which it could fail would be if the town was somehow convinced that a flipped townie had lied. I'm not sure the mod can call the game there, and I can see why scum would want to concede. (Last time I saw scum in an unwinnable situation of this sort, they played on anyway. It was a Newbie game, so maybe they wanted to give the newbies more practice.)

I've also been in an unwinnable situation myself, as town (caught in a Kingmaker situation; by the time I discovered this, the setup meant that I couldn't be helped out by crosskills, so there was no point in playing for one). When I discovered it was probably unwinnable, I goaded the groupscum into claiming, and then helped out the independent scum on the (very low) chance that they had a town win condition (thus playing to the only possibility that would allow me to win). Conceding doesn't really make much sense in a three-faction game anyway.

[callforjudgement]

Correct play for caught scum is to troll. People aren't going to listen to anything you say, so you're job's to make them listen, rather than scumhunt like they should be. Spam up the thread. Make implausible roleclaims, then retract them and make different implausible roleclaims, then say the first claim was correct all along. Vote for random players, sometimes multiple times in the same posts. Quote people and edit the quote to make it look like they said something different, then make a case for that player as scum based on the edited quote.

You'll inevitably get lynched, but if you pull it off right the townies will lose their train of thought and find it harder to find your buddies.

[callforjudgement]

I remember that, because I was the one doing the criticising.

The problem is that although trolling is good at showing people what you should be doing as caught scum in that situation, there's one uncaught scum and a whole load of townies who need to be told what

they

should be doing. ICing in a newbie game is kind-of complex for that reason.

[callforjudgement]

I guess it's possible that's balanced (haven't thought about it in detail), but it's a good example of why excessive swing tends to be even more unsatisfying to the players than unbalanced games are. Even if it starts out balanced, it'll become unbalanced very quickly.

(How many mislynches did town have in that situation? With some versions of the setup, they'd only have had one mislynch left, and that's still winnable for scum in an 8 confirmed : 3 unconfirmed : 1 scum situation. Power roles rapidly drive the situation downhill, though.)

[callforjudgement]

Ugh. That's 75% EV if it's all vanilla by my calculations, and probably more when you take power roles into account. Not a good situation for scum at all.

[callforjudgement]

If I'm reading that properly, you NK the cop (it's too dangerous to counterclaim them a second time), and go into D3 in a 4:1 with the remaining scum under fairly heavy suspicion. (It's possible I've missed something, though; I'm tired and not familiar with the game.)

I think that's winnable enough that I wouldn't want to concede, although I can see why the scum were demoralized.

[callforjudgement]

but rather confessed and self-voted.

I am pretty sure players have gotten banned for confessing on here.
I didn't know you could do that at all?

There are two relevant rules.

The common rule against claiming scum with a buddy doesn't apply here (because you aren't mentioning any buddy).
The site rule against playing against your win condition

does

generally apply here. However, it doesn't apply if a) you're necessarily going to lose, or b) you're necessarily going to get lynched and thus there's no reason to hide the fact that you're scum. (In case b, you can often get an advantage from ceasing to pretend to be town; among other things, it reduces the chance that you slip the identity of your buddy as there's no reason to give reads any more, it lets you offer the town a chance to leash you in a multi-faction game (they probably shouldn't accept the offer, but you might as well try), and if you're at L-1 you can sometimes ruin the town's attempt to plan by cutting the day short with a self-vote.)

[callforjudgement]

As I see it, the setup at that point was essentially equivalent to Innocent Child + 3 VT versus 1 Goon, nightless (plus power roles apparently!).

It's not mathematically unwinnable for scum, so the game won't be called at that point, but with an EV of 75%, you're not going to expect scum to win. (The power roles may have made it truly unwinnable; any result that gave away the alignment of any unconfirmed player would win things for town.)

[callforjudgement]

Vi had a vaguely similar setup called Rarefaction, although the design of the original game critically depended on the players not knowing how it worked (because otherwise scum would have no reason to drop associative tells). There's an Open version of it now which brings the mechanic in later in the game and plays more normally earlier on.

[callforjudgement]

Here's a run of the Open version: Micro 89

I seem to remember that the original was also a Micro, in which case it must have a very low number (less than 89). That might make it easier to find.

[callforjudgement]

He~y, I ran a second one!

I know. (I was in that game!) It's the Open version I was talking about.

Back on topic, we had a scum concession recently in Micro 632. The setup was very townsided – we were following a breaking strategy – and we had scum in a slot in the strategy that guaranteed a town win if the player in question was scum. The scum was thus forced to deviate from the strategy overnight in a way that was obvious to everyone, and decided that there was not much point in continuing as every strategy suggested from that point onwards was designed to autowin if the player in question was scum.

It might theoretically have been winnable, but the scum in question had an implausibly uphill battle after being forced into doing something that no townie should ever do, and not being able to explain it away.

[callforjudgement]

Personally, my view is that if town have a forced win and the only way to salvage a scum win is for town to massively screw things up, then a) conceding is reasonable, and I wouldn't fault anyone for doing so; and b) aiming for the screwup is also reasonable and probably the option I'd take. If the game is unwinnable in normal circumstances, you may as well have some fun and maybe fluke a win out of it if town is excessively awful. (Then I'd count it as them losing rather than me winning, and I wouldn't be

proud

of the victory but I would be satisfied. Also, it would likely be hilarious.)