Mafiascum.net

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:34 pm**

I respectful disagree with that philosophy. Letting things get to a point where a picture becomes more important than overall play where you can allow bad grammar to cause a lynch is wrong. If you are going to play mafia then play mafia. Don't play who can photoshop the best.

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:46 pm**

Adel wrote:What did you guys think of using hydra?

It was really fun in alpha. Me and Tajo were both town so it was fun to scumhunt together. Too bad SWSWC and a bit of a plague cut that short. I really was sick as a dog during part of that game and so was tajo ironically. It was ok in Beta. I like both alignments equally but Tajo doesn't seem to like being scum as much as he likes being town. I respect his help and play none the less since he did help me with quite a few things. Being a hydra was an interesting almost masonic experience. Many thanks adel and claus

The phase sequencing in beta clearly failed, but was alpha ok? How could alpha have been more optimal in timing?

Yes Beta Failed. Alpha was pretty close to right. Maybe slowing a little would have been better with activity concerns but all and all it worked pretty well

How did you like the setup design?

2 Giant thumbs up!

I knew that alpha would end first, so I decided to go bastard in beta.

You didn't disobey any rules so I'm not sure I'd call it bastard but it definatly was unorthodox and unexpected so big props to you keeping it interesting

The key that opened up the role design of beta for me was figuring out that if the setup is equally unfair for all players, then the setup is also balanced. In beta there were 2 sks, a scumgroup of 2, a scum group of 3, and a town of 7. That is five factions. Each faction was assigned a base of 20% chance of winning, and that % chance of winning was increased proportionally by how many players it had than one, and the & chance assigned to the thwo groups of sk's was turned down an equal amount. I figured that each sk should have ~ a 12% chance of winning, the Latvian mafia should have a 22% chance, the Bulgarian mafia should have a 22% chance, and the town should have a 28% chance. Those numbers are estimates from what I can recall. I thought that a tracker could really bust up the Latvian mafia, and that the SKs would stand a good chance of lurking through the early game. I really didn't expect the number of doctor roles to result in a lurkerfest. I would like to see another smallish 5 faction game using a time mechanic more similar to alpha.

Doctors did not cause the lurking. The posting requirements deadline did that. I was really expecting a latvian RB to show up. I kinda expected there to be one instead of those town docs. Trackers did hurt both SKs and Latvian mob. Had one bulgarian doc gotten tracked his protections would have led to his buddies so trackers were very powerful. I would have given town one more tracker and subtract 2 docs from their side. I would have then made one of the latvians a RB and possibly taken away the GF thing from them. All and all though your idea was good and unpredictable to say the least so I was definatly glad to play in your game for a ton of reasons. GG all. Thanks Adel and Claus

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:04 pm**

I was in this game?

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:11 pm**

Hi everyone, I didn't help ortolan in this game beyond the first ~8-10 pages. My capacity to read and then analyse massive walls of text isn't great, and I knew I'd probably draw attention to us by deliberately flaunting the posting expectations of the town. I didn't have fun, and I thank ortolan for persevering and sticking out.

I don't think it was a flawed set-up, as such. People just held the unrealistic view that every post should be game-changing or at least rich with content - this never happens in any mafia game. The town screwed itself over by attempting to play an unnatural game, which wasn't necessary. This game only lasted 28 pages, and alpha was about the same (even with players posting frequently) - that's enough for only three scum kills. I think the players ruined the game, not the rules - we should have been able to adapt. There was plenty of posts.

I know Adel put a lot of time into these games, and I think he did a good job, Alpha was an excellent game. Although, I agree with PF about the screenshot argument, it doesn't belong in the game. Having to edit quick topics or forge screenshots shouldn't need to be a necessary skill to be good at mafia.

What did you guys think of using hydra?

I think they're great! In all the others games I play, there's always times when I get well into the game and want to talk about it, and times when I can't be bothered. Hydras are excellent for maintaining interest and then having a second opinion. I definitely support hydra games.

Posted: **Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:47 pm**

Do you think that anonymous hydra would be better, with a secret player list?

I still prefer allowing free posting, even though it may reward photoshop skills. Note that Kison got mislynched in part due to his having missed a submission, despite his considerable photoshop skills. There were other missed submissions that went unpunished. Allowing even screen shots rewards preparedness and penalizes sloppiness. Scum won in both games, and I think the setups were pretty balanced. Beta's design in particular made it hard for the Mafia Doctors to survive in a game that allows screen shots. I think I will go the other way in my next game though, and not allow screen shots. I'm considering a time mechanic like alpha's, but with 14 anonymous hydra in a semi-open game. Interested?

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:09 am**

Damn.

I fell prey once again to my tendency to view analytical, active players as town. GG especially to Ojando, who both me and my other head thought was town for the vast majority of the game.

Also, only being in one game didn't help my concentration as much as I had hoped it would. For me, the key is to start brawling: if I drift out of the action I find it much harder to keep sharp but if something annoys me or grabs me in some way then it's much easier.

The mod error had probably no impact on the outcome of the game, and stuff happens.

There were as many scum as there were town? That would explain some of the lazy play and probably was a factor in the game stalling. Scum have no pressing desire to keep the game moving forwards.

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 1:07 pm**

Adel wrote: arguments in MD about two years ago where the consensus was that letting players quote the mod breaks games. I disagreed with that consensus, and started I using the free speech clause for my games. Now it is a design feature. In Beta is was expected to make the mafia Doc's life more difficult. and fakeclaiming difficult in general, however if a person really put time and effort into preparing a fake claim, the screenshots and time/date stamps would help convince.
The philosophy that all of this reflects is that "the last resort to fixing a problem should be a new law or rule" -- the "problem" in this case being players quoting mod communication or role PMs, and the slippery slope of
almost
quoting mod communication or role PMs, like grammar lynchings and such. I think the more elegant solution is to just allow everything, and try to compensate for the likely consequences in the game design.

The thing is, free screenshoting puts weight to an irrelevant factor to the actual game, access to Photoshop or something similar (faking skills also, I guess, although it seemed to me those were relatively quickly learnable - I had never opened Photoshop in my life before nyball's request but managed to do the role pm). It also punishes a playerslot for acting as a hydra. Quick requests for intra-hydra communication proof would have been uncomfortable to live with. We actually had a fake townie quicktopic going on for quite a while with Sando. But it was a little tedious, and we gradually fell out of updating it at all. Had we wanted to be really foolproof and go through minimal effort of image forgery, there would have had to be several for different fakeclaims.
I guess I see, based on this game, the screenshot rule as giving potentially a lot of non-skill-related busywork to mafia. I understand the "elegant solution" point when it comes to direct quoting, but including screenshoting to this seems more a philosophical tangent.
I found it pretty funny though that consistence within the claim (dates, targets etc.) was a scumtell among the four doc claimers.
Also, contrasting with what I just wrote, faking the screenshots and getting help from our buddies in the Bulgarian topic was actually one of the funnest times in the game for me, because it was intense, time-pressured and new for me, plus the situation with the claims was so interesting. I think we collectively made almost a third of our posts in the quicktopic during those late-game hectic times.
I just know I wouldn't normally have the time to do the same thing, or access to Photoshop, and it would get tedious after a while.

Playing as a hydra was a cool experience. I liked the anonymity of merging to be one of the heads, I liked the almost-metaless space it secured us in. Sando has a much better ability to act/scumhunt aggressively than I do. It was cool to have that side in us. I got the feeling that playing as a hydra would be easier as town than as scum - as scum you need to arrange more things together, town can just double-scumhunt pretty freely.

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:27 pm**

Karyuu and Seraphiom pmed that this was ok.

Tajo also gives blessing to post it. Vote is unanimous.

Bulgarian QT
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/4eg72swmUquC

See if you can post the latvian one some time Orto. I think I would find that interesting. Adel telling the Latvians there was another Scumteam when they went off on some tangent was probably the right idea since the rules of the game were being taken out of context and it was part of Adel's setup design to have them know before everyone else did. I think Adel made the right choise there. The error they made with Incamn only being a tracker in Beta and not in alpha might have had some effect on how yosariwen got lynched for exposing a tracker but the mere thought they pointed out what may have been a crumb of another player soon before they died probably would have still gotten them. I don't think it was a big problem so I'd forgive Adel and just hope Camn and Incog weren't too upset their stay in both games was so short. None of it was my fault but I still felt sorry for them.

Being a town hydra and scumhunting side by side was uber fun with Tajo while it lasted. Scum thing was pretty fun too since Tajo did point out a few cool things too me via PM and our own QT. I might try to find and or post just our hydra talk later on should someone actually want to see the back and forth between me and tajo. Later all

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:42 pm**

i don't think its possible to put into words how much i hate not being town

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 3:09 pm**

Yeah, I really like the hyrdas. I thought both games went well, actually; the alpha game worked well as a speed mafia game, and I actually thought the beta game was going ok even under the origional ruleset, although I wouldn't want to play in a post limited game again.

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of allowing screenshots and all that. I don't have photoshop, and I wouldn't get it just for a mafia game. What's almost worse is that people may know that I don't have photoshop and wouldn't photoshop a screenshot or whatever, so that's actually another reason it distracts from the game.

Anyway, all in all, I think these games were really well designed and run. Thanks, Adel and Claus.

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:27 pm**

Good game all.

If everyone deserves the credit for this victory its my buddy Pokerface and the whole scumteam. Good job Jahudo winning both games and good job Ojando, you both have a good idea of the game. My contribution was minimum and I tend to disappear when there are better players than me gathering ideas. Also I sometimes do stupid things (prob thats what got us vigged on Alpha and get some flak early in Beta). Also you all know I dont like very much being scum and this game also had wall o texts, and also I like to spam my attacks, so yeah, I was like very restricted in this game.

But thx for modding Adel and Claus. Very good playerlist. Alpha was more dynamic than being restricted. And add me to the crusade against posting screenshots. Its not the spirit of the game.

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:29 pm**

I didn't like screenshots either, they just added extra effort if you were scum (ironically they didn't help town one bit in either game either LOL!)

Posted: **Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:56 pm**

shaft.ed and elvis you guys don't mind if we post the qt do you?

Also what was the previous game you got burned by when you let someone replace back in Adel? (from the Bulgarian QT)

Posted: **Wed Aug 19, 2009 1:25 am**

ortolan wrote:I didn't like screenshots either, they just added extra effort if you were scum (ironically they didn't help town one bit in either game either LOL!)

QFT

If anything they were the reason RW didn't vote j-scope in Alpha and the reason why players finally saw FD as scummy in Beta.

Screenshots hurt the town and took games that were mafia and turned them into something else

Mafiascum.net

DHSDSM beta: Game Over.