The Mod Is Mafia (Game Over)

[Mulch]

But picking the scumteam is like

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000X better than any scum ability

[mhsmith0]

I mean I could compare that to the absolute trash town power we got in my LAST large theme if you want

Tho I’d also note that it’s not as townsided a setup as KH at least

[RadiantCowbells]

Having said that

, I think that the scumteam truly did earn their win--they weren't helped by me much at all. In fact, they basically did everything on their own. Everything from the nightkills to their dayplay (which dominated the game I feel), that was all on them. To some extent, this was obviously going to be the case because I reserved the right to a non-random scumteam from the get-go and the selected scumteam was in fact not random (you can thank Ginngie for that because it was her suggestion; I basically went, "Sure, why not?" to it), in that with those players as scum it was going to be very difficult for the scum to ever be in the position to lose.

However, I don't think you can attribute the win to just being who they are in general. They genuinely pulled out what I feel was a pretty strong performance. The town also made many misplays, from not submitting night actions to not reading the mechanics closely (one of the two jailkeepers REALLY should've targeted me earlier) to lynching what is one of my signature town roles (seriously, I am like the only mod who uses Alien as the Roleblocker + Rolestopper variant of a JK so that should've been an obviously-town role and doubling up on town roles is also a specialty of mine) to nightkilling the entire town's investigative power N1.

So while a great deal of blame can be placed on my shitty moderation for the apathy. I don't think you can place EVERYTHING on me, since there were a lot of smart scum plays and quite a few not-so-smart town plays. I also think that in spite of my shitty moderating, that the quality of the game could have ended up being much worse than it did. In spite of the apathy suffered at times, there were moments where I feel players were genuinely enjoying the game as a game. My only regret, really, is that said moments of enjoying the game were in the minority, since the whole premise of this game was for them to be in the majority--

For people to see my mod edits/deletions and go, "LOL" to them. To break out laughing at the mod interference, rather than shutting down because of the possibility of it. I do apologize I couldn't foster that game environment, but that was my intention, so the few moments where it was shown, I was glad to see exist.

I thought that this was the strongest scumteam as a collective that I've ever been in and I don't say that lightly.
The only team that I think could compare was a game a long time ago where myself and Frozen Angel were scum when she was new to the site but our third partner was relatively weak.
Everyone was fantastic, we split town down many narratives to the point that we sacrificed the ability to lead all town down one direction but instead we divided the town entirely and even the people who were close to solving one element of the game weren't even close to the others. I don't think there was a possibility of us losing from long before my lynch simply based off of how lynching anyone gave the others on the team lots of towncred and that's on top of us being largely the most townread players in the game.

Yeah...I kinda didn’t even want to bus you either :/

See but that's what made it so great
because if you got lynched your lack of enthusiasm when push came to shove made it look like you were hoping for the wagon not to go through which clears Stalfos

What does that even mean

I think that if MU players played sufficiently under half and half with MS players over a large sample size here that they would not find themselves significantly better at winning games than MS town players.

[mastina]

I freaking love mastina like a sister and seeing her that bad hurt. Like I didn’t know how to help

I'll manage to get through it somehow. <3

For what it's worth, albeit at a reduced rate, I'm still playing games so it's not like I'm leaving the site. I'm just less active than normal until I can actually get my shit together (which this game shows it is clearly not).

[RadiantCowbells]

But picking the scumteam is like

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000X better than any scum ability

Doing so anonymously, sure.

[Mulch]

I think that if MU players played sufficiently under half and half with MS players over a large sample size here that they would not find themselves significantly better at winning games than MS town players.

What does "sufficciently under half and half" mean

[Mulch]

I freaking love mastina like a sister and seeing her that bad hurt. Like I didn’t know how to help

I'll manage to get through it somehow. <3

For what it's worth, albeit at a reduced rate, I'm still playing games so it's not like I'm leaving the site. I'm just less active than normal until I can actually get my shit together (which this game shows it is clearly not).

Mastina you were fine this game

Trust me there are mods here that are 100000000000000000000X worse

plus you had the guts to admit it wasn't a scum strategy which I 100% would have done lol

[RadiantCowbells]

I think that if MU players played sufficiently under half and half with MS players over a large sample size here that they would not find themselves significantly better at winning games than MS town players.

What does "sufficciently under half and half" mean

I mean that having played with MU players long enough if they started with the majority the game would quickly devolve into policy lynching people based on social hierarchies.

[Mulch]

I think that if MU players played sufficiently under half and half with MS players over a large sample size here that they would not find themselves significantly better at winning games than MS town players.

What does "sufficciently under half and half" mean

I mean that having played with MU players long enough if they started with the majority the game would quickly devolve into policy lynching people based on social hierarchies.

Lol so true

I might sig this

[mastina]

Mastina you did fine
I hope you don't quit modding
You inspired me to mod you know on this site and other sites

<3
I don't intend to quit, but I do need to make sure that I make high-quality games and right now the best I could offer is maybe-mediocre. As in, MAYBE a mid-grade game, most likely being below mediocre in that the BEST I could give is a middle-of-the-road modding job and I easily could (and likely would) do much worse than that and be a bad moderator.

I have standards; I don't want to make low-quality games and part of the inherent quality of the game is the quality of the moderation, which I cannot actively provide.

Now.

What

might

be viable is for me to CO-mod a game.
If I have a second mod proper, then I can be assured that no matter what happens, the game keeps going with good quality.
But I can't be a solo-moderator right now, and having a backup mod isn't good enough for me. Not when "backup" translates into "essentially takes over the game midway through due to moderator negligence".

I thought that this was the strongest scumteam as a collective that I've ever been in and I don't say that lightly.
The only team that I think could compare was a game a long time ago where myself and Frozen Angel were scum when she was new to the site but our third partner was relatively weak.
Everyone was fantastic, we split town down many narratives to the point that we sacrificed the ability to lead all town down one direction but instead we divided the town entirely and even the people who were close to solving one element of the game weren't even close to the others. I don't think there was a possibility of us losing from long before my lynch simply based off of how lynching anyone gave the others on the team lots of towncred and that's on top of us being largely the most townread players in the game.

I happen to think you might be right, actually. Others might have YMMV for that, but personally, yes. I think this was a stellar scum performance.

I think if you didn't handpick the scumteam then it's balanced but with it it's scumsided

I almost didn't. The original intention was to use a semi-random, semi-selected scumteam: some players were barred from being scum, some players were barred from being scum together, some players were required to be the same alignment, thus the semi-selected, but I did use random.org to make a scumteam which would have been semi-random.

camn and Stalfos were still scum (thus, they were guaranteed to be scum no matter what), but in that team it was Kise and hebichan as the other two scum. Then as I was doing this, Ginngie suggested the non-random team. I ultimately decided between random-scumteam and hand-picked scumteam by who would hold which town PRs in each setup--Radiant Moonlight held the vig in the random-scumteam setup (something I didn't want my scumteam to deal with since I anticipated the game potentially ending before D3 with that), and Not_Mafia held the vig in the selected-scumteam combo, which felt like it would be better.

In that sense, there was some mod bias, but given the premise, I don't think I exceeded anything which was reasonable to anticipate. Of all my decisions this game though, I admit, this is the one that I most questioned, because I'm

still

not sure it was the right thing to do.

Honestly this was super fun to watch from afar tbh

The problem mentioned though--
It was fun to watch as a spectator, sure enough, from far away.
It was fun enough to watch from the inside, as the mafia who knew how events were playing out.

These were not the target audience of fun when I designed the game.

When I designed the game, the target audience for the fun was

the town players alive

.
So because they by and large didn't enjoy the experience, in that sense, I did not succeed.

[Mulch]

Well

Im notgonnalie and say I enjoyed this

but not really the game's fault tbh

More like Smocaine's fault

[mastina]

That’s pretty decently townsided without the mastina ability, probably townsided with it (especially if mastina getting vigged eliminates ability for her to kill)

Me getting vigged would not have eliminated my ability to kill or vote.

HOWEVER.

What it WOULD have done, if a vig had thought to kill me.
Was to reveal the EXISTENCE of a vig. As a type of publicly-revealed fruit vend, of sorts, in that it is undeniable with the mod listing herself as being shot in mod text (immune to falsification) that it was an ability which caused her death, and thus, a town player was responsible for it.

[MathBlade]

Meh not Smocaine’s fault either.

Had him on my OH SHIT list since he just caught me as scum in another game but that’s because I literally fell apart due to unrelated shit.

[mhsmith0]

That’s pretty decently townsided without the mastina ability, probably townsided with it (especially if mastina getting vigged eliminates ability for her to kill)

Me getting vigged would not have eliminated my ability to kill or vote.

HOWEVER.

What it WOULD have done, if a vig had thought to kill me.
Was to reveal the EXISTENCE of a vig. As a type of publicly-revealed fruit vend, of sorts, in that it is undeniable with the mod listing herself as being shot in mod text (immune to falsification) that it was an ability which caused her death, and thus, a town player was responsible for it.

Well that’s only if you don’t give scum team a vig

Or lol multiball

Or surprise serial killer

Or...

[Theta Alpine]

well at least i had camn correct
honestly i am not really sure if i will be playing any other games anytime soon though
town has lost every single one of my games so far and that is getting demoralizing

[camn]

well at least i had camn correct

You did. But getting the lynch is always where the money is

[mastina]

But picking the scumteam is like
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000X better than any scum ability

Doing so anonymously, sure.

Btw nobody thought to ask about this as an official question to the moderator. (The only stupid question is the one never asked!)

Had a town player thought to do so, I may have trolled as a mafia-member, but I would still be obligated to also give a serious answer as the moderator.
My official moderator answer to "was the scumteam randomized?" or "was the scumteam hand-picked" or the like could have potentially revealed to the town information, because it would have been something akin to the effect of:
"

<<< I reserved the right to use any method of scumteam selection, be it hand-picked, randomized, or some hybridization of the two. I thus cannot answer that question further in an official moderator capacity. >>>

"

It was never asked tho, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[MathBlade]

well at least i had camn correct
honestly i am not really sure if i will be playing any other games anytime soon though
town has lost every single one of my games so far and that is getting demoralizing

Uhmmm

I have like a 70-80% winrate as scum.

Only times I have lost are when I fucked up or unwinnable.

So yeah don’t give up. Some people like RC could be town teachers.

I am hella good town face to face. 100% vig rate legit. (Titus and the last meet can vouch)

Just forum...uhmmmmmmm my win rate I am lucky if 25% but I play to improve.

[mastina]

Or lol multiball
Or surprise serial killer

I mean the game was explicitly 14:4 with a mod-guarantee that the information provided on the front page was guaranteed to be accurate to the best of my ability and thus immune to falsification, so.

[Keychain]

well at least i had camn correct
honestly i am not really sure if i will be playing any other games anytime soon though
town has lost every single one of my games so far and that is getting demoralizing

Yeah I know that feeling :/ you were pretty fun to play with when you were around though!

[mhsmith0]

Or lol multiball
Or surprise serial killer

I mean the game was explicitly 14:4 with a mod-guarantee that the information provided on the front page was guaranteed to be accurate to the best of my ability and thus immune to falsification, so.

OR WAS IT

[Prism]

Mulch missing the point entirely, obsessing over me/RC and drawing overarching conclusions from a sample size of 1. I called that months in advance.

I don't really have much to say about this game, I was miserable throughout, never really wanted to play and put in close to 0 effort beyond coaching Keychain. When I was around, I was only around to complain. I'm sorry for the scumteam for that. They killed it and won it despite me, but they deserved better.

[nancy]

Prism is fking awful wow ban pls.

[Mulch]

Mulch missing the point entirely, obsessing over me/RC and drawing overarching conclusions from a sample size of 1. I called that months in advance.

I don't really have much to say about this game, I was miserable throughout, never really wanted to play and put in close to 0 effort beyond coaching Keychain. When I was around, I was only around to complain. I'm sorry for the scumteam for that. They killed it and won it despite me, but they deserved better.

What’s the “point” ?

[Creature]

14/4
Goons plus a special mastina shot ability
Vs
Vig
Essentially two jailkeepers
Gunsmith
Neapolitan

You haven't seen Large 203 then.