Newbie Setup (Matrix6 implemented)

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Sorry all, I haven't been following the thread properly, so this may be answered elsewhere.

For the M6 setup

1. town jailkeeper, vanilla townie, mafia goon
2. mafia roleblocker, town cop, town doctor
3. town 1-shot bulletproof, mafia goon, town tracker
4. town jailkeeper, mafia roleblocker, town 1-shot bulletproof
5. vanilla townie, town cop, mafia goon
6. mafia goon, town doctor, town tracker

do we care that the Tracker will automatically catch Mafia in setup 3 above (assuming they track a Mafia)? The BP Townie ability is passive, so he can't be tracked. I don't see an issue with it, just throwing it out there.


Vel

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Arguably you have no business in the newbie queue if you have IC status and aren't willing to IC?

No? That's why we have the SE roles, people who are demonstrating what 'typical' play is in MS. Very few people bother to explain things to newbies in games outside RtR, so why should we make sure that

everyone will explain everything in RtR

? I understand it would be kind, and goodness knows there are ICs who don't really explain a lot by default (and SEs who are fine with explaining a lot by default), but it could end up with newbies being overly coddled and unable to take the plunge if you ensure that every experienced player in RtR will be willing to explain every little bit of mafia theory.

EDIT: Adding to this that many SEs really have little clue about site meta outside the Newbie queue to begin with; the current SE queue is majorly composed by mid-2012-onward players, iirc. There is nothing wrong with that, obviously, but I remember that the SEs (and the IC!) in my first newbie game were little more than newbies themselves. Letting a few experienced SEs play without forcing a teaching position on them seems like a much wiser choice than imposing an IC position on them should they dare to sign up to SE (in which case several people would probably not sign up to SE-IC at all).

We don't really ever run out of ICs. When the queue runs low, people sign up. It's just that they don't do it all that often on a regular basis, but since November 2011 I have yet to see a game pending to start because a starting IC has not been found.

From my understanding SEs were never meant to have any teaching function whatsoever. They were for newbies who played more than a set number of games so they wouldn't keep taking up newbie slots and for players with IC status who didn't want to IC.

Which gets to another point I want to make about the perception of what it takes to be an IC. I think the role is overly glorified on the site. I've ICed several games, and I never really played any of the newbie games I ICed any differently than I would have a regular game. All you really need to do is answer questions for players when they have them or if they're not sure what to do, but aside from that the best thing you can do as an IC is teach by example by simply playing the game. You will teach newbies far more than you think by just playing. There's so much for them to learn just in breaking down your play after it's over and you explaining your play as necessary when it's over.

As far as I know I've never received any complaints for the way I've ICed and I've never had to go out of my way to put an IC hat on all the time, so basically I'm saying it's not a big deal to make people IC.

This is how ICs

should

go about the job. Just play the way you normally do, but realize that you're there to help guide the new players, especially when it comes to the inevitable "we should no lynch day 1" type things that seem to crop up all the time.

I don't think anyone ever intended for the IC to hold everyone's hand and make sure they're all perfect. That's just far too much pressure. I like Cheery's suggestion about updating the IC section on the wiki, I can look into doing that if we can nail down something concrete.

As an aside with the new requirements for the Queue, this was posted on page 3 of the Newbie Queue:

Ummm i think that's a carry over, and that is a concern i just thought of, what if a new player only plays newbie games (technically could just stay a newb forever )

Great point! My gut reaction is to say too bad, you've played your two games and now you MUST go somewhere else for your last game, you can no longer sign up to be a Newbie (because really, if you've finished two games, you've got the basics, you don't need to be occupying a Newbie slot anymore).

Thoughts on either point?

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Some people might simply have difficulty doing that, possibly because they aren't confident enough in their own play to feel that they can make such a "judgement" (putting it in quotes because I don't really think it's a judgement, but moreso a constructive critique). Others may just not know what to say.

This is my problem, sort of. I just can't hold critiques of 8 players in my brain over the course of a month and a half. (There's a reason I'm much better at face-to-face/chat mafia than forum mafia.)

Do what I do: start a Word document and make quick notes about each player (I also note the post that I'm commenting on). Takes maybe 5 minutes, and then you can almost just cut and paste the notes and put it into your final game analysis post.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

I utterly fail to understand why people feel a need to force people to move OUT of the newbie queue if they enjoy playing mafia just fine there. There probably does exist a segment of people who do like to play nothing but newbie games. We created the SE slot to address these people staying in the queue as "newbies" but beyond that I don't see the problem.

If what you really want is for people to move on, get rid of the SE slot and don't allow people who don't IC to play newbie games at all.

Because we get a LOT of Newbie players, and people don't need to stay in that queue until the end of time. If you want a short game, we have Micros now. And as Flay said, the SE slot was just something we started to allow more experienced players to be able to play Newbie games without taking up a spot a Newbie should rightfully have. The only issue I see with getting rid of the SE slot is that we don't historically have a plethora of ICs willing to play. If people will get over the "I'm not good enough" syndrome, we could do this - it would probably be the way to go to be honest. The Micro queue can handle all the "I want a short game" people that typically sign up to SE, and we can go back to a 7 Newbie, 2 IC setup.

The Newbies need

something

to help them out, and right now the SEs are sort of unofficially filling that role. I would love to see a 7-2 setup for Newbie games. Then you're guaranteed to have an IC through at least Day 2, AND you've doubled your chances of having one of the ICs post a "here's what went right, here's what went wrong" type analysis at the end of the game.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Well part of what I'd like to see with automatically putting IC experienced players into newbie games is having it be less of a huge deal to IC. Some people have really really HIGH expectations of what an IC needs to do, when all that really matters is giving the newbies a good experience and teaching them well. That's nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be.

I agree with this completely. The high expectations we hold for ICs is an unfortunate site meta that has grown up around the position. No one ever

meant

for ICs to be omnipotent demigods of Mafia, but unfortunately that's what the role has evolved towards, and it's frankly quite ridiculous. By 5 games, you know the rules and strategies well enough to be able to make a call as to whether a play is going to be sub optimal (no lynch day 1, for example), and really that's all that matters. The IC role is there to help the Newbies from making really dumb mistakes, not keep them from losing the game, not make them perfect players in two games, and introduce them to how we play Mafia on this site (slower pace, longer days, etc.). That's all. Someone who expects the IC to be a demigod needs to be talked to privately to correct their PoV

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Off-topic: I ICd once and I think I chased my players away.

I'm noticing "you only need experience and a little bit of patience to be an IC" is clashing with "you need to break down everyone's play and your own and explain it all for the benefit of the class". The latter is certainly not a BAD thing, but most people would never do that outside a Newbie game - it's an example of the kind of instructional weight that gets placed on the role. I do agree that an IC should be willing to stick around for postgame and answer questions, but it's easy to want them to turn them into Pro Analysts.

Somewhat farther off-topic:

4. town jailkeeper, mafia roleblocker, town 1-shot bulletproof

Where do you see "you need to break down everyone's play and your own and explain it all for the benefit of the class" as an IC requirement? Is that actually written anywhere?

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

For what it's worth, I've ICed one game, and afterwards, I didn't really feel like I could cope with being an IC.

Part of it's just the expectations problem from the newbies; they expect you to be a lot better than you are, which sort of drags you down into a burden of proficiency minefield you might not be used to.

Also people will try to interpret trying to help them as a sign of weakness. (Or worse, a scumtell.) This makes it quite hard to play like you normally would, which also makes it basically impossible to look town or scumhunt. So it's not really that fun to play in an IC role; you're just being focused on and dissected too much (when it should be the other way round!). I did enjoy the postgame analysis, though.

It's easy enough to say, at the beginning of the game "I'm human, I make mistakes, I'm not the greatest player, etc" to alleviate those issues. Honestly there's really no good reason for not ICing if you are so inclined to do so and you have 5 games or more on site, other than a lack of time.