Motive indicators

[Norinel]

In a few games, the mod has made some sort of consistent indication of the motive of the role in role pms, like putting (town) or whatever after the role names. For some reason, when this sort of thing actually becomes part of the town's reasoning for whom to lynch (See Day 1 of Toybox for an example), it annoys me, since it's pretty close to pm-quoting in that it's using information outside the gameworld common to pro-town players.

I know my decision isn't universal, so what do others think about this and perhaps what can be done about it?

[MeMe]

I think it's the responsibility of the players to do their best to win and sometimes the best tool at hand is role information. The whole job of the mafia is to blend in and try to look townish...so when you can trip them up with role PM lingo, refusing to use that seems a bit choosing a butter knife to do the job of a screwdriver...not to use all the information at hand is just inefficient, in my opinion. Of course, I'm all for the mod screwing with the players through the PMs and mixing things up so that this becomes an impossible tactic...

And "don't quote the mod" means not to put the mod PM in a quote box -- it doesn't mean not to tell everyone what the mod said to you or the gist thereof. The whole point of mafia is to find out what roles the mod gave to whom. If you can trip someone up with this information, cool.

[Norinel]

It's not the information, it's how the information is expressed. Saying that your role pm says you're a townie is one thing, but saying that it uses the word townie to describe your motive is, in my opinion, another.

For the record, I'll be either inconsistently describing motives or making the motive descriptions, at least for the pro-town roles, public in any games I run. I'd like other mods to do the same, but if I'm the only one who has any problem with it, I'll go along with things.

[MeMe]

To me, what this comes down to, is game mechanics -- not game play. A good mod should realize that how his PMs are worded can be a factor in the game.

Sending out roles with identical wording makes for a potential mason group -- it could be a deliberate mechanic employed by the mod. On the other hand, mixing things up to prevent this or to confuse is also a valid game set up. In the end, I think that the mod has to look at the way he's written his roles and determine if the wording can potentially unbalance the game. The players should

always

use the information at hand to win the game -- but realize that role wording cannot always be counted upon (just like receiving an "innocent" result doesn't always mean "innocent").

[mathcam]

I designed my Quantum Mafia with this in mind. Every pro-town role got the phrase "You are a ____" with their motive's name filled in for the blank. I made this public knowledge in the first post with the intent of eliminating exactly that possibility, Norinel. I definitely agree with MeMe that it's the mod's responsibility to eliminate this from being a factor than the player's responsibility to not use information that they have at hand.

Cam

[PolarBoy]

I'm going to be more careful in my next design. I thought that the whole argument based on whether or not MeMe's PM had "(Town)" in it was not in the spirit of the game and largely grew out of players trying to outguess the mod.

[MeMe]

Outguessing the mod (no matter how painful/irritating for the mod -- and I speak from experience) is part of the game, though.

[Fishbulb]

I'm not sure I care for the whole idea of role claiming, in general. In my first theme game, I plan to make everyone's role public right at the beginning. That should eliminate any of the role claiming/pm discussion. I just don't like it when it comes down to a scum trying to make up a role that isn't already in play during a theme game. I'd like it better if the question wasn't "who are you?", but rather "did you do it?". Maybe it won't work as well, but I'd like to give it a try. I'd say the players would have to spend more time analyzing voting patterns and who is killed during the night.

[MeMe]

That's an interesting idea, Fishbulb -- wonder how it will play out!

But I really don't like this whole discussion of what is/isn't proper play. The beauty of the mafia game is that everyone has a

different

style. For example, I personally don't go into ratios & odds as mith does. But would I say it goes against the spirit of the game just because I don't like it? No -- because it doesn't go against the spirit of

mith's

game play. If everyone followed strict guidelines about what can/cannot/should/should not be discussed, the game would lose much of its individuality and fun.

I think it's perfectly fine for mods to set up rules specific for a particular game -- but to declare "and this is the way that every game should be played/set-up to be truly good/efficient/what-have-you" is just ridiculous.

[CaptainBlicero]

This is a really interesting question, Norinel. The line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" meta-gaming is a tough one to draw. On the one hand, "pure" mafia should be all about logic based solely on in-game information, but on the other hand, mafia is a game like any other, and players should be able to use whatever they have to their advantage. This is one of the huge difficulties in creating a game, because role PMs can inadvertently give players a lot more information than the mod wants them to have.

I think that paraphrasing or revealing information given in a role PM is acceptable UNLESS it is a direct quote, or it refers to specific wording or formatting of the PM. For example, calling oneself a "bored townie" in the Ankh-Morpork game is completely legit, while posting "The fourth word in my role PM is 'bored'" would be illegal.

So, to go back to your example in "Toybox": IMO, MeMe was well within the rules to ask mikehart to clarify what he means by "townie," and to indicate that her role has a name, but his response that his PM has town in parenthesis is a violation. If he had said, "I'm not specifically called a townie, but my role PM says that I am town" -- that would have been acceptable.

[Fishbulb]

That's an interesting idea, Fishbulb -- wonder how it will play out!

It's what my Clue™ Mafia is going to be. Just like the board game, everyone has a motive. Rather than wandering around the mansion trying to find the clues as to which one did it, the scum decide to try to stop them before they figure it out. I always thought it was odd that the killer just lets the rest investigate instead of trying to get rid of them.

I hope it will work. If anyone is interested, I'd like to run some more ideas by someone with a little more experience first. Just don't want to say too much on here until after it's finished. The main thing, though, is that everyone already knows who everyone else is. No making up roles. Only the scum will get the "motive indicator" that is being discussed here.

[mith]

There have to be guidelines though, if not rules, or the game becomes "look for loopholes" and not Mafia.

I try to eliminate meta-game play as much as possible, because I think it makes for a more interesting game. My general rule of thumb is "If you couldn't do it in a real, life-or-death, version of the game, try not to do it." The exact wording of a PM is one of those things I don't think we should rely on (unless one of the game mechanics is that everyone gets a little piece of paper telling them who they are, or something). I remember there was one game where I said I was a townie, and someone decided I was innocent because their PM said "Townie" too. Thing is, I didn't even remember mine saying that, I just said townie 'cause that's what I say. (Ok, I may or may not have just made up this story, though something did happen that was similar)

There's some things that can't be avoided, of course. Everyone that's played with me before knows I go on long rants, Antrax uses his logic, etc. etc. I just try to keep it to a minimum.

[mith]

Oh, and that isn't to say it's entirely the responsibility of the players. Moderating is an on-going learning process. Just keep in mind that moderators aren't going to do everything perfectly, and just looking for holes in their setup is rather boring.

[Norinel]

My general rule of thumb is "If you couldn't do it in a real, life-or-death, version of the game, try not to do it."

That's sort of what I've been going towards with my position on the matter, I just hadn't stated it that way yet.

On the other hand, one really bizarre idea I had was Meta Mafia, where the roles take advantage of things that'd be outside the gameworld and are more directly related to how we handle Mafia on this server, but humorously try to fit it in. One example role I've decided I won't be using is the Brain-Switching Mad Scientist, who has the one-time power to get another player replaced.

[Antrax]

It's not "my logic", it's logic. Logic is universal.

Anyway, I don't like it either, which is why I avoid it as a mod, in various ways. Either diversify role names, so you have "the coward", "a coward", "Mr. Coward", or tell the scum what a townie is called (even if there are no townies in the game), etc. I believe it's mod responsibility, since it's much more effective than trying to have a rule forbidding it. Same as many other loophole-ish things, I believe it's the mod's responsibilty to stop them as well as he can (ie, be ready for "everybody claim on day 1" plan, the no lynch plan, etc)
Antrax

[gslamm]

It's not "my logic", it's logic. Logic is universal.
I believe it's the mod's responsibilty to stop them as well as he can (ie, be ready for "everybody claim on day 1" plan, the no lynch plan, etc)
Antrax

Dang, this is getting to be a habit.
I agree with everything I quoted above. The prepare for "everybody claims day 1" is the best balance check a mod can make. Followed by the "random choices simulation"

Calculating the mod into the game is very much a part of playing. How many killers? Motives? Standard or weird roles? Theme / Setting consistencies? Random factors? How much the mod "participates".
How much of this a mod eliminates is a matter of style.

Example: Does the mod tell the player that was attacked and saved that they were saved? Does the Doc know his patient was targeted? What kind of info does the cop get? guilt/role/name/sleeping/activity/motive/shoe size?

How these questions as well as role phrasing consistency is part of the game.

Understand you are always playing against the other side AND the mod.

[PolarBoy]

Ok, granted outguessing the mod can be very effective. What about the times when it isn't, like when players are sure that there can't be another serial killer(I'd have a link to mini 26 here if it still existed). What do you do about those situations? There are two possible solutions. One is to fail miserably every time you play a game like that. The other is to play all games as if they'll be that way, and trust the mod to eliminate loopholes.

I also have a somewhat analogical problem with outguessing the mod. What if it really happened, and people used reasoning like "God wouldn't make that many evil people in our town."?

[Antrax]

I would lynch them for using crap logic
Antrax

[shadyforce]

Here's my stance:
I think there is a fine line between what's quoting a pm and what's not. Is there much of a difference between:

-Quote: You are a serial killer masquerading as a mafia

-The pm uses the words 'serial killer', 'masquerading', and 'mafia'

-The pm says I am the a serial killer disguised as a mafia member

They all do the exact same thing even though #1 is against the rules, #3 is acceptable, and #2 is borderline.

The fact of the matter is that I could

easily

make up that statement so the game will continue as normal. The problem arises when the wording of the pm is such that I could never make it up and it had to have come from the mod.

I think this is the full responsibility of the mod to make sure that when he sends a role pm, is it simple enough such that quoting it could easily be seen as a forgery.

[Norinel]

Yeah, but this thread isn't about directly quoting the role pm, it's about when the mod makes all the pro-town role pms alike in some way and it's used to the town's advantage. IMO, Mafia shouldn't be about being able to mimic the mod's writing style/format, and there are more interesting things to worry about when modding then maintaining a generic writing style.

[PolarBoy]

About that last thought, as much as I generally agree with it, I'm beginning to see another side to the issue. Mafia is also about deception, and therefore mimicing the mod's style may be within the spirit of the game. Now you might be thinking "In real life we don't have role claims." but on the other hand, we do have minute details that make all the difference in solving a mystery. I can't think of any real life examples at the moment, but just read a Sherlock Holmes story if you don't know what I mean. Now it's true that the minor details don't usually involve things like the usage of parentheses or what have you, but the only way to change that would be to go and make a whole meta-simulation for Mafia games that would be ridiculously complicated and not do the job any better. Does anybody get what I'm saying? I fear I've begun to babble.

[MeMe]

gotcha

[Antrax]

Since mafia is about deception and psychology, I believe we should allow players to hack the board and pose as other players. While some people may say it doesn't correlate to real life, I'll keep in mind mafia is also about crime and shoot them to death, shutting them up.
There is only so much you should incorporate into the game. The players should play against each other, and the mod should not be a part of it.
Antrax