Win Condition Fail

[Seacore]

Faraday and I just finished our A Clash of Kings Large Theme game.

Most people had fun, yay.

But we botched the win conditions when we wrote the Role PMs and the game conspired to bring this into play.

Basically, the town's win condition were "You win when no scum are alive"
The two scum teams had the win condition "You win when your team is in the majority, or nothing can stop this from happening"
And the SK had "You win when everybody is dead, even if you are dead too" (granted, that should read, "everybody else is dead", but no biggy)

The game came down to

2 town, 1 scumA, 1scumB

The scum decided to push for a 'draw', rather than push for kingmaker or prisoner dilema.



Faraday and I discussed this at length and decided that it was fairer to allow a 'lesser win' through the draw, then force them to kill each other and let town and SK win.

That Night they killed their designated town. We brought them immediately into another Night, they both "No Kill"ed. We declared a draw.

I'm happy with our decision. Some players are and some aren't.

There is also the second issue of whether the two remaining scum "Played to Win" by 'no killing'

I argue that they were, due to the circular logic.

1) They must kill the other in order to "Play to Win"
2) Therefore they know the other must do the same
3) Therefore if PtW is followed, they will lose
4) Therefore they look for other options to not lose.

Anyway, I want them to stop talking about this in my post game thread, so I thought I'd open this and direct them here.

Here you go Benmage, have your winge.

[Benmage]

Here you go Benmage, have your winge.

I actually got a question for you. If the WC is nothing can prevent it...surely their ability to NK is something that prevents it..their choice to no kill would've turned the game into an endless loop (eventually you could've declared no winner or something). You yielded the draw, which they are taking as a win. Wherein you should've forced them to NK one another or made this clearer earlier. That...the WC change... feels icky.

[MacavityLock]

Let me copy my last paragraph of a post I just made in post-game there. (Context: me and VP hydra'd for scumA, Magna was scumB.): It all comes down to each person's relative value of win vs shared win/draw vs loss. In my opinion, the difference between a win and a draw was much less than the difference between a draw and a loss. The end. I'm pleased with the outcome, and yes, I too would have been pretty bitter had Magna defected. But honestly, I would've been okay with it. It's only a game. (Then again, if Magna had defected, and we ever ended up in a PD together again, I would defect so fast, it would make your head spin.)

Another important point made in said post: Until the very end, when both scum had been outed, there was always a path to lone victory from our hydra's perspective.

[Seacore]

My issue is, forcing them to NK each other, would have turned the game into auto-lose for the two scum teams.

Sure, in a perfect world I could have pointed out that we weren't going to allow a draw Days before it became relevant. But by the time it was brought up (ie, by the time the issues with the win conditions were found), any decision excluding the one we made was auto-loss for scum.

[Andrius]

Ok, I completely support Faraday/Seacore's call in the game. (I just didn't want to post in the game thread, as I'm not a player.)

The Circular Logic holds true- unless they were going to do the Prisoner's Dilemma, (which they chose not to do). The mods allowed the two remaining scum to enter into a somewhat Prisoner's Dilemma situation, where neither party killed- creating the win, albeit not the dramatic complete win.

[Budja]

I don't think it was an bad call but I'm still surprised neither of you betrayed the other.

[Elmo]

But we botched the win conditions when we wrote the Role PMs and the game conspired to bring this into play.

Nothing in the win conditions look wrong to me; the issue is that of drawing, which has always been a pain. Honestly, people should probably talk this over in M.D. and come to some kind of consensus, then post the "draw condition" along with the win condition, either in Role PMs or in the rules. It's difficult to cover every situation, though.

Faraday and I discussed this at length and decided that it was fairer to allow a 'lesser win' through the draw,

My experience has been that in other games, a draw is worth one half or (sometimes) one third of a win. I think it's still of value, but it's not a win per se. Whether to play for a win or draw is typically a hairly, largely pointless debate; since a draw is preferable to a loss, I would suggest "play to win" is changed to "play to your team's interests" and their play (as stated) is clearly consistent with that. I agree everything else you said.

[TheButtonmen]

Change play to win to play not to lose.

[CooLDoG]

I think seascore made the correct choice. However, what really surprises me is that one didn't betray the other in the night. I would have on the fact that my win-con says that I will win the game if I am [the only one left].

However, if you want to did into flavor (above the rules set by the mod) the scum's objective is to A) kill all the Town and B) kill the other scum. With this said it seems to be that if there is no-one left (all town all scum die) then both scum teams would win (due to the fact that they fullfilled there flavor win cons).... however, flavor doesn't matter in this case because of the wincons that you set in the role pms. I think that the scums action force a draw; I think you made the correct shoice.

[shaft.ed]

I don't think forced actions should ever be made. However, they were retarded for not double crossing the other scum. That would have been epic.

[MagnaofIllusion]

I don't think forced actions should ever be made. However, they were retarded for not double crossing the other scum. That would have been epic.

Yes, and when both scum make the non-retarded move Town wins despite the fact that not a single Town player was left alive.

The way the wincons were written made giving Town a win if everyone died (and the Serial Killer also, but that was not the issue in my mind) made risking the double defection not worth it.

Had everyone lost if everyone was dead as opposed to the Town and SK winning when everyone was dead I might well have made the move.

[Zachrulez]

2 scum of opposing factions should automatically result in a draw if they go into night. It's impossible for them to win if they play to their wincon.

Draws can happen in mafia games, it's not dirty that on some rare occasions you'll run into a draw scenario.

[Faraday]

Yeah, I don't the win conditions here were botched (well town/mafia weren't) it's just we'd never considered what happened in a 1/1 (well I guess that might related back to a botch idk). I'm pretty happy with the decisiuon though, I don't see any other way to handle it since forcing them to kill each other seems, well, retarded to me.

[VP Baltar]

Wez da scumz, fucking up yo site metaz!

Think wisely in your next Prisoner's Dilemma.

[bv310]

I don't think it was an bad call but I'm still surprised neither of you betrayed the other.

This right here. I kept up to this game out of curiosity, and I really can't believe the outcome. I can't believe neither of you decided to try for the full win.

[Haylen]

SK wincon: You win when you are the only player left standing or nothing can prevent the same.

[mykonian]

SK wincon: You win when you are the only player left standing or nothing can prevent the same.

There are mods that believe that the (non NK-immune)serial killer should win a last day with only the mafia and the SK left. It pleasantly avoides PD in such cases too.

[The Fonz]

You did exactly the right thing, and if I were scum in that game, I'd have been really pissed off had you done anything different.

2 town, two scum, scum know each other should NEVER be a town win.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

2 town, two scum, scum know each other should NEVER be a town win.

I don't see why the scum being outed should mean they deserve a better outcome. I really have no problems with 1-1-2 resulting in a town win if the scum are sufficiently obvious.

[VP Baltar]

2 town, two scum, scum know each other should NEVER be a town win.

I don't see why the scum being outed should mean they deserve a better outcome. I really have no problems with 1-1-2 resulting in a town win if the scum are sufficiently obvious.

Look at the game and then determine if the town deserved to win. Both scum teams were down to a single member at Day 4 and survived to kill off all of the town Night 7. Town had several mislynches to easily clean up and botched it. They really didn't deserve the victory in this instance.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

I was responding to The Fonz' "NEVER". I'm not judging who deserved to win. The winning side doesn't always deserve to win regardless of set-up and I don't think the 1-1-2 scenario is all that egregious in that aspect.

[VP Baltar]

Ah, got ya. Yeah, I don't think it's good to say scum should always win in that situation.

[The Fonz]

It's ridiculous. If scum can't arrange a tie, then they should flip a coin to decide which group wins. There's no justification for letting it descend into a town win.

[Benmage]

So say you have an SK who plays deplorable is lynched D1 and has the wc if all are dead they win....then there's a town vig and a Mafia left 1-1 they gonna not kill too just so the bad SK doesn't win.

Also as bad as town did...there were high points.

And as much of a responsibility it is for town to defeat the Mafia, opposing Mafia factions have the same responsibility. So the fact that they went all the way down to a draw goes to show that their game play wasn't so amazing.

[shaft.ed]

It's ridiculous. If scum can't arrange a tie, then they should flip a coin to decide which group wins. There's no justification for letting it descend into a town win.

I don't see how a town win is worse than other scum team win if you are part of the scum. Either way, you lost.