Why isn't daytalking standard?

[ortolan]

Why isn't daytalking standard (for both classic mason and scum groups)? It is encouraging and facilitating what scum and masons are supposed to be doing anyway- using the gift of information about one another to connive and advance their faction's win condition.

It rewards people who put extra effort and skill into the game.

It also raises the average level of play by adding increased potential for superior play. I can't think of a good reason why it shouldn't be the norm for the majority of games.

[The Fonz]

It benefits the scum, and scum win more than town already. It's also kind of unrealistic given the original concept of mafia- multiple people gathered in a town square. You can't exactly have small groups of people wandering off and conspiring.

[Empking]

I agree with Fonz's first point (I roll my eyes at his last). Its a powerful scum ability some games simply wouldn't be balanced by providing it.

[ortolan]

It benefits the scum, and scum win more than town already. It's also kind of unrealistic given the original concept of mafia- multiple people gathered in a town square. You can't exactly have small groups of people wandering off and conspiring.

Mafia win more often than not because mods either don't know how to balance or don't care about balance on this site (from experience I would suggest it's the former).

Your argument is really "well mods don't have a clue, and seeing as their lack of a clue already favours scum, we should give a built in advantage to the town which happens to be the classic way the game is played".

I think the solution to mods not knowing how to balance games is teaching them how to balance games, not having a suboptimal norm which happens to go some way to counter-balancing their incompetence.

So the only objection raised so far is that it happens to counter sub-optimal modding practices. Are there any others?

(That and it goes against flavour, fair enough, that's another valid objection but not particularly pressing I would think considering the vast number of other ways in which "realism" is thrown out the window in a game).

[chesskid3]

Hey in irl mafia scum can't talk at all soooooooooo

[Vi]

Daytalk amplifies the synergy of a scum team. If the scum team works well enough as players to use it, it has been estimated as worth as much as another Mafioso. This is especially true if there is only a single scumgroup.

Since you don't (or shouldn't) know in advance who's going to be drawing scum, mods should plan for the scum to use the advantage to its fullest, where it would make them much more powerful than without.

[SensFan]

Scum and Masons usually get daytalk in SensGames. I find it makes it a more interesting and skill-testing game.

[shaft.ed]

The times I've had scumtalk and masontalk during the day in my games, the threads never got used. It made me sad as a spectator.

[popsofctown]

It's hard enough to get enough reads to win. Scum don't need daytalk coaching on their play.

[Umbrage]

It's like giving headsets to every player on a sports team. Confusion is an important part of mafia, and it shouldn't be removed.

[Crazy]

Crap, I made a big long post but it got lost.

I agree with the above two posters. I think it's fine if some mods allow it; I just don't think it's universally accepted enough for it to become the standard.

[Yosarian2]

Daytalk amplifies the synergy of a scum team. If the scum team works well enough as players to use it, it has been estimated as worth as much as another Mafioso. This is especially true if there is only a single scumgroup.

Since you don't (or shouldn't) know in advance who's going to be drawing scum, mods should plan for the scum to use the advantage to its fullest, where it would make them much more powerful than without.

That actually sounds to me like an argument for why it should exist, if it magnifies the effect of skill and makes the game more dependent on the skill level of the people playing.

[Vi]

Daytalk amplifies the synergy of a scum team. If the scum team works well enough as players to use it, it has been estimated as worth as much as another Mafioso. This is especially true if there is only a single scumgroup.

Since you don't (or shouldn't) know in advance who's going to be drawing scum, mods should plan for the scum to use the advantage to its fullest, where it would make them much more powerful than without.

That actually sounds to me like an argument for why it should exist, if it magnifies the effect of skill and makes the game more dependent on the skill level of the people playing.

But games are presently balanced like it's a nonfactor... wait, Fonz said that.

It goes both ways, too. If your scum team has no synergy - read that as "you're surrounded by idiots" if you like - it's worth virtually nothing. Truthfully in general I'd rather have a Roleblocker and no daytalk than vice versa.

Granted the logical following argument from the above is "but Townies can't choose their teammates either", and I don't really have an answer to that offhand. Wait for the Tylenol to kick in and I'll let you know if something happens. I'm pretty sure there's a difference between Townies trying to find the alignment of other Townies and lynching them if they're scummy vs. scum trying their best not to bus scummy partners.

[Andrius]

Why isn't daytalking standard (for both classic mason and scum groups)? It is encouraging and facilitating what scum and masons are supposed to be doing anyway- using the gift of information about one another to connive and advance their faction's win condition.

It rewards people who put extra effort and skill into the game.

It also raises the average level of play by adding increased potential for superior play. I can't think of a good reason why it shouldn't be the norm for the majority of games.

I actually agree with all of this.
Though I agree with whoever said that Masons and Scum should either both have DayTalk or neither.

[zoraster]

When I mod, I always include day talking scum. It's definitely an advantage to scum, but I find that it increases camaraderie and teamwork among the scum, and it makes it more fun of a game. It requires some thought when designing a set up, but overall, I think it's the way to go as long as you acknowledge it as a factor that does favor scum.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Daytalking is for noobs.

[zoraster]

Daytalking is for noobs.

One liners are for pros!

[Yosarian2]

It goes both ways, too. If your scum team has no synergy - read that as "you're surrounded by idiots" if you like - it's worth virtually nothing.

(nods)

Again, my definition of a well-balanced game is one where the side that has the more skilled players usually wins, so something that helps the scum when they're good but hurts them when they're all idiots sounds like a good thing to me.

That being said, there are some skilled players that play by trying as hard as possible to avoid thinking about their alignment during the day; I've heard one of those players say that giving them daytalk actually made it much harder for them to play scum well, since it constantly reminded them that they were scum and made it harder to "play normally". There are others that play a more deliberately manipulative style; I've personally found daytalk to be incredibly useful in some situations.

All in all, I don't really think daytalk is a balance issue. It's hard to explain, but I think of "balance" issues mostly as things that affect your odds of winning if you lynch randomly, or things that sometimes put you in a situation where you can't win, ect. Yeah, daytalking can help, but I don't think it's ever going to "unbalance" an otherwise balanced game.

[Crazy]

One thing I enjoy that I think is lost with daytalk is a sense of improvisation. If you don't have daytalk, you have to think of what to do in every situation yourself; it gives you a lot of freedom. I'd find it very frustrating if I was pressured to run to my QT and talk to my scumbuddies everytime something slightly interesting happened.

I also see a big issue of "bossiness" if one member of the scum-team is more experienced than the other(s).

[ortolan]

Though I agree with whoever said that Masons and Scum should either both have DayTalk or neither.

Yes, I agree with that also.

I will probably have all games that I mod in future have daytalking between relevant roles.

Daytalk amplifies the synergy of a scum team. If the scum team works well enough as players to use it, it has been estimated as worth as much as another Mafioso. This is especially true if there is only a single scumgroup.

Since you don't (or shouldn't) know in advance who's going to be drawing scum, mods should plan for the scum to use the advantage to its fullest, where it would make them much more powerful than without.

That actually sounds to me like an argument for why it should exist, if it magnifies the effect of skill and makes the game more dependent on the skill level of the people playing.

Yes, that was exactly my point in the OP.

[Vi]

All in all, I don't really think daytalk is a balance issue. It's hard to explain, but I think of "balance" issues mostly as things that affect your odds of winning if you lynch randomly, or things that sometimes put you in a situation where you can't win, ect. Yeah, daytalking can help, but I don't think it's ever going to "unbalance" an otherwise balanced game.

In other words, you're discounting the value of the day game. Would it change things if I said that that daytalk makes the lynch much less likely to hit scum except in a very controlled way?

[ortolan]

The times I've had scumtalk and masontalk during the day in my games, the threads never got used. It made me sad as a spectator.

That is true, but if they *want* to co-ordinate, and thereby give themselves an advantage, they can. It's easier to sort out good players from bad if some players don't even bother to use the abilities they're given. By finding ways to give people more explicit abilities in the context of a traditional mafia game you're going to lead to more skill differentiation, which is a good thing.

[Faraday]

Daytalk when it happens makes me love being scum even more. It just makes the game more fun for me when I have it.

[ortolan]

All in all, I don't really think daytalk is a balance issue. It's hard to explain, but I think of "balance" issues mostly as things that affect your odds of winning if you lynch randomly, or things that sometimes put you in a situation where you can't win, ect. Yeah, daytalking can help, but I don't think it's ever going to "unbalance" an otherwise balanced game.

In other words, you're discounting the value of the day game. Would it change things if I said that that daytalk makes the lynch much less likely to hit scum except in a very controlled way?

Arguably it's a trade-off, because the only conceivable scenario where scum avoiding the lynch would be a direct result of daytalk (i.e. if there was no day-talk then they would have been lynched) is if they somehow instruct their buddies to create a distraction, or all start wagoning someone else simultaneously. This is not necessarily good play at all however, as it leads to greater connections between the scum players, something town are meant to be on the lookout for anyway.

I guess the implication and another desirable result of this is that if the mafia use their daytalk really badly this might actually make them *more* likely to get caught by town down the road.

If the mafia want to gain an advantage from daytalking, they'll need to be subtle about it. Either way it's going to increase the tactical component of the game.

[Vi]

It's easier to sort out good players from bad if some players don't even bother to use the abilities they're given.

Not necessarily true; it distinguishes good teams from bad.
To illustrate the point, consider the Tofu Mafia scumteam - me, Adel, and Ectomancer. The other two were good scum players and I'm not terrible in the non-instances where I draw scum, but putting all three of us in the same running QuickTopic would probably have resulted in homicide.

This is not necessarily good play at all however, as it leads to greater connections between the scum players, something town are meant to be on the lookout for anyway.

Generally, associative tells fall into the category of "pretentious hipster bullshit" because of how they don't work the vast majority of the time.