Replacing from Former Town?

[KuroiXHF]

So my first real introduction to internet Mafia was from a... defunct board? (Not sure if it is, but won't mention the name to err on the side of caution.) There, they played Mafia games differently and wanted to know thoughts from people.

There, if a town was lynched/killed and another person had to be replaced, it was perfectly acceptable for that town member to replace in, since they didn't know who scum was. Out of curiosity, why is this different here?

[RadiantCowbells]

I'm pretty sure a lot of scumteams that killed me night one would be salty if I replaced into another slot and started lynching them again.

[Cheery Dog]

The player base is big enough here to avoid having to replace with the dead.

[KuroiXHF]

It also brings up a question if this is an unwritten rule of sorts, or simply discouraged.

Preview Edit - Cheery: True, although it can sometimes be a big pain in the butt to replace into some games.

[Firebringer]

The player base is big enough here to avoid having to replace with the dead.

This.
On my homesite we have had issues with finding replacements and had to have people replace into empty slots and they cause issues (because our big games are anon games nobody knows the identity of players 100%)

So for instance in one game we had one person get lynched 2 times in the same game.
They kept replacing into empty slots and players thinking the player was scummy.
They were town in both of these slots.

[Vi]

Historically it has been done out of necessity, but the practice has since died out AFAIK.

(also, the excellence of dying as Town and replacing into a scum slot, etc.)

[mastina]

There's also the thing we call "dead topics".
Back when players replaced back into the game, those were not used.
They started seeing use in around 2009.
And soon were in every game, to the point where any player found dead in a game without one would be confused and pester the mods about it.

[borkjerfkin]

I've specifically denied people asking to do this and can't think of a situation where I would allow it.

If they replace into a scum slot (and you have to allow this otherwise you confirm the replace-in slot unless i'm understanding this wrong) they kind of get an out-of-game hedge (they get to "win" as either faction at the end of everything) that could cause them to not fully play toward slot #2's wincon or at least become apathetic in a losing situation that I feel is detrimental to the experience overall.

[Gamma Emerald]

Investigative roles.
My answer to "can town sub in after death?" is a solid "fuck no".

[kuribo]

So my first real introduction to internet Mafia was from a... defunct board? (Not sure if it is, but won't mention the name to err on the side of caution.) There, they played Mafia games differently and wanted to know thoughts from people.

There, if a town was lynched/killed and another person had to be replaced, it was perfectly acceptable for that town member to replace in, since they didn't know who scum was. Out of curiosity, why is this different here?

It was done a few times here and there years ago. This was before Dead QTs were a thing.

There's a game from my early days on my wiki, Darox was killed by scum and then replaced back in later... into a scum slot.

[callforjudgement]

I don't think there's anything

broken

about a VT (who hasn't seen the dead thread) replacing back in – they have no more information than a random player who hadn't been involved with the game would – but it's a bad idea, because a) they have a conflict of interest if they end up replacing into a scum slot, b) it rather cheapens the ability to nightkill/lynch players to get rid of their opinions. (Also, it has indeed happened a few times in the past.) If a role could have any additional information beyond VT (e.g. who they targeted in the past), they clearly mustn't be allowed to replace back in.

[Zorblag]

Replacing into games one has been killed in has happened here in the past. This Game was one where the same player self hammered twice (first as SK, then as town,) to give scum a victory.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[callforjudgement]

Unless something very weird is going on with the win conditions, selfhammering as SK is just outright gamethrowing. I definitely wouldn't let someone replace back in if they'd done something worthy of being banned!