Mafiascum.net

I'm modding a pie e7 game (3 townies, 1 cop, 1 doc, 1 mafiagoon, 1 mafiaRB) and have a question I need answered just on the offchance that it comes up.


I didn't find an official ruling in the Wiki, and unless I can find one, my rule is that No, one cannot do both night actions in the same night phase.

We need an explicit ruling here.

I would say no, though I'm of course by no way official.

For the purpose of a newbie, I'd say absolutely...

Yeah, they can.

Here's the roleblocker PM from Vaughn's Newbie 529 (I'm not in it and it's open so this is OK):

Vaughn wrote: You are a Mafia Roleblocker
You and ______ are Mafia. Each night you may talk via Private Messages and choose a victim from the rest of the players to kill. One of you will private message me your decision.

The Mafia roleblocker has the additional ability to roleblock somebody, effectively preventing them from using their night action if they have any.

The Mafia Roleblocker can make the kill and block a different person in the same night.

You win when you outnumber the town.

(Shrug) So far it seems like the mods of newbies are just choosing it themselves. The one I'm in says no block and kill on same night, but another one I've looked at says yes. Non newbie Pie E7 setups I've played in have always had it as yes too.

The original one Flay made had a live RB only able to do one or the other. The first few ones just copied him.

That said, I think having a lone live mafia RB able to do both is probably better balanced.

I'd say they can do both. Otherwise if a scum is lynched day 1, mafia have a horrible time coming back from that, what with the town just no lynching twice into a near-unlosable situation.

I think it should be left up to the individual mod's coin flip, but should be made explicit in the opening post of the game which way the mod is choosing to go with it. Once we have a decent sample size to evaluate the balance, a general decision could be made to tweak the balance.

I agree with : Vaughn, mods of non-newbie E7s that Patrick has been in, Thok, Xythar, Primate, and possibly Tamuz.

(I already think it's a sick joke to give scum an RB that can get lynched D1 as consolation for cop+doc. Now you're supposed to lose the RB even if it's the goon who gets lynched?)

Follow up question, is it neccesary to tell the whole group, or can you just tell the RB and leave the town in uninformedville.

I suggest this setup shouldn't be run as semiopen just because a rule isn't clear...

I'd say yes, the mafia can kill as long as they're alive, and if he's the only mafia left then it doesn't matter if he has an extra power or not.

Kelly Chen wrote:(I already think it's a sick joke to give scum an RB that can get lynched D1 as consolation for cop+doc. Now you're supposed to lose the RB even if it's the goon who gets lynched?)

I agree that it's problematic to rely on a single role to prevent game-breaking strategies.

Would it work to attribute the roleblocking to the mafia side just like with the nightkill? So basically, the mafia in unison choose one person to block, and one to kill, each night.

The way I've been visualizing it is that the Scum Group has a nightkill, and the Mafia Roleblocker individually has a roleblocking ability. If the RB dies, the scum group obviously only has a nightkill anymore, but I don't think it follows that the Roleblocker must choose between the two actions if the Goon dies (I know they generally do in larger games, but Pie E7 is a little wonky).

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but show your work please. And yes, this is a shift since the first Pie E7 I started (518), but I agree with the balance of people here that it's likely to be more balanced if the Mafia RB keeps both actions; that's the whole point behind being able to sacrifice the Goon to keep the RB, right?

Xect wrote:Would it work to attribute the roleblocking to the mafia side just like with the nightkill? So basically, the mafia in unison choose one person to block, and one to kill, each night.

This is a fairly common mechanic in larger games, but with Pie E7 it creates a "specific to this setup" weirdness that I'd rather avoid in something used in Newbie Games (that said, it would certainly be fair to use in Open Games if the mod made it clear ahead of time).

So I suppose that the general consensus is that all PieE7 mafiaRBs should be allowed to do both. But that would be misleading for newbies, since that is usually not the case.

I think newbies should just use c9 from now on. It's simple, efficient, and relatively well balanced.

I don't know. I really like Pie E7, especially since it doesn't have the potential to be broken by a mass claim.

mikeburnfire wrote:I think newbies should just use c9 from now on. It's simple, efficient, and relatively well balanced.

I'm not sure that 20-40% town wins are "relatively well-balanced". And it's only "simple" because we've run hundreds of games under it; despite that, mods STILL can't get the role distribution right.

Finally, it's hella-swingy, which doesn't give a good impression of the game if Town feels cheated by a 5T2M setup, or Mafia feel cheated by a TTTCDMM setup... I'd rather our games were based on skill wherever possible, which means avoiding randomness in a setup this small.

The thing is, I don't think any setup this small can NOT be hella swingy. I recognize the need for newbie games to go faster than the regular games on this site, but I think that if we DO want them to be bases on skill, rather than randomness, we're going to have to switch to a larger setup.

but I think that if we DO want them to be bases on skill, rather than randomness, we're going to have to switch to a larger setup.

This brings up an interesting discussion. Do we need them to be based on skill?

I agree with Mr. Flay and Kelly.

The problem with forcing the RB to choose between a kill and a block is it severely cripples scum if one of them dies.

There's also the topic of "targeting". Since there's a lack of a pro-town RB, there's no need to specify the mafia-night kill. Since the mafia technically kill as a group, the mafia "group" is allowed to night-kill, and the mafia-RB gets his own action as well.

i suppose the mods have the final say, but it just doesn't seem like scum have a chance if one of them ends up getting lynched.

Simenon wrote:

but I think that if we DO want them to be bases on skill, rather than randomness, we're going to have to switch to a larger setup.

This brings up an interesting discussion. Do we need them to be based on skill?

Absolutely, we're trying to promote better play, and by allowing the players more control, player skill becomes more important.

Thestatusquo wrote:The thing is, I don't think any setup this small can NOT be hella swingy. I recognize the need for newbie games to go faster than the regular games on this site, but I think that if we DO want them to be bases on skill, rather than randomness, we're going to have to switch to a larger setup.

I don't agree that randomness is a larger factor than skill in who wins games this small. (That said it's still a factor.)

EDIT:

Simenon wrote:

but I think that if we DO want them to be bases on skill, rather than randomness, we're going to have to switch to a larger setup.

This brings up an interesting discussion. Do we need them to be based on skill?

No, not really. I think it's to the benefit of the site to maintain the illusion of that though.

Primate wins. Its not about teaching them good play, you're not going to teach newbies good play in two games. Its about teaching them Random votes, bandwagons, FoSes, Fakeclaims etc.

Xythar wrote:After all, C9 is 2/7 scum - 28%. 13 player games often have 3 scum - 13%. And yet you would probably never see a 21 player game with more than four scum (19%). I think either we need to challenge our predetermined notions of how many scum is balanced in a small game (maybe 9 players 2 scum would be better) or just have larger games. Is there some reason newbie games can't be larger in size?

Check your math, dood. 3/13 = 23%