Your voting system. What??

[Jamiet99uk]

Hi there,

I've come to this site after having played Mafia / Werewolf on four other sites / forums and a few things strike me as VERY different here from everywhere else I've played.

Two of these things are so weird to me that I wanted to ask about them.

The second is your voting system.

Where I've played before, days don't usually end in a hammer. Days are much shorter, but usually run their full 48 or 72 hour distance. At the end of a day, on those other sites, the player with the most votes is lynched - even if there are, say 11 players left, and the votes are as follows:

Clinton: 5
Trump: 4
Stein: 2

Now as I understand it, here on Mafiascum, that'd be a no-lynch result. Where I've played before, Clinton would be lynched.

Can anyone explain why your voting mechanics are the way they are?

JT

[Sunlit Diamond]

Because it works for us?

I'm sure someone who's been around longer can give a more eloquent response.

[Sunlit Diamond]

Actually, from my perspective:

Majority lynching like you are talking about lends itself to fast and/or lazy play, neither of which is the meta here. The point of the day phase is to achieve the *right* lunch, not just "any lynch", and therefore having "no Lynch" be the result of dysfunctional play ensures people (generally) make more of an effort to actually push the person they want lynched.


It also adds a lot of interactions and read possibilities that aren't possible with majority vote.

It also ensures that accidental lynches are quite rare.

[Lycanfire]

Majority lynch is a staple of most metagames everywhere. You're describing a plurality lynch, which is perfectly acceptable, and sometimes used on this site.

I've never not played on a site that didn't have majority lynch or a "hammer".

I think an answer to most of your questions regarding "Why does Mafiascum..." is "because we like it that way." There's no monolithic entity that forces people to have games run in a certain way. You either meet the framework to join a certain queue, or you go to one that has fewer restrictions. Game mods generally get to do what they want, so long as they don't break the site and the people playing the games.

[Sunlit Diamond]

^ better answer

[Zachrulez]

Can anyone explain why your voting mechanics are the way they are?

JT

Why does the sky appear to be blue when you look out at it?

[implosion]

There isn't anything wrong with plurality lynch. I doubt almost anyone would really object to plurality lynch being used here, because it's very very rare for a day to reach deadline. Nolynch at deadline nominally exists to punish towns that are refusing to be decisive. But in reality it's basically a nonfactor which system is used in a game with such long deadlines.

[Alisae]

Plurality Lynch is great for blitzes and shorter games

[Alisae]

Like
MU I think has a great way for going about it since their deadlines are usually 36hours/12hours

• Plurality Lynch
  
• No Majority
  
• Votes locked in LyLo
  
• Tied votes will result in a player being lynched at random from among the tied players.

I might be missing one

[Zachrulez]

There isn't anything wrong with plurality lynch. I doubt almost anyone would really object to plurality lynch being used here, because it's very very rare for a day to reach deadline. Nolynch at deadline nominally exists to punish towns that are refusing to be decisive. But in reality it's basically a nonfactor which system is used in a game with such long deadlines.

Plurality lynches suck. No one really has to commit to any kind of a position so you end up with games that just stall out and get lynches that don't really give you any kind of information so the games just stall out even more and are controlled by the few people who are bothered to post.

[mhsmith0]

Like
MU I think has a great way for going about it since their deadlines are usually 36hours/12hours

• Plurality Lynch
  
• No Majority
  
• Votes locked in LyLo
  
• Tied votes will result in a player being lynched at random from among the tied players.

I might be missing one

FWIW, minor correction: typically MU has plurality lynch with majority option and lylo vote lock (I actually like LYLO vote lock, since it makes votes more meaningful and gets rid of the gimmick vote/unvote sort of thing that people sometimes like to mess around with)

What that means in practice is that people CAN hammer a lynch early, but if they don't, then the largest wagon eats it.

That's neither better nor worse, just different.

[Creature]

Still surprised someone finds our lynch mechanism weird, but whatever.

[zoraster]

The simplest answer is that a deadline of 48-72 hours is different than a deadline of 14 days. Generally speaking, everyone would PREFER not to go to the deadline every single Day. If you use a pure plurality lynching system (with no hammer ever) you make games very long when they don't, strictly speaking, need to be. If you've got a game with 48-72 hour Days, you don't mind if every Day goes to deadline. In fact, with such a short turn around, that's probably PREFERABLE because it makes timing predictable.

That said, plenty of people have used plurality lynch system for when there isn't a majority at the deadline. But in truth, regardless of plurality or no lynch at deadline, it's rarely used. Town usually realize they don't need or want a day to end on a plurality lynch. excepting possible "multiball" games, because there should always be a way to get a majority for town. And there is some utility in making people make a hard choice at the end of the Day.

[Creature]

I prefer plurality lynch with majority mechanism tbh.

[zoraster]

if games were going to deadline a lot, i'd probably agree. No lynches ending days is bad. But a plurality system adds an additional level of complexity that isn't really necessary and no lynch puts the game on a lot of pressure to act before time is out.

[Creature]

Plurality lynches are more ideal when there's a large playerlist alive.

[Jamiet99uk]

Thanks everyone for your views.

On webDip, where I've come here from, the standard format is:

- 48 hour day phases
- plurality lynch at EoD
- players can hammer the phase end if the majority of players are on the same target, and the majority vote "end".

In my experience (8 games as a player, 2 as GM) that works really well.

JT

[Toto]

You can always mod games here with those special rules and see what people think.

[zoraster]

Thanks everyone for your views.

On webDip, where I've come here from, the standard format is:

- 48 hour day phases
- plurality lynch at EoD
- players can hammer the phase end if the majority of players are on the same target, and the majority vote "end".

In my experience (8 games as a player, 2 as GM) that works really well.

JT

We don't prohibit moderators from running games like that. Some people here still like that. But if your goal is to make us change altogether, you should probably wonder why you're doing that.

[Thestatusquo]

wow! 10 whole games!

[Lord Gurgi]

I've been here for a month, and I think...

[Jamiet99uk]

Thanks everyone for your views.

On webDip, where I've come here from, the standard format is:

- 48 hour day phases
- plurality lynch at EoD
- players can hammer the phase end if the majority of players are on the same target, and the majority vote "end".

In my experience (8 games as a player, 2 as GM) that works really well.

JT

We don't prohibit moderators from running games like that. Some people here still like that. But if your goal is to make us change altogether, you should probably wonder why you're doing that.

No. I'm not trying to make anyone change.

I'm merely puzzled, and trying to understand why your default approach is such a pile of shit.

[zoraster]

Thanks everyone for your views.

On webDip, where I've come here from, the standard format is:

- 48 hour day phases
- plurality lynch at EoD
- players can hammer the phase end if the majority of players are on the same target, and the majority vote "end".

In my experience (8 games as a player, 2 as GM) that works really well.

JT

We don't prohibit moderators from running games like that. Some people here still like that. But if your goal is to make us change altogether, you should probably wonder why you're doing that.

No. I'm not trying to make anyone change.

I'm merely puzzled, and trying to understand why your default approach is such a pile of shit.

I’m sure you see why that’s incompatible.

[Jamiet99uk]

48 - 72 hour days with a plurality lynch is just manifestly superior.

I'm trying to understand what possible benefit could arise from the weird way you do it here, and I can't.

[Alisae]

hi what you're experiencing is a culture shock.