"We'd be much more likely to kill a townie than a scum"

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"We'd be much more likely to kill a townie than a scum"

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Sat Aug 24, 2019 12:25 pm

Post by Leucosticte »

I hear people say sometimes, especially on D1 when there's no intel, "We shouldn't lynch in this situation because we'd be much more likely to kill a townie than a scum."

Or people say about a N1 situation where a vig is choosing to shoot a random player, based on no intel, "That's dumb because you're much more likely to hit a townie than a scum." viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23994

What about a situation, though, where there's been a D1 massclaim, but you still have five people claiming vanilla, and you're pretty confident there's a scum in there? Normally you would start lynching vanillas, yet if you lynch randomly from that pool, you have a 4/5ths chance of lynching a townie by accident.

Where people mess up, I think, is in only thinking of the immediate effect in the day in which they're acting, and not thinking of subsequent days. Yeah, you're going to bring the game closer to its end if you accidentally lynch a townie, but you're also narrowing the field of suspects. If you have, say, a cop or tracker, you can focus their efforts more.

But even if you don't have anyone doing investigations like that, narrowing the pool of suspects helps your odds on subsequent days. In the scenario above, on D2, your odds are only 3/4ths of lynching a townie, and then on D3, 2/3rds, and then on D4, 1/2, etc.

A point I've sometimes raised is that theoretically the two sides are balanced, so for example, if there are 18 townies and 6 scum, on average each of those scum is as powerful as 3 townies (basically like comparing a knight to a pawn in chess). So even though, shooting randomly, you have a 3/4ths chance of shooting town, it's still potentially a worthwhile risk-reward tradeoff.

On the other hand, in that scenario, you'd have a greater chance of shortening the game (and getting fewer lynches) than you would of hitting a scum (and therefore getting another lynch). Does shortening the game work against you, though, considering that scum also get fewer kills in when you do that, and that their kills are more accurate?

So where do you draw the line and say that a choice of targets is just too random and the possibility of killing a townie (perhaps an important townie) is too great to be acceptable?
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Sat Aug 24, 2019 1:11 pm

Post by Creature »

You gotta remember that you atleast have a chance, even if slim, of hitting scum, while scum will only hit town.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Sat Aug 24, 2019 1:47 pm

Post by Leucosticte »

In post 1, Creature wrote:You gotta remember that you atleast have a chance, even if slim, of hitting scum, while scum will only hit town.
That's what I've always said, but their attitude is, "It's one thing to get killed by scum, but we shouldn't have to worry about getting killed by our own teammates."

Also, they hate the N1 militia shot because it could hit a friendly power role (e.g. cop). I pointed out, though, that the mafia side has its own rolecop who's trying to find and eliminate the townies with power roles.
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Sat Aug 24, 2019 1:56 pm

Post by Creature »

In post 2, Leucosticte wrote:"It's one thing to get killed by scum, but we shouldn't have to worry about getting killed by our own teammates."
So they'd rather just let scum kill them until endgame? A+ strategy
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Sat Aug 24, 2019 2:34 pm

Post by Ankamius »

In post 1, Creature wrote:You gotta remember that you atleast have a chance, even if slim, of hitting scum, while scum will only hit town.
the N1 scumkill on scum is a very underrated and potentially overpowered strategy that doesn't see enough play
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:13 am

Post by chennisden »

As long as people
think
they are good enough to lynch scum they will not stop lynching.

Lynching is also very +equity
because I said so
because mafia is a game of information, usually people who are obvtown are killed by mafia (thus granting minimal information to town).
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:14 am

Post by chennisden »

Also D1 massclaim doesn't happen on this site because that's bad play
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:15 am

Post by Firebringer »

if I dont' have a good enough scumread D1, I used to make this argument
Show
"You are the Joker of mafia players" - Oversoul
"last time I was scum with Firebringer
his first post in the scum PT was "yes I rolled scum!"
I decided to post "haha just don't post that in the main thread", but to get up to date on the main thread first.

His first post in the main thread was "yes I rolled scum!" -popsofctown
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 7:46 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 4, Ankamius wrote:
In post 1, Creature wrote:You gotta remember that you atleast have a chance, even if slim, of hitting scum, while scum will only hit town.
the N1 scumkill on scum is a very underrated and potentially overpowered strategy that doesn't see enough play
That is usually disallowed in singleball, isn’t it?
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We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 4:57 pm

Post by Leucosticte »

In post 4, Ankamius wrote:the N1 scumkill on scum is a very underrated and potentially overpowered strategy that doesn't see enough play
elab
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Post Post #10 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 5:50 pm

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

Actually, she’s probably trolling. Sometimes, I’m a bit slow. :lol:
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We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)
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Post Post #11 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:01 pm

Post by Leucosticte »

In post 10, Nancy Drew 39 wrote:Actually, she’s probably trolling.
You never know; there are a lot of divergent theories out there.
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Post Post #12 (ISO) » Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:14 pm

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

I have yet to be in any game where scum deliberately NK’d one of their own and why tf would they, when they could bus to get towncred, which is probably not the best play in most cases anyhow.
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We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)
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Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl
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Post Post #13 (ISO) » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:41 am

Post by Vi »

In post 2, Leucosticte wrote:"It's one thing to get killed by scum, but we shouldn't have to worry about getting killed by our own teammates."
The latter is the entire point of the social deduction/manipulation and traitor mechanic. There are cooperative games that don't have those and may be more suitable; they're also not Mafia.
So where do you draw the line and say that a choice of targets is just too random and the possibility of killing a townie (perhaps an important townie) is too great to be acceptable?
when they're going after me
otherwise never
this is not a situation that improves by doing nothing
Everything you say and do matters. People will respond in ways you may never see. May those responses be what you intend.
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Post Post #14 (ISO) » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:12 am

Post by Ankamius »

It was a joke
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Post Post #15 (ISO) » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:44 am

Post by callforjudgement »

In post 12, Nancy Drew 39 wrote:I have yet to be in any game where scum deliberately NK’d one of their own and why tf would they, when they could bus to get towncred, which is probably not the best play in most cases anyhow.
On this site, it happened in the first Red Flag game (whose mechanic is that town win if they lynch two scum, but scum self-kills don't count towards that total, so it's to scum's benefit to self-kill if they think they'll get lynched otherwise, and definitely not to scum's benefit to bus).

Offsite, I've seen a scum member NK another when there were no special mechanics in play other than a Janitor. I am of the opinion that this was a bad move (and it becomes obvious what happened as soon as you reach the "day after lylo" and yet the game's still going). That said, IIRC scum won that game, so…
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
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Post Post #16 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:18 am

Post by Zachrulez »

In post 0, Leucosticte wrote:"We shouldn't lynch in this situation because we'd be much more likely to kill a townie than a scum."
Ah... the age old argument against lynching. A classic.

The only thing that sucks more than hearing it is trying to explain why you should lynch to an un-receptive player.
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Post Post #17 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 8:12 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 15, callforjudgement wrote:
In post 12, Nancy Drew 39 wrote:I have yet to be in any game where scum deliberately NK’d one of their own and why tf would they, when they could bus to get towncred, which is probably not the best play in most cases anyhow.
On this site, it happened in the first Red Flag game (whose mechanic is that town win if they lynch two scum, but scum self-kills don't count towards that total, so it's to scum's benefit to self-kill if they think they'll get lynched otherwise, and definitely not to scum's benefit to bus).

Offsite, I've seen a scum member NK another when there were no special mechanics in play other than a Janitor. I am of the opinion that this was a bad move (and it becomes obvious what happened as soon as you reach the "day after lylo" and yet the game's still going). That said, IIRC scum won that game, so…
Oh really? Interesting.
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We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)
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Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl
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Post Post #18 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 8:21 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 16, Zachrulez wrote:
In post 0, Leucosticte wrote:"We shouldn't lynch in this situation because we'd be much more likely to kill a townie than a scum."
Ah... the age old argument against lynching. A classic.

The only thing that sucks more than hearing it is trying to explain why you should lynch to an un-receptive player.
Tbf, I have actually been in games where a D1 no lynch made the most sense but that was obviously a very unusual exception. Leucosticte is a newbie to this site and this kind of thinking is far more likely to come from newbie players, so taking that into account, I wouldn’t be too critical. Lecosticte will probably change their mind about this as they gain more experience playing. I was opposed to D1 lynches when I first started playing, that ultimately changed, once I began to understand how mafia actually worked.
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We just need to tread carefully because if you slip up around her as scum she notices and will tear your spine out and slap you to death with it. (I'm slightly scared of Nancy)
~the worst
*******
Nancy is pretty heavenly ngl
~CheekyTeeky
*******
Nancy-scum feels like a hot knife slicing through butter. Nancy-town feels like a magnifying glass in the sun glaring down at an insect.
~Taly
***
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Post Post #19 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:14 am

Post by kuribo »

No lynching D1 puts you into day 2 with basically the same information as before, except you have one less townsman and no wagon to analyze for it.

At least with a day 1 mislynched you can glean information from the wagon and from dead's interactions.
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Post Post #20 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:35 am

Post by callforjudgement »

A simple thought experiment: imagine a 98:2 setup. Assuming you're town, if you lynch randomly, you will almost always hit townies and will almost always win eventually despite all the mislynches. If you no-lynch every day, you will lose. Thus, the random lynches that are highly likely to hit town nonetheless end up benefiting town.

Town-directed kills, as such, tend to help town on average no matter how inept the person aiming them is (unless they actively seek out good townies to kill for some reason).
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Post Post #21 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:24 pm

Post by Awoo »

Typically when you try to play a mafia game with people that are bad at mafia (offsite, irl...) they will try to do this because they're bad at games. As the moderator, your goal is to host a good game, though, not a game where the mafia steamroll and then town cry because there was no bulletproof IC cop to save them in their incompetence. Now, because they are bad at games, even if you try to explain a thought experiment to them, they're still not gonna get it.

When dealing with players who don't know how to play mafia, it is highly recommended to institute mandatory plurality lynches, except maybe in special cases like MYLO, and just tell them "that's just the way the game is played", then watch as they slowly realize that they actually have to play the game, and then they will flourish. Sometimes.
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Post Post #22 (ISO) » Tue Aug 27, 2019 11:20 pm

Post by The Fonz »

There's a difference between lynches and vigs though. Lynches allow for claims, and generate more information. Vig strategy is a lot more arguable than lynching.
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Post Post #23 (ISO) » Wed Aug 28, 2019 4:38 am

Post by popsofctown »

You can leash the vig to make it work like a lynch though.
Democratically pick a player the vig should shoot at, demand that player claim, move on to another player if the claim is satisfactory, if they claim VT direct the vig to shoot there. Should generate the same information.
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Post Post #24 (ISO) » Wed Aug 28, 2019 6:08 am

Post by The Fonz »

Only works with an outed vig, though. Which you don't want night one.
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