Anonymous Mafia

[gobbledygook]

Not if the mod expressly states, that’s against the rules and they should also probably mention that in the sign up thread as well - that if you violate this rule, you may be force replaced.

If you have to have a mod rule that actively punishes claiming or things of that nature, you're probably running a flawed mechanic

It defeats the point of the alt game if you’re going to purposefully reveal things like that.

[northsidegal]

while i do think that outright claiming who you are goes against the spirit of an anonymous game and could probably be banned without significantly harming the game, don't you guys think that in an anonymous game pretending to be someone else is a valid strategy? that's what ellibereth did in the one anonymous game i tried to run.

[gobbledygook]

That’s hilarious and awesome

[Tchill13]

Not if the mod expressly states, that’s against the rules and they should also probably mention that in the sign up thread as well - that if you violate this rule, you may be force replaced.

If you have to have a mod rule that actively punishes claiming or things of that nature, you're probably running a flawed mechanic

It's not a mechanic though that's how the game was supposed to be played.

Meta was never an intended feature in mafia.

[northsidegal]

don't think that's true? or verifiable

[Tchill13]

while i do think that outright claiming who you are goes against the spirit of an anonymous game and could probably be banned without significantly harming the game, don't you guys think that in an anonymous game pretending to be someone else is a valid strategy? that's what ellibereth did in the one anonymous game i tried to run.

That's genius given how obsessed this site is with meta. That really just goes to show to what extent the obsession is if a player thinks it's worth acting like another player for an advantage.

It becomes clearer to me that nobody can imagine a game without meta. It's so engrained here ppl act like you have to have it to win. If that's not true then they act like meta is SUCH a huge advantage there must be effort put into it.

Unfortunately from my perspective meta hurts more than it does helps on this site as a WHOLE. obviously that's why I'm trying to provide a space to get rid of it.

A whole que of normals, themes and whatever else that you can just sign up and play anonymously.

I think the game play would be MILES different after a handful of games.

I genuinely believe that meta is a crutch that's holding this site back.

I'd go as far to say that eventually towns win percentage would be much higher in this que than any other que. That's another discussion altogether though.

[Tchill13]

don't think that's true? or verifiable

How so? you're telling me that when people sat down and created the game of mafia they wanted meta to play a part?

You immediately state its not verifiable because you don't have a great argument to say it's not true.

I believe mafia was supposed to be a clean slate experience every time. If you don't believe that, if you think meta was intended to be a mechanic from the start, then by all means give me some good evidence of that.

Because I believe I can point to the rest of the games features and it's proof that meta was never intended to be a thing.

These features allow you to manipulate others over and over and over again. The game itself is BORN of anonymity because YOU are the only player YOU can be sure about. The anonymity is the DRAW and BIGGEST factor of the game in the sense that you don't know anyone's roles or alignment. So why would a mechanism such as meta be implemented in the game by the creators? That goes AGAINST the direct best feature of the game. Meta is ANTI ANONYMITY. I think that right there proves it was never intended.

[northsidegal]

You immediately state its not verifiable because you don't have a great argument to say it's not true.

that's not how burden of proof works

[northsidegal]

shrug

had this discussion enough times that i don't even really feel like retreading the same points. if you don't like meta then i hope you get to play in more anonymous games, let me know if you want me to mod one sometime (privately, obviously)

[Tchill13]

You tell, me that's not how burden of proof works, I provide my side of proof and you shrug? Lol.

I just thought this was the place for in depth discussions. Trust me I'd love to be proven wrong. Then I could just drop the whole thing and say it really is a part of the game.

The idea of anonymous games aren't necessarily for my sake but for an entire player base.

There's a lot of terrible practices here that are defended with meta exclusively. Meta is a license to play the game in ways that don't benefit town and get away with it on this site.

BUT, if meta was intended in the game of mafia, then I'd just have to live with that license.

[northsidegal]

you haven't given any proof, you've given what you think is the case. you literally prefixed it with "i believe". it's an argument, sure – but not proof.

[Tchill13]

Haha... That's what we're gonna do lol. As if I can have a discussion with the creators. We are not allowed to opinionate based on how the game is you know... Built and works. Especially if this opinion doesn't follow your line of thinking.

I'm only opinionating BECAUSE we can't go back and actually see. That said I do believe what I have to work wither here, the game of mafia itself, does lean in the direction of the MORE anonymity the better. Of course that's not good enough because that's not written on the scroll of truth by the creators of the game.

I'll do some research and get back to you later today though. See what I can find.

[northsidegal]

okay, here's my thought experiment – let's say the game of mafia began with some people sitting around a table, with just mafia, townies, a lynch and a nightkill. let's say they played a bunch of games in a row, and then let's say that the people at the table started to notice that person A is pretty chatty in games where he turns out to be town, and clams up in games where he turns out to be scum.

that's meta.

do you think that they either did not notice this or noticed it and thought to themselves "hmm, this shouldn't be a feature of the game that we just invented"? i don't think either of those things are the case.

[popsofctown]

Your thought experiment makes me sad because it seems to presume none of the friends had thrown one of the other friends a surprise birthday party in the past

[Tchill13]

I like that and you bring up a great point.

you can say the same thing in the opposite direction.

When they created the game do you think they had one thought at all about the fact there would be similar patterns in interactions after a plethora of similar games?

Because at this point your playing another game altogether. When the player becomes self aware of their meta you're then playing the game in a way it wasn't intended to be played imo. You're manipulating how you'd respond to the game and it's events because of your history with the other players. You're actions have more so to do with things outside of the game than the game itself.

Now is that really even playing the game at all? Because the game is not your primary concern any more. Your history with the other players is. The game takes a back seat to that.

[Nancy Drew 39]

Not if the mod expressly states, that’s against the rules and they should also probably mention that in the sign up thread as well - that if you violate this rule, you may be force replaced.

If you have to have a mod rule that actively punishes claiming or things of that nature, you're probably running a flawed mechanic

It worked pretty well in the setup I played - at least that part of it anyway.

[Nancy Drew 39]

shrug

had this discussion enough times that i don't even really feel like retreading the same points. if you don't like meta then i hope you get to play in more anonymous games, let me know if you want me to mod one sometime (privately, obviously)

I don’t mind meta, I just think we deserve a choice. Not having meta/anonymous games, can be a really interesting/fun alternative. I would love to see more anonymous games on here - maybe even an anonymous games’ queue.

[Nancy Drew 39]

I like that and you bring up a great point.

you can say the same thing in the opposite direction.

When they created the game do you think they had one thought at all about the fact there would be similar patterns in interactions after a plethora of similar games?

Because at this point your playing another game altogether. When the player becomes self aware of their meta you're then playing the game in a way it wasn't intended to be played imo. You're manipulating how you'd respond to the game and it's events because of your history with the other players. You're actions have more so to do with things outside of the game than the game itself.

Now is that really even playing the game at all? Because the game is not your primary concern any more. Your history with the other players is. The game takes a back seat to that.

The real selling point to playing anonymous games, is to help to improve you as a player. Let’s say, a certain player wins almost all of their town games because they are excellent at applying meta but is shit at making non-meta reads, what happens to that same player as town in a game where he hasn’t any meta with any of the playerlist? That’s why having more anonymous games are important and ought to be encouraged. I also don’t think ideal sleuthing ought to be ideally based on if player X being “chatty” being AI, should be more impressive than player X is ___ alignment because their play is futhering a scum/town wincon, for example. Over reliance on meta, weakens you as a player, imo.

[Ankamius]

I kinda get the feeling that if these games were common, the demand for them would go down enough to make filling a game hard at all

[Nancy Drew 39]

I can understand why some people find it intimidating but it’s a completely different kind of mafia experience than what most people are used to. It’s kind of fun, making reads where no one knows anyone’s meta but too many seem to be closeminded about it.

[gobbledygook]

I think demand is there because look at how many alts there are

[Ankamius]

I meant demand over time, similar to how marathons tend to go

I have no real opinion on the idea itself other than it feels extreme to go this route to solve a problem. I'd probably join one for giggles eventually, but I have a feeling it would take a lot of time before towns learn how to scum hunt in this type of setting so I would wait for a few games to end first.

[gobbledygook]

How would Towns need to learn to scumhunt again?

[Ankamius]

You'd be surprised how much relies on knowledge of other people at least in some sense, there'd be a ton of reliance on general concepts and it takes time to decipher what works and what doesn't in that

[gobbledygook]

Hot take: power roles are there to prevent mL’s, not to find scum