In post 406, Gamma Emerald wrote: In post 381, CCC wrote: In post 379, MuttonChopMagic wrote:no, we don't completely ignore him because he softed pr
if he doesn't do anything actually useful then he climbs the lynch bar
if he's at l-1 and claims something believable, that is when we lynch elsewhere
I am the only vote on him atm I believe, that's not exactly biological warfare
also, to get all altruistic and shit, but understand
we should not be teaching beginners softing having a pr after 1 vote = a good plan
Carefully hidden in this rhyme is a very good point. You're wrong on one thing, though - NotTheRealPaul has two votes now, so far as I could spot (NotSure put on the other one).
But that doesn't change your main point. Frivolous PR softing should not be encouraged. Also, I'm sure the Mafia's picked up on it already - he has very little to lose by being a little more explicit at this point.
VOTE: NotTheRealPaul
And that, I believe, makes three votes.
Don't like this, registers as rolefishing.
...looking over my own post in hindsight, I can see how it might seem that way, taken out of context.
In
context, however, I think it's clear that rolefishing was not my goal.
If you take a look at my previous vote, I had already been considering NotTheRealPaul fairly scummy. My scumreads are still light - but nonetheless, his was the strongest. At that time, however, I hadn't voted for him, because he'd softed a PR - and the last thing I want to do is lynch a genuine Town Power Role.
Now, let's consider some maths.
We have thirteen players, and for the moment I will assume three Mafia. Let me go further and assume two Town PRs. Then the field would consist of:
Mafiax3
Town PRx2
Vanilla Towniex8
Now, NotTheRealPaul must fit into one of these categories; that is, he is either Mafia, or Town PR, or Vanilla Townie. Before taking into account any scumminess in his posts, the base probabilites of each group are approx. 23% chance of Mafia, 15% chance of Town PR, and 62% chance of Vanilla Townie. But he felt some pressure, and softed a Town PR role. This changes things.
Specifically; Mafia can claim either a Vanilla Townie role, or a Town PR role. Let's assume that Town roles never lie; and Mafia roles have a 50% chance of pretending to be a Vanilla Townie, and a 50% chance of pretending to be a Town PR. So. We know that he has softed a Town PR. What is he, really?
He cannot be a Vanilla Townie, because Vanilla Townies do not lie by softing a PR. He is therefore either Mafia, or a Town PR. What I want to know, therefore, is the probability (before factoring in any scumminess in his posts) that he is Mafia, *given* that he softed a Town PR. Using Bayes' Theroem:
P(Mafia | Softed PR) = P(softed PR | Mafia)*P(Mafia)/P(Softed PR)
P(Softed PR) = 2/13+(0.5*3/13) = 7/26
P(Mafia) = 3/13
P(softed PR | Mafia) = 0.5
Thus, P(Mafia | Softed PR) = (3/36)/(/7/26) = 3/7 = approx. 43% (with the remaining 57% going to the odds of being a genuine PR)
All the working (including the assumptions I made to get there) is in the spoiler, but, long version short; before considering any other scumminess in his post, looking only at the fact that of the PR claim, and not even considering its timing; his odds of being Mafia went up from 23% to 43% - mainly because he cut out the chances of being a vanilla Townie (I'm assuming Townies wouldn't lie about that). At the same time, however, his odds of being a genuine PR went up - from about 15% to around 57%.
Now, on the basis of the 57% chance of being a genuine PR, I had originally decided I shouldn't vote him - despite him still being my top scumread. Mainly because losing a PR would be a disaster, while losing a Vanilla Townie - well, it wouldn't exactly be
great
, but it would be a good deal less bad. However, MuttonChopMagic bought up a good point - that, by refusing to vote for someone merely because he softed a PR, I would be setting a bad precedent for the future.
I considered his point. What harm could my vote do? It could be a part of a lynch on NotTheRealPaul. But we were a long way from there. To even reach L-1, at least two other Townies would need to vote with me - and an actual lynch would require the aid of at least one more Townie on top of that.
It could put enough pressure on him to force him to claim. Forcing a PR to claim is a bad thing, because the Mafia then know who to target at night. But... he'd already softed his PR. Mafia already know who he is. Him suddenly jumping up and saying "I'm the Cop" or "I'm the Doctor" or whatever isn't going to make things a one bit worse - Mafia don't currently know
what
role he is, but they do know
who
softed a PR, and - well, that's pretty bad, but that's also
done
. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle now.
So, in the end, I concluded that there was minimal danger in voting for my top scumread, despite his claim, and promptly did so.