Geriatric Ruleset Discussion Thread

[RadiantCowbells]

It's the opposite of ironic actually it's perfectly fitting.

[RadiantCowbells]

Hrm

I might run a second geriatric at some point t with a 60 40 balance and heftier.rules on prod dodging. See what happens.

[RadiantCowbells]

If I run another rather than standard prod rules I will have sole discretion over whether I feel like a player is ISPing or not.

[RadiantCowbells]

I think this has the potential to be a great meta space

People lurking and town participation dying kills it for everyone

Geriatrics so far probably have had below avg towns on account of the amount of people out of meta but that rust can be shaken off with time if geriatric games are fun and engaging enough to get repeat visitors

[RadiantCowbells]

I think before talking about improving posting in general in MD you have to start by asking why so many people don't take MD seriously because 'legislating improved posting in MD' is just going to make a lot of people stop posting in MD.

[RadiantCowbells]

I think there is a lot of

goodposting

in MD but I also think there's a significant amount of shitposting.

I am interested in clarification on what makes you feel like MD is taken particularly seriously?

It occurs to me that perhaps my idea of what serious MD should look like differs from most think.

[RadiantCowbells]

Aside from a few trouble users (mulch included). I don't think I see any shit posting. Just because those trouble users post a lot doesn't mean it's actually a widespread issue.

Fair enough.

But there's also a very big void of people who would be good MD posters actually posting in MD.

[RadiantCowbells]

I mean posting in MD totally truthfully without thought to meta manipulation is probably very suboptimal gameplay wise.

The assumption is that you think that holding back the meta strategically is the 'correct' thing to do in some manner. Based on this reasoning it would also be optimal to never let anyone have access to your scum PTs.
I think the goal should be to speak honestly based in the present then evaluate your future decisions based on having spoken honestly.

[RadiantCowbells]

Actually I should be clear on that: I think that the problem with MD isn't what is there but what isn't.

[RadiantCowbells]

No? It'd be optimal to be aware and in control of the information that's going to be released in any originally private setting.

While that might be your goal, that's certainly not universal, and my only point is that the potential detriment of posting here is at least part of the reason some people don't - not the "shitposting".

I mean yes obviously it's fine to release some curated information. I think that my point still stands. I think it's a very selfish way to look at the game.
I think that the amount of people who are truly unwilling to post stuff in MD because they're afraid that it'll hurt them in future games is smaller than you might think.

[RadiantCowbells]

Oh yeah obviously don't gamble with yourself in ongoing games.

[RadiantCowbells]

I think absolute selfishness for the sake of victory is correct in, say, League of Legends where my only obligations are to myself winning. Our viewpoints on the matter would have been a lot more similar years ago but I've drifted a lot in that regard.

[RadiantCowbells]

Being towny is possibly the least important scum skill

That is until you get towny enough that it switches back into being the most important skill

Most players don't need to be able to out obvtown obvtowns, they just need to push the lynch elsewhere.

[RadiantCowbells]

Scum play is going to take a far longer time for programming to even get close to than town play.

[RadiantCowbells]

(Unless, of course, the town meta devolves wholely into the use of programming solutions.)

[RadiantCowbells]

Being towny is possibly the least important scum skill

i know you didn't mean this literally but i'm going to choose to take it literally just in order to name less important scum skills:

- having good reads

- writing good cases

- formatting reads lists

- ability to count

- programming

I think writing good cases is phenomenally important as scum, and having good reads makes scum play a lot easier as well, and formatting reads lists is also +equity, being unable to count makes you taken less seriously.

I think Programming is the least important as of right now!

[RadiantCowbells]

I think that my ability to write good, believable, cases on town as scum is the single most valuable asset that my scum play has.

[RadiantCowbells]

You are free to make that leap. I am not particularly compelled as of right now. They might matter if the meta got to a point of hyper sophisticated tools.
I think that if it gets to that point, that most people are consistently using tools to help their scumhunting, it'll kill mafia. I've been slow about it but I am planning to push for a large scale ban on such tools.
To me it's the same as separating TAS from normal playthroughs of video games and such, or not allowing people to use bots to play chess for them.

[RadiantCowbells]

do you guys wanna know what the single most important aspect of winning scumgames is?

convincing everyone to run and join games with the geriatric ruleset.

[RadiantCowbells]

It takes a bare minimum of scum competency to win ~80% of your scum games.

[RadiantCowbells]

Unless the rules have changed in recent years, that's a pretty vast misrepresentation.

Anyway what I don't think you're realizing is that the majority of work doesn't have to happen in a game.

Analyzing chess games with a computer IN BETWEEN GAMES isn't banned in any setting.

This is true but the difference between static and dynamic resources is not a one to one equivalency with mafia.

[RadiantCowbells]

With regards to the less important argument: my understanding is that the general consensus is that anything based on midgame information (dynamic) is generally banned, anything that is not (static) is allowed.

I don't think it's a 1-1 equivalency here. And... you can ban someone from doing basically anything if you think it's the correct decision for whatever reason.

[RadiantCowbells]

You are absolutely allowed to do all of those things: I am arguing specifically for a ban on using a computer to help you do those things.

Every other form of research is gated in a way that this isn't.

[RadiantCowbells]

Enforcing any rule on this site is virtually impossible. If I personally wanted to cheat in a mafia game I would find it extremely easy to do so. Whether by convincing people to cheat with me or by multiaccounting.
Mafia thrives on the honor system.

That said I do have a few specific ideas of how to enforce it but I will probably not be the one to do that because I've had virtually no participation in MS coding up to now.

[RadiantCowbells]

Also in terms of being "gated", you realize hiring a bunch of people, paying them minimum wage or mechanical-turk style payments, and assigning them various concrete things to analyze is already more than enough to have excellent results by any standards yeah.

Absolutely this would have basically the same level of success. But this game thrives off of people

not doing that

. And I don't think it would be difficult to convince the mods to ban anyone who did this.

[RadiantCowbells]

At any point in say, 2015 when I had a literal 100% winrate the entire site could have made a PT and hard analyzed my meta and come up with something. That didn't happen.
Neither did anyone paying people minimum wage. Or whatever. Actually everyone making a PT would be amusing and interesting AF.

The tool thing will keep coming up in a way that those other things don't.

[RadiantCowbells]

People largely quit the site because it stopped being what it was for them. They blame spamposters and that's possibly a part of it absolutely but it's a lot more meaningful than that.
It encompasses lots of changes in personal life as well as shifts in the meta, the players, the rules, so many things that have changed and people come back and feel alien to the game.

I've only been here 5 years and I have played a significant portion of that but I often feel like a complete outsider in games, stuck trying to bridge the gap between what was and what is.
And I'm fine with that. There was a post in the GOAT thread about how you can't cross that bridge again and I empathize with that a lot: I'm sure with some introspection a lot of people would.

I personally think a huge value of the Geriatric games is the potential to get enough older players to play again with the people they remember that they might find themselves in the game again.

I fundamentally disagree. More people devoting more resources to doing well is more likely to make something thrive. If anything creating an economy in this game would be a good thing.

And I also think it would be very difficult to get said example banned - it's no different than a team of seconds helping someone/each other prepare for anything.

I think that you see things in a world of technicalities that most people would not see.

[RadiantCowbells]

You keep dragging things back to general cases without focusing on examining the specific effects that these things have on forum mafia itself.

[RadiantCowbells]

Anyway. This isn't the topic for this discussion and it's probably not the time for it either.

I mean it'll obviously majorly change how forum mafia exists as an entity.

You think for the worse, I think for the better.

That major change is not something that I think that anyone wants.

[RadiantCowbells]

I think that the amount of lost interest in mafia from the development of the game in the form that you want would kill any hope of the game being taken seriously professionally.

Why MS isn't moving forward is something I have a lot of personal thoughts on but I'll keep them to myself here.

[RadiantCowbells]

I ought to have talked more about wolfplay like 8 months ago.

I think my understanding of wolf play is still as high as it's ever been but I don't think it would be taken very seriously rn because my views are so unorthodox.

[RadiantCowbells]

It's extremely easy to be towny in a game where you don't really have to push mislynches to win as scum and just get to endgame and win.
The hard games are the ones where you have to push mislynches on objectively towny people and then survive their townflips and continue to push mislynches on more objectively towny people.

There's limited people who can swing that. There's a lot of people who can be generally towny as scum. If you can't push scum wincon then you will only win games where town lost it for themselves.