Labyrinth Mafia (Endgame)

[mastina]

Out of hydra Ego post.

I'm gonna tell a joke. (Which'll continue on said hydra.)

Knock, knock.

[mastina]

So.
This was a game I was in.

[mastina]

was it a good read? it sounds like you were actually pretty well tuned into the gamestate considering the limited time you had (Ank mentioning your theory that 9p could be LyLo is what originally tuned me into the idea of there being 4 scum)

That implies I read it.

I read the early pages, I read some random pages on the last day we were alive plus a little after we died (including enough to know that Shoshin follows my school of theory going by Shoshin's direct quoting of my MD threads/articles at some points ), enough to pick up on Wisdom being scum and to have a reasonable idea as to what would be town/not town, including to be on the lookout for an extra scum, but I didn't have a SOLID grasp on the game at any point; my success here I'd say is more based around my skill as a mechanical player combined with educated guessing amounting to luck.

[mastina]

What article?

Well.

It means anything is possible but the basis of decisions should be probabilities, not possibilities.

This is pretty much a direct quote from my article here.

Though less-up-to-date than the wiki version, the original thread can be quoted to show this:

Basic Thesis:

Mafia thrive on

possibility

; town thrive on

probability

.

Everything in the game traces back to this simple belief.

A mafia player thrives on making players think of the unlikely: "What if this player who was investigated by the cop is actually a Godfather? What if the cop claim after the lynch of a Godfather is actually scum fakeclaiming?" These are things that are of course theoretically

possible

, and which vastly favor the scum because they are probably not actually true.

A town player thrives on making reasonably probable conclusions: No, the innocent is not on a Godfather; no, the cop claiming after a Godfather lynch is not scum fakeclaiming. There remains the possibility of being wrong in deductions like this...but sheer statistical numbers are on your side to hold these beliefs, as 90+% of the time you will be right to have held these stances.

I channel the possibilities with a simple, yet versatile, question: "

Which is more likely?

" Which is the most likely to be the case? This is closely tied to Occam's Razor, in that often the most likely possibility is the simplest one requiring the least number of assumptions.

Nothing Is Ever Certain!

You will never have a scumteam which perfectly fits all the data on hand. There will always be something which makes the team not be perfect. There will always be a valid point which keeps a scumteam from being flawless.

Town players will say scummy shit. Scum players will say shit which sounds town. This is a basic truth, universal to any game you will play. Which is stronger depends on the skill of the player in question as an alignment, not to mention the circumstances behind what they are saying. (A statement that is incredibly scummy in one game might be the beacon of towniness in another; similarly, a statement scummy from one player might be a huge towntell coming from a different player.)

However, regardless of how crappy the scum are, or how elite the scum are, or how good the town are, or how shitty the town are: both sides will always contain at least

some

of both. As a result, when weighing evidence, every player will have a possibility of being either alignment.

The job of a town player isn't to see every possibility--

the job of a town player is to figure out which possibility is the most probable.

Explain Using These Terms

You don't have to use the exact language that I use here. But it helps to use the conceptual language here, and lots of us do this already. When we see someone point out something which we find to basically be impossible, we'll call them out on their bullshit and clearly tell them why we feel their theory, while possible, is incredibly improbable.

Be Realistic

In all aspects of your play. You should have in mind at all times what is a realistic scenario and what is unrealistic. But you should also know what you can realistically do, and what you cannot realistically do. For instance, if you're suffering a bad V/LA, you probably shouldn't promise to write a novella on every player in the game because that is almost certainly beyond your realistic capabilities given your circumstances.

Apply Occam's Razor

Use it often. Point out how unlikely combinations are. Point out how many assumptions (especially flawed ones) a theory relies on. Keeping things simple is a guideline I cannot stress the importance of enough in terms of possibilities versus probabilities. Most remote possibilities flagrantly violate Occam's Razor; most probabilities use Occam's Razor.

In Summary:

As town, focus on what is probable rather than what is possible, and look for those who are failing to do so.

(Incidentally, I am absolutely horrendous at being realistic about what I can/can't do, but I am TRYING to get better about it. Trying.)

[mastina]

Also.

that's fair mastina. in that case it was a bloody good guess

It's my one talent as a town player.

Guess the scum? Well, I do it occasionally, but I won't be able to replicate it again.

Guess aspects of the setup that I by all rights shouldn't be able to guess?

Well, I'll do it again in different games, each time flabbergasted that I got it right and yet managing it game after game.

[mastina]

Out of curiosity, are you a lawyer?

I am not!
I am autistic, with a fondness for writing (something I've considered is that my skillset may be well-suited to technical writing, but this mostly manifests in me having started thousands of stories), which gives an aura similar to that of a lawyer (see also, people commonly think that when I'm playing on alts of mine that I'm Titus, who IS a lawyer ), but I myself am not one.

Was told I'd make an excellent politician by many people, though!

[mastina]

I want my neighborhood released at least since that was my equivalent of a private PT this game

[mastina]

I figured you were a computer programmer.

Fun fact, that's actually my brother's job! He's a programmer, got a Masters degree in it even. Makes enough money to be entirely self-sufficient with zero debt.

I tried to become a programmer at around the same age he started (my interest being in games, naturally), but I struggled too much with it. I completed Digiprep easily enough and completed the two-year Digipen program at my school (the one with seven textbooks), but I was getting grades like C- at the end and my mother

hired the teacher's assistant to be a private tutor for me

to get me even those grades; without him I'd have just outright failed.

For our final game project, I contributed zero code. My contribution was exclusively the music for the game that I composed in a program meant for editing (not creating) music. (Still counted tho!)

In other words, I don't have the head for it on any professional level. I've dabbled with some coding, because of customizing webcomic sites by modifying HTML/CSS, and obviously I've dabbled in wiki code quite a fair amount, but that's the extent of my skills there. Enough to make something which may or may not look good, but which was made by me to display my work.

Is there a list of what people do for a living? I feel like that could be pretty useful for scumhunting purposes.

Actually, just yesterday, I caught a glimpse of a list in GTKAS. There's a Job with a Name thread. Not sure that's what it's used for (haven't checked it out), but something at least similar to that does in fact exist!

(My job is lifeguard btw. I have a college degree in CAD, which is Computer Aided Drafting, using programs like SolidWorks, Catia, and AutoCAD, primarily focused on Mechanical Engineering. But aside from a consulting job I can't talk about where I was a contractor, I don't have a job in the field.)

[mastina]

You're a lifeguard? That's so cool! I was recently at a water park and thought to myself how that'd be an awesome job lol

You'd be surprised......

(Basically, I have made it abundantly clear I believe Hell is not fire and brimstone, nor is it a frozen tundra. True hell is WATER. And any lifeguard can tell you as much.)

[mastina]

I'm literally loling. I love the water lol... why are you a lifeguard if you don't like it?

Oh I love the water, too!
Greatly enjoy it, as a matter of fact.
As a patron.

As a lifeguard, the shit you have to put up with is unreal; it's an incredibly stressful job, you have to keep up to date on dozens of certifications, you have to read literally thousands of rules and regulations and you're expected

to have perfect memory of all of them

, and even in the most ideal of situations a lifeguard can

still

have things go poorly for them when there are conflicting rules/regulations (what the hell do you do when one rule says to do one thing but a different rule says to do something else?) or they make even the slightest of slip-ups.

Keep in mind also that lifeguards get minimum wage. Mind you,

Washington

minimal wage in my case (so, basically $12/hour right now), but still minimal wage, and because we're part-time (we're required to work less than 40 hours/week), we don't qualify for benefits. And honestly, the job is immensely taxing with stress levels through the roof; even were you allowed to work 40 hours a week, you'd have to be insane to actually want to.

Fatigue, burnout, stress, low pay, high maintenance rate, a million expectations often even conflicting ones, there's a reason lifeguards have a very high turnover rate and is mostly a job filled by people who need to get a job on their resume; it's not a job which is something you can love, in of itself, to be honest.

That having been said, the main reason I'm a lifeguard is because being a lifeguard gives me a sense of giving to the community; I feel like I am getting paid to contribute to the community and make it a better place, by doing what amounts to a paid community service. It may not be much of a contribution, but it's giving

something

, something which I have the skillsets to give, and yet making some semblance of a living while doing so.

Not many jobs offer me that, and in that sense, I enjoy my work, because I believe in it. Ask me what my job is like outside of work and I'll say it's good; ask me what my job is like while I'm working, and I'll tell you why it's a living hell.

[mastina]

I figured you were a computer programmer.

I tried to become a programmer at around the same age he started (my interest being in games, naturally), but I struggled too much with it. I completed Digiprep easily enough and completed the two-year Digipen program at my school (the one with seven textbooks),

Sno-isle, by any chance?

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. Multiple things go by the name Sno-isle referring to education; it's possible one of them was involved in mine?

But, if you mean a school by that name, no, my school was Sky Valley Education Center (back when it was actually a good school; it really was the best of both worlds of homeschooling and public schooling back then). I'm one of the few who remembers its Snohomish location, with the barn. (Though the majority of my education was in the Monroe location in...what's it called? Business district? The location within walking distance of Monroe's YMCA. Where I am now employed. )

[mastina]

There was a school by that name with a DigiPen program, yeah. It serviced the Snohomish and Island counties. If you'd gone to it there would've been a decent chance we were classmates, or at least knew some of the same people.

In spite of going to different schools, wouldn't surprise me if we knew some of the same people, anyway.