Commonly Asked Questions on Mafia Theory

This forum is for discussion related to the game.
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #200 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:41 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

It's possible that some setups will attract particular players. If those players have a particular town/scum bias (e.g. are particularly easy to read, helping town, or are particularly hard to read, helping scum), then that will show up in the setup results.
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #201 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:04 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 195, BuJaber wrote:To use your example, how would Ellibereth win as scum?
by zero posting in the game topic and getting carried by smith, of course :P :good:
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #202 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:05 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

Amusingly I remember Ellibereth said something to me about his difficulties playing as scum
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #203 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:05 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 188, northsidegal wrote:
In post 183, Persivul wrote:
In post 177, naturalbreadcrumbs wrote:In a Mountainous set-up, is it really possible for Town players, through only experience and skill, to raise the chances of a correct lynch above random selection?
D1 - no.

After that, if VCA and NKA are properly applied - yes.
i fundamentally disagree with everyone who espouses the "day ones are useless" philosophy. reading people based on their play really doesn't change at all day to day, and that's not something that you can ever just ignore.
I have been part of town sweeps. It is entirely possible to achieve wolf lynches on d1, sometimes even without much in the way of bussing! If you believe it can happen, you can make it happen.
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #204 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:07 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:

1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happens
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #205 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:09 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 201, mhsmith0 wrote:
In post 195, BuJaber wrote:To use your example, how would Ellibereth win as scum?
by zero posting in the game topic and getting carried by smith, of course :P :good:
A more serious answer to the question is that a high rep town player, when randing wolf, will probably be forced to bus at some point, barring a pretty lol tier willage or extremely careful planning of interactions and night kills (in order to CREATE an lol tier willage by murdering off the people capable of catching him in the first place).

(also anon games can help with this too *shrugs*)
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #206 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:13 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch,
This is critical

Becomes even more critical the higher density of MU players you have :thinking:
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #207 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:28 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 180, OkaPoka wrote:I think the more experienced the playerlist, the more likely that town lynches town from personal experience.

Personally, I believe that there is a higher peak to playing scum than playing town, if that makes any sense. Like there is a limit to how good you can get at being able to look at anyone and just knowing they are scum (barring meta) while playing scum, there is no real limit. Scum players, especially in no investigative pr setups, are just afforded much more freedom so given enough time, they could probably create an effective persona that is essentially unlynchable. A big part of playing scum in a normal game is both getting townread while not drawing night actions, but when you don't have to care about the latter, then all you have to do is get solidly townread which isn't too hard if you put enough effort into it.

When the playerlist overall is less experienced, I think that town is more favored than scum. It takes a lot more training to be good at deception versus seeing someone be awkward and realizing they don't fit in. We've been training our entire lives to lie and tell if someone else is lying, but keeping up a lie for months is really hard without at least some experience.

But your mileage may vary and this is just all speaking from personal experience.
I actually disagree with this a bit.

At the lowest levels, I think you're correct, in that really bad scum play loses games easier than really bad town play, and the relative gain from improving scum play is >>> the gain from improving town play.

But I think that it's actually really hard to become townread as scum in a really high level game; if, say, >=75% of the town is quality (which is actually VERY hard to make happen sometimes), then it becomes actually kind of easy to establish a pretty good POE and force scum to bus or out themselves with their pushes, or to establish a thread environment that's just an overall nightmare to wolf in because people are accurately finding each other and making/enforcing standards around what people are saying/doing that takes the air out of the kind of space for BS that wolves tend to need to thrive.
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #208 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:13 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

i actually think town is a lot harder than scum but
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #209 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:14 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

like as a decent scum player it's pretty easy to win all or nearly all of your games, winning all or nearly all of your games as town is pretty fucking hard if you aren't using a program to gain a massive advantage
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
User avatar
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
Not that Inno Scent
Posts: 14979
Joined: January 14, 2018
Pronoun: She/Her
Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
Contact:

Post Post #210 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:40 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 206, RadiantCowbells wrote:
In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch,
This is critical

Becomes even more critical the higher density of MU players you have :thinking:
You think MU players mislynch more frequently than MS players?
***
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
***
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #211 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:44 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

I'm saying that MU players tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players by writing them off as POE lynches that should happen at some point. You'll pretty much never see a D1 lynch on a well connected player on MU ime.
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
User avatar
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
Not that Inno Scent
Posts: 14979
Joined: January 14, 2018
Pronoun: She/Her
Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
Contact:

Post Post #212 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:20 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:

1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happens
When you find them, how do you convince town that they’re Lhfs and not wolves? Town more often than not, fails miserably in differentiating the mislynchbaity lhfs from scum. They all too frequently misunderstand that lynchbaity lhf play, usually comes from town, way more than scum.
***
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
***
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #213 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:36 am

Post by RadiantCowbells »

Tell them they're all bad and should sheep me because I'm god
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
User avatar
User avatar
Nancy Drew 39
She/Her
Not that Inno Scent
Not that Inno Scent
Posts: 14979
Joined: January 14, 2018
Pronoun: She/Her
Location: HYDRAs 4EVA!!!
Contact:

Post Post #214 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:43 am

Post by Nancy Drew 39 »

In post 213, RadiantCowbells wrote:Tell them they're all bad and should sheep me because I'm god
:lol:

What if you’re not in the game?
***
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
***
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #215 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:11 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 212, Nancy Drew 39 wrote:
In post 204, mhsmith0 wrote:A short list of things you can do as town to make the odds of a wolf lynch >>>rand:

1) Identify and drive wagons on wolfy players
2) Develop a *RELIABLE* town core (if your town core is a bunch of wolfs, lolu)
3) Find the easy/lazy mislynch du jour, prevent their lynch, see what happens
When you find them, how do you convince town that they’re Lhfs and not wolves? Town more often than not, fails miserably in differentiating the mislynchbaity lhfs from scum. They all too frequently misunderstand that lynchbaity lhf play, usually comes from town, way more than scum.
Figure out the case on the LHF, and effectively argue against the case
Find the skeeziest looking vote on the LHF and vote that person
See if there are people alive who are sitting back and lurking out the phase with the easy mislynch
Meta the LHF, try and find AI tells in their town vs scum game, point out (obv only if true) how they're playing more like their town game than scum game
etc

I think it's easy for people to shrug and walk down the easiest path when left to their own devices, but if you make it difficult to just shrug and lazy lynch whoever is the worst (or, sometimes, lowest rep) player in the game, then you can see what shakes out from that. Sometimes you can see legitimately useful AI tells (in either direction) when the easy lynch becomes hard because there's actual resistance to it.

PS It really does help a lot if you can find someone interacting with the wagon in a particularly suspicious manner and focus the attention that way. Of course, sometimes you're stuck in a game with ONLY LHF's and in that case, it's simply your lot in life to suffer :P
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #216 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:17 pm

Post by mhsmith0 »

In post 211, RadiantCowbells wrote:I'm saying that MU players tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players by writing them off as POE lynches that should happen at some point. You'll pretty much never see a D1 lynch on a well connected player on MU ime.
FWIW I think that almost everywhere people tend to systematically lynch the lower charisma players. I think in MU games (in my limited experience, since I usually just rand wolf over there and it turns out when smith rands wolf there's an even easier path for town to take than just mislynching some random LHF :P ) there's a bit more explicit work in terms of trying to construct a town block and develop a reasonable towncore, and then the LHF types are just part of the remainder.

I think there's also probably a bit more hesitation to take really aggressive lynches on talented players, since if you're wrong you've lost a pretty useful asset. I'm not sure if that's overall good or bad, but I do think there's at least some logic to it, even if it can be annoying for everyone else (speaking as a pretty non-connected person I'm kind of neutral on it fwiw :P )
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #217 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:23 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

That tendency is absolutely true but I think MU is worse than other sites in terms of just writing a lot of players off as "poe/lynchbait" and marginalizing their participation.
I think that MS has its own problems which MU doesn't, no doubt, but in terms of that MU is much worse than here.
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
User avatar
User avatar
RadiantCowbells
He/him
Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
Posts: 70855
Joined: February 24, 2013
Pronoun: He/him
Contact:

Post Post #218 (ISO) » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:27 pm

Post by RadiantCowbells »

on the other hand in MU lylo you can expect whichever townies are left over to seriously revisit the game and try to come up with something even if they still come up with the wrong result.
on MS so many lylos where the power players are dead the town just sits around and does nothing and then eventually vote whoever they were scumreading before without considering dead townies or w/e
2019 stats: Town WR 76.7%, overall WR 81.667%, 1 scum defeat involving a major mod error in lylo vs 8 scum wins.
dw_
dw_
Watcher
dw_
Watcher
Watcher
Posts: 0
Joined: November 7, 2016

Post Post #219 (ISO) » Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:47 am

Post by dw_ »

Hey guys. Couldn’t see a Q&A thread so is this the right place? I can start a new thread if that’s more appropriate.

I’ve had a friend host a game that included both a mafia traitor and a serial killer, with the traitor not being able to win if the rest of his faction was wiped out.
In a game with only two parties (town vs. mafia) this isn’t an issue; the game ends immediately. But is there a standard for what happens if a mafia main body is eliminated and there’s both a traitor and an independent killer still alive?

Does the traitor die immediately if the rest of the faction is eliminated?
Does their win condition change?
Do they keep playing as-is in the hope of making a 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 endgame?
Thanks
User avatar
mhsmith0
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
User avatar
User avatar
mhsmith0
Balancing Act
Balancing Act
Posts: 10830
Joined: March 7, 2016
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Post Post #220 (ISO) » Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:52 am

Post by mhsmith0 »

typically a traitor would depart from the game the moment the rest of his team dies, although different sites might do it differently. I'd run a multiball large normal a couple years ago where there was a blue mafia traitor who'd suicide as soon as his teammates were eliminated (but red mafia still could win at that point)
I've ALSO seen games where traitor can inherit the kill AS WELL AS GAMES where the traitor CANNOT inherit the kill but just sticks around and turns it into a scum win if he's ever in the final 2 where the other one is town
so it really depends on game design, but "cannot inherit kill and suicides when his teammates are all dead" is the most common approach.
Show
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
Conq: you, sir, are great at being town.
BATMAN: Only jugg was the only one we didn’t scum read at least not me
Quick: There is little to no chance this slot is Power-Wolfing.
SR: I want to give him a day
Life is simply unfair, don't you think?
User avatar
Spangled
Spangled
Mafia Scum
User avatar
User avatar
Spangled
Mafia Scum
Mafia Scum
Posts: 1345
Joined: May 1, 2019
Location: brisbane

Post Post #221 (ISO) » Fri Jul 19, 2019 10:09 am

Post by Spangled »

Maybe this doesn’t belong in this thread, but what ratio of town:scum should there be in IRL games vs. forum games; are IRL games more town-sided or scum-sided?
Just out of curiosity.
I proved myself a coward, who would desert a dying man.
---
Check out 15.ai, it does generated voices for characters and it’s pretty neat.
User avatar
callforjudgement
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
User avatar
User avatar
callforjudgement
Microprocessor
Microprocessor
Posts: 3972
Joined: September 1, 2011

Post Post #222 (ISO) » Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:03 pm

Post by callforjudgement »

Face-to-face/in-person games are more townsided than forum Mafia. This is mostly due to the potential to read someone as town or scum via body language (especially in response to a question directed at them).

Town:scum ratio is something it's hard to talk about in absolute terms because it depends so much on what power roles and mechanics exist. Just under ¼ of the game as scum is common for both face-to-face and forum games, but the amount of power you need to balance that is somewhat different in the two cases (and also depends on the size of the game, e.g. a 7:2 game doesn't need much power to balance it on a forum and likely needs no power to balance it face-to-face, a 10:3 game needs considerably more town power in both cases).
scum
· scam · seam · team · term · tern · torn ·
town
User avatar
chennisden
chennisden
Macho Pichu
User avatar
User avatar
chennisden
Macho Pichu
Macho Pichu
Posts: 8907
Joined: February 11, 2019
Location: sheltered in place

Post Post #223 (ISO) » Sat Jul 20, 2019 5:58 pm

Post by chennisden »

I think F2F is definitely more townsided

But the longer you play with one group the more scumsided it gets? it
never
gets less townsided than forum

But just play with the highest amount of odd players you can and use a setup accordingly

7p we did Cop Doc and a Roleblocker sometimes and nomination at other times

9p we just did a random 2d3 setup

11p we did nomination

13p we just had a cop + doc and a roleblocker (yeah scumsided but w/e)
User avatar
Spangled
Spangled
Mafia Scum
User avatar
User avatar
Spangled
Mafia Scum
Mafia Scum
Posts: 1345
Joined: May 1, 2019
Location: brisbane

Post Post #224 (ISO) » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:29 am

Post by Spangled »

In post 223, chennisden wrote:I think F2F is definitely more townsided

But the longer you play with one group the more scumsided it gets? it
never
gets less townsided than forum

But just play with the highest amount of odd players you can and use a setup accordingly

7p we did Cop Doc and a Roleblocker sometimes and nomination at other times

9p we just did a random 2d3 setup

11p we did nomination

13p we just had a cop + doc and a roleblocker (yeah scumsided but w/e)
What do you mean by nomination?
(And the ratios are 2:5, 2:7, 3:8, 3:10 right?)
Post Reply

Return to “Mafia Discussion”