WIFOM and Night Actions

[magnus_orion]

Not allowed to talk about NKs. Lynch anyone who does. Pretend they didn't happen.

This. Do it. No questions.

[SpyreX]

From reading it looks like, at least on the base level, what I thought seems to be fairly common: that the kills aren't done for WIFOM. Which means, although not certain, there IS information worth pulling from them.

I'm not even going to pretend to understand the Ythan / Orion train of thought.

[Mr. Flay]

Not allowed to talk about NKs. Lynch anyone who does. Pretend they didn't happen.

This. Do it. No questions.

Hope you enjoy losing.

[Elmo]

A

really good

even vaguely competent player will try to re-evaluate his or her own opinions at all times instead of just tunneling in on a certain set of hypotheses Day by Day.

ftfy imo :V

For me personally, in priority order it goes almost exactly like this:
* Strong power role (cop, doc)
* Someone who's attacking a buddy and likely to be / is being listened to
* Someone who's going to be really hard to lynch
* Weak or suspected power role
* Someone who might become a problem later (default strongest town player)
* Anyone who's getting the town moving in a useful direction (e.g. starting many wagons)
* Miscellaneous reasons (?)

So I'm pretty much always advocating killing the person most suspicious of my buddies. And I'm going to keep doing this indefinitely because it works.

[magnus_orion]

Not allowed to talk about NKs. Lynch anyone who does. Pretend they didn't happen.

This. Do it. No questions.

Hope you enjoy losing.

/sigh. I was joking. I believe it is still at present a scumtell, because scum will often make comment when the nk doesn't go as expected. But immediately lynching when someone talks about nks is obviously bad.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Making your first post after night commenting on the Nightkills certainly does ring of scum-like behavior.

But taking into account the dead player's play (re-reading) certainly can be helpful. Too often the dead are simply forgotten as if their contributions to the game before their death cease to exist.

[Ectomancer]

Making your first post after night commenting on the Nightkills certainly does ring of scum-like behavior.

Forget you ever said or even thought anything remotely resembling this remark

[vollkan]

From reading it looks like, at least on the base level, what I thought seems to be fairly common: that the kills aren't done for WIFOM. Which means, although not certain, there IS information worth pulling from them.

The problem, as has been said already, is that since there are a huge range of possible motivations behind a killing, it's impossible to work out what the information worth pulling is. In most cases, town can't reliably know whether a killing was because the deceased's suspicions were accurate or just because the scum suspected that the deceased was a power role (or any other possible motivation).

And then the prospect of WIFOM killings come in on top of that just to further impair town's ability to even semi-accurately analyse a killing.

Making your first post after night commenting on the Nightkills certainly does ring of scum-like behavior.

I can't see why scum are any more likely to comment on NKs than town

[Fenchurch]

Making your first post after night commenting on the Nightkills certainly does ring of scum-like behavior.

I can't see why scum are any more likely to comment on NKs than town

I don't know, but it's on the jeep tells. I assume that's where most people got it from.

[vollkan]

Making your first post after night commenting on the Nightkills certainly does ring of scum-like behavior.

I can't see why scum are any more likely to comment on NKs than town

I don't know, but it's on the jeep tells. I assume that's where most people got it from.

Hmm. Well, Jeep doesn't actually list "commenting" on NKs as a scumtell. He says:

Gloating (any form of "complaining" about how bad the previous night was, how the doctor/cop was killed, etc.) Similar to "congratulating the doctor".

That's quite a bit more specific.

And, I'm not convinced that complaining is a scumtell. If the cop or doctor is killed, I can see myself as town complaining about it come D2 (the only reason I wouldn't, is because of the risk that people would interpret it as a scumtell). (Congratulating the doctor is different, since that isn't public knowledge - except for an open setup where that's the only possible explanation other than scum not choosing to kill, obviously)

[The Fonz]

I make a point of doing it as town.

[Elmo]

In most cases, town can't reliably know whether a killing was because the deceased's suspicions were accurate or just because the scum suspected that the deceased was a power role (or any other possible motivation).

I'd disagree. I don't think it's difficult to figure out who looks like a power role. There aren't terribly many other reasons to kill someone; I also think it's actually relatively rare for scum to deviate from what I posted above.

And then the prospect of WIFOM killings come in on top of that just to further impair town's ability to even semi-accurately analyse a killing.

Only the prospect, tho. Sighting of people ever doing it are rare (I've never seen it), because people doing it in this meta are silly.

[Mr. Flay]

In most cases, town can't reliably know whether a killing was because the deceased's suspicions were accurate or just because the scum suspected that the deceased was a power role (or any other possible motivation).

I'd disagree. I don't think it's difficult to figure out who looks like a power role. There aren't terribly many other reasons to kill someone; I also think it's actually relatively rare for scum to deviate from what I posted above.

I think you're seeing confirmation bias/lack of hard evidence. We've got what, maybe 15 people talking in this thread, half of which have said one way or the other about how they perform NKs? Out of thousands of games?

And then the prospect of WIFOM killings come in on top of that just to further impair town's ability to even semi-accurately analyse a killing.

Only the prospect, tho. Sighting of people ever doing it are rare (I've never seen it), because people doing it in this meta are silly.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. People aren't flocking to this thread to reveal their own scum-strategies, you're right... but that's not the same thing.

[Elmo]

I think you're seeing confirmation bias/lack of hard evidence.

Why do you think that?

People aren't flocking to this thread to reveal their own scum-strategies, you're right... but that's not the same thing.

You don't have to be scum to see a WIFOM kill, though. In fact it'd only have to be inconsistent with my list; almost all kills I've seen aren't.

[Incognito]

Actually, I'm somewhat curious now as to whether or not Night-time WIFOM kills are things that are regularly seen on Night 0 in games that have Night starts. I know the one time I was scum in a game like this was back in Mini 568, and we decided to kill avinashv partly just randomly and partly as a Lowell-frame job because we knew Lowell had played with avinashv in a previous game.

That's the only scum game of mine that comes to mind where we killed someone for some kind of WIFOM-related reasons. Other times it's been for the reasons that have already been listed in this thread (claimed power roles and seemingly unlynchable townies).

[ElectricBadger]

If someone were particularly curious and overly motivated (as I am not) it would be fairly straightforward to review a sample of games and see how often initial votes by NK'd players were correct.

[mykonian]

This is the game that just ended that really brought this to my head (as you well know):
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 70&start=0

The TL;DR. I replace in, push a case on Myko (scum). While this is going on get in a discussion with Ojanen about how CSL makes absolutely no sense as scum. Ojanen expresses some dislike about Mykonian as well. I get lynched. Ojanen gets killed.

Ojanen mainly was killed because she wasn't going to get lynched. Although there were other candidates, and my partner had the fear that I would get caught (
Like, seriously, even spyrex failed to inspire the town to great deeds). Because the game had to do with a serious amount of confirmed or semi confirmed players, this was the main reason for most of the kills.

Next day? Welp, better get a lynchin' CSL.

Now, being dead and flipped doesn't make someone omniscient but it REALLY seems (and even I catch myself doing it sometimes) that the opinions and rationales of the dead are rarely looked at closely.

yes, people don't understand that the players in the game could lie, but that a towny that died yesterday didn't.


@the problem of talking about nightkills: talking about NK's isn't antitown, what people seem to assume here. It is scummy. This is what keeps people from talking about it: there is one group that would very much like to explain what they did that night, esspecially with these "WIFOM" kills, when the townies don't get it. And that is scum.

Just imagine someone saying in his first post, the next day: "and, people, what did you think about the nightkill?". Would you think he was scum?

[Elmo]

How's it scummy? I wouldn't think anything of it.

[ElectricBadger]

Just imagine someone saying in his first post, the next day: "and, people, what did you think about the nightkill?". Would you think he was scum?

If they brought it up for no reason? Dunno. Probably, because it's fishing for someone else to make a case.

If they had a statement to make with it? It would be based on how logical their conclusions were and all the other factors that play into consideration of any other tell.

Examples from my own comments on NKs as town:

And Crazy was Andy's only solid supporter; NKing him would have been a bad move for Andy and seems to me more likely to be intended to facilitate a mislynch on him today.

I'd like to hear more about this:

One question for any/everyone: Is consideration of the nightkills (both of them, not just this second one) presumed to be a futile/pointless exercise?

I found both kills to be very interesting choices.

[Vi]

I almost forgot--

Appenine Mafia (all Vanillas) started with a Night 0. One of the first turns of conversation D1 was who wanted the N0 kill (hasdgfas) out of the game.
Along the way DDD mentioned that previously as scum on N0 he had the team kill randomly precisely to mess over those kinds of theories.

DDD was scum in that game btw. The cow kill was indeed random. It seems like a decent strategy if you don't have any better ideas N0 tbh.

[Ythill]

As scum, I primarily hunt for power roles. Barring that, I kill to break up groups of townies who have solid reads on one another and are working together. I don't think I've ever killed based on suspicions, WIFOM or actual, though there have been a couple of times when I have chosen not to kill someone who suspects our team heavily. For the most part, I am comfortable with my ability to derail suspicions in the game thread. No need to waste my NK on it.

As town, I don't usually discuss the NK, but I do consider it tacitly. I also like to reread dead townies. Not because they are omniscient, but because they have been proven honest and, as such, they are a good source of extrernal perspective.

[SpyreX]

@the problem of talking about nightkills: talking about NK's isn't antitown, what people seem to assume here. It is scummy. This is what keeps people from talking about it: there is one group that would very much like to explain what they did that night, esspecially with these "WIFOM" kills, when the townies don't get it. And that is scum.

Just imagine someone saying in his first post, the next day: "and, people, what did you think about the nightkill?". Would you think he was scum?

How is it scummy though - I'll let out a little secret: I tend to look at and analyize the night kills fairly often. And, if I find something there that catches my eye I'll go looking for evidence to support it just because

I know telling the truth will either turn into nothing or lead to the above.

So, yes, sometimes I get to lie to try and get scum lynched because the truth would get ME lynched. Wooo

Appenine Mafia (all Vanillas) started with a Night 0. One of the first turns of conversation D1 was who wanted the N0 kill (hasdgfas) out of the game.
Along the way DDD mentioned that previously as scum on N0 he had the team kill randomly precisely to mess over those kinds of theories.

Wellll, to be fair (and ohh how things change as I play games):

I'm not sure who you have experience with.

I know there's going to me a huge mess of meta-wifom about the kills so maybe a solid but not highest profile target for us (for me that'd be Camn & VP).

I think keeping BM and Sens alive for a bit will help - they tend to be aggressive enough that we can sneak around in the shadows.

A huge chunk of the player base I'm not familiar with so my two cents would be hasgafads or mastin.

See, I was silly enough to think that people would really look at it. So I stayed away from who I would have wanted out of the way the most - but, I definitely didn't go "random" - I went with what I had garnered as the highest tiered threats that wouldn't automatically lead back to me.

[SpyreX]

Of course that game also was one of the few times town seemed to listen to dead town (and they shouldn't have) sooo I'm not sure?

[Ectomancer]

Calling night kill speculation scummy is anti-town.

[Vi]

Counterpoint: What Hoopla did in Pick Your Power 2.
As scum, Hoopla tried to direct the Town into playing meta with each person's draft numbers using the knowledge that scum could coordinate their draft picks. Of course, she had already planned around the conclusions she was going to draw but the line of argument was reasonably accurate.

In other words, scum are not completely averse to playing Night WIFOM games, especially when they want to play up the ambiguity (or lack thereof) of their kill.

This leads to a paradox (and I get the impression I'm going to sound really uneducated after I say this but I'll post it anyway):
*Town could very well benefit in practice from analyzing NKs.
*HOWEVER, because that's a taboo subject (as generally speaking some random Townie will say "but that's what the scum want you to think") scum are more likely to talk about analyzing NKs.