Mini Theme 2112: Skyrim Mod Upick Town Win

[Eve]

in fact i actually thought Pine coming out like that talking about stealth archers was an invitation for the traitor to latch onto and let him know

but apparently he was really just a fan of stealth archers for real whoops

[popsofctown]

Eve you are really fun play more games

[Eve]

for sure when i have more free time!

you're fun to play with too pops! i was sad when you died despite knowing my mafia buddies made the kill haha

[popsofctown]

It was Pine that did it he's afeared of me

[alimdia]

Funny how you called out 2 actual neighbours though

[mastina]

I DEMAND that the scum PT be released as to let everyone witness the glory of my song.

[Something_Smart]

GG. I'm definitely a fan of how Zenith played the early game (the bulletproof claim, the "what is everyone's flavor?", redacting bulletproof from Eve's mod name, and crumbing eccentric but not claiming it).

Setup was pretty townsided, I think. Most of scum's tools were only useful when they were already in trouble (mastina's janitor, and Eve's deathproof), while town had vig, IC, and parity cop which is already 4 clears, not even considering tracker/roleblocker results or the fact that BG can usually die in place of a confirmed town.

Setup concept was really clever though, with the stone-related powers and the levelers. Town power just needed to be weaker and scum power needed to be stronger.

[Something_Smart]

I also had it in my head that I might could possibly pull off a very convincing fake hammer in the late game.

Close to what I was thinking!

My plan, if it came to that, was to attempt a fake hammertest. I think that'd be a lot more effective, since if someone is scum I could bait them into doing what they think is a quickhammer for the win.

[mastina]

GG. I'm definitely a fan of how Zenith played the early game (the bulletproof claim, the "what is everyone's flavor?", redacting bulletproof from Eve's mod name, and crumbing eccentric but not claiming it).

Setup was pretty townsided, I think. Most of scum's tools were only useful when they were already in trouble (mastina's janitor, and Eve's deathproof), while town had vig, IC, and parity cop which is already 4 clears, not even considering tracker/roleblocker results or the fact that BG can usually die in place of a confirmed town.

Setup concept was really clever though, with the stone-related powers and the levelers. Town power just needed to be weaker and scum power needed to be stronger.

I ranted quite a bit about this in the scum PT (will be released soon) and in the dead PT (which was released) and said much the same in much much stronger words.

[mastina]

Spoiler: my setup ranting

So now I get to defend the setup from Mastina

It's still not balanced.
Conditional deathproof traitor is literally the entirety of the scum's power.
The ENTIRETY of the scum's power, is a role that they know NOTHING about.

We knew there was a traitor.
We knew fuckall about the traitor. Not who they were, not how to recruit them, not even that we COULD recruit them.

My role REQUIRED me to die--and the deathproof traitor is ALSO incentivized to die. Two scum REQUIRED to die to use their roles. Did you not think about what it means for all but one scum, to be REQUIRED to eat a lynch/nightkill, in order for their roles to come into affect? Yes, one of said scum would survive said role coming into affect, but it's still them requiring to eat a death, when the scum want deaths to be on town players.

Deathproof scum being lynched, is worse than town being lynched.
Janitoring scum being lynched, is worse than town being lynched.
Deathproof scum being nightkilled, is worse than town being nightkilled.
Janitoring scum being nightkilled, is worse than town being nightkilled.

Scum were incentivized BY THEIR ROLES to eat lynch and/or vig and/or their own factional nightkill.
That is a lynch which isn't on a town player, or a vig that isn't on a town player, or a factional nightkill that isn't on a town player.

Then on top of that--town has the strongest possible town investigative in the game with laughable restrictions.
Being macho means fuckall, the role is still brokenly powerful. Scum killing it is a free shot, sure...
...IF they can get a shot off on it.
Because, again.
They are incentivized, as scum, to eat deaths, AS SCUM, that should be aimed at town.
And then on top of that--jailkeepers might not save the oracle if protecting the oracle, but can block the scum's nightkill.
Rolestoppers, if you go by Normal standards, can block the scum's nightkill--Macho means protective actions fail, but rolestopper isn't classified as a protective action, it is classified as a roleblocking action that roleblocks everyone else targeting the macho player.
That, not to mention the town roles on top of that.
Another protective who can protect anyone other than the macho player.
A neighborhood which was PAINFULLY obvious via ridiculously easy to deduce setup spec was a masonry instead of a neighborhood. (Anyone with half a brain could tell that all three members of the neighborhood were town, Xtoxm was dead on the money with his setup spec and reasoning for believing the members to be town because he nailed it through simple logic.) Like, the town thinking the members aren't town is pure stupidity on their parts to be frank.
There's whatever alimidia (apparently an investigative of some sort?) and Turkey (who is apparently not actually the traitor) are.
There's an IC.

There was never a realm scum really had a chance at winning this game from a role-design perspective. The town had a BOATLOAD of tools at their disposal. The scum had fuckall in terms of tools.
The scum lacked information, as the "informed" minority.
The scum lacked interaction with the mechanic the setup is based around, whereas the town roles were built and based around it.
The scum were incentivized to eat lynches/nightkills rather than to lynch town/nightkill town/have town be vigged, in order to utilize their roles.

The scum, simply put, didn't have any of the tools at their disposal, that make scum be scum.
Scum have the tools of being the informed minority (we lacked information) and being able to remove players from the game during the night (there were multiple killstopping roles in the game and the scum's own roles were MEANT TO DRAW KILLS).

The roles I mentioned in my post might not be the ones in the setup.
The sentiment behind my song stands.

Scum could never win this game even if Suji didn't vig two scum basically in a row--because the town has tools which give them far, far more information than what the scum have at their disposal, have multiple kill-denial methods, and the scum's normal tools weren't at their disposal.

Giving scum a conditional deathproof traitor, does no counterbalance the detrimental nature of the game to the scum.

Like, was popsofctown a bad nightkill?
No, a rolestopper in most games is a DAMN fucking good nightkill.
Was Xtoxm a bad nightkill?
No, a jailkeeper "neighbor"(read, mason) that upgrades the town's roles, in most games, is a DAMN fucking good nightkill.
Was Sujimichi a bad nightkill?
No, a Vig, in most games, is a DAMN fucking good nightkill.

But the scum have too fucking many players to nightkill, and not enough nights to kill them all, especially not when so many of those nightkills very easily could have not gone according to plan.

We can't nightkill them all, we can't reliably steer the vig into vigging them all, and we can't get the town to lynch them all.

The town had multiple roles capable of basically confirming themselves as town.
The town had multiple ways of PoEing the scum.
And the scum had one role that could MAYBE give them an edge, POSSIBLY, if used in a very specific way in a very narrow window.

I feel like my rant is fucking justified here.

I won't deny that Sujimichi is a god at vigging; that's undeniable. This isn't the first time Sujimichi has made clutch vigs.
And I won't deny that multiple town players have played well--Xtoxm did, Suji did, and Something_Smart's slot has done so the whole game.
So like--the town still has earned the win and scum did nothing to deserve the win and everything to deserve the loss on play.

But like.
That doesn't excuse the setup.

It is in no way even remotely close to balanced and is TREMENDOUSLY townsided.

To put it another way:
Even if every town player aside from Something_Smart that was alive, were a VT or even strictly-100%-negative-utility role that couldn't help the town in any way shape or form even remotely.

I'd still call the setup townsided by a reasonable margin, even with Something_Smart being macho.

That they are probably not lying about having roles even if they're fibbing about the exact nature of their roles, just serves to tip the scales even further.

There's a reason that the town was expecting strong scum roles like a fucking full scum strongman--Eve's BP being deathproof traitor scum (and thus, not a town role) and SS's slot inverting macho<->bulletproof and whatever other lies there are, don't do enough for people's expectations to not be there.

The town had SUCH strong roles, that they are very right to suspect scum had strong roles.
Except we didn't.
We had a negative utility role and a role of situational utility that was also more negative utility to the groupscum than it was positive utility. The Deathproof Traitor is, in of itself, a NET NEUTRAL role overall, if I'm being GENEROUS; a role that could have equal good and bad for the scumteam in its use (but a heavy lean towards it being more bad).

Yet the setup was balanced with the expectation that said role would be incredibly strong for the scumteam, that it would be a huge net benefit for them, that the scum would with that role alone be super-brokenly strong, so the town got to load up on things to counterbalance a role that was just not thought out with how its implementation would have consequences on the scumteam's ability to function as a scumteam.

I'm not mad about the inevitable loss; I don't give a damn about it. If the game were 9 VTs + a town vig, versus three goons, then I'd have proudly ate the loss to the town anyway because Suji is a god and deserves the win and wasn't the only town player to play good.

But I don't think calling the game even remotely close to balanced is in any way remotely accurate. It just outright wasn't.

More than that--it's just not fun.

I'll happily play a game that's unbalanced if it is in any way, shape, or form, fun.

But this mechanic isn't.
It's not fun to the scum.
I doubt Eve is having fun with this role.
I most certainly wasn't having fun as scum; the only fun I had was that which I created with the song.
And I actually wouldn't be surprised for the town to also not be having fun, for much the reasons popsofctown mentioned. The role of the deathproof traitor just isn't fun for them to play around, and this game having the mechanics it does, just isn't very conductive to fun, though maybe I'm mistaken there. (I wasn't town so I can't speak to if town is having fun, but I can tell you that if I were town here, I probably wouldn't be enjoying the game much more than I did as scum.)

If something's unbalanced but still enjoyable, it's something I can accept.
If something's balanced but not really enjoyable, probably not ideal, but I can still accept it.
But when something is incredibly unbalanced AND incredibly unfun.

I feel like I'm in my fucking right to rant about it.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah, I saw what you said in the dead PT. I agree with most of it, except for the neighborhood masonry bit-- it's a uPick, flavor is not indicative of alignment, and jjh probably picked the three flavors most suited to be levelers regardless of their alignments.

My role was definitely bonkers, even though jjh wouldn't let me ask how many living players were aligned with [playername]

(I asked him about a dozen questions trying to push the limits of my role as much as I could. Even then, I probably wouldn't have thought of "what is everyone's flavor," not that that question really ended up mattering much.)

[gobbledygook]

I do think scum probably had too little power. A strongman I think balances it. It also hurts that their best role died the first night.

Good game everyone!

[Xtoxm]

lmao all my tracks were okay but also useless at the same time

tracking your hoodmate who already told you in the hood what they're doing isnt a good track

[Xtoxm]

I do think scum probably had too little power. A strongman I think balances it. It also hurts that their best role died the first night.

Good game everyone!

i think scum could have used the strongman, and on top of that 2-3 town roles needed vanillising or heavy gating by stones
i thought you personally played well on later days gobble and logicking out the eve's deathproof connection to thief stone was good work

[alimdia]

lmao all my tracks were okay but also useless at the same time

tracking your hoodmate who already told you in the hood what they're doing isnt a good track

Well we told each other what we did AFTER the deadline was over so we couldn't change it based on what was said

[alimdia]

the neighbourhood being all town was countered by the distrust in the neighbourhood ;(

[gobbledygook]

I do think scum probably had too little power. A strongman I think balances it. It also hurts that their best role died the first night.

Good game everyone!

i think scum could have used the strongman, and on top of that 2-3 town roles needed vanillising or heavy gating by stones
i thought you personally played well on later days gobble and logicking out the eve's deathproof connection to thief stone was good work

Thank you! In all fairness my role is effectively a VT

It was attached to the mage stone which had super antitown equity. My “kill” was that I could instantly lynch someone at L-1, but since Mage lowered L-1 by 1, I could lynch someone with just my vote on the final day

[gobbledygook]

I do find it odd that scum believed Zenith’s BP ability. I knew that was a lie the moment he claimed it.

[Sujimichi]

I believed it as well.

[gobbledygook]

It’s just too OP. No way a mod let’s that in the game unless all roles are OP.

Why did you kill Pine, Suj? I thought I was dead with that quick hammer.

[Sujimichi]

Spoiler: Pine Interaction

Actually, I'll follow your lead, buttercup. That fake Townslip does look pretty forced.

VOTE: TiphaineDeath

Do you have any original thoughts of your own? This is the second time you have used popsofctown's viewpoint to support your own actions.

Not really, but I don’t need to. I’m openly skimming this game because I’m busy. I don’t like D1 and when I find someone who appears to be obvTown whose instincts I trust, I’m going to go with them.

And knock it off with the “are you going to answer my questions” bit. You aren’t entitled to have every little question answered, and demanding answers is a good way to entrench people against giving them. You get more flies with honey etc

You will find that I do not ask questions about everything that has been posted, so the questions I do ask I would like answered as they have game relevance. That is why I asked them. I'm not sure why you think I should knock that off or what you hoped to accomplish by telling me that, because I certainly will not.

1. There were seven days left, and there are several low content players. You are one of them.
   
2. There was no intent placed or request for a claim

Yes, the point of this game is to lynch scum. I would assume that someone who has been here for nine years understands the importance of generating content for later examination. Why do you feel the need to be snarky towards me?

I disagree with Pine about which day phase is most awesome, but I agree TD is scums.

You do your thing D1, and I’ll be the hero in the midgame

Because killing scum is the point of the game? I don’t even

I did not like Pine's interaction with me. As I stated, he seemed to be refusing to provide his own thoughts, instead relying on others, which I believed he could utilize later to shirk responsibility for any mislynches. He also came across as needlessly hostile to reasonable questions which I found to be dodging and disingenuous.

Also because of popsofctown:

popsofctown, what are your thoughts on Pine?

I think it is very unlikely Pine shares Tiphaine Death's alignment.

The very reason why I asked that question to popsofctown was becuase I was contemplating killing Pine and wanted her thoughts as she was my strongest townread. When Tiphaine Death was shown to be town, it cemented the kill on Pine.

I did not like your hammer, as I stated, but I did not find that a reason on its own to support killing you.

[Sujimichi]

It’s just too OP. No way a mod let’s that in the game unless all roles are OP.

I am not good at determining or inferring setup related things.

[gobbledygook]

It’s just too OP. No way a mod let’s that in the game unless all roles are OP.

I am not good at determining or inferring setup related things.

It’s ok. You have a good intuition otherwise! I would be afraid to be scum against you (no joke).

[Sujimichi]

Thank you.

[jjh927]

Hmm