Replacing out

[Cook]

flaking, self-replacing, and force-replacing i think are three different things here

flaking is probably fine once, but making a habit out of it should limit how many you can join to just one until you can finish a game without replacing out

self-replacing should be assumed as good faith unless it's being used as metagaming, at which point it isn't

force-replacement had to have happened for a reason. unless bastardry or something made this happen (which shouldve been cleared ahead of time), consider sanctions

[RH9]

flaking, self-replacing, and force-replacing i think are three different things here

flaking is probably fine once, but making a habit out of it should limit how many you can join to just one until you can finish a game without replacing out

self-replacing should be assumed as good faith unless it's being used as metagaming, at which point it isn't

force-replacement had to have happened for a reason. unless bastardry or something made this happen (which shouldve been cleared ahead of time), consider sanctions

^
This

[RH9]

IMHO the replacement policy should be decided by the moderator of the game and the punishments (if applicable) can just be something like getting WOTMed from future games.

[RH9]

Otherwise, the current rules surrounding serial rep outs seem fine to me.

[T3]

self-replacing should be assumed as good faith unless it's being used as metagaming, at which point it isn't

Yeah, I mainly brought this thread back to discuss self-replacing

[DragonEater70]

Townies should make it a tradition to thank the scum for a good game whether they won or lost.

Sorry for quoting a few years old post, but SO MUCH THIS.

It's very discouraging to play scum and win and then see townies being like "meh, sorry I played bad" or something, instead of you know, congratulating you.

[DrippingGoofball]

Well hello hello

[Infinity 324]

[Ythan]

Hi DGB

[Psyche]

It might be most productive to think about this in terms of game design.
If a significant people are leaving games early who really *could* be staying, then making games more engaging would keep a lot of them around.
We can try to identify factors that are limiting player engagement, and then brainstorm ways that changing the MS's game design meta might counter these factors.

For example, we know that people with scum roles are more likely to replace-out.
Maybe instead of trying to think through ways to encourage people to slog through games where they roll scum, we should brainstorm ways to improve games such that rolling scum is at least as fun as rolling town.
One possibility is to give them an outlet for scumhunting -- perhaps more openly multi-ball games where alternative scum teams are genuine threats to one another?

I have some other angles in my head...

[Psyche]

Here's another one:

One factor that might limit engagement is the raw amount of time that is required to keep up with active game threads. If you fall behind for a couple days, it's very plausible in a lot of games that there will be dozens of new pages you'll have to read in order to be able to contribute anything of value.

Maybe people who'd like to re-engage and keep playing end up replacing out when they fall behind in these situations.

If that's true, then it's possible that smaller playerlists, shorter games, more frequently scheduled posting breaks (e.g., Nights), or closer regulation of player activity to reduce either fluff or even game-relevant hyperposting could aid player engagement.

Another more far-out possibility is that players could be somehow offered daily or periodic summaries of key events and arguments (e.g., from a neutral facilitator who doesn't have setup knowledge) but I don't know a good way to implement that across many games. It might

still

be worth exploring.

[Psyche]

Some more angles:

- A stronger emphasis on ludonarrative harmony, even in normals. Ludonarrative harmony is when gameplay and story work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience. Some of the best-remembered games on mafiascum have this feature and there's a good chance it drives engagement. Maybe we should place greater emphasis on flavor quality during setup design and review than we do now.

- Reward strategy and risk-taking. Especially for scum, often the most strategically sound play in the typical game is the most boring: staying in the background, avoiding substantive controversy, and appearing helpful. Even town frequently don't feel strongly incentived to engage unless they are either close to being mislimmed or it's a lategame MYLO type of situation. Maybe designing setups to encourage attempts at the sort of high-risk/high-reward plays we frequently celebrate in our postgames would also make the games themselves more fun and engaging. Maybe scum can be offered extra advantages for exerting more control over day outcomes or associating more strongly with teammates or receiving negative attention.

- More interesting, agency-oriented roles. There's a good chance that this is not really true, but I suspect that more original roles with active abilities that can be used even during the day are substantially more engaging than more ordinary night-only reactive roles or being vanilla. The idea is that these add depth to gameplay, providing a player further options and making their contribution feel more indispensible/impactful. Complex setups are harder to balance and can be a bit annoying, but maybe there's a way to more consistently balance these concerns -- maybe by sharing the same abilities within a neighborhood of players?

[Psyche]

A key advantage of this broader approach is that moderator-focused ideas for improving player engagement and minimizing replacements don't have to be implemented and explored on a site-policy level:

Individual moderators concerned about replace-outs can take matters into their own hands and demonstrate with their own games that a different way of doing things actually helps the situation.

Even T3's controversial idea of banning players who have replaced out in the last 2 weeks from sign-ups can be implemented on the individual level if he simply decides to exclude applicable players from his own games.
If he then observed reasonable queue times along with reduced replace-outs, he could use that to drive broader buy-in across the community.

[DragonEater70]

While these ideas sound good on paper, I have two issues with them:
1. I am not even sure if these are real issues. I think a lot more replacements happen for mental health reasons or being busy irl than just because it's hard to catch up or something.
I mean if you look at TL's Garndest Idea uPick that just ended, which was a replacement hell with 12 replacements (and 4 different slots that got replaced at least twice), I really can't say there was hyperposting or too much fluff. It was just a bunch of players who signed up / repped into the game and then collectively decided it wasn't for them for whatever reason (I admit I am somewhat guilty of that too, having decided to rep out because I just wasn't having fun (and whether or not that's justified is a separate discussion, I think)).
So I don't know if incentivizing engagement or cutting back on post numbers is going to affect replacement rates in any significant way.
2. I'm really struggling to see how high risk high reward play can be incentivized through setup design, except by making setups very unbalanced in such a way that you would *need* to take gambits in order to win (as scum), but then this would *dis*-incentivize proactive town play.

Despite both issues, I do agree there's a fundamental problem with the fact that a lot of players don't like playing scum / don't really give their best as scum and it hurts games. I do think the best way to fix it is by changing site culture to have townies be more sportsmanlike toward scum and making scumplay be considered "cool", giving scum tips in the scum thread (like how there

are

were tips for town in the main thread in Newbies), and maybe even doing what someone suggested ITT and having an outside user be a coach for scum.

[RadiantCowbells]

I will make no claims that things are the same in the present era as when I left off, however, the experience of myself and all of the good scum players I was close to back in 2015-2019 is that being a player who is known for being good at scum creates a lot of really really negative experiences in games. It creates toxicity that wouldn't otherwise be there, it makes your experience as town a lot less enjoyable when you're kicking and struggling to be not scumread, it makes every scum game feel like a lot more of an uphill battle than it would otherwise have been. It also creates a lot of 'dragonslayer' experiences with players who insist on deathtunneling you any time you coexist in the same space in the hopes of being able to take you out for great glory. I don't know if this is still the case but I think that to motivate players to want to be really good at scum people would need to have healthier ways to counterplay them than they did in the past. Removing the stick can be a lot more effective than adding carrots.

[Enchant]

Just steal solution from town of salem.

[T3]

One factor that might limit engagement is the raw amount of time that is required to keep up with active game threads. If you fall behind for a couple days, it's very plausible in a lot of games that there will be dozens of new pages you'll have to read in order to be able to contribute anything of value.

This is the biggest one here I think. I don't like the idea of hard post caps though... maybe more nights is actually the best solution.

[RH9]

A key advantage of this broader approach is that moderator-focused ideas for improving player engagement and minimizing replacements don't have to be implemented and explored on a site-policy level:

Individual moderators concerned about replace-outs can take matters into their own hands and demonstrate with their own games that a different way of doing things actually helps the situation.

Even T3's controversial idea of banning players who have replaced out in the last 2 weeks from sign-ups can be implemented on the individual level if he simply decides to exclude applicable players from his own games.
If he then observed reasonable queue times along with reduced replace-outs, he could use that to drive broader buy-in across the community.

I'd agree on this.

[imaginality]

One factor that might limit engagement is the raw amount of time that is required to keep up with active game threads. If you fall behind for a couple days, it's very plausible in a lot of games that there will be dozens of new pages you'll have to read in order to be able to contribute anything of value.

This is the biggest one here I think. I don't like the idea of hard post caps though... maybe more nights is actually the best solution.

An idea that could be useful here is having 'Naptimes' during which the thread is locked but it's not night. Just to give players a chance to catch up. For example a 7 real-life-day gameday could be: 3 days, 1 day "morning nap", 2 days, 1 day "afternoon nap", 2 days. Making it 9 real-life days total. Or 4-1-3 with just one nap.

That way the setups can be exactly the same but allowing players to keep up more easily.

[Dannflor]

i think naptimes would be incredibly town sided

not saying anything for or against whether the idea is good or not

but i do think they would be town sided

[Zachrulez]

i think naptimes would be incredibly town sided

not saying anything for or against whether the idea is good or not

but i do think they would be town sided

Could you elaborate on this? It was definitely not my first thought when hearing this idea.

My first thought was actually "why did I never think of this myself?"

[RH9]

i think naptimes would be incredibly town sided

not saying anything for or against whether the idea is good or not

but i do think they would be town sided

Agreed.
It'd give town (if they managed to have caught up) time to reread the thread and potentially improve their read accuracy.

[DragonEater70]

I disagree with the notion that naptimes would be "incredibly town sided".

Yes, in certain game states where the game is incredibly scum dominated, naptimes can be town sided. But in town-dominated game states, they might cause town to lose momentum, let scum have time to reread, and allow them to plan their moves.

Additionally players might forget crucial things and/or lose interest during naptimes.

So overall I think naptimes will tend to balance out game states which favor a certain alignment, rather than giving a certain alignment an advantage.

Of course this is theoretical because I've not played with them yet.

Actually I think nap times would be very good in reducing replaceouts for both alignments.

[Enchant]

I want to play game, not take naps during it. Waiting night is tedious enough (why won't you catch up at night?)

People who sign up in Large, then say "uh too many posts to catch up" are obviously should be advised against joining large games in first place. There's no shame if you don't want to play large game, but why sign up and then replace out because big game was, uh, big?


Again, you heal symptoms, not core problem, which is human sins.

[Psyche]

no reason to debate it if you like the idea. run a few games w/ the mechanic and see how it pans out.