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Shadows on the Silverbird (Mafia)

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Nictis said:
Two and Two scum has been proven to be a horrific mistake that leads to scum getting screwed by bad coincidence of stabbing each other to death instead of Town.
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I feel the need to note that I don't think this is entirely true. In large part because this is an issue I've thought over a lot.

With Witches, yes, the design was badly flawed all around. I had some interesting ideas, but there was a ton of problems. The fact that it had two scum pairs was not, in and of itself, ruinous...

Nictis said:
*They are less likely to be hit by coincidence, but if they are then they can't recover from it. Their faction is immediately halved not by Town, but by Scum that needs Town dead. This harms both Scum's odds if it happens early.
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And this statement kinda encapsulates why. This is only true if we suppose the scum have no kill protections. This was part of the flaw with Witches.

When I made Moonton, I wound up unbalancing it massively against town, but part of what I did very carefully to avoid Witches 2 Scum Crossfire Bugaloo was I made it so the serial killer one-shot couldn't die and the two scum pairs had a member each who was basically permanently nightkill proof, one way or another. With that kind of measure in place, the equation becomes rather different.

Consider, for example, if we have a permanently nightkill proof serial killer, and two, two man teams that both have one shot night kill immunity on both members. At that point, they can all kill each other (the serial killer can be lynched, even singlehandedly by a scum team if they avoid dying that long), but they can't have a massive kill-fest n1 that basically takes away scums chancing of winning.

By a similar token to Moonton, Colosseum Carnage had a flatly nightkill proof serial killer and a doctor on the scum-team, making it less likely for lethal scum crossfire to occur.

Point is, there's design solutions. While 2/2 would be inadequate scum for an eighteen person setup- it was only even theoretically enough for Witches at 16 because, in principal, they had a lot of power per head, and this would be two more players-, a 2/2 setup in general is workable with some care, and eg a 2/2/2 scum setup wouldn't be out of the question.

Of course, part of why I don't want us getting attached to ideas at this step is a night or two passing will put much more information into the public view, allowing us to judge by eg number of kill colors or what have you.
 
Didn't help that Miasma was eminently solvable in both its original and final forms.

Original:
AFK AGO AHN
BGL BHK BIO
CHM CIL CJK
DIN DJM DFL
EJO EFN EGM
New:
AET AFT AGT AHL
BET BFZ BGT BHT
CEL CFT CGT CHT
DET DFT DGZ DHT
 
Re setup: All I'll say is that judging by the ratio of flavor in my PM, Archeo should have a fun time.
 
Terrabrand said:
And this statement kinda encapsulates why. This is only true if we suppose the scum have no kill protections.
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Good point, but I personally feel that scumgroups of two people is still too fragile for any game larger than eight or so people. For example, CW's Magical Mafia almost had scum lynched Day One, and even ignoring the other questionable design choices there I had to go all in to save them just because being brought down to a single person as scum Day 1 is ruinous. Bad luck can still screw them over, and having competing scum means there's nonTown that might be willing to sell them out for Town Cred.

Also, kill immunity for scum is ridiculously powerful in most cases and completely worthless in others. For example, a fairly common scum power is bypassing kill immunity, and a fairly common Town power is the Vigilante, and quite frankly I'm pretty sure TMR is doing some really heavy hinting that leads to one of the two being true. (Or that he's scum. Honestly leaning towards that, but not assuming it)

QT was trying to suggest that at most Scum is either less than 25% of the design (realistically, I mean, anything more than a fifth is just not workable) or that they are weak scum, which is... Interesting. What was it y'all were saying last game about who wants Town to feel secure and like scum aren't a threat again?

But yeah, Two and Two scum is horrific in most situations because of bad luck, even if you give the leaders kill immunity (And no Strongman) the second could still get hit. And there's still just bad luck in who gets lynched at the start. In a game this big, it should take work from the Town to remove Scum.

Alright, now to actually get up...
 
Nictis said:
Good point, but I personally feel that scumgroups of two people is still too fragile for any game larger than eight or so people. For example, CW's Magical Mafia almost had scum lynched Day One, and even ignoring the other questionable design choices there I had to go all in to save them just because being brought down to a single person as scum Day 1 is ruinous. Bad luck can still screw them over, and having competing scum means there's nonTown that might be willing to sell them out for Town Cred.
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I mean, I'm not gonna disagree with the idea that it'd be fairly frail for the scum per se, but your personal feelings aren't actually relevant to whether Cyricubed and ComiTurtle would think it's okay.

It's enough of a possibility I feel we need to not dismiss it out of hand, even if it's not the most likely.

I also don't think the 'could have a lynch day one' argument really holds water- the main reason CrystalWatcher's game had you simply unable to abide your teammate's death was your total lack of kills. It's an argument that applies more strongly to having any serial killers, which I have never seen you argue against as a possibility.
 
Terrabrand said:
I also don't think the 'could have a lynch day one' argument really holds water- the main reason CrystalWatcher's game had you simply unable to abide your teammate's death was your total lack of kills. It's an argument that applies more strongly to having any serial killers, which I have never seen you argue against as a possibility.
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*eyebrow raised*

Really now? So you're ignoring the explicit
and even ignoring the other questionable design choices there
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bit? Okay. Let me explain why I feel like this is a serious issue for scum groups.

It's in the title. Scum Group. More than one scum, relying on each other to improve their odds. Serial killers usually have an advantage over individual members of a Scum Group because they are alone, they don't have anyone backing them up. And in any game with a Serial Killer, it's assumed to be balanced around the idea of there being a Serial Killer. Same goes for a Scum Group, it's assumed to be balanced around there being a Scum Group.

Like, I'm not arguing that Serial Killers should never be a thing, but I'm definitely not saying that Serial Killers should always be a thing, because games can be balanced such that a lone member against everyone is very likely to lose. If we were to have a Serial Killer in the game, I'd assume there would be two other constant kill sources because otherwise that SK is gonna have one hell of a time trying to eliminate everyone. (Let's assume Scum are lynched steadily throughout the Days, and that there's three of them. If Town plays amazingly but doesn't stop any deaths, that would bring it down to 1v13)

It's a matter of balance and concepts. When you balance a game with the concept of a scum group, I don't expect the Scum Group to be able to be eliminated in the first cycle, or turn into a weak Serial Killer by the end of the first Day.

I could probably post this better, but about to head to work and just forgot to eat.
 
Nictis said:
It's in the title. Scum Group. More than one scum, relying on each other to improve their odds. Serial killers usually have an advantage over individual members of a Scum Group because they are alone, they don't have anyone backing them up. And in any game with a Serial Killer, it's assumed to be balanced around the idea of there being a Serial Killer. Same goes for a Scum Group, it's assumed to be balanced around there being a Scum Group.

Like, I'm not arguing that Serial Killers should never be a thing, but I'm definitely not saying that Serial Killers should always be a thing, because games can be balanced such that a lone member against everyone is very likely to lose. If we were to have a Serial Killer in the game, I'd assume there would be two other constant kill sources because otherwise that SK is gonna have one hell of a time trying to eliminate everyone. (Let's assume Scum are lynched steadily throughout the Days, and that there's three of them. If Town plays amazingly but doesn't stop any deaths, that would bring it down to 1v13)

It's a matter of balance and concepts. When you balance a game with the concept of a scum group, I don't expect the Scum Group to be able to be eliminated in the first cycle, or turn into a weak Serial Killer by the end of the first Day.
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The problem I have with this reasoning is that, while it is unfortunate for the scum group to drop to a count of 1 by taking the day 1 lynch, it's still winnable from there. It's a long shot, sure, but it's there.

Ultimately, all designs have to be balanced with every role designed to be somehow expendable.

A two man scum group is more frail than a three man, yes. And a three man than a four man. And a four man than a five man. They're also always more fragile than a town, due to having fewer members.

That's just kinda how the game works.

Like, to use Arch-Demon's Amusement as an example, things went south fast for the demons not as much because one got lynched day 1, but because you three wound up tying together too much. When it became clear things were going south for your chances of not being lynched, you and the others should have started bussing.

A two man scum group, especially with an opposing one, does run a chance of getting wiped out right quick. And, at this scale of players, I find it more or less inconceivable we'd have just 2/2 for the scum. But to say that, in general, 2/2 at say 12 players, well outside your count of eight, is inconceivable? I find it absurd.

And okay. Maybe you would never design it that way. But as I said earlier...

Terrabrand said:
I mean, I'm not gonna disagree with the idea that it'd be fairly frail for the scum per se, but your personal feelings aren't actually relevant to whether Cyricubed and ComiTurtle would think it's okay.
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You didn't design this setup, and you didn't help with it. This is also not a stance you have previously aired publicly.

There's no specific reason to assume Cyric and Comi agree with you strongly enough on this point you have not raised in previous games to not have done 2/2 or more likely 2/2/2 or suchlike.
 
Estro said:
I honestly don't understand the argument here. Or what a serial killer is.
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A serial killer in the context of mafia is a standalone role that has the following features:

  • Standalone role with no allies.
  • Can kill, generally every night.
  • Has to kill everyone else to win.
  • Likely has further powers beyond standard, to make up for being effectively a one man scum team.
 
Nictis said:
Not necessarily, we could be looking at two competing low powered scum groups of three as well, although I will say that I mostly agree with your assessment. This bit just seemed odd considering the common range being 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 for scum ratios.
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Been busy catching up on school that I missed due to food poisoning but I want to say one thing. It is generally 1/4 to 1/3 for nontown. Note, this does not necessarily mean scum like how Nictis is interpreting it as, rather that refers to all of the third party players and the scum players.
 
Also, we're about 21~ hours into the day. With the day almost a third over, the time for meme votes is going away.

I'm eyeing QTesseract, partly for joining my bandwagon, but much more so for what Nictis was pointing out- he's predicting a really small/weak scum group.

However, I note we have several posters with two or less posts in the entire thread. Yes, or less.

[X] Null

[X] Lynch Abdbla

@Abdbla has not posted at all since day start, only signing up and confirming. @Cakestepid has only one post, but it's game content. @Letmebefree and @Dancelord both have a single registration post and a single, basically no content 'hi I'm here' post since day start.

My eye is on all of you. Mild activity really isn't hard, and we're nearly a day in. This isn't super scummy yet, but staying that low for long will be.
 
Estro said:
I honestly don't understand the argument here. Or what a serial killer is.
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The argument as I understand it is debating the likelihood of A) me being scum based on B) how the game would distribute scum groups. This started with QTesseract saying that I am unlikely to be scum, but it is still a possibility, due to the game being balanced with 18 players in mind rather than 19, which is untrue, there were slots for up to 24 players. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the game is balanced in between 19 and 24 players.

Nictis says that scum on SV is often 2 low powered scum groups competing with each other in groups of three. At 18 players, two groups of three would leave twelve town, if there's an SK thats 11 town. This is not unreasonable to assume, and as pointed out, that often is the standard here, bar the SK which I haven't seen in a while, but I did just recently return so someone can correct me.

Terra's argument is that with the addition of a 19th player, having that one be scum is unbalancing to the point of being implausible, and me most likely being a townie, survivor, or an SK, which he argues is a fairly neutral role. I don't really agree with that bit, as an SK is neutral in the sense that both scum and town need to work together to kill it, but I would say to town, an SK is scum.

BB says to be wary of any Day 1 scum assertions. Fairly neutral there, I neither agree nor disagree.

QT says that SK isn't neutral and is unbalancing, the neutral part I have already agreed with in the section above. The unbalancing part could go either way depending on the power levels of the setup.

And then the argument devolves into whether or not two and two is unfair to scum, which Nictis says it is, Terra says it isn't and depends on the setup. I agree with Terra here until we know more about the setup. If this turns out to be a fairly low powered game with a low power scum, I'm gonna be on Nictis's side. If the reverse reveals itself to be true, I remain on Terra's side.

Hope this helped sum up the arguments, If I missed anything please let me know.
 
Terrabrand said:
There's no specific reason to assume Cyric and Comi agree with you strongly enough on this point you have not raised in previous games to not have done 2/2 or more likely 2/2/2 or suchlike.
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I feel like pointing out that I did bring this up in Witches, not as in depth, but I did say it.

Also, here's where the problem of using stolen minutes for mafia is. I don't think it's inconceivable that there are two groups of two scum, I find it very unlikely that that is all the scum. 2v2v1 is something I would believe, which is what I meant when I said I'd expect a Serial Killer to make for three sources of kills. 2v2scumv14town is something I wouldn't believe, or that 3v1v14 is realistically as high as scum can go.

I can believe in 2v2v2 scum, I can believe in 2v2 even, but I wouldn't *expect* it. Too frail, too easily eliminated, and above all... Too small for the game we're looking at. Too small especially when called the highest it can go, realistically.

[Cakes post]

Ugh, break is over. Will be back to this later, he has some... Interesting thoughts on it and I need to reread later to correct what I can. My main stake in this argument is the idea that 4 scum in an 18 player game is as high as it can go.
 
Cakestepid said:
The argument as I understand it is debating the likelihood of A) me being scum based on B) how the game would distribute scum groups. This started with QTesseract saying that I am unlikely to be scum, but it is still a possibility, due to the game being balanced with 18 players in mind rather than 19, which is untrue, there were slots for up to 24 players. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the game is balanced in between 19 and 24 players.
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There is an argument for you not being scum, or at most being something like an amnesiac (that can become scum) or a 'traitor' role (that is scum, but not in the quicktopic or known directly by the main group), that being that I, at least, did not have a new PM issued (which would be fairly problematic in its own right) so we can assume that we basically got an eighteen player setup but with an extra thrown in and that extra going to you.

In which case, that extra is unlikely to be a full scum member (huge boost to a scum group) or an executioner (roles targeted by executioners are typically balanced by the fact that someone will gun for their lynch), or anything else that is hugely likely to shift game flow.

It is, overall, to your credit that you are willing to argue you could be scum, though hardly definitive.
 
LostDeviljho said:
Re setup: All I'll say is that judging by the ratio of flavor in my PM, Archeo should have a fun time.
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Out of character, yes! I most definitely will. In character? I really don't have any time for fun. Or much of anything else other than my job. But this is Mafia, not a roleplay, so I'll get what I can from Flavors and try to unravel this mystery!
 
[X] Lynch Abdbla

I know I only have one post on this so far myself but I want to at least see a post from Abdbla. This is not bandwagoning, making that clear now.
 
I'll be honest, I'm split on who to pressure here. We've got QT who thinks 4 (weak) opposed scum in an 18 player game is the upper limit for scum, and we've got TMR who seems to know how people are being killed, out of character, and has an odd memevote on me.

I'll quote why it seems odd to me.
Astaroh-M said:
[x] Lynch Shadow Shinobi

I won't allow ninjas in our noble pirate ship! >_</
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Nictis said:
The Cap'n? Making a mistake?

It must be an imposter!
[P] Lynch The Ninja!
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TheMaskedReader said:
Wot's this NINJA STUFF? We're good mages and fighters here, mate! Not a stealth class amongst us!

[X] Lynch Nictis
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I was planning on ignoring the oddity, but then there was that book thing.

Eenie Meenie Miny...
[X] Lynch QTesseract
 
Broken Base said:
So what Is the vote trying to accomplish? Because applying additional pressure from a base vote in order to get someone else to post is kind of the definition of bandwagoning really, I'd say.
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Id consider bandwagoning to be jumping on a vote that's got three or more votes with no explanation given, I feel like putting a second vote on something is like an emphasis instead of bandwagoning
 
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