Mafia CLVI: Charity Mafia: -- Pure of Heart Win!

[Thyrfing]

Megapooooooooooooooost!!

Hi all,
As one of five reserves I did not think I'd be called up so soon, so I haven't put any N0 thought into mechanics, but I'm happy to be here. I'll be traveling a lot over the next few days, so I'll try to be up on the the thread but won't have many big long post opportunities, more phone-type posts.

Scum. You heard it here first.

What's that? Not following you here

[Thyrfing]

I'm preparing a simple spreadsheet to keep track of that information. I'm visiting family today so maybe I won't be able to come back much for the day.

[sjg11]

Besides potentially killing inactives, I think we need to keep any possible vigilantes under control. It's not really their fault they may have been put into this scenario, but I'd like to, in particular, control the vigilante from random night shooting. I mean that in the sense we need to stop him from killing town members at night and I think we can easily solve this problem by doing one of two things:

I agree with this sentiment, uncontrolled vigilantes could be a nightmare when combined with unreliable targeting in this game.

1. utilize, if we have one, a doctor to protect his target at night. The benefit in this is that the doctor probably won't need to reveal. The disadvantage is that we don't have a doctor to protect one of our own randomly though, to be completely fair, it's gonna be a complete shit show so the likelihood of a planned save is decreased while being able to interpret the data easily may not exist within this game (I'll comment more on this later)

Personally I like the slight randomness to Doctor targeting which this particular game scenario provides. In my opinion, protective roles are at their most effective when they keep the Mafia confused about what's going on. I think the Mafia are going to be worried about Doc protection every night and that's a very good thing in my view. For this reason... I'd prefer to try to keep the Docs protecting randomly if I can...

2. Utilize, if we have one, the blocker to stop the vigilante's actions every night. The disadvantage is that it's probably necessary for a blocker to reveal. In most games I've played blocker, when there are roles, is a less common than all the major roles so I can't say I'm particularly confident in our chances on this one. The advantage is still having a doctor save being possible.

The issue with this is that we'd need:
1. The vigilante to reveal
2. We'd need someone to reveal that they are targeting the player with the second highest number of votes just in case we don't have a Blocker so that the vig plan can work anyway.
3. We'd then need someone to reveal that they are targeting the vigilante.
4. The Blocker then gets tied down protecting the vigilante.

That's 4 town roles tied town for the night just to deal with any potential vigilantes.

Also, I think we should have everyone reveal who they are targeting every night. We need someone to keep track of this. This allows people who save others and use their abilities to benefit the town to be more able to actually use their abilities correctly.

I disagree with this. Let me explain why:
Let's say that this occurs:
Happymeal says he's targeting Harb
Sjg, a cop in this scenario, decides to target happymeal because Harb is a slippery little weasel at the best of times
Harb is Mafia and decides to kill sjg just in case he is an investigative role

You see my point? Telling the Mafia who we're targeting could end very, very badly for us.

[sjg11]

Not such a good idea IMO. Anything that involves organizing roles annoys me, and I can think of a lot of ways this can be manipulated. For example, I know a relatively common role is the transporter/busdriver, who switches two targets with each other. Mafia with control of a role like this can wreak havoc on a town organizing everything. OTOH, synergies are a possibility, and I can see an argument for it, but I'd be really careful before setting up an organization strategy like this.

Explain to me how a busdriver would work in this game with its unique mechanic. Moreover, redirection roles were not mentioned in the list of roles in the rules pre-game. A vigilante specifically was. Thus, I worry far more about a vigilante than I do about a busdriver in this particular scenario.

The vig thing seems meh also. I really don't like having another kill proc every night. Again, a mafia picking up a transporter or doctor role, for example, wreaks absolute hell with that plan.

If the Mafia want to waste their Doc Role protecting from our vig kills they're free to do so. I'm not going to be complaining about that.

[sjg11]

Hmmm... I've actually been thinking about the ratios more...

This game starts at 7:2...

If we mislynch it'll be 6:2

A vig kill followed by a Mafia kill is 4:2...

Which would put us at MYLO on Day Two...

I don't particularly like that scenario...

So I'm going to amend my plan to say that:
If we lynch a townie today, the Doctor protects the same player the vig is meant to be targeting. Yes this ties down our Doctor but I'd prefer that to potentially having MYLO on Day Two.

If we lynch Mafia then this doesn't occur and the Doc should try protecting randomly as that worry no longer occurs, the game will last longer and learning whether we actually have a Vig or not is potentially useful.

I don't think I'd support any plan where the Vig gets revealed because I kinda want the Vig to be NKed by the Mafia and the Vig revealing makes that significantly less likely to occur.

[sjg11]

Besides potentially killing inactives, I think we need to keep any possible vigilantes under control. It's not really their fault they may have been put into this scenario, but I'd like to, in particular, control the vigilante from random night shooting. I mean that in the sense we need to stop him from killing town members at night and I think we can easily solve this problem by doing one of two things:

1. utilize, if we have one, a doctor to protect his target at night. The benefit in this is that the doctor probably won't need to reveal. The disadvantage is that we don't have a doctor to protect one of our own randomly though, to be completely fair, it's gonna be a complete shit show so the likelihood of a planned save is decreased while being able to interpret the data easily may not exist within this game (I'll comment more on this later)

2. Utilize, if we have one, the blocker to stop the vigilante's actions every night. The disadvantage is that it's probably necessary for a blocker to reveal. In most games I've played blocker, when there are roles, is a less common than all the major roles so I can't say I'm particularly confident in our chances on this one. The advantage is still having a doctor save being possible.

Also, I think we should have everyone reveal who they are targeting every night. We need someone to keep track of this. This allows people who save others and use their abilities to benefit the town to be more able to actually use their abilities correctly.

How about a combination of plans here?

Someone volunteers for doctor and vig targeting, and that person targets a town-agreed target. No one needs to reveal, and we get data either way (either the person dies, which means yes vig, no doc; or the person lives, which means either yes to both or no to both, but in any case the vig would be neutered.)

Actually thinking about it, this is too expensive a strategy. Tying down our doc seems like a bad idea, even if it comes with benefits. Hmmm, I'm leaning towards the good ol' "Do what you want,when you want, to whom you want, and sort it out in the morning".

This works for me, it doesn't have to be the guy with the second most votes.

I don't support any plan that involves people doing what they want. With a randomly targeting vig lurking that seems like a recipe for a town defeat.

[sjg11]

2 + 3. If a miller says that, then he may as well reveal that he's a miller. I'm not certain how it's even possible anyone could assume anything besides that he's a miller. We had no actions night 0, there's no way any role could know that information right now besides the miller or framer or whatever. For revealing anti town roles, I think we should force people to commit to them now. If later on we're at LYLO and a mafia claims they are now a miller, then we could be fucked. I think we need to take this game by the balls and rid it of its semen.

On top of that, let's assume we have a cop (which we probably do), a framer in the game makes his game 10x more difficult (which is why mass target reveals is so good, it allows all good abilites to be optimized and all negative ones to be minimized). Framers can easily just say "I will target x tonight" and cops can avoid that investigation entirely. Same with millers. The earlier, the better.

Any Millers (townies looking guilty when investigated) or Framers (players who can mess with investigation results) need to reveal ASAP. If a Godfather wants to reveal too that's fine by me.

Another suggestion is that everyone reveals who they're going to target in the thread before they do so. I... just think that that's too open to manipulation for the Mafia. Moreover... I kind of want to gain the data from how people decide who they're going to select every night.

I want to know how the mafia can manipulate mass target reveals. Besides lying about they are going to target (which we would not have known in the first place), they can't do much. if we're lucky, we have a watcher who might catch behavior like this.

Also, I think if we have a commuter or other role which is invincible to night actions, we should have them reveal asap so we have an easy vig target.

If any role can safely defuse the vig by being targeted they should reveal. Getting rid of the negative effects of the vig is my main mechanical priority today.

See one of my previous posts for my issues with a mass target reveal.

If we follow my plan/vague idea of a plan, then my suggestion would be that any vig roles target that player. Investigative roles can do what they like. Doctor roles should remain unpredictable but should strongly consider targeting our daily vig sacrifice. No, wait, avoid doing so during Night One so that we can see if there are any actual vigilantes in the game during Night One and can then react accordingly on Day Two coming up with a new tactic.

I don't like the sound of this tbh. I do not think we should let the vig kill someone tonight, they should just reveal immediately. We, as a whole town, can vote on it or whatever, but I think it's important we just agree for vig to reveal and then control him afterwards. There are plenty of possible roles that could help us cease the vig from dealing huge damage to our town (if he gets town night 1, I think it's a huge deal if it's not an inactive). Basically, while I like the unpredictability of the game, I think some things are just too harmful to the town.

I think we can control the vigilante without him revealing. Like I said earlier, if the vig gets killed by the Mafia that suits me. Revealing the vig makes that impossible. It does mean that the Doc is tied down for a few days but that's better in my view than most of the alternatives are in this situation.

[sjg11]

So. This may seem obvious, but I want it stated in thread - we should absolutely reveal what powers we were given, every night. Thoughts?

I don't think this is a bad idea... but doing this means that we cannot have a mass target reveal otherwise we're just effectively role revealing.

[sjg11]

Another thought...

If we have an inactive, it may be worth someone else volunteering to target an inactive during Night One. This may allow the investigative roles at our disposal to target someone who we have less information about and potentially learn something useful as a result.

Just an idea to potentially make our investigative roles a little bit more useful than they would be through random targeting.

Ehhh... I don't hate this idea. I'd rather target the second-highest vote getter, at least for tonight, as that gives us better information going forward. But it's something to keep in the back pocket for later days if it turns out we do have a vig.

Wow, I totally misread that. Disregard. I thought you were still talking about the vig, not cop roles. I'm okay with the cop investigating inactives. I mean, it's not ideal, because the mafia probably NK's the inactive, rendering the cop's night wasted, but at least we don't waste a lynch, and the threat could help keep scum active.

If we're directing the Mafia kill towards inactive players I'm not going to be complaining to be honest with you. In reality doing so probably makes our life easier.

[sjg11]

There is a blocker or busdriver, although they would need to target someone who has targeted the chosen player, it's not that difficult

I disagree with this. They would need to target specifically the protective role to muck up the plan, if they hit the vig the planning of stopping the vig from killing people remains.

What do we know with this plan? Either the end-player lives and we know that a) there's both doc and vic b) there's no vig but we don't know about the doc.... I think the combinations can be too much to extract any information of value.

I'm not too concerned about this... I'm more concerned with controlling the vig.

The player we choose to target is scum in the first place

Not sure what the issue with this is... the vig kill's more likely to hit town than Mafia so is town destructive

The doctor/vig are scum

If the Mafia have a vig along with a factional night kill this game is ridiculously lopsided and we've effectively already lost. I have too much respect for ZZ to believe that that is the case. The Mafia having a Doctor is more likely but, even if the Mafia have a Doctor, it doesn't mean that the town doesn't have a Doc themselves.

It gives scum more options for cover in the future (eg saying they are a town vig that targeted that player to cover up for a night kill)

If the Mafia want to waste their night kill targeting our safe vig target they're free too. That's not a scenario which I particularly worry about.

Also as Telleo says we will know what ability we have used, so we will know if there is a vig (provided a townie gets it). Revealing that only seems like a good place to start getting some information and at least we will know some of the roles that are in play. But definitely I would leave roles to act on their own and not try to control them, at least for now.

Yes we'll know there's a vig when we're at a 4:2 scenario and we're already at MYLO. Which is a pretty bad place for the town to be in.