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

[condude1]

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".

[Happymeal]

Ok guys. I'm excited to start this one!

A few questions off the bat, with my answers to them:

1. Do you think that roles are alignment-relevant?
2. Should we reveal anti-town roles (framers, millers, vigs, even blockers all are thought of as not very town friendly, to name a few)
3. Should we reveal information that we know about the game state without endangering our role. (Ex. A miller says "I know that there are roles that screw with investigation results.")?

1. I don't think this question is that relevant? Regardless of whether we know the answer or not here, that helps us how?

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.

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 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.

[Happymeal]

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".

what happens if the vigilante kills our doc or our cop or our etc.? It's not as unlikely as people think and it's quite possible something like this happens. I think letting the vig randomly shoot someone who isn't an inactive is horrible irresponsible. I don't believe it gives us the advantage in this case. I don't think we should reveal more than 2 roles at most, but I do think we need to control the vig night kill immediately. To me, if he's not acting in favor of the town, he's not worth having around.

[condude1]

Ok guys. I'm excited to start this one!

A few questions off the bat, with my answers to them:

1. Do you think that roles are alignment-relevant?
2. Should we reveal anti-town roles (framers, millers, vigs, even blockers all are thought of as not very town friendly, to name a few)
3. Should we reveal information that we know about the game state without endangering our role. (Ex. A miller says "I know that there are roles that screw with investigation results.")?

1. I don't think this question is that relevant? Regardless of whether we know the answer or not here, that helps us how?

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.

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 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.

1. If roles are randomly assigned, reveals are a lot less useful. If roles are not randomly assigned, revealing gives us an added way of getting reads: How townie that person's role is.
2+3. Unless the person's a cop who's told their investigation's not infallible, or a framer, or anything else relating to investigations. It's that "Or whatever" that I'm talking about.

What if the framer chooses the cop then, which wastes it, or any of the other plethora of roles we're sending at a target? To counter negative roles, we should spread out our roles, such that they can't be mass-uselessified.

Agreed on the commuter/bp. Definitely a good place to waste night actions. It seems unlikely though, because of the idea behind this game.

[condude1]

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".

what happens if the vigilante kills our doc or our cop or our etc.? It's not as unlikely as people think and it's quite possible something like this happens. I think letting the vig randomly shoot someone who isn't an inactive is horrible irresponsible. I don't believe it gives us the advantage in this case. I don't think we should reveal more than 2 roles at most, but I do think we need to control the vig night kill immediately. To me, if he's not acting in favor of the town, he's not worth having around.

Remember, the vig can shoot mafia too. Also, what if the inactive IS our cop? All this does is take away the vig's responsibility, in exchange for slightly better shots at hitting a scum (or just getting rid of our inactive).

[Keirador]

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.

[Telleo]

I'm working up a longer response to other people, but roles have been kinda bouncing around in my head and I'd like to get some thoughts down before responding more specifically.

In general, I'm very anti-revealing powers, but in this game I'm not so sure. Our inability to control where our powers are actually focused (all we get is a target we entrust with our powers) seems very anti-town - for example, if I'm the cop I can't decide whom to investigate, only whom to give the powers to. HOWEVER. There's one big bonus here - We can reveal what powers we acquire every night. For example, if someone gives me the cop role, and I investigate, say, Condude and find him innocent, I can reveal that right away, because the mafia gain no information about who is actually the cop role's source.

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

[Telleo]

Megapooooooooooooooost!!

Ok guys. I'm excited to start this one!

A few questions off the bat, with my answers to them:

1. Do you think that roles are alignment-relevant?
2. Should we reveal anti-town roles (framers, millers, vigs, even blockers all are thought of as not very town friendly, to name a few)
3. Should we reveal information that we know about the game state without endangering our role. (Ex. A miller says "I know that there are roles that screw with investigation results.")?

In response to #1: I think roles are not alignment-restricted. This game is unique in that a scum doctor can accidentally save someone, for example, such that pro-town roles are pro-town, no matter who controls them, and vice versa.
As for #2, I'm going to say no again, barring millers. The common arguments apply.
#3, I say yes. The example given could be any number of roles, and as such, if we have knowledge of anti-town roles in the game, we should reveal that they are out there. I think it keeps infosec intact while giving us an idea of what to be on guard for.

Those are just preliminary thoughts, I'm sure there's a way to improve our odds that I'm not thinking of ATM.

Ehh. I'm not sure that #1 is a question that matters. Unless we have an investigator who finds out what powers people control, it's unlikely to become an issue, yeah? If we're ever in a position that someone's power is revealed and we need to know if they're scum or not, their use of the power should be more indicative of their alignment than the power itself.

Which I guess means I just agreed with you - the roles aren't necessarily alignment indicative.

Ah heck, who am I kidding? I'll be posting a ton, I can't study 24/7!

Atta boy. Keep those priorities straight!

Just trying to think about how we can have some sort of organisation/at least some form of respectable mechanical discussion and debate...

How about we have one player who volunteers to target someone who the town wants to investigate and which all potential town investigative roles can target?

So, for example, we have one, and only one player, stating in thread that they will target the player who gains the second most lynch votes in the thread. All vigilante roles can target that player to attempt to minimise the impact of any potential vigilantes in the game?

I'm suggesting this because I think that gaining some level of certainty with regards to targets could be incredibly useful to us.

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.

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.

So, in conclusion this is my plan:
One player volunteers to target the player with the second most lynch votes in the thread.
All vigilante roles target that player so the player with the second most lynch votes die tonight.
Doctors avoid protecting that player so that we can see if there are any vig roles in the game tonight.

There is still the possibility that Blockers screw things up by targeting a vig... but I think this is the best way for us to neuter any potential vigilante roles now before they become too dangerous.

The fact that vig roles were mentioned in the rules makes me worry about them and makes a desire to holster them my main concern today.

I tend to agree with this plan. I'd like to know if the vig exists, and this seems like a good way to direct the vig kill in an at-least-sorta town positive manner.

And I don't bite. Much.

I do.

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.

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.

I'm strongly against everyone revealing who they target each night. This give the mafia a way to work backwards as the days go on to find out who has what role. For example, if I'm the doc, and I reveal that I've targeted Condude, and Condude reveals that he targets Keirador, and the scum try and fail to kill Keirador, they know that I have the doc powers. Likewise, it means our cop each night, if any, cannot reveal their investigation results without also revealing the source of the cop powers. I think these negatives strongly counteract any possible positive of controlling the vig - I'd much rather the vig be totally random and we still have the ability to reveal doc investigations freely.

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".

I agree, this seems too expensive. That said, I don't mind tying the vig down this way - let the doc do what they want, but have the vig target the volunteer who targets a town-agreed player (as Sjg suggested, perhaps the 2nd highest vote-getter).

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.

[Telleo]

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.

[Thyrfing]

I am completely against massive role/target reveals or planning. Honestly, I am not even very keen on sjg's plan of vig/doc targeting someone, mainly because there are a number of ways this can be useless (or worse, misleading)
There is a blocker or busdriver, although they would need to target someone who has targeted the chosen player, it's not that difficult
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.
The player we choose to target is scum in the first place
The doctor/vig are scum
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)

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.

Millers should reveal of course. Other town roles that might not be "100% town" I'd say to stay quiet for now.