some mafia

[Jonnas]

After I was lynched, I admitted to Yvonne in a PM that I thought the mafia were ReZ, Peeps and one of Cube/Sheikah/mr-paul.

 

ReZ and Peeps were incredibly obvious: they would be on the fence, but then end up finishing the lynch using incredibly faulty logic for their votes (or at least it felt that way). I also saw shades of this in mr-paul, but less so.

 

Sheikah looked genuinely suspicious at first, him and ReZ (because their posts reminded me of past mafia games). Sheikah later on was on the exact same page as The Peeps, hence why I was so certain he could be mafia (even his bad statistics could've been part of a false defence, very similar to what The Peeps was doing).

 

Cube was just because... if Sheikah was town, Cube being mafia also made some sense His conflict with The Peeps could be entirely fabricated.

 

In the end, pinpointing Sheikah in particular was just bad luck (and near the end, I was more sure of ReZ and Peeps than him). But at that point, changing targets wasn't a very viable option. Maybe I shoulda picked The Peeps as the next target

 

(Also, Sheikah's calculations for "Chance of hitting a mafia in 2 lynches" were bonkers, but my method wasn't quite right either, I think.

 

Regardless, a mafia game is not played like that. A mafia game is always played day-by-day, and in each day, the odds are always in the mafia's favour.

 

And none of that takes into account the influence of the mafia in actually going through with it.)

[Sheikah]

Regardless, a mafia game is not played like that. A mafia game is always played day-by-day, and in each day, the odds are always in the mafia's favour.

 

A mafia game is not normally played like this, as in no night kill and no actions, so a different method to tackle a different kind of game :p. Also it wasn't necessarily RNG - any townie about to be lynched could effectively give whatever target they wanted, which is probably what you did yourself.

 

I definitely would say that the RNG plan is probably not something Mafia would want to propose as it could so easily backfire for them and limits their influence, and anyone willing to go along with the plan I think should have been just as credible to gun for as me. I think it's also better to do this RNG tactic at least for D2 rather than letting a random (potentially scum) person pick a target with no real reason, since reasoning is still rather weak at this stage (the D1 lynch felt pretty much a token lynch unlikely to reveal much). The plan may as well not have existed on D3 as I would have lynched you anyway based on your hostility to me.

 

I will say, it's very hard to see someone as Mafia when, in your own eyes, they are the only person who seems to be correctly deducing your alignment and backing lynches of people who seem to be acting rather crazy (that's how you felt towards to me :p). For that reason, he didn't really appear Mafia to me on the same level as anyone else, apart from maybe his suggestion of Tales to lynch (but that being D1, it didn't seem to have much substance to it). Later on I also opted to go for Rummy for reasons similar to those that could have led me to lynch ReZ (quietness, and something being a bit off), overlooking Cube who I thought was behaving rather like you. Again, Peeps's willingness to lynch either Cube or Rummy, at least one of which seemed to me to likely to be Mafia, added to my trust of him. That, and he was as collective as he normally is when playing town. Well done Peeps.

 

I certainly felt like Paul was fence sitting earlier on, but as with most Mafia games it's usually your prime suspect that drives your play and sometimes your downfall, despite who else you might want to follow up with. Ah well.

[The Peeps]

I don't think I was on the fence. I was quite adamant about following the plan all the way through that was my ploy for the game - to just keep to the plan for as long as it suited and luckily it suited all the way through!

Edited June 28, 2014 by The Peeps

[Yvonne]

I think these rules were a lot of fun, there was a good pace created by the lack of night and the idle penalty, it enabled discussion, despite little to go on. Very low maintenance required on my side too, and a small problem space, so it was easy to follow.

I may run another of this kind in the not so distant future!

[Rummy]

The quiet ones as always.

 

I don't think I was on the fence. I was quite adament about following the plan all the way through that was my ploy for the game - to just keep to the plan for as long as it suited and luckily it suited all the way through!

 

Exactly what I was doing too, which is why I assumed you to be town! An interesting game, though difficult with complete lack of information, I did rather like the rolling nature of it as well.

[Jonnas]

I don't think I was on the fence. I was quite adamant about following the plan all the way through that was my ploy for the game - to just keep to the plan for as long as it suited and luckily it suited all the way through!

 

You came across as someone who followed the plan, not because it was the plan, but because you liked the targets. If that makes sense.

 

Basically, Rummy was all "Plan, plan, let's follow it", you actually argued a fair bit for it, and it showed your lack of rational conviction in it, but you still went along with the targets.

 

I think the only reason I thought that was suspicious is because it wasn't that characteristic of you. After all, Mr-paul did essentially the same thing, but I was more sure of you.

 

A mafia game is not normally played like this, as in no night kill and no actions, so a different method to tackle a different kind of game :p. Also it wasn't necessarily RNG - any townie about to be lynched could effectively give whatever target they wanted, which is probably what you did yourself.

 

Oh yes, a mafia game always has human input, so an RNG can easily veer off and never see fruition.

 

I was talking about how "Chance of getting a mafioso if we lynch 2 guys" sounds decent in theory (and even then barely above a coin-flip), but in practice, the only decision that matters is who we lynch today, that is, "Chance of getting a mafioso now if we follow a random choice" (Which is always unfavourable).

 

Mathematically, these are the odds if we apply such a plan for the whole game:

 

Chances of getting a mafioso after:

A Lucky start = 30%

Losing 1 townie = 53,33%

Losing 2 townies = 70,83%

Losing 3 townies = 83,33%

 

If we only start counting after Tales (like you said, his lynch could be easily orchestrated):

Losing 1 townie = 33,33%

Losing 2 townies = 58,33%

Losing 3 townies = 76,19%

 

Considering only individual days:

Day 1 = 30%

Day 2 = 33,33%

Day 3 = 37,50%

Day 4 = 42,86%

 

 

From a mafioso perspective, those are great odds for bringing down 3 townies along with you. With that plan, the worst-case scenario is losing one of your own.

And none of that takes into account the human element, the mafia action of avoiding/sticking with the plan.

 

But regardless of results, more important is that the plan takes away what makes the game what it is. Of course there was stuff to learn from the Shorty lynch, even when there was an RNG plan in effect, there always is (even before he was lynched, I thought he was going to come up town). One could argue there was stuff we could see from the Tales lynch, too. The RNG plan makes assumptions that discard a lot of this.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Jonnas

[Sheikah]

You only need to lose 2 scum though to win though (compared with 7 townies).

 

If there's a 58% chance of lynching 1 scum from 2 days of doing the plan (on D2 and D3) then that means the most likely outcome is you kill one townie and one Mafioso (58% success vs 42% failure). Those are pretty good odds for town - one townie for one Mafioso. Better than continuing to let the Mafia propose our kill targets for us in the early stages (as per D1) anyhow.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Sheikah

[Jonnas]

You only need to lose 2 scum though to win though (compared with 7 townies).

 

If there's a 58% chance of lynching 1 scum from 2 days of doing the plan (on D2 and D3) then that means the most likely outcome is you kill one townie and one Mafioso (58% success vs 42% failure). Those are pretty good odds for town - one townie for one Mafioso. Better than continuing to let the Mafia propose our kill targets for us in the early stages (as per D1) anyhow.

 

Two townies for one mafioso, actually. Remember the first guy who dies.

 

You don't need to lose 7 townies to lose, either, just 4.

 

And I stand by the thought that 58% isn't that good a chance. It's only marginally better than a coin flip. And if it fails, the future prospects are grim for the town. Too much of a risk.

[Sheikah]

Two townies for one mafioso, actually. Remember the first guy who dies.

 

The first guy (if you mean D1 lynch) is not part of the plan. He dies no matter what, whether you adopt a RNG plan from D2 onwards or not. If I'm understanding your maths correctly, you're saying that on D2 there is a 33% (3 out 9) chance of hitting scum, whereas on D3 there is a 37.5% chance (3 in 8). Together, this means across 2 lynches (D2 and D3) there is a 58% chance of hitting a single mafioso across those two days, right? So if that mafioso is hit, then only one of the two players killed is a townie. Thus one mafia for one town, not one mafia for two town. The question really is whether the RNG plan (which can only be initiated D2 onwards following a town death) could be effective. I'd say it could be, but here we were just unlucky.

 

 

And I stand by the thought that 58% isn't that good a chance. It's only marginally better than a coin flip. And if it fails, the future prospects are grim for the town. Too much of a risk.

 

It means that the most favourable outcome is one town death and one mafia death. I'd say that's pretty good in a game where you have no cops, no trackers, and no information of any other kind. I also don't think the early use of RNG necessarily set us up bad, it was poor reasoning from many players instead. To illustrate, people read things that weren't there regarding what the RNG plan meant. Cube thought that I must be Mafia based on coming up with the plan, but as we've discussed it's not really a pro-Mafia plan as Mafia would rather take control than leave things to chance (as shown by Peeps' suggestion of Tales on D1 rather than allowing a townie to possibly suggest a mafioso). And my belief that we should lynch a quiet person (I chose Rummy, but it could have just as easily been Rez).

 

I think we should probably acknowledge here that the lack of info made this game somewhat a challenge, and I personally think the Mafia would have won the standard route anyway. I believe at least it was a more interesting game through employing this tactic, but given the outcome I can imagine people aren't likely to adopt the RNG plan again.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Sheikah