Meta discussion

[wam]

Yeah my game should be wrapped up soon. Which is good as it was intended to be finished by this weekend!!

Vieto can i reserve a space on Samual Jackson mafia given Im going to be away over the weekend when its in signups?

[Vieto]

Hey guys

So, due to RL circumstances, I think I might need a co-mod, or someone to babysit-mod SLJ mafia partway through the game. PM me if interested.

Edit: Actually, I may not need a co-mod. I can start the game on the 21st.
editedit: Nope, wrong again. No problems, it seams.

[lynx]

Just noticed G of T mafia there in the mods queue: is it based off the books or the series? Shotgun a place if it's the latter!

[Adam H]

It will be based on the show more than the books, I guess. But really it will end up being like fan fiction based on the characters. No spoilers, basically.

[lynx]

Brilliant. I want to be either Tyrion Lannister or Baelish please!

[UniqueScreenname]

I feel like two large games (20+) at the same time is a little odd.

[wam]

With the rise of mass claiming around here, I was thinking about possible anti-mass claim mechanics for my upcoming community mafia game. (don't worry this will all be in the OP so no spoilers). As I really don't like mass claiming (or name claiming) Im trying to discourage it as much as possible. Players you have been warned. Obviously claiming cop or watcher etc is fine.

Currently I was going to use vietos you lose your vote if you claim and a list of safe claims for scum.

However I was considering the following mechanism. If you claim your characters name, scum get sent your role pm. Is this too mean?

[Snark]

With the rise of mass claiming around here, I was thinking about possible anti-mass claim mechanics for my upcoming community mafia game. (don't worry this will all be in the OP so no spoilers). As I really don't like mass claiming (or name claiming) Im trying to discourage it as much as possible. Players you have been warned. Obviously claiming cop or watcher etc is fine.

Currently I was going to use vietos you lose your vote if you claim and a list of safe claims for scum.

However I was considering the following mechanism. If you claim your characters name, scum get sent your role pm. Is this too mean?

Nothing is "mean" if the game is balanced with it in effect and you tell the players in the rules before the game starts. I have a feeling it wouldn't be as effective as other measures though. Town will name-claim to get out of the lynch whether or not scum gets a free role-cop most likely.

[wam]

Yeah I can live with a role claim from a desperate townie, although with most of the measures given I doubt it would help.

My main goal with that measure it to ensure that a mass roleclaim just paints targets on the heads of the most valuable townies therefore town won't do it.

[cjquines]

D1 role claim, thoughts?

[wam]

CJ Be very careful not to stray into discussing ongoing games!

My general view is that it is case specific, you can't have a blanket view.

[Dr Ug]

I feel like two large games (20+) at the same time is a little odd.

20 used to be medium (2 games), with large being up to 30 (1 game), although I have to say sign ups are a lot healthier ATM than when I left.

[Dr Ug]

With the rise of mass claiming around here, I was thinking about possible anti-mass claim mechanics for my upcoming community mafia game. (don't worry this will all be in the OP so no spoilers). As I really don't like mass claiming (or name claiming) Im trying to discourage it as much as possible. Players you have been warned. Obviously claiming cop or watcher etc is fine.

Currently I was going to use vietos you lose your vote if you claim and a list of safe claims for scum.

However I was considering the following mechanism. If you claim your characters name, scum get sent your role pm. Is this too mean?

Here are a few options:

Lynchers
Bonus powers to anti town for taking out specific roles
Powers that rely on knowing rolenames (say a rolename targetable NK, that can't target a Player name) for a closed setup obviously
Having anti town roles that are named for a towny character from a flavour pov
Cults

And several others I'll keep in my bag for later

[cjquines]

I'll try, wam.

About this anti-massclaim thing...
Why don't you just but it and end the day as soon as somebody suggests a mass claim? Or add a large list of false claims. Or, you could notify that if 2 or more people claim at the same day, it will end immediately. Just some ideas.

[Misnomer]

If it's a closed game, I'd not detail the mechanic at all, just warn the players that a mechanic is in place - creates more fear and makes it harder for them to find a workaround.


In general, I would advise against 'public' anti-claiming mechanisms, like vote-losing. If you are going to include these, then they MUST also come into an effect when a falseclaim is made, otherwise you're providing town with a means to publicly lie detect their own statements.

Scum getting a free rolecop might work ok, but in general I think you might be better off making massclaims ineffective rather than preventing them altogether: a combination of safeclaims for scum, unlikely roles and missing "obvious" roles/rolenames can work well. Including roles like the beloved princess, 'hunter' roles or enablers will also deter massclaims, and the presence of any should deter participation in the claim (possibly forcing townies to falseclaim in the town's massclaim).

If you do want something with more bite, make the scum/sk-kill unblockable if they submit it along with the target's rolename.


Ninja'd in part by Dr Ug

[lynx]

I think a safe claim list for scum along with N0 chat would be sufficient in a closed set-up. Town would not know what roles are in the game for sure and adding a couple of main-ish characters to the list will make claiming impossible. I personally think roles like misnomer suggested stray into bastardy (particularly the beloved princess) although dr Ug's lyncher suggestion isn't really. I'd say don't say which mechanic you're using, but make it a subtle one and town will be too scared to suggest it

[Misnomer]

How exactly is a beloved princess bastardry?

[lynx]

Town losing a day due to a mislynch? Makes sense a little in role madness or if the game is based around the princess but surely it's pretty bastard otherwise? I might not fully understand the accepted definition of bastardy but sounds like a bit of a dick move to me in a closed set-up.

[Misnomer]

Town losing a day due to a mislynch? Makes sense a little in role madness or if the game is based around the princess but surely it's pretty bastard otherwise? I might not fully understand the accepted definition of bastardy but sounds like a bit of a dick move to me in a closed set-up.

As long as the game's balanced to take the lost day into account, then it shouldn't be an issue. And if it's unbalanced, then that makes it more of a badly designed game than a bastard one (unless it was deliberately designed to be unbalanced, in which case it would probably be bastardry as well as bad design).

[Adam H]

I can see beloved princesses being verrrry slight bastardry, especially if the game rules explicitly say that town lynches a person every day and mafia kills a person every night, or something like that. But bastardry is just another name for fun, anyways!

And... now I'm going to completely dismiss the next beloved princess claim I see.


Massclaiming: the ideal fix I think is to make the main protagonists not necessarily town, and give some townies unbelievable or scummy rolenames, while giving scum believable and townie rolenames (fake or real). Basically, make nameclaiming as useless as possible.

[Lataro]

I find the best way to solve this is to just make it so unfavorable for town to mass claim that they will not want to, until maybe towards the end of the game. Open games make this an easy choice for them, since they can see that it's unfavorable to them. As for closed games, it's easily doable to put the same measures in place, and warn town that it's a bad idea if you feel generous. While flavor heavy games make this measure difficult, others have given a number of good ways to deal with it. For the most part, I dislike it as a strat, and when I design games, I put in measures that will lead to a likely anti-town win if town tries it early on, by either ensuring that townies are unable to confirm themselves, say, with action redirectors, roleblockers, or such. Additionally, secondary win conditions, such as some town members having goals that go against other town members, say, someone who wins with town, but double wins if X dies before them, can encourage good little townies to keep their mouth shut least they get lynched.

Realistically, you can't prevent mass claims, however, my advice, is make sure the game in some way favors scum if mass claim is done. I'm strongly against it ever working as a valid town strat, having been scum too many times and sitting there watching my .5% chance to win slipping away, or just taking my easy win from a poorly balanced game as town. I dislike punishments for claiming, such as vote loss, since it's a weak deterrent if that is all that exists to deter it.

[Dr Ug]

Now that I'm not posting from my phone...

This is something I feel quite passionately about. I think claiming, and what seems to be a more recent trend of stating "I am town" at the beginning of each game, are playing the system rather than the game. I think it's almost on a par with stating your role PM (read starcraft mafia to see how that's happened in the past). These are things that will be dealt with in my next game .

I agree with Lataro and Misnomer here. It's best dealt with via mechanics that make massclaiming an anti-town move. More artificial strats like vote loss etc I think are less interesting. I really like the multiple alignment strategy that Lataro listed. In general I employ multiple of these methods to try to rid claiming being pro-town.

Also, lynx, I think you're misunderstanding the real definition of bastardry, vs evilness. A complex closed setup is not bastard. A bastard setup is when the mod is also trying to "win" somehow - I think the best example of bastardry is Silknor's "Openly bastard". And as Lataro said, balance is a different thing to bastardry. Any role, no matter how powerful can be ok, as long as there is something to balance it.

[BoomFrog]

Lynchers
Bonus powers to anti town for taking out specific roles
Powers that rely on knowing rolenames (say a rolename targetable NK, that can't target a Player name) for a closed setup obviously
Having anti town roles that are named for a towny character from a flavour pov
Cults

And several others I'll keep in my bag for later

As just proven in KttK and also Firefly before that, a Cult is not a sufficient anti-mass claim strategy since A) the cult leader can die early B) Mass claim still screws the mafia and probably outs the cult-leader so is still a "good" strategy.

My preferences for anti-claim mechanics:
1) Names and alignments have no correlation, this is know in the setup.
2) Scum have a factional power that is boosted by knowing names. I prefer a strong deterrent such as an extra kill that only works if the target's name is stated correctly. Make sure to consider what happens at end-game if the scum can try and guess a rolename by process of elimination even though town didn't claim.
3) Key "good guys" are left out and a safeclaim list given to scum. I recommend using random.org to determine who is left out.
4) Simply instruct players not to name-claim in any way. Thank you. I think this would work just fine, I'm surprised no one has tried it, at least that I've seen.

[Lataro]

4) Simply instruct players not to name-claim in any way. Thank you. I think this would work just fine, I'm surprised no one has tried it, at least that I've seen.

Hi, I'm mister townie/scum, I'm about to be lynched. I don't want to be lynched, so I want to claim/false claim to try and avoid it.

While it sounds good, in mafia, it just doesn't work. Claiming is a huge part of the lynching process, and without it, there is damned little someone can do to try and prevent their own lynch most of the time.

[BoomFrog]

4) Simply instruct players not to name-claim in any way. Thank you. I think this would work just fine, I'm surprised no one has tried it, at least that I've seen.

Hi, I'm mister townie/scum, I'm about to be lynched. I don't want to be lynched, so I want to claim/false claim to try and avoid it.

While it sounds good, in mafia, it just doesn't work. Claiming is a huge part of the lynching process, and without it, there is damned little someone can do to try and prevent their own lynch most of the time.

Then (false)claim a power, just not a name. You played in Openly Bastard, obviously that was a weird game for other reasons, but did the no-name claiming rule damage the fun or enhance it?

[Dr Ug]

Deciding whether to claim or not is part of the fun though, and removing it entirely just decreases the game IMO. It just needs to not be a blatantly pro-town move to massclaim. Individual claiming is different, and should be something where it isn't necessarily obvious whether it's a good move or not.

[mpolo]

I am generally against mass-claiming. Claiming when under pressure or when you have a cop result is normal. As some have said, having a non-specific threat may be more effective than some other methods. In Avengers, losing your vote was a relatively minor inconvenience, especially since it was only one day. (Not that a permanent loss of vote would be a good system.)

As far as claiming "I am town", it's kind of the default claim anyway. Although an inventor power that gets a lie detector would create a cop out of such claims. [Of course, such a mass-claim would catch someone like Amy, who avoids direct lies at all costs.]

[BoomFrog]

Deciding whether to claim or not is part of the fun though, and removing it entirely just decreases the game IMO. It just needs to not be a blatantly pro-town move to massclaim. Individual claiming is different, and should be something where it isn't necessarily obvious whether it's a good move or not.

Interesting, I guess I'm okay with claiming if the results will be vague. It's the "I'm Malcolm Reynolds, rawr!" on D1 that is essentially a free innocent child. I guess the main problem is that mods often don't realize how powerful a rolename is when they are designing balance. As long as the mod realizes that, it helps things a lot.

[wam]

Thanks for all the thoughts guys, I will have a read through and a think. But I think I will leave it at

"This mod really dislikes role claiming/ mass claiming as a result the are many anti claiming mechanisms in place. You have been warned!"

Realistically, you can't prevent mass claims, however, my advice, is make sure the game in some way favors scum if mass claim is done. I'm strongly against it ever working as a valid town strat, having been scum too many times and sitting there watching my .5% chance to win slipping away, or just taking my easy win from a poorly balanced game as town. I dislike punishments for claiming, such as vote loss, since it's a weak deterrent if that is all that exists to deter it.

That was what I was trying to achieve by giving scum the townies role pm if they do it. I may even expand this to include sanities.

[Adam H]

We shouldn't talk about current games, but I want to point out that games with in-character alt accounts (not singling any game out or anything ) are basically just FORCING players to massclaim. And this isn't bad, because it's planned that way. So massclaiming isn't inherently bad.

I think there are two directions to take - either convince players that massclaiming is a bad idea, or make the game fun and balanced assuming they'll massclaim. (I thought that Avengers did a really good job of the latter, though mafia might disagree )

This is something I feel quite passionately about. I think claiming, and what seems to be a more recent trend of stating "I am town" at the beginning of each game, are playing the system rather than the game. I think it's almost on a par with stating your role PM (read starcraft mafia to see how that's happened in the past). These are things that will be dealt with in my next game .

I think you're just coming back at a weird time. Ignoring current games, the only game with lie detectors that I know about was an open setup way back when (I think it was my first game here actually) and it was basically a disaster. Everyone could lie detect one statement and truthify one statements, so (of course) everyone stated a dozen different ways of saying "I am town", then the mod changed the rules to make it not work and it just turned into a vanilla game. Since then I haven't seen lie detectors in any games (again, let's ignore current games...). I think for a lie detector to work, the mod should pick the true/false statement, or something.

[wam]

For me the biggest issue in avengers was that mass claiming really hurt scum but let the cults (all 4 of them!!) get away a lot easier.

[t1mm01994]

Erm, Adam, you're forgetting Werewolves. I was a lie detector there, for the message the player sent to me.. That worked quite well as it was inherently balanced.

[roband]

I think there are two directions to take - either convince players that massclaiming is a bad idea, or make the game fun and balanced assuming they'll massclaim. (I thought that Avengers did a really good job of the latter, though mafia might disagree )

Avengers or the first Marvel one?

I recently read back on that and was impressed with how far I went to try and cover up infina's reveal. Not that it worked, of course.

[Adam H]

Erm, Adam, you're forgetting Werewolves. I was a lie detector there, for the message the player sent to me.. That worked quite well as it was inherently balanced.

Oh yeah. That was a good role - it was very different from a lie detector that benefits from having everyone state "I am town" in thread.

We never massclaimed in Avengers (the latest one is the one I know about) - it was the fail falseclaiming that screwed mafia in that game, as it should.

[Vieto]

For me the biggest issue in avengers was that mass claiming really hurt scum but let the cults (all 4 of them!!) get away a lot easier.

To be fair, it was hilarious.

On a serious note, I did give the cults a bit too much power in that game. Mid-game, I realized that the Skrull would have been more grounded if I simply used Spiderwoman (who was, at one point, the Skrull Queen. But I digress).

[cjquines]

On all of this massclaim stuff, I suggest getting simple role names.

[cjquines]

EBWOP: never mind the ebwop, just realized you can edit posts when it's not a mafia game.

[mpolo]

I'm missing a replacement for my current game, and a deceased player is asking if he can replace. He would have no additional information that would give his side an advantage or disadvantage, but I'm not sure it's a good idea in general. Thoughts?

[roband]

Why not?

If he was part of the uninformed majority before, and his death report in the game shows this, he could be replacing into the uninformed majority or the informed minority. It will give nothing away to the other players.

Sound fine to me.

Obviously a dead scum can't replace in, as they'd only be able to replace in as scum.

[t1mm01994]

if ze has taken any information to the grave, I'd advise against it.