xkcd

by **AngrySquirrel** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:04 am UTC

For all your non-game-specific game discussion.

by **roband** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:07 am UTC

I wasn't brave enough to do this

Good idea.

by **Misnomer** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:24 am UTC

roband wrote:I wasn't brave enough to do this

Good idea.

+1

So, to kick off from the earlier dicussion in the other thread... soft votes, yay or nay?

I think I support the mechanic as the lesser of three evils. The two most obvious alternatives (no lynch without a majority or simple plurality lynch) would both encourage scum not to vote, or to only vote within literal minutes of the deadline. Of course, in an ideal world, town would always be active and united enough to prevent scum from pulling off trickses like that, but sadly we don't play mafia games in an ideal world, and people are bound to be inactive or just plain stubborn.

On a related note, do people think that compulsory voting would work as a mafia mechanic?

by **PhoenixEnigma** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 10:30 am UTC

Soft votes, I think, are a good solution to the problem they're meant to solve, in that they're a good compromise between the no-lynch and plurality options. I think it would be a good idea to define the soft-vote threshold at the start of the game, though. Maybe have it so that the soft-lynch threshold is always at, say, floor(majority/2)? That maintains its original purpose, but removes the possibility of mod bias in setting the threshold.

by **Weeks** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:20 pm UTC

I would actually promote Schulze voting, even if EP was joking, or any method which would guarantee better results, though I guess it might change a part of the game (like, how hammers happen, jester play, etc.).

Lataro said he wasn't okay with arbitrary decisions, and I think VZ explained the reasoning behind plurality well (people lurk). I think the problem we're looking at isn't the vote mechanic though, it's lurking (and perhaps bad modding decisions).

by **_infina_** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 5:40 pm UTC

it should be tried, in at least one game, preferably two to test the effectiveness of it.

by **Elvish Pillager** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:01 pm UTC

I was only half joking. I would definitely like to try it. The next game I'm planning already has a lynch mechanic variation of its own, but I might integrate some of the alternate voting system ideas into it.

The main catch with a system like Schulze is that it completely breaks the hammer/day-end mechanics. You'd probably just have to set a deadline and count the votes at the deadline.

Another possibility is approval voting, or better yet, range voting - in either of which you can vote for any number of other players. That would have the huge advantage of allowing someone whose opinion is "I would lynch either A or B" to be able to express that as votes, instead of - for instance - picking A arbitrarily and then having someone else entirely get lynched when people who would be willing to lynch B protest against the A lynch. These systems easily preserve the hammer/day-end system by having the hammer be the first post to bring any player above 50% of the vote (and you just wouldn't be allowed to hammer two people at once.)

by **ElectricHaze** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:44 pm UTC

I see absolutely no problem with the voting system. Mafia has a simple rule, lynch by majority. After that it's up to the mod in terms of balancing their game if they want to allow a lynch at the deadline with a plurality of votes, and what threshold to allow a lynch to occur at.

After that it is up to the players to cast those votes. The fact is lurking, is bad town play, and if they can't make up their minds, and it gets to the deadline and the lynch happens to be won by a few scum or lead by scum, with panicked players jumping on at the deadline it is there own fault. The responsibility of the mod is to ensure all the rules are followed and the game flows as it's supposed to by prodding and/or replacing players as necessary, not force the players to play well.

As for Lataro's complaint about arbitrary thresholds, that is something that should be defined at the beginning of the game. For example, Wizardry required a person to have 40% of the vote to be lynched at the deadline, this was clearly stated in the rules and was not arbitrarily decided each day.

by **ahippo** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 4:36 am UTC

I'll be honest and say I have little to no idea what you're talking about. But to add a topic of discussion: Scum Town or Independent? Which is the most difficult to win as? I'd say Indy is the most difficult followed by scum. Really for the scum to win the townies have to make mistakes IMO. If the scum and town both play perfectly the town will win I think.

by **Dr Ug** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 10:05 am UTC

ahippo wrote:I'll be honest and say I have little to no idea what you're talking about. But to add a topic of discussion: Scum Town or Independent? Which is the most difficult to win as? I'd say Indy is the most difficult followed by scum. Really for the scum to win the townies have to make mistakes IMO. If the scum and town both play perfectly the town will win I think.

This shouldn't be the case. If the game is balanced, it should be equal chances. I try to design my games so that each faction is equally likely to win (not town has a 50% chance of winning).

As for alternate voting systems, they could make interesting games, but I don't think we should (or would) convert the whole forum to them. Schulz voting would make playing scum a lot harder, as there is suddenly a lot more information in the votes. This would have to be balanced somehow.

by **Elvish Pillager** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 6:22 pm UTC

"A lot more information" can also mean "a lot more distractions". I could easily see Schulze (or any other preferential-voting system) benefiting scum by creating lots of wine based on people's ordering of the candidates.

It also doesn't have to be obligatory to rank all the candidates. Most preferential voting systems allow giving candidates equal rank, and the convention is that all unmentioned candidates are treated as equal-rank and below everyone you actually listed. Technically, everyone can just vote for one candidate, which makes Schulze identical to simple-plurality.

EDIT: oh, and I quite agree that in a well-designed game, each faction should have an approximately equal chance of winning. Which faction has the advantage depends on the specific setup, the skill or biases of the mod, and luck.

by **Weeks** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:53 am UTC

THREAD REVIVAALLLLLLLLLLLLL

I've been noting some concern about the amount of games, so I've gone and investigated how many players are playing right now and which games they're playing; perhaps it will serve as a reference, and yield some useful info.

Current games with full singups (only Advance Wars remains without full signups):

Spoiler:

Now, I'll note all the players in alphabetical order, and which games they're playing (or signed up in a game with full signups):

Spoiler:

Some players are playing more than two games, which might impact their participation or not; in any case, it's unlikely that these will signup in another game now.

Spoiler:

--

We currently have 6 games active or with full signups, and 46 active players.

To categorize:

17% of our players (8) are playing 3 or more games.
28% (13) are playing two games.
54% (25) are playing one game.

Depending on how long Advance Wars-mafia remains on signups, another game could end (Perhaps Marvel or KoM). We'd still be having 6 games, but is this too much? And it should be noted, these lists don't account for dropouts (and therefore, replacements), lurkers, or one-time players. Although we could be gaining a few players (for example, _infina_ isn't listed but seems like he can play), we might be losing players quicker, and putting a strain on the remaining players too.

In any case; regarding the queue, I think there's a few things that could be done.
1. Eliminate one active slot from the medium queue, one from the small queue, or both. All players playing more than two games are playing one of those types of games.
2. Eliminate invitational type games. Only one player playing more than two games is not playing Santa.
3. Fuse the Small and Turbo mini queues. I mention this one because...I think they're basically the same, some people have mentioned eliminating one turbo queue, and frankly I think small games shouldn't be lasting so long (KoM is an exception, but perhaps that kind of game should have another queue?)
4. Create an experimental queue. Games like the cancelled Turbo Vanilla Mafia and KoM would go there, and maybe signups could be moderated somehow. I would likely support doing this one along with one of the others.

So...what do y'all think?

by **Adacore** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:27 am UTC

I'm in wait and see mode to be honest - I want to see if the set timescale for our large/medium games help them achieve signups in the next couple of waves before we make many changes. I do think we don't really need the large slot - most 'large' games can be cut down to 20 players relatively easily without losing anything important, and games with more than 20 players tend to stagnate in the first couple of days which doesn't help activity.

I do agree on invitationals - but I think we'd already reached that conclusion anyway. The current invitational (santa) is more a 'seasonal' than an 'invitational', but unless they're in the bring-old-players-back mold (which has, as MoA found out, significant problems with inactivity), I think invitationals generally do more harm than good.

It's interesting that the average number of games each player is playing is down at about 1.5 - I'm sure that was up at around 2.0 when I last looked at the activity here, and the number of active players has fallen by about 20% as well.

by **Misnomer** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:37 pm UTC

Weeks wrote:Depending on how long Advance Wars-mafia remains on signups,

For the record, I intend to keep Advance Wars in signups until after Christmas, at which point I'll see how it's doing for players. I think part of the problem is that recently games have by and large entered into signups at around about the same time as each other, putting too much pressure on the active player pool. I gather it's also exam season in the States, which can't have helped much either.

by **Elvish Pillager** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 3:44 am UTC

Misnomer wrote:
Weeks wrote:Depending on how long Advance Wars-mafia remains on signups,

For the record, I intend to keep Advance Wars in signups until after Christmas, at which point I'll see how it's doing for players. I think part of the problem is that recently games have by and large entered into signups at around about the same time as each other, putting too much pressure on the active player pool. I gather it's also exam season in the States, which can't have helped much either.

So... it's after Christmas.

by **Misnomer** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 4:59 pm UTC

Elvish Pillager wrote:
Misnomer wrote:
Weeks wrote:Depending on how long Advance Wars-mafia remains on signups,

For the record, I intend to keep Advance Wars in signups until after Christmas, at which point I'll see how it's doing for players. I think part of the problem is that recently games have by and large entered into signups at around about the same time as each other, putting too much pressure on the active player pool. I gather it's also exam season in the States, which can't have helped much either.

So... it's after Christmas.

Errm... extension to the new year?

The forum's been pretty dead this last week, and with a lack of deaths in other games due to extended deadlines etc., I'm not sure there's really been much of a chance for Advance Warsia to pick up signups.

That said, I'll pull it out of the queue if there's a general consensus that I should, or MOA asks me to.

by **mpolo** » Thu Dec 30, 2010 10:18 pm UTC

It's generally a hard time, as I recall. I am back now, anyway. I even signed up for Advance Wars. And may be dropping into LOSTia.

I like the soft vote limits. It keeps one person from being able to lynch when there's no consensus, and at the same time, at least allows the game to go on without overly favoring scum. The rule does need to be clear before the beginning of the game, though.

by **Adacore** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:02 pm UTC

Yeah - the holiday period was incredibly active in 2008, but has been completely dead in 2009 and 2010. I guess our player base is almost entirely different now, though.

by **roband** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:17 pm UTC

Posting after a hammer vote has occurred. Acceptable?

I'd say, if you've just written a post and get ninja'd by the hammer, then you should post it.
Otherwise, the lynch has been decided, the day is over and you're just waiting on the mod to confirm it.

Thoughts?

by **Misnomer** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:56 pm UTC

roband wrote:Posting after a hammer vote has occurred. Acceptable?

I'd say, if you've just written a post and get ninja'd by the hammer, then you should post it.
Otherwise, the lynch has been decided, the day is over and you're just waiting on the mod to confirm it.

Thoughts?

By and large I agree - certainly, the person lynched shouldn't say anything other than maybe a quick "bah, you got me".

by **Lataro** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 6:03 pm UTC

Yeah, when I saw that hammer in twins, and people still posting about game related stuff afterwords I was seriously asking myself "WTF?"

It's generally accepted that when the hammer vote falls, that is it. I agree with Roband that if you just had some post going and hit preview and see a vote, and provided that vote doesn't change anything you were going to say, or if it wasn't a hammer on you specifically, then it's okay to post it, but that is it, anything beyond that is kinda bad form.

by **Zid** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:06 pm UTC

Some of those posts were probably things only going to be discussed in day 3 anyway. The reveal was not one of them and shows a good reason why nothing should happen after the hammer

by **roband** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:04 pm UTC

FAct of the matter is that you don't know who is going to be around on day 3, or if what you're saying is even going to affect the night actions.

Thus, all should keep shtum.

by **Dr Ug** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:15 pm UTC

I think it depends on the mod.

I tend to use the opposite rule - it's not night until I say it's night. Mainly due to complications meaning the general populous may not be able to tell when it's night. I'm happy for discussion to continue in my games until I call night. Hammers can't be retracted, but discussion can continue (and votes can continue in case you thought it was the hammer - but it wasn't).

I have seen both ways enforced, and unless explicitly stated, I tend to assume it's the way I run it. If it is explicitly stated that night ends on the hammer, then I would not post content after the hammer (even if it was ninja'd by the hammer - it's still after the hammer).

by **Lataro** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:03 am UTC

Perhaps we should determine which way is "the norm", and for those who wish to do things differently, it can be stated in the OP where mods post game specific rules.

I don't suppose there is any way to edit this thread into a poll to reduce forum clutter, or we could just do an informal poll in this thread, since this is the kind of thing this thread was started for.

Perhaps something like the following...

Q. How do you think players should conduct themselves after a hammer post in a game thread? For the purposes of this question, assume the hammer vote is readily apparent as one.

Choice 1. Players are free to continue discussion as if it didn't matter that the hammer was made until the mod calls for night.
Choice 2. Players are free to continue discussion, voting, and unvoting, even undoing the hammer, until a mod calls for night.
Choice 3. Players should stop any game related discussion, except any post they had already prepared, and the hammer vote had ninja'ed, provided they were not the lynch target, and the hammer didn't change anything they had planned to say.
Choice 4. Players should stop all game related discussion entirely, if you were ninja'ed by a hammer, then you should not post what you planned to.
Choice 5. Any other action that is not yet considered, please be specific if you choose this.

For me, I'm kinda a choice 3 person.

by **roband** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:10 am UTC

3 for me

by **Misnomer** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:31 am UTC

Vote: Choice 3

by **Weeks** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:24 am UTC

2; the mod chooses the first hammer to happen if there were unvotes or anything.

Mostly because the mod decides or declares what happens in the game. No player can do that. If the mod isn't there to enforce the night, then the day continues. If the mod didn't say "After the hammer, no one may talk", then the players are free to talk.

Regarding the rules in that particular thread (and well, many others):

6. Once I say that it's nighttime, do not post in the thread AT ALL. Minor off topicness will be tolerated but please, do not discuss the game during night.
7. If you die, don't say anything for the rest of the game except a simple, "Bah, you got me," or "Urrghh" which reveals no information. Seriously, dead people, you are dead, stay that way. YOU ARE DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD!

If you don't follow those rules, you get modkilled. Pretty simple. And it should be noted, these rules don't say: "Once the hammer falls, you may not discuss the game" or "Once the hammer falls, you may not post in the thread at all". It says, pretty clearly, that when the mod says it's nighttime, you must not discuss the game during the night. (btw, I think those rules should be rewritten, they're kinda ambiguous at times.)

Lataro wrote:anything beyond that is kinda bad form.

It might be, but we don't have any sort of guidelines we all agree on or that we all accept.

roband wrote:FAct of the matter is that you don't know who is going to be around on day 3, or if what you're saying is even going to affect the night actions.

Thus, all should keep shtum.

The same applies for things before hammer...don't they?

by **Dr Ug** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:26 am UTC

I must say I hadn't gone back to check, but I hadn't noticed anything different in the rules for that game to normal - thus my interpretation above. The standard rules (which most games use) explicitly state it's "when the mod says it's night" that discussion must stop - not the hammer.

I'm voting for option 2.

by **VectorZero** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 2:59 am UTC

Option 2

Unless otherwise explicitly stated, nightfall occurs when the mod says so and not before. Like it or not, there are valid tactics related to post timing, there are frequently roles and abilities that modify the vote count and so on.

It is not the players job to predict the hidden rules.

by **Lataro** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:29 am UTC

VectorZero wrote:Option 2

Unless otherwise explicitly stated, nightfall occurs when the mod says so and not before. Like it or not, there are valid tactics related to post timing, there are frequently roles and abilities that modify the vote count and so on.

It is not the players job to predict the hidden rules.

In closed complex setups, or even open ones, that is true, you are ignoring a key part of the question. It is assuming that the hammer is obvious.

I'm not trying to say what I think is standard should be standard or not here, I just notice though that with what occurred at the end of D2 in Twins, that people differ on interpretations of what is standard, and that perhaps we should determine what should be accepted as standard, with mods having to explicitly state exceptions if they want it that way in their game, so as to not have these issues crop up in future games.

by **Dr Ug** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:38 am UTC

Thus voting option 2. The problem with options 3 + 4 is that they unneccessarily slow the game down whenever the hammer is not obvious. Someone "hammers", and all discussion stops until the mod comes in and says "sorry, not the hammer" - if they realise that's why people are waiting - depending on how the mod tracks votals, they may not even notice the "pseudo-hammer".

What is the downside to allowing discussion until the mod declares night?

by **b.i.o** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:07 am UTC

2, definitely.

It is not always obvious when the hammer has happened, and in most cases I see no harm with discussion happening after the hammer anyway until the mod comes and declares the day over.

by **VectorZero** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:04 am UTC

You really don't want a situation where only some people see an 'obvious' hammer. Blanket rule: the mod is responsible for declaring night. If they choose to decide that preemptively, then that's up to them to advise the players beforehand.

by **Krong** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:14 am UTC

Very strong vote for:

Option 4

Here are the reasons:

1. It's basically what the "How to play mafia" rules sticky says (emphasis added):

Gojoe wrote:Now you may be wondering what this voting does. When a player has MORE than half the votes, they are lynched. Right after the lynching happens, it becomes night time.

2. It's what's in the Vox rules post we've been using for newbie games (emphasis added):

Vox wrote:Every "day" (this will be explained shortly), the town chooses a member to hang with a simple majority vote. For the more peaceful towns , "no lynch" is also a valid vote. After the mob has strung up the citizen, his house will be investigated overnight and it will be announced if the town hanged a member of the Mafia or an innocent townie the next morning. There are no "takebacks", once a majority vote has been reached, even for one minute, the "day" is over and the night begins.

3. It's what the MafiaScum wiki FAQ indicates is preferred:

http://mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ wrote:We just started the game and, after Day 1 ended, two people posted during Nightmode. The moderator gave these people a pass. What is the proper response?

Ideally, the moderator would use these people as an example and exile them immediately. If that is not a feasible option due to number of players, then the game should be reset with the understanding that any further similar behavior will result in exile of the players that committed the offense. If the moderator is set on their decision, then make your objection known and either quit or accept that you are in a game with a generous moderator. Keep that in mind when considering joining games with this moderator in the future.

4. If players are allowed to take back their votes at LYLO, it unbalances the game in favor of town. Mafia holds a strong advantage at LYLO because they don't usually hold one until that point.

5. Hammering to silence discussion is a valid strategy. For this point and point 5, allowing discussion past the majority vote means that the attentiveness of the mod is likely to affect the game's outcome, which is a Bad Thing.

6. Counting votes really isn't that hard, and the ninja-prevention technology usually works pretty well.

7. When playing in a closed setup where I'm not sure of the roles (and thus rules) in the game, I'm not free to make assumptions about the roles. Saying "there may be someone with a voteblock, therefore I can talk after hammer unless the mod says no" is (to me) akin to saying "PlayerX has a post claimed a PMing ability, therefore I can PM them."

8. If you're a mod that wishes to make voting non-standard, you're making a part of the game (tracking start of night) into something the players can't help you maintain. If you check the thread infrequently enough that this becomes a problem and slows down the game, you should have a lower-maintenance setup.

9. YMMV, but I've never seen a real-life mafia game where the mod didn't immediately silence the room after a vote.

10. As for why option 3 is not good... there's far too much subjectivity in it for it to work as a rule a la "this post is legal, this post is not and should be blanked".

My recommendation overall is:

If you're a mod and want discussion to continue even if majority has been reached, you should explicitly announce this in the rules post. It's a variation of rules that are explicitly stated in the forum sticky and widely used elsewhere.

If you're a player, count the votes and don't post (even your ninja'd post) if hammer has been reached. If you are unsure, post something like "I think that's hammer -- holding off discussion until the mod gets back."

by **Lataro** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:36 am UTC

One thing I will give Krong, is that at LYLO situations, he makes a very strong case against number two. In that situation, the allowing of town "taking back" a hammer vote would be game breaking. He has also made a solid argument for number four, and in a strictly speaking sense, I believe he is correct on the matter. I suppose my preference for three remains tied to the idea that the only reason you didn't get to say what you intended is that events progressed and changed while you were in the process of saying it, and thus, in a sense, you were robbed of the chance. If it had been a setting where people knew you were, for all intents and purposes, in the middle of a sentence, they would have the manners to allow you to finish that train of thought before cutting you off.

That is kinda how I view reading a thread, getting to the last post, making a reply, hitting preview, and seeing a ninja hammer. Provided you aren't the one who is now dead, and provided this doesn't change or effect anything you had planned to say, I personally wouldn't hold it against someone for getting it out there. Obviously if it is something major that will effect the course of the night, then it should be withheld, if however it has no reveals or twists to what was currently being discussed, then I see no reason to disallow it as a courtesy to the person who took the time to prepare the post. I suppose though a better alternative might be to save the post in notepad and post it at the start of the next day, provided you are still alive however.

It seems a number of people are arguing for number two based on the crux of some hidden gameplay mechanic that the players may not know about. I re-state, since it seems to be getting ignored, this question is dealing solely with situations where such things do not exist. In the games I've played and read about here, these tend to by and far be exceptions to the norm, and far from the actual norm itself. As said, going to the last votals and seeing how many votes were added to a person, simple arithmetic, is not hard.

While I might be able to get behind number one, number two seems quite unreasonable to me, as the implication is that hammer means absolutely nothing if unvoting to remove the hammer is allowed, which is to me more meta-gaming than actually playing the game as intended.

by **Krong** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:52 am UTC

Yeah, I'd agree that being ninja'd can sort of feel like you've been interrupted, and it could definitely be frustrating. ("ARGH I HAD A PAGE TYPED UP THAT WOULD HAVE WON US THE GAME AND NOW I CAN'T POST UNTIL MORNING.... annnd I'm NKed, awesome.") I'd still prefer the hard line on it, though: if you're evaluating whether or not to post what you've written based on the hammer post, you're effectively responding to it, though in a more limited way.

And I definitely agree with you about arguing from a hidden gameplay mechanic. I don't think even the majority of our complex closed games have had altered voting rules.

by **Adacore** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 9:00 am UTC

I personally think it's a choice between options 1 and 3 (I'm really surprised there are so many votes for option 2, as I don't see that as terribly viable as a default position). My preference would be Option 1, but Option 3 would also be ok.

by **roband** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 9:09 am UTC

There's a quote up there from the 'standard' rules about "if you are killed, don't post anything"

If I get hammered, I count that as being killed. So I would not post anything. That didn't happen in the instance we're talking about.

I think the obvious thing to do here is to specify from now on, in the rules at the start of each game, what is expected once the hammer falls/night is due.

by **Dr Ug** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 9:17 am UTC

Adacore's post just made me reread the options. I am adding an addendum to "2" - they can "try" to take back the "hammer" (ie the person who unhammered can unvote), but in all my games if it was indeed the hammer, all votes / unvotes after said hammer won't count. But I don't expect the players to declare night. Maybe that means I should change to voting for 1, but my main point - I don't want the players slowing down the game just because *they* think it's night. I call night. Until I do, it's day, and discussion, voting and unvoting can happen. It just may not count.

I agree it should just be explicitly stated, and if your preference is different to the standard rules (which is currently half way between 1 and 2), change them! (in the game in question, they were not changed). I don't really see the point in having a "standard" rule, it should be based on the wording of the rules for each game. I certainly don't expect any player to overrule any rules in my games by quoting "standard" rules.

As for the stickied first thread, that does not over-rule the "rules" post for individual games. It's a guide on how to play the game, not on what the rules of individual games are.

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