What makes a good town player?

[Farkran]

Are you saying that nobody listens to you because you are a VT? I do not think that people disregard others because they are a VT.

Not at all, but try to imagine yourself in any of these situations:

"Hey all, this is my first game on site, i am a VT and i think Player A is scum"
"Hey all, i've been here since 1980, i pretty much invented social deduction games when i quit my job as a professional detective, my winrate is above 99.9% and i have every possible title i can get. I am a VT and i think player A is scum"
"Hey all, i am a cop and i have a guilty on player A"

Can you rate the likelihood of being listened after saying any of these sentences? That's what i tried to say - but to reiterate, it's not everything there is to communication.

[Ranmaru]

I skimmed but I think town hunting should be used in addition to scum hunting. Overall it is still read accuracy you are focusing on there. Balance seems to be key here. This can work because it is a team game. If you are better at town reading, bandwagon with your town read and hope they are right. Better if you know they have good read accuracy.

[Ranmaru]

On being readable, I think it is important for other players to be able to determine your alignment correctly, causing them to trust you and work with you. Yet that is only half the battle. Take it from me, most of the time, I am obvious town. It doesn't help me determine who mafia is. Eventually if I am wrong enough, scum and misguided townies can use that as logic to doubt their read on me. This is why I think that, one should try to focus on multiple skills, and not just one. Otherwise you would be me. Yet luckily since this is a team game, you can lean on others who may compliment your skills and y'all can work together, that is the wonder of this game.

[Ramcius]

Are you saying that nobody listens to you because you are a VT? I do not think that people disregard others because they are a VT.

Not at all, but try to imagine yourself in any of these situations:

"Hey all, this is my first game on site, i am a VT and i think Player A is scum"
"Hey all, i've been here since 1980, i pretty much invented social deduction games when i quit my job as a professional detective, my winrate is above 99.9% and i have every possible title i can get. I am a VT and i think player A is scum"
"Hey all, i am a cop and i have a guilty on player A"

Can you rate the likelihood of being listened after saying any of these sentences? That's what i tried to say - but to reiterate, it's not everything there is to communication.

Last one will work, but that's mechanical, which isn't part of this topic, other 2 you'd be eaten alive for claiming VT before anyone get to your scumread, not giving reasoning for your scumread makes it simply gut read, which has not much value. You don't say that you're new, you say that you have experience off site, if asked, bringing it up lessen your read value. Boasting about your achievments isn't a way to go, people will know, if you that good, but if you have to bring it up, then there's a problem with your achievments

[Farkran]

Are you saying that nobody listens to you because you are a VT? I do not think that people disregard others because they are a VT.

Not at all, but try to imagine yourself in any of these situations:

"Hey all, this is my first game on site, i am a VT and i think Player A is scum"
"Hey all, i've been here since 1980, i pretty much invented social deduction games when i quit my job as a professional detective, my winrate is above 99.9% and i have every possible title i can get. I am a VT and i think player A is scum"
"Hey all, i am a cop and i have a guilty on player A"

Can you rate the likelihood of being listened after saying any of these sentences? That's what i tried to say - but to reiterate, it's not everything there is to communication.

Last one will work, but that's mechanical, which isn't part of this topic, other 2 you'd be eaten alive for claiming VT before anyone get to your scumread, not giving reasoning for your scumread makes it simply gut read, which has not much value. You don't say that you're new, you say that you have experience off site, if asked, bringing it up lessen your read value. Boasting about your achievments isn't a way to go, people will know, if you that good, but if you have to bring it up, then there's a problem with your achievments

Well, of course i meant to imply the second line was sincere, not made up

But really that's not the point, i didn't even want to shift the topic of discussion to the importance of reputation - i mostly meant it as an encouragement to believe in yourself, keep playing, and eventually you will get better simply by playing more and more and more.

Other than that, my main point is that you should always put accuracy together with communication skills in order to improve at being town (or anything).

[mastina]

Years ago, I defined the town triple-threat:
*Being obvtown
*Being charismatic
*Being accurate.

You can be a god of charisma with the entire scumteam nailed, but if the town paranoia-mislynches you because they don't see you as town, then all that charisma, all that accuracy, is worthless. So, you need to be able to be obvtown in order to be good to the town. A player who has absolutely zero charisma and is absolutely trash at scumhunting can still add value to the town by being

so ridiculously obvtown

that players who're better scumhunters can, via knowing the obvtown player is town, narrow in on the solve. By pure virtue of being obvtown, even lacking the other aspects of a good scumhunter, you can make the game easier for your faction to win.

You can be godly good at obvtowning yourself and have reads that are ridiculously accurate, but if you can't convince people to follow you on those reads, then you won't be able to translate that into a win. Sometimes, being charismatic in of itself can be enough to make you a threat--even if your reads are wrong, well...wrong reads can change at any time to be right. If your wrong reads change into right reads, and you have the charisma to get people to listen to you, that is lethal.

You can be incredibly obvtown and charismatic, but if you drive the town off a cliff via having the worst reads in the game, the town will still lose. By having accurate reads, you can provide value to your team by applying the pressure where it needs to be. That read accuracy presents a credible threat to the scumteam, because even if you're only one vote--the later into the game you go, the more one vote can make a difference. One vote from an accurate player who isn't obvtown or charismatic doesn't mean much on D1...but one vote from an accurate player in lylo probably wins the town the game.

You can never rely on any one of them individually, but having one of them individually as ridiculously strong will always

help

even if it cannot be relied upon in of itself to win you the game.

And in my opinion, the best town players on-site are the ones who have the overall balance of all three traits. Not the most obvtown players in the game, not the most charismatic players in the game, not the most accurate players in the game, but the players who have the

overall highest

across all three traits. In other words, say someone is an 8/8/8 in all three; they're probably the highest threat in a game even if other players in the game are a 10/3/3, 3/10/3, 3/3/10, etc.

Just, being able to be a credible threat in any field, rather than a threat in one specific field.
It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player who's ridiculously obvtown. It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player who's absurdly charismatic. It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player with insane accuracy. The scum pretty much only have one answer to a town player who can provide all three. (AKA, the nightkill.)

[Dannflor]

charisma is having an aesthetically pleasing avatar

[northsidegal]

charisma is having an aesthetically pleasing avatar

finally, someone who knows what they're talking about and the objectively correct answer

[Ramcius]

Another important thing for good town is reputation of being bad at scum

[Alisae]

charisma is having an aesthetically pleasing avatar

like this one!

[GeorgeBailey]

being good town player is having a good attituyde with a smile on your face:)

[RadiantCowbells]

Years ago, I defined the town triple-threat:
*Being obvtown
*Being charismatic
*Being accurate.

You can be a god of charisma with the entire scumteam nailed, but if the town paranoia-mislynches you because they don't see you as town, then all that charisma, all that accuracy, is worthless. So, you need to be able to be obvtown in order to be good to the town. A player who has absolutely zero charisma and is absolutely trash at scumhunting can still add value to the town by being

so ridiculously obvtown

that players who're better scumhunters can, via knowing the obvtown player is town, narrow in on the solve. By pure virtue of being obvtown, even lacking the other aspects of a good scumhunter, you can make the game easier for your faction to win.

You can be godly good at obvtowning yourself and have reads that are ridiculously accurate, but if you can't convince people to follow you on those reads, then you won't be able to translate that into a win. Sometimes, being charismatic in of itself can be enough to make you a threat--even if your reads are wrong, well...wrong reads can change at any time to be right. If your wrong reads change into right reads, and you have the charisma to get people to listen to you, that is lethal.

You can be incredibly obvtown and charismatic, but if you drive the town off a cliff via having the worst reads in the game, the town will still lose. By having accurate reads, you can provide value to your team by applying the pressure where it needs to be. That read accuracy presents a credible threat to the scumteam, because even if you're only one vote--the later into the game you go, the more one vote can make a difference. One vote from an accurate player who isn't obvtown or charismatic doesn't mean much on D1...but one vote from an accurate player in lylo probably wins the town the game.

You can never rely on any one of them individually, but having one of them individually as ridiculously strong will always

help

even if it cannot be relied upon in of itself to win you the game.

And in my opinion, the best town players on-site are the ones who have the overall balance of all three traits. Not the most obvtown players in the game, not the most charismatic players in the game, not the most accurate players in the game, but the players who have the

overall highest

across all three traits. In other words, say someone is an 8/8/8 in all three; they're probably the highest threat in a game even if other players in the game are a 10/3/3, 3/10/3, 3/3/10, etc.

Just, being able to be a credible threat in any field, rather than a threat in one specific field.
It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player who's ridiculously obvtown. It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player who's absurdly charismatic. It is usually doable for scum to work around a town player with insane accuracy. The scum pretty much only have one answer to a town player who can provide all three. (AKA, the nightkill.)

There's some stuff I agree with and a lot of stuff that I disagree with. There's also a response to NSG's comment on read accuracy in this post but I'm not quoting her because she sux.

First of all, one of the things that I really like is saying that charisma is not very useful on its own. Charisma in mafia games generally is a way to get people do what you want them to. How helpful this is as either alignment depends on how good you are at pushing for things that serve your win condition. Uncharismatic players generally have a floor where they will never perform worse than a certain level or better than a certain level because regardless of their reads, they won't be listened to. Charismatic players have a much wider range of possibilities and at the extreme end with players like MathBlade and myself who succeed the vast majority of the time at getting lynches they want you can have super wide variance in games won and successful lynches because your individual reads become a much larger part of the game. This is another reason I say that your first goal shouldn't be getting better reads necessarily; just because you have good reads doesn't mean that you can push them and figuring out other aspects of the game is more immediately rewarding.

Regarding being towny on the other hand... I really think it's a less valuable skill than people think it is. Once you get good enough as scum you will

never

be a true townread for people and it's more than possible to work around that. That is also going to apply as town but if you are good at getting what you want and have good reads it's a lot easier for people to set aside their read on you and say ok let's let X lynch someone and we'll see what the flip is.

Read accuracy exists in isolation to an extent. Not to bash Ellibereth but he didn't put a whole lot of his eggs in the charisma basket relatively and still ran around with a higher town winrate than anyone else both in his time and historically. NSG would be the prime example of what you consider a triple threat and she simply did not do as well as Ellibereth who only really had one skill, having correct reads. I only have two of these skills and I outperform a lot of players who are more easily townread but lack my ability to get specific lynches and have them be the right one.



Regarding NSG: what I'm not saying is that read accuracy doesn't matter. What I am saying is that having

good reads

is

hard

. There is a vanishingly small amount of people on MS whom I would say have

good reads

but a lot of people with relatively good reads are exceeded in winrate by people who have worse reads but have other positive benefiical traits. And when you learn other skills for being a good town player you become useful a lot faster than plodding down the path of developing reads. If you want to be a true top player you need to have good reads but if that's not your aspiration that really isn't the basket to put your eggs in.

It might sound weird to say that reads don't matter on a mafia forum but it's sort of true. The majority of players have =rand reads so if they simply just rnged their lynch targets it wouldn't change anything. Only the best reads on each player or on gamestate or w/e really matter if you're trying to play optimally.

[popsofctown]

Try to generate a gamestate where everyone ends up with good reads instead of trying to get good reads for you to spam in the dead pt

[mastina]

Respectfully, RC, your analysis of Ellibereth is flawed.
Ellibereth had the highest accuracy yes, but he wasn't lacking in the charisma or obvtown departments, they just came from a different location than usual.
Ellibereth had the

reputation

of being so highly accurate, and by putting that reputation forward, he could--and did--get the people who were scum, lynched. This is not the form of charisma most people think of when they think of charisma, but it is still a type of charisma.
Ellibereth had the reputation of being so highly accurate, that if he lynched scum, he was basically instantly obvtown (and similarly, if he pushed for the lynch of a town player, basically instantly obvscum). That's not the form of being obvtown most people think of when they think of being obvtown, but it is still a form of being obvtown.

Neither would be possible without his reputation.

If Ellibereth had no reputation behind him, then him having the best reads of anyone, ever, wouldn't make any difference--he was never charismatic about it and he was never obviously town on his own. When you compare Ellibereth's success before he gained a reputation for accuracy and after he gained a reputation for accuracy, it's pretty much night and day. Before he got the reputation, he was good, but not renown. After he got the reputation, he was only not a double-Paragon because he turned down the title when he was nominated for it as the current holder of the award.

(Basically. Ellibereth played the game for like, nine years. He was accurate for most of those nine years, but it wasn't until the last three or so of those years that people knew of him. Was he less accurate before, during those six prior years? Would have to check, but I'd wager no, he wasn't any less accurate. But in those last three years or so, he stepped up his reputation and got people to follow said reputation.)

[RadiantCowbells]

Reputation != charisma and having good reads naturally begets having "charisma" if you define it as such

so what you're basically saying is that charisma can be defined as a function of your read accuracy which entirely defeats the purpose of separating said categories.

[northsidegal]

it seems tautological to define those two things that way.

saying "ellibereth was great because he was all three of accurate, charismatic and obviously town" seems misleading to me when the last two are basically a byproduct of the first. i think it creates expectations that aren't correct.

also it is my understanding that ellibereth came back for only around one year? and was also far and away

much

much accurate during that most recent year as compared to the years he played previously. (i'll bet that sooner or later he might chime in, i feel like he always tends to pop in when people mention him)

[northsidegal]

oh, i altslipped

[RadiantCowbells]

If Ellibereth had no reputation behind him, then him having the best reads of anyone, ever, wouldn't make any difference--he was never charismatic about it and he was never obviously town on his own. When you compare Ellibereth's success before he gained a reputation for accuracy and after he gained a reputation for accuracy, it's pretty much night and day. Before he got the reputation, he was good, but not renown. After he got the reputation, he was only not a double-Paragon because he turned down the title when he was nominated for it as the current holder of the award.

Also respectfully I sincerely doubt he would have won the award for his minimal achievements in that calendar year over NSG.

[RadiantCowbells]

And yeah as NSG said no Elli really wasn't even comparable to his modern self before tool era and the fact that you don't know that offhand makes you somewhat unqualified to talk about it?

[popsofctown]

geez

[northsidegal]

FLASH OF GREEN

[Firebringer]

what does RC have against Ellibereth again?

[Firebringer]

also if ur defining charisma as getting other people to do what u want, whenever elli announced someone was scum they would be dead in less than 24 hours. I don't think anyone else can do that.

[mastina]

Reputation != charisma and having good reads naturally begets having "charisma" if you define it as such

No? There are plenty of players who've had renown for accuracy that, in spite of that renown, didn't develop the reputation that would allow them to be demanded to be sheeped.

A quintessential example: Creature. Stereotypically, he's known for being far far far more accurate than most players, yet in spite of his accuracy, he never had people go sheep him by virtue of being Creature. He was known to be accurate, but the reputation didn't demand he be followed in spite of that. (In fact he was quite infamous for being "very accurate, but very, very ignored"--a classical Cassandra, not listened to in spite of spewing the truth.)

If charisma were defined as a function of read accuracy, then every player who has consistently reads with higher than average accuracy, would be charismatic--but they aren't. Ellibereth was different because he more or less developed a cult following. People who knew him to be good so would sheep him, spread the word, and the cult would grow. Every game he had, he had more people following him than the game before that.

That's not something which has happened for other scummers who have had high read accuracy. High read accuracy in of itself doesn't get you charisma. Ellibereth with high read accuracy got charisma, with a reputation, but his feat is one which nobody has been able to replicate. Ellibereth is more or less an exception to any standard. The proof is in how nobody has been able to, on virtue of having good reads, replicating his success by just those good reads. Ellibereth, specifically, pulled it off. Ellibereth managed to get a reputation and waver it into charisma and into being obvtown where his mere presence changed the nature of the game if he were town. But nobody else with just good reads, has done what he did.

also if ur defining charisma as getting other people to do what u want, whenever elli announced someone was scum they would be dead in less than 24 hours. I don't think anyone else can do that.

Pretty much this, yes. You can't call that not charisma of a type. Ellibereth didn't give reasons most of the time for his nailing scumreads/townreads, but people still followed him in spite of the no reasoning, no logic, just him making a declaration and then it was to be so.

Most people would think of charisma as being that, convincing others, giving good reasoning, good logic, winning over the crowd. But Ellibereth didn't need to do that to achieve the same result.

[northsidegal]

If charisma were defined as a function of read accuracy, then every player who has consistently reads with higher than average accuracy, would be charismatic--but they aren't.

here's a function for you from a bona fide computer science genius:

Code: Select all

if read accuracy >= ellibereth's read accuracy:
    sheep
otherwise:
    don't sheep

i'm joking, but the point i'm trying to make is that i think ellibereth is something of a special case given the fact that, if memory serves, he was either never wrong or wrong only once. if we were to return to theoretical player Belli Ereth who does

nothing

but list "Here are the members of the scumteam:" with 100% accuracy and then prod dodge, i believe a similar situation to the one you describe as a result of ellibereth's charisma would arise. people would sheep belli, belli's scumreads would be dead incredibly quickly. that doesn't happen for players like creature because despite creature's high accuracy, it's not

perfect

accuracy.

i'm not trying to argue that ellibereth is uncharismatic. personally, i actually thought he was pretty funny and had a lot of great ideas. i'm trying to say that what you describe as his "charisma" is really primarily a function of his read accuracy.