/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[Patrick]

Pick your Poison 5

Mod

: Patrick

Welcome to Pick your Poison 5, the setup where you get to pick what the other side is going to use to beat you over the head with. I'll explain how it works over the next couple of posts, but for anyone interested, the last time I ran something like this can be found here.

Alive

(2/20)

13). Plumegranate - Mafia 4 shot roleblocker - Survived
17). SpyreX - Mafia Janitor - Survived

Dead

(18/20)

7). Hoopla - ?????? - lynched day 1

1). Amished - Townsperson - killed night 1
14). populartajo - Townsperson - killed night 1

19). zoraster - Townsperson - lynched day 2

5). Elmo - Vigilante - killed night 2
6). Herodotus - Townsperson - killed night 2

2). DrippingGoofball - Mafia Goon - lynched day 3

15). Rhinox - Tracker - killed night 3

20). AdumbroDeus (replacing Zorblag) - Townsperson - lynched day 4

4). Ellibereth - Townsperson - killed night 4
8). Kmd4390 - Tracker - killed night 4

18). HackerHuck (replacing VasudeVa) - Townsperson - lynched day 5

11). ooba - Mafia Goon - killed night 5

16). CrashTextDummie (replacing Seraphim who replaced Slicey) - Townsperson - killed night 5

9). mith - Townsperson - lynched day 6
3). Fate (replacing ekiM) - Vigilante - killed night 6
10). PokerFace (replacing My Milked Eek) - Townsperson - killed in the endgame
12). iamausername (replacing Papa Zito) - Townsperson - killed in the endgame

Game status: Game over

[Patrick]

Standard Rules

1.) This game is a day start. Day 0 will start when the mafia have picked town roles.
2.) During the day you can vote for a player that you think should be lynched. Votes should be in the form

Vote: Player

, but I'll count votes if the intention is clear and there's bolding/some attempt at bolding. Unvotes before registering a new vote are helpful but not required. Note that any attempts at fake votes will be frowned on, and most likely counted anyway. Don't try it.
3.) When a player reaches a majority of votes, they are lynched. I will reveal their role, and the game will move into night. Players can still talk during twilight.
4.) The deadlines will be covered a bit later on. For now, note that they won't be extended barring unusual circumstances, and that no majority at deadlines means no-lynch.
5.) No talking to other players, dead or alive, outside of the thread, unless your role permits it.
6.) Once dead, you stop posting. A bah post is fine though.
7.) If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.
8.) Anyone not posting for 48 hours is proddable, though I'll sometimes wait until 72 hours depending on circumstances. Players who fail to post promptly after being prodded may be replaced. I also reserve the right to replace people who are within activity limits but who are trying to find loopholes, but that's only for extreme circumstances and I hope not to have to use it.
9.) I'll try to post votecounts as often as possible. Feel free to ask for a votecount at any time. Disappointingly, I may make mistakes. Point them out very gently.
10.) Avoid excessive profanity, flaming etc.
11.) Don't quote or fakequote your role PM. Don't quote any PMs from the mod. Any of these are potentially modkillable offences.
12.) Have fun!

[Patrick]

Special Rules

These rules are unique to this game. Probably worth a look at some point.

The setup in this game is semi-open. There are only two factions: a four person mafia v a sixteen person town. Initially you will receive one of the following PMs:

You are a part of the mafia, along with X, Y and Z. Your organisation would like to take over the town, but a direct assault is out of the question; look how many of them there are! Instead you operate in secrecy, attempting to turn the town against itself before they can weed out and kill your entire family. You can talk to your partners at any point in the game, and at night you may choose to send one of your number to kill someone in the town. You've also sabotaged some of the town's resources; but you'll have to decide what poweroles they have left before the game starts. You have 96 hours to talk pregame to decide on four town poweroles; see the third post for more details. Please use this quicktopic for all mafia communication: XXXXX.

You win when the town no longer has the majority, regardless of what roles are still alive.

You are a townsperson. You've taken a vow to protect your town and destroy the mafia terrorising it, even if your own life is lost in the process. Of course, that would be alot easier if you knew where to look. You may well have some useful ability, but you'll have to wait until day 0 starts to find out.

You win when the mafia has been eliminated.

During the pregame stage, the mafia have a maximum of 96 hours as a group to decide on four town poweroles, from the list given below. Doubling up on the same role is allowed, but not tripling.

You are a weak doctor. Every night you

must

send me the name of a player to protect; all nightkills against them that night will fail. If you protect a member of the mafia, they will kill you without a shadow of a doubt. Note that even doc protection would not save you in this scenario.

You are a jailkeeper. Each night you can choose to jail someone if you so wish; they will be made immune to all kills that night, and will also be roleblocked.

You are a tracker. Each night you can send me the name of a player you wish to follow; I'll tell you whether or not they took a night-action, and if they did, I'll also tell you who they targetted.

You are a hider. Each night you may choose to hide with someone if you so wish. Any nightkills targetted directly at you will fail, but if the person you're hiding with is killed, you will die with them. If you hide with a member of the mafia, they will kill you without a shadow of a doubt. Note that even doc protection would not save you in this scenario.

You are a vigilante. Why stand by passively when you just happen to own a gun? Each night you may choose to kill another player if you wish. You have infinite shots, but only one per night.

When the mafia have chosen, the poweroles are immediately distributed randomly to four town players. Then day 0 begins. During the day 0, everyone has to vote for two perks to give the mafia, from the following list:

You are a day rolecop. Every day you can send me the name of a player and I'll tell you their role. Note that twilight is too late to send me a choice.

You are a roleblocker with 4 shots. On any night you may roleblock another player, preventing them from taking any action that night. If you roleblock a powerole, they will show up to a tracker as not having gone anywhere.

You are a one shot janitor. Once in the game, during the day, you can ask me to cover up the role of the player lynched that day; they will show up as ???? for the rest of the game. Twilight is too late to send me a choice. Note that you can cover up your own alignment in this way.

You are an assassin, and you have the power to perform two extra nightkills, on top of the normal mafia kill. Unfortunately, there are two restrictions:
(1) You can't use an extra kill if it could potentially end the game with an immediate mafia win.
(2) Your kills only work on town poweroles. If a kill goes through on a vanilla townie, it fizzles and you don't get it again. If a kill fails for some other reason, you do get to try it again.

During day 0, you can vote and unvote as normal, except that you have two votes, since you're giving the mafia two perks. You can't put both your votes on the same perk. Once both perks are chosen, the game starts straight away with day 1, and continues as a normal game. During the first 24 hours of day 1, the mafia have to choose which of their members gets which perk and which two stay as goons. No lynch can occur during the first 24 hours, not that that would ever happen anyway with so many seasoned players.

Deadlines

When running my last few larges, I've noticed they're prone to apathy setting in mid to late game, so I'm making the deadlines slightly quicker than 3 weeks per day. I had two ideas for deadlines, and in keeping with the spirit of the game, I'll let you guys vote on which you prefer during day 0 as well.

(1) Three week deadline on day 1, then two week deadlines thereafter (NOT CHOSEN)
(2) Two week deadlines every day, with any unused time being banked for the next day (CHOSEN)

The deadline on day 0 is a flat 2 weeks.

Clarifications

(list may grow if people ask me questions)

1. Two hiders hiding with each other makes them both unightkillable, assuming no roleblocking inteference.
   
2. Two jailkeepers jailing each other doesn't protect either, and if either were tracked they would show as going nowhere.
   
3. A mafia member can't kill and use their night action on the same Night.
   
4. An assassin can't use both extra kills on the same Night.
   
5. Tracker is the only role that gets told if it was blocked from performing its action.
   
6. An assassin always knows how many shots it has left to try.
   
7. A janitor does receive their shot back if No Lynch occurs on the Day they use it.
   
8. A janitor may retract their shot anytime before Lynch happens.

[Patrick]

All PMs sent, mafia's 96 hour deadline starts now.

Take a look at the possible replacements for /invitationals; if any of them are on your "don't want" list, please send me a PM. Obviously, your preference will be kept private.

[Patrick]

Town poweroles have been distributed randomly to 4 town players, if you received nothing then you're a vanilla townie.

Day 0 begins. With 20 players alive, 11 votes will select a perk. Remember you're also voting for which deadlines you use. Deadline for today is the 11th of August.

[Kmd4390]

Ok, I say no rolecops. The rest, I'm not sure of yet. Not sure I like the idea of an assassin. Maybe janitor and roleblocker?

Deadlines, I like option 2.

[DrippingGoofball]

Can't they be Goons?

Janitor is pretty harmless.

Assassin is out of the question.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: BANKABLE DEADLINES

Okay, so now that's out of the way, lets move on to power roles.

4:16 is a fairly generous ratio to work with for town - I think it's possible we can win this without much reliance on power roles. I'm in favour of a game with as many lynches and lynch information as possible, so I rule out the Janitor, and I rule out the Assassin. Potential extra scum kills are an ugly equation, as it gives us less days (especially when we might already have a vig doing this).

Roleblocker/Role-Cop is clearly the safest option, as scum, even if they find a powerrole, can only disable the effect of that one. It creates ugly wifom scenarios, where scum can block and keep a powerrole alive, which also makes for convenient fakeclaims, but I deem it a safer option than a janitor/assassin. Lets win the game by having as many days as possible, with as much day information as possible. This is also a message to any potential vig; stay quiet early, unless you're very sure.

[SpyreX]

Here's how I look at the 4 options presented in overall power:

Janitor
Rolecop
Roleblocker*
Assassin

* Depends on if a role knows they are roleblocked or not.

Rolecop/Assassin is right out.
Janitor only should have a real effect in a few scenarios most of which involve being pants on head. Pairing it with a roleblocker makes a LITTLE more sense then the rolecop just because of the parity similar to to the above.
Roleblocker is 4-shots and doesn't matter as much since reliance on PR's isn't a great idea in the best of worlds and doubly so when they are handpicked.
Assassin, even individually, is a scary bag and of the four thats the one I want the least.

Vote: Janitor

the other PROBABLY should be roleblocker but I could be missing something.

Deadline: 2

Haha on explaining why that's better.

[DrippingGoofball]

This is also a message to any potential vig; stay quiet early, unless you're very sure.

What does that mean, in English?

[Hoopla]

Exactly what it says, DGB. I don't see how that remark is cryptic.

[Zorblag]

Troll gives warm greetings to all.

Our choice for scum roles here should actually probably depend on what we think the scum were likely to do with their choices. If we think there be any chance them would have put two hiders or two weak doctors in the game then we want to avoid the roleblocker, if not then it probably be a good choice to make.

The assassin be pretty unappealing in most cases but Troll no expects many to think it be a good choice so Troll no needs to talk about it much.

The janitor actually be very unappealing as well in Troll's opinion. Not knowing the outcome of a flip from an early day be a pretty big deal when people try to take a look at things down the road. Troll thinks that might do the town more overall harm than just about any other action scum could take regardless of what the alignment of the kill actually was as it no be something we would ever fully compensate for during the game when trying to do analysis.

The role cop paired with the assassin would be particularly troublesome but as Troll no expects us to pick the assassin that be largely unimportant. It does combine fairly well with the roleblocker for scum but not in a way that be overly frightening in Troll's opinion.

Troll be inclined to agree with Hoopla that on their own the role cop/roleblocker combination be the safest way to go for the town if we don't want to make assumptions about what picks scum made. Troll would like to hear what people think the scum would have picked for the town though.

Troll thinks would have picked two vigilantes, one hider and one weak doctor based on the thinking about it Troll did when Troll read the setup.

Troll no really cares which deadline rules we use. It be the start of the game that we be likely to want more time in so the bankable days no matter too much but having a three week day one as opposed to a two week day one be unlikely to make a big difference. Them both be plenty of time to make that first choice.

@Kmd4390, why no rolecop in particular?

@Hoopla, actually Troll thinks that it probably be better for potential vigilantes to take shots if them think them have a better than random chance of hitting scum.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Kmd4390]

Why do people have a problem with a one shot janitor?

Zorblag, I thought it was pretty obvious. Scumz finding and killing our power roles would be bad.

[SpyreX]

I'm not understanding the janitor issue either.

Realistically, there's two scenarios - town telling the truth that gets janend or scum janitoring scum for hijinks.

Both of these come out in the wash especially with the knowledge its there beforehand. Now if it was a surprise janitor sure but.

How is that a worse call than letting an unlimited use daycop help parse NK's until dead?

[Hoopla]

Mod:

Do roleblocks resolve hides?

Tracker is the weakest role here for town by a long way. If I were scum, I would have definitely given town two of those. The only time these come in handy is when there is not many scum left, so 'no result' becomes a valuable result. Trackers just have a such a low strike - they need to target the

one

scum who sends in the kill, to have any chance of catching scum. They can be potential PR confirmers, but their benefits are severely overrated.

Weak Doctors are scary because of such a high ratio of scum to town. They have a good chance of getting confirmed innocents involved in the game. Jailkeepers are a two-way chance of blocking a scumkill, so I'm unsure if scum would have given town one. If they did it would only be one. Vigilantes are swingy, but still kind of handy for scum, because they bring lylo closer if they can avoid the NK's.

So, my picks for scum would have been 2 trackers, 1 vig, 1 jailkeeper/hider.

~~

We all seem to be in agreement that the assassin is a pretty terrible choice for town, but the variable positions on the other three roles just shows how difficult it would be to predict what scum would do. I don't think it is too worthwhile to guess what they've given us, because reliance on these PR's is bad.

KMD:

At this point, I'm starting to become really anti-janitor, because a lot of information (and my game in particular) comes from bandwagon and vote analysis. I fear the possibility of having a vital chunk missing from all the major wagons three days later. I think it's also vitally important to know how many scum we actually have left, especially in the latter half of the game, so we know when we're in lylo. Seriously, not knowing the flip from a lynch is deadly. Scum can cover up any claimed powerrole to fakeclaim into, or wifom the town into thinking future PR claims are scum, because they have covered up their buddy's fakeclaim.

I'm 90% sure I won't support any other combination but role-cop/roleblocker, so...

Vote: Role-Cop
Vote: Roleblocker

[Zorblag]

@Kmd4390, suppose the janitor uses their shot the first day (Troll assumes them would as it be the obvious time for it to be used.) That makes it significantly harder to make informed decisions the next day (and to a lesser degree for every day from there on out.) Anyone who's trying to do wagon analysis from then on out has a big hole in their work from day one that them no would have to. Anytime we try to reason about how scum would act based on how many of them there are left we'll need to consider more possibilities than we would otherwise.

No reveal is a very different game than what we be used to here. That one shot janitor makes the first day no reveal. Troll thinks that be a very bad thing for the town.

The role cop does give scum an advantage in finding power roles but Troll at least them no get extra kills to take them out. The town shouldn't be overly relying on them anyhow (unless we have two hiders or two weak doctors in which case we be in extra bonus land if we ever figure it out and there's no roleblocker in the game.)

What power roles would Kmd4390 have picked for the town if him were scum?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Hoopla]

How is that a worse call than letting an unlimited use daycop help parse NK's until dead?

The power roles on offer here are probably not going to win us the game, or even help us too much. They're likelier to wifom us into submission with scum potentially fakeclaiming into the gaps to make us paranoid. It doesn't matter that much if scum finds them slightly quicker with a role-cop, because the benefits of untarnished day information are far higher than slightly better hid PR's.

[Zorblag]

@Hoopla, regarding trackers, many times (unless we choose both the jailkeeper and rolecop) trackers will have other scum targets out there that their track could pick up.

Mostly Troll just wants to see if anyone would have picked two weak doctors or two hiders. If a fair amount of people would have then there be some chance that the scum might have and that changes our priorities here.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[SpyreX]

I've got a feeling I'm going to be outvoted here BUT still I'm not parsing it through.

A single player's flip being unknown versus having the ability to pick NK's (eliminating the usefulness of a hider if found, making the others priority targets when necessary) just doesn't add up.

The lylo issue is simple enough: plan for the worst. Assume the janitor is town and play accordingly.
The wagon analysis is fairly straightforward in most scenarios as well: parse as both and look accordingly.

Unless I'm missing some wacky janitor hijinks I don't get it.

[Kmd4390]

Hmm. I just read the janitor PM. Didn't realize it was for a lynch. I was assuming NK. That's a little stronger than I assumed. I still think I prefer that to a rolecop or assassin though.

----

Hoopla, why are you speculating on what powers the town has?

----

Zorblag, I would have to look closer to answer your question. Not sure what good answering it does, but if you'd like me to, I will when I get home. I'm posting from my phone right now.

[Hoopla]

Scum have multiple fakeclaims on offer, SpyreX. There is no way we should be relying on or trusting powerroles this much, when a cornered scum is guarenteed to resort to one.

[DrippingGoofball]

For wagon analysis, the votee's alignment doesn't make that much difference. Plus it's only one-shot, right?

[SpyreX]

Hrmm there is one downside to the jan depending on the scum picks - jan doesn't get tracked. Which means its not AS effected by a jk either.

I still don't think that makes it a worse choice than daycop though.

---

Its not a function of reliance or trust because someone claims a PR. Its a function of how even the little things can be that push.

And I'm not sure how jan versus rolecop alters fakeclaiming.

To use a nautical metaphor:

PR's wont save a sinking ship. However, they may patch up a leaking one long enough to land.

[Ellibereth]

Hai guyz.

Vote: Roleblocker

Also liking Jan > Rolecop right now.
Kmd is town.

[Hoopla]

Random thought, hear me out;

We opt for the roleblocker and assassin, and play with a policy of no power role claims unless it has multiple confirmed innocents or confirmed scum or the assassin is dead. Town power role claims are discouraged, and we lynch on sight, as normally they have a 50% chance of being scum. 4 power roles, 4 scum - and scum's optimum play is to claim a safe power role.

Why this is worth considering:

Most of the roles here aren't really information collecting roles, so much as trying to kill scum or prevent a scum kill. So, depending on what scum have picked for us, we aren't losing too much of our power, as a lot of it is nestled in the prevention of kills to give us more time, or a successful vig shot. Tracker and Weak Doctor suffer a little bit, but can still come out on D3/4/5 if they manage to outlive the Assassin. But the main benefit here is it removes the capacity for the scum fakeclaim and the paranoia and wifom associated with regular power role claims, which I see as a potential problem.

Assassin should only be chosen if we play under a no PR claim before the Assassin is dead policy, as it makes it very difficult for scum to catch a double-kill without PR claims or a role-cop. Yet, we still keep all our day information with no janitor, and PR's still have a good chance of doing damage at night. But the main benefit is losing the inherent wifom/paranoia from PR claims.

Thoughts?