Mafiascum.net

the following is talking about the current situation vs the situation where we lynched without swapping, just to illustrate why "the same as what we can say now" is completely and utterly incorrect

i'm going to try to simply illustrate this with the 5 possible scenarios (feel free to ignore the ones where i suppose that you're scum, i'm just including them for completeness):

1) scum-wisdom, scum-kokichi, town-buj
2) scum-wisdom, town-kokichi, town-buj
3) scum-wisdom, town-kokichi, scum-buj
4) town-wisdom, scum-kokichi, town-buj
5) town-wisdom, town-kokichi, scum-buj

(note #1: i'm not including the scenario town-wisdom, scum-kokichi, scum-buj because that just seems absurd to me - the logic in the following would be the same though)
(note #2: pine and riku have been left out of these because worst-case scenario assumes they're town)
(note #3: i'm also leaving out scum-wisdom, scum-kokichi, scum-buj for what should be obvious reasons when looking at worst-case scenarios)

with NO swapping, lynching group 2, the worst case scenarios are:
1) , town can look back at who said what about wisdom's plan to lynch a different group and town can look back at what people said about kokichi's claim
2) , town can look back at who said what about wisdom's plan to lynch a different group
3) , town can look back at who said what about wisdom's plan to lynch a different group and town can look back at who called buj town and why
4) , town can look back at what people said about kokichi's claim
5) , town can look back at who called buj town and why

with swapping, lynching group 3, the worst case scenarios are:
1) , town doesn't know who is scum in the trio of {wisdom, kokichi, buj} or even whether there is more than one
2) , town doesn't know who is scum in the trio of {wisdom, kokichi, buj} or even whether there is more than one
3) , town doesn't know who is scum in the trio of {wisdom, kokichi, buj} or even whether there is more than one
4) , town doesn't know who is scum in the trio of {wisdom, kokichi, buj} or even whether there is more than one
5) , town doesn't know who is scum in the trio of {wisdom, kokichi, buj} or even whether there is more than one

do you notice a common theme here? do you see a pattern? do you see the difference between the two scenarios?

the counter-argument here is "but muffin, what about reads?"

the answer to this is simple: you shouldn't be gambling games on your reads being correct when there is a clearly optimal alternative. if your reads are correct, they'll be correct tomorrow as well. but if your reads are incorrect, you screw town

and it doesn't matter what your reads are; if someone has information that guarantees scum, you do what's necessary to guarantee the scum lynch

this is just basic theory. i'm sorry, but there is no sensible counter-argument and there is no argument to be had here

being confident about reads is all fine and dandy, but making decisions based on the assumption that you're right when there is a clearly superior alternative (in terms of how badly things could turn out in the absolute worst-case scenario) is how towns lose games

if you want to discuss the theory behind this or anything else i'm writing, i'm more than happy to post-game or when we're both dead but it should probably be kept out of the game for now (thus the spoiler)

In post 764, zMuffinMan wrote:that's basically why the ONLY alternative i might consider is swapping exactly ONE player out of group 2 and lynching it. any other scenario is suboptimal play. and even that is suboptimal, but whatever

In post 803, zMuffinMan wrote:at best i'd be willing to accept one swap (say, buj) because at least there exists a possibility of swapping a different scum player in and in the unlikely event they all flip town then buj is scum anyway (i doubt this happens, but this is the absolute worst case scenario)

In post 876, zMuffinMan wrote:

In post 868, DeasVail wrote:

In post 865, zMuffinMan wrote:if you had control of the swap, who would you swap (if anyone) DV?

I would swap Bu and Fitz and still lynch group 2 I think

this is one of the only options i'd actually be fine with. it's the option i suggested to wisdom if people really want him to use his swap

if he tries to use it selfishly and lynch outside of group 2, i think i'm still going to swap him afterward

or i might sleep on it and reconsider -- i suppose the other option is him doing his selfish swap, me swapping someone like hf and just lynching the group after it but that's not as good as just lynching group 2 i think

In post 930, zMuffinMan wrote:i already made it clear what i think is optimal

In post 931, zMuffinMan wrote:(plus the alternative i think is reasonable too)