Pick Your Power II - Looks like the wine is gone (SCUM WIN)

[Hoopla]

i think it really damages scum too much to double-up. That's two roles that are almost guarenteed to be in the bottom half of the draft. Even though that might get you town points, it's easily undone by an investigation or just bad play, which makes it not worth it.

if scum double up it's probably a bonus for town, because it means they likelier have a better collection of roles to win without needing number analysis. therefore, if numbers are to be used, they should assume that scum have spread over 5 numbers, as it doesn't cause too much damage if that assumption is wrong.

[Cobalt]

spreading out is so strong even if it is vulnerable to number crunching, as even a few nights with the vig alone is top tier. having cop etc makes it even stronger.

[Hoopla]

watering down the vig role, and smarter town play (ie; going for vig in 3rd-5th to gain knowledge where it is, or get it yourself) can easily counter this. i think making the vig claim d1 is probably the smartest play the town can make.

[Cobalt]

worked in PYP I
but that's because the vig was me and I rule.
I think empowerer needs to go. There's no real reason scum should get potentially two unblockable kills a night, and I like to think that all roles should have a town use somehow.

[Hoopla]

if empowerer goes, then BP has to be only one shot. bomb and BP is a lot to handle for scum, especially when vengeful and governor are going too. there's not many useful roles there for scum all of a sudden.

[Cobalt]

BP needs to be more than one-shot, especially if there's an SK. Keep BP and remove doc (which is a stupid role anyway)

[Hoopla]

Doc is a viable role again if empowerer goes. It can actually stop kills.

[Cobalt]

Yes, but I think town having the ability to guess right and stop kills with no penalty for guessing wrong to be stupid.

[Fate]

I agree with Hoopla on the multiple scum teams. Mainly because in an Open game I'm in, which was 3 Masons/5 Townies/2Scum/2Werewolves

We lynched correctly D1 AND D2. (I died N1), but town mislynched on D3 and now it is 2/1/1, and town has to pray for a cross kill to win. Lame...

It adds an interesting dynamic to the game to try out, but it isn't something that should be very popular or widespread. (IIRC the last game had 2 groups and a SK, whoa.)

[StrangerCoug]

I agree that 8:2:2 is imbalanced against the town, but you have scum making up a third of that game, something I avoid shooting for anymore. I like multiball, as I said, but Fate's example is not a good representation of them as it's too small a game for it to be any good. I'd play 18:3:3:1 or whatever it was again.

[Socrates]

I honestly think this game is vulnerable to a day 1 massclaim, working from the bottom up. Supplanting the number analysis with a massclaim would leave the town with a very good idea of where the scum will be located. Consider what would have happened if we had done it this game.

For the sake of the argument, lets assume that I truthfully claim Cop, jack fakeclaims vengeful, fifi claimes vanilla the tried to get vengeful, Hoopla truthfully claims failed governor, Faraday fakeclaims Doctor. This is about what we were thinking we would do if we had to claim.

We would be left with this:

Socrates claim Cop Cop
Fate claim Bomb Bomb
bouncy.bouncy claim Role Cop Role Cop
Cobalt claim Watcher Watcher
RayFrost claim Tracker Tracker
Redcoyote claim Bomb Vanilla
Jack claim vengeful vengeful (actually vig)
FeFiFoFum claim Universal Backup Universal Backup
StrangerCoug claim Bomb Vanilla
The1fifi claim Vengeful vanilla (actually vengeful)
wolframnhart claim Neighborizer Neighborizer
Devotress claim Role Cop Vanilla
Porkens claim Bomb Vanilla
DocPotter claim Vengeful Lynchee Vanilla
Ellibereth claim one-Shot Governor One-Shot Governor
Dramonic claim Universal Backup Vanilla
Hoopla claim One-Shot Governor Vanilla
TonyMontana claim Bomb Vanilla
Farside claim Vengeful Lynchee Vanilla
curiouskarmadog claim Watcher Vanilla
Pomegranate claim Universal Backup Vanilla
Faraday claim Doctor Vanilla (actually empowerer)

First things first: Faraday would be outed as scum. Cobalt, and Rayfrost would essentially be cleared as town. Scum have little motivation to take these roles and we have other claims to corroborate that those roles are actually in the game. No vig claim means that the vig is scum if he exists (obv). This by itself makes me VERY likely scum, even if I am not the vig, because a scum vig would only know to try for vig if they knew I wasn't going to take the role. So on a cursory glance, we have two town and 2 scum, with the knowledge to look out for the vig.

Now another thing, while roles have no correlation with alignment, telling the truth about one's role is still makes someone slightly more likely to be town. This is because the scum are busy trying to hide the vig, so at least 1 scum and probably more are lieing about their role.



Now, lets look at the universal backups:

FeFiFoFum, Dramonic, and Pomegranate. If FeFiFoFum is town, then Dramonic and Pomegranate are very likely telling the truth about their claim. If FeFiFoFum is lieing about his role, then Dramonic (or someone between them) is scum. Pomegranate is likely town in this scenario unless both FeFi and Dramonic are scum, which is unlikely. (remember, we went bottom up, and universal backup itsn't guaranteed to be drafted like the bomb)

Conclusion:

Pom is probably town.
If FeFi is scum and lieing, then there is another scum below him.

We can draw similar conclusions about the Bomb group and the vengeful group.

For all of the doubles: if one of them lied, they both probably lied. if one of them told the truth, they both probably told the truth.

Wolf would very probably be telling the truth.

I haven't thought this out perfectly so I might be wrong about some of this, and there are probably more conclusions that I could draw from this, but I am too lazy right now.

Now cross reference this with number analysis and an increasing pool of town flips as the game goes on, along with good old scum hunting, and the scum would need to play absolutely brilliantly in order to win.

Thoughts?

[Socrates]

EBWOP: Faraday was going to claim ATTEMPTED doctor. Not actual doctor.

[SpyreX]

I think I sorely need to bring back the bus-driver. That was one that was missing that would have been nice to have.

I've thought SOME about a massclaim like that - that almost ends up being an entire new discussion though for us to have. Looking at it like that I do kinda worry that it'd break the setup - and if thats the case, what would be the counterbalance?

[DocPotter]

A published list of what abilities were taken? Not who took them or how ever many tried to take it.

Bit artificial but would allow fake claims.

[Hoopla]

I don't think it's that breakable. In that case, the scum just needs to hide the vig for 2-3 nights, then they can pick off ANY role that they want. It will vary, but I think massclaim would only be a slight benefit to the town.

Also, in the future, if you run the game with unisex roles, rather than clear scum/clear town roles, it would be hard to distinguish which is fake.

In Faraday's case of claiming the doctor, it's a gamble going for it, but then if by the time you've got to say the 7th pick, it is probably safe for Jack to claim doctor confirming those two together. I don't think it's as breakable as you think.

The way to fix it is by making roles that you don't have to be scared to hide. Even then, there can be pro-town motivation to take some scum roles - all massclaim does is really confirm the tracker/watcher. Which is a minimal early advantage.

[SpyreX]

I just want to say thank you a lot for all the input. I really do appreciate it.

Hoopster I'll probably pick your brain a bit for the next one (and there will be more of these)