Lynch the Wolves (Game Over)

[MathBlade]

Mastina is right

On a lot of the setup stuff at least

The vig I still think was op but it wasn’t as bad as I thought

[Creature]

Wow

Four wolves in a row

Great comeback here

[Creature]

Thanks for the freelo I guess.

(actually I still should be credited for muffin's and Tora's heads)

[Lady Angel]

GGs guys. I did actually read the rest of this game after my death, and it ended up being pretty interesting. I probably would've played better if I didn't see "Mafia" at the top and instantly assume I was anti-town, but it is what it is.

[mastina]

Also, as can be shown in both the mod PT and the spoilered dead thread:
This game was, always, designed to be swingy. It was designed, from the onset, to revolve around the skill of the players, but not just on play. It was designed to test them on use of mechanics, on use of role, on use of setup speculation, in addition to being centered around skill of play, both in night and day.

A consequence of this design intention: a town which was steamrolling the scum could be fucked over by poorly thought out followthrough, allowing for scum to recover.
Inversely, as happened in this game, a town which was being steamrolled by the scum could bounce back into a win if they played their cards right and the scum made mistakes.

Good play was always meant to be rewarded; poor play was always meant to be punished.

The town, leaving Oath/glowball alive in spite of claiming nontown, led to a reward for the town. How many towns do you think leave a claimed 3P alive who has a sketchy claim for not unjustifiable reasons? (Helpful hint: glowball outright lied about not only aspects of her role, but also her claimed results AND her claimed night actions. She didn't target N2, and her results were universal across the whole game aside from the no-target PM.)

The town assuming that the mafia were town, and the mafia assuming that they were town, led to a reward for the town.
The town assuming that the mafia were scum, and/or the mafia assuming that they are anti-town, would have instead led to a harsh punishment for the town.

The scum assuming that the game featured follow-the-cop, led to punishing them, because they overlooked numerous outlets they had for escape from the cop, and assumed it was stronger than it really was.
The scum leaving the vampire alive, led to the vampire ultimately sealing the final nail in their coffin.
The scum janitoring a player they KNEW was a VT rather than a power role, was a play mistake.

The scum INITIATING a 1v1 with town when they knew there was a vig, was a play mistake; as mentioned above, there were numerous outlets that could have been argued prior to Titus claiming the guilty on hebichan. Titus could have argued hebichan was redirected because every aspect of the setup--including a BY NAME MENTION IN THE LYNCH MOB--implied the presence of a redirector; Titus could have argued she had a PT but it was part of her role. By choosing to initiate a 1v1 where the town was guaranteed a dead scum in hebichan/Titus, the scum made a crucial error judgement during the most important time of the game.

Are any of those setup-based?

No. They are play-based. And that was my design intention. For good assumptions and clever utilization of resources to be rewarded; for poor assumptions and stupid utilization of resources to be punished.

The town made many stupid mistakes. Lynching the Neighborizer. Not reading the mechanics of the Lynch Mob closely. Lying about their role. In the case of town power roles like Almost50 and HeWhoSwims, giving away their PR status to the scumteam allowing them to make the kill. Not claiming, in the case of Lady Angel. Shooting players he had analysis demonstrating they were town, in the case of Nosferatu.

But the scum also made many stupid mistakes. Not using the devour until every player in the game had roleclaimed. (That power was meant to be used early in the game, to set up an avenue for scum to fakeclaim. Not using it until everyone had already claimed was the absolute worst possible usage of the role.)

When choosing to claim the devour, not paraphrasing the role PM to reveal it was an exact mirror to that of the vampire (with a touch of mafia), which would have helped Toranaga's case, and for that matter, claiming the devour in the scummiest way possible.

Initiating a 1v1 which they knew regardless of circumstances would cost Titus her life.

Not ONCE utilizing their moderator-given ability to fakeclaim, in spite of THREE members of the scumteam having fakeclaimed. (RadiantCowbells can be excused, but TITUS fakeclaimed as well and yet she didn't consult with me for her faked result. MathBlade in spite of making up a ridiculous claim never asked for my help. And zMuffinMan modified the Seer claim without my help, which he easily could have gotten to make it more believable.)

Not trusting in their moderator-given safeclaims, with the exception of Toranaga who was advised that the devourer was a risky claim. (I gave that mostly as an, "If you manage to get caught red-handed as the killer, here's your explanation as to why" claim, a desperation-based claim, more than a to-default claim.)

All of those are mistakes that, if not made, would have increased odds at winning.

Which doesn't go into how half the case for lynching the scum came from their game-wide distancing, which admittedly can go either way in terms of being a mistake or being an asset.

I always meant for this to be more or less how the game would play out. For all sides to have loosely equal chances, and for their odds to go up if they played well and made good deductions, and for their odds to go down if they played poorly and made wrong assumptions.

[mastina]

So basically we had three somewhat-powered survivors this game.

Correct!

The purely-town's roles were, while somewhat powerful if used correctly, mostly situational.

The backbone of the anti-wolf power came in the form of the town-survivors. It was a necessary balance maneuver.

Survivors are a hard role to play.
TOWN survivors are

an even harder

role to play. In order to play a town survivor, you not only need to scumhunt effectively enough to eliminate all the scum, but ALSO manage to fend off death, something which is quite often

counter to scumhunting effectively

, because the better you are at the scumhunting the more likely it is that scum are going to eliminate you.

They thus needed tools to help protect themselves from the scum, and those tools made them the backbone of the town power.

This is, once more, a risky endeavor.

If the backbone of town power is in players that are not fully town, then the usage of that power is subject to both their own self-perception and the perception of the town to them. By assuming they're town and the town assuming they're town, it becomes identical to as if they were town, but it requires both factors to be present. Failure to do so leads to the power being used sub-optimally, leading to increased wolf chances at winning.

Which is why it is, inherently, swingy, but is swingy in a way entirely dependent on play, because perception is precisely that.

[Ankamius]

Good to know a lot of my early spec was in the right ballpark at least

[Ankamius]

Tbf HU2 is even now still pretty fresh in my memory so it's not too surprising that I'd be able to figure out some things really easily

[RadiantCowbells]

so uh

1) I still don't know why I was modkilled but given how much I disliked the setup I'm taking it as mastina personally doing me a favour. mathblade acting like I was the antichrist for trying to lynch him I don't get.
2) this game was really really townsided and that wasn't really something that came down to play.

[RadiantCowbells]

that said my scumteam's play following my departure left a lot to be desired but I wouldn't blame them for this loss given that the setup was so stacked against them anyway.

[Ankamius]

Honestly RC

You took the tunnel way too overboard

[RadiantCowbells]

i did what i did because no one was invested in the game and i wanted to give them a reason to care.

[mastina]

Btw I mentioned this in the spoilered dead PT, but I loved The Lynch Mob mechanic enough that I designed an Open setup using it; this is what I came up with.

[Nosferatu]

Shooting players he had analysis demonstrating they were town, in the case of Nosferatu.

MOOD

[MathBlade]

i did what i did because no one was invested in the game and i wanted to give them a reason to care.

Which is right where they should have been.

When town doesn’t care scum wins.
Mod is Mafia
I became town leader

I was against you bussing because we didn’t know the setup.

The fact Nos was unkillable and unblockable besides by me means that if you succeeded it was an automatic scum loss

[MathBlade]

I agree on the first two mistakes Mastina mentioned
The third was Tor was gonna die anyway tomorrow due to lynch it was using his power
It was inevitable

[RadiantCowbells]

i'm not you

i don't want to win scum games by walking over a town who doesn't give a fuck about anything

i don't consider that accolade worthy

i don't hype my ability to beat said towns who don't give a fuck about anything

i want to have a good game of mafia and win it via good play.

[Nosferatu]

Nosferatu MIGHT be making the same mistake, in spite of actually being the mafiate.

I CAN TELL YOU FOR A FACT THAT I DID

[mastina]

The fact Nos was unkillable and unblockable besides by me means that if you succeeded it was an automatic scum loss

Correction.
Nosferatu could be endgamed in 4:4, 3:3, or 2:2. In 1:1 he couldn't lose, true enough, but in that situation I'd call it a stalemate tie rather than a win/loss for either side.

It is true enough that Nosferatu could only die via lynch beit day or night, though.

[MathBlade]

The fact Nos was unkillable and unblockable besides by me means that if you succeeded it was an automatic scum loss

Correction.
Nosferatu could be endgamed in 4:4, 3:3, or 2:2. In 1:1 he couldn't lose, true enough, but in that situation I'd call it a stalemate tie rather than a win/loss for either side.

It is true enough that Nosferatu could only die via lynch beit day or night, though.

Which is a problem because we can’t block him.
Literally unstoppable bad. One shot BP okay.

But that is just imho too much everything else okay

Lady Angel claims D1 gets lynched D1 then Nos hard claims and becomes unlynchable in game or hood
Unkillable at night

A role cannot exist that scum cannot counter

[MathBlade]

This turns Nos into an unkillable innocent child vig
And game turns into have to never bus.

Because 5 man lylo isn’t a thing because Scum and Nos can kill.
So literally has to be kill all other players with three scum alive.

[MathBlade]

i'm not you

i don't want to win scum games by walking over a town who doesn't give a fuck about anything

i don't consider that accolade worthy

i don't hype my ability to beat said towns who don't give a fuck about anything

i want to have a good game of mafia and win it via good play.

And that is good play.

To be universally townread

To not help town out of their demise while they fuck up is the literal definition of good play.

Bussing without an inherent answer or cred is anti scum.

[Vaxkiller]

GG had fun while it lasted. I totally called out 2 scum (in my head) to buddy up with! (math and titus), until I saw something I should not have.

**Shakes fist a yurie**

jk its all good!

Thanks for modding a cool game mastina!

[Ankamius]

The town, leaving Oath/glowball alive in spite of claiming nontown, led to a reward for the town. How many towns do you think leave a claimed 3P alive who has a sketchy claim for not unjustifiable reasons? (Helpful hint: glowball outright lied about not only aspects of her role, but also her claimed results AND her claimed night actions. She didn't target N2, and her results were universal across the whole game aside from the no-target PM.)

[Ankamius]

I wonder what would've happened if I had Yuurei's slot...

If I had all that info on the setup a lot earlier, the game might have swung very differently