Mini 1349: Words with Scum (Game over!)

[Hoopla]

I'm very impressed with the presentation of the game. Quilford, you have really brought the setup to life.

~~

I’d like Hoopla specifically (and everyone if they please) to weigh in on the following topic –Should Town pick letters without turning?

Okay, here are my thoughts:

Increasing the amount of words made overall by everyone for the game is a town advantage - the less words we make, the closer to vanilla we play, which is less of an edge for town. Is everyone familiar with Stoofer's Third Law? Essentially, the more complex and powerheavy a game gets, after a certain point, additional powers may not improve the town's chances of winning (or are offset by unintended side-effects).

I think in this game, optimizing our actions to get as many powers as we can is offset by clueing scum into where the likeliest powerful letters/roles are going. Obviously, we should be trying to get as many powerroles as possible, but there are certain situations where it's probably suboptimal to collect an exposed tile. For example, if you have no tiles, the tile you collect doesn't matter enough to tell scum you have it (plus it also removes one of the exposed options for other townies needing one letter for a word). This is where I think collecting a secret tile is optimal for the town. If you have one or two unusable tiles (11/92 are unusable), then your next tile also probably doesn't have enough importance to warrant letting scum know part of your hand. Essentially, there is an equilibrium we should be trying to hit between getting as many PR's as possible with the most possible secrecy.

I think on D1 and D2 (and probably later Days), each player should use their flip regardless of whether they collect a public or private tile. For the most part, I think we ought to trust each other to select a public or private tile based on our current holdings. As a general rule though, if you don't have much towards anything, consider a secret pick.

~~

VOTE: Voidedmafia

[Hoopla]

Each player should use their flip today, regardless of whether they end up collecting secretly.

If we said no to secret collecting, what this means is the first person to collect has 13 options, the second 12 options and so on, until the last person only has one option. This is the functional equivalent of a secret collection, in the sense, you don't have control over what you're getting. What is the point of that? If someone is going to not have an option, it might as well be someone who doesn't have good starting tiles (two away from any word), and we might as well not tell scum what letter it is.

A few people collecting secretly also has the added benefit of flexibility in later days, as we create a pool of exposed tiles that gives more players more choice, rather than just taking an exposed tile for the sake of it. For example, five people today with junk hands (or none of their bingo tiles are exposed) choose to pick secretly - this means tomorrow, that after another round of flips, the first picker now has 18 options instead of 13, with later pickers not hamstrung into thin selections.

[Hoopla]

I'm going to flip a corner. The best stuff is always in the corner. Like gross couples making out in a nightclub.

Flip: K1

[Hoopla]

No other townies follow LLD's plan please. Hopefully she's scum, so she's messing up them instead of town.

[Hoopla]

No other townies follow LLD's plan please. Hopefully she's scum, so she's messing up them instead of town.

Yeah ok, this is scummy as fuck.

Vote: Hoopla

The main source of potential town power derives from the powerful 3-letter combinations, ie; Cop, White Mage, Vig, Hider, Watcher etc. Playing blind severely decreases the town's chances of creating multiple 3-letter words. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the closer we play this game to vanilla, the worse it is for town. If we play it completely random, I wouldn't count on any 3-letter word any earlier than Night 3, even then, if we only get say one or two of them, they could be scum's. The more we produce, the more we reduce variance. Producing two scum 3-letter words and six town 3-letter words for the game is far superior to one or two 3-letter words, with a chance of scum getting its sole use.

[Hoopla]

but you are also a far too analytically inclined player to not only totally ignore my plan (I.E: Not give a point by point rebuttal that I expected from you)

The main reason why I try and avoid arguing with you is the same reason why I try and avoid arguing with religious people.

You blew your flip and collect on a silly idea, and if worse comes to worst, and you don't come around, you can play the game however you want and I won't bother trying to stop you. I'm confident the likes of Magna, Aurorus, Amrun, Ice, whisper etc. are sensible enough to see your plan is rubbish, so I don't have to try and convince you.

I'm betting you'll get a Z.

[Hoopla]

Why is the scum kill such a big deal? We are 9:3. The closer we get to 9:3 mountainous, the better we will be.

You're aware 9:3 mountainous is about a 10-20% (tops) winrate for town, right? Town hasn't won a 2:10 or 2:11 mountainous before, let alone 3:9 (even though we're in 3:10).

[Hoopla]

If it's any consolation, I actually think your entrance to the game was kinda townish, but we're not going to agree on anything theory-wise. Lets just leave it there. I'm happy to watch others rep my points or yours or whatever.

[Hoopla]

Didn't you "hope" LLD was scum earlier? Why then is the entrance townish?

I still hope she is scum - because she sacrificed her ability to create a word. This is fine by me if she is scum, but annoying if she's town.

She is probably town because her bullish entrance to the game seems like it is coming from a place where she genuinely believes what she is saying. I get the impression she's less likely to try and create a plan as scum. Feel free to unvote now.

[Hoopla]

I asked you a question.

Relax, I was literally about to answer it.

WHY did you point this out? WHY? You just ruined the efficacy of your own plan. I know you're smarter than that.

Because most people probably won't realise it's optimal for some of us to take a secret pick sometimes? Even now, IceGuy's plan doesn't reference or utilise the benefit of secret picks - so it was entirely valid for me to explain why secrets are sometimes good. If you have nothing, or you already have a word from your starting hand, then you should probably pick secretly.

[Hoopla]

People who are dismissing my plan need to define why it is anti town or find themselves hanging from a noose.

I am in a patient but adventurous mood right now, so I'm going to attempt a one-post argument to convince LLD her plan isn't good for town. Sometimes I come to conclusions on back of other ideas or experiences others might not have been privy to, so maybe it's unfair for me to criticise LLD when it's likely we're just coming from two different places. This is me attempting to show LLD the building blocks that lead me to the conclusion that her plan is bad, because I feel like it's pretty black and white, but I'll let her judge.

Essentially, I am basing my opinion on a couple of balance reasons that we have good reason to be true or likely:

1)

3:10 mountainous has roughly a 10-20% chance for town.

We can make this assumption on the back of 2:10 mountainous games we've seen, where town has not won a single game (and presumably this would be a lot easier to win than 3:10).

2)

3:10 Mini Normals average a ratio of roughly 1 scum PR to 3 town PR's and produce roughly a 50% chance for the town.

Town has a huge jump in win percentage when they get the added benefit of powerroles, even though scum usually gets one as well. What this means, is that 1 scum PR doesn't offset 3 town PR's. If it did, we'd still see town with the same low winrate in the 10-20% range. We can clearly conclude that adding PR's to the game (at a 3:1 ratio), even though scum got one, was beneficial to the town when compared to nobody getting any.

If all the PR's in the game managed to die by Night 2, we'd be back to mountainous, and the rest of the game should play out under the same dynamic as a mountainous game. If all the PR's lived until really late in the game, we should be able to conclude that this is more beneficial to the town than all of them dying early, as the sole thing that makes 3:10 games a 50/50 game is the addition of the PR's in the first place - so of course, them getting more use in the game would yield greater benefit for the town overall.

Essentially, by not orchestrating (to some degree), we're playing a higher percentage of the game without power, which is closer to 3:10 mountainous (a bad outcome). If we coordinate collections, even though scum are getting a PR's at a 3:1 ratio, it isn't a bad thing, because we see in Mini Normals that this is a winning ratio if it can be sustained. This is because in mountainous games, the nightkill gives scum carte blanche to take out whoever they want, whereas, power always existing means that sometimes the towniest players get docced, scum gets investigated or vigged - it essentially dilutes the power of the scum's nightkill, as it can only do one thing at a time. It can't take out the towniest player, the likely cop, and a JK all at once. But in mountainous, it can take out the towniest player, and that's all the nightkill needs to do.

By maintaining a 3:1 ratio of power for a higher percentage of the game, we give scum more difficult choices overall. This is why playing the game close to mountainous is bad. LLD, I hope you take this as a serious post - I'm trying to be sincere and respectful. I want you to give it a chance.

[Hoopla]

When you say "all PR's lived until really late" do you mean that those with the possibilty to cash in their tiles (assuming they're still alive to do so) save those tiles to cash in until, say, N3 or N4?

I'm talking about in Mini Normals. I'm claiming that if all the PR's (scum and town's alike) live until deep in the game, it's better for town than all the PR's (scum and town's alike) dying early in the game.

If you believe that to be true, you ought to be in favour of maximising powers this game.

[Hoopla]

Massclaiming and/or only collecting exposed tiles turns the game into more of a logic puzzle. I don't think the benefits are substantial enough to make the game boring.

[Hoopla]

Had Whisper down as town, but on re-read I've noticed that most of her posts are generalities and repetitions, which moves her into the "scum trying to appear townish" category.

I don't agree with this. Whispersilk has games as town that parallel his opening play so far - I remember when Mayo Clinic was an open setup, he dedicated a lot of time to structuring a winning strategy for town. I think he likes the logic puzzle aspect of the game, so I don't really think "scum trying to appear townish" is accurate. I've also seen him powerlurk quite heavily as scum, and although it's too early to tell in this game, I'm not worried.

~~

Arugula's plan and subsequent reactions are weird. I get Amrun and co's line of him trying to recycle a popular plan and pass it off as his own, but it seems weirdly fiendish if he calculated he could get away with doing it and that he would think that would be the best way to look town as scum. To me, it more looks like a newbie tell, seeing that the rest of the town is logic puzzling - he wants to help and try and contribute something meaningful and that's what he churned out. I believe he probably didn't realise how close his plan was to Ice's. My gut says he's town.

~~

I think IceGuy is unusually paranoid about me. This sort of stuff:

Because I don't consider her scummy enough to want her lynched (especially as her towniness has been increasing with every subsequent post). I just don't want to give her a powerful letter at this point.

We're giving them little more information than we would be giving them if we'd be treating this as a mountainous. Even if we'd just be scumhunting as in a normal game, they would know that Hoopla is seen as scummy by the majority of the players, for instance.

...is either over-the-top or wrong. I will take whichever letter I please.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: vijay2vasandani

~~

Collect: E5

[Hoopla]

I don't think that's a bad idea. It might be a little bureaucratic and waste a bit of time, but I'd be okay doing that, or some sort of watered down version of that if people want to do it.

At the very least, I think in the following days, we should all flip before anyone collects. Then we all collect in an order either from the board or a private collection (at the player's discretion). Don't make certain letters off-limit for anyone - a handful of people agreeing that certain others are too scummy for C's or G's or whatever just serves to even further reduce possible combinations, and limits premium holdings to a small group, making for easy scum nightkills. If a scum gets a 3-letter combination, so be it - freedom of choice will probably allow a couple of other townies to get there at the time, which would be a net gain overall.

[Hoopla]

Please re-read her ISO. Her posts have nothing to do with logic puzzling.

Also, why did you take a tile?

They're heavily theory oriented and build up to her post #55 which does contain strategy and plan-making, even if it doesn't seem like a good idea.

I took a tile because we've all flipped except whispersilk. I took a duplicate letter, so I assumed it would be okay.

~~

I think there is decent scope for hand deception from townies in this game. Like, say someone made PGO by tonight, saving the letters and taking a C on D2 would be a great way to signal strength and coax scum into killing you N2 (particularly if they saw you take C or P on D1). Conversely, if you have a strong draw, like CK, you could gamble on a hidden pick and have many outs (any O, P, R, W, T, D, M, J, L) to improve your hand, while simultaneously decreasing your chances of being NK'ed, which is great if you hit.

To win this game, we need to create a lot of power, but we also need to be able to use it. It will be annoying for one of us to make COP, only for scum to know it's there to kill. The chances of that happening increases if you put restrictions on players (such as, "only these players can take a C", "this player needs to pick from the board" etc) as scum can use PoE to make a lot of conclusions. I'm in favour of a fairly free selection process after all the flips have been made, as this should hopefully cloud the strength of people's hands slightly and also enable more combinations.

[Hoopla]

Another flaw in the old plan of giving ubertowns Cs and other good letters is that NKs hit us doubly hard, taking away power and strong town.

This is a pretty solid observation, but it also factors into a draft order too:

If we're going to do an order for tile picking on future days, it would be based on the town's collective view of everyone. One way to do it, would be when everyone submits their flip at the start of the day, they also give a top three town list and a top three scum, giving a +1, +2, +3, -1, -2, -3 to each name. This shows who the overall towniest and scummiest players are and gives you a picking order, but this also synchronizes the towniest players with the better letters available, since they have more choice - on average they'll pick better letters. So, that also risks the strong townie/good letters double nightkill, albeit to a slightly lesser degree.

It might not be a bad idea to just let everyone pick any time after all the flips are made. Scummier players might pick C's and P's and whatnot, but a lot of the time these players will be town too, meaning scum has a choice between killing good letters or an obv townie who picked a hidden tile, as opposed to the undesirable outcome of getting both with one kill (which would be less frequent/obvious).

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: 2minds1soul

Lurking scum.

[Hoopla]

I believe all flips have been used. Everyone who has yet to take a letter should indicate which letters they are interested in.

I would like to take P / V / T in that approximate order.

I don't think people should indicate what letters they want, because I can pretty much tell what you have now.

Just take what you need without leaving too many clues. If you miss out on what you wanted, too bad. Be quicker next time.

[Hoopla]

Good idea ... if we want scum taking important letters and justifying it with "but I had to be quick". Nobody takes anything without asking.

If scum want to be brazen enough to try and take the "best" letters at the start of each round, let them try. It's going to look awfully suspicious when they've picked first many days in a row but strangely haven't been targeted for the nightkill. It's like if scum want to be brazen enough to hammer each town wagon that gets to L-1 or L-2, they can, but they'll give themselves away.

I know Magna's exact hand now because of him floating his interest and I think I know yours now as well. Any half intelligent scum are capable of putting the pieces together.

We're not going to be rejecting anyone from taking specific letters, so there's no point voicing interest for letters that help you.

[Hoopla]

We're not going to be rejecting anyone from taking specific letters, so there's no point voicing interest for letters that help you.

Respond to this, IceGuy.

[Hoopla]

If you're interested in rejecting people from getting certain letters, you're going to have to tell us why it's beneficial.

Because from what I know, all this will do is streamline scum's kill into getting to kill someone who looks very town and has good letters. It's much more beneficial if good power is spread out/unpredictable, so scum has to choose between using their nightkill to kill good/town players or killing players with good hands. A lot of Mini Normal games and games like Friends and Enemies are won by town by getting lucky and having Mason roles occupied by lesser players, as they naturally avoid the NK and live deeper in the game, which is of great benefit - as opposed to scum getting rid of the best scumhunter N1 who also happens to be a Mason.

[Hoopla]

I don't like repetitions. Refer to my earlier posts.

My point in my last post was first made in post #149. I haven't seen you say anything since then to refute the double-edged sword of losing a strong town player with good letters (which is what will happen if we divert good letters to town-looking players).

If you want to give up and accept we're not rejecting anyone from taking a letter, just tell me, so I don't have to bother.

[Hoopla]

But I'd stick with "I would like <letter> but there are others I wouldn't mind" -- this way we don't give away what the second choices are. A nice way to do the good but not the bad.

I'd be okay with that as a compromise, but I also wouldn't bother if you're taking a duplicate letter or a letter that doesn't fit in a 3-letter word.

[Hoopla]

IceGuy: Am I scum?

You're null.

Do you have any town reads? From what I've read, you've only expressed a handful of null or scumreads. Are you the type of player who doesn't do townreads?

[Hoopla]

I have vijay mentally crushed. He can't trust me these days.

I'm more concerned about why LLD thinks I'm scum.

[Hoopla]

@Hoopla

- so besides your lurker vote who is scumz?

Right now, I think most of the scumteam is within Voidedmafia, Amrun, you and DCLXVI.

I was initially liking the prospect of IceGuy scum, but I always tend to second guess players who adopt the abrasive, no-nonsense approach in their posts - increasingly I've noticed these sorts of players are town and when scum take on a more rounded tone. IceGuy is capable of being a level above and playing this way as scum too to attract town points (it obviously hasn't worked this game if this is the case), but I suspect the wagon on him is bogus and taking advantage of the tone he has adopted.

Coincidentally, you, Voided and Amrun make up the back end of the wagon, which roughly syncs with where I think a higher spread of scum are. I don't have any evidence against you (

Magna

) other than gut - I feel like you're just trying to say the right things, and leaving it there, rather than going beyond the surface. Players like you are very hard to read - if anything, the reason why I'm suspicious of you is because I have a lot of other town reads, but not one on you.

Voidedmafia

is a fairly close definition of active lurking - for the amount he's posted, I don't really remember much of what he's said. I also have a gut feeling that when players post extra vote counts and keep track of other things for town (like a summation of the board) they tend to be scum - it's just an easy way to demonstrate you're helpful. I don't like his vote on IceGuy, and even more so than Magna, Voided appears to be saying things just for the sake of saying them - he has several posts, where he links to a bunch of other posts and gives a vague one-liner in response to them, which doesn't really further the game at all. He has a lot of stuff like this strewn through his posts:

Hoopla: Not a bad concern, that. I'm personally wondering where LLD is, period.

Which again, just reads as fluff masquerading as content.

DCLXVI

is one of the quieter posters, bordering on lurking. I didn't like his vote on Arugula - looked forced, and he hasn't really done much since. I wouldn't be surprised if he's scum.

Amrun

is scummy for her attacking lines centering on Arugula and then IceGuy - it's from one easy target to the next. She's on V/LA so I'm willing to give her a break, but again, like Magna, I don't have a town read on her, which is why she's in this category.

[Hoopla]

2minds1soul's latest posts have been okay - be wary of them though, as Guy_Named_Riggs is a chronic lurker as scum, so I don't want to give them too much leeway.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: DCLXVI

[Hoopla]

Also, why are you voting DCL when your apparant strongest read out of the four you've said is myself?

You're posting a lot. DCL isn't. When suspicions are relatively equal, I'd rather vote for the quieter one - I think I'll be able to read you more accurately in future days.

I don't understand how you think his latest posts have been ok. Have you looked at him in ISO? What do you think of his notion that the scum team is made up of me, vijay and Arugula? What do you think of the point that Robocopter raised in this post?

I don't agree with many of his reads - I obviously don't think the scumteam is you/vijay/Arugula. I just like that he's starting to deliver content now. Like I said, the post he made was okay.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla: I've also voted for you. Are you an easy target?

Absolutely. How many times have you got me lynched?

[Hoopla]

I don't remember the last game we were in together where I wasn't lynched.

[Hoopla]

Maybe I am misremembering other games I got lynched in as having you in it.

[Hoopla]

The point remains I am an easy target, because I am too passive to fight people who think I'm scummy.

[Hoopla]

Post 285 - ...Do you REALLY believe I'm active lurking?

In relation to how much you've posted, I'd expect more content. Again, linking to a post number and making a one-line comment isn't content. Most people aren't clicking every one of your links to see who you're talking to. For the most part, you could say whatever the hell you wanted and link to an old post, and I don't think people would pull you up. For some reason, you're confusing the amount of links and piecemeal comments you make as the amount of content you're providing. To repeat myself - I can't remember anything important/memorable you've had to say off the top of my head, which I should be able to if you've posted 39 times. That is active lurking as far as I'm concerned.

[Hoopla]

Hey Amrun - you've already greased the wheels enough to justify a hammer on Arugula. If you're going to do it, just do it, rather than coyly leave the door open for it, but not taking the responsibility. You think he's scummy, so suck it up and hammer him. IceGuy probably isn't going to be lynched.

For the record, I honestly think Arugula will flip town so I won't hammer, but lets not beat about the bush here.

~~

Hey Hoopla why are you directly ignoring my questions?

What questions did I miss? This is the only one I seem to find:

Since your definition of an easy lynch seems very fluid can you list those players on the playerlist who aren’t easy lynches?

You're not an easy lynch, nor is AurorusVos or Amrun. LLD isn't easy because she will kick and scream all the way to the end. Does this question really matter to you? I didn't mean to miss it...

[Hoopla]

WTF is this? You don’t think Arugula is going to flip scum. Amrun says she would prefer Iceguy (who has gone all lurker-mode) to Arugula as today’s lynch.

I just don't like wasting time. If she thinks she's scummy, hammer him. I don't agree with it, but I doubt I will get who I want lynched today, so I don't really care. It's Day 1, so it's not like Arugula has zero chance of flipping scum.

[Hoopla]

Who is scum if Arugula flips Town as you suspect?

I haven't thought about it too much, and it depends on IceGuy's alignment. If he is town like I think, it means that the major wagons of town have both been town, which means scum have been under little to no pressure. In these sort of scenarios, the quieter players who aren't furthering the game are typically scum, and usually occupy a higher ratio of votes off the main two wagons and early positions on those wagons, with late vote hoppers and L-1, L-2 type voters usually town. Just a general rule of thumb - I'd obviously have to do the analysis if/when Arugula is town, and if I'm still confident about Ice being town.

Same question to you - what do you think?

[Hoopla]

Aruguka town would mean vijay scum imo.

I don't know about that. I might be wifom'ing myself, but I really don't think vijay would just sit on a reasonless vote on me all day based on our history. I think he'd be more aware of how it looked. I also think people like DCL, 2minds and maybe even Robo are likelier candidates based on wagon/votes.

[Hoopla]

This is a great 'non-answer'.

Have we ever played with each other before..?

[Hoopla]

What does that have anything to do with the price of tea in China regarding your non-answer?

Dunno. I'm a slow starter, but I sometimes churn out analysis when there is genuine relevant information in the game. Right now, you're making me guess, which is why I'm giving you lame answers. I'll try and work things out when I reread the game with flips.

[Hoopla]

At least we know IceGuy and MoI aren't scum together. Lets remember this if one of them ever flips scum.

[Hoopla]

Hoping she proves my town read on her to be valid by participating more tomorrow.

I'll try...

[Hoopla]

Bad vijay.
Naughty scum.
Nice modding, Quilford. Very elegant.

[Hoopla]

Town failed pretty hard in collecting powers. It's no surprise it was a sweep when we couldn't threaten scum at night. Some of the letter selections and strategies used by townies were baffling.

[Hoopla]

Quil and Hoopla - I'd suggest some minor alterations to the set-up in removing some of the useless tiles, adding a few more combinations of abilities (including at least 1 Pro-Scum abilities like Tailor / Frame), and adding 2 Blanks. In a 10-3 setup being effectively Mountainous is a huge deteriment to Town in general and I feel that the game is more likely to lean that way with the number of bad tiles out there.

I agree with more combinations and adding blanks, although I don't think this run was particularly indicative of the overall usefulness of the mechanic - the town played poorly, failed to secure combinations through bad strategy and a lack of cohesion, and a couple of players made poor choices/made mistakes. I think if this setup was run a thousand times in parallel universes, the amount of power secured by town in this game would be well below the average.

[Hoopla]

I think this game is the perfect example of the risks fakeclaiming Cop can carry. The wagons at the time were 2 votes each on Robo, Magna and vijay - scum could easily have been lynched on this day if things went right, but he got a townie mislynched instead, then got himself lynched in lylo. Towns can't recover from that sort of shit if you're wrong - and if you're the sort of person who thinks fakeclaiming Cop as town is a good idea, you're probably not the sort of person who is accurate enough to take that risk in the first place.

[Hoopla]

I still think this was pretty much the worst possible outcome for town and it's tainting the objective view of the setup - we fucked up letter strategy, made mistakes in selecting letters, and a gambit cost us two of our allotted four mislynches.

Each role is 1-shot, which obviously reduces the value - but we really should have expected to make at least 6-7 combinations.- maybe more if the game went longer.