The Mafia Discussion Thread

[MalaCloudy Black]

Yeah, I ranted about this to RW the other day. Yes, in cases like Ego in Pixar they're annoying and all, but like - if you build in a countermeasure, like you mentioned being able to use it only once per day, they're fine. The way I see it is thus: the mafia comes into a game, any game, with the upperhand. They have all the cards. They know who each other are, in most cases they've got abilities of their own to use, and a cohesive unit can easily steamroll over a town to victory.

The town, meanwhile, has select power roles and should use these to their fullest extent. It's a bunch of rubbish for the town not to use everything they have to their advantage, because they're already at a disadvantage with the scum holding all the cards. There's nothing "against the spirit of the game" at all about the town using what they have, imo.

A balanced lie detector is perfectly fine.

[oldskool]

I'm starting to think the way my Hugo game is laid out is going to be imbalanced in favor of the town.

At the same time I've got a couple roles that I'm really hoping have an impact because I've never used them before (which should terrify most of you, considering the type of game I run) so I'm hesitant to swing back the other way.

[Pleatherface]

Yeah... Posting restrictions suck when you forget about them until you click post.

[TEOL]

Yeah, I ranted about this to RW the other day. Yes, in cases like Ego in Pixar they're annoying and all, but like - if you build in a countermeasure, like you mentioned being able to use it only once per day, they're fine. The way I see it is thus: the mafia comes into a game, any game, with the upperhand. They have all the cards. They know who each other are, in most cases they've got abilities of their own to use, and a cohesive unit can easily steamroll over a town to victory.

The town, meanwhile, has select power roles and should use these to their fullest extent. It's a bunch of rubbish for the town not to use everything they have to their advantage, because they're already at a disadvantage with the scum holding all the cards. There's nothing "against the spirit of the game" at all about the town using what they have, imo.

A balanced lie detector is perfectly fine.

I don't know, the way you're phrasing this just sounds weird. I mean, you're acting like in traditional games with no powers, the scum have an inherent advantage. Which they don't.

[MalaCloudy Black]

How do they not? They can communicate outside of the thread (townies can't), and they know who each other are (is?) (townies don't). That sure sounds like they've got the advantage to me.

[NobBe Nobbs]

I agree entirely with Cloudy and, to illustrate, I'm going to make a hockey analogy! This'll work!

Brian Burke's the GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs and, lately, he's been getting some flak for a policy he has. Basically, even when certain courses of action are completely permissible within the rules, he won't use them because he's got what people are calling his own code of ethics. This is the same thing - what people are doing with the lie detector is completely legal and, as Cloudy said, the Mafia come into the game with all of the cards except the numerical advantage. That's already a difficult enough mountain to climb without voluntarily not using an ability to the extent we could.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I can say it a whole lot more simply - in a game where information is key, the people that start the game with information have the upperhand.

[Pesci]

So why is it that mafias hardly ever win trad games?

I hate lie detectors. I think it shits all over a mafia's need to lie. But saying that, while townie play is generally good in small games, it's generally awful in big games and abilities like that are pretty much necessary to keep things even.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Just because you've got an advantage doesn't mean you're going to win.

[TEOL]

How do they not? They can communicate outside of the thread (townies can't), and they know who each other are (is?) (townies don't). That sure sounds like they've got the advantage to me.

But the whole point of it is that it's not an advantage, it's balanced. This is why we talk about balanced games. The townies have their own power - they outnumber the scum, which means both they have more chances to attack than the scum do, and they have enough people to lynch a scum while the scum have to trick townies into supporting their lynches in order to get it through.

Any game where the townies have abilities and the mafia don't is unbalanced, unless it's a semi-open set up but we've never done anything like that on EWB. The problem is on EWB there's too much of a tendency to either throw abilities at a game out of fear that people will get bored of their role if it's vanilla, or to set up roles along theme lines, in both cases without considering game balance. The reason lie detectors get it in the neck is because it's a powerful enough role that it's a lot more likely to unbalance a game than most. It's not so powerful that it's a guaranteed game breaker, which certainly exist, and it's fine to put in the game as long as the scum have an ability of equivalent power.

[Jimmy]

But the townies obviously have more players. And there's a curse behind knowing who your teammates are, because, sometimes subconciously, you feel the need to defend them.

Also, the annoying things about lie detectors are that they cannot be blocked. So they're much better than a sane investigator. A sane investigator usually outs himsself with one result then spends the rest of the game blocked. If the town has a protector with a brain, a lie detector can just finger scum and clear townies for the whole game.

[TEOL]

So why is it that mafias hardly ever win trad games?

This. If the mafia truly had an advantage, not only would they win more, but the games they do win wouldn't be down to poor play by the town as often as they are.

[Pesci]

But the townies obviously have more players. And there's a curse behind knowing who your teammates are, because, sometimes subconciously, you feel the need to defend them.

See this is the only good part of my mafia play. Once somebody gets suspected they're dead to me. In fact I'm pretty sure in the Kingmaker trad maf I played a large part in having thug (on my scum team) killed even though before that day, he had no suspicion on him In fact, honestly, I don't remember a time I've been lynched as scum when I haven't been investigated first.

And lie detectors should be able to be blocked, definitely.

Edited July 30, 2010 by Pesci

[TEOL]

But the townies obviously have more players. And there's a curse behind knowing who your teammates are, because, sometimes subconciously, you feel the need to defend them.

See this is the only good part of my mafia play. Once somebody gets suspected they're dead to me. In fact I'm pretty sure in the Kingmaker trad maf I played a large part in having thug (on my scum team) killed even though before that day, he had no suspicion on him In fact, honestly, I don't remember a time I've been lynched as scum when I haven't been investigated first.

And lie detectors should be able to be blocked, definitely.

Reread that game a bit and it just reminded me how much I love the Kingmaker variant. Has anyone run one of those lately? I might do it again myself.

[Jimmy]

The last one I played was Matt's, I think. And I was convinced Sousa was scum despite the fact, if he were scum, he would've won the game as he were the kingmaker at the time and we were at lynch or lost. Looking back, it's so hilariously bad. But, it did clear me.

[TEOL]

And run another one I would if not for the fact that I'd have to wait three months or whatever.

[Jimmy]

It doesn't actually take that long. I'm up next and it feels like it's only been a while since my last game. Actually, probably about a few months. So yeah, a few months you will wait

[TEOL]

Oh, I might as well stop complaining and just put my name down.

[R.W.]

I can't comment on Lie Detectors whilst the game is in progress, but I have some clear examples of how they can both benefit and hurt a town to show you.

[R.W.]

Though the thought does strike me for a future variation - the Lie Detector that detects all lies apart from alignment lies.