The Syndicate

Where is that queue?

I agree with your point about cops breaking games though. I actually stopped playing mafia on a certain place because I got tired of cops soloing the games every time. It's a lot easier for a game to be ruined by excess of information than by the lack of it.

I just differ on the idea of how to tackle the problem. But like I said, I'm open to experience new games from different mods. And yes, I'd play another game hosted by you.

@Russ. I see your point. I just don't like the ideas of players acting like they don't know something they do, because it makes it feel unnatural. I like things to be more clear cut.

But don't worry, I'm not quitting this site because of this. Your game was awesome in ways no other games I've ever played were, and your ruleset does have advantages which I can't ignore, so it can make things fresh. I've never played a mafia game where I thought everything about it was perfect. Not even the games I hosted were like that. Every host has their own quirks that can make a game better or worse for each player depending on their tastes.

Golden wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I see your point, but that comes with the nasty side effect of making players unwilling to play the game to the fullest, imo. Because a player who does not try hard would have a better chance at winning than one who does. JJJ would never win a game in this format, for example.

It can have that nasty side effect if that's how players play it. But playing a game differently or more quietly does not necessarily equal not playing it to its fullest. I very much enjoy being a civilian and trying to get the town a win WHILE trying to win, and I don't think my civilian reputation has ever suffered any knocks for how I go about achieving that.

Well I this isn't the first time you say this to me so I'll give it the benefit of doubt. I'll play at least one game like that so I can decide my opinion on it.

Well for all it's worth, almost every game in my site is closed setup.

Epignosis wrote:Make info rare. That's the obvious answer.

I agree with this.

But sometimes it's hard to do that when you're trying to make 30 roles with 2-3 abilities each and you need ideas.

S~V~S wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

S~V~S wrote:And like Epi, I have a very nuanced and layered view of the disco role issues. It boils down to I don't think it's sporting to ruin the baddies game. They work hard, and through no fault of their own, they get outed and lynched. When baddies go down (die, baddies, die!) it should be because they screwed up, not because someone got a PM from the host.

The lady said it better than the gent.

To go ahead and add the nuances I was referring to myself: If you allow civilians to win whether dead or alive, and its an open setup, then there is no reason for the info role to refrain from sharing everything.

And that makes for boring.

If you make civilians have to be careful because they don't win if dead, it makes the info role more careful in his function.

I see your point, but that comes with the nasty side effect of making players unwilling to play the game to the fullest, imo. Because a player who does not try hard would have a better chance at winning than one who does. JJJ would never win a game in this format, for example.

I do agree with you re civs winning dead or alive. I think no fear of death makes for more aggressive civs rather than blendy civs. When I host everyone has win with your team, dead or alive, except LMS roles.

That's another thing I'd never heard of until I started playing here.

You guys surely have a very distinct mafia culture. It's like you're an island or something. :P

In my site, direct role revealing is usually not allowed (to avoid those horrible mass-claim scenarios), but role dumping of any kind is fair game. But the games there are so full of abilities that information could come from literally anywhere, so a good mafioso can WIFOM their way out of most situations.

I've come to realize that cops become somewhat weaker the more role madness a game is. It's in the generic ones that they are the most powerful.

MovingPictures07 wrote:DDL, I fixed your quotes for you.

I can understand your PoV. Inevitably, it depends on how the Host wants to run it, and I have noticed that Hosts have been increasingly experimenting on ways to counteract it using game mechanics instead of the way Russ included a straight-up cop here. It was intriguing to play with a standard cop role though.

I do think that there is inevitable subjectivity involved in any game though, since there always can be cheating or asshattery, particularly so when games become more and more unconventional.

Yes, some things are impossible to predict. You think you have everything covered then people use 2 roles at the same time ina way you weren't expecting and now you have to evaluate how those roles interact, and make a decision on the fly. It's hard to be completely objective when modding.

But I can try.

MovingPictures07 wrote:In Death Note, I had made Mogi a modified cop role in that, if he was silent for 48 straight hours, he could gain a role check that revealed to him that person's role with 50% accuracy. There was a 50% chance he would get the correct role, but a 50% chance that it was a randomly selected role from all roles in the game. I had tons of secrets in that game, though, so no one knew what Mogi's role actually did until it was revealed about halfway through the game. Funnily enough, Russ actually had that role. Russ never knew whether I was going to reveal the secrets or not, so he had the risk of playing it blatantly and trying to cash as many role checks as possible, yet risk outing himself later and getting NKed if I ever revealed them, or playing it safe but not getting near as many role checks. He did the former.

I like this. It's the kind of anti-cop mechanics I was talking about.

One game I hosted once had mafia have a one-shot ability that made every cop get inverted results for a cycle. They used it on day 1, and it almost made mafia win the game. Because town followed the results of an investigation blindly, and when it was wrong, they also blindly lynched the cop in the following day. So the idea is that town should have relied on their brains ALONG with the abilitiy instead of just the ability.

Unfortunately town ended up winning for role dumping because I had put too many masons on the game, but that's something I wanna correct in my next one.

Epignosis wrote:

S~V~S wrote:And like Epi, I have a very nuanced and layered view of the disco role issues. It boils down to I don't think it's sporting to ruin the baddies game. They work hard, and through no fault of their own, they get outed and lynched. When baddies go down (die, baddies, die!) it should be because they screwed up, not because someone got a PM from the host.

The lady said it better than the gent.

To go ahead and add the nuances I was referring to myself: If you allow civilians to win whether dead or alive, and its an open setup, then there is no reason for the info role to refrain from sharing everything.

And that makes for boring.

If you make civilians have to be careful because they don't win if dead, it makes the info role more careful in his function.

I see your point, but that comes with the nasty side effect of making players unwilling to play the game to the fullest, imo. Because a player who does not try hard would have a better chance at winning than one who does. JJJ would never win a game in this format, for example.

^ broken quotes are broken. Please note that I tried to quote MP's and SVS's posts separately.

Golden wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:One thing I don't understand is why implementing a cop is you are so vehemently against allowing the cop to use that information. Sure, not allowing role reveals is one thing, but wanting to modkill a player because he switched his reads too fast?

It gets too subjective for my tastes. What exactly is considered a cop "dumping information" and a cop "not dumping information"? Is he supposed to keep his apparent reads unchanged so there is no chance people will notice he is a cop? Or was he supposed to quote a few random posts from splints and pretend there was evidence for her being a townie in them?

At this point I'd rather stop implementing info roles in the games altogether, if I were you. Better than enforcing a very subjective set of roles to nerf the cop.

Sorry for the criticism, but this is just an aspect of this site that baffles me.

This is a subject of much debate in our 'open set up' sites, and has been for all time I mean, in some ways you could say your role was an 'info role' and you were 'infodumping' by having contests happen in the thread, so there is definitely a subjective standard in play.

TH played his role well within the confines of Russti's rules, I thought.

Of course I was, and I was intentionally timing my games so I would get myself confirmed on lylo. Only reason that did not happen was that I died earlier.

But if a mod noticed it, should they modkill me for it? Because every ability in a mafia game comes with the ihnerent potential to "info dump", as long as the player is smart/creative enough to use it. Should mods change rules the on the fly so they can curb any attempt from the players to use their roles to produce in-thread info?

The problem is the subjectiveness. It doesn't specify what a player can or cannot do, just a big "no info dumping" rule by the mod which they can enforce depending on how they think the game is going on. And that's uncompetitive in my opinion, because I think good games should have rules clearly speficied before they start, which as little input from the mod during the game as possible.

Personally, if I am to design a game to stop cops from breaking it, I'll probably try to do it using game mechanics. One obvious way it to implement millers and godfathers, or some more elaborated versions of those. so investigations become a suggestion instead of a certain read. Another one is to limit the number of investigations a cop can do. Another one is to simply reduce the rate of information roles by number of players in the game. But I want my game to be balanced before it starts, not try counter-attack the players' exploits as they play it.

MovingPictures07 wrote:Personally, I feel I am much more loose about it than many; I am really bothered only when it is blatant and requires no skill, and my players make statements such as "I know DDL is bad" or "I know DDL is good".

I agree with you, I think cops can ruin a game of mafia if they are let loose. The worst thing in being a baddie is being outed by a cop.

I just don't like approaches to solving the problem that force the players to pretend they don't know things they do, or that rely on subjective rules that depend on mod interpretations. I think there are more elegant ways of solving the issue.

S~V~S wrote:What would have happened had someone refused to participate in a contest? Like I am fairly private; I don't upload pictures of myself to Facebook, for instance. I would NOT have made a video of myself singing or doing anything else, lol.

What were the punishments for refusing a contest? Did anyone refuse?

And like Epi, I have a very nuanced and layered view of the disco role issues. It boils down to I don't think it's sporting to ruin the baddies game. They work hard, and through no fault of their own, they get outed and lynched. When baddies go down (die, baddies, die!) it should be because they screwed up, not because someone got a PM from the host.

It would have counted as if you had lost the contest (and you'd have lost guns/butter if I'm not wrong). That's what happened to aether, in fact.

One thing I don't understand is why implementing a cop is you are so vehemently against allowing the cop to use that information. Sure, not allowing role reveals is one thing, but wanting to modkill a player because he switched his reads too fast?

It gets too subjective for my tastes. What exactly is considered a cop "dumping information" and a cop "not dumping information"? Is he supposed to keep his apparent reads unchanged so there is no chance people will notice he is a cop? Or was he supposed to quote a few random posts from splints and pretend there was evidence for her being a townie in them?

At this point I'd rather stop implementing info roles in the games altogether, if I were you. Better than enforcing a very subjective set of roles to nerf the cop.

Sorry for the criticism, but this is just an aspect of this site that baffles me.

Thanks!

Anyone wants to help me figure out the roles, since the mods aren't saying anything? Here's what i've got:

Adam Smith = MP
Jean-BaptistSay = G-Man
Carl Menger = Metalmarsh
Ludwig Von mises = Vomps?
F. A. Hakek = Golden 1.0
Joseph Schumpeter = sanmateo
John Nash = DDL
Vilfredo Pareto = ?
Paul Samuelson = ?
Ronald Coase = ?
Milton Friedman = Epi
Murray Rothbard = aether
Arthur Pigou = fingersplints
George Alerkof = Turnip Head

John Maynard Keynes = Roxy
Karl Marx = Bass
David Ricardo = Black Rock
Robert Solow = bwt/Golden 2.0

Thomas Malthus = Elo

So all that's left are Bubbles, Jay and Sloonei. Also Vomps assuming he was not Von Mises.

Turnip Head wrote:My role checks were
N1 - JJJ
N2 - DDL
N3 - Roxy
N4 - Bass

I hinted to both JJJ and DDL in the thread that I knew their roles. Did either of you catch that?

No, I guess I was completely obvlivious to the roles in this game. The only thing I noticed was MP having information.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:This is why Mafia is a great game. You can pour your heart and soul into it and still lose.

Beautifully played Golden! You too BWT. Had you allowed me to play in LyLo (I wish I could have been there for you townies), I would have absolutely not voted for G-Man.

Spoiler: show

I'd have voted for splints

Had I been allowed to play to lylo, I'd have absolutely voted for G-Man. On day 7. And yelled at people for wanting to lynch sanmateo instead of him.

Then PERHAPS we could have lynched Golden on day 8, though I have no idea who I'd want to vote in na G-Man-less day.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:I can guarantee you vompatti sent you the watercooling video, DDL.

Why is that?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:DDL -- i love your townie approach. you were willing to get yourself in a little trouble for the greater good. the value of that, and your skill in playing that way, cannot be overstated. also, i beat Sloonei in the chess game (it was his time playing ever :P)

Thanks man!

Now all that's left to do is for me to show my baddie approach.

As for the chess, I figured out something like that might happen lol

Golden is officially in my "never place too high in the rainbow list no matter how townie they seem to be" list. A very select list that can be counted in one hand.

It also doubles as the "do not lynch on d1 because they can be an asset to town" list.

Oh yeah that's something I realized later. The singing game was a match between two accountants.

I should have made the two of you sing about accounting or something like that. :P

G-Man, what I mean is, it's not that your calculations are wrong, it's your premise that someone being mafia before does anything to the chance of them being mafia now. But whatever, it worked for you.

Epignosis wrote:Pleased to see the role was not wasted.

So I suppose you were the previous John Nash?

The thought of that is scary.

Sorry, "passed away", not "passed out". My bad.

And I forgot to add:

RIP John Nash, the great economist who coincidentally passed out in real life while this game was going on. I hope my games were good enough a homage for you.

Ok I've been meaning to make this post for days.

I wanna tell you a story. Not the story about how I played this game because frankly, to me, as much fun as that was, it was only secondary to the real big thing that happened in this game.

The story begins when I get my first role. Jean Baptist Say. It was a pretty cool role (though his economic theories are full of shit, but that's another story). It had the ability to produce a lot of money, and I had some pretty cool plans for how I'd spend that money. So I was pretty frustrated when the hosts told me they were going to replace this role.

The frustration did not last long, though, because eventually I realized I had received something legendary. Something that would certainly make this game one of the most memorable experiences in my mafia career:
Once per night, I could take two poor souls of my choice and force them to play a game for my amusement. I would be the emperor at the coliseum, making players fight for the entertainment of the masses and then deciding myself who would be allowed to live or die.

And so it began.

Night 1: Chess Game at the Syndicate

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Alright, for my first game, it's going to be chess. It's a simple game this time because I want to learn how this works, and also because I don't wanna scare the shit out of the players this soon.

The match will be between JaggedJimmyJay and Sloonei.

I propose that they use http://www.chess.com/ for it. It's easy to make a login, and it lets you link the game after it ends in order to prove who won. They can use another site if they want, as long as it provides them a way to prove their victory.

They will be able to schedule the match whenever they want, but after they play I want them to post (or to PM to you) the link to the game, so we get to see who won. Like this: http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1159800159

Also, I want it to be 30 minute chess, or some number close to that (20-40 minutes). No bullet chess or anything of the sort.

Remember in Death Note, when Yagami Light spends the first few episodes doing some random kills in order to find out the extent of his powers? That was me in night 1. A simple game of chess to see what I was allowed or not allowed to do. I was imagining this would be more of a public thing, with games being posted in the thread, but I soon f. The mods took a minimalist approach to this role, only let me know the things I absolutely needed to know. So I don't even have any idea of who won the game. Sloonei or Jay? I hope you guys could tell me that, and maybe show me the game.

Night 2: The Voice: Mafia Edition

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Ok, today it's going to be a singing contest.

The two players have to send videos of them singing. It can be any song, no restrictions of genre. They can play instruments of they want, or have them played in the background if they want. Or nothing except their voice only. Doesn't matter as long as they are the ones doing the singing. Also rapping is not singing.

Just for the sake of estabilishing a limit, the song should have no more than 10 minutes. More than that and I'll start doubting if they're singing a song or a whole album.

No other people singing with them. Just the person who was targetted by the action, alone. Other people playing instruments is okay though, but remember the point of this is to show how well they can sing, not how well their friend can do guitar solos.

They should, at some point of the video, show clearly that they are the forum user who was challenged. Either by saying their name out loud or showing it written on a paper.

The targets will be MovingPictures and G-Man.

As for the winning criterium. I want to hold a vote. One idea I have it to open a separate thread with a poll in the forum so people can vote for who was the best singer. People who are not playing the game should be allowed to vote too, the more the better. If for some reason that can't be done, then I just suggest using this: http://www.poll-maker.com/poll321446xA8044a58-12

On Night 2, I decided to go all guns blazing. Making MP sing was my secondary winning condition for this game. So I pulled out my best game idea right away, before either me or him died.

Why MP? Well I was wanting to do this prank since the first day I got the role, but I was feeling uneasy about pranking random people I didn't even know. But MP was already my friend, and it's a lot easier to do that with friends, and he strikes me as the type not to get angry about such pranks. Finally, this post of his sealed the deal:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Also listening to Skylarking thanks to Jay's 'singing'. :P

Just kidding, it's way better than my singing.

Anyway, it's an amazing album that I haven't listened to in WAY too long.

After that I really wanted to know what MP's singing was all about.

G-Man was picked for a similar reason. The whole image posting thing striked me as a guy who would like the joke. I'm glad I wasn't wrong.

So G-Man won this one, as per the poll result. Next:

Night 3: Make your master laugh.

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Okay, the next game is a less cruel one. It's a Funny Video Contest.

It's simple. Each of the two players sends me a video they found in the internet. Whoever makes me laugh the most, wins.

Note that, unlike the Singing Contest, it doesn't have to be recorded or made by the player. It can be any video whatsoever. Just find something you think is funny, and send me the link.

The targets are:

sanmateo

vs

Vompatti

This game was the balance between something I'd be able to see the results of (unlike the chess game), and an easier game to give town a rest before I unleashed my other ideas.

What can I say is, you two have a very... unique... sense of humor. Check it out:

thellama73 wrote:Here are your two videos to judge:

I have no idea who sent each video. I gave the win to the one about the computer cooler. It was weird, but the comments in the video were actually pretty funny. I still don't know what to think of the other... thing. I suppose it made me smile?

So that's another one you guys will have to tell me who won. Who sent me each video, Vomps and sanmateo?

Night 4: Fountain of Memes.

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:So, how about this:

Whoever does the best job at expressing their thoughts with images and videos wins. I'll decide the winner myself when the day phase is over.

If they say something with text, they are not automatically disqualified. But if their opponent can do a better job than them at expressing themselves without text, they are at a disadvantage because I may pick the opponent instead of them.

Likewise, they can do the G-Man thing of posting meme-like images full of text, but if their opponent can do that without the text, they have a better chance at winning.

In the end, it's up to the player to handle the trade-off between playing John Nash's game and playing the normal game, and finding a way to say what they want without losing the John Nash game.

I got this one from G-Man's image posting thingy. Felt perfect at the time.

I honestly thought aether would have a big advantage since she is literally an artist irl. But she didn't even show up to play. Maybe that was because she was under heavy fire at the time though, so perhaps I should have thought that one better.

Splints did a pretty good job though, and won the game automatically.

Night 5: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEPIC RAP BATTLES FROM HISTORYMAFIA SYNDICATE

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:The next game is: RAP BATTLE!

The two players will have to engage in a rap battle in the thread. It won't be video contest, instead they will have to write their raps in text form.

Each player will be allowed a single text. In this text, the player will be allowed to write a maximum of 24 lines.

The two players will send their raps to the hosts, and they will be posted in the night, along with a poll so people can vote for the winner, just like in the music contest. Likewise, anyone can vote regardless of whether they are playing the game or not.

To help with the theme, I propose them a question: "Why are you better at mafia than your opponent?"

Rhymes are not mandatory, but are recommended. Remember this is a competition.

It's a rap battle, so swearing and being rude is allowed. Expect your opponent to be rude too. But try to avoid saying things you think would insult them in real life. Common sense is advised here. Remember this is just a game.

The targets for this action are Golden and JaggedJimmyJay.

An idea I was waiting to implement for the entire game. Golden was the only victim left alive (excluding Turnip but I wasn't expecting him to survive the night, which was a good prediction), and Jay hadn't played in a long time. It was kind of tricky to make the rules for this one. I thought of doing it in multiple rounds, but then I realized it could be hard to fit it in real life time. So I made it a single-post thing. The results were better than I'd expected.

Golden won due to the poll.

Night 6: none.

I did not send any games in this night (and I have no idea whether my death would have stopped the game from happening or not). For two reasons: First, I was completely out of good ideas. At least ideas that did not leave me in the dark like the chess game (I originally had a plan of making two players play pokemon online, which would be amusing but I wouldn't get to see the battle). Second, at this point I'd already realized the incredible self-confirmation potential of John Nash. So I decided I'd lay low for a phase, then make the remaining unconfirmed players (sanmateo and Vomps again) play some public game on Day 8, and confirm myself as John Nash in lylo. The plan looked pretty good, but I died.

And that's it. This is simply put, the most awesome role I've ever had, and likely will ever have, in my mafia carreer. It gave an entire new dimension to the game. Now not only I had to hunt scum, I also had to design games.

I thank the hosts for giving me that opportunity. And for giving me overall a very good first game for me on this site. I'm looking foward to play more games here in the future.

That said, your image posting antics were one of the most memorable things about this game. Well played, man.

G-Man, sorry to say that, but you're not very good at probability.

You keep looking at the chance of a particular player being mafia after being mafia the first time, but the truth is that those events are independent. Every player has the exact same chance of being mafia, no matter how many times they were before.

Likewise, that thing you said about there being a low chance at all 6 noobs being town doesn't make sense. Pick any group of random 6 players, and you have the exact same chance of they all being town, regardless of them being noobs or not.

Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's more unlikely than the other things you should be comparing it to.

Also I sucked a lot with my role gameplay wise. I gave resources to Golden and took them from Adam Smith. Lol sorry.

(Not for making you sing and rap. That was awesome)

Oh so splints screw up wasnt actually a screw up. She had that role who votes for the ones at the side. Interesting.

I'll make a post explaining all my John Nash games in a few hours, when I get a better internet.

MovingPictures07 wrote:G-Man, I'm still floored. Your behavior was so textbook mafia, I just cannot believe this flip. You were WIFOMing all over the place and I don't understand why you did everything that you did this game. I don't apologize for pursuing my suspicion, but I was obviously mistaken.

I should have known it was too good to be true. :P

This. G-Man basically created a situation where no townie in their right mind would want to lynh anyone else, specially not on lylo (in facts this is probably why Golden pushed for the sanmateo lynch so he could have G-man on lylo). He was acting more scummy than the entire bad team combined.

I give you kudos for the gargantuan amount of commitment yiu put to your image thing, tho. Great game, it was a pleasure playing with you. G-Man.

Specially when I got to make you and MP sing.

Remember at the start of the game when I said there was a list of players I'll never trust in a mafia game again?

I'm putting Golden on that list now. Congratulations, you earned it.

I knew bwt was full of shit.I knew it! But his Bass bussing and all of Golden's subsequent play tricked me and the others.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

GOD. FUCKING. DANMIT.

Great game Golden. Best bad perfotmance I've seen in a while.

Dat bussing. One does not simply bus like you and bwt did.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:JJJ, MP, Sloonei and DDL dead = thread activity plummets.

Either that or the dead will take over the game.

Ahem.

You weren't that active in this game as the four of us.

G-Man wrote:

Spoiler: show

Sure. It's already in the list of games I wanna host.

Fair enough.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:interesting. i think the mafia would have loved to have DDL alive at LyLo considering he's been suspected by so many people all game long. so that he has been night killed has to have some strategic relevance.

DDL went harder after Golden than anyone else.

RIP DDL, thanks for playing so hard all game long.

One internet cookie for the one who can spot where the image is from.

MovingPictures07 wrote:Welcome to the land of the dead, zombie DDL. Fantastic first game on The Syndicate.

Thanks man.

This is a pretty good time to die actually. There are stuff I need to focus on IRL.

Has a blast in this game. I really wanna play more games in this site some time.

Never mind what I just said, day 7 is the one I should be able to post in. Night 7 and day 8 should be the difficult ones.

Really doubt you're gonna die tonight, G-Man, regardless of whether your Hearth Ledger memes may say. Unless you got a power role and mafia somehow figured that out.

Also speaking of real life, it should be fairly hard for me to come online often in day 7, assuming I survive the night myself. I have an exam on Monday, then this huge paper to be finished and turned in by Tuesday morning.

Day 8 though will be legen-waitforit-

Besides what point is there in making an analysis under the assumption that you're town? No analysis is needed for that, just take everything you did at face value and assume you always told the truth.

There's a reason Jay is only doing "X is mafia" for people instead of "X is town" posts. For the former you have to try to read the person's hidden intentions while the later would just require you to copypaste everything and say "what he said".

I tried to make the post neutral. Not my fault you have been looking like uberscum since day 4 or so.