The Syndicate

I am gonna leave this here; it is about criminal justice, but it really does apply to Mafia. And I think it is an issue I see here on occasion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-sham ... 58044.html

No guts, no glory, amirite??

I think taking options off the table limits people. I ave seen baddies force people to self vote. Fun times. Each host to his or her own

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

rabbit8 wrote:Because civs don't sacrifice themselves for the team. Let's change that...

What do you think I've been doing this whole time?

Then again, there's been a recent increase in banning of self-voting.

I will never ban that or self targeting either. Both have a strategic place. I don;t like either, but who am I to impose my standards on my players?

Yeah, we're a work in progress; that is what I like most about us. We are always open to new ideas, and if they work for us, we embrace them happily. So sometimes balance is hard when you are in a constant state of growth. But it is something we are constantly striving to achieve.

He just likes killing people; MP the Killer Accountant.

Yeah, that one game, 9 with one modkill. All of them civvies

I lol'ed

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Here's another addition to role-use: silencer, post-restriction, and/or insanifier roles or mechanics.

As a civilian, it is extremely disheartening to be told you can't post for 48 hours. When a civilian gets such a role, they should be careful how they use it. For example, these two roles were in Downton, and LoRab and Dom used them effectively. They targeted players that they suspected, but sometimes didn't use their abilities if they weren't feeling strongly about their suspicions.

On the other hand, in Turf Wars, I was post-restricted for two consecutive days before being nightkilled thereafter. I did enjoy that game otherwise, but that is my one complaint about that one.

I HATE silencing. HATE IT. Noting ruins games for civs like being silenced. I don't know why any host would want a mechanic that reduces posting, interest and keeps people from voting. I won't have it in my games, and won't allow it to be used as a curse for curser roles. I so strongly prefer curses & insanities.

The best use of silencing for a civ is to protect people, although recently the taboo against lynching the silenced has worn off becasue a few baddies have self silenced. In a game at RM I silenced DP several times cause I knew he was civ, and the baddies kept making moves towards him re "let's lynch low posters". But yeah, I especially don't understand silencing as a civvie power.

And another thing~ we seem to have taken fear of each other to such an extreme that any show of trust in someone is treated with paranoia & suspicion as "buddying" or "pocketing" or whatever jargon, so sometimes I think people are afraid to make in thread civ alliances due to fear of being accused of that. I know I have been. So, again, if a notable loudmouth like me has been silenced by fear of appearing to be buddying when I am a civ, I would imagine that the quieter, more tentative civs might be as well.

Some of these thoughts come from my experience watching the civs cannibalize each other with almost no help from the baddies in GoC, but also from my own experiences as a civ.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Golden wrote:

S~V~S wrote:I think case building is better play than info dumping, and as Epi says, better sportsmanship. Baddies are not vermin to be caught; they are respected adversaries to be outwitted.

This brings a couple of notable spars with SVS to mind. RM Mafia. A World Reborn. Good times.

I haven't sparred with SVS in a while. We had some heated ones a ways back.

I have been trying to tame my sparring ways; it leads me to get over zealous & tell people to fuck off. Which is pretty inappropriate on my part, lol.

I have to agree, Quin. Plus they get wrapped up in their own suspicions, and don't listen to the rest of the town. Some people are so self assured as civvies, they can mislead whole threads unintentionally. And very strong leaders also tend to make the other civvies, who may disagree with them, reluctant to speak their own suspicions. I tend to be a pretty vocal player, and I have had that happen to me. When someone else, who I trust, has had such strong opinions, contrary to mine, that I did not push my point for fear of looking/feeling foolish.

In a recent game, I felt foolish after having been very wrong about someone, so when the leading civs disagreed with my suspicion of someone, I did not push it for fear of being wrong again, or of getting the leading players eye on ME, or of being made to feel foolish. And I was correct. And if I, a notable loudmouth, felt that way, I wonder how this affects the players who are quieter to begin with. I know it can make me lose interest in a game, so again, those quieter people may feel this way even more so.

This is why I used to be so adamantly against thread steering, but that seems to be our norm, and I think that is also an issue.

But overall, I think our ratio is starting to even out.

Two teams has more balance though, than one big one, since the mafia is also partially in the dark. they have to baddie hunt, too. I strongly prefer two teams for that reason. It was the most common format on our feeder sites,and it was 50/50 there pretty much on civ/bad win ratios.

We have had a lot of experimentation here, and that can lead to imbalance as well. we also have very strong players; in GoC, everyone was overpowered. And the civvies lost not becasue of that or any imbalance; they lost becasue they all dug stubborn-tunnels. Plus we have an outstandingly strong group of FEB players here. One thing I noticed when we started meeting people from more communities after last years Championship Tourney was that most of them, not all, but most, strongly prefer to be a civ. Us , not so much.

So I think as we grow and meet new people with new ways and adopt from them (as we are VERY adept at) we will balance out more. We are in a period of growth, and growth brings growing pains.

My roots are different than yours.

In any case, we did not allow it where I started, and the wins were balanced, so it is probably a combination of factors.

Silverwolf wrote:I've been caught out by a guilty as scum when I was playing an excellent scum game and went down. The problem with not being able to claim is the cop could be lynched with several clears and no one would know. The reason for claiming is exactly this. It gives an advantage to town in a situation where they are losing more than winning. I do agree that scumhunting should prevail but one of the things that gives town an advantage in any game, is the ability to use a role and part of that ability is to be able to crumb your role, claim at L-1 and then town can decide if they believe it or not or scum can cc to try to get the lynch through. There are lots of ways to play this but this is a very fun, and very mafia like way to play. Plus, scum is the main term I know and doesn't matter to me if I call them baddies or not.

That's just it; it gives the town an advantage, an unfair advantage. This is just MY opinion, of course.

I think case building is better play than info dumping, and as Epi says, better sportsmanship. Baddies are not vermin to be caught; they are respected adversaries to be outwitted.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I think it's largely a philosophical discussion. I would assert that if someone gets ID'd as a baddie by an alignment checker, then they couldn't have played a flawless game by default. I understand the other side though, and I do think that some vanilla+ games have the tendency to turn into mechanical boredom and lose some of the sleuthing that makes Mafia fun.

I used to get policy LD'ed alot because people people worry about my baddie game. The two times I was a lie detector, I detected people I knew were good at fooling me. It had nothing to do with their current game.

But agreed, it is a philosophical discussion. I think allowing info dumps means valuing the civvies above the baddies. I think it makes for better gameplay as a civ trying to figure it out without someone handing it to you. But that's me, and I am probably one of the strongest opponents of info dumping here. Same for role hints. If you have to make a role hint to keep from getting lynched, you are playing a crap game. But again, this is me

Well, perhaps some of us feel such is NOT the game. I have played with people who really actually seemed to think the baddies were actually bad, like they got RL mad and such. That's why I like that we use a silly name, baddies, rather than "scum". It's harder to get mad about being manipulated by "baddies", lol. But in any case I plan on beefing up civs more in upcoming games to counteract it a bit.

And yeah, back in the day, when my home forums first started with Lie Detectors and such, the first few games everyone was forced to make an LD statement right up front, and that sucked, so for a while they qualified it, like "No forced Statements", no "I am a civvie" etc., then Lie Detectors went out of fashion before I even started playing about 7 or 8 years ago. I saw my first LD at a different forum a few years later. Forcing people to claim or do anything is un-civvie, IMO. I am glad it isn't really done anymore.

I think our culture is some of it. It tends to be viewed as inherently unfair for a baddie who has played a flawless game to get outed because someone got a PM

We had this culture at our core communities, and the win ratio was pretty even, so I don't think that is all of it, though.