Golden City Factory Eternal Dream ~ Mystical Maple
Original: Eternal Dream ~ Mystical Maple / 東方永夜抄 ～ Imperishable Night / Staff Roll theme
► Contents
► Scumteam Guessing
Congratulations to
Half the Sky
for being the first to name the full scum team!but you already knew the alignments of the townies you coached...Maribel and Renko would like to thank everyone who came to hang out in the Secret Sealing Club clubroom.![[image loading]](http://s27.postimg.org/buulvgvn7/49484918.png) Art credit: pixiv #49484918
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► Acknowledgements
Thanks to kitaman27, who initially granted me permission to host this game and gave pointers to get me started.
Thanks to Blazinghand, who volunteered on his own accord to serve as an advisor to the hosting team. He took the brunt of my noobhost questions and had to be summoned for advice multiple times over the course of the game.
Thanks to my excellent cohosts KelsierSC and -Celestial-, who performed capably, as well as putting up with my occasional bossing them around, my incessant rambling and game speculation in host QT, and my hosting peculiarities. -Celestial-, you did wonderful for a first-timer. Kelsier, sorry if I made you terrified of breaking spreadsheets (lol).
Thanks to Hapahauli, Onegu, Half the Sky, Stutters695, geript and Caller, who gave their time to mentor our newbies.
More on that here.
Thanks to GMarshal and Foolishness, for their behind-the-scenes work for the community that facilitates everything.
Thanks to players, I hope you had a lot of fun. Newbies, I hope you gained a lot from this experience.
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► Reflections on Hosting
This being my first game as full host, I gained a new respect for hosts this game. It may sound cheesy, but let me put it this way: we all know that hosting is doing a service to the community, and it is considered proper form to thank the hosts, coaches, etc. after a game. But for me, actually doing it for the first time was like !!!holy shit so many things!!! even though I knew what I’d signed up for, and prepared myself for it.
I’ve cohosted a few times before; some hosts I’ve worked with do all the heavy lifting themselves, others delegate to different degrees. Of course, I’ve done the usual routine tasks ― counting votes, resolving actions, filling in for the host as needed, etc. I’ve also encountered less common situations ― working with unconventional themed setups, salvaging a high modkill game for the remaining players, even recovering from host error (not mine!). I’m no expert, but I’m not a complete greenhorn either.
But compared to simply cohosting, actually running the game and trying to do it well is a whole different level of responsibility. Unlike cohosts, who can just do their delegated tasks and be happily done once the game ends, there are ... things that the host must be responsible and accountable for. =/ And in between keeping things running smoothly, doing entertaining flavor, and not trying not to inadvertently mess up somewhere (not entirely successful), I won’t deny that it was definitely a bit stressful. Perhaps it will come more naturally with experience. In any case, much respect to all the hosts who came before me, and thanks to everyone who helped with this game.
For now, I’m feeling a bit burnt out from all the effort I’ve expended here, and will most likely go back to just being a vote count bitch (the best one! =Þ) for a bit. But that’s not to say that this wasn’t an enjoyable experience ― I had fun as well running this game for your entertainment. I’ll be back to host again at some point, I’m sure. I mean, what else am I supposed to do with these other setups that I’ve been tinkering with? =Þ
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► Hosting Review
Before I begin: many people contributed to this game, but the final responsibility for any failure or shortcoming is mine.
Thank everyone, but direct any anger at me and me alone. Thanks.
If at any point during the game, I came across as curt or brusque or bossy or officious or even just a plain old stick-in-the-mud to anyone ― it’s not personal. I’m simply trying to run the game smoothly. If I declined to answer some question you sent me, sorry, it was just not permissible for me to answer. If you got flooded with reminder PMs, sorry, standard precaution. If you requested and were denied spoilers, sorry, I don’t like to spoil too much about the game while it is ongoing.
If it seemed like I poked fun at anyone in the flavor, apologies, I didn’t even intend it. The N2 fourth-wall breaking jab about players being away was in jest; I totally understand that we all have lives outside the game, and it was a holiday weekend to boot. And the Rumia gif should totally not be construed as a jab at plotspot, I swear I had already picked it out very early in the game, it was cute and funny and I knew I wanted to use it for sure.
If you got yelled at or are subject to ban list actions ― again, it’s nothing personal, but rules are important and exist for a reason. (Mod actions are discussed in its own section.)
Details about the setup and why I chose it, as well my thoughts on its balance, are discussed in dedicated sections below.
Okay, now that I’ve got all that out of the way, how many things did I manage to screw up, or could have done better this game? Let’s count the ways…
- Did you notice that Youmu’s right arm is missing in the banner image? I am dead sure that I drew it, so I must’ve accidentally erased it at some point. Such noob at art. =/
- Repeatedly typo “cohost” as “chohost” and have to go back and fix it. (When I grow up, I want to be a 超host.)
- Failed to pagesnipe with N2 nightpost, will regret this for as long as I live.
Okay, jokes aside...
- Failed to explicitly include the standard rule about no copy-and-paste from masons QT, rephrasing permitted.
- Pregame was probably set too long. Although the timing of player confirmations kind of worked out that way anyways.
- I was careless, this FAQ was readily identified as coming from Sulfurus. The first question was NAI. The second question should have been answered privately, since it revealed that the asker had experience playing mafia but was not familiar with TL conventions. Another, later question from Sulfurus about TL mafia rules was correctly handled by PM.
- Probably should have considered a 24h extension for the day phase that occurred over the long holiday weekend. (This is not without precedent, it has been done for other holidays in the past.)
- The timing of this post could have been construed as OGI.
- Should have used this opportunity to clarify tiebreak rules. The later note regarding tiebreaking here was OGI due to boxerfred’s last minute switch. I fucked up, and I am very sorry.
- Lost it when I saw plotspot’s early D3 (who didn’t?) and posted reactions in obs QT. Would have been okay if I were careful, but due to mind being blown, my reactions (e.g. “apparently he think’s he’s solved the game”), if read carefully, contained modspoilers (confirms plotspot town), which I had to go back and edit or delete. About half a dozen posts, maybe? I don’t know how many people were observant enough to catch on, but I really shouldn’t have done that.
- Flavor postponement on N3 nightpost could have been construed as OGI.
- We took way too long to handle resolve the confusion over the tiebreak rules, and the issue of plotspot posting past deadline at D4 lynch. N4 nightpost was delayed approx 20+ minutes, unacceptable.
- A couple other nightposts were slow by the standards I set for myself.
Not too terrible, all things considered. You live and learn.
If you think there’s anything that I missed, let me know! Always looking to improve.
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► Rules and Decisions
Unpleasant, but necessary. Kids, don’t try this at home ever.
Here we go.
Posting after deadline
Not modkilling plotspot was a bit contentious, so let’s talk about that a bit.
The no-posting rule was first highlighted here, D2 daypost in response to boxerfred pushing up against the deadline, but it was mentioned alongside the no-editing rule as a first gentle reminder. The issue next came up at N3 nightpost; both boxerfred and plotspot were pushing it. Despite the issue coming up a second time, I failed to take a firm stance early on and warn the players by PM, this was my fault. In hindsight, this should have been far more strongly worded as a forceful warning rather than just a reminder, and both players should have received a warning PM.
So when plotspot violated the rule on D4, we were in a situation where:
● newbie game
● plotspot’s second violation
→ boxerfred also posted past deadline twice: before D2 daypost and N3 nightpost
● previous violation was treated by a reminder, not a warning
● no warning PM had been sent to the player
There was no clear consensus among the hosts on a modkill, so I made the final determination not to modkill him. The deciding factor for me was that although we had made reminders, he had not been clearly and firmly warned previously (host’s fault) and as such, a modkill before a warning PM would be escalating up the punishment scale far too quickly for a newbie game.
Make no mistake, if this were a vet game, I would have had no reservations about modkilling people immediately.
I should also point out that moderation decisions are taken independently of player alignment and game state. In a different world where plotspot was mafia and all else being equal, the same decision would have happened. The consequences of the decision were town favored, but by no means was the decision making process influenced by that.
(In fact, I was rooting for scum on D4.)
Inactivity and failure to vote
Failing to vote without a valid reason ― especially when there is no confusion arising from having a separate voting thread ― is almost always an immediate modkill, accompanied by a ban in the ban list. This should be clear to everyone. Newbies, drill that into your head! And if there are specific activity requirements, make sure to heed those too.
Because scott had internet trouble, a legitimate reason, we did not request a ban for him.
We do, however, believe that he had plenty of time, even allowing for RL obligations, to at least do something about it. I’m not saying something unreasonable like you have to go sit in a starbucks for a couple of hours and actually catch up and play the game. Just notify the hosts to request replacement, or leave a brief excuse post in the thread would be good enough.
Accordingly, we requested a ban list warning, and scott has accepted without fuss.
PMs and other out-of-game communication
You never ever do this, period. If you are scum or masons or have some other role or ability that gives you a QT, very well. But outside of that, you have no business communicating with anyone about the game outside of the game thread. This extends not just to other players, but also to coaches, shadows, etc.
Newbies, drill that into your head!
These rules exist to protect the integrity of the game, and make sure that players don't pass information to one another in an unsanctioned manner. If you want to know more about the how and why of it all, read what I’ve said in the ban list thread.
Endgame declaration vs. mafia concession
Hosts will never ever declare a game to be over unless it is 100% confirmed to be so, as given by the win conditions for the game. ( BH <3 ) This generally only occurs when town have been endgamed and the scum team have guaranteed their win con.
If the remaining mafia think they have some kind of plan that they could attempt, for a chance to still win the game, no matter how slim, it is within their right to do so. This is playing to their win con, and is not some kind of bad manner as some would have you believe. If you are town in such a situation, it is up to you to work with the rest of town to convince mafia that their attempts are futile. In some situations, if the thread consensus is that there is nothing left to discuss, you may ask the hosts to shorten day cycles to 24 hours in order to expedite the game ― however, this is at host’s discretion, and it will never happen unless the host has confirmed that every player agrees with it by PM.
Contacting hosts and requesting them to end the game because you believe you have already solved the game will not work. Good hosts will be very careful never to confirm whether your solution is correct or wrong. The game must play out, unless scum has decided to concede on their own accord because they see no way to win.
Strategic replacement and strategic modkilling
For newbies who are unfamiliar with these concepts, “strategic replacement” means to seek to be replaced out of the game, not for valid reasons, but in an effort to affect the way that the game is playing out. “Strategic modkill” is similar, except that the player breaks a rule in a way that forces the hosts to modkill them, and in doing so, cause game-changing effects. You should never, ever attempt to do either of these. The former will always be rejected. The latter is a severe offense and will entail serious consequences in terms of ban list actions.
Since both nearly happened in this game, I thought it was opportune to use these as concrete examples to illustrate the rules for the benefit of educating the newbies.
Strategic Replacement
Here is an attempt at strategic replacement that occurred this game: sometime late on D2, sicklucker got frustrated because he felt that no one would play ball with him, and posted this in the thread: So what if im not getting lynched today ( i might be) I would just get lynched the day after with peoples terrible mindsets This was accompanied by a PM to me asking if he could be replaced out of the game if he didn’t get lynched that day phase. When asked to provide a reason for the replacement request, he complained that “no ones playing” and changed his mind about replacing. In any case, that was obviously not a valid reason. If you alienated other players and got scumread because of it, then it is up to you to try to work with them to prove that you are town. You have to sleep in the bed you made, it is not permissible to simply erase the general thread sentiment against you by having someone else replace into your role and start afresh.
Strategic Modkill
You should all be aware by now that sicklucker complained to me on D5 about the game being dragged out and requested mod intervention to end the game. When he did not get the response he had hoped for, this is what he sent me: I would love to be mod killed so the game ends in a town victory Basically, what this suggests is that if he were to intentionally break a rule in the middle of D5, I would be forced to modkill him, flipping him town, and thus cause the remaining players to switch their votes onto boxerfred because of the counterclaiming. Naturally, this triggered a stern PM warning against attempting to be modkilled. sicklucker denied that he was trying to do it... but then he went on to break the rules later anyway. If not for boxerfred already conceding the game, I would have been forced to modkill sicklucker anyway for his rule violation, which would have counted as a strategic modkill.
Now, I’m not accusing sicklucker of deliberate malicious intent in seeking strategic replacement or modkill. He may have said these things out of anger, or frustration, or maybe simply because he really didn’t want to get mislynched.
Because neither strategic replacement nor modkill actually occurred, they are not being raised as reasons in the ban list discussion. However, I bring them up here, because these are teachable points for the newbies. Learn to police yourself. You may get angry or upset or otherwise emotional when playing mafia. That is completely normal. But mind your behavior, and always follow the rules ― they exist precisely so that you don’t do something in a momentary lapse of judgement that will ruin the game for everyone else.
Failure to /confirm or /out
If you realize that you cannot play the game, by all means /out, like what LoneMeow did. No one will hold it against you. It is much better that you /out and it takes longer to fill up and start the game, than to go ahead and fail to play properly, doing a disservice to the hosts and other players.
This is not actually directed at any of the players who played this game. This is about Abenson having to be ejected before game start for failing to /confirm or /out. Because he has a history of joining mafia games after a substantial time away only to abort participation / get replaced / get banned, I took the extra precaution of contacting him for confirmation even before other players ― one day in advance. When all other players were ready and he had still not responded, I was forced to eject him and put someone else in so that we could get the game underway. This reinforces the observed pattern of frivolously joining games and then failing to show up, or not playing seriously.
This is not technically a rule violation nor does it warrant any formal ban list action; I’m just making a note here so that I don’t forget, and also for the benefit of other hosts in future who may be searching the forum to check for potential problem players in their signup list.
Abenson, if you want to contest what I have written here, feel free to get in touch.
(I haven’t heard anything from him since his post on page 2 of this thread, so I don’t think so.)
Final word
Remember, always read and follow the rules. If in doubt, ask the hosts. If you have any issue, raise it with the hosts. Trust the hosts to run the game. Do not attempt to take matters into your own hands.
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► On Coaches
We were extremely fortunate this game to attract a relatively large number of coaches (6). Even with the higher number of newbies (8), we were able to assign coaches to newbies on an almost one-to-one basis. This was amazing. Thanks very much to all coaches. I’m a shitty player so I don’t see myself coaching anyone anytime soon, but it was a privilege and pleasure to watch you all at work. Some special shoutouts:
Extra thanks to geript (scum coach) and Half the Sky (mason, vt) for doing double duty, each taking two newbies under their wing. Well, I assigned the coaches so it’s not like they volunteered for it, but thanks anyway!
Shoutout to geript for offering one-on-one coaching QTs with his two scumlets when he could have chosen to do the easy thing and just coach them all in scum QT.
Shoutout to Half the Sky for being such a badass coach. Her QTs with disformation and tictock racked up over 850 posts and 100 posts respectively. Daaaang.
Shoutout to Hapahauli who got shoved around by me to serve as a stand-in for temporary coaching absences.
Shoutout to Caller because it was great to see him again and would love to see more of him, if possible.
This may sound weird coming from me, since I never played with him or in one of his games, but I always enjoyed reading those when I trawled through old games on the forum.
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► Flavor Notes
For those of you who’ve commented on the flavor throughout the game ― thanks. I read and appreciate all your comments, but I couldn’t respond because it would be inappropriate to engage in banter that was irrelevant to the game.
I think batsnacks already kind of pointed this out, but I flavored almost everything I could get my hands on. Obviously, you’ve all seen the thread banner, the setup, player list, and the day and night posts with the storyline. There was also a bit of Obs QT flavor, and all the QTs were thematically named: + Show Spoiler [QT names] +Hosts: Biergarten “Shanghai Alice”
A reference to Team Shanghai Alice which publishes the games, and the game creator ZUN’s love of beer.
Obs: The Secret Sealing Club
Part of the “outside world”, i.e. our world, in Touhou lore, as opposed to the fantasy world “Gensoukyou”.
Scum / coaching: Fairy Mischief Central / Sunshine Blast / Silent Flower / Twinkle Sapphire
The three fairies, and their spell card abilities
3p: Capital City of Flowers in the Sky
If there had been an SK, it would have been Lily White (and not Flandre or Tewi as you might have been misled to think!)
This references her stage/theme song.
Masons: Suzunaan
The book rental shop that Motoori Kosuzu works at.
Town Coaching:
Misty Lake, Bamboo Forest of the Lost, Forest of Magic, Garden of the Sun, Nameless Hill, Youkai Mountain
Names of locations in the Touhou world.
For those who are familiar with Touhou, I hope you had a lot of fun spotting the references. There are a couple of more obscure ones, so I can’t be certain that anyone “got” all of them… but that’s why it’s fun! For those who are new to Touhou, I tried to keep the storyline straightforward and not rely too much on knowledge of Touhou lore. I also made sure to include some generic, non-Touhou tropes and gags, just for you guys. But I hope I was able to pique your interest somewhat. The Touhou series is rich in lore, with a large number of characters and storylines. Besides the shooting games (which tbh I suck at; easy modo all the way) there are also the official fighting games, and other official music, books, art and comics. There is a ton of great music, both original as well as rearranged in a wide variety of genres ― some fans of the franchise don’t even play the games, they just dig the music. And of course, there’s also lots and lots of fanart and comics, in both safe and unsafe for work categories. Something for almost everyone!
Coming back to our little storyline, I hope you all had as much fun reading as I had writing. I kept it mostly faithful to canon; although I originally had some really wild ideas for crack combinations for the scum team, I eventually settled for something more conventional. VTs were tricky, but I managed an obscure reference for two of them and shipped them for a bit of a fanon backstory there. + Show Spoiler [Speaking of shipping...] +For Kourin, I like Kourin×Keine, but then for her, I prefer Keine×Mokou, but then again I prefer Mokou×Mysty… and then Alice×Mysty is a close contender… it’s complicated...
As for how I did it, I lined up almost all of the music for the day and night posts before the game, and had drafted the prologue and D1 posts beforehand. I had a rough idea of where I wanted the story to go, and how it would end; and had in mind some of the jokes and tropes that I would be using for flips. But for the most part, I was winging it depending on which way the game went. Which was pretty rough, and felt dangerously OGI sometimes. Writing flavor that depends on game status is a terrible, terrible idea! Will probably not do again. Another issue was that by the time we got toward the end, I found myself running out of ways to “kill” vanilla townies. Probably a good thing the game ended when it did.
Likewise for the art, I had a few good ones lined up beforehand, but was scrounging stuff up on the fly for the most part. It wasn’t always easy; I had trouble finding a suitable picture for Kosuzu, you guys almost got trolled with this silliness.
In terms of music, I tried to show off a range of different artists and genres, while representing a variety of original source music from across multiple Touhou games and also matching the music to the appropriate stage of the game for each day/night post. Although obviously, the selection is biased toward my own preferences. Also, there’s actually some more music that I had shortlisted, but was forced to leave out in order to satisfy the constraints I mentioned above. I’ll be dumping those in an “omake” (bonus content) post later on, if anyone cares.
If any of the music or art strikes your fancy, let me know, I could try to recommend others that you might like too.
+ Show Spoiler [@batsnacks] + If you liked the loading screen picture, well, I stole that from kara'agetarou. If you don’t already know of him, look him up. I heartily recommend reading his comics, they’re work safe for the most part and incredibly adorable and tend to leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling at the end, great stories.
Having said all that, I’m not sure I’ll ever try to do such expansive flavor again. I love my Touhou, but boy was that a lot of work!
Finally, thanks and apologies to artists and musicians for stealing and reappropriating their work for flavor.
Thanks to Kannushi for the wonderful world of Touhou.
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► Setup - Choice and Rationale
I talk about my setup choices and rationale here. Balance impacts of these choices are discussed in the next section.
To start this off, I want to reassure everyone that I’m not some callous irresponsible nutjob who just randomly threw a bunch of roles together for this game. I think you’d be remiss to think that after I put so much effort into the whole thing. Yes, I love creating puzzles and challenges and I do have some interesting mafia setup ideas up my sleeve ― which will of course have to pass muster with the balance committee before I can run them. But I am well aware that a newbie game is not an appropriate venue for any sort of funky stuff, and certainly, kitaman and Blazinghand would never have allowed me to proceed with running the game if I were up to any sort of funny business.
Having said that… those of you who looked at the hosting spreadsheet would have already seen the setup indicated there: concealed C9++ with reduced roleset. Indeed, even while the game was underway, the C9++ setup was also mentioned in some coaching QTs, and toward the end of the game, it was also brought up in the game thread.
[At this point, if you are not familiar with C9++, you might want to stop here and go skim through it before continuing…]
Okay, so. It’s not exactly C9++. What was different?
Reduced roleset
As should be obvious from the game OP, I reduced the set of possible roles, removing the 1-shot cop, 1-shot doctor, 1-shot roleblocker, and the (multi-shot) vigilante. This means that any configuration containing those roles would be considered invalid, thus reducing the space of possible role configurations. When randomizing the roles for this game, I would have to discard the entire role list and re-roll from scratch whenever I obtained an invalid configuration. (And yes, I had to re-roll several times.)
Concealed
This means that I concealed from you the fact that the game was actually rolled using a modified C9++ system, and instead presented it as a generic semi-open.
Why did I choose to do this? Let me walk you through the rationale behind the decisions I made.
First of all, why C9++?
1) It is a standard setup, and was among one of the standard setups (e.g. F11, 2of4, etc.) that was suggested as permissible by kita when I had first volunteered to him to host up this game. Using or adapting a well-understood, standard setup rather than making one of my own should mean minimal issues…(yet somehow… XÞ)
2) I have previously cohosted a game that used C9++.
3) The role distribution is randomized. Even I didn’t know what the exact distribution would be when I posted the game up; I did not roll the setup until the game was full. This was a paranoid precaution to prevent accidental leaking of the role distribution.
4) I wanted to change things up a bit and inject some variety into this game. The same 2-coinflip (A/B/C/D) setup had been run for several editions of NSMs before this. Yes, I understand that the simple setup is deliberate, providing an environment where newbies can focus on learning the fundamentals. However, with the timing of this game, I anticipated to have several returning newbies, especially those who have played or watched the last two or three student games. + Show Spoiler +This was borne out, with disformation, tictock, plotspot and scott. Barakos had also played before, less recently. I believe Sulfurus has played elsewhere, just not on TL. To my knowledge, only boxerfred and Rels were completely new.
I think the game managed to achieve this goal. Maybe a bit too effectively. It really exposed newbies to a larger semi-open setup with a multitude of possibilities, compared to only 4 in the familiar 2-coinflip setup.
Even before the game, I recall at least a couple of players wondering what exciting setup might be in store with the list of new and exciting roles that they had never encountered before. Early in the game there was discussion about things like whether it was even correct to assume 3 mafia. Some players made the mistake of assuming a gf+rb+goon scum team from the onset, because that’s how it always is in the 2-coinflip format. Some newbies were genuinely confounded by the standard semi-open wording, and wondered if it meant that incredibly ridiculous ratios of red/green/blue roles could occur. This is all good; through this exercise, newbies were able to get a better sense for “normal” beyond the one familiar setup.
We also got newbies talking to their coaches about how roles work, discussing and learning how to handle the semi-open setup, and how to evaluate claims. Even the somewhat wonky game balance may have had a positive effect: in the face of all the role claims, it reaffirmed the importance of fundamentals, things like filter diving, player behavior, intent, and read progression.
If players found this game to be challenging and interesting, then I believe we already have at least a qualified success.
(FWIW, my first game played here on TL was an unspecified semi-open that looked a lot like this in its wording, although the set of possible roles was slightly different. Fun times. I miss my newbie cohort friends… )
Why the reduced set of roles?
C9++ is great for the large range of possible role distributions, but I felt that it might be way too complex to have both 1-shot and multishot variants of each role. I wanted to show off some new and unfamiliar roles to the newbies, but I didn’t want to completely overwhelm them. Therefore, I removed the 1-shot versions for cop, doctor, and roleblocker. For the vigilante, I kept the 1-shot version and discarded the multishot, because I felt that having excessive KP could cause problems. Well, this is true in general for all games, but in a newbie game it’d be especially dangerous if so much KP ended up in the hands of someone who didn’t know how to use it properly.
A secondary reason was to facilitate flavor. I think it would have been trickier to find appropriate Touhou characters to fit all the 1-shot/multishot variants with reasonable accompanying flavor text. Even if Touhou has lots of characters, I was constrained by the fact that I set the story in Keine’s school.
Why the setup concealment?
I presented the setup as a generic normal semi-open rather than disclosing the fact that I used a modified subset of C9++, because I recalled that the last time I cohosted a full C9++ game (an all-newbie game, not a mixed student-format game), the random-open nature of the setup caused excessive amounts of unproductive setup speculation. Players wasted a lot of time discussing all the possible combinations and obsessed over the probabilities with which certain role distributions might occur. It did not help that the actual role distribution was one of the lower probability ones. I wanted to avoid that. Also, disclosing the reduced role set would further complicate things if newbies went the route of number crunching the probabilities.
I think we did okay in this respect this game; the setup speculation was mostly caused by possible balance issues and was much more contained in nature. But then again, as we’ll soon see, the flipside of this is that it could have contributed to the balance issues...
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► Setup - Balance
Reminder: kitaman27 and Blazinghand advised on setup, but the responsibility for any error is mine.
A healthy discussion between all is welcomed, but send your hate to me only. Thanks.
Alright then, time to address the big elephant in the room.
What went wrong?
It’s not like I didn’t care about balance and just made up some arbitrary setup; C9++ is a well-established, standard setup. Alright, so I did modify it by removing some roles, but even with a subset of possible configurations is removed, the self-balancing aspect should be preserved, because regardless of what role distribution you get, it is supposed to work by adjusting scum/3p power commensurate with the town power roles present. I didn’t take this for granted, either; I checked with kita regarding this, and he agreed with my reasoning. Likewise, when BH offered to advise us, I ran the setup by him as well. Furthermore, he was informed of the exact role distribution before the game began, and approved it.
Remarkably, when I asked BH to take a second look at the fine details about role mechanics again following the huge furor over all the claims coming out on D3, he asserted that the setup looked fine, if perhaps just a bit borderline. Maybe he was just trying not to make me feel bad or something. XÞ Not to put him on the spot or anything like that, but it’d be interesting to hear more about his thoughts on this.
It's not the first time I've seen C9++ throw people for a loop with an uncommon role distribution, but clearly something else is going on here. Many people ― experienced players, coaches, and hosts ― have expressed that the setup is town-favored. How did the balance turn out like that?
A reminder of the roll:
BCCMMTT
1× Town RB
1× Town Cop
2× Town Mason
6× Town Vanilla
1× Mafia Vanilla
1× Mafia RB
1× Mafia GF
I’ve examined a number of factors that might have contributed to balance issues of any kind. Not all of these are necessarily relevant, but let’s go through and evaluate, and have a healthy discussion about them.
1) The mafia roleblocker got lynched D1
This doesn’t explain everything by a long shot, but it was definitely a huge blow for mafia. Additionally, it plays a major aggravating factor when combined with other reasons that will be discussed below, because many of them involve roleblockers.
2) Roleblocked targets were notified in this game
This has been raised by multiple people as a possible issue; I think it was batsnacks that first mentioned it here while the game was still ongoing, and then also geript in his assessment here.
I used notifications this game because that’s how I remembered cohosting it the last time, but on closer inspection, I might be wrong on this one. The C9++ specification does not explicitly specify if RB targets are notified, but a careful reading would reveal that the cop check results are supposed to be town / antitown / noresult. This should suggest that there are no RB notifications except in the case of blocked cop.
Crucially, having block notifications is what facilitates claiming, because roleblocked targets can corroborate the roleblocker’s claimed actions. Technically, claims are generally NAI and need to be evaluated, not taken at face value. In almost all situations, the target’s willingness to confirm that they received a notification is NAI on the target. Likewise, the target receiving a block notification is NAI on the roleblocker claimant, who could be either town or scum roleblocker. Claims don’t confirm anything. However, the fact that there was a flipped mafia roleblocker in this game had a big impact on how roleblocker and roleblocked claims were evaluated. Also, town generally has a greater incentive to claim honestly than scum in a newbie game. (Let’s not go into regular vet games with all sorts of fakeclaims here.)
With the way things played out, I would agree that this was slightly town favored, and aggravated by the mafia RB flip.
3) This game used blockable, delivered KP
Again, this is how I remembered it from cohosting it the last time, so I rolled with it. Additionally, the mafia role description involves “you or one of your teammates” which suggested to me that the kill needs to be delivered. An unblockable factional kill would not require that the killer be specified, would it?
Furthermore, with C9++, we are looking at a setup with a potential town roleblocker, as did occur in this game. If the town roleblocker does not have the ability to block mafia or 3p night kills, then I would consider the role as incredibly powerless ― it doesn’t impact the godfather’s passive investigation immunity, so all it would be able to do is to interfere with a mafia roleblocker’s ability to block other blue roles. Let’s not forget that purely by the numbers, it’d be more likely for the town roleblocker to end up blocking other blues. Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me, which is why I have a personal preference for delivered KP when roleblocker is in play.
In any case, the impact of having blockable, delivered kills rather than factional kills lies in the power that it has in the very very late game. Only when the game is down to the last scum, it has the ability to confirming a target as town if a kill occurred that night. Only in the absence of other plausible explanations for the lack of a night kill does it confirm a target as scum. These hold true regardless of whether we play with or without block notifications. Now:- Both of these could be countered by having a mafia roleblocker, but ours rolled over and died, so that is a huge factor in making this game feel more lopsided.
- The possibility of a vigilante in C9++ could contribute KP and confound the town-confirming utility. Because we ran with only a potential 1-shot vigilante, there might be just a very small skew here in our game.
- The possibility of a doctor in C9++ could confound the scum-confirming utility due to a successful protect.
All in all, I’m not convinced this played a huge role in the balance issues in this game.
4) Mafia roleblocker can block and kill in the same night
Interestingly enough, here is a possible mafia favored mistake. The C9++ spec actually calls for the mafia roleblocker to only be able to either block or kill each night, not both. Of course, this particular mechanic really only comes into play in the later game, if the mafia roleblocker is last scum standing, or has to be tasked to carry the kill because their partner looks likely to be blocked by a town roleblocker. In any event, we lost the mafia roleblocker early, so this didn’t become a factor.
5) Using a reduced set of roles
C9++ has a full set of weaker versions of each blue role: 1-shot cop, 1-shot doctor, and 1-shot roleblocker. This means that there are many possible role distributions that contain one of these weaker blue roles. Because C9++ is a randomized setup, there is inherently some variation in game balance depending on the roll. By eliminating the possibility of most of the 1-shot blues in this game, it is quite possible that we were left with the role distributions that tend to be more swingy than usual.
6) Concealing the setup as a generic semi-open
In hindsight, perhaps concealing the setup may not have been such a great idea. If the players had known that we were running based in C9++, they would have had a better basis upon which to evaluate role claims (“BCCMMTT=plausible”) rather than having no information at all (“ermergerd why so many blues?!”)... even when the players themselves discovered the possibility of C9++ toward the end of the game, I was forced to maintain consistency with the OP, and could not confirm or deny the potential setups when players asked questions about it.
Alright, so as I have been given to understand, mechanics such as (2), (3), (4) are generally not a huge deal as long as they are consistent throughout the game, and applied equally to both town and mafia versions of a role, as applicable. And of course, no sudden changing of rules mid-game. Discuss.
Also up for discussion: if BCCMMTT is unbalanced, are there other configurations of C9++ that look horribly unbalanced as well? Mafia meta, level of play, and balance varies from forum to forum and changes over time. Could it be possible that C9++ is no longer an appropriate setup to run TL anymore?
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► On Players
I suck as a player so I’m not going to give any solid advice here ― I’m really not qualified to do it. But I have assorted thoughts on what I saw this game that I want to share, and I also wanted to give shoutouts to most of you individually.
boxerfred you have got to be one of the boldest, ballsiest newbie scum I’ve seen. Sure, you made a few usual newbie scum mistakes, but you also played incredibly fearlessly. That was just enough to keep a lot of players fooled for a long time. Well done, huge pat on the back. bunnies, that was rough luck to have rolled godfather in both games. Simultaneous games in every sense to boot: same start date, same deadline. I know the holiday weekend didn’t help. We shan’t talk too much about the other game here since it’s not quite over yet, but damn, you showed some sick Houdini-level escaping, avoiding the lynch twice in a row… and it could have almost been a third time, too! I was totally rooting for scum on D4, I feel that with just a little more coordination and a couple less misplays you could have given the noose the slip and got to D5 on 3v2. Which would have been tricky still, but winnable. Both of you are winners in my heart.
plotspot sorry for jumping to conclusions too quickly and scolding you on D1. Also, I like you were accounting for Tictock with your N4 choice, but maybe you should have asked before making things up about randomizing your target. XÞ btw, you didn’t have to “force” mafia to kill you, bf already lined you up for the kill two hours beforehand.
Breshke and Tictock very nice mason play, I’m glad you really enjoyed the role. I think it really demonstrates how big of a difference it makes just having someone else to talk to as town, compared to having to play in isolation as it usually is.
Barakos you were solid with your reasoning process, especially in the late game, D4+5. An important voice of reason who played the game in a way that other people were willing to listen to you, like when trying to disengage Tictock from plotspot.
batsnacks curse you for posting Satori theme when I already queued it up for N4 beforehand. Grrr. Disappointed by the lack of flavor-based role crumb. Glad you enjoyed the Touhou goodness.
disformation I hope the broom was delicious! One day you will grow up to become a 3rd party planar dragon. Hopefully. It was really fun watching your QT, I think you were very receptive and really made the most out of your coaching.
Rels it’s a shame you died so quickly because you were doing pretty good; I hope we kept things interesting enough for you in obs. Also now that you can see what scum were doing in their QT, do you see what I was saying about your death?
Sulfurus you were spot on about bunnies, I really liked this particular post from you, excellent catches. Too bad about getting bat trapped D3. Sorry it’s just not my thing to spoil the scum team.
scott, no hard feelings, and thanks for not making things …complicated. And for anyone who speculated that he had gotten tired of rolling scum, I certainly did not witness any of that.
BM I hope you are recovering well.
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