Pick Your Power Mafia!

On April 29 2010 09:42 Ace wrote:
They'll continue to work. Pretty much at Night it goes like this:

Inventor invents something and gives it to Player A.

I'll check the invention and the rules to make sure it isn't gamebreaking. If it is I'll ask for it to be modified or a new invention, if not it's a go.

The invention is now in Player A's hands. If it's an invention that doesn't like require any outside help then it stays. I'm kinda debating on if I should announce what is invented at night because this role is so damn ridiculous(but fun).

Paranoid Cops = Always a guilty result.
Paranoid Docs = Sheriffs (prot+roleblock)

Jacks get Alignment Checks this game.

On April 29 2010 14:37 L wrote:

Who says I'm giving it to myself? O_o.

I'ma give it to you. Then Ima invent a lightning rod that kills the person I give it to. :3

On April 30 2010 12:35 Bill Murray wrote:
Couldn't one make the WIFOM argument as a reason to vote [1] [1]? "Everyone else won't have the balls"

On May 01 2010 14:15 [NyC]HoBbes wrote:
I bid [4] [1]

On May 01 2010 18:02 Korynne wrote:
Okay, so from my number I can deduce:

Scenario #1:
BM picked [1][1]
L is not [2][1], he probably picked [1][1] (I remember him saying that in the beginning when he was like omg I want inventor). That means him and BM are both [1]s, which means Foolishness picked [1] as well and EVERYONE ON THE LIST HAS A DUPLICATE.
That seems rather unlikely if you ask me...but so far no numbers have been out of order.

Scenario #2:
At most 3 people have unique numbers.
Since I picked [1], and I'm not first, then clearly I am not unique. Therefore everyone before me are the only people that can be unique. So there are at most 3 people who are unique. Whatever that means...

That's pretty cool, because if you are mafia it is probably a bad idea to lie about your numbers because it might end up being no one else has that number, or you end up in a spot where you can't possibly be with that number, etc etc. If there is a dispute between 2 people (one of them must be lying due to list ordering) then a simple cop check will fix up the mafia the next day.

On May 01 2010 19:21 Bill Murray wrote:
worry about what i pick, not what number i picked

On May 01 2010 19:37 Bill Murray wrote:
im as green as the grass on a lawn

On May 01 2010 19:37 Bill Murray wrote:
i don't know if i will take inventor, as I can't trust anyone (they have to give their gifts to someone)

On May 01 2010 19:26 Korynne wrote:
I don't get why this is such a big deal. =(

I'm worried about this plan Qatol. If Bill/L/Foolishness are mafia and just skip their designated thing or worse, pick someone else's then we're kinda screwed no?

Like, if Bill picks compulsive vigilante, and then his mafia buddy later along the road picks up the inventor. We don't know who it is, and L can't get compulsive vigilante so we lose the double lynch...

Bill acting funny has got me thinking and worried about this whole plan in general.

On May 01 2010 19:15 Korynne wrote:
Should I tell you guys my choice?

On May 02 2010 00:26 DarthThienAn wrote:
Radfield's numbers make NO sense to me ([10][1]). Not pointing the figure I'm just really confused about how the draft order worked. If everyone got duped, then how is [10] after [12]? We really need our top players to announce their numbers - it's possible that BM dodged a dupe and that's why he's on top. But that still doesn't explain why Radfield is behind citi.zen. Scamp's number would help as well.

On May 02 2010 00:31 sidesprang wrote:
As to guessing what numbers the mafia picked, and apply some logic behind it, i think it would problably be as hard as to get a succesfull day 1 lynch. Atleast untill we catch one of the mafias

On May 02 2010 03:04 Foolishness wrote:
Did anyone else interpret this post as "waaa I'm upset that I was outsmarted by all these people and ended up low on the draft list waaa"?

On May 02 2010 03:50 DarthThienAn wrote:
On another note, are we following Qatol's plan for the first 3?

On May 01 2010 19:27 Radfield wrote:
Seems to me that the Jack of all Trades needs to be monitored. It's just as powerful as Compulsive Vigiliante, if not more so. Since Korynne is on board, she could take that role.

On May 02 2010 04:40 Korynne wrote:
I don't know. But if any of the first two are mafia we're pretty screwed with this plan. If I was mafia I'd rather let BM or L die, and then have double kill power for the rest of the nights. BM can only hide for 1 night if he isn't the inventor. L can hide for 2 since vigi can't kill first night. Then next night we go oh shi--- mafia killed two people at night. And we can't even prove anything for sure, like if L takes Jack of all Trades, he can hide for 3 nights, or if town votes for the vigi hit to be on a townie during the night there's no reason not to just go ahead and do it.

And then if we get paranoid of his role, he might've picked meth man instead and we all go omg we gotta check him and boom, all our investigators are dead (so let's please at least coordinate the rolechecking guys).

So I'd say BM's role is pretty safe, in terms of he's outed the second day if he's not inventor.
L's is the one I'm worried about, if he is mafia then he can pick meth man or jack of all trades and then when he finally gets outed like 3rd or 4th day then they have already easily secured the double lynch.
Foolishness' role is pretty safe for town too, in terms of well if he tries to roleblock he gets killed.

Why did you choose to place the compulsive vigilante role as second, Qatol?


Also what are your thoughts on having somebody closer to the back of the draft claim copy cat? This way we know if mafia decides to steal it, and if they do we offer them up some "useless" role. I would suggest someone taking the Floridian at the end, just so we can lynch that person if copy cat is taken. Floridian being useless
This way if copy cat is not mafia, then mafia will have to kill someone less significant the first night. If copy cat was mafia, it would still be pretty hard for them to do anything since town is watching them. So if compulsive vigilante dies first night, then we just treat copy cat as him instead. So really I see no drawbacks to this idea.

Now to pick a copy cat, and to pick the Floridian. I suggest the following format:
We want them to be closer to the back of the line, since we're wasting ability to get good KP/investigative roles if we put them in the front. So I suggest picking from 16 onwards.

So I select:
18. Zona to be the Floridian.
17. Scamp to be the copy cat.

Since both these roles are heavily controlled by town (and the Floridian is pretty much "useless") it wouldn't make sense for me to give these roles to my partners if I was scum, since Floridian pretty much kills one of 4 mafia roles, and the copy cat is controlled by town like the first couple roles.

Any issues with this?

On May 02 2010 04:55 Foolishness wrote:

Let me just say, that I highly doubt you would have posted all this stuff if you had wound up 1-5 on the list. Why do you fail to incriminate yourself in your analysis of what the town should do?


And it's funny that you're number 11 on the list. According to your analysis, you are just as suspicious as anyone on that list, yet you fail to say so.

And can you remind me why you picked 10-12 to "look hard at"? It seems arbitrary and a way to deflect attention off yourself (I may have missed it in your post if you already said so). And why do you neglect BM and L in this list? As far as we know, they both picked 1,1 with me. My guess is you're trying to butter them up so they listen to your plan. We all know how sensitive BM and L are; if you incriminated them they probably wouldn't listen to you at all (and it's kinda funny how BM doesn't want to listen to you anyways).

On May 02 2010 05:08 Zona wrote:
I'm glad someone's stepping up with the first proposals for the town. Yet once again, in yet another game, I have to take issues with the blind spots in the plan, as well as the "I declare it, thus it must be so" tone and mindset.

I think it's clear to everyone that Inventor and Compulsive Vigilante are by far the most powerful and influential roles in the game, so it's no surprise when you mention them, but I find it curious you lump the roleblocker with them. The roleblocker is a very weak role for town, and while it can be useful for mafia, there are far better picks for them. The only critical situation where I see mafia really wanting the roleblocker is to counter a vocal pro-town bulletproof player, as they will have no other way to get rid of them. It's true that the roleblocker can shut down a town power role, even perhaps the compulsive vig or inventor, but don't overestimate the importance of having such roles active for the town. A compulsive town vig will likely hit a lot of town anyways, and depending on which plan the town inventor follows (night-protect vests, investigate kits, etc), it's similar to a medic, or a cop. To be honest a town inventor might get more mileage out of more wild ideas than the ones presented so far. Still, this is just a relatively minor issue I have with your plan.

More importantly is the lack of focus on town grabbing powers that are important to town success. Particularly, investigative roles (tracker, alignment cop) that are very important for town. Now you mention that these are "very important" in your post but then ask that those near the bottom try to get them? Shouldn't players in the middle or even higher up aim to snag these?

Your proposal seems focused on denying powers to mafia, which is a good thing. But that's only HALF the story, and missing the important other half: grabbing essential powers for the town. Without investigative roles on the town's side, the town's chances of winning are very low. When I was digging through statistics of played games when trying to ensure that the balance in Micro-MAFIA was as best as it could be - I found something very striking. In the absense of cops, even a 5:1 ratio of town to mafia was shown to be mafia favored. And it's striking how many games are lost for town when the cop dies early on. This showed me that investigative powers are core to a town's success. In fact, given the unknown sanity on the alignment cop - the tracker is likely the most powerful investigative role in the game. This is really why I don't like how you list roleblocker as the third thing for town to grab - when tracker and alignment cop are far more important for town members high up in the draft order to choose.

It's all good to deny the mafia strong powers - I agree this is important. But if town gets denied the investigative powers, it will be very difficult to identify the right targets to lynch, unless you are banking on scum making mistakes. But I'll reiterate - in the absense of cops, even a 5:1 ratio of town to mafia was found to be mafia favored. Town needs the investigative powers. Getting investigative powers is as important, if not moreso, than denying mafia killing powers. So focusing on the latter misses at least half of the picture.

On May 01 2010 15:19 Qatol wrote:
For those above that on the list: Try to pick something that will be useful. You can choose to pick one of the roles mentioned above. You can also choose to pick a KP role in an attempt to deny the mafia that role. Just be mindful of your place in the selection and your limitations as a player. If you don't think you will be able to use a KP role responsibly, either don't take it, or take it and don't use it (or use it at the direction of the town). Just be careful.

Finally, I really dislike how you make a declaration as if your proposal is the only one to be followed, and make statements as extreme as "we will immediately lynch you" if someone steps out of line - especially when your plan is flawed. As well, if the top draft order people actually do listen to you, then they've basically claimed their role day 1, making it a lot easier for the mafia to take steps to mitigate their power. A major part of the mafia's game plan is to identify which players have the power roles which are a threat to them - your plan does that for them. I'd rather players make their picks in secret, and only claim when necessary. This keeps the mafia guessing as to who has what power, and who is really a threat to them.

Summary and a proposed alternative:
Qatol's plan focuses mainly on denying mafia powers (the good part) and misses the boat on grabbing essential town powers, such as investigative roles (the bad part). While he does mention the "importance" of various roles to the town, the way he asks players to pick does not put any real emphasis on getting such roles. Also, he wants certain players to pick certain roles - so if his plan is followed, it's clear to the mafia who owns what powers.

Alternative, better proposal: Follow Qatol's emphasis on the compulsive vig and inventor roles, but not the roleblocker. Include the tracker and alignment cop in the "group of important roles". Do not follow Qatol's plan of person x in the draft order picks role y. Instead, if you are a town player high in the draft order, go for one of these, but don't make it obvious which one you have, so it's harder for mafia to arrange their plans on how to deal with these powers. While it's a risk that certain players in the draft order won't get their pick if not all the picks are laid out beforehand, that risk applies to mafia too. If town members DID in fact follow the plan and picked the role that they were told to, mafia can also pick roles without fear of being bumped into vanilla.

On May 02 2010 06:21 Zona wrote:

Whoa whoa whoa...I don't think there's a single part of this plan I like. Now I don't mind being a sacrifice for the town if the plan was sound - but there's a lot going against it. Let's suppose that the plan is "activated" because the person who was supposed to take copy cat wasn't able to, and thus the "lynch floridian day 1" part comes into play.

First of all, the only defense we have against mafia is our numbers - each living townie represents a bit more time we have remaining until the mafia dominates the town and wins - we shouldn't sacrifice townies so casually - ESPECIALLY BY POSSIBLY TURNING THE DAY ONE LYNCH, which is incredibly useful for information, INTO SOMETHING THAT GRANTS NO INFO AT ALL since mafia can just join with the town to lynch the Floridian.

Second of all, there's no need to fix in place multiple rolepicks as well as a definite day one lynch just to defend against the threat of mafia taking copy cat. Rather than possibly fixating on a particular person for the lynch, simply say that the day one lynch will be chosen from the latter half of the draft order - there probably won't be any strong roles among them. And if you're worried about the possibility that vanilla will be lynched day 1, our protective powers should be focused on the upper echelons of the draft order, so mafia will have to risk missing out on their kill if they really want to score one of the powerful roles for the copy cat.

Thirdly, the Floridian is the wrong choice to hand to the mafia even if this plan was a good idea. While it's not a great role in town hands since its power then depends on how good that player's judgement is, it's pretty useful for mafia. Being able to place a hammer vote anonymously is actually pretty useful, especially as the game progresses and the number of players involved diminishes.

Summary:
Even if copy cat ends up in mafia hands, the chances of the copy cat gaining a great power is low, and can be even made lower by taking appropriate precautions, without resorting to a plan that involves possibly giving up the information gained from the day one lynch, fixing in place a few rolepicks that might have picked something useful, AND sacrificing the eventual "Floridian". Plus even if the plan was a good idea (I don't think it is), the Floridian is the wrong role to sacrifice.

On May 02 2010 07:59 Korynne wrote:
What about roleblocker? I think Qatol's argument for adding that to the list makes sense.

I'll be checking back on this thread if you guys want to add a 4th role for me to take.

I guess Qatol will take Copy Cat then. Claim a vet/bulletproof later or no?

On May 02 2010 08:20 Korynne wrote:
No, I mean should we have someone in the back claim a vet/bulletproof role so we can lynch them if necessary if mafia steals copycat.

On May 02 2010 09:34 Korynne wrote:
Oh, as in lynch all the important people in the beginning of the list who picked 1? Hobbes is mafia!! =P

On a side note, despite picking evens, noone picked 2, which would've made them first pick. =P