Mafia 106: Buy Your Own Powers

[Kryllian]

Thanks for the game Danner (and Raza)! Your creativity in game design continues to impress me!

[Dendrek]

@Danner That is NOT a drinks table. We demand justice. We demand imbibements. We demand drinks after that game. I'm going to make a bot that auto-murders you every game.

[Danner]

@Danner That is NOT a drinks table. We demand justice. We demand imbibements. We demand drinks after that game. I'm going to make a bot that auto-murders you every game.

I never promised any drinks, and you know it. I promised a table.

[Dendrek]

I never promised any drinks, and you know it. I promised a table.

Fine. I'm going to point out another dozen mod errors. This means war.

[Reticence]

Though I will say I was annoyed with you when you made me have to go and make a who I didn't kill post. I almost had to lie to you there.

I mean... you claimed an SK when my only available strategy was to bribe the SK into loyalty, and you didn't expect me to ask who you killed? Come on, now, Largehorn.

Ret played pretty well considering his availability. Ret, you HAD Largehorn. You had him. But you let him go. Your thief ability proved his guilt. Your ability to analyze that (honestly, you're one of the few people who would even bother to, and I absolutely expected you to continue to push that line of thinking) made you a real threat. I'm surprised you let it go.

But yeah, if Ret ran the numbers a little further (or anyone) I'd of been screwed.

Ugh. I know.

Part of it was a lot of my scum reads kept flipping town, so it made me doubt my other reads. Mostly it was just availability, though. We're pushing an app out into soft-launch at work and I couldn't keep more than the current day in my head this game.

That said... because I had your vote, we weren't lynching a mafia. The 3 of us just had to pile on one person before we reached 4 ourselves.

Yeah. I should have sat on my vote, honestly, but I'm not sure it would have turned out any different.

Also,

To be honest I kind of want Ret to win depending on how he plays this day out, I admire the absolutely massive balls on him to bid on the vacation lot and try to argue his way out of it, also I do feel he's actually played pretty well, I was actually pretty worried about him day 3 that if he got real dedicated to his reads he would figure our entire team out.

I lol'd. <3

[Danner]

Fine. I'm going to point out another dozen mod errors. This means war.

Dead thread locked. Reports posted outside of dead thread not accepted.

Your move.

[Lysah]

I'm not big on reading people based on the content of their posts, too up to interpretation on their intent and could change depending on their mood or how their real life is going that day, etc.

I assumed Virothe was town right up until the point where he opened up at the start of end game with an immediate vote. Even still, it was hard for me to convince myself he was scum because he played well enough. I was almost sad to suggest we kill him but he was too much of a threat as either town or SK at that point, and I figured he was still loaded with cash after winning a few more estates. I didn't think estates would be such a jackpot but a lot of players held on to $1000-2000 it seems.

Is this 3 wins a row for Dendrek now? RIP day 1 lynch target in the next 10 games straight.

[Dendrek]

When Virothe said he had a town read on you @Lysah, and that he Mimed from you to Crackle, I knew he was the SK.

[Lysah]

I'm glad I didn't die at least, so many people claimed to have a scum read on me and I really feel like it's a case where if you call people scum enough eventually you will be right

I don't think there was any reason for anyone to think I was scum until day 5, and honestly Virothe and Deca voting so eagerly was scummier than my weak attempt at explaining my night kill. If we would have lost the game because I performed 1 of our kills out of 5, that would be have been real depressing. I still had my fake cop claim play left that I never got around to.

Also I agree with Krayzy from the dead thread, whoever killed him made a big goof imo, it wasn't us and I don't see what the SKs had to gain from it. Would have been another easy lynch probably. The logic for lynching him in the first place was definitely weak but everyone was convinced for whatever reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Game ended up....weirdly balanced. I never would have guessed if I just looked at the makeup but it's crazy how fast town kills itself without power roles to lead it around. Town really should never give up though, you guys have no idea how close you were to winning. A lynch on me would have removed our BPV member, and Jynx could have hit whoever bought the bomb the same night and suddenly the mafia are gone.

I eagerly await long mod post of thoughts!

[Dendrek]

I was impressed that you owned up to his claim that you had a kill. I personally would have told him he was full of it. Because, very obviously, he was being manipulative. It looked like he was trying to frame you; and in fact he was. But when you corroborated his claim, there was no way to counter it at that point.

[Graeham]

Thanks for the game, Danner and Razamith!

[Lysah]

I was impressed that you owned up to his claim that you had a kill. I personally would have told him he was full of it. Because, very obviously, he was being manipulative. It looked like he was trying to frame you; and in fact he was. But when you corroborated his claim, there was no way to counter it at that point.

I really didn't think having a kill meant anything in this game. I would never assume someone is scum after Satsu took poisoner and we knew 99% chance crackle took arsonist. So far all the kill lots got bought by town...but suddenly it's unbelievable I got one too?

The only reason to disbelieve me would be if you didn't buy the mystery box granting a kill...but it was unlikely anyone was going to counter claim me with 7 dead people who could've bought it.

[Dendrek]

Lysah makes a good point. Just about everyone should know this now, but there were 5 mafia and 2 SKs in a game of 26 players. 7 scum in 26 is SIGNIFICANTLY less than 1/3 of the players. Mafia had a significant advantage if it chose to use it (to gather money), but for the most part it didn't. Regardless, the variability of power roles made this very small scum setup actually somewhat balanced. The N5 madness was, more or less, a fluke. Town could have won this all the way up to this last day.

[Lysah]

@SatsuBL from the dead thread

Interestingly nobody pushed for a cop claim, and I'm glad. I bought it even though I had whimsical and could only use it once, and that could have broken me since I would never believe a town player would buy the best cop role with such a big drawback. Ironically I used it on Dupti the night he got NKed so it went 100% to waste. Money well spent! I thought about fake claiming several times, especially during the cruelle/kel nonsense, but I didn't want anyone to push me too hard for my other 2 investigations and get caught in a lie.

[Reticence]

Town really should never give up though

This.

A lynch on me would have removed our BPV member, and Jynx could have hit whoever bought the bomb the same night and suddenly the mafia are gone.

Yeah. I had the bomb. And the busdriver. Mostly to sit on them and keep them out of the hands of other townies, though scum as well in the case of the busdriver.

If the last day had been 2v2v1, I was hoping to figure out the townie, buy the SK's loyalty and lynch one mafioso. Then I had a pretty good chance of killing the other one by swapping them and the townie and blowing myself up, so that they died no matter who they targeted. Barring BPVs and protects, anyway, but we were kind of in dire straits either way so it was the best I could hope for.

[Dendrek]

I really didn't think having a kill meant anything in this game. I would never assume someone is scum after Satsu took poisoner and we knew 99% chance crackle took arsonist. So far all the kill lots got bought by town...but suddenly it's unbelievable I got one too?

The only reason to disbelieve me would be if you didn't buy the mystery box granting a kill...but it was unlikely anyone was going to counter claim me with 7 dead people who could've bought it.

Had I been alive and not on your team, I would have poked some holes in that theory. Either you or Virothe should have been lynched. The fact that Deca got lynched was more or less a fluke compelled by the fact 5 of the people alive were just happy the lynch wasn't on them.

[Lysah]

Ironically Crissi taking vacation might have won mafia the game....Ret would have been here to argue with me and I think he + virothe + deca would have pressured everyone else into voting on me. And on the other side of the coin, when I finally got active in the game I ended up defending the one person I should have just let get lynched

Had I been alive and not on your team, I would have poked some holes in that theory. Either you or Virothe should have been lynched. The fact that Deca got lynched was more or less a fluke compelled by the fact 5 of the people alive were just happy the lynch wasn't on them.

Yeah pretty much. I think me and Large could have put together a lynch on Virothe but it would have required us to go all in and that was pretty scary at that point still...we couldn't be 100% sure he was SK and if he was town and the SKs knew for sure who we were we could easily lose still, plus the bomb was out there. We had 4 votes out of 5 needed with Ret's vacation vote going to Large, we could have end-gamed a lynch on anyone we wanted if we had to xd

$2500 from the listo lot alone...good lord.

[Dendrek]

Crissi not taking Vacation definitely made it much easier for the mafia to win. It framed Ret and gave scum an extra vote. Even ignoring the extra vote, the framing of Ret made it that much easier for scum to hide.

- - - Updated - - -

$2500 from the listo lot alone...good lord.

Had I been a tree stump, or just simply not died N1, we would have been swimming in money. I was practically pulling out my hair watching you guys slowly drain your funds, while ignoring strategies to increase them. You guys didn't even go for my lot (your bid of like $16 doesn't count :P) and I was worth at least $800 at the time.

[Lysah]

Crissi not taking Vacation definitely made it much easier for the mafia to win. It framed Ret and gave scum an extra vote. Even ignoring the extra vote, the framing of Ret made it that much easier for scum to hide.

That extra vote really made the day. We could have all piled on with kel once he voted Deca, even if it made us look awful, but we didn't even have to. And, luckily, the mod mistake didn't end up changing the outcome of the game. I've made worse mistakes as game mod.

And I think my entire strategy this game was to just play it safe....we thought we were behind another team of 5 mafia the entire game, remember, we only were able to really toss that theory out on day 4 or 5. Our money was spent only on the powers I think we all felt we couldn't pass up and otherwise not risked on anything else.

Also I wasn't lying about town winning games as minority before. Several games I have been in or watched from the dead/banned thread the game was like 2 town v 2 scum v 1 SK and town ended up winning, exactly in the method I described this last "day" - town and SK uniting to lynch mafia and then scum have to go for each other at night. As long as even 1 town is alive town can still win.

[Razamith]

Thanks for playing everyone. Glad we got a good turnout. Sorry those that died earlyish -- I hope the dead thread entertained at least!

For clarity here's a few pieces of info about game actions and design, some of which is known by dead thread.

Trait Breakdown:

Spoiler: 

Trait analysis:
Trait (Count)
*Diplomat (1)
*Ninja (2)
*Strongman (0)
*Lucky (3)
*Investor (0)
*Fortune (1)
*Impersonator (0)
*Saboteur (0)

*Thief (8)
*Salaryman (11)
*Socialite (3)
*Lone Wolf (6)
*Bully (4)
*Bounty Hunter (1)
*Strong Soul (2)
*Politician (0)
*Supporting Actor (3)
*Fortune Teller (1)
*Swapper (9)

*Macho (3)
*Whimsical (2)
*Clumsy (2)
*Meticulous (8)
*Fake Will (8)
*Survivor (2)
*Tired (2)
*Miller (4)
*Messy (8)
*Paranoid (1)
*Wasteful (2)

Swapper analysis:

Spoiler: 

Analysis of swapper effectiveness (and reference to swappers)
Swappers D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Dendrek 167 0 0 0 0
JynxieJ 209 158 1201 103 1
Kryllian 196 63 680 284 0
Listo95 166 684 1141 0 0
Marack 48 387 0 0 0
Reticence 65 544 240 896 2207
Robozerim 417 0 0 0 0
Virothe 299 194 350 1766 407
(Average) 196 338 722 762 872

We were worried about swapper OP but it kinda worked itself out with just a few outliers overall. Still should have limited it to 3 lots or something. Ce la vie.

Game Balance:

Spoiler: 

5-man mafia: we felt like the larger the mafia the more likely they could win multiple lots easier and bid creatively for gains (with transfers) and have access to those powers longer term (even if one died they knew how much to bid on their estate and whats in it / its worth). We were afraid of multiple mafias because of this. Mafia was intended to win 1 near-guaranteed lot OF CHOICE (getting to pick their powers essentially) and possibly another lot or recovery estate any given night. We wanted the mafia not to be too small that variance/luck could mean they dont win anything and be picked apart, so 3-man was written off pretty quickly as game size grew. I'm happy with the 5-man size.

2 1-man SKs: we debated 2-man SK pair, but we couldn't give SKs additional abilities like free BPV or mechanics due to signup rules promise, so that would essentially just be a weak mafia group. Also as the player count grew we needed a third kill -- our options were two mafias and a sk, or 2 solo SKs. So we were initially worried about the fragility and disadvantage a SK would be at (kinda normal for SKs, but moreso here). BUT two big factors in this were anonymity (in a game where everyone was capable of looking scummy or tpr equally, trait & lot depending) and fake will inheritance with killing role. The latter meant each SK was equally likely to win a lot or increase money as a random townie, but that a number of their kills would earn extra abilities and/or money, the latter of which can easily buy an ability of choice. The biggest risk was an early crosskill/lynch which would have removed a kill. The fact they both lived so long was detrimental to both town and mafia, and they grew in ability power. In our opinion this gave the SKs a fighting chance vs mafia and town (weaker than mafia as a whole, but stronger than individual townie). Having two was insurance of kills/game length (though we expected one to die by N3). I'm happy enough with how that worked out.

19 town: Besides the last minute joiner after we had decided balance (18 expected), town needed a bigger majority because of the number of anti-town traits/playstyles possible along with expected kill count. We wanted to ensure at least 3 mislynches as per normal and some protections but tried not to go overboard (debatable: it worked out this playthrough but could see unlucky kills/team-traits could have given town a LOT of day lynch opportunities). Plus town had to deal with usually lynching 66-75% of the scum, with the rest expected crosskills -- that meant most likely at minimum 4-5 successful scum lynches for 7 scum. So we planned on shooting for 8 game days. With fake wills and no information, town only had shot-in-the-dark estate bids or the rare scum-hammerer-on-fake-will scenario to "retrieve" powers, so their power came mostly from won bids and surviving; of which they were expected to win 50-75% of the auction lots (of which they won 11/18 through first three days, well within range). All this necessitated a larger percentage of town, and I'm happy with the ratio.

So as per above, we were expecting 8 days, with on average 2 kills per night (depending on blocks or an earlyish SK death). But blocks didn't happen (only ONE all game successful) and both SKs lived till endgame, so went quicker than expected. If it had lasted 8 days that's 8 guaranteed lynches and 2nk/night average would mean about 4 people left probably determining winner. Oh well, we cant plan for everything