what about wolfs? can they pm each other?
also im confused first you say you scrapped the no pm rule and now he cant contact his minions :S
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what about wolfs? can they pm each other?
also im confused first you say you scrapped the no pm rule and now he cant contact his minions :S
What...? No, the Seer can pm, he just can't PM someone and say, "I AM THE SEER AND I HAVE SCANNED YOU", and so start up a Justice League.
so after a Stalingrad you actually cripple the village even more?
Look, this is not my idea, I am just the test-dummy.
dont take it personal but I think this is a bad idea
. IF you cripple the village (taking away the possibility of a JL) you need to cripple the wolfs too in some way to balance it out.maybe by brining them down to only 3 wolfs? I'd like others ideas about this. especially randy as this started with his post
dont take it personal but I think this is a bad idea
maybe by brining them down to only 3 wolfs? I'd like others ideas about this. especially randy as this started with his post
Yes, I see your point. Maybe 3 wolves would be a decent balancer. In the end, there is nothing stopping a Seer from gathering together a group of players and using them to lynch people, there are JL's in Mafia even with the limitations.
Anyone else have thoughts on the matter?
the so-called "JL Problem" has not been so in Lite. Wolves win frequently.
No PMs for the Seer just means that you have a well informed villager and a bunch of sheep.
Please do not do this.
Right. I'm happy with that, as long as you use that wording, not the original one that seemed to suggest no PM's were allowed at all
And if you want some enforcement on that, ask people to put you in the recipient list for any PM's send about the game so the GM can arbitrate when the line is being crossed.
so after a Stalingrad you actually cripple the village even more?
That stalingrad may not have happened with these rules. Imagine reis and Capt. Kiwi still able to talk and analyse and exhort the village into going after the *real* wolves at what proved to be the last day in our game. That day may have ended completely differently.
dont take it personal but I think this is a bad idea
maybe by brining them down to only 3 wolfs? I'd like others ideas about this. especially randy as this started with his post
I think the balancing factor should be in allowing people to keep talking after their deaths.
Whether it will truly work out like that is a difficult question, but I think it's potentially very powerful.
Isn't that exactly what you have with a living Seer in any game? Capt. Kiwi did this analysis of Lite wins/losses over the course of a few dozen games and it seems that the Seer still being alive was largely determining the outcome in many of them.
Look, I know it's a bit of a change, but let's try this set of rules before we condemn it, ok?
I'm sensing a lot of opposition to this, and I'm leaning towards reverting it and just playing a standard game of Lite.
It's your game, so it's your call.
I would like to see a game like this happening in the future though.
I dont oppose all the changes or even the no PM rule. Im fine to try that.
But the fact that people can still talk after death and WIN is IMO a deal-breaker. It makes the death unimportant and people will misuse it. I know I would. People need to fear they can lose something. If they can go around without that fear the purpose of this game is lost. The balance between being too active or too much in the picture before being targeted is lost. I do not think its a good idea. But I wont stop you
But the fact that people can still talk after death and WIN is IMO a deal-breaker. It makes the death unimportant and people will misuse it. I know I would. People need to fear they can lose something. If they can go around without that fear the purpose of this game is lost. The balance between being too active or too much in the picture before being targeted is lost. I do not think its a good idea. But I wont stop you
Well, here we have to agree to disagree.
1) What kind of misuse are you thinking of? How could the GM not spot and punish such behaviour, if it occurs?
2) The "balance" you speak of does not really exist today.
What everyone wants in a game like this is to have the village be active right to the end. Allowing ghosts to keep talking will definitely result in more activity. However, if a ghost cannot *win* anymore after their deaths, it's a tad pointless to allow them to talk. Is it not?
Perhaps we simply need 2 lists, as mafia does: "Survivors", and "team winners".
The former is what we've always used to count "wins"; the latter would be new.
( I guess there's also a fair amount of self interest here - for you, the status quo is fine. Being under the radar and surviving is what you do. For me, however, things are a little different.. )
Since you returned we've had three Lites. In those we had 2 seers dead and 2 Stalingrads; 1 seer survived and a JL victory. Kiwi's point was twofold: statistically something over two thirds of games were ending in village victory, almost always with the JL leading it. The wolves, meanwhile won almost exclusively only when the seer died. The pattern of the last three validate's Kiwi's second point: villages have become entirely dependent on seers. As for OP JL, well the fact that wolves only ever seem to win when the seer dies says a lot.
Then again, when you really think about it, it's unsurprising the seer has to die for the wolves to win. Firstly, the game starts with 16 players for the seer to scan, with 1/4 of them wolves. After Night 0 and Day 1 it's down to 13 players, wolves rarely die early, meaning about 1/3 chance of scanning a wolf. Day 3 it's even more likely the seer scans a wolf. Those better with stochastic process than I am can tell us precisely how high the odds are of the seer scanning a wolf on Night 3 (IE in time for a Day 4 outing).
Furthermore, it seems pretty obvious that the longer the game runs the more improbable it is that a living seer wouldn't know enough identities to end the game. For example lynching one player per day, one hunt per night, the longest a Stock Lite can last is seven days, with 1 wolf 3 villagers; Day 8 would be parity with 1 wolf 1 villager or else obviously the wolf is lynched and it's game over. Now considering that example, 1 wolf 3 villagers, the seer has had 8 scans on the start of that day. The chances that he wouldn't know the identity of any of the players is virtually nil (again, stochastic process should tell us just how improbable) and if he knows two then it's game over. If he knows one, the wolf's chances are very low as well. The JL could easily just go public and then the wolf votes the villager, and the villager the wolf. The JL ties it up, and the game's won since the wolf can only act to save the villager from the tie. There are other things that could end it for the wolf. Plus it's a 50/50 stab for the JL anyway. So we see how improbable it is for a seer to be alive at the extreme example. So heuristically we know it's nearly impossible for a seer not to win on Day 7 if he's alive. Working back the rest falls into place.
We also know the quickest a village can lose, bar more than one 2 player tie or a multiple player tie, is Day 4. The classic Stalingrad. As stated above, a seer would need to be unlucky not to have scanned a wolf. What's more, even if he didn't, even if he had just 1 JL member, it might help direct the village onto a wolf, it being 6/4 with 2 accounted for 50/50 of getting a wolf at random. Thus the most likely way the wolves win with a live seer is via a Stalingrad, if the seer has 4 luckless scans. Thus why the seer must die for the wolves to win, normally. So that's the crux of it: the villagers are dependent on seers, and the wolves can't win unless they kill the seer.
Now it's really a matter of opinion whether it's good or bad that victory turns on whether the seer is hunted (this isn't to say skill doesn't come into it).
I play to win. And surviving is part of it. Now I like the idea of Surviving Winners and Team Winners. That would still make it important to stay Alive.
without it many ties would occur and people would just sacrifice them-selfs or others. also the whole FUN of staying alive would be gone (not all but most of it, thats the appealing side of this game to me.) thats why its a rather big game-breaker to me. most probable reason for this is my ego-centered nature and teh fact that I do not care for my team members that much if at all. this is much different that playing it Live where you actually see others.
you can go on and try and im curious as to how it will turn out.
Okay, we'll see how these changes affect the game and test it out here. Considering that I recently ran a Lite that went smoothly, and that I've been running a game of Diplomacy for 3 months, I think my reputation as a GM can handle a failure, and I have a scapegoat in any case.
Well, so am I.
At worst, it will be an interesting failure
At least it seems everyone is somewhat in agreement now, then.
Since it's basically a mafia ruleset as I understand it it shouldn't be terribly unbalanced. But yeah, fine, you can blame me for it if it blows up spectacularly
I fear we're going to see a whole lot of underhanded tactics from both Seer and Wolves...
So the Seer can't contact someone and thell them they scanned them. Can he contact someone and tell them they scanned someone else who turned out to be a wolf?
And if he can't even do that... What's left for the Seer to do, really? What does he have, what impact can he bring to the game beyond that of an ordinary villager? Because that's sort of the direction we're going in. A useless Seer might as well not be present.
So the Seer can't contact someone and thell them they scanned them. Can he contact someone and tell them they scanned someone else who turned out to be a wolf?
And if he can't even do that... What's left for the Seer to do, really? What does he have, what impact can he bring to the game beyond that of an ordinary villager? Because that's sort of the direction we're going in. A useless Seer might as well not be present.
He knows more than an ordinary villager does, so he has a better chance of figuring out where the wolves are hiding than other people do. He's not entirely useless, just more limited in his options.
Have you ever played this game in real life? There the Seer has only very limited options for his "private messaging". Sure, he can go public, but he'll die pretty much immediately. Unless it's the last day, at any rate
Looking at games 203 to 223, excluding 218 for having too few players:
9/20 wolf wins. Which sounds fine, except...
5 of those wolf wins have come after the seer has not only died, but died too early to make a difference. I think I used alive on day 4 as having a meaningful JL, off the top of my head. A further 2 of those wins were in no-seer games. The 2 times a seer lasted to day 4 and the wolves won were Gondolin, where the seer was nerfed to a scan every second night, and That Boris Game. Actually... checking That Boris Game, the seer died night three, but had scanned two wolves by then - so I was bending my rules a little there.
Personally I'm not happy with a system where the wolves winning depends on getting the seer early. Nor am I happy with a system where active players die, although obviously I have bias there.
Edit: For those keeping score, 2 of the 11 villager wins have come with a seer dead too early to contribute.
9/20 wolf wins. Which sounds fine, except...
5 of those wolf wins have come after the seer has not only died, but died too early to make a difference. I think I used alive on day 4 as having a meaningful JL, off the top of my head. A further 2 of those wins were in no-seer games. The 2 times a seer lasted to day 4 and the wolves won were Gondolin, where the seer was nerfed to a scan every second night, and That Boris Game. Actually... checking That Boris Game, the seer died night three, but had scanned two wolves by then - so I was bending my rules a little there.
Personally I'm not happy with a system where the wolves winning depends on getting the seer early. Nor am I happy with a system where active players die, although obviously I have bias there.
Edit: For those keeping score, 2 of the 11 villager wins have come with a seer dead too early to contribute.
I actually started with Chapterhouse: Dune...was the first one I found lying around the house as a child. Ever since then, the Bene Gesserit witches have had a special place in my heart.