[omnibahumut]

First off. Thank you, my guinea pigs!

Second, the theory behind the Oceanic game.

Many of the past Mafia games here (and I'm talking the more traditional ones, not your silly crazy ones with points and rooms and crap), had a recurring problem where the Cop could role claim, an unknown doc could protect him after the cop could reasonably prove himself (via other innocent roles or whatever), and it was pretty much "follow the leader".

My game was designed to encourage people to talk more and rely less on information directly from the moderator. Also by introducing secret roles, while it caused you guys to meta the Mod (not really a good thing), it opened an opportunity for anyone to role claim. It would have been relatively easy to claim to be any role and see how people react to fish out the mafia, especially if people think the doctor is going to protect them. I thought the secret roles would open a new opportunity to fish for information, but everyone was afraid to use that opportunity.

The "Private Investigator" was a bit of a challenge for me to set up. By introducing "clues" to the game, it took a lot of power away from the cop, but also makes the mod vulnerable to Metagaming (If you start trying to interpret what items the mod would feed). I also toyed with the idea of randoming between two items, so that the results were even more vague. Its a tricky implementation.

Lastly, and while it never came into play, was key in preventing "follow the leader"... was the change to the Doctor. I did not tell anyone, even the doctor, that he was "paranoid". Anyone that was protected would also be role-blocked.

The Native Leader/FBI Agent setup was so that at least SOME solid information could be derived. However, I implemented it wrong in telling the Mafia that the PI would turn up a negative scan to the Native Leader.

============
RESULTS
============


Again, the point of this game was to get people to devine information by the content of posts, and not by information fed by the moderator, or by playing follow the leader. By Day 3 there was an incredible lull in action, which was incredible because... between the innocent and mafia, even with no information from me, you all managed to pick out every single power player.

Day one, a random kill hit a Survivor. Night one, the Natives managed to kill the FBI agent. Day 2, you guys managed to kill off the Doctor. Night 2 the natives got the PI. By then Caidryn had used his ability, and Sanari, the Tracker, was on the chopping block via Metagaming, but the Mafia suspected her of being the tracker because she mentioned a mistake.

To compensate for this unexpected turn of events (and I actually decided that this was a fair way to introduce information), I washed the bag of items on shore, and most of you were able to figure out that most of the power roles were gone. This was successful in stirring up a lot of debate and conversation. However, very rarely did you guys ever reference any information I gave you. By time Gunner had claimed... between the fact that a Native could be a Lover (which no one asked me about or even seemed to consider), and that most/all power roles were gone, and that I did not put a scanner in this game... you still believed Gunner, and that amazes me.

So, I'm split. Many of you are smarter than you realize. Squire's guesses on who has what job and who is mafia has been incredibly accurate. Sanari was actually fairly off in this game, but does do a good job at squeezing information (which I bet gives Squire the chance to make his good guesses). In the end, I think there is strong evidence that you guys do not need to rely on so much information from the moderator as in past games.

=================
Changes for the Future
=================

I think in future games, there should be no Private communication, period. Even within Mafia members. This will certainly cause more meaningful discussion and more informative posts from everyone. There would need to be some rules set on how the Mafia gets their votes in... in real Mafia, player point at who they want to kill during the night phase, and via hand gestures and seeing who's pointing where, other mafia can change votes until a concensus is reached. Disallowing PM convo makes that difficult, but not impossible.

[Kaedan]

I think you did a great job setting up a mafia game that shouldn't rely on power roles.

The unfortunate thing is that there was a decided lack of participation and it seems that deep down, many people wanted to rely on power roles. That's the only thing I can think of that caused people to vote me off over Gunner. Like I said during the game, I thought GunnerX's claim was very unbelievable. But when Caidryn made the claim that Gunner was a 100% accurate scanner, that threw everything out the window along with the kitchen sink.

Nice job, very well thought out. I'd be interested in trying a similar "low power" power role game again.

[Tuj]

I would personally like to believe that people would have voted for Gunner after his claim if Caidryn didn't urge them to do as Gunner wanted. Caidryn was very much looked to as the innocent leader, and I'm sure many people looked toward him for their answers. If he agreed with what someone had to say, it was viable; If he didn't, it was scrapped. Despite the overwhelmingly large amount of doubt I'm sure everyone had about Gunner, Caidryn's heroic defense was likely the only thing that made most people ignore those suspicions 'at least for the night.' I probably didn't really help that much though, because I tried to explain why everyone shouldn't follow Gunner. The fact that many people apparently had me on their "scum list" probably made them think I was trying to turn them on their most threatening power role... *sigh*


I don't want to completely discredit Caidryn's plan as being bad, because it actually was really good. The one major flaw was that it didn't account for the worst case scenario: What if we hadn't killed any natives yet? Which ended up being the case. They didn't need a follow-the-leader, they just needed to get us to vote off one more innocent. Unfortunately, Caidryn not only allowed them to accomplish that goal, but actively helped them achieve it. If that wasn't the case though, I think there was probably a pretty good chance his plan could've worked; it just didn't.

One way or the other, I'm still just in complete disbelief that so many people bought into Gunner's Scanner claim despite everything you(Omni) said about not putting any traditional scanners in the game. Even with Caidryn's support, that level of blind trust is just beyond me.




That being said, I'd play the game again. It was fun for the most part.

[Burai]

This game was pretty much an eye-opener. I'll never follow and feel save with my decision ever again.

[Caidryn]

Yeah... I really should take that break.

[Tuj]

Don't beat yourself up about it Caidryn. You definitely weren't the only one who made a mistake, just the last one.

I voted off Lathe because I was trying my hand at fishing and he never bit, so I got paranoid and didn't unvote. I also (vaguely) defended Malastra, who turned out to be a native. Also, as was pointed out at the end, every single lynch kill was an innocent. Suffice it to say, "Mistakes were made."

[omnibahumut]

Caidryn, on 20 June 2010 - 03:49 AM, said:

Yeah... I really should take that break.

The other thing you could have done was mention that you were a Lover. The FBI role could have been entirely made up, but if the other Lover is Mafia... then they can make that false claim.

[Mycroft]

I guess I need to come up with more meaningful posts from now..

It still bothers me that people view my posts as not being serious though, we all have differing play-styles, mine involves doing a lot of guess work based in small slights in people's reactions, based on seemingly neutral posts.

Meh.. Oh btw.


I thought it appropriate.

[Celebel]

Not thrilled with you suggestion to throw all PM out the window lol...

Especially because in RL mafia they can at least look up during the Night phase and see who else is mafia then use hand gestures to communicate at least who they think should die. Taking that element out of the game kinda makes it even less like mafia...

[Lathe]

Out of curiosity why was I so suspicious? ( killing the doctor was a bad idea )

[Draekke]

Malrend, on 20 June 2010 - 05:29 AM, said:

I guess I need to come up with more meaningful posts from now..

It still bothers me that people view my posts as not being serious though, we all have differing play-styles, mine involves doing a lot of guess work based in small slights in people's reactions, based on seemingly neutral posts.

Meh.. Oh btw.


I thought it appropriate.

For the record Malrend, being that it was me(native) who was the major accuser of you being scummy, don't take it too much to heart. No one else voted you until the last day, when other natives voted you, lol. I enjoy posting the same way you do, but I realized that I needed to change it in order to take suspicion off of me and it worked. But, to be honest, when I made that analysis of you, I was just following how people outed me in previous games.

Lathe, on 20 June 2010 - 08:46 AM, said:

Out of curiosity why was I so suspicious? ( killing the doctor was a bad idea )

Says who? I think killing the doctor was a great idea! hehe

[GunnerX]

I think a number of you are missing the many levels of planning that went in to my "role-claim".

GunnerX, on 18 June 2010 - 12:02 PM, said:

Just so you guys have a heads up, I'm considering "Role-claiming" as FBI agent at some point today. Probably claim that I scanned Kaedan last night to be Native Leader, and that's why Niggheart's scan was wrong. To prove the claim I will say I scanned Caidryn night one, Niggheart night 2, and Kaedan last night. More importantly I will know something about Caidryn that no one else could, he has a lover, because the FBI agent has roles revealed directly. But I won't mention that directly unless confronted by it. If someone else role-claims FBI agent after me I will simply guess that they are one of Kaedan's lackeys trying to protect him.

GunnerX, on 18 June 2010 - 12:19 PM, said:

Besides all it should take is saying that I know something more about Caidryn from scanning him then anyone else does. Caidryn should confirm that it is true and quell all counter arguments.

First off I wouldn't have done it if we weren't in such a good postition. I knew it would, at least, be enough to give Caidryn pause. All we needed was to get one person to vote for a non-native to tie up the rest of the game. Even then I was pretty sure Celebel and/or Hideki wouldn't get a vote in that day. Second, it was a ploy to get your attention off who was suspicious. It forced your attention to one question; "Is he lying?" This is one of the reasons I was so vague in presenting Caidryn's secret. If I had to actually come out and say that he was a lover, I doubt it would have been long before someone realized that it was fairly likely that Cai's lover was scum. Third, there was the "biggest threat." The possibility that I would be called out by a power role that knew I was lying, most likely to be the tracker, who might have scanned me and seen I didn't target anyone on any given night.

In considering who I was going to name scum, I decided I wanted to get Kaedan out of the game. He was seen as something of a "proven innocent." The sheer unlikelihood of him being a native actually helped to support my claim amongst those who have played with me. Ie; "Why would such a skilled player make such an unrealistic claim, when there are such better targets for a bluff." The one thing I was unsure about was the second scan target. I went back and forth in my mind between Sanari and Niggheart.

GunnerX, on 18 June 2010 - 12:39 PM, said:

Anyway, it's how unbelievable the claim is that makes it so convincing, no one would try and pull it off if it wasn't true. Think I'll change second night scan to Sanari (Tracker) though.

But I was unsure of the tracker actually being dead and if they weren't, they could have clearly called me out in my lie.

I played Caidryn. I wasn't trying to prove my innocence, I just needed to throw a wrench in the cogs for one day. In this I succeeded. All I needed was some of you to go along with it to pull off the win. Everyone of you fell for it in some fashion. Everyone of you that didn't vote for me were conned as much as Caidryn. Even Kaedan was wondering what was going on at one point last night. That was the real goal.

Now I'm not really trying to blow my own horn, but seriously the whole laying blame rather then giving credit is a bit petty. Get over it, and show some sportsmanship. It's not Omni's fault, it's not Cai's fault, it's everyone's fault.

That said I was far from playing perfectly. I clearly need to play mafia more. I just can't put the effort in to scum-finding analysis when I know who they all are. I much prefer being an SK type role, but such is life.

I want to also congratulate my teammates in doing a great job lying low for most of the game. They did a great job avoiding suspicion for the first 3 days. That alone is what put us in position for my power play.

Lastly I think the setup for the game was dead on. Having the invincible role be the lover and making his lover scum was brilliant. We considered killing Mog ourselves at one point, but given that it wouldn't eliminate an enemy vote it was never quite worth it. I think the game went very well. The fundamental innocent failure was not killing any of us for 3 days. That set us up perfectly for a swift win, but even that aside, only one failure to kill a mafia was needed in the next five days to give us the majority.

I've got to go some I'm posting this "as is" now, I've been working on it since last night.

This post has been edited by GunnerX: 20 June 2010 - 11:19 AM

[Celebel]

I think Thaigare needs to go on the metalist now...Hes played scum so freakin many times and every time he managed to fly along just under the radar until the very end; even if hes caught its always later on...

*gets his metagame torch and pitchfork*

[SquireMuldune3rd]

I'm still convinced you didn't fool me. I presented all that facts that you were not a scanner... Though I wanted to play it safe. I was just ignored and continued my trying to get Tuj... which was wrong... Though I still knew something was up... just... not enough confidence in my own evidence and the "what if you really were what you said you were".

I know there were lots of fingers pointing around for x person to be blamed, but I agree. Innocents as a whole did not do as well as they should have. Myself included.

[Niggheart]

Celebel, on 20 June 2010 - 11:33 AM, said:

I think Thaigare needs to go on the metalist now...Hes played scum so freakin many times and every time he managed to fly along just under the radar until the very end; even if hes caught its always later on...

*gets his metagame torch and pitchfork*

It's because he never really participates in the games, lol. He says 1-2 things here and there.

[Tuj]

Gunner, I wasn't convinced period. The only reason I didn't outright vote for you was because people thought I was scummy, and I thought tagging a vote onto my long rant about how unbelievable your claim was would only serve to make people believe you or suspect me more, seeing as the only proven innocent fervently backed your claim. To me, role-claiming a scanner in a game designed to not have scanners was akin to choosing dynamite in Rock-Paper-Scissors; it's total bull.

It was still a well-played game though, and the innocents were completely and utterly defeated. You achieved a flawless victory, and for that you should be commended. Just don't assume that you fooled everyone just because no one voted for you. If you want to say your plan was a success, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you, but saying it fooled everyone wouldn't be correct. It fooled more than enough people than you needed to fool, but it didn't fool everyone; there were just other factors at play.




In the end though, I realize it was mostly just a bunch of theatrics because whether it worked or not was mostly irrelevant. Even if all of the innocents were actually online and voted for you like they should have, you'd get another night kill. In addition, Squire would probably barrage me the next day, and all the natives would have to do was go along with it, which would have ended up sealing our fate regardless.

This post has been edited by Tuj: 20 June 2010 - 01:45 PM

[Draekke]

What I'm so shocked at is how long Malastra was able to stay alive even though he was a target since day 2, I believe. Good job on his part for not getting lynched 3 days in a row!

GunnerX, you did an awesome job as our leader. A few times me and a couple others wanted to kill sanari(sorry sanari! it's out of respect!) but GunnerX decided to go with Dagger and then Niggheart. In the end sanari was a power role as well, but those two were both just as integral in securing our win.

It was very fun, and worked quite well. As GunnerX said, what it came down to was getting 3 innocents lynched right off the bat that helped the most. We were lucky/crafty to get away with that.

[GunnerX]

My apologies I didn't mean to imply that everyone believed what I said. What I meant, by having everyone fooled, was that to some extent I got everyone questioning, wondering, w/e you want to call it.

[Tuj]

My apologies as well, as I just re-read what I typed earlier and it had a lot more of a hostile tone to it than I wanted. You played a really good game Gunner, as did many of the other natives. Your plan worked, you played Caidryn and through him many of the innocents, and you achieved an unprecedented Flawless Victory. Even though I was on the side that was completely and utterly defeated, I can respect that.

I'm still baffled that so many people bought into your outrageous claim, but that really isn't the point. Well played natives.

[omnibahumut]

Celebel, on 20 June 2010 - 08:29 AM, said:

Not thrilled with you suggestion to throw all PM out the window lol...

Especially because in RL mafia they can at least look up during the Night phase and see who else is mafia then use hand gestures to communicate at least who they think should die. Taking that element out of the game kinda makes it even less like mafia...

Ok, my post that was here got eaten. Will retype later...