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Bek Okhan, on 14 March 2014 - 09:12 AM, said:
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So I HATE HATE HATE the self-lynch offering. If you're doing it for meta reasons, like low posting, either ride out the low poster game or get modkilled and stop playing so we don't waste our most important info-gathering tool on you - the lynch.
Agree with the first part, vehemently disagree with the second part for several reasons.
You're saying "if you can't be useful, kill yourself and get out of the way" which
A. lowers town numbers if the guy is a townie faster than balance of the game suggests is good,
B. opens the way for low poster hunts, which are usually distracting from scum hunts in mid- to late-game - low content as opposed to low posting is what yields scum,
C. to be pedantic as hell, reading comprehension is our best tool, followed by questioning, quoting, finds, lover relations, heals and guards because they can actually protect and reveal living CIs and establish shades of grey.Not to mention casemaking. The lynch is an imperfect tool at best and it is used most of the times because town is misguided by scum or by its own blinders.
No single CF establishes trust in a living player. All it does is removing doubt from a single player's alignment (two if the lynch is the result of a reveal) at the cost (and in about 20% of the cases at the additional benefit) of removing that player from the game.
I'll first counter your points:
A. Yes, a modkill certainly upsets the balance of the game. No one wants a modkill. After calling me pedantic, this is almost comical. I never wanted a modkill, and I'll go into why I said what I did in a moment.
B. I'm not seeing the relevance here. Asking people to keep playing even IF they are low posting opens the way to low poster hunts? Because that's exactly what I said (quoted below).
what you said was:
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If you're doing it for meta reasons, like low posting, either ride out the low poster game or get modkilled and stop playing so we don't waste our most important info-gathering tool on you - the lynch.
C. Pedantic bear is pedantic? You're doing the same thing in this post that I was doing, buddy. Giving your own opinion on how the game should be played and acting like it's obvious. So you're already guilty of what you're accusing me of - always nice to point the finger while committing the same crime... Second..reading comprehension, hmm. Really? Is that important in a text-based information game? I was assuming we all had a grasp on this already or we wouldn't be here. And guess what - you conveniently dismissed the fact that I was explicitly talking about how RI should be playing . RI don't have finds, lovers, heals, or guards. It's like you only read half my post and decided it was a nice hook to latch onto. Notice this nice quote you ignored:
Okaros, on 13 March 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:
RIs win the game for town - that is their only job, to stay alive and study the thread and connect information to find scum. If you know you're town but you think your lynch won't matter cause you're just RI, you are wrong
Really, so you think that what I meant by that was we should not bother questioning, quoting, making cases? I clearly stated how I think RI should be playing, this game and in general - which was to stay alive and gather information and lynch. And yes, the lynch is one of if not the most important tools in the RI role. Often time most RIs are NOT making cases or starting lynch trains - most players either agree/disagree and vote accordingly. This means that as an RI, if, God forbid,
someone else happens to make a good case, as an RI you can obviously try to make a counter case or any number of things, but in the simplest form, your power now lies in your vote. Do you vote for this person with a good case on them so we can hopefully hit scum and/or get a CF and analyze train info?
Or do you not vote and sit around and hope your team wins? These are contradictory viewpoints, and only one can be considered good RI play, in general (allowing for exceptions, which can happen depending on the game or mechanics).
So either you a) didn't read my post, b ) lack your own self-proclaimed required reading comprehension, or c) you ignored it because it basically undermines your point so badly that it simply could not be made with my quote sitting next to it. Take your pick and let us know which one it was.
Like I said, your statement is an "either/or" thing.
About the modkill - I made one comment about it in my entire post, and here it is:
Okaros, on 13 March 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:
If you're doing it for meta reasons, like low posting, either ride out the low poster game or get modkilled and stop playing so we don't waste our most important info-gathering tool on you - the lynch.
[/quope]
You're burying it under a lot of words, but the statement, which I underlined, is an either/or.
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To be totally clear, I was not genuinely suggesting Silchas modkill himself. You'll also notice at this point he wasn't even a low poster. I made a strong, black-and-white statement like this (in the same context as my whole post) because offering to be lynched is the equivalent of not playing. You get lynched, you die, no more game for you (this is town vs. scum, I don't think we'll see anyone resurrected from the dead in TMDI 4). My point was that you should always keep playing, even as a low poster - try to do your best and make useful comments. This is still sitting on the crux of my whole post, which is "this is a really bad idea if you are RI - here are better ideas on how to play". I encouraged him to ride out the game if he thought he was just going to low post, and then I suggested that if he wasn't going to play, get modkilled.
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This is harsh, but I said it really to get a rise out of Silchas (I clearly did, just not the reaction I wanted) and provoke him into a real defense instead of "QQ, plz lynch me because I'm sad now". I believed it would be effective because if you were really going to intentionally modkill yourself on day 1, why sign up and play? That would make no sense to me, so his almost INSTANT decision to modkill himself after the first bit of real pressure from another player shows that Slichas didn't care about helping his team win (or else he would have defended himself or let himself be lynched instead of modkilled) and had no interest in even playing the game, since he threw in the towel halfway through day 1, before there was a train on him or any serious suspicion yet, aside from my original and only post pressuring him. Claiming that how SR feels about playing the game is in any way my fault is one you'll have to explain. Nobody who really cared about playing the game would modkill themselves at the first hint of a suggestion that they should, regardless of how he may have interpreted what I said.
There's numerous reasons why someone might ask for a mod-kill. One could be that they feel guilty about the comment/antagonizing everyone and seeing it as penance (misguided) or the opposite, being very annoyed with the fact people were upset. Another would be that they messed up and town would be better off without them - we've seen that, too, and we've seen it granted by mods as well. In this case, SR blew up. There's no other discription. If he didn't care to play for the team, he'd have stopped posting and had been lynched.
I think there's a distinction there and I do feel it is a bit rich to condemn someone's willingness to play or not play.
Onward -
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Bek Okhan, on 14 March 2014 - 09:12 AM, said:
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All that being said, it's unfortunate that Silchas has already made this play because it just makes me think we have to lynch him. Offering to be lynched is inherently suspicious, because it implies bad play (reasoning above) or weaseling out of the spotlight out of pathos from other players. Pathos has no place in Mafia, so the suspicion always remains unless we all sympathize with the poor man's plight and decide to basically CI him for the rest of the game, since it's not often we revisit lynch targets unless they do something egregious that pings the scumdar.
Blergh. Lecturing that looks like Okaros takes a stand, but it is basically all bullshit, including the last bit which is patently untrue.
Let me get my own private soapbox out to do some counter preaching.
People seldom leave the spotlights once they've been a target.
For one, whenever one avenue of inquiry runs dry, people turn back almost automatically, especially if there's little enthusiasm for casemaking.
Another reason is that a future townie who becomes a lynch target will always try and get someone else lynched in his stead, based on the knowledge that he is town - who better than someone who was already suspicious? The same goes for scum, but once fingered, that's usually to prolong the inevitable.
That's incidentally the point where train analysis actually will pay off. As for pathos having no place: bullshit. Decisions on who to trust, who to distrust, who to investigate, who to vote for are first and foremost based on interpretation and interpretation's always subjective and tinged with emotions, including pathos. It's one of the reasons why a strong symp is such a powerful asset to a scum team.
I just flat out disagree with you here. And please recognize, this is a disagreement about the fundamentals of how to play Mafia, not anything related to this game specifically. In my experience, in M&P games or normal town vs. scum games (that's what this is), when the lynch comes down to two targets and there are trains on both, it usually swings one way and never swings back. The person who got let off the hook is not a primary target anymore because we usually cannot afford to waste another day lynching him based on any new information gained from the day's lynch (CF), lynch train, and night actions. The search almost ALWAYS turns to someone else - as you yourself have proven. You decided the next highest target from day 1 gets a pass, despite Monok even getting 3 votes that never moved, and you vote for me instead.
When there's a choice between two good cases, one leads to a (town) lynch, the other is put on the backfoot, then yes, there is a distinct chance that the second case will be dragged up again and will lead, eventually, to a lynch. Reason one is that we regularly run out of targets and revisit previous ones. Reason two is that scum is understandably hesitant to kill off players who have been fingered/doubted/case made before because they're either scum, or a convenient person to point a finger to.
There have been games where late game trains were connected by day 1/2/3 stuff and people just added to cases, instead of giving a pass for the rest of the game - as is your experience. That's playing with blinders on.
As for Monok: I decided to make an independent decision. Oh look, didn't you describe that as good town play?
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This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You'll notice Alkend did the same thing - dismissed the other target from the previous day and decided to put pressure on a low-poster, Denul. So you're just factually wrong about this being a generally true statement - I won't disagree that sometimes we do go back and lynch people who were targets from previous days, but it's not common that they are the first players examined after night gets resolved. So we disagree, and so far, the play this game supports my view and not yours.
After one whole day and you being fairly aggressive, shouting from the rooftops how it ought to be played...
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Comment about pathos - again, I was using strong wording to emphasize that whining about being a lynch target almost never works and no one cares if you go down crying while sitting on your hands. That's what I meant when I said this first:
Okaros, on 13 March 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:
Anyone who self-votes or offers to be lynched is automatically a lynch target in my mind, because it is a play that makes no sense except from an "emotional appeal" perspective (AND THIS IS MAFIA, NO ONE CARES HOW YOU FEEL BITCH)
You're right in that if you can convince players to take pathos into account when they are analyzing the game, it is a very strong play, which is why you're right, a good symp DOES do that because it
fucks with town, not because it helps them. I've been talking the whole time about the basic town RI role and from your own words, your dissenting opinion only applies if you're scum. Gee, how convincing, RI's should be playing like scum to win the game! Your analysis and conclusion of my argument culminates in suggesting a playstyle that DOES NOT HELP TOWN, but instead you say it EXPLICITLY HELPS SCUM. What the fuck does that make you? Doesn't sound like good advice coming from a townie....
Argh. Ever heard that everyone is subjective, including language? I think a guy called Kant had something to say on the matter. You and I clearly rub each other the wrong way, and it colours the view you have of me and I have of you. It colours everything. You can't turn it off for mafia and recognizing it "player A sounds so reasonable/convincing I want to believe him" vs "player B is an antagonistic asshole, I have trouble reading him and being objective" isn't bad play. Recognizing the sentiments
YOU WILL HAVE is pretty bloody essential, mr. mafia 101.
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Bek Okhan, on 14 March 2014 - 09:12 AM, said:
As for self-modkilling, blergh. It's setting a bad precedent. What if at a quarter of the game the most suspicious characters with a town PM decide on a suicide-per-modkill pact, clear themselves that way and leave the scum and just enough town to vote them off standing?
So, for
A. actively suggesting he mod-kills himself "for the benefit of town" when there's no better lynch;
B. making a huge post that really rubs me the wrong way content-wise;
C. lack of a better target:
Vote Okaros.
A bad precedent? How about just bad in general? No fucking shit it's bad. Oh wait...then you go to EXPLICITLY SPECULATE on the possibility that Hey, if all the town players who appear suspicious on thread just modkill themselves, town can easily just find scum and win the game! Are. You. Fucking. Serious. You actually suggested that a large number of town players modkilling themselves could benefit town. Holy fucking shitballs, Batman. I can't think of a worse idea for town - STOP PLAYING, FORGET CASES, JUST BREAK THE GAME AND GIVE US YOUR CF PLZ. Scum talking if I ever fucking heard one.
It's a hypothetical case that has actually happened once or twice, with a townie under pressure suiciding through mod-kill to prove he was town and scum was misleading the other townies b y the nose. So no, not so far-fetched.
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As for your "summary" of reasons to vote me, well, they lack so much substance now that addressing them again would be a waste of time. And I think my reasons for voting you are now pretty clear.
Your post is the scummiest post so far this game.
Vote Bek Okhan
It is certainly the post you disagree most with, but whether it is scummy or not remains to be seen. Which, incidentally, does prove that emotions cannot be turned off.
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