Live Action Mafia

A game of sneakiness and paranoia
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 Post subject: Strategy Brainstorming
PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:03 pm 
Halp mystery game seems tricky. Can we start discussing what seems to be a good strategy?

Perhaps spreading rumors help? It’s probably desirable to proxy them out because of possible roleblocking stuff.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:22 am 
In general, I feel like strategy brainstorming is kind of hard in mystery games, because you don't really have reason to believe anyone around you. The best you can do is trade information and try to come out on top.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:28 am 
I'm not actually sure how beneficial trading rumors is. If you have rumors about alignments other than your own then I think you should probably share them. However, rumors about your own alignment, incants, or other abilities can be harmful if spread. In particular, if you share a rumor, you should assume it will end up in the hands of all factions that are opposed to yours. This may not be so bad for some rumors, but it could be very costly for others.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:16 am 
++ above for alignment rumors. However, I think it still makes sense to proxy out spell rumors, since it will simply show that *someone* has the spell, without giving away who has it.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:01 am 
Yeah, I'm no longer sure whether town wants it publicly known what its abilities are or not.

While thinking about strategy for this, I thought of something that definitely doesn't apply to this game, but seems like it would be good in normal games, and I'm confused why we don't do this.
Suppose town doesn't know who to lynch, but would be happy lynching a truly-randomly-chosen person. The chain protocol is this: one person declares themself to be starting the protocol, then chooses another person, who chooses another person, who chooses another person, etc. No duplicates are ever allowed in the chain. The last person chosen dictates the lynch. The length of the chain is exactly [# of bad guys] + 1. The nice property of this protocol is that the person initiating it doesn't have to be trusted. If two competing chains are accidentally started near the same time, the one posted to forums first is more legitimate. Townies in the chain don't have to trust the people they choose, although it helps; them choosing someone randomly is fine.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:51 am 
This scheme has the failure mode that if a mafia ends up in the chain anywhere except as #1 they can force a mafia to dictate.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:08 pm 
That doesn't sound likely to end well


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:40 pm 
@Python Yeah, but that's not really avoidable? There is always a chance that a townie picks the wrong person, either to lynch or to be dictator. Otherwise put: do you think there's an alternative to this that's better / doesn't have this flaw?


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:01 pm 
This... doesn't really make sense when we don't even know what "bad guys" means this game, let alone how many there are.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:10 pm 
It was stated as something that definitely didn't apply to this game.

I don't think it's that applicable for games in general, though: I'm pretty sure it fails if any one out of the n people picked after the first one is mafia, whereas in general, if it's just dictated completely randomly, it fails if one of the one person picked is mafia. The proposal Luke's suggesting has more chances to fail.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:24 pm 
That seemed like a suggestion of an alternate protocol, but I'm not sure what it is...maybe
1. Someone declares themself to be leading this protocol.
2. They name someone else to dictate the lynch.
?
I agree that this has fewer chances for a townie to randomly hit a mafia, but it also isn't usable because the first person can't be trusted to pick themselves. (Also, note that mine doesn't fail in all the cases you ascribe: maybe mafia is chosen second, but doesn't want to publicly make the chain be almost all of the mafia; maybe mafia and SK aren't in contact, so they can't pass the chain between them.)


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:55 pm 
Hmmm I am thinking that how do we check duplicates? Are all choices made publically or in private?


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:57 pm 
I was describing what you described, but it wasn't a suggestion of an alternate protocol as much as a suggestion that defined protocols were unhelpful... I don't think we get truly random lynches we're equally happy with often at all, so I think we should be generally talking through them as a town and coming to a conclusion then. Also, I don't think it matters that much if someone picks themselves: both a townie and a mafia would want to do that. The main problem is that a townie might be more modest and not want to aggressively claim to be the dictator, which is not great, but can be handwaved away, I think.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:07 pm 
@yyao1 publically
@m2w I don't really follow your proposed alternative, but I think you may be right about it being a better solution for townies to be more aggressive.


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