262 replies to this topic

[KevinH]

... the undesirables, low lifes, and nerf herders

Not you!

I'd take your side any day, Or does that make me an undesirable, low-life, nerf-herder?

[Preston]

Hey all!

Glad to see this starting - it's my first time playing so I'll probably mostly defer to people with more experience, and please dont mind my asking stupid questions on the way. I'm also less available during the week for heated discussions (Narsis suggested I look in on the last few days of the last game and wow - people were ACTIVE) due to work, but if I'm about to hit the 2 day inactive barrier in a way that matters please PM me (Narsis?) and I'll make sure to poke my head in here.

So yeah... so far the two people who seem to have lists people are agreeing with are KevinH and Martino. Both of you sound pretty convincing to me, but I'll wait a bit before putting down my votes until I understand a little more about how things work - I'm second-guessing my original thoughts as it is

Would someone mind explaining the what these roles we're picking can actually DO in the context of the game? I mean I can see the description and all, but I'm obviously missing some subtext or tricks for usage if for example bus driver is as powerful as ccabal suggests - Id originally thought it was pretty silly from its description.

[AKCPLUTO]

K, I'll formalize my vote here. Vote: Godfather, Ninja, 1-shot Janitor.

FOS: Martino for disagreeing with Kevin.

Pinky OS: EM for being EM and being overly-talkative in his posts. _{(just kidding)}

[Kasabian]

I'll go along with Martino's decision, i honestly don't think they choose an investigation role for us and for now my last option will be 4 shot-roleblocker .

Vote: Godfather, ninja and 4 shot-roleblocker

Also AKC, what makes you think Kevin is right, maybe you'r his partner , i would understand if you give me a reason, but just because a player disagree with other you'r FoSing him? odd...

FoS: AKCPLUTO

[Preston]

Stupid question: What do FOS and pinky OS mean? I dont know those acronyms.

[ccabal86]

Hey Preston, thanks for playing with us

Have you read these guides?: http://www.iron-command.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=111
They explain the roles pretty well.

FoS means Field of Suspicion. It basically means that you declare a player to be suspicious to you for whatever reason, but you are not voting to lynch him yet.

[ccabal86]

I'm not familiar with "Pinky OS" either

What does that mean AKC?

[AKCPLUTO]

I thought that FOS meant finger of suspicion? Anyways...I put a new spin on it and was trying to point my pinky at EM as a joke.

As for my actual FOS, I'm just stirring the pot. Interesting that Kasa is indirectly defending Martino. I'll give him a "ring finger of suspicion" for now. (At least it's not the middle finger of suspicion, LOL!)

(I'm just trying to have some fun too, haha.)

[Martino]

Yes the Janitor is the most game changing ability. It would be one thing if he could just cover up the alignment of someone but he can change the alignment we are shown. Meaning that they can put us completely on the wrong track. Most mafia games here play out according to some initial suspicions and then vote counts. I'm a little confused so many people fail to see the problem of giving them the Janitor ability, so I would like to ask a question: How do you envision our scumhunting if they have a Janitor?

I would also like to ask that if someone is doubting, even just a little bit, that he please unvotes the Janitor role. We need to have a good discussion before deciding on what to give them and this one already has too many votes.

K, I'll formalize my vote here. Vote: Godfather, Ninja, 1-shot Janitor.

FOS: Martino for disagreeing with Kevin.

Pinky OS: EM for being EM and being overly-talkative in his posts. _{(just kidding)}

So you follow me instead of KevinH on 2 out of 3 options and yet you FOS me for disagreeing with KevinH?

[Kaziocore]

Just putting here to make things easier

Mafia chosen townie roles:
Macho Cop
Doctor
weak Doctor
4-Shot Vig
Bulletproof
Vengeful
Detective

Townie chosen mafia roles:
4-shot roleblocker
Day Rolecop
1-shot janitor
Godfather
Ninja
Bus driver

Mafia chosen townie roles:
NEVER
Macho Cop - I think the mafia won't definitely get this as this could be risky
4-Shot Vig - With those 4 shots, I think they could kill a scum or two.
I think the only strategy that the scum could use with this role is if there is a bus driver.

PROBABLY (4 chosen)
Doctor
weak Doctor
Bulletproof
Vengeful
Detective

Townie chosen mafia roles:
NEVER
Day Rolecop - I'm guessing the one who invented this game knew that this would never get voted
1-shot janitor - Since I think that we will never get a macho cop, all the more that ruining the lynched player's alignment is harmful to us.
It may even confuse a detective if we have one if what he thinks is a mafia is a townie and vice versa. It may bring to the death of a townie with a power role.

PROBABLY (3 chosen)
4-shot roleblocker
Ninja
Bus driver
Godfather

I'll decide later.

[AKCPLUTO]

Martino, perfect - you passed my "with it" test and my objective of pot-stirring has been reached. Withdraw FOS.

Withdraw vote of Janitor - I have the doubts Martino mentioned and need to see more discussion to reach a superior conclusion. LOL.

[Chaoshawk]

If I were mafia I would choose both doctors, a bulletproof, and a vengeful. The detective is almost as useful as the macho cop in figuring out who people are minus the fact they have to bide their time until they see a suspicious pattern I.E. Name visits Name2, Name 2 died. I can see mafia claiming detective despite it not being in the game so doctors, especially the weak doctor should tread carefully.

Vote: Godfather, Ninja, 4-shot roleblocker

I wasn't sure if mafia were picking townie roles as well so cop would definitely not be in the game and alignment would not matter, only visits.

[Kaziocore]

I'm still unsure as to what to vote for my third one so...

Vote: Ninja, Godfather

[CanucksDynasty]

Just putting here to make things easier



Mafia chosen townie roles:
NEVER
Macho Cop - I think the mafia won't definitely get this as this could be risky
4-Shot Vig - With those 4 shots, I think they could kill a scum or two.
I think the only strategy that the scum could use with this role is if there is a bus driver.

PROBABLY (4 chosen)
Doctor
weak Doctor
Bulletproof
Vengeful
Detective

Townie chosen mafia roles:
NEVER
Day Rolecop - I'm guessing the one who invented this game knew that this would never get voted
1-shot janitor - Since I think that we will never get a macho cop, all the more that ruining the lynched player's alignment is harmful to us.
It may even confuse a detective if we have one if what he thinks is a mafia is a townie and vice versa. It may bring to the death of a townie with a power role.

PROBABLY (3 chosen)
4-shot roleblocker
Ninja
Bus driver
Godfather

I'll decide later.

I agree with your assessment on which roles the mafia probably would have chosen.

I think they would be...
Doctor - low odds in protecting a targeted townie.
Weak Docter - even worse than regular doc cuz he could die.
Bulletproof - doesn't harm mafia at all during the night.
Vengeful - good odds of killing a townie instead.


And if the above is true...
For which mafia roles to give out...

4-shot roleblocker - It's a hit and miss to target a useful townie power role.
Day Rolecop - very bad idea to give mafia this ability as they will be able to find out who has a power role or not.
1-shot janitor - very bad idea as the town needs info via lynch especially if we have no investigation ability.
(even though it's a one-time use...it's worse if it's saved for late stages in the game)
Godfather - relatively useless if town has no investigation ability
Ninja - same as godfather
Bus Driver - I'm having a hard time figuring out the disadvantage of this.

During the night you may "switch" two players. Any actions against the first player, will instead be used against the second and vice versa.

useless if used on 2 townies
possible info gathering if used with 1 townie and 1 mafia?
might know who's doc if he gets lucky?

You will be seen as targeting both players however.

this part is useless if the town has no investigation ability.


So my choices would be...4-shot roleblocker, Godfather, and Ninja.
I decided not choosing the Bus Driver mainly cuz I really don't know how useful/useless it can be.


Vote: 4-shot roleblocker, Godfather, and Ninja

[CanucksDynasty]

How much metagaming usually goes on in these? Because if the mafia thinks that people will assume they won't give out the dreamer roles, they could then give out the dreamer roles with the assumption that they'll then get the protection from dreamers roles because everyone will think the dreamers don't exist. Yeah, it's a tiny bit complicated/heavy on assumptions but it only really relies on one key assumption (people will assume that the weakest roles are the ones given out).

Even if mafia gave townie the cop roles, it would remain status quo (ie. if town gives out Godfather and Ninja) with neither side having a distinct advantage.
I rely on voting patterns more than cop info.
(cuz he'd have to share that info which would mean he's been outed as a power role and would die next night...pretty safe to assume if we have cops then we don't have docs).

[CanucksDynasty]

Yes the Janitor is the most game changing ability. It would be one thing if he could just cover up the alignment of someone but he can change the alignment we are shown. Meaning that they can put us completely on the wrong track. Most mafia games here play out according to some initial suspicions and then vote counts. I'm a little confused so many people fail to see the problem of giving them the Janitor ability, so I would like to ask a question: How do you envision our scumhunting if they have a Janitor?

I would also like to ask that if someone is doubting, even just a little bit, that he please unvotes the Janitor role. We need to have a good discussion before deciding on what to give them and this one already has too many votes.


So you follow me instead of KevinH on 2 out of 3 options and yet you FOS me for disagreeing with KevinH?

The janitor roles says cover up not change alignment.
So I would think that it would mean we don't get to know if it's a dead townie or dead mafia.
Anyways...it's still bad if the ability gets used in the later stages of the game.

[Martino]

How much metagaming usually goes on in these? Because if the mafia thinks that people will assume they won't give out the dreamer roles, they could then give out the dreamer roles with the assumption that they'll then get the protection from dreamers roles because everyone will think the dreamers don't exist. Yeah, it's a tiny bit complicated/heavy on assumptions but it only really relies on one key assumption (people will assume that the weakest roles are the ones given out).

Well, there is of course the WIFOM aspect of it, but I don't think it plays that big of a role here. If we give them those roles, only one of the mafia would be immune to each investigation type. I would still rather end up in a situation where we have a cop/tracker but cannot completely trust the innocent results than any set up where we do not have a cop/tracker. So the mafia really doesn't have anything to gain by trying to outguess the town by giving us a cop/tracker. Even if they rightly assume that we would give them a godfather and ninja, they would still be off worse than when they would have given us the less powerful roles. As a result, it is highly likely that the mafia did not give us an investigative role and the correct move on our part would be to give them a godfather and a ninja. Even if that would turn out to be a mistake because the mafia gave us investigative roles, the mafia would have made a bigger mistake and we still come out ahead.

The janitor roles says cover up not change alignment.
So I would think that it would mean we don't get to know if it's a dead townie or dead mafia.
Anyways...it's still bad if the ability gets used in the later stages of the game.

Hmm, now i'm wondering where I got the changing part from. Well, that does make it sightly less suspicious that people were willing to give out the janitor role . But I'd still rather not give them that abiity.

[Preston]

Hey Preston, thanks for playing with us

Have you read these guides?: http://www.iron-command.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=111
They explain the roles pretty well.

FoS means Field of Suspicion. It basically means that you declare a player to be suspicious to you for whatever reason, but you are not voting to lynch him yet.

Thanks for the links and the explanation ccabal! I think the most helpful is that the first link actually stepped me through a full 'game' so to speak.

I'm still not sure I understand why some of these roles would be powerful in practice, but I think canuck and kaziocore make a persuasive argument for godfather and ninja.

So the ones left for the 3rd vote are bus driver, 4-shot roleblocker, and 1-shot janitor. Martino seems very... passionate, about janitor not being an option - would you mind explaining yourself a little more, possibly with a scenario for how it would be used? Actually a usefulness scenario for all three of them would be useful; I'd thought the roleblocker was the most powerful from the descriptions since it could totally STOP anything.

My understanding of the roleblocker (and please tell me if this is wrong) is that if there are two people A and B they think could be the doctor protecting each other, mafia could block one of them and try and kill the other. If A is the doctor and they blocked him, then B would die. If B was the doctor and they blocked A, then B would still die since doctors cant protect themselves. Maybe I'm totally missing something, but this seems dangerous to give them...

At the moment I'm kinda with canucksdynasty in that the bus driver still seems less useful, so I'm more likely to vote for that - can I get some more thoughts on the matter?

-Preston

[Martino]

Thanks for the links and the explanation ccabal! I think the most helpful is that the first link actually stepped me through a full 'game' so to speak.

I'm still not sure I understand why some of these roles would be powerful in practice, but I think canuck and kaziocore make a persuasive argument for godfather and ninja.

So the ones left for the 3rd vote are bus driver, 4-shot roleblocker, and 1-shot janitor. Martino seems very... passionate, about janitor not being an option - would you mind explaining yourself a little more, possibly with a scenario for how it would be used?

During the day there are often a few people gathering votes. In the end it usually comes down to two people. So then at the end of the day, there are a few people who are voting for player A and there are a few people who are voting for player B and let's say A gets the most votes and is lynched. Without a janitor his alignment will be revealed. So we will, for example, find out that he is a mafia player. In that case, the players who did not vote for player A will be more suspicious, as they tried to avoid a mafia lynch. If instead his alignment is hidden, we will know nothing. He could be mafia and the other mafia could try to hide his identity in order to save themselves, but he could be town just as well, with the mafia hiding his alignment simply to create some confusion. The main problem I have with the janitor role is that it takes away one of the strongest weapons of the town. If we don't know what the alignment of a player is, we don't gain any information from the lynch. Without information, we will never discover the mafia.

Actually a usefulness scenario for all three of them would be useful; I'd thought the roleblocker was the most powerful from the descriptions since it could totally STOP anything.

My understanding of the roleblocker (and please tell me if this is wrong) is that if there are two people A and B they think could be the doctor protecting each other, mafia could block one of them and try and kill the other. If A is the doctor and they blocked him, then B would die. If B was the doctor and they blocked A, then B would still die since doctors cant protect themselves. Maybe I'm totally missing something, but this seems dangerous to give them...

At the moment I'm kinda with canucksdynasty in that the bus driver still seems less useful, so I'm more likely to vote for that - can I get some more thoughts on the matter?

-Preston

Yes, the role blocker can stop any night action. However, we will rely much more on good scumhunting by the town then on pro town night actions,especially since we most likely do not have any investigative roles. The best we can probably hope for is a doc preventing a night kill. Sure it would be annoying to have that doc roleblocked, but that will only happen if both the doc gets lucky by protecting the mafia target and the mafia get lucky by guessing who the doc is. Except for the situation where both docs have roleclaimed, those odds are fairly low. If the vengeful townie gets his role revealed when lynched, then that would perhaps be a more likely roleblock target. Though thinking about it, I would rather have him roleblocked than having his target changed. So I'm now leaning towards the 4-shot roleblocker as the third mafia role.