@osie, @D_V: Tell me why you are town and should not be on the receiving end of the scalpel?
(NOT why the other should be killed)
Cause I'm town?
I refuse to answer this question any more. Its reductive.
Tell me why you are town bur.
Since I'm not actively lurking?
Since I'm trying to interact with people instead of going with the flow?
Since I'm actually interested in game state and trying to make sense of you and osie?
@osie, @D_V: Tell me why you are town and should not be on the receiving end of the scalpel?
(NOT why the other should be killed)
Cause I'm town?
I refuse to answer this question any more. Its reductive.
Tell me why you are town bur.
Since I'm not actively lurking?
Since I'm trying to interact with people instead of going with the flow?
Since I'm actually interested in game state and trying to make sense of you and osie?
I'm not even certain why I was scum read this game other than being AFK for IRL reasons.
I was pretty sure that the No kill option Bur would take and I could at least get to night.
Somehow Chad managed to get himself killed and didn't throw which was... Frustrating to say the least.
I'm also like 99% certain I ****ed up in trying to get Bur to town read me since I don't think in the history of mafia together that has ever happened.
Also, I still think the question "Prove you're town" is one of the scummiest things I've ever seen asked. Because the only real answer is "Because my actions are town because I'm town." And otherwise its just dumb.
Realizing that the McNinja Clone is nearly an extinct species, the remaining clones fall back on a tried and tested trope of their own: the angry mob. Angus McNinja hands out pitchforks and torches and the whole gang advances on Dr. McNinja. He lets fly a barrage of ninja epithets, but, strangely, doesn't touch the 73 shurikens hiding on his person. Without another kill, Dr. McNinja (played by Shinichi) goes down in a hail of fists with middle fingers raised.
Having accomplished half of their goal, they shift gears and turn their attention to Frans Raynor. Ah, Frans, you're looking good, old man, says a clone who studied in London. Did you recently get a haircut? Another clone picks up the thread. Yes, and I have to admit, no one slaughters the way you do, Raynor. The clones are all nodding in unison. One by one they shower him with compliments. Raynor, at first confused, backs into a corner of the warehouse. As they continue, he starts to scream. The clones surround him, relentless, telling him how good he smells, how striking his eyes are, and how lavish and attractive his neckbeard is. Raynor (played by D_V) lets out one last high pitched shriek, then melts into a puddle as the clones kill him with kindness.
Congratulations to Bur, DoTArchon, KamikaziArchon, osieorb18, shadowlancerxx, and vezokpiraka for winning Dr. McNinja Army of One!
Please let me know what you thought about the game, how the mechanics changed things, the flavor, and anything else.
I have a few thoughts, but I just got in from a long day, so I probably won't be able to post them until tomorrow.
@DV: You got scumread, because the Poe was closing in on you. The only other people that even had a chance of being scum were Bur and KA. Bur knew he was town and KA was mostly townie. Being AFK in the beginning really screwed your chances as most reads were already solidified.
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@DV: You got scumread, because the Poe was closing in on you. The only other people that even had a chance of being scum were Bur and KA. Bur knew he was town and KA was mostly townie. Being AFK in the beginning really screwed your chances as most reads were already solidified.
KA was just not scummy. Shadow was a faint possibility for me, but it was really just Bur or DoTA at that point.
I really enjoyed this game, I think the individual nature of it is really unique; being able to be unilaterally killed because of one person’s hunch, and in the same vein saved for the same reason adds a really cool dynamic. I think Shinichi not firing his strike really hurt scum’s chances here.
Some Follow-Up Thoughts:
• I enjoyed seeing how strategies shifted a little with the whole "vig/doc" mechanic in play. I would like to try playing a similar setup in the future if anyone's interested in running one.
• If anyone's up for debate, I'm not sure that I provided the best scum wincon. I (somehow!) didn't even realize that I didn't have a set scum wincon until the game had started. The wincon I sent out in scum PMs was the standard "you win when you control the lynch or when this is unpreventable"...lol. :/ So I got some feedback from people who weren't in the game and we ended up on "scum have to kill everyone". Which, depending on who has scalpels left, does not equate to scum equaling town (or even having a majority). I figured I should open it up here to see if anyone had any insight into whether something like "scum win when they equal or outnumber the town" would be more fair.
Individual Player/Event Thoughts:
• Osie was pretty on with his suspicions this game. 118 his listed three suspects included Shin and DV, and then he outright called the scumteam in 165. Nice job, Osie.
• I really appreciated the Dr. McNinja pictures that were posted; added to the fun.
• @Bur: Your first line of 151: if this is the first time you've had this thought, you haven't been mafia-ing right.
• Regarding the "button you can push that gives you particular odds of winning", I agree with Shadow in 108: while there are games that rely on die rolls (either significantly or completely), I don't think I'd want to play any game where the entire kit'n'caboodle falls to the roll of a single die. Even if that single roll follows tons of analysis, it still just feels like gambling (perhaps with better odds, but still).
Shinichi should have shot at DV, but he didn't leave himself an out for that.
No. I don't think that's a good idea and some mods would not allow it.
I wondered if he would, but figured he probably didn't want to take the chance that Bur would shrug and go "ok" and end the game. But I totes would have allowed it.
• Regarding the "button you can push that gives you particular odds of winning", I agree with Shadow in 108: while there are games that rely on die rolls (either significantly or completely), I don't think I'd want to play any game where the entire kit'n'caboodle falls to the roll of a single die. Even if that single roll follows tons of analysis, it still just feels like gambling (perhaps with better odds, but still).
During the game, I was mostly using that line of questioning to gently poke at behavior. But I do think it's a useful examination outside the game, and I disagree.
I think Mafia inherently already falls to such die rolls, and the only difference is they're not explicit. When you're in LyLo, you can never know with complete certainty who the scum is; even if you have Cop results you can always worry about millers and godfathers and all that sort of thing. So you're always going to be pressing the Vote button with some odds of being right and winning, and some odds of being wrong and losing. If you really weren't willing to play a game that can come down to a gamble, you wouldn't be playing Mafia.
Rather, I think people are resistant to explicit gambles, where it feels like some outside force sets the odds - but implicit gambles ("I could be wrong about this") feel psychologically fine. Statistically, they're equivalent. If your hunches/analyses/scumreads are correct about two out of three times, and you act on that in endgame, that has the same outcome as a button that's 67% win / 33% loss.
To me, "would you press a 50/50 win/loss button" is the same as "would you place the hammer vote in a LyLo if you're half certain of your scumread".
@Kami: I disagree with your conclusion, even if I know I will always get it right in LyLo half the time, the act of making that choice is what matters. Pressing a button that gives you a coin flip both makes victory hollow as well as robbing you the opportunity to learn from a mistake. I firmly believe that the outcome isn’t the important part, but how you go there.
• Regarding the "button you can push that gives you particular odds of winning", I agree with Shadow in 108: while there are games that rely on die rolls (either significantly or completely), I don't think I'd want to play any game where the entire kit'n'caboodle falls to the roll of a single die. Even if that single roll follows tons of analysis, it still just feels like gambling (perhaps with better odds, but still).
During the game, I was mostly using that line of questioning to gently poke at behavior. But I do think it's a useful examination outside the game, and I disagree.
I think Mafia inherently already falls to such die rolls, and the only difference is they're not explicit. When you're in LyLo, you can never know with complete certainty who the scum is; even if you have Cop results you can always worry about millers and godfathers and all that sort of thing. So you're always going to be pressing the Vote button with some odds of being right and winning, and some odds of being wrong and losing. If you really weren't willing to play a game that can come down to a gamble, you wouldn't be playing Mafia.
Rather, I think people are resistant to explicit gambles, where it feels like some outside force sets the odds - but implicit gambles ("I could be wrong about this") feel psychologically fine. Statistically, they're equivalent. If your hunches/analyses/scumreads are correct about two out of three times, and you act on that in endgame, that has the same outcome as a button that's 67% win / 33% loss.
To me, "would you press a 50/50 win/loss button" is the same as "would you place the hammer vote in a LyLo if you're half certain of your scumread".
This is not at all how mafia works. Every vote you make should be a informed decision not a random die roll.
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This is not at all how mafia works. Every vote you make should be a informed decision not a random die roll.
An informed decision is a die roll. There is no difference between the two besides psychology and what you call it.
No. An die roll is by definition a uniform CDF. An informed decision is almost surely a Normal (Gaussian) CDF with the bell centered around higher numbers when the player is good. And this is talking about statistics aka a multitude of events. An informed decision is a single event that has no computable probability. There are too many factors that influence it. Just because the outcomes (eg alignments) are unknown doesn't make it a die roll.
Let me give you an example: You have three doors. One has molten lava behind it, one has a frozen tundra and the last one has full table. You have 33% chance of getting the door that doesn't kill you. Instead of picking randomly, you go near every door. One is much hotter than the rest while one is much colder. You pick the door that has neither of these problems. You made an informed decision that cannot be quantized as a probability, even though the probability of picking the right door is 33%.
Everywhere an informed decision comes into play negates the calculation of a probability of a single event.
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This is not at all how mafia works. Every vote you make should be a informed decision not a random die roll.
An informed decision is a die roll. There is no difference between the two besides psychology and what you call it.
No. An die roll is by definition a uniform CDF.
I would definitely not consider that part of the definition. "Roll 2d6" has a Gaussian distribution centered around 7, not a uniform distribution; I would consider 2d6 a die roll.
And this is talking about statistics aka a multitude of events. An informed decision is a single event that has no computable probability.
You are using a frequentist approach to the terms of statistics and probability. I am using a Bayesian approach, which has no problem talking about the computable probabilities associated with unique events and decisions.
The frequentist vs. Bayesian dichotomy is a longstanding difference in views on probability, and essentially every example has a frequentist response and a Bayesian response, each of which are fairly self-consistent. For example:
Let me give you an example: You have three doors. One has molten lava behind it, one has a frozen tundra and the last one has full table. You have 33% chance of getting the door that doesn't kill you. Instead of picking randomly, you go near every door. One is much hotter than the rest while one is much colder. You pick the door that has neither of these problems. You made an informed decision that cannot be quantized as a probability, even though the probability of picking the right door is 33%.
I would respond that my decision certainly can be quantified as a probability; what I've done by sensing temperature is not removed the concept of probability, but simply changed the distribution. I have increased the chance of being correct. If I knew that my temperature sense is infallible, and there are no tricks, then I have increased my probability of success to 100%. But if I know that this whole game was set up by an infinitely powerful genie that likes to trick people, I might think I've only gone up to 50%, as the question is now "is the temperature a trick?" and I have no way of being certain about the answer to that.
This is not at all how mafia works. Every vote you make should be a informed decision not a random die roll.
An informed decision is a die roll. There is no difference between the two besides psychology and what you call it.
No. An die roll is by definition a uniform CDF.
I would definitely not consider that part of the definition. "Roll 2d6" has a Gaussian distribution centered around 7, not a uniform distribution; I would consider 2d6 a die roll.
And this is talking about statistics aka a multitude of events. An informed decision is a single event that has no computable probability.
You are using a frequentist approach to the terms of statistics and probability. I am using a Bayesian approach, which has no problem talking about the computable probabilities associated with unique events and decisions.
The frequentist vs. Bayesian dichotomy is a longstanding difference in views on probability, and essentially every example has a frequentist response and a Bayesian response, each of which are fairly self-consistent. For example:
Let me give you an example: You have three doors. One has molten lava behind it, one has a frozen tundra and the last one has full table. You have 33% chance of getting the door that doesn't kill you. Instead of picking randomly, you go near every door. One is much hotter than the rest while one is much colder. You pick the door that has neither of these problems. You made an informed decision that cannot be quantized as a probability, even though the probability of picking the right door is 33%.
I would respond that my decision certainly can be quantified as a probability; what I've done by sensing temperature is not removed the concept of probability, but simply changed the distribution. I have increased the chance of being correct. If I knew that my temperature sense is infallible, and there are no tricks, then I have increased my probability of success to 100%. But if I know that this whole game was set up by an infinitely powerful genie that likes to trick people, I might think I've only gone up to 50%, as the question is now "is the temperature a trick?" and I have no way of being certain about the answer to that.
My counter point to this would be that making that informed decision is still inherently different than picking at random. Statistically making informed decisions isn’t always going to get the correct result, but it’s a different concept than just rolling a die.
Let’s take games as an example, shoots and ladders is not truly a game because there is no decisions. You roll a die, move that many spaces and then it’s someone else’s turn. Risk on the other hand has a huge dice component, but involves informed decisions on where to attack, where to reinforce, etc.
The only change I would consider is that if someone posts No Kill, they drop their scalpel. Adds abother layer to the decision and a confirmation that there won't be a sudden change of heart. Otherwise, was great
My counter point to this would be that making that informed decision is still inherently different than picking at random. Statistically making informed decisions isn’t always going to get the correct result, but it’s a different concept than just rolling a die.
Certainly! But you're just including additional context.
"Roll 2d6. If you get at least 5, you win." That's a pure die roll, right? But what if the process is like this:
1. The player starts with 1d8 and needs to get at least a 7 to win.
2. The player makes some decisions and takes some actions. As a result, the 1d8 upgrades to 2d6.
3. The player makes more decisions/actions. As a result, the "target number" goes down from a 7 to a 5.
4. Now the player rolls the dice - 2d6 to get at least a 5.
In this light, it was a series of informed decisions.
The difference is simply that you're looking at a larger scope. The two are not separate things - it's more that one is a subcomponent of the other.
The only change I would consider is that if someone posts No Kill, they drop their scalpel. Adds abother layer to the decision and a confirmation that there won't be a sudden change of heart. Otherwise, was great
I debated this, as well, and ultimately decided that we already had one set of "final" decisions going on in the form of strikes and deflections, and that town in particular might like to have a softer "no lynch" option rather than having to agonize over "will me saying no lynch hand scum the victory". I agree that it adds more gravitas to the decision, but... I could see playing it that way, too, though.
I'm loving this discussion about dice rolls and informed decisions, as long as it's (hopefully) not inciting anyone to rage. It's a little over my head, I'm afraid, but it's still very enjoyable.
My counter point to this would be that making that informed decision is still inherently different than picking at random. Statistically making informed decisions isn’t always going to get the correct result, but it’s a different concept than just rolling a die.
Certainly! But you're just including additional context.
"Roll 2d6. If you get at least 5, you win." That's a pure die roll, right? But what if the process is like this:
1. The player starts with 1d8 and needs to get at least a 7 to win.
2. The player makes some decisions and takes some actions. As a result, the 1d8 upgrades to 2d6.
3. The player makes more decisions/actions. As a result, the "target number" goes down from a 7 to a 5.
4. Now the player rolls the dice - 2d6 to get at least a 5.
In this light, it was a series of informed decisions.
The difference is simply that you're looking at a larger scope. The two are not separate things - it's more that one is a subcomponent of the other.
But after all that song and dance, if I roll a 4 and “lose” I go “well it was just how the dice fell” absolving me of any reason to analyze why I lost. It stops being about my decision.
But after all that song and dance, if I roll a 4 and “lose” I go “well it was just how the dice fell” absolving me of any reason to analyze why I lost. It stops being about my decision.
That's what I'm referring to as psychology.
You roll a 4 and "lose". You can say "that's just how the dice fell", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to get a +1 earlier, which you missed, and which would have made that 4 a "win".
You are in LyLo and fire at the wrong person. You can say "that's just how the game goes", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to take note of some behavior and correlate it with another thing that happened, and which would have made you more accurate with your read.
The trappings of the situation - dice vs. votes - are different, but the underlying mechanics are the same. Mafia has an element of chance - the sheer unpredictability of the other humans you're playing with. It's a more complex RNG than a die roll, but from the perspective of the decision-maker, it can be treated as an RNG.
But we are psychologically more likely to attribute a die roll to the final chance element, ignoring how we affected (or could have affected) the outcome before we even rolled; and we are psychologically more likely to attribute win/loss in a mafia game to correct/incorrect analysis, discounting the unpredictability of humans.
But after all that song and dance, if I roll a 4 and “lose” I go “well it was just how the dice fell” absolving me of any reason to analyze why I lost. It stops being about my decision.
That's what I'm referring to as psychology.
You roll a 4 and "lose". You can say "that's just how the dice fell", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to get a +1 earlier, which you missed, and which would have made that 4 a "win".
You are in LyLo and fire at the wrong person. You can say "that's just how the game goes", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to take note of some behavior and correlate it with another thing that happened, and which would have made you more accurate with your read.
The trappings of the situation - dice vs. votes - are different, but the underlying mechanics are the same. Mafia has an element of chance - the sheer unpredictability of the other humans you're playing with. It's a more complex RNG than a die roll, but from the perspective of the decision-maker, it can be treated as an RNG.
But we are psychologically more likely to attribute a die roll to the final chance element, ignoring how we affected (or could have affected) the outcome before we even rolled; and we are psychologically more likely to attribute win/loss in a mafia game to correct/incorrect analysis, discounting the unpredictability of humans.
But the whole world is based around RNG. Elementary particles exist as probabilities, but on macro level we can't attribute our actions to chance. If you make a decision to go to the bathroom you aren't throwing a dice to see if you'll make it, although there is a real possibility that you may fail.
It's true that you can consider every event to have an inherent probability, but that doesn't really make voting in mafia the same as throwing a die.
Just one final question: Would you consider chess equivalent to a die roll?
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But the whole world is based around RNG. Elementary particles exist as probabilities, but on macro level we can't attribute our actions to chance.
Yes, we can! I find it to be a very useful approach to decisions. Thinking in terms of probabilities makes decision-making more focused and results in better choices.
It's true that you can consider every event to have an inherent probability, but that doesn't really make voting in mafia the same as throwing a die.
Voting in Mafia isn't the same thing as literally throwing a physical die - but it's a lot closer to it than most things in life. A lot of probabilities in life are 99.999+%. I can take a hundred thousand steps without tripping over my own feet (though perhaps not ten million). Voting, on the other hand, is a lot closer to being 1 in 2, or 2 in 3, or 4 in 5 kinds of chances.
Just one final question: Would you consider chess equivalent to a die roll?
Depends on who's playing, and whether you view the game as a whole or a specific subpart of the game. A chess endgame is purely deterministic. The game as a whole is theoretically deterministic, but as played by humans, it is not. It makes sense to say that a game between equally matched players is basically a coin flip.
Just one final question: Would you consider chess equivalent to a die roll?
Depends on who's playing, and whether you view the game as a whole or a specific subpart of the game. A chess endgame is purely deterministic. The game as a whole is theoretically deterministic, but as played by humans, it is not. It makes sense to say that a game between equally matched players is basically a coin flip.
This is basically the problem. If you watch anything as a die roll, it loses it's meaning. Chess is the farthest away from a game of chance. It is purely a game of skill where one wins by making better decisions than their opponent.
What you're trying to do is minimizing skill and attributing it to chance which is not a view I can get behind. You can do whatever you want if you feel if it improves your reads, but I'll just consider this thinking flawed.
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Just one final question: Would you consider chess equivalent to a die roll?
Depends on who's playing, and whether you view the game as a whole or a specific subpart of the game. A chess endgame is purely deterministic. The game as a whole is theoretically deterministic, but as played by humans, it is not. It makes sense to say that a game between equally matched players is basically a coin flip.
This is basically the problem. If you watch anything as a die roll, it loses it's meaning.
Only if you choose to let it. Does it cause the world to lose meaning if you recognize that everything is made of the same subatomic particles?
What you're trying to do is minimizing skill and attributing it to chance which is not a view I can get behind.
I'm not trying to minimize skill. I am trying to appropriately attribute skill.
Skill and chance are not incompatible. Most things are both. The reason I think recognizing this improves play (or decisions in general)? Because increasing the probability of a victory takes (and, I would say, is the essence of) skill. Trying to create a deterministic algorithm to solve games is fragile - you can go back and say "if I'd seen this one thing, or done that one thing, I would have won", but that won't actually work the next time you play because circumstances will be different. Rather, if you try to see heuristics and their effect on victory probability, you can get a resilient, adaptive improvement.
Notably, this is not just for Mafia. Top-level chess players - and top-level chess AIs - approach chess exactly this way. Yes, they can think out more moves ahead - but they do not "solve the game". They are aware of the effects of different game factors on their probability of victory, and they constantly push to increase those probabilities higher. This is the point of tempo, position, initiative, and so forth. They play a fundamentally heuristic game. They play chess as an iterated series of dice rolls, where each side is trying to swap in their own loaded dice, and the side that loads the dice the most wins.
This doesn't minimize skill. The highly skilled player wins much more than the unskilled player because they can push the odds in their favor.
I'm not good enough at mafia to claim that I have a framework down pat.
I think most of it is actually already intuitively used by good mafia players. A townie saying "That seems scummy" is isomorphic to "that increases the probability that voting for you leads to a win". A strong analyst will be able to pick up scumtells, and scumtells can be viewed as elements that increase the probability that a given target is scum, which in turn provides an opportunity to increase the probability of victory (by voting that target).
On the scum side, the probabilities are better-defined, because you have more information. There are still unknowns, though - obviously the general unknowns of how humans will react to things, but also mechanics-specific things like "is there a cop?", "who will protective roles target?".
I think the probability-oriented perspective is most useful when it specifically sheds light on something that would be overlooked. I think that mostly happens in the decision-making phase, where it's useful for three things:
1) Avoiding overconfidence. Viewing the game as a deterministic skill contest or pattern-matching can make one believe that, because a pattern was matched, there is certainty and the alternative doesn't need to be considered. Trying to assign probabilities can force the alternatives into view, force them to be evaluated.
2) Avoiding underconfidence / decision paralysis. This is particularly the case for things like vigs. It is natural to not want to act except on near-certainty - but often, inaction eats away at your odds of winning. A balanced game of mafia should be assumed to be 50/50; if you can push your odds even a bit higher, it's generally worth it.
3) Specifically seeking things that clarify probabilities. That means asking questions that clarify the unknowns, and probing to get info that can either confirm or contradict the current "leading probability".
This is a really interesting conversation, because I love modelling games, and it also reveals some interesting insights into how humans perceive probability and games themselves.
Mafia as a game has inherent uncertainty - the act of distributing alignments at the start of the game is random, and importantly those alignments stay hidden. Everyone has the same chance to be mafia (usually 1/4 to 1/3 depending on game size and type), but through interaction and discussion the town aims to improve their guesses above random chance. Because of the inherent uncertainty (anyone could be mafia), scumhunting is inherely probabilistic: consider the phrases used like "I think this comes from scum" or "this looks like a town response" or "I don't think scum would reply like this". Even when someone says "I am 100% sure X is scum" they're not actually 100% sure because that's more or less impossible, and they are exaggerating for effect. Importantly, humans are pretty bad at actually estimating probability, so while someone might say I am Y% sure X is scum, it's probably not a actually a Y% chance that player is scum. At the end of a day, a lynch is a guess - it might be a well supported guess (and history shows that town are much better at lynching scum than random would suggest), but it's still a guess (a.k.a a roll of a die based on a certain probability). The key thing that sets the game of Mafia apart from a pure game of chance is that the random dice rolls all happen at the start of the game, and that the knowledge of the dice rolls (in particular the fact that the informed minority of the mafia is playing to a different win condition that affects their behaviour) allows the town to scumhunt and - in effect - make good guesses at which dice rolled "scum".
RE: The idea of a button that gives you a chance to win the game, that's also interesting. A simple situation would be a 3-person end game. The other two players cross vote, so the remaining player knows for a fact that one of the two voters is scum. This gives a worst-case 50/50 shot for the town to win. If the mod offered this player a button that gave a random 70% chance for the town to win the game, a rational player playing to win would take it if they couldn't tell who was the last scum. They should even take it if they were moderately-but-under-70% confident, since the button still gives better odds. There are interesting discussions as the player tries to work out exactly how sure they are, because humans are bad at estimating probability, and mafia is a rather difficult thing to generate hard numbers on as "I think X is scum" is entirely based on subjective interpretation of evidence. However, players are not always rational, and even play the game for reasons other than purely winning - for the experience, for the social aspect, for the puzzle, whatever. Which explains Shadow's position here that he'd always make the vote and not the random dice roll regardless of the difference in win probability. This is particularly interesing because both options involve a decision based on evaluating probabilities that could win or lose the game, but the decision to make a vote (i.e. take a worst-case 50% win rate) appears more meaningful than making the decision to use the button (and take the 70% win rate) - even though both decisions would be supported by evidence and analysis ("I think X is scum because Y" vs. "I am not >70% sure X is scum despite Y"). I think this is heavily related to the point KA raised that making the vote feels like more player agency than using the button, even though both require the player to make a concious decision about an unknown based on probability.
@KA: I concede to your points. Can you provide a framework for approaching mafia games as probabilities?
I think all exisiting mafia techniques inherently approach the game as probabilities, as we can never really be sure who precisely is scum while they're alive, and we therefore seek evidence that increases the probability that we are correct. That's why the best scumhunting techniques look for patterns of behaviour that indicates an alignment's mindset: the more data points you have, the better your evaluation. As with many games where there is chance/randomness/variance - in the people as much as the fundmental game (like Hearthstone or MTG) - you want to avoid results-oriented thinking (just because you lynched scum doesn't mean you had good, reusable reasons) and instead focus on having a strong process that gets good results on average across multiple games, even if sometimes you get it wrong because people behaved weirdly.
This is a really bad question, but I'll give you this:
If I was scum, why would I be so impulsive as to shoot at Kami rather than wait? Why would I be focused more on game-solving than on offense/defense?
Anyways...
If it's down to those two, I'd rather you hit DV instead of osie. Osie seems mostly town this game.
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Its like Bur totally forgot that I offered to shoot if he was going to holster.
On his approval.
Any thoughts other than that?
Since I'm not actively lurking?
Since I'm trying to interact with people instead of going with the flow?
Since I'm actually interested in game state and trying to make sense of you and osie?
Why is the question reductive?
Thank you for your contribution.
Do you have any thoughts about our impending deadline and still having ways to get second person killed before DL?
No Kill
Might change my mind. I'm just.
People I'm town reading are reading Osie as town I guess. This isn't live mafia and frankly I think my day one reads are always ******* bad.
Cool
I'm doing all those things too.
So is Osie.
So is everyone else in the thread.
What else you got?
...?
I said I'd be willing to holster since I'm not feeling comfortable shooting while you still have your scalpel remaining.
Or what are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
I'll shoot if we get down to 1 minute, but I said I'd rather let you do the killing, since I don't trust you enough.
I'm literally SITTING ON NO KILL.
Make a decision.
Ninja Strike: D_V
Were you scum, DV?
I was pretty sure that the No kill option Bur would take and I could at least get to night.
Somehow Chad managed to get himself killed and didn't throw which was... Frustrating to say the least.
I'm also like 99% certain I ****ed up in trying to get Bur to town read me since I don't think in the history of mafia together that has ever happened.
Also, I still think the question "Prove you're town" is one of the scummiest things I've ever seen asked. Because the only real answer is "Because my actions are town because I'm town." And otherwise its just dumb.
Having accomplished half of their goal, they shift gears and turn their attention to Frans Raynor. Ah, Frans, you're looking good, old man, says a clone who studied in London. Did you recently get a haircut? Another clone picks up the thread. Yes, and I have to admit, no one slaughters the way you do, Raynor. The clones are all nodding in unison. One by one they shower him with compliments. Raynor, at first confused, backs into a corner of the warehouse. As they continue, he starts to scream. The clones surround him, relentless, telling him how good he smells, how striking his eyes are, and how lavish and attractive his neckbeard is. Raynor (played by D_V) lets out one last high pitched shriek, then melts into a puddle as the clones kill him with kindness.
Congratulations to Bur, DoTArchon, KamikaziArchon, osieorb18, shadowlancerxx, and vezokpiraka for winning Dr. McNinja Army of One!
Please let me know what you thought about the game, how the mechanics changed things, the flavor, and anything else.
I have a few thoughts, but I just got in from a long day, so I probably won't be able to post them until tomorrow.
Claps to the town on a well played game!
Shin, my dude you got to fire that scalpel preemptively if you're going to be stuck at work!
@DV: You got scumread, because the Poe was closing in on you. The only other people that even had a chance of being scum were Bur and KA. Bur knew he was town and KA was mostly townie. Being AFK in the beginning really screwed your chances as most reads were already solidified.
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KA was just not scummy. Shadow was a faint possibility for me, but it was really just Bur or DoTA at that point.
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Thanks to DNC at Heroes of the plane studios for this awesome sig and SGT_Chubbz for the awesome avy.
Check out the Shop Thread
No. I don't think that's a good idea and some mods would not allow it.
• I enjoyed seeing how strategies shifted a little with the whole "vig/doc" mechanic in play. I would like to try playing a similar setup in the future if anyone's interested in running one.
• If anyone's up for debate, I'm not sure that I provided the best scum wincon. I (somehow!) didn't even realize that I didn't have a set scum wincon until the game had started. The wincon I sent out in scum PMs was the standard "you win when you control the lynch or when this is unpreventable"...lol. :/ So I got some feedback from people who weren't in the game and we ended up on "scum have to kill everyone". Which, depending on who has scalpels left, does not equate to scum equaling town (or even having a majority). I figured I should open it up here to see if anyone had any insight into whether something like "scum win when they equal or outnumber the town" would be more fair.
Individual Player/Event Thoughts:
• Osie was pretty on with his suspicions this game. 118 his listed three suspects included Shin and DV, and then he outright called the scumteam in 165. Nice job, Osie.
• I really appreciated the Dr. McNinja pictures that were posted; added to the fun.
• @Bur: Your first line of 151: if this is the first time you've had this thought, you haven't been mafia-ing right.
• Regarding the "button you can push that gives you particular odds of winning", I agree with Shadow in 108: while there are games that rely on die rolls (either significantly or completely), I don't think I'd want to play any game where the entire kit'n'caboodle falls to the roll of a single die. Even if that single roll follows tons of analysis, it still just feels like gambling (perhaps with better odds, but still).
I wondered if he would, but figured he probably didn't want to take the chance that Bur would shrug and go "ok" and end the game. But I totes would have allowed it.
I think Mafia inherently already falls to such die rolls, and the only difference is they're not explicit. When you're in LyLo, you can never know with complete certainty who the scum is; even if you have Cop results you can always worry about millers and godfathers and all that sort of thing. So you're always going to be pressing the Vote button with some odds of being right and winning, and some odds of being wrong and losing. If you really weren't willing to play a game that can come down to a gamble, you wouldn't be playing Mafia.
Rather, I think people are resistant to explicit gambles, where it feels like some outside force sets the odds - but implicit gambles ("I could be wrong about this") feel psychologically fine. Statistically, they're equivalent. If your hunches/analyses/scumreads are correct about two out of three times, and you act on that in endgame, that has the same outcome as a button that's 67% win / 33% loss.
To me, "would you press a 50/50 win/loss button" is the same as "would you place the hammer vote in a LyLo if you're half certain of your scumread".
This is not at all how mafia works. Every vote you make should be a informed decision not a random die roll.
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Oh, and scumchat link: https://discord.gg/VaeK5n3
No. An die roll is by definition a uniform CDF. An informed decision is almost surely a Normal (Gaussian) CDF with the bell centered around higher numbers when the player is good. And this is talking about statistics aka a multitude of events. An informed decision is a single event that has no computable probability. There are too many factors that influence it. Just because the outcomes (eg alignments) are unknown doesn't make it a die roll.
Let me give you an example: You have three doors. One has molten lava behind it, one has a frozen tundra and the last one has full table. You have 33% chance of getting the door that doesn't kill you. Instead of picking randomly, you go near every door. One is much hotter than the rest while one is much colder. You pick the door that has neither of these problems. You made an informed decision that cannot be quantized as a probability, even though the probability of picking the right door is 33%.
Everywhere an informed decision comes into play negates the calculation of a probability of a single event.
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The frequentist vs. Bayesian dichotomy is a longstanding difference in views on probability, and essentially every example has a frequentist response and a Bayesian response, each of which are fairly self-consistent. For example:
I would respond that my decision certainly can be quantified as a probability; what I've done by sensing temperature is not removed the concept of probability, but simply changed the distribution. I have increased the chance of being correct. If I knew that my temperature sense is infallible, and there are no tricks, then I have increased my probability of success to 100%. But if I know that this whole game was set up by an infinitely powerful genie that likes to trick people, I might think I've only gone up to 50%, as the question is now "is the temperature a trick?" and I have no way of being certain about the answer to that.
Let’s take games as an example, shoots and ladders is not truly a game because there is no decisions. You roll a die, move that many spaces and then it’s someone else’s turn. Risk on the other hand has a huge dice component, but involves informed decisions on where to attack, where to reinforce, etc.
"Roll 2d6. If you get at least 5, you win." That's a pure die roll, right? But what if the process is like this:
1. The player starts with 1d8 and needs to get at least a 7 to win.
2. The player makes some decisions and takes some actions. As a result, the 1d8 upgrades to 2d6.
3. The player makes more decisions/actions. As a result, the "target number" goes down from a 7 to a 5.
4. Now the player rolls the dice - 2d6 to get at least a 5.
In this light, it was a series of informed decisions.
The difference is simply that you're looking at a larger scope. The two are not separate things - it's more that one is a subcomponent of the other.
I'm loving this discussion about dice rolls and informed decisions, as long as it's (hopefully) not inciting anyone to rage. It's a little over my head, I'm afraid, but it's still very enjoyable.
You roll a 4 and "lose". You can say "that's just how the dice fell", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to get a +1 earlier, which you missed, and which would have made that 4 a "win".
You are in LyLo and fire at the wrong person. You can say "that's just how the game goes", and not change anything - or you can note that there was an opportunity to take note of some behavior and correlate it with another thing that happened, and which would have made you more accurate with your read.
The trappings of the situation - dice vs. votes - are different, but the underlying mechanics are the same. Mafia has an element of chance - the sheer unpredictability of the other humans you're playing with. It's a more complex RNG than a die roll, but from the perspective of the decision-maker, it can be treated as an RNG.
But we are psychologically more likely to attribute a die roll to the final chance element, ignoring how we affected (or could have affected) the outcome before we even rolled; and we are psychologically more likely to attribute win/loss in a mafia game to correct/incorrect analysis, discounting the unpredictability of humans.
Fight or Flight
But the whole world is based around RNG. Elementary particles exist as probabilities, but on macro level we can't attribute our actions to chance. If you make a decision to go to the bathroom you aren't throwing a dice to see if you'll make it, although there is a real possibility that you may fail.
It's true that you can consider every event to have an inherent probability, but that doesn't really make voting in mafia the same as throwing a die.
Just one final question: Would you consider chess equivalent to a die roll?
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Voting in Mafia isn't the same thing as literally throwing a physical die - but it's a lot closer to it than most things in life. A lot of probabilities in life are 99.999+%. I can take a hundred thousand steps without tripping over my own feet (though perhaps not ten million). Voting, on the other hand, is a lot closer to being 1 in 2, or 2 in 3, or 4 in 5 kinds of chances.
Depends on who's playing, and whether you view the game as a whole or a specific subpart of the game. A chess endgame is purely deterministic. The game as a whole is theoretically deterministic, but as played by humans, it is not. It makes sense to say that a game between equally matched players is basically a coin flip.
This is basically the problem. If you watch anything as a die roll, it loses it's meaning. Chess is the farthest away from a game of chance. It is purely a game of skill where one wins by making better decisions than their opponent.
What you're trying to do is minimizing skill and attributing it to chance which is not a view I can get behind. You can do whatever you want if you feel if it improves your reads, but I'll just consider this thinking flawed.
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Skill and chance are not incompatible. Most things are both. The reason I think recognizing this improves play (or decisions in general)? Because increasing the probability of a victory takes (and, I would say, is the essence of) skill. Trying to create a deterministic algorithm to solve games is fragile - you can go back and say "if I'd seen this one thing, or done that one thing, I would have won", but that won't actually work the next time you play because circumstances will be different. Rather, if you try to see heuristics and their effect on victory probability, you can get a resilient, adaptive improvement.
Notably, this is not just for Mafia. Top-level chess players - and top-level chess AIs - approach chess exactly this way. Yes, they can think out more moves ahead - but they do not "solve the game". They are aware of the effects of different game factors on their probability of victory, and they constantly push to increase those probabilities higher. This is the point of tempo, position, initiative, and so forth. They play a fundamentally heuristic game. They play chess as an iterated series of dice rolls, where each side is trying to swap in their own loaded dice, and the side that loads the dice the most wins.
This doesn't minimize skill. The highly skilled player wins much more than the unskilled player because they can push the odds in their favor.
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I think most of it is actually already intuitively used by good mafia players. A townie saying "That seems scummy" is isomorphic to "that increases the probability that voting for you leads to a win". A strong analyst will be able to pick up scumtells, and scumtells can be viewed as elements that increase the probability that a given target is scum, which in turn provides an opportunity to increase the probability of victory (by voting that target).
On the scum side, the probabilities are better-defined, because you have more information. There are still unknowns, though - obviously the general unknowns of how humans will react to things, but also mechanics-specific things like "is there a cop?", "who will protective roles target?".
I think the probability-oriented perspective is most useful when it specifically sheds light on something that would be overlooked. I think that mostly happens in the decision-making phase, where it's useful for three things:
1) Avoiding overconfidence. Viewing the game as a deterministic skill contest or pattern-matching can make one believe that, because a pattern was matched, there is certainty and the alternative doesn't need to be considered. Trying to assign probabilities can force the alternatives into view, force them to be evaluated.
2) Avoiding underconfidence / decision paralysis. This is particularly the case for things like vigs. It is natural to not want to act except on near-certainty - but often, inaction eats away at your odds of winning. A balanced game of mafia should be assumed to be 50/50; if you can push your odds even a bit higher, it's generally worth it.
3) Specifically seeking things that clarify probabilities. That means asking questions that clarify the unknowns, and probing to get info that can either confirm or contradict the current "leading probability".
Mafia as a game has inherent uncertainty - the act of distributing alignments at the start of the game is random, and importantly those alignments stay hidden. Everyone has the same chance to be mafia (usually 1/4 to 1/3 depending on game size and type), but through interaction and discussion the town aims to improve their guesses above random chance. Because of the inherent uncertainty (anyone could be mafia), scumhunting is inherely probabilistic: consider the phrases used like "I think this comes from scum" or "this looks like a town response" or "I don't think scum would reply like this". Even when someone says "I am 100% sure X is scum" they're not actually 100% sure because that's more or less impossible, and they are exaggerating for effect. Importantly, humans are pretty bad at actually estimating probability, so while someone might say I am Y% sure X is scum, it's probably not a actually a Y% chance that player is scum. At the end of a day, a lynch is a guess - it might be a well supported guess (and history shows that town are much better at lynching scum than random would suggest), but it's still a guess (a.k.a a roll of a die based on a certain probability). The key thing that sets the game of Mafia apart from a pure game of chance is that the random dice rolls all happen at the start of the game, and that the knowledge of the dice rolls (in particular the fact that the informed minority of the mafia is playing to a different win condition that affects their behaviour) allows the town to scumhunt and - in effect - make good guesses at which dice rolled "scum".
RE: The idea of a button that gives you a chance to win the game, that's also interesting. A simple situation would be a 3-person end game. The other two players cross vote, so the remaining player knows for a fact that one of the two voters is scum. This gives a worst-case 50/50 shot for the town to win. If the mod offered this player a button that gave a random 70% chance for the town to win the game, a rational player playing to win would take it if they couldn't tell who was the last scum. They should even take it if they were moderately-but-under-70% confident, since the button still gives better odds. There are interesting discussions as the player tries to work out exactly how sure they are, because humans are bad at estimating probability, and mafia is a rather difficult thing to generate hard numbers on as "I think X is scum" is entirely based on subjective interpretation of evidence. However, players are not always rational, and even play the game for reasons other than purely winning - for the experience, for the social aspect, for the puzzle, whatever. Which explains Shadow's position here that he'd always make the vote and not the random dice roll regardless of the difference in win probability. This is particularly interesing because both options involve a decision based on evaluating probabilities that could win or lose the game, but the decision to make a vote (i.e. take a worst-case 50% win rate) appears more meaningful than making the decision to use the button (and take the 70% win rate) - even though both decisions would be supported by evidence and analysis ("I think X is scum because Y" vs. "I am not >70% sure X is scum despite Y"). I think this is heavily related to the point KA raised that making the vote feels like more player agency than using the button, even though both require the player to make a concious decision about an unknown based on probability.
I think all exisiting mafia techniques inherently approach the game as probabilities, as we can never really be sure who precisely is scum while they're alive, and we therefore seek evidence that increases the probability that we are correct. That's why the best scumhunting techniques look for patterns of behaviour that indicates an alignment's mindset: the more data points you have, the better your evaluation. As with many games where there is chance/randomness/variance - in the people as much as the fundmental game (like Hearthstone or MTG) - you want to avoid results-oriented thinking (just because you lynched scum doesn't mean you had good, reusable reasons) and instead focus on having a strong process that gets good results on average across multiple games, even if sometimes you get it wrong because people behaved weirdly.