OSBM endgame

Author: Discipulus_Didicit

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Results:

1st place - yellow team
2nd place - red team
3rd place - blue team

Roles:

Red Team
Leader - Oromagi
Deputy - Club
Goon - Mharman

Blue Team
Leader - Cogent_Cognizer
Deputy - Wylted
Goon - Greyparrot

Yellow Team
Leader - Speedrace
Deputy - Warren42
Goon - ILikePie5

Actions:

NP 1 (FFA)

Oromagi - NK Greyparrot
Speedrace - NK Greyparrot
Cogent_Cognizer - NK Oromagi

Mod note: Mharman and Club both submitted a 'kill Wylted' action for NP 1. These actions were ignored due to neither of these players controlling their teams NK for this night.

NP 2 (FFA)

Club - NK Wylted
Speedrace - NK Cogent_Cognizer
Cogent_Cognizer - NK Club

DP 3

Lynch Mharman

My Opinion

I am slightly disappointed with this game. Did yellow deserve to win? eh, probably. Did blue and red both deserve to lose? Most definitely. Before the game started I did not expect people to be trying to form aliances DP1. When all the teams are even there is little incentive from a game theory perspective to not betray anyone you form an agreement with. I expected that earlier DPs would focus less on trying to eliminate certain teams and more on just avoiding friendly fire (NBSI rather than NRDS ROEs, in other words)

I think all Wylted and Greyparrot did by outting themselves DP 1 was draw a target on their back. From a leaders point of view the biggest worry was accidentally killing a teammate. By telling everyone their affiliation they essentially put up a huge billboard saying "it is okay to kill me, I am not your color so it won't hurt your wincon"

The two worst plays of this game in my opinion, were the DP 2 VTNL and Clubs choice of NK for NP 2.

The first mistake... DP 2 VTNL... As Cogent said yellow team was ahead at the beginning of DP 2 and VTNLing guaranteed their victory. Best move for red would have been to lynch yellow with blues help then shoot blue in the night. Best move for blue? Blue was pretty much screwed at the beginning of DP 2 because they were outnumbered and had already color claimed (only having one or the other of these problems can be worked through, having both of these problems guaranteed their defeat due to the fact that a yellow lynch would give red the NK and bulletproof yellow for the night thus forcing red to shoot blue).

The second mistake... NP 2 kills. What the hell was that all about? Both red and blue should have aimed for yellow this round. Pie and Warren were both claimed yellows, shooting either of them would have been the best move. Cogent shooting club was less dumb than club shooting Wylted but still...

It's easy for you to judge from the sidelines DD, what would you have done smart guy?

If I was in this game I would focus on avoiding friendly fire in the early DPs and advocate a DP 1 VTNL. This would be easy enough to do by simply pursuing role claims rather than color claims. If someone claims leader then all the other leaders at least know to kill that guy to guarantee no friendly fire. Might this get me killed if I am a leader or my leader killed if I am a follower? Probably. That is fine, leader is obviously the weakest role in this setup while deputy and goon are basically the same strength. My actions in later DPs would depend on my teams relative strength. If we are stronger then perhaps manipulate one of the weaker teams with the promise of an easy second place. If we are weaker then team up with the other weak team or lie low, depending on the exact situation.

Okay that's enough of me telling you all how dumb you are, now for the part where you tell me how dumb I am. Was there something I missed about this setup that made it not fun to play? What can I do to improve upon the concept of a 1v1v1 mafia game? Or should it not be improved upon and instead simply scrap the concept altogether? Let me know your thoughts please.
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@Wylted
@ILikePie5
@warren42
@oromagi
@Speedrace
Kill
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@Greyparrot
@Mharman
@Club
@Cogent_Cognizer
Kill
Speedrace
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@bsh1
You were right, I did get good at it :D

Also the other teams just messed up though
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I loved the idea, but it needs something to give motivation for doing stuff

In mafia, mafia can go try to kill town over and over, and based on forum posts town tries to figure out who is mafia, but here no action aligns one with red, yellow, or blue

So maybe try to make it so that some type of action outs each color? I dunno how that would work but yeah

I think the only reason it got going was because of my early posts and because of Wylted's yellow bandwagon
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Yeah, I kind of determined my team was screwed after Wylted and Grey outed themselves. This doesn't quite work the same as regular Mafia, and I figured that out. But I don't totally blame them. Based on how different this was from regular mafia, it's hard to gauge a good strategy.

I determined Wylted was on my team, so I decided to be very opposed to them in DP1, even almost lynching him. Figured that would make others believe I'm not blue. Sadly, since Yellow was ahead in DP2, my only chance was hoping Ormogi wasn't red team leader and making red team think I was the leader while convincing them to lynch yellow. Presumably, Wylted would have been Red's NK under such a scenario. That was pretty much the only chance at blue winning, and once everyone else VTNL'd, I knew my team was screwed, and decided to try to take red down with us lol

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@Speedrace
Well, I think I tried all I could do given my team outed themselves early :P I'm sure you guys didn't realize I was blue until DP2's VTNL or thereabouts, and at that point, I knew it was over for my team anyways. The only strategy I foresaw having any chance of working was what I said above, and it was a huge gamble, and I was wrong sadly. I was hoping Oro was a red lesser. 

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@Cogent_Cognizer
 Gotcha lol I knew you were a leader just not which one

I was scared that you would ask me for a direct claim, but my only available ones were red leader and blue leader lol which you were taking too
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@Speedrace
Yeah, I was one of the only people who wasn't clearly siding with someone lol.

That indicates a leader. I only expressed skepticism. I considered the idea of claiming to be on the same team as someone else, but that could also easily backfire. This type of Mafia, I have to say, carries way more risks than others I've been in.
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@Speedrace
I loved the idea, but it needs something to give motivation for doing stuff

In mafia, mafia can go try to kill town over and over, and based on forum posts town tries to figure out who is mafia, but here no action aligns one with red, yellow, or blue

So maybe try to make it so that some type of action outs each color? I dunno how that would work but yeah

I think the only reason it got going was because of my early posts and because of Wylted's yellow bandwagon

I have been thinking along similar lines since the end of DP 1 and I think that the solution might be in restructuring how initial information is distributed. While designing the setup I considered having the goon know their deputy but the deputy not knowing their goon or something like that but decided against it. After watching this game play out I wish I had gone with that idea, I think giving too much info to the teams to start out might have discouraged information outing a bit too much. What do you think of that solution?
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I think it's great

The big problem with this are they there are no "empty" spots to claim, like how Pie claimed bomb in our mafia game earlier, and you can never claim a follower because there's always gonna be TWO people to counter claim you, so that would definitely help

And remember that role in my game that you said was interesting in our DMS? You should have something like that so gov and deputy can still technically talk to each other without one knowing who the other is   
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While designing the setup I considered having the goon know their deputy but the deputy not knowing their goon or something like that but decided against it.

I think this would have made more sense. It would have made it a better option for leaders to claim to be on the same side as someone else. With both lowers of a team knowing each other, it pretty much means that's not smart to do.

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But yeah, I gotta say for this one, it's definitely not a good idea to make hard claims in DP1, for the reason Speed race said above. In the normal mafia, it could work to make a hard claim on DP1, but this one proved to not be a good idea to do that.

If there was some way to implement other roles that may or may not be in play, that would help too. Probably only want to do one of these suggestions though, not both. Doing both may imbalance it the other way.

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Actually, I think I have an idea how to improve this. Is anyone here familiar with the board game Shadow Hunters?

It's a little similar to Mafia I would say, though there are some differences. Anyways, it is also team-based, where teams are generally even and members are semi-informed like in this version of Mafia. However, there are only two teams directly opposed to one another. So in a 9 player game, you'd have two teams of 3, while the other three players are considered "Neutral" who each have their own separate goal in order to win. The two teams would win by eliminating the other team, like in this mafia.

Maybe you don't like the idea(it may be changing it too much), but it definitely makes it more appealing to make a hard claim, because really only 3 people out of the nine would want you dead if you make such a claim. The others may be on your side or just not interested in killing you in order to win.

What you guys think?


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@Speedrace
@Cogent_Cognizer
I also considered having Special Rule 1 be "If red gets lynched red gets a kill, etc." but changed it instead to the R-->B-->Y-->R getup for two reasons.

1) I wanted something to give players a reason to go after specific teams (blue would usually prefer to lynch red rather than lynch yellow, for example) in the hopes that conclusions about behaviors could be made in that way. To an extent this did work, oromagi (a leader and therefore starting with the smallest amount of info) actually used this method to guess wylted and greyparrots color in DP 1 after they revealed they were partners but before they outed themselves as blue.

2) I wanted to have the bulletproofing rule but also wanted potential friendly fire incidents and the "Red gets lynched then red gets a kill" format did not allow me to have both of these things.

I agree with you guys that the initial info given needs to be changed but I am undecided as to what exactly needs to be done to it. Restructuring the win-cons also does not sound like a bad idea but I do not know off hand how that would be done. I will look into that shadow hunters game in more detail later to see if I might find some inspiration there.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What about if you adjusted the bulletproof rule to allow the team who had a member lynched to use it whenever they wanted instead? So, for each time a member is lynched on their team, they get "1 bulletproof" point to spend at a later time at their leisure.
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Then you could do both
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Plus, a team leader may accidentally target a fellow team member, so if that team leader finds out the person they targeted did not die, and their team was the only one with bulletproof status, that reveals info interestingly enough. 

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@Cogent_Cognizer
What about if you adjusted the bulletproof rule to allow the team who had a member lynched to use it whenever they wanted instead? So, for each time a member is lynched on their team, they get "1 bulletproof" point to spend at a later time at their leisure.

So you like the 'lynching red gives red the NK" rule better then? I personally like the version I went with better. It is probably a moot point though given that changes to wincon structuring will likely make both versions obsolete.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Hmm, I don't know. I'm kind of just brainstorming lol. Maybe I'd like it more. It depends on how it would turn out.
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I fucked up with the VTNL but it would be tough to beat the yellow team anyway. They had the perfect combination of people to make a great team. 

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Actually our strategy of putting ourselves early was good but we assumed red would behave rationally. 

Optimal strategy is to partner with random team to severely cripple another and then to fight for a partnership with the crippled team. 

Whoever is better at forming partnerships should win. Yellow played correctly but red did not. 

I assumed rational opponents but did not take into account some team would lack enough sense to behave in the optimal way described and did not adjust the strategy accordingly. 
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@Wylted
Actually our strategy of putting ourselves early was good but we assumed red would behave rationally.

The only problem is that it made it easy for red and yellow to silently team up on you and they had no incentive not to do so. That is essentially what happened round one, red being stupid in NP 2 sealed your fate.
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Now that I think about it the actual VTNLing on DP 2 was technically worse for red than it was for blue due to the R-->B-->Y-->R dynamic, though still better for yellow than anyone else. It could have worked if blue and red both shot yellow but...
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@Wylted
Clearly Oro sealed a yellow victory by not going along with the plan
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I like the game.  Wait times are unhelpfully long since there's not nearly as much to talk about a standard game.  As you say, probably the smartest move is to figure out your team first. 

I think we should replay this game asap.  How would it play to add a tenth player - GREEN who is lynch proof and can't NK.  Just to unbalance those static early rounds?


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@Discipulus_Didicit
It could have worked if blue and red both shot yellow but...
I didn't expect them to do that lol. They made it clear they didn't want to listen to blue team, so I chose not to target either of the yellow members we had confirmed since I figured  red team wouldn't. The other issue is we had a few players who said very little. Since Wylted and I were two of the more vocal players, I figured we'd be targeted, and we were. So, given I expected that worst-case scenario, there was no point for me to target one of the two confirmed yellow team players.

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Honestly, I don't  know why at all red team chose to VTNL. I mean, if they would have went along with VTL'ing yellow, they would have had the sole NK. As I said in DP2, VTNL was only appealing to yellow.

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And I even gave them a possible cover: I made it seem like I was really interested in a red team-only NK, so yellow may have thought I was the new red team leader.

That would have been their smart move. 

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@oromagi
How would it play to add a tenth player - GREEN who is lynch proof and can't NK.  Just to unbalance those static early rounds?
I like this idea. I just thought of another one too: Don't give anyone any info about who is on their team but add in an NP 0 and give some players color cop or role cop abilities. What do you think?