Round 72: Dragon-Blooded Mafia

Oh shit. I missed out on some things over the past day.
Alright, voting with the oldies seems to be a good plan of action so far, so I'm gonna hope that my [vote Geno] doesn't screw us over. The both of you seem trustworthy enough. Anything to avenge Cloak.

Jesus, how did THREE PEOPLE die??? I've never seen something go so horrifically wrong so quickly. Considering that I'm being put up to the block, I believe it is time for my role to be revealed:

My Anima Power is a 10% chance of hiding from a night action.

My charm a High-percentage PI type power. It's base was a 60% chance to work, and it would be increased based on if the target attacked/killed somebody up to 85%.

Link, I trust you. You've helped the downfall of two of the mafias. I've been hiding my role all game and investigating people. Now that I've dropped the bomb that I'm a PI, I won't be seeing the light of tomorrow's day even if you don't lynch me. I've investigated you and saw that you're a townie, but I never tried gam nor lucid. As for explaining the reason behind my stupid actions... well, it was to make me look harmless while I quietly investigated during the night... Although I never ended up finding a single mafia...

I'm choosing to [vote gam] because I believe that the source of no killing might have simply been from afk people. I doubt lucid would take advantage of it (though, there is a good chance that I am wrong), I know gam is experienced enough to pull a powerful ruse like that.

I'm not even 100% sure that you're a townie Link, but I gotta go with it now, cos I'm at the block and you're the only one I have somewhat evidence to be a townie. There is going to be a lynching and then a killing tonight, and if the lynched isn't mafia, they're taking the victory.

Computer auto-restarted (probably for updates) today. Sorry for the couple of hours of down time.

Hmmmm...poop. I want to believe you, but apparently the townies and mafia share some similar powers. On the other hand, why would a mafia have a PI (I'm assuming that means Private Investigator) power?
All my powers were based around avoiding detection and enemy charms, with 50%, 100% with a recharge, and type-based evasion. I think I'll change my mind then, because I am much to malleable online. [vote Link]

Polls closed.

Geno was lynched.

Spoiler:

Lucidity was a victim of DBs' shitty defense Charms.

Spoiler:

Gam lost by default.

Spoiler:

[kill Geno]
[kill Lucidity]
[kill Gam]

Which leaves our sole survivor, Link.

Spoiler:

Awards coming in just a sec.

Pattern Spider Award: Link
He had a wonderful start, then lost both of his buddies in a row. He thought he'd messed up when French didn't die, but he proceeded to overwhelm the town with a triple kill and a well-executed final day... including a lucky break with Lucidity's aspect (Fire, Earth, or Wood aspects would be unkillable with their Defense Techniques)

Not-So-Perfect Defense Award: French
Despite being the only person to tank a night kill, he unfortunately succumbed to the poison anima.

Stoned Out of His Mind Award: Gam
His inactivity not only raised suspicion, but pretty much cost the town the game.

Perception 1 Award: Scept
Seriously, dude. Check your sources.

in related news, link is mafia, takes victory, again

Players
01: Cloak - Killed R2
02: Scept - Killed R5
03: Geno - Killed R6
04: Link Lab
05: Tael - Killed R2
06: MrNaleIt - Killed R2
07: Gam - Killed R6
08: French Connections - Killed R5
09: Zink120 - Killed R3
10: StalinCommander - Killed R2
11: Caelun_Niveus - Killed R5
12: Aboithagameboi - Killed R4
13: Lucidity - Killed R6

Voting History:

Final Vote History:

Phase: R6 Night

Dracojounin7 wrote:
Perception 1 Award: Scept
Seriously, dude. Check your sources.

Amen to that my brother.

Well played to Mafia I guess, though I'm surprised we even did this well given the amount of probability based roles in this game. Felt weaker than a vanilla town. Were it not for the strange Zink/Aboi plays, Mafia may have gotten a flawless victory. :P Thanks for the game Draco.

We seriously need to update our AFK rules.

Did Lucidity post...ever?

Awesomely played, Link. GG all, cheers for an interesting round Draco.
I will rage if I'm mafia next game again though...

Tael wrote:in related news, link is mafia, takes victory, again

You say that but my last victory was with you in Jet Set Radio (and I died just before we won). Since last June I've been in 4.5 winning mafias with 10 games played as mafia. Also, I think this is the first time I've been the last mafia standing and won (it certainly is the first on this forum). Of course, I did have a very good role (some might even say an OP role). Shame the power failed when Zink's life was on the line (He only had a 1/8 chance to die while French had 3/8 and Geno had 1/2).

And I was gonna lynch Link too, if Scept hadn't voted for me even after everyone told him I was guaranteed innocent. "Oh, sorry I didn't read" doesn't come off as convincing if you don't change your opinion in light of the new information.

Also, that Wood anima power seems a might bit too powerful, expecially when it essentially negates bulletproof

I thought of that after the fact. Hindsight's a bitch.

StalinCommander wrote:We seriously need to update our AFK rules.

Did Lucidity post...ever?  

A couple times, yeah. I even voted Link right before the polls closed on the last night, but it didn't end up helping.

French Connections wrote:Well played to Mafia I guess, though I'm surprised we even did this well given the amount of probability based roles in this game. Felt weaker than a vanilla town.

If I might offer some general advise that I've been itching to say since I started watching this game:

Chance negates skill. The more chance there is in the game, the more it can work against the skill of the players. The first thing I do when I create a game is work to eliminate as much chance from it as I can. I'd rather have my players dictate what happens in the game, not random.org.

Not at all intended as an insult or anything. Just sharing my thoughts as a fellow host.

Yeah the RNG element just makes the game somewhat pointless as all the info you have is probably wrong. Either make my bulletproof or don't. But 10%? Statistically speaking I may as well have been vanilla (though the odds definitely worked in my favour this game). Plus the new abilities gained by probability were again, heavily RNG dependent.
I just think that had Mafia just played it cool and not switched their votes awkwardly in R3, town had NO concrete way of determining who was Mafia, and would have had to blind-vote their way to victory. The game is already hard enough with a blind roleset, but making everything RNG based makes shit a lot harder.
Gotta admit, I'm not even a fan of RNG for determining roles. It leads to people like Zink and Link to end up with the same role over and over.

I very much prefer a truly random assignment of roles. Without that, you can begin to mindgame the host ("Zink can't possibly be mafia because he was mafia in the last two games") which should never happen. The host should be as invisible as possible, only existing to keep the game running and clarify rules as needed. That said, I do tend to reroll things occasionally if I strongly feel like a setup is too one-sided. We are all here to have fun, after all, and a game that ends in a flawless victory for either side is usually not as fun as a game that is down to the wire.



Additionally, in my opinion, RNG can be perfectly fine in a game. I see three aspects to 'good' RNG in a game. When all three elements exist, RNG can be very useful to the setup without harming the effect of player skill.

The first and most important aspect is consistent interaction. Powers that are only used once or twice (such as the bulletproof abilities this game) do not belong in the realm of RNG since it essentially ensures that the player with the power is either 'lucky' (got what they wanted) or 'unlucky' (didn't get what they wanted) with no room for a middle ground. You need enough interaction with the RNG to even out the odds so players are much less likely to be lucky or unlucky.

The second aspect is impact. Powers that have a large impact on the game (once again, such as the bulletproof abilities we saw here) should have solid mechanics behind them and not RNG. RNG belongs for those powers which don't have the potential to be completely game breaking if someone is consistently lucky or unlucky.

The third and most easily ignored aspect is the level of chance. Abilities with very high or very low chances to succeed have a greater potential to be frustrating to the players. If an ability has a 90% chance to work, the player will tend to count on it like it has a 100% chance and will feel screwed over if it fails. Likewise, as was often the case this game, abilities with extremely low chances might as well not be abilities at all. Like French said, with a 10% chance to survive, he was basically a vanilla villager since he had absolutely no reason to count on the power working. This aspect of RNG can be ignored much more easily than the other two, but it REALLY compounds any failures to heed the other two aspects I mentioned above.

So in conclusion, I don't think RNG as a whole is bad. It has it's place. But it should be dealt with very carefully as will negatively impact the game if it is overused or implemented in the wrong way.

Sorry this ended up being so long. Wasn't intended when I started writing, but it just ended up taking that many words to express my feelings. Once again, this is just speculation from my experience as host; and it is certainly not meant to be derogatory in any way. The game as a whole looked quite fun, and Draco certainly did a good job hosting.

Also, the game didn't feel very... Exalted. May have been the lack of story posts...

As I said earlier, We're having the strongest, most powerful faction of the Dragons being subjugated by a minority of Outcastes. Couldn't a simple pedigree check have solved it? I was half tempted to have everyone say their role names just to expose the Mafia (Peleps, Sesus, Cathak, Ragara, Glorious Mountain? Lynch him!).

Also, DB vs DB (rather, Exalted in general even) doesn't lend itself well to the Mafia themetype... a nightkill would wreck the room it took place in and wake a few people unless the assassin was very skilled in that art. It also makes almost less sense because the Dynasts would be more likely to have better equipment and training, so a one-on-one kill wouldn't be the best option.

And "random chance to get a new charm"? That's not how charms and experience work... It takes days/weeks of training to learn a single charm anyway...

I just felt mostly useless as a PI who could be wrong. And I was wrong.