The Salt Factory - Mafia Metagame Discussion Thread

[Vult Redux]

no offense but why is a Doctor called a Doctor? i've been thinking about this for like a year and it makes me stressed. in my head, the flavor goes something like... a mafia dude shoots their target and as the poor victim is suffering from a fatal injury a Doctor shows up and slaps a band-aid on the wound and everything is all good.

when i was designing pyp i was considering a Doc that gets results. Something like "You saved x! Yay!" or "guess x didn't need your help after all". i was mostly considering this because it makes a lot more sense flavor-wise (but also because it makes a Doctor super strong). a Doctor just can't.. not know that they saved someone. it deosnt maek sens

also, how does the victim NOT know that THEY WERE SHOT. if (again, flavor-wise) the kill never happened in the first place, this would make sense. but in the Doctor healing scenario above, it doesn't.

Bodyguard (as a name) seems to make more sense flavor-wise. in that case, i imagine a tough dude standing outside your house/bedroom/whatever. the bad guy walks up to the home and sees the guard from a distance and they're like "uuuuuh nope never mind" and he goes home without killing anyone. this flavor reconciles the fact that the kill target and the protector himself don't receive results.

but then what do i call a bodyguard who dies in place of their target? i have no clue.

or am I missing something

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

You are thinking waaaaaay too hard about this.

 

[Vult Redux]

oh and another thing.

i saw the ms.net made Godfather explicitly "not normal" for fairness concerns or whatever. but then i remember this post i wrote out here a while back.

Meta should probably move toward giving cops "inconclusive" results to investigating a godfather or miller. I.e. Roughly equal to the result he should get if he is roleblocked when investigating. It's much more honest and also still maintains the utility of weakening the cop.

why didn't they just do this instead? why. it fixes EVERYTHING.

 

[Vult Redux]

You are thinking waaaaaay too hard about this.

the mafia meta of the entire internet has been going down the wrong path for decades. i can't believe no one has said anything. it's time for meaningful change, ryker. now's not the time to be complacent. i won't stand for this.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

That is a good plan.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

the mafia meta of the entire internet has been going down the wrong path for decades. i can't believe no one has said anything. it's time for meaningful change, ryker. now's not the time to be complacent. i won't stand for this.

Sigh. Okay doctor.

I believe doctor evolved from a point where it DID get results. The name remained. If you wanna push, stay away from bodyguard as it matches BODYGUARD as well and is way less confusing. There's a million flavor specific names, but I got nothing for standard catch-all.

 

[Vult Redux]

Sigh. Okay doctor.

I believe doctor evolved from a point where it DID get results. The name remained.

this would be interesting if true

ah but maybe people stopped giving it results because they realized it's pretty bonkers. in simple setups, it means Doctor gets a confirm innocent result-- actually if the setup is simple then the Doctor could just assume they stopped a kill if no one died. hm.

maybe people got lazy and didn't feel like sending results to the doctor.

someone need to publish a mafia history textbook

 

[Spak]

no offense but why is a Doctor called a Doctor? i've been thinking about this for like a year and it makes me stressed. in my head, the flavor goes something like... a mafia dude shoots their target and as the poor victim is suffering from a fatal injury a Doctor shows up and slaps a band-aid on the wound and everything is all good.

when i was designing pyp i was considering a Doc that gets results. Something like "You saved x! Yay!" or "guess x didn't need your help after all". i was mostly considering this because it makes a lot more sense flavor-wise (but also because it makes a Doctor super strong). a Doctor just can't.. not know that they saved someone. it deosnt maek sens

also, how does the victim NOT know that THEY WERE SHOT. if (again, flavor-wise) the kill never happened in the first place, this would make sense. but in the Doctor healing scenario above, it doesn't.

Bodyguard (as a name) seems to make more sense flavor-wise. in that case, i imagine a tough dude standing outside your house/bedroom/whatever. the bad guy walks up to the home and sees the guard from a distance and they're like "uuuuuh nope never mind" and he goes home without killing anyone. this flavor reconciles the fact that the kill target and the protector himself don't receive results.

but then what do i call a bodyguard who dies in place of their target? i have no clue.

or am I missing something

If you're going going by that logic, someone who gets RB'd would know who sat beside them all night long and held their arm so that they couldn't leave and perform their duty. The Mafia killer would probably leave some sort of evidence behind that would identify who they are, bodyguards could be detected by some random dude standing outside of the target's door all night long, and executioners would be spotted by seeing who is killing the person without the necessary votes. It's just not a good game design choice. In the verbal games of Mafia we have to say who was attacked no matter if they live or die, but that's not a good practice in forum mafia because it basically gives scum the risk of confirming a townie every night.

 

[Vult Redux]

If you're going going by that logic, someone who gets RB'd would know who sat beside them all night long and held their arm so that they couldn't leave and perform their duty.

i can explain this one

the roleblocker tells X to watch game of thrones. X is so busy marathoning that they neglect their action.

i dislike the name roleblocker too though. and rolecop is the worst of them all. i'm disgusted just thinking about it

 

[~ Gheb ~]

no offense but why is a Doctor called a Doctor?

I'm greatly offended by this question.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

re: the wagon thing

if i learned ONE thing through the champ qualifier, its that there is no such thing as a "well reasoned" wagon that doesnt involve concrete NA results (like a track or cop result). there is ALWAYS reasonable doubt when formulating a thread based case on somebody, and ultimately, the name of the game is mostly a matter of which case do you see and think "i can see why that makes sense if that person is scum." hell most of the time the logic youre using to pin scum probably never went through scum's mind, so its easy for an articulate scummy to properly defend himself and explain a narrative. all non-pr based reads are crapshoots. its all about which one the majority of people can get behind the best. no logic objectively outweighs any other logic, since people come to conclusions differently and playstyles vary person to person.

tldr mafia is hard but SOOOOOO fun

 

[#HBC | marshy]

mr discussion

this guy drives daytalk and tries to shape it in a direction where info is maximized

examples laundry tom os

sniper

cagey and drops heavy reads/votes. can be somewhat unpredictable

examples kevinm gheb marshy

brownie townies

TEND to be obvious in their good guy roles. the easy townreads you want

examples dancer ranmaru kary

gunslinger

fast on their read and unlikely to change their course. quick on target identification and attack. can force thread to react to their duels

examples ryker soup kuz

legwork

uses extensive deductive analysis of past information and revisits the trail often to try to find and investigate leads

examples man from delamar jerkus ee

and yes i know these are generalities and most players encompass multiple traits and some may fit into other categories better but you get what i mean. this is what happens when im bored in class

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Interesting stuff. I'd say most of it is pretty accurate.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

im brownie townie when im scum does that count

 

[ranmaru]

im brownie townie when im scum does that count

Same here

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

i think lotsa players transition into legwork players later on. i sure used to be one in-thread but in my later games tried to not overload the thread with information too much.

think gunslingers are nicest players to work with though - if theyre skilled. lotsa stuff to learn from and they usually do a lot of work efficiently.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

im brownie townie when im scum does that count

Same here

Except you aren't ... unless the townies are bad.

I always call out your **** when you're scum and if people like July or Kat were still around they'd body you for free. Gotta be honest here.

 

[ranmaru]

That was what my scumbrain thought. What was I then? (Or what did I seem like) Also I am not sure the 'always' applies here as I only was scum against you one time in my recollection.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

That's good enough for me :3

 

[Evil Eye]

@bronar: The moment a legman is flooding the thread or changing its course somehow would they not be playing to the Mr discussion archetype more so?

The Mastermind and L hydras initially intended for me to be able to semi-retire so I could basically be a legwork player and not post at all since that was the real tedium for me. Didnt end up shaking out that way of for the most part but I did later get to have my go in a confidential game I cant discuss unfortunately since it was sone of the best and most accurate analysis I've ever townied. Bioware on PCP without all that awful thread directing

I think Mr discussion and legmen fall upon a gradient - is your investigation primarily going on in or outside of the thread? Snipers vs Gunslingers too. Are they latching on fast and furious or sidestepping into an existing fray? Really any good player is gonna have to step into many different archetypes and wear many different hats to succeed. As much as I honestly usually hated (HAAAATEEEED) thread interaction Ive been Mr discussion more times than I could hope to count for 70% of a game.

"It's like the monkey says - ya gotta DO what ya gotta DO"

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

Except you aren't ... unless the townies are bad.

I always call out your **** when you're scum and if people like July or Kat were still around they'd body you for free. Gotta be honest here.

not what my all star game said b