Monsterhearts Mafia II - The Prequel - AAR Mafia Win

[SynesthesiaArtist]

I'm very curious about scum working out PRs so early and effectively. The Discord server on PRs looks to just be conclusions, not reasoning. Would I need to read the entire scumchat thread here or is there like a passage you could point to?

We kind of talked about it off and on, so there's not one specific passage. But essentially we caught PRs because they were... Talking about PR stuff. That principle exposed almost every PR.

Just curious, how did you hint that I was a PR?

I went over everyone with a fine-toothed comb as far as what they said about PRs. Simply saying "Don't claim if you have a PR" earned you a point toward "Could be a PR." Further discussion on that subject earned more points.

This wouldn't work as well if we had a well-established site meta of "Shut up about PRs D1" but we don't, so I was able to assume that if someone says something it means they might have something they're NOT saying.

Then weigh that against my player meta on each individual: Keir would be just as likely to say it whether he has a role or not; AKFD and Justy would not. Gatbae said that scum would be PR hunting, which was my clue he had one.

A lot of gut, a little very careful probing, and a bit of luck.

[SynesthesiaArtist]

If you're curious, this was me fishing for your role and you helped cement my belief in you being a PR: viewtopic.php?f=306&t=62536&p=1033891#p1033891

[Justinrs2]

And I do actually think we should adjust our site meta some. Shutting up about PRs D1 is really just the best thing any townie can do. VTs should also be more cautious about ways they may spew they don't have a special power- showing a particular disinterest or lack of enthusiasm towards the night phase could be one way this happens in a mech heavy game like this or Clone Wars. By spewing yourself vanilla, you are helping scum find the actual PRs by PoE.

But honestly Synth is better than I am at PR hunting so her thoughts might be more beneficial here. This is just something I've noticed the past two games- town has had disciplined play about how to use PRs (major shoutout and props to how Keir approached their role and was treated in Clone Wars, and then now how Pbubs approached their role and was treated in this game), but not how to hide them. I think PRs were very solveable for scum in clone wars, and indeed their first instinct on PRs in scum chat were mostly right, they just neglected the night game a bit due to (as far as I can tell) being busy irl. More mindfulness on the part of town could see us avoid a scenario like this game, where the first 4 town deaths were PRs.

[SynesthesiaArtist]

I think another useful thing for our site meta would be to embrace "Townies lie for townie reasons" as a guiding principle.

I'm serious when I say I feel like screaming every time another "I WILL TAKE LYING AS A SCUMTELL AND VOTE ACCORDINGLY" argument pops up, because not only is it always just hot air and posturing (always), it's also almost always pro-scum. As a scum player, I fucking love it when some townie gets in a snit about other townies lying. It's always pro-scum when town gets into a binary, non-nuanced mindset on anything.

Yes, we're always going to get salty with other players when it comes out they've been running a game, but the pre-emptive "I'll vote you if you lie about your power" thing needs to just STOP. Nobody ever actually means it once the chips are down, and it just creates an argument for scum to fuck around in. It also tends to stifle town creativity, which, again, is super pro-scum. Town needs creative townies coming up with (non-rules-breaking) creative ideas to out scum.

If a couple Mortals had fake claimed a role it would have had us doubting my PR reads. If the entire game had gotten involved in a discussion about when, how, and why to reveal as like the first thing we did D1, and seriously everyone had gotten involved, it would have muddied the waters enough to possibly make PR hunting impossible.

I realize "don't discuss your role" and "have a discussion about roles" are difficult to simultaneously enact, but it's not impossible to do, and I think it would benefit town to try to find that balance more.

[PBubs]

Hey all! Sad to see we a mafia win, but had fun and wanted to pop by and let y'all know that ^_^

Appreciate Nimb for inviting me, as well as for the time and thought put into the mechanics and such. And thanks to everyone else for being so welcoming to a newbie~~~

I'd be happy to play again in the future. Though I need to recognize that the game was a bit more time consuming than I'd expected, which allied with the (I found) relatively steep learning curve, meant it took me a bit to get into it. That, alongside me being a bit busy with AFK stuff at the immediate present, means I'd likely be looking at maybe giving it another try in early 2023.

Don't have any specific remarks about the mechanics given this was my first go at it, so maybe next time I'll have some more meaningful input to give on that front.

Special kudos to UDC, given that would prolly have been my least likely vote ahahah

[Keirador]

And I do actually think we should adjust our site meta some. Shutting up about PRs D1 is really just the best thing any townie can do. VTs should also be more cautious about ways they may spew they don't have a special power- showing a particular disinterest or lack of enthusiasm towards the night phase could be one way this happens in a mech heavy game like this or Clone Wars. By spewing yourself vanilla, you are helping scum find the actual PRs by PoE.

But honestly Synth is better than I am at PR hunting so her thoughts might be more beneficial here. This is just something I've noticed the past two games- town has had disciplined play about how to use PRs (major shoutout and props to how Keir approached their role and was treated in Clone Wars, and then now how Pbubs approached their role and was treated in this game), but not how to hide them. I think PRs were very solveable for scum in clone wars, and indeed their first instinct on PRs in scum chat were mostly right, they just neglected the night game a bit due to (as far as I can tell) being busy irl. More mindfulness on the part of town could see us avoid a scenario like this game, where the first 4 town deaths were PRs.

My feeling here is that town PRs just haven't been important to this community for a long, long time, if they ever were, so yes you're right, we're out of practice in hiding them (if we ever were in practice). I think that's a natural outflow of generally denying clean night kills to the scum; it would be too unbalanced to give the town strong night powers if the scum don't have them. But in keeping with my long-standing view that we should probably stop denying clean night kills to the scum, it then follows we should be re-introducing strong town roles.

I'm a little hesitant about going too far in that direction, though. I remember being shocked at my first MafiaUniverse game: the meta there was that the primary action of the game was that the scum were trying to find and kill the cop before the cop could single-handedly solve the game based on night checks. There was no expectation that scum could be found during the day, and really no attempt to do so. Good townie play during the day was mostly about providing cover for the cop, lots of "I am Spartacus" type fake investigation reveals. I am not eager for us to turn into that.