Wherein Hunter runs some Mafia games
Sep. 13th, 2012 12:38 amSo Sunday Hunter organized Mafia at his house.
When I set out, I was thinking, hm, it'll probably be pretty cool out by the time I head back, I should bring my jacket. So I grabbed my jacket and headed out. What I did not realize until I was well onto the diag was that in fact I had instead grabbed my bathrobe. So when I arrived people were asking me why I brought a bathrobe, and that was why. On the way back it was indeed cooler out, so yeah, I put on the bathrobe.
We played a pretty simple Mafia, with the special roles being investigator, vigilante (who was limited to two kills, though I don't think he ever used any of them in the one game we used him), and innocent child (a townie who is allowed to reveal his card). We only ended up playing four games, because a number of people had to go elsewhere, and so the last two ended up being "speed Mafia" and having a small number of players. Hunter moderated the first two games, Zach the last two.
We used a weird voting system; Hunter plays online Mafia on the Dominion Strategy forums, I gather it's adopted from that. It didn't work so great IRL. No votes were actually held; rather, at any point, you could vote for someone or switch your vote. If at any point the votes on someone hit majority, they'd be lynched and the day would be over. You could also vote for "no lynch". For that you only needed half rather than majority. What to do in case of even number of players was therefore well-defined; Mafia won if they ever got to half.
Note that because of this we didn't need a parity rule. But instead of therefore always starting with night, we always started with day instead! Yeah, that slowed things down. Most people seemed to prefer it that way for some reason; I don't really get it.
In the first game I was Mafia, along with Julian and Alix (a friend of Nina's). That was the game of a significant moderator screwup. Hunter spoke in the third person; he used descriptions rather than commands. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that e.g. during the first game he slipped up and said something to the effect of, "The inspector wakes up. He chooses someone to inspect.", thereby revealing that the inspector was probably male. This definitely helped us win that one. On the second day I argued that we should choose "no lynch" because the extra information would help us win (unless the Mafia killed the inspector). This was an honest town argument, actually; I would probably have argued this the same if I were town. Of course, since I was Mafia, I was planning to try to hit that inspector that night. There were only 2 or 3 still living non-Mafia male players -- Hunter had indeed inadvertently revealed the inspector's gender -- and we managed to hit the right one. (It was Jeremy.)
Even though the townspeople had no mistakes left, we hadn't quite put the game away yet, as on the next turn they managed to correctly lynch Alix. Meanwhile, Nic, who was sitting next to me, was insisting the whole game that I was Mafia (even though he agreed with my argument). But other people were suspicious of him. For that reason I didn't want to kill him, but I ended up agreeing to do so anyway on the final night because I realized I had made a sound during the night.
It's quite possible we should have won on the previous day, though. Feature of this voting system: When you're at 0 mistakes, as soon as you cast a vote for someone, the Mafia can bandwagon on them and win. Of course, that's true with the voting system I'm familiar with as well, but there it's more obvious due to the actual votes being sparse and studied things; it's even possible to hold a vote on someone and have nobody vote for them (although in that case why didn't the accuser withdraw?). Here, there's no gap between formal accusation and vote; the way you formally accuse someone is by voting someone. So you can just vote for someone at any time, and people didn't think of that you might want to not do that at zero mistakes.
So finally someone incorrectly accused Mary, and Julian jumped on. I stop to confirm, "Wait, there are two votes on Mary?". There were, I jumped on, and we won. Actually, Mary was the innocent child, but didn't react quickly enough with revealing her card. And because I was a little slow to jump on, whoever accused her -- I think Nina -- could have retracted her vote before I did so, saving Mary and possibly outing Julian. But, that didn't happen.
The second game (the one with the vigilante, since we had more players) I was killed on the first day after I got bored and declared I would bandwagon on anyone other than me. (Since there were already a few votes on me at that point; I initially said on whoever has the most votes, but quickly modified that to "other than me". That sealed it.) I didn't pay much attention after that. Though I believe Hunter made a similar moderation mistake as in the first game. (Also, once there were 3 corpses, we started a game of No Thanks; I expected we'd get in several before the Mafia game ended, but in fact Mafia ended first.)
For the last two games we played "speed Mafia" since people had to leave soon, where each round ended after four minutes; if nobody was dead, we would all have to cast a vote -- going around in a circle, not simultaneously! Though once majority (or half for no lynch) was achieved we didn't continue further. We didn't agree on a rule for no majority; I guess probably we would have treated it as no lynch? Somehow it never came up. A number of people had already left so we only had like 8 or 9 people.
I don't really remember the third game, but in the 4th game I was inspector. I tried to do the fake inspector trick, but with so few people it wasn't really useful. Also, Hunter, the only person sitting next to me, wasn't really familiar with how to handle the townie side of the trick. (Also when we talked about it afterward people weren't sure that private communication was supposed to be legal; I'd assumed it was, others assumed it wasn't. Huh. I know in the online Mafia games that Hunter plays, it's illegal, but I'd never heard of that being used elsewhere.)
But something clearly illegal also happened that game. On the last day, Zach tells everyone to wake up, but before he can say who died, Jeremy jumps in with "I'm the inspector, and Nina's the remaining Mafia." I immediately respond with "Bullshit, I'm the inspector, I inspected Hunter and Kurt and they're town." And people (including Nina) start arguing, and I wonder if I should have let Hunter say that (but he wouldn't have thought to, and I don't think it would have mattered here)... and finally Zach gets in with "Hey! I never said who died!".
It turns out Nina was the night kill. That's right -- Jeremy killed Nina during the night, and then during the day claimed that she was Mafia before she could be announced dead. Apparently this was a deliberate (if illegal) risky strategy on the part of Jeremy's, but it's not clear to me how it could work at all. Well, it was obviously him at that point so town won. And that was the end of that.
-Harry
When I set out, I was thinking, hm, it'll probably be pretty cool out by the time I head back, I should bring my jacket. So I grabbed my jacket and headed out. What I did not realize until I was well onto the diag was that in fact I had instead grabbed my bathrobe. So when I arrived people were asking me why I brought a bathrobe, and that was why. On the way back it was indeed cooler out, so yeah, I put on the bathrobe.
We played a pretty simple Mafia, with the special roles being investigator, vigilante (who was limited to two kills, though I don't think he ever used any of them in the one game we used him), and innocent child (a townie who is allowed to reveal his card). We only ended up playing four games, because a number of people had to go elsewhere, and so the last two ended up being "speed Mafia" and having a small number of players. Hunter moderated the first two games, Zach the last two.
We used a weird voting system; Hunter plays online Mafia on the Dominion Strategy forums, I gather it's adopted from that. It didn't work so great IRL. No votes were actually held; rather, at any point, you could vote for someone or switch your vote. If at any point the votes on someone hit majority, they'd be lynched and the day would be over. You could also vote for "no lynch". For that you only needed half rather than majority. What to do in case of even number of players was therefore well-defined; Mafia won if they ever got to half.
Note that because of this we didn't need a parity rule. But instead of therefore always starting with night, we always started with day instead! Yeah, that slowed things down. Most people seemed to prefer it that way for some reason; I don't really get it.
In the first game I was Mafia, along with Julian and Alix (a friend of Nina's). That was the game of a significant moderator screwup. Hunter spoke in the third person; he used descriptions rather than commands. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that e.g. during the first game he slipped up and said something to the effect of, "The inspector wakes up. He chooses someone to inspect.", thereby revealing that the inspector was probably male. This definitely helped us win that one. On the second day I argued that we should choose "no lynch" because the extra information would help us win (unless the Mafia killed the inspector). This was an honest town argument, actually; I would probably have argued this the same if I were town. Of course, since I was Mafia, I was planning to try to hit that inspector that night. There were only 2 or 3 still living non-Mafia male players -- Hunter had indeed inadvertently revealed the inspector's gender -- and we managed to hit the right one. (It was Jeremy.)
Even though the townspeople had no mistakes left, we hadn't quite put the game away yet, as on the next turn they managed to correctly lynch Alix. Meanwhile, Nic, who was sitting next to me, was insisting the whole game that I was Mafia (even though he agreed with my argument). But other people were suspicious of him. For that reason I didn't want to kill him, but I ended up agreeing to do so anyway on the final night because I realized I had made a sound during the night.
It's quite possible we should have won on the previous day, though. Feature of this voting system: When you're at 0 mistakes, as soon as you cast a vote for someone, the Mafia can bandwagon on them and win. Of course, that's true with the voting system I'm familiar with as well, but there it's more obvious due to the actual votes being sparse and studied things; it's even possible to hold a vote on someone and have nobody vote for them (although in that case why didn't the accuser withdraw?). Here, there's no gap between formal accusation and vote; the way you formally accuse someone is by voting someone. So you can just vote for someone at any time, and people didn't think of that you might want to not do that at zero mistakes.
So finally someone incorrectly accused Mary, and Julian jumped on. I stop to confirm, "Wait, there are two votes on Mary?". There were, I jumped on, and we won. Actually, Mary was the innocent child, but didn't react quickly enough with revealing her card. And because I was a little slow to jump on, whoever accused her -- I think Nina -- could have retracted her vote before I did so, saving Mary and possibly outing Julian. But, that didn't happen.
The second game (the one with the vigilante, since we had more players) I was killed on the first day after I got bored and declared I would bandwagon on anyone other than me. (Since there were already a few votes on me at that point; I initially said on whoever has the most votes, but quickly modified that to "other than me". That sealed it.) I didn't pay much attention after that. Though I believe Hunter made a similar moderation mistake as in the first game. (Also, once there were 3 corpses, we started a game of No Thanks; I expected we'd get in several before the Mafia game ended, but in fact Mafia ended first.)
For the last two games we played "speed Mafia" since people had to leave soon, where each round ended after four minutes; if nobody was dead, we would all have to cast a vote -- going around in a circle, not simultaneously! Though once majority (or half for no lynch) was achieved we didn't continue further. We didn't agree on a rule for no majority; I guess probably we would have treated it as no lynch? Somehow it never came up. A number of people had already left so we only had like 8 or 9 people.
I don't really remember the third game, but in the 4th game I was inspector. I tried to do the fake inspector trick, but with so few people it wasn't really useful. Also, Hunter, the only person sitting next to me, wasn't really familiar with how to handle the townie side of the trick. (Also when we talked about it afterward people weren't sure that private communication was supposed to be legal; I'd assumed it was, others assumed it wasn't. Huh. I know in the online Mafia games that Hunter plays, it's illegal, but I'd never heard of that being used elsewhere.)
But something clearly illegal also happened that game. On the last day, Zach tells everyone to wake up, but before he can say who died, Jeremy jumps in with "I'm the inspector, and Nina's the remaining Mafia." I immediately respond with "Bullshit, I'm the inspector, I inspected Hunter and Kurt and they're town." And people (including Nina) start arguing, and I wonder if I should have let Hunter say that (but he wouldn't have thought to, and I don't think it would have mattered here)... and finally Zach gets in with "Hey! I never said who died!".
It turns out Nina was the night kill. That's right -- Jeremy killed Nina during the night, and then during the day claimed that she was Mafia before she could be announced dead. Apparently this was a deliberate (if illegal) risky strategy on the part of Jeremy's, but it's not clear to me how it could work at all. Well, it was obviously him at that point so town won. And that was the end of that.
-Harry
