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[Ourobolus]

GAFia Season 5 is finally over!

While the mid-season games are currently going on, this thread is here so that we can discuss what happened during the main season games. What went right? What went wrong? Should YNNNY stop making Mafia games?

First thing's first, though.

A huge round of applause for our gamerunners this main season and mid-season. Moderating a game takes a significant amount of time (and berating from prior moderators), both before and during the actual game. And while no moderator is perfect, they take an extraordinary amount of effort to make sure that the games are as balanced as they can be so that you all can have fun!

So thanks to...

Burbeting - Love Boat Mafia
YesNOnoNOYes - Disney Princess Mafia
Sorian - Ace Attorney Mafia

nin1000 - WWE Mafia
roytheone - Batman Mafia
Royal_Flush - Of Gods and Men Mafia

Thanks, guys!

Next up, let's talk about the games.

Three games, all quite different, both in theme and setup. Love Boat introduced us to the pair mechanic, ostensibly turning a 30-player game into a 15-player game. Disney and AA stuck to more traditional Mafia mechanics, though some of the roles and the like may have deviated. I'll start you all off with some topics.

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian

Spoiler

please don't

, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?

Next up, the results from last season's review thread.

Did these ideas work? Make things better or worse?

• combined dead thread is better
• game running needs A LOT of support
• gamerunners should be given space to end the day / start the day without rushing it
• silence are expected from both players and spectators once day phases are ended
• panel of overseers will determine which games are selected to run
• once the games are selected, players will get to nominate their prefereces
• main season will cover the spectrum of normal, middling and crazy games
• in-game behaviours should be treated as such. however, we do encourage for the aggressive playstyle to be toned little down, and for the delicate players to toughen up a notch.
• post restriction roles / style must be cleared by overseer before implemented
• win (and loss) condition must be made clear
• overseers will advise on what kind of fake claims must be provided
• scum team should be allowed to put in the commands for inactive scum
• IF rebooting, give the players a breathing room, and try to keep the player base the same
• Encrypting messages are forbidden
• scum should post at least once per night phase in the scum chat, just like how everyone is expected to post at least once during the day phase.

And lastly, the next season!

While we do have a lot of games on deck (or at least being reviewed), if you have an idea, feel free to post it here. I know myself and other prior mods have a ton of ideas to put forth, but we should give the new blood a chance to stress themselves out when their beautiful plan gets torn to shreds by the players.

If you have an idea, please use the handy-dandy format below and post it in this thread. Retro or someone else will set you up with a board on Outer GAFia so that you can post your ideas and get feedback from the moderators.

Number of player slots for the game:
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up:
Theme:
Game Category: (click link for the scale)

Thanks again, everyone, and see you back here for Season 6!

 

[Ourobolus]

Reserved for game submissions.

Burbeting
Number of player slots for the game: 21-22
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Ourobolus, the co-moderator
Theme: Fullmetal Alchemist
Game Category: 6-7

Karkador
Number of player slots for the game: Undecided
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody, but I'd like to co-host it with someone
Theme: Animal Crossing 2
Game Category: Let's call it a 6-8

Lone_Prodigy
Number of player slots for the game: 24
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer (co-mod), Retro, Yeeny
Theme: Mah-vel
Game Category: High

cabot
Number of player slots for the game: 22
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer, CzarTim, Kawl, YNNNY, Burbeting
Theme: Bar MAFIA
Game Category: 6-7

Matt Attack
Number of player slots for the game: 24 (Subject to change)
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody
Theme: Anime
Game Category: 6-7 (Probably)

Giant Panda
Number of player slots for the game: 24ish
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: None currently
Theme: Death
Game Category: 8-10

Ourobolus
Number of player slots for the game: 20-24
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer_v1, RetroMG, Sorian, maybe others, I forget.
Theme: Ouro's Bastard Bomb Game
Game Category: 7/9

Palmer_v1 / Xamtheking
Number of player slots for the game: 18?
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Burbeting, XamtheKing
Theme: Secret Invasion
Game Category: Not normal. Mildly bastard. Not anywhere close to Volcano Island, or even HP in my opinion. You can trust your Role PM. Every role (and the entire game, in fact)is taken from wiki.mafiascum.net, though some may be tweaked or modified a little.

Bronx-Man
Number of player slots for the game: 18-22
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody, but I think Ourobolus could help me out with running the whole thing. MOD NOTE: HA!
Theme: PlayStation All-Stars
Game Category: Role Madness

 

[Xamtheking]

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY?????

 

[Sorian]

Town won all three games? That's news to me.

 

[Ourobolus]

Town won all three games? That's news to me.

Oh, lol. You're right. Whoops.

 

[weemadarthur]

3. Did town win AA? I thought xam did.

 

[Ourobolus]

3. Did town win AA? I thought xam did.

I fixed it. Had a brain fart,

 

[weemadarthur]

3. Love Boat seemed balanced ok. But I'm not an expert.
AA came down to a mylo situation, which sorta indicates balance.
DP had many scum errors, from choosing to go outside the safe claim list to volunteering scum information before it was brought up by town, to repeating night actions....it's impossible to tell if they should have been buffed more. Town used mostly BP and roleblocker and nothing else for power roles. Override was sitting on the table, messages weren't considered very valuable, and the motion detector didn't happen to hit targets that offered insight. Both sides had no idea what was happening at night.

 

[roytheone]

Oh, lol. You're right. Whoops.

Well, we still destroyed scum and I think that was the point you were making? (scum losing almost always)

 

[weemadarthur]

5. Shortening day one to 24 hours sounds reasonable, as it is the only time people really try.

6. Hey! We participated! As much as necessary....
With 24 players, one post per day required, that's only 72 posts. Like 216 in the early day phases. What sort of encouragement could be offered, aside from awards for content value?

 

[Ourobolus]

Well, we still destroyed scum and I think that was the point you were making? (scum losing almost always)

Yeah, that was the general notion.

 

[roytheone]

One thing I wanted to bring up: people using the games crab scale rating to judge role claims. This is not OK in my book. The crab scale is there to help people decide if they want to join or not, and has no place in actual discussion imo.

 

[CzarTim]

One thing I wanted to bring up: people using the games crab scale rating to judge role claims. This is not OK in my book. The crab scale is there to help people decide if they want to join or not, and has no place in actual discussion imo.

I was going to say we should start referring to 5 and 6 games as "5 or 6" even when it's clear to avoid this.

 

[weemadarthur]

4. Using flavor text to judge alignment seems too far. It isn't in the spirit of mafia. Perhaps game runners could nip this in the bud, or use different messages every time an action happens. (More work for mods? Fine by me. I'm not one!) Maybe it should be considered equal to copy pasting a role.
Over reliance on meta gaming otherwise seems to be a backup for when people have no other ideas. Probably can't stop this, it becomes part of the individual community vibe.
Using anything on OG should probably be mod killable. No posts, no post times, no online marks, no nothing.
There will probably need to be a season with multiple modkills before this stuff gets under control. Perhaps a modkilled player should not be able to win with their team, too.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

Princess was inactive because nothing was happening. No bodies meant no flips. Scum folded after their most active members died, and town just picked them off even as most of their PR's got zero results. Frankly, the game ended after D2.

It was a bit of a perfect storm though, so I wouldn't say there was anything wrong with the balance or the roster.

 

[EzekelRAGE]

2. Blackmail Mechanic - Hard to say really, it seemed kinda balanced for the number of kills per night there were and the fact that we had someone that could remove the blackmail. Even the level 5 of blackmail seemed balanced since Mafia would have to trade in their night kill to kill during the day.

1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer - I think the Ascectic and/or the BP part shouldve been removed. Also being given a a fakerole to go with the role/name of the backup town cop didn't help either. I would probably lean more on leaving the BP and taking away the Ascetic. BP wouldve been enough protection against mafia for nightkills. Making him Ascetic just makes it harder on town, especially since Xam couldve used MA to get rid of blackmail. Town's tools for dealing with such a role seemed like an uphill battle. If someone with a town PR had doubts about Xam but didn't want to risk a lynch, nothing could be done. PW (if he survived) couldn't watch/track him directly, he wouldve had to luck up and hope he was watching someone Xam decided to kill. My first game with Ascetic, so didn't know it was used mostly for neutrals/scum.

With that said, did learn to pay more attn to the wording in pms for backup roles. And the game was fun. Hammering was fun. Would play again. If the game went the way it did (Same deaths/posting etc)and he wasn't Ascetic, I most likely wouldve never thought to look at xam neway. But I enjoy my simple things. Hammering, tunneling, several multi quotes in posts, I dont know what other players wouldve thought though. Think someone started on teh killer cop trail but didn't pursue it too much because of how stacked it wouldve been.

4. It sucks mostly for the active ppl. Since they have to keep that activity thru all games they are in or be called out on it. Think it was one of the main things I got accused of in Archer. "He was way more active in AC." As you said, it's unavoidable.

5. I'm cool with shortening D1.

 

[Sorian]

2. Blackmail Mechanic - Hard to say really, it seemed kinda balanced for the number of kills per night there were and the fact that we had someone that could remove the blackmail. Even the level 5 of blackmail seemed balanced since Mafia would have to trade in their night kill to kill during the day.

1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer - I think the Ascectic and/or the BP part shouldve been removed. Also being given a a fakerole to go with the role/name of the backup town cop didn't help either. I would probably lean more on leaving the BP and taking away the Ascetic. BP wouldve been enough protection against mafia for nightkills. Making him Ascetic just makes it harder on town, especially since Xam couldve used MA to get rid of blackmail. Town's tools for dealing with such a role seemed like an uphill battle. If someone with a town PR had doubts about Xam but didn't want to risk a lynch, nothing could be done. PW (if he survived) couldn't watch/track him directly, he wouldve had to luck up and hope he was watching someone Xam decided to kill. My first game with Ascetic, so didn't know it was used mostly for neutrals/scum.

With that said, did learn to pay more attn to the wording in pms for backup roles. And the game was fun. Hammering was fun. Would play again. If the game went the way it did (Same deaths/posting etc)and he wasn't Ascetic, I most likely wouldve never thought to look at xam neway. But I enjoy my simple things. Hammering, tunneling, several multi quotes in posts, I dont know what other players wouldve thought though. Think someone started on teh killer cop trail but didn't pursue it too much because of how stacked it wouldve been.

4. It sucks mostly for the active ppl. Since they have to keep that activity thru all games they are in or be called out on it. Think it was one of the main things I got accused of in Archer. "He was way more active in AC." As you said, it's unavoidable.

5. I'm cool with shortening D1.

The bolded is amazing lol

 

[Sophia]

1. Looking at it after the game, it seemed underused. Not sure if there's a way to encourage more use of it.

2. No comment on this. I didn't follow AA strongly enough to say for sure if it was imbalanced or not.

3. Love Boat seemed pretty balance. The biggest swing was the neutral, which ended up effectively being a cop. Maybe resetting their count or setting them back one (without telling them) if they target scum or someone who dies?

4. Metagaming to some degree on Day 1 is basically unavoidable, especially if it's a day start. I dislike metagaming when it starts making weird assumptions about the rules of the game (especially when said rules are right in the first post), or starts somehow twisting the game into players thinking it's a bastard game when it's not.

5. I'd be all for shorter day/night phases in general.

6. Late game Love Boat got a bit slow there because of some inactivity, but ehh... no further comment.

7. It was fine for me. But I'm not normal and so my opinion prooobably isn't the most valuable on this subject.

 

[CrimsonFist]

1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer - I think the Ascectic and/or the BP part shouldve been removed. Also being given a a fakerole to go with the role/name of the backup town cop didn't help either. I would probably lean more on leaving the BP and taking away the Ascetic. BP wouldve been enough protection against mafia for nightkills. Making him Ascetic just makes it harder on town, especially since Xam couldve used MA to get rid of blackmail. Town's tools for dealing with such a role seemed like an uphill battle. If someone with a town PR had doubts about Xam but didn't want to risk a lynch, nothing could be done. PW (if he survived) couldn't watch/track him directly, he wouldve had to luck up and hope he was watching someone Xam decided to kill. My first game with Ascetic, so didn't know it was used mostly for neutrals/scum.

I think another issue with ascetic is that it's a valid thing to have on a town cop, since it makes them unprotectable. The red flag should have been ascetic + jailer, making the ascetic's only purpose to stop tracking/roleblocks, since they couldn't be protected anyway.

 

[Palmer_v1]

I mostly found it amazing that people just accepted that a cop could live that long.

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

It was interesting, but took too many players away for what is effectively a 15 player game. We could have had two separate games instead.

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?

I think i protested the blackmail in the original draft a little bit, but only because it seemed unfun to have to deal with, not because of balance concerns.

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

PW and LB seem balanced overall, but I still think our current win rates mean Scum need a little more help overall. I didn't check Princess game.

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

Using people's behavior game to game is totally normal. Using mod mistakes, role PM's, anything outside the game, etc. are totally not okay and I really wish we were modkilling people for it to set a precedent.

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

Day 1 sucks and people always seem to act ridiculous and hostile for no reason. Need more Night starts.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian please don't, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

Warn players if they're not meeting a minimum standard, and block repeat offenders from playing for a while. I'd rather have a smaller but more consistent community.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?

Probably. I think 19-23 is probably the sweet spot for most games.

 

[Burbeting]

1. I think the Pair Mechanic worked decently, but I did notice that not everyone was completely fine with it, so I'll want to hear more thoughts about it.

2. I think the biggest problem with SK Cop was that he could do both actions at the same time. If he had to do either or, it would have been a big difference already. Also the fakeclaim shouldn't have been as convenient as it was, but otherwise it worked ok. Can't really say about Blackmail, as that power never really came into play in AA.

3. I won't answer this, because I think I'm biased.

4. Metagaming is a tool, but that's all it should be, a tool. You can't build up all of your cases in a game based on it, which is bit what happened with the Miller claim in LB. Try to think "is this argument fair?" before you say it. We play to have fair games, not just to win.

5. I think shortening D1 a bit might be good, but not to 24 hours. Maybe have it be 48 or 72 instead of 96.

6. Activity is up to each player individually. It should be encouraged, but how..?

7. Again, biased.

 

[El Topo]

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY?????

Watching Batman v Superman five times on the same day.

 

[CrimsonFist]

On the other points:

1) I like the idea of the pair mechanic, but there often wasn't much reason for vanilla townies to use it over posting in the main thread, since they had nothing to hide anyway.

2) Blackmailing was fine. Never felt like maxing it out was a realistic expectation anyway. I think the unblockable BP cop + backup was more damaging to scum than anything, although that's in part due to how pro town Xam played. Led to following the cop for a lot of the game. But then scum didn't even try to take him out anyway. The Lana fake role might have been a bit much.

3) I don't think there were any glaring balance issues, aside from the one mentioned in point 2. Scum just gambited much more than was necessary, and it backfired a lot.

4) Metagaming is unavoidable, and I don't think you can realistically ban people from using specific arguments in discussions. It should be discouraged as much as possible, but when it comes to reading into flavour and other things, it's up to the mods to provide scum with enough information to avoid being caught out. Which I feel like they did.

5) Day 1 either needs a topic to discuss, or shortening it seems fine if the mods don't want to provide anything like that. For less conventional games, it can be a good time for mechanics discussion, although of course that can often be seen as a scum tell. There were some really weak day 1 scumtells in a few of these games though.

6) No real comment, I wasn't playing at a point where activity felt like an issue.

7) Love Boat didn't feel overly big to read as a spectator. Not like it hit NX levels or anything.


I can see the benefits of a combined dead thread, but I kind of like speculating games that I'm not in, which wasn't possible as long as I was alive in one game.

 

[Sorian]

1) I loved the pair mechanic. I know Palmer said that he was happy that he saw the idea once and it didn't need to be done again but I think I'm in the same camp as Retro, I would like to see pair games added into regular rotation. Burb said himself early on that he set this one up to be very basic just to give everyone an introduction to pair mechanics but we can definitely dig deeper into interesting territory here. Having someone to talk to privately adds a new element to the game that is usually reserved for the occasional gossip here or there and I enjoyed seeing everyone giving their all behind the scenes.

2) Perfect balance, 10/10 game.

3) Ignoring my own game because obviously I think my own game was balanced. I think Princesses and Love Boat were perfectly fine balance wise. Princess scum fell on their sword day 1 then continued to stand up before falling right back on their sword again. There isn't much to say there, with better/luckier play, that game would have gone on for awhile. Over on LB side, they also fell on their sword day 1 but they recovered quite well and even with that claim that basically put a short timer on Blarg and Kawl's heads, it still went to mylo. Burb kind of addressed that the one issue in retrospect was that the neutrals still ended up acting like impromptu cops. He tried hard to adjust that as much as it could pre-game because we all knew it was a worry but it still ended up going that way. Scum had all the tools to win and sure, we can say scum has only won once in main season but there have been plenty of scum wins in midseason games and there is no real difference between main and mid season.

4) Metagaming in the form of comparing past play and behavior is fine IMO. It's part of the game and sometimes it'll work amazing and sometimes it'll fail miserably, just like most other mafia strategy's. Metagaming in the form of stalking someone's GAF account to see when they were last online. Lying about or questioning real life situations. Trying to follow posting activity to assume when someone is available to play is still a definite no in my opinion but that's pretty much a standard for our community anyway so imo, no change here. If anything, the crab scale brought a weird meta game aspect to Love Boat that I didn't like and I'm all for getting rid of the crab scale or generalizing it a ton.

5) I'd be against shortening day 1. It's a necessary evil that has it's place in the game. Day 1 still involves a lynch and should still have all of the time allotted to a normal day. It has the most players which means the possibility for the most discussion. We can point at princess and say that not much was happening and they were killing time but then we could also point at NX and say that day 1 was probably one of the most dense when it comes to gameplay and information.

6) L_P hit this on the head in regards to princess specifically. No deaths means nothing to talk about which causes a slow down. Of course someone could claim and that would get discussion going but it's not optimal to have bad play just to get discussion rolling. As always, I think people just need to know what they are getting into and know that if they sign up that quitting out same day is going to have affects but in terms of being in the game and giving it your attention? The players will most likely dictate what is ok and what's not. Look at night vale day 1 where we ended up policy lynching because someone was just too low activity.

7) I can only imagine what it would be like subbing into love boat. I followed the game for the most part as it went but subbing in later without having been following along must have been a nightmare. I think 30-32 should be the upper limit on a game, personally but yeah, it wasn't too big.

Miscellaneous: Combined dead thread was good. Scum didn't have the issue from last season where a member disappeared for two day phases and didn't post at all which is good. I think win/loss states were written well this season and I didn't see any confusion this time.

 

[flatearthpandas]

I think AA was fair. Town definitely had the tools at hand to catch Xam but we kind of sidetracked ourselves through that part until his still being there almost made sense. No real complaints, only mild regrets.

I didn't participate in Love Boat but the pair mechanic seemed pretty dope. It was a huge thread though with a lot to read. I think that is okay, personally, as long as everyone knows what they're getting into.

Metagaming. I think it's pretty inescapable and while it changes the game watching the behavior of known players it also encourages everyone to work on their mafia poker faces and/or personas so it's not necessarily for the worse. Completely down for crab scale ratings being ranged but I saw nothing unfair about calling out that certain claimed roles were specifically excluded in LB's rating. I do think we should continue to discourage metagame investigations (checking gaf activity etc.) but ultimately I don't even feel that strongly about that. I do believe there should be no question about claimed RL scheduling though. Don't lie about taking trips, don't assume anyone is lying about taking trips.

No issues with a shorter D1.

 

[Burbeting]

In terms of pair mechanic, Love Boat was made very, very vanilla. Only element that was more experimental was the Neutral, but that was it, 50% of players were ordinary.

There is the second version of pair mechanic games, where players apply to the game in pairs, so you would get to choose your pair. I went for RNG pairs this time due to the nature of how people apply to main season games.

 

[Sorian]

I think AA was fair. Town definitely had the tools at hand to catch Xam but we kind of sidetracked ourselves through that part until his still being there almost made sense. No real complaints, only mild regrets.

I didn't participate in Love Boat but the pair mechanic seemed pretty dope. It was a huge thread though with a lot to read. I think that is okay, personally, as long as everyone knows what they're getting into.

Metagaming. I think it's pretty inescapable and while it changes the game watching the behavior of known players it also encourages everyone to work on their mafia poker faces and/or personas so it's not necessarily for the worse. Completely down for crab scale ratings being ranged but I saw nothing unfair about calling out that certain claimed roles were specifically excluded in LB's rating. I do think we should continue to discourage metagame investigations (checking gaf activity etc.) but ultimately I don't even feel that strongly about that. I do believe there should be no question about claimed RL scheduling though. Don't lie about taking trips, don't assume anyone is lying about taking trips.

No issues with a shorter D1.

Oh yeah, I meant to point this out after the game. Go look at Hipster Cthulu's avatar. The person you replaced. They were quite brazen with their role name.

 

[Palmer_v1]

An idea for Day 1's and maybe other days in general. An option to vote to end the day early.

Obviously majority does this as well, but that rarely happens until the Day is nearly over anyway. How about if everyone could also vote to end Day 1 short of majority. basically after at least 24 hours have expired, players can Vote to end the day separately from their vote to lynch. If Majority on ending the day is reached, it's done and plurality triggers like normal.

 

[Sorian]

An idea for Day 1's and maybe other days in general. An option to vote to end the day early.

Obviously majority does this as well, but that rarely happens until the Day is nearly over anyway. How about if everyone could also vote to end Day 1 short of majority. basically after at least 24 hours have expired, players can Vote to end the day separately from their vote to lynch. If Majority on ending the day is reached, it's done and plurality triggers like normal.

I feel like that would have to be on option for everyday at that point. That changes the dynamic of any day phase that it is a part of. A new set of scum tells, a new vote that scum would try to play around with.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Oh yeah, I meant to point this out after the game. Go look at Hipster Cthulu's avatar. The person you replaced. They were quite brazen with their role name.

Is it still there? I don't get it.

 

[Sorian]

Is it still there? I don't get it.

Your character was Maggey Byrd. Hipster put a portrait of that character right in the center of their avatar, I think they did that somewhere around night 1 or early day 2. Yeah, it's still there.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Your character was Maggey Byrd. Hipster put a portrait of that character right in the center of their avatar, I think they did that somewhere around night 1 or early day 2. Yeah, it's still there.

Lol, is that what that is? I thought the picture was of a guy. I've seen avatar talk come up a few times. It seemed it's generally more favorable to sort out before role pms but I've never seen the discussion around it get too serious. Seems fair enough to me though. If anyone wants to argue about it, people can be avatar quoted for posterity. What are the strong objections to avatar shenanigans?

 

[Burbeting]

Here is the first game application! This one if for midseason 6.5. It will be a co-mod production from me and ouroblob.


Number of player slots for the game: 21-22
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Ourobolus, the co-moderator
Theme: Fullmetal Alchemist
Game Category: 6-7

 

[Sorian]

Lol, is that what that is? I thought the picture was of a guy. I've seen avatar talk come up a few times. It seemed it's generally more favorable to sort out before role pms but I've never seen the discussion around it get too serious. Seems fair enough to me though. If anyone wants to argue about it, people can be avatar quoted for posterity. What are the strong objections to avatar shenanigans?

I have none personally, in themed games it's a crap shoot if someone changes their avatar because it's a character they like or it's a character that they got. Aside from Hipster, every other time that someone's avatar matched their role, it was done pre-game pre-role PMs so basically blind luck.

 

[Ourobolus]

I have none personally, in themed games it's a crap shoot if someone changes their avatar because it's a character they like or it's a character that they got. Aside from Hipster, every other time that someone's avatar matched their role, it was done pre-game pre-role PMs so basically blind luck.

See: Gorlak in MGS

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

1. Pairing was interesting but I think they should've been represented as a pair instead of voting and being voted on separately.

2. Didn't really follow AA so can't comment on this.

3. I mentioned this already in my last post. I think Princess was skewed a little towards scum (especially with a lack of traditional town PR roles) but was fairly balanced. Can't really comment on the others.

4. In a game of misinformation and mystery, players will use any advantage they can get. Yes it can get unfair (calling out activity levels, real life, avatars, play styles (e.g. should I really get a pass for being inactive because I'm like that?), metagaming) but it's part of the game and players should (and usually do) self-moderate to get back on track. It's like poker where you wear sunglasses and stuff. Psychological warfare, yo.

5. I hate Day 1, and being the first one lynched/overrode is always disheartening. I'm more of a Night start person but there are problems there too (NK'ed right away, all PR's operating).

6. Maybe balance active players with inactive ones. I remember Princess was a "second choice" for some people so that may have affected the rosters.

7. I couldn't keep up. Volcano was 30 or so, wasn't it? That was also a monster to keep up with.

 

[Fireblend]

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

I thought it was creative and worked pretty well in practice. I didn't follow Love Boat all the way to the end, but from what I saw it seemed like fun and I'd like to see it happen again in some capacity at least so I can experience it. It'd seem silly to let the mechanic go to waste if it has potential beyond a simple repeat of Love Boat, which I think it does.

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?

No comment, didn't follow AA (I should read it one of these days though).

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

I think I'd be alright with buffing scum a little, but I'm not sure if that'd be effective. IMO, the main issue scum faces is that a single mistake is way less forgivable for a scum player than a townie. In the case of princesses a single misstep led to scum not having a chance for the rest of the game, even ignoring the fact we had several nights without deaths. I don't see how scum could be buffed in a way that decreased their "accountability", and I wouldn't really blame game balance on any scum loss I've experienced. Scum is just harder to play and you need a really good committed team to bring it all the way to the end.

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

I think there's no solution here beyond self-moderation. It's unavoidable and it'd be silly to just ignore it, and at the same time I'd expect people to realize it's not the be-all and end-all of scumtells and to call out people that act like it is. I do disagree with people questioning other people's reasons for being active or inactive, though. Even though mods do their best to moderate the game and keep it fair, there's still an honor system in place here and both lying about not having access to the thread or questioning other people about it should be big no-no's.

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

Sure, I'd be up for shortened D1s. I don't usually follow my "gut reads" or assign value to much of what is said D1 until much later in the game, so I don't tend to be super active during the opening day.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian please don't, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

It is a bit frustrating, but I don't think much can be done about it. Again, honor system. If people can't post because of real-life reasons then that's ok, and if there's little to discuss it's difficult to generate enough interest or drama to rekindle the conversation. Not voting before the end of the day though? Not cool. IMO unless users have previously stated they would be unable to vote by the day's end, voting is the least they could do to show they're still playing the game. The same goes for not participating when there's a discussion going where their participation would be valuable, but that's way more difficult to judge.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?

I didn't think it was particularly more difficult to follow than any other game I haven't been a part of, but then again I don't ever make it too far into any game I'm not playing myself =/

Again, thanks so much to the mods for putting in the effort to make this community as great as it is. I had a really fun time this season (well, there's still the mid-season games to play through, but yeah), and I'm not saying that only because I won and survived Disney Mafia You guys are all awesome, keep up the great work.

 

[Royal_Flush]

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?
I like the idea with the private chat. The one issue I see is that it was balanced as a 15 player game, but seeing it as this, each player was able to make half votes. I think if this ever is repeated, it'd be worth to try out only one vote per team, i.e. if Kark voted it would overwrite Zipped's vote. That of course would cause problems with my vote tool so extra work for the mod.

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?
I didn't follow this game at all (I only have that much time at hand...)

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?
From the result it doesn't look like it but princess actually was pretty balanced. As I said in the thread I have no clue how Town got to 2 of the 5 Scum those were perfect Null reads for me. I think what really doomed them was Darryl's failed gambit, not the balance.

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?
Metagaming is unavoidable. What actually pisses me off is hen people are trying to pierce through gambits by flavor "proofs". This could be avoidable if game runners don't send flavor with their messages but where's the fun with that?

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.
I don't like D1 but I don't think shortening it makes it better. I have, however, not a final opinion on this.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian please don't, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.
You guys brought this onto yourself. You just could have looked at the roster and you'd have realized it would be a slow game. Literally none of the players (except maybe Darryl and Fireblend) is was a particular high activity poster. Maybe we should prioritize equal average activity distribution higher than game preference...

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?
30 players for a normal game is too much. 30 players for a pair game is difficult. It's really a lot of stuff to read, but good setups with far less than 15 players quickly become very limited.

 

[Karkador]

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

I certainly welcome games bringing in new mechanics (if they're designed well). Personally, I underestimated the pair mechanic. I thought it was going to be something where players had their own individual roles, but were all paired to another player, for better or worse.

The result was surprisingly pretty good. While Love Boat was "15 players" on paper, it was still very much a 30 player game. What's neat about the pair mechanic is that if I'm not satisfied with an answer from one of the players in a pair, I can ask the other player. A game like this works better when you are already familiar with many of the other players. It reminded me that mafia is primarily a game about people.

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

I think Love Boat was at least a tad bit in favor of Town. Even ignoring the more subtle ways that Town had the upper hand, I really think mafia was simply outnumbered. I think Burb put a fair amount of thought into it, and the way the game kept us guessing is probably ultimately a good thing - but a game full of Ordinaries and a outnumbered mafia seems to lack a little bit of fun on both sides.

If there's one thing that threw a wrench in Love Boat for me, though, it was not knowing if the chat bombers could target mafia. That felt like we were hitting a wall of game mechanics that nobody would be able to fairly answer for us. It was frustrating.

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

I constantly complain about metagaming, and I still do it. It's an easy trap to fall into. I will concur with others that the "Crab scale" is being misused and misinterpreted. It's hard to police what people say in games, but I think we should maybe have a community guideline that firmly discourages metagaming.

P.S. - as someone who likes to make unconventional moves and have fun, I think people stating "you're not supposed to play that way, this is the correct way to play that role" is also kinda shitty metagaming, especially in the setting of in-game arguments. I see it everywhere. This has made me mad since Season 1, and I can easily see it turning away lots of new members.

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

I'm for it. I'm for trying somewhat shorter phases overall, too.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian please don't, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

I posted way more in this Season than I thought I ever could, and I think it also made me more demanding of other players to post more. It honestly got pretty upsetting by the end of the game. But I needed to chill.

Again, it's hard to police people's behavior and statements in these games, but setting a post limit on players for each phase might be like a "speed limit" on the Sorians of the world, who may in turn feel less exasperated by low activity posters. It would also keep post counts in games under control, and make the whole thing easier for players to digest. Posts could still be long, just...less of them.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big?

See above. I think the pair idea had a lot of merit, but the games could maybe use some throttling in activity. However, I think post activity is probably independent of player count.

Did these ideas work? Make things better or worse?

combined dead thread is better - i dunno, i didn't get to participate in it at all
game running needs A LOT of support - yes
gamerunners should be given space to end the day / start the day without rushing it - not sure if I noticed
silence are expected from both players and spectators once day phases are ended - it was good, but i missed the ghost gifs
panel of overseers will determine which games are selected to run - This is how it works? it seems more chaotic
once the games are selected, players will get to nominate their prefereces - It's sad for the games that don't get picked
main season will cover the spectrum of normal, middling and crazy games - Seems fine
in-game behaviours should be treated as such. however, we do encourage for the aggressive playstyle to be toned little down, and for the delicate players to toughen up a notch. - If anything, I was the meanie. I send PMs to mend.
post restriction roles / style must be cleared by overseer before implemented - didn't notice it
win (and loss) condition must be made clear - seemed clear to me
overseers will advise on what kind of fake claims must be provided - makes sense?
scum team should be allowed to put in the commands for inactive scum - makes sense
IF rebooting, give the players a breathing room, and try to keep the player base the same - I'd hope this wont be common enough to require a community policy
Encrypting messages are forbidden - Tempting to say "no", but yes. Besides, that's so Season 2.
scum should post at least once per night phase in the scum chat, just like how everyone is expected to post at least once during the day phase. - seems like a fair requirement

One more thing

Number of player slots for the game: Undecided
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Nobody, but I'd like to co-host it with someone
Theme: Animal Crossing 2
Game Category: Let's call it a 6-8

 

[Ourobolus]

panel of overseers will determine which games are selected to run - This is how it works? it seems more chaotic

Well, they're the ones that are helping out with balance, so for the main season games, yeah. They don't pick the ones that WILL run, they just pick the ones that people vote for (like, we had 5 games "tested" for this season).

I think mid-season games are a bit more fluid.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

YAY REVIEW THREAD

thanks for putting it up ouro im happy to see loads of the questions i asked about in the mods chat are put up for discussion <3 and im even happier to see the feedback from so many of you :>

I did the minutes summarizing last review thread, so I guess I'll do that again here once I go through everyone's responses... so we can keep track on where the community's general feelings are on the issues asked.

And, you know, if there is ANYTHING ELSE not featured in the opening post that you would like to talk about, please feel free to holler~

<3

 

[Sophia]

Speaking of shorter day phases: while I do enjoy long night phases to recharge, the sheer length of current day phases (especially on day 1) is rather taxing. It results in a noticeable lull period before a mad rush at the end. I wouldn't mind trying a game where the default is 72 hours for a day phase, and 48 for a night phase. With endgame sped up to 48 hours day and 24 hours night.





Also, seeing as I brought it up to Retro, I'd like to propose an alternative to the Crab scale to reduce meta-gaming arguments based upon the scale.

Separate games into five types: Vanilla, Traditional, Non-Traditional, Role Madness, Bastard.

Use the MafiaScum wiki Roles page as a basis for deciding if a game is traditional or non traditional.

• Vanilla is defined by just Townies and Mafia Goons. No power roles, and ideally no third parties. If there is a third party, only one, and only Serial Killer or Survivor.
• Traditional is defined by the most common roles you'd see. Any game that uses roles found under very common or less common, and doesn't deviate significantly from those roles, is probably a traditional game.
• Non-Traditional is defined by either having a role not listed on the MafiaScum wiki Roles page, or having a role whose's functions significantly deviates from the usual expectation of that role. This also covers any game that uses non-standard mechanics but doesn't qualify as a Bastard game.
• Role Madness is defined by players having a significant amount of power roles. A rule of thumb would be if 50% or more of the players have a power role, then it's Role Madness. Role Madness games can also be classified as Traditional or Non-Traditional, although most would probably fall under Non-Traditional due to the nature of the game.
• Bastard is defined by any game that typically deceives or outright lies to the players playing the game. Alignment changes, unaware game mechanics, switching things up mid phase. Generally any game that seems like it's more for the amusement of the game moderator or spectators rather than attempting to be fair is a Bastard game.

So for example, using this criteria based upon the games I know well:

• Heist is a Vanilla game - Nobody had any special powers. Just voting and night kills.
• When Death is On the Line is a Traditional game.
• Werewolf 2 and Love Boat are Non-Traditional games - Love Boat had the pairing mechanic that deviated from the standard Mafia gameplay as well as a neutral designed around this mechanic, and Woof2 had the Arsonist group chat neutral role.
• Final Fantasy is a Role Madness game of the Non-Traditional variety - Almost everyone had a power in that game, and there were roles you didn't typically see as well as one role created just for the game.
• Volcano Island is Bastard game

This setup doesn't take into account if a game is open or closed, because the distinction is generally not important. Vanilla games are, by definition, open games, and Bastard games defy the rules anyhow.

 

[Hyperactivity]

1) Kill the crab scale, keep it secret if you have to. The only descriptor people should know about is if it is bastard or leans bastard (AKA 8+)

Any other shade doesn't mean much, and is annoyingly limited. Adding one or two "off" roles doesn't suddenly change the rating of a game that much

2) Kill the effect of flavor on roles. Talking especially about flavor of actions, roles, etc. Leave the flavor for day start and end. My main thing with this is that there should be as much available for players to construct their own fake claims (even if they are town) if they want.

Sometimes I've thought of the idea of each town players in a costumed game getting their own set of fake names to work with. I also really like the idea of a semi-open format, with scum being told some of the names that are fake. IMO, I would like to see more lay like in Archer, where town fake claimed and caught scum off guard. Imagine how annoying that would be if some small aspect proved the claim wrong.

Even if you have a themed game, ideally the game should be designed first, then the theme.

AKA: Response messages should be basic, non-scum commands should be basic (as in INVESTIGATE, not some special fancy command). Keep it constant across PRs. My ideal game is a game entirely shaped by players after the initial design is made (and the design isn't reliant on theme), very little mod interfering

IDK why I'm complaining about this, can't think of something ever happening in GAFIA that egregiously annoyed me about this, but I just want to talk about it

3) Pair Mechanic. LOVED IT. Pairs have an awesome utility for letting you vent. The person you're paired with won't suddenly bandwagon you at the end of the day. You can just sort of talk.

4) Love Boat size. This was an issue first couple of days. There were WAAAYYY too many people to keep track of. It wasn't so bad here because pairs meant people died pretty fast, but oh boy is it annoying to keep track of. Harry Potter was similar hear too.

5) Day 1. Kyanrute said it best -- Day 1 is stupid.

Maybe we should look into shortening day 1 from now on, it such a boring day overall.

 

[Hyperactivity]

Also, does anyone think it might just be worth it at this point to purposefully act different in one game for your future games just because of metagaming bullshit?

 

[Swamped]

I just wanted to add that I'm in the (small) party that really likes D1. I wouldn't shorten it. It's just so silly and fun. And if there are roles that are activated during the day, it wouldn't be fair to shorten D1 compared to the other days.

Also, does anyone think it might just be worth it at this point to purposefully act different in one game for your future games just because of metagaming bullshit?

Seriously lol. I think I might even roleplay my next game. We'll see.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

Number of player slots for the game: 24
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Palmer (co-mod), Retro, Yeeny
Theme: Mah-vel
Game Category: High

 

[cabot]

Also, does anyone think it might just be worth it at this point to purposefully act different in one game for your future games just because of metagaming bullshit?

Metagaming around past behaviours is valid play. People that completely disregard it are being facetious. Not everyone can radically change up their playstyle. I'd go so far to say it's usually just a minority that can do it well.

It gets a lot more murky when it's purely mechanics talk or playing fast and loose with rules, but analyzing past game behaviour is more than fine.

1) Kill the crab scale, keep it secret if you have to. The only descriptor people should know about is if it is bastard or leans bastard (AKA 8+)

No, the crab scale is useful. Sure the way it was brought up in LB shouldn't happen again, but it's definitely better than 'oh this leans a bit bastard'. That's subjective noise. The crab scale gives me a rough idea of what to expect, and I want that when deciding which game to play.

It also doesn't really make a difference, did you pay attention to the comical shit players were guessing during LB? Game was crazy enough while being low on the Crab scale.

edit: Sophia's alternative suggestion is pretty good, would consider that

 

[cabot]

1. What did you all think of the pair mechanic?

2. We've had this discussion across a bunch of different chats/forums, but there was some concern over the Blackmailing mechanic and the 1-shot BP Ascetic Cop Serial Killer in AA. Is there a balance concern?

3. In general, how do you think the games were balanced? Town won all 2/3 games, and the lone neutral won AA, but was it a balance issue or a gameplay issue? Does scum need a buff in future games?

4. Metagaming. On one hand, it's unavoidable. If someone in a previous game is acting differently, it's possible that it means that something is up. However, there's a point where people are really, really reaching for things. I get that sometimes you don't have the concrete information you're looking for, but how far is too far?

5. Day 1. What does everyone think of shortening D1 by a bit? We're all floundering - maybe it's good to get that day out of the way a bit faster. However, I personally think D1 reads have merit, but I think shortening it a bit might be a good idea.

6. Activity levels. Disney Princess suffered from this. It's tough because real life does interfere from time to time, and the games do require a certain level of commitment. I'm not saying everyone needs to emulate Sorian

Spoiler

please don't

, but it's a bit disheartening to show up the next real-life day and see that not much discussion had happened.

7. Love Boat's size was 30 players. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it was only 15 players, but you had to go through 30 players' worth of posts. Too big? [/B]

1. I always enjoy having someone I can trust and share opinions with. While Splinter and I used the lover chat more as an avenue of reactions to our traditional solo play in the main game, it was good to know I had someone to run ideas off of and see a different perspective on things that couldn't be twisted by someone who could be scum.

2. I said it in spec thread, but I don't think Stanley's flip 'hint' was particularly a good hint. Now I know in future what to look for but the hint itself seems like someone who has modded a game would understand and look for, but not a regular player. I don't know exactly if this means that it was 'wrong', but just something to note.


3. I think they were balanced quite well, there was a possibility the Blackmail thing could've been hella dangerous if MA had died night 1 or day 1, but other than that I don't really have a problem. The scum plays this season were mostly the reason why they didn't win.

4. I don't think there's a definitive measurement here, just as some people cant scumhunt very well and end up making horrible mistakes, people that overuse or underuse metagaming and previous activity can result in the same thing. Would you limit games based on a players ability to scumhunt? No? Why do it for metagaming, they're both tools available to the player. It's up to them if they use it well or badly.

As I said to Hyper, I guess you can say too far is when you focus purely on mechanics/moderator design as reasoning, that's when it gets problematic.

5. Eh, Day 1 needs to happen. I personally don't have a problem. It's a bit of a crap shoot but yeah who cares it needs to happen. I don't really think making it shorter is a good idea. It's a day just like any other. Night starts being more common would be cool.

6. A frustrating thing that came from Woof 2 and carried through this season in LB (and was prominent for most of DP) is that inactivity benefits scum. The game revolves around discussion, thats the main utility. I was trying to think of a way to limit killing the actives early but you know what? It's a completely valid tactic and there's shit all I can do about it. I don't really know how to solve this problem, we make it clear enough in the general threads the time investment is great. Maybe something like the mentor system with Splinter and Ayumi for players who are struggling? A nightly (night phase) check-in PM for newer/quiet players from mods asking how they're coping and are ok?

7. Eh, it's a pair game, expect lots of people and noise in the early game. It made quoting difficult but yeah that was about it.

 

[*Splinter]

Posts could still be long, just...less of them.

Please no... if it's the same amount to read then it isn't solving anything, just makes it harder for mobile users. I've spent 5-10 minutes just trying to pull out the sections I want from an overlong post. Most of the time I don't even bother and just reply without quoting (which makes the thread harder to follow for everyone).

I'll go through ouro's topics later, just wanted to disagree with this

 

[*Splinter]

1. Loved the pair mechanic of Love Boat, some people didn't use their private chats much but that's fine too, it isn't mandatory. Only downside is that it requires so many players for a game, but still I definitely want to see more of this in future.

2. Ascetic blah blah cop was probably too powerful. As already discussed, I think the watertight fake claim was the real problem, but Sorian said that was an oversight rather than conscious decision, fair enough.
I thought the role blocker was fine? It as a powerful role, but AA had a lot of powerful roles,

Spoiler

surprisingly balanced

3. Balance seemed good this season. 2 games went to the wire and DP fell to gambits (which is fine BTW, got to respect the high risk / high reward playstyle even when it backfires).
I think the Love Boat neutral was always going to have unfortunate side effects on the game, not sure if there was anything else Burn could have done to counter that though.

4. Meta gaming will always happen, at the very least in your private thoughts, and that's fine. We can all be more careful about using it as the sole basis for an argument though. Referring to past games is also tempting but should be avoided. It's useless for people who didn't read the game you refer to and especially frustrating for new players. I guess I'll add that in my first game (as scum) this actually didn't bother me personally - it was a thing I could justifiably ignore or piggyback on. Still we should at least explain the situation rather than vaguely alluding to it.

5. Most stuff happens towards the end of the day, so as think a short day 1 is fine. Volcano Island had 30 players and only 48 hour day phases, but I don't think this time limit hampered discussion too badly? At least in day 1.

6. To be honest I think low activity is fine? We have a lower limit already, don't think we need to make too big a deal on top of this. If we're going to make any changes on this front I think it should relate to people going entire day(s) without voting.

7. I think Love Boat size was fine. The pairs mechanic efinitely helped. Also worth considering this game had a lot of high-activity players anyway - a lengthy day 1 was inevitable.


Also I'll agree with whoever brought up separate dead threads. This was fine but that's still my preference.