Mafia: Lemmings 2 Edition

[RubiX]

Thanks for the efforts of NaOH and Clam for putting together the 2 first games of these.
They are good fun.

[geoo]

I guess we were a bit lucky that my RubiX pick was right and everyone following my pick, and then with ccx' outing there was a winning strategy (even if he had lied and was rogue himself) as we could still afford one wrong munch.

I can host the next round, unless someone else wants to.

[Simon]

Thanks to Clam for hosting, and to ccx for assuming strong play by me. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

geoo hosting is a good idea. With him visiting me for a week and sitting right next to me typing, it would suck if both of us were playing the game.

-- Simon

[mobius]

funny, I said I didn't like the idea of using luck based reasoning and most of the results of the game ended up being lucky. \\eh I didn't word that right. THe innocent team got really lucky a few times.
That was a bold move by Simon, I'm almost sorry it didn't work  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />

[grams88]

Interesting game and some nice looking pictures from clam as he was very hungry.  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" /> I was looking at the sad clam beside the four lemmings, that clam sure isn't eating any more, he's had enough dinner. (No more lemming kebab)

It was fun seeing who people vote for also the way people talk might be the clue to whether someone is the rogue or Innocent.

[GigaLem]

The Mafia is done for
Most of the innocent is safe
and everyone on the beach can live in peace
The beach is safe......for now
The innocent have won!!
NoAH and geoo your death wasn't in vain

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, NaOH, I'd like to know whether your comment about "digging the beach" was intentional or not (eg. mobius thought you were the miner because of it).

[NaOH]

Haha! No, it wasn't a secret signal. There were some players who had to attend to real life and/or didn't want to pay the internet bill to connect to the forums  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" /> , so I just wanted to voice my support for Clam for hosting this.

[Clam]

Right... I had a bunch of things to say about this and then got epically distracted (and not just by puzzlehunt). Let's Go!


My source for rules and theory:
http://wiki.mafiascum.net/" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://wiki.mafiascum.net
This is an amazing treasure trove, and the host site is still impressively active, though the wiki entries are some years old. Things like majority vote required, instant lynch at majority vote, 'twilight' (between majority vote and night), PM ban; all came from this site. There's also an impressive array of roles, some more sensible than others http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />, and with no shortage of Lemmings 2 skills to map them to!

To make this open-source, here's my R code to randomly assign roles, in case R is your cup of tea:

Code: [Select]

# MAFIA: LEMMINGS 2 EDITION
# Randomly choose a role for each player

# Seed for reproducible results
set.seed(22934)  # obligatory Lemmings 2 reference

# List of players in order of signup
players = c("Simon",
            "RubiX",
            "NaOH",
            "Giga",
            "geoo",
            "mobius",
            "Ramon",
            "ccexplore")

n = length(players)

# Choose roles: 1 scooper, then 2 rogues, then the rest innocent
roles = sample(players)
names(roles) = c(rep("Scooper",1), rep("Rogue",2), rep("Innocent",n-3))

# Print the list of players and their roles
roles


Thoughts on rules:

• The rule that you can't pull back from a majority vote is apparently standard on MafiaScum. I'm not sure of the rationale behind it though. We can reconsider this for the next game.
• I was a bit indecisive about timing for the end of days/nights. This game moves very fast sometimes and very slow at others. It's hard to strike a balance between keeping the game moving and giving less-active users a fair crack. Night is especially awkward in that regard, since only a few players can participate, but you have to give enough time for busy people, and if you start the next day as soon as the night decisions are in you risk outing night-roles based on their login time (unfortunately this is an actual strategy).
• When announcing a role (either to all players when lynch occurs, or to the miner) there are two ways to go about it: (1) announce allegiance only (town or mafia), or (2) announce the role, eg. if the detective gets lynched, this gets announced as 'detective'. Afaik the latter is 'standard', and it's what I would have done if the situation were to arise.

Thoughts on this round:

• I suspect 2v6 with a miner is unbalanced in favour of the Town again. But 3v5, while maybe more balanced, opens the possibility that the Mafia can win on Day 1. The miner has a surprisingly large effect on balance! I wonder whether we should try no miners next time.
• The miner actually gained all possible information in 2 nights. This came with some luck (picked a rogue first, and the other got munched without mining), but isn't overly lucky I think. One or two more special roles - not more miners! - would give some more interest to this.
  
• The role picker (see above), with the seed I fed it, happened to pick all the roles in blocks (both rogues, then 5 innocents, then miner). But there are a few different ways to pick blocks like this, so that's random enough. Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

Glad you all enjoyed the game! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" /> It sure was fun to write (and/or draw). Looking forward to playing in the next one, and let's get m0ar players signed up to make it even more interesting! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/cool.gif" alt="8)" title="Cool" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

Wait really? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/shocked.gif" alt=":o" title="Shocked" class="smiley" /> Did I read you correctly? How can it be random if it does that?  This cannot work for future games especially for a role like miner.  Too bad I don't know R so I can't properly assess the code.

================

I vaguely recall someone or some website mentioning that with random lynchings and no special roles (ie. only Mafia and innocents), number of Mafia should be approximately square root of total number of players for 50% Mafia win.  So you might be right that 3 vs 5 might have been better especially given the innocent's advantage with the scooper.  That said, the way this game played out should probably be considered atypical, with the Mafia getting discovered/lynched so early.

One thing I just realize as I read through mafiascum.net is that I didn't realize the no PM rule applies to Mafia as well during daytime (even though that should've been obvious considering how you'd play in person rather than over a forum).  I was therefore incorrectly assuming a higher degree of "agreement" amongst Mafia members than would be the case.  For example, during night 1 when I had to decide 2nd person to scoop, I decided that mobius and Ramon are more likely not Mafia, partly because both of them mentioned during day 1 the idea of the scooper PMing the innocents, while Simon responded by saying he thought that was against the rules.  I decided that kind of disagreement to be unlikely amongst fellow Mafia members, but I was mentally thinking that the Mafia can still PM each other during daytime to discuss the game, so I actually relied on this kind of signal far more strongly than I should've.  (Granted, I would still likely have ruled out at least mobius as Mafia based on the length and manner he talked. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />)

I also have to say, being the lone scooper is kinda stressful! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sick.gif" alt=":sick:" title="Sick" class="smiley" /> You have the added pressure that comes with your role, yet at the same time you can't covertly share or discuss any of the secrets you've learned with anyone else (at least not until the time is right), whereas at least the Mafia can discuss amongst themselves during nighttime (not to mention they start off with far more information about roles than the miner).  As you saw with end of day 2, I was rather distraught when I thought I may have failed to prevent Simon from doing evil and turning day 3 into a tense 2 vs 3.

[Clam]

Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

Wait really? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/shocked.gif" alt=":o" title="Shocked" class="smiley" /> Did I read you correctly? How can it be random if it does that?  This cannot work for future games especially for a role like miner.  Too bad I don't know R so I can't properly assess the code.

Just for the seed I chose. If you want to use this when hosting a game, you will use a different seed of course (and not tell anyone what it is http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />).


On probabilities:
http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.aoap/1211819786" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.aoap/1211819786

[...] the two groups have comparable probabilities of winning exactly when the total population size is R and the mafia size is of order √R.
We then show that even a single detective changes the qualitative behavior of the game dramatically. Here, the mafia and citizens have comparable winning probabilities only for a mafia size linear in R.

Quite a difference http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, skimming through the mafiascum website you linked to, one setup that they seem to have tried multiple times that may be worthwhile to explore here is the so-called "friends and enemies".  The only special role featured (ie. besides the required rogues and innocents) are "Masons", who are similar to rogues in that they know all other Masons immediately at start of game and can PM amongst themselves during night.  But they have no special powers to directly discover anyone else's role or affect anyone's abilities and alive/killed status, and therefore are just like innocents in all other aspects.  This setup might be interesting to try in that it is slightly less plain than having only rogues and innocents, but not having the game too easily affected by the luck of a lone detective (ie. miner) role.  You can search the website to find the page on it and the relevant distributions of roles to use for that setup.

===================

As for the "cannot un-vote once majority reached", I'm unable to find an explanation around it on that site, but it is clear from reading through game transcripts that with all participants fully aware of the implications of the rule, it simply becomes an ingrained element of gameplay and participants will act and react accordingly cognizant of the point-of-no-return, with reaching N-1 being a big deal (and votes cast leading to N-1 or N under more scrutiny accordingly).  Instead of casting a vote and pulling back later, you might instead say that you are inclined to vote someone without actually casting the vote immediately, instead using that threat to elicit responses, defenses, etc. from that person and others.  I think one negative effect of not having the rule is that a lynching can potentially be more easily derailed by last-minute vote changes.

[Clam]

As for the "cannot un-vote once majority reached", I'm unable to find an explanation around it on that site

They call the deciding vote http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Hammer" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">hammer:

The player who has been hammered is considered beyond salvation as of the moment the hammering vote has been placed