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GAF MAFIA |OT| Season 4 Review Thread | "YES, SOMEHOW I AM THE PROBLEM HERE"

Ourobolus

Banned
There's the emphasis that game runners will have a lot on their plate, but I also think it's important to note how much this game requires of someone. I remember how in WW1 I was getting scum read simply because I was posting a lot for my first game, and that was really weird.
We try to emphasize this each season, and while there are instances where things just pop up and people have to leave, I feel like over the past two seasons there have been a slew of players who don't actually grasp how much of a time commitment this stuff can be and are either ridiculously inactive, or end up dropping out. This is especially true if that person is playing as scum, since they often have to coordinate and a scum team that doesn't talk to each other can be woefully ineffective (Archer, for instance, suffered heavily from this).
 
We try to emphasize this each season, and while there are instances where things just pop up and people have to leave, I feel like over the past two seasons there have been a slew of players who don't actually grasp how much of a time commitment this stuff can be and are either ridiculously inactive, or end up dropping out. This is especially true if that person is playing as scum, since they often have to coordinate and a scum team that doesn't talk to each other can be woefully ineffective (Archer, for instance, suffered heavily from this).

Oh yeah, we got a little bit of this with arkos in hp. If you're scum, you have to remember that you need to commit and participate in a 2nd thread as well. Communication between scum is such a big thing it's ridiculous.

Really, even if it's just screwing around in the scum thread (which imo, involves some of my favorite experiences with mafia in general), just talking in there helps
 

Darryl

Banned
One of the big things I noticed this time arround was meta-gaming. I'm all for meta gameing when it comes to certain aspects(such as set up speculation), but it started to go a little over board when it came to player specific playstyles analysis. I think something we need to keep in mind is that we all have real lives, so there are way more factors into why someone might be playing differently besides their role.

Another thing was the werewolf reset. I understand that the situation leading up to it was completely out of Palmer's control, but I think that it could've been handled better.

The amount of metagaming going on has killed my enthusiasm for the game atm. It made me suicidal in the WW reboot and I almost dropped out of the game I'm currently in. Have some integrity, guys. It's one thing to realize a player is acting different but at least try to be a sleuth about it. You might have a point but it's also not fun to discuss it that way, and the lack of fun can kill a game. I'm not surprised WW got hit with huge inactivity and dispirited players when the entire first day was spent with people arguing with me about whether I was acting myself starting mere hours into the day. After I just got done in the last game telling people I was going to try to do something different.
 

Droplet

Member
The amount of metagaming going on has killed my enthusiasm for the game atm. It made me suicidal in the WW reboot and I almost dropped out of the game I'm currently in. Have some integrity, guys. It's one thing to realize a player is acting different but at least try to be a sleuth about it. You might have a point but it's also not fun to discuss it that way, and the lack of fun can kill a game. I'm not surprised WW got hit with huge inactivity and dispirited players when the entire first day was spent with people arguing with me about whether I was acting myself starting mere hours into the day. After I just got done in the last game telling people I was going to try to do something different.

I...will comment more on this in the future, but for now I want to say I agree.
 
The amount of metagaming going on has killed my enthusiasm for the game atm. It made me suicidal in the WW reboot and I almost dropped out of the game I'm currently in. Have some integrity, guys. It's one thing to realize a player is acting different but at least try to be a sleuth about it. You might have a point but it's also not fun to discuss it that way, and the lack of fun can kill a game. I'm not surprised WW got hit with huge inactivity and dispirited players when the entire first day was spent with people arguing with me about whether I was acting myself starting mere hours into the day. After I just got done in the last game telling people I was going to try to do something different.

yeah i spoke about this earlier in S3 review thread i think.

i, for one, was glad that i ignored all that metagaming stuff when you joined archer. i have heard the ~rumours~ for sure, but i chose to disregard and i had such good experience getting to know you as a legit amazing townie cop in that game.

still o7 on how gutsy you were with the mission mechanic thingo, creampuff :>
 
The amount of metagaming going on has killed my enthusiasm for the game atm. It made me suicidal in the WW reboot and I almost dropped out of the game I'm currently in. Have some integrity, guys. It's one thing to realize a player is acting different but at least try to be a sleuth about it. You might have a point but it's also not fun to discuss it that way, and the lack of fun can kill a game. I'm not surprised WW got hit with huge inactivity and dispirited players when the entire first day was spent with people arguing with me about whether I was acting myself starting mere hours into the day. After I just got done in the last game telling people I was going to try to do something different.

I'm gonna agree. Personally, I'll admit to letting previous experiences playing with someone influence my perception of that person, and it actually has totally blindsided me in the past, as both town and scum.

It's also something I dislike, as I feel that I personally change each game
partially to imitate the styles of the players I've played with (something I'v caught myself doing imo)
, and also due to my feelings on the game, how I'm feeling outside of game, and just wanting to change things up personally in my playstyle.

So uh, stop metagaming guys. Seriously. Some people believe in doing it to a mild degree, that it curtails one's ability to read and judge others, but the only thing it does is add bs to the game and make you develop blindspots in your playstyle
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
Edit: Wait, I missed this:
Should we submit mid season games or only deal with main games for now?
Both. We'll figure it out from there.

I'll go ahead, then:

Number of player slots for the game: 21-25
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Kalor, Burbeting
Theme: Battle Royale
Game Category: 9-10

A mid-season game because of its unconventional nature.
 

roytheone

Member
This is more of a comment on HP I already mentioned in that thread, but I suppose it can apply to other games.

Try not to make the game revolve around power roles as much. In HP I got the pleasure of being an ordinary (never had a PR, signed up to the role madness to get one :/). This would normally be fine like it was in Cthulhu but it seemed like the roles of the Dumbledore gang were just so useful that they could do so much more then me. It made it feel like I was useless to the town as I'm never going to get anything interesting. The game moved at such a pace that ordinaries didn't really get a chance to be important.

Basically, don't make the Vanilla Townies too few, otherwise they feel useless. This is especially important in a role madness game, which I suppose is a bit of a catch 22...

Anyways, I enjoyed S4 a lot, though I haven't gotten to look at whatever happened with Palmer's game.

Huh, I never thought about the fact that with town having such a ridiculous number of powerful PR that could confirm other townies, that also could be annoying for the non-confirmed, vanilla townies. I really think the original intent of the game was for us to have to dodge those PR, until we found Voldy and then could strike back with our three kills per night. This would also have made vanilla townies like you more important because you will be the last ones left. Unfortunately, the game completely broke when Blarg found Kitty so incredibly soon.

Both. We'll figure it out from there.

Number of player slots for the game: 18
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: Burbeting, Retro, Palmer, Gorlak, Ourobobobuls.
Theme: Batman
Game Category: 6-7, mostly basic roles with a couple of weirder ones.
Mid-season.
 

Kalor

Member
The player number might change slightly once I look at balance some more but for now it's 14. This would be a mid-season game since it's a small game.

Number of player slots for the game: 14
People who have been told about, consulted, or hinted information about your set-up: No-one
Theme: Fargo
Game Category: 6/7
 

*Splinter

Member
If you're gonna strip out meta gaming completely, players like Seath will be D1 lynched every game just for saying weird shit. "Seath gonna Seath" is a necessary consideration unless you want to force some of our more "unconventional" players to act all boring.

Yes it shouldn't be the basis for a vote, but there's no need to pretend it doesn't exist at all
 

Sorian

Banned
If you're gonna strip out meta gaming completely, players like Seath will be D1 lynched every game just for saying weird shit. "Seath gonna Seath" is a necessary consideration unless you want to force some of our more "unconventional" players to act all boring.

Yes it shouldn't be the basis for a vote, but there's no need to pretend it doesn't exist at all

I think some people 100% believe that's how we should play.

I don't know, I've made my stance known on this, I think past play should be considered when making reads on people.
 

Darryl

Banned
If you're gonna strip out meta gaming completely, players like Seath will be D1 lynched every game just for saying weird shit. "Seath gonna Seath" is a necessary consideration unless you want to force some of our more "unconventional" players to act all boring.

Yes it shouldn't be the basis for a vote, but there's no need to pretend it doesn't exist at all

"Seath is quiet but it's still early game.", "Seath is TOO quiet". Both are ways of getting your intuition reads across in ways that can be argued and discussed, find ways to play the game that aren't incredibly inclusive.
 

Sorian

Banned
"Seath is quiet but it's still early game.", "Seath is TOO quiet". Both are ways of getting your intuition reads across in ways that can be argued and discussed, find ways to play the game that aren't incredibly inclusive.

But then you get called out if you are pressing one person for being quiet and not another. Here's a sentence:

"Sorian is quiet but it's still early game."

If anyone says that sentence, they are going to get put on blast immediately but not so for the Seath example. Why is that?
 

Ourobolus

Banned
I both get and hate the metagaming argument. It's difficult to remove any sort of metagaming simply because at this point a lot of us have played a lot of games with the same people, so any differences are going to stand out. I admit you should more than likely be basing all decisions on logic, but in some instances, there are times when it kinda makes sense to make some decisions based on activity. For instance, if Sorian ever makes it past D2, I'm lynching him for being scum.
 

Sorian

Banned
I both get and hate the metagaming argument. It's difficult to remove any sort of metagaming simply because at this point a lot of us have played a lot of games with the same people, so any differences are going to stand out. I admit you should more than likely be basing all decisions on logic, but in some instances, there are times when it kinda makes sense to make some decisions based on activity. For instance, if Sorian ever makes it past D2, I'm lynching him for being scum.

*looks at Night Vale*

7nPIzZg.jpg


Edit: That being said though, I can't wait for the new meta where scum leaves me alive all game so that people assume I am scum, that sounds fun for me.
 

Darryl

Banned
But then you get called out if you are pressing one person for being quiet and not another. Here's a sentence:

"Sorian is quiet but it's still early game."

If anyone says that sentence, they are going to get put on blast immediately but not so for the Seath example. Why is that?

I don't know this isn't a mafia game. I suppose if that's the extent of how articulate you can be then you go, "Seath just seems like he is a quieter player, sorian seems like he is staying quiet on purpose" or "fuck man you're right. We should lynch sorian. Or seath.". I don't understand what way the example is swinging.

Either way if you say "Seath gonna seath", you're just putting blinders up on all the new players and even vets. And people do it to me with, "Darryl gonna Darryl" and I feel like I'm being cheated over a chance to defend myself. It's taking the feeling of winning out of my hands tbh.
 

Sorian

Banned
I don't know this isn't a mafia game. I suppose if that's the extent of how articulate you can be then you go, "Seath just seems like he is a quieter player, sorian seems like he is staying quiet on purpose" or "fuck man you're right. We should lynch sorian. Or seath.". I don't understand what way the example is swinging.

Either way if you say "Seath gonna seath", you're just putting blinders up on all the new players and even vets. And people do it to me with, "Darryl gonna Darryl" and I feel like I'm being cheated over a chance to defend myself. It's taking the feeling of winning out of my hands tbh.

I'm going to pre-empt this by saying that there are scenarios that stray from this, like the last scum fooling town in lylo or a town member figuring out the scum plan and detailing it in such a way to convince all of the other town members but more often than not, the small victories you have in a mafia game have little to actually do with you. By nature of the game, things swing on public opinion and public opinion is rarely grounded in logic. It's also just that metagaming is going to happen early on in any game regardless. Day 1 is fumbling for the light switch in a dark room. If you've been in that room a few times before, you are obviously going to reach out to where you knew the switch was before, you aren't going to walk into the room and just assume the layout changed on you overnight.

I don't know, I personally see the meta gaming aspects die down as days 2 and 3 start up and information starts coming out but before then, people use what they have.
 

Darryl

Banned
I'm going to pre-empt this by saying that there are scenarios that stray from this, like the last scum fooling town in lylo or a town member figuring out the scum plan and detailing it in such a way to convince all of the other town members but more often than not, the small victories you have in a mafia game have little to actually do with you. By nature of the game, things swing on public opinion and public opinion is rarely grounded in logic. It's also just that metagaming is going to happen early on in any game regardless. Day 1 is fumbling for the light switch in a dark room. If you've been in that room a few times before, you are obviously going to reach out to where you knew the switch was before, you aren't going to walk into the room and just assume the layout changed on you overnight.

I don't know, I personally see the meta gaming aspects die down as days 2 and 3 start up and information starts coming out but before then, people use what they have.

I don't know what you're going on about but I'm not saying to not do it. I do it. I'm saying people need to have some restraint for how they do it. It's not about winning it's about having fun, and fuck if I'm going to commit 10 real life days to going on a forum daily to post about whether people may or may not be acting like themselves until the good stuff starts.
 

Sorian

Banned
I don't know what you're going on about but I'm not saying to not do it. I do it. I'm saying people need to have some restraint for how they do it. It's not about winning it's about having fun, and fuck if I'm going to commit 10 real life days to going on a forum daily to post about whether people may or may not be acting like themselves until the good stuff starts.

I'm sorry, I guess I misunderstood your point from before.
 
Btw, I think this is already a genetleman's agreement, but barring a dude coming out and saying he's scum or a pr, D1 lynches and N1 kills shouldn't be for people who died in D1 and N1 in their last major game, right?

To me, acting consistently is a skill in Mafia. Play every game like you're town, until you don't need to.

Until you personally find an issue with your playstyle, adjust accordingly (or try to), and get harassed for it

I, for one, was sad that Darryl didn't get to rebrand as a fluffy kitty.

It was actually really touching XD. Darryl is the only other person who remembers MEOW hunt
 

Sorian

Banned
Btw, I think this is already a genetleman's agreement, but barring a dude coming out and saying he's scum or a pr, D1 lynches and N1 kills shouldn't be for people who died in D1 and N1 in their last major game, right?

Meh, just play the game IMO. The gentlemen's agreement on never lying about or questioning real life stuff is because RL comes first and a game of mafia shouldn't be your first thought in any situation. Past that though, I don't realty consider anything else needing to be in gentlemen's agreement territory.
 
I think people metagame because of Day 1. I absolutely despise Day 1 because there's nothing to talk about and if you try anything different you get voted out. It's always random votes and arguments about a no-lynch.

I would be okay with a death-less night start. Make it up to scum by giving them an extra kill N1 to make cops more wary about revealing themselves.
 

Sorian

Banned
I think there is some good ways to work a night 0 in and Squidy's idea of the first scum killing being a poison is probably the most elegant solution.

Day 1 is supposed to be garbage though (again I will always say that day 1 is some of the best stuff to look back on though late game). Working through the mediocrity of the day is a part of the game and scum is trying to do things that day too and it's the hardest day for them to hide. Any other day, they can kind of get away with all the information they know because investigators and such are out and about but confidence on day 1 is only going to be coming from one source and that's the scum.
 

roytheone

Member
To me, acting consistently is a skill in Mafia. Play every game like you're town, until you don't need to.

There are actually multiple people that said to me that they always suspect me, since I play pretty much incidentally while scum as I play as town :)
 

Sorian

Banned
There are actually multiple people that said to me that they always suspect me, since I play pretty much incidentally while scum as I play as town :)

I think your town play is on point IMO. I never suspected you in HP or NX at all until moments before your death or after being outright told from seeing your name in the scum chat that I was spying on.
 

roytheone

Member
I think your town play is on point IMO. I never suspected you in HP or NX at all until moments before your death or after being outright told from seeing your name in the scum chat that I was spying on.

Yeah, I have noticed just being town always really is the best strategy. People will find you hard to read which put some attention on you if you are scum, but probably not enough to get you lynched, and if you are town that "well roy could be scum because he is so hard to read" could actually prevent you from being night killed.
 

Sorian

Banned
Yeah, I have noticed just being town always really is the best strategy. People will find you hard to read which put some attention on you if you are scum, but probably not enough to get you lynched, and if you are town that "well roy could be scum because he is so hard to read" could actually prevent you from being night killed.

There is a weird line you can straddle where your opinions are very town but the atmosphere you give off is scum. That's the actual pinnacle IMO because then it's hard to justify lynching you or NKing you but yes, first step is figuring out how to look town in any situation. That's really an invaluable skill.
 

Sorian

Banned
Yeah, I know. Same with what happened Day 1 in Harry Potter

Give the people SOMETHING to talk about

HP didn't give you anything from the moderator to talk about? A player claiming is different than the moderator dropping a role PM on all of you. I prefer my day 1s to be boring personally.
 
It's foolish to think we can eliminate metagaming. (Not trying to be mean, trying to be realistic) What we can do is lessen the amount of fire a player might come under if they seitch their playstyle
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
The main criticism I have of metagaming is that it's really just bad play. If you have a sample size of ~20 games played with the same person, enough to observe their style of play through a period where it may change due to new experience, mood, context of the game, etc, you may be able to tease the "essence" of their play and be able to make judgements based on that. However, most people on GAFIA have played with any other given GAFIA member at most 3 or 4 times. That's not enough for meta to be useful, and it's therefore normally just going to be bad town or fillering scum using it.

Despite this, everyone is going to try and lynch me D1 in season 6. :/
 
The main criticism I have of metagaming is that it's really just bad play. If you have a sample size of ~20 games played with the same person, enough to observe their style of play through a period where it may change due to new experience, mood, context of the game, etc, you may be able to tease the "essence" of their play and be able to make judgements based on that. However, most people on GAFIA have played with any other given GAFIA member at most 3 or 4 times. That's not enough for meta to be useful, and it's therefore normally just going to be bad town or fillering scum using it.

Despite this, everyone is going to try and lynch me D1 in season 6. :/

If I don't, it's just evidence we're scum/masons/lovers together XD

Nah, but I'm watching you crab
 
The main criticism I have of metagaming is that it's really just bad play. If you have a sample size of ~20 games played with the same person, enough to observe their style of play through a period where it may change due to new experience, mood, context of the game, etc, you may be able to tease the "essence" of their play and be able to make judgements based on that. However, most people on GAFIA have played with any other given GAFIA member at most 3 or 4 times. That's not enough for meta to be useful, and it's therefore normally just going to be bad town or fillering scum using it.


Despite this, everyone is going to try and lynch me D1 in season 6. :/
Why? Town was more than willing to follow your lead, you probably didn't generate that much ill will

Edit: I will only policy lynch KK if he makes a fire-related pun
 

roytheone

Member
The main criticism I have of metagaming is that it's really just bad play. If you have a sample size of ~20 games played with the same person, enough to observe their style of play through a period where it may change due to new experience, mood, context of the game, etc, you may be able to tease the "essence" of their play and be able to make judgements based on that. However, most people on GAFIA have played with any other given GAFIA member at most 3 or 4 times. That's not enough for meta to be useful, and it's therefore normally just going to be bad town or fillering scum using it.

Despite this, everyone is going to try and lynch me D1 in season 6. :/

That's kinda where I am at too. It is bad play and it is up to the other players in the game to point that out to the person. If they don't and let the player keep using bad arguments, that's their own fault.

Also, I will not try to get you lynched D1 Crab! After my behind the scenes look at scum Crab I think I will be able to get a good read on you!
This post will be very funny to quote after season 6 has ended I fear :(
 
Why? Town was more than willing to follow your lead, you probably didn't generate that much ill will

Edit: I will only policy lynch KK if he makes a fire-related pun

That' the point

We're all wary of crab's mind control XD
That's kinda where I am at too. It is bad play and it is up to the other players in the game to point that out to the person. If they don't and let the player keep using bad arguments, that's their own fault.

Also, I will not try to get you lynched D1 Crab! After my behind the scenes look at scum Crab I think I will be able to get a good read on you!
This post will be very funny to quote after season 6 has ended I fear :(

I have a feeling every single member of the GOAT scum team, if they're in a game with scum crab, will try and be the one to defeat him

He's like the final boss of a JRPG now
 
The main criticism I have of metagaming is that it's really just bad play. If you have a sample size of ~20 games played with the same person, enough to observe their style of play through a period where it may change due to new experience, mood, context of the game, etc, you may be able to tease the "essence" of their play and be able to make judgements based on that. However, most people on GAFIA have played with any other given GAFIA member at most 3 or 4 times. That's not enough for meta to be useful, and it's therefore normally just going to be bad town or fillering scum using it.

Despite this, everyone is going to try and lynch me D1 in season 6. :/

I agree with this. I fell into the metagaming trap in Werewoof. It made me correctly suspicious of Terra, but it also caused me to tunnel on Time in lieu of much scummier individuals.
 
I think you should only go hard in the paint after someone based on previous playstyle D2 and onwards
No-one is preventing anyone from thinking if someone is suspicious in their own head though
 

Sorian

Banned
I think you should only go hard in the paint after someone based on previous playstyle D2 and onwards
No-one is preventing anyone from thinking if someone is suspicious in their own head though

I think the complete opposite, as you get later in the game, you should be going in on someone hard based on play grounded in the current game, there is plenty of information that you don't need to think about past play.
 
I think the complete opposite, as you get later in the game, you should be going in on someone hard based on play grounded in the current game, there is plenty of information that you don't need to think about past play.
I mean if the playstyle in the game you are in is similar/exactly like a previous playstyle from that person
 

Sorian

Banned
I have real joke criticism by the way.

Retro:

I was super bothered that Ultra's pacifist head in NV was the green head since the violet head is supposed to be the pacifist.

/nerdcapoff
 

roytheone

Member
That' the point

We're all wary of crab's mind control XD


I have a feeling every single member of the GOAT scum team, if they're in a game with scum crab, will try and be the one to defeat him

He's like the final boss of a JRPG now

A scum crab will probably kill any fellow GOAT members first, since he will be afraid that we will be immune to his mind control.
 
A scum crab will probably kill any fellow GOAT members first, since he will be afraid that we will be immune to his mind control.

No, he would take up the challenge. He said we just thought we could figure him out cause we were on his side

So he would keep us alive to stick it to us

Pre playing another game with crab and we're already considering the WIFOM situation
 
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