M52: O, My Reputation (POSTGAME)

[PixelPest]

Summative player analysis rant #1: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=21751&p=329528#p329528

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(Cardflip / 16 Players)

The Mafia
Spokesman: Can make a player lose or gain two reputation each Night (but not their own). Can collaborate with the other Mafia members to kill one player each Night. Starts with +1 reputation. ~116taj
Dumpster Diver: Can choose a player to hang out with each Night. If anyone visits that player, or they visit anyone, that player, anyone who visits them, and anyone who they visit loses one reputation. Can collaborate with the other Mafia members to kill one player each Night. Starts with -1 reputation. ~Electriking
Chemist: Can roleblock a player each Night. That player's colour will also be black for that Night and the following Day. Can collaborate with the other Mafia members to kill one player each Night. Starts with zero reputation. ~Mosaic

The Town
Spokesman: Can make a player lose or gain two reputation each Night (but not their own). Starts with +1 reputation. ~SAStar777
Sheriff: Can inspect a player to find out their colour each Night. Starts with +1 reputation. ~Nanaya Jacob
Bounty Hunter: Can kill one player each Night. Starts with -1 reputation and will lose three reputation for killing a Town special, one for killing another Town member, and gain two reputation for killing any other player. If their reputation is zero or less they will flip red. Otherwise will flip blue. Cannot be killed by having low (-5) reputation. ~Cedur
Narcissist: Starts with 0 reputation and will gain one reputation per Night, however any losses to reputation will be doubled. ~TheNewGuy
Reputable Townie: Starts with +1 reputation. Thinks that they are a normal Townie. ~krazykat
Townie: Starts with zero reputation.
Townie
Townie
Townie
Townie
Townie ~Oshi, MECHDRAGON777, TheLoafLord, ShadowStarX, Taycamgame, Radiance
Slob: Starts with -1 reputation. Knows that they're the slob. ~glitch4

Third Party
Media Master: Can increase a player's reputation by three each Night (but not their own) no matter their reputation. Immune to Nightkills. Chooses a player on the first Night and steals victory if that player's team wins at the end of the game, given that each remaining player on that team has +2 or more reputation. Starts with zero reputation. ~thehelmetguy1

Mechanics
Reputation: Each player starts with a reputation which can be increased and decreased by various things.

• If their reputation is -2 or lower and they have an ability, they will be unable to use it. (Low reputation of the Mafia members will not make them lose their killing ability, and this doesn't affect the Dumpster Diver.)
• If their reputation is -5 they will be automatically killed.

• If their reputation is +2 or higher their vote will count for 2 instead of 1
• If their reputation is +5 or higher they will be able to perform one additional action on a following Night (even if their reputation drops), once per game, either (1) inspect a player at Night to find their colour or (2) protect a player at Night from any Nightkills (including themselves). Each player only gets one use of one chosen additional ability per game, even if their reputation hits +5 or higher more than once.

The following will increase a player's reputation:

• Voting for a player during the Day that is successfully Lynched at the end of the phase, given that the Lynched player is Mafia or Third Party. (+1)
• Being the first one to vote for a player during the Day that is successfully Lynched at the end of the phase, given that the Lynched player is Mafia or Third Party. (+3)

The following will decrease a player's reputation:

• Not voting during the Day. (-1)
• Not using an ability during the Night if the player has one (with the exception of the Bounty Hunter). (-2)
• Voting for a player during the Day that is successfully Lynched at the end of the phase, given that the Lynched player is of the same team of the voter. Mafia members will not lose reputation for voting for another Mafia member. (-1)

At the end of each phase, all players will be individually sent a message, privately, stating their current reputation.

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Player list
1. SAStar777
2. 116taj D2
3. Oshi D5
4. Mosaic D3
5. MECHDRAGON777 D1
6. krazykat N5
7. thehelmetguy1 N4
8. Nanaya Jacob N3
9. TheLoafLord N4
10. Cedur N3
11. ShadowStarX Day 4
12. Taycamgame
13. Radiance N2
14. TheNewGuy N1
15. glitch4
16. Electriking D6

Back-ups
1.

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Role messages

Spoiler: show

You are the Spokesman! You can make a player lose or gain two reputation each Night (but not your own). You'll collaborate with the other Mafia members, <name> and <name>, to kill one player each Night. You start with +1 reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Dumpster Diver! You can choose a player to hang out with each Night. If anyone visits that player, or they visit anyone, that player, anyone who visits them, and anyone who they visit loses one reputation. You'll collaborate with the other Mafia members, <name> and <name>, to kill one player each Night. You start with -1 reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Chemist! You can roleblock a player each Night. That player's colour will also be black for that Night and the following Day. You'll collaborate with the other Mafia members, <name> and <name>, to kill one player each Night. You start with zero reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Spokesman! You can make a player lose or gain two reputation each Night (but not your own). You start with +1 reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Sheriff! You can inspect a player to find out their colour each Night. You start with +1 reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Bounty Hunter! You can kill one player each Night. You start with -1 reputation and will lose three reputation for killing a Town special, one for killing another Town member, and gain two reputation for killing any other player. If your reputation is zero or less you will flip red. You cannot be killed by having low (-5) reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Narcissist! You start with 0 reputation and will gain one reputation per Night, however any losses to your reputation will be doubled.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are a Townie! You start with zero reputation (or +1 if you're the Reputable Townie, who knows?!).

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Slob:! You start with -1 reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

You are the Media Master! You can increase a player's reputation by three each Night (but not your own). You are immune to Nightkills. By the end of the first Night you must choose a player and will steal victory if that player's team wins at the end of the game, given that each remaining player on that team has +2 or more reputation. You start with zero reputation.

Please view the thread to review the reputation mechanic of the game, as it may impact your ability usage and general gameplay.

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I'll be doing some kind of analysis or game commentary since there are some things I really think need mentioning. I'm also going to have to think real hard about MVP. It's not an easy decision this game. Lots of people made some surprisingly poor choices which sometimes went really bad or they just barely recovered

[SAStar777]

Reposting this here as I didn't see that this was up when I went to write this in the game thread. (Whoops. :/)

And I'm still smirking at the fact that I made Helmet suffer death by downrep despite the fact that I only intended to give glitch a better indication of whether or not he was maf (as I had a feeling that I was gonna die Night 4).

gg

[Thehelmetguy1]

Well done folks. You played quite well in general. And of course I am talking about the mafia. The town played quite badly and didn't deserve to win at all. I will get into detail in a later post since I don't have time right now.

[Radiance]

I'm sorry because I didn't trust Cedur right away which leads to the sheriff's death

[116taj]

this game was big gay lol

exhibit a) i get lynched just bc cedur didnt like what i said

exhibit b) the town gets a free alliance with reputable townie and slob

exhibit c) media master winning is purely luck

exhibit d) bandwagoning late is not suspicious

exhibit e) everyone just based their votes on whatever cedur did (also see exhibit a again)

exhibit f) sastar

exhibit g) forced to vote

exhibit h) rep only benefits town

exhibit i) am i using exhibit correctly

thats it really, sucks that the mechanic was flawed imo

[PersonNamedUser]

Don't you love it when rng gives you the middle finger and gives you mafia in a game that's catered extensively to the town and your lynched for literally the worst
reasons to add insult to injury and to top it all off therefore have to suffer a EIGHTH FREAKING LOSS in a row?

Also, i wanted to say this, Town you honestly played really well awful no offense.

I'm really freaking serious when i say this, your suspicions were all for the worst freaking reasons i've ever heard, things such as "this person accidently claimed to be special and this person COULD have seen it and not talked about it, their extremly suspicious, 10/10 logic. or "This person voted last so their obviously mafia!!!1!!!!!11"
or "This person's post is worded like this, they must be lynch now", or "this person didn't want to vote this player for said flimsy reasons so their %100 mafia". Imo, the town only got lucky that the people being suspected for these awful reasons happened to be scum, and i have more to say regarding why i believe the town (undeservely) won this game.

The fact that the freaking game catered to them.

Hear me out on what i mean. The rep mechanic in this game benefits the town extensively because of things like killing scum raising their rep, them getting things such as nightkill protections or extra inspections for said high rep only made things harder for anyone not town. In addition to this, the mechanic of losing rep for not voting was a bad way to encourage activity, because by forcing the mafia and third party to vote, it put them at a disadvantage even further. Plus the mechanic of having -2 or less rep roleblocking the player permenently until they got -1 rep or higher stacked things against all anti towns EVEN FURTHER because if you can't use your ability your pretty much screwed unless you just happened to be targeted by one of the Spokesmen or Media Master. Speaking of the Media Master, i'll talk about them later.

But basically i wanted to say, the mafia and third party both gain LITERALLY NOTHING out of rep, and before responding to me with something like "but how about killing someone by bringing them to -5 rep or higher!!!?!?!?11!!?1" That's not a good argument because to do that you'd need to lower a person rep ATLEAST twice AND hope that the Media Master nor Town Spokesman targets them, along with hoping they don't gain any rep by getting a scum lynched, meaning this is unless. So yeah, nothing, anti towns gained nothing from this games rep mechanic.

Now, about the Media Master, their win condition was literally %100 luck. The fact that the person they selected NOT ONLY had to be on the winning team but EVERY SINGLE PERSON on that player's team had to have two rep or more is really stretching it.

What i'm saying is that this game had unfairly stacked odds against everyone not town and i'm frustrated that i'd end up not town in that situation as well.

And that is my overall two cents on this game, i think everyone except for the mafia(not counting Electriking) and third party planned pretty awful to be honest.

[Radiance]

PixelPest, may you post the rep counts of all the players?

[PixelPest]

PixelPest, may you post the rep counts of all the players?

I'll reiterate what I said on Discord: I have no stats on my spreadsheet after the third cycle as I had little enough to manage via PM/DM. If you're interested in a specific person's rep or want to share yours, ask them or post yours

[SAStar777]

this game was big gay lol

exhibit a) i get lynched just bc cedur didnt like what i said

exhibit b) the town gets a free alliance with reputable townie and slob

exhibit c) media master winning is purely luck

exhibit d) bandwagoning late is not suspicious

exhibit e) everyone just based their votes on whatever cedur did (also see exhibit a again)

exhibit f) sastar

exhibit g) forced to vote

exhibit h) rep only benefits town

exhibit i) am i using exhibit correctly

thats it really, sucks that the mechanic was flawed imo

Uh...okay...

Look, when I saw that RNGesus was apparently hating me during Day 1, I knew that I needed a way to save myself (there was no way I was gonna let myself get lynched Day 1 as a special OR claim just to save myself). So, I looked back and realized that I could actually as save myself Mech was the only one that said aloud that he realized NewGuy claimed Narcissist, and figured that it was suspicious, and ofc I decided to get help from Radiance and glitch. Dunno what after Cycle 1-2 stuff me deserve my own exhibit...

Btw, I can see how this mechanic can be worked with, so, imo, it's not completely flawed, but there could have been better ways to affect it.

[PixelPest]

this game was big gay lol

exhibit a) i get lynched just bc cedur didnt like what i said

exhibit b) the town gets a free alliance with reputable townie and slob

exhibit c) media master winning is purely luck

exhibit d) bandwagoning late is not suspicious

exhibit e) everyone just based their votes on whatever cedur did (also see exhibit a again)

exhibit f) sastar

exhibit g) forced to vote

exhibit h) rep only benefits town

exhibit i) am i using exhibit correctly

thats it really, sucks that the mechanic was flawed imo

I'd like to respond to a few of these since there were a bunch of things I'll highlight in my analysis but since this is coming up might as well do so now.

This game has a lot of strategy to it. This can go in a number of ways which I'll get into.

One of the things I've found is that people are getting really lazy playing Mafia. You go through the actions but you never really think anything through and rarely take risks. There's only so many people that can be inspected and it would have been reasonable for the TP to try to infiltrate the alliance, or a Maf member after the Sheriff died.

Media Master winning isn't luck, it's skill and also whether or not people try to prevent them from winning. The Media Master had to survive long enough to make a variety of people's rep go up and others should have been much more careful about Lynchings, for example, this half of the people who agree vote for the person who should be Lynched, others cast a random vote elsewhere so that their reputation doesn't change and only some people's increases. Based on behaviour, the Media Master can also try to predict who has the best chance of survival and target their rep.

You're not technically forced to vote, you could just abstain and lose one reputation, which could be a good idea if a lot of people have high rep and TP then has a better chance of winning. Just to address voting as well, and I'll highlight this later: Screw random.org, especially later in the game but even on the first Day. Mafia is heavily about intuition; choose someone who your gut tells you is suspicious on Day 1 and go for it. Don't just take the easy way out and say that your vote is justified by RNG. Every time I saw this I wanted to comment on it but I waited. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about if people kind of playing Mafia, but more just lazily following along and not really ever getting into the game. (This doesn't apply to all but most people.)

Rep. benefits anyone who can get +5 for an inspection or protection and Town loses rep. for Lynching Town members which happens a lot, while Maf. doesn't. Definitely doesn't benefit only Town

[116taj]

this game was big gay lol

exhibit a) i get lynched just bc cedur didnt like what i said

exhibit b) the town gets a free alliance with reputable townie and slob

exhibit c) media master winning is purely luck

exhibit d) bandwagoning late is not suspicious

exhibit e) everyone just based their votes on whatever cedur did (also see exhibit a again)

exhibit f) sastar

exhibit g) forced to vote

exhibit h) rep only benefits town

exhibit i) am i using exhibit correctly

thats it really, sucks that the mechanic was flawed imo

I'd like to respond to a few of these since there were a bunch of things I'll highlight in my analysis but since this is coming up might as well do so now.

This game has a lot of strategy to it. This can go in a number of ways which I'll get into.

One of the things I've found is that people are getting really lazy playing Mafia. You go through the actions but you never really think anything through and rarely take risks. There's only so many people that can be inspected and it would have been reasonable for the TP to try to infiltrate the alliance, or a Maf member after the Sheriff died.

Media Master winning isn't luck, it's skill and also whether or not people try to prevent them from winning. The Media Master had to survive long enough to make a variety of people's rep go up and others should have been much more careful about Lynchings, for example, this half of the people who agree vote for the person who should be Lynched, others cast a random vote elsewhere so that their reputation doesn't change and only some people's increases. Based on behaviour, the Media Master can also try to predict who has the best chance of survival and target their rep.

You're not technically forced to vote, you could just abstain and lose one reputation, which could be a good idea if a lot of people have high rep and TP then has a better chance of winning. Just to address voting as well, and I'll highlight this later: Screw random.org, especially later in the game but even on the first Day. Mafia is heavily about intuition; choose someone who your gut tells you is suspicious on Day 1 and go for it. Don't just take the easy way out and say that your vote is justified by RNG. Every time I saw this I wanted to comment on it but I waited. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about if people kind of playing Mafia, but more just lazily following along and not really ever getting into the game. (This doesn't apply to all but most people.)

Rep. benefits anyone who can get +5 for an inspection or protection and Town loses rep. for Lynching Town members which happens a lot, while Maf. doesn't. Definitely doesn't benefit only Town

media master is not skill imo as rep is so easily changed with two spokesman, the media master himself, the dumpster diver, and all the voting loss and gain. Also rep may benefit the mafia a little, but the entire mechanic was based around the town. there was nothing that the spokesman or any mafia would gain by getting to 5 rep other than an inspection that is only used to find a blue. i can see the potential strategies, but it is very hard to infilitrate when the alliance is already fully formed thanks to the reputable townie. like i said, the mechanic could be a lot better with rep affecting specials abilities themselves other than a roleblock.

[PixelPest]

There's literally Mafia rules that are just inspection--it's useful, and if the Bounty Hunter was alive then it might be useful to consider having protection. Sure there's a lot of factors in the game, but that's the point; you're supposed to think and interact with others to figure out how they're playing to make your decisions. The problem is that a lot of people just go through the motions at this point in time--you couldn't be successful doing that in this game, as was evident in many instances. Sure I based the mechanic around the Town, as many mechanics are, but it benefits others and is detrimental to only the Town in a variety of ways I outlined above. The alliance grew a few times during the game and there was more than one alliance kind of. It would have been reasonably easy to infiltrate, or just someone could've counterclaimed Reputable. And roleblocking of Town specials aids other teams

[Radiance]

choose someone who your gut tells you is suspicious on Day 1 and go for it. Don't just take the easy way out and say that your vote is justified by RNG.

It's a great idea but it has a problem. It doesn't work here. Based on my experience here, suspecting someone in D1 because of gut feeling might be seen as a tactic of Mafia.

Although not voting on D1 and interrogating everyone instead might work tho

[PixelPest]

choose someone who your gut tells you is suspicious on Day 1 and go for it. Don't just take the easy way out and say that your vote is justified by RNG.

It's a great idea but it has a problem. It doesn't work here. Based on my experience here, suspecting someone in D1 because of gut feeling might be seen as a tactic of Mafia.

Although not voting on D1 and interrogating everyone instead might work tho

Like oc you shouldn't just be like "my gut says Mafia...Radiance gets my vote", there should be more to the process. Gut is just a starting point. And also people not using random.org and actually trying to play the game properly is not a sign of being Mafia, it's the sign of being a keen player

[SAStar777]

There is one thing I have been wondering, and it's why Cedur didn't protect himself Night 3. He said that he was most likely going to do so in the alliance chat, but he didn't. Don't see why as I knew that he made himself really look like a special during Day 2 and Night 3. (And I know that he wasn't roleblocked as his kill went through.)

[PixelPest]

There is one thing I have been wondering, and it's why Cedur didn't protect himself Night 3. He said that he was most likely going to do so in the alliance chat, but he didn't. Don't see why as I knew that he made himself really look like a special during Day 2 and Night 3. (And I know that he wasn't roleblocked as his kill went through.)

He tried but his reputation dropped concurrently from killing a Town special so it failed

[Radiance]

That's why interrogating someone you see suspicious is better than merely lynching them

[SAStar777]

There is one thing I have been wondering, and it's why Cedur didn't protect himself Night 3. He said that he was most likely going to do so in the alliance chat, but he didn't. Don't see why as I knew that he made himself really look like a special during Day 2 and Night 3. (And I know that he wasn't roleblocked as his kill went through.)

He tried but his reputation dropped concurrently from killing a Town special so it failed

Oh. Oof.

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Anyway, I'm going to post my actions and reputation changes in case anyone's curious.

Here: show

Night 1
My original SSX vote was not the first thing I used RANDOM.org for. My first action was. I ended up downrepping glitch. No change in reputation this night, so it stayed at +1.

Day 1
Yeah, that Mech vote was a mistake. My reputation dropped to 0.

Night 2
I knew exactly what I had to do: uprep glitch to avoid him dying to the Mafia Spokesman. Reputation stayed at 0.

Day 2
Helping with the removal of taj gave me back the reputation I lost from lynching Mech. Back to +1.

Night 3
So, I figured that I'd drop Taycam's reputation in case we would win on Day 3. Cedur sorta kinda knew that I was downrepping this night and said that I should do it before I told him and glitch what I was gonna do. My reputation stayed at +1 here.

Day 3
Went straight for Mosaic, and yeah, my reputation rose to +4.

Night 4
I had a feeling that I was gonna die this night as Helmet seemed like maf to me and I knew that he was informed of my role. I also knew that his reputation would be at -2 instead of -3 at this time if he was maf (unless he was the Dumpster Diver, which I doubted). So, I decided to downrep him so glitch can get a clearer indication in case I did die. Guess what resulted from it instead? Oh, and Helmet used his last action on me this night, boosting my reputation to +7. Thanks, man!

Day 4
Well, that SSX lynch didn't go very well. Reputation dropped to +6.

Night 5
Okay, here, I kinda got paranoid that krazy was faking being the Reputable Townie as that role started out with the same reputation as the Mafia Spokesman (+1). This also made me worried that Radiance was the Reputable Townie. (This paranoia was from glitch only getting one Reputable Townie claim instead of two like I predicted he would and from SSX coming up green.) So, I decided to use my reputation action to inspect him instead of protecting him. (Sorry, krazy.) I also went and uprepped Taycam to prevent another reputation-related death. Electriking must've visited me, krazy, or Taycam this night, though, as my reputation dropped to +5.

Day 5
Another lynch that, imo, should've went well...but didn't. Voting for Oshi made my reputation drop yet again, leaving it at +4.

Night 6
It was here that I realized that Electriking MUST'VE bussed Mosaic on both Day 2 AND Day 3, as I figured that there was no way Taycam would be scum, so I downrepped Electriking to make sure he didn't have +2 reputation. Mine stayed at +4.

Day 6
RIP Electriking. I got my reputation at +7 again, and thank god glitch's reputation when this phase started wasn't a single point higher...as he never told me what his reputation was when Night 6 started and I never asked.

Final Results
Times I Uprepped Someone: Night 2 (glitch), Night 5 (Taycam)
Times I Downrepped Someone: Night 1 (glitch), Night 3 (Taycam), Night 4 (Helmet), Night 6 (Electriking)
Final Reputation: +7

[zioy]

I tried my best to play in a somewhat risk-taking manner but what I find about these more complex games is that certain roles and strategies pretty much undermine the entire point of having townspeople besides having sheep to vote for an alliance target. There's little to no risk with this playstyle, and even if someone had counterclaimed reputable we just would've lynched both claims anyway. I don't think any players are at fault for the boringness of this game, I think it's by design with games that are too overengineered that they become oversimplified to actually play. It becomes based on alliance or really easy bandwagons. I'm just posting my observations, I could be wrong about this but it's what I see.

[erkyp3rky]

I had a feeling Eltriking killed me.

Was I getting too close to finding out?