Eugene Chin has put forward a very reasonable account for why, as I've believed and hoped to make this game proof of, people should not be allowed to PM each other behind the scenes. This game was engineered such that the use of PMs assured the innocent's victory absolutely. There's a very simple solution to multiple IAs in the game, and that is to eliminate their ability to talk to each other.

The IAs also got extremely lucky and found the paranoids before they(the paranoids) died. I was hoping the paranoids would kill off innocent roles in addition to innocents and terrorists. At least one of the paranoids almost killed off an IA extremely early. I now understand that this game only needed one IA.

I've been following this game, and it seems to me that PMing, not multiple IA's, was the cause of the innocent's victory. Because the IA's had the ability to speak through people after investigating them, IA's revealing their secrets no longer was risky. They didn't have to commit suicide in order to make their knowledge believed in absolutely-- saying "I'm an IA!" is suicide, and is the only way to make yourself believed. If the IA's were unable to reveal their role as IA's to anybody without revealing it to everybody, the game would be much harder for them. I'd say having just 1 IA makes the game too lopsided, because if by chance or bandwagoning an IA is killed for no real reason at all, the innocents are ####ed. Disallowing PMing, which unfortunately would rely on admin snooping or an honor system, is likely a better solution.

I guess the game's over then? In that case, I'd like to know how the IAs figured out that I had double played them when it comes to "the list." That list I gave to you guys was a random assortment of names, except for when it comes to Buffalo the Kid and FluffyWithTeeth; I knew that my role would soon be discovered as a matter of time, and also knew that anybody who wasn't on that list would come under suspicion. With that in mind, it was my main priority to get my comrades names off the hit list of the IAs in order to cause confusion, but the added bonus I didn't foresee was that Eugene took the list so seriously. This almost guaranteed that my comrades would survive until the end of the game, or so I thought.

@eugene-chin, on Mar 1 2008, 05:39 AM, said in GTW Round 19:

I should apologize to egroeg and RJC Ultra.

I should apologize too. I didn't actually do anything useful for the innocents this game, hardly anything at all, apart from jumping on bandwagons. I'll try to play the next game better.

The PMing did make the game easier and less fun With both IA's alive and sending PMs it was nearly impossible for the rogue members to win. In just 2 rounds a block of 6 votes could be made which would be hard to defeat.

The reason the innocents won was because of a gamble by me. Had mrxak been a terrorist, the game would have worked the other way.

@jrsh92, on Mar 1 2008, 04:04 PM, said in GTW Round 19:

Disallowing PMing, which unfortunately would rely on admin snooping or an honor system, is likely a better solution.

... Which would make it unenforcible, and thus a worse solution.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, you'd never be able to enforce such a rule.

@hypochondriac, on Mar 1 2008, 04:42 PM, said in GTW Round 19:

The PMing did make the game easier and less fun With both IA's alive and sending PMs it was nearly impossible for the rogue members to win. In just 2 rounds a block of 6 votes could be made which would be hard to defeat.

@manta, on Mar 1 2008, 03:43 PM, said in GTW Round 19:

I now understand that this game only needed one IA.

Both of these concerns could addressed by restricting I.A.'s to only one investigation Collectively, rather than one investigation Each, same as the Dictators get one Night-Kill collectively rather than each.

See:

@eugene-chin, on Mar 1 2008, 04:39 AM, said in GTW Round 19:

If I may I propose a possibility for any future games with more than one I.A:
As the Dictators only get one Night-Kill per round, no matter how many of them are alive, the I.A.'s would get only one Investigation per round no matter how many of Them are alive.

This would also stop the host from putting in too many I.A.'s, as they'd know who each other were. (Modifying the Blind Dictators Rule for the I.A.'s wouldn't work if they collectively only got one investigation. They'd all know who was investigated in Round One, and that player would be asked to relay all of their identities to each-other.)

--------------------------------------------------------------

@jrsh92, on Mar 1 2008, 04:04 PM, said in GTW Round 19:

I've been following this game, and it seems to me that PMing, not multiple IA's, was the cause of the innocent's victory. Because the IA's had the ability to speak through people after investigating them, IA's revealing their secrets no longer was risky. They didn't have to commit suicide in order to make their knowledge believed in absolutely-- saying "I'm an IA!" is suicide, and is the only way to make yourself believed. If the IA's were unable to reveal their role as IA's to anybody without revealing it to everybody, the game would be much harder for them. I'd say having just 1 IA makes the game too lopsided, because if by chance or bandwagoning an IA is killed for no real reason at all, the innocents are ####ed. Disallowing PMing, which unfortunately would rely on admin snooping or an honor system, is likely a better solution.

PM'ing had a role in it, but looses its power without the phenomenal number of Investigations multiple communicating I.A.'s bring to bear.

The I.A.'s were able to investigate two people each round after they linked up (And took a risk contacting mrxak and myself without investigating either of us first), and so were able to build their voting bloc faster than the Dictators could possibly tear it down.

If the I.A.'s were restricted to One Investigation, as a whole:
) Their voting bloc doesn't grow as fast and
) The Dictators can still frustrate their efforts every time they kill a member of the bloc

Another factor that Manta touched on was that the I.A.'s found the Takedown's (Paranoids) before the Takedowns took too many down. Under mrxak's direction, they were able to Kill many players who hadn't been investigated.
(Think of it as a compliment to Investigations, it's simply reducing the list of suspects in a different way.)

Without the Paranoids, this game would be going much longer, and the I.A.'s would Still have unknown roles they'd need to investigate.

It isn't Just PM'ing, or Just the I.A.'s, or Just the Paranoids, it's how they played off each other.

If you come away from this thinking it's Just one thing or Just the other, we're going to Still have the Rest of these problems down the line.

-----------

On example of how the I.A. knowledge played off the Takedown roles was with the Shlimazel / Rickton / mrxak situation.

Shlimazel tried to proclaim his Innocence by revealing he was a Paranoid. He had never been investigated, but mrxak believed him, and pushed for his Lynching anyway. He even convinced Shlimazel to aim his power at Rickton, who had also never been investigated.

Result:
Shlimazel is removed as a suspect by Lynch.
Rickton is removed as a suspect by Takedown.
Additionally, the I.A.'s were able to remove Two Other People as suspects by investigation.

And the suspects list drops by Four People, instead of by just two as it would in any normal game.
Since mrxak used his Paranoid power to kill JacaByte when he was Night-Killed, that makes it Five instead of two.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 01 March 2008 - 12:52 PM

Lets see what the next game is like

I was probably the most unique member of that game, to be honest.

Because I wasn't an intelligence agent.

I was an innocent, contacted by the IAs. I made up that story to divert attention away from the agents by the terrorists.

You know what? Restricting PMs is not the answer. There is a simpler solution to the IA power problem. You have to shatter some assumptions about the game to grasp it, though.

I really do think the other problems go away if IAs aren't allowed to PM everybody. Yes, it requires the honor system, but why can't we trust people to obey the rules?

Anyway, I want to know who saved my ass the first time the terrorists targeted me?

@mrxak, on Mar 1 2008, 09:47 PM, said in GTW Round 19:

Anyway, I want to know who saved my ass the first time the terrorists targeted me?

And you said the SDI was a useless power.

Well, I am, what Manta calls, the Defense Agent.

I was given the ability to protect a player each round, but only from Night-Kills, and if a player was actually saved by my ability, then I couldn't defend him again ever.

At first, Manta also wanted to add a rule that, even if I correctly guessed who was going to be Night-Killed, I'd only have a 50% chance of actually Stopping it. I managed to convince him that that was too much of a limitation on me, though.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 01 March 2008 - 05:41 PM

It's useless in the hands of most players in most situations.

Well gentlemen, it seems that our game has come to an end, with your lynching of Buffalo the Kid. He was already killed and cremated for his crime of being the last terrorist in this council. Thats right the innocents won. Unfortunately it seems Buffalo decided to go after one of you before he died. He was rigged to a pulse indicator that launched nukes at one of your countries when he died, and triggered a remote signal that we have still been unable to sort out. I found this note sticking out of the ceiling earlier, just above one of your chairs. It contained:
"We can't wait to see you.
-mrxak, lemonyscapegoat, SoItBegins, RJC Ultra, Shilmazel, nfreader, Rickton, and darth_vader"

A wombat dressed as a clown with a beeping collar around his neck bursts into the room and beats 1Eevee1, an innocent, to death with a pan of lasagna before 1Eevee1's guard knocks the wombat out. So that is what that signal is was for. Don't kill the wombat, I'll keep him as a pet after I remove the control collar.

As for kickme, I have evacuated him to a secure location out of this murderous council's reach. Selling of arms is not illegal, just the use of them on your fellow man as the terrorists did.

List of survivors:
Eugene chin - defense agent
Gutless Wonder - innocent
Hypochondriac - IA
kickme - arms dealer
prophile - IA

That is all gentlemen. Congratulations on taking out the terrorists, and this council is dismissed because the threat of destruction has now passed.

This post has been edited by Manta : 01 March 2008 - 09:32 PM

Yhahoo! We won!