Something Different Discussion
So, what did everything think about the game? Would you want to play it again, or do you prefer mafia? Do you have any comments on how I ran it, or any lingering gameplay questions?
What strategies do you think would have served the good guys better, or things you think the bad guys did right and wrong?
Start talking amongst yourselves. I have a ton of notes to post, myself.
This is not the sign-up topic for GTW 37.
That was too mind-numbingly hard, I suspected croc, but never would have suspected prophile or mud212. I got really worried when everybody approved the motion except Mack, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I don't see any good strategies; you're almost guaranteed to have a terrorist in your first detail, but if the first detail goes off without a hitch you can't prove anybody's innocence or treachery. You could choose detail members at random each time, but that won't do you any good either. You could try to single out a member to prove their innocence/treachery, but what about the other 2/3/4 detail members? There's absolutely no way to make it work, mathematically speaking it should be impossible for the innocents to win because everybody's role is undetermined until the end of the game.
This post has been edited by JacaByte : 29 May 2012 - 02:16 PM
One thing the good guys did not take advantage of, is multiple motions per-round. You guys virtually ignored how people were voting on mission subcommittees, and didn't get enough votes in to really notice any patterns. If you only look at which missions failed and who was on them, you're ignoring the fact that about a third of the players are trying to manipulate who gets on those missions. There was also very little discussion before voting, most rounds. There were no time limits, you could have waited to vote until you were sure of what you were doing. If only one side is using all the mechanics to their advantage, it's no wonder it turns out lopsided.
Also, the Speaker really ought to put himself on the subcommittee, every time. The Speaker knows his own role, and when you're given the opportunity to determine who's on the mission, you should try to stack the deck with people you can trust. Supposedly you trust yourself?
In a lot of ways, you guys just had terrible luck. There were two bad guys on the first mission, and two bad guys had Speakerships at just the right times. If you had rejected more motions, and not made so many flawed assumptions or strategic errors in picking people, you could have won.
So, some general advice.
Never trust somebody who doesn't put himself on a mission. If he's good, he is bettering the odds that the mission will succeed if he's on the team. If he's bad, he may be trying to avoid guilt for a mission failure by putting a cohort on the team with a bunch of good people, while remaining seemingly innocent himself.
If at any time you think to yourself "that last mission proved he's a good guy!" you have already lost the game. There is no proof of innocence, ever, there is only proof of guilt, and it's circumstantial and only probable.
At all times, you should be think to yourself "how am I being manipulated right now?" and then try to figure out who it is that's manipulating you, and why.
Remember that at least a third of the players making mission group proposals are doing so in bad faith, to better the cause of the bad guys. Vote accordingly. Make it difficult to pass proposals, so that bad guys cannot hide amongst those voting no.
The more votes there are, the more data there is. Data can be deceptive, but patterns can emerge at critical junctures. If two missions have been successful, the bad guys must vote in their own interest to prevent a loss.
