[TW MAFIA] Western Chronicles

[field]

I don't think a mass claim would have worked. Maaaaaybe because mafia started with an inactive scum team, so they couldn't be there to participate and hence would be considered scummy and be lynched. But with an active scum team, they can blend in. It's really not that difficult to find a fake claim.

Mass claim would've helped scum locate the cop, and had they done that, this game (in hindsight) would have gone in a totally different direction. It would've hurt them as they would be forced to make sure the night action results they give out are consistent and not easily disproved. It's a bit more difficult, but not impossible.

I wasn't worried a mass claim would break the game. It's really not that different from a regular mafia game setup without the day 1 mechanic I used. I hadn't thought of giving scum safe claims though, so something to think about in the future if I decide to get creative in my setups. Idk though, safe claims take away from the fun of playing as scum.

[the_paul]

Yeah I was never going to claim regardless of how day 1 went, I would have lied. I didn?t ever claim publicly in this round, I generally don?t like doing that. Honestly I think a mass claim might have helped someone like a Willby (I know he wasn?t mafia yet but still) by flying under the radar early

[field]

Yeah I was never going to claim regardless of how day 1 went, I would have lied. I didn?t ever claim publicly in this round, I generally don?t like doing that. Honestly I think a mass claim might have helped someone like a Willby (I know he wasn?t mafia yet but still) by flying under the radar early

Mass claiming and being eager as a townie to share results help no one but scum who also as a result are able to construct accurate fake claims.

[Exalt]

This game was in no way a blowout. This actually played out to a final 2-1 lynch on Day 6 for town to win. Tons of things could have led to a mafia win too, such as if they did not kill Fis and if I did not have and properly use the Marshall power.

I do not know what else you want, mafia had this game by the balls from day 1. If you had active mafia players, it would have been a different story.

That's the point though. It should have been won by mafia if the only way Town won was due to illegally PMing each other. TW Mafia is in no way whatsoever the most skilled mafia on the internet. It's not even close actually. I've played plenty of games on mafiascum.net, and trust me, TW Mafia is child's play in comparison. People get better by being challenged, and there's zero challenge when town can essentially cheat to win, which is what PMing each other is. It's cheating, plain and simple. It's never allowed anywhere else on the internet for a reason. The rules TW used originally were always from mafiascum as well, but since hosts don't have the power here to stop cheating, it got ignored. That was fine in a huge game full of 30+ players we used to have, but with only 9 or so that signup these days (with at least 4 inactive at any given time), it's a very different game than it used to be.

Straight up, you were given an easy victory through cheating, not through skill. Skill is when the Cop chooses when to give results in public by weighing the pros and cons of it and doing what is necessary. There is no skill in PMing a semi-confirmed, unkillable player with results everyday until the inevitable win. That's my stance on it, and I see no counter-arguments possible to think otherwise. TW Mafia uses kid gloves when it allows town to cheat every game.

[the_paul]

PMing has always been allowed on TW mafia, in every single game I can ever remember participating in. If you think mafia should have gotten a free win for killing Willby day 1, then we fundamentally disagree. Taking away PMing is dumbing the game down from how it has always been done here. Maybe mafia hasn?t been winning because they think PMing is some huge advantage available only to them. It?s not, it never has been, the advantage is knowing exactly who has the same conditions as you and being able to work together to make it happen. Town never knows who to trust until it?s all over, that?s the advantage, not PMing.

It makes no sense why people are so upset about this. There was PMing happening last game, not even on the forums but on SS, and not one of us complained. Mafia lost because of inactivity and 1 or 2 bad decisions that blew the game wide open. Learn to win at chess, stop trying to turn it into checkers because you lost.

[ixt]

Yup exact point made by Paul that I stated before as I committed also. Even if someone PMs, its to the recipient's digression whether to respond or not, and more importantly whether to trust them.

[RoDNeY]

not even because i was on mafia last game but i 100% agree with exalt, not really going to sway my opinion tbh you can accredit almost every town win to pming.

Roles like Masons and Lovers or Cults or whatever were created to enable conversation for certain players behind the scenes AKA not intended for everyone

I guess we just agree to disagree

[the_paul]

Guess it?s a miracle I?ve been playing mafia on these forums for over 10 years and this is the first time I?ve ever seen such complaints about PMing. Must be a recent problem.

[field]

I agree with Exalt's sentiment about PMs in general, but it wasn't cheating during last game as PMing was allowed. It's been like that since I started playing tw mafia a few years ago.

I disagree with Exalt that town won because of PMing or that PMing broke the game to the point that scum could not win. Scum don't need to kill or lynch all the players, they just need to even the numbers out. It was unfortunate that the cop was getting guilty result after guilty result. All his investigations, had they succeeded, would have returned guilty. Zeebu was a Miller, fis SK at point of investigation, and Missa/Rodney mafia. Reminds me of that game where Will made tp SK and all of tp's kills failed leading him to believe he was naive lol. You have to give credit where credit is due. Getting 1 guilty result is luck, getting 4 is playing well enough to make reads and choose correct people to investigate.

In the future, I have no problem disallowing PMs, but the caveat will be strict enforcement. The reason it works on other forums which have hundreds of players is because they can and do ban people from playing altogether, if they are repeat offenders. We don't have luxury of many players playing here, so the strictest form of punishment a host can give is modkilling.

Anywho, thanks for the feedback Exalt & others. I'll take into consideration when designing my next setup.

[the_paul]

If PMing is illegal, I'm not going to do it, just like I am not going to in the current game. Had I known it was a rule in this current game, and in future games, I just won't sign up for them. TW mafia's problem is inactivity and lack of players. PMs have been legal in the dozens of games I've played on here, and I've never heard it be such an issue as it suddenly is. And I've also seen, been victim of, and been part of a ton of mafia victories in the 12 years or whatever I've been around here.

[Voth]

If we could not PM last game, it would have been a landslide mafia victory. Any number of decisions could have made it a mafia win, but that is not how it shook out. Call it cheating, call it what you want, but that game was won with a combination of luck and good play by myself and Paul.

[RoDNeY]

If we could not PM last game, it would have been a landslide mafia victory. Any number of decisions could have made it a mafia win, but that is not how it shook out. Call it cheating, call it what you want, but that game was won with a combination of luck and good play by myself and Paul.

I dont agree with the bolded part, but im glad that you are admitting in this post that town would not have won if you guys didn't PM each other. That is the point we are trying to make.

[the_paul]

It has never been against the rules until this current game, so whats the complaint? PMing had a massive effect on the game Fis hosted, why wasn't there all this complaining then? In that game, those conversations didn't even take place on the forums! And nobody cared. Nobody has complained since I've been playing until now. What made this round so different? You guys know mafia can PM town as well, right? It's been done for years on here and has led to great games. All you're going to do by dumbing this down is handicap good players and reward boring unimaginative players.

Also, can we stop acting like mafia played a perfect game, and were dealt a losing hand despite this? Lynching Willby 1.0 was indefensible, and led to wasting the Mayor role. On top of that, lack of activity and not distancing from each other made that a 2 for 1 with Missa getting lynched. Who was mafia was so obvious at first that I was able to investigate 3 of the 4 mafia while I was alive. Fis getting killed by the mafia the night she turned SK sealed the game, and that was more unfortunate than a mistake. But 2 glaring mistakes led to mafia being down 2 players. The 2 mafia that played best were the 2 subs for the inactives, I mean come on. And it still came down to a 1 phase difference between a victory or loss. There wasn't some egregious no win scenario for the mafia, they made early mistakes that cut their numbers in half, and they still nearly won. By the way, my investigations led to 0 lynches, they were the cherry on top at best.

[RoDNeY]

It has never been against the rules until this current game, so whats the complaint? PMing had a massive effect on the game Fis hosted, why wasn't there all this complaining then? In that game, those conversations didn't even take place on the forums! And nobody cared. Nobody has complained since I've been playing until now. What made this round so different? You guys know mafia can PM town as well, right? It's been done for years on here and has led to great games. All you're going to do by dumbing this down is handicap good players and reward boring unimaginative players.

Also, can we stop acting like mafia played a perfect game, and were dealt a losing hand despite this? Lynching Willby 1.0 was indefensible, and led to wasting the Mayor role. On top of that, lack of activity and not distancing from each other made that a 2 for 1 with Missa getting lynched. Who was mafia was so obvious at first that I was able to investigate 3 of the 4 mafia while I was alive. Fis getting killed by the mafia the night she turned SK sealed the game, and that was more unfortunate than a mistake. But 2 glaring mistakes led to mafia being down 2 players. The 2 mafia that played best were the 2 subs for the inactives, I mean come on. And it still came down to a 1 phase difference between a victory or loss. There wasn't some egregious no win scenario for the mafia, they made early mistakes that cut their numbers in half, and they still nearly won. By the way, my investigations led to 0 lynches, they were the cherry on top at best.

I feel like you guys are getting super defensive about this and blowing it into something bigger than it really is. I noticed the pming in the Fis game and thats initially what started me kinda being erked by it and the last game when it seemed to have the same effect i decided to say something. We're not coming out and crying about pming just trying to state the effect it has on the game. i had no intentions on it becoming this big long drawn out debate

[Exalt]

It has never been against the rules until this current game, so whats the complaint? PMing had a massive effect on the game Fis hosted, why wasn't there all this complaining then? In that game, those conversations didn't even take place on the forums! And nobody cared. Nobody has complained since I've been playing until now. What made this round so different? You guys know mafia can PM town as well, right? It's been done for years on here and has led to great games. All you're going to do by dumbing this down is handicap good players and reward boring unimaginative players.

Also, can we stop acting like mafia played a perfect game, and were dealt a losing hand despite this? Lynching Willby 1.0 was indefensible, and led to wasting the Mayor role. On top of that, lack of activity and not distancing from each other made that a 2 for 1 with Missa getting lynched. Who was mafia was so obvious at first that I was able to investigate 3 of the 4 mafia while I was alive. Fis getting killed by the mafia the night she turned SK sealed the game, and that was more unfortunate than a mistake. But 2 glaring mistakes led to mafia being down 2 players. The 2 mafia that played best were the 2 subs for the inactives, I mean come on. And it still came down to a 1 phase difference between a victory or loss. There wasn't some egregious no win scenario for the mafia, they made early mistakes that cut their numbers in half, and they still nearly won. By the way, my investigations led to 0 lynches, they were the cherry on top at best.

Why do you keep mentioning that you've played for 10 years as if you're the only one? I was here from the beginning too. I think I played in the very first tw mafia game actually. Back then, PMing got so bad that games had to be modkilled together, because people went so far as to PM screenshots of their roles. Games were ruined by it, yet it was unenforceable beyond the players involved regulating it and choosing to stop it from happening in the future.

As for last game, did you not find it frustrating that you lost essentially due to random lurkers feeding WillBy info? I know it was boring as hell for me. I've had people try PMing me for every game so far, and I always ignore it, because it really does ruin the game. I'd rather lose legitimately than win using unintended mechanics.

Oh, and I dont care what you find defensible or not about this game. There were only 2 active mafia during Day 1, so we had no choice. The set up was unwinnable for scum in a vacuum (if all players were equally skilled) without getting at least one of the two between mayor/marshall, and maybe not even then without both. That was an impossible task with just 2 active scum players. Also, with a Doctor AND and bodyguard in play, it was nearly impossible regardless to win, and frankly, the only reason it was close at all was your misplay. As cop, you should have absolutely gone for Mayor or Marshall, and not doing so should have lost you the game. You only won through pming an unkillable player every night, and without WillBy dying, the game was lost immediately regardless. Two protective roles on an already ubkillable commuter and a cop PMing him results without having to play legitimately makes the game pointless imo. I dont like winning that way as town either, because it's unfair to the scum team and makes the game too easy.