[TW MAFIA] Western Chronicles

[the_paul]

That's fine if you disagree with the mechanics as it was set up, but that's a beef to bring up with Field, not me. The game before this one sucked because nobody was active, we also had 2 inactive mafia members, and I got targeted twice right away and died as a result. I don't remember any lurkers feeding Willby intel, I remember Willby investigating me and killing me as a result. Not really much I could do about that, Willby had 1 investigation chance and he nailed me with it. But yes, that game was boring mainly due to the rampant inactivity. I tried everything I could to force conversation, and it felt like you did the same, and you and I ended up yelling at each other for pages at a time because nobody else cared enough to post. That's much more of a factor for the decline than PMing ever was.

I bring up the fact that I've been playing on here for a decade because I can't ever remember hearing such complaining about PMing as there is now. When I was a host or a player, I don't even remember this ever coming up before. The only special case I remember was the really prominent players getting annoyed because they'd all get targeted and blocked, investigated, and killed night 1. We did a couple games where the forums mods made everyone a themed account with random names and shit so we all played without knowing who anyone else was. That was pretty cool.

I get it that the meta has changed. There weren't cupids and lovers and all this shit when TW Mafia was at what I consider its peak, so things have clearly changed in the game as a whole. The biggest issue, and the only part of your stance I agree with, is that with the smaller games things are very different. Which leads back to the fact that PMing isn't the issue, inactivity is. Shit look at our current game, we have 12 players in the game and, what, 7 votes with a few hours to phase change? Until we can get more active players, TW Mafia is just going to be lackluster, that's the unfortunate truth. Even if the players are new and suck, activity alone can bring it back, but it seems unlikely at this point.

I lied, the other part I agree with is about screenshots. Screenshots are bullshit and should always be a mod kill/ban. The way I see it, if you can convince someone you can be trusted with just words, you deserve whatever benefit comes from that. The minute you use screenshots, there's no skill or strategy or whatever. This game is nothing without strategy

[the_paul]

Also, you absolutely could have flown under the radar as Mayor by lynching whoever turned out to be an inactive townie, or ixt, or someone like that. That would have had a chance of keeping Missa safe (I might have still investigated her, idk), and given you a chance to use the Mayor double vote thing later on. I get why you went for Willby, and it was awesome that you got a doctor, but it ended up being a mistake. I'm not knocking you for it, especially since you only had 1 player our of the 3 you should have had advising you or setting things up. But it led to us getting the 2 of you without even needing an investigation. I'm just saying, the day the mafia plays a perfect game and loses solely because of PMing or whatever, I'll concede the point, but I haven't personally seen that before. I'm not going to break the rules in the future, I won't complain or anything either I just don't plan on signing up for games where that's going to be added. If that's what the majority wants, I totally get it and I'll bow out. As it is, I consider it handicapping the good players around and removing a tool from their belt, regardless of whether town or mafia. One of my favorite things to do as mafia was infiltrate the confirmed townies, those were the most fun, chaotic games ever.

Like I said, if the majority of people want to disallow it, then that's the way it is. I don't appreciate being labeled as a cheater just because I contributed to a town victory in a way that's been legal for over a decade.