Company Mafia Postgame
Game Thread
Let's start by glancing at the game's progression. No effort is needed to realize that the scumteam was steamrolled. This is generally caused by two things: imbalance and play. Both took part here to result in a nearly flawless victory.
Imbalance is generally caused by the host's flaws in game format and game management. As I feared, the format was indeed imbalanced and unfair towards scum. What stopped me from tweaking it, though, was the assumption that Smogon Town (tm) was worse than your average town, an assumption that formed after Medieval Mafia. I had assumed mislynches, to say the least, and was not expecting an ideal use of the vig shot. Technically, town being bad was a very valid assumption, and only combined with my game management did this completely backfire.
What I mean by that is simple: I should not have distributed roles the way I did. I was in the mindset of making town as strong as possible, because I wasn't expecting much, without realizing that I overdid it. Giving PRs to players that would not get NK'd due to not being obvtown resulted in a bunch of players getting cleared due to their claims, players that would have made for fine mislynches otherwise. I also did not want the PRs to get namekilled, which is why I gave players such as Da Letter El and Paperblade roles that were [bordering on] useless. Finally, as if that wasn't enough, I reserved the VT slots to players whom I imagined were too unstable and inexperienced to be scum. Of course, this resulted in said players being handwaved as town under the assumption that this is exactly what I did. From now on I know to spread players evenly between PRs and VTs, to say the least.
To sum it up, had I not been extremely pro-town during format finalization and role distribution, this game would have been perfectly balanced. In theory, anyway; like I said, imbalance isn't the only cause here. The scumteam were, simply put, blatantly scummy. It reached a point in which most if not all outside observers were able to name the scumteam without breaking a sweat. I will admit that my failed balancing played a part in their being easily snuffed out, but play being below average was certainly a factor.
The format is basically a very defensive town (Doctor + Bulletproof + Watcher) against a strong scumteam (Roleblocker + Rolecop + Backup). Adding an info role at the cost of a Godfather seemed balanced enough. What I believe made the format too pro-town was the inclusion of the Innocent Child; it was meant as a tool to spark discussion during earlygame, but quickly turned into nothing but a clear on someone that was otherwise a viable mislynch target. I also considered the Neighborizer harmless desipte being able to self-clear in this game by simply targeting players. Scum Neighborizers exist (it's why they're called neighbors and not masons), but it was rightfully hard to believe that I would include such a role in a Smogon Mafia game, resulting in that self-clear.
That's enough about technicalities, though; the heart of NOC is the play itself, so let's take a look at that, shall we? Smogon Town still suffers from that same problem of Follow the Leader. This isn't role madness: players' reads are not based on proof. The very idea behind NOC games is for town to build collective opinions by each contributing their own reads and input. By following a single player's (or numbered players') reads you not only hurt the town drastically but also open the door for scum to completely take over the game. It can't be helped; if you do not post in the mindset of contributing to hunting scum by sharing your thoughts, you're hurting the town. Smogon Town will vastly improve when the majority of players get this down.
Something I did notice is that, despite the inexperience and flaws, a handful of players poured their heart into the game, and this is why I believe we have a foundation from which we can improve and eventually reach a high level of NOC play. I'd personally want to see a smaller game being played out by commited players, or maybe a few such games. Those will eventually lead to some very good games, no doubt.
This was a nice experience as a host and, I'm sure, was also a nice experience for plenty of players and even some non-players. I wouldn't mind hosting more games in the future.
Since some of you like meaningless awards, Town MVP goes to Da Letter El for taking a very strong approach and performing adequately well and Scum MVP goes to Vintage Books for being the closest to following scum's WC (survival!), despite (thanks to?) coasting through the first half of the game. :/
Link to the post with the links.
Game Thread
Let's start by glancing at the game's progression. No effort is needed to realize that the scumteam was steamrolled. This is generally caused by two things: imbalance and play. Both took part here to result in a nearly flawless victory.
Imbalance is generally caused by the host's flaws in game format and game management. As I feared, the format was indeed imbalanced and unfair towards scum. What stopped me from tweaking it, though, was the assumption that Smogon Town (tm) was worse than your average town, an assumption that formed after Medieval Mafia. I had assumed mislynches, to say the least, and was not expecting an ideal use of the vig shot. Technically, town being bad was a very valid assumption, and only combined with my game management did this completely backfire.
What I mean by that is simple: I should not have distributed roles the way I did. I was in the mindset of making town as strong as possible, because I wasn't expecting much, without realizing that I overdid it. Giving PRs to players that would not get NK'd due to not being obvtown resulted in a bunch of players getting cleared due to their claims, players that would have made for fine mislynches otherwise. I also did not want the PRs to get namekilled, which is why I gave players such as Da Letter El and Paperblade roles that were [bordering on] useless. Finally, as if that wasn't enough, I reserved the VT slots to players whom I imagined were too unstable and inexperienced to be scum. Of course, this resulted in said players being handwaved as town under the assumption that this is exactly what I did. From now on I know to spread players evenly between PRs and VTs, to say the least.
To sum it up, had I not been extremely pro-town during format finalization and role distribution, this game would have been perfectly balanced. In theory, anyway; like I said, imbalance isn't the only cause here. The scumteam were, simply put, blatantly scummy. It reached a point in which most if not all outside observers were able to name the scumteam without breaking a sweat. I will admit that my failed balancing played a part in their being easily snuffed out, but play being below average was certainly a factor.
The format is basically a very defensive town (Doctor + Bulletproof + Watcher) against a strong scumteam (Roleblocker + Rolecop + Backup). Adding an info role at the cost of a Godfather seemed balanced enough. What I believe made the format too pro-town was the inclusion of the Innocent Child; it was meant as a tool to spark discussion during earlygame, but quickly turned into nothing but a clear on someone that was otherwise a viable mislynch target. I also considered the Neighborizer harmless desipte being able to self-clear in this game by simply targeting players. Scum Neighborizers exist (it's why they're called neighbors and not masons), but it was rightfully hard to believe that I would include such a role in a Smogon Mafia game, resulting in that self-clear.
That's enough about technicalities, though; the heart of NOC is the play itself, so let's take a look at that, shall we? Smogon Town still suffers from that same problem of Follow the Leader. This isn't role madness: players' reads are not based on proof. The very idea behind NOC games is for town to build collective opinions by each contributing their own reads and input. By following a single player's (or numbered players') reads you not only hurt the town drastically but also open the door for scum to completely take over the game. It can't be helped; if you do not post in the mindset of contributing to hunting scum by sharing your thoughts, you're hurting the town. Smogon Town will vastly improve when the majority of players get this down.
Something I did notice is that, despite the inexperience and flaws, a handful of players poured their heart into the game, and this is why I believe we have a foundation from which we can improve and eventually reach a high level of NOC play. I'd personally want to see a smaller game being played out by commited players, or maybe a few such games. Those will eventually lead to some very good games, no doubt.
This was a nice experience as a host and, I'm sure, was also a nice experience for plenty of players and even some non-players. I wouldn't mind hosting more games in the future.
Since some of you like meaningless awards, Town MVP goes to Da Letter El for taking a very strong approach and performing adequately well and Scum MVP goes to Vintage Books for being the closest to following scum's WC (survival!), despite (thanks to?) coasting through the first half of the game. :/
Link to the post with the links.
