Village leader Spreadsheet

[jigglypuffers42]

I was playing a recently ended game of mafia, in which our leader, UncleSam, made a spreadsheet to show who everyone is/notes on everyone. He got alot of criticism on it looking bad.When Mekkah said:

Does no one here know how to make a spreadsheet?

Vonfielder (Or however you spell your username) told his method, and said:

If there's a better way to do it, please make a strategic influence thread about it.

Being new to mafia, what makes a spreadsheet bad, and what makes it good?
What's a good way to organize a spreadsheet

 

[Exarius]

What I believe Mekkah meant (and what I meant) is how it looked. It was simply horrendous to look on. This is easily changed by using "bland" and light colours, like in Double Alias Master sheet (by Mekkah). I believe he linked it in his postgame for that one, you can find it in the Game Listing.

I mean, what is easier to look on?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The former may look easier to separate on a sheet with the contradicting colours, but it's a headache to read it. The latter uses much blander colours that mesh well, so it's much easier to read. If you still wont believe it, make a sheet on google docs, use the former colours on few rows, then put the latter colours on few rows underneath, and tell me which is easier to look upon (aesthetically).

 

[Mekkah]

Exhibit A: Bad Sheet

Notes:
1. First thing you notice about this picture is that there is five and a half rows on it. How's that for overview? Most games have like 20-30 players. Hope you like scrolling. This is because the cells are too large and have multiple lines.
2. The colors! Porygon could learn a thing or two from this for the next time he tries to give Japanese kids a seizure.
3. The order of the players. They're not sorted in alphabetical order or alliance. Why not? It's the only thing I'd sort them in.
4. Notes, Further Notes, Happened and Should Happen...I suppose if you want to put all that in your sheet, that is one way to do it. I always only have one Notes column. Things that are no longer relevant or ingrained in my memory don't have to be on the sheet. For things like SHOULD HAPPEN etc, just make a Night Actions tab and put notes about those there if you really need them.
5. The cells are so huge Jesus...

So let's take a look at a better sheet. How about the sheet for my next big game?
Exhibit B: Good Sheet

Oh right, we still have to play that one...let's take one from an older game instead. Since this is about village leader sheets rather than host sheets, I'll use one from a game I played. The MI6 one...

Exhibit B2: Best Sheet

(yes, Jimbo, you were being a fucknut!)

Notes:
1. Wow, 23 players! That's like half of the players in this game! Thank God every cell is only one line. If your text is too wide for the cell, just double click on the vertical line between the two columns, all the way up there (such as between the grey squares with A and B on it) and Google will make it fit (that's what she said). If it makes the sheet annoying to read, that's a sign you're putting too much text on it.
2. Lovely colors, courtesy of Agents jumpluff and thunda. The key to making a sheet pleasing is to only use light colors. Or to be very artistic and know which combo's work and which don't. Generally, don't jump to those colors you're so familiar with (red, blue, yellow, green, purple) and splatter them all over your sheet until it looks like a rainbow abortion.
3. Alphabetical order! How handy! But...what if I want to know how many of each faction are left? Am I going to have to count them?

Oh my, you mean you can have multiple tabs?

Oh, how useful and entertaining...

 

[RaRe555]

I may not be all that experienced to mafia, but in Back to the Basics Mafia, I got to be mafia with Xyphang, and he made quite a good spreadsheet for us. Here's the link:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AnlA9uTzRV85dDk3ejRlUDBSbE13VjBhYlNVYkt0ckE&hl=en#gid=0

What I want to point out with this is that the columns should also be organized per night, and not with random notes thrown out every other column, which is what UncleSam did with his spreadsheet. If I'm wrong or anybody has a better way to keep spreadsheets clean-looking, please correct me.

EDIT: Done Exarius, you should be able to look at it now lol.

 

[Exarius]

RaRe, we aren't allowed to look on it. Edit the access so we can look at it.

Also, another eyecancer sheet was one that Altair made for US Gov in MGS, but it got rewamped by Mekkah. And AG did a horrible looking one for his Beginner mafia, which I can't be arsed to take a pic of now P;

 

[UncleSam]

Geez, if I had known I would get so much flak for how my sheet looks I wouldn't have shared it...

Anyway, I agree that my sheet had a few problems, by far the most significant of which was the size of the cells. Quite frankly, I didn't care enough to spend hours formatting it so that it would look nicer, because the only people able to see it were myself, my twin (DM, who rarely accessed the sheet anyway), and Spiffy. I threw random notes on it so that, in case I died, my twin could follow my thought process simply from the sheet, should he read it thoroughly.

Also, on the colors: I, personally, prefer the colors I chose to the colors in the example "good" sheet. Now, I am partially colorblind, so that may explain why I prefer the vivid colors to the more bland ones, but still, I like being able to pick out the mafias at a moment's notice.

Further, the "good" sheet simply lacks the amount of information in my sheet. My sheet includes what I ordered people to do, what should happen (so that people can see what I was trying to have happen versus what did happen should I die and not be able to explain myself), and what actually happened, so that I can see where the inconsistencies are.

In short, I wholeheartedly agree that my sheet sucks to look at but, with just a little bit of explanation, it conveys far more information. The only serious problem I see with it is the size of the cells, but I was rushed when I made it and, again, did not feel like taking the time to format it nicely, because the entire point was that I could read it efficiently and chronicle the entire game up to that point.

On the topic of the orders of the players...again, I chose such vivid colors so that I wouldn't have to spend time cutting and pasting and sorting all of the players based on alliance and probable alliance.

I simply did not know you could have multiple tabs at the bottom, that is something well worth knowing and I will certainly incorporate that into my next sheet.

As for all the random notes...my goal was that, should I have been backstabbed and killed, my successors would have been able to finish off the game easily with it. I made sure to share it with two people who knew the ins and outs of the sheet (zorbees and HFB), and, in short, I made sure that should I die, the village would lose no information because I didn't add it to the spreadsheet to avoid "cluttering it up". This isn't a presentation-it's mafia. Seriously villagers, back me up here, I found every mafia by Day 3 and all anyone is talking about is my aesthetically displeasing sheet...

Still...I will work on making my sheets nicer in the future. If nothing else, I won't get so many insults over it in postgame.

 

[Mekkah]

You don't have to be so defensive, UncleSam. I just think your sheet is ugly as sin - I didn't say it didn't help you win the game, or that you were a bad village leader. I just started out my post with some sort of Billy Mays-advertising vibe and decided to continue it as a gimmick.

Colors are, of course, a matter of preference, especially for the colorblind, but I've found most people appreciate lighter colors.

 

[UncleSam]

I'm sorry if I sound overly defensive, and also sorry if it seems my rebuttals are only directed at you, Mekkah. Quite frankly, a lot of people have been have been saying "wow, what a shitty spreadsheet", it's just that you are the only person yet to bother explaining why in any significant detail. I was just a little upset that you put my spreadsheet in the "bad" category when it clearly served its purpose. I do agree with you, my cells are far too big and make it difficult to maneuver, and I guess there is no "correct" answer on the colors.

I guess a better argument is what makes a spreadsheet "good" and "bad"...I agree that, for a host, my spreadsheet would be horrendous, because the point is that a lot of people can tell the essence of the game easily from the spreadsheet at a glance.

What I'm far more miffed about is that quite a few others have said "damn that's bad" when they never even bothered to try and get organized in the first place in Redwall(I won't name names, but you know who you are).

However, I think this will be my last post on this topic, simply because of the fact there is no clear right answer, and that I am not serving any possible help to anyone by defending my own sheet. To everyone looking to make a spreadsheet: I suggest you look at Mekkah's post carefully, because, for the most part, I agree that it is a good way to make a clear, concise spreadsheet. What I would personally recommend, however, is that you include (in separate tabs) a lot of the small information that my sheet includes, because there is absolutely no reason why any information should be lost at all simply because the mafias killed a village leader. Including reasoning helps as well, as might a separate document with all of your Role PM claims in it.

Alright, I will stop derailing this topic now, and I apologize for my part in derailing it in the first place.

 

[Raikage]

I vote for colorless sheets

In all seriousness, I don't think this is really a big deal unless a sheet's so terrible it impedes the job from getting done.

 

[Amelia]

I see holy fuck in there help...

Anyway, i also do horrible spreadsheets all the time (Gmax will testify when looking at my You don't need no Mafia sheet), so i can't really add to here, but however i do agree that the cells shouldn't be bigger than one line! (Color... errr... :P)

 

[auramaster]

Being new to mafia, what makes a spreadsheet bad, and what makes it good?

Mekkah did a great job walking through a well-organized spreadsheet, but it's not all looks. Should UncleSam's extra stuff, like what should and did happen, be included? If so, how should it be added to a spreadsheet, so it's still organized and easy to read? Should other things be listed on a spreadsheet that haven't been mentioned? And since spreadsheets are so crucial, perhaps someone should make a guide on how to make good spreadsheets, for both village leaders and hosts?

 

[Veedrock]

If you feel it necessary to put activity notes then a seperate tab would be the best place, it keeps the front page neat and organized while keeping information readily available to everyone on the sheet. Also rather than listing names by row and adding, listing them in the colomns (with preset lengths) would keep things uniform and avoid random cell sizes shown in UncleSam's sheet above.

I do think a guide would be pretty helpful, I've only had to create a sheet one time (though I've editted many others) and always had difficulties managing cells.