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Chances are, if you're reading this, it's already out of date. I flit between new ideas and concepts like a butterfly flying from plant to plant, choosing the choicest flowers on it's quest for reproduction. I also make terrible metaphors, but that's a side point.
Chances are, if you're reading this, it's already out of date. I flit between new ideas and concepts like a butterfly flying from plant to plant, choosing the choicest flowers on it's quest for reproduction. I also make terrible metaphors, but that's a side point.


So what is Mafia? Well, it's pretty simple really. You got your scum, you got your town, and both are trying to lynch the other. But of course, town don't know who the scum are. So town have to work out who the scum are, in order to vote them off. This is scumhunting, and it's pretty much the core of town play. In various theme games, it can come up in mafia play, too, but that's another tangent.
So what is Mafia? Well, it's pretty simple really. You got your scum, you got your town, and both are trying to lynch the other. But of course, town don't know who the scum are. So town have to work out who the scum are, in order to vote them off. This is scumhunting, and it's pretty much the core of town play. In various games with multiple scumgroups, it can come up in mafia play, too, but that's another tangent. I intend, here, to lay out my thoughts on scumhunting.


to be continued.
A scumtell is any piece of information that makes a player more likely to be scum. This information could be negative - that is, something they didn't say - but it still must be originally based on a piece of information. Any gut read must also be based on something - it is too easy to state something is "gut". You should, at the very least, be able to point out which posts give you bad gut reads, for example, or to state what it is about their tone etc. Just because you are stating that a read is "gut" does not give you licence to be lazy. Gut is often very accurate, however, and should therefore not be dismissed out of hand by any other players reading the game.
 
Any scumtell is too general. For example: a player claims scum. You'd think that that could be fairly universally applied as a scumtell, but it cannot: take, for example, the player who has decided that the best way to get the game started is to claim scum in his first post. He does so every game. Logically, this can not be a scumtell for him. So we include a caveat in our general scumtell: Claiming scum is scummy unless the player has a history of claiming scum. But then, consider a player who has a reputation for messing about day 1: he jokingly claims scum. While not as clear cut as the previous objection, it is still problematic. So we add it as another caveat. And this is not even the end of it, as other situations can be envisaged where this is not a scumtell (take PJ's post in Space Monkey mafia 1, for example.)
 
It must be noted, at this point, that it is indeed possible to scumhunt using generalised scumtells - if something is true in general, applying it in general will give generally good results. But, to my mind, this is not the best way to achieve results whilst scumhunting. Rather than creating a list of scumtells and refining them to achieve generally better and better results, we should look at what makes a scumtell a scumtell:  if we can identify that, we should be able to identify when a scumtell truly is a scumtell by analysing the post.
 
This requires the information to placed in context. Any piece of information must be examined taking into account as much information available to the player as possible: this includes the thread, that is, who's voting who, who is suspicious of who, who's claimed, etc, the meta of the player being analysed; is it consistent with what they've said so far in this thread, is it consistent with what they've said in other threads and so forth, using any piece of information you can legally (within the rules of the game) obtain.
 
So that's my basic starting point. Some additional thoughts on scumunting:
 
It is more important to decide whether they believe what they are saying than whether you agree with what they are saying. If they don't believe it, then that's (generally) scummy. Again, standard caveat applies about generalising scumtells.
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==Mafia stats==
==Mafia stats==

Revision as of 21:53, 29 November 2008

Shanba
Logo mafiascum medium.jpg This user plays Mafia. (Talk)

General

He joined mafiascum on the third of January 07.

Philosophy

Chances are, if you're reading this, it's already out of date. I flit between new ideas and concepts like a butterfly flying from plant to plant, choosing the choicest flowers on it's quest for reproduction. I also make terrible metaphors, but that's a side point.

So what is Mafia? Well, it's pretty simple really. You got your scum, you got your town, and both are trying to lynch the other. But of course, town don't know who the scum are. So town have to work out who the scum are, in order to vote them off. This is scumhunting, and it's pretty much the core of town play. In various games with multiple scumgroups, it can come up in mafia play, too, but that's another tangent. I intend, here, to lay out my thoughts on scumhunting.

A scumtell is any piece of information that makes a player more likely to be scum. This information could be negative - that is, something they didn't say - but it still must be originally based on a piece of information. Any gut read must also be based on something - it is too easy to state something is "gut". You should, at the very least, be able to point out which posts give you bad gut reads, for example, or to state what it is about their tone etc. Just because you are stating that a read is "gut" does not give you licence to be lazy. Gut is often very accurate, however, and should therefore not be dismissed out of hand by any other players reading the game.

Any scumtell is too general. For example: a player claims scum. You'd think that that could be fairly universally applied as a scumtell, but it cannot: take, for example, the player who has decided that the best way to get the game started is to claim scum in his first post. He does so every game. Logically, this can not be a scumtell for him. So we include a caveat in our general scumtell: Claiming scum is scummy unless the player has a history of claiming scum. But then, consider a player who has a reputation for messing about day 1: he jokingly claims scum. While not as clear cut as the previous objection, it is still problematic. So we add it as another caveat. And this is not even the end of it, as other situations can be envisaged where this is not a scumtell (take PJ's post in Space Monkey mafia 1, for example.)

It must be noted, at this point, that it is indeed possible to scumhunt using generalised scumtells - if something is true in general, applying it in general will give generally good results. But, to my mind, this is not the best way to achieve results whilst scumhunting. Rather than creating a list of scumtells and refining them to achieve generally better and better results, we should look at what makes a scumtell a scumtell: if we can identify that, we should be able to identify when a scumtell truly is a scumtell by analysing the post.

This requires the information to placed in context. Any piece of information must be examined taking into account as much information available to the player as possible: this includes the thread, that is, who's voting who, who is suspicious of who, who's claimed, etc, the meta of the player being analysed; is it consistent with what they've said so far in this thread, is it consistent with what they've said in other threads and so forth, using any piece of information you can legally (within the rules of the game) obtain.

So that's my basic starting point. Some additional thoughts on scumunting:

It is more important to decide whether they believe what they are saying than whether you agree with what they are saying. If they don't believe it, then that's (generally) scummy. Again, standard caveat applies about generalising scumtells.

Mafia stats

As scum: 3/3 wins

As town: 2/3 wins

Current Games: 6(7)

Game History

Road to Rome

NEWBIE 297, Kitten Mafia:

Moderator: Zindaras
Outcome: Mafia wins


NEWBIE 319:

Moderator: Pinky
Outcome: Mafia wins

Thoughts: Wooh, second game second win! I really went into meltdown with the cop investigation on me, but somehow I managed to convince one of the townies to vote the cop and Glork hopped on and won. Glork played an excellent game here.


Mini games

MINI 401, Music of Capcom mini theme:

Moderator: Thok
Outcome: Mafia wins

Thoughts: Geh. Sorry Akbar. This one is painful, though I only replaced in day 4. I thought Primate was the scum with IH, but then voted Akbar over Primate in endgame. Alas.


MINI 393, Vegas Showgirls mini theme:

Moderator: Mariyta
Outcome: Town Wins

Thoughts: Well, I was wrong about Totem, I thought he was scum, but we won anyway thanks to ubertimmy who not only counterclaimed a scum but also caught the sk. Days were nights and nights were days, much to my confusion.


MINI 418, Blue Jam mini theme:

Moderator: Primate
Outcome: Mafia Wins

Thoughts: So... close... I was the SK. I purposefully followed a gameplan of not using my kill. This allowed me to use my secondary ability, which looked more like a town one. It also threw suspicion on the vig, who was under severe pressure for the end part of the game. It worked well enough that noone suspected there was an SK right up till endgame, or that if they did they thought it was Ectomancer. Unfortunately, the last remaining townie became convinced I was mafia on the final day and I was lynched, giving the mafia the win. As I was unkillable, any other result would have won me the game. Alas.


MINI 430, Villagers and Vampires mini normal:

Moderator Blackberry
Outcome Vampire Wins

Thoughts: Horrible, horrible game. Let us never speak of it again. Bleh.


MINI 443, Tapioca Mafia mini normal

Moderator Ectomancer
Outcome Mafia win

Thoughts: Awesomesauce. Really pleased with how this one turned out. Possibly my best scum performance to date (though day 1 was sketchy). With both my scumbuddies dead by night 2, things were not looking so bright, however, I had bussed them enough (suggesting a link between them day 1) that everyone thought I was town. Possible had Patrick been left alive, things would have happened differently - he seemed to be on the right track. Anyway, victory here was helped by a misfiring vig, but hampered on the last day by my absence - it was tense not knowing the outcome XD

Open Games

Open 14, Near-Vanilla

Moderator The Central Scrutinizer
Outcome Mafia Win

Thoughts: Didn't go so well. Was quite frustrating. Some bad play, some from me too. Scum lurked their way to a final, ever so gradual victory at a deadline no lynch.

Large Games

===Games in progress=== (section to be added)

Mafia vs Wolves redux!(dead), Wolves (large normal, Mafia 68

Mod History

Mini 460 - Werewolves! Over! Scum win.

Mini 520 - Triumvirate Mafia Day 1 - Replacements needed (ish). Decent group of players, lacking a bit in activity.

Mafia 73 - NEGWLTWWWTKY. Day 1 - Signup to replace in the signup thread. Awesome setup. Trust me ;)

Games in which I was replaced

AKA my personal hall of shame

Kingmaker II - Replaced due to inactivity after server crash (caused by a holiday while the server crash was happening) Open 14 (open), Blue Jam (Mini Theme,) newbie 408 (as IC), Consulmaker - All replaced due to three week holiday. Holidays are my nemeses

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