Murder By The Book - Ender's Game

I believe it was mentioned earlier that town tend to lurk more often. In my opinion it would be a good idea to target those active members that are acting suspiciously. Logically that should lead to fewer mis-lynches which I see as the greater threat. If we can kill a couple mafia members it will reduce their effectiveness, if we solely target lurkers it will likely only hurt us. Admittedly it would be less damaging than an active mis-lynch but I see it as a death by a thousand cuts scenario.

Nononononono.

No.

The majority of the playerlist are lurking/inactive. They outnumber the active players. Inactive players are wary of saying the wrong thing and ending up in the spotlight, though for fundamentally different reasons.

Inactive town who are new to Mafia don't want to get lynched, which makes sense from their standpoint because they only know one player who's town, right? That, or they have a night action and don't want to draw attention to themselves. However, they are passively working against the town with this philosophy.

Inactive town who are experienced with mafia need to a) go set themselves on fire and b) stop joining games they can't be fucked properly playing.

Lurky/inactive scum want to coast through the game without having to defend themselves, until a point is reached where there's no active town leaders to drag them out into the open. They can sit with their thumbs up their butts all damn game and let No Lynches keep happening, because they'll still win. Town don't have that luxury.

And guess what you need to drag said inactives kicking and screaming into the discussion? Active players. If the active players end up lynching each other, and the mafia kills the rest, the endgame is going to be a fucking chore.

From a utilitarian standpoint where we want to maximise fun (because this is a game oh jesus fucking christ someone kill me I'm being serious about how to have fun), we're better off killing lurkers early, so people actually playing the game get to stay in longer. Having active town and scum alive at endgame makes for more entertaining discussion, too!

Lurking/inactivity stifles discussion. Stifling discussion is anti-town.

By extrapolation, espousing a philosophy which encourages lurking/inactivity (like Granola has done, and I suspect you (Truegreen) of doing now) is anti-town.

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Alternative scenario: We pile onto, say, AgentBlue, until they're at soft lynch. At this point they're either going to say "ok ok jeez I'll participate" and hooray! One less lurker; or, they eat lynch like the sad limp lettuce I'm making them out to be.

We'll be able to continue discussion with one less active player (due to nightkill) instead of two (due to the alternative where we lynched an active player then the mafia nightkilled another one), and either way we get a wagon to analyse. Sounds pretty good by my book!

I can't say I agree with you Schazer, I believe you have polarized the argument too much. To say either side is 'town' or 'anti-town' is going a bit too far.

Both are simply strategies which are highly personal in nature, depending on what each individual player sees as valuable to the game. Though your use of 'Lynching' as a motivator is distasteful in my opinion.

While inactivity does indeed stifle discussion, killing inactive players gets us little or no information where as successfully lynching a mafia member gets us a lot closer to winning the game. Also, it seems to me that more players are likely to participate towards the midgame where there is more information to work off of. I understand your thoughts, but I don't see it being very effective during the first few days. We might accidentally toss out players that are busy, or too wary to post right away but are far more open later in the game. By the same merit we might leave in players that are truly absent and would be a lot more obvious later on.

I say we target active now, and shoot for your lynch inactivity strategy after we reveal one or two people's alignments.

Besides, intrigue and discovery are better motivators than fear, at least when it comes to games. Those that choose to become active and stay active will do so out of curiosity and interest, not by some uncomfortable obligation or proxy survival instinct.

Ignoring active players when it comes to lynching defies the whole spirit of the game. We are supposed to be paranoid, fire accusations back and forth, engage in glorious verbal combat with one another. The game is supposed to be fun the whole way through, it's not about slogging through a grind of inactive lynches to try to fabricate an interesting ending. Our choices are supposed to mean something They are supposed to have weight and consequence. It isn't supposed to be a cookie cutter auto-lynch of inactive players, with predictable and almost useless information on every kill with the mafia in the background picking off active players one by one as we spiral the drain of mediocrity. I at least want to fire a few parting shots before I get shot in the dark.

This is the heart of my argument, both strategies have the potential to help us win the game, but I say Lynch active is better for one basic and simple reason. Lynching Nobodies is BORING. We are here to have fun, we are here to be paranoid. We are here to second guess each other's motivations and claims. To call out our foes, to suss out the wolves in sheep's clothing. Who cares about the meta-game, the endgame, or even who wins, if the journey to get there is boring.

And in accords with this sentiment...

Slorange, despite your great sportsmanship and all around good attitude, I find your claim from early in this day to be highly suspect. Due to the nature of the game, you can be a good person and mafia. So my choice is clear, and my decision final. I shall not change my vote again until the sun rises on the third day.

Unvote,

Vote: Slorange