I think I'm gonna vote yes on this one. like I said I have a general feeling that as we progress we get more likely to hit scum because scum is more likely to reject teams without any of them on it, so getting an early team in seems useful. I'm not entirely sure of my logic, but without much else to go on, and the knowledge that blindly rejecting gets us basically nowhere either (information is meaningless if all it is is a bunch of people policy-rejecting), I'm gonna give this one a shot.

I think the opposite is just as likely or even more likely. As soon as town feels comfortable voting for random candidates, scum can pass off voting for only teams with one of them on it more easily.

With about 35.5 hours remaining in this voting period, I have four of the seven votes in.

but if we just vote no every time, all we're doing is voting yes to Mown's team. if town refuses to vote for any team they're not on, no team will pass and we'll get to the fifth person and be stuck with their choice, with no actual information gained.

actually, interestingly, that present's another argument for why we should probably pass this one: if we just vote everything down, which we will because we have no new information added between votes, it's gonna fall on Mown, which means that that strategy assumes Mown is town. it only works if they are, otherwise it commits to sending a spy.

given that Mown is on this team, the strategy of passing forever is thus strictly dominated by the strategy of approving this mission. either Mown is scum, in which case both missions are in equal danger, or Mown is town, in which case both teams are equally strong, except that this one hasn't allowed scum to filter as much. your strategy inherently assumes we can trust Mown, so why not get it over with?

The difference is that the mission will involve Mown and whoever Mown chooses, which I think is more beneficial.

You're also operating under the assumption that the choices people make don't mean anything if they fail. That's not true, though. Having 5 people's selections to analyze is a much better game state for day 2, even if it slows the game down.

I'm not sure I see why. I guess it means that, assuming Mown is town, we're just looking at a 50/50 shot at them choosing town, but that means that you think odds are worse than that on Neo and I'm not sure why.

this is only true if there is some possibility of passing, though. if there isn't, if I know before I nominate that my team will be voted down, what incentive do I have to do anything but random selection, as scum or town?

It means we'll get to see, unadulterated, what Mown does which will either (if town) reflect a more-or-less randomized selection (50% odds of the selected person being town) or he'll be scum and have to decide between picking a townie or picking a scumbuddy (and facing the risk of a double fail).

There's also the fact that not everyone is following my strategy (Niklor, for example). It's entirely possible for someone to just decide to nominate someone other than themself which would give them 3 votes plus potentially niklor which would mean they only need to convince one person to swing it. Nominating other people might also potentially allow for improved reads against them and increase the chance of a double fail occurring.

There is always a possibility of passing. I think I'm the only one who has formally declared that this is what I'm doing d1, and even then I could be lying.

the double fail is a myth. it's just so damn easy to avoid I don't know why anyone pretends it's a real danger for the scum team. if Mown is scum the right play is to pick completely at random, just like it is if Mown is town. I'm not saying vote for this team, although I think it's a reasonable one to vote for, and I voted for it. I'm just saying that pre-committing like you did is bad because predictability is a lot easier manipulate as scum.

not nominating yourself is always a bad play. barring special circumstances we don't have yet, it's always bad for your team, no matter which team you're on. it doesn't make you scum if you do it, but unless you have a damn good reason (for instance in the last game Mown was under a lot of suspicion and knew they couldn't get a team with them on it passed, so they tried one without them because we weren't at the all-hands phase yet.) it's just always the wrong move.

pro tip for deception games: don't lie as town.

There's no way to perfectly avoid a double fail without cheating or breaking the spirit of the game (coming up with a policy to determine who fails outside of the game beforehand, etc). As long as I'm the only one who has clearly committed to this day 1 strat, it doesn't make me any easier to manipulate. The only manipulation they can manage off of it is that they can decide to include me with one of them (which I will still gladly approve).

Nominating a team without you on day 1 isn't that bad. Nominating a team without you later on is a bad idea.

I'm not lying, but you can't discount the possibility of it happening, even if it's sub-optimal play.

but the strategy to avoid it is hilariously obvious, demonstrably dominant, and fairly intuitive once you're in that situation. if you actually fall into a double-fail, you are literally the absolute worst.

there's seven people. if they know your vote in advance, they know the ties they can win.

from a town perspective, nominating a team without you on day 1 is 20% chance at a scumless team, as opposed to 50% if you're on it. that's awful.

I absolutely can discount it. I'll accept the possibility that you might be persuaded to change your mind, but if you just vote yes after repeating that you'll vote no over and over then you're a spy. Lynch All Liars is a really important philosophy, it removes a lot of wiggle room for scum while costing the town relatively little, so if you explicitly lie I will absolutely spend the rest of the game assuming you're a spy and rejecting every proposal you make or that has you on it, and if we lose because of it that's on you.

I'd ask you what you do to avoid double fails, but by doing so it might give scum a standard to work off of.

What ties they can win? Given that this is my day 1 strategy only, I don't see how them knowing my vote in advance helps them win ties.

But you have to eventually pass some sort of team and if everyone uses that logic you just end up having to accept the final person's proposal. You learn more from people electing day 1 teams made of other people than from making teams involving themselves.

I don't think lying is generally a good idea for town, but I think there are probably situations where lying has helped town before, even if overall the strategy is sub-optimal. I like to operate under the assumption that everyone knows what they're doing, but that's not always the case.

yeah I'm not answering that question right now. I'd be happy to discuss it post-game like I did privately last time but I'm not shooting myself in the foot on the off-chance that someone's actually bad enough at this to fall for the trap.

there's six people who aren't you. if those six split 3-3, you're the deciding vote, and you've told everyone exactly what your vote will be on every possible team.

this premise is only true if you start from the assumption that everyone should vote down every team they're not involved in, which is the exact stance I'm currently arguing against.

sure, there's times where lying has helped. but there's a lot more potential for scum to abuse the loophole if they get it, so the net benefit for the town is towards not lying, ever. in some extreme cases you may have to, but if it comes to light you'd better have a damn good explanation. but as a rule, if someone here claims their vote is one thing and it turns out to be different, I am going to assume they are a spy trying to manipulate things because that is a much more powerful play than petty town deception, and I recommend everyone else assume that too. (note, of course, that that's different from saying you're voting one way, then being convinced over the course of discussion and changing it.)

There is about 12 hours remaining in this voting period, and I have only 4 of 7 votes so far.

This is about an hour early, but I'll be out for the day and unable to post. Hopefully the last hour wasn't overly important to anyone, especially the absent votes.

Mission 1



Proposal 1.2

Leader: NeoSilk
Team: NeoSilk, Mown

NeoSilk - YES
Rubik - NO
Garren_Windspear - YES
razorborne - YES
Mown - NO
Zinger2099 - NO (defaulted)
Niklor - NO (defaulted)

Result: Team not approved, leadership passes to Niklor

Mown voted against himself?

For the record, I'm in favor of starting to vote yes for the first mission.

Propose me, Propose Neosilk.

round|nominator|team|Garren|Mown|Neo|Nik|Raz|Rubik|Zinger|Go?|Fails
1.1|Garren|Garren, Raz|{color=green}yes|{color=red}no|{color=red}no|{color=green}yes|{color=green}yes|{color=red}no|{color=red}no|{color=red}no|NA
1.2|Neo|Neo, Mown|{color=green}yes|{color=red}no|{color=green}yes|{color=red}no|{color=green}yes|{color=red}no|{color=red}no|{color=red}no|NA

for the record I'm not bothering to differentiate between a defaulted vote and a no vote, because if I did it'd be easy to use that deceptively. don't default on your votes people.

Mown, why the no? Garren, why the yes? Zinger, Nik, why the nothing?

Honestly? No real reason. At the moment I have no reason to suspect anyone of anything right now so I have no really reason to say no to a team.

Honestly, not paying much attention to this game. The nothing was a result of that lack of attention.

thanks for signing up for something you didn't intend to participate in. shows a lot of respect for the rest of us.