MTG Salvation

If you have questions about mafia, ask them here.
Keep in mind, asking about something from a current game is illegal EVEN IF YOU ARE DEAD IN THE GAME, and could get your playing priveleges suspended for a while.
Ex: Do not ask "I am the doc, and I protected MrJohn. If he is attacked by both the mafia and the sk, will he die?"
Ask "Does a doctor protection generally prevent two killing attempts against the target?"
The answer, unfortunately, to that and many other questions, depends on the host and rules of the game.

Theory questions about the effectiveness of random voting are perfectly fine here.

Thanks Vec for the thread.

My first question. WHat is proper Etiquette for Mafia games. Barring Posting restrictions of course, how should one post, vote, and Fos?

Well I think I will use this thread alot but the question that comes to mind right now was how I could use my ability in Random 2 to the best use for the town. I could not be lynched and if nightkilled came back. I had many ideas on how to use this, like claiming power townie and drawing a kill from actual townie but I was unsure if any of them would be good for the town. So with that ability what do you think is the best way to help the town? (to everyone)

SG: Considering you just simply can't die, you should, IMO, keep quiet...you wouldn't be doing any good by claiming (unless you've already "died").

Quote from Einsteinmonkey »

SG: Considering you just simply can't die, you should, IMO, keep quiet...you wouldn't be doing any good by claiming (unless you've already "died").

That is actully the play I made but it seemed at time that I wasting the ability by just sitting there. I don't know...It seems when you have an ability you should not act like a Vanilla. But then again sometimes it is the right play. Anyone see any cunning plans I missed?

FOS: Finger of Suspicion:
Some people will take high offence at an FoS, and some not care. In my experience here, this is treated almost as badly (and sometimes worse than) being voted. An FoS is used to tell someone that you think they are scum, or acting scummy.
Posting:
Posting regularly is useful, and lack of posting (lurking) and too much (spamming) posting can get you targetted by anyone, even simple townies. It is helpful to make sense in your posting and be logical. I will leave someone else to talk about this.
Voting:
Voting is obviously essential to mafia, as it is the only townie kill method guarenteed to be in every game (unless it happens to be altered radically from the basic mafia guidelines, which IMHO makes it not mafia...). A single vote in the earlygame is about as effective as an FoS, but may be taken a bit more seriously.
A vote without a reason behind it will generally be looked on as scummy, but even a newb scum can fake a reason to vote someone, assuming that someone has not played perfectly. Voting a lurking player occasionally occurs, but putting them within 2-3 votes of lynch is considered bad form, unless the town is agreed upon it.
Help me out here guys.

Quote from SorryGuy »

That is actully the play I made but it seemed at time that I wasting the ability by just sitting there. I don't know...It seems when you have an ability you should not act like a Vanilla. But then again sometimes it is the right play. Anyone see any cunning plans I missed?

Dunno...I was unlynchable in Super Mario RPG Mafia, and on the first day, to save another town player, I got myself "lynched". The mafia chose to take out another power role that night, and the other nights, so I ended up living to the end of the game...so you COULD confirm yourself as a townie, but it still seems like a better play to wait and see if anyone is unusually aggressive towards you.

Wait, sorryguy, could you die at all?

Quote from loran16 »

Wait, sorryguy, could you die at all?

I could and I did. If nightkilled I was zombified and came back after three days had passed.

SG:
You essentially were a vanilla, since you had no information or removal ability. You just happened to be A LOT of vanilla
I would play the role, keep good track of the game until the lategame, and then if you are sure of someone being a mafia, go after them. Claim to be an inspector or something (lategame, duh) You will draw a mafia kill probably, and buy one life for the town. The smart mafia would actually not target you unless the doc was gone, because of the high probability of the doc protecting you.

I have a question for everyone else:
You have probably seen the movie Princess Bride. Remember the wineglass scene with the outguessing and the poison, which happened to be Iocaine Powder. Well, how much do you think that should be applied to mafia/doc actions?
My guess would be that the doc should take the IP game to the first degree, which means protecting the claimed cop, because the mafia has essentially a 50/50 chance of targetting a claimer.
The mafia, knowing this, would take the game to the next degree, using IP logic to say that obviously the doc is going to protect the claim, so the target should be anyone but the claimer.
The question is whether the Doc should take IP to the third degree and protect anyone but the claimer.

I am pretty sure I left half the content of this post in my head, so sorry if it doesnt make as much sense as it should.

Quote from Vecna_Reborn »

SG:
You essentially were a vanilla, since you had no information or removal ability. You just happened to be A LOT of vanilla
I would play the role, keep good track of the game until the lategame, and then if you are sure of someone being a mafia, go after them. Claim to be an inspector or something (lategame, duh) You will draw a mafia kill probably, and buy one life for the town. The smart mafia would actually not target you unless the doc was gone, because of the high probability of the doc protecting you.

I have a question for everyone else:
You have probably seen the movie Princess Bride. Remember the wineglass scene with the outguessing and the poison, which happened to be Iocaine Powder. Well, how much do you think that should be applied to mafia/doc actions?
My guess would be that the doc should take the IP game to the first degree, which means protecting the claimed cop, because the mafia has essentially a 50/50 chance of targetting a claimer.
The mafia, knowing this, would take the game to the next degree, using IP logic to say that obviously the doc is going to protect the claim, so the target should be anyone but the claimer.
The question is whether the Doc should take IP to the third degree and protect anyone but the claimer.

I am pretty sure I left half the content of this post in my head, so sorry if it doesnt make as much sense as it should.

I assume you mean that:
a. Person claims inspector.
b. Obv conclusion, Doc protects inspector.
c. Obv conclusion, Why target inspector when hes obv protected
d. Should the Doc therefore try protecting someone else?

In my opinion, though im a newb, it depends on if the Doc knows if he successfully protected someone from a nightkill. If the Doc does know this, it is my opinion that he should protect the Claimed inspector the 1st night after the claim, and if he is targetted, protect him the 2nd night. Otherwise, the doc should protect someone else from then on. If he isnt targetted, the doc should protect him one more nigth, then protect someone else after that.

If the doc has no knowledge of his success, then he should protect the cop the 1st night only, then another preson thereafter.

The second night is of no importance. I need to know what the logical choice is for the first night, and why (not just to find out whether the person is targetted.)
The plus side of the doc protecting and finding out whether the person was targetted or not is that the doc (actually, coming forward is probably not a good idea) can claim that his protect target (the claimed cop) was targetted for a kill, which means that in a single mafia game, the claimed cop is definately pro town (or sk...)
This also works if no cop is left in the game, and two mafia members feel like taking a huge chance, which could lead to them both being "cleared" by the real town.

Damn, you even literally referenced the WIFOM scene right when you said it.

The logical choice is most definitely to protect the cop. Trying to outguess it here is pointlees, so you must assumet aht the actions will occur with equal probablility, unless you're a psych ,major. In that case, we see that the risks of protecting the cop and being wrong far outweigh the risks of protecting the not cop and being wrong.


Then again, I've never played Doc, so...

Safest play is to protect the doc.

From a game theory standpoint, though, your best odds are a mixed strategy - you protect the doc X% of the time and someone else the other percent of the time, although finding the exact X is nearly impossible.

I like calling it Iocaine Powder. Because there was a rockpaperscissors bot written called IocainePowder, which used a method to outguess the opponents outguessing system. It won the tournament. WIFOM sounds lame.
Do you have an opinion as to what the doc should optimally do, as well as what the mafia should do?
Actually, lets make this a game scenario.
Three players are left. One has just claimed cop, and he may or may not be it (he is not mafia). One player is the mafia, and they must get the kill correct that night to win. There is also a doc left. If he protects the wrong person, they lose, obviously.
Neither doc nor mafia has even hinted or shown possibility of being their role, and, like I said, the other townie claimed cop.

What is the optimal strategy for both players.

EDIT: Fade, you mean you protect the cop or the doc self protects.
Yes, let us assume the doc can self protect. (You may also assume he may not, and detail what he would do in that strategy. The mafia would obviously do the same thing in either plan, because they do not know about the doc's self protect status.

See, the thing is, if you protect someone else, there is the question of "who do you protect"? If you protect the cop, and the mafia hits the cop, you have a 100% chance of getting a successful protect. If The mafia attacks the not-cop, and you protect the cop, you have a (100/x)% chance of success, where X is the number of players left in the game minus 1.

Those numbers are flawed. I am calculating strictly numbers now, and will edit them in in a moment.
Doc randoms. If:
Doc protect claim: Mafia randoms. 50% chance of loss.
Doc protects self: Mafia randoms. 50% chance of loss.
Doc protects mafia: Mafia randoms. 100% chance of loss.
2/3 of the time, town loses that situation, if every choice is random between the three.
The chances grow worse for the town if more players are still alive (but obviously the more players will allow more chances to lynch the mafia as well.)
Therefore the doctor must self protect, or protect the claim.

EDIT: This scenario assumes doc can selfprotect.

Before i go to sleep i wanted to answer sorryguy.

I think Sorryguy shouldve claimed doc, though done so cleverly, day 1 (Make it an obvious subliminal claim and try to make it more and more obvious as you post.). The Real Doc is unlikely to claim in day 1 (At least i wouldnt), but would peg you for mafia. Meanwhile, the mafia wouldve gone after you, hopefully, and wasted a night kill, and youd pop back day 4 or so as a confirmed townie, reinforcing the town.

If the mafia doesnt kill you night 1, Id try and admit your role as the dalai llama.

Quote from Fayul »

See, the thing is, if you protect someone else, there is the question of "who do you protect"? If you protect the cop, and the mafia hits the cop, you have a 100% chance of getting a successful protect. If The mafia attacks the not-cop, and you protect the cop, you have a (100/x)% chance of success, where X is the number of players left in the game minus 1.

The optimal strategy is still not a pure strategy. It must be mixed, even if it's as random as "protect the cop 50% of the time, and everyone else %5 of the time" or whatever.

Vecna: In which scenario?

Quote from loran16 »

The Real Doc is unlikely to claim in day 1 (At least i wouldnt), but would peg you for mafia.

If this situation works as loran has said, the doc will also have not wasted his protect (assuming mafia didnt go after you) because the doc would never waste protecting someone who obviously claimed doc falsely.

Quote from Vecna_Reborn »

If you have questions about mafia, ask them here.
Keep in mind, asking about something from a current game is illegal, and could get your playing priveleges suspended for a while.
Ex: Do not ask "I am the doc, and I protected MrJohn. If he is attacked by both the mafia and the sk, will he die?"
Ask "Does a doctor protection generally prevent two killing attempts against the target?"
The answer, unfortunately, to that and many other questions, depends on the host and rules of the game.

The doc generally only protects once, like a regeneration shield in MTG. /myopinion

Hmm. That's a good example of a reason why we should be very careful with the types of questions we ask.

If someone who was playing in that game wandered in, they could use that as a clue to their identity. It's the type of question that should be PMed to a host, not posted here. Otherwise, we'll have people scouring it for hints about players' identities or alignment.

General strategy tips and theory discussion is good, but I would highly discourage people from asking questions relating to games they're in, or games that are still running.

Quote from Azrael »

General strategy tips and theory discussion is good, but I would highly discourage people from asking questions relating to games they're in, or games that are still running.

Exactly.
Which is why I have added things stating that referring to games that are still running is illegal.
I should also say that even if you are dead, it is still illegal to discuss your role specifics until it is over, even if the role pm is posted.

EDIT: Any use of I in a question, or a name, or something like that, is probably a bad idea. Saying "hypothetically blahblahblarg" is probably just as bad.
We dont want you getting killed because you asked a question about how a mafia should act, and made it (accidentally or not) obvious that you are mafia in some game.
EDIT: Ask me beforehand before revealing anything to me (just in case), but if you need to ask a question and it would make your role obvious if you posted it, I can front the question for you. (Because I am almost never in games. I probably will be ready to really in two weeks when finals are over, though.)

Subliminally claiming doc would have been the wrong choice with SG's role. All you could possibly do is get the real doc to counter claim and screw stuff up. You wouldn't want to claim you role since the town would test you. The best way to play it is to participate a lot and make good analysis. That draws mafia fire at you without drawing town suspicion.

On the doc protecting the cop or not protecting the cop thing: Always protect the cop IMO. Losing the cop makes the town's job infinitely harder. Of course there are circumstances where other protects are better ie. late game with like 5-6 people left an RB or vig is better then a cop.

@SorryGuy: The optimal play, imo, would be to hint at being an investigative role in very subtle ways. If the townies are wearing their thinking caps, they'll mot interogate you, for fear of outing a power role. This will direct the mafia's kill towards you, while avoiding doc protection. Basically, you want to look like a power role who accidently slipped a tell.

I believe you inadvertantly did so with this statement:

Quote from SorryGuy »

Finally has Hawkeye7 claimed anything. If not I would encourage a name claim. I can give reason but I prefer to not do so.

Not sure if that's why the mafia killed you, but it's exatcly the type of thing you should go for with such a role.

On the doc issue, I learned a very valuable lesson about playing doc in HS Mafia. You (usually) shouldn't be asking yourself "Who are the Mafia going to target?" but rather " Who would I be most unhappy to see dead tomorrow?" Twice in that game I let a valuable player die, because I was too busy trying to outguess the Mafia. The best play is to decide who is most valuable and protect them. That generally means, protect the cop.

@Kenji: In both games, I think you played about as well as you could with the roles you had. In Random 1, you were very forth coming with information that helped in clearing yourself(to most townies, anyway) as well as Fayul and Axel.

In Random 2, there were a number of "cunning plans" you could have executed, but none that I can think of that would be particularly helpful.

Here is a general question for all. When if ever should a townie lie? Should there be a LAL (Lynch All Liars) Rule? Should a vanilla townie take it upon themselves to lie about thier role in order to protect a REAL power role?

Quote from draygn_mage »

Here is a general question for all. When if ever should a townie lie? Should there be a LAL (Lynch All Liars) Rule? Should a vanilla townie take it upon themselves to lie about thier role in order to protect a REAL power role?

1) Almost never. There are exceptions, primarily when ommitting information about your own role if it won't hurt your credibility. Keeping an ability secret may turn out to be very useful. However, townies should pretty much never claim a role that they do not in fact have.
2) LAL needs to be applied with caution. In general, it's a metagame ploy to discourage townies from giving misinformation. But townies occasionally make mistakes (such as Fireball's Wake in Anime Mafia on News) or perhaps even mods make mistakes (9-year old girls anyone?), so the rule should not be followed blindly. Good townies should analyze all lies to determine whether they are intentional or not, and to find the motivations behind them.
3) No, vanillas should not take it upon themselves to be martyrs. The risk involved is generally too great, and sacrificing oneself to protect a power role requires predicting exactly how that power role is going to respond. A bad attempt to protect a power role will likely end up losing the power role instead.

Quote from Puzzle »

Fade, I already told you. Keep this on PMs.

Hm? The game's over already.

Anyway, for an example of a lie that was useful, I can at least recall HAWKEYE in Mythos Mafia, where he omitted mention of his kill ability. As Mafia, we had assumed that he only had a protection ability (which had already been demonstrated), so we were caught quite unawares when he nightkilled for the win.

Quote from Puzzle »

Hum, apparently not on the same wave length. Who spoke about a game ?

I don't know. I guess I just didn't understand the comment. What did you mean by "Keep this on PMs"?

EDIT: Oh, nevermind. Now I get it. (And yes, you can have the chubby one :p)

When role claiming, leaving out non-harmful info can sometimes be a good ploy to confuse the mafia. You have to be careful however. A good example of info that you could withhold is kill immunity on top of another ability. A good example would be an alternate win on top of the town win (unless its like mine in HS Mafia where it outs a mafia or SK). The Simon Cowell role is a good example of keeping the alt. win secret. Another example is being un-night killable on top of another role (ie. Ender in Random 2). This can waste mafia kills. Masons also need not reveal their parteners unless they have to, and even then their partners should be the ones revealing themselves. I'm really wary of singular masons, but thats just me and a few others. But 90% of the time pro-town players should not lie, and a few percent of those times is when the alternate win occurs.

Edit: BTW, someone has to quote Fadeblue out of conext on that one....

Quote from Kenji »

It is pretty much assumed that the cop and doc are the power roles of the town... but which is more powerful and which requires more skill to play?

Cops are far more powerful, and are usually harder to play.

Selecting the correct doc target by the book is an easy task. If you try to be a mind reader, and thwart the mafia kill each night, then it's much more difficult. Almost impossible.

Cops, on the other hand, have to strike a fine balance between nailing people that are already suspicious and can be taken down without investigation, clearing folks who are inscrutable whether they're townie or scum, pursuing lurkers, and following up on small leads. It's a very complicated task to pull it off correctly.

So, generally, the cop is more powerful and more skill-intensive, unless you try to be super-doc.

Quote from Kenji »

First off, which of these situations would you say is better:
1: Cop claimed, doc still unclaimed
2: Doc claimed [we'll assume that the doc has not said either way if he can or can not self-protect], cop unclaimed
3: Doc and Cop claimed

Now I want to say that situation 1 is the better as you have the cop working without fear of night kill, while the doc is working in secret to protect the cop.... opinions are welcome here.

Three is obviously the worst.

One is better if the mafia roleblocker is dead, and you don't have to worry about day-kills.

Two is better if the cop is an unlikely target, and/or the roleblocker or day-killer or cult leader (if any) is still alive.

Quote from Kenji »

Also, with the cop what would you hope for when you investigate someone? And how long would you wait before coming out with information? Much like Fadeblue had to do in 7th ed mafia, where he had investigated 3 townies and had 3 results saying they were townie, how long would you hold this information? If you got a result of mafia would you go one-for-one with the mafia or would you try and get more results?

You always hope for scum. The only reason town results are helpful are that they help you find mafia by process of elimination.

How long you wait depends on the situation. If there's a high probability of mafia interference: role-block, double-kill, day-kill, etc., it's best to keep your head down as long as you can.

Of course, if you're a highly likely target for a mafia night-kill, you'll want to claim relatively more quickly than a low profile cop. If you find two or more scum, that's generally a good time to claim, if you've established you're not paranoid etc. If you can find one scum, and/or clear a percentage of the town large enough to aid in process of elimination (40-50%), that's also a good time to claim.

However, one scum on its own usually isn't good enough to claim for, unless you're in serious jeopardy, or they represent a grave and present threat to the town (ex: townie analyst who has been "confirmed", and is steering all the lynches).

Also, the later in the day you make a cop claim, the more untainted information the town can gather. Otherwise, the mafia will adapt their strategy to avoid attacking cleared townies, or to avoid supporting their teammate.

Quote from kenji »

With a Doc, do you think a self-protecting doc is too strong? I've seen it said in places that it creates an un-killable player for the mafia, as they can't night kill and it is hard to lynch an un-countered doc....

All opinions welcome

A doctor who can protect himself every night is generally a bad idea, unless the mafia is compensated with sufficient role-blocking, day-killing, and extra killing abilities to overcome that disadvantage. It's a very powerful role.

I feel inclined to say that lying as a townie is okay, so long as you know what you are doing. You generally only want to do it when you can confirm yourself, you should throw in a subliminal claim in the post where you present the lie, and you should only do it when there's actually something to gain(i.e. claiming 4th fan in Random 1 was not an example of a good reason to lie). The instances where this is acceptable and strategically advantagous are few and far between.

Now that Newb 5 is over, I can ask this. I was cop and investigated Passdog, who came up scum. I was trying to get him lynched the next day without having to claim and expose myself, which met with some success, until he claimed cop. Did I make the right play by counter-claiming immediately? As it turned out, the last mafia to die was their roleblocker, so I didn't get any more investigations.

I hadn't read over that part of the game, so the situation may not have called for it, but the general answer is yes. Absolutely the right play.

Quote from Machin Shin »

Now that Newb 5 is over, I can ask this. I was cop and investigated Passdog, who came up scum. I was trying to get him lynched the next day without having to claim and expose myself, which met with some success, until he claimed cop. Did I make the right play by counter-claiming immediately? As it turned out, the last mafia to die was their roleblocker, so I didn't get any more investigations.

I wouldve tried to keep pushing Passdog's lynch for a little longer and see who was the slowest to get off the bandwagon, and who got off the fastest. THen I'd have looked to see who Pdog would try and get lynched next. After that was obvious, Id reveal cop and get passdog lynched. This method probably wouldve given you more important information. On the other hand, you're more likely to get lynched on that day than if you claimed as quickly as you did.

That's kinda what I was thinking loran, I already had some people suspicious of me for pushing the Passdog lynch as hard as I did. I really was making up stuff/ exaggerating possible tells to make him seem scummy, when really he'd done a perfectly good job of being a townie. He even had the day 1 lynch dropped in his lap by Puchik. It was dumb luck I investigated Passdog that night.

Normally that wouldn't work though. People don't like to keep their vote on a claimed cop. Sometimes, you can attack a player's choices if you KNOW he's scum. Ask who he investigated and what results he got. THEN counter claim him.

Quote from Machin Shin »

Now that Newb 5 is over, I can ask this. I was cop and investigated Passdog, who came up scum. I was trying to get him lynched the next day without having to claim and expose myself, which met with some success, until he claimed cop. Did I make the right play by counter-claiming immediately? As it turned out, the last mafia to die was their roleblocker, so I didn't get any more investigations.

Immediately? No. Eventually that day? Yes. Waiting to get as much information from him as D_M and others have alluded to would've been more beneficial. Days can drag long, and that's a good thing for the town. The more tells and tips you could have picked up on from Passdog before outing him as a phony, the better off you would have been in future days.

Agreed DM and DYH, I should've left off for a bit more. However, he said he investigated the nightkill, so he didn't have to reveal what he found out. I was mostly concerned that the longer I waited, the more I would look like the scum trying to make a claim to get a townie lynched.

Quote from Machin Shin »

Agreed DM and DYH, I should've left off for a bit more. However, he said he investigated the nightkill, so he didn't have to reveal what he found out. I was mostly concerned that the longer I waited, the more I would look like the scum trying to make a claim to get a townie lynched.

Errr I doubt it. You just say "I was waiting to see what information Passdog would spit out before I claimed but I am the real cop." Its a lot more convincing since you can say you INVESTIGATED passdog rather than him saying oh the guy i investigated got killed.

Odds are they'll pick passdog to lynch and you to lynch tomorrow if you were lying, whcih of course you were not.

Sarnathed by loran16 here. I was in the process of writing a big explanation, and he summed it up quite nicely.

The fact that you had a walking investigation and his was 6 feet under looks good in your favor. He goes first, if you lied, you're dead tomorrow.

Quote from draygn_mage »

Normally that wouldn't work though. People don't like to keep their vote on a claimed cop.

However, Statistics 101 will tell us that those people are wrong.
In a common Newb setup, there are 3 mafia (1 roleblocker), 1 cop, 1 doc.

Who will claim Doc before dying? The true doc, and the Roleblocker Mafia.
Who will claim Cop before dying? The true cop, and both non-Roleblocker Mafia.

Therefor, having no information other than "he claimed cop before dying" gives us, surprisingly, a 67% chance of the person being mafia. And of course, if he exhibited significant scummy behavior, the chance is far greater.

In the case described, the town as a group had to take a leap of faith and lynch the claimed cop despite his claim, without outing the real cop.

And if you hadn't gotten yourself lynched day 1 you could have pointed that out to us "newbs".

If I may ask:
How often would you (plural, adressing all experienced players reading), if you were mafia, shoot down a fellow mafia member to gain super-cred? See the near-endgame of Newb Mafia 5 when serge takes me down single-handedly for reference.

Case in point: He damn near won for me simply by shooting me. Is this a prevalent mafia tactic? An advised mafia tactic? A shunned mafia tactic? Does this even work outside a Newb game?

Quote from Peregrine Falcon »

If I may ask:
How often would you (plural, adressing all experienced players reading), if you were mafia, shoot down a fellow mafia member to gain super-cred? See the near-endgame of Newb Mafia 5 when serge takes me down single-handedly for reference.

Case in point: He damn near won for me simply by shooting me. Is this a prevalent mafia tactic? An advised mafia tactic? A shunned mafia tactic? Does this even work outside a Newb game?

It might indeed work in non-newb games. The problem is that in a non-newb mafia game that with more players and more roles, it becomes more dangerous for the mafia to deliberately eliminate one of their number. What happens if an SK or a rogue Vigilante (Like Wolg in HS Mafia) or even a cult leader targets you once people think you are a confirmed townie? Also, note that with Cop inspections and whatnot, you could also have been found out by the Cop regardless of your acting.

Id say its probably a good idea in a mini game, but in a regular sized game i wouldnt try the idea.

Quote from Puchik2 »

However, Statistics 101 will tell us that those people are wrong.
In a common Newb setup, there are 3 mafia (1 roleblocker), 1 cop, 1 doc.

Who will claim Doc before dying? The true doc, and the Roleblocker Mafia.
Who will claim Cop before dying? The true cop, and both non-Roleblocker Mafia.

Therefor, having no information other than "he claimed cop before dying" gives us, surprisingly, a 67% chance of the person being mafia. And of course, if he exhibited significant scummy behavior, the chance is far greater.

In the case described, the town as a group had to take a leap of faith and lynch the claimed cop despite his claim, without outing the real cop.

@Puchik: Statistics 102 (I'm an advanced student) tells you to be wary of ALL statistics.

You use fallacious reasoning to create your 67%.

In any situation where there are two claimants for a role there is only a 50% chance that either of them are mafia. (100% divide 2). For there to be a 67% chance there would need to be three claimants.

The only sensical, and thankfully non-statistical, statement you have made thus far is in reference of the fact that each of the cops behaviours must be compared and the scummiest one lynched.

Now a question: Why will only the roleblocker mafia claim doc? I am of the opinion that, in most circumstances, mafia should never fake claim at all unless threatened with a lynch. When they are threatened they should nearly always claim something to either get out of trouble or reveal more info about the game where possible.

Quote from Passdog »

@Puchik: Statistics 102 (I'm an advanced student) tells you to be wary of ALL statistics.

You use fallacious reasoning to create your 67%.

In any situation where there are two claimants for a role there is only a 50% chance that either of them are mafia. (100% divide 2). For there to be a 67% chance there would need to be three claimants.

The only sensical, and thankfully non-statistical, statement you have made thus far is in reference of the fact that each of the cops behaviours must be compared and the scummiest one lynched.

Now a question: Why will only the roleblocker mafia claim doc? I am of the opinion that, in most circumstances, mafia should never fake claim at all unless threatened with a lynch. When they are threatened they should nearly always claim something to either get out of trouble or reveal more info about the game where possible.

Well the roleblocker shouldnt claim it unless he's goint to get lynched, but he should claim doc cause its more important for the mafia to kill the doc so they can kill the cop. If the roleblocker claims cop, the roleblocker is lynched and the cop is safely protected by doc and is free to inspect out the mafia.

PF I'd say that while it worked surprisingly well here, it isn't as likely to work later. In reality, we should've picked up on how scummy Serge was and at least had an eye on him. That said, I do llike your idea of having a code word to let the other mafia know it's ok to jump on you. If it's apparent you're going down anyway, might as well have your buddies get "cleared" by helping to lynch scum.

As for the roleblocker claiming doc, I think loran has it right.

Quote from Passdog »

@Puchik: Statistics 102 (I'm an advanced student) tells you to be wary of ALL statistics.

You use fallacious reasoning to create your 67%.

In any situation where there are two claimants for a role there is only a 50% chance that either of them are mafia.

Bolded for emphasis.
I think you misunderstood my argument. My argument was that the town should have never reached the situation where there are two claimants to the role at all.

What they should have done is stop and think: Ok, Passdog claimed Cop when facing an imminent lynch; so who is he? Or rather, who is he NOT? He is not the Doc. He is not a vanilla townie. He is not the Roleblocker Mafia. He can only be a non-Roleblocker mafia (of which there are 2), or the real Cop (of which there is 1). Hence, basic 67% chance of scumness, if we're ignoring all other evidence. And since the town, as a group, already evaluated the chance of you being mafia at much higher than 67%, they should have just went on with the lynch.

Note that this logic only applies in this particular setup, of course.

Nonetheless, Puchik2, I think that claiming cop will do what is wanted: inevitably, there will be at least one townie who says "Woah, wait, anyone counterclaiming?" At that point, either the cop is known or the mafioso is safe. Either is a good outcome from the mafia's POV. There's always at least one townie who needs to know if there are counterclaims.