Isn't EpicMafia supposed to be completely terrible?
It's bad, short, messy and ultimately unskilled Mafia... but nothing like the "middle rule" happens very much in forum mafia. The first time you get killed because the seer's message has you in the middle you will want to throw your computer across the room. The first time you successfully get the town to mislynch the person in the middle as scum, you will laugh at the stupidity of sheeple.
Town of Salem was a lot more fun, though in the end altogether similar to Epicmafia. Just with a more standardized set of roles...
The company I'll be working for preps and stores legal documents on a database. My job will be searching for and sending out these documents to our clients.
That is definitely something I have addressed, although I haven't put a name to it. It comes up when talking about worst-case scenarios, and it can be rectified by diversifying tools for interaction (for example a roleblocker and a bus driver overlap in functionality), and also by distributing power to spread the "keystone" aspect amongst more players.
It is certainly something I look for early on: lots of game designers chuck in counter plays (most commonly Mafia roleblockers) and just call it a day without thinking about what happens if they die early.
Alright, I have added a section about "keystone" roles (although I didn't use that actual term). I think the best way to avoid them is to add redundancy, either by having roles that overlap in usage (like roleblocker and redirector), or more literally with backups.
At this stage, I'm pretty happy with it all, so I'm going to be passing it on to the other guys in the Council to have a look, then I can finally get this thing actually posted.
Double post, new thing: Does anyone want to play Diplomacy? It's super fun and has a similar skill set to Mafia (i.e lying through teeth, backstabbing, plotting, etc)
Double post, new thing: Does anyone want to play Diplomacy? It's super fun and has a similar skill set to Mafia (i.e lying through teeth, backstabbing, plotting, etc)
I'd be down. I like the game, although in my group of friends, I was always the person who got teamed up on.
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Yeah, how we'd do it is using http://www.backstabbr.com/ We can either use the in-built orders system, or if we want to be more flexible with deadlines and mistakes, I can setup up a gimmick account on here that everyone PMs orders to, then I submit those orders and post the map.
Over the past couple months I've been reviewing my past town games and to be perfectly blunt, I'm not happy with them. It feels like I always attract lynch pressure, regardless of alignment, and I feel like my mislynch ratio is too high (I've been lynched Day 1 recently in an ongoing game, and Day 2 in an offsite game). I've had some wins, to be sure, but those wins honestly felt like they came from riding the coattails of someone else.
In addition, I feel like my reads accuracy could use a little fine tuning - for some reason, whenever I play a game with someone I've played before, my first reaction is to think "are they similar to [this other game]?" I think I rely too much on meta, which I've tried to combat recently by playing in various off-site games where I don't know the players too well.
Does anyone have any tips to fend off pressure and get better at behavioral/mindset analysis? Two things I've been trying to work with are investing myself fully in one game (play one game at a time, in other words) and for every single post I read, try to get into that poster's head and discerning their motivations. Both of these have worked okay so far.
For the first point, I haven't reviewed your games at all, but see if there's a common trend for why you get run up. Some things are easier to spot and fix, like lurking, but if there's any consistency that gives you an obvious thing to look at. Otherwise, I guess just try and be very transparent in your thought process, and don't overreact to one or two votes on you. I'd also say it's valuable to know when to stop arguing: people don't read back-and-forth quote walls, and it just makes you annoyed doing it. If you can't convince someone quickly that they're wrong, just move on and try to demonstrate it by scumhunting and being a positive contributor. Also try and see things from their point of view: it's entirely possible they're scum and being deliberately belligerent (this obviously needs to be handled carefully because of OMGUS). Lastly, before you post, think carefully "how does this advance me towards my win condition?". This is something people do as scum, but not so much as town, which I think is a mistake. That means you need to be aware of how you are perceived, whether dropping roles hints is valuable, whether now is the right time to change a read on someone, if your post looks like fence-sitting or OMGUS or coaching. Many people just think "I'm town, so my posts will just naturally be townie", but that's obviously false: you still have to try to make sure it is clear you are town.
Second point, I absolutely agree on being in only one game at a time. I'd recommend keeping some sort of notes, even if it's just a running T/S list with post numbers that support your reads, just so you can keep things straight. Attempting to deduce a mindset is very strong (but difficult), and I think meta has a lot of value, so long as it's supported with something else, and you examine both Town and Scum games to support a meta read. For me, behavioural analysis mostly boils down to "are they helping the town?", which works early game at least. Later in the game, you have to look at interactions (scum HATE giving strong opinions on their buddies) and how consistent a player's opinions have been throughout the game. You also do reach a point where you can look at things like POE on Night abilities (who had an opportunity to kill/RB/whatever?). It's totally fine to have assumptions that players X,Y,Z are town, but you need to keep note of why you think that and revisit them and challenge your assumptions periodically: lots of Scum (myself included) are good at coasting by on appearing town without anyone actually having a good reason why. Finally, while doubt always makes things difficult, you should give your gut some weight because it's very easy to think someone is scum and see everything they do through that lens. My rule of thumb is that if you're ever 100% sure about someone being scum, you're probably wrong.
At the end of the day though, sometimes you get lynched and you couldn't have done anything to stop it. Sometimes people are scummy as all hell yet still conspire to be town. So don't over-analyse everything and look at the big picture instead.
I've been incorporating many of the strategies that you've already listed (like not overreacting and moving on when someone is clearly being unproductive scumreading you), but what do you mean by being aware of how you're perceived? In my opinion that's likely to be more like scum behavior than town, since townies don't really care about how they're perceived, they're interested only in lynching scum. I fell into the trap of "trying super hard to be townie as town" in a recent game and I think it just introduced an air of artificalness to my already artifical posts, and made it more difficult for others to clear me.
Yeah, I would prefer if townies don't forcefully act like townies. It's easier to read them when they're not trying so hard.
I'm a big notes guy (here's an example of some old notes) so I 100% agree with you on that. I'll definitely try to ask myself "are they helping the town?" when I'm reading posts, it'll help me parse their mindset a bit more. I love looking at interactions and vote analysis later in the game, but I really like your point about challenging your assumptions; there has been way too many times that I've had scum coast due to a strong town read I've formed on them and kept re-affirming to myself. This is a great rule, heh:
Quote from Eco »
My rule of thumb is that if you're ever 100% sure about someone being scum, you're probably wrong.
I'll definitely try to put into practice some of what you've said in my recent games and hope that I perform well in them.
While I think it's true that scum are more worried about how they appear, I think it's naive to think that townies shouldn't be self aware. After all, if townies were all just obvious then there wouldn't be so many mislynches. You don't necessarily have to try super hard to be town, you just have to be concious of how other will perceive your actions, and personally I don't think it's sufficient to just think "I'm Town so if I just post without thinking about it it my alignment will be obvious". Simple examples would be that every time you say something like "I know I haven't posted in a week but I'll reread soon" and then don't reread, that looks scummy. OMGUSing people looks scummy (even though it's not really a good tell). Fence-sitting looks scummy.
You should just be aware of how your actions might be perceived, and avoid doing scummy things. If you have to do something that might look scummy, can you rephrase or change it to look less scummy? Would doing something at another time be a better strategical choice? You are town after all, you just have to make sure everyone knows it - and I don't think that you can effectively do that by just assuming that your towniness will magically shine through. Don't ever assume you can get away with sloppy or scummy play just because you are town.
***
In other news, long-lost Family member ced is interested in the Diplomacy game, as long as it doesn't start for a couple of weeks (which I wasn't expecting it to anyway). This means we only need one more person!
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
So, my take on scumhunting is what I like to call "Electron Cloud Theory".
Why call it Electron Cloud Theory? Well, in quantum physics, atoms are constantly in motion, creating and breaking bonds with other atoms, and so forth.
The old Bohr diagram of atoms is one you guys are probably familiar with:
* A clump of protons and neutrons in the center
* A few rings around the nucleus where electrons travel
Well, that's not quite how it works.
Electrons are constantly in flux - they move from one energy level to another, jumping all over the place in fractions of a second. They're constantly disappearing and reappearing all over an atom! Electrons shared by atoms are called "valence electrons", and they're how bonds are formed between atoms to compose the elements and compounds we're familiar with.
"But Iso, what the hell does this have to do with Mafia?"
It's simple!
Imagine a Mafia game as a snapshot of an atom at a single moment in time.
You know that this atom has protons, neutrons, and electrons (town, scum, possible neutrals, though not necessarily in that order). You know where the protons and neutrons are (in that you're one!), as well as roughly how many of each the atom will have based on what type of element the atom is (Mini, Normal, Specialty, Micro, PCQ, etc.). However, what you can't know without freezing the atom in time is which players are which particles, nor where in the atom they are located.
Electron Cloud Theory as it applies to Mafia is basically this: By pinpointing what particles and locations the other players represent in your atomic model, you can then reasonably deduce what you don't know about the state of the game!
Confused? Here's an overly simplified example:
Let's say that Iso and Prophylaxis are scum and town, respectively. Rhand (for example) might be super paranoid of Iso due to his claimed inability to read Iso. So, Rhand observes something scummy Iso does in an attack on Prophylaxis, and makes a mental note that Iso and Prophylaxis are probably unaligned, with Iso leaning scum of the pair. Rhand has plotted out two possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Let's take it a step deeper.
Ecophagy, in this same game, decides Prophylaxis is the scum of the Iso/Prophylaxis dichotomy, for whatever reason. Ecophagy pushes the Prophylaxis lynch, while Rhand pushes the Iso lynch. Ecophagy assumes Rhand is scum for pushing what he believes is obviously town Iso over the option to push obviously scum Prophylaxis. Let's say that somebody Daykills Iso (and, let's face it, this is almost always the correct decision!), who then flips scum. Ecophagy may look worse from this exchange, but he can then deduce that Rhand is more likely to be town for pushing the Iso lynch over the Prophylaxis lynch. Ecophagy can then re-examine his reads by re-reading the game with the new information that Iso is scum, and pick up on some interactions that he may have previously missed. Ecophagy has plotted out more possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Let's get even deeper.
ZeDorkSlipeur, also in this game, was pushing a different player over both Iso and Prophylaxis - let's say Ecophagy, in this case - and then Iso gets Daykilled, flipping scum. ZeDorkSlipeur's first inclination would probably be to naturally laser focus his attack on Ecophagy, but then Ecophagy re-reads and picks up on some stuff that he initially missed, posting his thoughts in a very organic and transparent manner. ZeDorkSlipeur decides that because he likes Ecophagy's notes dump, that Ecophagy is more likely to be town, in this scenario. He also approved of the manner in which Rhand was attacking Iso, and made note of the Iso/Proph interactions earlier, as well. ZeDorkSlipeur has plotted out more possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Now, let's fully bring it back around.
Prophylaxis, who has mostly been exonerated by result of the Iso attack and subsequent scum flip, observes the processes that Rhand, Ecophagy, and ZeDorkSlipeur all go through as mentioned above, and he can then also plot out points on his electron cloud.
It may seem like common sense, but a lot of players don't go that deeply into the thought process that other players are committing to as they analyze the game. A lot of townies react to things in a visceral, emotional way, and that strikes some people as shallow analysis, which in turn, makes the emotional townies read scummy to them. If you can read a player's thought process, you can read that player. If you can read the flow of the game, you can pick up on who capitalizes on said flow to the detriment of the town.
Oftentimes, I like to lynch townies whose alignments I'm uncertain about. "But Iso, that puts you closer to LyoL!" Yes, but when an alignment you're uncertain of is confirmed, it really helps you in read clarity and solving which pieces of your atom snapshot you're missing. Sometimes, an entire scumteam read is contingent upon a single person flipping town or scum. Obviously, you can't necessarily trust another person's read on someone else, so sometimes you have to get the blood of the town on your hands to win. Not only is this okay, it should be encouraged, as it will also help weaker town players find new ways to make themselves more transparently townie.
Laziness (i.e. not re-reading when you should), desire to be correct, tunneling, anger (or other strong emotional reactions to something), shallow analysis, lack of time/focus due to OoG matters, and occasionally paranoia are all things that hurt a townie's ability to be a fully objective analyst.
The biggest weakness in Electron Cloud Theory is that when you're solving unknowns, if you happen to be hitting a lot of town, then it looks like you're scum trying to mislynch as many people as possible! I'm still personally trying to figure out how to explain to people that being wrong about every lynch up to a certain point means I'm solving the game and that in LyoL, I will be lynching the correct people. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having high expectations placed upon you as a player and looking like you're not being of benefit to the town. Unfortunately, Electron Cloud Theory also requires that your unknowns get solved before the rest of the game can be figured out, so even a single lynch on a player whose alignment you've already figured out can have a catastrophic effect on your ability to piece out the rest of the game.
Once one understands how a player flipping town or scum reveals so much more about the state of the game, then I believe Electron Cloud Theory will become a more prominently employed scumhunting strategy.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I am not going to lie I just view that as a less refined version of what I do. I mean you gave it a fancy name but to me that read like "yeah, that's how you play mafia I agree." I mean you're not wrong I just don't think it needed a fancy explanation and it makes excuses (or 'gives reasons') for sub-optimal play. I lynch townies too I just try really hard not to, and I learn the same lessons you do from their flip. Yeah like you're not wrong about much you've said there, but if more people employed it in that exact manner the game would suffer because you need the human elements of the game (anger, paranoia, etc) to help clear people.
Basically I don't have a fancy name for it but everyone needs to understand "things that scum will never say" and "things scum can't do and then win."
I ... think I may have like a 98% clear rate when I tell someone "scum would never say that." Not "this player as scum would never say that", that has less accuracy, but "in no world that exists does scum say that." I think that is one of the best things I am good at recognizing. There are moments of pure honesty where a townie just... says something that no one trying to win the game says. No one trying to have some hidden motive could conjure. Mind you I can recognize these due to a lot of experience and insight, but I think if you had that capacity Iso along with what you described above you'd be a far scarier town player. Then again I would also slaughter you more when you are scum because of raised expectations, but that's part of what makes my scum game so impressive: everyone is looking for it, everyone respects my town game, and I still win a good clip.
Also that whole part about 'a lynch on a player you've town cleared'
think about all of the people you've murdered in front of me when I begged you not to.
</3
Private Mod Note
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2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang) 2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer 2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator) 2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia 2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational 2015 - Best Town Player 2015 - Best Mafia Player 2015 - Best Overall Player
It's an informative way to lay it out, but I wouldn't say it was revolutionary, since it basically seems to be a strategy of continuously evaluating one's reads as more information (particularly alignments) comes to light. It's interesting that the fundamental idea behind it is to solve the game, rather than just catch scum: you'd prefer to lynch a townie to resolve a read on someone else than to lynch scum that you already know about.
Also, and this is pedantic, but I wouldn't say electron clouds is that good a metaphor. The "clouds" are a way of saying "electrons are difficult to tell exactly where they are, but we know they likely are in this area somewhere". You never actually know for sure where the electrons are, and you couldn't derive their position from other electrons anyway.
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
It's bad, short, messy and ultimately unskilled Mafia... but nothing like the "middle rule" happens very much in forum mafia. The first time you get killed because the seer's message has you in the middle you will want to throw your computer across the room. The first time you successfully get the town to mislynch the person in the middle as scum, you will laugh at the stupidity of sheeple.
Town of Salem was a lot more fun, though in the end altogether similar to Epicmafia. Just with a more standardized set of roles...
It is certainly something I look for early on: lots of game designers chuck in counter plays (most commonly Mafia roleblockers) and just call it a day without thinking about what happens if they die early.
At this stage, I'm pretty happy with it all, so I'm going to be passing it on to the other guys in the Council to have a look, then I can finally get this thing actually posted.
EDIT: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rs2OxvAJ8Lhs7bwxX2bUBD9EU_FvzgcE-uenbfmNRq8/pub
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
The GJ way path to no lynching:
Yeah, how we'd do it is using http://www.backstabbr.com/ We can either use the in-built orders system, or if we want to be more flexible with deadlines and mistakes, I can setup up a gimmick account on here that everyone PMs orders to, then I submit those orders and post the map.
/in 5/7
Eco
KillJoy
Iso
Proph
GJ
In addition, I feel like my reads accuracy could use a little fine tuning - for some reason, whenever I play a game with someone I've played before, my first reaction is to think "are they similar to [this other game]?" I think I rely too much on meta, which I've tried to combat recently by playing in various off-site games where I don't know the players too well.
Does anyone have any tips to fend off pressure and get better at behavioral/mindset analysis? Two things I've been trying to work with are investing myself fully in one game (play one game at a time, in other words) and for every single post I read, try to get into that poster's head and discerning their motivations. Both of these have worked okay so far.
Second point, I absolutely agree on being in only one game at a time. I'd recommend keeping some sort of notes, even if it's just a running T/S list with post numbers that support your reads, just so you can keep things straight. Attempting to deduce a mindset is very strong (but difficult), and I think meta has a lot of value, so long as it's supported with something else, and you examine both Town and Scum games to support a meta read. For me, behavioural analysis mostly boils down to "are they helping the town?", which works early game at least. Later in the game, you have to look at interactions (scum HATE giving strong opinions on their buddies) and how consistent a player's opinions have been throughout the game. You also do reach a point where you can look at things like POE on Night abilities (who had an opportunity to kill/RB/whatever?). It's totally fine to have assumptions that players X,Y,Z are town, but you need to keep note of why you think that and revisit them and challenge your assumptions periodically: lots of Scum (myself included) are good at coasting by on appearing town without anyone actually having a good reason why. Finally, while doubt always makes things difficult, you should give your gut some weight because it's very easy to think someone is scum and see everything they do through that lens. My rule of thumb is that if you're ever 100% sure about someone being scum, you're probably wrong.
At the end of the day though, sometimes you get lynched and you couldn't have done anything to stop it. Sometimes people are scummy as all hell yet still conspire to be town. So don't over-analyse everything and look at the big picture instead.
I've been incorporating many of the strategies that you've already listed (like not overreacting and moving on when someone is clearly being unproductive scumreading you), but what do you mean by being aware of how you're perceived? In my opinion that's likely to be more like scum behavior than town, since townies don't really care about how they're perceived, they're interested only in lynching scum. I fell into the trap of "trying super hard to be townie as town" in a recent game and I think it just introduced an air of artificalness to my already artifical posts, and made it more difficult for others to clear me.
As fadeblue once said:
I'm a big notes guy (here's an example of some old notes) so I 100% agree with you on that. I'll definitely try to ask myself "are they helping the town?" when I'm reading posts, it'll help me parse their mindset a bit more. I love looking at interactions and vote analysis later in the game, but I really like your point about challenging your assumptions; there has been way too many times that I've had scum coast due to a strong town read I've formed on them and kept re-affirming to myself. This is a great rule, heh:
I'll definitely try to put into practice some of what you've said in my recent games and hope that I perform well in them.
You should just be aware of how your actions might be perceived, and avoid doing scummy things. If you have to do something that might look scummy, can you rephrase or change it to look less scummy? Would doing something at another time be a better strategical choice? You are town after all, you just have to make sure everyone knows it - and I don't think that you can effectively do that by just assuming that your towniness will magically shine through. Don't ever assume you can get away with sloppy or scummy play just because you are town.
***
In other news, long-lost Family member ced is interested in the Diplomacy game, as long as it doesn't start for a couple of weeks (which I wasn't expecting it to anyway). This means we only need one more person!
/in 6/7
Eco
KillJoy
Iso
Proph
GJ
ced
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Clouds?
I'm curious as well!
Why call it Electron Cloud Theory? Well, in quantum physics, atoms are constantly in motion, creating and breaking bonds with other atoms, and so forth.
The old Bohr diagram of atoms is one you guys are probably familiar with:
* A clump of protons and neutrons in the center
* A few rings around the nucleus where electrons travel
Well, that's not quite how it works.
Electrons are constantly in flux - they move from one energy level to another, jumping all over the place in fractions of a second. They're constantly disappearing and reappearing all over an atom! Electrons shared by atoms are called "valence electrons", and they're how bonds are formed between atoms to compose the elements and compounds we're familiar with.
"But Iso, what the hell does this have to do with Mafia?"
It's simple!
Imagine a Mafia game as a snapshot of an atom at a single moment in time.
You know that this atom has protons, neutrons, and electrons (town, scum, possible neutrals, though not necessarily in that order). You know where the protons and neutrons are (in that you're one!), as well as roughly how many of each the atom will have based on what type of element the atom is (Mini, Normal, Specialty, Micro, PCQ, etc.). However, what you can't know without freezing the atom in time is which players are which particles, nor where in the atom they are located.
Electron Cloud Theory as it applies to Mafia is basically this: By pinpointing what particles and locations the other players represent in your atomic model, you can then reasonably deduce what you don't know about the state of the game!
Confused? Here's an overly simplified example:
Let's say that Iso and Prophylaxis are scum and town, respectively. Rhand (for example) might be super paranoid of Iso due to his claimed inability to read Iso. So, Rhand observes something scummy Iso does in an attack on Prophylaxis, and makes a mental note that Iso and Prophylaxis are probably unaligned, with Iso leaning scum of the pair. Rhand has plotted out two possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Let's take it a step deeper.
Ecophagy, in this same game, decides Prophylaxis is the scum of the Iso/Prophylaxis dichotomy, for whatever reason. Ecophagy pushes the Prophylaxis lynch, while Rhand pushes the Iso lynch. Ecophagy assumes Rhand is scum for pushing what he believes is obviously town Iso over the option to push obviously scum Prophylaxis. Let's say that somebody Daykills Iso (and, let's face it, this is almost always the correct decision!), who then flips scum. Ecophagy may look worse from this exchange, but he can then deduce that Rhand is more likely to be town for pushing the Iso lynch over the Prophylaxis lynch. Ecophagy can then re-examine his reads by re-reading the game with the new information that Iso is scum, and pick up on some interactions that he may have previously missed. Ecophagy has plotted out more possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Let's get even deeper.
ZeDorkSlipeur, also in this game, was pushing a different player over both Iso and Prophylaxis - let's say Ecophagy, in this case - and then Iso gets Daykilled, flipping scum. ZeDorkSlipeur's first inclination would probably be to naturally laser focus his attack on Ecophagy, but then Ecophagy re-reads and picks up on some stuff that he initially missed, posting his thoughts in a very organic and transparent manner. ZeDorkSlipeur decides that because he likes Ecophagy's notes dump, that Ecophagy is more likely to be town, in this scenario. He also approved of the manner in which Rhand was attacking Iso, and made note of the Iso/Proph interactions earlier, as well. ZeDorkSlipeur has plotted out more possible particle locations in his electron cloud!
Now, let's fully bring it back around.
Prophylaxis, who has mostly been exonerated by result of the Iso attack and subsequent scum flip, observes the processes that Rhand, Ecophagy, and ZeDorkSlipeur all go through as mentioned above, and he can then also plot out points on his electron cloud.
It may seem like common sense, but a lot of players don't go that deeply into the thought process that other players are committing to as they analyze the game. A lot of townies react to things in a visceral, emotional way, and that strikes some people as shallow analysis, which in turn, makes the emotional townies read scummy to them. If you can read a player's thought process, you can read that player. If you can read the flow of the game, you can pick up on who capitalizes on said flow to the detriment of the town.
Oftentimes, I like to lynch townies whose alignments I'm uncertain about. "But Iso, that puts you closer to LyoL!" Yes, but when an alignment you're uncertain of is confirmed, it really helps you in read clarity and solving which pieces of your atom snapshot you're missing. Sometimes, an entire scumteam read is contingent upon a single person flipping town or scum. Obviously, you can't necessarily trust another person's read on someone else, so sometimes you have to get the blood of the town on your hands to win. Not only is this okay, it should be encouraged, as it will also help weaker town players find new ways to make themselves more transparently townie.
Laziness (i.e. not re-reading when you should), desire to be correct, tunneling, anger (or other strong emotional reactions to something), shallow analysis, lack of time/focus due to OoG matters, and occasionally paranoia are all things that hurt a townie's ability to be a fully objective analyst.
The biggest weakness in Electron Cloud Theory is that when you're solving unknowns, if you happen to be hitting a lot of town, then it looks like you're scum trying to mislynch as many people as possible! I'm still personally trying to figure out how to explain to people that being wrong about every lynch up to a certain point means I'm solving the game and that in LyoL, I will be lynching the correct people. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having high expectations placed upon you as a player and looking like you're not being of benefit to the town. Unfortunately, Electron Cloud Theory also requires that your unknowns get solved before the rest of the game can be figured out, so even a single lynch on a player whose alignment you've already figured out can have a catastrophic effect on your ability to piece out the rest of the game.
Once one understands how a player flipping town or scum reveals so much more about the state of the game, then I believe Electron Cloud Theory will become a more prominently employed scumhunting strategy.
Or, you can just catch all of the scum on Day 1.
Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. Any questions?
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Basically I don't have a fancy name for it but everyone needs to understand "things that scum will never say" and "things scum can't do and then win."
I ... think I may have like a 98% clear rate when I tell someone "scum would never say that." Not "this player as scum would never say that", that has less accuracy, but "in no world that exists does scum say that." I think that is one of the best things I am good at recognizing. There are moments of pure honesty where a townie just... says something that no one trying to win the game says. No one trying to have some hidden motive could conjure. Mind you I can recognize these due to a lot of experience and insight, but I think if you had that capacity Iso along with what you described above you'd be a far scarier town player. Then again I would also slaughter you more when you are scum because of raised expectations, but that's part of what makes my scum game so impressive: everyone is looking for it, everyone respects my town game, and I still win a good clip.
Also that whole part about 'a lynch on a player you've town cleared'
think about all of the people you've murdered in front of me when I begged you not to.
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2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
Also, and this is pedantic, but I wouldn't say electron clouds is that good a metaphor. The "clouds" are a way of saying "electrons are difficult to tell exactly where they are, but we know they likely are in this area somewhere". You never actually know for sure where the electrons are, and you couldn't derive their position from other electrons anyway.