#20: How To Put Wolves In A Box (by Newcomb)

[LordQuas]

white flag is a varied, fun, and interesting setup (that can usually balanced)

but probably a TERRIBLE idea for a champs setup considering the uh, varied skill levels of players sometimes. We also wouldn't get great moments like g4 or BATMAN's solo win

Lastly it's pretty unconventional. Simply put, a lot people aren't going to be used to powerwolfing in this kind of setup and it just won't be familiar territory to them. Forcing a certain playstyle (especially a nonstandard one) is prolly just a bad idea when concept of champs is to take people from across a wide variety of forums/discords/live communities etc

[Secondhand Revenant]

white flag is a varied, fun, and interesting setup (that can usually balanced)

but probably a TERRIBLE idea for a champs setup considering the uh, varied skill levels of players sometimes. We also wouldn't get great moments like g4 or BATMAN's solo win

Lastly it's pretty unconventional. Simply put, a lot people aren't going to be used to powerwolfing in this kind of setup and it just won't be familiar territory to them. Forcing a certain playstyle (especially a nonstandard one) is prolly just a bad idea when concept of champs is to take people from across a wide variety of forums/discords/live communities etc

Yeah I agree

And also just the concept of having to be reliant on your teammates to that degree is rough. I think it's an unfortunate aspect for villagers that their worst teammates can drag them down, dunno that I wanna do that to the wolves too

[Lissa]

white flag is a varied, fun, and interesting setup (that can usually balanced)

but probably a TERRIBLE idea for a champs setup considering the uh, varied skill levels of players sometimes. We also wouldn't get great moments like g4 or BATMAN's solo win

Lastly it's pretty unconventional. Simply put, a lot people aren't going to be used to powerwolfing in this kind of setup and it just won't be familiar territory to them. Forcing a certain playstyle (especially a nonstandard one) is prolly just a bad idea when concept of champs is to take people from across a wide variety of forums/discords/live communities etc

part of me enjoys the idea of like, what sr said, increasing the teammate reliance to have them limited a bit more in the way the village is

but it's an extremely unconventional dynamic which i'm not a fan of for champs, and it's stylistically limiting in a fundamental way which same issue

[AndrewGreve]

“The most interesting rule we have right now is that scum lose when there's one scum left alive and it's really changed how I and others play the game in the best way possible (thanks to @SwedishSkumbag amongst others for making this happen).”

This is super duper interesting and I like the dynamics it introduces for several reasons. We should test this on MU! Which setups do you run exactly, @Wisdom?

@Empoof has already run a few setups of these. It's called white-flag mafia.

Very interesting. Might be interesting to consider this for next year's Championship setup.

I hate this idea on like every front.

If you can't find the last mafia, that's your fault. My favorite thing about wolfing is when it gets down to the nitty gritty in the bunkers and there's one last wolf standing up against an army of town and actually making progress and work and coming back.

Wolves always have the option to surrender if they really want to, but we should not force those who want that option to fight to have to give in just because this year's champs was so incredibly wolfsided.

Pretty obvious Thingy is just trying to keep his record of 1vX as wolf unbeatable by changing the rules.

[Secondhand Revenant]

white flag is a varied, fun, and interesting setup (that can usually balanced)

but probably a TERRIBLE idea for a champs setup considering the uh, varied skill levels of players sometimes. We also wouldn't get great moments like g4 or BATMAN's solo win

Lastly it's pretty unconventional. Simply put, a lot people aren't going to be used to powerwolfing in this kind of setup and it just won't be familiar territory to them. Forcing a certain playstyle (especially a nonstandard one) is prolly just a bad idea when concept of champs is to take people from across a wide variety of forums/discords/live communities etc

part of me enjoys the idea of like, what sr said, increasing the teammate reliance to have them limited a bit more in the way the village is

but it's an extremely unconventional dynamic which i'm not a fan of for champs, and it's stylistically limiting in a fundamental way which same issue

Heh, I did consider that in a way that might sort of balance things but then I was like... well... I hate that village has to deal with it, I don't know that I would really be any happier if it happened to wolves too even if it did have some sense of balance to it.

[mendel]

combine white flag mafia with a one-shot recruiter role?

[Jaleb]

combine white flag mafia with a one-shot recruiter role?

If you're saying mafia recruiter, that would be considered bastard therefore a no with MU's community.

[mendel]

combine white flag mafia with a one-shot recruiter role?

If you're saying mafia recruiter, that would be considered bastard therefore a no with MU's community.

https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums...role=Converter

But yeah, alignment-changing roles are always a bit bastard.
I like the interplay here, because the converter can choose a player to be in the optimum position to deepwolf to the end, thus making the capability of the scum team to survive not depend so much on the outcome of the rand, but rather on a conscious decision on the part of the scum team. Which is as it should be.

[Emberguard]

Put yourself in mafia!GH's shoes here: He knows DLE is telling the truth. (You have to discard the idea that they're w/w, but that would be one of the weirdest w/w interactions ever so yeah no). He knows DLE isn't mafia going for some kind of weird dumbtell or derpclear. He knows DLE is just exactly what he is - a dude with a broken keyboard.

The idea that it would even occur to mafia!GH there to do a Google Reverse Image lookup of that picture is laughable.

On the other hand, if GH is town, then it makes perfect, perfect sense. He's the very image of a paranoid villager getting into every nook and cranny. He doesn't know DLE. On the off-chance that he could catch DLE in a lazy wolf lie for some reason, he's going to see if that's an image DLE just ripped from Google or whatever. Might as well, right?

The idea that it would occur to GH to do that, to even go there in the first place, as town, is entirely, completely believable.

All of this is based on the lack of TMI that DLE is a villager.

i agree with the concept overall here, but how is an h key being broken AI in the first place? why would suspecting it of being a mafia ploy even be a thing? i read that whole exchange as a joke by GH, the punchline being, he's treating it as something mafia would lie about when it's clearly not.

@GeneralHankerchief i need a verdict here. were you joking?

Yeah I agree. With that one I never would have even reverse image searched it regardless of my own alignment. I might have asked what they meant just out of curiosity, but I wouldn't have tried to frame it as a mafia or town ploy

[Arapocalypse]

Solid article!!! Wanted to pull out a part that wasn't really discussed:

Indirect pressure is better than direct pressure. If you make a big case directly to a wolf, you give them something to attack, something to engage with. You’re presenting a way for them to get out of the box. Indirect pressure - The Box - leaves them nothing to fight against. A charge of “not villagery enough” in a gamestate with a strong towncore can be damning both in its accuracy, and its difficulty to counter. By giving wolves no way out of the Box except to clear the bar of villageryness that the game has set, you’re putting wolves in the hardest position possible: having to fake an organic, solving mindset that’s not rooted in pushing a specific world or person.

This isn’t to say that if you catch a wolf dead to rights, you shouldn’t case them, but in my experience, it’s a waste of time to direct your case to them. You’re never going to get a wolf to admit they have a wolf role PM. Instead, direct your case at the thread. Start using indirect language. Not “Newcomb, you’re a wolf, I’m going to lynch you,” but “Newcomb is a wolf, let’s lynch him.” As much fun as it can be to get down in the dirt and directly scrap with someone, it’s almost never a good use of your time. Worse yet, a lot of the more unpleasant social situations that tend to crop up over and over in mafia games are rooted in exactly that - direct engagements where one or both parties feels personally wronged or attacked. And since the entire game of mafia is rooted in calling each other liars when 70%+ of the game are not, it’s an all-too-common occurrence.

Start to shop your cases around to the thread at large, to your village reads, and largely ignore what the target of your case says about it, and you’ll start to reap some pretty massive benefits in terms of accuracy, thread health, and odds to actually get your target lynched.

This is just some really well worded stuff, and I think this is an extremely underrated part of having reads/presenting cases!!!

A lot of time, it's the more experienced players who tend to have this sort of "ivory tower" reads; specifically, directing the case to the thread at large, and not addressing it to a particular player!!!

I theorize that it's because when people first get into mafia, they treat it more like many conversations with multiple different people rather than a presentation giving your thoughts on a bunch of people with some individual engagement, which is more like what these reads are, in a general sense!! Except everyone else is also doing their own presentation, and you also have to pay attention to their presentations too... metaphor falling apart here, but hopefully that makes some sense!

Personally, I've always treated mafia as a fun performance regardless of alignment, so that may tie into it partially!!

On another point, the part about "shopping your case around to the thread at large" is a major point bridging the gap between "ivory tower reads" and "having fun by engaging the thread"; there was a really excellent example of this in a game recently, which I may dig if anyone's interested/I have the time!!!

Anyways, when you make a case against someone, they respond to it, and you start getting into a back and forth over your read... if you're loud enough, it's much more liable to cause chaos in the thread rather than help town's position, whether you're v/v or v/w!!! The accused is of course arguing with TMI that they know they're innocent, and you're arguing for your read; you're unlikely to change your mind, and more importantly, you're unlikely to change anyone else's mind!!

I've done and watched probably more than my share of drowning out threads in this fashion, and let's just say it does not make for a town-friendly environment; it sinks morale with other players feeling like they're being ignored, that they're not being heard, and unnaturally twists the game around a few specific players... tends to just suck the fun out of the atmosphere for almost everyone involved!!!

I say almost everyone because guess who thrives on this sort of fighting? The mafia, of course!! With TMI, they already know the alignments of a predictable fight and can plan accordingly, maneuvering themselves into positions to capitalize on the aftermath of flips because they already know what they're going to be! The easiest example is with a v/v fight: they can stoke the fires to build it up more, get in on a bit of w/w distancing when attention is elsewhere, strategize on who to swoop down on after flips for being wrong... or even just relax, fading into the background, unsuspected as they conserve their strength!!

When the thread is calmer and people are able to think clearly, they are able to get townier and solve together, and actually construct that box!!!

That got a bit messy/longwinded, so in short: forcing 1v1s creates dams, so don't and let people be waterfalls!!

[$$$BLAZE$$$ Lissa42069 o7]

this article neglected to mention the crucial step of using 100 posts per page instead of the default 50. game changer.