User:Teksura/Bitching/Rant23

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Teksura's Current Rant: How to not get Banned

Skoffin's Current Rant: How many Stupids did you count today

Rant 1: Third party roles are my meat sacks: | Rant 2: It’s just a game: Yes, thank you Captain Obvious.: | Rant 3: Pixel Hugger Hatred:

Rant 23: Dumbing it down

So, it's been nearly a year since my last rant. That was about the point where I threw my hands up in the air and walked away from the game side community to simply sit as the watchful eyes of the wiki and ban spambots.

I suspect this means that you, the one reading this, are not the same person as those who read my original rants. If this is the case, stop reading this now and go back and read the others. Go ahead, I can wait.

No, really. Don't just scroll down until you see more text. Go back and read the first rant, the link is at the top of the page. If you don't read it, I'm just going to sit here and not say anything.

Ok done? Good.

So, as you've gathered from my previous rants, I am a cantankerous hate fueled individual continuously frustrated at the playerbase on this site. I believe in logic, and owning up to the facts. I believe when you make a lucky guess, you should admit it was luck and not rave for the next 5 minutes about how awesome you are for being right. I believe that mafia games should involve critical thinking, gutsy ploys, and logical analysis. I believe mafia is a thinking man's game. I also believe that much of the playerbase either does not agree with me on those points, or has a terrifyingly low standard of what qualifies as thinking.

That brings me to the point of this rant. With Epic Mafia 3.0 looming over our heads, It's time to upgrade our players as well. The first step to getting morons to learn how to play is to speak in a way they can understand. In other words, we have to learn how to dumb things down to the point where a moldy piece of toast would understand what they need to do.

MAKE them listen

I've got a couple cases here that are perfect examples of how a game the town couldn't lose was lost by the actions of one single horribly stupid member of the town.

lolnoobtrait...owait!

³ - _{3 Villagers, 1 Bodyguard 1 Tracker, 1 Hunter, 1 Silencer, 1 Janitor, and 1 Stalker.}

In this case, the town started off fairly well. The Bodyguard not only successfully protected on the first night, but the Stalker was killed as a result! This meant that the town could No lynch and still maintain their Mislynch. It also meant that the Tracker could claim and not have scum Counter Claim, and know they had protection. After all, a scum who claims to be the tracker at that stage might as well just give up entirely. The town did not lynch the first day, and then lynched the Silencer the second day after getting another report. The result should have been a damning blow to the remaining Janitor, who had now janned the Hunter. There was a cleared tracker, an uncontested (yet unclear) Bodyguard claim, 2 clear townies who hadn't claimed, and 2 unclear townies who hadn't claimed. This is 3 unclear townies. The easy town win requires the tracker check one unclear, and then simply use the 2 lynches remaining to kill off the 2 remaining unclears.

So, at this point, being this unlucky janitor, and it being night, I realized how screwed I should have been. But I figured if I was going to go down it would be on my own terms. I took a shot at the tracker, hoping to die at the hands of the bodyguard. I was baffled when the kill went through unhindered. It seems that the Bodyguard thought to protect me, of all people. This led to the overwhelming belief that the Bodyguard was fake, and the role cleaned up by the janitor was the Bodyguard. He was lynched. This led to the death of another clear, and a 3 man LYLO between me, a clear, and the other unclear. We all claimed blue, and the hammer fell on the wrong guy. By all rights, I had that game throughly lost, but one act of stupidity gave me another shot.

Shot in the dark ³ ⁴ ² - _{3 Mafia, 4 Oracle 2 Gunsmith, and 1 Lightkeeper.}

This setup has become a fad as of late. It can be amusing, though few bother to think anything through.

In the first day, I was revealed as an Oracle and got everyone to claim to me. We had only one gun in play, and we used it to shoot an Oracle claim who said they were on another Oracle claim. We ended up with a dead scum. At that point, I determined we should use the mislynch we earned on one of the two Lightkeeper claims. If we were wrong, the town would be able to simply lynch the other the next day. Both gunsmiths were cleared, as no scum claimed Gunsmith, and were each told who the other was. They were told to give each other guns, and told who to shoot if we lynched the lightkeeper.

As it turned out, we lynched the lightkeeper. One gunsmith, at that point, determined he did not want to give a gun to the cleared gunsmith, he wanted to give it to the Oracle who is doomed to die that night. I was killed, another Oracle was revealed, and there was only one gun in play. And the moron had it. He chose to shoot randomly with it, and git another Oracle claim who revealed himself. This gave the town 2 verified gunsmiths, 1 verified Oracle, 1 known scum who claimed to be lightkeeper, and 1 scum who claimed Oracle, yet all Oracle claims were known. It should have been easy. Except for one little fact. The moronic gunsmith chose to lynch the other gunsmith, the one he was told the day before was clear, and that he needed to give a gun to. How wonderful is that?

The problem there was he lacked the ability to follow the most simple instructions. He couldn't give a gun to a clear even though he was outright told to do so. He couldn't lynch the known scum even though he was outright told who one of them was the day before.

What could have prevented such things?

I think expecting people to simply be less stupid may have set the bar too high before. So, rather than asking the stupid to do something about it, perhaps instead the town should do something. If it looks like someone at the table is a moron, simply drill their job into their head.

In the first case, the town would need to drill the Bodyguard claim. "Bodyguard. Protect this guy. He is Tracker. Tell me who you will protect. Do not protect anyone except this person. Tell me again what you will be doing. If you deviate from this plan in any way, town will lose."

In the second case, the town needs to drill the idiot Gunsmith. "Here is the other Gunsmith who is clear. Give him a gun. Tell me who the other cleared Gunsmith is. Who are you giving a gun to tonight? Here is the name of the other guy who claimed to be Lightkeeper. Who are you killing if we lynch the Lightkeeper today? Tell me again who the other clear Gunsmith is. Tell me again that you're giving a gun to the other clear Gunsmith. Tell me again who you're going to kill if we lynch Lightkeeper today?"

By making them repeat it back to you, you remove from the equation the assumption that they understand what you told them. By doing this, you also reinforce the likelihood they will understand what to do the next time.

In conclusion

It seems that in addition to trying to find scum, a good townie must also attempt to identify the most stupid at the table, and hold their hands through the entire process. One may need to encourage them to talk back, and repeat what is going on to make sure they know. Simply assuming that they know something just because they were told several times is just not enough anymore.

Comments
^edit

Wait, someone actually did that? --Protomith 21:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, in both cases. I don't make this stuff up. --Teksura 05:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Teksura/Bitching/Rant23

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