EoFF XXVII Discussion Thread - Strengthen Those Social Links

[[M] Mom – Host]

I may have accidentally posted in this thread instead of the game thread, so... yeah. Open?

[Freya]

jnpy pls is going to be the funniest thing for me going forward. Silly fynn

[Formalhaut]

Anyway, now that I've cleared my tabs a bit (I got the game and discussion thread mixed up ):

Self-voting. I didn't state anywhere whether self-voting is allowed or not, because to be honest I have never encountered it. A check of the Mafia scum forums and wiki show that self-voting is an established term. Thus, I allowed Koromaru's self-vote.

I'm sorry if people are slightly confused or annoyed; that's pretty understandable. But remember self-voting is pretty rare, and I can't be expected to know every little foible about the game at my first time hosting without any support.

So: Night Three.

[Slothy]

Excellent job on the comedy upon being discovered Fynn. One of the highlights of this glorious game.

[Slothy]

Pfft, I'm not going to get annoyed. It's my first game so I'm sure I'm smurfing up left and right.

[[M] D'Anna]

Looks like my post got deleted.

Pretty unfair, considering that on both of the previous "Day End" posts people were allowed to post and had no repercussions. Day 1 had 2 people post after the "Day End" post and did not get their post removed. Day 2 had one person post after the "Day End" post and it did not get removed. But I post after the "Day End" post and it gets removed? What's with the arbitrary decision making?

Not only do the "Day End" posts not specify that there is to be no posting after them, but there's apparently an unwritten rule that appears to be selectively enforced.

And I utterly disagree with the day ending due to a self-vote. It's not even mentioned in the rules. Not all players have had a chance to see or respond to it.

[Freya]

It's also not in the rules that it's not allowed. It's up to how the mods want to rule on it.

[[M] D'Anna]

It's also not in the rules that it's not allowed. It's up to how the mods want to rule on it.

It's also not in the rules that it is allowed. We can keep going around in circles if you'd like.

[Slothy]

Not really since, as said, it's not strictly forbidden and final say goes to the host so your continued objections are moot.

[[M] D'Anna]

Not really since, as said, it's not strictly forbidden and final say goes to the host so your continued objections are moot.

And, as I've said, it's not allowed either. Host ultimately does have the final say, but in fairness to all of the players of the game they should at the very least be able to respond to or see this decision. If a rule is being added after the game, all players should be able to at least participate or respond to it before it is implemented. This rule was not originally in the game, and it was not what the players expected when they signed up for it.

[Freya]

It's also not in the rules that it's not allowed. It's up to how the mods want to rule on it.

It's also not in the rules that it is allowed. We can keep going around in circles if you'd like.

So your complaint is that it doesn't specifically say you can do it. I say it also doesn't say you can't do it. So if not mentioned, you're saying by default that you should be right and it shouldn't be allowed. Mod says it is going to be permissible. And so you still "utterly disagree".

Is that a good recap? Have I misunderstood your point?

[Psychotic]

There will always be scenarios that arise that the rules haven't covered as they haven't been envisaged. It's always left to the game mod's discretion then.

FWIW as a neutral observer I agree with Igor's call. Even if it wasn't specifically against the stated rules it's still against the spirit of the game.

[Formalhaut]

Looks like my post got deleted.

Pretty unfair, considering that on both of the previous "Day End" posts people were allowed to post and had no repercussions. Day 1 had 2 people post after the "Day End" post and did not get their post removed. Day 2 had one person post after the "Day End" post and it did not get removed. But I post after the "Day End" post and it gets removed? What's with the arbitrary decision making?

And I utterly disagree with the day ending due to a self-vote. It's not even mentioned in the rules. Not all players have had a chance to see or respond to it.[/QUOTE]

I looked at the other two cases, and I believe I ruled that they did not unduly influence the game. Basically, they were inconsequential. If you look at Day One:

Apologies for my absence. My Persona has responsibilities that require attending, thus affecting my attendance here.

I am 60/40 on Yukari being Mafia/Town. If she is Town, I would stake my reputation that Theodore is Mafia.

We shall see.

So have I miscounted or is it not sudden death with the vote tied?

And on Day Two, it was just Theodore ratting on Town for lynching him. Of the three 'posts post Day Closure', only Minato was really about the game, and I let that through because it was very short, and Minato barely posted, so I deemed it was okay for him to post that after the Day end, knowing he hadn't posted much of anything before.

You'll notice I let your second post through, Akihiko, because it wasn't about the game. Your other post was substantively larger and full of theory.

I concede it is superfluous though, because it occurs to me I can post after I've closed the thread. So I guess I don't even need a Day Close warning. Hmm. I keep forgetting I have mod powers. Never had them before!

As for the self-voting, as I have said: it didn't occur to me that such an action could happen, thus it wasn't on the OP rules list. When the situation happened, I looked at precedent (on Mafia Scum) and made a decision.

Akihiko, if you want to discuss all of this in greater detail, we can do so over Mognet!

[[M] D'Anna]

So your complaint is that it doesn't specifically say you can do it. I say it also doesn't say you can't do it. So if not mentioned, you're saying by default that you should be right and it shouldn't be allowed. Mod says it is going to be permissible. And so you still "utterly disagree".

Is that a good recap? Have I misunderstood your point?

My complaint is that only two players had even seen the vote or reacted to it before myself. That leaves 4 other players who had yet to even learn of the self-vote. Everyone who signed up for this game expected majority vote lockdowns and days to end at specific times, but no one expected a day to end due to a self-vote. Therefore everyone should at least be able to respond or react to the vote because this wasn't an original rule.

FWIW as a neutral observer I agree with Igor's call. Even if it wasn't specifically against the stated rules it's still against the spirit of the game.

How about my post getting arbitrarily removed when 3 other posts have been left up? Is that not against the spirit of the game?

I looked at the other two cases, and I believe I ruled that they did not unduly influence the game. Basically, they were inconsequential. If you look at Day One:

So you're just going to selectively enforce this unwritten rule, then?

I concede it is superfluous though, because it occurs to me I can post after I've closed the thread. So I guess I don't even need a Day Close warning. Hmm. I keep forgetting I have mod powers. Never had them before!

You could always just write "DO NOT POST" in the Day Close posts instead of not specifying it.

As for the self-voting, as I have said: it didn't occur to me that such an action could happen, thus it wasn't on the OP rules list. When the situation happened, I looked at precedent (on Mafia Scum) and made a decision.

Mafia Scum works differently. They explicitly whether mention self-voting is allowed in specific games and specific boards. This game didn't mention it at all.

[Slothy]

Not really since, as said, it's not strictly forbidden and final say goes to the host so your continued objections are moot.

And, as I've said, it's not allowed either. Host ultimately does have the final say, but in fairness to all of the players of the game they should at the very least be able to respond to or see this decision. If a rule is being added after the game, all players should be able to at least participate or respond to it before it is implemented. This rule was not originally in the game, and it was not what the players expected when they signed up for it.

This isn't a rule being added to the game. It's the officiant making a ruling based on existing rules in a situation the rules as written didn't originally foresee. If you want to have a debate about whether this is good or bad then by all means there can be a debate about it. But there shouldn't be any fuss over it with regard to this specific game because the ruling has been made and just complaining about it because you didn't like the ruling isn't helpful.

And for the record: no game I've ever played has had rules that covered every possible scenario. And I've played games that have 100+ pages of rules before as opposed to the fairly limited rule set stated at the beginning of this game. And I've had to read through a few dozen pages of errata in those games to see what updates have been made based on unanticipated situations. And in those games I have still come across situations where there was no clear interpretation of the situation at hand and myself and my opponent or opponents had to agree on a ruling at the time and carry on with the game. And our standard way of doing it was to just come up with a ruling we agreed on on the spot and then research in detail later to figure out if there was anything we overlooked and get opinions from others for the next game. If you would like to discuss and research and come up with a decision for future games then go ahead, though it seems Formy has looked up what the standard used in other mafia games typically is so I'm not sure there's much argument to be made there. But we shouldn't hold this game up fighting about the issue. That's ultimately not entirely useful and certainly not any fun.