Mafia Grievances

[cosmicpanda]

Um, not sure if I can complain about a current game, don't know if that would be talking about the game in another place.

 

If it's not talking about the game in the game thread, or in accordance with the mod's rules about mafia out-of-thread communications (which wouldn't be here anyway), then it's talking about the game in another place.

[peacesells]

Greivance.

 

A number of lurkers who claim illness, headaches, life stress as reasons for not participating as they should. If you can't play, don't. Get replaced, don't sign up. It's happening too often to be seen as legit anymore.

[peacesells]

Another grievance I have and it seems prevalent since I started playing again.

 

Mods having too much involvement in the actual play of the game. Flavor that has real bearing on roles and what has happened. Posts that contradict what players are saying. (don't point out I'm lying!!!)

 

IMO Mods should be working behind the scene facilitating the game. Not taking an active role in it. Do not influence town or scum in any why. Do not give hints on what is going on during the night. Do NOT confirm or deny statements players make. Do NOT respond to players speculation in thread unless specifically asked to do so by that player. Treat all posts as game play. If you are unsure send a PM to the player.

[LilyElizabeth]

I second that one about the mods.

[WWWwombat]

Games should be left largely alone once started. That being said, there are times when a mod must involve himself. For instance, if players show they do not understand information that the mod has provided on thread and meant to be clear to all, then it is the mod's duty to clarify that information.

[LilyElizabeth]

Of course, Wombat. That's not what Peace is talking about, though.

[Basel Gill]

Games should be left largely alone once started. That being said, there are times when a mod must involve himself. For instance, if players show they do not understand information that the mod has provided on thread and meant to be clear to all, then it is the mod's duty to clarify that information.

 

This. For example, my movie villains game in Thak had a lot of players speculating that Darthe was jester. In fact, he was bomb. But this speculation had some people wondering if the game would end if Darthe got lynched. Ordinarily, I wouldn't like involving myself to the extent that I did on-thread. But when it was asked of me if this would happen, I was starting to get the impression that players would quit the game if any player's lynch would end it due to a jester role. I posted that if I used a jester, that player if lynched would co-win at game's end with whatever faction won, but I openly refused to say there was a jester in the first place. It was seeming like either that, or have players quit due to my possible setup.

[LilyElizabeth]

You handled that very well, Basel.

[DPR]

Another grievance I have and it seems prevalent since I started playing again.

 

Mods having too much involvement in the actual play of the game. Flavor that has real bearing on roles and what has happened. Posts that contradict what players are saying. (don't point out I'm lying!!!)

 

IMO Mods should be working behind the scene facilitating the game. Not taking an active role in it. Do not influence town or scum in any why. Do not give hints on what is going on during the night. Do NOT confirm or deny statements players make. Do NOT respond to players speculation in thread unless specifically asked to do so by that player. Treat all posts as game play. If you are unsure send a PM to the player.

 

It's why the old gen doesn't bother with new games. It's why older players prefer basic games over advanced. There's a trick to balancing, and as a mod, if you don't know it, yer game is gonna suck. Sorry, but no one wants to see your "experimental" idea as it flames out because you didn't bother to learn the dynamics around balance and what makes people want to play. You want to mod? Play in the games with experienced mods that people enjoy and look at the structure that they provide. Be very careful when you create new roles, and never do so without the balance in mind. And never, ever take for granted that when anyone signs up to play your game, they are committing to a great number of hours that you are responsible for. Make sure that the game is something that they can enjoy.

[Kathleen]

It's why the old gen doesn't bother with new games. It's why older players prefer basic games over advanced. There's a trick to balancing, and as a mod, if you don't know it, yer game is gonna suck. Sorry, but no one wants to see your "experimental" idea as it flames out because you didn't bother to learn the dynamics around balance and what makes people want to play. You want to mod? Play in the games with experienced mods that people enjoy and look at the structure that they provide. Be very careful when you create new roles, and never do so without the balance in mind. And never, ever take for granted that when anyone signs up to play your game, they are committing to a great number of hours that you are responsible for. Make sure that the game is something that they can enjoy.

 

I always get my games balanced by someone else. I've had a number of them returned with no changes, but I always send them just to be sure for this exact reason. There was only one game I didn't send for balancing. It was co modded, and I know it was bloody well balanced when we started it but we couldn't keep out hands out of it as the game played on and we almost had it blow up in our faces but managed to fix the trouble we caused before it completely ruined the game. that was the one time I ever tried to mess with game set up after it started, and it will be the last time I ever do that.

 

When I mod I almost never actually post in the game. Its Vote Count and scenes and answering direct questions if I can. I'm trying to come out of that a little but I'm always afraid i'm gonna say something that will make people think I've given a hit to someone's alignment or role that I guard my tongue something awful.

 

However, I love games with twists, or doing something i've not done in a game before. To me 90% of a game I mod is about making the game. I don't reuse the same set up and I always try to find some set up concept I've not done before. I challenge myself every game, but I always keep in mind people will be playing it, and they all need to have a realistic chance to make it or its a waste of time, and I never want people to think that something I did was a waste of time. For that reason I try to balance myself, and even then I send every game off to someone better at it than me.

[Nolder]

Do NOT confirm or deny statements players make. Do NOT respond to players speculation in thread unless specifically asked to do so by that player. Treat all posts as game play. If you are unsure send a PM to the player.

This is something I really need to work on

 

It's happened more than once that a member of my scum team asks what seems to be a legitimate question that stemmed from confusion but was actually gamplay and I totally screwed up whatever they were going for

[Nolder]

Ok I really have to get something off my chest or I'm going to end up raging at someone hard

 

Please

Please please please stop responding to me INSIDE a quote

There is coding to provide an actual quote bubble on forums for a reason

So it is clear exactly what someone said that you wish to respond to

 

I am so sick of people quoting me and writing IN the quote and just saying "response in X color"

I'm on the verge of completely ignoring those kinds of posts

I don't care how well written and how reasonable what you've said is

I don't care if we're both confirmed on the same team and we're just having a friendly conversation

It bugs the hell out of me

 

Why? Because it makes it difficult to respond back

I quote that post and now I have just a quote within a quote

example:

words words words

 

other words other words other words

and it becomes difficult to make it clear what part of what YOU said that I am responding to because it's all jumbled up inside one quote

 

This isn't directed at anyone in particular

I've actually had at least 4 different people do it to me in the past month so I'm talking to all of you whether you see it or not

Please just use the quotes how they're intended

Or if you don't like that just respond in your own post without any quotes

I am much more willing to puzzle through your post and figure out what you're talking about than I am cutting and pasting your quote OUT of my quote so my new responses don't get mixed with old ones and so forth

[Songstress]

I also find that awkward to deal with. Especially since up until recently, the app I use on my phone to read the forums wasn't showing bold/color/underline formatting.

[Red2111]

 

i have a bad habit of wanting to join in on the spam a bit in my games; its somethign i've been tryign to work on though.

 

re-Nol. dude, sometimes its just easier to repsond like that when your at work and checking up on the game. especially when the post your quoting is a single massive WoT that isn't broken up by quotes. also, by doing that, it helps to cut down the length of my own post; especially since people out right bitch about WoTs as it is. whcih frankly, i'm rather tiered of hearing about. if you dont liek WoTs or ignore then, fine. but being vocal about it on thread and complaining just makes you look scummy imo.

[Nolder]

I'm not sure I understand how it's easier but even assuming it is you're just making it harder on other people

You're within your rights to do that but you're eventually either going to get me raging or ignoring your posts

[Nolder]

Also re: responding to a bunch of stuff at once

I don't see what's so hard about doing this

 

 

i have a bad habit of wanting to join in on the spam a bit in my games; its somethign i've been tryign to work on though.

Me too but I don't see it as a big issue most of the time

Depends how spam heavy the game is I guess

 

re-Nol. dude, sometimes its just easier to repsond like that when your at work and checking up on the game.

Like I said before I don't really understand how it's easier

 

especially when the post your quoting is a single massive WoT that isn't broken up by quotes.

What's wrong with including a lot of quotes?

 

also, by doing that, it helps to cut down the length of my own post;

At the cost of being difficult to respond too

 

especially since people out right bitch about WoTs as it is.

I don't mind them existing but I probably wont read ones unless they have something to do with me

 

whcih frankly, i'm rather tiered of hearing about. if you dont liek WoTs or ignore then, fine. but being vocal about it on thread and complaining just makes you look scummy imo.

I agree

I dunno why people are suddenly complaing so much

[Nolder]

To me that looks so much nicer and is 9999999999999999 times easier to actually respond to

[Red2111]

well Nol you shoudl know that i do this also in the D&D forum if the post i'm responding to is massive. and yes, its much easier at work to respond within a post and change my text color than it is to copy the beginning quote info and seperate each part i'm responding out into seperate posts. and god forbid i don't use the original tag fromt he quote and just use a basic quote format, cause then its confusing as to who i'm quoting. trust me i tried that approach and was told off for it in a few games. and mutli posting with keeping that one post by itself is a no go as well, cause then people think your spamming.

 

that and like i said, frankly it started because i'm tiered of hearing people go OMG its a WoT *eyeroll* either you guys want me to shorten my response or you want to deal with my WoTs like i used ot. pick one and stick with it; cause now it's turning into a damned if i do and damned if i dont.

 

 

sorry if i sound irritated, but i'm not doing that to make it harder on people or to irritate anyone. its plainly the happy medium that keeps my playing in a timely manner so i dont piss off my boss and so some people stop complaining about WoTs.

[Red2111]

again, it maybe easier right now, WHILE I"M NOT AT WORK, but at work i'm only posting when i'm between doing actual work. you'd be surprised how much more longer it takes to do that, between responding to all the crap that needs responding to and thinking up my responses as i'm typing.

[Red2111]

not to mention the fact that when you get into doing multipl quote tags, and that i'm typing it in manually i tend to go dislexic and type /qutoe alot of the times, so i have to re-read the entire post to find the one or two messed up quote tags.

 

which adds on another 5 minutes to my posting time.

[Nolder]

Well you do what you gotta do Red

I just had to get that off my chest because I probably WAS about to rage at the next person that did it

[Red2111]

np, just know that when i do it, its not to annoy you but its because its what i feel is best in terms of pacifying the other players and keeping the bithcing about my posts to a minimum.

 

 

and if this comes off as snappy, well it probably is (thoguh its not aimed at anyone, just overall snappiness). i'm not exaclty int he best of moods right now, and bubba caught the crude when he went to go register for college.

[hazelkrs1]

Oh..and another thing that is bugging me. People posting in threads after they are dead. I am so close to policy voting 1 of them in every game we share from now on.

 

the dead posting thing can be solved by making a probation list, if your rules state 1 bah post and they break the rule, they go on the list and sit out the next five games or something, tbh I havent seen this here but I've skipped a few games here lately

 

 

I don't mind WOT's as long as they are completely game play. If you are quoting to chuckle at a post..then consider the rest not read.

 

I actually always looked at it this way - creating a long convoluted argument for every quote you post has a fairly large chance of getting ignored, and the chances of people ignoring it goes up the longer it is. To me, having an occasional light-hearted moment in the midst of other serious discussion breaks up the monotony a bit; it's kind of like a fun commercial break from the WoT

 

I don't mind WOT's as long as they are completely game play. If you are quoting to chuckle at a post..then consider the rest not read.

 

I disagree. Red's WoT's are almost all gameplay but they are about such trivial stuff that it's often infuriating. I usually skim them.

 

My prob with Red's WoT's is that she's just a bit too indiscriminate with her fos's. It's pretty simple really, if in one post you fos over half of the players in the game, it makes everyone tend to disregard what you're saying somewhat cause it looks like you're turning every post into a scum slip.

 

Greivance.

 

A number of lurkers who claim illness, headaches, life stress as reasons for not participating as they should. If you can't play, don't. Get replaced, don't sign up. It's happening too often to be seen as legit anymore.

 

This irritates me prob more than any other thing in mafia, and it's more common than people prob think. I don't even like players doing it that are on the same team as me. I really don't even think lurking should be a strategy at all, if you can't keep yourself from being outed without posting, you prob shouldn't be playing the game. Okay, a less harsh version of the end of that sentence is - you prob should brush up on your mafia skills.

[Nolder]

Lurking is a legitimate strategy but it shouldn't get out of hand

I'd say if you inform the mod it should be ok to lurk for maybe one or two RL days but after that it becomes excessive

[hazelkrs1]

It just seems against the spirit of the game to me. I can see lying low a bit in games, which obviously I'm not good at, but purposefully withholding any thoughts or anything just to not get fos'd?

 

Too many DM games break down a bit because the only people that get fos'd at first are the active ones. Once they either lynch the actives, or veer off them cause of claims, there's often not as many avenues to explore cause too many people are being inactive