Specified Discussion of Tactics, Doctor

[Darthe]

Basic Town Roles:

 

Doctor:

 

Definition and Power:

The purpose and design of a doctor relates heavily to player protection.  Defined, a town doctor is an individual who possesses the ability to protect the life of another each night phase in the game.  The Dragonmount metagame allows for a doctor in almost every circumstance and allows for doctors to protect themselves as well as others.  In addition, Dragonmount doctors usually have the ability to protect the same individual consecutive nights.  It should be noted that both the ability to self protect and to protect consecutively are not natural states for this role, making it a powerful variation from more traditional forms of the role.  

 

Doctors can be affected by role modifiers and other target based roles.  Such things include Janitors (a doctor that also blocks the ability of the individual they protect) which are a role modifier to the DM standard mafia role and roleblockers (an individual that halts the use of anothers power by targeting them the night of their choice) which are target based manipulative roles.  

 

Use:

Commonly the individuals granted with this role are expected to play in a manner that is safe enough to assure their anonymity while they gamble on which individuals will be targeted by the mafia for a night kill.  Being a target based role, the successful block of a kill can be used to confirm an individual as town by association to the mafia's relationship with the town.  This tactic is only valid in basic games or those in which the setup is known and the doctor is still anonymous.  

 

Self protection is another common tactic used by townsmen in mafia games.  The ploy revolves around the idea that a player in a basic game who holds a power role is more valuable than one that doesn't and, since townsmen are likely to be vanilla in a basic game, self protection is the optimal alternative until a more powerful role is revealed.

 

The above does not hold true.  While the tactic is common due to the emphasis on reveals and the fear of power role loss it is actually a wasted power role.  The doctor ability on Dragonmount is much stronger than you will find elsewhere because it can be game-breakingly strong.  The likelihood of being killed by a mafia member is low compared to the potential gains of protection through this role.  Any townsman who you save from death is confirmed town.  If the doctor is self protecting every night and the mafia attacks that individual then the mafia, due to site meta, knows who that role belongs to and can eliminate the cop in short order when they too reveal.  Once again, this is a product of individualistic play as opposed to team play.  A doctor, especially in concert with a cop, can potentially have a three man mafia team completely outed in two days in a twelve person basic game.

 

The nature of this role tends to change on Dragonmount when confronted with a seemingly more relevant role that reveals itself.  I am, of course, referring to the cop in a basic game.  The popular belief is that a cop is more powerful than a doctor.  

 

This again is not true.

 

Once a cop is revealed, they are mostly valued for their information garnered over the previous nights.  A revealed cop should not be protected by a revealed doctor, though it may be for an unrevealed doctor.  The reason for this is that the cop will gain one more viewing in the time that it takes the mafia to kill the doctor and then that individual will too be killed.  If the cop remains alive in this scenario it gains the town a single extra confirmed towns-member at the cost of one with infinitely more power.

 

This may seem counter-intuitive, but keep in mind the ability of the doctor to continue causing grief for the mafia and to confirm more townsmen.  Statistically the cop will find a townsman every 3.33 days.  A doctor will find one every 4.  A vanilla townsman will never find one. 

 

Additionally, until this strategy catches on you're liable to really screw a lot of mafia teams up with this role.

 

 

If you enjoy this article I am willing to create one for other roles as well.  Just add a request below, feel free to comment or chat, and share your strategies!

 

 

Thank you,

 

-Darthe.

[Tiinker]

If both cop and doc outed then use this fool proof tactic.

Coin flip.

[wheeloftime13]

i like this.... actually made me think about things i hadn't thought of before... not that i've ever had the role of doctor or cop...

[Lenlo]

I enjoyed this. I think you should do more of them.

[peacesells]

Your ploy is true only for an early reveal for both the cop and doctor or even a mid game reveal in a large game.  If it is late game then the cop should be protected over self protecting as his info may prove crucial to the game.  A verified town player is very beneficial late stages.

[Tiinker]

Your ploy is true only for an early reveal for both the cop and doctor or even a mid game reveal in a large game.  If it is late game then the cop should be protected over self protecting as his info may prove crucial to the game.  A verified town player is very beneficial late stages.

 

Would depend on the amount of town/mafia dead obv. If you're rolling the mafia then you should protect the cop since you're own death isn't really going single-handedly affect the win/loss. If you're getting steamrolled then I'd rather self protect because I'd be relying on my own scum hunting than the luck of finding just a single mafia one night.

[Darthe]

Very true.  Tactical considerations of the role should be noted even in advanced games where the setup is unknown however.  Obviously a doctor should self protect on the first night in any advanced game, as a game with multiple killers will eliminate the uses of a doctor as a town verifying agent.  Likewise, their role serves no purpose if Lenlo is in the game and they protect him.  Cause.. ya know, he's scum.

[dapianoplay3r]

Are docs allowed to self protect on other sites?

[RandA lThor]

No they're not.  For example, in epicmafia, you cannot self protect which means that if a doc claims, he is most likely dead the next night.

[Tiinker]

Always self protect, one-time self protect or no self protect. It depends on how the mod wants to set up his game, but those are the three most common variations.

[dapianoplay3r]

It does seem strange that DM allows it so regularly. Ive never payed a game were they couldnt

[Darthe]

Think about this, have you ever played a game (excluding roleless) that had no doctor?

 

Because that is common offsite.

[dapianoplay3r]

I think ive played one or two , but it had another protective role instread. Ive never had a game with no form or protection avalible

[Darthe]

I think it would be interesting to see.  The town relies on them like a crux.  It reinforces that reveals are good around here.  

 

But what if I put three investigative roles in?  The game would be totally balanced with a cop, rolecop, and LD.  

 

but one is going to get lynched on here because "there can't possibly be that many investigative roles"

 

and they will all reveal early.

 

in the end you might get one or two cleared people on this site.

 

and that is what I want to metabreak with some of my future games.

[Lenlo]

I think it would be interesting to see.  The town relies on them like a crux.  It reinforces that reveals are good around here.  

 

But what if I put three investigative roles in?  The game would be totally balanced with a cop, rolecop, and LD.  

 

but one is going to get lynched on here because "there can't possibly be that many investigative roles"

 

and they will all reveal early.

 

in the end you might get one or two cleared people on this site.

 

and that is what I want to metabreak with some of my future games.

That sounds fun. Break the meta!

 

I think it would be funny if we had an item game where all the roles ((I.E. Cop, Doc, RB, Vig and the like)) were attached to items instead of players. Then if say the cop was outed he could pass it on to someone else without fear of the role dieing with him. The risk comes with someone else claiming for wifom or giving it to the mafia.

 

I think it would be an interesting game. Probably hard to balance though.

[dapianoplay3r]

The first game or two the meta might lose the game for the town but people adapt and learn

[Turin Turambar]

interesting ideas concerning doc play. I was not aware that the self protecting doc was mostly a DM creation. Also the idea that you can confirm town by blocking kills is a good one that I hadn't thought about. Always good to have more confirmed town.

 

I've never been a doc or a true cop but I think that the hard line of the Doc MUST protect the Cop was flawed in practice. The Doc should try to protect whoever they think the mafia are going to try to kill. To hold hard and fast to protecting the cop gives the mafia a clear shot to take out the doc. and then the cop next.

 

Len, that was sort of how the Mistborn game worked out where the metals gave particular abilities. They could be gifted or stolen and it was quite wild.

[Darthe]

I want to run a few insane setups like that.  I am getting the hang of advanced games first but you can bet that in the future DM Darthe games are going to become famous... or infamous.

 

Something like that my cockiness knows no bounds.

[Basel Gill]

You've got some thought-provoking stuff here. Using doc to ferret out confirmed townies isn't something I've thought of in the past. That would need me to have a better idea on who the mafia team might try to kill.

 

I'm curious as to what you could do with discussion of misleading roles like GF, ST, miller, etc.

[dapianoplay3r]

Infamous

i have no doubt

 

if i were you id pm DPR and ask to run a game with him

[Darthe]

He doesn't seem to be around much or to reply to my messages.  I send him a personal invite to every advanced game that I run.

[WWWwombat]

I hate self-protection.  It is not standard on most sites and with the current DM metagame it makes the doctor a possible gamebreaker at endgame as an unkillable clear townie while encouraging townies to adopt a pure strategy of self-protection in the early game.  In many games, pure strategies are not only boring, but usually disadvantageous.  (for instance, statistics show that currently, passing is more efficient than rushing in American Football, but no one argues that the running game should be abandoned).  So many players base their actions on metagame aspects (of individuals or of the community) that being predictable with one's night actions is disadvantageous as you can be easily countered.  I like to use a mixed strategy.  The simplest example of such a strategy being what Tiinker described.  I usually don't actually flip coins or use other probabilistic methods, but I am very willing to employ what is often a less advantageous method should the circumstances convince me that it will provide a better expected outcome.

 

Also, Darthe, I don't know where you're getting your statistics from, but they don't make any sense to me.

 

If we suppose the Cop has about a 75% chance of finding a townie each night, then we can expect that the average number of night actions it will take the cop to find a townie is about 2.333333.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

 

This is also ignoring the minor detail that each "failure" makes the odds of success higher the next time.  Also something you ignored would be the fact that every time the cop "fails" to find a townie, he finds someone who is not town, which is in practice obviously usually better than finding a townie.  No matter what result the cop gets, he gets info.  The same is not true of the doctor.

 

As for the doctor, a doctor's chances of successfully saving a townie are highly dependent on the number of players in the game.  The doctor picks who to protect from the pool of all players.  Usually, only one of these players can be killed by the mafia.  The probability of a successful save is therefore the reciprocal of the number of players in the game.  That would give the doctor a 10% chance of success in a 10 player game, a 25% chance of success in a 4 player game, and a 33% chance in a 3 player endgame scenario.  Obviously, the value of a doc save is tremendous, so even a small chance of it happening is great, especially because when games get so small, a townie saved and/or cleared could lock up a town win.  Doc is extremely powerful at endgame, especially if unknown and/or allowed to self-protect.

 

I definitely value a doc over a cop, but mainly because of the doc's value at endgame.  A cop is more useful to have at the beginning of the game and may help prevent a small endgame, but I'd rather have the safety valve that the doc presents and trust to scumhunting to find scum.

[Darthe]

I am assuming you meant scum, and my number was based on actual values and express vales as opposed to expected or assumed.  In practice it was found on MS that cops manage lower than the average because of several compounding variables, which I thought was cool.  I will see if I can find that again and post it here.

[Basel Gill]

I also had been unaware till this thread that it is unusual for docs to be allowed to self-protect outside of DM. This is something I will keep in mind for the future.