Yoruichi-san

Uh...I played like a lot of DDR in college...on metal pads...on 'Random Endless' mode...so I have calves of steel

Table [1] East:11 West:0 [2] East:9 West:0 [3] East:7 West:0 [4] East:0 West:0 Jay, please place your bet(s). Thank you.

BMAD has selected his pocket. Please place your bet(s) by indicating on the following: Table [1] East:0 West:0 [2] East:0 West:0 [3] East:0 West:0 [4] East:0 West:0

Battle threads are up. Please complete the appropriate action(s). Good luck!

Hands have been dealt. Virtual coin toss has determined that Kingofpain (Western army) will start the betting for the first hand. Please make your bet by adding it on the following, or checking: Table: Phil: 5 Kingofpain: 5

Stationary Roulette Rules: Players: Eastern Army: BMAD vs. Western Army: Marksmanjay Virtual coin flip has determined BMAD (Eastern army) to be 'dealer' first. Please select your pocket. Thank you.

17 Card Poker Rules: Players: Eastern Army: Phil1882 vs. Western Army: Kingofpain Cards will be 'dealt' shortly. Thank you.

24 Shot Russian Roulette Rules: Players: Eastern Army: Framm18 vs. Western Army: Panther Please PM in your position selections.

Don't be silly...why would you wear socks when taking over the world in these ;P: (Btw, feel free to add your own 'to-do' list )

I hope Flamebirde is alright, but BMAD has graciously agreed to replace him . Battle threads will be created as soon as all player choices are confirmed. Thank you for your patience.

Lol...sorry, my mistake (compounded by a mild case of heat stroke and a painful internal sore on my foot...I should really stop doing 10 mile runs in the 85 degree heat and like 80% humidity )...it seemed that you were defending using the system, which I didn't think needed defending, unless you misunderstood my intent. I totally understand why Bb's model is a great one to use and I wasn't telling anyone not to use it for their games, but I do think that in the 'user-friendliness' of the model, it sacrifices some refinement. Having the engineering game theorist's soul that I do, I couldn't help (really O:)) analyzing it and trying to find places for improvement. To be honest, I don't expect anyone to actually use the 'Maxwell' version I am trying to come up it, since, well, as you can probably guess, it will be somewhat math-intense. But I do think my suggestion for passive skills makes a lot of sense, and is not difficult to implement . And I admit, I have a personal bias too...in my mafia player 'career' (or 'careers', I should say , *cough* *whistling*), the only games I lost as an innocent were the ones where I died the first Night/Day or that were probability based and we, like, lost 5 coin tosses in a row , so I tend to think the innocent 'strength' is under-estimated in general. Speaking of which, I have a crazy little piece in the works: 7 players, no factions, free for all, individual win conditions. Keep an eye out for it. Oh and if anyone wants to be a substitute in Liar Game, PM me .

Apologies for the delay, there is one player who has not yet made an appearance, so I am looking for a replacement (starting out with a default forfeit is not fun for anyone ). If anyone is reading this and would like to take the spot, please PM me, first come first serve. Thank you.

My to-do list: Buy milk. Pay credit card bills. Figure out more clever ways of killing people. Try out new 'recipe' for brownies *cough*. Finish novel. Finish the rest of the novels in the series. Finish the half dozen other series(es?) Figure out what the plural of 'series' is. Remember to post birthday wish on friend's Facebook profile...on time this year. Conquer the world. Find missing socks.

So a while ago, a friend linked me to this website that showed the 'averaged' faces of different cultures, that is, a program took photos of a large number of people from a specific country and performed some averaging function over them, for several countries. I'm not sure about the specifics, but the interesting thing (to me) was that all of the faces would definitely be considered to be above average in 'beauty'. Which got me thinking: what is 'beauty'? It definitely seems to be something that is, like, 'greater than the sum of its parts', and it seems to apply to many fields, in differing ways. The 'beauty' of a sunset over the Grand Canyon is different than the beauty of a poem, which is different than the beauty of Monet's Waterlilies, which is again different than the beauty of, say, Henry Cavill *whistling*, which is different than the beauty of an elegant math proof. Yet, to me at least, the term 'beauty' seems to be apply equally well, and, more interestingly, seems somehow 'consistent' in being applied to all these very different things. Why is that? What exactly is beauty? Is it quantifiable? (I mean yes, it's "in the eye of the beholder" to some degree, but there does seem to be general consensus on the 'beauty' of many things) Is it something that is inherent, or that can be developed? Is it something that is merely a concept, or is it somehow tangible? Is it a weapon, a tool, a strength, or a weakness? What is it?

Waiting for confirmations. Please confirm in the team BTSC's which battle you will be taking. Thank you.

Lol...I think you misunderstand me...I agree with everything you've said about it being easy to use, useful, and widely applicable, especially for new hosts (I said as much in my first post on the topic). I'm not trying to, like, 'put it down', or anything, like I said, I respect Bb greatly for creating it and I think it's a great model overall. And I absolutely agree about the Newtonian physics part, I was actually thinking about that analogy as well . But using the same analogy, I, in my infinite Mathgirl-ness, can't help trying to develop Maxwell's laws... Araver, I sincerely apologize if you feel I was offending the system. That was not my intent...I admit, I tend be analytical rather than, like, 'tactful', although I did try to make clear my respect and support of the system as a general system (sorry I failed ). One thing I learned the hard way about forum content: it doesn't show tone well...I write with an analytical tone much of the time, which can be wrongly read as an 'attacking tone' :/. I am a scientist by trade (and by DNA, apparently *whistling*) and I look at Bb's system as an empirical model that is useful and clever, and hence, like most scientists who look at empirical models that they like, try to find places it could be improved. Science is about collaboration, and scientists are always critiquing and trying to improve on others' works. I am truly sorry if this aspect of my personality can cause conflict or seem insulting to some . Again, I reiterate, I think Bb's Model is fantastic and I fully support using anyone's choice to use it as a tool to design games. Please don't mind my scientific/engineering curiosity if I try to build Maxwell's Mafia equations, tho .

Fine, fine, since no one wants to be remembered, apparently...Flamey, take it away...

Thanks, nana, I hope you'll be around if I decide to do a sequel to When the Mafia Cry or try the utter insanity that would be Suzumafia Having the 'bird's eye view', I know that the only role the mafia was guessing at before mass outing was Vommack, and had that incorrect (and hence would have ended up dying if they tried), so I disagree that the lynch switch would of been OP in the end without mass outing, since the mafia do not have a spy, and no innocent roles are announced when killed, not even Red Arrow. If the killing roles had not been killed off by Night 2, they could of easily taken out the lynch switch. Having thought about it a little bit, here are two preliminary suggestions for what I will henceforth refer to as Bb's Model . (Btw, I was present when he first created the model, and then, as well as now, I commend him on creating a great and easy to use system. It took a lot of effort, and he did an amazing job, and I have the utmost mafia-tist respect for him...it's a lot easy to critique than to create ;P) The simple suggestion: The mafia BTSC (x2) factor should not apply to passive skills. As I understand it, the (x2) is due to the ability of the mafia to powerplay and to avoid 'friendly-fire', neither of which applies to passive skills. For example, the mafia get (+6) for a player being invincible at Night, whereas the innocents only get (+3), which seems kind of backwards to me, since an innocent is generally more likely to get killed at Night then a mafia, and the innocents can fall victim to their own friendly-fire. In my mafia experience, I'd say at least 1/2 of innocents die at Night, whereas less than 1/3 of mafia do. Which brings me to my second, more complicated suggestion: Weigh each ability by a proportionality factor that represents the likelihood to actually be useful. Admittedly, this is pretty complex, since it involves both taking into account what other roles there are, what the general host rules are, and the proportion of the factions against each other, but that's exactly why I like it...it factors in all three of the issues I mentioned earlier. I don't think there's a simple formula for how to do this for all roles, but I think I would divide it into two parts, one for 'information potential' and the other for 'action potential'. For example, a killing role, in a game in which kills are not blocking and there are no invincible roles that are outed if attacked, is pretty much all 'action potential', and the proportionality factor is would probably be equal to the (probability of killing a mafia)-(probability of killing an innocent) or some such. A straight spy probably has the most straightforward proportionality factor, since it's pure 'information potential', but if there are roles that can 'disguise' themselves or others, then that would have to be factored in. A block is both info and action potential, more or less so info depending on whether the hosts show blocks in the Posts, and what other actions are shown in the Posts. As for general host rules, it's a lot more complicated for complicated setups. For example, this little piece of insanity I dug up from my mad mafia-tist days: The roles of Suzumafia aren't that complicated, but the general set-up has a huge effect on everything, especially game balance. (Okay, rereading it, I really want to host it now lol...time traveling paradoxes aside...*whistling*) Edit: Actually, this is kind of fun, if I have time between puzzle and game projects (and, oh yeah, that annoying thing called "real life" ), I might work on the Mathgirl Formula ;P)

Round 5 Rules: A. Vanguard Battle B. Centerfield Battle C. General Battle Teams must choose one player for each battle. Each player has been loaned 150 one million BD$ chips. Separate threads for each battle will be created to avoid confusion. You are free to discuss with your teammates in the team BTSC, and you may PM other players (CC me), but only the chosen player for each battle may play in the battle, i.e. post in the battle thread. As forewarned, if it is your turn and you do not respond within 24 hours, you will forfeit the battle and the 150mil BD$ at stake for that battle. Battle threads will be created after players for each battle have been chosen. As always, feel free to ask questions at any time. Thank you.

The intrepid agent Flamebirde summoned a hammer and chisel and prepared to strike... "Wait!" shrieked Janine in his head. "The sparks created by metal on metal contact could trigger the explosion!" Wincing, Agent Flamebirde let the hammer and chisel go and willed up a rope. He wanted to latch it in to the keyhole, but alas, there was no method for the rope to latch on, and, not having specialized training, he could throw a rope 300 meters in the air into a small, key-sized hole. The Agents would have to get more creative...

...yeah, an interesting challenge for me as much as for you ... Rules will be up this evening .

...wait until Musical Chairs...fufufufufu ;P

Thanks Phil, you know you can't keep a good demon cat down ;P I'm pretty much going to copy the rules from the manga, since the 'winning strategies' they used mostly relied on, like, borderline cheating and physical stuff, which should not be an issue here, so the round will start very soon after the last spot is filled .

I'm with Shadow, I don't think the calculation is quite accurate. I think Bb's system is a great guideline for beginner hosts, but I don't think it accurately represents all the factors that go into mafia game balance. Some of the major things I think are not completely represented: 1) Interaction factors (I believe this is the statistical term), i.e. the interplay between certain roles that makes them stronger or weaker in the presence of certain other roles than they would be alone. The kind of 'mafia game balance is more (or less) than the sum of its parts' thing. 2) Hosting styles/rules. Different hosts have different opinions about what goes into Posts, what takes precedence over what, etc, and this often affects the 'strength' of some roles/role combinations. 3) The Law of sheer numbers. As far as I can tell, the system doesn't give any weight to numbers (in terms of # of players), but many mafias come down to voting in the end, which is very much about the numbers. I.e. a game with 3 mafia and 6 'active' innocent roles would have the same calculation as if the game had 3 mafia, 6 'active' roles, and 10 "vanilla" villagers, but I think everyone would agree that the latter is far more in favor of the innocents . Also, generally a player with two different abilities is not as strong as 2 players each with one of those abilities, due to the possibility of blocks/redirect/manipulate as well as voting. I think it might be fun to play with Bb's system and add some variables to compensate for some of these factors, but overall I like the 'holistic' approach...I feel comfortable enough with my mafia experience, my game theoretical knowledge/intuition, and my general competence that if my over-analytic 'gut' tells me differently than what the basic calculation does, I would lay odds on myself ;P. Edit: Thank you all for the feedback though...as much as I am loath to admit it, I do get a 'spring in my step' from knowing ppl enjoyed my games