So I've been thinking about this game the whole time while I was in school, and I'm feeling as if my brain was on overdrive the whole time.
Let's sort my thoughts: The word "scummy" is the opposite of "towny", the attribute of behaving like you would expect a townie to behave: he indulges in scumhunting, and his statements are useful and logically sound. People are accused of being scummy because they don't behave correctly. Townies generally have no problem being consistent and they have no need of lying, because they don't have anything to hide. Scum, on the other hand, have to act like something they're not, which can confuse them, especially if, at the same time, they have to influence the real townies in a direction good for the scum. Basically, scum has an extra layer of meta they have to mentally handle. Now what would happen if we slowly start increasing the game's complexity?
Imagine two similar people. One person is juggling with one ball and the other is juggling with two balls. If we give both of them a ball, who's gonna mess up first? Exactly. Townies have one ball (read: thought level), scum has two or three already. This is the only difference between townies and scum that the town can use right from the start.
"Wait, wait!", you think. "Not everybody has the same juggling skills." This is true. I can juggle with four balls IRL without breaking a sweat. And differences in mental juggling ability are not only there, but actually enforced in this game. This is a Beginner's Mafia, so actually we aren't required to be able to juggle anything at all, but Jim and Dariush are ICs, and they volunteered because they're obviously confident that they're able to handle some serious shit. Yep, that's a flaw in this plan. But before you go point this out, I'll just point it out myself and tell you that that's unavoidable. The team with the better players has an advantage in any game, and whether you've got good players on your team just depends on pure luck. But after all, the simplest way to ensure that you've got good players on your team is to try playing well yourself.
But how can I alone change gameplay so drastically that you'll have difficulty following it? Watch this:
I, MagmaMcFry, hereby crown myself Emperor Of This Game.
I declare the following laws to come into effect immediately, influencing all of the players:
Law 1: Don't talk about the laws. No discussing, calling, questioning or even mentioning any of the laws.
Law 2: All laws are mine. I claim the right to be the single person in this game to be able to create, revoke and modify laws, as well as ignore them whenever I want. Laws will continue to hold if I die.
Law 3: At the very end of every post after this one, you shall have exactly the following written (in that font and color): Hail Emperor McFry!
Now, before you dismiss me as a randumb stupideous insaniac, let me explain this as far as you need to know: These laws are not just there for fun.
Law 1 is there to prevent that incident with Dariush from happening again (see my previous post). A great deal of my strategy is based on the premise that people do NOT get their words put into their mouth by other people that accidentally defuse my traps. These laws serve more than one purpose, and they won't work if random people start blathering about them. You can't catch criminals if they know what you're doing.
Well, you're probably wondering what my plan has to do with the stuff that I said before that (increasing the game's complexity): In a short while, I will start adding some laws that will make a serious impact on gameplay. Law 2 is there to prevent other people from copying or messing with my idea, interfering with my strategies and possibly making the game too complex too early. It won't help if nobody can think straight anymore. I will control the pace of the game myself.
Law 3 is for my personal amusement.
Perhaps you're wondering why you should follow these rules. As I told you before, I do not want to explain stuff earlier than I planned to. I have given you all the information you need. Just let me do my thing, and concentrate on doing something else. As far as the current laws go, they should have about the same relevance for you as "Don't piss into an elevator". Think of these laws as good manners. For now, there can be only one rational reason that you don't want to follow them: that you are too lazy to finish all of your posts with three orange words.
If you didn't understand everything, read it again. If you still didn't, just do what I told you.
~~~~ McFry
Author
Topic: Beginner's Mafia XXXI: Game Over. Scum Victory. (Read 51064 times)