Quote:
Originally Posted by the sun fan
Wolves letting town get two lynches is outside of their control if all wolves are active (which tbh is more likely than not). Sure, people should just play the game, but I think you're sidestepping my point about the fairness of modkills replacing/not replacing the lynch with that.
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so I'm only going to talk about this because I think we more or less understand each other on the rest. I think the biggest thing you need to understand reading my post is that our idea of the status quo seems to be different. I look at the status quo in these games as whatever the setup calls for. Meaning if a setup calls for 11 players, I believe the status quo is 11 active players. I look at inactivity as a divergence from this, and a way to restore the disrupted balance is what I'm looking for.
I think a modkill of town should never replace the lynch under any circumstances. Yes, even in F4, which I'll get to in a moment. Whether a modkill of wolf should or not replace the lynch to maintain balance for wolves, I see both sides of.
I say modkills of town should never replace the lynch under any circumstances because, if it did, then all that's achieved is taking control away from the players. If it did, then the modkill BECOMES the lynch, albeit a host-controlled lynch on a guaranteed town player, and we should all be able to agree that that's bad. I wouldn't play further if that happened in a game.
I also think framing modkills as "essentially two lynches" distorts the conversation and limits objectivity in how we think about and discuss it the topic. It isn't two lynches. As you say, wolves being active enough to clear the extremely low bar is more likely than not. In the vast majority of cases, it's gonna be a town getting modkilled. I want you to answer something, at least to yourself. If you knew with 100% certainty that someone was town, would you want them lynched if you were town? At the end of the day, this is a numbers game as much as it is an information game. Losing a town slot as town hurts town, but it's a necessary loss.
I say it's a numbers game because that's what setups are designed for. If you have an 11 player game and 10/11 people are playing, removal of the 11th just makes it a 10 player game. When a non-player in a town slot is removed from a game via modkill, the game goes from a set balance of, say, 9 town to 2 wolf to 8 town to 2 wolf. That hurts town. By the numbers, that's essentially a free town kill for wolves, not "two lynches" for town. The only way the removal of an inactive disadvantages wolves is if you believe wolves have the right to inactive towns as red herrings/easy targets, which is a slippery slope that disrupts your view of balance itself (because then it wouldn't be 9 towns, but actually 8 towns and 1 yellow that would be in the setup). But I understand the info part, so let's talk about that.
It's an information game too. Which is what you've been arguing. That the info revealed to town is revealed before it's supposed to, and therefore benefits town. That's not a fair assessment, though. It stems from the same predisposed notion that inactives are part of the game, and the removal of them is therefore advantageous to town since they would otherwise be a part of the PoE, "while wolves would almost always prefer that to remain around". But try to shift your viewpoint a bit, just for a minute. Think of the setup as the status quo. When 1 town player isn't playing, it creates an imbalance that needs to be remedied. Forcing the remedy onto town via lynch takes the setup from 11 players (9t,2w) to 9 players (7t,2w) after lynch and nightkill. Essentially, it compounds the imbalance problem. Rather than having a non-player make the 11 player game a 10 player game via modkill, removing the lynch (or not modkilling) forces the 11 player game into a 9 player game. Even in F4, removing an inactive town just makes it F3. Replacing the lynch doesn't make it F3 anymore, it makes it WOLVES WIN endgame instantly due to parity after nightkill. At least in F3, both alignments have a chance of winning.
Town doesn't truly "gain info" by the modkill. At least, not info that compares to actually having their number of players. Wolves don't get disadvantaged by having inactives killed. At least, not compared to having all town players present. Slots that are filled in name only aren't part of the game. They shouldn't be gifted to wolves just because "inactives will always happen" and accepted as part of the game state. That destroys games. Removing or replacing divergent elements from a system as promptly as possible only serves to restore balance to it.