DoomYoshi wrote:Spiesr, at what point is it acceptable to advocate the lynch of an absentee player?
A straightforward question with few simple answers. This is going to depend significantly on the huge variety or situations that could come up in a mafia game. The most obvious example would be when there is enough "evidence" against said player that any replacement would have little hope of actually changing the result. (I don't feel what you had on Vodean was enough to qualify for this, even with the Day 1 allowance.) Another possibility is when finding a replacement is impossible for unlikely. (Clearly that wasn't the case this time.) Cases where a player is active enough to avoid replacement but still doesn't contribute anything could also fall under that logic. A third major category is when the game is so large and has so much inactivity that culling is necessary to make it playable again.
Beyond these general cases and laundry list of specific scenarios are sure to exist that could justify such an action. However, since they are mostly irrelevant to this game I won't try to list/come up with them, but rather just point out a little bit of why it bothered me this time. The justification you attached, arguing the Vodean had an above average chance of being scum, was, in my opinion, not that solid of reasoning. As such, to me, it felt like either going after and inactive for being inactive or just a shot in the dark. While neither of those are that terrible themselves, at least for Day 1, I felt that doing so against a player who would not respond would not result in the quality of discussion I would like to get out of this Day. The way I see it, if we had lynched Vodean without him being replaced or something and he came up town we would only have two potential ideas to work from tomorrow, barring night actions. Either go after someone who bandwagoned a little too carelessly, or go for the person who started the whole thing, you. Here's an idea we can just skip to that part right now. Anyhow, with this game being somewhat on the smaller side and the potentially dangerous setup, I am warry of anything that could us to mislynch two days in a row.
So, if you still feel attached to your idea about the pms with respect to Vodean, I encourage you to use it now while there is someone who can say something in defense, which I feel will give us better discussion than if had occurred without a replacement.
Well, good luck deciphering this rambling mess...
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 5:23 pm