Hotline Mafia | Mafia host test game

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 4:54 AM (post #24)

I feel a deep, instinctive, visceral revulsion towards games that are not full of power roles, but it's probably for the best that I play some because I think reading behavior is both the most important aspect of Mafia and the one I am worst at.

This setup still seems to me like the winner is determined purely by RNG, but I suppose that intricate game design is none too important for a test of the host dashboard.

Yeah, you're not alone in this. Behavioral reads are going to be wonky at best this early and are likely going to stay that way throughout, but it's a good opportunity to try and assess small differences in behavior to the best of our ability. It's never been my forte, either. I've stopped relying too much on theme knowledge, but usually I can make some headway with claims, and that won't be possible this game.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 5:04 AM (post #28)

Someone needs to explain to me how and why this setup behooves any strategy other than rolling the dice and praying to RNGesus.

Basically, it all rides on the off chance that people will behave/react differently if we get them talking enough as scum, which may not be easy regardless for players who are relatively absent. It doesn't help that we have so little leeway that just pushing inactive players is a gigantic risk.

I decided to vote the GLOBAL MODERATOR so it wasn’t completely random lmao

(also you can check the database on MU for my games, I don’t feel like linking it because I got temp banned from that site)

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:52 AM (post #23)

I don't see the point of skipping night 1 if a Mafioso is lynched today. Seems to me like that would make the game too swingy, and that, if anything, night 1 should be skipped if a townie is lynched.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:54 AM (post #24)

I feel a deep, instinctive, visceral revulsion towards games that are not full of power roles, but it's probably for the best that I play some because I think reading behavior is both the most important aspect of Mafia and the one I am worst at.

This setup still seems to me like the winner is determined purely by RNG, but I suppose that intricate game design is none too important for a test of the host dashboard.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:55 AM (post #25)

Nice to meet you. My Blood on the Clocktower game could use another player.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 2:04 AM (post #28)

Someone needs to explain to me how and why this setup behooves any strategy other than rolling the dice and praying to RNGesus.

Nice to meet you as well. I'm not too much of a fan of rolemad games and tend to prefer technical ones like this setup, but it appears that I might be in the minority on that one. Regardless, when there's no power roles, all it means is that town needs to rely on behavioral reads to win (i.e. the old-fashioned way). No matter the mechanics, scum players still fundamentally have a different mindset than town players and that shows over time in their posting.

Do you have any reads in particular right now?

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:57 AM (post #26)

Posted by Hyper on 8/3/2026 at 7:44 PM (post #7)

As such, be cautious of putting someone at E - 1.

I take it they don't say lynch wherever you came from.

They do, actually, but I usually follow what the host says in the votecounts (in this case, eliminate).

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/4/2026 at 6:26 AM (post #30)

So the most recent one I can bring up is the Solo Leveling game, in which he was town. He has generally made a habit of providing at least a little reasoning in previous games for his votes, like in the 1990s-2000s Nostalgia game, but Awesome also just hasn't been in a lot of games, and I don't believe he's ever been scum. I just don't have a good frame of reference for his scum play. Posting a test vote does little to inform if he's off his usual playstyle, especially since the voting system for mafia has changed in his absence and he's kicking the tires a bit.

Good to know, thanks. What do you think of #32?

If I'm making reads from absolute first principles here, then whiteflame is somewhat towny for complaining about the setup potentially favoring town too much; my impression from his play so far is that he's a pretty calm player and if scum, I think he'd be more cautious about expressing what could be seen as annoyance as rolling scum here.

I can perhaps extend my townread on awesome5000 as well (just seems kinda out-there to vote based on a random out-of-game thing with #32; again, from first principles, scum are usually more self-aware of where their votes are), although that's very weak and it's a sign of the activity so far that I'm actually making this read on just two posts.

Still neutral on Thoth.

Maybe like, Thoth > Casey slightly in towniness, but that's complete intuition and I don't really trust my instincts after being away from mafia for so long.

Thoth/whiteflame are unlikely to be a pair. awesome5000/whiteflame also probably aren't paired. #27 might make Thoth/Mag1cman slightly less likely to be a pair.

I forgot about this game entirely.

I won’t be available until much later tonight. Posting from work rn, I get off at or a little past 9

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/4/2026 at 11:48 AM (post #35)

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/4/2026 at 6:26 AM (post #30)

So the most recent one I can bring up is the Solo Leveling game, in which he was town. He has generally made a habit of providing at least a little reasoning in previous games for his votes, like in the 1990s-2000s Nostalgia game, but Awesome also just hasn't been in a lot of games, and I don't believe he's ever been scum. I just don't have a good frame of reference for his scum play. Posting a test vote does little to inform if he's off his usual playstyle, especially since the voting system for mafia has changed in his absence and he's kicking the tires a bit.

Good to know, thanks. What do you think of #32?

Brief opportunity to post.

I think it’s a tad defensive. No one called awesome out on it being a random choice, we said it was odd that he left it up despite just being a test. He returns and isn’t responsive to that, just saying why he chose me. Choosing the global moderator just because is odd, but not particularly sus. It’s more odd that he feels the need to justify it at all. If it’s a test vote, why does your target matter?

Sorry for being late, I genuinely meant to be on earlier, but I didn't get any sleep at all the other night and absolutely crashed last night, sleeping in much later than I meant to. Catching up rn

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/3/2026 at 8:44 PM (post #7)

Nice to meet you all. This is my first game in a few years, but I'm decently experienced. A few things to note about the setup:

1. Scum are heavily incentivized to quickhammer, since they can kill the scum player that made the hammer as well as the town player that wasn't voting for the elimination. As such, be cautious of putting someone at E - 1.
2. Assuming no bussing, every town player needs to agree on a scum suspect to secure an successful elimination.
3. Town's greatest problem during Day 1 is probably the time limit. Keeping #2 in mind, even a single town player hesitating for too long can be enough to sink an otherwise successful elimination. While activity is always important, the town-scum ratios here make it especially crucial.

Welcome! I think you are going to be a great addition to our community! These are all solid points imo. Point 1 in particular

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/3/2026 at 11:07 PM (post #10)

Honestly, forgot this was happening today and didn't get a ping, glad I suddenly remembered before I called it a night.

Small but interesting group in this one. Odd way to balance the game regardless of that first lynch. If scum get lynched first, we skip the NP, so... scum lose out on an NK? I don't get that, seems to just dig their hole deeper since there are no other night actions. The other caveat makes a little more sense at least, otherwise the game could just end NP1 with scum reaching parity on their first NK.

A correct lynch on D1 is always bad for scum, but I don't think it would generally be the end of the world in this setup unless they just play really stupidly, considering that everyone is a vanilla

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/3/2026 at 11:13 PM (post #13)

Originally Posted by awesome5000 on 8/3/2026 at 7:31 PM (post #4)

VTL: whiteflame

Test

So what value is there in doing this and then leaving the vote up? I get that it doesn't put me all that close to a lynch, but if your goal was to test the system, you got your answer.

This response to an RVS feels strange to me

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/4/2026 at 12:01 AM (post #19)

VTL: Mag1cman

Thoth's entrance was okay, I suppose.

The entrance is whatever imo, but I'd like to know why he waited to contribute anything to the thread

Mostly has to do with my admittedly limited experience with awesome in previous games. Not terribly unusual for him to vanish at weird points for long stretches of time, particularly after casting a vote. This one just seems particularly throw-away.

How so? It's basically just RVS. Being a random throwaway is the point

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/4/2026 at 11:45 AM (post #33)

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:52 AM (post #23)

I don't see the point of skipping night 1 if a Mafioso is lynched today. Seems to me like that would make the game too swingy, and that, if anything, night 1 should be skipped if a townie is lynched.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:54 AM (post #24)

I feel a deep, instinctive, visceral revulsion towards games that are not full of power roles, but it's probably for the best that I play some because I think reading behavior is both the most important aspect of Mafia and the one I am worst at.

This setup still seems to me like the winner is determined purely by RNG, but I suppose that intricate game design is none too important for a test of the host dashboard.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 1:55 AM (post #25)

Nice to meet you. My Blood on the Clocktower game could use another player.

Originally Posted by Thoth on 8/4/2026 at 2:04 AM (post #28)

Someone needs to explain to me how and why this setup behooves any strategy other than rolling the dice and praying to RNGesus.

Nice to meet you as well. I'm not too much of a fan of rolemad games and tend to prefer technical ones like this setup, but it appears that I might be in the minority on that one. Regardless, when there's no power roles, all it means is that town needs to rely on behavioral reads to win (i.e. the old-fashioned way). No matter the mechanics, scum players still fundamentally have a different mindset than town players and that shows over time in their posting.

Do you have any reads in particular right now?

Just as a heads up, most of the games on here are rolemad. We're de facto a fairly insular community and that's just how the meta here has developed. That said, I do think having an all-vanilla game like this is a refreshing change of pace

A correct lynch on D1 is always bad for scum, but I don't think it would generally be the end of the world in this setup unless they just play really stupidly, considering that everyone is a vanilla

I agree, though my point was that this seemed to be kicking them when they’re already down. I understand why it makes sense for this game, but it seemed odd to me.

This response to an RVS feels strange to me

My assumption, maybe incorrectly, was that this was testing the means of posting a vote rather than a reaction test. If it’s the latter, then I was mistaken.

How so? It's basically just RVS. Being a random throwaway is the point

He doesn’t usually make a point of pushing RVS votes from what I’ve seen, but I did mention later that he said it wasn’t a random choice. If the idea is that any reason suffices, then sure, I guess choosing me because I’m a global moderator is as good a reason as any. Feels unnecessary for a random choice to be justified at all when I hadn’t poster yet, but whatever.

@Casey_Risk

Hmmm… it didn’t let me tag you, I keep getting an error message when I try.

Alright, worked this out with Savant, this should go through.

Nice, Casey can now be tagged!

Automated Vote Count

This system-generated vote count was posted on behalf of the main host.

Mag1cman (1/4): Hyper (p#19)

whiteflame (1/4): awesome5000 (p#4)

Not Voting (4): whiteflame, Thoth, Casey_Risk, Mag1cman

With 6 players alive, the base elimination threshold is 4. Configured role modifiers may change vote power or an individual player's threshold. Day phase ends in 22 hours.

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/4/2026 at 11:58 AM (post #39)

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/4/2026 at 11:48 AM (post #35)

Originally Posted by whiteflame on 8/4/2026 at 6:26 AM (post #30)

So the most recent one I can bring up is the Solo Leveling game, in which he was town. He has generally made a habit of providing at least a little reasoning in previous games for his votes, like in the 1990s-2000s Nostalgia game, but Awesome also just hasn't been in a lot of games, and I don't believe he's ever been scum. I just don't have a good frame of reference for his scum play. Posting a test vote does little to inform if he's off his usual playstyle, especially since the voting system for mafia has changed in his absence and he's kicking the tires a bit.

Good to know, thanks. What do you think of #32?

Brief opportunity to post.

I think it’s a tad defensive. No one called awesome out on it being a random choice, we said it was odd that he left it up despite just being a test. He returns and isn’t responsive to that, just saying why he chose me. Choosing the global moderator just because is odd, but not particularly sus. It’s more odd that he feels the need to justify it at all. If it’s a test vote, why does your target matter?

My impression is that the act of not unvoting in his justification post implies that it's no longer a test vote anymore. Granted, that's not particularly helpful in the absence of further reasoning, but I'm not sure if I'd characterize the post as defensive; in fact, it seems rather unbothered in the sense he doesn't care to elaborate.

As for Casey (and to #41, thanks for the welcome), posts #43 into #45 seems decent, it's indicative of some natural development of reasoning (i.e., finding whiteflame's initial post offputting then questioning the justification). I don't necessarily agree with it—personally, I find whiteflame's reaction to be more likely the result of being unused to vanilla-style setups with little to work with in the beginning—but it feels like Casey's at least trying to latch on to something rather than fly under the radar.

I do want to ask regarding #44, though, which seems to carry some skepticism of Thoth. What distinguishes their entrance from awesome500's in your view, considering that both made a single post then left?

He doesn’t usually make a point of pushing RVS votes from what I’ve seen, but I did mention later that he said it wasn’t a random choice. If the idea is that any reason suffices, then sure, I guess choosing me because I’m a global moderator is as good a reason as any. Feels unnecessary for a random choice to be justified at all when I hadn’t poster yet, but whatever.

Looking at it a bit more closely, I'm not sure if awesome5000's post is so much a justification as simply explaining his choice (maybe it's a cultural thing, but I've often seen RVS votes be based on random stuff like usernames, so this doesn't strike me as any more unusual than that). Regardless, do you think that it's more likely for #32 to come from a scum mindset than a town one?

Whiteflame/Thoth

Whiteflame/Awesome5000

Whiteflame/Mag1cman

Whiteflame/Casey

Thoth/Awesome5000

Thoth/Mag1cman (slight)

Thoth/Casey

Awesome5000/Mag1cman

Awesome5000/Casey

Mag1cman/Casey

List of possible pairings, strikethroughs represent ones I surmise are less likely .I'm kind of operating off the assumption that scum are more likely to try and get townread early on rather than go for immediate distancing by the nature of this setup, which discourages bussing when scum lose the Night 1 kill.

I'd like to unpair whiteflame/Casey but would need to see a bit more there.

Based on the current level of activity in thread, today's elimination is probably going to land on a lurker if only because all the somewhat active players are posting decently. That's not necessarily a bad thing—I townread whiteflame and Casey to some degree, and that leaves a 2/3 chance in the remaining players, maybe slightly higher if I'm taking awesome5000 as having the slightest hints of towniness—but it is worrying because if we miseliminate today then we have very little information to go off of tomorrow.

I'm well aware that vanilla setups are difficult to make reads in, but your reads don't have to be correct, or even halfway decent. All they have to do is make you readable to others. That's all I really have to say for now, but I'll be around later in the evening if anyone wants to have a conversation.

My impression is that the act of not unvoting in his justification post implies that it's no longer a test vote anymore. Granted, that's not particularly helpful in the absence of further reasoning, but I'm not sure if I'd characterize the post as defensive; in fact, it seems rather unbothered in the sense he doesn't care to elaborate.

That's pretty much his default, by which I mean choosing not to elaborate on his decisions. I can't say whether he's more likely to do so as scum, but I'm guessing he wouldn't deviate that much from his usual behavior.

Looking at it a bit more closely, I'm not sure if awesome5000's post is so much a justification as simply explaining his choice (maybe it's a cultural thing, but I've often seen RVS votes be based on random stuff like usernames, so this doesn't strike me as any more unusual than that). Regardless, do you think that it's more likely for #32 to come from a scum mindset than a town one?

Honestly, it's pretty null to me. It's the kind of response that could swing both ways. I view it as a little defensive since no one asked for his justification, but if he was concerned about how it would be perceived, he likely would have just removed the vote and laughed it off, either that or find a reason to sus me from my responses. Absent both of those or even a small move in either direction, it just comes off as pretty uninformative. I understand how you'd see that as townie, though.

As for reads, I don't have a lot to mention, but I'll give what I can.

Thoth - Starting with the "why did no one ping me?" post leaves me a little mixed. It's likely scum got pinged about the game starting, but no one else did. Just seems a little weird to call it out when all of us can see it. Aside from that, he's mainly just been frustrated that he has to evaluate other players behaviorally, which I somewhat get, but we all signed up for this game knowing that the setups would demand more on that front. I don't really get why he'd complain about it. I get that this DP is filler, but I don't like how much of his posting is just being frustrated, and yes I say that as someone who complained about the setup from the start, so I recognize it's a little hypocritical. Mainly wondering if some of this has been more performative.

Hyper - Just a lot of really good game analysis and incisive thoughts about behavior so far. I appreciate how Hyper is digging into our behaviors, and while I've seen players use this kind of thing to control the direction of the DP, there's also a lot of questions about how we perceive certain choices and a genuine effort to understand player behaviors as we've experienced them before. The attempt to figure out plausible pairings also comes off as a good way to look at how we're all bouncing off of each other. Can't see eliminating them this DP.

Casey_Risk - Not a whole lot to read into so far. Casey's been focused on my response to awesome's vote, which I'll admit likely comes off a bit odd considering I didn't realize it was an RVS for a bit. Mentioning that Thoth was slow to contribute to the thread after his initial post is fair enough, though I can't say I'm sussing the delayed contribution. I like the engagement so far, but I can't say I can read a lot into a few responses in a short period of time, so I'm waiting to see more interaction from them.

Mag1cman - One post saying that he wouldn't be available for a while and, so far, nothing additional. Basically inactive, nothing to read into.

awesome5000 - I've already given my basic thoughts on awesome, though I'll summarize. The random test vote, which I am realizing was almost certainly just RVS (really did think it was just testing the voting system, that's just me being dumb) doesn't say much by itself, nor does the follow-up. I still think it's a little defensive to just blurt out a reason for the vote unprompted, rather than a reason for keeping it up or some insight into what he's learned from the RVS, but there's just not a lot to read into with these posts so far and if there is a plan of action here, it's not popping out to me.

Similar to Hyper, while I'm not fond of just defaulting to our inactive player, Mag1c would be my first choice at this point. I'm debating between Thoth and awesome past that point, want to see more from both before I try to pick between them.

Automated Vote Count

This system-generated vote count was posted on behalf of the main host.

Mag1cman (1/4): Hyper (p#19)

whiteflame (1/4): awesome5000 (p#4)

Not Voting (4): whiteflame, Thoth, Casey_Risk, Mag1cman

With 6 players alive, the base elimination threshold is 4. Configured role modifiers may change vote power or an individual player's threshold. Day phase ends in 18 hours.

Originally Posted by Hyper on 8/3/2026 at 8:44 PM (post #7)

Nice to meet you all. This is my first game in a few years, but I'm decently experienced. A few things to note about the setup:

Scum are heavily incentivized to quickhammer, since they can kill the scum player that made the hammer as well as the town player that wasn't voting for the elimination. As such, be cautious of putting someone at E - 1.

Assuming no bussing, every town player needs to agree on a scum suspect to secure an successful elimination.

Town's greatest problem during Day 1 is probably the time limit. Keeping #2 in mind, even a single town player hesitating for too long can be enough to sink an otherwise successful elimination. While activity is always important, the town-scum ratios here make it especially crucial.

Reasonable post.

Were you anyone on DDO or DART?