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[joncha]

Nikolai just volunteered to be the first-round "even out" kill.

[Nikolai]

Why "even it out"? It's no problem to have an odd number of players after all... Is this something like the number 13?

[DrSpike]

Well there'd be a vote at 2 players left, which isn't good.

[Sparrowhawk]

If you start with an uneven number, with one death starting the game, you are left with an even number, then every day after that you have one kill by the Villagers making for an odd number and then one kill by the Mafia, making it even again. By this system if and when it gets down to 3 villagers It is the Mafia's turn to kill making it two, at which point if one of the villagers is mafia and one is a villager, the vote will of course be tied resulting in a tiedbreaker as to who wins the game. (not a desirable conclusion to a long game at that point).

If you start with an even number however the opposite is true...
With one death starting the game, you are left with an odd number, then every day after that you have one kill by the Villagers making for an even number and then one kill by the Mafia, making it odd again. By this system if and when it gets down to 3 villagers It is the Villagers turn and the vote cannot be tied, so one of the villagers dies (maybe the mafia), if it is not the Mafia, you have an even number left, one of whom is the Mafia and it is their turn to kill (with no doubt as to who they are going to kill).

This results in a much better finish as the conclusion does not have to be decided by a tiebreaker.

/me hopes that the above makes sense

[Kassiopeia]

It is a problem.

With an odd amount of players, say five, you get this:

Round 1. Mafia kills someone. Four people left.
Round 1. People execute someone. Three people left.
Round 2. Mafia kills someone. Two left.

Now you have an even number of people who have to vote. You'd have to resort to a coin toss, which is silly when you could have the intriguing final round of three people accusing each other of being the killer.

[DrSpike]

Can anyone else think of a way of making the same point?

[Kassiopeia]

And within a minute and 17 seconds of each other no less.

[Adagio]

If starting with an odd number, why don't we just create a 'dummy' player, which is just the first player to get killed by the mafia by default. Since nobody's playing this person everybody gets to vote at least once

[Kassiopeia]

Hmm. Kill an NPC off the first turn. Not a bad idea at all.

I also think it's fitting that Sparrowhawk's response was by far the lengthiest, while Spikey's was the shortest.

[Nikolai]

I know of the "problem" you present here, but it's really not a problem. It's as easy as this: If there's two persons left, the Mafia has won. That's the way we do it IRL Mafia where I come from. As soon as the players can't kill the Mafia, the Mafia has won. It's as simple as that.

[Snowflake]

Or maybe they can have fist fight.

[Nikolai]

As long as the Mafia wins, same for me.

[Theben]

I wonder why Nikolai is so eager for the Mafia to win...

[Ben Kenobi]

As soon as the players can't kill the Mafia, the Mafia has won. It's as simple as that.

So if we get 2 mafias, and 2 players, this time the mafia win?

[Ljube]

To cut this discussion short, why don't you add vovan and I'll ask him to join us. If he accepts, we have an even number of players, if he refuses just kill him in the first round. OK?