Schrödinger's Wolves: Replacements Signup (none needed yet)

[groza528]

The moon is rising. The fog plays tricks with your mind.
There is a great evil in this village. A pervasive and carnal bloodlust. The moon awakens the potential for evil in us all. Nobody knows where this great power is lurking. It could be in your friend, your neighbor, even yourself and you may never know it. The only thing more frightening than being stalked by the beast is realizing that you may be the beast yourself, unable to control your hunger.
You wake from your slumber with half-forgotten memories of mauling a close companion. Was it real, or simply a nightmare? You don't know for sure.
Only death brings certainty.

Schrödinger's Wolves is a Mafia variant developed by Steven Irrgang and featured in a puzzle of the same name in the 2008 cisra puzzle competition. Think of it as Mafia with quantum uncertainty.
There is a definite role distribution: Two werewolves (Mafia), one of which is the alpha wolf, and one seer (cop); the rest of the players are ordinary villagers (townies.) Unlike standard Mafia, these roles are not assigned at the beginning of the game but rather distributed equally among all players. The results of investigations, attacks, and burnings will define the players' roles as the game progresses. More details are below, or in this link
Alpha Wolf
Every night starting from night 1, each player P will submit an attack target A. Based on the probability that P is the alpha wolf, A will become partially dead. For example, if P is 40% likely to be the alpha wolf, A is 40% likely to be dead, but may otherwise still participate as a full player. If it is later proven (probably via burning) that P *is* in fact the alpha wolf, A will be proven dead retroactively.
Beta Wolf
The alpha wolf's attack targets take precedence, but if the alpha wolf is dead then the beta wolf's attack target may die. The alpha wolf may not attack the beta wolf, so any possible scenario in which A is the beta wolf is immediately disproven.
Seer
Additionally, every night beginning with night 0 a player P submits an investigation target I. A result is randomly chosen based on the probability that I is one of the wolves. Any scenario in which a seer receives an incorrect vision is disproven. Therefore, if a player is the seer they will receive only correct visions-- if a player is NOT the seer they MAY still receive correct visions by chance. P may send the same target for A and I if they wish. P may also opt not to receive a vision, which is double-edged: they get less information, but also reduce the probability of being disproven as the seer.
For the purpose of probabilities, seer visions take place after attacks.
Day breaks
Every player will secretly be assigned a number. It is recommended that you do not share your number, sharing your number is analogous to sharing your role in standard Mafia. A table will be publicly posted during the day which announces the probability, by number, that each player is dead, and the probability that s/he is evil. Sample:

[Amb]

Auto In

[Ctuchik]

Schrödinger's cat is dead!
Now where does that "Meow!" come from?
/in

[KradDrol]

/in

[LordKinbote]

Okay, this will be my first Mafia game ever, but I'm in.

[Courk]

I am so in!

[The Great Crep'er]

I'm more /in than Courk is.
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Potato. Belgium. Eight. Random Lynch # Mafia awaits.

[Neo]

As the resident Physicist (since Lepty and Boro are gone) I can say I have measured my position and that is most definitely in, and that the uncertainty bounds of the measurement are still within the "In" position.

I, however, do not know my momentum at all.
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_{Ad Astra}

[MNOWAX]

[Leonidas]

/in please.

[MatthewV]

I will take a spot. maybe

However, I cannot say for sure what spot I am taking.

[groza528]

Well, that filled up pretty fast. Never underestimate the GL's interest in a nerdy game

I will random assign player numbers and probably start the game tonight.

[Amb]

You should apply some bizarre rule to replacements. Such as they start at 90% dead.

[Leonidas]

Or 90% inactive.

[Courk]

Every replacement is Westley.

[Poisonium]

Yay, this is small enough for me to be /in as a probably-not-necessary replacement.
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I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

[isauteikisa]

/in as replacement if needed.
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[VXCL] 075-1DR
I'm male, people.

[ralphmerridew]

Question about mechanics: Suppose that at some point, there is no way to fulfill the conditions.

Example: 5 people, 2 wolves.
Day 1, D is lynched (good)
Night 1, A attacks B, B attacks C, C attacks A.
Day 2, E is lynched (good). (It's possible that A is alpha and C is beta.)
Night 2, A attacks C, B attacks A, C attacks B.

[groza528]

Yes, I envisioned a similar paradox... I'm hoping something like this won't come up, but if it does it would probably fall under this clause:

[ralphmerridew]

Okay, change it so that there are some additional people who are 0% evil. (Perhaps they were investigated by the seer, who was subsequently killed, or they were investigated as good by everyone else.)

Or: Six alive, two wolves at 100% evil each, but the alpha hasn't been paying attention, or isn't good at logic, and attacks his beta.

[groza528]

Glad you're making me think about this now
I guess it stands to reason that if an alpha wolf tried to attack someone that could only be the beta wolf, they would notice that their target is rather furry... So I'm going to make an addendum. If a situation arises where the alpha wolf's target MUST logically be the beta wolf: both wolves will be told of this development, there will be no kill, and the wolves will be permitted to speak on subsequent nights. If there are several possible outcomes but all involve the alpha wolf attacking the beta wolf, one will be chosen at random.

[Irgy]

Hi guys, it's Steven Irrgang, the game creator here. Sorry to butt in, but I thought I'd come to the defense of my rules and help clarify this no-target dilemna

There's mention of this on the rules page: "In some rare cases it's possible for the game to be over without it being determined who the winners are. For example, there could be two players left, and one of them is playing a wolf who has already killed the other player's character, but it could still be either player. When this happens, the wave function will be forced to randomly collapse and decide a winner.". This was intended solely and specifically to cover the situation you're talking about here.

groza528 was correct to quote the line "In the event that further play will not prove [any] player to be a clear winner (e.g. two players remain and either one could be the last wolf), the wave function will collapse randomly to define the winner." as this is his rephrasing of the line I quoted above.

In the example ralphmerridew describes, the game is over already, because in every subgame the wolves have already killed all the villagers. It's just a more complicated version of the two players left who've killed each other scenario So the forced collapse needs to happen there as well.

There should never be a situation where there isn't a valid target to attack until the game is over.

Note that this doesn't stop people from choosing their only possible beta wolf as a target (possibly by mistake), and eliminating themselves as possible wolves by doing so (there are other ways this could be handled but I think this is the best option). Which makes it important to resolve the actions one at a time (preferably in a random order), in case everyone tries to do this at once.


edit: Fixed some confusion I had relating to thinking groza528's rephrasing was actually someone else's editting of the original version

[groza528]

Hi Steven, glad to see you pop in

I certainly agree that disproving them as the alpha is the way to go, but I still think there are a couple of scenarios regarding the "in case everyone tries to do this at once" that require an additional clause. Consider the following:

[Irgy]

[groza528]

That's what I meant with my "If there are several possible outcomes..." situation. In that case I would choose one of the three possible subgames at random (which amounts to the same as resolving the attacks one at a time in a random order, if I'm not mistaken), then enact the steps mentioned: no kill, wolves would be told they're allies.
I hadn't really considered asking for a second kill target, but I guess it would be an option. But for now I think I'm going with the no kill unless you think I'm bastardizing your rules
I maintain that these situations are probably not very likely anyway.

[Irgy]

[Poisonium]

Actually, /out. With time travel mafia popping up as well, I don't think I'll be able to handle that much.
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I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

[groza528]

Need one replacement.
Edit: No longer needed