I'd like to be added to the hosting list again please. The previous game was pretty enjoyable. I'll either host a Resistance game, or regular mafia (hopefully better-balanced this time).

Yep. And it bloomed into something forum wide beyond our Mafia community. So, not flubb's fault.

I do get the observation though that changing your avatar can be a form of communication. And yes, it could concievably be abused to get around the 'no communication at night' rule. So I get why a mod would say: please don't do that. And in the end the mod decides the rules for her game. If she says 'no avatar changing', the players should follow.

I, as a mod, don't really care. I'm not worried about secret communication between players, because I trust that you don't communicate secretly. There are sooooo many ways to cheat if you really want to that I can't possibly prevent all of them. Also, I don't want to. It's a game, you play it to have fun. So I trust that you play by the rules, because everything else would spoil the fun.

As a player, however, I like people to have identifiable avatars. It makes reading and attributing the posts easier.

Yeah, as I said at the time, if you believe someone is changing avatars to avoid night or private communication rules then they should be modkilled for that.
If I really wanted to cheat and communicate with someone else I would just PM them, and no one other than the recipient would be any the wiser. Why instead cheat in a highly visible and observable way?
But I don't cheat (and assume no one else does) because it would spoil the game to do so.

And as far as flub's play in that game being anti town because he drew a vig shot, I'd point out he was also simultaneously NKd, making it actually great vanilla town play.. I still don't see an issue with choosing a game related avatar (before or after receiving PMs).

It is a form of soft-claim or breadcrumbing. With all the dangers and possible benefits of soft-claims and in my view it is up to the other players to deal with that.

If you take that view, then you would necessarily also need to bind them to rules requiring a permanent and unedited record. The forum software is slower to update avatars, but title text is rapidly changeable. As a hypothetical, I can see this most easily being used by scum players using codewords. I personally think it's appropriate to define what the scope of play for a game is, with the traditional formatting being text posts only. Under the limitations of this forum's software, anything else violates the fundamental principle of permanency.

Yes, it is appropriate for the mod to define what is allowed in his or her game. And yes, changing avatars could be used in some way to cheat. But my point was: why would anyone bother? There are so many easier ways to cheat. If someone really wants to communicate secretly, he will do so without anyone noticing. So I chose to believe in the players wanting to have fun without spoiling their own game. It's a much healthier approach, I think, than worrying about all the things that could be means to cheat. No one expects you to prevent all possible methods of cheating, because that would be impossible.

I see your point, but it has to be done in advance for the meaning to be certain (or even noticed) and it's easy enough for scum to do that with actual words, like "If I mention what I had for breakfast, I was RBed, etc." in a way that's more predictable, given that as you note the forum software is a bit unreliable when it comes to avatars.

Everything that could be done via avatar or forum title could be done safer and more reliably in a post.

I agree with you agreeing with me ;)

And I disagree with both of you not joining the next game!

lol

You're outvoted 2-1, so we're still good. ;)

I agree on disagreeing with Lifthrasil so it is 2-2 and since we are both longer on GOG than you 2 it is only natural our votes have more weight than yours aso we win.

I agree with Bookwyrm and bler144 because I like them better. 3-2.

Hooray hooray!