The masons are coming!

[Sherlock Holmes]

I'm not sure if this has been reported before, if it has I apologize. I was in a game with 4 random towns and one basic town. They produced 5 masons (I was one of them). This is a glitch, unless you believe in the great all-knowing Tutuktu in the clouds. In two other games with 3 preset masons, the only random town turned out mason. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence.

I'm sure this has been reported before but I couldn't find it from glancing over the bug report forum.

Thanks!

[vornksr]

There always seems to be a little weirdness in the "random" distributions.

But it might have had something to do with the host's settings, too. I've been in a couple games recently where the host set the towns to "exclude power roles." In the case of basic town, that leaves ONLY escort, citizen, and mason. I'm not quite sure what the options are for random town, but it can have an effect.

[Dark.Revenant]

It's possible for this to happen, but it's not a bug. The host settings were likely rigged, as the chance of this happening under normal circumstances is VERY low (less than 2%).

[Sherlock Holmes]

Hmm... I guess we just got super lucky then. I suppose it's possible, I just assumed particularly with the other two cases that something was afoot.

[Sherlock Holmes]

even supposing they were all basic town, excluding power roles (leaving only escort, citizen, and mason):

that's a 1/3 chance five times.

(1/3)(1/3)(1/3)(1/3)(1/3)

That's 1/243 odds, or about a 0.4% chance. I don't care to calculate the odds involving 4 random towns and 1 basic town. I'm still suspicious, but I suppose I will accept that it was a crazy, crazy fluke.

[Dark.Revenant]

Suppose basic town, excluding power and citizens, thus Escort and Mason are the only options. Five slots that way.

2/5 for Mason, 3/5 for Escort on slot 1.
If Mason, slot 2 is also Mason. If not, another 2/5 x 3/5 chance.
If slot 1/2 were Masons, the next one has about a 44% chance of being a mason through some other method. Using this sort of method continuing:

Slot 1: (2/5)
Slot 2: 1*(2/5)
Slot 3: Option 1[44%]: 1*1*(2/5), Option 2[56%]: 1*(2/5)*(2/5)
Slot 4: Option 1.1[13%]: 1*1*1*(2/5), Option 1.2[31%]: 1*1*(2/5)*(2/5), Option 2[56%]: 1*1*(2/5)*(2/5)
Slot 5: Option 1.1.1[2.9%]: 1*1*1*1*(2/5), Option 1.1.2[10%]: 1*1*1*(2/5)*(2/5), Option 1.2[31%]: 1*1*1*(2/5)*(2/5), Option 2[25%]: 1*1*1*(2/5)*(2/5), Option 3[31%]: 1*1*(2/5)*(2/5)*(2/5)

About a 14% chance for 5 Masons given five basic town slots with citizens and power roles excluded.

If one of them is a random town slot, the chance drops by a fair amount, but I can't be arsed to calculate the exact percentage.

[Sherlock Holmes]

I see. I didn't consider that masons produce more masons, nor did I consider that citizens could be removed, which does change things. Things have moved more within the realm of possibility..