Natural Action Resolution

Natural action resolution is a system of resolving night actions designed by Xylthixlm for use in his mafia bot XylBot. This is a simplified version suitable for human-moderated games.

The system is called natural action resolution because it always gives the intuitively "natural" result for simple situations.

The Golden Rule

Apply actions which modify other actions before the actions they modify.

Applying the Golden Rule in Three Easy Steps

1. Find an action where its effect couldn't possibly be modified by any other action.
2. Resolve it.
3. Repeat from step 1 until all actions are resolved.

Paradox and Ambiguity

Sometimes the actions that might affect each other form a loop, so that there's no action to pick in step 1. In other cases, the order of two actions matters but it isn't clear that one affects the other. When that happens, pick an action to resolve in this order:

1. Copy
2. Hide
3. Bus
4. Block
5. Redirect
6. Protect
7. Miscellaneous
8. Kill
9. Recruit
10. Inspect

Count minor modifications of the actions listed above the same as the basic action (e.g., randomize would be the same priority as redirect). For actions which combine two other actions use the first one listed.

If the list still doesn't narrow it down to a single action, pick one of the best candidates using any fair method, such as by taking the first one submitted.

Resolve the action you picked this way, then go back to the golden rule until you get another cycle. Usually one or two picks are enough to make everything work.

Killing

Killing doesn't stop the actions of the dead player. (Imagine that all kills happen at the end of the night, and everyone pulls the trigger simultaneously.)

Roleblocking

It can be hard to decide what can, and can't, be roleblocked. As a rule of thumb, actions which players choose to use can roleblocked, and actions which don't involve player choice can't be roleblocked.

Roleblocking XylBot-style

If you want to make your life more complicated, you can instead divide abilities into four groups.

Normal actions are the ones players explicitly submit. Each player can only submit one normal action per night phase. They can always be roleblocked.

Automatic actions are like normal actions, but you don't get any choice in if or how they're used. Actions that happen when you fail to submit a night choice, or choose to do nothing, are also in this category. Automatic actions can be roleblocked.

Triggered actions happen when certain circumstances are met. One common circumstance is being targeted by another action, but the trigger can be anything. Triggered actions can't be roleblocked, and don't trigger other triggered actions.

Static abilities are always "on", and don't involve actions at all. They can't be roleblocked.

It's not always clear what group an ability should fall into. For example, an action that happens every night could be either automatic or triggered. A bulletproof vest could be either a static ability or an action triggered by being targeted by a kill. If this confuses you, stick with the simple system.

Triggered Actions

If you use triggered actions, resolve them along with the regular actions, using the golden rule as normal. Any action which triggers when a player is targeted by a certain action should go off between steps 1 and 2, before resolving the action that triggers it. When that happens, stop and go back to step 1, this time considering the triggered action as well.