Mafia: The Mob is Recruiting [Game Finished]

[OneCentStamp]

I apologize to my fellow Towners if my posting has been sporadic. Mostly, I'm just a little intimidated (more so yesterday than today) and trying to figure out how this really works. It hasn't helped that a lot of the other players here are obviously familiar with each other, referencing play habits from previous games and "classic scum tells."

I'm reading closely, and I'm trying to figure out who's acting suspicious. If I can manage not to get lynched or disappeared in the process, better yet.

[Koldanar]

Friendly warning, OneCentStamp, you can't edit posts. It's a big no-no, and can get you mod killed.

Just a few concerns and thoughts at the moment, no real accusations : I was thinking, would it be possible that behind all the math Blaster could be hiding scum intentions? It doesn't seem likely, regarding the rest of his (her?) behavior, just a small thought.

Menocchio, I need to back and review my FOS on.

I'm still hoping to see changes in behavior today for someone. With 1-2 recruits, it's a good bet someone will die tonight, yes?

[OneCentStamp]

Friendly warning, OneCentStamp, you can't edit posts. It's a big no-no, and can get you mod killed.
:eek: Thanks. FTR, the substance of my edit was changing managed to manage.

[Hawkeyeop]

With 1-2 recruits, it's a good bet someone will die tonight, yes?

That would likely depend on the vig. Recruiting is much better for the scum numbers than killing, so I expect them to keep recruiting until they have a very good reason not to.

[dotchan]

But it doesn't change the fact that you REALLY need to post a whole heck of a lot more.)

I'm still modding the off-board game, and I see no point in posting for the sake of posting, especially these first few Days when there's so many people. I'll pretty much just post to FoS, vote, or discuss game theory where applicable.

[NAF1138]

I'm still modding the off-board game, and I see no point in posting for the sake of posting, especially these first few Days when there's so many people. I'll pretty much just post to FoS, vote, or discuss game theory where applicable.
:dubious: I am following that game and have a fair amount of experiance modding...is there really that much to do?

And while posting for the sake of posting might be a bad thing in other games, it is the only way we can survive in this one. You must have SOME thoughts on what is going on, post them. I am not saying post fluff that is not game related, but post something about what is being talked about toDay.

What do you think about role claims for power roles in future Days? Should some roles mass claim at a certain point? How long should a power role wait to claim? Do you think I am acting scummy like BlaM says? What about BlaM or hotflungwok? (I know you said something about hfw earlier, but things have changed since then) What do you think of Pleo's role claim? I mean come on, there is a lot that could be discusssed!

[Darth Sensitive]

I have a few thoughts on role claims. Tell me if I'm crazy.

I'm not sure when one would be optimum. I don't know how well this plan works.

But I'm wondering how good of an idea it is for the masons and priests to claim together, with the masons claiming as priests too. That keeps numbers of both obfuscated and builds a core of protowniness. Priests can't be recruited, and masons only have a small chance. So that would take them off the possible recruit list.

I think. I know that scum could sneak in there, so maybe it's a foolish idea. I'm just throwing the thought I had during class out there.

[Blaster Master]

Just a few concerns and thoughts at the moment, no real accusations : I was thinking, would it be possible that behind all the math Blaster could be hiding scum intentions? It doesn't seem likely, regarding the rest of his (her?) behavior, just a small thought.

I like to post a lot, and I like to use a lot of math and such, simply because it's how I think. I've grown a bit more wary of my use of math after it got me in a lot of trouble in a previous game (was it the Firefly one?); trust me, I'd use a LOT more if I didn't think it would be enormously distracting. I like to provide as much of my reasoning process as possible because I think transparency is important to keeping my motivations clear.

That said, I can appreciate that some math and lengthy posts can look like I'm inflating my posts without actually containing any real substance. But if you really feel my math could have nefarious intentions, please bring it up so I can address it.

For instance, I suppose discussing recruitment failure could be seen that way, but again, this is posted with my specifically stated motivation about maximizing information, and specifically, I could have posted that information on the scum board over night instead, were I scum and inclined to keep that information out of the hands of town.

Basically, I think mathematical posts are generally null tells, simply because it's extremely difficult to differentiate motivation when looking pure at something that is coldly logical. That is, motivations generally won't effect the outcome of the math, and even errors could just as easily be legitimate for even a scummy player as they could be nefariously intended.

IOW, I'd tend tend to say that those sorts of posts should neither be held in favor nor against the poster. I'd say the same for anyone posting vote count updates, or post count updates, summaries, or any other similar sorts of posts.

[Blaster Master]

I have a few thoughts on role claims. Tell me if I'm crazy.

I'm not sure when one would be optimum. I don't know how well this plan works.

But I'm wondering how good of an idea it is for the masons and priests to claim together, with the masons claiming as priests too. That keeps numbers of both obfuscated and builds a core of protowniness. Priests can't be recruited, and masons only have a small chance. So that would take them off the possible recruit list.

I think. I know that scum could sneak in there, so maybe it's a foolish idea. I'm just throwing the thought I had during class out there.

Mason claiming is something very difficult to theorize on, because inevitably they have more information about themselves than we do. They have their own sense of how much suspicion they're under and how much they theink their brethren are under. Similarly, they can do a better job of guessing how likely they are to be Night killed than we can. So, judging how and when they should claim is generally not very useful, just because there's so many possibilities.

That said, you plan sounds good on the top level, but you point out the fatal flaw, a scum can easily claim Priest, and then you'd have a group of guaranteed townies (the Priests), most likely townies (the Masons), and scum... IOW, the grouping really doesn't do anything to distinguish them from the rest of the group of guaranteed townies (Doctor), most likely townies (vanilla, Bishop, etc.), and scum. Refering back to my information theory post, if we're going to seperate people into groups, we need to make sure that the group has a different probability of containing certain roles than the rest, or it won't gain us any useful information. Even worse, by doing this, we really don't gain information on the scum, but the scum DO gain information on the town (they'd know where all the no-recruitables are, at least in a much higher concentration).

Ultimately, this would net us little information, while potentially providing a lot of useful information to the scum.

[Hawkeyeop]

Mason claiming is something very difficult to theorize on, because inevitably they have more information about themselves than we do. They have their own sense of how much suspicion they're under and how much they theink their brethren are under. Similarly, they can do a better job of guessing how likely they are to be Night killed than we can. So, judging how and when they should claim is generally not very useful, just because there's so many possibilities.

That said, you plan sounds good on the top level, but you point out the fatal flaw, a scum can easily claim Priest, and then you'd have a group of guaranteed townies (the Priests), most likely townies (the Masons), and scum... IOW, the grouping really doesn't do anything to distinguish them from the rest of the group of guaranteed townies (Doctor), most likely townies (vanilla, Bishop, etc.), and scum. Refering back to my information theory post, if we're going to seperate people into groups, we need to make sure that the group has a different probability of containing certain roles than the rest, or it won't gain us any useful information. Even worse, by doing this, we really don't gain information on the scum, but the scum DO gain information on the town (they'd know where all the no-recruitables are, at least in a much higher concentration).

Ultimately, this would net us little information, while potentially providing a lot of useful information to the scum.

Would it be worth it to have masons just claim as masons though? They are not that likely to be purposely recruited given the fail rate and scum can't hide in their ranks. Anything that can easily be recruited or can't be confirmed is risky to claim, but I don't see masons as falling into either category. At the very least, it would narrow down our search for the godfather.

[Darth Sensitive]

Well - I wanted to avoid the theoretical capo-ized mason. That opens up a guarantee of recruitment for the others, who are considered safe.

If they claimed as priests, trying to get them is pointless, as you don't know which they are and the failure rate is too good. But I agree, on continued examination, that my idea on claiming is unworkable.

[Hawkeyeop]

Well - I wanted to avoid the theoretical capo-ized mason. That opens up a guarantee of recruitment for the others, who are considered safe.


Any initial recruitment of a mason has a 50% chance of failure. I don't think the gain of recruiting a mason is worth that risk. If a mason has already been recruited, the scum will know who the rest are anyway. I would also like to emphasize that it lowers the pool of places the godfather can hide. Once we can take out the godfather, there is no further need to worry about recruitment.

[Blaster Master]

Would it be worth it to have masons just claim as masons though? They are not that likely to be purposely recruited given the fail rate and scum can't hide in their ranks. Anything that can easily be recruited or can't be confirmed is risky to claim, but I don't see masons as falling into either category. At the very least, it would narrow down our search for the godfather.

I don't think so, certainly not at this point. Part of our advantage, from a numerical perspective, is that the scum has a large out of which they are trying to find specific power roles. In that sense, having masons claim early increases the scum's chance of locating power roles. Even worse, scum may be willing to waste a recruitment or two trying to get a Mason on their team, especially later, after some vanilla and other recruitables are gone, and the recruitment failure at random is very near the 50% failure they'd get on Masons. Then, we'd be stuck with falsely believing a set of individuals is more trustworthy than they actually are, and when we did get down to knowing it was a Mason who was recruited, we're essentially forced to look in our own "confirmed" pool

At this point, a think Masons are better off just trying to keep themselves hidden and only claiming if they need to do a role claim to avoid getting lynched.

[Hawkeyeop]

I don't think so, certainly not at this point. Part of our advantage, from a numerical perspective, is that the scum has a large out of which they are trying to find specific power roles. In that sense, having masons claim early increases the scum's chance of locating power roles. Even worse, scum may be willing to waste a recruitment or two trying to get a Mason on their team, especially later, after some vanilla and other recruitables are gone, and the recruitment failure at random is very near the 50% failure they'd get on Masons. Then, we'd be stuck with falsely believing a set of individuals is more trustworthy than they actually are, and when we did get down to knowing it was a Mason who was recruited, we're essentially forced to look in our own "confirmed" pool

At this point, a think Masons are better off just trying to keep themselves hidden and only claiming if they need to do a role claim to avoid getting lynched.

If we were going to have a partial role claim, I think masons would be the best group to initially claim. Do you disagree with this statement?

[Blaster Master]

Any initial recruitment of a mason has a 50% chance of failure. I don't think the gain of recruiting a mason is worth that risk. If a mason has already been recruited, the scum will know who the rest are anyway. I would also like to emphasize that it lowers the pool of places the godfather can hide. Once we can take out the godfather, there is no further need to worry about recruitment.

I can't agree with this. Let's assume worst case for a moment, that the scum have successfully recruited twice, and some other assumptions like that there's three priests and three masons. Thus, currently there's 23 players of which 3 are scum. Assuming it's not a capo attempt and that we lynch a townie today, there are 6 unrecruitables (3 priests, Doctor, Vig, and Bishop) and 3 Masons. That's 7 1/2 unrecruitables out of 19 non-scum for 39% failure rate on recruitment. If the Masons and Priests claim, we end up with 3 unrecruitables out of 13 for a 23% recruitment rate. Or, they may decide to kill instead. Right now, we have a 10.5% chance of either the Doctor or Detective being killed at random, but after such a claim it would be 15.4%; IOW, it would increase their odds by almost 50%. Not to mention, one of the scum would almost certainly claim priest, leaving us wondering if they did, and if so, how do we figure out?

Anyway, just looking at the numbers, recruiting a Mason, given that he's claimed, isn't a whole lot less likely than just a random shoot in the dark, but it does carry extra information and, of course, the general sentiment that Masons are trustworthy town.

I just can't see how this would help us find the Boss that much better such that we can potentially give that much benefit to the scum.

[Blaster Master]

If we were going to have a partial role claim, I think masons would be the best group to initially claim. Do you disagree with this statement?

It depends on the situation, which is why I really don't understand this discussion. The Masons have more information that the town does about their roles, so they're the best ones fit for deciding when they should claim. As for discussing some sort of mass role claim, again, it depends on the situation.

What's the point of discussing whether or not a mass role claim on Day 6 might be helpful? We'd be making way too many assumptions about the events between now and then. I think such discussions should take place in the context of the situation. That is, if you think it's prudent to do so now, bring it up and we'll discuss it; if you don't think it's prudent, we can discuss it if someone wants to. But really, we need to concern ourselves with the strategy now and finding scum now. I've explained already why I think a mass role claim isn't good now, but it MAY be a good idea later. Do you dis agree with that statement?

[Menocchio]

The priests definitely should not claim. We simply can not know how many there are and cannot verify their claims without investigation, which would waste time and expose our investigative roles (who are recruitable and killable since there's almost certainly a Hitman now). The scum could trade a soldier to tie up and eventually out a detective or beat cop.

I'm a bit more ambivalent about the Masons. They can confirm each other, and I think the scum wouldn't bother while they're still in such a target rich environment. But they'd bare testing later in the game.

Perhaps the vigilante? Just because he's out doesn't mean we have to put him on a leash.

The doctor and bishop should definitely not come out. The Bishop is recruitable, and while the doctor can block himself, while he's still unknown he's more free to block other players. The investigators ought not to come out unless they find the boss (perhaps any scum for the beats). Or if they need to disprove a false claim or avoid being lynched themselves, obviously.

[Menocchio]

I'm still modding the off-board game, and I see no point in posting for the sake of posting, especially these first few Days when there's so many people. I'll pretty much just post to FoS, vote, or discuss game theory where applicable.
I don't like this at all. You really have nothing to say?

[MHaye]

My apologies for not following Today closely as yet.

The off-board game just ran through a tense four-player Day in under five hours. I've been reading this game, but need to go over the arguments of Today again. Fortunately weekends tend to have low posting volumes so I will be caught up by this time tomorrow and have something to say.

I have a few impressions but nothing firm yet.

[hotflungwok]

I think that everyone declaring roles is a bad idea.

First, there are too many roles that have an unknown number greater than one available: priest, beat cop, and townie. Scum could easily divvy these up amoung themselves so they don't lump too many into one place, and hide. Especially if there's only 2 or 3. No one in these groups can speak up for each other, because they don't know each other.

Second, while it would look like we had more information, we really wouldn't, cuz all of it would be suspect. Sure, if someone screwed up, we'd be able to nail them, but we might as well wait for that now.

Third, we'd be giving way too much info to the scum without getting much in return. They would be able to pick and choose instead of stumbling through the dark like we are.

[hotflungwok]

Hey look, a bandwagon!

I do agree that infrequent posters should be suspect. It makes it too easy for scum to hide.

[Koldanar]

Hey look, a bandwagon!

I do agree that infrequent posters should be suspect. It makes it too easy for scum to hide.

I don't know that they should be suspect; I'd much rather they come and participate, and add to our pool of information. As a few have said before, quiet townies can hurt us in this game. Participate!

[dotchan]

I'm of the opinion that the vigilante should not claim unless he/she is in danger of being lynched, or enough days have passed that a mass roleclaim would be beneficial for town (and no, I haven't started crunching numbers as to when that would be so). I'm also against putting the Vigilante on a leash. He/She can take our advice as they see fit, but a Vigilante that only has to answer to him/herself means that the kill decision is being made by a guaranteed Pro-Town member. By forcing the Vigilante to follow some kind of consensus, we open up a whole can of worms that makes my head hurt just thinking about it: How can we be certain that the decisions we come up with would be any better than the vigilante's? And as the game progresses, the number (or at least the ratio) of scum would increase, making that decision more suspect to scum interference.

Pleo, as someone else already mentioned, can be considered truthful. There's only a very minute chance that he's a gambiting scum, and his rush to claim feels more pro-Town (because it isn't in town's benefit to lynch a priest, and he wanted to generate discussions beyond "Pleo is scummy").

Off the top of my head, I don't remember if we're guaranteed a Police Chief, but someone mentioned that the Police Chief should wait to use his one-time power until after the Boss dies - I wholeheartedly agree with this, but on the other hand Police Chief is a role vulnerable to fake claiming, so I'll be taking any claims with a grain of salt.

OneCentStamp, don't feel intimidated. Just play the best you can and trust your instincts, as they can be surprisingly accurate. Also, remember that if you're a Townsperson then you're fairly dispensable - yes, it would suck to die, but if you do before you're recruited then your alignment remains pro-Town; drawing a Night Kill means that someone spent their Night killing you instead of a power-role; and if you end up being lynched than the voting record may give us valuable information down the road.

(Mafia lesson for the newbies: saying "I'm new at this" is a weak scum tell around these parts. The reasoning is that one is more inclined to go easier on the new blood, so a scum might say that as an excuse for flaky behavior. However, it's only a weak tell because obviously pro-Town players can be new, too, and it is easy for a new player to feel overwhelmed by all the action going on. I got lynched in my first game for making some really dumb mistakes, but fortunately my death wasn't too detrimental to my team and we won the game.)

[Millit the Frail]

Sorry guys--when I signed up, I thought I wouldn't have to participate on Thursdays and Fridays, which are just about the worst days of the week for me to post.

Also, I don't know if solid post counts are that accurate right now, because I, for one, have not posted at night--all the drinking games and such aren't really what I'm interested in Mafia for. Some players have posted a lot during "dead" times, so they've got higher posts counts despite not saying much; it happens.

Anyway, I've tried to post substance but have mostly been overlooked. I'm just sayin'. I'll post more over the weekend, when free time is vast and flows like wine. :)

[Drain Bead]

Also, I don't know if solid post counts are that accurate right now, because I, for one, have not posted at night--all the drinking games and such aren't really what I'm interested in Mafia for. Some players have posted a lot during "dead" times, so they've got higher posts counts despite not saying much; it happens.


That was basically the point I was making when I mentioned to NAF that those sorts of posts have a pretty high noise-to-signal ratio and were a good way to make a scum look helpful while simultaneously doing next to nothing to enlighten anyone. After all, he said I had 4 posts to the game thread, when three of those were posts during the Night. That's why it jumped out at me that his post wasn't particularly useful, because including the Night posts makes it entirely misleading and could obscure the point he was trying to make to begin with.

The funny thing is, I don't disagree with the initial point he was making. Perhaps if Night posts hadn't been included, it might have been a good tool to call out the lurkers and make people realize that they needed to make a record in order to help us after a potential recruitment, and make it harder for the scum to decide who to recruit in the first place. But I'm not sure how "Bartender, I want to do a body shot off of dotchan now!" type posts will help us with that process. Had NAF gone through and weeded out the Night posts, I don't think I would have called him out at all.

[Drain Bead]

Now, to deal with the subject of power roles purposely role-claiming...

Obviously, any recruitable power role should not roleclaim unless their lives depend upon it. I'd like to see BlaM crunch the numbers about when it might be worth it for Masons to claim, provided he gives us Cliff Notes for the English majors. Priests are an easy place for scum to hide, and I think that provided our Detective is alive, it might be a good idea for the Detective to investigate any claimed Priest that Night, and the Beat Cops to look elsewhere.

And as for the Vigilante? Under NO circumstances should a Vig claim unless facing certain death. This is because one of the Vig's best traits is the fact that a recruitment attempt will give them the name of a random scum! Obviously a claimed Vig will never be recruited because of this, so it's in our best interest for the Vig to remain silent.

Because of this, I'm going to Vote Menocchio. His suggestion that the Vig should claim is sheer madness. It's two levels of scummy--one because it would be a huge mistake for the Town if that suggestion came to be, and two because it shows a player who isn't fully paying attention to the rules, which is a very unTownie thing to do.

[Freudian Slit]

And as for the Vigilante? Under NO circumstances should a Vig claim unless facing certain death. This is because one of the Vig's best traits is the fact that a recruitment attempt will give them the name of a random scum! Obviously a claimed Vig will never be recruited because of this, so it's in our best interest for the Vig to remain silent.

Because of this, I'm going to Vote Menocchio. His suggestion that the Vig should claim is sheer madness. It's two levels of scummy--one because it would be a huge mistake for the Town if that suggestion came to be, and two because it shows a player who isn't fully paying attention to the rules, which is a very unTownie thing to do.
Okay, this could be a really subtle town move, or maybe he just forgot/didn't realize. I'm not sure it's enough for me to vote for a Menocchio lynch, though. I don't think that your second point, not paying attention to the rules, is necessarily a lynchable offense, and I think that you might be jumping the gun with this point.

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

I think role claiming is very premature.
No one other than the Masons and the Vig can reliably claim (the masons have each other to verify, and a false-claimed Vig will just be killed by the real Vig that night. The Priests can't be verified, so claims on their part won't lift any suspicion from them. The Beat Cops and the Detective are inarguably the best targets for recruitment, so a claim by them sets them up to be recruited or Capo'd.
While having the Masons outed would reduce the numbers of people we have to search through to find the Boss, they can just reveal themselves if they're being threatened. While they're unknown, the Boss may try and fail to recruit them, and every time that happens is a bonus for the Town.

I don't think Menocchio's suggestion is a scum-tell, merely the results of someone overlooking one line in a very long ruleset. I didn't remember the whole 'recruited Vig gets a name' bit until reminded about it. The more that I think about Menny, the less I get Boss vibes from him: I just can't see why the Boss would be as open and as active as he's been this game.

I like the idea of hunting lurkers... or even better, the semi-lurkers, the ones who post just enough to keep themselves in the game. I am going to toss out a FOS on hotflungwok... who's posting behavior has changed rapidly from yesterDay to toDay... but for right now, I think Boss hunting is more important than recruited scum-hunting.

[Menocchio]

Okay, this could be a really subtle town move, or maybe he just forgot/didn't realize. I'm not sure it's enough for me to vote for a Menocchio lynch, though. I don't think that your second point, not paying attention to the rules, is necessarily a lynchable offense, and I think that you might be jumping the gun with this point.
Oops. Yeah, I really did forget the Vig got a name with a recruit attempt. Obviously, he should remain hidden in that case.

[fluiddruid]

(sorry for missing your post Dot, fluid could you bold her name in my previous post or is it enough that we are talking about it? But it doesn't change the fact that you REALLY need to post a whole heck of a lot more.)I'd prefer not to edit since the continuity of posts makes a heck of a lot more sense otherwise. Plus, the correctional posts almost immediately follow (on the same page, no less).

Vote Tallies:

Menocchio (2) - dotchan, Drain Bead
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

[NAF1138]

The funny thing is, I don't disagree with the initial point he was making. Perhaps if Night posts hadn't been included, it might have been a good tool to call out the lurkers and make people realize that they needed to make a record in order to help us after a potential recruitment, and make it harder for the scum to decide who to recruit in the first place. But I'm not sure how "Bartender, I want to do a body shot off of dotchan now!" type posts will help us with that process. Had NAF gone through and weeded out the Night posts, I don't think I would have called him out at all.


Hey, if you want to go through the weeding out process and post be my guest. I didn't have the time, and it really is just a jumping off point for discussion. People with low post counts don't help us even if almost all of their posts are high content, which was more the point I was trying to make. People aren't posting enough even with the fluff.

[MHaye]

Hey, if you want to go through the weeding out process and post be my guest. I didn't have the time, and it really is just a jumping off point for discussion. People with low post counts don't help us even if almost all of their posts are high content, which was more the point I was trying to make. People aren't posting enough even with the fluff.My problem with this is that the people you hunt won't be the people you say you want to find - those that are not contributing.

Payers with few, high-fibre Day posts (lots of crunch, geddit?) are contributing more than players who post 3-4 times in the Day and post lots of fluff at Night, but your system would target the former and leave the latter.

In the interests of full disclosure; I suspect I'm one of the people who I think your system would target, so naturally I don't agree with it. I also don't agree that driving up the postcount for the sake of a minimum number of posts is a good idea because it decreases signal-to-noise in the Days, thus discouraging people from wading through the posts to get at the crunch, or running out of time to read them all.

If, however, you went through and eliminated the Night/pregame posts from the count, you'd have a much more solid foundation. That takes time though, even for a few hundred posts. You'll still have a problem with in-Day fluff, but people won't be able to hide behind bartending activities any more.

We've had this argument before, and I suspect we'll have it again. I don't dispute that monitoring activity level will be a useful tool, primarily because quieter posters will find it easier to hide changes in role. I just think your initial proposition needs refining.

Time to reread Day 2 thoroughly.

[sinjin]

Sorry I missed the start of the Day. RL raised it's ugly head again. I will be posting my thoughts on role claiming (once I get my brain around it) and NAF's numb3rs post about which I have two immediate concerns. The first others have mentioned: signal/noise ratio. The second: the possibility that high volume poster(s) could very well be scum in town distraction mode.

[Drain Bead]

Okay, this could be a really subtle town move, or maybe he just forgot/didn't realize. I'm not sure it's enough for me to vote for a Menocchio lynch, though. I don't think that your second point, not paying attention to the rules, is necessarily a lynchable offense, and I think that you might be jumping the gun with this point.

I should probably make that clearer. In a general sense, "skimming" is a minor scumtell. And when you're talking about something as important as which power roles should and shouldn't claim, it's important to know exactly what those roles do. When I was formulating my post, I went and scanned the list of roles on Page 1, to see the pros and cons of each roleclaim, because I'm new to this game and haven't had the in-depth opportunity to parse everything out myself that other people in the game might have had. That's how I caught the Vig thing, and it dawned on me just how anti-town it was to wing it when so much was on the line. That's not a lynchable offense in and of itself, but when it was combined with a very anti-town suggestion and everything else that happened in previous days, it was enough for me to place my vote.

[Hawkeyeop]

I can't agree with this. Let's assume worst case for a moment, that the scum have successfully recruited twice, and some other assumptions like that there's three priests and three masons. Thus, currently there's 23 players of which 3 are scum. Assuming it's not a capo attempt and that we lynch a townie today, there are 6 unrecruitables (3 priests, Doctor, Vig, and Bishop) and 3 Masons. That's 7 1/2 unrecruitables out of 19 non-scum for 39% failure rate on recruitment. If the Masons and Priests claim, we end up with 3 unrecruitables out of 13 for a 23% recruitment rate. Or, they may decide to kill instead. Right now, we have a 10.5% chance of either the Doctor or Detective being killed at random, but after such a claim it would be 15.4%; IOW, it would increase their odds by almost 50%. Not to mention, one of the scum would almost certainly claim priest, leaving us wondering if they did, and if so, how do we figure out?

Anyway, just looking at the numbers, recruiting a Mason, given that he's claimed, isn't a whole lot less likely than just a random shoot in the dark, but it does carry extra information and, of course, the general sentiment that Masons are trustworthy town.

I just can't see how this would help us find the Boss that much better such that we can potentially give that much benefit to the scum.

The trade off is that it would increase the Vig's odds of taking out the godfather by a similar amount. It is just a question of what you consider most important. Claiming would also eliminate any extra information the scum would get from recruiting a mason.

[Hawkeyeop]

It depends on the situation, which is why I really don't understand this discussion. The Masons have more information that the town does about their roles, so they're the best ones fit for deciding when they should claim. As for discussing some sort of mass role claim, again, it depends on the situation.

What's the point of discussing whether or not a mass role claim on Day 6 might be helpful? We'd be making way too many assumptions about the events between now and then. I think such discussions should take place in the context of the situation. That is, if you think it's prudent to do so now, bring it up and we'll discuss it; if you don't think it's prudent, we can discuss it if someone wants to. But really, we need to concern ourselves with the strategy now and finding scum now. I've explained already why I think a mass role claim isn't good now, but it MAY be a good idea later. Do you dis agree with that statement?

I'm not talking about the future; I'm talking about now. I'm not of the belief that the longer we wait, the better a mass claim is. The longer we wait, the less we can trust people to still be on the town's side. I think if we did a mass claim right at the beginning, it could HAVE worked if we played this game very aggressively. Doing it now I'm not sure of, which is why I'd like to discuss how we it would do it if we did do it. The equation does however change, once we take out the godfather.

That said, I have a new crazy idea. I expect it will be about 3.1 seconds before someone tells me why it is an awful idea, and why I'm scummy for suggesting it. Beat Cops and Police Chief claim either today or tomorrow. The cops then cross check each other each night in order to ensure that they aren't converted.

Let's say that we have cops A, B, C, and D. Cop A checks B, B checks C, C checks D, and D checks A. If C is recruited, then B would have a 50% chance of witnessing it tonight and an 80% chance on following days with A serving as protection for B. If C claims D is scum, then we can use B to tell if C is lying.

Advantages:
Lessens the pool for the godfather to hide in.
Gets all information from investigations out in the open.
Checks to see if cops have already have been recruited.
Protects cops from future recruitment.

Disadvantages:
Cops would not be able to perform new investigations until the godfather is lynched.
Godfather would have increased odds of finding the Detective, etc.
Cops aren't perfect on their checks.

[bufftabby]

That said, I have a new crazy idea. I expect it will be about 3.1 seconds before someone tells me why it is an awful idea, and why I'm scummy for suggesting it. Beat Cops and Police Chief claim either today or tomorrow. The cops then cross check each other each night in order to ensure that they aren't converted.

Let's say that we have cops A, B, C, and D. Cop A checks B, B checks C, C checks D, and D checks A. If C is recruited, then B would have a 50% chance of witnessing it tonight and an 80% chance on following days with A serving as protection for B. If C claims D is scum, then we can use B to tell if C is lying.

Advantages:
Lessens the pool for the godfather to hide in.
Gets all information from investigations out in the open.
Checks to see if cops have already have been recruited.
Protects cops from future recruitment.

Disadvantages:
Cops would not be able to perform new investigations until the godfather is lynched.
Godfather would have increased odds of finding the Detective, etc.
Cops aren't perfect on their checks.

This is the first post I've read in regard to role claiming that has made any sense to me. I've been having trouble understanding why anyone would even be considering role-claiming to be a good idea unless the player is about to be lynched. That's not even to say that I've been thinking it's a terrible idea, how dare anyone even suggest it, but I simply haven't understood the reasoning behind it. But your plan, hawkeyeop, actually makes freakin sense! Of course, that involves any beat cops actually agreeing to it, as do all these debates about role-claiming.

[dotchan]

The plan looks good on paper, but I still have a couple of questions:
1) Would this investigation circle only happen once? Or would they have to redo it once the Boss is lynched, if they're still alive then?
2) How would this protect the Cops from future recruitment?
3) Why wouldn't the Cops be able to perform new investigations until the Boss is lynched?

[Hawkeyeop]

The plan looks good on paper, but I still have a couple of questions:
1) Would this investigation circle only happen once? Or would they have to redo it once the Boss is lynched, if they're still alive then?
2) How would this protect the Cops from future recruitment?
3) Why wouldn't the Cops be able to perform new investigations until the Boss is lynched?

I meant the investigation circle to happen each night until the godfather is lynched. I think that would answer your other 2 questions, but let me know if it doesn't,

[HazelNutCoffee]

Just a quick note - I won't be able to participate much 'til Sunday. Real life rears its ugly head and all.

[Menocchio]

Hmm... But what about Beat Cop failure? With two Cops and a Chief that's a 60% chance for each that there's a failure. 80% if there's three cops. Sure, they'd just report the failure and try again the next Night, but a gambling Mob could get several nights of Consigliere (or even Capo) attempts out of it. In fact, a bold and lucky Boss could try and scoop up the whole lot of 'em as Consiglieres before the last one noticed. It'd be risky, as each grab makes the remaining Cops more effective, but it's doable. It'd take some time to sort out the mess if someone finally did test positive for scum.

And we'd lose the witnessing power as well as the BC's investigations of other members in the meantime.

I say no. In fact, I'll go further than that.
Vote Hawkeyeop for posting a strategy that could hand significant advantage to the mob.

Beat Cops, Police Chief, even if you don't heed my general warning against outing yourself, please accept these two specific cautions:
Don't come out until after the weekend, when those away can come back and comment.
Chief, don't out yourself specifically as the Chief. Just calling yourself a Beat Cop works just as well for this plan.

[fluiddruid]

I'll be out of town for about 24 hours and will have limited access to the boards. I'll be checking reported posts, so please report posts if there is anything urgent you need.

[chrisk]

I'm pretty well overwhelmed here, (tried to catch up on the thread, but SHEESH, it just keeps going on and on,) but I did notice the point about getting people to speak up about their strategies as a way of getting more info.

As a somewhat traumatized newbie, my strategy is to not worry so much about keeping track of the counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments and vote according to my gut. Maybe that makes me a wild cannon who's more of a liability to the town than an asset to it, maybe it's a flaming scum tell. I dunno. I'll try to explain my gut feelings as much as possible, to let people try and get a read on me in exchange.

Right now, I'm feeling confused, but Voting Menocchio because of everybody who was a major player yesterday, he seems the most likely to either have acted out of scum motives, or to have been a recruit target this past night. And I don't have any better targets out of anybody who wasn't a major player yesterday.

But please, don't make me actually drag him up to the lynching post again! :whimpers very softly:

[Hawkeyeop]

Hmm... But what about Beat Cop failure? With two Cops and a Chief that's a 60% chance for each that there's a failure. 80% if there's three cops. Sure, they'd just report the failure and try again the next Night, but a gambling Mob could get several nights of Consigliere (or even Capo) attempts out of it. In fact, a bold and lucky Boss could try and scoop up the whole lot of 'em as Consiglieres before the last one noticed. It'd be risky, as each grab makes the remaining Cops more effective, but it's doable. It'd take some time to sort out the mess if someone finally did test positive for scum.

And we'd lose the witnessing power as well as the BC's investigations of other members in the meantime.

I say no. In fact, I'll go further than that.
Vote Hawkeyeop for posting a strategy that could hand significant advantage to the mob.

Beat Cops, Police Chief, even if you don't heed my general warning against outing yourself, please accept these two specific cautions:
Don't come out until after the weekend, when those away can come back and comment.
Chief, don't out yourself specifically as the Chief. Just calling yourself a Beat Cop works just as well for this plan.

Well it wasn't 3.1 seconds, but close enough. I don't understand your point on failure. Everyone will be investigating someone different, so each cop will have an eighty percent chance of succeeding.

[Drain Bead]

Well it wasn't 3.1 seconds, but close enough. I don't understand your point on failure. Everyone will be investigating someone different, so each cop will have an eighty percent chance of succeeding.


From the rules:
For each Beat Cop that chooses to investigate each night, there is a 20% cumulative chance to all Beat Cops that they will miss the target of their investigation (they will receive no result at all).

This doesn't say anything about investigating the same target, it just says if they choose to investigate at all. So I think you're crunching your numbers wrong on your idea.

[Millit the Frail]

The mass Cop roleclaim seems full of holes to me. Why would we want to waste our most valuable source of information? If they can't root out the scum, then they aren't all that useful. How long will it take for us to kill the Boss so that they can investigate again? And who's to keep the Boss and Hit Man from simply picking them all off over the course of two or three Nights? For what it's worth, I don't think there are more than two Beat Cops. Or what about Capo recruitment, when there's only one of them left? What if one of them is already recruited?

There are just too many ways that the Mafia could turn it around on us. The Mason/Priest roleclaim idea sounded interesting, if only as a way to help keep us from lynching townies. However, in a game with recruitment, there's too much chance that a person's status can change from day to day.

[Millit the Frail]

As an aside, I kept a vote spreadsheet for my last Mafia game and shared it with everyone. It was pretty helpful once we were several days in. We could look for patterns and stuff, and it stimulated some good discussion. However, I'm not sure if it would be helpful in a game where allegiances are changing so frequently.

What do people think? I may not be able to get it done this weekend, but at some point (maybe next week or so), I could comb through the thread and pick out the votes. I won't promise that I'll do it, even if there is support, but I'll try. Just a disclaimer so I won't be pegged as scum if I don't have the time. :)

[bufftabby]

These are my post counts, through post #790, not including pre-game and night posts. I initially considered weeding the fluff from the substance, but I considered that we wouldn't all necessarily have the same standards on that, so I didn't.

Player Day 1 2 3 total
Millit. 3. 16. 1. 20
NAF1138. 0. 20. 16. 36
Hockey. 3. 12. 1. 16
bufftabby. 4. 17. 3. 24
Diomedes. 5. 12. 2. 19
dotchan. 2. 4. 5. 11
Idle. 6. 14. X. 20
Drain B. X. X. 7. 7
chrisk. 4. 11. 1. 16
MHaye. 1. 8. 2. 11
Menocchio. 7. 21. 6. 28
Santo R. 12. 16. 0. 28
Pleonast. 0. 18. 4. 22
Koldanar. 1. 13. 4. 18
BlaM. 0. 28. 22. 50
Hawkeyeop. 9. 20. 10. 39
HNC. 6. 19. 2. 27
Hotflungwok. 3. 12. 10. 25
Darth S. 4. 14. 5. 23
OneCentS. 0. 9. 3. 12
CapnPitt. 2. 19. X. 21
Freudian S. 2. 14. 5. 21
sinjin. 6. 11. 1. 18
Hal Briston. 2. 6. 4. 12

[bufftabby]

Oh, sorry, that's through post #795, not #790. I can't always read my own writing.

While I understand that lurking in and of itself isn't necessarily a scum tell, some of my strongest suspicions DO sit on some of the lurkiest. FoS Hal Briston. Almost all of your posts have been fluff. When you did strategize once, you followed it up by saying not to listen to you about any analysis. You set off my my suspicion sirens, but my scumdar isn't sure quite what to make of you yet.

FoS dotchan. When NAF1138 mentioned that it was strange for you to explain your lack of posts by way of all your time being taken by modding the off-board game, you didn't answer his charge at all. You simply posted more. This seemed strange to me.

I also find it strange that we've not yet heard from Santo Rugger today, but I'm reserving my judgment on that until he returns and explains.

[sinjin]

Ok this is in response to NAF's post about posting numbers in which he states:

No conclusions, just information.

I would call it data with no analysis myself. (Figures never lie and liars never figure.) So I printed out all 15 pages of data, then had to run a couple of errands, and when I got home the power to our little sub was out. That's what I get for living outside of Hooterville. :smack: So here we go.

I'll be posting these in seperate bits for clarity. I will include the page number, day or night number and whether the post is Fluff (F) or Substance (S) and possibly commentary or quotes. Obviousely this is IMHO. Sorry I can't link to all the threads, my time is finite. First DotChan:

1, N0, F, /in post with a couple of questions about game mechanics
3, N0, F
4, D1, S
4, D1, Fcolors vote from previous post
6, N1, F
7, D2, S
8, D2, S
8, D2, S
15, D3, S

Substance to Fluff ratio: 5/4

[dotchan]

FoS dotchan. When NAF1138 mentioned that it was strange for you to explain your lack of posts by way of all your time being taken by modding the off-board game, you didn't answer his charge at all. You simply posted more. This seemed strange to me.

I thought posting more WAS the response. (And that point has more or less become moot anyway since the game ended.) Like I said before, posting for the sake of posting doesn't seem to be that useful.

[Menocchio]

Well it wasn't 3.1 seconds, but close enough. I don't understand your point on failure. Everyone will be investigating someone different, so each cop will have an eighty percent chance of succeeding.
As Drain stated, it doesn't matter if the cops investigated different people. Four cops investigating on the same night have a 80% failure rate. Five cops (which I think is possible if the Chief already spent his recruitment) have a 100% failure rate!

Still, I should point out that I think the witnessing is indepent of the general investigation. And that's always 50%. Still not worth the risk and the tradeoff of the cops witnessing activity for players other than themselves, IMHO.

[sinjin]

Next Hal Briston

1, N0, F
2, N0, F
2, N0, F
2, N0, F
2, N0, Squotes Pleos reasons for no lynche on D1 and agrees, no extra analysis
4, D1, F Jumps on the no lynch band wagon with no analysis, substance credit given for post above
5, D1, SAsks Fluid why extra night time is needed if we only have a Godfather. Pleo's favorite post.
5, D1, F
6, N1, F
7, D2, F
7, D2, F
10, D2, F
12, D2, S Votes CaptPitt will almost no analysis, amost a drive by see below [1]
12, D2, SDefends his vote to CaptPitt. Says he is not lurking and points to his posts last week.[2]
13, D2, F
13, N2, F
14, N2, F
14, D3, F
14, D3, F
14, D3, S
14, D3, F

[1]My takes on the largest vote-getters:
Pleonast is scum because he used female pronouns: Beyond silly.
Menocchio thinks Pleonast is lying: Well, I think Menocchio, but I'm not sure that that qualifies him as scum.
CapnPitt and the "one or the other is scum" bit: Not a good move. Yeah, that is a big scum tell. Could've been a rookie mistake, but...

Vote CapnPitt

[2]"Unusually lurky"? I made a number of posts last week, went away for the weekend, came back and summed up my re-read yesterday. Not my most verbose performance, but it certainly wasn't lurky. Did you just pull my name off the list of those who voted for you or something? I know this'll be ironic after your last post, but I read that name-drop as a scum tell as well!

That said, don't sweat it if you're town. Yes, of course we'd rather nail scum, but everyone knows that's a longshot right now. If you're town, then confirming that gives us info that we can work with. We'll find out soon enough.

Substance to Fluff Ratio: 5/16. And there wasn't much substance in the substance.

Also note that when Hal responded to CaptPitt about his many posts and non-lurkyness only 2/12 of his previous posts were not completely Fluffy.

[sinjin]

And then MHaye

1, N0, F (/in post)
4, D1, S
7, N1, F
8, D2, S
11, D2, S
11, D2, S
11, D2, S
12, D2, S
12, D2, S
12, D2, S
13, D2, S
13, N2, F
14, N2, F

Substance to Fluff ratio: 9/4

[sinjin]

Ok, sorry got way-laid. So I looked at three of the lowest posters (DrainBead not included because she just got on board. If you are going to include her you should add in Idle's posts) To summarize we have this:

Dotchan: 9 total posts, 5 with substance
MHaye: 13 posts, 9 with substance
Hal: 21 posts, 5 with substance

If you just went by the numbers posted by NAF you would be under the impression that Hal was contributing way more to the discussion than either MHaye or Dotchan.

FOS NAF for posting information with no critical analysis. This has been done by scum before.

FOS Hal for lurking day 1 and 2 and his disengenuous response about his unlurkyness to CaptPitt on Day 2.

[dotchan]

fluiddrid, does the 20% cumulative failure rate mean each Beat Cop has a 20% * # of Cops investigating chance of getting no result?

Upon rereading the ruleset, I'm pretty sure this is the case, but it's always nice to make sure.

[sinjin]

<sound of insect legs rubbing together, tempo determined by temperature>

If not for Dot I would feel like the ultimate thread killer.

[fluiddruid]

fluiddrid, does the 20% cumulative failure rate mean each Beat Cop has a 20% * # of Cops investigating chance of getting no result?Exactly. And, to elaborate, Police Chiefs count as Beat Cops, and Capo Beat Cops investigating counts towards the global failure as well (and they are subject to it). This failure rate is figured for each Beat Cop, so some may succeed while others fail. Please note that this does not affect the chances of witnessing a recruitment.

[NAF1138]

FOS NAF for posting information with no critical analysis. This has been done by scum before.



That's a horrible and anti town reason to distrust someone. Notice, I say anti town, because I don't actually think it is scummy by itself. But continuing to post arguments base on false premises will fall on my "even if they are town, we are better off without them" list, right next to the lurkers. (and yes, mhaye, I am looking at you. I will get to that in my next post)

In case you haven't guessed:

Just because scum have done things before, doesn't make an action scummy. It is a false premise that anything scum have done before is scummy. Town has done the same thing in previous games, and scum usually don't use the same tricks twice.

Also, I thought that I was admitting that I hadn't done any analysis in my initial post and my resonse to drainbead's post. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone.

[Millit the Frail]

We need to start poking someone new to see how he/she responds to pressure. This thread is dying, and I have a feeling that it's because what we've been doing is getting us nowhere. Props to sinjin for posting some analysis, though.

I'm going to have to agree that Hal hasn't said much of substance all along. I don't like the way it looks. SO....

Vote Hal Briston

My mind is, by no means, made up. But people who aren't talking aren't helping, and we need to see some more action!

[NAF1138]

My problem with this is that the people you hunt won't be the people you say you want to find - those that are not contributing.

Payers with few, high-fibre Day posts (lots of crunch, geddit?) are contributing more than players who post 3-4 times in the Day and post lots of fluff at Night,
but your system would target the former and leave the latter.

First off, it isn't a system. I was hoping someone else would do my leg work for me, because I don't get any info out of doing the work myself. If that selfish of me, sure, but the more people we have working on a sigle problem, the more information we get out of the solution to that problem. Again, posting that list of post counts generated conversation and information.



In the interests of full disclosure; I suspect I'm one of the people who I think your system would target, so naturally I don't agree with it. I also don't agree that driving up the postcount for the sake of a minimum number of posts is a good idea because it decreases signal-to-noise in the Days, thus discouraging people from wading through the posts to get at the crunch, or running out of time to read them all.

It is actually your play in the last couple of games that was the inspiration for my latest lynch the lurker concept. The reason is, in the last 2 games you were scum once and town once...and your play was identicle. This was mostly because you posted so infrequently that you were impossible to read! You don't have to post fluff to post more. Your posts are usually high content, but you don't vote a lot and you don't post enough that I can ever get a handle on where you are. You never make your voice heard. That really all I want you to do, stop hiding in the back and speak up.

If all you post is fluff, you will probably get lynched. I really believe this. But every game we have a bit of a conversation about lynchhing vs. giving a pass to low post players and the argument in favor of giving them a pass is alway "but it rewards players who post fluff."

I will come out and say right now, I would rather players post fluff than have players NOT POST ENOUGH. It is then easy to just lynch the people who are obviously avoiding conversation. Avoiding conversation is OBVIOUSLY SCUMMY. Not posting tells us nothing!

If, however, you went through and eliminated the Night/pregame posts from the count, you'd have a much more solid foundation. That takes time though, even for a few hundred posts. You'll still have a problem with in-Day fluff, but people won't be able to hide behind bartending activities any more.

Sinjin has taken up that mantle, and is a better person than I am for doing so.

[qutoe=mHaye}We've had this argument before, and I suspect we'll have it again. I don't dispute that monitoring activity level will be a useful tool, primarily because quieter posters will find it easier to hide changes in role. I just think your initial proposition needs refining.

Time to reread Day 2 thoroughly.[/QUOTE]

See diatribe above. Enjoy Day 2. :D

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

We need to start poking someone new to see how he/she responds to pressure. This thread is dying, and I have a feeling that it's because what we've been doing is getting us nowhere. Props to sinjin for posting some analysis, though.

I'm going to have to agree that Hal hasn't said much of substance all along. I don't like the way it looks. SO....

Vote Hal Briston

My mind is, by no means, made up. But people who aren't talking aren't helping, and we need to see some more action!

Part of the problem with voting Hal for lurkiness is that he's always quiet the first couple Days, and tends to ramp up his participation when there's more to talk about. Like all of these games, we're flying blind here in the beginning, and there are players that tend not to want to speak unless they have something useful to say (whether they're scum or not). We've had two pages of discussion on how to properly classify lurkerdom, for heavens sake!

Just sayin' is all.

[HazelNutCoffee]

I should probably make that clearer. In a general sense, "skimming" is a minor scumtell.
Reading the Day's post, this stuck with me, mostly because it reminded me of past games where I played scum and made the same mistake (i.e., "skimming"). Just wanted to make a note of that.

The other thing that stuck with me is that this Day has been rather quiet. It's weird because Day 2 was pretty much rife with paranoia and accusations. I'm really not sure what I have to add to toDay's conversation, other than that I think any kind of role-claim is not ideal at this point, and that I agree with Dio in that semi-lurkers are more suspicious than outright lurkers at this point. I keep meaning to go back to Day 2, but haven't had the time yet. Tomorrow I have a half-day off, so I promise I'll do that then and post a summary of my thoughts afterwards. But right now I needs must go bed.

[Millit the Frail]

Part of the problem with voting Hal for lurkiness is that he's always quiet the first couple Days, and tends to ramp up his participation when there's more to talk about. Like all of these games, we're flying blind here in the beginning, and there are players that tend not to want to speak unless they have something useful to say (whether they're scum or not). We've had two pages of discussion on how to properly classify lurkerdom, for heavens sake!

Just sayin' is all.

That's fine, I just want some proper discussion to happen before we get down to the wire and lynch in a hurry again. Also, just because he has a posting style doesn't mean he's not scum! If I were scum, I'd try to act just like I usually do (I've only played pro-Town so far) and hope people brush it off as well.

[hotflungwok]

Part of the problem with voting Hal for lurkiness is that he's always quiet the first couple Days, and tends to ramp up his participation when there's more to talk about.
But that doesn't excuse it. If he's scum now then this kind of thing just helps him.

Like all of these games, we're flying blind here in the beginning, and there are players that tend not to want to speak unless they have something useful to say (whether they're scum or not).
And that's why we need people to post. Saying nothing and coasting through the first days sounds like a good way for scum to survive.

We've had two pages of discussion on how to properly classify lurkerdom, for heavens sake!
Good. It needs to be talked about, for the newbies if for nothing else. The more discussion we do the more information we have to go on.

[MHaye]

Ah, a debate. :)

First off, it isn't a system. I was hoping someone else would do my leg work for me, because I don't get any info out of doing the work myself. If that selfish of me, sure, but the more people we have working on a sigle problem, the more information we get out of the solution to that problem. Again, posting that list of post counts generated conversation and information.It did.

As I said, I don't have objections to looking at people's activity levels, especially in this game where a change might be indicative of a change in role.

You did propose a system. A systematic hunt of people with low postcounts. I dislike that system, in part because it's easy to avoid being a low postcount player by posting fluff, which means I have more posts to wade through on a reread, and in part because the data you were basing it on included Nights, and someone wanting to hide from your hunt only has to post the minimum to keep above Fluiddruid's scythe in the Days, and boost postcount by bartending or something at Night.

Sinjin's effort in weeding out the Night posts makes this idea much more viable because now we can see those who are posting infrequently in the Day. (I tried to do something of the sort for Cult of Sekham, but it took me too long.)

It is actually your play in the last couple of games that was the inspiration for my latest lynch the lurker concept. The reason is, in the last 2 games you were scum once and town once...and your play was identicle. This was mostly because you posted so infrequently that you were impossible to read! You don't have to post fluff to post more. Your posts are usually high content, but you don't vote a lot and you don't post enough that I can ever get a handle on where you are. You never make your voice heard. That really all I want you to do, stop hiding in the back and speak up.

If all you post is fluff, you will probably get lynched. I really believe this. But every game we have a bit of a conversation about lynchhing vs. giving a pass to low post players and the argument in favor of giving them a pass is alway "but it rewards players who post fluff."My argument is closer to "it harms the game by increasing the number of posts people have to wade through for little or no purpose." Basically, I contend that large numbers of fluff posts in the Days make it harder to follow the game. There may also be a secondary effect of discouraging people from joining in future games because of the sheer number of posts in the thread.

I'll let you into a secret about Three Kingdoms. During the days I forgot as often as possible that I was a goon. My play was indistinguishable from a Villager because except for the fact that I knew who the Shu were, I was a Villager. Not until Day 4 did I do anything inspired by my role as a scum and using my additional knowledge.

Three Kingdoms might not be the best evidence of my playstyle as a bad guy just because of the structure of the game. Conspiracy is the only game here I've been unadulterated Scum.

I will come out and say right now, I would rather players post fluff than have players NOT POST ENOUGH. It is then easy to just lynch the people who are obviously avoiding conversation. Avoiding conversation is OBVIOUSLY SCUMMY. Not posting tells us nothing!No and yes. :p

I would rather have players not post fluff in Days than pad their postcount with game-irrelevant rhubarb. That way we can see who's contributing and who is not more easily. But yes, avoiding conversation is scummy.

And now for the confession.

I got kidney-punched Saturday night (metaphorically), my ability to concentrate on anything more demanding than light fantasy went out of the window and I got nothing done.

So now I'm playing catchup with only one day to go. I'll tie myself to my PC this evening.

[Drain Bead]

First off, it isn't a system. I was hoping someone else would do my leg work for me, because I don't get any info out of doing the work myself.

Here's where this bothers me. If you wanted someone to do your leg work for you, why didn't you say something to that effect? Saying something like "These are just raw numbers, and I haven't divided them into Day/Night posts because I don't have the time or energy, but I'm hoping that someone else will" would have done a lot to take heat off of you. But you didn't say that--in fact, you didn't say anything to show anyone that the numbers you posted were essentially worthless. So now this statement looks to me like backpedaling. To me, it's enough for a FOS on NAF.

[bufftabby]

Seriously, guys. Okay, props to sinjin for doing further analysis on our very lurkiest, separating the substance from the fluff. Right on. But I took like two and a half hours to go through and count everyone's posts, by hand, no fancy spreadsheets etc. Now I'm really feeling like it was for no reason at all. No one has mentioned it; hell, I don't think anybody even read it. I'm a very discouraged newb townie right about now. I'm also a whiner, I guess.

[Hawkeyeop]

From the rules:

This doesn't say anything about investigating the same target, it just says if they choose to investigate at all. So I think you're crunching your numbers wrong on your idea.

That is what we call me blatantly misreading the rules. Okay new math.

1 cop
.8 successful investigations a night.

2 cops
1.2 successful investigations a night.

3 cops
1.2 successful investigations a night.

4 cops
.8 successful investigation a night

So ideally we want 2 or 3 daily investigations.

I'm not sure that this kills my plan. It makes one aspect of it slower, but it still would do well at protecting new cops. Still, it was probably not enough of a good idea to take a hit.

I'll have a vote later today. My main two candidates are Menocchio and Sinjin. I was bothered by Menocchio's vote for me. Bad strategy is not a scum tell. Even perfect strategy would be difficult to develop a consensus on. No scum is going to convince the rest of the town to go along with a plan that has obvious flaws. For someone who suggested that the Vig role claim, it seems disingenuous for him to vote someone else for a "bad idea."

I'm not sure I can explain well what bothers me about Sinjin. I'm kind of getting the trying to hard to seem townie vibe. Let me see if I can go over his posts again and make a better case.

[Pleonast]

I don't have time for detailed analysis, but on reread, this post bothers me. In full:Now, to deal with the subject of power roles purposely role-claiming...

Obviously, any recruitable power role should not roleclaim unless their lives depend upon it. I'd like to see BlaM crunch the numbers about when it might be worth it for Masons to claim, provided he gives us Cliff Notes for the English majors. Priests are an easy place for scum to hide, and I think that provided our Detective is alive, it might be a good idea for the Detective to investigate any claimed Priest that Night, and the Beat Cops to look elsewhere.

And as for the Vigilante? Under NO circumstances should a Vig claim unless facing certain death. This is because one of the Vig's best traits is the fact that a recruitment attempt will give them the name of a random scum! Obviously a claimed Vig will never be recruited because of this, so it's in our best interest for the Vig to remain silent.

Because of this, I'm going to Vote Menocchio. His suggestion that the Vig should claim is sheer madness. It's two levels of scummy--one because it would be a huge mistake for the Town if that suggestion came to be, and two because it shows a player who isn't fully paying attention to the rules, which is a very unTownie thing to do.The advice Menocchio gave is bad advice, as Drain Bead rightly explains. But I don't think it's scummy advice in this case. Addressing the two levels mentioned:

1) Bad advice is not always scummy. You need to make a case as to why someone's statements are more likely to be made by scum than town. And how likely is the Vig to take such bad advice? The Vig will know their own powers and presumably not make such a clear mistake.

2) Okay, you're making a case now. But not paying full attention isn't a scum tell either. It's easy to get roles confused, especially when there's many. (See me in the Three Kingdoms game. I was even a power role.) It's even easier to miss a single power of a role.

All I would take from Menocchio's advice is that he is not the Vig. What do I take from Drain's attack? Poorly reasoned, but is it scummy? Maybe. Men was getting a lot of votes YesterDay. An early vote with reasoning (even if it's poor) could start a bandwagon. And, if a bandwagon did start, Drain could reasonably claim she wasn't following it. Perfect way for scum to make an attack. So, for now:
vote Drain Bead

[Drain Bead]

I'll have a vote later today. My main two candidates are Menocchio and Sinjin. I was bothered by Menocchio's vote for me. Bad strategy is not a scum tell. Even perfect strategy would be difficult to develop a consensus on. No scum is going to convince the rest of the town to go along with a plan that has obvious flaws. For someone who suggested that the Vig role claim, it seems disingenuous for him to vote someone else for a "bad idea."


Another thing I didn't like about Menocchio's/b] vote for you is that it seemed like an attempt to start a bandwagon, an attempt that could be easily explained later by a "but he practically TOLD us to vote for him for it!" type of statement. The hypocrisy of it aside, it appeared to be a thinly-veiled attempt at deflection. It was a highly opportunistic move to make, and after you gave the opening, I was curious to see who would take advantage of it.

Speaking of opportunism, we have [b]Pleonast
What do I take from Drain's attack? Poorly reasoned, but is it scummy? Maybe. Men was getting a lot of votes YesterDay. An early vote with reasoning (even if it's poor) could start a bandwagon. And, if a bandwagon did start, Drain could reasonably claim she wasn't following it. Perfect way for scum to make an attack.

For one thing, I don't think the reasoning is very poor. Keep in mind that this is just one reason out of many that people have voted for him. But second of all--how could I reasonably claim I wasn't following a bandwagon? By reasonably saying that instead of following it, I started it? Keep in mind that there are very few scum at this point, and it's in their best interest to not play leader-of-the-pack. And while I won't vote for a claimed town power role at this point, I still don't entirely trust that you're a humble priest. That is, after all, the easiest role in which a scum can hide. For you to come out in defense of Menocchio, to the point of voting for me on reasoning more tenuous than the reasoning I initally used to vote for him, is curious to say the least.

[Drain Bead]

Ugh, I hate it when I blow coding.

[dotchan]

2 cops
1.2 successful investigations a night.

3 cops
1.2 successful investigations a night.

4 cops
.8 successful investigation a night

I'm fairly sure that's not how probabilities work--I've crunched the numbers as a mental exercise, and I'll post those on request, but as someone else pointed out already it's still not worth exposing the Cops.

[bufftabby]

Ugh, I hate it when I blow coding.

Oh, but the coding loves it. ;)

[Hawkeyeop]

I'm fairly sure that's not how probabilities work--I've crunched the numbers as a mental exercise, and I'll post those on request, but as someone else pointed out already it's still not worth exposing the Cops.

I might not have clear. This is the average amount of successful investigations we would have a night, not the probably that we would have successful investigations. So for say 2 cops

9/25 of 2 successful investigations

12/25 of 1 successful investigation

4/25 of 0 successful investigations

(9*2)+(12*1)+4*)/25=1.2

[Koldanar]

Blah. I wrote up a post , but by the time I hit the button, I got a board down for maintenance error. To sum up : Weekend got the better of me, I won't get time to really read till tonight...so I will catch up and post some substance tonight / tomorrow during lunch (damn lunch meeting today).

[Hawkeyeop]

Bah, I meant to preview not post. Let's try that one more time for readability sake.

I might not have been clear. This is the average amount of successful investigations we would have a night, not the probability that we would have successful investigations. So for say 2 cops:

9/25 chance of 2 successful investigations

12/25 chance of 1 successful investigation

4/25 chance of 0 successful investigations

((9*2)+(12*1)+4*))/25=1.2

[fluiddruid]

The Day ends at 11am on Tuesday, March 11.

Vote Tallies:

Menocchio (3) - dotchan, Drain Bead, chrisk
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
Hawkeyeop (1) - Menocchio
Hal Briston (1) - Millit the Frail
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (1) - Pleonast
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
NAF1138
Hockey Monkey
bufftabby
Diomedes
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Koldanar
Hawkeyeop
HazelNutCoffee
Hotflungwok
OneCentStamp
Freudian Slit
sinjin
Hal Briston

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive

[Menocchio]

Unvote Hawkeyeop
Vote Drain Bead
Not for voting for me (though she's wrong, of course, it was an innocent mistake), but for smudging Pleonast for defending me. This seems like an attempt to set up an easy target, given that I'm still under the hot lamps from Yesterday and haven't role claimed, and she's working on the second easiest target while she's at it.

[Menocchio]

Oops forgot the bold. Here's the same vote again with proper coding.

Unvote Hawkeyeop
Vote Drain Bead

I also still don't like Hawkeyeop's plan. I just suspect Drain more at this point.

[hotflungwok]

I've been thinking a bit about the beat cops. Because of the wierd probabilities around them, I'm having a hard time figuring them out.

First, if I'm reading the rules right, their investigation returns 'town' or 'scum'. Of what use is that to the scum? The only thing they gain if they recruit a beat cop is denying the town his info, and possibly messing up other beat cops by investigating constantly.

Second, is there any way to help them? Organize the investigations without compromising who they are? I couldn't think of anything, but there might have been some way of doing it in prior games. We don't know how many there are, so we don't know what chances they've got. Since they seem to be our main source of actual knowledge, is there anything we can do to help them?

Third, is there any way for them to share their information without revealing themselves? And if they do reveal themselves, is this grounds for an automatic lynching just to be safe?

[Menocchio]

I've been thinking a bit about the beat cops. Because of the wierd probabilities around them, I'm having a hard time figuring them out.

First, if I'm reading the rules right, their investigation returns 'town' or 'scum'. Of what use is that to the scum? The only thing they gain if they recruit a beat cop is denying the town his info, and possibly messing up other beat cops by investigating constantly.
Capo Cops can return "Town" or "Power Role"
Consigliere Cops can't investigate at all, but like every other turncoat power role give a 5% chance (each!) of revealing a town power role to the scum.

Plus we can't use 'em. So they're worth grabbing if you're scum or keeping if you're town.

[dotchan]

Bah, I meant to preview not post. Let's try that one more time for readability sake.

I might not have been clear. This is the average amount of successful investigations we would have a night, not the probability that we would have successful investigations. So for say 2 cops...

I follow your math, but wouldn't you divide that sum by three to get the average? (Since there are three distinct situations: 0 successes, 1 success, 2 successes.)

At any rate, I have a feeling that the Beat Cop's ability lies slightly less in their role investigation and more in their chance of witnessing something, especially if we have multiples of them.

hotflungwok, I don't think we need to consider auto-lynching claimed power-roles until we're further into the game. Don't forget that Beat Cops return a random role on the Boss, so even if a dead Beat Cop turns up innocent we can't take their results as canon. (Plus, what does that mean for the player(s) whose role that the Beat Cop reveals?)

[NAF1138]

Hey, my car got towed this morning and I have spend the last 5 hours dealing with that. Give me a few minutes to get things straightened out at work and then I will make a substantive post with a vote.

I plan to post my list of most likely to be recruited as well as my current list of people I think that not been recruited as of today.

[Hawkeyeop]

I follow your math, but wouldn't you divide that sum by three to get the average? (Since there are three distinct situations: 0 successes, 1 success, 2 successes.)



The fact that there are 3 distinct situations is already taken into account in the math.

There is 36% chance of 2 successes
There is 48% chance of 1 success
There is 16% chance of 0 successes

Intuitively, since the odds of 2 successes is greater than the odds of 0 successes, the answer should be greater than one.

At any rate, I have a feeling that the Beat Cop's ability lies slightly less in their role investigation and more in their chance of witnessing something, especially if we have multiples of them.


The odds of each individual beat cop witnessing an event is less then 1/40. Even then, we only get a lackey and not the boss. It is probably enough to tilt the equation to make 3 beat cops investigating ideal, but doesn't do more than that.

[Darth Sensitive]

The weekend got the better of me. I'll do my best to catch up tonight and post.

[NAF1138]

Ok, quickly because I have 2 minutes and this post will only take that long to write.


NAF1138
Hockey Monkey
Drainbead
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Pleonast
Blaster Master
HazelNutCoffee
Freudian Slit
Hal Briston


This is the list of people I think it is most likely the mafia will try to recruit. They are all either vets, or town leader types, or have played scum succesfully in the past. Everyone on this list should be killed before endgame, myself included. This is less true if we catch the boss at some point, more true the longer we go without catching the boss. But I think letting any of these players survive until endgame would be a mistake.

I have been thinking about it, and killing off a certain number of players isn't such a bad thing for us. We need to make the pool smaller. A large group staying alive will only play into the scum's hands. IF I were the vig (and this is just advice, please make your own call) I would take these players out on any Night when you don't feel you have a strong bead on someone.

More to come as I catch up on my workload.

Oh, and vote Hal for fluffyness and being on the above list.

[Hal Briston]

Ok, as usual, couldn’t participate much over the weekend -- catch-up time. Apologies if any of these issues have already been settled -- I'm running through these as I see them.
...Police Chief is a role vulnerable to fake claiming, so I'll be taking any claims with a grain of salt.This is really sticking out to me...yes, I know there is no guarantee that we have a Police Chief, but it'd be a huge risk for scum to make that kind of false claim. I'm going to go the other way on this and take a (post-boss-lynching) Chief claim at face value, unless otherwise disputed.I'm still modding the off-board game, and I see no point in posting for the sake of posting, especially these first few Days when there's so many people. I'll pretty much just post to FoS, vote, or discuss game theory where applicable.Bwuh? I have no problem with someone not being vocal when there's already enough noise going on, but modding the off-board game is the excuse? Most of that post is fine by me, but that first bit strikes me as odd.But I'm wondering how good of an idea it is for the masons and priests to claim together, with the masons claiming as priests too. That keeps numbers of both obfuscated and builds a core of protowniness. Priests can't be recruited, and masons only have a small chance. So that would take them off the possible recruit list.I dunno...seems like it would be a very tempting place for a scum or two to hide out.Perhaps the vigilante [should claim]? Just because he's out doesn't mean we have to put him on a leash.Ack! No! If scum try and recruit him, we get one of their names! Hush, little Viggie, don't say a word... (and as I read further on, I see this has already been covered...ah well).FoS Hal Briston. Almost all of your posts have been fluff. When you did strategize once, you followed it up by saying not to listen to you about any analysis. You set off my my suspicion sirens, but my scumdar isn't sure quite what to make of you yet.<shrug> Get used to it -- it's early in the game, when my participation is lowest. The one time I led the charge from the get-go, I opened my mouth a bit too much and the town lost a major power role. I'm certain I'll catch flack for it, but I start slow and build with each passing Day...simple as that.Substance to Fluff Ratio: 5/16. And there wasn't much substance in the substance. Huh...besides that personal bit being a completely subjective load of crap, I wonder if anyone is thinking your analysis might be a hyper-townie scum move? I mean, it's not offering anything helpful in the least, but it serves up a very nice illusion of being a helpful townie. (And as I go further, I see NAF finds fault here as well)...(and further still, that Millit bought into it....sorry, fellow former table-carver, he's wrong! :))Part of the problem with voting Hal for lurkiness is that he's always quiet the first couple Days, and tends to ramp up his participation when there's more to talk about. Like all of these games, we're flying blind here in the beginning, and there are players that tend not to want to speak unless they have something useful to say (whether they're scum or not). We've had two pages of discussion on how to properly classify lurkerdom, for heavens sake!Huh...didn't know I was becoming that transparent with my style. Well, obviously this post is a good start (or should I break it up into six or seven separate posts for those who are blindly obsessed with hard post count numbers?)Oh, but the coding loves it. ;)Damn you, *I* wanted to make that joke...

[Hal Briston]

This is the list of people I think it is most likely the mafia will try to recruit. They are all either vets, or town leader types, or have played scum succesfully in the past. Everyone on this list should be killed before endgame, myself included. This is less true if we catch the boss at some point, more true the longer we go without catching the boss. But I think letting any of these players survive until endgame would be a mistake.That's a smart idea. However, making that post becomes a flat-out brilliant idea if one reads it with the assumption that you're scum.

Think about it: "Here's a list of experienced players [who aren't scum]. Make sure you kill them all off, town [so we don't have to and so the heat stays off of us]!"

Not saying that's actually the case, but if it turns out you're the Godfather, allow me to be the first to tip my hat to you for that one.

[MHaye]

Seriously, guys. Okay, props to sinjin for doing further analysis on our very lurkiest, separating the substance from the fluff. Right on. But I took like two and a half hours to go through and count everyone's posts, by hand, no fancy spreadsheets etc. Now I'm really feeling like it was for no reason at all. No one has mentioned it; hell, I don't think anybody even read it. I'm a very discouraged newb townie right about now. I'm also a whiner, I guess.I'd like to apologise. I remembered 798 but didn't check back to see who wrote it when I made my earlier post.

It's actually useful to have two people do this sort of work to guard against error by the data compiler.

Now I've said that, the lack of posts by Santo Rugger is odd. He's quite keen, as the first two day's posting level shows. I hope he's alright.

[NAF1138]

Day...simple as that.Huh...besides that personal bit being a completely subjective load of crap, I wonder if anyone is thinking your analysis might be a hyper-townie scum move? I mean, it's not offering anything helpful in the least, but it serves up a very nice illusion of being a helpful townie. (And as I go further, I see NAF finds fault here as well)...(and further still, that Millit bought into it....sorry, fellow former table-carver, he's wrong! :))Huh...didn't know I was becoming that transparent with my style. Well, obviously this post is a good start (or should I break it up into six or seven separate posts for those who are blindly obsessed with hard post count numbers?)


This post is a good start Hal, and just so I am perfectly clear, it isn't for fluffyness alone that you are getting a vote from me at the moment. It is that combined with my feeling that you are one of the players that was very likely recruited just because you are who you are.

Also subjective as hell, but I wanted to make sure my motives were clear.

Doing as fast a re read as I can right now and then I am going to post my list of people I think have not been recruited as of the start of the Day.

[fluiddruid]

Menocchio (3) - dotchan, Drain Bead, chrisk
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (2) - Pleonast, Menocchio
Hal Briston (2) - Millit the Frail, NAF1138
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
Hawkeyeop (0) - (Menocchio)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
Hockey Monkey
bufftabby
Diomedes
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Koldanar
Hawkeyeop
HazelNutCoffee
Hotflungwok
OneCentStamp
Freudian Slit
sinjin
Hal Briston

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive

[fluiddruid]

The end of the Day is coming very soon and we have some players who have not made the requisite 3 posts. If you do not post 3 times, you will be modkilled during the Night, so please post.

[Drain Bead]

Ok, quickly because I have 2 minutes and this post will only take that long to write.


NAF1138
Hockey Monkey
Drainbead
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Pleonast
Blaster Master
HazelNutCoffee
Freudian Slit
Hal Briston


This is the list of people I think it is most likely the mafia will try to recruit. They are all either vets, or town leader types, or have played scum succesfully in the past. Everyone on this list should be killed before endgame, myself included. This is less true if we catch the boss at some point, more true the longer we go without catching the boss. But I think letting any of these players survive until endgame would be a mistake.

Here's the problem with that. First off, you've just given the scum a big list of who they should recruit--just take everyone who ISN'T on NAF's list, because they won't be suspected as much! Second, you're saying all this without any knowledge of who on this list might happen to be a useful town power role, and if someone who is a useful power role can manage to stay hidden, we shouldn't off them just because they might have been recruited based solely on their past experiences. We should base our lynches on something a little less meta-gamey than "not a n00b," which is what this boils down to in my eyes.

[OneCentStamp]

I have no idea whom to vote to lynch.

[Blaster Master]

Apologies guys, busy weekend and today (Birthday and all :rolleyes: ), so I may not get fully caught up before the Day ends tomorrow morning...

And as for the Vigilante? Under NO circumstances should a Vig claim unless facing certain death. This is because one of the Vig's best traits is the fact that a recruitment attempt will give them the name of a random scum! Obviously a claimed Vig will never be recruited because of this, so it's in our best interest for the Vig to remain silent.

Because of this, I'm going to Vote Menocchio. His suggestion that the Vig should claim is sheer madness. It's two levels of scummy--one because it would be a huge mistake for the Town if that suggestion came to be, and two because it shows a player who isn't fully paying attention to the rules, which is a very unTownie thing to do.

I cannot agree with this reasoning. This is easily a mistake a townie could have made because I (and apparently at least one other) had forgotten about this extra ability of the Vigilante. This is easily a mistake that a townie could make simply because those who are less familiar with the powers of a specific role probably just don't have it. So, basically, what we learn from his post is that he's probably not the Vigilante, but that still leaves us with no reason to believe he's necessarily scum based on that.

Further, he corrected his comment when called out on it, and I'm sure the Vig himself would be fully aware of that extra power and simply ignore the suggestion. Either way, this vote is essentially nothing more than an OMGUS vote.

[Koldanar]

While I'm reading along...what players are under our 3 Post limit right now?

Other note...I'm glad to see that people have focused a little on Drain Bead...I had some suspicions but silly me forgot to note what post made me look twice. Blah...with out a quote I can't even say FOS but glad to see others caught this.

Hal thanks for clearing up my newb thoughts...I looked at NAF's list and thought hrm, ok, that seems pro town...I don't see a Mafia angle. Maybe I need to think that one over more. Ugh, too much to do not enough time to do it. Back to work!

[Hockey Monkey]

Here's the problem with that. First off, you've just given the scum a big list of who they should recruit--just take everyone who ISN'T on NAF's list, because they won't be suspected as much! Second, you're saying all this without any knowledge of who on this list might happen to be a useful town power role, and if someone who is a useful power role can manage to stay hidden, we shouldn't off them just because they might have been recruited based solely on their past experiences. We should base our lynches on something a little less meta-gamey than "not a n00b," which is what this boils down to in my eyes.

NAF, while I like the general gist of your list post, I'm gonna have to agree with Drain here on both of her points.

[bufftabby]

Well, obviously this post is a good start (or should I break it up into six or seven separate posts for those who are blindly obsessed with hard post count numbers?)

I think that's an oversimplification. Like I said, you've been fluffy. It's not a simple case of post counts. It's content, or lack therof. I think you're obfuscating. Vote Hal Briston.

[Drain Bead]

Either way, this vote is essentially nothing more than an OMGUS vote.

I thought an OMGUS vote was voting for someone because they voted for you? Last I checked, Menocchio unvoted someone to vote for me after I voted for him. You can disagree with my logic if you want--reasonable minds can, and have. But it was certainly logic with a pro-town basis--at the very least, someone should have pointed out the potential drawbacks of that plan.

For the record, I'd be very interested in hearing Pleonast's thoughts about my response to his vote for me, rather than what Menocchio thought of it. Smudging is in the eye of the smudgee, if that makes any sense.

[NAF1138]

Here's the problem with that. First off, you've just given the scum a big list of who they should recruit--just take everyone who ISN'T on NAF's list, because they won't be suspected as much! Second, you're saying all this without any knowledge of who on this list might happen to be a useful town power role, and if someone who is a useful power role can manage to stay hidden, we shouldn't off them just because they might have been recruited based solely on their past experiences. We should base our lynches on something a little less meta-gamey than "not a n00b," which is what this boils down to in my eyes.


I posted it at the request of BlaM we had a whole long discussion about should I/should I not post it. In the end he convinced me that I should. (For the record I still think he is right, I am not trying to lay that decision on you BlaM, I am just pointing out where the conversation occured.)

You had your chance to say something about it then, where were you?

Here's the thing, the vig will do what the vig wants to do. If I was the Vig, that is what I would do. But only on the Nights when I didn't have a better idea.

Let the scum WIFOM all they what they want with what to do with that list.

Also, while I agree that we should base our lynches on more than "not a n00b", you can't deny that certain people are higher on the list of probably recruited than others.

If you were the boss Night 1 and you had this player list to choose from, who would you be more likely to recruit:

hotflungwok who has never played or BlaM one of the smarter and more skillful players in our group?

Darth Sensitive who has never played or Santo Rugger, who has been scum more than any other player here?

Really? You want to actually throw that information out the window?

Now I am not saying lynch these people out of hand, but we have to lynch someone. Who do you propose is the best candidate?

My feeling is that hotflungwok and BlaM have both not been recruited as of toDay.

Santo, I am less sure of, mostly because he has been sort of absent. Same with Darth Sensitive, but if push came to shove between the two of them I would lynch Santo first, all other things being equal.

All I am able to come up with at the moment is this probably not recruited yet, and unknown. I am guessing, based on the votes so far, that most other people feel the same way. All I am doing is puzzling out this game out loud on the boards so everyone knows where I stand. Too few people are doing that right now.

[bufftabby]

MHaye, thanks. I was just having a crybaby moment. I posted in another thread recently with a similar situation, in which I did some legwork to come up with a good and thorough response to an objective question, and the following response was along the line of "oh, thanks, notbufftabby and alsonotbufftabby". Stuff like that just frustrates the hell outta me. I'm such a wiener. And I'm also really wondering where Santo Rugger is. He was plenty active the past two Days...

[hotflungwok]

Yeah, this is a tough one. I think I'm going to have to go back and reread some stuff. Nothing's jumping out at me.

[Blaster Master]

I have no idea whom to vote to lynch.

If you're not sure, that's fine, but simply stating it doesn't help anyone and just makes it look like you're posting fluff. When you're not sure, try looking at the vote leaders, the reasons people are voting for them, and then decide if you agree or disagree with their reasoning. If you agree, explain why, and vote. If you disagree, explain why, and look else where.

Worse comes to worse, if you can't agree with any of the reasoning put forth, look at someone else, particularly one that has twinged your suspicion, and go back and see if you can't pick things out that do, even if you can't really explain it, quote the things that rub you the wrong way, maybe someone else can either confirm or explain why you shouldn't be suspicious of those things.

Either way, you can't be serious that you're not suspicious of anyone. Surely, you don't know because you're teetering between a few different people, right? Maybe you can say who they are and explain your feelings. If you're a townie, even if you're vanilla, the best thing you can do is give your thoughts and reactions, and they'll be confirmed if/when you are confirmed/die.

[hotflungwok]

Either way, you can't be serious that you're not suspicious of anyone. Surely, you don't know because you're teetering between a few different people, right? Maybe you can say who they are and explain your feelings. If you're a townie, even if you're vanilla, the best thing you can do is give your thoughts and reactions, and they'll be confirmed if/when you are confirmed/die.
For the record, this is where I am. I'm really suspicious of the non-posters, and the mainly fluffy posters, but I can't decide who to settle on.

[Drain Bead]

I posted it at the request of BlaM we had a whole long discussion about should I/should I not post it. In the end he convinced me that I should. (For the record I still think he is right, I am not trying to lay that decision on you BlaM, I am just pointing out where the conversation occured.)

You had your chance to say something about it then, where were you?

Waiting to see what you did. BlaM's reasoning for wanting you to give your list was to see if he agreed with it or not, and whether or not he should vote for you based upon it. At the time, I didn't think you should make your list, but I didn't want to come out and say that, because I wanted to see your motivations. A pro-town response might have been something like "I'll keep that to myself in order to not give the scum ideas, at least for now. Perhaps later my list will be more pertinent, but now it's just too early for it."

Here's the thing, the vig will do what the vig wants to do. If I was the Vig, that is what I would do. But only on the Nights when I didn't have a better idea.

And if the vig takes out a power role because they followed that list when they had no better idea, rather than just...not killing? The Vig will do what the Vig wants to do, that's for sure. I just hope the Vig doesn't want to kill people just because they happen to be folks that NAF thinks should be recruited at some point, whether or not they already have been.

Also, while I agree that we should base our lynches on more than "not a n00b", you can't deny that certain people are higher on the list of probably recruited than others.

If you were the boss Night 1 and you had this player list to choose from, who would you be more likely to recruit:

hotflungwok who has never played or BlaM one of the smarter and more skillful players in our group?

Darth Sensitive who has never played or Santo Rugger, who has been scum more than any other player here?

Night One, I'd choose an experienced player, sure. Every following Night, I'd be trying to sniff out useful power roles, regardless of who they are and how experienced they are. But that's just me.

Really? You want to actually throw that information out the window?

Now I am not saying lynch these people out of hand, but we have to lynch someone. Who do you propose is the best candidate?

Um...the person I'm voting for? Who, incidentally, didn't make your list, not that it means anything one way or the other.

My feeling is that hotflungwok and BlaM have both not been recruited as of toDay.

Not that I agree or disagree with you, but what gives you this feeling? I have an idea, but I'm curious as to what you think.

Santo, I am less sure of, mostly because he has been sort of absent. Same with Darth Sensitive, but if push came to shove between the two of them I would lynch Santo first, all other things being equal.

But are all things equal? Has Santo said or done something that makes you think he's scummy, or are you just playing some sort of elaborate guessing game? Sure, I know in the end this is all an elaborate guessing game, but usually we have something other than that to go on, kwim? Are you saying that you've read through this whole day and not found a single person to be suspicious? Hell, I'm finding almost everyone suspicious at this point.

All I am able to come up with at the moment is this probably not recruited yet, and unknown. I am guessing, based on the votes so far, that most other people feel the same way. All I am doing is puzzling out this game out loud on the boards so everyone knows where I stand. Too few people are doing that right now.

I'm having trouble parsing that first sentence there, and I see no problem with puzzling the game out loud--that tends to be my playstyle as well. And I totally agree with you that more people need to be doing this--I agree with your general idea that the more people post analysis, the more we'll be able to see later if they've been recruited.

[Drain Bead]

Another thing, NAF, that I just thought of while re-reading my post...you mention how you think that hotflungwok and BlaM haven't been recruited yet, while Santo Rugger and Darth Sensitive might have been. I know I already asked you how you got that feeling...but maybe a better question to ask is how do you know that none of them were the Boss and therefore the ones doing the recruiting?

[Blaster Master]

Obviously, any recruitable power role should not roleclaim unless their lives depend upon it. I'd like to see BlaM crunch the numbers about when it might be worth it for Masons to claim, provided he gives us Cliff Notes for the English majors. Priests are an easy place for scum to hide, and I think that provided our Detective is alive, it might be a good idea for the Detective to investigate any claimed Priest that Night, and the Beat Cops to look elsewhere.
Oops... I missed another point in the same post. FTR, I will NOT be crunching numbers with regard to when the Masons should or should not claim. Sure, I can model it, but when it's worth it is HIGHLY situational. How much it's worth it depends entirely on how much each is suspected, and how much the people they suspect are suspected. I can model this based on a random distribution, but chances are it will drastically over-estimate or under-estimate when they should do it because, just how randomness works, it's impossible to determine if they'll fall under lots of suspicion or little suspicion, but either is much more likely than "average" suspicion.

I'd expect that it would be an extraordinarily complex model that would ultimately be useless to anyone other than the masons, and it wouldn't really tell them anything they don't already know. That is, it's generally best for them to wait as long as possible to claim because they become extraordinarily useful in end-game, but they have to balance that with ensuring they can confirm eachother. IOW, if there's more than two, they shouldn't mass claim; if there's 2, they should consider it unless they strongly feel they're unlikely to be targetted. Would you expect. Even worse, since they're partially recruitable, an outed mason could potentially end up being MORE recruitable in the next few Days because we're more likely to lynch recruitable roles than non-recruitable ones... refer to the math I did sometime on Friday, I think.

[Drain Bead]

Oops... I missed another point in the same post. FTR, I will NOT be crunching numbers with regard to when the Masons should or should not claim. Sure, I can model it, but when it's worth it is HIGHLY situational. How much it's worth it depends entirely on how much each is suspected, and how much the people they suspect are suspected. I can model this based on a random distribution, but chances are it will drastically over-estimate or under-estimate when they should do it because, just how randomness works, it's impossible to determine if they'll fall under lots of suspicion or little suspicion, but either is much more likely than "average" suspicion.

I'd expect that it would be an extraordinarily complex model that would ultimately be useless to anyone other than the masons, and it wouldn't really tell them anything they don't already know. That is, it's generally best for them to wait as long as possible to claim because they become extraordinarily useful in end-game, but they have to balance that with ensuring they can confirm eachother. IOW, if there's more than two, they shouldn't mass claim; if there's 2, they should consider it unless they strongly feel they're unlikely to be targetted. Would you expect. Even worse, since they're partially recruitable, an outed mason could potentially end up being MORE recruitable in the next few Days because we're more likely to lynch recruitable roles than non-recruitable ones... refer to the math I did sometime on Friday, I think.

Thanks. I wasn't sure if it would even be possible or worthwhile for you to do something like that, and your explanation of why it's not didn't whoosh over my head at Mach 5 like the maths usually do, so that's good. ;-)

[Blaster Master]

If you were the boss Night 1 and you had this player list to choose from, who would you be more likely to recruit:

hotflungwok who has never played or BlaM one of the smarter and more skillful players in our group?

Darth Sensitive who has never played or Santo Rugger, who has been scum more than any other player here?

Here's my issue with this perspective, which I think I've somewhat laid out before. Surely, a more experienced or skilled player would likely be more valuable to scum. But surely they know that we know this, and so they'll also realize that we may be more likely to realize they're scum (since they have certain patterns we may recognize) or simply because we're aware that they're more valuable to scum. Similarly, if we're aware of that, we may rightfully be more suspicious of those individuals, but the cost is greater if we're incorrect because a more experienced player is probably more of an asset to the town than a less experienced player.

So in essence, you end up with a greater risk / greater reward scenario versus a lesser risk / lesser reward scenario which, ultimately, will tend to balance out to be about equal. OTOH, this information may be useful later on when we've caught the boss and can make judgments about his play style and possibly infer his recruiting strategy, then we may be able to decide which strategy he favors.

Still, if you'll recall my pseudo-random thesis from previous games (I'll re-explain upon request), I seriously doubt the Boss will pick a single strategy for his recruitment patterns. Obviously, if we establish that he's following an experienced player priority strategy, we can effectively eliminate half of the town population as suspects. I'd tend to expect the Boss will try to pick people from various discernable perspectives to maintain a diversity. That is, he'll want to pick some who fit in various obvious posting patterns (some high, some medium, some low). Similarly, he'll want to pick a variation on experience (some with lots, some with a little, and some with none). Bottom line, intuitively speaking, it's clear that recruiting 3 experienced players or 3 inexperienced players would be sub-optimal, particularly in the vein of conversation that's been occuring that he would necessarily follow a particular pattern.

[MHaye]

Still, if you'll recall my pseudo-random thesis from previous games (I'll re-explain upon request), I seriously doubt the Boss will pick a single strategy for his recruitment patterns.BlaM, while I think I recollect this, there are several people I'm sure don't, as I only recall seeing it discussed in off-board games. Would you mind doing a short version for those who haven't read the games in question?

[Hal Briston]

I think that's an oversimplification. Like I said, you've been fluffy. It's not a simple case of post counts. It's content, or lack therof. I think you're obfuscating.That's nice. Although the fact that you're responding to that particular part of my post make it pretty clear to me that you feel I was in some way addressing you there. I'm at a bit of a loss as to why you think that's vote-worthy. Continuing to push this non-issue is what looks like obfuscation to me.

Don't get me wrong -- my gut is that you're town. I'm thinking that you're looking to make an impact in your first game and you're trying to contribute as much as possible, and that's a very good play-style. However, voting simply because someone doesn't share that play-style tells me that it's still broken (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9540507&postcount=633).

[fluiddruid]

By my count, the following players are at risk of a lurker modkill at Dusk.

Hockey Monkey (2 posts)
chrisk (1 post)
Santo Rugger (0 posts)

[NAF1138]

Another thing, NAF, that I just thought of while re-reading my post...you mention how you think that hotflungwok and BlaM haven't been recruited yet, while Santo Rugger and Darth Sensitive might have been. I know I already asked you how you got that feeling...but maybe a better question to ask is how do you know that none of them were the Boss and therefore the ones doing the recruiting?


I don't. If one of them was the boss it will take a different type of analysis to find them. And it isn't so much that Santo or Darth might have, as it is they are a big question mark for me.

I will answer your previous post in a different post.

[Drain Bead]

I don't. If one of them was the boss it will take a different type of analysis to find them. And it isn't so much that Santo or Darth might have, as it is they are a big question mark for me.

I will answer your previous post in a different post.

That's cool. I wasn't trying to cast aspersions on you or smudge you by asking that, I just realized after I re-read that I was missing the forest for the trees on that one, and figured it was a question that needed asking.

[NAF1138]

Snipped:
Similarly, if we're aware of that, we may rightfully be more suspicious of those individuals, but the cost is greater if we're incorrect because a more experienced player is probably more of an asset to the town than a less experienced player.

So in essence, you end up with a greater risk / greater reward scenario versus a lesser risk / lesser reward scenario which, ultimately, will tend to balance out to be about equal. OTOH, this information may be useful later on when we've caught the boss and can make judgments about his play style and possibly infer his recruiting strategy, then we may be able to decide which strategy he favors.



I will make you a deal, if the whole town starts blindly following what I say, I will switch my methodology. None of this is supposed to be more than a jumping off point for analysis, and none of it is a substitue for good analysis. But in the absense of infomation, what I am trying to do is generate some information.

I am also hoping that by publicly posting a list of people likely to be recruited, that it might give the scum pause when they think about possibly recruiting the people on the list. I think if we get the people on said list talking enough, it will be relativly easy to see when they make the subconscious shift in their behavior. This is why I think we need to kill people who aren't talking much. I think that at least 1 of the people on my list has already been recruited, and that is why none of them should be allowed to survive until endgame.

We have the numbers, we can afford the losses, and I think that the vig should be killing every Night. This is one of the few games of mafia where numbers hurt us.

WE NEED PEOPLE TO DIE EVERY NIGHT, AND WE NEED TO LYNCH EVERY DAY.

If we don't start getting more bodies piling up soon, we won't be able to find the scum amidst the noise.

[Drain Bead]

By my count, the following players are at risk of a lurker modkill at Dusk.

Hockey Monkey (2 posts)
chrisk (1 post)
Santo Rugger (0 posts)

I'm not sure if this question was already asked and answered, but will you be prodding those people with enough time for them to get into the thread?

I especially worry about Santo Rugger, because it isn't like him to miss a whole game Day.

[NAF1138]

ok, I think I answered most of this in my last post, so I'm going to snip a bit. Let me know if you have unanswered questions.

At the time, I didn't think you should make your list, but I didn't want to come out and say that, because I wanted to see your motivations. A pro-town response might have been something like "I'll keep that to myself in order to not give the scum ideas, at least for now. Perhaps later my list will be more pertinent, but now it's just too early for it."

So, my initial response was pro-town, but me changing my mind after a discussion of ideas is...???



And if the vig takes out a power role because they followed that list when they had no better idea, rather than just...not killing? The Vig will do what the Vig wants to do, that's for sure. I just hope the Vig doesn't want to kill people just because they happen to be folks that NAF thinks should be recruited at some point, whether or not they already have been.

Too bad really. It happens. The town shouldn't be so reliant on power roles, and I really believe that the vig should be killing every Night. We need to dwindle our numbers if we are going to stand a chance.



Night One, I'd choose an experienced player, sure. Every following Night, I'd be trying to sniff out useful power roles, regardless of who they are and how experienced they are. But that's just me.

And if you didn't think you found one? Me I would go for experiance again.


Um...the person I'm voting for? Who, incidentally, didn't make your list, not that it means anything one way or the other.

Thatsa smudge



Not that I agree or disagree with you, but what gives you this feeling? I have an idea, but I'm curious as to what you think.

If you don't minds I will save this one for a little later. ToDay if you really want it, but later.



Hell, I'm finding almost everyone suspicious at this point.

I am finding very few people suspicious. Why are you finding suspicion in everything?



I'm having trouble parsing that first sentence there, and I see no problem with puzzling the game out loud--that tends to be my playstyle as well. And I totally agree with you that more people need to be doing this--I agree with your general idea that the more people post analysis, the more we'll be able to see later if they've been recruited.

Yeah, that was a bad one, I will get back to that one too in a little bit, if you don't mind.

huh, didn't snip as much as I thought.

[Drain Bead]

WE NEED PEOPLE TO DIE EVERY NIGHT, AND WE NEED TO LYNCH EVERY DAY.

If we don't start getting more bodies piling up soon, we won't be able to find the scum amidst the noise.

I'm not sure if I agree with that, at least at this point in the game. At the very least, when we lynch someone during the Day, they have a chance to roleclaim. I'm really concerned that with the relatively small number of scum we have right now, a Vig kill is more likely to hit a town power role than a scum. Again, I'm not a math fiend, so I can't really tell you at what point I think it would be worth it for the Vig to kill every night no matter what. I also think the Vig should make his or her own decisions each night about what to do--none of this all-caps all-or-nothing panic. If they have a good feeling that they'll hit scum, kill, and if not, don't. In the end, though, I don't envy the Vig in any of these games. Wasn't it BlaM who killed the Cop on the first night when he was one?

NAF, have you and I ever agreed on game strategy?

[Drain Bead]

So, my initial response was pro-town, but me changing my mind after a discussion of ideas is...???

I'm not going to say it's scummy because I don't think it necessarily (see my above oog point about you and I constantly disagreeing on strategy), I just wish you hadn't done it. Do I think it's damning? No. We can't really predict what the Boss is going to do--both BlaM and I had different ideas about how to go about recruitment than you do. And because of this discussion, we've all given the scum ideas on how to go about doing it, which has played right into their hands, especially if we're dealing with inexperienced scum who may not be sure how to play this role. I just wish that ball had never started rolling.

Too bad really. It happens. The town shouldn't be so reliant on power roles, and I really believe that the vig should be killing every Night. We need to dwindle our numbers if we are going to stand a chance.

I already sort of addressed this point, but I'd love to see a BlaM-style math analysis (with the Cliff Notes version, natch) on whether or not this is a good idea. And now BlaM is probably going to come along and say "It's not possible, math dummy!" Or something like that. ;-)



When I was scum, I always thought I found one, even if I didn't. Ask Roosh. ;-)


[quote]Thatsa smudge

And here I was thinking that adding "not that it means anything one way or the other" was so I specifically didn't smudge you, because it doesn't mean anything one way or the other. I was just a bit annoyed that I had to answer that question.

I am finding very few people suspicious. Why are you finding suspicion in everything?

I'm not sure. Last game I was having trouble because I was agreeing with everyone on everything, and didn't find people suspicious enough. And then I died very quickly, without even really a chance to show up and defend myself. It turned out that my gut OMGUS instinct in that game was right, and that the people who jumped on me initially were scum trying to get a bandwagon started. What does that mean in this game? Well, it makes me a bit more suspicious of other people's motivations, that's for sure. Am I right? I dunno. But I trust nobody at this point. If there's one thing I know about this game, people aren't what they seem to be.

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

After consideration of both sinjin's analysis, and hotflungwok's response to my response to sinjin, as well as my consideration of likely recruit suspects (his past history of always being a townie as well)... I'm going to leap about the Lynch:Hal Briston wagon

[Hockey Monkey]

You won't have to worry about mod-snuffing me. I've been barely keeping tabs on the thread because of some long overdue excitement in my real life. I've been reading along today, and I commented on what I wanted to comment about, but there is more below. I have no clue who I am going to vote for. I'm not all that hot to trot for Pleonast toDay like I was yesterDay.

If the Boss is someone with little mafia experience, I can see him wanting to recruit more experienced players, especially those with a proven scum track record. If the Boss is one with experience already I would think that he would want to pick from those less likely to garner suspicion. If it were me, for instance, I probably would have picked someone like bufftabby, because she doesn't appear threatening. The newbies can be taught, and we have no preconcieved notions of their playstyle, so I think that it's not out of the realm of possiblity that any one of us could be picked to be recruited at any time.

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

WE NEED PEOPLE TO DIE EVERY NIGHT, AND WE NEED TO LYNCH EVERY DAY

You're a vicious bastard, aren't you? I think you're right, although I still don't love the idea of the vig killing off unrecruitables.

[NAF1138]

You're a vicious bastard, aren't you? I think you're right, although I still don't love the idea of the vig killing off unrecruitables.


I am. :D

I think we got off to a bad start, and I am willing to admit that I was part of that problem. We shouldn't have no lynched Day 1. There should have been more talks about claims etc Day 1. As far as I am concerned this just became Day 1 for a normal mafia game with 3 scum and a whole lot of town fire power. So, let the fire power fire away, and try to shrink the pool of people the scum have to hide in. It is their biggest advantage at this point.

[chrisk]

Well, I do feel like I'm not sure what to say for this and one other post before tomorrow at noon. Sort of like one of those parties where I feel like the odd guy out. Well, I'll start by sharing my thoughts of everyone who's been on the vote list aside from Meno.

Hal Briston and NAF1138 I sort of like from following other threads that they've been in, and don't want to see either of them dead without a smoking gun of their scum-ness. (Of course, they're probably both clever enough in slightly different ways to keep that gun from smoking too hard, which could work against me.)

Drain Bead I don't have any particularly strong feelings about, except for some sympathy because [she]'s a new substitute and already getting piled on.

I still sort of trust Pleonast's invocation of the church at this point.

Hawkeyeop and hotflunkwok don't really ping my reactions either way at this point. I wouldn't mind seeing either of them get lynched in the absence of more promising targets.

[bufftabby]

If it were me, for instance, I probably would have picked someone like bufftabby, because she doesn't appear threatening.

I'm gonna take this as a compliment. But I assure you I'm quite vicious. Grr...

And is it really that obvious that I'm a girl? <Checks pants> oh boy, I left my vulva hanging out again, didn't I? <Tuck in> [deep voice]Now, where were we?[/dv]

So, Hal, since you seem to think I'm having trouble telling the difference between scum, my bum, and a hole in the ground, why don't you tell me who I should vote forsince I'm soooo off-base and out of sync with reality for choosing you?

And just so you know, I've got a big ole "nanny nanny boo boo" song and dance routine I've been practicing for when you turn up as scum. It involves much pointing and laughing. If I'm wrong, I can teach it to you, and you can do it in my direction. :)

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

I'm gonna take this as a compliment. But I assure you I'm quite vicious. Grr...

And is it really that obvious that I'm a girl? <Checks pants> oh boy, I left my vulva hanging out again, didn't I? <Tuck in> [deep voice]Now, where were we?[/dv]

So, Hal, since you seem to think I'm having trouble telling the difference between scum, my bum, and a hole in the ground, why don't you tell me who I should vote forsince I'm soooo off-base and out of sync with reality for choosing you?

And just so you know, I've got a big ole "nanny nanny boo boo" song and dance routine I've been practicing for when you turn up as scum. It involves much pointing and laughing. If I'm wrong, I can teach it to you, and you can do it in my direction. :)

This one's got a future with us, I think.

[Santo Rugger]

<snip>
I also find it strange that we've not yet heard from Santo Rugger today, but I'm reserving my judgment on that until he returns and explains.

Count on me flooding the thread again Tomorrow, if I'm still around. I tend not to pay attention at Night, and then the Chinese Town Square game offboard was getting intense, and then I needed a break from Mafia for a bit and didn't realize the Day was almost over.

[Santo Rugger]

<snip>
I especially worry about Santo Rugger, because it isn't like him to miss a whole game Day.

All you people worrying about me gives me this warm fuzzy feeling. I don't have too much to say at the moment, but I'll post some thoughts and a vote in my next post.

[Santo Rugger]

Okay, just some quick thoughts. I'd love to vote, but can't seem to find a vote count in the last few pages. Am I going blind or something?

Second, three players have been pinging me. It's no surprise about who they are, and for those of us who have followed previous games, you'll remember that I've thought of BlaM, Naf, and Pleo as "suspicious" regardless of their alignment or mine.

Third, I think that a powerful, recruitable role should just suck it up and take the lynch instead of claiming. Otherwise, we save them the lynch, and they get made Capo that Night. Bad, bad idea. Better to be dead than to be scum in this game.

Fourth, please forgive my absence Today, I just needed a break from Mafia. As said earlier, if I'm alive Tomorrow I'll be back to my usual boisterous self.

[Pleonast]

For you to come out in defense of Menocchio, to the point of voting for me on reasoning more tenuous than the reasoning I initally used to vote for him, is curious to say the least.Not for voting for me (though she's wrong, of course, it was an innocent mistake), but for smudging Pleonast for defending me. This seems like an attempt to set up an easy target, given that I'm still under the hot lamps from Yesterday and haven't role claimed, and she's working on the second easiest target while she's at it.Woah, there! You are both missing my points. I am in no way defending Menocchio! By explaining how Drain's reasoning is poor is an attack on her and not a defense of Men

[Koldanar]

Well, I do feel like I'm not sure what to say for this and one other post before tomorrow at noon. Sort of like one of those parties where I feel like the odd guy out. Well, I'll start by sharing my thoughts of everyone who's been on the vote list aside from Meno.

Hal Briston and NAF1138 I sort of like from following other threads that they've been in, and don't want to see either of them dead without a smoking gun of their scum-ness. (Of course, they're probably both clever enough in slightly different ways to keep that gun from smoking too hard, which could work against me.)

Drain Bead I don't have any particularly strong feelings about, except for some sympathy because [she]'s a new substitute and already getting piled on.

I still sort of trust Pleonast's invocation of the church at this point.

Hawkeyeop and hotflunkwok don't really ping my reactions either way at this point. I wouldn't mind seeing either of them get lynched in the absence of more promising targets.

I'm saying this purely as a newbie myself, chrisk, with only one game of experience over you.
I want to say, it's all well and good to come in and participate, but this kind of post needs more discussion. You're posting w/out adding content, and this kinda feels fluffy to me. Ask someone a direct question, about their actions, or what you feel is scummy.

Now, let me try and take my own advice :
Drain Bead , you said, and NAF quoted you in post #868, that you're finding almost EVERYONE suspicious. Very throwaway statement there; you came in as a replacement and started in pretty quick on people. You went for Menocchio first, attacking his reasons for what seem like bad advice. I still have an FOS on him, and yes I voted day one, but I'm not any more suspicious of him. Or most of the others right now. But you are.

I had a bad feeling about you from the start of the day. Pleo made a decent case for suspicion back in post #820 as well. As of this point, I trust his role claim, and see him as an experienced player. The fact that he's also picked up on your behavior as scummy leads me to

vote Drain Bead toDay.

[Drain Bead]

Fuck it. It's getting too late in the Day to screw around, and while I see the point in keeping my mouth shut and just taking the lynch, I feel like my role is a bit too important to waste like that. I'm hoping for Night protection. Roleclaim time.

I am the Detective.

hotflungwok is town. That was Idle's investigation. I investigated last night, but would prefer to keep my results to myself. I've made a subtle breadcrumb of it, one that I hope the person I investigated is smart enough to pick up on.

[Koldanar]

I ...uh...dammit! /sigh. I'm still not doing too well at this, yet. For the record, I don't know that there are enough votes at you to really warrant the claim yet? Anyway, unvote Drain Bead.

Great, this leaves me with just some suspicions from day one, as well as ....well damn. Just that. End of the day approaching and all, and for reasons that he's the only other person I have an FOS on for now, vote Menocchio

[Drain Bead]

I ...uh...dammit! /sigh. I'm still not doing too well at this, yet. For the record, I don't know that there are enough votes at you to really warrant the claim yet?

By my count, your vote had me tied for the lead with 26 hours left to go. We're probably going to lynch town, but at least it's not the freaking Detective, you know?

[Hal Briston]

Gaaaa! Here I am, looking at a four-paragraph post outlining my reasons for voting for Drain Bead, and as I give the post one last preview, she has to go in and drop that one in our midst.

<grumble grumble gotta rethink this grumble...>

[MHaye]

Okay, just some quick thoughts. I'd love to vote, but can't seem to find a vote count in the last few pages. Am I going blind or something?Yes. :p

Try post 842.

[Drain Bead]

That's exactly why I claimed, Hal.

[chrisk]

Interesting, we have a role claim from our substitute! (Which I have to say does remind me of my previous stab at mafia, where I subbed out after getting a power role.)

Does it make any particular sense to lynch hotflungwok to put Idle/DB to the test? Probably not, it's a rather wild sacrifice, but that was the first thing that came to mind. Drain. did you really think that you were close enough to getting lynched to step out? (On preview, I see that you already gave a fairly convincing answer to Kolda about this, okayish.)

And Koldanar, thanks for the advice. Part of the trouble with trying to ask questions is that I feel like a lot of the people I might want to challenge are great spin doctors and frame gamers, who I don't feel up to out-talking. Hmm...

[Hal Briston]

Unfortunately, time is a major issue this evening. I had expected to be offline by now, so Im just going to have to do a quick edit to my almost-post, remove my well-reasoned DB vote and throw in a half-assed one:

Arright...since A) I'm in the hot seat, and B) I don't think be online again until after the deadline, I suppose I should probably claim. But I won't. At least, not fully. I will say this much -- there is one other player who knows, without a doubt, that I'm town.

Anyway -- After consideration of both sinjin's analysis, and hotflungwok's response to my response to sinjin, as well as my consideration of likely recruit suspects (his past history of always being a townie as well)... I'm going to leap about the Lynch:Hal Briston wagonWha-wha-wha-what? sinjin's analysis boiled down to “didn’t post much of use” – aside from being untrue, it’s probably the most minor of indicators as a scum tell this early in the game. But “past history of always being a townie”? What?? Even if that were true (and it isn’t), what, you’re voting for me based on the law of averages? Now that’s a scum tell.

vote Diomedes

This one's got a future with us, I think.100%. She's wrong about my alignment, but so far, I like quite a bit.

<straps on dancing shoes, awaits lessons from bufftabby>.

[Santo Rugger]

Og damn it. Sorry to say it, Drain Bead, but your role is basically worthless to us now. If I were the Boss, I would do one of two things, recruit you, or keep you alive until the town kills you. Until you die, we're not going to know if you were townie the whole game, and either way we won't know at what point you started lying to us.

Therefore, I think it's in the town's best interest to lynch Drain Bead now, or lynch her later and disregard all information she gives after this point.

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

Anyway -- Wha-wha-wha-what? sinjin's analysis boiled down to “didn’t post much of use” – aside from being untrue, it’s probably the most minor of indicators as a scum tell this early in the game. But “past history of always being a townie”? What?? Even if that were true (and it isn’t), what, you’re voting for me based on the law of averages? Now that’s a scum tell.


It'd be a scumtell if this weren't a recruitment game, Hal. I'm not saying the dice picked you, I'm saying that I think you're a good recruit target.

[Boozahol Squid, P.I.]

NETA:

And:

Oh my God, you suck!

;)

[Drain Bead]

Og damn it. Sorry to say it, Drain Bead, but your role is basically worthless to us now. If I were the Boss, I would do one of two things, recruit you, or keep you alive until the town kills you. Until you die, we're not going to know if you were townie the whole game, and either way we won't know at what point you started lying to us.

Therefore, I think it's in the town's best interest to lynch Drain Bead now, or lynch her later and disregard all information she gives after this point.

Here's my plan, although I'll need the Doc's help for it.

The Doc keeps me alive every night. The Night (or Day, I guess) the Doc dies, I die the next Day, no matter what I say. Until then, I make each investigation result public, on a town or scum basis. I'll keep roles secret unless they absolutely do not mesh with a stated claim (aka there's a possibility that they could be the Boss). The day I'm slated to die, I'll say every result I got, and you guys can use that info to decide if people are switching allegiances.

While we figure out a lynch target for toDay, I hope some of you will help me with this plan, because I'm sure there are holes in it.

[sinjin]

urggg stupidly long post follows:

Hal:
:Originally Posted by sinjin
Substance to Fluff Ratio: 5/16. And there wasn't much substance in the substance. Huh...besides that personal bit being a completely subjective load of crap, I wonder if anyone is thinking your analysis might be a hyper-townie scum move? I mean, it's not offering anything helpful in the least, but it serves up a very nice illusion of being a helpful townie. (And as I go further, I see NAF finds fault here as well)...I said in my original post that what I was presenting was IMHO, one man's substance is another woman's fluff. As far as subjective, well everything in this game is subjective isn't it?

And I'm sure that you and NAF would like to portray my analysis as hyper-townie scum, because I FOS'd you both based on my limitted analysis of the lowest posters.

I did my analysis for several reasons;

CaptPitt's remarks at the end of yesterDay and your response pinged me when I did my re-read yesterDay. During the re-read I didn't note that you said very much of anything.
NAF called out MHaye in particular and during my reread I noted that his posts almost all contained substance.
Probably most important of all; NAF's list contained data but no critical analysis. This absolutely drives me crazy in Real Life. It is one of my personal pet peeves. And mafia=wise, Roosh (scum) did this repeatedly in the Blade-runner game. I saw it but didn't call him on it because, well, you'll have to read the game. :cool:

As far as my saying that there wasn't much substance in the substance being a "subjective load of crap" according to you, you offer nothing to show the overwhelming substance contained in your posts. So here in totality are your posts after the first four fluffy posts on N0 and discarding all but one of the Night posts. Please point out the substance I missed.
2, N0, S
Quote:Originally Posted by Pleonast
1) An insta-win is lame. I want to win legitimately.
2) A No Lynch costs us nothing.
3) The only players that have information about anyone but themselves are the Masons. Thus any slip of extra information is going to hurt the Town.
4) There's a 96% chance we'll lynch a Townie. Why give the Mafia a freebie?
5) There's large chance we'll focus on a power role and force a claim a Day One. It's a risk we can avoid.
Ok, all good points...I'm down with the No-Lynch Mob.
4, D1, F (note I called this fluff because it added nothing additional to the previous post but a vote)Weeee! Ridin' that bandwagon!
Vote: No Lunch
No...wait...I'll probably regret that in about two hours...
Unvote: No Lunch
Vote: No Lynch
5, D1, SI'm fine with ending the day early, but I have one little problem:
Originally Posted by fluiddruid
(adding probably a little to Night, and the rest to the next Day to catch up)
Is adding time to the Night really necessary? There is only the Godfather, so it's not like the scum have anything to discuss. I assume the single scum is going to make a pick and end the night five minutes later. Not really a need for more night time.
5, D1, FOriginally Posted by fluiddruid
Several have night actions available and I don't want to exclude anyone from doing their thing who may have counted on the end of the Day.
Yeah, that should've been obvious. Ok, go ahead and...err...do what you already did.
6, N1, F
7, D2, FGhosts aren't your real concern. The bigger issue for you is the possibility that scum/vig is making kills in alphabetical order.
7, D2, FWell, Rugger did say "an inexperienced scum".
10, D2, FWell, in his defense, he's right. Hal's response to my question about why Pleo thinks Hal is a townie.
12, D2, SMy takes on the largest vote-getters:
Pleonast is scum because he used female pronouns: Beyond silly.
Menocchio thinks Pleonast is lying: Well, I think Menocchio, but I'm not sure that that qualifies him as scum.
CapnPitt and the "one or the other is scum" bit: Not a good move. Yeah, that is a big scum tell. Could've been a rookie mistake, but...
Vote CapnPitt
12, D2, S"Unusually lurky"? I made a number of posts last week, went away for the weekend, came back and summed up my re-read yesterday. Not my most verbose performance, but it certainly wasn't lurky. Did you just pull my name off the list of those who voted for you or something? I know this'll be ironic after your last post, but I read that name-drop as a scum tell as well!

That said, don't sweat it if you're town. Yes, of course we'd rather nail scum, but everyone knows that's a longshot right now. If you're town, then confirming that gives us info that we can work with. We'll find out soon enough.
Hal's response to CaptPitt about being lurky.
13, D2, FMaybe he's actually Springsteen?
13, N2, F
14, N2, F
14, D3, FGrrr....stupid time zones. C'mon, it's 11:30! All you people living in the past, get with the program!!
14, D3, FYay! No bodies! We....errr...well, we don't know if there was a successful recruiting, a failed recruiting or a blocked kill.

Huh...we really don't know jack, do we? Sigh...ok, back to the lynching board.
14, D3, FOr remove extra apostrophes?
14, D3, SAt this point, we really have no way of getting a clue as to how the Godfather was thinking. Someone was getting lynched yesterDay -- the scum could participate in the lynching or not -- their choice. Neither option would be more obvious then the other.

What they (incidentally -- I use "they" because I'm of the opinion that there was a Night One recruitment, and even if there wasn't, I'm erring on the side of caution here) probably wouldn't do it stand out by being the first or last to vote for a main suspect. Nor do I think they'd go out on a limb and be one of the only ones voting for someone. Hiding in the mix is probably the safest place.

That said, we can pull the lists of those who voted for CapnPitt or Pleonast, drop the first and last voters, and have what I feel to be a fairly good chance of finding scum.

Unfortunately, it's not that short a list: chrisk, MHaye, Hal Briston, bufftabby, Hotflungwok, Diomedes, Menocchio, Freudian Slit, OneCentStamp and Darth Sensitive.

Anyone find suspicion with anyone on the list?

On preview, I see HM disagrees with one of my points:
:Originally Posted by Hockey Monkey

I am going to look at the one-off voters. Scum tend to hide there early.
I won't say I have hard data either way on this one -- my guess was that scum wouldn't want to stand out like that. Do you have any examples of this from previous games?The most substancy post to that point.

So Hal, where's the substance I missed? In particular the bits you alluded to when CaptPitt called you on lurking? That's the reason I FOS'd you. And if you had come out and admitted you really hadn't posted much content and would post more, case closed. But instead you called my analysis "a completely subjective load of crap" and suggested it's "a hyper-townie scum move."

So vote: Hal Briston

[fluiddruid]

I'm not sure if this question was already asked and answered, but will you be prodding those people with enough time for them to get into the thread?

I especially worry about Santo Rugger, because it isn't like him to miss a whole game Day.Looks like it's taken care of itself. :)

Vote Tallies:

Hal Briston (5) - Millit the Frail, NAF1138, bufftabby, Diomedes, sinjin
Menocchio (4) - dotchan, Drain Bead, chrisk, Koldanar
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (2) - Pleonast, Menocchio, (Koldanar)
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
Diomedes (1) - Hal Briston
Hawkeyeop (0) - (Menocchio)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
Hockey Monkey
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Hawkeyeop
HazelNutCoffee
Hotflungwok
OneCentStamp
Freudian Slit

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive

[Menocchio]

Unvote Drain Bead

Of course, that doesn't mean much by itself. Even if it is true, it may not be for long. I'd assume that you'd have told us if you've found scum? Last night's investigation would be helpful too. You'd at least know one person who isn't scum Today.

Vote Hal Briston Sorry Hal, I suspect some others more, but most of them have role claimed.

[sinjin]

Doh, preview is your friend.

[Drain Bead]

Unvote Drain Bead

Of course, that doesn't mean much by itself. Even if it is true, it may not be for long. I'd assume that you'd have told us if you've found scum? Last night's investigation would be helpful too. You'd at least know one person who isn't scum Today.

Vote Hal Briston Sorry Hal, I suspect some others more, but most of them have role claimed.

Menocchio, trust that I have my reasons for not giving up last night's investigation. I'll let you all know what it was in good time, provided that the plan I have pans out. I will say this, though. I found town.

[Hawkeyeop]

Here's my plan, although I'll need the Doc's help for it.

The Doc keeps me alive every night. The Night (or Day, I guess) the Doc dies, I die the next Day, no matter what I say. Until then, I make each investigation result public, on a town or scum basis. I'll keep roles secret unless they absolutely do not mesh with a stated claim (aka there's a possibility that they could be the Boss). The day I'm slated to die, I'll say every result I got, and you guys can use that info to decide if people are switching allegiances.

While we figure out a lynch target for toDay, I hope some of you will help me with this plan, because I'm sure there are holes in it.

I do not like this plan. Let's consider this hypothetical:

Night two, Idle/Drainbead is recruited. In all likelihood as a regular recruit rather than a capo. In this scenario, Drainbead would likely never be investigated, because she would be a confirmed detective and protected. Furthermore, this completely takes the doctor out play, making him vulnerable to the Vig and the scum.

I would feel better if she watched by the chief rather than by the doctor. We could tell if she has already been recruited, and any future recruitment attempt would be risky. Plus, I'd much rather risk the chief, then the doctor.

[Hawkeyeop]

I am. :D

I think we got off to a bad start, and I am willing to admit that I was part of that problem. We shouldn't have no lynched Day 1. There should have been more talks about claims etc Day 1. As far as I am concerned this just became Day 1 for a normal mafia game with 3 scum and a whole lot of town fire power. So, let the fire power fire away, and try to shrink the pool of people the scum have to hide in. It is their biggest advantage at this point.

Welcome aboard the kill train. Murders every 45 minutes or your pizza is cold.

[Menocchio]

I do not like this plan. Let's consider this hypothetical:

Night two, Idle/Drainbead is recruited. In all likelihood as a regular recruit rather than a capo. In this scenario, Drainbead would likely never be investigated, because she would be a confirmed detective and protected. Furthermore, this completely takes the doctor out play, making him vulnerable to the Vig and the scum.

I would feel better if she watched by the chief rather than by the doctor. We could tell if she has already been recruited, and any future recruitment attempt would be risky. Plus, I'd much rather risk the chief, then the doctor.
I concur. Better to tie up the chief than the doctor. The doctor can (and should) still protect at his discretion, but the doctor can squeal if the doc misses a crucial night.

[Koldanar]

Here's my plan, although I'll need the Doc's help for it.

The Doc keeps me alive every night. The Night (or Day, I guess) the Doc dies, I die the next Day, no matter what I say. Until then, I make each investigation result public, on a town or scum basis. I'll keep roles secret unless they absolutely do not mesh with a stated claim (aka there's a possibility that they could be the Boss). The day I'm slated to die, I'll say every result I got, and you guys can use that info to decide if people are switching allegiances.

While we figure out a lynch target for toDay, I hope some of you will help me with this plan, because I'm sure there are holes in it.

Can't we have priests help and pray with you through the night too? And, should we use a lynch for you, or trust the vig?

[Hal Briston]

Got an unexpected minute to update before bed....
It'd be a scumtell if this weren't a recruitment game, Hal. I'm not saying the dice picked you, I'm saying that I think you're a good recruit target.A fair enough point -- one I hadn't considered before. Ok...
unvote Diomedes

So, where to go now. I may as well fully claim, since it's quite doubtful it will cause any change. I began as a nobody...a simple, vanilla townie. That was before the Bishop came and showed me the true path of the Lord last night...I'm now Father Hal, man of the cloth.

Once I'm gone, take a good, hard look at how badly sinjin is pushing this case. I call it "subjective crap", because that's exactly what it is. It's subjective, because signal:noise ratio isn't nearly as much of an allignment indicator as he wants you to think it is, and it's crap, because...well, because he's using it to lynch town. EOS.

vote sinjin

[fluiddruid]

Vote Tallies:

Hal Briston (6) - Millit the Frail, NAF1138, bufftabby, Diomedes, sinjin, Menocchio
Menocchio (4) - dotchan, Drain Bead, chrisk, Koldanar
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (1) - Pleonast, (Menocchio), (Koldanar)
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
sinjin (1) - Hal Briston
Diomedes (0) - (Hal Briston)
Hawkeyeop (0) - (Menocchio)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
Hockey Monkey
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Hawkeyeop
HazelNutCoffee
Hotflungwok
OneCentStamp
Freudian Slit

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive

[Darth Sensitive]

So - I say I'll be back and you add a page and a half and 2 more claims.

Hal says he's a priest.
Drain is the detective.

I don't inherently think that Hal is scummy - but two top candidates for lyches in two days - two priest role claims. Maybe we're unlucky, maybe the priests are just inflammatory, maybe someone is lying. I just don't know what to think.

I say we have protection on DB tonight. Probably the doc - a priest won't stop death. Or maybe Pleo/Hal prayer + the chief of police.

I was going to vote for Hal - right now I need to reconsider.

[Santo Rugger]

The good thing is that if Hal is lying, the Bishop can out him now or later.

Bishop, I suggest you leave some kind of clue if Hal is lying in your very next post. That way, when you die, we can lynch Hal if necessary. Also, don't make it too obvious, or the scum will be able to pick you off as Bishop.

[sinjin]

Hal, once again, it was not the signal to noise ratio that I FOSed you for. I FOS'ed you because of your disengenuous response about your non-lurkiness in response to CaptPitt. I have stated this twice already. Why do you keep ignoring it? Your substance to fluff ratio, which NAF neglected to take into account (and ignored for all others too), was the reason I FOS'ed him.

I am not using this to "lynch town". I don't know who is and who is not town. I am trying to determine who is town and who is scum based soley on each person's words. Right now I find you, NAF and Pleo at the top of my list. And I find your present argument rather funny based on your throw away to CaptPitt right before he was lynched:

That said, don't sweat it if you're town. Yes, of course we'd rather nail scum, but everyone knows that's a longshot right now. If you're town, then confirming that gives us info that we can work with. We'll find out soon enough.

I'm basing my vote on what I read and putting up my reasons for my vote. I am voting you because you keep deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying. I don't know you're scum. But you are definately coming across that way to me toDay.

Let's all sing together: "I'm a priest, you're a priest, we're a priest, they're a priest wouldn't you like to be a pepper too!!"

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. :o

[Menocchio]

So - I say I'll be back and you add a page and a half and 2 more claims.

Hal says he's a priest.
Drain is the detective.
Menocchio says he's the Doctor.

Drain and I have screwed up big. There's no denying that. We've drawn the suspicions of the town and now have to claim to survive. The two most important town powers are now exposed.

But, now that I'm out as the doc, I'll play House, or at least McCoy. The rest of the town has fucked up too. Look at how little actually happened Today! Look at how many people are yet to vote. Guys, this is unacceptable! I feel forced to claim now because with so many yet to chime in, and despite Hal's pessimism I feel certain that both his current detractors and the undecided will abandon him and choose me instead (also, I'm too busy tomorrow morning to make sure I wasn't up front as I did Yesterday). If people had voted sooner this could have been avoided! If you're smart you'll give my claim the benefit of the doubt too, and now we'll have to choose someone else. Someone who may not have the time to defend themselves. Well good luck with that!

Votes are cheap! You can change them! But they give the town a record of your actions and force the accused to defend themselves. Vote early. Vote often if you feel the need to, but VOTE.

Drain Bead, you'd better share your investigation results Today. There's a decent chance one of us may wake up dead. I will not share my protection record nor will I entertain suggestions on who I should protect from this point forward. The only way I can retain any utility AT ALL is if the scum is completely in the dark as to how I choose to protect.

Unvote Hal Briston
Vote Hawkeyeop for the reasons I said earlier.

[Santo Rugger]

WTF? I give up. Boss, please recruit me tonight so I have a chance of winning this one. I don't have any powers that'll keep me from being recruited.

[Pleonast]

These fourteen-hour work days are killing me. Sorry for the haphazard posting.

As for the two role claims: Drain Bead's sounds plausible. Given that it's counter-claimable, I'm willing to accept it provisionally. I think every power role with protective powers should consider using them on her each Night. It's best to leave the Boss guessing.

unvote Drain Bead

Hal Briston's claim is interesting. Not just Priest, but recruited. That means it is counter-claimable as well. So I'm accepting it provisionally.

For those of you voting for Hal, why are you keeping your vote there? Give the Bishop a chance to counter-claim (this doesn't mean immediately). While claimed Priests aren't as useful as hidden ones, this one is verifiable. Lynching Hal at this point is plain stupid.

Thus,
vote sinjin

[Pleonast]

Now Menocchio has claimed! Ah, good ole Doper scumdar working in reverse. Maybe we should just mass claim now? **kidding**

[HazelNutCoffee]

Jesus Christ. I've read through toDay's post and all my suspicions have been shot down by subsequent role-claims.

At this point, I'm willing to believe, for the moment, all role-claims. Hal's is the one I felt iffiest about, but upon reflection it doesn't seem like it'd be worth it for scum to try and flush the Bishop out of hiding by pulling such a stunt. The Bishop is only worth anything to them if he or she is still unknown.

Unfortunately, I have nothing much else to base a vote on at this point. Re-reading the past two Days, I've tried to make note of people who haven't been caught up in some sort of debate/argument, and haven't garnered suspicion by way of their posts. Below is our current player list, and the ones crossed out are either those who have (purely in my opinion, of course)

1) made role-claims (well, this isn't based on my opinion)
2) been vocal in debates at some stage
3) have had more than one finger pointed at them at some point


Millit the Frail
NAF1138
Hockey Monkey
bufftabby
Diomedes
dotchan
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts]
chrisk
MHaye
Menocchio
Santo Rugger
Pleonast
Koldanar
Blaster Master
Hawkeyeop
HazelNutCoffee
Hotflungwok
Darth Sensitive
OneCentStamp
Freudian Slit
sinjin
Hal Briston

I still feel like among those who HAVE been vocal, there are still a few that have managed to escape being fingered (er, so to speak) by being either bland or extremely rational. My personal opinion is that townies are more likely to get irked/riled/paranoid when it comes to debates. Unfortunately, I'm dealing with a lot of shit IRL at the moment, and I have a mountain of midterm papers to grade, so I really can't afford to do yet another re-read of the thread at this point.

For the sake of consistency, I'm going to vote OneCentStamp yet again. My reasons being the same as before. I fully concede that he isn't the only one who fits the description of a semi-lurker at this point, but I figure I might as well stick to my initial suspicions until I come up with a better alternative.

[chrisk]

Hal says he's a priest.
.

Wait a second. Based on what Hal hinted, priesthood does not fit the role he's claiming. He said that he's in a role where others have secret knowledge of his pro-town loyalties, and as I read the rules, nobody knows for sure who the priests are - unless the bishop gets Capo-ed, and I don't think he can be sure that THAT's happened.

In fact, the only role I see where he could have assurities of that is if he's Mason. Is that right?

[Millit the Frail]

Holy Crap.

OK, so we're not totally f***ed, but we're getting there. I can't afford much time tomorrow morning, so here goes.

First of all, I'm feeling a little bad for starting the Hal lynch bandwagon, but I'm not sure I can buy the Bishop using his one chance to pray with someone so soon in the game. I guess he/she needs to use it before he/she gets nightkilled, but still, it seems like a smart Bishop would hold off and pay with someone in jeopardy post-roleclaim. Like our potential Detective or Doc.

Pleonast, would you be willing to pray over one of these two randomly toNight? A 50/50 shot of being blocked should stall the Boss in recruiting toDay. If Hal survives (and I'm still trying to decide whether or not I should take my vote away from him), he can pray tomorrow, and otherwise it could be either another Priest (There's likely at least one more out there) or the Bishop (if Hal died turned out to be a non-Priest). Maybe the Doc could do the same--randomly protect one of the two of you. We can't be 100% sure that nothing will happen to our Doc or Detective, but we can scare the scum with bad odds.

Sound like a plan, or is it too haphazard?

[Millit the Frail]

I don't know if I was clear in my last post....do we believe Hal or not? I'm leaning that way, but there's that pesky problem of WHY the Bishop would do this now (and why Hal in particular) and whether or not the Bishop could be assured of his loyalties upon selection. Would the Bishop have had a clue if he/she prayed with a Mafia? I don't think so.

And lastly for tonight, I agree with Menocchio. Why has this game been so slow? Why wasn't there more going on before this mass paranoid roleclaim? If there had been mroe discussion going on yesterday, Menocchio may not have had to do that. Is it because the recruitment aspect of the game makes you feel powerless? It certainly does for me, I'll admit it. I feel like there's little to no way to make non-random votes. But we still have strength in numbers and we can keep using our lynches as brute force against the Mob. NAF is on to something, let's get killing! I stand by my randomization scheme above. And guys, if you do decide to randomly protect/pray, then actually be random. Don't try to out-think the scum. Flip a coin. It's the only way to be truly unpredictable.

Oh.....screw it. I can't wait until morning, and I'll be in class until almost dusk, so I need a new lynchee. One who hasn't roleclaimed and one who might get enough votes.

Unvote Hal Briston

Vote OneCentStamp

[Santo Rugger]

<snip>One who hasn't roleclaimed and one who might get enough votes.<snip>

This, to me, is saying, "let's put everybody under the gun, so we can find out what everybody's roles are!" Not to mention that the whole post has the tone of "we're fucked, but here's what the power roles can do to fix it." Millit has been pinging me since my reread read of Today for a few other posts, so there ya go.

Vote Millit the Frail.

Also, something you guys are seriously forgetting, or at least not thinking through: Claimed roles are pretty worthless now. Sure, scum have to WiFoM at night... but WE have to WiFoM during the Day, as to whether or not our claimed role has been

[Millit the Frail]

This, to me, is saying, "let's put everybody under the gun, so we can find out what everybody's roles are!" Not to mention that the whole post has the tone of "we're fucked, but here's what the power roles can do to fix it." Millit has been pinging me since my reread read of Today for a few other posts, so there ya go.

Vote Millit the Frail.

Also, something you guys are seriously forgetting, or at least not thinking through: Claimed roles are pretty worthless now. Sure, scum have to WiFoM at night... but WE have to WiFoM during the Day, as to whether or not our claimed role has been

Please--I'd rather it's me than either of the current frontrunners. I'm a lot more useless.

(Or maybe you'd rather lynch someone who, you know, is actually Mafia. Your pick.)

[Drain Bead]

Can't we have priests help and pray with you through the night too? And, should we use a lynch for you, or trust the vig?

The reason I suggested a lynch was because that way I'd have a chance to say everything I knew before I got offed.

[Drain Bead]

Unvote Menocchio
Vote Koldanar for pushing my bandwagon (and third-voting) based on a "gut feeling" that he got at the beginning of the Day, when I had yet to even post anything of substance.

[MHaye]

Wait a second. Based on what Hal hinted, priesthood does not fit the role he's claiming. He said that he's in a role where others have secret knowledge of his pro-town loyalties, and as I read the rules, nobody knows for sure who the priests are - unless the bishop gets Capo-ed, and I don't think he can be sure that THAT's happened.

In fact, the only role I see where he could have assurities of that is if he's Mason. Is that right?I don't think you are.

Hal's statement is in post 890. In it he says :I will say this much -- there is one other player who knows, without a doubt, that I'm town.If that's a Masonic claim, there are only two Masons, and there's a good argument that two Masons should claim, because their power lies in their mutual ability to confirm each other.

That one person could also be the Bishop. If the Bishop chose to use his one-time protection on Hal last Night, and Hal was a vanilla Townie, then Hal had a 50% chance of becoming ordained. From the rules, it's not clear whether the Bishop knows if he ordains the person he prayed with, but he certainly knows who he prayed with last Night. If that wasn't Hal, then the Bishop now has it in his power to expose Hal as a liar. If that wasn't enough, if the Bishop ordained someone else (or does so at some later time) the newly frocked Priest also knows (or will know) Hal is a liar; and there's far less risk in exposing a Priest than the Bishop.

Consequently, I'm going to accept Hal's claim (subject to counterclaim).

I'm also (absent other evidence being stated) going to assume our other claimants told the truth for the moment. That leaves me in a bit of a quandary about who to vote for. Today has not been fruitful, and the only residual suspicion I had from Yesterday was Mennochio. And there are things to do by the deadline.

I'm going to look at something that snagged my attention late last night before all this exploded.

[MHaye]

Drain Bead :

From past experience, the best way to present future investigations that turn up Town-aligned is to say that the player is Town-aligned, and say no more. That way we know what sort of role you determined, and you have taken steps to show us where the subjects loyalties lie, but not what their exact role is - thus leaving some uncertainties that keep the risk of recruiting that player for the Mafia. (After all, they know which side the player's loyalty lies already.)

[chrisk]

I don't think you are.

Hal's statement is in post 890. In it he says :If that's a Masonic claim, there are only two Masons, and there's a good argument that two Masons should claim, because their power lies in their mutual ability to confirm each other.

That one person could also be the Bishop. If the Bishop chose to use his one-time protection on Hal last Night, and Hal was a vanilla Townie, then Hal had a 50% chance of becoming ordained. From the rules, it's not clear whether the Bishop knows if he ordains the person he prayed with, but he certainly knows who he prayed with last Night. If that wasn't Hal, then the Bishop now has it in his power to expose Hal as a liar. If that wasn't enough, if the Bishop ordained someone else (or does so at some later time) the newly frocked Priest also knows (or will know) Hal is a liar; and there's far less risk in exposing a Priest than the Bishop.

Consequently, I'm going to accept Hal's claim (subject to counterclaim).

I'm also (absent other evidence being stated) going to assume our other claimants told the truth for the moment. That leaves me in a bit of a quandary about who to vote for. Today has not been fruitful, and the only residual suspicion I had from Yesterday was Mennochio. And there are things to do by the deadline.

I'm going to look at something that snagged my attention late last night before all this exploded.

Thank you. I hadn't thought of that aspect of the Bishop's ordination powers. :)

[chrisk]

Regarding Meno's role claim and my vote for him... I'm not sure I disbelieve him, but I'll have to think about it before switching my vote. Will do my best to get back in here before dusk.

Also, I was wondering last night whether it would actually be a good pro-town strategy for power roles to role claim as the WRONG roles in order to confuse the Boss - a high profile recruitment target claiming holy orders, or a priest claiming as somebody who would be highly recruitable. Of course, then the question becomes if their credibility is shot afterwards and they can't convince the town of their true investigations or something like that.

[sinjin]

So to recap the claims:

Pleonast is a priest
DrainBead is the Detective
Mennochio is the Doctor
Hal is a priest ordained by the Bishop
hotflungwok is a townie (at least as of Yesterday) or the Boss mis-identified as a townie.
DrainBead knows something about someone else but isn't telling yet

There are only 2 or 3 mafia

unvote Hal because the Bishop hasn't come out and denied he prayed over him.

So where do we go from here?

Vote NAF

[sinjin]

NETA: My vote for NAF is based on my previous FOS, his admitted smudging of BlaM and something else I can't put my finger on right now. Damn time is short here.

[bufftabby]

Well, Hal, I'm not going to make you my new confessor or anything, but, for now, I'm going to believe your roleclaim is possibly true. (Damn, this means the dancing is gonna have to wait, doesn't it? Meh, I'm gonna bust a move here and there anyway.) unvote Hal Briston. I'm moving on to the other person I FoSed earlier: vote dotchan. I gave my reason earlier: she said she didn't have time to be more than a lurker (this is paraphrased throughout-no time to find quotes, I gotta go to work) because of modding the off-board game. NAF said "huh". She didn't respond. I FoSed her for lack of response. She replied that she thought posting more was a response, so whatever. And then she has continued to barely post at all. So, by her definition AND mine, she has still basically not answered that charge.

[Drain Bead]

It seems we have a bunch of one-off votes at this point. I'll have to leave in the next 30 minutes to go to court, and I'm not sure if I'm going to be back before end of Day. Can we get a vote count?

[Hawkeyeop]

If only something interesting happened while I was sleeping..

vote Sinjin

[bufftabby]

Hawkeyeop, why? Not arguing or agreeing, but I'd like to see some reasoning.

[Hawkeyeop]

Hawkeyeop, why? Not arguing or agreeing, but I'd like to see some reasoning.

I know, I know. Sinjin just seems to be trying to hard to appear townie to me. The problem is it isn't really an arguable case. What is Sinjin going to argue that he isn't really acting that pro-town? I'll try to articulate it better later, but I wanted to get a vote in.

[Koldanar]

Unvote Menocchio
Vote Koldanar for pushing my bandwagon (and third-voting) based on a "gut feeling" that he got at the beginning of the Day, when I had yet to even post anything of substance.

Ah but I didn't just vote on the 'gut feeling' as I think I mentioned. The suspicions started then, but I just kept a closer watch. With Pleo also feeling uncomfortable with your motivations, it was more for me to consider. I seem to have already caught the broken Dope Scumdar.

unvote Menoccio. As of right now, I'm not sure I feel comfortable voting for anyone, as all my suspicions have been knocked down for this day with the role claims. I'll be in the corner, crying.

[MHaye]

Right now I'm in a similar boat, but intend to vote once I've read over a couple of things. Before I get back to what I'm supposed to be doing anyway.

[sinjin]

Well kids, it looks like its time for me to claim now. Sorry for looking townie :rolleyes: Before I claim, can I get a vote count?

Has this been the worst day for town ever? I'm getting the feeling this game is going to be a slam dunk for the mafia.

[Koldanar]

Well kids, it looks like its time for me to claim now. Sorry for looking townie :rolleyes: Before I claim, can I get a vote count?

Has this been the worst day for town ever? I'm getting the feeling this game is going to be a slam dunk for the mafia.

I don't know about worst, but if all the claims are true, hopefully this gives the vig a bit more info than he / she had at least. A lucky night kill could get us all excited :)

[MHaye]

If you'll accept an unofficial estimate.

You and Mennochio are tied for three votes apiece, Hal, NAF1138 and OneCentStamp have 2. Three players on one vote.

I was considering voting for you depending on the outcome of the read I was just going to start.

[MHaye]

NETA : The worst day for Town is still Mafia 2 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=414041) Day 2.

[Hawkeyeop]

[QUOTE=Koldanar] I seem to have already caught the broken Dope Scumdar.
QUOTE]

Just because people role claim, doesn't mean you were wrong. Remember that is exactly what scum would do in those situations too.

[sinjin]

Ok, I don't want to wait to the last minute and there's only a little more than 2 hours left in the day. I'm a Mason. And possibly the worst mafia player ever. :(

[Hawkeyeop]

unvote sinjin

[chrisk]

Okay, slightly sorry to add to a last-minute bandwagon, but...

Unvote Menocchio
Vote OneCentStamp

Not sure why, just sort of picking somebody who hasn't role-claimed yet for the time being. :smack:

[Santo Rugger]

Please--I'd rather it's me than either of the current frontrunners. I'm a lot more useless.

(Or maybe you'd rather lynch someone who, you know, is actually Mafia. Your pick.)

How the frack am I supposed to know who's actually Mafia? This kind of snark is not at all useful to helping me snuff out Mafia if you're town, and just makes you an asshole if you're Mafia. I notice you didn't even address my, "let's put everybody under the gun!" interpretation of your post. I wonder why.

[Santo Rugger]

<snip>

Not sure why, just sort of picking somebody who hasn't role-claimed yet for the time being. :smack:

:rolleyes:

Come on guys, seriously. Seriously. Who gives a shite if people are claiming in this game? That just means they're going to be recruited Tonight. I wish I had been participating more two days ago, when the first claims started coming in. In Conspiracy, somebody brought up the idea that we should lynch all claims. In that game, it was a bad idea. In this game, it would have been a good one. Og, I hate playing town sometimes. :mad:

[Pleonast]

unvote sinjin
It's verifiable.

I don't have time to think things through, though. I like Hazel's approach.
vote OneCentStamp
I'm not going to be able change my vote before Dusk.

On preview: this is turning into a bandwagon. I'm not at all happy with my vote.

[Santo Rugger]

WTF? You say you're not happy with your vote in the SAME POST YOU MAKE IT? WTF?!

[Hawkeyeop]

:rolleyes:

Come on guys, seriously. Seriously. Who gives a shite if people are claiming in this game? That just means they're going to be recruited Tonight. I wish I had been participating more two days ago, when the first claims started coming in. In Conspiracy, somebody brought up the idea that we should lynch all claims. In that game, it was a bad idea. In this game, it would have been a good one. Og, I hate playing town sometimes. :mad:

No, in this game it is a Bad idea. In this game we need to lynch the godfather. Power roles just aren't that important. However, your case against Millit the Frail sounds as good as any and I don't get the case against One Cent, so Millit the Frail

[hotflungwok]

So, is this normal? 4 role claims in a day?

This is fucked, man. I thought I had a good idea of who to vote for, but now it's all messed up.

How many players with power roles are there? Shouldn't there be more townies?

I have no idea what to do. I gotta think.

[Hawkeyeop]

vote Millit the Frail even.

[Blaster Master]

BlaM, while I think I recollect this, there are several people I'm sure don't, as I only recall seeing it discussed in off-board games. Would you mind doing a short version for those who haven't read the games in question?

Yes, I will do this, but I won't have time Today since the Day ends soon and I'm not caught up. I'll try to remember to do it first thing Tomorrow, but remind me if I don't get to it.

[Hal Briston]

Bugger...Ok, let's try this again.

Unvote sinjin

Ok...since her name came up twice in my read-through (once for the "I'm modding elsewhere, so I'll just lurk" comment, once for the "Don't believe the Police Chief" bit), I'll try:

Vote dotchan

[hotflungwok]

WTF? You say you're not happy with your vote in the SAME POST YOU MAKE IT? WTF?!
What don't you understand about it? Everything is confused now, we got a bunch of crap dumped on us quickly, and no clear tells.

BTW, I don't get your interpretation of MIllit the Frail's post at all.

[OneCentStamp]

Okay, slightly sorry to add to a last-minute bandwagon, but...

Unvote Menocchio
Vote OneCentStamp

Not sure why, just sort of picking somebody who hasn't role-claimed yet for the time being. :smack:(bleached for your pleasure)

No problem; I was basically going to vote for someone for no better reason. Until now. Now I'll vote for the perfectly legitimate (if ignoble) reason of self-preservation.

Vote NAF1138, just to try and keep him tied with me or above me.

[NAF1138]

And I'm sure that you and NAF would like to portray my analysis as hyper-townie scum, because I FOS'd you both based on my limitted analysis of the lowest posters.



Hey hey hey. Don't put words in my mouth sin. I really don't appreciate it.

[NAF1138]

wow a hell of a lot happened while I was asleep. more later.

[Hawkeyeop]

Any chance we can get a vote count?

[fluiddruid]

Vote Tallies:

OneCentStamp (4) - HazelNutCoffee, Millit the Frail, chrisk, Pleonast
NAF1138 (3) - Blaster Master, sinjin, OneCentStamp
Hal Briston (2) - (Millit the Frail), NAF1138, (bufftabby), Diomedes, (sinjin), (Menocchio)
dotchan (2) - bufftabby, Hal Briston
Millit the Frail (2) - Santo Rugger, Hawkeyeop
Menocchio (1) - dotchan, (Drain Bead), (chrisk), (Koldanar)
Hawkeyeop (1) - Menocchio*
Koldanar (1) - Drain Bead
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (0) - (Pleonast), (Menocchio), (Koldanar)
sinjin (0) - (Hal Briston), (Pleonast), (Hawkeyeop)
Diomedes (0) - (Hal Briston)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
Hockey Monkey
MHaye
Hotflungwok
Freudian Slit

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive
Koldanar


Game master note: This is a quick run through but I believe it to be accurate. Having a rough morning at work. Will check through when I can, the Day will end at 11am though I may not be able to post immed.

[Santo Rugger]

No, in this game it is a Bad idea. In this game we need to lynch the godfather. Power roles just aren't that important. However, your case against Millit the Frail sounds as good as any and I don't get the case against One Cent, so Millit the Frail

We need to lych the Boss, yes. But, when he's dead, previous role claims are going to be very, very high on the priority list. I understand your point, but it doesn't make mine less valid.

[Blaster Master]

Dear God, I haven't finished catching up, but I happened to notice that there were several major role-claims. That said, I'm inclined to believe the important ones (Doctor and Detective) simply because they're WAY too risky to falsely claim by scum at this point, because they WILL be caught, sooner rather than later. Also, I'm inclined to believe Hal is a Priest because he stated that he was prayed with by the Bishop. Again, a risky call by scum with little to gain. Our attention should be turned to those who have not claimed.

That said, I'm satisfied with where my vote stands. I can't say I'm convinced he's scum, but I've laid my case out for my vote against him after which his style seemed to quickly turn agreeable which seems, to me, to be damage control.

Also, specifically to Drain Bead: You ARE recruitable. I'm a bit wary of you not putting your investigation from last Night out there, I'm inclined to believe, based on your statement, that that individual probably has an important role; I'm sure the scum will come to a similar conclusion, which is why I don't have issue stating it planly. FTR, it's generally to our best interest to simply state "I investigated So-and-so and he's pro-town". So, I just hope your plan is something more subtle.

[hotflungwok]

[QUOTE]Also, specifically to Drain Bead: You ARE recruitable. I'm a bit wary of you not putting your investigation from last Night out there, I'm inclined to believe, based on your statement, that that individual probably has an important role; I'm sure the scum will come to a similar conclusion, which is why I don't have issue stating it planly. FTR, it's generally to our best interest to simply state "I investigated So-and-so and he's pro-town". So, I just hope your plan is something more subtle.
Yeah, I'm not real happy with this either. I hope you have a good reason not to share your info, cuz this makes me suspicious.

[hotflungwok]

Oops, didn't finish.

I have a good reason to beleive your role claim, and I do for now, but holding back info is bad.

[Santo Rugger]

What don't you understand about it? Everything is confused now, we got a bunch of crap dumped on us quickly, and no clear tells.
Distancing yourself from your vote is a way to say, "I'm voting for this person, and I hope they die, but don't blame it on me."

BTW, I don't get your interpretation of MIllit the Frail's post at all.

In Day 2 of M2:Werewolf, the town as a whole attacked power role after power role, forcing them into claiming. When one would get 3 votes on them, they'd claim, and the vote would shift to another power role. Like the Nelly song with Tim McGraw, "Over and Over Again". The scum just sat back and watched, laughing, as the town exposed all their power players in this way. So, saying, "I'm voting for the person with the most votes who hasn't claimed yet," is basically saying, "let's see how many power roles we can get to claim before the end of the Day."

[Blaster Master]

Oh, and for the OneCentStamp wagon... are you people serious? You're going to essentially randomly lynch a lurker? The reasoning for that lynch is SERIOUSLY lacking and particularly since he had no votes before halfway through the previous page, this just stinks even more because we haven't had a chance to let him defend himself.

Meanwhile, I've made a case for NAF1138 that has been out there since before the weekend. Do none of you find him suspicious? Would you all rather vote essentially randomly than for him? What part of my case against him do you find less convincing than a Lynch All Lurkers vote?

[hotflungwok]

Distancing yourself from your vote is a way to say, "I'm voting for this person, and I hope they die, but don't blame it on me."
You sound awful confident in that assessment.

[OneCentStamp]

Well, it looks as if I'm in the lead, and at least one of my voters said that he won't be back to change his vote. At this late hour, I think that means I may well be headed to the gallows.

I'm not going to claim. If I do, it just increases the chances that a last minute voting flurry hangs someone else, but meanwhile I'm out in the open and may as well be dead anyway. So I think I'm doing the town a favor by standing pat.

*lights a cigarette*

[Santo Rugger]

You sound awful confident in that assessment.

I am.

[Santo Rugger]

Well, it looks as if I'm in the lead, and at least one of my voters said that he won't be back to change his vote. At this late hour, I think that means I may well be headed to the gallows.

I'm not going to claim. If I do, it just increases the chances that a last minute voting flurry hangs someone else, but meanwhile I'm out in the open and may as well be dead anyway. So I think I'm doing the town a favor by standing pat.

*lights a cigarette*

This may possibly be the most logical thing said all Day.

[sinjin]

Hey hey hey. Don't put words in my mouth sin. I really don't appreciate it. You're right, my bad, you didn't say that. I should have gone back and looked. What you said was more benign:

That's a horrible and anti town reason to distrust someone. Notice, I say anti town, because I don't actually think it is scummy by itself.

But it was actually Hal that put the words in your mouth.

Hal:
Huh...besides that personal bit being a completely subjective load of crap, I wonder if anyone is thinking your analysis might be a hyper-townie scum move? I mean, it's not offering anything helpful in the least, but it serves up a very nice illusion of being a helpful townie. (And as I go further, I see NAF finds fault here as well)...

[Koldanar]

Oh, and for the OneCentStamp wagon... are you people serious? You're going to essentially randomly lynch a lurker? The reasoning for that lynch is SERIOUSLY lacking and particularly since he had no votes before halfway through the previous page, this just stinks even more because we haven't had a chance to let him defend himself.

Meanwhile, I've made a case for NAF1138 that has been out there since before the weekend. Do none of you find him suspicious? Would you all rather vote essentially randomly than for him? What part of my case against him do you find less convincing than a Lynch All Lurkers vote?

I wish right now I had the time, but with the person (well people) I've focused on claiming, and the end of the day nigh, I just don't have the time to go back and evaluate again.

Honestly don't know which is better for the town at this point, just to ensure a lynch, or not move on someone based on the not enough information. I am wondering just how many roles as a % are out there now though; seems like either we're very VERY good at picking them out, or there's a large number compared to vanilla.

[hotflungwok]

Meanwhile, I've made a case for NAF1138 that has been out there since before the weekend. Do none of you find him suspicious? Would you all rather vote essentially randomly than for him? What part of my case against him do you find less convincing than a Lynch All Lurkers vote?
After a bunch of rereading, I'm going to have to side with . I'm just not seeing the lurker vote right now, and all the claims have thrown other things into confusion. This is the only thing I've found that I can bring myself to agree with, even if it's not compeltely.

[b]Vote NAF1138,

[Hawkeyeop]

This may possibly be the most logical thing said all Day.

So let us not lynch him for it. I think the cases against Naf, Dotchan, and Milli are all better than the one against off One Cent. I prefer not voting for Naf, because I think it is more likely he is a recruit than the godfather. Dotchan's explanation for not wanting to post more in this game was more suspicious than anything Onecent has done. In fact:

unvote Millit the Frail
vote dotchan

[Santo Rugger]

Unvote Millit.

Vote NAF

[Santo Rugger]

Ugh, never mind.
Unvote NAF

I'd rather see a NoLynch because of a tie. I'll explain Tomorrow if I'm around...

[Hawkeyeop]

So 4 for Naf, 4 for One cent and 3 for Dotchan? I'll switch to Naf if becomes a question of One Cent vs Naf.

[Hawkeyeop]

Santo, I think your unvoting broke the tie. Now, by my count, One Cent is in the lead again. Plus, a tie isn't a no lynch, it is a random pick, if I recall correctly.

[Blaster Master]

I wish right now I had the time, but with the person (well people) I've focused on claiming, and the end of the day nigh, I just don't have the time to go back and evaluate again.

Honestly don't know which is better for the town at this point, just to ensure a lynch, or not move on someone based on the not enough information. I am wondering just how many roles as a % are out there now though; seems like either we're very VERY good at picking them out, or there's a large number compared to vanilla.

Lynching is definitely in our favor. If there were a case behind OneCentStamp, I might could see lynching him, but if it's just for being a lurker... why not another random lurker? If they can't give me a reason why they find him more suspicious than another lurker, it boils down to essentially a random vote. Bottom line, we have enough information at this stage such that a random vote is not only unnecessary but anti-town. How many times do I have to say that lurking, in and of itself, is NOT a scum tell?


On a more serious note, I tend to treat lurking as simply not having sufficient time to dedicate to the game. If someone is deliberately lurking, townie or scum, I consider it poor form because you're not actually playing. That's to say, I don't expect everyone to post 50x a day (in fact, everyone please don't, it's impossible to keep up), but it is more fun if everyone invests the time and effort to post at least 3-5 times a Day. As such, I prefer to treat lurking as an inability to post due to real life concerns, and I will never use lurking as a reason to lynch. However, I do, of course, reserve the right to still use post distribution as part of my reasoning, but never as a singular point.

[Hockey Monkey]

I'm going to vote NAF. There is no real hard evidence for my vote, but I feel like I need to vote for someone, and with all the claims...sigh...this just seems as good a place as any. Sorry for the wimp vote.

[Hockey Monkey]

Hmmm, apparently I missed a whole nother page. I didn't even realize he was in a dead heat for the lynch.

unvote NAF until I can read this page.

[Blaster Master]

Santo, can you at least briefly explain why a no lynch would be beneficial? Certainly, leaving it at a tie is even worse, because a well intentioned towny, or an insidious scum, could easily tip the scale at the last second.

FTR, I found the dotchan point odd, but not necessarily a scum tell. If that's all there is for her, I can't support that wagon. I haven't had a chance to finish catching up yet, so I don't know the evidence behind Millit, but I hadn't had a read on her yet either. I'll try to see if I can find the vote posts for her...

[NAF1138]

DAMN!

Don't let there be a tie, we need a lynch. I will self hammer if that is what needs to be done. I won't vote for OneCent, but I would rather see myself lynched than see no one lynched. I am utterly expendable, don't worry about it.

Ok, so a few thoughts before I die (because I am guessing I will)

1) I think the masons and the beat cops should role claim first thing tomorrow. I think a couple of masons have given themselves away already, so you might as well make it public. And it would be better to know who you all are. I also think that the beat cops should claim and use the round robin investigation style hawk proposed. With that large a number of claims out there whe pool that the scum can hide in will be very small. They can then be picked out more easily. And quickly. Speed is an issue. Town can't afford another mislynch after today.

2) Vig, I think you outed yourself sometime earlier in the game. That is ok, and I DON'T think you should claim. If you get recruited we are kind of screwed as a team, but be more careful in the future, and I hope I am wrong. Please pick SOMEONE to kill every Night.

3)Please remember my list of probably recruits. Going forward I don't think anyone on that list will get recruited, but I am certain that someone on it already has been. Some of them will have also been recruited into power role positions. That is ok, please don't let any of them survive until endgame.

4)Town needs to start finding better reasons to lynch people. Just because someone does something that you precieve as anti town doesn't mean it is pro scum. Stop looking for anti town behavior and start looking for pro scum behavior. Ask yourself, how does this benefit the scum, not how does this hurt the town. We need to get townies to stop making anti town plays, but anti town plays are a null tell more than anything. Town makes them an aweful lot.

5)Don't allow players like MHaye to lurk just because they say they want to. It will kill the town in the end.

6)Don't trust or rely on power roles. Any recruitable power role is only reliable the Day they claim. If a role is going to claim the role has to do it early in the Day so the town can get the maximum benefit from the claim.

Ok, I am done. This will be my first time getting lynched, its kinda cool.

[fluiddruid]

Vote Tallies:

NAF1138 (4) - Blaster Master, sinjin, OneCentStamp, Hotflungwok, (Santo Rugger), (Hockey Monkey)
OneCentStamp (4) - HazelNutCoffee, Millit the Frail, chrisk, Pleonast
dotchan (3) - bufftabby, Hal Briston, Hawkeyeop
Hal Briston (2) - (Millit the Frail), NAF1138, (bufftabby), Diomedes, (sinjin), (Menocchio)
Millit the Frail (1) - (Santo Rugger), (Hawkeyeop)
Menocchio (1) - dotchan, (Drain Bead), (chrisk), (Koldanar)
Hawkeyeop (1) - Menocchio*
Koldanar (1) - Drain Bead
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (0) - (Pleonast), (Menocchio), (Koldanar)
sinjin (0) - (Hal Briston), (Pleonast), (Hawkeyeop)
Diomedes (0) - (Hal Briston)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
MHaye
Freudian Slit

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive
Koldanar

Now heading back to double-check these votes since the last confirmed (double-tallied) vote from last night.

[NAF1138]

oh and unvote hal vote dot

Just so everyone knows where my suspicion lies currently. There is a good chance I am wrong, and like I said I will happily self hammer if it looks like there is going to be a tie between me and anyone else.

[bufftabby]

NAF etc: Ties do not equal no-lynch. Ties are determined randomly. No-lynch must be voted as no lynch.

[NAF1138]

I am also suspicious as hell of Fruedian Slit, I haven't liked her play all game, and it reminds me a lot of her play in You-Slove-It.

(Yes, I will keep posting as I keep thinking of things to add, why do you ask?)

[Millit the Frail]

I guess I see what Santo was saying--I was up at 2AM and really grouchy, so I got snarky. Sorry, I'm not one to do that very often, and it usually grates on me when people do it in game.

So anyway, glad to see my head is a little safer, but I'm really unconvinced on NAF. Maybe I'm not reading closely enough, but he seems helpful and pro-town to me. Could be a screen, but I'm loath to lynch someone who is contributing so much. I guess I could shift my vote from OCS to some other random person, because I have NO honest leads on anyone, but hey--it would just mean that dotchan or someone goes up and someone asks, "why him/her?" I mean, why anyone? Like I said, may as well be me (well, not from my point of view, but I'm the only one who knows my true alliance), I understand that. It may as well be anyone. I don't want to roleclaim, and I have no info to dump, so do as you will.

[MHaye]

Right now, I'm leaning towards either Millit the Frail, NAF1138 or Dotchan.

Millit because of 916; Santo Rugger is right, it's reminiscent of M2D2 (which I lurked through the entirety of).

NAF because if he's sincere in his proposal (made in 837 that we need to thin the ranks, and should eliminate a list of about 10 experienced players, then he shouldn't mind being first, and if he's not sincere then he's a lying scumbag who deserves to be hung.

Dotchan for Bufftabby's reasons enumerated in 927

On the subject of tying a lynch vote, I believe that may be impossible. I'm hunting for the post that says so now.

The main rules say ties will be broken "by random chance." So no "no lynch by tying" is possible.

[NAF1138]

NAF etc: Ties do not equal no-lynch. Ties are determined randomly. No-lynch must be voted as no lynch.


Really? Huh. Ok then, I misrememberd the rules and didn't bother to check. Bad on me.

[Hawkeyeop]

2) Vig, I think you outed yourself sometime earlier in the game. That is ok, and I DON'T think you should claim. If you get recruited we are kind of screwed as a team, but be more careful in the future, and I hope I am wrong. Please pick SOMEONE to kill every Night.

The Vig can't be recruited.

[NAF1138]

The Vig can't be recruited.


Again, really? I thought that was one of the roles open to capoing. Well the vig will know better than I can. In that case, I amend my statment to, VIG I think you outted yourself accidentally and that you should claim.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Lynching is definitely in our favor. If there were a case behind OneCentStamp, I might could see lynching him, but if it's just for being a lurker... why not another random lurker? If they can't give me a reason why they find him more suspicious than another lurker, it boils down to essentially a random vote. Bottom line, we have enough information at this stage such that a random vote is not only unnecessary but anti-town. How many times do I have to say that lurking, in and of itself, is NOT a scum tell?


I'd be more than happy to vote for anyone on my list - I just picked OneCentStamp because I'd voted for him before, as I admitted when I voted. So, yes, it is quasi-random. Although if we were offing based purely on lurking itself I'd vote for dotchan.

Someone upthread mentioned that the withholding of information is bad, but it isn't always. See sachertorte's Coroner role in Conspiracy. His withholding for information did help win the game for town. If you are going to trust a role-claim, you should trust them all the way. If not, lynch 'em. Half-hearted trust just makes for paranoia and a waste of time in the end.

[NAF1138]

Well kids, it looks like its time for me to claim now. Sorry for looking townie :rolleyes: Before I claim, can I get a vote count?

Has this been the worst day for town ever? I'm getting the feeling this game is going to be a slam dunk for the mafia.


I just noticed I mostly missed a whole page. The above is not true, the role claims are not a bad thing. See the pirates game off board. Large numbers of role claims overload the scum and narrow the pool for them to hide in. This is not a bad thing.

[bufftabby]

MHaye, good point. The "random chance" rule doesn't specify that "no-lynch" is not a random option. I should have said it doesn't necessarily mean no-lynch. maybe fluiddruid could clarify at some point what random chance includes? (Or not, I'm cool with that too. I know things like that can be intentionally worded that way)

[NAF1138]

1) I think the masons and the beat cops should role claim first thing tomorrow.


See, this is what I get when I miss a page. Sinj claimed mason, I REALLY think we need the rest of the masons to claim. If Sinj is recruited they will all be known to the scum anyway. Better that all are out than none.

[Santo Rugger]

Santo, can you at least briefly explain why a no lynch would be beneficial? Certainly, leaving it at a tie is even worse, because a well intentioned towny, or an insidious scum, could easily tip the scale at the last second.
<snip>

Sure, I thought the day was over at 11 Eastern, and I posted that at 9 Mountain, so I thought the Day was already over. Anyway...

NAF - If he's not a recruited Priest, I really, really hope the Bishop left a damn good clue in his very next post so we can study it when he dies.

dotchan - She's getting voted for because she was absent for the few days around the end of the game she's modding. Can anybody here think of anybody else who wasn't, either? (Hint: You're reading his post right now.)

OnceCent - The charge against him was basically started by HazelNut, IIRC, and follows the same, exact reasoning I called out Millit for. In other words, "Let's attack somebody who hasn't claimed or gotten any heat yet." In other other words, it started with bullshit reasoning, and only picked up steam from there.

Although, I must say, BlaM, you're right that a NoLynch is not benificial, but I don't like any of the cases against the front runners at all.

[Millit the Frail]

Right now, I'm leaning towards either Millit the Frail, NAF1138 or Dotchan.

Millit because of 916; Santo Rugger is right, it's reminiscent of M2D2 (which I lurked through the entirety of).

NAF because if he's sincere in his proposal (made in 837 that we need to thin the ranks, and should eliminate a list of about 10 experienced players, then he shouldn't mind being first, and if he's not sincere then he's a lying scumbag who deserves to be hung.

Dotchan for Bufftabby's reasons enumerated in 927

On the subject of tying a lynch vote, I believe that may be impossible. I'm hunting for the post that says so now.

The main rules say ties will be broken "by random chance." So no "no lynch by tying" is possible.

Yeah, I lurked through M2 also. What a mess. OK, I see your point. I really don't want anyone else to roleclaim--I'm actually really dismayed to see that we've brought so many power roles out of the fabric so soon. Don't know what else to say about that. I made that statement because I think we ought to trust the claims and resist lynching them at this point.

I still have trouble with the town lynching NAF. I'm breaking this tie.

Unvote OneCentStamp

Vote dotchan

[Hal Briston]

In that case, I amend my statment to, VIG I think you outted yourself accidentally and that you should claim.Absolutely not! Even if the vig accidentally outed themselves, there's no guarantee that scum picked up on it. And since we find out the name of a random scum if they attempt to recruit the vig, the vig should keep good and well quiet for now.

[Santo Rugger]

I just noticed I mostly missed a whole page. The above is not true, the role claims are not a bad thing. See the pirates game off board. Large numbers of role claims overload the scum and narrow the pool for them to hide in. This is not a bad thing.


I missed the Pirate game (I was in Brazil!), but, this isn't the Pirate game, and the Pirate game didn't involve the chance of a recruitment every single Night.

See, this is what I get when I miss a page. Sinj claimed mason, I REALLY think we need the rest of the masons to claim. If Sinj is recruited they will all be known to the scum anyway. Better that all are out than none.

I completely agree.

[NAF1138]

Absolutely not! Even if the vig accidentally outed themselves, there's no guarantee that scum picked up on it. And since we find out the name of a random scum if they attempt to recruit the vig, the vig should keep good and well quiet for now.


Vigs call I guess. But I think that they should know that I picked up on it, and if I did, I am guessing the scum did too.

[fluiddruid]

dotchan (5) bufftabby, Hal Briston, Hawkeyeop, NAF1138, Millit the Frail
NAF1138 (4) - Blaster Master, sinjin, OneCentStamp, Hotflungwok, (Santo Rugger), (Hockey Monkey)
OneCentStamp (3) HazelNutCoffee, (Millit the Frail), chrisk, Pleonast
Menocchio (2) - dotchan, (Drain Bead), (chrisk), (Koldanar)
Hawkeyeop (1) - Menocchio*
Koldanar (1) Drain Bead
Hal Briston (1) - (Millit the Frail), (NAF1138), (bufftabby), Diomedes, (sinjin), (Menocchio)
Millit the Frail (0) - (Santo Rugger), (Hawkeyeop)
sinjin (0) - (Hal Briston), (Pleonast), (Hawkeyeop)
Drain Bead [sub for Idle Thoughts] (0) - (Pleonast), (Menocchio), (Koldanar)
Diomedes (0) - (Hal Briston)
Pleonast (0) - (Darth Sensitive)
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)

Yet to cast a vote on Day 3:
MHaye
Freudian Slit

No current vote:
Darth Sensitive
Koldanar
Hockey Monkey
Santo Rugger

[fluiddruid]

MHaye, good point. The "random chance" rule doesn't specify that "no-lynch" is not a random option. I should have said it doesn't necessarily mean no-lynch. maybe fluiddruid could clarify at some point what random chance includes? (Or not, I'm cool with that too. I know things like that can be intentionally worded that way)Edited to state: No, no lynch won't be a choice of random chance. No lynch has to win the vote.

[MHaye]

MHaye, good point. The "random chance" rule doesn't specify that "no-lynch" is not a random option. I should have said it doesn't necessarily mean no-lynch. maybe fluiddruid could clarify at some point what random chance includes? (Or not, I'm cool with that too. I know things like that can be intentionally worded that way)According to post 37, if No Lynch and a player tie for the lynch lead, the player is lynched. If No Lynch cannot be the result in that situation, I doubt very much whether it is going to be an allowable result if two players tie. So I've been going on the assumption that in the event of a tie, one of the players with the highest vote will be randomly chosen to lynch.