Forbidden Thread - Mafia: The Mob is Recruiting [Archive]

ShadowFacts

02-22-2008, 01:02 PM

Ditto zuma.
When I found out in Pleonast's game that there was secret recruitment, I wasn't a happy camper.
At least in this game the recruitment is upfront so everyone signing up knows what they are getting into.
Also, the anti-recruitment mechanisms might prove interesting.
But for gameplay, having your win condition change mid-game is less than ideal.

I'm not a huge fan of recruitment, either, but I don't feel strongly about it, as long as it is only a single recruitment. This game is going to be a MESS, though. Should be fun to watch! :D

USCDiver

02-22-2008, 01:18 PM

I hate recruitment... I'm not sure how I'd react to suddenly be forced to change sides.

Um, if I recall correctly, in Mafia: Sekham zuma v2 was quite adamant about his Cult role.

mmouse9799

02-22-2008, 01:51 PM

This seems like a pretty complicated game to me...I was kind of looking forward to Hal Briston's game for newbies, but it seems to at least have been postponed. Ah well. I'm content to be a spectator.

So, I can see how it would be annoying to have your win condition change mid game after you've decided you strategy and all of that. Is that the only reason you all seem to hate recruitment so much? What am I missing?

sachertorte

02-22-2008, 02:05 PM

mouse,
I agree. This game will be quite complex. I don't know how the new players will react to all the details. We shall see.

As for recruitment, the anti-recruitment stance tends to follow the logic that people play games to win and that good play should lead to wins and bad play leads to losses. So a theoretical Townie who plays really well and catches scum after scum; but then gets recruited and is handed a loss due to his own GOOD play is kind of sucky.
Conversely, A Townie who plays poorly and consistently lynches scum might get recruited and end up winning largely due to his own POOR play.
It's that weird inversion that many people object to.

Eureka

02-22-2008, 02:06 PM

I think there is also the minor detail of one of the ways one finds scum is by reading a particular poster's posts in excruiating detail. Well, if someone gets recruited midgame, rereading Day 1 and 2 and 3 won't tell you anything about them after they get recruited.

(And if someone has an investigative role, it is nice to believe that the harmless vanilla townie one investigated Day 1 is still a nice harmless, vanilla townie on Day 10, so that one can concentrate on all those other potential scum).

But what do I know? I thought this game sounded intriguing, when I first realized that it was one Mafia member trying to recruit the whole town. As long as I didn't start out as the Mafia person.

And then I saw the list of special roles and decided it was way too complicated for my blood.

USCDiver

02-22-2008, 02:15 PM

fluiddruid

02-22-2008, 02:24 PM

That's my hope. I think it will be difficult for a lot of people to switch gears, and to have the ability to, essentially, impersonate yourself!

The special roles do make the game more complicated, but I wanted to give Town a lot of ammo to use against the Mafia. After all, recruitment is very potent, so it should have some risks and drawbacks compared to an out-and-out night kill.

sachertorte

02-22-2008, 02:47 PM

In previous games I've wondered if it would be okay to just let the town start even if everyone hadn't confirmed yet. What would be the downside?

Eureka

02-22-2008, 02:51 PM

I certainly don't blame you for creating a bunch of special roles--I'm sure that people will find them fun to play. And the odds are excellent that the game would have filled up anyway in the space between me seeing that a game was soon to be starting, and me actually deciding to commit. It's just, I saw the new game, I thought the idea of having group of townies and one mafia player wandering around was neat--and then I saw the baffling array of special roles.

But it will be interesting to see how it all plays out, especially if the most virulently anti-recruitment players all sit this game out--and several new players test the waters.

peekercpa

02-22-2008, 02:59 PM

This seems like a pretty complicated game to me...I was kind of looking forward to Hal Briston's game for newbies, but it seems to at least have been postponed. Ah well. I'm content to be a spectator.

I concur. How terrifying would it be to on your first game potentially assigned the role of Godfather. Yikes. Kind of like being lost and alone in the wilderness.

USCDiver

02-22-2008, 03:03 PM

I concur. How terrifying would it be to on your first game potentially assigned the role of Godfather. Yikes. Kind of like being lost and alone in the wilderness.

Nah, that's easy. You just recruit the most experienced player the first Night (and hope they aren't protected or un-recruitable).

sachertorte

02-22-2008, 03:24 PM

USCDiver

02-22-2008, 03:38 PM

Normally I can't fathom Pleonast's logic. But in this case I agree with him. There is no benefit to Town lynching today. On the off chance that Town lynches the singleton scum, the game is over with little fanfare and simply restarts. What's the point?
Since Day One with a lynch will simply repeat itself until Town lynches Town, the best move is to no lynch and move onto Night. With more pro-town powerroles than there are scum, there are more pro-town night actions than scum actions. Night is a good thing.

One could argue that discussion Today is good for the Town, but I think the advantages of a no-lynch far outweigh any possible slips by scum. There's only one anyway!

I think the town should still spend a considerable amount of the first Day at least having some discussion about no-lynch. At the very least, it lets the new players get their feet wet and find their voice. Of course, with all the damn power roles there will be plenty to talk about. Maybe they should divide the player list in half for each investigator ;) .

sachertorte

02-22-2008, 03:39 PM

Maybe they should divide the player list in half for each investigator ;) .
That's an awesome idea!

peekercpa

02-22-2008, 05:48 PM

trying to get this whole quote thing down, so apologies on the front end.

Nah, that's easy. You just recruit the most experienced player the first Night (and hope they aren't protected or un-recruitable).

Metagaming a wee bit - Wouldn't that put the grey beards at risk for increased suspicion?

They are either scum to begin with or a newb recruited them to get some help.

zuma

02-23-2008, 01:19 AM

Um, if I recall correctly, in Mafia: Sekham zuma v2 was quite adamant about his Cult role.

I was killed on night 1, so I didn't have anything really invested in the game at that point.

Anyway, this should be an interesting game to watch.

Captain Klutz

02-23-2008, 08:06 PM

Maybe they should divide the player list in half for each investigator ;) .That's an awesome idea!
Heh, One And Only Wanderers has just made a similar suggestion!

USCDiver

02-23-2008, 10:19 PM

Heh, One And Only Wanderers has just made a similar suggestion!

Wasn't she a participant in the Sekham game too? Doesn't she know better?!

Also...

In post 179, Diomedes says:

Yeah, but the beat cops won't know if there are any, either. OAOW's method would prevent us from the possibility of 'double-bagging', and if we do have multiple cops, we want to get our best shot at catching out a 'making' tonight.

Is my radar set too sensitive, or did he just hint that he was a Beat Cop?

Rysto

02-24-2008, 08:05 PM

I would read "us" as meaning "the Town", myself.

Rysto

02-24-2008, 08:24 PM

But then, you've all just seen what my reads are worth.

fluiddruid

02-24-2008, 09:29 PM

Hi guys and gals. I've gotten several PMs about an all-spoilers board, and thought it'd be easier to post here to answer. I haven't actually gotten the Mafia board up yet, even (as I knew I'd have at least until the second Night) so, once that's done, hopefully I can get a side forum for all spoilers for those of you who are interested. I have to admit it'll be a lot more interesting spectating if you all know who is doing what in the background with recruitment!

CatInASuit

02-25-2008, 12:58 PM

I'm left wondering if I should have asked for a spot in this game, I would have had a good chance of surviving the first night.

That will probably be a novelty for NAF1138 as well. :)

fluiddruid

02-26-2008, 03:42 PM

Please do not use this if you are a current player (alive) or if you would like to stay a possible substitute!

The spoiler board is now available, although not much is up yet but the info (so far) for Night One and the player list.

Click here to access the board. (http://fluiddruid.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=recruitingsummary)

PM for password.

sachertorte

02-26-2008, 03:55 PM

That's unusual.

Usually the password gets sent to people by PM. Not that I think anyone in the game would stoop to such things as reading the forbidden thread and going to the spoiler board, but usually temptation is kept at bay by making it not possible.

fluiddruid

02-26-2008, 04:00 PM

Oh, is it? I haven't kept up with the forbidden threads lately.

Sure, PM me for a password.

sachertorte

02-27-2008, 01:04 PM

So is discussion simply not happening or is it all happening on the spoiler board?

CatInASuit

02-27-2008, 01:42 PM

Non-spoilered conversation will probably carry on here,

Spoilered conversation will, no doubt, occur on the spoiler board.

Just being obvious :p

mmouse9799

02-27-2008, 02:43 PM

:: anxiously awaits her password ::

USCDiver

02-27-2008, 09:16 PM

So is discussion simply not happening or is it all happening on the spoiler board?

Well, there wasn't really anything to discuss during the first Day and Night.

One And Only Wanderers

02-28-2008, 02:19 AM

Wasn't she a participant in the Sekham game too? Doesn't she know better?!

He, not she.

What was the problem with trying to maximise beat cop spread btw?

I think Pleo is looking very scummy at the moment. All the reasons he quoted for no lynch on day 1 are still there the fact you may now have 2 in 23 chance of hitting scum, rather than 1 in 24 changes the numbers very little. The potential personal pronoun slip looks dodgy too.

zuma

02-28-2008, 02:42 AM

He, not she.

What was the problem with trying to maximise beat cop spread btw?

I think Pleo is looking very scummy at the moment. All the reasons he quoted for no lynch on day 1 are still there the fact you may now have 2 in 23 chance of hitting scum, rather than 1 in 24 changes the numbers very little. The potential personal pronoun slip looks dodgy too.

The problem with all the cop discussion in Sekham was that the apprentice knew the identity of the oracle, and wanted to be investigated by him. This led to Hal's "yo oracle, over here" comment which helped out him, and allowed us scum to eliminate a large number of apprentice candidates based on their support or opposition to the list separation (they'd be opposed to it if it resulted in Hal not investigating "their half" of the list, and vice-versa).

So I don't think the problems in Sekham would apply here, and separating the lists seems like a good idea.

If I were playing in this game I'd be reviewing Pleo's other games and pronoun usage.

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 08:56 AM

If I were playing in this game I'd be reviewing Pleo's other games and pronoun usage.

There is always so much confusion with pronouns (on the SDMB in general but in particular in Mafia games) that I'd have a real hard time basing a vote on it. Although, it might make me more likely to investigate that player.

What was the problem with trying to maximise beat cop spread btw?

If you think the beat cops should be directed by the crowd and NOT by doing what they individually think is best, then you might also suggest some mechanism such that they aren't all investigating each night. You'd want to minimize the incorrect percentage they incur simply by investigating.

One And Only Wanderers

02-28-2008, 09:00 AM

If you think the beat cops should be directed by the crowd and NOT by doing what they individually think is best, then you might also suggest some mechanism such that they aren't all investigating each night. You'd want to minimize the incorrect percentage they incur simply by investigating.

nah, in this game their greatest utility is in revealing recruits, which they don't have a % chance on.

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 09:03 AM

nah, in this game their greatest utility is in revealing recruits, which they don't have a % chance on.

Ah, I missed the nuance that the witnessing percentage was not changed based on numbers of cops.

zuma

02-28-2008, 10:02 AM

There is always so much confusion with pronouns (on the SDMB in general but in particular in Mafia games) that I'd have a real hard time basing a vote on it. Although, it might make me more likely to investigate that player.

The only confusion is the gender of specific usernames... Pleo was referring to an unknown role. There has got to be a history of how he refers to those roles in his other games. Nobody seems to be looking it up yet (I'm not playing, so I won't bother).

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 10:05 AM

The only confusion is the gender of specific usernames... Pleo was referring to an unknown role. There has got to be a history of how he refers to those roles in his other games. Nobody seems to be looking it up yet (I'm not playing, so I won't bother).

Yeah, me either... although I DO remember some discussion in the Sekham game I played about using the gender neutral 'e and 'em pronouns. I don't remember if Pleonast was involved in that discussion.

zuma

02-28-2008, 10:06 AM

Also, I think this game is unwinnable for scum because of the beat cops. It'd be one thing if they could return a wrong result (like in M2), but their "failure" is only a no-result. I'm not a big fan of backup roles, as one cop is powerful enough. Of course this could be balanced by mafia having power roles and being able to recruit with powers intact. We'll see I guess.

ShadowFacts

02-28-2008, 10:07 AM

The only confusion is the gender of specific usernames... Pleo was referring to an unknown role. There has got to be a history of how he refers to those roles in his other games. Nobody seems to be looking it up yet (I'm not playing, so I won't bother).

Based on previous games, I simply do not believe that Pleonast is careless enough to make a "slip" like that. I would definitely not be voting based on that. Unfortunately, it's early in the game and townies often look for the slightest hint of anything to run with, so it could end up bad for her. I mean him. :D

zuma

02-28-2008, 10:11 AM

Based on previous games, I simply do not believe that Pleonast is careless enough to make a "slip" like that. I would definitely not be voting based on that. Unfortunately, it's early in the game and townies often look for the slightest hint of anything to run with, so it could end up bad for her. I mean him. :D

Yeah, I'm not sure he could make a slip like that either. On the other hand he confused the hell out of town in the blade runner game with some of his logic.. but that's not really a slip per se. Otherwise yeah he's been a pretty solid player. On the other other hand most of us have done a few pretty stupid things in these games, so who knows.

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 10:12 AM

Based on previous games, I simply do not believe that Pleonast is careless enough to make a "slip" like that. I would definitely not be voting based on that. Unfortunately, it's early in the game and townies often look for the slightest hint of anything to run with, so it could end up bad for her. I mean him. :D

Ha, but based on previous games (particularly 'You-Solve-It' since I watched both the game and the scum with perfect knowledge), Pleonast IS wiley enough to make such a 'slip' on purpose if he was recruited. It would be an interesting attempt at obfuscation.

zuma

02-28-2008, 10:15 AM

ShadowFacts

02-28-2008, 10:21 AM

Ha, but based on previous games (particularly 'You-Solve-It' since I watched both the game and the scum with perfect knowledge), Pleonast IS wiley enough to make such a 'slip' on purpose if he was recruited. It would be an interesting attempt at obfuscation.

True enough, but that just gets me thinking about that wine you have there. :cool:

And I do think it is a data point to file away, but IMO it's silly to vote for him based on that (unless you're just trying to put a little pressure on to see if anything pops). But that is not my read of what those who voted are doing.

RyJae

02-28-2008, 10:32 AM

It's a very attractive way to vote, from a town perspective. If it was a slip, they know the godfather is female, and they're well on their way to winning. They can discuss it all day, but it seems there is a pretty big post history for them to go through, should they make the effort.

All it takes is going to the link posted in that thread by Hockey and scroll to post 39 and see he is being truthful about his gender switching up. But will they?

zuma

02-28-2008, 10:58 AM

They should. They could put this to bed one way or another. Good on HM for telling him to provide an example.

Rysto

02-28-2008, 11:25 AM

Edit: Never mind, I should actually read things before commenting on them.

sachertorte

02-28-2008, 11:34 AM

I would be quite surprised if Pleonast turned out to be recruited scum. When I was scum, I would proof-read every post I made to check for slips. I thought I was being too careful to the point that I put in intentional misspellings and statements to make the posts look more drive-by than they really were. I don't see scum slipping about gender pronouns.

Also, an intentional slip simply doesn't make sense gameplay-wise

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 11:36 AM

Also, an intentional slip simply doesn't make sense gameplay-wise

Exactly, but we're talking about Pleonast here.

sachertorte

02-28-2008, 11:38 AM

I'll also state that if the Vig took someone out last Night, I'm glad. I don't want the Vig holding back. Otherwise this game will take forever!

zuma

02-28-2008, 12:02 PM

Yeah.. get this game over with quick so I can get into a new one. Although if the vig did actually kill someone last night, that was not in the best interest of town. If I ever got assigned vig I'd probably never use it, unless I was forced to role claim and prove it.

zuma

02-28-2008, 12:12 PM

I'd have a mass role-claim today. Scum don't have a chance in this one. I think there are too many investigative and backup roles, recruitment or not.

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 12:43 PM

I'd have a mass role-claim today. Scum don't have a chance in this one. I think there are too many investigative and backup roles, recruitment or not.

That would have been an interesting concept Yesterday. If everyone claims, what role does the Boss claim? Probably either Townsperson or Beat Cop.

The problem is, you give the Boss easy pickings for the most desirable recruits, including Capo Doctor or Capo Detective.

USCDiver

02-28-2008, 01:25 PM

And we have our first Role Claim!! This is so much more exciting for me than You-Solve-It!! No offense to NAF1138.

So IMHO, the best plan at this point is to leave Pleonast alive and have all the Beat Cops watch him tonight. If he gets killed, Town gets the name of a killer (which might be the Boss if he is still the only Mafia). If not them perhaps one of them will get a true reading of Town or Mafia.

sachertorte

02-28-2008, 02:48 PM

On Night Zero of the last game, Pleonast volunteered to be the killer because he was certain that his playstyle would get him lynched... like it always does. Of course he survives to the end as scum. So when the Town was jumping all over him, I was thinking Pleonast is right, Town loves to lynch him... but only when he is Town (if he is Town this time around, that is).

So I'm not surprised that Pleonast mentioned his history. I am surprised that he claimed. I think he could have mentioned his history and saved the claim for later, but he is clearly impatient with the 'same' thing happening to him again. At least in BladeRunner, he really did step in it with a wildly bad idea. The he/she thing, is remarkably minor. Now if they determine that the Boss really is a woman... THEN Town is justified in suspecting Pleonast.

As for having the Beat Cops watch Pleonast: not really going to help, because if that is the plan and the plan is open, then scum can easily work around it (recruit someone else). Town must keep scum guessing as well.

sachertorte

02-29-2008, 09:54 AM

I'm suspicious of CaptnPitt. If I were in the game I'd be looking at him more carefully.

ShadowFacts

02-29-2008, 10:09 AM

I'm suspicious of CaptnPitt. If I were in the game I'd be looking at him more carefully.

What's tipping you off?

sachertorte

02-29-2008, 10:35 AM

I don't likePleo's role claim at all. I'm not changing my vote just yet, but now I'm worried that Menocchio is right and Pleo is the guilty one. I'm not sure which, but I think one of them is definitely scum.

How? The case against Pleonast is marginal at best. The case against Menocchio is even less substantial.

I'd be surprised if either Pleonast or Menocchio were scum. The probability of one being scum is actually quite small. Though now that I think about it more, I'd say that scum would actually be less likely to make the Statement that CapnPitt made. hmmm. Perhaps I was hasty about CapnPitt. I think Town is generally hasty on Day One (and this is Day One, despite it being Day Two).

I would be suspicious of the cautious players. Unfortunately, so many Townies play cautiously, that doesn't seem to work either. Caution allows scum to be cautious too. My current guess is that the Boss is a low poster.

sachertorte

02-29-2008, 10:44 AM

Non-voters/non-voted so far:
NAF
Hockey Monkey
chrisk
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Koldanar
Hotflungwok
Darth Sensitive
OneCentStamp
sinjin
Hal Briston

Which is a rather long suspect list to have, but I gotta start somewhere. Town often focuses on Town on Day One because scum are really cautious on Day One, while Town feels free to say whatever they want, and get in trouble for it.

People I think are Town:
Menocchio
Pleonast
Freudian Slit
HazelNutCoffee
bufftabby

Precisely because others have found reason (poor reasons) to suspect them. With only 1-2 scum, this list is easier to make ;)

USCDiver

02-29-2008, 11:03 AM

I'm surprised at the lack of substantial play by Hal Briston. He's meeting the posting requirements, but he's really only doing drive-by posts.

ShadowFacts

02-29-2008, 11:11 AM

How? The case against Pleonast is marginal at best. The case against Menocchio is even less substantial.

I'd be surprised if either Pleonast or Menocchio were scum. The probability of one being scum is actually quite small. Though now that I think about it more, I'd say that scum would actually be less likely to make the Statement that CapnPitt made. hmmm. Perhaps I was hasty about CapnPitt. I think Town is generally hasty on Day One (and this is Day One, despite it being Day Two).

I would be suspicious of the cautious players. Unfortunately, so many Townies play cautiously, that doesn't seem to work either. Caution allows scum to be cautious too. My current guess is that the Boss is a low poster.

I also think that the odds of either Pleo or Menocchio being scum are very small.

I have no doubt that the Boss is a low poster. Early on it is almost always noisy Townies who get lynched on the flimsiest of evidence, so it's really in her :D best interest to stay quiet.

ShadowFacts

02-29-2008, 11:12 AM

I'm surprised at the lack of substantial play by Hal Briston. He's meeting the posting requirements, but he's really only doing drive-by posts.

Doesn't surprise me at all, based on the games I have played with him here.

ShadowFacts

02-29-2008, 11:18 AM

Non-voters/non-voted so far:
NAF
Hockey Monkey
chrisk
MHaye
Santo Rugger
Koldanar
Hotflungwok
Darth Sensitive
OneCentStamp
sinjin
Hal Briston

Which is a rather long suspect list to have, but I gotta start somewhere. Town often focuses on Town on Day One because scum are really cautious on Day One, while Town feels free to say whatever they want, and get in trouble for it.

sinjin has had some good participation, even if he didn't vote, so he wouldn't be on my list. Same with Santo (although maybe he deserves automatic suspicion :D )

NAF is way too quiet for my taste, as he is normally more active. But maybe he's burned out from modding.

fluiddruid

02-29-2008, 11:21 AM

I'm really surprised that the townies aren't going after lurking more ruthlessly. It's very important in this game to get a base reading on people.

USCDiver

02-29-2008, 11:25 AM

An interesting suggestion by Menocchio. If the Vig is in doubt about Pleonast's role-claim, Vig targets him tonight. Best case scenario, Pleo is scum and gets killed. Worst case scenario, Pleo is a Priest, gets killed and the Vig takes his spot. Net loss of the Vig, which may not be so bad for Town.

Doesn't surprise me at all, based on the games I have played with him here.
For some reason, I remembered him being fairly vocal in Sekham (the only game I was a participant), but from other games I've watched, you're right.

Rysto

02-29-2008, 11:34 AM

I'm really surprised that the townies aren't going after lurking more ruthlessly. It's very important in this game to get a base reading on people.
Especially anyone involved in the You-Solve-It game. Allowing people to lurk lost the game for the Town.

Well, that and pressuring me to stop lurking. ;)

sachertorte

02-29-2008, 11:56 AM

sinjin has had some good participation, even if he didn't vote, so he wouldn't be on my list. Same with Santo (although maybe he deserves automatic suspicion :D )

NAF is way too quiet for my taste, as he is normally more active. But maybe he's burned out from modding.
I have no doubt that my suspect list is casting a wide net (obviously).

With 23 players alive, picking out 2 is a losing proposition. Scum aren't going to announce themselves, so process of elimination is my next choice.

I feel bad for One And Only Wanderers. He's really been screwed early in these SDMB games. Day One lynch in Conspiracy; Day Two outing by dossier in YST; and now killed on Night One.

Save One And Only Wanderers!

One And Only Wanderers

02-29-2008, 05:33 PM

I feel bad for One And Only Wanderers. He's really been screwed early in these SDMB games. Day One lynch in Conspiracy; Day Two outing by dossier in YST; and now killed on Night One.

Save One And Only Wanderers!

It's a conspiracy I tells ya!

USCDiver

03-01-2008, 01:26 PM

I wonder if the Boss tried to recruit Pleonast on the first Night and, finding him unrecruitable, is now one of the players trying to get him lynched.

That may be just a little too convenient.

Rysto

03-01-2008, 06:19 PM

I would swear that Hawkeyeop is scum if not for the fact that he's pinging my scumdar exactly the same way he did in the You Solve It game.

Seriously, the Detective should investigate Pleo and try and leave a clue tomorrow? Only if the Detective wants to die!

sachertorte

03-03-2008, 02:14 PM

I agree with Rysto. The whole thinking that the Detective should investigate Pleonast is crazy wrong. The Detective should investigate someone who is opaque and hasn't given out any information yet. Pleonast's case will shake out one way or another. Wasting the investigation on a prime candidate for lynching, vigging, AND scum-kill is counterproductive.

But at the same time, I don't think scum would say what Hawkeyeop said. I think this will be a search by process of elimination.

sachertorte

03-03-2008, 03:05 PM

Blaster Master is being exceedingly reasonable.
On one hand, he's saying pretty much what I'm thinking.
On the other hand, I think he lacks the paranoia usually associated with Town. I'd keep an eye on him. He might be too reasonable.

USCDiver

03-03-2008, 03:26 PM

Tomorrow may be a good time for the town to start putting some pressure on the lurkers.

ShadowFacts

03-03-2008, 10:41 PM

Tomorrow may be a good time for the town to start putting some pressure on the lurkers.

That does not seem to be in the game plan for some reason. If I was in there, I would be all over lurkers at this point (<24 hours to go).

On another note, I'm surprised that Pleo is still in the lead. Every game I've played, the vast majority of players have been very deferential to role claims (sometimes too much, IMO), to the extent that posters who vote for role-claimed individuals often garnered suspicion themselves. That's not happening this game - I wonder why. Sure, there have been people saying they will give him the benefit of the doubt, but no one is making a strong argument.

USCDiver

03-03-2008, 11:14 PM

That does not seem to be in the game plan for some reason. If I was in there, I would be all over lurkers at this point (<24 hours to go).

On another note, I'm surprised that Pleo is still in the lead. Every game I've played, the vast majority of players have been very deferential to role claims (sometimes too much, IMO), to the extent that posters who vote for role-claimed individuals often garnered suspicion themselves. That's not happening this game - I wonder why. Sure, there have been people saying they will give him the benefit of the doubt, but no one is making a strong argument.

I wonder if both of these issues can be explained by the players falling into two categories: some are newbies in their first game and don't want to draw much attention to themselves and the rest played in the You-Solve-It and have forgotten how to treat power roles and role claims.

USCDiver

03-03-2008, 11:19 PM

Woah and for some reason this post from Millet the Frail

Sigh. I also feel like unvoting Pleonast now, mainly because I can see the reasons against. I'm also scared to death of lynching a townie. And odds are, he's a townie. We're almost all townies. That's kind of awesome, it means the odds are very much in our favor for winning right now.

majorly pinged my scumdar. I'll be watching him/her closely from now on. Good ole confirmation bias, or whatever bias it is that makes you see what you already think is there!

sachertorte

03-04-2008, 08:39 AM

I totally think CapnPitt is Town now.
I fell into the same trap as NAF, but I never label my suspicions as "classic scum tell" so I wasn't as critical of my own thinking. Seeing it labeled as such makes mistrust the 'tell' all the more.

So given the events of Today... who will Scum recruit next?
If he wasn't recruited already, I think Blaster Master would be a good choice.

USCDiver

03-04-2008, 08:45 AM

Well, at the very least CapnPitt is the faithfool of this game for his f'n whiny rant. It's just a game people!

sachertorte

03-04-2008, 09:07 AM

sachertorte

03-04-2008, 09:30 AM

I have no idea if MHaye is scum or not, but I'd want him lynched, simply because his Town play style is indistinguishable from scum. He always waits until the end of the Day to make his case and vote. Drives me bonkers.

ShadowFacts

03-04-2008, 11:05 AM

I don't think he is whining. It's a tough situation to be Town and have to face irrational scrutiny. I've been lucky in all of my games. I've either had a Town confirmable role or a scum role. I haven't had to defend myself with essentially nothing. Which is what everyone is asking CapnPitt to do. He can't defend himself (assuming he's vanilla). So he's frustrated.
Everything he could possibly say, scum would say the same thing. Even though this is Day Two, he's the typical Day One lynch.

I agree it's tough, but he is taking it a little too personally, it seems. It's inevitable in this game that you're going to be under scrutiny, so just deal with it. The best thing you can do in those situations is try to convince everyone as calmly and rationally as possible that you're not scum. You're never going to convince anyone by getting all pissy. And if you die, oh well, information gained and go on to root from beyond the grave.

I agree Blaster would be a good choice to recruit, but maybe not today. He's been a little too active, I think.

CapnPitt

03-04-2008, 11:26 AM

Well, newly deceased, I suppose I can post here now.

Harumph! is all I can say.

CapnPitt

03-04-2008, 11:40 AM

I got pissy for exactly the reason sachertorte said. I had nothing to defend against and the only thing I did was express an opinion. I realize now why people would think that was suspicious. I had no idea at the time. In the context of the game it's frustrating to not have anything to fight back with, so I got pissy. Yeah, it's only a game, but y'know, frustration/aggression and all that.

sachertorte

03-04-2008, 12:32 PM

CapnPitt, you played your role as well as anyone could have in your situation. I have to admit that your Pleonast/Menocchio statement caught my suspicion, but when ShadowFacts pressed me for details I realized that scum simply wouldn't stick a neck out like that. Your best chance was for Blaster Master and Pleonast to convince the Town to lynch someone else. Unfortunately, with the deadline and little else to go on, your lynch was inevitable.

The good news is you played as a vanilla Townsperson as you should. You tried to defend yourself, got annoyed, and died. That's pretty much what is expected to happen at this point of the game. It is better that a vanilla town died than have a powerrole lynched or forced to roleclaim.
Now the town has data with which to work. Who pushed for your lynch? Who defended you? Did anyone state your townness for no good reason?

CapnPitt

03-04-2008, 12:45 PM

ShadowFacts

03-04-2008, 03:06 PM

I see what you mean, especially about the data. If anybody else wants to chime in on how I could have played that, I'd love to hear it. After the false dichotomy screw up, I mean. That I realize was horrible, but how could I have avoided the snowball effect after that?

I'm not sure you could have. Early in games, there is very little to go on (even more so in this game, due to the lack of scum) and players seize on any little thing, usually justifying it with "it's better than nothing." Take that and add in some drive-by votes and suddenly you're in the hot seat. It sucks.

I think your best bet is to stick with the game, explain yourself as rationally as possible against all accusers, but also find a plausible alternate target that you find scummy and present a case. And maybe, just maybe, you can convince a few players that you are not the most scummy and the wagon will start on someone else :)

I think you did well to point a finger on your way out at someone you felt was suspicious (Hal). The best thing you can do as a townie is tell the truth and get as much out there as you can.

CapnPitt

03-04-2008, 07:47 PM

thanks for the comments.

ShadowFacts

03-06-2008, 11:12 AM

So, no kill last night. In some ways, that's even worse than a kill. No information gained, more paranoia sown. :)

CapnPitt

03-06-2008, 12:32 PM

I'm seeing how that works now. Odd how that works though. I see some people aren't understanding my lynching now. I can't blame them for not defending me though. The last thing to do, it would appear, would be to stick your neck out in a situation like that. Sort of what I did with the Pleonast/Mennochio argument.

sachertorte

03-06-2008, 12:56 PM

Ugh. I kind of wish the Vigilante was required to kill (although he might have been blocked). This game is going to take Forever and a half!

Darth Sensitive has jumped onto my radar. He defended CapnPitt Yesterday with a 'decree-like' stance then jumps onto Pleonast to start off the day. Seems strange to me; though jumping onto Pleonast doesn't seem like something scum would do. Furthermore, his reason for voting Pleonast makes no sense to me. If I understand Pleonast's point of view, Pleonast wants everyone to speak up so that the Boss can't simply pick off the quiet players. He wants everyone to have a significant record so that recruitment detection becomes plausible from the post record. I don't see how that warrants a vote, but I'm guessing Darth Sensitive isn't understanding Pleonast's point.
Maybe that's a point in Darth Sensitive's favor, as scum wouldn't stick a neck out so brazenly. Though I rode brewha's mis-statement for quite a while in the last game.

The post-mortem on CapnPitt is interesting. I wonder if anyone will jump on the people stating how they weren't onboard the CapnPitt lynch. I know I'd find that suspicious. But again, I think that's a false suspicion.

I think Blaster Master was recruited. He makes the most sense at this time.
I wonder if Town should take a survey of who they think was recruited each morning. Basically, take a snap shot of what people are thinking each morning. It would serve as a good record for identifying who people thought were vulnerable for later in the game when they need to determine who was recruited AND WHEN.
Also it sets up a mind game with the Boss, as she (ha!) will need to take into account Town's suspicions, but can't take Town's suspicions too seriously because Town will know that information too. Fun!

sachertorte

03-06-2008, 01:06 PM

Blaster Master is correct that evaluating a mass claim is not possible at this time. The role numbers are unknown so evaluating the strength of a claim requires assumptions that could be fatally incorrect. Also recruitment extinguishes the power of a mass claim. As long as the Boss lives, a mass claim is infeasible.

I also have a problem with the recruitability of masons. They get 50% protection, but once one converts, the identities of all the others are known by scum. Not good.

Rysto

03-06-2008, 01:22 PM

Day 1:
It was probably the Vigilante. I can't see the Mob passing up the opportunity to double it's numbers.

Day 2:
Hmm, no vigilante kill. That's odd. Maybe it was blocked?

Oh, dear. At least the Vig isn't recruitable.

Rysto

03-06-2008, 02:18 PM

He is lynchable, though. And somehow I doubt that BLaM would miss those obvious Vig tells. I think that sachertorte is right: BLaM was recruited last Night.

CapnPitt

03-06-2008, 02:42 PM

I'll tell you what, I wish I'd kept my head down earlier in the game. I'm learning a ton from Blaster Master.

Perhaps I like the game better as a spectator. ;)

sachertorte

03-06-2008, 02:55 PM

I'll tell you what, I wish I'd kept my head down earlier in the game.
Actually, No.

The fact that Town consistently lynches other Townies on Day One for 'slips' and 'scum tells' is a rut we've fallen into. On one side, there really isn't much for Town to evaluate on Day One so making mountains out of molehills is somewhat understandable. On the other, Town really doesn't discuss enough on Day One and ends up latching onto something. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't lynch Pleonast. I thought once they got their teeth in there, they would never let go.

The really bad effect is that the current state of affairs discourages talking, which is what kills the Town everytime now. Next game CapnPitt plays, he'll keep his head down, other townies will keep their heads down, there will be less talk on Day One, and poof, scum will win.

What should have happened is CapnPitt states what he honestly thinks; and everyone else does the same. Town evaluates what he says, and either lynches him or not. CapnPitt is not to blame here. He didn't do anything wrong. He spoke his mind, which is precisely what Town should do.

Stifling Town into keeping a low profile will just hand the game to scum.

Eureka

03-06-2008, 03:04 PM

I'll tell you what, I wish I'd kept my head down earlier in the game. I'm learning a ton from Blaster Master.

Perhaps I like the game better as a spectator. ;)
There is nothing wrong with liking the game better as a spectator. But if you are going to play the game, you have to separate what is best for your team from what is best for you individually. And given the large number of townies, and the large amount of paranoia, and the small number of scum, it is unsurprising that a townie was lynched.

What sucks for you, is that the townie who was lynched was you. I don't blame you for thinking "Next time, I'll keep my head down"--but if everyone keeps their heads down, there is nothing to evaluate, and no game to play--or read.

So, if you thought you'd like the game, but are disappointed by the way things turned out, go ahead and sign up for another game.

CapnPitt

03-06-2008, 03:41 PM

oh, I'll probably sign up again at some point. I'm really watching with interest now.

sachertorte I get what you're saying. I know this game is a variant, but you mentioned the Doper players getting in a rut. I was wondering if you (or anybody else) knew the numbers for number of town wins vs. number of scum wins. Have scum been "cleaning up" here?

Rysto

03-06-2008, 03:48 PM

On the SDMB, I believe that the scum have won only twice. M2 and You-Solve-It Mafia. I'm not sure how many games have been played here -- seven?

There have also been a bunch of off-board games, but I don't know anything about them.

sachertorte

03-06-2008, 03:59 PM

In the beginning, scum never won. Lately scum have been consistently winning. I feel this is largely due to the fact that Town have adopted a 'keep your head down' attitude and aren't as active as they used to be in earlier games.
Day One of the earlier games often stretched over several pages. Much of it was dreck, but people were talking... which is better for Town than Not Talking.

Sir Dirx

03-06-2008, 04:19 PM

oh, I'll probably sign up again at some point. I'm really watching with interest now.
Hal mentioned an interest in setting up a newbie-only Mafia game sometime soon(-ish). Given your quick lynch, I think you'd still qualify. My guess is, it won't happen until he's out of the current game. I can't imagine trying to participate in that and then running your own at the same time.

ShadowFacts

03-06-2008, 04:27 PM

He is lynchable, though. And somehow I doubt that BLaM would miss those obvious Vig tells. I think that sachertorte is right: BLaM was recruited last Night.

NAF just suggested as much and BM jumped right on it:
Further, this statement of "You were so level headed yesterDay..." is an excellent example of a smudge, because you're alluding that I was recruited last Night while not overtly stating such.

Whether he was or was not recruited, this is a good play and puts NAF on the spot.

Rysto

03-06-2008, 04:40 PM

If, for example, the vig had accidentally outed themselves toDay, would it be prudent to role claim rather than risk getting targeted by the scum.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.

sachertorte

03-06-2008, 04:57 PM

I've been contemplating the potential longness of this game, but I came up with a weird argument that shows that scum have a really bad situation:
Assume Vig never nightkills (bad assumption, but I'm assuming this for now).
Assume Scum always recruit every night and are always successful (favors scum).
Assume Town lynches Town every day (favors scum).
With these assumptions, the population forecast is:
Day Three (Today): 19 Town, 3 Scum
Day Four: 17 Town, 4 Scum
Day Five: 15 Town, 5 Scum
Day Six: 13 Town, 6 Scum
Day Seven: 11 Town, 7 Scum
Day Eight: 9 Town, 8 Scum
That's seven mis-lynches needed by Scum to win.

Now let's assume the Vig does kill every night from now on and always kills TOWN (favors scum).
Day Three (Today): 19 Town, 3 Scum
Day Four: 16 Town, 4 Scum
Day Five: 13 Town, 5 Scum
Day Six: 10 Town, 6 Scum
Day Seven: 7 Town, 7 Scum -- Scum Win
That's five mislynches needed by Scum to win and five Vig kills of Town only. Yikes! This doesn't look good for scum.

Calculating the burden on the Town to win is much harder, as the 'best' case is very simple:
Day Three: lynch Boss
Day Four: lynch scum
Day Five: lynch scum

The best way I can think of so far to look at the Town's chances is to see what the game set-up looks like when the Town finally lynches the Boss. A Day Three Boss lynch leaves the Town in excellent shape 19 Town 2 scum heading into Night.
Lynch Boss on Day Four: 17 Town, 3 Scum (Town needs 3 lynches {in addition to the 1 that already happened}, scum need 7 {+2 that already happened}: strongly favors Town)
Lynch Boss on Day Five: 15 Town, 4 Scum (Town needs 4 lynches{+1}, scum need 5{+3}: favors Town)
Lynch Boss on Day Six: 13 Town, 5 Scum (Town needs 5 lynches{+1}, scum need 4{+4}: favors Town)
Lynch Boss on Day Seven: 11 Town, 6 Scum (Town needs 6 lynches{+1}, scum need 2{+5}: "even")
Lynch Boss on Day Eight: 9 Town, 7 Scum (Town needs 7 lynchs{+1}, scum need 1{+6}: favors Scum)

I think the game setup strongly favors the Town, really strongly.

To establish similar lynch needs with Town, The Boss needs to recruit successfully at 6 times. That's quite a bit that has to fall scum's way before the game merely becomes even odds. The Vig could end up helping scum, but generally Vig's are considered balance neutral.

fluiddruid

03-07-2008, 10:33 AM

sachertorte, I don't disagree with your analysis, but I'll point out that this game was intentionally structured to be very difficult for scum to win on paper. Why? Because, generally, what the town has access to is fairly scant information from detection (given that recruitment is a strong disincentive for role claiming). After all, what generally gets scum voted for - their voting record, their posting record - and in this game, you can't really ever have trusted town. As soon as a powerful role claims - say, the Detective, you risk Capo'ing which is extremely bad for Town, so you have to kill the person at minimum the next Day.

You have a lot of investigatory roles, sure. However, other than the Detective, you're only getting a town/scum result. Add together the statistical unlikelihood:

- 20% cumulative Beat Cop failure chance to get any result
- Boss/Capo 50% chance to show town
- The number of players that need to be investigated to find one Boss
- The Beat Cops can't work together to avoid duplicating investigations
- Beat Cop is an easy fake role claim

It's rough. It really comes down to trying to peg the Boss based on his voting record and hope that by the time you do that there aren't too many scum in play. An average game of Mafia this size has, what, 4ish scum? In statistical terms it's not hard for the Boss to get to that point before he's lynched, and then it's still hard for town because of the aforementioned past record being a limited result.

In any case, I'll be curious to see how this pans out. I don't want to post spoilers but I will say that I am incredibly surprised by the results so far. In any case, I'd love to run this ruleset again with some tweaks for balance.

fluiddruid

03-07-2008, 10:50 AM

Just to add to the above...

Let's say there are 3 Beat Cops in play and 21 players. (Not a spoiler, just a hypothetical.)

The Detective has a 1/20 chance to investigate the Boss. However, the Boss has a 50% chance to return a random role. Of course these roles include other scum rules, the Detective role (obviously false) and the improbable Doctor role (who's probably protecting himself). So let's be generous and give the Detective a 3.5% chance each night to find the Boss. Now, the Detective also knows that 1) recruitment is in play and 2) the Boss can read as a false role, so he's likely to reinvestigate scummy-looking power roles. That's assuming he never tries the general investigation of finding out how many scum are in play, too. So he's not even getting a cumulative 3.5% chance each Night.

The Beat Cops fare much worse - they have even more reason to investigate numerous times, they can investigate the same people on the same night, they have 60% chance to fail if they all attempt it, then a 50% chance to misdetect on the Boss.

The best strategy - if everyone could work together - would be for the Beat Cops to be watching for recruitments, not looking for the Boss. They are much more likely to get a positive result. They could get lucky, but it's not very likely. As such it's pretty much up to two factors to find the Boss - the Detective, and his past play style. We'll see but I think that scum has a good chance to win based on the ruleset.

sachertorte

03-07-2008, 11:16 AM

fluiddruid, you have interesting points, but my intent was a quick analysis that ignored most town and scum powers and just look at the numbers. While there are many pitfalls that the Town will want to avoid, the analysis I tried to envision looked at the situation in the most favorable way things could happen for scum, and still the results are rather grim for scum. I didn't even consider the Beat Cops or Detective in the analysis and implicitly assumed that all scum avoid detection.

Ignoring recruitment, 25% scum tends to be the norm which translates to 5 scum for a 20 player game. With a 24 player start I think 6 is a decent number. One could argue 7 due to the town power roles.

I think an additional balance issue is the recruitment process is an additional burden. What I mean is starting with 1 and requiring the creation of a scum army. Even if getting 4 scum would be sufficiently 'even' (I would argue that it is not), getting four successful recruits is an additional burden that normally isn't present in a game that starts with 4 scum. (Did that make sense?)
Furthermore, on the nights that scum recruit, they can't kill, so even if scum manage to recruit a sufficient number to achieve the theoretical 25% balance, x Days will have passed where Town gets to lynch and scum have nightkilled none. Therefore scum need to recruit an additional number of players beyond the theoretical 25% balance to regain the ground lost during the time required to reach 25%. (I'm babbling now, I know). Anyway. It's an interesting problem.

I think unbounded recruitment is an inherently difficult power to balance. My guess is a balanced game would have very high variance, and I question whether that is a good thing.

I'm also very curious to see how the game develops. Unfortunately, one instance won't tell the whole story. I was just surprised because my initial reaction to the game setup was "unbounded recruitment? what the hell?" But closer analysis seems to show that starting with 1 scum is a big burden for scum. I didn't even consider recruitment failures, investigation, etc. that will make the game even harder for scum.

I hope you don't take my criticism personally. I tend to look at these games and pick apart the rulesets. It's kind of my thing. Balancing a game is a non-trivial task, and there is no guarantee that my analysis is even correct. For the current off-board game, I simulated the ruleset to check the balance. Even relatively simple rulesets provide unexpected results.

ETA: On the other hand, I should also consider the ramifications that recruitment insulates scum from lynches (scum don't recruit dead townies). On the other other hand, I think recruitment failures probably offsets this issue. Hmmm.

ShadowFacts

03-07-2008, 12:15 PM

Aaaaand... OneCentStamp just edited a post. :smack: Seems like we get one every game. I don't remember what the penalties are in this game, but I'm sure fluiddruid will address it shortly.

sachertorte

03-07-2008, 12:19 PM

Modkill! Modkill!

sachertorte

03-07-2008, 12:58 PM

ShadowFacts

03-07-2008, 01:08 PM

dotchan has jumped onto my radar now too. I don't understand how moderating the other game would take her attention so much at this time. Right now all she has to do is sit back and wait for someone to get lynched.
That and the excuse that she doesn't want to post for posting sake is very bad for the Town. Kind of scummy, but not scummy in the sense that scum wouldn't be so openly scummy.

It may not be scummy, but it certainly is lazy, and I hate lazy players. Play the frikkin' game or don't sign up! Lazy Townies lost it for us in You-Solve-It.

Plus your own wily play, you scum you.

sachertorte

03-07-2008, 02:31 PM

Me? I'm just an innocent chocolate cake.

fluiddruid

03-07-2008, 09:27 PM

fluiddruid, you have interesting points, but my intent was a quick analysis that ignored most town and scum powers and just look at the numbers. Fair enough. Your posts have been very interesting for me as my take was the exact opposite - I presumed scum had an automatic advantage if only due to the fact that the standard strategy is inherently difficult in a recruitment game. Sure, you only start with a single scum, but there are some advantages to that - the more scum you have, the more easily you can pick off one early by chance alone, and it's very hard (in my opinion) to have scum posts analyzed in hindsight without implicating one or more others. Not only this, but recruitment isn't just a numbers game - you have the opportunity to draw the strongest players, with the strongest strategies, and pull them to your side. Almost always, a small handful of players will rise to the top. They may not be listed as trusted townies but they sway town influence inevitably. People want leaders.

In any case I'll be interested to see how this game pans out, but already things are very surprising. Not just in terms of play, but how the statistics are working out randomly. I think my first plan for the next game is to decrease the randomness overall. I included a lot of percent failures because I didn't want a) recruitment to go unchecked too quickly and b) the Boss to be easily found, but I think there are stronger ways of doing so.

Sir Dirx

03-09-2008, 11:35 PM

If not for Dot I would feel like the ultimate thread killer.
If you kill a mafia thread, is that a scum tell?

sachertorte

03-10-2008, 09:12 AM

I presumed scum had an automatic advantage if only due to the fact that the standard strategy is inherently difficult in a recruitment game.
At first, I had the same impression.

I'm now looking at the game as a two phase game:
Phase One: Boss Lives
Phase Two: Boss is Dead

Phase Two of the game is essentially the same as the more standard no-recruitment games we've seen (Dead Boss = No recruitment, and everyone knows it). So all the balance ideals found in previous games should apply to Phase Two. While I am intrigued by the notion that recruiting the 'best' players offers a strategic advantage, I'm not so sure this advantage outweighs pure numbers. In either case, scum will need to establish a base group to compete in Phase Two. Therefore Phase One needs to be dramatically 'won' by scum to establish a feasible position in Phase Two. Failure to survive and recruit sufficiently in Phase One pretty much dooms scum in Phase Two. The question is then, to what extent do we expect the Boss to survive and recruit in Phase One, and is this expectation sufficient to establish a fair position for scum in Phase Two.

E(Death of Boss) = ?
E(Recruitment) = ?

Assume random lynches
Assume 100% vig kills
Then P(Death of Boss = Day One) = 1/24 + 23/24*1/23 = 2/24
P(DOB = Day Two) = 22/24*1/22 + 21/24*1/21 = 2/24
etc...
Therefore, E(DOB) = 2/24 *(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12) = 6.67 Days
Which is actually better for scum than I had thought, but still leaves them in a hole (I think).

E(Recruitment) is more difficult to calculate, but if we assume a 7 Day expected lifespan for the Boss, E(Recruitment) is bounded by 6 recruits. With the addition of recruitment blocking and immunities, E(Recruitment) is probably closer to 5.

At first glance, achieving 5 recruitment means 6 total scum in a 24 person game, which under normal circumstances would be a good indication of balance. However, in achieving 5 recruits, scum needed to forgo killing for 5 Nights. Five Nights of skipping nightkills translates to 2.5 mislynches needed by scum to counter-balance. So I think the expectation shows scum in the hole. If the Boss dies before Day 6, I'd expect scum to lose handily. If the Boss makes it to Day 7 or 8, I expect scum to lose a close one. If the Boss survives to Day 9, I think it is even odds.

ShadowFacts

03-10-2008, 12:14 PM

E(Recruitment) is more difficult to calculate, but if we assume a 7 Day expected lifespan for the Boss, E(Recruitment) is bounded by 6 recruits. With the addition of recruitment blocking and immunities, E(Recruitment) is probably closer to 5.

At first glance, achieving 5 recruitment means 6 total scum in a 24 person game, which under normal circumstances would be a good indication of balance. However, in achieving 5 recruits, scum needed to forgo killing for 5 Nights. Five Nights of skipping nightkills translates to 2.5 mislynches needed by scum to counter-balance. So I think the expectation shows scum in the hole. If the Boss dies before Day 6, I'd expect scum to lose handily. If the Boss makes it to Day 7 or 8, I expect scum to lose a close one. If the Boss survives to Day 9, I think it is even odds.

I am the furthest thing from a statistician, so maybe this is a stupid question, but doesn't the lack of scum increase the chances of a mislynch, making 2.5 mislynches not that hard at all, but in fact extremely likely?

Also, IIRC, the Boss has the ability to recruit multiple power roles, including cops, making the Town much easier to manipulate down the stretch. I agree that if the Boss dies early, it's bad news, but I think it could easily swing in the scum's favor if he can recruit the right people. Big if, of course, but that's why you play the game :)

sachertorte

03-10-2008, 12:42 PM

Allow me to elaborate.

I posit that one definition of an even game could be:
Town require X lynches of scum to win and Scum require Y lynches of Town to win. If X and Y are sufficiently close (ideally equal), then the game is balanced.

In a standard game with 24 players, this condition is met with 6 Scum. Town lynches 6 scum, they win; scum gets the Town to lynch 6 Townies, scum wins.

What I was trying to say is that with the 'start with one and recruit from there' set-up, 6 is no-longer sufficient. Attaining the 6 scum through 5 recruits means there were at least 5 Nights without kills. These lack of nightkillings puts scum behind. The amount behind is 2.5 mislynches, so while Town would need 6 mislynches to win, Scum need 8.5 mislynches to win. The discrepancy is ameliorated by the relative small number of scum, but despite early lynches being more likely Town than not the bar is still higher for scum than for Town. It is certainly not impossible for scum to win, my point is just that the likelihood of a scum win is smaller than a Town win.

For instance, if the Town continues to pressure the Vig not to kill at night and the Vig complies, I'd say that a big portion of the Town's advantage goes out the window, which is the result of gameplay, not the game setup. (I'm still hoping that the Vig has been trying to kill every night, but was blocked last night.)

sachertorte

03-10-2008, 01:40 PM

I've been thinking about this idea of 'nearly-free' lynches since there are so few scum:

Town opted not to lynch in the game on Day One. I'll assume they lynch all the time for this look.
I'll also ignore Vig kills since that makes mislynches more probable.
P(Lynch Boss Day One) = 1/24;
P(Lynch scum by Day Two) = (23/24)*(2/23) + 1/24 = 3/24;
P(Lynch scum by Day Three) = (21/24)*(3/21) + 3/24 = 6/24 = 1/4;

So I'd estimate the 2.5 added mislynches needed about equivalent to a single "standard game" mislynch. So the added burden on scum is still present, but not as bad as I was thinking.

ETA: Actually the potential to net more than one scum is non-zero, so the 2.5 added mislynch need for scum is probably slightly more onerous than a single standard mislynch, but not as bad as a full 2.5.

ShadowFacts

03-10-2008, 02:32 PM

I believe I understand where you are coming from, sach. I personally have a hard time reducing the complexities of a game like this to numbers (my mind doesn't work well that way :o ), so it's interesting for me to try to puzzle it out.

On another note, not a lot of voting in with 24 hours left to go (big surprise there!). Menocchio's vote on Drain Bead seems like a blatantly obvious "get someone else in the lead since no one else is following my Hawkeye vote" vote. Not that that is necessarily scummy, mind you, but I think he's feeling the heat a little given how sparse the commentary is and how everyone is spreading their votes out right now.

If I were playing, I would probably be on the Hal Briston wagon by now, because I love putting pressure on lurkers.

USCDiver

03-10-2008, 02:45 PM

Looks like I'm going to be heading in to the Big Show to sub for Diomedes come Night Time.

I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a claim from Menocchio. Maybe he really is a Vanilla townie.

ShadowFacts

03-10-2008, 03:09 PM

Looks like I'm going to be heading in to the Big Show to sub for Diomedes come Night Time.

I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a claim from Menocchio. Maybe he really is a Vanilla townie.

Good luck and GO [WHATEVER TEAM YOU'RE ON]!

sachertorte

03-10-2008, 03:52 PM

Have fun (not that you're reading this thread anymore).

I'm currently intrigued by NAF's list. It's a bit long for my taste and forecasting into the future is troublesome at best, but essentially I agree with NAF. Everyone should be stating RIGHT NOW who they think might have been recruited Night One and Night Two. Not that they end up lynching these people, but just keeping a record of peoples' mindset is an important piece of information.

Plus, I think stating that NAF suspects scum will recruit experienced players is a good way to make scum think twice about recruiting experienced players. Which is good for Town.

However, if the Boss isn't on NAF's list, then NAF is doing the Boss a favor by asking the Vig to target these players and not the Boss. I don't think NAF is doing such a thing to be scummy, it's just a consequence of his actions so far. It's Phase One people! Look for the Boss, don't concern yourselves about recruits.

fluiddruid

03-10-2008, 10:01 PM

Wow. A lot of role claims popping up here in the home stretch.

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 09:04 AM

Menocchio is correct in pointing out how incredibly bad the Town is playing. Half the Town sat on their vote all DAY. I suppose it doesn't help that the Weekend plops in mid-day, so nothing happens until the last day and a half (Monday and half of Tuesday). That's probably the most anti-town aspect of the game right now.
Town absolutely needs to get moving on Thursday and Friday, before the weekend. Unfortunately, everyone will "re-read the thread" on those days and not get enough out in the open.

I still think the setup is skewed pro-town, but the way Town is playing, they certainly are intent on making it easier for scum.

I think HazelNutCoffee is on the right track. I like her list:
dotchan
chrisk
Santo Rugger
Hawkeyeop
Darth Sensitive
OneCentStamp

Not so much as lurkers, but people who have kept their noses clean. She's played scum a few times now, so she knows the scummy tendency is to not be controversial in any way shape or form.

I'd give passes to dotchan and Santo Rugger. dotchan had that weird statement about the off-board game which I don't see scum posting as I think scum like to give vague reasons for not posting rather than specific ones. Santo Rugger's absence is unusual for him, but he certainly doesn't have a tendency to duck when he's scum (though with recruitment {Boss} he might act differently).

So I'd probably follow HazelNutCoffee on the OneCentStamp lynch. Though I'd be content with a chrisk, Hawkeyeop, or Darth Sensitive lynch too. Probably Hawkeyeop for bad meta-game reasons (endgame survivor of YST).

Lynch and Vig these people! Not the "suspicious" ones!

ShadowFacts

03-11-2008, 10:05 AM

What a frikkin' mess! I cannot believe Mennochio claimed Doctor that soon. Terrible move, IMO, if he really is the Doctor. (And he probably is, given the lack of counter-claim).

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 10:24 AM

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 10:35 AM

I disagree with Blaster Master. I've already stated that I agree with HazelNutCoffee so that shouldn't be a surprise. I'd go after the people on her list because they've kept their nose clean. Lurking is a way to keep ones nose clean, but its not the only way. And that list is a bunch of people who have kept suspicion off themselves. Which is precisely what scum want. Townies don't care if people suspect them, they expect it. Scum avoid suspicion as much as possible.

It's almost like a political campaign, but instead of tossing out political buzzwords like "9/11" or "family values" we castigate something by calling it a "lynch the lurker" plan thereby making it "bad" without actually discussing the meat of the idea or issue:
1) lynching a lurker is a good idea, and
2) lurkers just happen to fall into the set of clean-nosers, and
3) regarding the continuum of games, we as a group need to drive the message that keeping townies keeping oneself clean is BAD BAD BAD. Unfortunately, the CapnPitt lynch merely encourages such town behavior.

In fact, if I were HazelNutCoffee, I'd point out the CapnPitt issue as the precise reason why voting for someone who hasn't stuck their neck out makes sense.

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 10:52 AM

HazelNutCoffee and I are One:

Also - and I'll make this point in further detail Tomorrow - I don't see why lynching lurkers is a bad thing. First of all I'm not advocating lynching lurkers out of hand. My theory is that scum want to avoid suspicion at all costs (and maybe it's a bit crazy, but stick with me here). So they'll do their best to appear bland, reasonable, and otherwise harmless. In general, townies tend to stick their necks out and say stupid things that end up getting them led to the gallows. Look at how many townie power roles were on the block toDay, for example. Hell, look at CapnPitt. Scum are more likely to make "slips" rather than to say outright controversial or stupid things. This is why I'd rather go after those players laying low, at least this early in the game.

Coffee and sachertorte do go well together.

ShadowFacts

03-11-2008, 11:59 AM

HazelNutCoffee and I are One:

Coffee and sachertorte do go well together.

I agree with both of you.

ShadowFacts

03-11-2008, 12:05 PM

I think Menocchio was put in a bad situation. The timing was not ideal, but not his fault. He claimed because he felt the wagon was heading his direction and he wouldn't be around to claim later. He has not posted since his claim, which is precisely why Menocchio is correct about people getting votes in earlier and not waiting until the end of the Day. Menocchio needed to make a claim or not-claim decision based on incomplete data. I think he did the right thing.

You'll not find anyone who more vehemently supports early voting than me. I tried to get a system for early voting going in The Conspiracy, but I couldn't get enough people behind it.

You're right that it was bad timing for Menocchio, but I still think it was early. It's too bad he couldn't have waited a little longer to see what the reaction to Hal's claim was. Oh well.

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 12:50 PM

The ironic thing about The Conspiracy game is that our unintentional bad play turned out to be pretty good for us. The Conspiracy had a weird information inversion setup where perfect information a priori benefits scum far more than Town.
I'm pretty sure that's not the case in this game though.
We had two claims on Day One and one fake claim who got lynched.
On Day Two we had one claim and ended up lynching a Mason, which is the weakest role in that game. Most importantly, we avoided unnecessary additional claims.
Day Three was a secret information driven lynch that ended up lynching scum because the witches found scum and were able to pull off a lynch without a claim.
Everything after Day Three was fully information driven.
With unlimited recruitment, Town will not be able to rely on power-role information to guide their lynch choices. On the other hand, Town doesn't need to kill 10 scum (no vig) either.

Drain Bead's roleclaim has me wondering.
Again, the irony is that my play in The Conspiracy pretty much set the table for power roles withholding information from the Town, but something about Drain Bead's 'I'm not going to tell you what I found on Night Two, but I breadcrumbed it.' statement really bothers me. Town seems to be taking this to mean that Drain Bead found a power role and didn't want to expose the role, but just stating "Town" would have been sufficient.
At first I thought maybe she found a Mason and didn't feel the need to reveal since Masons can roleclaim and save themself from lynch. But this theory doesn't dovetail with Drain Bead breadcrumbing the information. Actually, nothing really pops out to me as a reason to breadcrumb the info at all.
My theory is that Drain Bead was recruited on Night Two and has not yet been given the opportunity access the scum boards. I think Detectives retain their powers, which is problematic for my theory as that necessitates that Drain Bead investigated scum on Night Two and that's why she's information starved. Occam would not be proud, as this scenario is needlessly complex. It's probably a bad theory, but one to consider none-the-less since Drain Bead's willingness to confirm hotflungwok contrasts sharply with the information withholding for the Night Two investigation. Perhaps there is a reason, but if anyone ever wants to play the hold back information card, you need to be consistent. Why is she treating hotflungwok differently than the Night Two investigatee? Something needs resolving there.

Rysto

03-11-2008, 01:27 PM

Day Three was a secret information driven lynch that ended up lynching scum because the witches found scum and were able to pull off a lynch without a claim.
Heh, funny story about that...

You see, I used my secret power to investigate fluiddruid that Night and the results were to be PM'ed back to me. Then the vampire killed me that night. However, beforehand we witches had worked out that I would encode my results in my first post of the Day, by starting it with W for Wolf, T for Town, etc. When I saw that I'd been killed, I posted my goodbye post without thinking. I hadn't even received the investigation result. By total chance I started my goodbye post with the word "Well", and Dio and BlaM seized on that and pushed the lynch through. So in reality it wasn't an information-driven lynch -- it was total luck.

CapnPitt

03-11-2008, 01:31 PM

Again, newbie here, but are these last minute rush-to-judgment lynchings standard procedure? I'm guessing they're not, but I'd like confirmation.

Rysto

03-11-2008, 01:32 PM

They aren't when the Town has its act together.

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 01:51 PM

Heh, funny story about that...

You see, I used my secret power to investigate fluiddruid that Night and the results were to be PM'ed back to me. Then the vampire killed me that night. However, beforehand we witches had worked out that I would encode my results in my first post of the Day, by starting it with W for Wolf, T for Town, etc. When I saw that I'd been killed, I posted my goodbye post without thinking. I hadn't even received the investigation result. By total chance I started my goodbye post with the word "Well", and Dio and BlaM seized on that and pushed the lynch through. So in reality it wasn't an information-driven lynch -- it was total luck.

That's funny. I didn't know that tidbit.
I do recall being flabbergasted by the fluiddruid lynch. I had no idea where it came from at the time. I felt much better when I found out it was witch-driven though.

As for the last minute thing, it's pretty standard when the lynch conditions are "top vote getter at X time."
When the condition is lynch immediately when a majority is reached, Town tends to (but not always) gets a consensus before the deadline. (Then they twiddle away the rest of the day because for some reason we think artificially extending the day to the maximum alloted time is "pro-town."

I'd say that Today's lynch is remarkably similar to The Conspiracy's Day Two lynch. Similar result in netting a vanilla townie, which is a good consolation prize for Town.

CapnPitt

03-11-2008, 02:09 PM

Ah, I didn't realize there could be different lynch rules. That's why some are saying vote early and vote often since it doesn't trigger a lynch. Never thought of that rule before.

fluiddruid

03-11-2008, 02:47 PM

Just a heads up, ya'll. We're out of subs so if you haven't read any spoilers, and would like to join up, let me know.

RyJae

03-11-2008, 03:40 PM

Just a heads up, ya'll. We're out of subs so if you haven't read any spoilers, and would like to join up, let me know.

:( Wish I wasn't such a spoiler hound. First time I ever paid attention to this game and wow I'm hooked. Hope when I get a chance to play it's just as interesting as a player as it is as a spectator.

sachertorte

03-11-2008, 04:01 PM

Who is dropping out?
If it is someone with a small in-game footprint, you could probably shove OneAndOnlyWanderers back in. I don't think he got to say much of anything in the game.

Rysto

03-11-2008, 04:10 PM

:( Wish I wasn't such a spoiler hound. First time I ever paid attention to this game and wow I'm hooked. Hope when I get a chance to play it's just as interesting as a player as it is as a spectator.
An off-board game is starting soon that has open slots. It's a closed-setup(roles aren't revealed ahead of time) no-vanilla(everyone has a power-role) game. Another thread has a link to it.

ShadowFacts

03-11-2008, 04:19 PM

ShadowFacts

03-11-2008, 04:22 PM

Drain Bead's roleclaim has me wondering.
Again, the irony is that my play in The Conspiracy pretty much set the table for power roles withholding information from the Town, but something about Drain Bead's 'I'm not going to tell you what I found on Night Two, but I breadcrumbed it.' statement really bothers me. Town seems to be taking this to mean that Drain Bead found a power role and didn't want to expose the role, but just stating "Town" would have been sufficient.
At first I thought maybe she found a Mason and didn't feel the need to reveal since Masons can roleclaim and save themself from lynch. But this theory doesn't dovetail with Drain Bead breadcrumbing the information. Actually, nothing really pops out to me as a reason to breadcrumb the info at all.
My theory is that Drain Bead was recruited on Night Two and has not yet been given the opportunity access the scum boards. I think Detectives retain their powers, which is problematic for my theory as that necessitates that Drain Bead investigated scum on Night Two and that's why she's information starved. Occam would not be proud, as this scenario is needlessly complex. It's probably a bad theory, but one to consider none-the-less since Drain Bead's willingness to confirm hotflungwok contrasts sharply with the information withholding for the Night Two investigation. Perhaps there is a reason, but if anyone ever wants to play the hold back information card, you need to be consistent. Why is she treating hotflungwok differently than the Night Two investigatee? Something needs resolving there.

Also, since DB is a sub for Idle, it would not surprise me at all that Idle was recruited early. He's a one-man chaos machine!

chrisk

03-13-2008, 11:44 AM

ShadowFacts

03-13-2008, 12:30 PM

Hi, everybody!

I'm starting to think that I'm not really a mafia fan, but still, I didn't want to get bumped out quite that early. Oh well!

From inside, I suspect that the town is SOL. But we'll see.

Yeah, I'm interested to see what Koldanar, who has claimed Vig (now a Priest due to his killing you) will say as to why he offed you.

I think it's way too early to predict an outcome - too many variables.

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 12:34 PM

chrisk

03-13-2008, 12:45 PM

chrisk was on my "If I were the Vig I'd kill you" list, mainly because I agree with HazelNutCoffee that you were too clean. I'm not sure if I would have picked you over Hawkeyeop, Darth Sensitive, or OneCentStamp, but I think the Vig picked from a decent pool.

This development bodes well for scum though. Lack of a Vig makes the Boss's life expectancy significantly better.

But not recruiting on Night One seems like an awfully bad choice for scum.

Died because I was too clean, hehe.

I don't seem to be able to avoid setting off scumdar, alas. This time I was definitely trying to fly under the radar, after making a very bold proposal last time and becoming a very controversial character who was always on the vote lists as I recall. (And being unable to convince people that no, I had NOT cop roleclaimed, darnit!)

It seems to me, though, that a lot of mafia games around here have so much Vizzini-ing... "Oh, but a very clever scum would KNOW that we'd expect townies to do such-and-such, and therefore doing that is a scum tell." I don't really have a lot of patience for those kinds of psychological frame jobs.

ShadowFacts

03-13-2008, 12:47 PM

But not recruiting on Night One seems like an awfully bad choice for scum.

No kidding. There are only two possible reasons I can think of:
1. Throw the town a curveball, since they would likely be expecting a recruit. (Sorta worked, but what did it gain?)
2. Newbie boss.

#2 only makes sense assuming the role assignments were random.

fluiddruid

03-13-2008, 12:52 PM

Role assignments were randomly assigned.

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 01:12 PM

(Sorta worked, but what did it gain?)
Besides making Idle Thoughts smile, nothing.

Town gave scum a freebie in going no-lynch on Day One. Strategically, town probably should have lynched, but from a 'either we lynch Town, or we restart the game anyway' point of view I think Town did the right thing.

By not recruiting, scum gave back whatever it was Town gave up with the no-lynch.

What I really want to know is why the Boss chose OneAndOnlyWanderers. That seems like a peculiar choice to me. Is there anyone in the game who is particularly close to OneAndOnlyWanderers? Perhaps a friend?

OAOW hasn't done much in mafia games lately to have caused the ire of anyone.
He killed Santo Rugger and Cookies in YST, but I don't see Santo Rugger killing OAOW out of spite, and certainly not giving up the chance to recruit.

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 01:18 PM

Oh yes! Hal Briston go!
lynch Darth Sensitive. That will be two on HazelNutCoffee's Must Die list.

I like this very much.

And I agree that Darth Sensitive's post could be construed as scum trying to act "Woe is Town". That he posted the information before dotchan's reveal is only more condemning.

I wish I noticed that post. I don't generally pay attention to Night Posts. Maybe I should start.

I do question whether or not the wagon against Darth Sensitive will make it all the way to Tuesday. Sometimes I think that when something like what Hal Briston brings up should be kept under wraps for a few hours. Just so everyone's thoughts can be brought up before the info gets out there. Hmmm.

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 01:31 PM

Eureka

03-13-2008, 02:01 PM

I hate vague claims like "I think the Vig has outed himself and should claim"--mostly because as an erratic spectator--with poor scumdar--I never have a clue who is suspected of being the Vig, and I like having reasons or post numbers so I can investigate past behavior. Or at least a name.

And now, at least two people have admitted that the person they thought had outted themselves as Vig was not the person who has claimed ex-vig. Of course, the whole ex-vig bit clouds the issue.

But given the potential for false positives and sneaky scum--and people just approaching roles differently from each other, I think vague statements like "I think the Vig outted himself and should claim" are more likely to cause reactions from people other than the suspected Vig than from the suspected Vig.

Rysto

03-13-2008, 02:20 PM

In general, I'd be afraid of saying that "I think that so-and-so is X power role" because if so-and-so is scum, then they could easily lie. But in the case of the Vig, the real Vig would solve that problem quickly, so that's not a consideration.

Here's the question I have: if BlaM thought that hotflungwok is the Vig, why the hell did he vote for him yesterDay?

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 02:26 PM

Because he's scum!

ShadowFacts

03-13-2008, 02:55 PM

What did everyone think about the "I think the Vig has outted himself and should claim" bit?
When it was happening I thought it was a awfully bad way to approach the problem. I think if such a discovery were to be made, the person thinking he found the Vig should actually state who they think is the Vig. Asking the whole group to have have the Vig step forward seems kind of bad. And of course would look really scummy.
By explicitly stating who one thinks is the Vig, the problem can be addessed directly with a "Yes, I am the vig" or "No, you are wrong. I am not the Vig." Then the real vig could keep secret.

Moot now, but for future games, such a situation needs better resolution, I think.

I think it's a terrible idea in this game, since 1. the Vig is not recruitable and 2. if a recruit attempt is made on him/her, s/he gets the name of a scum. Claiming negates both of those powers, which are considerable, IMO. I'm frankly amazed that NAF suggested it, and even more amazed he wasn't called on it more. NAF is pretty high on my scum list at this point.

It might be different with a different ruleset, but not in this one.

ShadowFacts

03-13-2008, 02:58 PM

Rysto

03-13-2008, 03:23 PM

Very good question, but possibly explainable.
Yeah, it is possible that BlaM originally missed the Vig tells. But if I were playing, I'd be asking BlaM exactly when he picked up on them.

sachertorte

03-13-2008, 03:30 PM

I was expecting HazelNutCoffee to ride in and vote for Darth Sensitive. Boo!

HazelNutCoffee and I have diverged. She interprets Darth Sensitive's Night post as evidence for removing him from her list of suspicion. I disagree. The list needs to be established early in the game and subsequent actions can't alter the list. Eventually everyone will step in something. Otherwise the list is self-defeating. Simply being on the list will attract attention and votes (OneCentStamp). Besides, Darth Sensitive's post isn't controversial. On the surface, it is a statement of 'obvious' fact. If anything, it falls into the category of "too much knowledge," which is substantially different from the 'controversial' stuff that constructed the original list. There is no way Darth Sensitive's post is anything near what happened to Menocchio and his 'bloodthirsy' comment. Completely different things.
I still want Darth Sensitive, OneCentStamp, and Hawkeyeop dead.

Rysto

03-13-2008, 05:02 PM

Having the Masons claim would be a very bad idea for the Town. A successful recruitment is as good as two night kills to the scum(because they increase their numbers and decrease the town's numbers). Since Masons have a 50% chance of resisting recruitment, trying to recruit a Mason is as good as a night-kill to the Mafia in terms of the numbers. The inherent advantages to the scum of a recruitment over a night-kill make a recruitment attempt the obvious thing to do. Plus, if the scum can out all of the unrecruitable roles then they don't have to ever stop recruiting until the Boss is dead.

sachertorte

03-14-2008, 08:20 AM

Ah, I've re-established my connection with HazelNutCoffee. Excellent. Kill everyone on your list HNC!

Drain Bead's posts have been very well stated. I'm starting to think that maybe there is a secret role or something that makes Drain Bead even afraid to tell us that person is Town. Not sure why though. But the tone of her posts really sound townie to me. So much for my Drain Bead was recruited theory.

And I think everyone needs to really think through the mason problem more carefully. People are throwing out hypotheticals without fully considering what happens next. For example, the notion that a recruited mason could mess with the town by not confirming a real mason's claim. Yes, that would be bad in the short term, but immediately following the lynching of the pro-town mason, Town would know that ALL claimed masons are scum. Not a bad trade and only potentially damaging if the town was facing Lynch or Lose at the time. In general, masons claim before lynch or lose; so I don't think that would be a problem.

chrisk

03-14-2008, 09:02 AM

Drain Bead's posts have been very well stated. I'm starting to think that maybe there is a secret role or something that makes Drain Bead even afraid to tell us that person is Town. Not sure why though. But the tone of her posts really sound townie to me. So much for my Drain Bead was recruited theory.

Hmm... well, let's think about that. The scum know who they are, and would expect the police chief to report anyone else as town. So what could she announce that would even be news to the mafia?

If there was some kind of super-secret town infiltrator who the Mafia thought was on their side, part of their councils, but was really pro-Town, then I can understand DB wanting to stay quiet - she wouldn't want to blow that person's cover to the mafia by announcing that they're town, (unless there's a reasonable pretext on which the scum could assume that she's wrong,) or Judas-kiss that person as an enemy of the town when they're really pro-town and important to keep alive.

But I can't really believe that fluiddruid sticking such a mystery role into the game without letting anybody else know. In about any other situation, it'd be possible to tell the mafia what they expect to hear, give the town some kind of useful info, and keep from drawing suspicion onto herself. Unless I'm missing something?

Hoopy Frood

03-14-2008, 09:47 AM

Since I follow the spoiler board, I know what's going on behind the scenes, and Drain Bead does have a good reason for not revealing the investigation results. Now that being said, I can add a little bit of nudge for those who are interested which I'll put in the spoiler box. I will provide three points of information, each more spoilerish than the previous. None of these give anything away, but if one thinks about the three things one might be able to figure out what's going on.

Basically two people have played very smartly, Drain Bead and the one she investigated.

Certain positions can have powers that are more useful to the mob than to the town. You don't want these people switching sides.

The one she investigated took a gamble earlier (well, actually two gambles), and Drain Bead is gambling that this player had a good reason for why the second gamble was made and she's come to the same conclusions as the investigated player did to the wisdom of the play. There are multiple ways to interpret the results of investigations, since things aren't always what they seem. She's following the same logic as the person she investigated. And she's right to do so.

P.S.: If anyone wants to know the full story of this (or want to confirm your suspicions after reading the spoiler), PM me and I'll fill you in on why Drain Bead's doing what she is.

sachertorte

03-14-2008, 10:04 AM

ShadowFacts

03-14-2008, 10:51 AM

I don't think spoilers are appropriate here.
1) If people want to be spoiled they should go to the spoiler board
2) Nothing prevents people in the game from reading these posts.
3) Spoilers, uh, spoil the fun.

Agreed.

Hmm... well, let's think about that. The scum know who they are, and would expect the police chief to report anyone else as town. So what could she announce that would even be news to the mafia?

If there was some kind of super-secret town infiltrator who the Mafia thought was on their side, part of their councils, but was really pro-Town, then I can understand DB wanting to stay quiet - she wouldn't want to blow that person's cover to the mafia by announcing that they're town, (unless there's a reasonable pretext on which the scum could assume that she's wrong,) or Judas-kiss that person as an enemy of the town when they're really pro-town and important to keep alive.

But I can't really believe that fluiddruid sticking such a mystery role into the game without letting anybody else know. In about any other situation, it'd be possible to tell the mafia what they expect to hear, give the town some kind of useful info, and keep from drawing suspicion onto herself. Unless I'm missing something?

I'm thinking it's less complicated than that. I bet she just hit upon some role she feels is important, and she does not want to draw any attention at all to that person by outing them as Town.

ETA: On second thought, I'm not sure that makes any sense given the current claims...bah, I'm an idiot.

sachertorte

03-14-2008, 01:36 PM

I'm surprised that USCDiver is going after NAF. I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised since USCDiver and I tend to come to different conclusions as a matter of principle; but in this very thread which I think USCDiver read before getting put into the game, we (okay, I) stated emphatically that the Boss needs to recruit, recruit, recruit! Starting as a singleton, recruitment is a necessity to 'even up' the game. Nightkills aren't enough.
So USCDiver comes up with a rather convoluted reason for NAF to be the Boss. I don't get it. Isn't it simpler for NAF to have said that the Boss recruited because doing otherwise is simply the wrong choice... because it is.
"Extra knowledge" only works if that extra knowledge isn't something that we can simply deduce. In fact, I draw the opposite conclusion. NAF and Hawkeyeop are not the Boss. The Boss, having killed instead of recruiting, would not go out of his way to convince the town that the Boss didn't kill. He would say nothing. If anything I would re-read Day Two and see how people reacted to NAF saying that not recruiting night one is absolute stupidity and see if anyone took umbrage from that. NAF was unknowingly insulting the Boss there. If I were in the game I'd be re-reading with that in mind.

Arrrgh. And now the wagon on Darth Sensitive is stalling. Boo!
At the very least USCDiver could have thrown me a bone and gone after Hawkeyeop instead of NAF since he's on the HazelNutCoffee kill list too.

sachertorte

03-14-2008, 01:46 PM

fluiddruid, perhaps you can edit out the spoiler post? Even the un-boxed text is a spoiler. Unfortunately, this means anyone who has read this thread is now spoiled and can't sub-in (At least until a certain someone dies).

ShadowFacts

03-14-2008, 07:51 PM

Rysto

03-15-2008, 08:01 PM

Menocchio made a suspicious mistake in his last post. He claimed that the scum could not afford to attempt to recruit the Capo for fear it would be blocked. But the scum don't lose the Capo recruitment attempt if the attempt is Doc-blocked. Did Menocchio forget this?

Boozahol Squid, P.I.

03-16-2008, 05:40 PM

NAF FOS's USCDiver because I dropped? Cor, just for this audience's sake, I'd just like everyone to know that I dropped pretty much soley because of the monster creating and modding the offboard game has turned into.

sachertorte

03-17-2008, 09:27 AM

I dropped pretty much soley because of the monster creating and modding the offboard game has turned into.
I pretty much thought that. I don't see why anyone would suspect someone because of a substitution. Historically, we haven't done so. If anything, people had been assuming people are more likely to drop because they got a vanilla role; which is obviously wrong from our population set and past history. But to say that Diomedes dropped because he's the Boss is quite a leap and not very fair to Diomedes. I do understand NAF, though, I think. In Sekham there was much discussion about subs-and NAF had a weird (scummy) "I'm not going to lynch subs" policy. In that game two scum subbed out early. I think NAF is forgetting just how many subs there were in that game. Sure two were scum, but a bunch of others (much more than two) were Town.

Oh and, go HazelNutCoffee!

sachertorte

03-17-2008, 09:49 AM

I've been thinking about false claims lately. I believed the wagon on Pleonast on Day Two was unwarranted, so I'm inclined to believe his claim for now, but the existence of the Priest role; and furthermore, the undetermined number of Priests, makes for easier false claiming by scum. Town will avoid lynching Priests, furthermore, the Vig will avoid killing a claimed Priest. It is the perfect false claim for scum, especially the Boss.
This fact has me very worried about Priest claims; but on the plus side it has the potential of balancing the game for scum.
I will be quite amused if Pleonast turns out to be the Boss.

sachertorte

03-17-2008, 02:49 PM

So on the other non-spoiled board for the off-board game I posted a statement this morning about how I learned the importance of traps in The Conspiracy.

Now NAF writes:
I tried setting some traps for the scum on Day 2, for example, that didn't seem to pay off at all. Again, maybe I wasn't subltle enough. But I was hoping that if I called the scum stupid often enough that one of them would respond.

First HazelNutCoffee, then NAF. Who should I channel next?

sachertorte

03-17-2008, 03:59 PM

I feel like I'm just talking to myself here.

I'm shocked at the response that the Town is giving to Darth Sensitive's "defense." I agree that demanding a defense from people is bizarre, but what Darth Sensitive has given is simply, "Town doesn't know what the hell it is doing so because Town has been wrong before, Town is wrong again." I wouldn't lynch him for the defense, but I wouldn't exonerate him for it by any means. That "defense" would be valid for anyone under suspicion. While it might explain his Night post, I'm still wanting the HazelNutCoffee list dead dead dead. Maybe Millit too.

Plus there is this:
I don't have much of a fight to put up.
They all said something to the effect of what I did, before a lynch was imminent. They didn't know who was going to be bumped. I did when I made my post, and I thought it was a bad lynch - I said so. It would have been rather nice to have been proved wrong and for dotchan mk1 to have been scum, but we still have the issue of having exposed our doc, detective, a priest, and a mason to public scrutiny in one day, and that's ignoring the priest roleclaim on day two.
(underlining mine)
Darth Sensitive voted for dotchan.

Lynch him!

sachertorte

03-17-2008, 04:29 PM

Wow. The more Millit posts the more I think everyone will kill her. What's with the "Don't forget NAF and I might both be Town, so when we kill NAF and he turns up Town don't blame me." post. It looks so scummy and if I were in the game I'd be suspicious as hell about it. But I think I've reached a more Zen-like approach to this game from the outside. Millit's post is screaming Town to me from out here. But I know that I'd be all over her if I were in the game. Quite strange.
It's similar to CapnPitt. When he first stated the I think one of Pleonast and Menocchio is scum statement, I jumped on it. It wasn't until ShadowFacts questioned me about that conclusion that I realized that I was being silly. With Millit the Frail I did the same thing. My first reaction was, scum! But then I thought about it, and real scum wouldn't state what she just said.

ShadowFacts

03-17-2008, 07:14 PM

I feel like I'm just talking to myself here.

I'm shocked at the response that the Town is giving to Darth Sensitive's "defense." I agree that demanding a defense from people is bizarre, but what Darth Sensitive has given is simply, "Town doesn't know what the hell it is doing so because Town has been wrong before, Town is wrong again." I wouldn't lynch him for the defense, but I wouldn't exonerate him for it by any means. That "defense" would be valid for anyone under suspicion. While it might explain his Night post, I'm still wanting the HazelNutCoffee list dead dead dead. Maybe Millit too.

Plus there is this:

(underlining mine)
Darth Sensitive voted for dotchan.

Lynch him!

Yeah, your pal Hazel caught it:
"I just have one question for you, Darth. If you were so convinced the dotchan lynch was a bad one, why did you vote for her?"

Great question, and if more people catch on to it, he's toast.

PS. Sorry I haven't been posting much. I'm trying to keep up, but I'm in tech week for show, so time is tight. I think I'm doing better than some people in the game, though :p

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 09:08 AM

Wow. What a train wreck!

What exactly is the reason for voting NAF? Everyone is voting for NAF because he seems "scummy" but no one is actually stating what that entails. Town really sucks at this. I have no idea whether Darth Sensitive is scum or not, but I'm fairly sure that NAF is Town. At the very least NAF is not the Boss. MHaye's analysis from the Day before pretty much nailed that one. Stupid stupid lynch choice. And yet, MHaye votes for NAF.

And Millit! Actually accusing NAF of fishing for information as he asks the Town to explicitly state their suspicions. WTF? That's what Town should be doing.... every day... every hour! NAF shouldn't even need to ask Town to do this, it should be a given. To call such discussion fishing is so far off the mark of what Town needs to be doing, I'm flabbergasted.

Town needs to state suspicions all the time. They will need this information later to see shifts in loyalty and reasoning. Gaaah!

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 10:21 AM

(snip)
I suspect someone has shown thier colors as scum, I am just unable to see who it is.

It's Blaster Master
1) He's been atypically quiet Today.
2) He points out that NAF had the same point as he regarding Night One, all while NAF is about to die... with Blaster Master's vote on NAF.
I view Blaster Master's actions as very scummy. He was so helpful to Town early in the game, and now he's so not. He's aligned himself as thinking the same thing as NAF. That looks like scum knowing Town is about to become confirmed town to me.
3) He's voting for NAF, and I don't know why. He's the first voter so there's some early Day stuff in there, but it seems to me that the only possible reason Blaster Master could be voting for NAF is that he thinks NAF was recruited, which is a bad reason at this time.

I'm suspicious of both Blaster Master and MHaye for that reason.

Well at least NAF can keep me company here in this thread. At least until he spoils himself.
I think more watchers should watch unspoiled. I think it is more instructive that way.

Also, I'm about to go crazy from all the unsubstantiated voting going on here and in the off-board game. I think we as a player base need to reevaluate the votes with no reason conundrum. Fake reasons like "He's number 2 on my list" are not helpful. Even proxy reasons like "For reasons I outlined before" are not helpful. It takes some work (or maybe a simple cut and paste) to put the reasons for a vote right there NEXT TO the G.D. vote, but doing so is so much more helpful to Town, I don't see why we don't enforce that more often.

I'm still in the dark as to why NAF is up for lynching. Was it his stupid list? The list that is really really pro-town? WTF? Everyone should be stating who they think were recruited each night.

I think I'll channel zuma next: Stupid Town!

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 10:38 AM

The self-vote is very troublesome. I don't see why NAF did it. I'm sure he will explain his reasons shortly to us. If he simply unvoted and left himself with no vote, the vote tally would be 9-8. Possible to get a DS lynch. but at 10-8, no chance at all.

Looking at the vote count, I think NAF's biggest mistake was shotgun voting (which I would argue belies his Towniness, but Town doesn't seem to want to concern itself about these things).

NAF voted for: Blaster Master, Millit, bufftabby, and Darth Sensitive Today.
All but Darth Sensitive are voting for NAF. NAF pretty much begged Millit and bufftabby to vote for him. Blaster Master I think could have 'gotten over' NAF's vote, but Millit and bufftabby look like they are prime candidates for "Well you're voting for me and I'm not scum, so you must be scum" reasonings. Not good for NAF.

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 10:44 AM

NAF,
I have a meeting at 12PM EDT.
If you could keep yourself unspoiled, I'd like to chat with you when I get back this afternoon.
I'll be shocked if you turn up as scum.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 11:02 AM

Its a tad early, but I am good and dead, so I thought I would say hi!

I screwed up that last Day but good, sorry bout that.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 11:03 AM

NAF,
I have a meeting at 12PM EDT.
If you could keep yourself unspoiled, I'd like to chat with you when I get back this afternoon.
I'll be shocked if you turn up as scum.

Just saw this.

Happy to chat, I would be shocked too.

Off to read the thread.

chrisk

03-18-2008, 11:38 AM

Hey NAF, welcome to the afterlife. (Does that make me one of the five people you see in heaven? :D )

I always believed in you, too bad I couldn't help you out this time.

ShadowFacts

03-18-2008, 11:59 AM

It's Blaster Master

I agree, he's looking pretty scummy to me. He keeps posting things like this...
I thought this discussion was already pretty much settled.
...when someone questions him. It's very subtle, but he argues from authority and tries to belittle those who are arguing against him. It stifles conversation, IMO, which is usually anti-town.

Similarly, I think the "let's not waste another day talking about me" tactic, tried here by NAF and brewha in a previous game, just doesn't work. I understand the motivation and it makes perfect sense when you know you're town, but for those who don't know (i.e. most of the town), it can come off as conversation stifling: "don't talk about me," which reads scummy. I think Townies under the gun should avoid this tactic (no criticism intended, NAF).

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 12:07 PM

I agree, he's looking pretty scummy to me. He keeps posting things like this...

...when someone questions him. It's very subtle, but he argues from authority and tries to belittle those who are arguing against him. It stifles conversation, IMO, which is usually anti-town.

Similarly, I think the "let's not waste another day talking about me" tactic, tried here by NAF and brewha in a previous game, just doesn't work. I understand the motivation and it makes perfect sense when you know you're town, but for those who don't know (i.e. most of the town), it can come off as conversation stifling: "don't talk about me," which reads scummy. I think Townies under the gun should avoid this tactic (no criticism intended, NAF).

No, it's not a bad critisism. The thing is, I was starting to become a lightning rod, and then EVERYONE in the game started to get a major case of confirmation bias.

What really pissed me off were the LARGE number of people who voted for me with no reason at all. And still no one would put together a case against me. No one ever did. They said they did, but none existed, just a bunch of "NAF sure is scummy" votes.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 12:40 PM

No, it's not a bad critisism. The thing is, I was starting to become a lightning rod, and then EVERYONE in the game started to get a major case of confirmation bias.

What really pissed me off were the LARGE number of people who voted for me with no reason at all. And still no one would put together a case against me. No one ever did. They said they did, but none existed, just a bunch of "NAF sure is scummy" votes.

I will also say (before I get spoiled) that as of the end of that Day, I no loger think BlaM is town. I looked at who drove the lynch train, and BlaM didn't just drive it, he built it, laid the tracks, and stoked the fires when it slowed.

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 12:43 PM

Wow. I'm glad that you changed your vote NAF. At the very least, I'm pretty darn sure that Darth Sensitive is scum now.
1) His participation has been ridiculously sparse during the last Day. Yet he's totally available to change his vote to save his own skin. He's very much lurking scum.
2) He proclaims that he thinks NAF is Town. Gee, how would he know that? Town wouldn't state it. He's scum that doesn't want to be on the lynch bandwagon. Everyone would understand why Darth Sensitive changed his vote, but by explicitly stating it, I'm getting a deep "Oh I don't want to do this because I'm an innocent Townie and I don't like lynching other Townies"

Gaaah.

Anyway. You're better of here NAF.

And did anyone else notice that HazelNutCoffee is also channeling zuma? We're totally in sync this game. I'll be really pissed if HazelNutCoffee turns out to be scum.

My hope is Millit the Frail keeps her mouth shut long enough* for HazelNutCoffee to get Darth Sensitive lynched.
* which is totally against what I'd been railing against the Town about, but seriously, everything she says makes me think Town will kill her. And I think she's Town!

NAF,
I was totally on board with your list. I don't know why everyone reacted the way they did to it. The only thing I would have done differently is I wouldn't have listed everyone on your list as a list for the future. I would have stated each morning who I thought would have been good lynch candidates based on the interactions of the previous Day. Keep a running log.
The problem with forecasting, is it is necessarily imprecise. Better to keep running commentary.

What really pissed me off were the LARGE number of people who voted for me with no reason at all. And still no one would put together a case against me. No one ever did. They said they did, but none existed, just a bunch of "NAF sure is scummy" votes.
I totally noticed that. The real problem is that Townies must be doing it. There aren't enough scum to warrant that much 'laziness.'
Town continues to follow the 'lynch the vocal' policy to its severe detriment.

Rysto

03-18-2008, 12:52 PM

Also, I'm about to go crazy from all the unsubstantiated voting going on here and in the off-board game. I think we as a player base need to reevaluate the votes with no reason conundrum.
Hey sach, I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from commenting on the off-board game in this thread. NAF and I are both playing in it.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 12:52 PM

I totally noticed that. The real problem is that Townies must be doing it. There aren't enough scum to warrant that much 'laziness.'
Town continues to follow the 'lynch the vocal' policy to its severe detriment.

I know, I caught flack for being lazy when I asked people to check my work. But no one ever checked. It's why I dropped the Dio/USC thing. I wasn't sure if I was onto something or not, so I put it out there and asked for people to take a look and I got called lazy.

I asked for people to make a case against me, all I got were people saying they had, to which my only responce could possibly be "no, you haven't", because they hadn't.

This was a very frustrating game, because I know there are only 2 scum out there and it HAD to be town participating in most of this bad behavior. But mostly I think Pleo was right when he said I had caught your funk from YSI.

Also, it is true what I said about being a rookie. I have never managed to make it past Day 3 when I was town, and I have only made it that far once. I have no idea how to play town, only how to play as scum. And it is hard to break the scum habbit, it's another reason why I felt I needed to get killed. I was starting to sew chaos without realizing it until after I had posted. But most of that Day was me grasping at straws trying to get someone to say something to make me think I might be right.

That was probably not a great strategy. :smack:

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 01:11 PM

Hey sach, I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from commenting on the off-board game in this thread. NAF and I are both playing in it.
Huh? It's a general comment, nothing specific and nothing even remotely spoilerish.
I'm unspoiled in both places anyway.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 01:13 PM

oh and, I plan on staying unspoiled for as long as I can take it (might not be long).

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 01:24 PM

NAF,
I am very much with you on the notion of setting traps, but you can't force it. Let the opportunities arise naturally and then take advantage of them. Explicitly making statements "for effect" will be interpreted as scummy. Either we need to learn that doing so isn't necessarily scummy, or you need to be aware that doing so will probably end up biting your ass. Town has a remarkable ability to look at the action without looking at the motivation for the action. Of course if I were in the game, I'd probably have been calling for your head too :D

In Conspiracy, the 'trap' I 'set' (it wasn't so much I set it, as it just sort of happened), was the knowledge that I knew I was truthful and that I knew that two of the three scum factions would know that I was being truthful. So I shut my trap and watched what others were saying. HazelNutCoffee ended up tipping her hand which I didn't notice at the time, but became helpful later. (Which is also why she is so suspicious of Darth Sensitive).
I think the best traps are when you notice something but hold onto that tidbit for a few days (not Days) to get people to talk about it, then share your findings.
I think all too often Town wants information and they want it right now! Sometimes waiting to the end of the Day is optimal.

Even in YSI, there was potential for traps that Town didn't exploit. They should have gotten everyone talking before the dossier reveals. Get scum to commit to a vote before the reveal and potential information could have been had.

oh and, I plan on staying unspoiled for as long as I can take it (might not be long).
Yes! Stay with us. I get lonely talking to myself in here.

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 01:36 PM

NAF,
I am very much with you on the notion of setting traps, but you can't force it. Let the opportunities arise naturally and then take advantage of them.

Well sure, when you say it like that is sounds so easy! I actually learned a lot about playing town in this game. Like I said, all I knew before was how to play scum and how town "should" play, but there is a greater level of subtlety to how town "should" play than I had understood while I was watching. I don't even know if it is something I can put into words, but I was playing 100% how town "should" play in this game, while at the same time playing like scum.

It is interesting.

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 01:44 PM

I had an epiphany.

I think NAF, since you've modded so many games now and you've played scum a few times, you have a better sense of what scum will do and won't do. The rest of the players don't have that yet. So your reasoning and conclusions are orthogonal to the typical player. They see "different" and conclude "scum."
I think we here on the outside are better able to see your posts and motivations more clearly, because we are role-less. Pleonast made a very good point in The Conspiracy that players tend to view the game through the prism of their own role. I think that comment is quite apt. Out here we don't have a role, so we can read everyone without role-bias. So we are better able to look at your wagon and say WTF?

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 01:50 PM

sachertorte

03-18-2008, 02:04 PM

Would you like to channel zuma too?

NAF1138

03-18-2008, 02:06 PM

Would you like to channel zuma too?

;)

zuma

03-19-2008, 06:36 AM

Hey!

sachertorte

03-19-2008, 08:18 AM

Hey!
We're just acknowledging that you are correct.

ShadowFacts

03-19-2008, 10:38 AM

Wow. I'm glad that you changed your vote NAF. At the very least, I'm pretty darn sure that Darth Sensitive is scum now.
1) His participation has been ridiculously sparse during the last Day. Yet he's totally available to change his vote to save his own skin. He's very much lurking scum.
2) He proclaims that he thinks NAF is Town. Gee, how would he know that? Town wouldn't state it. He's scum that doesn't want to be on the lynch bandwagon. Everyone would understand why Darth Sensitive changed his vote, but by explicitly stating it, I'm getting a deep "Oh I don't want to do this because I'm an innocent Townie and I don't like lynching other Townies"

I admit I've only been skimming (scum tell!) the game this week due to being in tech for a show, but I'm not convinced on DS yet. The case against him was mostly his statement about the Day being a disaster before dotchan was revealed. But he posted a very convincing counter-argument listing all the other players who had said almost the exact same thing. It was a solid refutation, IMO.

As to your point #1, he does seem to have been lurking. Normally, I'm as hard as they come on lurkers, but as I think the NAF lynch demonstrated and you stated:
Town continues to follow the 'lynch the vocal' policy to its severe detriment.
So it's possible he was thinking that the more he spoke, the worse it would get for him. I don't like that strategy, personally, but I could see him making that choice and still being Town.

As to your #2, I agree it reads a little overstrong as a "reluctant Townie" vote, but that's parsing it pretty fine, I think. As BlaM would say, I think it's a null tell - both scum and town would have a motivation to say that.

NAF1138

03-19-2008, 10:50 AM

I admit I've only been skimming (scum tell!) the game this week due to being in tech for a show, but I'm not convinced on DS yet. The case against him was mostly his statement about the Day being a disaster before dotchan was revealed. But he posted a very convincing counter-argument listing all the other players who had said almost the exact same thing. It was a solid refutation, IMO.

Of the three people that I thought were potentially the boss based on the bosses behavior, DS is the only one who failed to behave like a townie. I am glad Pleo snapped me out of it and had me place my vote on who I thought was scum. I wish I had done so earlier.

His defense wasn't actually a defense, it was a list of people who were upset at how the Day had gone, and had been upset before the Day ended. He actually sounded (now that I am more clear eyed and not in the game) like scum gloating.

On mafiascum they say one of the classic scum tells for new scum is gloating. Saying things like "oh wow, we really screwed up that lynch." or "crap, that was a horrible Night we sure are screwed now" are considered voteable offenses. What only HNC called him on, was being on the end of that lynch and then distancing himself from it. Scum tell#2. Add to that lurking, scum tell #3, and fitting the profile of behavior for the boss (not a scum tell, but lets call that #4) and I think DS has a preponderance of evidence against him.

Breaking the tie to kill me instead of him is proably scum tell #5, but I don't think anyone will call him on it. Did he defend me at any point in the Day? If he did I would say that should be enought to get him lynched.

This game is so much easier when you aren't actually playing.

One And Only Wanderers

03-19-2008, 10:55 AM

Do you play on mafiascum NAF? If so, what's your monicker?

NAF1138

03-19-2008, 11:22 AM

Do you play on mafiascum NAF? If so, what's your monicker?

No, I can't log on from work anymore (got blocked last year), so I don't play. But I read the games over there a lot.

sachertorte

03-19-2008, 11:31 AM

NAF pretty much summed it all up.

Initially, I merely agreed with HazelNutCoffee's hitlist which included chrisk, Hawkeyeop, OneCentStamp, and Darth Sensitive. When Hal mentioned the Night post, I agreed that Darth Sensitive would be a good lynch of the remaining three. The rest might be confirmation bias.

I may be wrong, and probability says I'm likely to be wrong, but I see too much of myself in Darth Sensitive's play that it makes me think he is scum. In YSI, I was very much keen to lurk and say as little as possible, but I kept an eye on the vote and the end of the Day to be available to do things if things needed to be done. I think Darth Sensitive is doing the same thing.

I didn't know about the gloating angle, but now that NAF says it it makes sense. I distinguished Darth Sensitive's lament from the others because it occurred at a peculiar time. Why just after the Day ended but before the alignment of dotchan was revealed? All the town comments happened while the Day was happening. If Darth Sensitive were frustrated like the rest of the Town, why wait until the end of Day? Why not express frustration when the frustration is fresh?
And clearly Darth Sensitive was monitoring the situation, which is why he was able to post between End of Day and before dotchan's alignment was revealed.

Anyway the big point for me is his excessive "clean nose." Even the slip that got him into hot water isn't mudding at all on the surface. The sentiment is remarkably clean. And given dotchan's alignment, the sentiment is accurate. It's the timing that got him. This reminds me of the slip that storyteller caught on me in YSI. I was sloppy and posted stuff about OAOW without being meticulous. I was sloppy because I knew the conclusion would be correct.

He's been playing clean since Day One, which indicates Boss rather than recruit.
Unlike Blaster Master, who was aggressive and talkative on Day Two, and got quiet recently, which indicates recruit to me*, rather than Boss.

* I'm having some doubts though. I'm debating what would happen if I were recruited. I think I would go out of my way to keep the same level of posting; but I also think that I'd be pissed that I was recruited and put the game on the backburner. Either way, Blaster Master doesn't need to be lynched until the Boss is found.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 12:27 PM

WHAT ARE THEY DOING!?!

I totally died in vain, none of them learned a good god damn thing!

:smack: :smack: :smack:

GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

: passes out in a fit of frustration:

I don't know if going and getting spoiled will make this harder or easier.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 12:29 PM

I'm not surprised that Blaster Master turned out to be a recruited scum (Yay us!). I am surprised that the Town is so keen to lynch him though. They need to find the Boss.

Is it me or has Blaster Master confirmed my suspicions that Darth Sensitive is the Boss? He supposes that drainbead is recruited scum (he pretty much has to) protecting the Boss because Town is getting close, but then points at Millit the Frail. WTF? Why not Darth Sensitive who came one vote shy of getting lynched? Does not make sense unless Darth Sensitive is scum too, especially the Boss.
Furthermore, BlaM being recruited scum and DS being the Boss explains why Blaster Master voted for NAF instead of Darth Sensitive despite believing NAF was not the Boss. He accepted MHaye's analysis that NAF wasn't scum as of Day x, ergo not the Boss. Yet voted for NAF. If Darth Sensitive is scum, that would explain the inconsistency.

Darth Sensitive = Boss
Blaster Master = recruit #1

recruit #2 = MHaye?
recruit #3 = ?

I can't believe the Town is gunning for Blaster Master when they really need to get the Boss.
I'm mostly irritated because it will make the game even LONGER.
Day 5 and only 5 people dead? Ug!

ETA: I was going to Arrrrgh! in long bolded caps, but I decided to divest myself from this trainwreck. I need to maintain my Zen-like approach for Batman.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 12:31 PM

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 12:36 PM

MHaye made the case that you were Town as of Day x (I think it was 2, but I've lost track) because of your acting in a way that scum simply would not. He seemed to have convinced Blaster Master, and if I recall correctly, Blaster Master agreed that NAF was a post-Boss lynch candidate at best. (I'm not going back to look for this stuff, so I might not be remembering correctly).
But the base of it is, while NAF might be recruited scum, he was clearly Not the Boss. Therefore, I find the votes for NAF Yesterday non-sensical and inconsistent. Should Darth Sensitive prove to be the Boss. I'd say that explains Blaster Master's NAF vote and similarly MHaye's. (I'd really need to go back and see what MHaye said precisely, but that's the impression I have).

Rysto

03-20-2008, 12:55 PM

Is it me or has Blaster Master confirmed my suspicions that Darth Sensitive is the Boss? He supposes that drainbead is recruited scum (he pretty much has to) protecting the Boss because Town is getting close, but then points at Millit the Frail. WTF? Why not Darth Sensitive who came one vote shy of getting lynched? Does not make sense unless Darth Sensitive is scum too, especially the Boss.
The way things are going for BLaM right now, were I him I'd seriously consider pointing my finger at the boss right now. There's no chance he can talk his way out of this one, and the longer he can put suspicions off of the boss the better for the scum.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 12:58 PM

What the hell is Drain Bead doing?
I'm convinced she's telling the truth and I want to lynch her.

Why bring up Pleonast at all? Focus people, focus!

Blaster Master is being quite aggressive here, but I think he is lacking care. Drain Bead knowing Pleonast isn't a Priest is proof enough. Why question that she doesn't know the specific role? If Pleonast admits (which he implicitly did), that he isn't a Priest it's obvious that Drain Bead knows he's not a Priest because she knows his real role.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 01:02 PM

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 01:02 PM

The way things are going for BLaM right now, were I him I'd seriously consider pointing my finger at the boss right now. There's no chance he can talk his way out of this one, and the longer he can put suspicions off of the boss the better for the scum.
That thought occurred to me too. But it's something that Town thinks scum would do, but scum are loathe to actually do. At least that was my thinking. I was constantly tempted to false breadcrumb by accusing my teammates and then getting myself killed. But I never did because 1) I was afraid that Town would follow me while I was alive and screw up a teammate and 2) I was afraid my ploy would be transparent and Town would know my false accusations were covering up for a teammate.
So I never did it.
It's a funny thing, because as Town, you think scum would act that way; but as scum, you really don't.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 01:05 PM

That thought occurred to me too. But it's something that Town thinks scum would do, but scum are loathe to actually do. At least that was my thinking. I was constantly tempted to false breadcrumb by accusing my teammates and then getting myself killed. But I never did because 1) I was afraid that Town would follow me while I was alive and screw up a teammate and 2) I was afraid my ploy would be transparent and Town would know my false accusations were covering up for a teammate.
So I never did it.
It's a funny thing, because as Town, you think scum would act that way; but as scum, you really don't.

I tried that ploy once, only without the intention of getting killed, just knowing that I probably would get killed at some point. (Pirates game off site) It didn't work out well. When I did die they noticed that my accusations against my team mate all had a different feel to them and he got lynched next.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 01:08 PM

I think this may actually be in the town's best interest at this point.

No it's fucking not! This is all smoke and mirrors guys, focus! Catch the boss, deal with all the bizzare claims later. None of them matter right now.

WF Tomba

03-20-2008, 01:21 PM

Well, I think Blaster Master's acting scummy. The town has heard a claim that he is the Capo. They should verify this by stringing up either Blaster Master or Drain Bead, no? And yet here's Blaster arguing that they should do NEITHER. No one has any leads on the Boss, so all this "focus on catching the boss!" talk is a total distraction.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 01:27 PM

Oh and the 5% consigliere thing? Total red herring. That Drain Bead is pointing to that as justification for lynching Blaster Master instead of looking for the Boss looks scummy as anything we've seen. I really wonder what I'd do if I were in the game. I'm so convinced that Darth Sensitive is the Boss, but Drain Bead is acting so... weird. I just don't get it. But she's obviously telling the truth since Pleonast didn't refute her outright. At the very least Pleonast and Drain Bead are clearly (or were) on the same side.

It doesn't make sense for Pleonast to be the Boss because if he was, Drain Bead would have identified him as such. It doesn't make sense for Pleonast to be a recruit because he had claimed Priest, and scum have no reason to distrust that claim. Therefore, Pleonast is a lying Townie.
(Am I missing something?)

Drain Bead, despite all the weirdness, is supported as Town by the facts. If she were recruited, this whole mess would not have happened. Plus, falsely identifying a Townie as scum pretty much gives herself up. Doesn't make sense. Not one bit.
Her being scum with Blaster Master is intriguing, but again a really bad scum move; and one that scum simply are not inclined to pursue. Why risk so much for relatively little. So Drain Bead is 'confirmed' town For TODAY. That means nothing Tomorrow.

I think people are letting the game play itself and not thinking enough.

I'm mildly sad that my connection with HazelNutCoffee seems to be broken. Maybe she was recruited last Night!

On Preview: Catching the Boss is of utmost importance. The idea that lynching a recruit today is a lateral move, or even a pro-town move is deceptive. Sure the number of scum stays the same, but the number of Town goes down. Keep that up, and Town loses.
Now, one might argue that lynching Town today is even worse for Town; which in an absolute sense, it is. However, Town must search for the Boss. Catching the Boss stops recruitment. Failure to catch the Boss guarantees a loss. Therefore, lynching anyone who cannot be the Boss is the wrong move. This includes both Drain Bead and Blaster Master.

The only counter argument is at some point, Drain Bead will be recruited, and will work to die before Blaster Master to confuse the Town. So maybe that is a good reason to act Today, but I still think looking for the Boss is more important. Furthermore, finding the Boss ASAP reduces the chances of a Drain Bead conversion.

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 01:31 PM

I am glad I was lynched. I would not want to be in this mess.

IF I was still alive, I would recommend that the search for the boss continue for the majority of the Day, and then, if no good conclusions were able to be reached, the town kills DrainBead.

That is what I would suggest. I would be ignored, but that is the towns problem.

WF Tomba

03-20-2008, 01:38 PM

I just think that at this point, "try to catch the boss" will just end up meaning "lynch a random townie". It doesn't count as progress just because you were trying to do something useful.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 01:45 PM

I see what Blaster Master is up to. (Again, this is biased towards my thinking that Darth Sensitive is the Boss)

Blaster Master keeps bringing up that the Town is close to the Boss and that is why Drain Bead is acting up. He's done it at least twice now. It's an interesting supposition, but an odd one coming from supposed Town. I think he is setting up for if/when he dies or Darth Sensitive dies.

If Blaster Master dies, then Town will look at his posts and conclude that he was trying to mislead and think Darth Sensitive or Millit the Frail are the Boss. I don't think the ploy will work, but I think it is his motivation.

If Darth Sensitive dies, he will say See! lynch Drain Bead.

As for lynching Drain Bead. I kind of see her point. I'd want to be lynched if I were in her shoes. This is why I really hate recruitment. Drain Bead has worked hard to benefit the Town. Now that she's made her play, she wants to preserve her win condition. It's messed up, but I understand it.

The correct play is to leave Drain Bead alive. It sucks for her, but for the Town they leave Drain Bead alive so that she can continue to investigate. Town notes all the investigations and date of investigation. If at some point Blaster Master dies, and is shown to be scum, then Town knows all investigations prior to Today are valid. If he dies and id shown Town, they know they can lynch Drain Bead.
Leaving her alive forces scum to make a choice, Kill or recruit her. Killing her confirms all the information. Recruiting her, well, they can try and get an advantage, but Town will kill her after she stops turning in scum.
That is the best course of action for the Town.
As an observer, I see why Drain Bead wants out. It's a sucky position to be in.

It doesn't count as progress just because you were trying to do something useful.
Actually it does.

WF Tomba

03-20-2008, 02:21 PM

Actually it does.How?
Another thing. You seem to be saying that Blaster Master is scum and he's giving the town excellent advice.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 02:32 PM

Town needs to find the Boss. There is no guarantee that they will fine the Boss today, but there is a finite chance. If they lynch Drain Bead or Blaster Master, then their chance of lynching the Boss is Zero. Lynching from the pool of Boss possibilities both has a chance of lynching the Boss and reduces the pool for Tomorrow. This policy expedites the Boss finding process.

Lets say Town lynches Blaster Master and he turns up scum. Then Tomorrow what do they do? Are they any closer to lynching the Boss as they were Today? So then Tomorrow they end up lynching from the pool of possible Boss candidates that is identical as Today's. They have gained nothing.
So what have they lost? Numbers. Presumably, the Boss will recruit again Tonight.

Aha! You say. But Town could lynch Town today and be worse off! True. But if you suppose that Town could lynch Town today (from the possibly Boss pool) then you also have to suppose that Town could lynch Town tomorrow (with the same chances). In other words, you are merely shifting back the problem by one Day. And in Shifting back a Day, the Town loses one of its own. (If the Boss fails to recruit, then it would be a net gain for Town, but the chances of that are not so terrific).

Of course scum give excellent advice. That's what they do. If scum only gave anti-town advice, the game would be trivially easy. Blaster Master knows that it is in the best interest for the Town to try and find the Boss. He also knows that if he says otherwise, Pleonast and others who have played with Blaster Master, will know something is up.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 02:46 PM

sinjin brings up the possibility that Pleonast was recruited despite the Priest claim.
That I find very interesting.

The problem I have is that if that were the case, Pleonast would simply be truthful to Drain Bead and confess his true role. Unless he wants to get the Town to lynch Drain Bead. Hmmm. It's risky for him though. If he doesn't play the game with Drain Bead, I'd be inclined to lynch him for being the Boss.

It seems to me that the role Drain Bead got from Pleonast is Bishop. She gave everything away by saying his power was used up already (Hal Briston). Sloppy sloppy.

I think Drain Bead is talking way too much. She's giving everything away. She knows that Blaster Master is scum, but why continue to engage him? Why play into his conversation?

And why isn't anyone lynching Darth Sensitive!

Rysto

03-20-2008, 03:19 PM

All right, Hazel, admit it: you've been reading this thread, haven't you?

;)

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 03:45 PM

Ah yes. Excellent.
Apparently HazelNutCoffee and I are still well connected. Just a temporary blip.
Now I will try and use our mental connection to get HazelNutCoffee to start talking about giraffes.

And I don't understand Pleonast; which is actually a Town tell for me. I generally think Pleonast is running on messed up logic when he is Town. Of course he knows things I don't, but I don't see how he expects anyone to buy that Drain Bead revealing his role first is better. It just doesn't work that way. Simply by knowing Pleonast was lying confirms Drain Bead.

Oh wait. Forget the giraffes! HazelNutCoffee needs to correct Pleonast's messed up logic.

sachertorte

03-20-2008, 04:03 PM

NAF1138

03-20-2008, 05:20 PM

Oh and Pleonast lied! I don't see how he feels he can take the high road and say Drain Bead should reveal first. He might be right in that he has reasons why he wants to shut up, but he claimed Priest and now he's claiming not-Priest. The burden is clearly on him.

Why does no one see this?
Why are they treating Pleonast so well and treating Drain Bead so poorly?
Butts need to be kicked.

I think at this point they feel like Pleo generally knows what he is doing, and plays a bit weird. He has been getting all kinds of slack cut for him this game...and I think most of it is because of You-Solve-It.

sachertorte

03-21-2008, 09:19 AM

This is just getting painful to watch.
At least HazelNutCoffee is staying sharp. Menocchio seems to get it too, though his vote for Pleonast is only peripherally helpful.

The thing that bothers me the most is why Pleonast insists on Drain Bead "going first." It just doesn't make sense and he should know better. Even if he has secret information that justifies staying quiet; his posture is downright selfish. He knows Drain Bead caught him; he should be helping her, not hindering her. Though, if you look at his actions, he is tacitly supporting Drain Bead in Drain Bead versus Blaster Master.
The only possible reason I can think of that might justify Pleonast's stance is if he gets a penalty for truthfully role-claiming. And now that I think about it more, I'm convinced that Pleonast is not the Boss and is pro-town. Messy circumstance, but if you think about all the actions and motivations and what scum would do in the same situation, it's pretty clear that Drain Bead and Pleonast are Town and Blaster Master is scum.

Also, the Townies that are considering that Pleonast might still be a Priest need to think a little harder. If Pleonast really is a Priest, he's doing a terrible job of it; and I'd be absolutely shocked.

While lynching Blaster Master is the wrong move, it might help the Town by removing him as a distraction. The confused townies are willing to listen to him!

sachertorte

03-21-2008, 09:36 AM

Okay, I take that back.

Pleonast has made himself clearer in his last post. By explicitly stating that he has additional information that will confirm himself he has made a promise that he will need to keep to stay alive. If Drain Bead reveals first (I still think DB is confirmed so I don't know why Pleonast wants all this weirdness - but hey, no need to rock the boat now is there?), and then Pleonast will predictably say "Yup!" If that's all Pleonast does, then town will have every right to lynch him. But if he can produce his magic bag, then all can be forgiven!
It is the promise that is important and Pleonast needs to emphasize it more:
"I promise my reveal will be satisfactory, if it is not you are justified in lynching me"
No need to talk about Drain Bead or suspicion on Drain Bead or anything else. Focus!

NAF1138

03-21-2008, 12:35 PM

From what I know of Pleonast's role and of the rules, I do not think it would be confirmable by an outside source.

What does that matter, lynch him if there isn't!

God Dammit Drain!

NAF1138

03-21-2008, 12:39 PM

Well, he did say he had a piece of information you did not.

If it's unsatisfactory, we'll fucking lynch him somewhere along the way.

I am starting to understand this thing you have for Hazel, sach.

sachertorte

03-21-2008, 02:35 PM

Oooof. It looks like I need to shut down my Town anger. My bitchiness is transferring to HazelNutCoffee. :D

chrisk

03-21-2008, 02:59 PM

I'm starting to feel like I'm glad I got vigged when I did.

Rysto

03-21-2008, 03:39 PM

If this keeps up the mods are going to start to suspect that Hazel is a sock-puppet for you, sachertorte. ;)

sachertorte

03-21-2008, 04:12 PM

If this keeps up the mods are going to start to suspect that Hazel is a sock-puppet for you, sachertorte. ;)
That would make for a funny re-read of The Conspiracy and YSI.

Pleonast just isn't making sense at all. Why would a recruited Drain Bead reveal the incorrect role? Drain Bead is clearly capable of revealing Pleonast's true role regardless if whether she's been recruited or not. HazelNutCoffee, please hit him with a clue-by-four.

If Pleonast keeps this up, the conclusion will be Pleonast == Boss, which is rapidly becoming the only explanation for his intransigence. The weird thing is, I don't think this is the case. Pleonast is just running on faulty logic.

If I were in the game I'd lay it out for Pleonast. Affirm that Drain Bead is clearly capable of revealing his role correctly whether she's been recruited or not, so making her go first tells us NOTHING about her current status. Furthermore, even if it did, that status goes out the window at Dusk.

Then I'd say, that I would lynch Pleonast if his "additional information" failed to meet two critical standards:
1) confirm his role
2) demonstrate why he wanted Drain Bead to reveal first
Failure on either of these two points would earn my vote to lynch as I would conclude that Pleonast is the Boss.

Okay, HazelNutCoffee... go!

Rysto

03-21-2008, 04:40 PM

YSI would all of a sudden make a lot more sense: it wasn't that Hazel forgot about the game, it was that you forgot to log in and post as her as well as yourself. ;)

WF Tomba

03-22-2008, 06:38 AM

Does anyone have any ideas as to what Pleonast's "extra information" might be?

ShadowFacts

03-22-2008, 02:16 PM

Just now catching up - damn the game has picked up the pace! I can't believe Pleonast's "confirming" information is a stupid breadcrumb he left a couple Days ago. :smack: That's what you were holding out for?!?!

All that said, I'm starting to see what you guys are seeing about Darth Sensitive, not necessarily because of what he is posting (which is little), but because of what seem to be happening around him (as sach has already nicely summed up above). And the Town, despite some inevitable flailing around with an investigated target sitting out there ripe for the plucking, are not letting him off the hook entirely.

I actually don't think it's going too badly for Town Today, appearances notwithstanding.

sachertorte

03-22-2008, 04:08 PM

Please, Pleonast. Help me understand. How does Drain Bead's knowledge of you confirm that she is Town?

Here's the answer. IT DOESN'T. It is perfectly possible for her to know your role and still be scum. She could have been recruited after she investigated you; she could have been recruited as Capo and investigated you. The fact that she knew you were lying proves nothing more than her role as Detective.

Please let me know if I am overlooking something, because as hard as I try I cannot think of a scenario where Drain Bead's knowledge of your role confirms her to be Town.
See, I don't need to play in this game. HazelNutCoffee plays it for me.

WTF! That's it? Pleonast needs to die! That's his "extra" information. Total suckage. Absolutely no reason for Pleonast to hold out. Odds of his being the Boss go up in my opinion.
The weird thing is, I still think Pleonast is Town. If he were the Boss, he would have caved and claimed Bishop earlier. I was certain Drain Bead got the role of Bishop. She telegraphed that tidbit PAGES AND PAGES ago. I'm sure if Pleonast was the Boss, he would have picked up on that obviousness too and would have taken the out.

Can we get back to lynching Darth Sensitive?

And lynch all the people saying Darth Sensitive lynch doesn't make sense. I'm ruthless that way.

ShadowFacts

03-24-2008, 10:18 AM

Hawkeyeop is rightly garnering some suspicion here with his argument with Drain Bead. He actually reads to me as a Townie who thought he found something out but doesn't have his facts straight, but he better be careful. Drain is looking very Town right now, so the more he (badly) argues with her, the scummier he will look. (The lack of Darth on his list is also fairly suspicious.)

Not enough backlash on Pleo for that stupid breadcrumb "confirmation."

ShadowFacts

03-24-2008, 12:11 PM

To follow up on my own post, USCDiver and Hawkeye had this exchange about the latter's list of Boss suspects:

Also interesting that the list is basically just the only players left who haven't claimed a Power Role (minus Darth Sensitive and Hawkeyeop).

All in all a worthless list and suspicion should always fall on people who make worthless lists.

FOS Hawkeyeop
That is the list of unknowns. I don't have a reason to doubt any of the claims, so the godfather lies in the unknowns. If someone claimed priest or cop with no evidence, they would still be on the list.

So he's saying that Darth has claimed? Did I miss it - if so, what did he claim? If not, that's a big problem for Hawkeyeop.

sachertorte

03-24-2008, 12:39 PM

Hawkeyeop is assuming that if Darth Sensitive were the Boss, the NAF lynch Day would have gone down differently. For some reason he seems to think that someone would do something dramatic like fall on his sword if he saw the Boss up for lynch. Why Hawkeyeop thinks this is a better scum ploy than to simply vote for NAF and get him killed that way is beyond me.

sachertorte

03-24-2008, 01:16 PM

A lynch vote with two very nearly tied candidates is likely to contain one scum and one town.

Reasoning:
Scum have every reason to protect their own. While going out on a limb and overly protecting a scum teammate is bad play, when a lynch is uncertain, scum can vote for the townie without too much fear of reprisal since they will be among many.

However, when a lynch is close, what is the dynamic that makes the lynch so close? Scum trying to save a partner will vote for the Townie with the minimum number of scum needed to assure a Town lynch instead of scum lynch. Therefore, extremely close votes should garner more suspicion.

Historical Evidence:
YSI HazelNutCoffee-Diomedes vote.
others?

Application to current situation (a.k.a. sachertorte's confirmation bias):
NAF lost the lynch by one vote. Why was the vote so close? The evidence against NAF was super bad, yet he got lynched over Darth Sensitive. Hmmm.

In other news: lt looks to me that Blaster Master is phoning in his play. He's crazy inconsistent.
1) He votes for Millit because he thinks she's the Boss being protected by a scummy Drain Bead.
2) He neglects the case against Darth Sensitive
3) He switches his vote from Millit to Pleonast! Completely ignoring Darth Sensitive while simultaneously trying to tie Millit the Frail and Darth Sensitive together as 'likely Boss'.

Blaster Master, why not vote for Darth Sensitive?
His move seems to telegraph that he wants himself lynched instead of Darth Sensitive. On the other hand, I would think that scummy Blaster Master would vote Darth Sensitive just to confuse the issue after BlaM dies. But I think this falls into the category of too risky. If I put myself in that situation, I see myself doing the same thing as Blaster Master.

ShadowFacts

03-24-2008, 01:28 PM

Blaster Master, why not vote for Darth Sensitive?
His move seems to telegraph that he wants himself lynched instead of Darth Sensitive. On the other hand, I would think that scummy Blaster Master would vote Darth Sensitive just to confuse the issue after BlaM dies. But I think this falls into the category of too risky. If I put myself in that situation, I see myself doing the same thing as Blaster Master.

I was just thinking along these lines. I think BlaM's play here of repeatedly suggesting Millit and Darth together as Boss candidates is clever, assuming he is recruited scum and Darth is the Boss. Let me see if I can explain this clearly: He doesn't want to focus too much on Darth, because when he (BlaM) is revealed as scum, everyone is going to look back at his posts with ScumGoggles. If he goes after Darth too hard, everyone will think: "BlaM was being tricky experienced scum and going after Darth so that we would then dismiss the case against Darth when BlaM turns up scum."

So he groups them together, diluting the effect, and making his accusations muddy. It's kind of like a triple-cross, with a side of WIFOM. Bah, I don't think I'm explaining it well. It made sense in my head. :o

ShadowFacts

03-24-2008, 01:30 PM

sachertorte

03-24-2008, 04:47 PM

ShadowFacts

03-24-2008, 05:06 PM

I think the off-board game has discovered a very good schedule for these games. They are on a fixed one week schedule too, but Night is the weekend. I think this is superior to the Night = Tues-Thurs setup because it doesn't break up the Day into two smaller chunks that lose all momentum during the weekend.

Today's chatter has been quite boring.

I guess they are going to end up lynching Blaster Master, which is totally stupid. I understand it, but it will end up hurting the Town more than helping, I think.

I think you're right about the set-up.

The Blaster lynch is not great on paper, but it's not too bad given who he is. He's a formidable player, so there is some benefit to taking him out just to keep his obfuscations off the board and his brain out of the scum hive. If we were talking about buftabby or some other newb, I would agree that it is totally stupid. But given that it's him, I wouldn't go that far.

(There's also something to be said psychologically for lynching the first scum - it's very satisfying and can lead to increased vigor on the part of the Town).

Trepa Mayfield

03-24-2008, 10:31 PM

ISTM the way Blaster Master is posting...he seems trapped in a corner, insulting anyone who dares to vote for him and screaming for anyone else to be lynched first. It SCREAMS scummy.

But that's what I thought about Brewha too.

If BlaM is lynched, at least they know to ignore his logic...I mean, arguing over a bredcrumb?! If he stays, he'll keep confusing the town.

GO TOWN!!!

On preview--what ShadowFacts said.

zuma

03-25-2008, 09:31 AM

subs are apparently needed in the batman game. PM Diomedes for info. It was supposed to be quick and bloody, yet seems to be neither at this stage. The mods can't do their jobs so I do it for them. OK I joke, Dio. Now I will be modkilled.

sachertorte

03-25-2008, 10:13 AM

MHaye and sinjin are really pushing the trap that evidence needs to be 100% before acting. They seem to want to an engraved invitation from the Boss to lynch him before acting. I find this suspicious.

For MHaye, I had recruited suspicions from this stance on NAF. I would need to check, but I'm under the impression that MHaye followed the "need to lynch the Boss first" line of thought at least through Day Three. His willingness to vote for NAF (who he stated was not likely the Boss) and now Blaster Master (who is also clearly not the Boss) confirm my suspicions.
Furthermore, this odd behavior lends strong suspicion on Darth Sensitive being the Boss.

Boss: Darth Sensitive
Recruit #1: Blaster Master
Recruit #2: MHaye
Recruit #3: ?