# Dante's Action Hero Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [September 29, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988 "2015-09-29T22:59:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![sangfroid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/341 "2015-10-08T10:54:41Z")
**Mosier** , I hear you. **Astral** isn’t exactly on my list of friendlys at the moment, due to his unwarranted attacks on my posting style, but I did learn a harsh lesson last game about lurking. Hell, I’m even on that list _again_ in this game, but it’s just the way I am. If I post a bunch of fluffy stuff to up my post count, I get called on it. If I don’t, I’m accused of lurking. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Weeding out bottom lurkers does seem to have value in this game. That said, there’s no love lost between me and **Astral** at the moment anyway, so I’d switch votes if I thought it would help, but I think we’re down to the wire here and really need to have a kill of one kind or the other to progress the game and open up the analysis a bit. **Plankton** has been MIA, recently. Scum? Problems? Not sure entirely, but we really need a body or two to move on, game-wise. As I mentioned before, **Mosier** , I generally don’t get a scum feel for you, and that’s why I didn’t pile on before. We’ll see if I’m still kinda dense on these matters as the game unfolds. Other players MMV… ---
**Author:** ![sangfroid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/342 "2015-10-08T11:22:53Z")
> [@Plumpudding](#): > > I think what people find suspicious is that you seldom share much your convoluted thinking. > > The last game had us all banging our collective heads against each others. They usually do, and we want to try to get a good outcome out of that. To do that we need to share our thoughts. Instead of just “checking in” or asking for advice. > > I bet you have something interesting thoughts about this game and I’d really like to hear them. **Plum** , a few have added you to their scum list, and I understand why. I’ve been asked to articulate my thoughts more clearly, and, honestly, I am trying to. My current short list has bottom lurkers like **Plankton** on it, **Astral** , for slamming me so hard early on (yeah, I know, revenge voting…), but still, and **Tomba** , somewhat, for continuing to go after **Mosier** , among other things. I know no more than everyone else, but we have a small window of opportunity here as Town. Let’s use it. ---
**Author:** ![Sario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sario/32/18580_2.png) [@Sario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sario)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/343 "2015-10-08T12:36:35Z")
OK, I have some catching up to do, so let’s get started. First, to those that have been looking at/asking about my non-vote from yesterDay > [@Sario](#): > > Ok, we have about 3 and a half hours till EoD, and by my count our vote leader has only half of votes needed to lynch. We have very little room for error so we can’t really afford a mislynch, but at the same time, going into the next Day without a lynch feels like starting over from the beginning again. > > I’m highly conflicted, but I think I’m going to withhold my vote and see what toNight brings. So let me explain what I was thinking here: It was late in the Day, time was getting short. I didn’t have any any real suspects (I didn’t agree with the case against Mosier) and I had to make a judgement call. I figured that with our narrow margin of error, it would be better for town to avoid a mislynch and wait until the next Day when we had more info. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/344 "2015-10-08T12:48:28Z")
Okay, Sario, do you feel you have enough info to vote for a lynch today? ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/345 "2015-10-08T12:57:56Z")
I’m back in the morning. I agree that it would be better to lynch a good scum candidate over a lurker, but I don’t feel that we have a candidate that could get enough votes. Instead, I’ve cast a vote for a lurker who hasn’t contributed to the scum hunting and may be scum. Best case, we get lucky and hit scum. Worse case, we lost a townie who isn’t adding much to the cause. This is a reasonable lynch. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/346 "2015-10-08T13:05:36Z")
Well, that’s 4 votes for **Plankton** , with Tomba possibly joining in. Voting ends at 2 p.m. EDT, so there’s time to consider and reconsider. ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/347 "2015-10-08T13:40:02Z")
Good Morning, players! **VOTE COUNT** Suburban Plankton -\*\* 4\*\* (Hooker Chemical, Professor Pepperwinkle, Sangfroid, Plumpudding) Astral Rejection -\*\* 1\*\* (Mosier) WF Tomba - **1** (Mahaloth) 6 votes required for a lynch. Less than 5 hours left in the Day Phase. Play on, players! ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/348 "2015-10-08T13:47:39Z")
Just popping in to say I’m off to a lecture. Hopefully I’l have time to return an hour before EOD. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/349 "2015-10-08T13:59:19Z")
All right, my proposal to lynch **Mosier** for info has been largely ignored, so let’s get rid of a lurker. **VOTE SUBURBAN PLANKTON** ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/350 "2015-10-08T14:20:56Z")
So, who hasn’t voted yet? Sario (who has chimed in this morning), Astral “Ronan the Accuser” Rejection and the dreaded lurking Suburban Plankton. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/351 "2015-10-08T15:13:50Z")
Continuing my attempt to glean clues from **Dante** ’s narration, I note we’ve been informed that Martin Riggs from _Lethal Weapon_ is in this game. In the movie, he’s a psychologically unstable cop. A good role fit for that character would be the Paranoid Gun Owner, a townie who automatically kills the first player (from either side) who uses any sort of Night action on him. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/352 "2015-10-08T15:42:30Z")
I hope Frank Martin doesn’t run into him. Or the Watcher, whoever that is. ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/353 "2015-10-08T15:47:31Z")
**UPDATED COUNT** Suburban Plankton - **5** (Hooker Chemical, Professor Pepperwinkle, Sangfroid, Plumpudding, WF Tomba) Astral Rejection - **1** (Mosier) WF Tomba - **1** (Mahaloth) 6 votes required for a lynch. Less than 3 hours left in the Day Phase. Play on, players! ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/354 "2015-10-08T16:07:38Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Astral “Ronan the Accuser” Rejection It makes me laugh every time. I prefer Mosier, and I’m torn on Suburban Plankton, but I think SP is a good enough lynch toDay. I’ll be voting for him. I brought you guys some syrup to go with all of the wafling I’m about to do before I type “vote SP,” although I promise I’m leading you guys to what I think is a good conclusion. 😃 * * * My preferred lynch is, just as it was yesterday, Mosier. I intended to vote for him toDay, but wasn’t able to finish my post until deep into last night, where Suburban’s lynch then required consideration. Mosier is my strongest scum lean, but admittedly he’s giving me far more to look at than most any other player. I don’t like that Mosier will be ending a second round of voting with a one-off vote, because he’s actively helping a no-lynch happen, and we all know what I think about that oh god I’ve written so many words about this. 🙂 His vote on SP was all kinds of unconvincing yesterDay, and Mosier rode that vote all the way to the end of the day. I think the SP case is actually better this time around, and now Mosier is having none of it. There are the usual scenarios - both are town, one is town, both are scum - but with my existing scum lean on Mosier, I think this points to a possible scum SP as well. Mosier is in favor of a lynch, but he won’t help one happen. He wanted SP dead yesterDay as a throwaway vote with no chance of pressuring SP, but isn’t interested in his lynch toDay. He’s dismissive of voting for SP for lurking reasons, when there’s literally no defense of his own vote for SP yesterDay. For this reason, an SP lynch is acceptable. The next most likely combination, I think, would be a scum Mosier just doesn’t want to be on a mislynch of townie SP, and is helping a no-lynch along. That’s tougher to gauge. Thirdly, a town Mosier just honestly isn’t feeling the lynch at all, and SP is who knows what in that scenario. Also very possible, but we can’t begin to guess until one of them is dead. To add to that existential waffling, I’m _generally_ suspicious of the speed with which Suburban Plankton’s lynch has appeared. It seems to me that when a lynch occurs so quickly, it’s got the scum seal of approval, which suggests we’d be lynching town. I’m _specifically_ leaning town on most of the people who are voting for Suburban though, so I’m very wrong somewhere in this entire thought process. One of these preconditions has to be false, whether it’s about SP or Mosier, and the SP lynch will help us start to unravel which is which. But this is one of those backwards cases I was talking about earlier. I’m suspicious of SP because of what Mosier is saying and doing. I’d be, in essence, using Suburban Plankton’s lynch to get a good clue about Mosier, which is good for me, but I didn’t want a _clue_ about Mosier, I wanted Mosier solved. SP’s flip gives us circumstantial evidence regarding Mosier, and I think this means we as a group have only one way to play that: If Suburban flips scum, we lynch Mosier. Easy! But if Suburban Plankton flips town, we **have** to accept the alternative most likely to help us win the game at that point, which is that I’m wrong about Mosier, and he’s town. This is like the Monty Hall problem, where I’d be switching my door choice after an empty door is revealed. I’d have serious heartburn about this (that scum lean ain’t going anywhere!), but we can’t lynch SP to get evidence on Mosier, and then lynch Mosier as well to confirm the evidence we just got. If we’re (read: me) wrong about this, and Mosier is town, we lose, because we wasted our lynches. I think we have to choose which of the two we want to lynch, and flat-out accept what it says about the other, because I don’t believe we can spare a lynch for both. I’d prefer Mosier, but it looks like we’ve selected SP, and that’s the next best thing at this point. **VOTE SUBURBAN PLANKTON.** ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/355 "2015-10-08T16:27:00Z")
OK, so both **Astral** and I have said that we would prefer to lynch **Mosier** , but we’ll take **Suburban Plankton** instead since that’s the way things seem to be going. Thing is, those votes on **Plankton** started to accumulate before there was any serious talk of lynching **Mosier** today. We never really gave people a chance to consider it. It’s late, but if we can get four more votes for **Mosier** lined up before EOD, I would switch my vote. How about our non-voters? **Sario**? **Plankton** , care to save yourself by helping us make a last-minute push to lynch **Mosier**? ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/356 "2015-10-08T16:36:05Z")
I don’t think **Mosier** is a good lynch. I’m not sold on the case against him. If you can boil it down in the last few hours before Day Two’s end for me, that’d help, but things like the wasted Day One vote are weak evidence. Is the rapidity of the votes a byproduct of the hastened day/night cycle? We only get two days to make a lynch happen with a majority required. It’s almost forcing a bandwagon approach. Also, **Prof P** had already expressed some willingness to lynch **Plankton** before I kicked off the voting. His jumping on the wagon once I got it out of the station was exactly what I expected. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/357 "2015-10-08T16:39:07Z")
Also, while I think a Day One lynch based on evidence so thin the lynch was essentially random would have been worse than no lynch, I think we have enough information to make our chances of a good lynch better than random. I want a lynch today, and **Plankton** is both viable for a majority and a decent target for the (lack of) contributions. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/358 "2015-10-08T16:42:56Z")
> [@HookerChemical](#): > > [Snip]Is the rapidity of the votes a byproduct of the hastened day/night cycle? We only get two days to make a lynch happen with a majority required. It’s almost forcing a bandwagon approach. Also, **Prof P** had already expressed some willingness to lynch **Plankton** before I kicked off the voting. His jumping on the wagon once I got it out of the station was exactly what I expected. I think part of it could have to do with not lynching last Day… We get no obvious conversation starters and just continue the day, trying to get as much information as possible before settling on a candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/359 "2015-10-08T16:49:44Z")
Plus, lynching the lurker works better than having no strategy, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988/360 "2015-10-08T17:00:45Z")
> [@Plumpudding](#): > > I think part of it could have to do with not lynching last Day… We get no obvious conversation starters and just continue the day, trying to get as much information as possible before settling on a candidate. I think we got a big ol’ conversation starter in the intervention of Frank. What exactly is his ability? How did he pick the right target? Who is it? I threw my thoughts on the matter into the mix, including my opinion of who the NK block makes me think is townie ( **Prof P** ). The only other likely option is that he self targeted the protection and was also the target of the lynch. If that’s not **Prof P** that was the target (and therefore town), I think it implies **Astral** is town AND Frank and **Prof P** is scum. Though this logic makes a series of assumptions about Frank, his ability, and the scum’s target. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dantes-action-hero-mafia/732988.md?page=19)