i’m heading home now. i’ll try to make head or tails of the Night actions in light of Red’s flip. i hope i can pull that off.
let’s see what the new Day will bring us. i’m still trying to see why we had two Nights without NKs. one was Shadow’s block although i wouldn’t rule out protection since we don’t know if scum have to nominate someone to do the kill or not. furthermore, no Day kill toDay so either Red thinking he was next to be lynched killed Lightfoot or it was a one-time thing.
There could have been some mechanic where they saved up to perform a day kill, which goes around the protection Inner afforded Lightfoot. Such a move would require some inaction perhaps, as a cost associated with the move.
Inner Stickler, it’s a good idea not to protect me. If you have a self-protect, do it. Losing me is easier to handle than losing yourself. You become much more dangerous to the scums if we can nail their blocker, and with the loss of Red, it’s possible their blocker has to perform a kill instead of blocking.
You should leave your final thoughts with us anyway, just in case.
Told you Skeezix was a great mafia player. 
I don’t actually think they were bussing him (or at least willing to let him die) to save Septimus, though; I think it was more a lack of imagination at that point. Mafia killer/possible Janitor gets caught out trying to take out a townie power role, that’s a slam-dunk lynch, right? Sure you trot out the cover role you’ve been tossing around and hope some townies fall for it, but you know you’re probably going down. Your teammates know you’re probably going down. (Once more, those posts of Septimus’!) You can never fulfill the terms of your chosen cover role. What he heck else does a self-respecting, team-preserving scum do in such a situation but go with the flow? If you’re getting bailed out, it has to be townies who do it, because generally townies are the only ones who can both see the alternate scenarios and argue convincingly for them. Which is (my paranoid fantasy about you having been recruited on night three aside) ultimately what happened, twice.
My instinct is that the switch to Septimus would have been harder for scum than voting Red in the first place (because a scum Red would have made Septimus look a wee bit more townie, perhaps).
Note to self: next time Red Skeezix pings you with a ??? or >< moment in the first couple of days, bite his ankle and don’t let go until he’s dead.
I would like to capture the statements of Hirka, Mental Guy, Diver and I suppose also gnarlycharlie as they relate to both Red Skeezix and Septimus throughout the game. (Like I did with Hirka re: Skeezix above, only with, you know, actual thought put into it.)
I think Skeez could well have just been playing a WIFOM game with his self-votes, aimed at creating doubt about choie and/or getting a townie to flinch in such a way as to create suspicion. If so I’d have expected him to forewarn his teammates to stand firm, which could actually have townie-ish repercussions for both gnarly AND Hirka. There’s a lot of “ifs” there, though, hence why I think it best to go back to the start on everyone involved.
Choie, however, really looks townie to me right now; if I consider voting her again it won’t be for a while.
As an aside, whatever paranoia I had about Inner Stickler previously is virtually gone – as much as that comment after Red’s claim annoyed me (about how Diver, choie and me looked horrible now for jumping all over Red’s butt at start of day), I don’t really think it’s something a scum would say.
Simplest explanation for the no-kill nights is Shadow’s block, plus sacrifice-your-night-kill-so-you-can-bypass-night-protection for a one-shot day kill. Lightfoot’s benefit-to-risk ratio for the scum presumably plummeted once Septimus was dead. No longer any incentive to pussyfoot around with her, if in fact that’s what they were doing before.
I think there’s still some unanswered questiosn, though, particularly with the color for the various roleblocks. If I have any paranoia about Stanislaus at all, it is his assignment of the Suburban block to scum despite the color match to Shadow and Ed. I still don’t get all of that.
Did you really have to use the “R” word? I’m just glad I’m murder bait.
Also, why didn’t anyone accuse me of being Lover with Red Skeezix? I could easily BE a townie and also want Red Skeezix the mafioso alive, for some personal goal reasons. Especially you, Normal; I’m surprised but it really wouldn’t have been a good idea for me to offer theories as to why I’d read as townie but want a scumbag alive. I’m not recruited or Lover, for the record. I would have told him not to bus himself if that were the case. I strongly believe they could have gotten choie lynched today if it weren’t for his absolutely BIZARRE addendum to his role.
That was clearly a tactic to sabotage our thought process, and I’m still reeling from the implications. The WIFOM is staggering.
I like Inner because Suburban tracked him as doing something good, which I assume means a protection, and then Suburban was slain. Crazy theory about him being scum went out the window and I don’t have an alternate theory on that.
Strangely enough, Lover never once occurred to me, maybe because I’ve never seen such a role yet with this group of players. (I think there would probably be a mutiny.) You’d think it would have.
Recruitment makes little to no sense and never did, but I’ll talk your ear off about my paranoia after the game if it would amuse you.
Ah, a cornered scummy rat bites hard and fast. 
And you’re not even cornered, you’re just accused – and by someone who doesn’t have that much cred around here, so why do you snap so? I can only imagine if Normal went after you what you’d fight back with.
Anyway, your paragraph is full of wrongitude. Pizza and I have one decent conversation and suddenly we’re snuggling? (A term I don’t really get. I thought that’s something between scums? Since you know pizza is confirmed town, how does that work exactly?)
Plus you have it backwards. I believed Inner Stickler was town while pizza thought him guilty, and once ShadowFacts flipped town I thought it confirmed Inner Stickler’s, uh, townishness. And I said as much rather vociferously.
Believe me, I wasn’t thrilled by Inner’s double vote on me (hence my “et tu?” post to him), but my feeling is that since he’s probably town, it’s natural that he’d believe a confirmed townie over me, who’s confirmed only as a nimrod. 
You don’t get the same benefit of the doubt that I’m giving Inner due to his role and seeming confirmation thereof by two dead townies, alas. Sorry.
(Off-topic meta pondering: seems to me it’s hellishly hard for vanilla townies to prove themselves. Power roles are riskier to play, but in the end it’s the 'nillas who wind up with no way to confirm themselves. Is that generally true, I wonder?)
Geeze, I know I was being virtually ignored yesterday but if you read my posts where I mention my chart, I did agree that there’s context missing in a strict record of how people finally voted, which is why MentalGuy’s chart is more useful. But nevertheless, one’s final voting record is how one decided finally to lay the cards on the table, and I think looking at those final votes does have some use too.
Let me put it this way: In the end my real reasoning for doubting you is: I know I’m innocent and you were the second person (other than pizza) to lock in those double votes on me. So yeah, I guess there’s a bit of OMGUS in my accusation, but it’s also backed by your votes. (Since you want context, let’s look at that. Who were your original choices yesterDay? Askthepizzaguy(!) and USCDiver. Boy, if you’re townie, you must’ve been incredibly convinced by Red’s story not to have voted him at all yesterDay. I just don’t see how anyone who isn’t made out of semolina flour and tomato sauce could have been so sure of Red.)
Is it really that unusual a word for someone to use when it comes to (what I believe is) a scum who double-votes someone he knows is innocent, helping to start a mini-bandwagon, all to to save (what I believe is) a fellow important scum from the noose? No. I don’t think so. I agree I’ve been vitriolic before but this ain’t vitriol. It’s a strange thing for you to take umbrage about and pick apart.
Y’know, I’ve had people parse my words to the nth degree all game long, and I’ve second- and third-guessed myself like crazy to the point where I completely don’t blame those who don’t believe me because I had no belief in myself.
But after yesterDay I’m not gonna take it lying down. I have a smidge more confidence – admittedly, it might just be the sugar rush from my birthday chocolate muffin talking.
See, now, if I were the egocentric type I’d be worried that this was a veilled threat that I’ll be murdered toNight. (No, I’m not saying that seriously. Scum wouldn’t waste a murder on me. I’m worried for Inner Stickler and pizza though. Uh oh, now if one of them croaks it I’ll have walked into a puddle of PIS!)
Speaking seriously: it’s not like I’m 100% sure of your guilt. I’d put it at around 75% for me, though rest assured it’s not just because of your final vote track record. God knows I’m not very proud of my voting track record for the first few Days. My ignorance on Septimus particularly stings. But the one person I do have Perfect Information Syndrome about is myself – and I know my diagnosis in the Septmus situation involves genuine, blinkered ignorance, not a perfidious attempt to save a godfather. I can’t know that about you – no one but you can, of course. So all I have is your record and my gut instincts, and together they add up as leaning scummy. If that reads as being too smart for my own good to the majority of townies, I guess I’ll swing Tomorrow. If it reads as being dangerous (ha! as if) to scum, I guess I’ll be dead one of these Nights.
But in the final analysis I think I’m an overall nonentity in the game, so I probably will slog my way through the game because there are much better targets for both sides than me.*
This I agree with. 
I really really wanted there to be a Vig. 
And Pizza’s immediate lock on choie meant that as far as I could tell, it would be between Red and choie and I chose wrong.
I haven’t seen a traditional Lover role in a good long while. I’ve seen a couple variations on it. So and so is your X and if they die you lose composure and become a Vig or whatever.
Are Lovers always of the same alignment, or is there a kind of Montague/Capulet thing going on where they’re supposed to be of opposite alignment?
Scum/Town is, I think the most common matchup.
were my words untrue? are you suddenly believing Pizza? the tone in your WOW and your last posts with him are very very different. from a ‘you’re freakin’ dominating everything and telling us what we’re supposed to do’ to ‘now, now. you were wrong. that’s okay. i’m here for you.’ that shift just doesn’t feel right.
as for snuggling, that’s when scum sides with a player believed to be town to give him/herself cred.
P.S. Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday, Choie!
Night ends at 5 tonight, but I’m still sick and at work. Expect a no-color Dawn unless I can get someone to ghost-write it. PMs will be sent later tonight, if any are warranted. My illness has been awfully poorly-timed.
In one game, I, as godfather of a recruiting-mafia team, recruited ATPG. ATPG began as a neutral role, as Lover with a certain townie. Though he was recruitable by me, he was not loyal, so after doing my team the huge favor of keeping our chances alive at the expenses of sizable numbers of town and cult, stabbed us in the back at endgame to win with his snugglebunny. It’s still just a mite tad bit painful, heh.
5 tonight? Eep. I didn’t think I was going to have to prioritize my two games, but I’d really better, I suppose.
Sorry to hear you’re feeling bad, Astral.
Wait wait wait, you’re right. Night ends tomorrow. Sorry for the scare! 
Ah, good. Then I will happily ignore everything again until tomorrow.
It’s called being gracious.
Look, my original frustration with pizza stemmed from what I believed was his trying to push across an agenda that I felt was backwards – targetting people I thought were innocent and exonerating those I believed guilty – and his being such a forceful personality, it made me angry that I didn’t have enough wherewithal to state my cases in a more articulate and knowledgable way, mainly because I’m really not solid on the game rules yet, and because I’ve felt rather ignored (even before yesterday) due to a) my natural reticence/shyness in speaking up and b) not being very useful anyway. So I eventually lashed out, stupidly, irrationally, at pizza, and basically behaved like a tool.
Last night my choices were finally given some credibility by the scumminess of Red. After a brief initial gloat, I got that out of my system and was able to revert to my usual self, who’s a pretty empathetic and compassionate sort. I don’t like to see people beating themselves up, as it’s a pattern I recognize all too well from my own RL behavior.
At the end of the Day I know pizza and I are on the same team, and we both got what we – what all of us townies – most wanted: a scum death. That is more important than anything else in this game. I guess I felt that now we could actually talk to each other about strategy, because now I feel more confident that maybe I have something to contribute after all.
Of course Pizza still harbors doubts about me and thinks it’s possible I was bussing Red, while meanwhile Red was purposely playing badly to make me have more credibility. I understand his pondering such things a bit better now. He has to consider those possibilities, we all do. I know it’s wrong, but it’s certainly a valid possibility. Heck for a little while I was so flabbergasted by his accusations against Suburban, Inner, Shadow and me that I was considering the possibility that pizza was a second godfather, a role I wasn’t even sure exists in Mafia! So who am I to judge what’s possible and what’s not?
Where I disagreed with him was in the way he argued his cases ( first re: Suburban Plankton, then Inner Stickler and then me). But as he stated, it’s just his style. He feels passionately about this and he plays to win. I’ve finally, finally decided that I just need to accept that and stop clashing with someone who’s on the same dang side I am.
Does any of this make sense?
Oh, gotcha. Okay. But isn’t there another term for when scums are bolstering other scums? Like, the opposite of bussing?
Thanks, to both you and Astral! Speaking of whom…
I hope you feel better! I don’t think I remembered to thank you for managing to post the results on time rather than delayed, as you were expecting to. Waiting for those results would’ve been torturous, I think for all of us!
Oy, I can imagine. So are Lovers sort of PFK types, then? Not third-party, but they have different win conditions that relates to both of them staying alive? (Or is that Masons?)
Someday I need to look up this recruiting thing, because I haven’t yet encountered it here on the SDMB Mafia threads and I’m not sure how it works. Basically it means a Mafioso can recruit a Townie? How would that work, via PM? Isn’t that crazy risky, considering that a Townie would surely reveal this attempt to the rest of the players? Or do they get around that by threatening the Townie with a Night Kill?
Usually the game starts with one mafia member who can recruit. Every night they can kill or recruit one member. To recruit they give the mod the name of the player they want and if there is no in-game reason for that person not to be recruited, they get a PM the next Day saying, “You’ve been recruited. Your scumbuddies are at XXXXX” or whatever.
Sometimes a game will have three factions with town, mafia and a cult. Town and mafia can’t recruit and the cult starts with one guy who must pick someone every night.
Recruit no longer looks like a real word to me.
yes. but it’s also possible play for scum. the discussion after this game will be very interesting.
i think plain, defending. i could be wrong.
lovers are linked players, usually from different factions. if one dies so does the other. think Romeo and Juliet.
i’ve never played in a game with recruitment but a lot of people don’t like it. screws with you. while the mod will warn the players beforehand, it makes analysis of post and votes nearly impossible.