De'endee Mafia

[Askthepizzaguy]

@septimus

I do assume there’s a Vig and may reconsider Red in the absence of a counterclaim. But what I think now is that among {Shadow, Pizza, Red} either Shadow is the only scum, or both Red and Pizza are scummy. Assuming this is true we have two choices:
[ul][li] Lynch Shadow and either get 1 Scum for 1 Lynch, or 2 Scum for 3 Lynches.[/li][li] Lynch Pizza or Red and either get 2 Scum for 2 Lynches, or 1 Scum for 2 Lynches.[/li][/ul]

We have a claimed pro-town assassin. If you were to lynch ShadowFacts and he comes up INNOCENT, I’d volunteer to be Red Skeezix’ kill, and if he doesn’t kill me you lynch him the next day, and when I come up townie, you could lynch Red Skeezix. All 3 suspects in 2 rounds, but, if Shadow comes up guilty…

Then…

I will say…
MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!
The problem with that plan is that between Red Skeezix and ShadowFacts, it is *probably *the case that only one of them is scum. Though it’s possible they’re bussing Red. And, between those two and myself, there’s guaranteed one to two innocents. Worst case is all three of us are innocent, then we’ve completed the boneheaded townie maneuver of the year, aside from the tied vote in Midgard.

So, in short, I don’t think it’s worth the gamble, even if I think ShadowFacts is a giant ball of scum.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@ShadowFacts

But I am happy to put my money where my mouth is. If Skeezix turns up Town, I will immediately double vote myself and charge it up to 4. That’s how confident I am he is Scum.

No, because you won’t do that if you’re scum, and if you’re town, that’s bad.

Basically it’s bad in both examples, but given I’d be on your team in the second example, I’d request that you not do such a thing, even if I think you’re a giant ball of scum. You do that, and I will vote for you, because that’s such a horrible move that it can only BE a bluff. And I won’t change my mind either, I’ll lock in.
Also, the fact that you ARE so adamant about Skeezix today ruffles my feathers.

(Surprised?)

He’s a claimed assassin. We can tell him not to attack you. We can come up with two suspects besides yourself today, lynch one, and have Skeezix vig the other one.

If he doesn’t do as he’s told, we lynch him.

So, you think he’s a Lord o Slaughter, right?

Well, let’s have the lynchee today pick who dies tonight, IF they flip scum. Basically, they say in advance who needs to die, we lynch them, and if they’re townie, Skeezix kills the player in question, or he dies the next day.

So, if he’s a Lord of Slaughter, you’ll have a chance to force him to expose himself or kill his own teammate.

And, if he’s townie, the Lords of Slaughter have a REALLY LARGE incentive to murder Red Skeezix.

Even if you were sure Skeezix was guilty, why come up with a single attack when you can pull off a fork? We can use the situation to the town’s advantage. Even if we’re wrong on all counts, we get an extra “lynch” out of this, carried out on behalf of someone WE KNOW IS TOWNIE because they flipped as such.

You’re so willing to sacrifice yourself with a silly suicide vote (which is either a bluff or the worst move you can perform), but even if you are willing to take unnecessary risks, why not take some really awesome, calculated ones?

[Askthepizzaguy]

@Red_Skeezix

SNIP

I’m laying this out there: The four scummiest players to me are:

1. Septimus (above)
2. ShadowFacts (above)
3. Inner Stickler (Posting but not saying much, see my case yesterday.)
4. Hirka (Case exaggeration, above)

Red, you are probably going to die today unless we can engineer something where you die unless you vig kill who the town says to kill, or whatever. You’d probably do a lot better if we could lynch a scum today.

However, if you flip town, I’ll go back to my earlier suspicion on septimus.

I do think there’s a scum between the three of you. Possibly two.

[Askthepizzaguy]

[QUOTE=myself]
Well, let’s have the lynchee today pick who dies tonight, IF they flip scum. Basically, they say in advance who needs to die, we lynch them, and if they’re townie, Skeezix kills the player in question, or he dies the next day.
[/QUOTE]

Need to edit: “IF they flip townie” not if they flip scum. Obvious, but still a derrr moment.

[Stanislaus]

I’m not seeing what’s so great about having the lynchee pick the vig target.

Scenario 1: Lynchee is Town, Target is Town, Red is Scum. Red will be only too happy to kill target. We can’t complain, because we told him to.
Scenario 2: Lynchee is Town, Target is Town, Red is Town. As above, basically.

I don’t see any way to distinguish between these scenarios.

Scenario 3: Lynchee is Town, Target is Scum, Red is Scum. If Red ducks it, we’ll probably lynch him *and *the Target. So he won’t. So we do get one Scum, but will we give Red any kind of credit? Why or why not?
Scenario 4: Lynchee is Town, Target is Scum, Red is Town. Red kills Target, we… confirm Red? Still doubt him because we could be in Scenario 3?

Good news: we get a Scum kill. Bad news - we still don’t know anything about Red’s alignment. I admit we badly need a scum kill but… this will only happen if a Town lynchee picks a Scum target. Just being lynched doesn’t give one any special insight into who is Town or Scum. We can’t say for Days One and Three, but if we’d asked Silver Jan this question on Day Two, then going by her vote we’d have killed special ed.

[Askthepizzaguy]

What’s great about it is that there’s a chance that the victim is guilty.

I’m not feeling the popular vote at the moment. People are too divided and indecisive. Case in point yesterday.

[Stanislaus]

That’s just defeatism. There may well be areas of life where a benign dictatorship is a good model, but I don’t think Mafia is one of them.

The key question toDay is obviously the reliability of Shadow. I thought the case against him was a bit overcooked, although there were some points I could agree with. I’ll do a review now but my basic thought this is more likely to be a simple truth than a highly elaborate lie. The alternative is that Lightfoot pops up and announces that she’s investigated Shadow, but given that she didn’t say that yesterDay, I guess that’s just wishful thinking.

On the question of Shadow’s powers:

It boots us nothing for him to use the message power. Even if it proves that he does have the power, it doesn’t tell us anything about alignment. I suppose it rules out a complete bluff, but so does his block of Red. Does anyone believe that he didn’t block Red?

As for the vote power - again, by itself, seeing it used won’t prove anything about alignment. It will prevent the scum-Shadow throws the vote at the last minute scenario, but then so should the threat of being lynched if he does it. The Town player (Lightfoot, presumably) blessed with the double or quadruple vote isn’t necessarily going to use it to any better effect, so it might end up swinging the vote just as much as if Shadow used it. Also, if Shadow’s scum, it’s obvious why he would want to keep the power. But if he’s Town then given that he’s in some danger of being lynched, and has a very clear suspect in Red, it’s just as obvious why he’d want to keep it in case he needs to push Red ahead of him.

[Normal_Phase]

OK I finally have some time to sit down and think. I’m going to do the “Shadow is scum” options first.

If Shadow is scum and Red is not (I keep in mind he could be serial killer who missed a shot as easily as vig, though his claimed choices should indicate at least that he’s trying to look like a vig) –

It pretty much requires coordination and deliberation among the scum, along with a piece of luck almost but not quite as large as Shadow hitting Red in the first place. Red’s comments of day two are in retrospect indicative of someone who might be a vig – this is what I was referring to when I said that Hirka’s case wasn’t rock solid. I don’t know that the scum could or would have seen that at the time. “Somebody should vig this guy” and “bulletproofs usually aren’t town” are far from sure indicators of Red being a vig; and even with an investigator the scum would not have had time to check up for sure before Shadow had to decide on whom to use the roleblock. So while it’s possible this was a great gambit by the scum, and also possible that scum DO have some sort of investigator who was able to figure out Red’s power before night three, neither is a slam dunk. But it’s possible.

Anyway, in this scenario, the entire point is to lynch a non-scum in lieu of Shadowfacts today. They frame up Red by refraining from making their own kill (or perhaps by taking a crack at a probably-protected Lightfoot or some such, figuring if they do get through – hey, win). With no kill on the morning, Red looks like scum. That he was actually trying to attack Shadowfacts when SF blocked him is just bonus. Red gets lynched, Day is a wash in terms of discussion, and even tomorrow’s lynch is not a given, since Red’s role (whether SK or vig) demonstrates that at least some aspect of Shadow’s story is the truth.

If Shadow is scum and so is Red:
This was my first instinct, but I’m not sure how plausible it is. I envisioned a scenario just like the above (only with Red’s active collaboration), aimed at trading a less-valuable scum player for the more valuable one, and getting Shadow and his extra votes a little further into the game than otherwise. The part that’s going against that first instinct is that Red is actually fighting back. Objectively this probably shouldn’t sway me much (shoudn’t Red fight back, to make this halfway plausible? And he’s going to get lynched anyway most likely); subjectively it does, a little bit. Erasing that impression (more or less) is what I mentioned earlier about Red’s unvote of Shadowfacts on day two.

Finally, if Shadow is town:
Then the most parsimonious explanation is that he did in fact catch a scum Red with his fingers in the cookie jar. To believe that the scum tested the protection on Lightfoot or otherwise failed to get off a kill on the same night as Shadow blocks a different one is just too much coincidence for me. I can’t go there – at least one of them must be scum.

As for Red’s credibility in isolation (and if Shadowfacts is town) – his statements about Septimus over the course of night two/day three are suggestive to me of Red’s being a vig. I find it very easy to envision how he could have made such statements, with that role. But it’s not exactly a difficult argument for a scum, either. For the most part Red just hasn’t given enough to go on for any degree of certainty on him.

Bottom line for me: one or the other of Red and Shadow is scum, maybe both. I don’t see them both being town.

[Normal_Phase]

@Stanislaus

It boots us nothing for him to use the message power. Even if it proves that he does have the power, it doesn’t tell us anything about alignment. I suppose it rules out a complete bluff, but so does his block of Red. Does anyone believe that he didn’t block Red?

I think it’s possible, if both are scum, and I’d like to see it ruled out. Odds are fairly decent that the scum possessed Ed’s role from the moment they killed him. (We are getting players’ role and alignment after a Day’s delay; color-wise, upon us finding the second half of said player’s body. Whoever killed these players would have “seen the whole body” prior to chopping them up.) It also, at a stretch, could explain the minor inconsistency between Shadow’s role PM (will get class and role) and the PM he presented about Ed (class and role not given, only power). If the whole thing is a patchwork, that could be one of the seams.

In simplest possible terms: if Shadow cannot demonstrate objectively that he possesses the power he claims, not only is he scum, but so is Red.

Shadow could demonstrate his power by blocking a known town (while LF was also blocked); not only is that impossible right now, but also wasteful if Shadow is town. He can do it by using the vote power*: but he refuses to do that. Or he could do it by sending a message to the only near-certain townie we have right now, who is Lightfoot. I do not understand why he didn’t do it yesterday, almost whether scum OR town. Either should have had some incentive to do so.

• Will the extra votes show in the vote count if the votes themselves are not definitive to the lynch’s outcome?

As for the vote power - again, by itself, seeing it used won’t prove anything about alignment. It will prevent the scum-Shadow throws the vote at the last minute scenario, but then so should the threat of being lynched if he does it. The Town player (Lightfoot, presumably) blessed with the double or quadruple vote isn’t necessarily going to use it to any better effect, so it might end up swinging the vote just as much as if Shadow used it. Also, if Shadow’s scum, it’s obvious why he would want to keep the power. But if he’s Town then given that he’s in some danger of being lynched, and has a very clear suspect in Red, it’s just as obvious why he’d want to keep it in case he needs to push Red ahead of him.

Parts of this bother me, Stanislaus. The threat isn’t today, specifically. The threat is a scum Shadow getting into endgame with what amounts to one extra person’s votes for the scum team (and the ability and incentive to use them in a more focused way than the townies would). I can’t believe you wouldn’t see that, and try to limit the discussion to just the impact today.

[Stanislaus]

@Normal_Phase

I think it’s possible, if both are scum, and I’d like to see it ruled out. Odds are fairly decent that the scum possessed Ed’s role from the moment they killed him. (We are getting players’ role and alignment after a Day’s delay; color-wise, upon us finding the second half of said player’s body. Whoever killed these players would have “seen the whole body” prior to chopping them up.) It also, at a stretch, could explain the minor inconsistency between Shadow’s role PM (will get class and role) and the PM he presented about Ed (class and role not given, only power). If the whole thing is a patchwork, that could be one of the seams.

In simplest possible terms: if Shadow cannot demonstrate objectively that he possesses the power he claims, not only is he scum, but so is Red.

Shadow could demonstrate his power by blocking a known town (while LF was also blocked); not only is that impossible right now, but also wasteful if Shadow is town. He can do it by using the vote power*: but he refuses to do that. Or he could do it by sending a message to the only near-certain townie we have right now, who is Lightfoot. I do not understand why he didn’t do it yesterday, almost whether scum OR town. Either should have had some incentive to do so.

OK - it does make sense from a belt-and-braces point of view. I hadn’t really entertained the idea that Shadow might be bluffing his role; I still think it’s pretty unlikely, but given that the message power is pretty innoccuous in any case, we might as well rule it out.

Parts of this bother me, Stanislaus. The threat isn’t today, specifically. The threat is a scum Shadow getting into endgame with what amounts to one extra person’s votes for the scum team (and the ability and incentive to use them in a more focused way than the townies would). I can’t believe you wouldn’t see that, and try to limit the discussion to just the impact today.

No, I do see the long-term risk of a super-voting scum-Shadow. But my focus in that post was on how we can make some kind of determination of Shadow’s alignment; it seemed there was an element of “if you don’t do this, then you’re scum” in the demands for him to use his power on Lightfoot, and that doesn’t completely follow. It’s turning a risk if he is scum into evidence that he actually is.

The second point was that even Shadow handing over his power doesn’t save us from the risk of the extra votes swinging things Scum’s way. If we are at risk of going into a pedescribe-caused LyLo situation toMorrow, then our focus has to be on making the right decision toDay. That might be lynching Shadow (though I think Red is the better target) but the discussion about the long-term risks of his voting power won’t help us make that decision. It’s the sort of thing that gets us bogged down.

[Weedy]

I finally got a chance to sort through some of my thoughts on this. Having done that, I see I have basically duplicated everyone else’s reasoning. There’s the straightforward option (Shadowfact’s version of events), the scum accusing a townie option, the scum bussing scum option, and the duelling power roles option. I don’t think scum would accuse a townie in that way, because that would go badly when the townie’s alignment is revealed. Scum could bus scum, but that seems drastic.

So it seems likely Shadowfacts is town. If they are both town, what happened to the Night Kill? Scum may have played WiFoM with the doc and lost. I don’t think that’s impossible, but the simpler explanation seems more likely.

vote Red Skeezix

As for the Shadowfacts voting issue: even though I never bought into Normal’s case on Shadowfacts, I have leaned town on her since day 1, and the vanilla voting conversation. SF’s vote power is a big deal, but it seems to me like she is making too much of it. If he misuses it, we lynch him. I think we are still a couple of days away from the point where it becomes a problem (I can see it could be a problem later). All this urgency makes me wonder if I was too quick to decide her alignment. I will have a review of her tomorrow.

[Normal_Phase]

@septimus

Are you suggesting both Red and Shadow are Scum? And Pizza seems to make the same suggestion. I’d like to hear your comments on Red’s #601, which Shadow considers scummy.

I’m confident that “neither is scum” is not an option. Past that it’s all guesses and speculation.

Red’s #601:
– I don’t like the Silver Jan part. I don’t think the case against her was ever objectively that strong, to be treated the way that Red treated it on day two.
– I like the choie part, more so now even than then. Choie did somewhat overstate the reactions to my claim. And I think I like Red’s particular focus on it, given his own involvement in that bandwagon.
– I obviously like the Shadowfacts part.

That’s taken in isolation. If instead you are looking for whether that post is consistent with Red and Shadow both being scum, I see nothing to say one way or the other – the reasoning is fine but the suspect already named by me; and he put SF to 2 votes, while simultaneously moving Jan to 5. I’m more interested in his unvote of SF, which came later.

[Normal_Phase]

@ShadowFacts

Because my wife was waiting for me to pick her up and I was already late. :o I barely had time to post my last post.

---

With regard to my Vote power today, I am NOT planning to use it “real soon.” I am absolutely adamant that Red Skeezix be lynched today, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen, including using the Vote power for that purpose. If you were me, you’d do the same. So I won’t be rushed. If you think that’s scummy, so be it. Given that I was attacked last night, I doubt I will survive much longer, so I plan to use the Vote power toDay (if only to demonstrate that I have it), even though I hope it is not needed to assure the correct lynch. (Sorry for that crappy run-on sentence).

All right. That would go a long way toward easing my paranoia should Red turn up scum, so I would be much obliged if you do.

It’s obvious that the smoke and mirrors tactic of choice today is to push that both **Skeezix **and I are scum. This is a smart play from scum because even if I am successful at getting **Skeezix **lynched, when he turns up Scum they can start all over on me again (assuming they don’t night kill me first). They know I’ve got a bead on two of them, so they will try hard to discredit me.

But I am happy to put my money where my mouth is. If Skeezix turns up Town, I will immediately double vote myself and charge it up to 4. That’s how confident I am he is Scum.

If there’s smoke and mirrors here it’s not coming from me, is all I have to say. I do think your confidence in Red being scum is appropriate, if you are town, though it would be nice if you had shown any of the reasoning that went into that level of confidence.

I repeat my request for you to analyze the interactions between Red Skeezix and me in the light of your confidence that we are both scum.

[Normal_Phase]

@Red_Skeezix

To breadcrumb my action. So I had something to point back to later on, when septimus was dead and in the gutter. I chose not to do that with ShadowFacts, since septimus was protected and I thought I might have been tilting my hand.

Wait, what about this part of that quote Hirka dug up?

Also, it seems trivial for a scum player to fake, if they don’t think there is a vig in the game (there’s no guarantee that there is).

The rest fits nicely with a vig claim. But that part? By this point you know that your hit on Septimus failed. YOU know that whatever Septimus claimed was not entirely fake. And second-party protection of scum players by other scum players is so rare I can’t even think of the last time I’ve seen it.

Meh, even as I’m writing this I think I see your response, but answer anyway.

I was having a hard time with that post. I was trying to convey my suspicion without revealing my role:

1. Septimus’s claim specifically mentions that he wouldn’t be protected from my role at level 5. I am town. Why would a town bulletproof be vulnerable to another town role?

Your contention is he’s not bulletproof at all. How does this make the level 5 thing relevant or not?

2. I was specifically told that he was protected. Not that he was unkillable or that he is bulletproof.

This is too close to second guessing Astral’s setup for me to consider it definitive about Septimus in itself (if you are town). (All appearances thus far are that he’s giving much more detail in his results than is typical for games around here; I don’t know that I can say where he might have decided to blur the lines of certainty and where not. I do buy this as legitimate reasoning on your part.)

I still don’t believe that septimus is bulletproof as he claims, on the contrary I think he is being protected. Why? because of his claim. He has claimed that he was unkillable only for one night. It smells too much like vig bait to me. If he’s being protected, then he would want to purport that he’s not protected a second time, as to possibly draw the vig to shoot at him again.

That doesn’t make sense. The vig fails a second time, the vig claims, Septimus is proven a liar, Septimus gets lynched. What makes that trade worth it for the scum? I don’t see the “vig bait” argument at all Red; it’s the worst part of your defense IMO.

Re: Hirka’s statement that your votes have been safe or for town –

I have voted:

Silver Jan (Confirmed Town)
ShadowFacts (Unknown)
Septimus (Unknown) (Called Safe vote by hirka)

Please reconcile your statement with the facts.

Your desire to bolster your case with that line rings scummy to me.

This isn’t the part of Hirka’s case on you that gave me slight pause. I think his characterization is entirely justifiable. SF on day two was an entirely safe vote – it wasn’t getting him lynched, and it was following my suspect (if not my reasoning). Septimus on day three was also an entirely safe vote. Tons of people were voting for him (or had been at some point). The logic used (bulletproofs are usually not town) was easy. I’m not even sure Septimus was in any danger of actually dying by the time you placed your vote (though I could be remembering wrong and it’s not a major point anyway).

I’ll pay more attention to this if you die and flip town, but right now it looks roughly equivalent to SF’s focus on Hirka and me having grievously mis-characterized him as qualifying his votes: an “OMGUS-ish” mistake of perception if town; and an easy thing to seize on if scum.

[Normal_Phase]

@USCDiver

I should have been more clear. He may not be confusing other people in town, but it sure as hell confused me.

Okay. Why is that scummy?

[Normal_Phase]

@Askthepizzaguy

So, you think he’s a Lord o Slaughter, right?

Well, let’s have the lynchee today pick who dies tonight, IF they flip scum. Basically, they say in advance who needs to die, we lynch them, and if they’re townie, Skeezix kills the player in question, or he dies the next day.

So, if he’s a Lord of Slaughter, you’ll have a chance to force him to expose himself or kill his own teammate.

And, if he’s townie, the Lords of Slaughter have a REALLY LARGE incentive to murder Red Skeezix.

This is somewhat attractive, though I’m not sure it would be effective. If Red is scum, I think the only way to ensure definitive results from tonight is if Shadowfacts is lynched today (removing his roleblock as a variable).

If he’s town, then it all depends on the accuracy of the lynch/the lynchee’s fingerpointing. And even at that, his speculation about the means of Septimus’ survival; plus uncertainty about SF’s roleblock, means he could well come up short and we have proved nothing.

In the end I think the risk of a null result is greater than the risk of “epic townie fail”, and bad enough in itself I don’t think it’s a good idea. Got anything more workable?

Some reasoning in spoilers; hidden because int hat form it was hard to follow even for me.

[spoiler]Say Red is scum. Odds are decent he will not be able, if left alive, to pull off a second kill in addition to the usual scum one. Only one dead in the morning (the usual way), we lynch Red.

Caveat: SF’s presumed unused roleblock, which is floating around in addition to the usual scum one on Lightfoot. He could block Red if scum, framing him a second time. You and I are claimed vanillas; scum may or may not know of others by now: odds are good they could find someone for SF to claim to have blocked, witout it ever being provable exactly what he has done or not done. And becuse of this, conversely, Red – if scum himself – could claim to have been blocked, with the odds being somewhat decent that Shadowfacts could not prove otherwise. The only way to eliminate that variable is to lynch Shadowfacts today.

Say Red is town. The lynchee-to-be is also town, and picks a third townie for the vig. Red follows through. Scum will take no steps to stop him. Trifecta of townie fail. Say the person picked for the vig is scum. Red, if correct in his suspicions about Septimus’ survival, can still try and fail.[/spoiler]

[septimus]

I’m far from convinced that Normal and Pizza are correct, but thinking through the possibility of Shadow being Scum, I now realize that Shadow’s power is much more powerful than it seems.

1. His quadruple-voting power will grow and grow in importance as numbers dwindle.
2. He can influence the Lynch on Days when he doesn’t even use the Power, by just threatening to use it. He’s already threatened that toDay, and it was implicit yesterDay as well.
3. It may soon be too late to Lynch Shadow just because of the vote numbers. In that case Town’s victory will depend on our Vigilante. Yet Shadow is trying to get us to Lynch our claimed Vig.

Assuming that Red is Scum and Shadow is Town, Lynching Red turns out very well. For one thing, most of us (though not Normal) will stop wasting time on the idea that Shadow is Scum. But if Red really is the Town Vig, and Shadow is Scum, we may have essentially conceded the game when we Lynch Red. Shadow can only block the Vig one more time,but a dead Vig is blocked forever.

There is another tactical argument for Lynching Shadow (if we even can … it may already be too late). If he flips Scum, then we get a bunch of semi-confirmed Townies. If Shadow flips Town, we’ll have Red & Normal & Pizza all as likely Scum suspects. On the other hand, if we Lynch Red and he flips Town, Normal insists that that won’t clear Shadow. If Red flips Scum, I’ll suspect Pizza as co-Scum, but I doubt if this is clear to others.

Scummy Red Skeezix and Townie ShadowFacts still seems to me to be the most likely scenario, but I want us to think this through. I certainly hope Shadow is Town, and have personally sniffed Town vibes from him, but caution requires that the case be considered carefully. I have three requests:

1. @ Pizza and Normal - hundreds of paragraphs explaining why Shadow is Scummy have NOT worked for me. Can one or both of you please post the SINGLE most scummy-looking paragraph written by Shadow and help me understand? Complicated WIFOM-chains don’t work for me; I’m looking for a fake sincerity or easy-to-understand scum-slip.
2. @ Shadow - assigning your double-vote to LightFoot would help convince us you’re pro-Town.
3. @ Town Vig - if Red is false-claiming, I think you should counterclaim now. With two claimed Town powers and a few claimed Vanillas, Scum already have targeting options, so the risk is reduced. If the counter-claim led to Lynching a Scum and a new confirmed Townie, it would be great for us.

[Suburban_Plankton]

I had this typed up in notepad overNight but never got back here to post it. I’m posting it now ‘as-is’, without taking into consideration any of the events Today. I’ll address them in subsequent posts:
Regarding ShadowFacts, and whether he is Town or not, and expanding on the conversation Inner Stickler and I had at the beginning of the Night, I’ve come up with the following. Please tell me if I’ve gone wrong somewhere…

Assume **ShadowFacts **is Scum, and that he has a Power-stealing ability. Now, in every game of Mafia I have ever played, all Night actions resolve at End of Night, immediately before Dawn. **Ed **was definitely alive at the end of Day 2, so he was killed during Night 2. This means that Janitor or no Janitor, the Scum didn’t know **Ed’s **identity until the *end *of Night 2, which means that ShadowFacts must have used his Power-stealing ability **before he knew **Ed was dead.

Would the Scum risk wasting a Power-stealing ability on a player with an unknown Power? Possibly
Would the Scum risk wasting a Power-stealing ability on a player who may or may not have a Power to begin with, and whose Power, if it exists at all, is unknown? Doubtful
Would the Scum risk wasting a Power-stealing ability on a player who isn’t even dead yet, and who may or may not have a Power to steal, and who may or may not have a Power that’s useful to Scum if indeed he had one at all and he actually dies during the Night? * I don’t think so*

Now, I can think of a few ways to get around some of these issues:

1. The Scum could have a Role Investigator who targeted **Ed **on Night 1 and found out what his Power was.
2. It could be a Day Power; **ShadowFacts **used it during Day 3 after the Scum received **Ed’s **role reveal, but before it was made known to the Town.
3. ShadowFacts’ Power might not have been limited to stealing from the dead; perhaps he could steal any player, living or dead.
4. It could be an ‘automatic’ Power; basically, it’s exactly as **Shadowfacts **described it, only it belongs to Scum.

But these ‘solutions’ have issues of their own

1. requires that the Scum have a Role Investigator and a Power Stealer: both uncommon roles in my experience.
2. requires that the Scum have a Janitor and a Power Stealer with a Day action. Also a rather uncommon combination, I think.
3. gets around the ‘wasting the Power on a player who winds up not dead’ issue, but still leaves the ‘how did he know **Ed **had a Power to steal in the frst place’ problem.
4. is the best solution so far. It doesn’t require any esoteric combination of Powers; it doesn’t leave any ‘how did they know?’ questions unanswered; but it just doesn’t sound plausible to me.

Occam’s Razor tells me that the most likely scenario is that **ShadowFacts **is telling the truth. You could argue that Point 4 here is just as plausible, I suppose. Just because I think the role sounds odd doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but I find such a role to be much more likely to be given to Town rather than Scum.

I did also consider the fact that **ShadowFacts **might be 3rd-Party. This assumption suffers from the same basic problem as assuming he’s Scum: namely that he would have needed to use his Power before he knew **Ed **was dead.
Unfortunately, I can think of no way for **ShadowFacts **to prove his alignment. The only thing that could confirm him would be an investigation by the Town Cop. If **Ed **was the only Roleblocker in the game then **LightFoot **ought to be able to get off an investigation of **Shadowfacts **Tonight (of course, since **LightFoot **isn’t confirmed herself, this still doesn’t technically prove anything).

[USCDiver]

@septimus

3. It may soon be too late to Lynch Shadow just because of the vote numbers. In that case Town’s victory will depend on our Vigilante. Yet Shadow is trying to get us to Lynch our claimed Vig.

snip
There is another tactical argument for Lynching Shadow (if we even can … it may already be too late).

I think you may be overestimating how close Shadow is to being able to unilaterally decide a lynch. There are 16 players alive, that’s 32 votes. Even 4 votes isn’t going to be enough to change the outcome unless every other Scum double votes a different player which would be monumentally stupid at this point in the game. It would only be a workable gambit if it wins the game for them.

[Suburban_Plankton]

Assuming **Shadowfacts **and Red Skeezix are both Town:

1. Red tried to kill SF last Night, but SF blocked him.
2. Scum tried to kill LightFoot, but were prevented.

Regarding the Scum kill: Why did they target **LightFoot **last Night, after passing on her Night 2 and simply blocking her? I can’t think of a good reason. There are a couple other possibilities, but I don’t like them either:

The Scum targeted some other person, who just happened to be protected by the Doc.
The Scum failed to get in a Night action.
There is another Roleblocker, who just happened to block the Scum kill.

None of these scenarios seems likely to me.

Assuming **ShadowFfacts **and **Red Skeezix **are both Scum:

1. The Scum failed in their Night kill for some reason
2. SF decided to bus Red right out of the gate Today for no apparent reason

We haven’t managed to identify a single Scum yet in this game. I just don’t see them deciding to hand us Red Skeezix just because they were feeling sorry for us.

Assuming Red Skeezix is Town and **ShadowFacts **is Scum:

1. Red tried to kill SF last Night, but SF blocked him.
2. Scum tried to kill someone, but were prevented.

We have the same problem here as we did at the top. The Scum failed in their kill: why? It’s possible that ehy decided to take a chance on LightFoot, figuring she wouldn’t be protected last Night, but I don’t see why they would think that. I certainly don’t see a better place for a Doc to place his protection, so chances are that an attempt on **LightFoot **would have been fruitless, and the Scum would know that.

Assuming **ShadowFacts **is Town and Red Skeezix is Scum:

1. Red tried to kill SF last Night, but SF blocked him.
2. There is no Vig, or he did not act again last Night.

This is the most likely scenario. It requires no twisted logic of leaps of faith. It does require a lucky/educated guess on Shadowfacts’ part, but his explanation of his choice is plausible enough to put it in the ‘educated’ column for me.

**vote Red Skeezix **