No, in my experience a universal backup townie role is more common than a universal backup scum role, or a scum that can steal the powers of others. Although a universal backup role isn’t that common either.
However, I’ve played on some forums where almost everyone in the game has some kind of power, and power-copying or power-stealing roles do exist. That’s on CFC, and Normal Phase AKA Renata is familiar with that.
In fact, in one of the most recent games, I had a role which could copy the powers of whoever used their powers on me; even to the point where if I were murdered, I could murder from beyond the grave and then inhabit the body of the person who murdered me if I guessed correctly who it was, bringing myself back to life.
:eek: I’m not kidding.
Yeah I’ve seen some strange roles. I do *not *doubt that Astral / Mahaloth are creative people who could come up with something that’s hard to guess, and it would seem to be necessary if we have straightforward detective, bulletproof, assassin, roleblocker/vote booster, and possibly doctor roles. Either some of those are scum or you’ve got Lords of Slaughter with nothing to do.
For balance, you could even the odds with a scum janitor, and a role-stealing shapeshifter. And that’s just off the top of my head, and didn’t take me much thought. Then again I’ve hosted some 35-40 games, so coming up with role ideas is my bread and garlic butter. You have to be a little creative with your roles.
The role that special ed had, with private messaging, blocking, and vote-boosting limited powers, is a fairly creative, specific role which is not a cookie-cutter role. I’d expect to see at least one or two other unique or rare roles in this game.
(Which is a frustrating response, I’m sure. However, this is obviously an answer I can’t provide. If he’s telling the truth, I risk “confirming” it in the minds of other players no matter what my answer is. If he’s lying, I’d be forced to make something up. Neither is an attractive option to me.)
Pizza, I would like to know why you think a Paranoid Doctor is more likely than a regular Doc and a scum Roleblocker. I have only seen paranoid doc’s very rarely and it is usually in an all-power game with a normal doc also.
I agree with Pizza that a mass claim with a coordinated strategy is our best option. I generally think at about this point in a game that the extra information Town gets from a mass claim is worth the exposure, and I think shrinking the pool of players for scum to hide in at this point is our best option.
I keep going back and forth on whether I think Red, Shadow, both, or neither are scum (honestly, I am not really considering the possibility of both). But I can’t blame players for thinking that Red is the more likely to be scum. We know scum did not make a kill last Night and in my experience the most likely reason for that is that they were blocked or their target was protected. Since I believe our doc was protecting LightFoot, and I think the scum would assume that, I feel they would have targeted someone else. So, most likely Red was making the scum kill, and got blocked. Now information from a mass claim might make me see things differently, but I see no reason to assume a paranoid doc.
There are some things that do give me pause, though. Why is there apparently a power that delays the reveal (or even if it is just a game mechanic, why)? It looks possible that the scum can kill, and see what powers a player has before it is revealed to Town. This is what keeps me somewhat suspicious of ShadowFacts, but if this is the case, why was there no Night kill?
While I don’t think it would answer all these questions, I do think a mass claim would be helpful now.
Short answer: It involves fewer roles floating around. It explains why Lightfoot is still alive, why there could be a missing kill if Skeezix is innocent, and why Lightfoot keeps getting her investigation blocked.
I’ll answer that question in more detail either after we agree on the mass reveal strategy, or near the end of the night phase. It may be nothing but I’d still prefer to remain tight-lipped out of caution.
ShadowFacts being the scum’s target gives me pause. He nearly got lynched and he was spared at the end of the round by a close vote. His role is also nearly useless to the town, not much of a threat to the scums. Basically, if he’s townie and Skeezix is mafia, he just had his crowning moment of awesome. The first of many I hope, should Skeezix turn up mafia; I’d be interested to hear his thoughts on other suspects after that.
This seems like the most exciting Mafia game I’ve played, yet some players are not participating. Non-participation is anti-Town.
Even assuming we know we’ll Lynch Red Skeezix toDay, we still need to work on candidates for toMorrow. But except for Shadow and myself, there have been no serious bandwagons against any still-living player. There’s still plenty of time toDay for a Tell our Vig who to NK toNight discussion, which would be useful even if we just end up killing the Vig. Pizza has made 4 nominations for scum suspect. For completeness I’d want to add Pizza (and perhaps even Septimus :smack: ) to that List, and then discuss it.
Although I’m still far from sure he’s a Townie, Pizza’s plan makes sense to me. Delaying the Lynch on Red is harmless if we promise ourselves to Lynch him toMorrow. One objection to Pizza’s plan is that we don’t have an alternate Lynch candidate defined. Another objection is that, since Pizza is himself a suspect, someone else should help work out the details.
The uncertainty in the Normal -vs- Shadow struggle clouds the whole decision-making. Red’s death may not even resolve that. If he flips Town, I’ll still wonder if Shadow is Town. If he flips Scum, Pizza & Normal may still wonder if Shadow is Scum, while my FOS will point toward Shadow’s detractors.
I also thought Shadow to be an unlikely Scum target even if Town, in part because Scum might figure a Town Vig who believes Pizza-Normal is likely to do the killing work for them!
However, I disagree that Shadow’s role is “nearly useless to town.” If Red flips Scum, Shadow’s action last Night was hugely beneficial, and in the endgame the extra voting will be like having an extra Townie. (To be blunt, this seems so obvious to me, the comment increases my suspicion that Scum Pizza is desperate to kill Shadow. My votes are on Pizza and Red right now, and I think there’s a good chance I’ve found a Scum duet!)
I seem to be replying to everybody. I’m not lonely, not at all.
There’s certainly a lot of excitement. I did not anticipate that longer day phases would actually increase the anticipation level I’d have in the game. Over on other sites, long day phases usually result in a stagnation of discussion and voting activity. Some people don’t even bother checking in because the schedule is less regular.
I imagine the vig will want to go for you first, septimus. He doesn’t seem to think your role claim is very plausible due to certain… inconsistencies.
It’s far from being without risk, and delaying his lynch is foolish if he’s just going to be lynched tomorrow regardless. At least now we have the vote support to do so.
The idea is that if there are two attacks, one directed by us and which is clearly Skeezix, and the other which is clearly made by the Lords of Slaughter, that lends weight to Red’s claims, but even more so if Red happens to nail a Lord personally. The threat of his being alive for two additional rights would be quite the incentive for the Lords to have to attack him.
There’s a very good chance it doesn’t prove anything at all, and Red dies tomorrow anyway. That said, a small chance of hitting scum and proving oneself worthy of life is better than none. I’m sure Red Skeezix would agree…
I sort of feel like his defense attorney at the moment. My client is far too awesome to die just yet.
Objection: Everyone should help work out the details. You’re a suspect too, so is ShadowFacts, so is everybody. I’m no more a suspect than anyone else is. And if you guys really think I’m scum here, I’ll be taking that as a high compliment.
The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is.
If Red flips scum, I’d be willing to give ShadowFacts the benefit of the doubt for at least a round or two. I’m grateful for any progress, WIFOM-related or not.
I see that in septimus’ mind, Normal phase and I have formed some sort of hybrid creature.
I do hope it was as good for you as it was for me, Normal my dear.
To clarify, one or two roleblocks in a game is more likely to end up causing trouble for the town than the scums. They’ve demonstrated only one kill so far, and there are several claimed pro-town roles. As such, the odds are greater that the roleblocker dies (special ed, hello) or hits a pro-town role (like I dunno an assassin) instead of a scumbag. That said, odds aren’t the sole deciding factor here. I’ve been arguing that the “most likely” outcome isn’t always the truth.
To be able to have gained a significant lead based on just one block is nigh miraculous with such a role. Given the support in lynching him, he might have been left alive as a lynch bait.
Scum Pizza is not desperate to kill ShadowFacts. Scum Pizza would have a murdering ability and wouldn’t have to rely on the lynch to make it happen, and wouldn’t be connecting his fate so closely with Red Skeezix’s fate. Scum Pizza would not make such a fuss about Red Skeezix dying, ESPECIALLY if he were scum, because he had been doing rather well at not being the main candidate for lynch recently. Scum Pizza wouldn’t be arguing for additional discussion or coordinated anything that might further expose more of his own team. Scum Pizza wouldn’t be arguing that Red Skeezix could try his powers out on Pizza tonight if Shadow flipped townie. Scum Pizza wouldn’t be inviting ShadowFacts to block him tonight if Shadow survives the lynch. Scum Pizza would be generally more diplomatic, and eager to build alliances, than poke everyone in the game in the eyeball and generally be a pain in their buttocks, because you know what happens? Folks go “he’s anti-town” and lynch him. Scum Pizza is generally much less suspicious than town Pizza.
Scum Pizza isn’t here right now, but if you’d like to leave a message, please do so after the tone.
Since only myself, Red Skeezix, and maybe one or two others have bothered to toss more than a couple candidates out there at a time, and several players haven’t voted, I am not feeling great confidence in either the odds of Skeezix surviving the round or there being any meaningful discussion. The inactivity is suffocating, and we are wasting a golden opportunity.
There will never be another time in this game when we are so heavily armed and have so many townies still alive. To squander this chance will be truly devastating.
I’m glad that you’re as concerned as I am about the lack of alternative candidates for the vig or the lynch. We’ll see if today holds any promise for something besides going with the flow. The inertia of the game favors the Lords of Slaughter, especially if no tactical options are being considered except the default lynch.
FOR NOW. You need to commit to using one or the other visibly, no matter what the vote count happens to be. As of right now there is no independent evidence you possess anything other than a Janitor-provided townie role PM. I am not remotely comfortable going into Night with that still at status quo, particularly if I’m supposed to consider lynching neither you nor Red Skeezix today. Not when one of the scenarios in which you are both scum involves you having no such power at all. Not when you are so dead certain – almost smug – that we need to lynch Red Skeezix today. Not given Red’s hinky unvote of you on day two.
Will you do that? One or the other at least, no exceptions, even if the vote winds up eleventy-seven to five in favor of Red Skeezix being lynched?
I do plan to use my time today looking at other players.
Meh, I think I did one of those weird highlight/delete combos on the paragraph before the last one and didn’t notice. I’m too tired to rewrite it, but it was about paranoid vig, etc, and needing to still think about it.
Oh Normal Phase, sweet guilty Normal Phase, we can’t continue this charade. We’ve been discovered, you and I.
It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have voted Red Skeezix for no reason on day one only to move it over to someone else later. I shouldn’t have distanced myself from you by putting you on my list, only to not do any follow-up. Now that our friend is going to die, it will be just you and me, with the world crumbling around us, the sky falling down upon our heads.
I know you want me to stay strong and keep fighting, but I can’t. Not when there’s so little time left. A man can only take so much.
I want to spend my final moments doing what I’ve always dreamed of.
[SPOILER]roll, roll, roll.
Apparently, I’ve always dreamed I’d learn how to play shuffleboard.
Darn it. The entry for “natural twenty” was *much *more exciting.[/SPOILER]
You’re just such a guilty-looking townie, Pizza. I swear the first time you pull the reverse expectations gambit on me I’m going to stay off the internets for a week.
I’m sorry, I was getting frustrated. This game is already quite complicated, what with all the interactions between, you, NP, SF, RS, SP, and Septimus, both actual and presumptive (i.e. who is scum trying to frame the others). Lynching Red Skeezix seems likely to give us some solid information, such as his alignment and role, and you seem to want to replace that with more questions. I guess it’s strategy, but you have lost me.
Which one is the current plan, again? Lynch Red Skeezix, or not?
Because what happened to the nightkill? Maybe I am just being hopeful, but I think it’s more likely that scum set up a frame job than that they coincidentally ran into the Doc the same night that Shadowfacts blocked Red Skeezix.
A vig with a hunch can kill the claimed cop, and that’s a good thing?
Aren’t we hoping to be better than random at lynching? I thought the point of lynching was to see what people said and who they voted for, and that was the pay-off for the all the dead Townies. Vig kills don’t leave any records. This one seems particularly random, since a vig would presumably wait till they felt reasonably confident before they killed someone (depending on the person as to how confident), but your plan requires the lynchee to order a kill no matter how confident in their suspicions they feel.
For some context, Pizza is a HUGE advocate of vigilantes, even (actually particularly) if they shoot every night without fail. I’m not sure I want to get into yet another big discussion of overall mafia strategy, but that’s the context within which he’s arguing what he is arguing. You won’t be able to sway him.
A few thoughts regarding some of **Askthepizzaguy’s **recent posts:
Oooh, a magic bag in a DnD-themed game. Who woulda thunk it?
You got anything else in your bag of holding there, Askthepizzaguy?
<underlining mine>
So all you need is evidence that **Shadowfacts **has a power, and that will be enough for you? Enough for what? How exactly does it tell us anything about **Shadowfacts **if he charges **LightFoot’s **vote?
What you appear to be saying here is that you think it’s more likely for ShadowFacts’ claim to be true than it is to be a falsification, but you think he’s Scum anyway. Are you just hedging your bets because you really have no idea, or are you trying to cover your ass in case ShadowFacts flips Town at some point?
Except that he has already told us that he thinks **Septimus **is ‘Vig bait’, so he probably won’t be going there again assuming you believe Red Skeezix claim, which you purport to do)
Oh, so it’s OK if we go ahead and lynch **Red **Today. How does it feel up there on top of that fence?
Unless **Red **is Scum, in which case we learn absolutely nothing, and **Red **gets a free pass. It really doesn’t matter anyway, because there’s no way we will get a consensus on **Red’s **target for the Night. Such a plan has never been workable in the past, and I see no reason to believe it would work now. Maybe things are different where you come from, but that would surprise me.
This is a useless, empty statement. It’s arguable true, but so what? You can say this on almost any Day in any Game, and it’s just as true. “Now” is always the best time for Town, because Scum haven’t ahd a chacne to kill any more of us yet. You sound like you’re trying to be very helpful here, but you’re really not saying anything at all.
You’ve spent a good part of the game talking a lot but saying very little. You seem to be trying to come across as ‘helpful’, albeit in a very bizarre, in-your-face aggressive way. But when you boil it down, I can’t see where you’ve really provided that much ‘help’ at all.
Ah, the hell with it. My main argument against you being Scum has been no Scum would act *that *Scummy…but you are a Stranger in a Strange Land…maybe I just don’t grok you yet. Or, to put it differently, “Enough is too much!”
I’ve been going through his posts to see whether my overall impression of “safe” and “deliberately inoffensive” holds up, and so far it pretty much does. I’m not remotely done yet. But I have to point out this post:
636
There are a number of scum tells in there, but let me address the strongest one first (final paragarph).
You do tend to think that Pizza is not scum.
You won’t argue against his lynch (this is bad enough).
However actually – you would be willing to vote for him yourself. You’re not doing it, but you’re about an inch away from it. There’s no way to take your first statement in that paragraph any differently. If one thing changed (say, Koldanar or gnarly claiming doc or some such), you’d be voting for ATPG. Who you say you think is town. Who you nevertheless think it would be just fine to see dead.
I think this is a better example of a scummy response to the ATPG problem than Suburban’s was, and his was bad enough.
Second issue Silver Jan. AGAIN you characterize her as more likely frustrated and inexperienced than truly scummy, “too scummy to be scum”. Yet you won’t argue against her lynch either.
You wouldn’t do it the previous day with Kelly, either. Same thing. And you failed to comment on whether my opinion of the soon-to-be-lynched townie’s potential scum motivations had affected your own opinion of his innocence, despite agreeing with me that the motivation was plausible.
Finally: Skeezix’ vote on SF pings because SF’s posts don’t fit that pattern as a whole, and you think he’s cherry picking. I’m not sure what scumhunting is supposed to be if seizing on a single post that just feels wrong is somehow off limits. In fact, I’ve done just that with YOU in the past, Mental Guy, in that divided town game we played a while back. It’s absolutely valid, and you should have reason to know that it is. Thinking Skeezix is wrong in his perception (even in a scummy way), that’s one thing. Criticizing him because it’s only a single post? That’s entirely another.
And if you want a pattern, there it is above. It’s only day two and already three times you have sat by allowing someone you claim to believe more than not be lynched or come close to being lynched. Protesting you think the lynches are probably wrong on their merits, but refusing to act on the basis that you can’t argue against others’ perception of their scumminess. Your own votes exclusive (and much more notably on day two) on those who are nowhere NEAR lynching. (Day one MG wound up with just a vote on Koldanar; day two on Koldanar and gnarlycharlie at this point.) You have convictions of probable innocence three times. Three times you refuse to act, even give your blessing to the lynch against your stated opinions of probable towniness.
The only reason I’m not voting you right now is I’m not sure which of my other two votes would be better given up. Diver is up next; I may or may not finish the entire commentary on MG first.
Askthepizzaguy (4): Septimus [1276], USCDiver [1280], Suburban Plankton [1393]
ShadowFacts (3): Askthepizzaguy [1265], Normal Phase [1291], Red Skeezix [1295]
USCDiver (2): Askthepizzaguy [1289], Normal Phase [1292]
Septimus (1): Red Skeezix [1295]
With these votes, Red Skeezix would be lynched. Day ends at 6 pm central time on Thursday. Also, this whole thing was typed on my phone, so I love you guys that much.
As I was looking at the votes toDay, I see that those that I generally had on the Town side of my ledger(except Red, who I was more neutral on) are the ones voting for ShadowFacts, while most of those voting for Red are players that I have had at least some suspicion of. While I am leaning toward the idea that Red is scum, the fact that the players I think most likely to be scum are the ones voting him makes me hesitate.
I went back through the posts by both Red and Shadow, and honestly, it didn’t really help me decide. I see some slightly scummy behavior from both, but neither one would I have put ahead of the players I voted for or Hirka (Koldanar), Stanislaus, Weedy, or Suburban.
I am not sure it really matters, though. It looks as if we are definitely headed towards a Red Skeezix lynch toDay. So, then the question becomes what do we do if he was scum, and what do we do if he was Town? If Red is scum, I am fairly confident that Shadow is Town, but that means yesterDay’s lynch vote, which saved Shadow to lynch TexCat is pretty meaningless as far as any indication of who the scum are. If Red is Town, I don’t doubt that Shadow will get lynched, but I have a nagging feeling that they may both be Town and scum is just sitting in the shadows watching the show.
I still want to hear from LightFoot before I vote.
I can see the mass claim idea is going nowhere, but I would really like to know if someone else for Town was protected last Night or if anyone other than Shadow blocked someone.
Looking back at what I said in Post 1320, I’m no longer so happy with it.
Assuming **Red Skeezix **is Town (and regardless of ShadowFacts’ alignment):
Red tried to kill SF last Night, but SF blocked him.
Scum tried to kill [del]LightFoot[/del] someone, but were prevented.
So who did the Scum try to kill, and why did they not succeed?
[ul]
[li]They lost the battle of WIFOM with the Doc, and targeted a protected LightFoot. On further reflection, I’m not sure why I discounted this originally.[/li][li]They targeted someone else, who happened to be protected by the Doc. That’s two ‘lucky guesses’ in one Night to prevent two deaths, which it a little too much for me to believe at this point.[/li][li]There is another Roleblocker, who just happened to block the Scum kill. Back to the ‘2 lucky guesses’ scenario.[/li][li]They failed to get their Night action in. I’ve never seen this happen, and I doublt this was the first time[/li][li]Some other more esoteric explanation: a one-time ‘Mass block’ that prevented all kills, for example.[/li][/ul]
Some of these scenarios are rather less likely than others, but I think that the first is plausible enough for now. I haven’t reviewed the earlier posts by Red Skeezix that others have pointed to in support of their votes. I also have a bunch of notes I jotted down over the first part of this Day that I need to review before placing another vote.
