Well, it looks like the momentum is to lynch a lurker.
No, it looks like the momentum is to lynch a non-participant, which is a completely different thing. Blaster Master is genuinely lurking, meaning that he’s deliberately laying low publicly, but will participate later, and is possibly actively participating at this very moment on the scum board. So he would be a not-unreasonable lynch. But zuma appears to not be participating at all, which means that even if she is evil, it doesn’t really matter, since she’s not contributing anything to the evil side, either. So a kill of zuma doesn’t really accomplish anything more than a no-lynch would-- Worse, actually, since if nothing else, she’s a number who might contribute to holding onto a Good majority for one more turn.
In other words, given a genuine non-participant, a lynch can hurt the town slightly, but can’t hurt scum at all. Unfortunately, it’s hard to say who (if anyone) to blame for this bad (for town) decision, since the first folks who suggested it might not have noticed the total lack of participation, and thought they were going for a conventional lynch-the-lurker strategy.
Question: if lurking on Day One is a habit of Blaster Master, and he apparently keeps catching flak for it, why does he continue to do it (and how does he even survive Day One in the first place)?
It looks to me like this game is just the last straw, and people are finally getting fed up with it.
What does the acronym PFK stand for? I can get the gist of it, a third faction which may or may not be allied with Town, depending on circumstances, but the name has me stumped.
Playing-For-Keeps. Generally have their own win conditions, which can be either surviving at all costs until one or another side wins, or ending the game after they achieve a certain goal (an example I remember: I think in the Batman mafia, The Riddler was PFK, and would have won if he managed to learn exactly which players were which characters. If I got that right… It was a pretty complicated game)
It’s…complex.
I, personally, use Third-Party to mean a player or group that has a seperate win condition.
A PFK is a specific type of third party, who can steal the win and/or stop the town or scum from winning until he or she is dead.
The term PFK originated in Batman. It applied to all 3rd party characters there, including the Survivor.
The “malicious PFK” were the two Serial Killers. One was a Day killer, one was a Night killer. Town and Scum needed the malicious PFK dead to win. The other PFK didn’t need to be dead, but town or scum needed to get their win conditions completed before the other PFK. (So everyone but the Survivor could steal the win.) However, there was no way to know how many malicious were out there, and there was no mention of which ones were malicious even when they died, so all PFK ended up dead by end game.
Hal was unique. Had he won the game, the game would continue with all the other parties battling for second place.
So when Boozy uses it, he refers to general 3rd parties as PFK (he was one of the mods in Batman). But I prefer ped’s interpretation (which is also how I think sachertorte likes to treat it) where PFK’s are 3rd parties that must be out of the game for town or scum to win, and other 3rd parties are just that, parties that have their own unique goals.
I find it interesting to note that the only player who’s apparently noticed how dangerous Boozahol is, is Boozahol himself. That gives me a good opinion of him: Presumably, if he actually were scum, he’d be keeping his mouth shut about just how potentially scummy he is.
Meanwhile, sachertorte seems to be the only one who’s realized that in this game, there’s public hard information available on Turn 1. Everyone else (with the limited exception of Boozahol understanding his own role) seems to be playing as though there is not.
OK, last-minute evaluation:
At least one of the following is true of Blaster Master:
- He’s stupid.
- He’s Lawful Evil.
- He isn’t playing for a win.
I really don’t think that #1 is true, and 2 or 3 either one is ample reason to Disintegrate him. He sealed his fate, as far as I’m concerned, when he claimed Chaotic-- If he were genuinely Chaotic, he would have de-lurked as soon as a “lynch the lurkers” strategy were proposed. Therefore he’s not chaotic, therefore his claim of chaos is a lie, therefore, since he’s lying, he should be presumed scum.
I don’t know, he (and Nanook for that matter) seem to genuinely believe that in a game determining who is lying by looking at what and how people post, it is okay to make just a couple of posts at the end of the Day/Turn.
It like playing in real life mafia game, going to the bathroom at the start of the Day, staying behind the door to listen in and only returning for the vote at Dusk. I don’t get it, especially - as was mentioned - that there was enough to talk about Turn One compared to most other games and it is the players job to enforce participation.
Now online play is different, you’re not playing full-time, but getting all righteous when people point it out? A single post at the start to comment on the current game state (or reaction to someone who already did that) is not too much to ask, right? Not a hard requirement, but never doing at all just ticks me off.
To put it mildly (on purpose, it’s a game, it’s not like they’re BNet kiddies or anything ;)), it is just unsportsmanlike.
I had to get that off my chest, so in a lighter note: I hope Chucara lasts a bit longer this game, but he already has gotten himself some heat. I lynched him in both my games so far, as town on town :o.
I think they should have used at least a killing ability though for on off them, now they just linger to rank up extra town deaths later.
Nanook in Evil Dead and Super!Smash!Bros! on the off board, not this game (just as I was getting used to editing, I hit the 5m time limit for it :P).
And both town, with the one pro-town item (Orb of Healing based on what I read in the thread). LtLtL - Lynch the Lurker to Lose, or a very good start for Evil. Maybe watching those items might be useful though.
Also town lost two investigating roles, but on the other hand, a very good turn for Lawful.
This should provoke an interesting scramble.
To expand on why I said what I did about Blaster: A player playing to win would be at least reading the thread. A Chaotic player reading the thread would have known that lurking was being targeted, and therefore lurkers were likely to die. Therefore, a smart chaotic player playing to win this game should have started participating as soon as Lynch the Lurker was starting to look like a serious possibility. Blaster did not start participating at that time, therefore Blaster is not a smart chaotic player playing to win. If he were smart and playing to win this game, then, he’s therefore not Chaotic, and if he’s not Chaotic, then he’s lying.
I suspect that the actual explanation is that he is not playing to win this game; he’s playing to win hypothetical other games of Mafia, by maintaining his consistent pattern of early lurking.
There are other pro-town items (at least, potentially-- We don’t know if any of them are actually in play): The Rod of Divination and the Helm of Telepathy are unambiguously pro-town, the Bag of Tricks depends on the luck of the dice but is strongly pro-town on average, and a few things like the Ring of Wishes are just plain powerful on either side.
Actually, Chronos, I wasn’t participating because I signed up and life got hectic, so I just didn’t have time to play and since I couldn’t sub, I tried to make up for lost time today and all I did was piss people off and, consequently, have a miserable time, so it was a mistake to not just let them lynch me. Regardless, I’ve obviously created some ill will and that just makes it unfun for everyone, and combined with my unpredictable schedule, I won’t be playing any mafia games in the foreseeable future.
Sorry that you got sidetracked away from the game, BlaM. You’re definitely an appreciated player. I think some of the players were reading too much into your absence. And I think the players were a little too eager to use their multi-vote power. 
Wow. You’ve played two whole games with me and that’s what you think I do? I explained what happened with Evil Dead, and turned it around as the game went on. I won’t comment on the other since it’s still ongoing, but you’re so totally wrong. I think I’m finding myself agreeing with Blam. This type of bullshit is completely ruining any enjoyment I might get from these games.
That, I think, was definitely true. Multi-kill is certainly useful if you have multiple definite scum, or you’re in a last-ditch situation, but on the first turn? The prime benefit of the first-turn lynch is that it gets discussion going, and I don’t really see that a multiple kill would generate more discussion than a single kill.
I think that based on have played two games with you, though I’m certainly not happy fueling an argument about it and ruin the fun for you, especially as a new kid on the block.
I don’t like post restrictions that control when or how much you can/must post. I have no experience with one that controls what you can post, but it seems less bad (certainly for rules like not posting PMs, editing, etc).
What I think is a minimum participation in a online (mafia) game:
-one post at the start of the Day to signal ‘I’m here and playing’ and provide others a point to start talking about (without talk there simply is no game).
-one vote post per Day - you certainly do this in SSBM* and are right that they contain more content then an average post. Blaster Master here in Turn One also made good posts that shows you are playing. But other players voting for only doing that is valid, as it severely reduces the opportunity for others to react to them.
Reasons you cannot participate due to real life should be clearly and completely separated from the game. This to avoid the meta-game of ‘he logged in, but isn’t playing’. If you make them in advance it is better, but the posts mentioned above shouldn’t be mandatory, because I can understand real life can interfere.
To clarify the last with examples:
-the way you connected not being motivated for Evil Dead with a boring role. It links the real life reason for not posting with a game element. Yes, it is true, but by not separating it, it becomes part of the game (thus a reason to vote, which we don’t want).
-the reason why storyteller voted for BlaM Turn One: not because he lurked, but because he mentioned that whether or not real life interfered didn’t matter. But it clearly mattered and by not clearly separating it it becomes part of the game.
The conclusion is of course that I think the rule ‘players are responsible to enforce participation’ is bad. That is the minimum level I talked about above, if players want more post they can use prodding votes or ask questions.
On the other hand minimum post count rules are a not a good solution either, so it should be a task of the moderator to handle each case when the a minimum is not met.
I’ll will shut up about it (unless you want to further discuss it) and again sorry if I’m spoiling (in the sense of making it no fun) the game for you or BlaM.
*) you had me convinced you were the PFK until Hal turned up as it. I know the game is in progress, but I want to mention it to indicate you definitely participate and I just wished you made a post earlier in a Day as it would avoid a lot of this.