:Eyes widen as he deciphers the message:
AHHHAAHAHAHA!
Oh man! That’s AWESOME- just… too rich!
Ah! That’s hilariously unfortunate for the Town, but just GREAT Comedic value… I could picture this scene in the movie as everyone gets all excited about the newly found scum- and it turns out to be Buffy’s 20% remains… Oh man. That’s just great. I gotta say I’m rooting for Not Town in this game, because I’m sure they were holding their breaths this morning too… 
The Diggit Situation is interesting to me. As a role, Diggit’s power is unique in that once he set the question in motion, there was nothing scum could do to stop it. Kind of sucks for scum, but Yay for DiggitCamara.
Furthermore, the fact that scum killed DiggitCamara indicates that they feared his power and the information that might be revealed. That is, scum did not know that Thing Fish investigated the already deceased bufftabby and offed DiggitCamara in the hopes of preventing the information (potentially outing one of them) from coming to light. Why they thought killing DiggitCamara would prevent the message from begin answered I don’t know, but this is the first time we’ve encountered a power that was essentially death-proof.
Anyway, not really helpful, but interesting to see how scum is viewing the game.
What’s especially interesting about Diggit - and here I will tread carefully, so as not to reveal too much - is that, as my description of his role once he was dead will suggest, there was a good deal more to his role than the seance ability he actually used. As a hint, he actually did use one other active power during the game. And he sacrificed a great deal, including his anonymity and other potential ways to help, in pursuit of answers from Thing Fish.
I can understand killing Diggit. While they couldn’t stop ToNight’s questions, they did stop further questions.
What causes me to pause is why killing Diggit was considered higher priority than killing NAF. Diggit can only get information that dead Townies already know. The Fish well has run dry. NAF, though, has the potential to add to the confirmed Townie list every Day. That would seem to be a bigger threat. So I think we either have poor play by the Deadites, or there’s significant information we’re lacking.
Edit: you’re such a tease, story.
Yeah. I was actually afraid Thing Fish had investigated one of the deadites who’d already been lynched. My guess (as to Pleonast’s idea of a NAF kill) is that scum thought he’d be protected during that Night. My hope was that I was the one to be protected toNight.
I shouldn’t have asked my questions toNight, actually, and let myself be lynched (at worst). Hey, hindsight is 20/20.
Yeah. Scum killed Diggit because NAF was a likely protectee. While Diggit’s power looks defunct since ThingFish only had one investigation, that doesn’t mean someone else with info might not suddenly die. It’s not a terrible kill either since Diggit would be strongly confirmed by the Knocks.
If NAF is Town, scum are in a really precarious situation. I’m under the impression that there were four masons to start (President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary). I could see 3 masons as a possibility as well, but 5 is just way too many. Scum is so lucky that Town screwed up the investigation and lynch the previous day. That was huge.
Had the town not Fucked up NAF’s investigation the previous day, the town would have 3-4 potential confirmed towns. As it is they have 2-3. Each cycle will entail 1 Day lynch, 1 scum kill, potentially 1 other nightkill, and NAF’s investigation. The Day lynch would remove an unknown (either scum or town, doesn’t really matter at this point) and NAF’s investigation would either hit scum or create a new confirmed town. This puts all scum in a bad place. They have to either kill from the unconfirmed pool and face an ever growing confirmed town list, or kill confirmed town and leave NAF alive to create MORE confirmed towns. Yuck for them. The last two nights only yielded one nightkill to boot! For scum to win one of the following must be true:
I don’t think NAF is lying. I think the Doctor is protecting NAF. NAF’s play as scum just doesn’t make sense to me. He wasn’t in danger of getting lynched and the number of nightkills dropped more than expected after he claimed (Though if the third kill was a Vig, that would be an alternate explanation). NAF false claiming what he did doesn’t fit the data and doesn’t make for a good scum claim… especially with the risk of third party killers who would want a Town investigator dead as well.
Scum are screwed. The only thing that will save them is the Town’s stup… um… unique way of doing things.
I find Hawkeyeop’s play unusual. I know he’s Town and everything, but the incessant harping on Cookies is close-minded and bad play. I honestly don’t know why Hawkeyeop is so certain that Cookies is scum. If he knows something, he should just say it.
Hawkeyeop is correct with one thing though, lynching Cookies is a “safer” route than having an unconfirmed NAF investigate her. The only problem I have with that logic is that I think Cookies is Town.
Many players were willing to lynch Cookies over the “total lost” debacle. What stuns me is that these same players who were willing to take the lack of capitalization as a reason to lynch Cookies are NOT taking storyteller’s consistent lack of capitalization as proof that storyteller wrote the PM. They can’t have it both ways. Did Cookies ever refer to Total Lost as total lost? (I don’t know the answer to that and I’m not looking it up) Isn’t it more likely that if Cookies made up the Total Lost line that she would have typed “Total Lost” while it is more likely that storyteller would type “total lost”? Does it make sense for storyteller to tell a scum that Total Lost is not scum?*
Cookies is Town.
The Town needs to start pressuring non-voters. Talk about anti-Town play! The vote/lynch mechanism should be the Town’s primary means of catching scum. By letting non-voters slide by, scum benefit by either not voting (and thus avoiding accountability) or by controlling the lynch. Active players should focus-vote each non-voter in turn until they vote.
Lurking is a problem too, but not voting is an even bigger one.
Ha! Rapier is threatening to vote for me! Voting for a living Mason is silly. Voting for a dead Mason? :smack:
Dag nabbit, I did have a plan. I just had some personal stuff that cut it WAY short.
I’ll probably not be allowed to play again since it seems that I play more against the Mods than anything else. Remember, sach?
I truly don’t believe that Spassky minded losing to Fisher. 'Cause he took him on twice. And got his Ass handed to him both times in a bad way. At the end of the day they were buddies. Same with this game. I’ve got my ass in my hands.
Hey, peeker, you’re still winning.
Yawn.
Poke poke poke.
peeker, are you dead or only mostly dead? Because if you’re only mostly dead, you really should use the situation to your advantage and post more incomprehensibly than usual in the game thread. No Townie motivation to not to.
I don’t think it’s fair to the Town that the players are forced to speculate about whether the game moderator will ever mod-kill non-participatory players. I can understand keeping secret the details. But the Town’s in the position of “do we need to take care of non-playing players ourselves or not?” The vague rules about enforcement means the Town has to talk about it, rather then letting the rules take care of it, and instead of talking about the players actually playing.
I like the “no vote means mod kill” rule I used in my last game. It lets players lurk as much as they like, while drawing a bright line against actual non-participation. Definitely using that in my next game.
Nobody is forced to talk about anything, and I gladly will (and do) answer any question directed to me - about that subject or any other - via PM. I am allowing infinite quoting of my PMs, so nothing stops anyone from asking me what’s up, then reporting my answer to the rest of the Town. What I won’t do is post about it in my official capacity as a moderator, into the game thread. There’s a number of reasons for this, but I’m sticking to it.
(Blaster Master is going to be modkilled at the end of Day Three if he hasn’t contributed in a substantive way, by the way. He knows this).
Actually - for what it’s worth - I hated that rule (and that’s as what I’d consider to be a very active participant). First of all, everyone slid around it by just pretend voting, which fuzzed up the records without actually encouraging real participation. But also, a bright line like that sucks. Let’s say Poster X is playing the game, participating like a motherfuck, posting and voting and obviously playing in every sense of the word. Day Four starts and Poster X makes ten posts in the first two real-life days of the Day, but isn’t ready to vote yet, and figures he has plenty of time. Then his computer goes out, or he gets sick, or real life intervenes for real. The Day ends.
Now, if you modkill him for nonparticipation, that sucks, because it’s completely contrary to the purpose of the rule in the first place. But if you don’t modkill him, then you’re being unfair to whichever side he’s NOT on, because the rules were the rules.
Plus, it leads to more meta-gaming and trying to find ways around the rules, and to the loathsome searching for cutesy ways to exploit modkill rules, which makes my skin crawl. I like this set-up best: the mod will decide how to handle each situation on its merits. If you don’t trust the mod to keep things fair, probably you shouldn’t be playing in that mod’s game.
Prior to Blaster Master’s post, I would be pointing to JSexton as my candidate for lynch.
So now Blaster Master posts. The timing of his postings really annoys me. As it is there is no evidence to make a case against him, but I would want to lynch him anyway.
I think in the next game everyone should pair up, that is, every role will be shared by two people (public, upfront, and disclosed prior to role assignment). If one doesn’t show up, hopefully the other will. Then maybe we won’t have these non-participant issues we are having now. Ugh.
Is there a living player list somewhere? I bet there are a bunch that I’ll be surprised to see on the list.
yeah. i agree with story on that one.
Plus, I kinda like the fact that you’re not discussing it out in public. Because LURKING is a valid strategy (and one that hasn’t been done because of the nature of the games- and I’m glad to see on reading that my assumption that that’s what Blaster was doing is true).
Because honestly if I were a power role in this sort of game- i’d TOTALLY give it a shot- I wouldn’t make up real life excuses or anything, but I’d simply lurk and see what happened.
Because RARELY does the town execute a lynch the lurker sucessfully- the only risk is that of a vig or an sk that wants to avoid detection. But if I were any sort of a power role (regardless of sides) I’d TOTALLY be talking to story all the time, and trying to see how far lurking would get me.
The town talks about lynch the lurker strategies, but it rarely happens because it leads to no good outcomes. So whenever I’m in a scum team- I always try to hope that someone will play the role of Lurker Scum- because it’s a GREAT and easy role to play- just post whatever the minimals are, and try to stay under the radar as LONG as possible. It’s the town’s responsibility to try to kill you. So I totally wasn’t a fan of NAF’s attempts to try to ask for a player to be modkilled or such, that sort of thing is totally between the lurker and the Mod. Especially since lurking would allow one to escape the grasps of those who have post restricted investigations (such as NAF).
T’was quite clever, though i wonder if Blaster is town or scum- he gives off a Townie vibe (because he’s coming for with information at this time), but I still have hopes that he’s scum.
I guess we’ll have to disagree as:
Some may call it a “cop-out”, I’d call it a long-term play strategy. I also think it’s a GREAT Scum Tactic (as by my above post). I think Lurking and the whole point of finding out information/behavior shifts in mafia is valid, but if you’re SCUM and you want to be SUCCESSFUL as scum, Blaster’s tactic is GREAT over the course of several games.
The way I view is that Blaster is basically trying to optimize his chances of winning whenever he’s in a game as SCUM. It’s a long term goal, and that alone amuses me, so I don’t mind putting up with it. Especially because it’s not an effective strategy- it’s just a crap one because it pisses players off, and can do more harm than good. Which is why I’m a fan of it- as things like that amuse me. I play these games for entertainment, and players who do ridiculous things are generally GREAT sources of entertainment (which it IS frustrating as a townie though trying to simply WIN/Solve the game- I often think of that as playing “Roosh style vs. Storyteller Style” when I make roles to see which one is more likely to enjoy/dislike each role and its powers. So I try to balance the game that way- that people like storyteller (and you) would not be so frustrated by a game’s mechanics and that it’s still somewhat “solvable”… But I always love a good liar or magic bag.
Which is precisely why he should be killed. Anyone adopting such a strategy should be killed immediately. Not such a great strategy then.
I was going to say the same thing. Any tactic that makes it easier to play scum is by definition anti-Town. Lynch away. 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
story, I can see your point about have a flexible line rather a fixed one (I’ll get back to that in a moment), but my primary complaint in this case is that it’s not clear to the players that the moderator will in fact mod-kill. A simple statement like “non-participatory players will eventually be mod-killed” would do much to reassure me as a player. Without such a statement, I’d have to consider lynching non-participants rather than the most suspicious active player. (There’d be too much risk of scum winning by simple non-action.) And that is why I don’t like the lack of clarity.
Of course, as you say, a player could ask the moderator these sorts of questions. But I prefer open, unambiguous rules. I’m sure several mods will attest to my typical flurry of questions whenever I get an ambiguous role/rule–I need to know my boundaries. I want to play against the other players, not against the moderator. Clear rules let me do that.
So yes, my bright line of mod-kill for non-voting lends itself to gimmicks to avoid. But it’s clear to all the players what that line is. And if a player is edging the line, the others can react appropriately. It comes down to me preferring gimmicks to vague rules. It’s not a deal-breaker for me to play, although some pathological sets of rules can turn me off (see Gastard Mod game).
The alternative I’d use rather than non-voting death is absolutely no enforcement of participation via rules. That is, it’d be wholly up to the players to enforce participation. I think this is the purest Mafia way to do it, but I’m fearful that it could lead to a stagnant game. Would you prefer that type of rule instead of my non-voting mechanism? Of course, I’d have to be cognizant of this when balancing the game, depending on the victory conditions.