Evil Dead Mafia II - Teaser and Sign-Ups [Game On!]

[storyteller0910]

@NAF1138

Anyone know why story is ignoring the question about the player list? I figure someone probably has some in game knowledge about that.

Not ignoring. Have a personal issue to manage, will provide list and count tomorrow morning.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Regarding Ulla, she seems to be scarce elsewhere as well. It could be a meatspace issue.

[NAF1138]

@storyteller0910

Not ignoring. Have a personal issue to manage, will provide list and count tomorrow morning.

Fair enough. Real life is actually more important.

[USCDiver]

@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies

Regarding Ulla, she seems to be scarce elsewhere as well. It could be a meatspace issue.

Who is Ulla?

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Sorry, Total Lost. Forgot she has no Ulla in her name here…

[Suburban_Plankton]

Respongin to the rest of Normal Phase’s accusations:

First of all, your link appears to be broke, but I’m guessing you are referring to Post 1521
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13024706&postcount=1521

@Normal Phase

There are plenty more indications throughout the Day of Suburban’s disingenuousness in his arguments, mostly surrounding his approach to NAF. But this one’s the pinnacle. Or maybe I’ll add just add one more.

In this one he sums up his late-Day “pings” (not scare quotes, his actual wording) as peeker, idle and naf. He never believed the arguments against peeker held any weight, but his subsequent behavior is suspicious. (He votes peeker at the end of the post.) He was suspicious of Idle’s flip-flop “from the get-go” (though he never brought it up until halfway through the Day when several others were already on the case). Finally, Idle’s claim supports his own feelings about NAF. He could never find a good scum motivation for NAF’s behavior.

This last bit is frankly unbelievable. Suburban spent literally the first half of the Day promoting the case against NAF left right and center (but never voting for him), saying things like “it’s more plausible that NAF is lying than not”. Around about the middle of the Day, when the bandwagon against NAF resolutely refused to pick up steam, he started walking it back a bit, saying he could see no good scum motivation (but never really acknowledging how he could have moved from “he must be lying” to there) but still pushing NAF on the vig request. Finally, Idle’s claim supports where he’s been at with NAF all along.

Really? I spent literally the first half of the Day promoting my case? Then boy did I suck at it…

Here are the posts where I “make my case” about NAF:

Post 1200: 10/11 14:26
Unless, of course, the “shroud of darkness” prevented any watchers from seeing what happened to NAF, thus allowing the thief to escape without notice.

Very convenient.

Post 1213: 10/11 14:54
As much as I think we can’t afford to trust NAF too much at this point, he does have a good point here. We have spent a lot of time Today discussing the Book, and pretty much no time at all discussing anything else.

Post 1219: 10/11 15:42
There’s no hard evidence against NAF at the moment, but the ‘NAF is lying’ scenario seems to be a lot more plausible than any of the various scenarios I can think of that both satisfy ‘NAF is being truthful’ and adequately explain the events of last Night.

That being said, I’m not sure that’s enough to convict NAF quite yet, especially considering we’re already down 4 Townies. It seems like there are still quite a few people we haven’t heard much from Today, and one or more of them might have some information to contribute. I’d like to hear at least something from the half the Town that hasn’t posted yet Today.

Post 1226: 10/11 17:30
Given that everything we know about the Book’s powers comes from NAF himself, it’s hard to judge the usefulness of anything he is telling us about it. If he’s telling the truth, then we can trust him. But if he’s lying, then everything we know could be wrong. And therein lies the problem. We have absolutely no way of knowing whether he’s telling the truth or not.

Post 1325: 10/12 11:37
I really don’t want to believe NAF…But I can’t find a good Scum movitation for his play… He might buy himself a couple days, but would that be worth it to the Scum? I’m just not seeing it.

Post 1391: 10/12 21:01
I guess it all comes back to “Do I believe NAF or not?”. If he’s telling the truth, then he still had the Book, and it looks like peeker is legitimately confused. But if NAF is lying, then it’s entirely possible that he and peeker are both scum and peeker slipped up and jumped the gun, thinking NAF was going to reveal the ‘theft’ after Dusk, instead of after Dawn…

At this point, I’m leaning toward believing NAF, but I’m far from convinced of anything.

I don’t see much of a case being pushed there. More like an initial distrust, an effort to make a case in public, and then a realization that there really isn’t any case to be made.

I don’t believe it, not even slightly. I think Suburban shifted both his suspicion of NAF and his claims about his suspicion of NAF to suit the current situation, no more.

Yes, the attitude of the Town toward NAF most certainly factored into my thinking. When I couldn’t find any real evidence to back up my initial ‘gut feeling’ that NAF was Scum, and nobody else was providing any either, I suspected that I might have been wrong in my initial judgement. I re-examined my case and found it lacking. And then I said so publicly.

There’s more, including a really remarkable level of curiosity* about the night’s events including the potential of watchers at both Chipacabra and NAF’s places; and his ignoring of two votes placed against him; but what I’ve linked is the crux of it all.

*not quite the right word, but I can’t think of a better right now

My “really remarkable level of curiosity” about the Night’s activities included one post speculating on the Martyr Role, one post wondering about the ‘third person’ in the Kitchen, and then a follow-up thought connected to my second post. Since there were by my count 5 other people participating in the conversation, what makes my contribution “really remarkable”?

As far as my lack of interest in the votes against me, I already addressed that somewhere along the line; I didn’t think either one was really worth commenting on at the time.

[special_ed]

@Drain_Bead

Just doing my part to WIFOM the Scum. My guess is that they’re thinking I’m a Town power role, just like NAF did. Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not, but if the Scum are thinking like NAF, my time here is limited. Maybe I’ve already used the flower, and maybe I haven’t. Heck, maybe I can self-protect and don’t need to use it. Then again, maybe I can’t.

I just figured releasing that little bit of info might help Oy! and screw with the Scum’s heads, and therefore would be a net positive for Town.

OK

[Stanislaus]

Looking at the peeker bandwagon, there are two plausible attempts at defence:

1. Telcontar (no question here): a) Points out it’s a quick building bandwagon, and suggests that this is worrying. Offers the following defence by way of providing a moment of calm: It’s more likely that peeker misspoke rather than knew for certain that the Book would be missing.

2. Suburban Plankton: Posts a timeline of peeker’s “slip”. Points out that it took several attempts to get traction for this issue (which could be taken as implying that there are darker reasons for the rush of votes). He then analyses peeker’s 4 relevant posts:

@Suburban_Plankton

Looking at some of peeker’s posts. I’ve bolded the parts that throw doubt on the case, and underlined the parts that support it:

Post 1114. This could be an example of PIS. But if peeker knew NAF didn’t have the book at that point, why would he make a post out of the blue to point out his ‘confusion’?
Post 1118. His “neta: whoops i guess it was idle.” post. But it comes 17 minutes after the post he is ‘not editing’, which seems like a rather large stretch of time. Also, there was discussion immediately following idle’s post discussing how idle was mistaken. There were only three posts between idle’s and peeker’s, and all of them discuss how NAF hasn’t necessarily given up possession of the book. I can’t see how peeker could have misinterpreted that.
Post 1298. He says he misinterpreted NAF’s post 1095. This seems to contradict his earlier statement that he was confused by Idle’s post 1110. But is it contradictory? Perhaps peeker thought that NAF said (in post 1095) that he had returned the book. Then when people were discussing how NAF still had the book (posts 111-113), he asks if he was mistaken is thinking NAF has returned it. After rereading, he sees that it was not NAF, but rather Idle, that says it was returned (post 1118). And when he’s called on it later, he points out the post that caused his original confusion, which is NAF’s post 1095.
Post 1373. He makes his very well thought out and totally convincing defense. He even swears to goodness.

Post by post, it looks very even-handed. But his commentary on Post 1298 is a direct attack on the core of the case against peeker at this point. (The explanation, in many ways, that peeker should have given.)

His summary here has plenty of doubt:

I’m conflicted. **On the one hand, I can completely see how the ‘inconsistency’ between which post caused his confusion may have been completely innocent. ** On the other hand, I can’t see how peeker could have made the mistake in the first place, since the four posts immediately preceding his post 1114 directly address the very thing he claims to be confused about. **And I can’t see why, if peeker is Scum, he would volunteer that he thought NAF had dropped the book and tell us that he must have been mistaken, in the same post. ** But I’m so put off by his lack of defense that I’m having a hard time seeing past that right now.

I’m going to have to think on it just a bit more before I decide which way to go on this. I’d really like to here more from peeker in his own defense than he “swears to goodness”.

He ends with a plea to peeker to defend himself more - which could be even-handedness and could be a hint.

It’s worth noting that this post did receive one immediate comment (from special ed) saying that it cast doubt on the peeker case.

Suburban Plankton also went on to challengeNAF’s case that peeker couldn’t possibly be vanilla.

[Stanislaus]

On Normal’s case against Suburban Plankton:

I actually think that Plankton’s defence two posts above is more damning than Normal’s case. Reading those quotes in full I agree that they’re not in fact a relentlessly pursued case against NAF. Instead, they’re pot-stirring: creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt about NAF but never committing to anything one way or another. It’s exactly the space Scum want to occupy - keeping the town going round in circles without tying themselves to a specific position.

At the begining of Day Two I argued that Plankton’s interest in Chip/the Martyr was suspicious: that was ignored by him, but I still think it’s a good argument.

So - I would probably be voting for Plankton today, but there are bigger fish to fry:
**
Vote Telcontar**

It’ll become a final vote after I try to look at some of the known Scum interactions.

[special_ed]

Mahaloth?

Are you going to answer me about what led to your suspicions on Telcontar?

[Oy]

@Natlaw

@Oy!

Then bring out your investigators. I’m true blue and will never stain. I am an idealist at heart, and I firmly believe that the power of love, nature, and fluffy puppies can overcome even the darkest of evil magic. I know because storyteller0910 told me so.

Why? Same deal as with your double investigation of NAF it limits the information spread.
If fact with two soon very likely three scum dead the PFK-ers might become more of a problem and those are much harder to catch with vote records, etc.
You could be PFK as well but unlikely of the killing type with the flower on Night one.

I was simply saying that if Special Ed didn’t trust me because he’d seen Scum players trying to support perceived Town Powers, you all were welcome to investigate me. And NAF was not a double-investigation. We knew he wasn’t a Demon; that was all we knew. Now we know he’s truly a Grizzled Cop with no special abilities. Yes, he could still be the Scum Godfather, but it’s highly unlikely he is a third party, and pretty unlikely that he is the Scum Godfather, because storyteller’s style is pretty hard to imitate. That’s useful information; it confirms NAF about as solidly as it’s possible to confirm someone in this game.

[GuiriEnEspana]

@special_ed

My first thought was that with 3 deaths last Night, I think it likely that we have a Vig. Omi is also a good choice for a Vig killing since e wasn’t participating.

Then, my brain started working and I realized that Idle’s death wasn’tlikely caused by Scum, SK, or Vig. So there’s really only 1 non-Scum caused death for which to account.

Still, I can’t imagine Scum killing a non-participant. It also puzzles me that a SK would do so.

@ Special Ed, I’m trying to make sense of this post but have failed. Did you simply omit one of the deaths?

@storyteller0910

Omi No Kami, The Stubborn Skeptic, who was Town (Vanilla), has died.

So has Idle Thoughts, the Inexperienced Religious Figure, who was Town (Investigative).

Also Rysto, the Grave Robber, who was Town (Other), as well.

And, finally, the fourth death of Night Two: Astral Rejection, the Trickster, who was Scum (Other).

[One_And_Only_Wanderers]

@GuiriEnEspana

@ Special Ed, I’m trying to make sense of this post but have failed. Did you simply omit one of the deaths?

I assume it is because Idle’s death is presumed to be a result of his touching Telcontar. So we have 3 deaths whose cause remains unknown.

[special_ed]

@GuiriEnEspana

@ Special Ed, I’m trying to make sense of this post but have failed. Did you simply omit one of the deaths?

Yes, it was an error. I apparently got confused and didn’t go fact check. I started the post thinking there was evidence of a SK and a Vig, then remembered Idle’s death was caused by his Night action. I think my initial read was correct, and my self-correction was wrong.

So, yes, there is a good inidication that we have both a SK and a Vig.

[USCDiver]

Another possibility is that a power from the Book was used to kill one of the players.

Speaking of which:

Story, if a player holding the book is killed will we be told the fate of the book when he dies?

[Oy]

Maybe we could look at who was killed and why.

Based on the color, it looks as if Astral killed Rysto. Rysto, frantically digging in the grave, appears to have been trying to do something last Night, and it’s not clear whether or not he succeeded. The color suggests he did not succeed (in that he was still digging when he died, rather than sitting back on his heels), but storyteller has basically told us that any action not blocked will go through. It seems unlikely, albeit not impossible, that Rysto was blocked by Scum, as their role blocker is dead (Yay!). Normal, you mentioned a Grave Digger role in another game that was “awesome.” Can you tell us what it did?

It’s also possible that Astral was feeling gratified because he accomplished something else, not the Night Kill. A “trickster” (“Other”) could be many things, but perhaps one of them is a re-director. Maybe he re-directed a Town or SK kill from one of his fellow Scum on to Rysto. That would still allow Rysto’s death to cause him the satisfaction it seems to have in the color. But if that happened, then Scum probably either killed Omi themselves, or their kill was blocked. I don’t think Scum would have killed Omi; they want as big as possible a pool of totally unconfirmed around, don’t they? So I think Omi is likely to have been vig-killed for non-participation, although the fact that he was horrified by the sight of his killer in the color hints that the killer might have been demonic or third party.

Last, there’s the question of who killed Astral. Rysto was a “Other,” which allows for the possibility that his death caused Astral’s death, I guess. But he was grave-digging when killed, which looks like he was doing something beyond being killed when he was killed. So the idea that his other-ness was being some kind of bomb (I think that’s the term for a role that kills its killer?) is not supported.

Then there’s the zombie squirrel. It lost some body parts last Night. That suggests that maybe it was being used in some Demonic Rite. Or not.

I don’t have any answers; just wanted to get some questions out there. My final vote remains on Telcontar.

[special_ed]

@Oy

Then there’s the zombie squirrel. It lost some body parts last Night. That suggests that maybe it was being used in some Demonic Rite. Or not.

I don’t have any answers; just wanted to get some questions out there. My final vote remains on Telcontar.

I’m at work and unable to spend the time to look.

Can someone maybe repost the list of book actions that NAF originally posted. Maybe there is some connection between them and the squirrel.

[Oy]

From NAF’s post #1089
The first page of the Necronomicon reads as follows:

@Storyteller0910 (or at least that's what NAF1138 said)

"Hark all who would delve into these mysteries, for to read is to enact the madness hidden within these pages.

Know that the holder of this book shall be stained by the darkness of the world beyond; so long as the book be in his possession, he will reflect the book’s evil to all who look upon him, and even his actions will appear cursed and foul.

If you wish to proceed, choose your victim and curse them with the knowledge of the Waiting Dark:

Page 1: Dread Curse - To call the dread curse on a victim.
Page 7: Dread Magnetism - To curse a victim with dark attraction.
Page 13: Dread Visage - To curse a victim with a horrific mask.
Page 22: Dread Fire - To call forth dark fire on a victim
Page 48: Dread Containment - To hold the knowledge of a victim
Page 56: Dread Finger - To curse a thieving victim
Page 62: Dread Forgetting - To forget a victim exists
Page 70: Dread Whisper - To trouble the conscience of a victim
Page 84: Dread Darkness - To curse a victim with a shroud of Night
Page 99: Dread Resurrection - To call forth a victim from beyond the veil."

Beginning immediately, and for as long as you hold possession of the Necronomicon, you may take no action other than actions related to the book. While you hold the Book, you will appear to be of evil alignment and your role name will be twisted; all of your actions, no matter how well-intentioned, will appear to be attempts to kill.

Each Day and each Night, you may choose to do any of the following things:

1. Keep the Book and do nothing with it;
2. Pass the Book to another player (note that this may be subject to observation);
3. Return the Book to its pedestal in the common area;
4. Use a power from the Book.

If you choose to use a power, you must select a power and a target (living or dead, although some spells may not work on the one and other spells may not work on the other). You do not know the nature of the powers in the Mad Arab’s book; some may be beneficial to their target, some may harm their target, and some may have no game-related effect at all. Once you use a power, you will learn what it does.

VERY IMPORTANT FINAL NOTE: The powers of the Necromicon stem from extremely dark magic. Use this magic too often, and you will go insane, die, and be absorbed into a hell dimension. Also, you’ll be forced to listen to an entire Justin Bieber CD just before you die. There will be no warning of any kind when you approach the threshold, so proceed with caution.

[Stanislaus]

I don’t think the colour is going to tell us anything about who killed who. For a start, that would be a little unfair, but more importantly I think story will write the colour in a way that makes for entertainment, rather than a slavish accuracy to events as they transpired.

I doubt it’s worth speculating about the squirrel.

[Suburban_Plankton]

My thoughs on the overnight deaths are this:

Idle - Killed as a side-effect of his power
Rysto - Scum Kill
Omi - Vigged
Astral - SK

That’s in decreasing order of confidence, with Idle’s death being the only one that I’m ‘very certain’ about.

As far as what Rysto was doing, my first thought on “Grave Robber” was a resurrector, but I’m not sure that really fits. It could be that he had the power to steal powers from already dead playeers. That would fit the color, and allows for his action to have been successful and still have the night result in his death with no other visibel effects come morning.

I have a few thoughts about what a “Trickster” might be.
Bus Driver?
Simple Redirector?
Alignment Switcher?

It’s very unlikely that he would redirect the Scum kill (or any other Scum action). So if he was any sort of redirector, then he redirected a Vig/SK kill, or an investigation. I really don’t see Scum killing Omi, and I think it’s also unlikely they would bother redirecting anyone else to him, so I think that Astral’s action, if it was a redirect, affected some kind of investigative role. If it wasn’t a redirect, then I think it’s likely that he was able to ‘mark’ someone so that future investigations would be inaccurate, or something similar.

Assuming that I’m correct, I’m not sure that we should be overly concerned about it at the moment. Astral got taken out on Night 2, so he only had 2 opportunities to trick anyone. Worst case scenario seems to be that he turned 2 people into millers. That would be very unfortunate for those two people, but it’s something we can live with. We’ll figure it out if and when we lynch someone he ‘marked’, and we can adjust accordingly. It’s just one more glass of wine. And if Astral was simply a redirector (of any sort) then that should come out as we proceed through the Days and our town powers get more information that we can compare with.
At this point, I haven’t decided whather we should be trying to figure out what the zombie squirrel signifies, or if we should be ignoring it completely. For now, I’m ignoring it. I’ll consider that subject again if he reappears at dusk.