# Forbidden Forest - Unspoiled Harry Potter Mafia Discussion **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 27, 2010, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719 "2010-06-27T22:22:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/261 "2010-07-29T15:57:59Z")
> [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > What was ragnarok end of day 4? it was a game on giraffe where the scum (me, naf, mhaye and pollux (?)) were shifting our votes like mad over the last hour or so of voting. we knew that **is** was the town vig and needed to get him lynched to protect our sorry asses. **ulla** was the mod and by the time she would post a vote count it was outdated by a couple of minutes and **naf** was giving her shit about it. course the other players were chiming in with their vote counts as well but those were equally useless since it got so fluid. i think **mhaye** hammered the deal with a vote with one minute left. it really is an interesting read. just the last page and half of that Day is all that is needed. to this day i can re-read that and still get a chuckle over how, to me, transparant we were but never really got called on it. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/262 "2010-07-29T16:01:30Z")
Is it 12:01 yet? Yep. Silly story, didn’t even vote. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/263 "2010-07-29T16:14:56Z")
That one really could have gone either way; I’m sorry they didn’t end up lynching Guiri, as IS’s decision overnight would have been an interesting one: kill story, who after all is confirmed Town, or keep him alive since he’s expressed so much confidence in IS’s townieness. ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/264 "2010-07-29T16:16:43Z")
I totally forgot about the Snitch, duh. Can’t remember who had it, either. Well, I can’t say the town deserved to win this, but my townie-sympathizing heart is still disappointed. They were very very close even despite all the mishaps and poor play. They just couldn’t put it together. Inner Stickler played quite well with that one glaring exception, and Guiri’s going to be scary good once he gets a little more experience in as mafia. That tentative air was really the only thing solid anyone managed to pin on him. Peeker, where was that game played? Do you have a link? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/265 "2010-07-29T16:18:19Z")
Why the hell didn’t **story** vote? If he’d voted for **Guiri** as he said he would, the town would have lynched Scum today since **Jimmy** had the tie-breaking Snitch. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/266 "2010-07-29T16:27:26Z")
Admittedly, I’m a terrible loser, but that sucked. It seemed pretty obvious to me. I guess I should’ve made more noise, but I was already pretty tired of reading my own arguments. I probably deleted more posts than I made the last couple days. Yes, I had the snitch. > [@sachertorte](#): > > My conclusion is that Rysto is Town and that he is mod-confirmed Town. I fully expect someone to reach this conclusion on their own as well. I would really like to know if scum were thinking along these lines or if they were after **Rysto** on their own. > [@Harry Potter Mafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-mafia/544429/618): > > > [@Harry Potter Mafia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-mafia/544429/618): > > > > The other is that the Snitch was the thing they handed out to all the contestants in Goblet of Fire, and that Harry had to unlock to hear a message about one of the feats in the tournament, so there’s a precedent for it being a mechanism to pass secret information along. > > FTR, Jimmy has misremembered. It was a golden egg, not a snitch. Duh! I was even picturing it as a big golden egg-shaped thing, and it never even occurred to me that that probably wasn’t the tiny little winged snitch. I think I just really wanted it to be an information-carrying mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/267 "2010-07-29T16:40:10Z")
> [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > Peeker, where was that game played? Do you have a link? here ya go. really pages 6 and 7 is where it become comical. > **[RAGNAROK - DAY 4 - Page 7 - The Giraffe Boards](https://www.giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?t=2467&page=7)** > > Page 7- RAGNAROK - DAY 4 The Dungeon ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/268 "2010-07-29T16:43:24Z")
One thing I hope comes out of **Inner Stickler** flipping Scum: Maybe we can finally lay to rest this silly notion that anti-Town is not pro-Scum. **Storyteller** is always saying things like, yes, it’s anti-Town, but what’s the Scum motivation? The Scum motivation is that it’s anti-Town! They want Town to lose, and the only thing that prevents them from doing blatantly anti-Town things all the time is the fear that people will vote them for it. But if everyone keeps saying “But anti-Town is not pro-Scum! What’s the motivation?”, then that’s no risk at all. ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/269 "2010-07-29T16:43:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I would really like to know if scum were thinking along these lines or if they were after Rysto on their own. Both, IIRC. They had investigated him, and also caught the “confirmation”. ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/270 "2010-07-29T16:54:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One thing I hope comes out of **Inner Stickler** flipping Scum: Maybe we can finally lay to rest this silly notion that anti-Town is not pro-Scum. **Storyteller** is always saying things like, yes, it’s anti-Town, but what’s the Scum motivation? The Scum motivation is that it’s anti-Town! They want Town to lose, and the only thing that prevents them from doing blatantly anti-Town things all the time is the fear that people will vote them for it. But if everyone keeps saying “But anti-Town is not pro-Scum! What’s the motivation?”, then that’s no risk at all. I’d quibble with that mostly because I do see plenty of scum motivation there. It certainly doesn’t happen to me every single Day (or even day) I’m playing a mafia role, but I do at times have trouble finding the right words to make a case on someone (I rarely lack for ability to find a case in the first place; that’s easy for me); or the strategic complexity of the situation freezes me into immobility. And I’m not the only one – analysis paralysis/inability to make a reasoned vote is the motivating factor behind all sorts of scum tells. I’d bet money that’s what happened here, too. The vote coming in the last few minutes of the day (the really anti-town part of it) is only the icing on the cake. I suppose it’s not strictly scum motivation at play, though – more like scum psychology. The motivation is more subtle. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/271 "2010-07-29T17:16:08Z")
> [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > Both, IIRC. They had investigated him, and also caught the “confirmation”. Ah, thanks. I’m glad it would have happened anyway. I think the thing about anti-town isn’t that it’s necessarily _not_ pro-scum, it’s that it isn’t necessarily always indicative of a pro-scum intention. I doubt **storyteller** or anybody really thinks that there’s a bright line distinction between the two. It’s just that, having demonstrated that something’s bad for town, there’s still a little work to be done before you can be confident about declaring it solid evidence against somebody. After all, you can help the scum because you are the scum, or you can help the scum because you screwed up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/272 "2010-07-29T17:32:08Z")
Sure, but I maintain that other players generally can’t tell the difference. I mean, if someone’s a confirmed Mason or something, and does something anti-Town, I obviously won’t vote them for it, since their mere continued existence is pro-Town. But short of confirmation by game mechanics, all I have to go on is someone’s actions. And at worst, even if we do mislynch, I’d rather lynch a Town player who’s screwing up than a Town player who’s playing well. ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/273 "2010-07-29T18:15:04Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > > [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > > > Peeker, where was that game played? Do you have a link? > > here ya go. really pages 6 and 7 is where it become comical. > > [RAGNAROK - DAY 4 - Page 7 - The Giraffe Boards](http://www.giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?t=2467&page=7) Oh, that was a thing of beauty. All four of you. Nice. I’ve seen that referenced before, now that I read it – it’s one of SisC’s favorite examples to use for “Scum WILL do that”. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/274 "2010-07-29T22:06:22Z")
I’m still pissed about that. ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/275 "2010-07-29T22:43:02Z")
I have no trouble whatsoever believing that. Ouch. ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/276 "2010-07-29T23:29:19Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I’m still pissed about that. i think what is terribly amusing about the whole thing is that we were not communicating off board about what to do. we just got a wild hair and kind of ad libbed it the whole way. there was nothing structured at all about it. but when you play with **naf** , **mhaye** and **pollux** you just let them lead and follow along. i mean **pollux** was the scum investigator and we knew **is** was the vig. but that was the extent or our coordination. other than that we were just funning. you just let players like that go with their gut and then you get to be supporting actor/actress and don’t trip 'em. ---
**Author:** ![MHaye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbe5ce/32.png) [@MHaye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MHaye)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/277 "2010-07-29T23:48:10Z")
… Ah, ragnarok. One of my brighter memories. The Day 1 lynch of the cop - because he lied. (He made a false claim late in the Day, and it got seen through.) Learning from Pollux the identities of the Town Vig and Town Doc, clearing the way to kill the backup Cop (the Night after hanging IS). Hugin and Munin (the Cop’s investigative ravens) refusing to go anywhere on Night 3 because the cold rain would soak their feathers (how Bufftabby and Total Lost coloured the roleblock). ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/278 "2010-07-30T00:08:30Z")
**i get what odin tells me** ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/279 "2010-08-02T00:39:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Sure, but I maintain that other players generally can’t tell the difference. I mean, if someone’s a confirmed Mason or something, and does something anti-Town, I obviously won’t vote them for it, since their mere continued existence is pro-Town. But short of confirmation by game mechanics, all I have to go on is someone’s actions. And at worst, even if we do mislynch, I’d rather lynch a Town player who’s screwing up than a Town player who’s playing well. I think it remains a rule of thumb because lots of Town players do things that are “anti-town”, and there are usually many more Townies playing than Scum, so it all boils down to the statistical chance of anti-town behavior being a false positive. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719/280 "2010-08-02T02:18:38Z")
Sure, but by the same token, _everything_ is statistically likely to be a false positive, at least in the early game. But you’ve got to vote based on something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forbidden-forest-unspoiled-harry-potter-mafia-discussion/544719.md?page=13)