Welcome one, welcome all… unless you’re still alive in Mafia V, then GO AWAY!
Spectators and the dead, please feel free to comment in this thread. Subs, feel free to participate. To future dead players, especially if you have/had a special role, please do not reveal any special information openly in the thread.
Yay! I can watch, at least.
I feel pretty positive about those two guys Hal and Diggit, for some reason…they don’t strike me as scummy at all! 
On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that this Blaster character is up to something…
<pulls up chair>
Well the game is off and running already.
Looks like they are trying to find a better way than random voting to try and find the cultists.
I’m not sure it will work though, unless someone makes a really silly mistake under pressure or they are lucky.
Agh! It’s SO hard not to comment in the thread, but I suspect it’ll be very interesting to actually get to watch with perfect information. Maybe this way I’ll be that much more dangerous in the next one, eh?
Just a gut instinct, or anything in particular?
Step one: Lynch Autolycus. Whatever he does, just take him out, for safety’s sake.
Y’know, if someone running the game wanted to be really evil, they’d intentionally put him in one of the power town roles. (Yes, I saw the mafia 2…uh…incident.)
These things are sooo addictive.
And, once again, storyteller is just being so reasonable. What’s he up to this time?
I DIDN’T see the Mafia 2 incident, but if it was anything like M4, Ship of Doom. . .
It was worse… it’s what gave them the idea to do what he did on the Hispaniola. Except, he was speaking in mafia talk instead of pirate talk. He ended up getting unanimously lynched, it was very funny, except for the fact that it was a terrible day for us townies.
A few initial thoughts
I think the number of scum is going to be 6 or 7 + 1 recruit. I think the recruit will be a lot less effective than in M3 as the number of people who can resist it is much higher and a few of them should remain hidden through to the endgame.
The scum success will depend on play and not numbers though, in M3 considering that there were 4 scum, they were all found with 6 townies left if you count out the recruit.
Using pure random votes on the first day is a bad idea. Using random votes to prod other people into making them talk and get an idea of the responses from them and others is a much better idea.
Mtgman seems to be varying between saying lynch non-believers and don’t lynch them. He seems to have also missed out that the Crusader can activate the PsychoPath and advocating the use of random votes would also allow the scum to hide their trails for a couple of days as well.
sachertorte post almost makes me think that the majority of the cultists is in the bottom half of the set,. He would know if he was a cultist and this strategy would point the Oracle away from more scum than less, if the Oracle follows his theory.
Its also interesting that **MtS ** and NAF1138 have both voted for CJ but are saying that they have not much reason to Dunk her?
Actually I see that storyteller0910 has picked up on the same points as well.
Let the game continue…
Quiet in here isn’t it
Clockwork Jackal. All The best for your FMIL. I hope you join us lurking in Forbidden Thread when things get better.
As for the game, it seems it has calmed down from the initial activity. I don’t think anyone can be classed as lurking yet, but some people are posting a lot more than others.
I hope they have got the Oracle/Apprentice talk over, although I think sachertorte is attracting a little too much attention. However, he still feels scummy to me. The Oracle/Apprentice should also not roleclaim until they have found the Prophet, otherwise, the recruit is going to wind up coming from any group they have cleared.
**Pasta ** and **storyteller0910 ** look to be townie and are trying to get discussion moving in the right direction. HazelNutCoffee also seems to be pointing in the right direction as well.
Other scummy looking people to me are MadtheSwine for his initial **Clockwork Jackal ** vote and **zuma ** for his vote on Hal Briston.
Also even if he did not edit his post, I really don’t agree with **Mtgman ** adding an edit entry to the bottom of his post.
Let the game continue…
Would anyone say I’m a bit sadistic for enjoying the whole Oracle / Apprentice discussion? There’s definitely some ideas coming up that I hadn’t considered when I designed the role. I do find it kind of strange that the none of the ideas I’d had in mind have been mentioned, then again, it’s already moot anyway.
Oh, I’m also interested in knowing what you all think would be a balanced number of scum and Non-Believers. I’m very intrigued by the guesses at the number of scum and Non-Believers that I chose. It’s interesting that no one has really seemed to pinpoint my reasoning in the design of the Non-Believer role; they seem too locked into how their win condition is related to the mason win condition from M3.
No, I think it is quite an amusing diversion as well. It just doesn’t help the town at all. I think they are getting too hooked up on trying to get the Apprentice up to the same level as the Oracle which will not happen until the Oracle is dead anyway. Until that time, anything the Apprentice finds out is suspect.
In terms of the number of the non-believer role, I think it is there to hide the cultists rather than provide an extra win condition and provide an extra level of suspicion. Towards the end of the game, it could be fun watching the vanilla townies killing off all the known non-believers in the hope they are getting a cultist without taking out the unknown players, which will probably include more of the cultists
I haven’t read the entire thread in detail, but has no one proposed that the Apprentice is at best merely a back-up to the Oracle? An inaccurate Detective is of little to no use. I would think the best Apprentice strategy is to get the Oracle’s attention, and drop no breadcrumbs at all. Once the Oracle finds a couple potential scum and the Apprentice, the Oracle can role-claim to pick off the scum (hopefully), confident that if they die they have an exact replacement. Until then, the Apprentice should simply stay hidden.
I’m trying to figure the balance -
Detective role is weakened greatly by the non-believers, but also strengthened by the back-up in case of death. Maybe it balances out.
Doctor roles - roughly 1 1/2, I’d say. At least the disciple is good from the start.
Crusader is at the start a detriment to the town, and Pyschopath could eventually be one as well.
The Avatar is potentially more harmful to scum than town, but only mildly so. It’s more likely to affect behavior and voting discussions.
I think 7 scum would be too high, so probably 6 total to start, though 5 would work. 4 seems too low in this game.
My guesses on the numbers :
Cult : Prophet, Avatar, 4 Cultists
Non-believers : Alchemist, Psycho, 2 non-psycho (4 total but one could go off)
Town: Priest, Disciple, Oracle, Apprentice, Crusader, 3 Monks (the standard), 12 vanilla town.
One question for Blaster Master - is the secret role something that shows up on investigators?
To be honest, I haven’t completely decided on that. To avoid giving it away, I’m strongly leaning toward just reading as the default for it’s alignment (ie, Believer or Non-Believer). FWIW, if you all are trying to spot the role, the person who has it does know (that is, it’s not unknown like the Avatar and Psychopath).
My motivation for it, though, was two-fold. First, I think it’s a neat role with lots of different ways to play it. And second, I like the idea of the town being unsure how many there are of a role, so I thought it would be really neat to see how they react to the opposite scenario of knowing there’s a role out there, but not sure what it will do.
Ah hah! You have confirmed my suspicion. These Mafia Games aren’t really games, they are psychological studies, which will have fascinating but statistically meaningless outcomes due to a combination of use of Dopers as subjects, the mostly anonymous nature of the games, and the unpredictability of the experiments.
Have you at least formulated a hypothesis? You don’t have to share it, I just wonder if you’ve figured out what you are trying to prove.
Hey guys,
Thanks for subbing me out Blaster, I know I couldn’t have participated any longer in the state I was in. My FMiL is getting better, and it’s lucky she wasn’t more seriously hurt!
I don’t really want to reveal what my role was, but I will say that sitting back and watching certain exchanges between certain people is fascinating. 
I am such a noob, I think just on day one I made a ton of mistakes!
Although, I am tempted to post in that thread just once to say “STOP CALLING ME A HE. I AM A GIRL”
I suppose there’s a little bit of that in there. I think the wild speculation about the role of it being potentially game breaking, or being of either alignment or being utterly useless is telling, but it’s also in the context of a game where it’s going to dredge up a lot of paranoia anyway.
But hey, even if it IS a study, as long as it’s fun, it can still be a game, right?
Clockwork Jackal Good to hear your FMIL is getting better.
I would go with the same numbers except for 1 extra normal non-believer, 1 secret role and two less vanilla townies.
As for the secret role, I would go with investigation giving either a believer or non-believer result. Unless it is something like the Avatar of Nairu who will strike down any scum who participate in the lynch of the townie.
Then it becomes a bit obvious to the Oracle.
They are still arguing over trying to apply Maths to the game. Maths will give a pointer and possibilites, but no hard data. Psychology will give reasoning and understanding which is likely to be more useful. But at least they are starting to try and look for scum tells in people’s post and actions.
Also, does anyone else think that sachertorte might also be the Apprentice trying to get the attention of the Oracle?
Let the game continue…