HockeyMonkey just basically said what I said a post or two upthread about the self-summaries. Good, sensible advice.
And I still think she’s scum. Something about the fact that she never responded in any way to my very long post accusing her, just sort of let it float away on the wind.
Of course, I’m probably horribly wrong, since I always think she’s scum for some reason.
The difference between this game and M2 is going to be the number of night kills which will really start to drag the game out. Three kills a night can whittle the number of people down quickly. One kill a night is going to take a lot longer.
I will be honest and say I thought **sachertorte ** was being scummy from this post onwards.
It was his just casual attitude to possibly being voted for. I could be wrong of course.
I’m just amazed at some of the analysis that’s been posted about my posts.
I’m looking for a sub for MonkeyMensch, is anyone in here interested? If so, send me a PM.
Has this game broken the record for most subs yet?
I think so. I don’t remember how many were in M2, but I think there were only two or three in M3 and about four in M4. I really hope there won’t be any more, because that’s one part of modding that I haven’t enjoyed.
Pass the nachos, please.
My mistakes in this game were pretty straightforward in retrospect, and all too common for me:
Put them all together – laziness, acute anxiety, and overrepeating minor points – and sooner or later I set off everybody’s alarms, not just within a game.
My conclusion: Playing Mafia is a bad idea for me. I’ve got my own issues to keep working on.
ETA: Blaster Master, thanks very much for the death scene. <applause>
Don’t feel too bad about it, **Queuing ** has a way of getting to people. In M2, which was the first game for both of us, he and I had an even more robust confrontation, and the only thing that saved me from a lynch was that I had a provable power role. I definitely felt where you were, and why I was happy to oblige with your death scene and try to make it heroically sullen.
As for mafia, you’re right. This is the sort of game where your enjoyment is pretty much directly proportional to the amount of work you put in and how thick your skin is. The most fun I’ve had was when I was “sure” (rightfully or not) that someone else was scum and took the time to research and put together a strong case against them. When I was scum, it was a blast watching people do the same thing and be SO wrong most of the time and then finding ways to tear apart their logic or support it, depending on what was in the best interest of the scum.
That said, you did have some very good points. I wouldn’t give up yet… just maybe try a smaller, less complex game instead.
Welcome to the party, Scuba_Ben. Hey, you lasted longer than I did! 
WOW. I just gotta say, things are looking REALLY bad for the town right now. The sad thing is, if a couple of the decisions had gone slightly differently, it would be the other way around. Maybe that means it’s well balanced…? I hope.
Yeah, jeez. I don’t know if you’ve spilled the beans on what the special role is yet, but at this point, I’d guess it was some sort of power role identifier for the Cultists. If you’ve already said, then please ignore my WAG.
I think that would be a far too powerful role to give the cultists? Given my lack of experience with these games feel free to tell me to belt up, but a role like that would tip the scales far too much in the cultists favour I would think. [Then again they have managed to off the Crusader and the Oracle I suppose 
]
I presume Blaster won’t reveal this sort of info, even in the forbidden thread, but I’m intrigued as to whether it was just stupidly good luck on the cultists part that they offed the Oracle, or if they somehow managed to ID him. I have only been skimming the thread so don’t know if he said anything which would make him stand out.
From what I gather the Oracle is potentially the most potent weapon the town has.
Can I ask a tactics question to those who have played before? In this ruleset would it be tactically sound for the Oracle to role claim on the second day, such that they could then simply make pronouncements on who is who after each nights investigation, and simply flat out make a request that the Priest (whoever they may be) protect the Oracle each night?
The only issue I see here is would people believe the role claim?
I understand the idea is to “breadcrumb” your knowledge to others, but I just don’t see how you could effectively do that? Unless the Oracle is expected to be a martyr role… drop your breadcrumbs along the good sir, without being obvious, so that when you die, we can go back and trace them all then :eek:
Thinking on the role claim bit, I guess a scum could try a ploy to claim it, and then sacrifice one of their own on the first “investigation” to prove themselves. And then they would have open slather, to insert a scum as a “confirmed” townie, etc.
As far as I’m aware a power role should never, ever, ever roleclaim unless they’re on the verge of being lynched. The obvious problem with the oracle claiming up front is twofold: one, if a second power role claims down the road it’ll be a guessing game as to who the doctor will chose to protect each night. This also applies to the doc: if the doc roleclaims while the oracle is anonymous, it’ll probably be safe for he or she to self-protect that night. The second problem is it significantly lowers the chances of scum messing up; misdirection can be half the fun, and it buys the town valuable time if scum wastes several night kills trying and failing to nail people they suspect to be the oracle.
Nope haven’t spilled the beans on the role yet. I don’t want to mention to much about that sort of thing in here, because I’m VERY interested to see how the town reacts to someone role-claiming that.
IMO, this is a case-by-case sort of question. I really think that the Oracle coming out on the second day is almost always a bad idea, simply because he has to hope that the priest would trust his claim. The problem with that is, if the priest doesn’t trust him, he’s possibly dead and if the priest does, it leaves the priest vulnerable, whose value grows later in the game.
IMO, an effective oracle would minimize breadcrumbing for at least the first investigation, if not the second, because that’s when the scum will be looking for tells. After that, he can start crumbing. At a certain point, the total knowledge he has is worth potentially trading his life (say after 3 or 4 investigations, especially if he’s found scum). At that point, he can claim, prove it by getting the scum lynched, and then gain the protection of the priest and hopefully eke out another investigation or two.
Of course, if the priest is revealed, then you end up with a WIFOM situation with the scum playing chicken with the priest and trying to guess who the priest will protect.
Of course, I’m surprised this didn’t really come up with this rule set, but one of the ideas I was expecting would get a mention would be having the oracle claim fairly soon, then give the priest’s protection to him, and the priest the disciple’s protection. This would both keep the claimed oracle alive, and the priest secret and largely protected. To break that, the scum would have to either get lucky when they found the priest or find the disciple, then the priest, then go after the oracle. Either way, from that, I think the expected number of investigations thereafter would be at least 2 or 3… probably more.
Crap…I knew it…I won’t go into detail, but my Mafia journal entry for last night lays out just how I screwed up and was going to be killed overnight. Suffice it to say, if everything that happened leading up to my downfall was intentional, then this pack of scum are fricking brilliant.
Earlier on, I had posted this:
At that point, I would’ve come out and left it to the Priest to watch my back.
However, I forgot about C) When you figure out that someone is scum. Had I survived the night, I’d have come out and exposed a Cultist. I made one innocuous slip that I’m sure tipped them off, though. Damn.
Damn. This sucks, but I am pretty sure it’s too early to write off a possible town victory. Things have looked similarly dire for the town at one point or another in most of the games I’ve watched and played, but it doesn’t take much luck for the pendulum to swing back the other way.
I do wonder if the Apprentice should role claim at this point, though, and earn the protection of the Priest while (s)he can. If the scum had a bead on Hal, and if the Apprentice has made any kind of effort to breacrumb his own role to Hal, then they very well might have a bead on the Apprentice, too. If the Apprentice dies toNight without ever giving any results, that would be very, very bad.
You know, having read Hal’s incredibly cryptic post, above, and all the rest of the contributions, I’m wondering about the whole Forbidden Thread concept. What, really, is the point of having this thread if those of us who are out of the game can’t share anything about the way we played? I think if there was a bit more open discussion, it might make this thread more interesting and active.
Right now, it’s basically an extension of the game thread, with everyone holding onto their secrets. But since none of us is still in the game, we’re not going to do the extensive post history research and analysis that we might if we were still alive. Absent the ability to talk about developments in light of the information we possess, there’s relatively little to discuss.
Just putting it out there.
Welcome to the after-party, Hal. Have some nachos.
If I hadn’t freaked out as I did, my intent was to provide covering fire by dropping random breadcrumbs. Was this a good idea in theory?
If it doesn’t affect the game, I’d be interested in hearing why Blaster Master chose to have scum ID as nonbeliever.
Ok, all caught up on the Forbidden Thread now (I just perused the posts made after my murder before putting up my previous post).
And whaddayaknow…you were right! 
Heh…well, it actually did get…ummm…Queuing, I think it was, to push his vote away from me. That wasn’t my intention, I just found your spreadsheet to be very useful in M3, so I was more or less just putting it together for myself. If anyone found it useful, more power to them.
Guess I’m on the hook to maintain it now though, huh? Ah, that’s ok…I’ll be following along anyway.
Go town!!
Agreed…I greatly preferred the “Forbidden Thread” in the off-board M4. Since it was password-protected, there was no worry about info leaking out.
A “secret board” could always be made for these games, but the trouble there is there would be much less participation.
For the record, I really, really wish there was a secure place for these discussions, 'cause I feel like I’m going to pop with the dirt I wanna dish out.