Wait a second. The end-of-day endgame condition explains how a no kill the night before last could be a plausible mafia move, but it doesn’t explain why mafia would recruit so early in the game. Was tirial really that good at out guessing the mafia that they felt they needed to recruit?
We know that the mafia targetted Idle Thoughts on one of the three no kill nights, and we know the mafia was not yet down to their last member yet. The only motive would be to neutralize the doctor. Kind of risky though isn’t it? Isn’t it better to save recruitment and have an unkillable mafia than stop the doctor? I guess after two blocks in a row, the mafia might have been antsy, but it still seems like recruiting late is the best option for the mafia.
I won’t comment too heavily, simply because I know what happened. But one way to use the recruit isn’t as a last ditch effort to try to keep from losing, but instead as a method to neutralize the powers of a player that would be difficult to kill. Imagine if the detective hadn’t been killed, but it was likely that the mafia knew who was the detective, but couldn’t target him without risking a block. Then, they not only neutralize the detective, but can use it to find the doctor and the masons. Similarly, if the doctor is discovered, he can be neutralized. If it means that a few night kills down the line might be prevented, it could be worth it. Especially in this case, where the mafia did a good job confusing the town on when it took place. If it did happen before, the fact that there are people thinking it didn’t, means it would have been a successful use of the recruit.
That’s why I asked, the way I interpretted it didn’t seem like the rules I expected, and the clarification greatly affected the mafia strategy over the last couple of nights. Even though it’s a harder win condition, it actualy helped us out.
I agree that using recruitment to get the cop is a good idea. I guess I just disagree with the impact of trying to get the doctor. The cop is getting information every night with 100% accuracy. The doctor has a 1/N chance to block a kill.
In my opinion:
Cop == recruit now
Doctor == recruit later and kill some one else
Gadarene, is there any chance tirial has the information that Idle had? I just remembered the whole business with her analyzing those lists a few days ago, and it seemed to come out of nowhere. You don’t have to tell me if she’s the recruit or not (of course), but is there any chance she has inside info? If the players knew about Idle’s accidental inside info, then I bet they’d jump all over tirial for that.
Anyway…I think today is going to be the most crucial day of the game. It could end today, or it could swing in any of three directions very quickly. It looks like people might be on to the Masons, which is unfortunate, but it’s getting harder and harder to hide in such a small group. If it hadn’t been me last night, odds are, it would have been another Mason. It’s amazing we lasted so long in the first place!
What I think they should do right now: tirial offered to protect a Mason overnight, which would theoretically get the Masons to make sure she’s not lynched today. That looks scarily like an evil ploy. She’s appealing to them in a very heavy-handed way, but it looks weird to me. Why would she say that two Masons are more valuable than one doctor? I don’t buy that–she can still use her powers to play chicken and try to prevent a nightkill, which could buy an extra day. Make sure she does get lynched.
Thanks for your comments. It’ll be awesome to get everyone back together at the end of the game and see what we were all thinking at different points. I do think I could have played better, so I’ll use that next time…if I ever find time for a game again! Actually, I would really like to try playing scum sometime. It’s totally random, so I can’t be Mafia on purpose, but a few more games, and the odds will be with me.
Also, I just noticed that tirial’s reasoning in the post where she votes for Diggit can’t possibly be right. I think she’s really trying to do something brilliant if she’s scum, but she doesn’t quite have everything nailed down. If she’s not lying, however, she’s coming to a completely off-the-wall conclusion. I don’t think she’s that imperceptive, so I’m betting it’s the former and that she simply can’t construct an airtight story. But she’s trying VERY hard.
To be honest, I’m quite surprised that “deal” wasn’t her undoing. At best, she’s honest and just trying to keep two pro-town players in the game, but she’d definitively out the Masons to do that, and like **Diggit ** said, if there is a kill it’s “Oops, well, I was protecting the other mason” and if there’s no kill it still doesn’t prove she wasn’t recruited. At worst, she’s scum, trying to out the Masons so she can pick which one to kill (or not kill) to try to minimize getting lynched tomorrow.
I also have to say I’m thoroughly befuddled, yet again, by her logic that indicts Hal and Diggit. If she protected Hal, then I don’t see how Diggit not thinking it was the recruit proves he’s scum by her protecting Hal. I kind of see where her mind is going, but it just doesn’t logically hold together unless she can prove that she succeeded in blocking. And even then, she was to explain why she suddenly goes from thinking the recruit happened two Days ago to having happened however many days ago, and explaining why we would have recruited Diggit over her.
…Wow, good stuff.
Well I’ll, hopefully, be starting up a game soon. I’d offer to make you scum, since you wanna try it… but then anyone reading this thread would know. 
I’m interested to see what’s going to happen after the thread ends too. Of course, there seems to be more and more to the behind-the-scenes all the time. Hmm…
What I don’t understand is why there weren’t any mason claims. I can see not wanting to claim both masons, but what the town should have done was have one mason claim, and have tirial protect that one mason. The other mason is hidden and could get offed in the night, but there would be at least one confirmed mason left for the last day. Now the town has to worry about a mason dying tonight leaving no way to confirm masonhood.
I can’t really see why tirial is still so keen on lynching Diggit. I also think that if Hal is the recruit his ‘sorry I’ve been busy’ play is an atrocious way to play the game, especially the endgame.
Yep: try being the doctor who gets the GM telling them in a PM that they should roleclaim - sorry Gad did I completely ignore you resulting in Rachm getting lynched not me ?
As far as I can tell there’s been a nasty pro-scum bias in Gad’s decisions from early on.
- Idle stayed in the game after getting info he shouldn’t have had (I’ll read this thread later to get the story on that). Apparently he was declined a sub.
- When I suspected and PM’d Gad he refused to say in-game “Idle thoughts was removed from the game due to metagame reasons” and instead told me I should roleclaim at a time it would have got me lynched (co-incidentally instead of a scum).
- Declined a sub request when I found out about Idle, and instead left me playing handcuffed.
- Changed the rules to remove a coin toss that would have given the town a 50/50 chance of having a block tonight regardless of Diggit’s scum status.
- When immediately after that I asked for a sub again he agreed to sub me four hours before the end of the day. Yeah, that’s really fair on my replacement.
So we’ve got two of the strongest town players playing handcuffed, an anti-town rule change that removed the chance of a block, an unannounced kill of two town players in one night (which apparently the scum were consulted on) and a player with extra knowledge allowed to stay in, biasing the other town players.
I am less than happy.
We won’t get into Rachm’s outright lie about “Nothing happened to Idle” - as you were scum the PMs I got when I asked about Idle indicated you were told the full story before he was taken out of the game, and before you posted that.
Oh BTW Idle I didn’t spot you because you were “too good”. I caught you because I have a background of 20-odd years in gaming and you suddenly went quiet and came back acting like the peope I used to bust. You see I quit gaming two years ago except with a small group, because I got too good (I can solve most scenarios very quickly). As a result I kept being asked to act as a “ringer” to catch cheating refs and players. Its a fast way to get jaded, but also to learn to spot the players whose dice float corner up in coke, who’ve got fresh eraser marks on their sheet, pencil shavings hidden in a drinks can or who definitely know things they shouldn’t. I am, to be honest, glad it was an accident and not cheating but I still don’t see why you stayed in the game.
(I am also annoyed with myself for being nice because if I’d used the word “Cheat” before the word “Recruit” I’d have got the story a lot sooner and not wasted time chasing you, which eventually resulted in my lynch. Unfortunately I didn’t think there was anyway you would do that, particularly staying in after finding stuff out - it ruins the challenge of the game.)
Thank you for reminding me why I quit gaming, Gadarene. Once Mafia IV’s over its going to be a long long time before I play anything else.
Millit:
I don’t believe so.
That’s why I think its Diggit, simply because I don’t think anyone would play that disgracefully. If it is Hal his continued absences would be on a par for the level of play I’ve come to expect from this game.
Whether the scum knew it or not, they’ve had help, which makes any win a bit worthless (not their fault perhaps, but annoying). I’d like to play them again in a game where the GM is neutral simply to see how they play stand-alone - I think it would be much more enjoyable. Those players also in mafia IV for example are playing an interesting and very good game.
Emphasis added. I take exception to this.
No, but I twigged Idle’s post style changed. Then when he wasn’t the recruit I checked and it had still changed, which made me think “Cheat”. I PM’d Gad and Idle who gave me the basics, that he somehow got information he shouldn’t have done, but remained in the game, which Idle thought he should not have done.
I haven’t had a chance to read the thread, but I’d bet it was a player listing, and overcompensating Idle went after someone he knew to be town but not a power role to avoid giving the town an advantage and accidentally started a bandwagon.
How did I twig the scum I caught? Twenty years in gaming and a career that’s been at times not a million miles removed from this game. For what its worth, I wasn’t sure about Blastermaster so I went after Diggit, I’m not actually that sure about the recruit, and I may have got the masons wrong.
I actually started with my list of levels, figured the three most likely scum on there, picked the most likely (Rachm) and looked for an excuse to narrow it down to one or two that the town could follow, and I could use to go after Rachm. Idle’s list and the stuff about “one in each” that he started were the fastest excuse I could think of that the town might buy. (What should I have done, said Rachm is 98% scum, Blastermaster 76% and Diggit 75%, so vote Rachm - who’d have gone for that?)
I suppose I should apologise to Rachm actually - I didn’t care if what I was saying was true or not, but I’d figured you were scum pretty early and by that point in the game I just wanted to throw enough at you to make it finally stick.
Take all the exception you like.
When have any of your more unorthodox decisions actually harmed the scum in any way compared to the damage they did to the town?
Well, let’s see. My fuck-ups:
-
Not subbing Idle out immediately once I discovered that he had accidentally read part of the forbidden thread.
-
Mistakenly concluding that Idle had blocked his own kill, thus keeping him alive for three Days until I mod-killed him.
-
Deciding sua sponte to extend the Day time as a result of the tie on Day 10, rather than having an endgame lynch decided by random.org.
Any others? I’m sure there are, but frankly I’ve forgotten.
I’m not sure how any of those affirmatively damaged the town so much as they (at least the first two) damaged the game. The scum were just as prejudiced by Idle’s newfound knowledge and his not being dead than the town was. At least until Idle decided to use that knowledge to go on determined crusades against the people he had (with little evidence, as you’ll see when you read the offending information to begin with) assumed to be scum.
You’re an extremely perceptive player. But you surely do have your lapses and your blind spots at times, and the issue of bias is one of them.
I’ll say, by the way, as I have previously, that fuck-up #1 was absolutely unforgiveable, and it broke the game. So…my bad. I won’t be playing or GMing again.
Actually, hate to break it to you, but changing the rules part way through is the unforgiveable one.
What do you want me to say, tirial? You got the result you wanted regardless. How would it have changed if I had done random.org on Saturday following the tie vote and your name had come up?
I’m sorry. Bad, bad me. Incompetence doesn’t equal bias.
(By the way, I’ve clearly learned my lesson about putting information, however cryptic, into the forbidden thread. But I will say that the last Day or so has, to a careful observer, been interesting to watch for reasons beyond the obvious ones.)
Oh, for… you know what? I wanted to stay out of this, I really did, but are you serious? Are we really using the word unforgiveable to describe well-intentioned (and only arguably incorrect, as I agree with quite a few of **Gad’s ** calls in this game) moderator decisions in a freaking game? Really?
Tirial, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you’re not coming off at all well here. The way you are presenting yourself seems awfully petty and the sportsmanship you are showing in the face of (possible) defeat looks even poorer in light of the fact that you claim to have played a lot of games of this type. Frankly, had you done a better job of presenting your case in this last game Day, instead of getting petulant and blaming everyone else for your situation, the endgame might have played out differently. And the bad-spirited way in which you’re going about your post-game analysis is going to, for the first time, make this game something that the moderators might look at as not worth the trouble. If you make this petty and personal, then realize that the net result might be that the rest of us, who want to keep playing this game, might not have that chance.
Gad, I can’t believe you’d actually let something like this make you stop playing. No one died. Everyone involved (with the evident exception of tirial) had fun. If this had been nuclear negotiation, there might be other criteria, but as far as I can tell, “no one died and everyone involved had fun” is about the definition of a good game, and by any definition that makes your moderation successful.
Geez.
P.S. I do think I want to make this plea to all future gamerunners: please don’t extend the Days. Ever. No matter what. I say this for two reasons: (1) it impedes the strategy of anyone who might be relying on a specific end time for the day; and (2) it encourages players to drag things out, figuring they can always count on an extension. The game is more fun when it’s under the gun. I get what you did at the end, there, Gad, but if the town was foolish enough to let a crucial decision go to random.org than that’s their bad strategy, and possibly the scum’s good strategy.