# Genre Fiction Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387 "2011-05-19T01:03:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/201 "2011-05-24T07:18:29Z")
Sillier things have happened than forgetting what your alignment is. Likelihood of a third faction? I don’t know. It’s a small enough game that I could believe no third faction. After 8 Day/Night cycles, assuming one lynch per Day and one NK per night, we’d be at 5 players, which is pretty much end game and fits the generally accepted rule that a game should last no more than 2 months. I think your best bet for determining the probability of a third party is to look at previous games designed by Red and see how they balance. Me, I’m just going to hang tight and enjoy the ride. I rarely worry about things like setup this early. There’s practically an infinite number of ways to balance the game and the only real piece of information that I have right now is my alignment and role and I can’t calculate much JSP off that. Today, I look for behavior that I think is distracting and don’t worry too much about it We have the rest of the game to analyze Today. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/202 "2011-05-24T07:19:37Z")
Ugh, I forgot a period. Here… ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/203 "2011-05-24T12:23:44Z")
> [@fubbleskag](#): > > bolding mine - it’s pretty obvious that **Astral** failed to notice that a new, updated sample PM had already been posted, and was comparing his PM to the first sample, just like **Ed** He did notice the rule change, though, which was in the same exact post as the updated sample PM. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/204 "2011-05-24T12:39:16Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I may have mentioned this before, but I’m getting my masters and Mondays are my night class. We get five minute breaks every once in a while, so I’m reading along on my phone when I get a chance. Playing from your phone? Scum tell. /joke no one here will get > [@](#): > > So, not staying mum, just no time to really compose a response. > > To answer some questions: > > 1. I thought I had caught an important game detail from the wording of the team names. I didn’t remember that the slumlords were the good guys, because I glossed over that. The teams (to me) are town and scum. I didn’t remember the details, and in the posted vanilla PM the win condition mentioned beating the slumlords, and off I went to post my “find.” Actually it says to defeat threats _to_ the slumlords. I can just about buy you mis-reading that, in isolation. I have a much harder time buying that you would do so after multiple exposures, including after seeing YOUR OWN PM saying the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/205 "2011-05-24T12:43:58Z")
> [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > He did notice the rule change, though, which was in the same exact post as the updated sample PM. Incorrect. Original Sample PM was post #1; Corrected Sample PM was post #23; Rules Correction was post #91. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/206 "2011-05-24T12:47:32Z")
Side note - I’m not familiar with a potential 3rd party aspect, can someone give me a brief breakdown of how they work typically? ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/207 "2011-05-24T12:48:24Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Or is it more likely that a townie glanced at his PM to see alignment … Which is that we’re a bunch of raftdwelling slumlords, not that we’re some generic “town”. You can’t have your own “town” alignment in mind and still make that mistake. **vote: Astral Rejection** ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/208 "2011-05-24T12:55:16Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I hear ya, Ed. What’s your position on Astral? You keep commenting, but you’re not saying anything. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/209 "2011-05-24T13:05:45Z")
> [@fubbleskag](#): > > Incorrect. Original Sample PM was post #1; Corrected Sample PM was post #23; Rules Correction was post #91. Not what I was referring to. Astral mentioned a change due to a “double hammer” (by which I assume he means the “both can die in a tie” rule). The correction needed due to that was to the win condition, which was amended in post 23. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/210 "2011-05-24T13:07:10Z")
NETA: This – > [@](#): > > Correction > (I always forget to fix the wincon when I use the all or nothing tiebreaker) :smack: > > Sample Generic Vanilla PM: > > Name: Atreyu > Alignment: Consolidated Alliance of Raftdwelling Slumlords > Universe/Story: The Neverending Story > Role: Vanilla > Powers: None > Wincondition: You win when all threats to the Consolidated Alliance of Raftdwelling Slumlords have been vanquished AND at least one member of the Consolidated Alliance of Raftdwelling Slumlords are alive. Astral clearly read this at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/211 "2011-05-24T13:26:39Z")
Right, let’s review: > [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Per the first post: > > > [@](#): > > > > Consolidated Alliance of Raftdwelling Slumlords > > Per the opening post: > > > [@](#): > > > > THE ASSOCIATED LEAGUE OF EVIL HIDES IN YOUR SHADOWS! > > Evidence that we are, in fact, dealing with a third party or two? I’d say so. > [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I’m guessing this is directed at me. Red has intimated that the color can provide hints about the game state. Since he’s now used two different ways to describe the opposing force, I’d guess that there’s a scum team that can communicate, plus a 3rd party or two that can not communicate, and together they form the “Associated League of Evil.” So at this point, Astral clearly thinks that CARS are “the opposing force”. Which would be fine, because “Slumlords” does sound scummy, but… > [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Now that I’m sitting in front of my computer, I finally understand the confusion about my comments. > > When I first read the sample PM on my phone, the way the words were presented made me skip over the part that says “threats to the.” When I glanced at it, I saw “You win when all Consolidated Alliance of Raftdwellers have been vanquished.” I looked again when I was writing my earlier defense post, and still skipped over the pertinent words. Now, on an actual screen, I see my mistake. > > At first, I couldn’t understand everybody’s confusion. I might have had the teams wrong, but the opening post had them wrong too! It’s much easier to flit back to the first post of the thread than check my messages on my phone, so I was using that (flawed) name for reference. And from that comes all my misunderstandings. He’s saying he got a PM that told him his team was CARS, but he didn’t really read that bit. He (mis)read the WinCon in such a way that made him think he had to defeat CARS and didn’t notice that the same role PM told him he was CARS. But then he says: > [@](#): > > Yes, I noticed yesterday which team I was on. (It’s the good guys, I promise!) > > And then I forgot which name went with which faction today. When I went back to the original post, I misread the sample PM and thought the Alliance were the bad guys. and… > [@](#): > > Or is it more likely that a townie glanced at his PM to see alignment and if he had any cool powers, and then headed back to the boards? Which is _really_ more likely? so he did read his team name. So how could he think that he was CARS and that his goal was to vanquish CARS? It comes down to this: if you’ve got a PM telling you that you’re CARS, you can’t really think that CARS are the opposing force. On the other hand, if your PM doesn’t tell you this, it’s much easier to think that both CARS and ALE are antiTown. If you were a third party yourself, for example, you might be unclear on the names of both Town and Scum factions. So I’m pretty sure Astral isn’t Town. However, I think it’s probably a bit more likely that he’s third-party rather than scum. And while I don’t object to third-party lynchings, it’s probably better to try to find scum. So: **unvote Astral** ---
**Author:** ![Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirka_T_Bawa)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/212 "2011-05-24T13:29:33Z")
Everyone seems to be jumping on the Astral bandwagon, he is already at 6 votes, half way to the hammer. While to me, it looks like he made a simple mistake from skimming the thread from before the game actually started. While that might be what happens on day ones, I’m just not feeling the case against him. I don’t know who to vote for so far, but I don’t think it should be Astral. I’ll have more of a chance to get my thoughts together after I get out of rotation this afternoon, (and I’m not reading and posting on my phone). Oh, and our town name is scummy sounding, and I know I had to wiki my role name since I had no idea who he was. It was only after I read his wiki article I saw he was a good guy. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/213 "2011-05-24T13:41:32Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > So I’m pretty sure Astral isn’t Town. However, I think it’s probably a bit more likely that he’s third-party rather than scum. _nod_ I was about to post the following, then decided to let it run a bit further first. But as you’ve laid it out already – I think it quite possible that Astral is a third party/PFK/“third faction”. His original comment, along the lines of “Slumlords-scum PLUS other bad guys EQUALS Alliance of evil that town must defeat” makes a great deal of sense from a skimming/PIS-y third party standpoint. To put it in Ed’s terms: – Astral’s PM reads Alignment: (not CARS or ALE) – Astral skims sample townie PM, misreads it as “defeat the CARS”. Since he’s not CARS himself, no warning bells go off. – ergo CARS are scum – ergo Alliance of Evil must be scum plus him – he posts his “insight”, hoping to appear helpful by decoding the setup for the townies. Whoops. I’m keeping my vote, though, as I want him to claim. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/214 "2011-05-24T14:00:21Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > \ > > So I’m pretty sure Astral isn’t Town. However, I think it’s probably a bit more likely that he’s third-party rather than scum. And while I don’t object to third-party lynchings, it’s probably better to try to find scum. So: > > unvote Astral I was under the impression that nabbing a 3rd party was the next best thing to nabbing scum. You’d rather let a 3rd party go? I don’t really understand this line of thinking (I thought it was more along the black-and-white lines of ‘town or NOT TOWN’) ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/215 "2011-05-24T14:01:56Z")
NETA: Is it generally accepted that 3rd party are not a threat till we near end-game, at which time they “need to be dealt with” if known? sounds so ominous! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![special\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@special\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/special_ed)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/216 "2011-05-24T14:32:22Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > It comes down to this: if you’ve got a PM telling you that you’re CARS, you can’t really think that CARS are the opposing force. On the other hand, if your PM doesn’t tell you this, it’s much easier to think that both CARS and ALE are antiTown. If you were a third party yourself, for example, you might be unclear on the names of both Town and Scum factions. > > So I’m pretty sure Astral isn’t Town. However, I think it’s probably a bit more likely that he’s third-party rather than scum. And while I don’t object to third-party lynchings, it’s probably better to try to find scum. So: > > **unvote Astral** No, it makes just as much sense if not more were he Scum. He knows he’s a member of ALE. He sees this CARS faction mentioned and wants to make sure Town pays attention to them as well. Or he actually genuinely thought there might be a 3rd faction besides his own ---
**Author:** ![special\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@special\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/special_ed)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/217 "2011-05-24T14:34:09Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > No, it makes just as much sense if not more were he Scum. > > He knows he’s a member of ALE. He sees this CARS faction mentioned and wants to make sure Town pays attention to them as well. Or he actually genuinely thought there might be a 3rd faction besides his own NETA, the last paragraph is not meant as a statement of fact. It’s a hypothetical showing how Astral’s behavior fits if he were a member of ALE. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/218 "2011-05-24T15:01:20Z")
> [@Winston\_Smith](#): > > I was under the impression that nabbing a 3rd party was the next best thing to nabbing scum. You’d rather let a 3rd party go? I don’t really understand this line of thinking (I thought it was more along the black-and-white lines of ‘town or NOT TOWN’) Nabbing a PFK is somewhat good but not nearly as good as nabbing a scum. Take the traditional PFK, the serial killer: since they have to kill everyone, killing scum is just as beneficial as killing town for them. Nabbing a non-exclusive-win third party is beneficial, or not, depending on how that third party has been acting and what their powers are. On the other hand, killing them if they’re playing in support of town is not as bad as killing a real townie because they typically don’t count towards town’s majority in games I’ve played in. Take the traditional 3rd-Party, the survivor: since they have no powers except voting, and are going to be trying to blend in with town (and thus voting like town), killing them is somewhat bad but not as bad as killing a real townie. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/219 "2011-05-24T15:08:31Z")
I have been in a game with a serial killer who just annihilated Town; we lynched four scum in a row starting on day 3 (I think) and still lost because the confirmed and semi-confirmed Town were getting mowed down. I’ve also been in a game where Town lynched the SK on day one and lost on Day 5 or so. And I’ve been in a game where the Serial Killers took out half of the scum team (albeit not on purpose). ---
**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:** [May 24, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387/220 "2011-05-24T15:10:12Z")
That said, if Astral is PFK, I think we’re on to a good thing. I broadly agree that while it’s possible he made a straight mistake as Town, it’s relatively hard to see a Townie making quite that misreading. (And making obvious mistakes isn’t something only Townies do; Normal accidentally voted for a claimed Mason in the last game, then blew it off as a glitch; she was scum.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genre-fiction-mafia/582387.md?page=12)