# Glasnost Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 17, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757 "2011-02-17T23:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 37
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/721 "2011-03-01T16:14:47Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Totally agreed with One and Only. Let the WIFOM game continue if Mental is on the level, and let the Vig deal with him if he isn’t. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. If Mental isn’t on the level, he has to die by the end of toMorrow. I don’t see how this is even a question. > [@](#): > > I say leave it entirely in the hands of the individual who already picked right once. I like the idea of the scum worrying about it. What individual are you talking about? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/722 "2011-03-01T16:18:48Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > I think this is absolutely ridiculous. If Mental isn’t on the level, he has to die by the end of toMorrow. I don’t see how this is even a question. > > What individual are you talking about? 😕 The jailer I assume. If mental is on the level, he wasnt jailed last night, and got an inv result and survived the night, so the jailer chose correctly in not targeting mental ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/723 "2011-03-01T16:20:18Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > I gotta say, I’m pretty skeptical of any course of action that consciously seeks to keep the Deranged Bomber alive any longer than necessary. The death of the Deranged Bomber is a necessary component of the Town win condition – if we’re operating on the assumption that **Drain** is the Deranged Bomber (and I think we have to be), why in the world wouldn’t we lynch her immediately – and by immediately I mean toDay – before giving her the chance to do any additional damage? Well, we probably should, and almost certainly will. But it’s not as cut-and-dry as you are making it out to be. > [@](#): > > Even if her death would technically be a “mislynch” (and I’m not sure I follow your logic there, **storyteller** ), it still is, as you say, the CORRECT thing for us to do at this point. How can there be any other option? There can be another option because sometimes the most risk-averse strategy is not the best. Look, just for the sake of argument, imagine we do _not_ lynch **Drain Bead** toDay (and the jailer does not jail her, either). What happens now? Well, on Night Two, she plants a Bomb. On whom will she plant it? In my experience third parties tend to lean Scum versus Town, so she’ll probably try to kill a Townie, if she can. Assuming Mental Guy is on the level, she might target him - but then she has to run the same gauntlet of WIFOM that the Scum ran last Night. Will MentalGuy be jailed? Then her last attempt at getting in an extra kill fails. Now say she does plant a Bomb on a player, attempting to hit Town. There are many possible outcomes: (1) She hits a Townie vanilla. We lose half a mislynch - less than we lose by lynching her toDay. (2) She hits a Sleeper. Same as above, except we also eliminate the risk of recruitment and create a confirmed non-Scum player (a sizable benefit). (3) She hits a Town power role. We lose half a mislynch - but we lose the benefit of that Town power role. Very bad. (4) She hits Scum. We do not lose a mislynch, and Scum lose a player. Very good. So really, any outcome of leaving the DSKB alive other than #3 is a net positive, for Town. Except that there’s also the risk that Scum kill the Vig before the Vig can kill the DSKB. That risk, I think, pushes me out of the “leave her alive” camp and into the “lynch her now” camp… but let’s not pretend it’s a simple deal. > [@](#): > > (Emphasis added) Seems cut and dry to me. I’m not sure how to explain it if my previous attempt didn’t work. Maybe you had to be there for Mafia: Arkham Asylum to visualize it. Third parties are a trap. They have to be eliminated, but every time you use the lynch to eliminate them you actually _promote_ the Scum win condition (and you generate mostly useless voting data, too). If there are reasonable secure non-lynch ways to eliminate threatening third-parties, they are always, _always_ preferable from the standpoint of Town. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/724 "2011-03-01T16:23:28Z")
> [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](#): > > The jailer I assume. > > If mental is on the level, he wasnt jailed last night, and got an inv result and survived the night, so the jailer chose correctly in not targeting mental Okay, that makes sense. And it’s entirely irrelevant to the question of whether Mental should die if Drain turns out to be Town. (Not least because jailed players can’t be targeted by the Vig, so if Drain flips Town and we opt not to lynch Mental, we’re relying on both the jailer (to target someone else) and the Vig (to kill Mental) the next Night…saying nothing of the possibility that we accidentally _lynch_ the Vig, leaving Mental to roam free for another night in that scenario.) Obviously, this is all a contingency plan for what should happen if Drain flips Town. If Drain flips third party, OTOH, we’ve got a confirmed cop and we can go about the business of rooting out the remaining scum. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/725 "2011-03-01T16:25:26Z")
I still don’t get it, **story** , but I have to turn to some real-life work now, so I’ll just shrug and assume you’re smarter than me. Doesn’t make a difference as long as you still agree that **Drain** needs to die today. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/726 "2011-03-01T16:27:00Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > Okay, that makes sense. And it’s entirely irrelevant to the question of whether Mental should die if Drain turns out to be Town. (Not least because jailed players can’t be targeted by the Vig, so if Drain flips Town and we opt not to lynch Mental, we’re relying on both the jailer (to target someone else) and the Vig (to kill Mental) the next Night…saying nothing of the possibility that we accidentally _lynch_ the Vig, leaving Mental to roam free for another night in that scenario.) > > Obviously, this is all a contingency plan for what should happen if Drain flips Town. If Drain flips third party, OTOH, we’ve got a confirmed cop and we can go about the business of rooting out the remaining scum. Drain has claimed vanilla, so there should be zero chance of lynching the Vig today. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/727 "2011-03-01T16:28:01Z")
NETA: If we don’t lynch Drain today, then we don’t _know_ whether she’s the Deranged Bomber – and, to follow along from that, we don’t _know_ whether **MentalGuy** is what he says he is. We’re left groping in the dark when there’s a light switch right next to our hand. More information is better for town. (And Scum already knows who MentalGuy is one way or the other, so it behooves us to correct this asymmetry.) ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/728 "2011-03-01T16:29:02Z")
> [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](#): > > Drain has claimed vanilla, so there should be zero chance of lynching the Vig today. I meant toMorrow, if Drain flips Town and yet we let MentalGuy run free to hope that the Vig will take care of him. ---
**Author:** ![GuiriEnEspana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc79bd/32.png) [@GuiriEnEspana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuiriEnEspana)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/729 "2011-03-01T16:33:48Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > So really, any outcome of leaving the DSKB alive other than #3 is a net positive, for Town. Except that there’s also the risk that Scum kill the Vig before the Vig can kill the DSKB. That risk, I think, pushes me out of the “leave her alive” camp and into the “lynch her now” camp… but let’s not pretend it’s a simple deal. There are other advantages: the full Day’s post and vote record, a chance to lynch scum toDay, and a “safe” target for the Vig toNight but still the risk of a dead Vig and/or a dead power role outweigh the benefits. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/730 "2011-03-01T17:00:36Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > I know **sach** is going to bitchslap me right in the debacle for saying this, but I think it’s worth keeping the following in mind as we interpret what’s happened so far on Day Two: Meh. It isn’t as though I didn’t consider the possibility of having the Vig kill Drain Bead at Night. I considered it and rejected it. Mainly for the “bombs are icky” argument. However, if storyteller is that concerned about having a null vote, we could simply have a straw poll for who the Vig should Kill Tonight. In other words, Town lynches X and Vig kills Drain Bead is very nearly functionally equivalent to Town lynches Drain Bead and Vig kills X. We know the scum roleblocker is dead and there is no redirector, so it isn’t a big brouhaha to assign a kill to the Vig. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/731 "2011-03-01T17:08:21Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Meh. > It isn’t as though I didn’t consider the possibility of having the Vig kill Drain Bead at Night. I considered it and rejected it. Mainly for the “bombs are icky” argument. > However, if storyteller is that concerned about having a null vote, we could simply have a straw poll for who the Vig should Kill Tonight. In other words, Town lynches X and Vig kills Drain Bead is very nearly functionally equivalent to Town lynches Drain Bead and Vig kills X. We know the scum roleblocker is dead and there is no redirector, so it isn’t a big brouhaha to assign a kill to the Vig. Unless the Town accidentally lynches the Vig or the Scum kills the Vig before the Vig has a chance to kill Drain. In either case we’re right back to where were are toDay, but with a reduction in our numbers. Any lynch target is statistically more likely to be town than scum anyway, correct? So why are we fiddling around with risky scenarios when we can take the opportunity to effect either (1) removal of the Deranged Bomber or (2) a 1:1 trade of town for scum, as we would be guaranteed to get with the lynch of Drain? ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/732 "2011-03-01T17:09:47Z")
Anyway, I’ve obviously made my position on this clear, and now I really do have to turn to work stuff. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/733 "2011-03-01T17:15:46Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > Any lynch target is statistically more likely to be town than scum anyway, correct? So why are we fiddling around with risky scenarios when we can take the opportunity to effect either (1) removal of the Deranged Bomber or (2) a 1:1 trade of town for scum, as we would be guaranteed to get with the lynch of Drain? I agree with this ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/734 "2011-03-01T17:21:14Z")
I don’t think you read what I wrote. I’m suggesting (well to storyteller more than anything) that instead of trying to Vig Drain Bead, we have a side vote to “lynch” someone via Vig Kill. In other words WE STILL LYNCH DRAIN BEAD. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/735 "2011-03-01T17:29:12Z")
I really don’t get what Gadarene is going on about. Drain Bead is our near-unanimous lynch target. Everyone is in agreement that we’re going to lynch Drain. The post you quoted of mine and said was “ridiculous” said that we lunched Drain and let the vig take care of Mental if it turns out he was lying. What exactly is the confusion here? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/736 "2011-03-01T17:31:20Z")
Let’s do this thing, then. We can talk more if you guys like, but honestly, I feel like it’s just going on an on at this point. Just hammer Drain and we’ll deal with the fallout if she is Town if and when that occurs. Sorry if I am in the minority, but let’s just do this thing. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/737 "2011-03-01T17:38:39Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Meh. > It isn’t as though I didn’t consider the possibility of having the Vig kill Drain Bead at Night. You usually aren’t on board with my theory that lynching third parties is equivalent to a mislynch. I thought you might take issue with it here. But it’s not really worth discussing to death, because the risks make it not worth it to leave Drain alive in this particular game. Your straw poll idea is useful, and I’ll participate in it. More to come. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/738 "2011-03-01T17:44:31Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I really don’t get what Gadarene is going on about. Drain Bead is our near-unanimous lynch target. Everyone is in agreement that we’re going to lynch Drain. The post you quoted of mine and said was “ridiculous” said that we lunched Drain and let the vig take care of Mental if it turns out he was lying. What exactly is the confusion here? Because I think letting the vig take care of Mental if he turns out to be lying _ **is a terrible idea** _ for the reasons I’ve stated. I thought I made that clear, but apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/739 "2011-03-01T17:50:06Z")
Yes, it’s not clear to me at all. I believe that vigging him tonight is better than lynching him tomorrow. Which part of that do you disagree with? ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757/740 "2011-03-01T17:53:20Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Yes, it’s not clear to me at all. I believe that vigging him tonight is better than lynching him tomorrow. Which part of that do you disagree with? Fair enough; it looks like we’ve been miscommunicating. Yes, if **Drain** flips town toDay, I have no issue with the Vig targeting MentalGuy toNight. I thought you were proposing that the Vig target MentalGuy _toMorrow night_ as an alternative to us lynching him toMorrow in this scenario. My mistake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/glasnost-mafia/571757.md?page=38)