Shouldn’t be too difficult to create. Who’s dead? Pleo, Tom, drain, septimus, Wolverine as I recall off the top of my head.
In any case, I’ve got to get to work. You can create one with the dead people in it, we’ll just skip them when we get to it.
We haven’t decided to claim, but here is an order we can use when we do. Let me know who I missed.
1. Specialed
2. Peeker
3. Manwich
4. Gadarene
5. Pedescribe
6. Astral
7. OneandOnly
8. CometotheDarkside
9. Zeriel
10. Storyteller
11. Suburban
12. Idle
13. Mental
14. Mahaloth
15. Sacher
16. Guiri
Here is a revised list with the claims I remember. What did I miss?
1. Specialed
2. Peeker
3. Manwich
4. Gadarene
5. Astral
6. OneandOnly
7. CometotheDarkside
8. Zeriel
9. Storyteller
10. Idle
11. Mental
12. Guiri
Pedescribe - Vanilla Town
Suburban - Vanilla Town
Mahaloth - Mason
Sacher - Vanilla Town
OK, I’m here.
With the Jailer dead, I no longer think it is to our advantage to execute sachertorte’s vanilla/not-vanilla plan. I think, instead, that the two remaining Masons should claim, and the Vig, Doctor, and Vanillas should remain silent on the subject of role.
My reasoning follows:
- It is still technically possible that we have no Doctor. This would be the case in two circumstances: (a) our Vig failed to submit an action last Night; or (b)pedescribe himself is our Vig. If this is the case, the Scum know it and Mental Guy will die toNight. However, if there is no Doctor, the vanilla/not-vanilla plan will amount to the same as the Masons claiming.
OK, so now, assuming (as is more likely, I think) that we do have a Doctor.
-
Start with the following: with 16 players alive, six are not lynchable - the Doc, the Vig, the three Masons, and the Cop. That leaves 10 lynchable players - but four of them are Scum. The Scum must force four mislynches to win, which means that of the six lynchable Townies, they must force us to lynch four of them. I begin with the premise that the Scum, all other things being equal, do NOT want to reduce the pool of lynchable Townies at all - if, in fact, they ever reduce the pool of lynchable Townies to a number less than the number of mislynches they require to win, then the game is over and we win.
-
If the Doctor and Masons all claim not-vanilla, the Scum will want to kill the Doctor. As long as the Doctor is alive, Mental Guy will keep getting investigation results which could doom the Scum entirely. Thus the Scum will target one of the expected three non-vanilla claimants, giving them a 33% chance of killing the Doc (potentially more if they can tease out one or both of the Masons based on their interactions with Mahaloth). However, in this circumstance, the Scum will also have a **100% chance of killing a non-lynchable player - which is what they want, per #2 above.
-
If, on the other hand, only the Masons claim, then the Scum have the following choice: (a) kill a Mason toNight, thus keeping the lynchable pool intact but guaranteeing Mental Guy two investigations (100% chance of killing a non-lynchable player, but 0% chance of killing the Doc); or (b) shoot into the vanilla pool. If they choose “b,” there will be eight potential targets - one Vig, one Doc, and six vanillas. Under those circumstances, they will have a 25% chance of killing a non-lynchable role, only a 13% chance of killing the Doc, and (best of all from our standpoint), a 75% chance of killing a vanilla, thus reducing their pool of lynchable players in which to hide by one.
The Scum will have to choose option “b,” because if you just let Mental Guy stay alive indefinitely he will eventually identify all the Scum other than the Godfather. You have to kill the Doc eventually. If they have a read on the Doc, and kill him/her, that will be regrettable, but it’s a possible outcome of the coming Night no matter what we do. But if they miss and hit a vanilla, it’s a huge advantage for us.
The Masons claiming would also help narrow the field for the Vigilante. Even if the Vig kills a Townie, (s)he will not reduce our mislynch allotment; we’ll still be able to mislynch four times before we lose, just like right now (nice work, Wolverine!). The Vig should definitely kill someone. Just do the best (s)he can to try to identify a target that is NOT the Doctor; as long as (s)he kills someone other than the Doctor (or Mental Guy, or the Masons), Town will benefit.
Finally, the Masons claiming will help us with our Scum hunting, both by keeping us from wasting time and energy on Masons and by clarifying our analyses of past events.
Masons, please claim! Everyone else, please don’t!
Thoughts?
there are 3 masons, so if the scum go mason killing that buys 3 investigations, not two?
It is implausible that pedescribe is the Vig since he claimed Vanilla prior to “vig claims vanilla” discussion.
Not putting in a kill order would be a terrible choice by the vig for the very reason you state. No Vigilante would do this. At the very least the vig could kill someone else (Suburban or me) to show that he is there and aborted “the plan.”
Anyway. I think the possibility of No Doc is extremely remote.
It’s an interesting premise, and I see the point. Killing Masons would be the ‘safe’ play by Scum and very possibly optimal for them. Masons == bait.
The problem I see is that we need to lynch someone and this method makes it very possible that we attempt to lynch the Doctor, thus forcing a claim. I think that factor must be accounted for.
If scum have to choose option b, then why do both masons have to claim. We already have Mahaloth as “bait.” If you are worried about counterclaims later, I’d say at most one mason should claim at this time. And I’m not even convinced of that.
Vig could kill the Doctor!
NO CLAIMS!
Let me think about this more.
Okay the motivation for masons claiming is to keep the Vig from killing them. That’s a good thing.
Similarly the motivation for all powers to claim not-vanilla is to keep the Vig from killing them. Similar ideas.
The problem is the survivability of the Doc. 1 Doc hidden with 2 Masons isn’t very hidden. That is also a good point. But my question is how many investigations do we need to win. Do we want to win by culling the unknown pool quickly or attempting to build the confirmed pool? Both have their merits. In the vanilla claim (vig claims vanilla) idea, the point is to kill off all unknowns as quickly as possible with two Town directed kills. The numbers don’t guarantee a win, but it sets up a mini-game that is stacked to Town’s advantage.
The alternative (mason’s claim, no one else does), attempts to build the confirmed pool. Are we asking the Vig not to kill without a clear target? I think we are.
I’m intrigued. I’m very curious what scum would choose to do. I think they will have to shoot into the unknown pool to attempt to hit the Vig or Doc.
I’m not against the plan, but I’m not sure which one is better.
I am surprised that storyteller asked for mason claims outright though. It seems hurried. I could see the desire to stop other claims from happening, but not pushing hard for mason claims that could happen anytime Today with the same effect.
As long as the masons claim prior to the end of the day (if we go that route) storyteller’s plan is in tact. Plus there are only two of them and three people have all the necessary information, so coordination isn’t exactly difficult. (Right Mahaloth 
).
…and if we were talking about literally any other player, I would agree with you. But pedescribe is an exception, and nothing he could do would be surprising or implausible to me.
Agreed. But power roles have missed deadlines before. It’s mostly academic, though, because given the sum of all information, I agree with this:
I just wanted to have the possibility on the table so that it was addressed in the context of the rest of my argument.
I can’t see how it would be optimal. If they kill three Masons, Mental Guy gets a minimum of four investigations. This will almost definitely identify all three non-Godfather Scum. Going after Masons is playing for, at best, a three-man ending. And maybe not even that, if we get the Godfather at any point.
If it happens, it happens. There’s really nothing we can do about that except make a good case toDay and try not to out the Doctor. If the Doctor is outed, then we get one investigation out of Mental Guy and we know the kill order for the next few Days. The (admittedly modest) upside of such a thing is that the Vig would then be able to fire with impunity, having no fear of killing the Doctor OR the Masons.
In helpful numbered list format, summarizing my previous post (and adding another benefit to Mason claiming that I left out of the previous post, which I’m bold-facing for emphasis):
-
Three claimed Masons (and Mental Guy!) increases the hazard for the Scum if they, as they most likely must, shoot into the claimed vanilla pool. We want to maximize the chances that the Scum will kill a lynchable player. With Masons in the pool the Scum can comfortably fire into that group hoping to hit the Doctor, but knowing that they have an excellent chance of at least killing a non-lynchable player. My way, if the Scum want a shot at the Doc, they will be at an increased risk of killing a vanilla (compared to a no-additional-claim situation). If they decide not to take this risk and kill a Mason, so much the better for us.
-
If the Masons claim, no one will waste time toDay reading up on them or building cases against them. I have very limited time toDay, for example, because so much of the Day will happen over the weekend. If special ed (my first suspect at the moment) is a Mason, is it worth me using what limited time I have reading up on him?
-
If the Masons claim, analysis of past events will be improved. We can view voting results with additional information. This will be tremendously helpful. Look at the long study I did of the voting for Pleonast yesterDay; if I could go back and look at those patterns and events, but with three additional names colored in blue (two Masons and Wolverine), it would allow me to find many additional leads. I assume anyone doing analysis of past voting would benefit similarly.
-
Whatever the Scum do, assuming we do have a Doctor, Mental Guy is going to get at least one more investigation. This is potentially quite useful. If, however, Mental Guy investigates an already unlynchable player (the Vig or the Doc or the Masons), his investigation is useless to us. If both currently hidden Masons are claimed going into toNight, then MentalGuy won’t target them, increasing the chances that Mental Guy will target a lynchable player and thus generate useful information. (This same argument applies, to some extent, to the Vig).
That is true, and would be the worst possible outcome. There is risk and there is reward. However, the Vig hitting the Doctor is relatively unlikely even if the Vig were shooting at random, and since any other outcome would benefit us, I think the risk is worth the reward in this case.
I knew if we both stayed alive long enough, we’d eventually disagree about something 
Masons, I reiterate my opinion that you should both claim.
Vanilla Claim Plan:
pitfalls - scum can find the doctor quickly; Town lynch might expose power roles
analysis:
12Town 4Scum
Today Day 3: 6 confirmable 10 unconfirmed
100% chance of at least 1 investigation
66% chance of at least 2 investigations
33% chance of exactly 3 investigations
E(investigations) = 2
Night3: Scum kill Mason or Doc. Vig kills unknown
D4 5 confirmable, 1 investigated, 8 unconfirmed
N4: Scum kill mason or Doc, Vig kills unknown
D5: 4 confirmable, 2 investigated 6 unconfirmed
assume Doc is dead, cop dies before Dawn, Vig kills unknown
D6: 3 confirmable, 2 investigated, 4 unconfirmed
assume Vig dies, doesn’t kill anyone
D7: 2 confirmable, 2 investigated 3 unconfirmed
D8: 1 confirmable, 2 investigated 2 unconfirmed
D9: 2 investigated, 1 unconfirmed
At this point scum only win if the Godfather was investigated
Mason Claim Plan:
pitfalls - vig might kill the doctor; Town might lynch the Doc or Vig
Analysis
Today Day 3: 6 confirmable 10 unknown
N3: Scum kill {vanilla, Vig or Doc}, Vig kills {unknown or Doc}, Cop investigates {scum,Vig,Doc,Vanilla}
ooh, this is messy. I don’t have time this morning to do this right. But just because it is harder to understand doesn’t mean it is worse.
True. I agree that masons claiming is a compelling case against not claiming anything at all. I’d like to compare to the Vanilla Claim plan, not No-Claim.
And if we have a Vanilla mass claim plus vig claiming vanilla, the Town Powers will be identified as such but not by power. Your search set will be even smaller too.
Okay. I can see wanting such information. I’m not prepared to push for a mason simply for that though.
Again, I’d like to compare to the Vanilla Claim. In that case Mental Guy is only in danger of ‘wasting’ his investigation on the vig. The Doctor will not be in Mental Guy’s search set. On this point, vanilla claim is superior.
Here is a quicker comparison:
vanilla:
Doc hiding amongst 2 masons, 33% chance of death
Mason claims:
Doc and Vig hiding amongst 3 unclaimed vanilla, 20% chance of Doc Death, 20% chance of Vig death.
I think the Vanilla Claim plan is still superior.
I suppose the Mason claim plan has better odds if either SP or pedescribe are scum.
If we want to go totally mechanical about it, we could lynch and vig from the {Suburban Plankton, pedescribe, sachertorte} set and leave the Vig and Doc hidden amongst 2 masons and 3-ish vanillas.
That would reduce the unconfirmed set. The main downside is it does not give guidance to Mental Guy, but I think thats okay.
So many ideas!
Another plus to a mechanical play for Today is that we can hammer on Saturday (or even earlier, but I doubt we could pull that off) and have a decent Day tomorrow instead of the F’ed up one we’re about to have.
I think it boils down to risk management, really–with the mason claim plan we have to rely on the vig and scum both not hitting the Doc, right? With the vanilla plan, the pool is smaller but the vig risk is eliminated.
Let’s look at the numbers for Tonight. Let’s also assume a middle ground in which we lynch a vanilla today. In case A), the doc hides among three people. He has a 33% chance of getting killed if the scum decide to hunt for him (and why would they not? Maybe they’re hunting the vig instead, or who knows why else?) Either way, the vig knows not to shoot into that pool so he’s not a factor in the doc’s survival rate. Meanwhile, the vig is shooting into a pool that contains nine (from his perspective = five vanilla players and four scum, less himself) members, four of whom are scum, which gives him a 44.4% chance of nailing scum by random chance.
In case B) it’s more complicated. The doc and vig are both hiding in a pool that has 11 members (15 players, less three masons and one cop) from town’s perspective. From the Scum perspective, that pool has 7 members. That means the scum have a 14.3% chance each of hitting doc and vig, and the vig (shooting into a pool with 10 members from his perspective) has a 10% chance of hitting the doc. The vig also has a 40% chance of hitting one of the four scum.
Running the numbers for both viable lynch scenarios Today we see the percentages as
Lynch vanilla: A) 33% doc death vs 44% vig hit rate, B) 14.3%+10% doc death vs. 40% vig hit rate
Lynch scum: A) 33% doc death vs. 33% vig hit rate, B) 12.5%+10% doc death vs. 30% vig hit rate
So in short, with a non-Vanilla claim, the we have a notably higher risk of doc death traded for a small increase in the vig’s scum hunting chance, regardless of which non-power-role we put on the block today.
I prefer the mason claim as a result.
Thoughts? Check my math? Tell me how to add those two probabilities in my B) case? 
Mechanical:
Pros - Doc and Vig have a bigger hiding spot (2/7 or 2/8 = 25-30%); Day 4 will happen during the week and not over weekend.
Cons - short day, no meaningful discussion
Claim and Discussion-based:
Pros - Actual point of the game; (hopefully) meaningful vote record and discussion
Cons - Most of the Day occurs over the weekend. 40% chance of Vig or Doc death
On preview: Zeriel the vanilla pool is not 7. 3 have claimed vanilla. Only 3 unclaimed vanilla remain.
The Vig has at least a few targets who are certified as Vanilla or liars.
oh, wait, unless we’ve gotten a new doctor since their claims.
still catching up.
If we do this, we’ll have lynch targets toDay and toMorrow and a Vig target toNight, plus at least 1 investigation (assuming there is a Doc)
What are the odds of the Doc or Vig being NK’d?
Yes, but for the purposes of deciding who to kill, those assertions are useless since the person who is hiding (i.e., the doc) could be one of them and the vig has no particular reason to trust said claims.
2/(2+2masons+3unclaimedVanilla*) = 2/7 = about 29%.
If any of {Suburban Plankton, pedescribe, sachertorte} are scum, then the probability goes down.
Oh I see why your numbers don’t match mine. You are only concerned with the Doc. You aren’t counting the chance that the Vig gets killed. I’d argue that the Vig is just as, if not more, important as the Doc.