# Lord of the Rings Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 10, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867 "2010-08-10T19:56:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/501 "2010-08-14T17:44:29Z")
> [@](#): > > No strong feelings on this, though I’m concerned about Chronos’s play. He’s created a minor problem for us here and that might be anti town in effect, if not intention. Unfortunately, I can’t say as I disagree. I made a mistake, and I think I’ve recovered from it as best I can, but I suspect it would have been better if I hadn’t responded to **ed** the way I did. On the other hand, thinking about all this cryptography stuff has given me another idea, if people aren’t already sick of the crypto. Back when we were discussing the possibility of a mass name-claim, one poster (I don’t remember exactly who) mentioned that one benefit would be to lock Scum into their lies. I’ve seen games where the Scum had multiple fake claims (either made up on their own, or given to them by the moderator), but didn’t decide until the last minute which one to use for whom. If someone found themselves in a situation where it’d make sense to claim detective, that person would take the detective claim and use it. Or the fake claims might not have been made up in advance: A Scum might wait until something weird happens, and then try to take credit for it happening. An early name-claim helps prevent this from happening. Now, of course, a name-claim also has the drawback that it gives the Scum a good idea of whom they want to target, and that’s probably a big enough drawback to make it a net negative. But we could get the same effect of locking Scum into lies, without revealing information to them. If everyone posted a hash of their entire PM (including role name, so they’d all be different) on Day 1, then if they ever claim, we could compare the hashes, and tell if they’re consistent. Admittedly, the benefits from this aren’t huge, but they’re there, and I can’t really see any drawbacks. Comments? ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/502 "2010-08-14T17:44:51Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > > [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > > > Yes, that’s what bothers me as well. The only way ed’s statement makes any sense is if \*\*Chronos \*\*is lying (which is always a possibility), and I don’t think his argument is logical even in that case. > > > > If Chronos is lying, then there’s no risk to anyone if he tells us what he ‘knows’, because he’s making the whole thing up in the first place. If he’s telling the truth, then I still don’t know how saying “I know which player has the identity ‘Elrond’” is going to hurt anyone, but I can’t see how it can help anyone but Chronos either. > > > > Since we can’t verify whether of not Chronos is telling the truth, and the information he claims to have doesn’t seem to be of any value at this point, I think he should keep it to himself. Perhaps there will come a time when it will be valuable; if so it should be saved for that time. > > Well, there could be some benefit to the town if Chronos revealed the information. Imagine he does know who “Elrond” is. Then the “Elrond” player could ask themselves “Is chronos treating me as he should given that he knows I’m Elrond.” Also, if that person is vanilla, then they would have the option of confirming the information (and thus partially confirming Chronos) if Chronos was up for a lynch. > > No strong feelings on this, though I’m concerned about Chronos’s play. He’s created a minor problem for us here and that might be anti town in effect, if not intention. Yeah, this is why I suggested revealing the role name in the first place. Seems like it would give town some information that scum doesn’t have (i.e., the player whose role is named now knows that Chronos supposedly knows and can evaluate his actions accordingly) without giving scum any information that town doesn’t have. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/503 "2010-08-14T17:46:03Z")
NETA: I’m not familiar with how hashes work, **Chronos**. Are they crackable? ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/504 "2010-08-14T17:57:03Z")
I’m torn. I don’t believe scum would play the way Chronos is playing. An seemingly-innocuous comment about handshakes has led, by his own actions, to conversation repeatedly centering around him. But, I also don’t want to just believe him. This is a game based on lies. Giving us the name of the role (for example, Elrond) is information that can help us later. If there really is an Elrond, Telcontrar is exactly right… he can judge Chronos’ actions towards him and perhaps confirm him later. Even if a scum tries to false claim Elrond to muddy the waters, we’d be trading town for scum. Scum will never want that; their numbers are too few for any 1-1 trade gambits. I have some problems with Ed’s comments too. > [@special\_ed](#): > > I would hesitate to follow this approach. It’s quite possible that Chronos must find and kill a specific character (Gollum must find and kill Sam and Frodo) or some type of recruitment (Grima can recruit Theoden) Why so hesitant? Those possibilities hadn’t occurred to me as I was reading through the thread, and as far as I can tell, you’re the first person to suggest them. If those are indeed Chronos’ true intentions, forcing him to give up a name (or, if he’s lying, forcing him to fake one) can be used against him later. **In your example only,** letting him stay silent helps him, not the town as a whole. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/505 "2010-08-14T17:58:42Z")
NETA: My thoughts are in reply to Telcontrar, post #500. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/506 "2010-08-14T19:17:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > First of all, I do not request Doctor protection. Between the fact that my power seems relatively minor, and the fact that any hypothetical Doctor has no particular reason yet to believe me, I think I would be an unwise choice of target. Better for the Doctor to protect emself, or whomever e trusts the most, or a strong player that e trusts at least somewhat. > > Second, my perceived slip: When **ed** asked me about my win condition section, and then stated that he himself did not have a win condition section, I concluded that the difference was because he was vanilla and I was a power role. I also mistakenly thought that this would be obvious to everyone, which is why I made the statement in [post 152](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12793096#post12793096) that he either identified himself as a liar or me as non-vanilla. In retrospect, of course, the disagreement over having a “win condition section” was just one of what constituted a “section”, but by then, I’d already made post 152. > > As to why I entered the discussion at all, my first post on the topic was because I didn’t understand what **ed** was doing, then I continued talking about it because it was the current topic of conversation and participation is good, and then I posted my win condition because **special ed** specifically asked me about it. > As to what information I’m sitting on, and why I’m sitting on it, I’ll say a little bit more: I’m a sort of half-mason, I guess you could call it. I know the role name of one specific player. The role name is of an unambiguously good-aligned character, so I trust that that person is Town. Knowing the role name would also give the Scum a good chance of deducing whether that person is a power role (i.e., the name is either one that’s very likely to be a power role, or one that’s very likely to be vanilla). Confirmed Town are of course valuable, but they’re most valuable in the mid-game, if you can get a bunch of folks confirmed at once, so the Scum can’t kill them all right away, rather than trickling out one at a time to be Night-killed one at a time, which is why I’d prefer to wait until later to reveal my information. Of course, if this person claims for some reason, or is killed, then there’d be no reason any longer for me to sit on my information, and I would then use the hash I posted to prove that I knew. > > That confirmation that I knew is another reason that I decided to say what I did toDay. If that person had died or claimed and I just said “I knew that already”, nobody would have any reason to believe me. If I posted my hash some time after Day 1, and had later confirmed the hash, then I could prove that I knew in advance, but my knowledge might plausibly have come from a Scum Investigator. But by posting my hash toDay, I prove that it’s information I started the game with, and I think it relatively implausible that a Scum would have a power role that gives that sort of information at the start of the Day, so I could thereby eventually confirm myself. > > I hope that that clears things up enough, because I’m heavily disinclined to share any more information at this time. Understood. **unvote Chronos** Now, that being said, I don’t know why just handing out the name of the role would be bad, as long as you don’t connect it to the player. The town player can always claim that later at some point to confirm themselves, whether or not you are still alive. And if scum claim that, they will no doubt be counterclaimed. And if scum decide to counterclaim the true claimed townie, well, let them. And I don’t see how Ed’s concern is really an issue at this point, because the name of the player is still hidden. We can leave it to that player as to when they think it’s best to claim. I really don’t see a downside to town to having the name out there, as long as nothing else is revealed. Then you don’t even have to claim for the other person, you can leave it entirely up to them. Your information is revealed rather than lost, and we can eventually get someone confirmed. Now, granted, I could be missing some glaring drawback here, but I don’t see it. > [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > No strong feelings on this, though I’m concerned about Chronos’s play. He’s created a minor problem for us here and that might be anti town in effect, if not intention. > > Unfortunately, I can’t say as I disagree. I made a mistake, and I think I’ve recovered from it as best I can, but I suspect it would have been better if I hadn’t responded to **ed** the way I did. > > On the other hand, thinking about all this cryptography stuff has given me another idea, if people aren’t already sick of the crypto. Back when we were discussing the possibility of a mass name-claim, one poster (I don’t remember exactly who) mentioned that one benefit would be to lock Scum into their lies. I’ve seen games where the Scum had multiple fake claims (either made up on their own, or given to them by the moderator), but didn’t decide until the last minute which one to use for whom. If someone found themselves in a situation where it’d make sense to claim detective, that person would take the detective claim and use it. Or the fake claims might not have been made up in advance: A Scum might wait until something weird happens, and then try to take credit for it happening. An early name-claim helps prevent this from happening. > > Now, of course, a name-claim also has the drawback that it gives the Scum a good idea of whom they want to target, and that’s probably a big enough drawback to make it a net negative. But we could get the same effect of locking Scum into lies, without revealing information to them. If everyone posted a hash of their entire PM (including role name, so they’d all be different) on Day 1, then if they ever claim, we could compare the hashes, and tell if they’re consistent. > > Admittedly, the benefits from this aren’t huge, but they’re there, and I can’t really see any drawbacks. Comments? Well if everyone does that, scum can pretty much put forth the effort to find all the town PM’s and who’s who by just brute force plugging in common canonical names as the hash key into all the hashed PM’s. At that point, I think a mass claim would be more useful, because then at least the information is all out in the open. This is a bad idea. Very bad. > [@cucuy](#): > > Which brings up another question: in that game **USCDiver** was outed as scum, but in fact was a Miller. I’ve followed other games where the Miller situation was addressed, and the general consensus was that the Miller should claim early, like Day 1, to avoid problems later. Would the consensus be the same here? > > To be clear: if I were a Miller, I would claim now. (I am not a Miller.) Millers should never claim on their own. Even in a mass claim, there better off just claiming vanilla. As long as they aren’t investigated, they are vanilla town. If they do claim, they have to be lynched. Because to do otherwise is to let scum get away with a miller claim. Never claim if you are a miller. It’s pointless and guarantees a mislynch. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/507 "2010-08-14T19:36:52Z")
Vote Count: SuburbanPlankton(1): Chronos Hoopy(1): Pleonast ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/508 "2010-08-14T19:58:31Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > and i’ll play a little devil’s advocate with **ed** because i think ultimately getting people talking is beneficial. > > in the examples you cite it appears that it does nothing to help town win the game. and if scum are provided a vanilla pm and then you “handshake” all that does is help scum identify nillers from powers. and to be honest with you doesn’t confirm any of the shakers as niller except to the scum team. Town won Weird Wild West, and I think the handshake may have contributed to Scum offing me during Night 1, which could have help preserve a Power role, who knows. Town won Princess Bride also, and I survived until the last Day and was able to act as a trusted Townie certainly to the benefit of Town. We may have lost Sock Mafia, but again, Scum was forced to deal with me as quasi-confirmed and use a NK on me Night 2. We also lost Undying War, but I wasn’t one of the handshaking Town in that game, and I don’t think it was a Vanilla handshake either. So 2 wins and 2 losses (and 2-1 when I’m one of the handshaking Townies). Especially when compared to my record in games where I don’t try to handshake (15-24) ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/509 "2010-08-14T20:04:43Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > > [@special\_ed](#): > > > > I would hesitate to follow this approach. It’s quite possible that Chronos must find and kill a specific character (Gollum must find and kill Sam and Frodo) or some type of recruitment (Grima can recruit Theoden) > > I had a bit of a hard time with this statement (ed’s reply, just to clarify). \*\*Chronos \*\*had told us “The role name is of an unambiguously good-aligned character, so I trust that that person is Town.”, so I wondered why ed was talking about killing and recruitment. If Chronos is Town with a power role, then he’s not likely to be killing Frodo. And if he’s scum (or 3rd party), then I’d think getting him to reveal the role (as Gadarene suggests) would be a positive thing; if Frodo then turned up dead Tomorrow morning, we’d have a pretty good idea where to start looking for his killer. > > FTR, I do think it’s probably best for Chronos to keep silent at this point, but i very much diskile ed’s reasoning. you can diskile it all you want…:smack: I’m not sure what good it would do to identify the role for us for just the reason you identify. Let’s say Chronos says he knows Frodo is Town, and then Frodo ends up dead, you’d immediately suspect him, but does it mean Chronos did anything untoward? I don’t see the point. Please explain to me what possible good it can do if Chronos identifies the role that he knows is Town? And please take into consideration what impact it might have on the game if we discover this person and Chronos is a) alive b) dead and confirmed Town c) dead and confirmed Scum d) dead and confirmed 3rd party. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/510 "2010-08-14T20:07:08Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > I don’t see the point. Please explain to me what possible good it can do if Chronos identifies the role that he knows is Town? Then that person would know that Chronos claims to know, which seems to me to have multiple benefits for the town. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/511 "2010-08-14T20:07:17Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > > [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > > > I had a bit of a hard time with this statement (ed’s reply, just to clarify). \*\*Chronos \*\*had told us “The role name is of an unambiguously good-aligned character, so I trust that that person is Town.”, so I wondered why ed was talking about killing and recruitment. If Chronos is Town with a power role, then he’s not likely to be killing Frodo. And if he’s scum (or 3rd party), then I’d think getting him to reveal the role (as Gadarene suggests) would be a positive thing; if Frodo then turned up dead Tomorrow morning, we’d have a pretty good idea where to start looking for his killer. > > > > FTR, I do think it’s probably best for Chronos to keep silent at this point, but i very much diskile ed’s reasoning. > > I think Ed’s point is more that Chronos might not be who he claims to be, and that he might have a role that would benefit by drawing out town power roles. That’s how I read it, anyway, although I’m not sure how – if this were the case – Chronos giving us the name of the role he claims to know would accomplish Town power roles slip all the time. They might show an interest in something. You see it happen all the time with Cops and Docs especially newer players. Additionally, let’s say there is a person who can be recruited to either side. Maybe Chronos is the Town player looking for me, but maybe there is a Scum player looking for them too. Do we want to pit Chronos ability to snuff out roles names versus the entire team of Scum? ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/512 "2010-08-14T20:08:31Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > > [@Gadarene](#): > > > > I think Ed’s point is more that Chronos might not be who he claims to be, and that he might have a role that would benefit by drawing out town power roles. That’s how I read it, anyway, although I’m not sure how – if this were the case – Chronos giving us the name of the role he claims to know would accomplish > > Yes, that’s what bothers me as well. The only way ed’s statement makes any sense is if \*\*Chronos \*\*is lying (which is always a possibility), and I don’t think his argument is logical even in that case. > > If Chronos is lying, then there’s no risk to anyone if he tells us what he ‘knows’, because he’s making the whole thing up in the first place. If he’s telling the truth, then I still don’t know how saying “I know which player has the identity ‘Elrond’” is going to hurt anyone, but I can’t see how it can help anyone but Chronos either. > > Since we can’t verify whether of not Chronos is telling the truth, and the information he claims to have doesn’t seem to be of any value at this point, I think he should keep it to himself. Perhaps there will come a time when it will be valuable; if so it should be saved for that time. Are you just pretending to be dense? ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/513 "2010-08-14T20:11:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > No strong feelings on this, though I’m concerned about Chronos’s play. He’s created a minor problem for us here and that might be anti town in effect, if not intention. > > Unfortunately, I can’t say as I disagree. I made a mistake, and I think I’ve recovered from it as best I can, but I suspect it would have been better if I hadn’t responded to **ed** the way I did. > > On the other hand, thinking about all this cryptography stuff has given me another idea, if people aren’t already sick of the crypto. Back when we were discussing the possibility of a mass name-claim, one poster (I don’t remember exactly who) mentioned that one benefit would be to lock Scum into their lies. I’ve seen games where the Scum had multiple fake claims (either made up on their own, or given to them by the moderator), but didn’t decide until the last minute which one to use for whom. If someone found themselves in a situation where it’d make sense to claim detective, that person would take the detective claim and use it. Or the fake claims might not have been made up in advance: A Scum might wait until something weird happens, and then try to take credit for it happening. An early name-claim helps prevent this from happening. > > Now, of course, a name-claim also has the drawback that it gives the Scum a good idea of whom they want to target, and that’s probably a big enough drawback to make it a net negative. But we could get the same effect of locking Scum into lies, without revealing information to them. If everyone posted a hash of their entire PM (including role name, so they’d all be different) on Day 1, then if they ever claim, we could compare the hashes, and tell if they’re consistent. > > Admittedly, the benefits from this aren’t huge, but they’re there, and I can’t really see any drawbacks. Comments? Now you’re pushing for a name claim? really? the threat of recruitment is too strong the threat of potential powers being useful on certain players is too strong. The threat of a potential ring falling into a certain players hand is too strong. You’re pushing this too far too fast for you to be considered Town by any reasonable means. \*\* Vote: Chronos\*\* ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/514 "2010-08-14T20:14:04Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I’m torn. I don’t believe scum would play the way Chronos is playing. An seemingly-innocuous comment about handshakes has led, by his own actions, to conversation repeatedly centering around him. > > But, I also don’t want to just believe him. This is a game based on lies. Giving us the name of the role (for example, Elrond) is information that can help us later. If there really is an Elrond, Telcontrar is exactly right… he can judge Chronos’ actions towards him and perhaps confirm him later. Even if a scum tries to false claim Elrond to muddy the waters, we’d be trading town for scum. Scum will never want that; their numbers are too few for any 1-1 trade gambits. > > I have some problems with Ed’s comments too. > > > [@special\_ed](#): > > > > I would hesitate to follow this approach. It’s quite possible that Chronos must find and kill a specific character (Gollum must find and kill Sam and Frodo) or some type of recruitment (Grima can recruit Theoden) > > Why so hesitant? Those possibilities hadn’t occurred to me as I was reading through the thread, and as far as I can tell, you’re the first person to suggest them. If those are indeed Chronos’ true intentions, forcing him to give up a name (or, if he’s lying, forcing him to fake one) can be used against him later. **In your example only,** letting him stay silent helps him, not the town as a whole. Forgive me, I’m posting as I catch up. Chronos may very well be looking for a specific player by their role name. Your post even came after he subtly started pushing for a mass name claim. Do you really trust him so completely that you don’t think it’s even remotely possible that he could be looking for a specific player for reasons that do not benefit Town? ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/515 "2010-08-14T20:22:44Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > Additionally, let’s say there is a person who can be recruited to either side. Maybe Chronos is the Town player looking for me, but maybe there is a Scum player looking for them too. Do we want to pit Chronos ability to snuff out roles names versus the entire team of Scum? I think Chronos mentioned earlier that he knows the role AND THE IDENTITY of that role. I could be wrong on this. But if that’s the case, we’re not pitting Chronos against the scum in a race to snuff out role names. Chronos already knows. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/516 "2010-08-14T20:22:46Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > > [@special\_ed](#): > > > > I don’t see the point. Please explain to me what possible good it can do if Chronos identifies the role that he knows is Town? > > Then that person would know that Chronos claims to know, which seems to me to have multiple benefits for the town. I see you didn’t specify you answer to fit the conditions like I asked. So let me take this a bit slower. Chronos is Town and honest. 1. Chronos says, “I know that Eomer is Town.” 2. Eomer feels all warm and fuzzy inside. 3. If Chronos dies, then Eomer is confirmed. 4. If Eomer dies, then we know nothing about Chronos. How does this benefit Town? Maybe we have a name investigator who can confirm Eomer and then die so we know they were honest. Chronos is 3rd party and must kill Eomer. 1. Chronos says, “I know that Eomer is Town.” 2. Eomer eventually comes under lynch pressure and claims. 3. Chronos kills Eomer that Night. Chronos is Scum and can recruit Eomer. 1. Chronos says, “I know that Eomer is Town.” 2. Eomer eventually comes under lynch pressure and claims. 3. Chronos recruits Eomer and he becomes Scum. Chronos is Scum and Eomer is too. 1. Chronos says, “I know that Eomer is Town.” 2. Chronos dies and is revealed Scum 3. We’re left with WiFoM on Eomer I could go on with even more examples, but I’m hoping you guys get the point. Now, before you suggest someone does something or reveals something, it would be nice if you at least made an attempt to think through at least some of the potential ramifications. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/517 "2010-08-14T20:30:15Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > > [@special\_ed](#): > > > > Additionally, let’s say there is a person who can be recruited to either side. Maybe Chronos is the Town player looking for me, but maybe there is a Scum player looking for them too. Do we want to pit Chronos ability to snuff out roles names versus the entire team of Scum? > > I think Chronos mentioned earlier that he knows the role AND THE IDENTITY of that role. I could be wrong on this. But if that’s the case, we’re not pitting Chronos against the scum in a race to snuff out role names. Chronos already knows. OK, you know, I went back and re-read what e said. Here’s the relevant part: > [@Chronos](#): > > As to what information I’m sitting on, and why I’m sitting on it, I’ll say a little bit more: I’m a sort of half-mason, I guess you could call it. I know the role name of one specific player. The role name is of an unambiguously good-aligned character, so I trust that that person is Town. Knowing the role name would also give the Scum a good chance of deducing whether that person is a power role (i.e., the name is either one that’s very likely to be a power role, or one that’s very likely to be vanilla). Confirmed Town are of course valuable, but they’re most valuable in the mid-game, if you can get a bunch of folks confirmed at once, so the Scum can’t kill them all right away, rather than trickling out one at a time to be Night-killed one at a time, which is why I’d prefer to wait until later to reveal my information. Of course, if this person claims for some reason, or is killed, then there’d be no reason any longer for me to sit on my information, and I would then use the hash I posted to prove that I knew. > > That confirmation that I knew is another reason that I decided to say what I did toDay. If that person had died or claimed and I just said “I knew that already”, nobody would have any reason to believe me. If I posted my hash some time after Day 1, and had later confirmed the hash, then I could prove that I knew in advance, but my knowledge might plausibly have come from a Scum Investigator. But by posting my hash toDay, I prove that it’s information I started the game with, and I think it relatively implausible that a Scum would have a power role that gives that sort of information at the start of the Day, so I could thereby eventually confirm myself. > > I hope that that clears things up enough, because I’m heavily disinclined to share any more information at this time. So, I was partly wrong, but so, it seems was everyone else. He knows a role name and which player it belongs to, and he assumes they are Town. This is even fishy for even more different reasons. In no way is there any assumption that Chronos is Town. We don’t know why he knows this. And he knows nothing about the players powers or alignment other than something he seems to trust in his gut. And later, he starts pushing for a mass name claim. Why? It’s all still not adding up. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/518 "2010-08-14T20:33:22Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > Forgive me, I’m posting as I catch up. > > Chronos may very well be looking for a specific player by their role name. > > Your post even came after he subtly started pushing for a mass name claim. Do you really trust him so completely that you don’t think it’s even remotely possible that he could be looking for a specific player for reasons that do not benefit Town? Absolutely not. I don’t trust him at all. I missed him pushing for a name claim, but I saw you mention it and was working on a response when you posted. I was wary of the handshaking (I asked to be spoiled for Harry Potter, and the scum did indeed have fake identities to hide behind), I’ve been wary of his role claim (it’d be a great fake power to claim, since it’s very difficult for us to check), and I’m especially concerned with the idea of a mass name claim on day 1. I do not see how this will help the town. LOTR has hundreds of characters. If somebody claims Gandalf, scum could claim Radabast. Assuming town tells the truth and scum lies, we’d be in some serious trouble sorting through that spiderweb of lies, and we’d have handed scum everything they need to pick us apart. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/519 "2010-08-14T20:34:48Z")
No, I’m not pushing for a name-claim. I acknowledged in that very post that the negatives of an early name-claim probably outweigh the positives. What I was proposing was a way to get at least some of the positives without the negatives. Quoth **Hoopy Frood** : > [@](#): > > Well if everyone does that, scum can pretty much put forth the effort to find all the town PM’s and who’s who by just brute force plugging in common canonical names as the hash key into all the hashed PM’s. At that point, I think a mass claim would be more useful, because then at least the information is all out in the open. > > This is a bad idea. Very bad. Hm, true, if the vanilla PMs are consistent enough. It’d be easily-enough fixed with a little random salt added to each one, though, so long as everyone was able to keep track of their salt. Quoth **Gadarene** : > [@](#): > > NETA: I’m not familiar with how hashes work, Chronos. Are they crackable? Hashes lose information and are therefore not reversible, but it is still possible to attack them forward, by taking a suspected message and seeing if it hashes correctly. If the set of possible original messages is large enough, though, it foils this sort of attack. > [@](#): > > Yeah, this is why I suggested revealing the role name in the first place. Seems like it would give town some information that scum doesn’t have (i.e., the player whose role is named now knows that Chronos supposedly knows and can evaluate his actions accordingly) without giving scum any information that town doesn’t have. What would constitute playing consistently with that knowledge, though? I certainly won’t vote for the person I know is Town, but in a game this large, there are going to be a lot of people I’ll end up not voting for. If the player I know is Town comes under attack, I’d try to come to es defense, to the extent I could without directly outing em (it’s that player’s own call on when to be outed), but again, with so many players, that’s not likely to happen, either, and I could well end up defending someone else, too. And even knowing that that person is Town, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll agree with em, since someone can be Town, and still be wrong. In any event, I’m certainly not in a hurry to reveal any more information, lest someone come up with a reason it’s a bad idea right after I do so. Things said cannot be unsaid. Even if there’s a specific reason for saying it toDay, we’ve got until Thursday to decide. ---
**Author:** ![GuiriEnEspana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc79bd/32.png) [@GuiriEnEspana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuiriEnEspana)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/520 "2010-08-14T20:45:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What would constitute playing consistently with that knowledge, though? I certainly won’t vote for the person **I know is Town** , but in a game this large, there are going to be a lot of people I’ll end up not voting for. If **the player I know is Town** comes under attack, I’d try to come to es defense, to the extent I could without directly outing em (it’s that player’s own call on when to be outed), but again, with so many players, that’s not likely to happen, either, and I could well end up defending someone else, too. **And even knowing that that person is Town** , that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll agree with em, since someone can be Town, and still be wrong. /snipped and bolding added @ **Chronos** , has something happened for you to now know this player is Town? Earlier you just had a player’s name and their character. Do you have any reason to believe this player does not have the same information about you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=27)