# 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:** 45
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/881 "2010-08-18T16:13:33Z")
Morning all… I was going to post this before going to bed last night so you could all digest it early this morning, but we had a server crash (I’m a SysAdmin) and I wound up working all night instead, and have just woken up. Anyway… > [@](#): > > You are Denethor. > > You are a member of the Alliance of Light. > > You have seen Sauron’s burning eye through your Palantir and know all of Middle-earth will be destroyed. You have little hope and little control over your fate, it is only a matter of time until the advance of Darkness will be seen and feared by all. > > You win when all threats to the Alliance of Light have been destroyed. > > Powers: > > 1. You have a Palantir. You must use it during the Night to watch one other player in the game and will learn if they are a Servant of Darkness or not. PM Mahaloth the name of the player you will watch in the Palantir. > > 2. If you find a Servant of Darkness through your Palantir, you know Middle-earth is doomed. You must claim in your first post that Day and will no longer be able to use the Palantir afterward. It would be a futile endeavor. So there you go. My hope was that I’d get lucky and be able to go a few days before hitting a Scum and having to reveal myself, so that when I did I could confirm several Townies. As it is, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. I’ll defend my “all over the place” postings as an effort to try to locate possible Scum, with the idea that I would \*\*\*not \*\*\*investigate them, hoping instead that the Town would take them out and I could confirm a few people while my Power still exists. Obviously, I wasn’t trying to draw \*quite \*so much attention to myself, but I failed in that endeavor. I’ve got more to say about what’s happened over the last 18 hours or so, but I’ll need time to compose it, having only given things a cursory look this morning. But I wanted to get this up before it got any later. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/882 "2010-08-18T16:17:56Z")
NETA: Things are hopping here at work this morning, so I may not be around right away to answer any questions (assuming there are any). I will try to get back as soon as I can, but duty calls. Sorry ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/883 "2010-08-18T16:28:10Z")
Just saw suburban’s post. \*\* unvote suburban vote special ed\*\* My thoughts (perhaps to be elaborated more after work): Though I was suspicious of suburban, I never saw a reason to kill him Today as opposed to Tomorrow. Now we have a definite reason to at least wait to kill him. If he’s town, he can help us and/or eat scum nightpowers (roleblocks, kills). If he’s scum, we can kill him later. Note: Suburban is making a non-exclusive cop claim. If there is another cop in game, please do not attempt to counter claim. That would just be bad. I’m also concerned about the prospect of a paranoid cop, as that would fit the role well. To suburban: Assuming you survive the day, I’m not sure whether your best use would be to find town or find scum, given your short life expectancy. Think on it. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/884 "2010-08-18T16:30:55Z")
**unvote Suburban Plankton** Okay, you’re claimed power is verifiable, even if your alignment is not. Each Day (before anyone comes under lynch pressure), you need to state the results of power. Once you are dead, we will be able to trust your results. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ **vote MHaye** for evidence of posting in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/885 "2010-08-18T16:33:36Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > Though I was suspicious of suburban, I never saw a reason to kill him Today as opposed to Tomorrow. Why were you voting for someone you didn’t want to lynch ToDay? ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/886 "2010-08-18T16:35:45Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > > > I’m sorry, I don’t have any experience playing with Pleonast, so I don’t have the benefit of hindsight. I can only go off what I’m seeing here. And what I’m seeing is him making a claim, refusing to answer any questions about it, and then defecting several attempts to revisit the subject. My theory regarding his specific intent (implanting a subconscious idea) might be bull, but that doesn’t change the facts of what he did and did not say. > > (Underlining added.) Please don’t make false statements about what I have and have not done. I have in fact answered questions about my claim. Not liking my answers does not give you the right to deny their existence. > > > [@peekercpa](#): > > > > oh for fuck’s sake **ed** if this doesn’t imply you to be town then my dick just fell off. > > This is a perfect example of very poor logic. **peeker** infers something from **ed** ’s post and then attacks **ed** for saying it, when it is all in **peeker** ’s head. > > **ed** hasn’t claimed to be confirmed in any way. But if he is town (and scum know if he is), he is outed as vanilla to them. That’s all he is saying. But **peeker** jumps off the cliffs of logic and accuses **ed** of claiming to be confirmed. > > It’s good to try to make inferences from others’ posts. But please, try to keep them separate from what was actually said. > > **peeker** ’s argument looks to me like scum trying to get a player lynched by spinning what another said. > > ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ > > I’m glad to see the requirement for unvoting has ensured an accurate vote count.[/snark] so you think posts 746 785 are not **ed** claiming to be vanilla? :rolleyes: plus if he is not indirectly claiming vanilla then what in the world was he trying to accomplish with the whole vanilla role pm handshake thing? and sure, i agree that leaps can lead to bad results. but if i know that 2 + 2 equals 4 and that 4 +4 equals 8 you can bet your bottom dollar that i am going to make the leap that 2 + 2 + 2 +2 equals eight. ---
**Author:** ![MHaye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bbe5ce/32.png) [@MHaye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MHaye)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/887 "2010-08-18T16:37:58Z")
Day 1, and who to vote for. **Vote Special Ed**. There, that was easy. What’s that? You want to know _why_? The nerve of kids today. My concern is that Special Ed attempted a handshake in a way that was designed to aid the Servants of Darkness aka SAHMs The handshake was designed to elicit confirming reactions from players with vanilla town roles, but disagreements from players with Town power roles and third-party players. Now, Ed has tried to present his action as motivated by the desire to get vanilla town confirmed as a group; and it is true that a group of confirmed Town-aligned players are a real problem for the sods, because they need as large a pool of unconfirmed players as possible to hide in. It’s therefore very very plausible. But… (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?) But, Special Ed could have done his handshake based on the win condition only, the effect of which would have been to enlarge the confirmed group to all Town. He did not, however; he chose, for reasons of his own, to try and get a group of confirmed Vanilla Townies. The effect of this is that the unknown pool contains a higher concentration of Town power roles than it did at the start. On top of that, since the SAHMs already know who they are, their chance of hitting an actual Town power role are even higher. Normally, the SAHMs would want to risk searching for power roles early, turning to hose down the confirmed Townies as the game evolves to avoid making their identities clear. This makes the chance of hitting a power role in those crucial early Nights far better, at the cost of reducing the size of the pool that people are going to lynch out of. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/888 "2010-08-18T16:39:28Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > so you think posts 746 785 are not **ed** claiming to be vanilla? :rolleyes: Claiming vanilla is not the same thing as claiming to be confirmed. How can you not see that? Is your thinking really as slip-shod as your posts? ---
**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 18, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/889 "2010-08-18T16:42:58Z")
I find **Plankton** ’s claim plausible, especially given that it’s still Day 1: If Scum can only Night-talk (which is not a given, but is likely), then they didn’t have much time to collaboratively construct clever and interesting claims. He’s not confirmed, of course, but I think we should give him a few Nights to demonstrate his power. Meanwhile, **Plankton** , assuming you’re telling the truth, now that you’ve posted that your days are numbered. A Doctor-type might protect you, but then again might not, and the Scum are going to want to get rid of you ASAP. I would recommend that you investigate whomever you think is _most_ Scummy, since if you die, your power is lost no matter whom you investigate, and any individual investigation of a Scum is more valuable than an individual investigation of a Townie (though of course confirming a Townie isn’t bad, either). In any event, though, don’t let us know whom you’re investigating until you get the result. **Red Skeezix** , am I understanding correctly that you have a script of some sort for automatically counting votes? How does it deal with misspellings and variants of names? And would you be willing to share it with everyone? ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/890 "2010-08-18T16:43:50Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > for evidence of posting in another thread. \ ok, **pleo** help me out. where is this again? or is this wound up in this whole sahm thing which i think is ludicrous. i mean i got it after i looked at the game thread. it’s kind of why i call you **pleo** as opposed to **pleonast** and other folks get truncated as well. it’s why i type wifom instead of wine in front of me. sheeps we all use conventions to cut down on key strokes. ---
**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 18, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/891 "2010-08-18T16:46:49Z")
@Guiri > [@](#): > > Metagaming, his first post was #312, after Day 1 had started. In #376 Mahaloth stated that he started the Day “so we didn’t all just sit around with everyone confirmed waiting for the Day to start”, I wonder how Astral confirmed if it wasn’t in the game thread I think you’re getting a little _too_ meta-gamey. I had been out of town (in beautiful Lake Geneva!) and had missed the start of the day. On my return, I PMed Mahaloth and told him what was up, and that I was going to catch up and play. Also, why I appreciate that you’re not voting for me, can I ask you why? You posted a litany of things you found suspicious about me, and then voted for… ed? You seem to be smudging me an awful lot for a vote on somebody else. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/892 "2010-08-18T16:51:07Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > To suburban: Assuming you survive the day, I’m not sure whether your best use would be to find town or find scum, given your short life expectancy. Think on it. Yes, I’ve considered that. As I said, my hope going in was that I’d be able to spot a number of Townies before hitting a Scum, thus being able to confirm a number of people. Even assuming I survive the Day, I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to put my ‘long term plan’ into effect. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that I probably have at most one opportunity to use my Power, so I’ll try to make that opportunity count by confirming a Scum. I know it’s been mentioned before, but I don’t know if it’s been given a lot of consideration (or indeed if it is worthy of much): what are the odds that there is a third faction in this game? Not just a singular 3rd party (SK, for example), but two or more people acting in concert on their own agenda which does not benefit Town or Scum? The canon would certainly suggest this possibility, but I don’t know how difficult it would be to implement from a game mechanics perspective. If there is such a third entity, I would assume they would come up Town upon inspection… ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/893 "2010-08-18T16:51:58Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@peekercpa](#): > > > > so you think posts 746 785 are not **ed** claiming to be vanilla? :rolleyes: > > Claiming vanilla is not the same thing as claiming to be confirmed. How can you not see that? Is your thinking really as slip-shod as your posts? 'kay, now you are starting to piss me off. he is claiming vanilla. the only way he will be confirmed as such is when he is dead. sure i see the difference but if you read the posts in the light that i do then he is basically saying he is confirmed as niller because of his actions. i call bullshit. so you really think **ed** is claiming vanilla and that he just fucked the pooch? nope i read it as he made a tactical error as a niller and that confirms him as such. i continue to call bullshit. are we going to have the section versus paragraph discussion again? i mean seriously pull henny youngman into the game. that’s no lady, that’s my wife kind of hair splitting. ---
**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 18, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/894 "2010-08-18T16:58:44Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > @Guiri > > > [@](#): > > > > Metagaming, his first post was #312, after Day 1 had started. In #376 Mahaloth stated that he started the Day “so we didn’t all just sit around with everyone confirmed waiting for the Day to start”, I wonder how Astral confirmed if it wasn’t in the game thread > > I think you’re getting a little _too_ meta-gamey. I had been out of town (in beautiful Lake Geneva!) and had missed the start of the day. On my return, I PMed Mahaloth and told him what was up, and that I was going to catch up and play. Oh, I think I understand better. I don’t know why he started the day before he had heard back from me. When I returned, I PMed him about it, but I was not in fact confirmed when he announced the day. We could ask him about it, since this would cast me in a suspicious light due to his action. \*\*Mahaloth, why did you start the day before I was confirmed? \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/895 "2010-08-18T17:02:48Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > for evidence of posting in another thread. > > ok, **pleo** help me out. where is this again? or is this wound up in this whole sahm thing which i think is ludicrous. > > i mean i got it after i looked at the game thread. it’s kind of why i call you **pleo** as opposed to **pleonast** and other folks get truncated as well. it’s why i type wifom instead of wine in front of me. sheeps we all use conventions to cut down on key strokes. The evidence of posting in another thread is the use of SAHM without explanation. I think it is odd that someone would use a new acronym without any indication of what it meant. I think the most likely explanation is that it is being used on another board and **MHaye** forgot that it wasn’t being used here. Use of another board is a scum tell. How easily some players figured it out is besides the point. > [@peekercpa](#): > > 'kay, now you are starting to piss me off. he is claiming vanilla. the only way he will be confirmed as such is when he is dead. sure i see the difference but if you read the posts in the light that i do then he is basically saying he is confirmed as niller because of his actions. i call bullshit. Well, you’re right that it is bullshit that he’s confirmed. The trouble is that **ed** didn’t claim that, so it’s silly to accuse him of it. > [@](#): > > so you really think **ed** is claiming vanilla and that he just fucked the pooch? nope i read it as he made a tactical error as a niller and that confirms him as such. i continue to call bullshit. I’m undecided on **ed**. But if you’re going to make an argument against him, you’d do better by making it about things he’s actually said or done. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/896 "2010-08-18T17:03:41Z")
**Chronos** , you claim to be a town power role. Does the structure of your role PM roughly match what **Suburban** posted? No need to give any details beyond a “yes” or “no,” of course. (Because it’s pretty damn different from the vanilla PM posted by **Ed** , particularly in ways you wouldn’t necessarily expect it to be – such as the fact that the wincon comes before the Powers section, and not after.) ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/897 "2010-08-18T17:03:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Red Skeezix** , am I understanding correctly that you have a script of some sort for automatically counting votes? How does it deal with misspellings and variants of names? And would you be willing to share it with everyone? # No unfortunately It doesn’t scrape them. I’m still working on that, but it does turn a spreadsheet of each vote and unvote into a readable vote count, isolating those who haven’t voted and keeping a record of the progression of votes. Also once people start dying, it will do the auto coloring on the votes. But the PITA part of vote counting unfortunately still needs to be done. Once I get the scraping part done I will be willing to share with anyone who wants to use it. **unvote Suburban Plankton** I need a bit more time to think about who’s next. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/898 "2010-08-18T17:11:50Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > **unvote Suburban Plankton** > > Okay, you’re claimed power is verifiable, even if your alignment is not. Each Day (before anyone comes under lynch pressure), you need to state the results of power. Once you are dead, we will be able to trust your results. > > ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ > > **vote MHaye** > > for evidence of posting in another thread. I still tend to think this is a really weak point. It’s a simple enough abbreviation. > [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@Telcontar](#): > > > > Though I was suspicious of suburban, I never saw a reason to kill him Today as opposed to Tomorrow. > > Why were you voting for someone you didn’t want to lynch ToDay? You misunderstand. I wanted him dead because I was suspicious of him, hence voting for him. But I didn’t really have a strong preference for “dead now” versus “dead later.” I was on the lookout for better cases and was happy to shelve him if I saw one. I’m not sure what I think of him now, but we have been given a strong reason to want to keep him around another Day. So I either want him “dead later” or “dead never” but certainly not “dead now.” Also his power is less than verifiable, except by his death. > [@peekercpa](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > Claiming vanilla is not the same thing as claiming to be confirmed. How can you not see that? Is your thinking really as slip-shod as your posts? > > 'kay, now you are starting to piss me off. he is claiming vanilla. the only way he will be confirmed as such is when he is dead. sure i see the difference but if you read the posts in the light that i do then he is basically saying he is confirmed as niller because of his actions. i call bullshit. > > so you really think **ed** is claiming vanilla and that he just fucked the pooch? nope i read it as he made a tactical error as a niller and that confirms him as such. i continue to call bullshit. > > are we going to have the section versus paragraph discussion again? > > i mean seriously pull henny youngman into the game. that’s no lady, that’s my wife kind of hair splitting. So why did you unvote him? You gave no reason. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/899 "2010-08-18T17:22:04Z")
I’m still comfortable with my vote on **USCDiver** , by the way, but I want to reexamine things a bit more. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/900 "2010-08-18T17:23:06Z")
NETA: Hard to believe the end of Day One is actually around the corner! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=44) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=46)