# 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:** 7
**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 12, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/121 "2010-08-12T03:01:10Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > > [@peekercpa](#): > > > > ok, i really think we should at least state our names. > > Are we going to state our names or just mysteriously link to YouTube? Ha! Good one! 😃 I was in that game, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/122 "2010-08-12T03:03:00Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > > [@special\_ed](#): > > > > In my typical beginning of the game strategy: > > > > Last section: 7 a’s and 8 t’s. no x’s > > > > 😃 > > > > Now we’ll wait until the standard role PM is posted publically. > > or publicly pubiclly? ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/123 "2010-08-12T03:06:54Z")
**peeker** , believe it or not, I do understand how your style of Scum-hunting works. This does not, however, mean that I will give you (or anyone else) a license to play anti-Town. “Oh, that’s just the way that **peeker** hunts Scum: He’s hoping to see how people react, and judge based on that” is a valid defense; “Oh, that’s just **peeker** being **peeker** ” is not. Quoth **special ed** : > [@](#): > > In my typical beginning of the game strategy: > > Last section: 7 a’s and 8 t’s. no x’s Beg pardon? I can’t make heads nor tails of that. > [@](#): > > Now we’ll wait until the standard role PM is posted publically. This pings me, a bit: Nobody in Town needs to know what the standard role PM looks like. When a standard role PM is posted publicly by the moderator, it’s for the benefit of those who want to be able to lie convincingly. I don’t think we’re allowed to start voting yet, and that’s really not enough for me to justify a vote (even an early Day 1 vote) anyway, but it is a ping. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/124 "2010-08-12T03:10:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **peeker** , believe it or not, I do understand how your style of Scum-hunting works. This does not, however, mean that I will give you (or anyone else) a license to play anti-Town. “Oh, that’s just the way that **peeker** hunts Scum: He’s hoping to see how people react, and judge based on that” is a valid defense; “Oh, that’s just **peeker** being **peeker** ” is not. > > Quoth **special ed** : > > > [@](#): > > > > In my typical beginning of the game strategy: > > > > Last section: 7 a’s and 8 t’s. no x’s > > Beg pardon? I can’t make heads nor tails of that. > > > [@](#): > > > > Now we’ll wait until the standard role PM is posted publically. > > This pings me, a bit: Nobody in Town needs to know what the standard role PM looks like. When a standard role PM is posted publicly by the moderator, it’s for the benefit of those who want to be able to lie convincingly. I don’t think we’re allowed to start voting yet, and that’s really not enough for me to justify a vote (even an early Day 1 vote) anyway, but it is a ping. You obviously don’t know me well enough. Last section. Did you look at the last section? Look at the letters I identified. Hmm…I wonder what that means. Now, of course, if you don’t have teh standard role PM, then this would be meaningless to you, no? But if you did, then you’d likely be Town. Of course, you can’t verify that unless you have a Town PM, and an ordinary one at that. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/125 "2010-08-12T03:10:38Z")
Wait, I get it. That was intended as a handshake, wasn’t it, **ed**? ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/126 "2010-08-12T03:11:10Z")
and **chronos** we lock horns early as usual. why do you get to be the arbiter of what is not pro town and therefore pro scum? you and others like to think that we should keep these beasts to just a couple of pages per Day. i think that is anti-town. i think discussion flushes the durn scum out of their hidey holes and makes them take positions that are counter to their wincon or at least inconsistent. if you aren’t talking you are probably hiding something. ipso fuckto, lynch the damn lurkers or anyone who suggest getting rid of the loud, until such time that they trip up. my two cents, ymmv, etc. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/127 "2010-08-12T03:11:17Z")
Of course, Chronos, if I’d asked you to look at the “win condition” section of your Role PM, what would you have told me? ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/128 "2010-08-12T03:12:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, I get it. That was intended as a handshake, wasn’t it, **ed**? Do I do that? Almost every game? no, really? ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/129 "2010-08-12T03:16:26Z")
If this board had timestamps down to the second, it’d show that **ed** ’s last post and mine were within about 10 seconds of each other. Yup, a handshake. Assuming that **Mahaloth** used the same format for all of the vanilla PMs, and that there are a significant number of vanillas (both propositions, I think, more likely than not), then we have the opportunity to confirm a huge number of vanillas right out of the gate. This is a game-breakingly powerful tool for Town. On the one hand, I don’t exactly want to kill this game immediately, but on the other hand, it’s the moderator’s responsibility to make sure this kind of thing can’t happen, not ours. I’ll wait until there’s some more discussion before saying anything more on this matter. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/130 "2010-08-12T03:18:43Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Wait, I get it. That was intended as a handshake, wasn’t it, **ed**? > > Do I do that? Almost every game? no, really? 6l 3caps with a CRC-16 of 1EC3. But it’s meaningless anyways, since Mahaloth puts the win condition in the fake pms that he gives scum (at least i’m pretty sure he did for Harry Potter, i can’t go back and check since he’s deleted my account from his boards). ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/131 "2010-08-12T03:25:51Z")
Well, at least the three of us are discussing. Quoth **peeker** : > [@](#): > > and chronos we lock horns early as usual. why do you get to be the arbiter of what is not pro town and therefore pro scum? you and others like to think that we should keep these beasts to just a couple of pages per Day. i think that is anti-town. i think discussion flushes the durn scum out of their hidey holes and makes them take positions that are counter to their wincon or at least inconsistent. if you aren’t talking you are probably hiding something. ipso fuckto, lynch the damn lurkers or anyone who suggest getting rid of the loud, until such time that they trip up. First of all, who I am to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t anti-Town is I’m one of the people who will be voting on whom to lynch. I would neither expect nor want everyone to just fall blindly into lockstep behind me, but I will place my own vote according to what looks anti-Town to me. Second, I have never, to my knowledge, advocated having just a couple of pages of discussion per Day. Discussion is essential, since that’s the only way Town can ever get any information. Where you and I lock horns is not on the question of whether to have discussion or not, but on what form that discussion should take. Being cryptic and mysterious may fill up lots of pages, but it doesn’t help find Scum, and just ends up distracting attention away from more productive discussion. If you’ve got something to say, then say it; don’t make us guess what you’re saying. Quoth **special ed** : > [@](#): > > Of course, Chronos, if I’d asked you to look at the “win condition” section of your Role PM, what would you have told me? I would have told you that it follows the same format I’ve seen for win conditions in all of **Mahaloth** ’s games I’ve seen. He’s consistent enough that it wouldn’t be all that hard for a Scum to guess what it would say. But if it’ll make you feel better, “You win when all threats to the Alliance of Light have been destroyed.” ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/132 "2010-08-12T03:28:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **special ed** : > > > [@](#): > > > > Of course, Chronos, if I’d asked you to look at the “win condition” section of your Role PM, what would you have told me? > > I would have told you that it follows the same format I’ve seen for win conditions in all of **Mahaloth** ’s games I’ve seen. He’s consistent enough that it wouldn’t be all that hard for a Scum to guess what it would say. But if it’ll make you feel better, “You win when all threats to the Alliance of Light have been destroyed.” Which demonstrates how you and I play a very different game. I, for one, don’t have a win condition section in my role PM. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/133 "2010-08-12T03:29:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Come to think of it, I do have a topic of discussion to raise: The methods for hunting Scum. Lately, there’s been a fad of saying “Anti-Town is not pro-Scum”, and that the best method for finding Scum is to look for Scum motivation in posts. I, for one, believe that this is not useful advice at all. First of all, anti-Town is exactly pro-Scum, in so far as the Scum’s goal is to make the Town lose. Anything that hurts Town will help Scum. The only situation where this correspondence is not exact is when there’s an anti-Town third party faction, and if there’s one of those, we need to take them out, too, so anti-Town is still the right thing to look for. > > Now, of course, what people mean when they say that anti-Town is not pro-Scum is that Townies can and inevitably will say or do things that turn out to be anti-Town. And even a Townie who’s playing abysmally is still an asset to the Town, just by virtue of his existence and alignment. This is true, but the catch is that we don’t know people’s alignments, just their behavior. I can’t say “Well, even though so-and-so is hurting Town, he’s still Town-aligned so I won’t vote for him”, because I don’t know that. > > Which brings us to the question of motivation. Looking for Scum motivation isn’t helpful, because any action at all can have Scum motivation. If a person does something that hurts Town, the motivation is simply that Scum want Town to hurt. If a person does something that helps Town, then the motivation is that Scum want to look like Townies so they won’t get lynched. Scum has motivation to act in either pro-Town or anti-Town ways. > > By contrast, Townies never have motivation to act anti-Town, only pro-Town. If and when a Townie does act anti-Town, it’s purely by accident. So if we’re going to look at motives, we still find that the proper course of action is to go after folks playing anti-Town. I disagree with almost this entire post. 1. Anti-town is not always pro-scum. Not everything that helps town hurts scum. And not everything that hurts town helps scum. By saying that we need to look for anti-town play and lynch it where ever we see it is to hold a weak ass policy, where we spend all our time lynching players who are behaving in a manner that might be confusing or misguided. In addition, the statement you’ve made helps to bolster weak ass cases against town behaviors which are unexplainable, or just plain dumb, but have no real scumminess to them. It’s towns responsibility to try to discern not only between scum from those who are acting like good, smart townies, but also to discern scum from townies who are behaving inexplicably. So pretty much I feel that If were to follow your line of thinking, I’d essentially be writing a scum a license to make shit up and vote for reasons which don’t point one way or the other. 2.Looking for scum motivation **is** helpful. If you cannot describe why an action is scummy, or how it benefits scum: How can you discern the unexpected or stupid from the malicious? 1. “Townies never have motivation to act anti-Town, only pro-Town.” This is true, but most often townies acting against town’s interest is more often than not due to people making mistakes, the general ignorance of town compared to the more informed scum, or simply players being lazy (I categorize absenteeism here). ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/134 "2010-08-12T03:31:22Z")
> [@Red\_Skeezix](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Come to think of it, I do have a topic of discussion to raise: The methods for hunting Scum. Lately, there’s been a fad of saying “Anti-Town is not pro-Scum”, and that the best method for finding Scum is to look for Scum motivation in posts. I, for one, believe that this is not useful advice at all. First of all, anti-Town is exactly pro-Scum, in so far as the Scum’s goal is to make the Town lose. Anything that hurts Town will help Scum. The only situation where this correspondence is not exact is when there’s an anti-Town third party faction, and if there’s one of those, we need to take them out, too, so anti-Town is still the right thing to look for. > > > > Now, of course, what people mean when they say that anti-Town is not pro-Scum is that Townies can and inevitably will say or do things that turn out to be anti-Town. And even a Townie who’s playing abysmally is still an asset to the Town, just by virtue of his existence and alignment. This is true, but the catch is that we don’t know people’s alignments, just their behavior. I can’t say “Well, even though so-and-so is hurting Town, he’s still Town-aligned so I won’t vote for him”, because I don’t know that. > > > > Which brings us to the question of motivation. Looking for Scum motivation isn’t helpful, because any action at all can have Scum motivation. If a person does something that hurts Town, the motivation is simply that Scum want Town to hurt. If a person does something that helps Town, then the motivation is that Scum want to look like Townies so they won’t get lynched. Scum has motivation to act in either pro-Town or anti-Town ways. > > > > By contrast, Townies never have motivation to act anti-Town, only pro-Town. If and when a Townie does act anti-Town, it’s purely by accident. So if we’re going to look at motives, we still find that the proper course of action is to go after folks playing anti-Town. > > I disagree with almost this entire post. > > 1. Anti-town is not always pro-scum. Not everything that helps town hurts scum. And not everything that hurts town helps scum. By saying that we need to look for anti-town play and lynch it where ever we see it is to hold a weak ass policy, where we spend all our time lynching players who are behaving in a manner that might be confusing or misguided. > > In addition, the statement you’ve made helps to bolster weak ass cases against town behaviors which are unexplainable, or just plain dumb, but have no real scumminess to them. It’s towns responsibility to try to discern not only between scum from those who are acting like good, smart townies, but also to discern scum from townies who are behaving inexplicably. So pretty much I feel that If were to follow your line of thinking, I’d essentially be writing a scum a license to make shit up and vote for reasons which don’t point one way or the other. > > 2.Looking for scum motivation **is** helpful. If you cannot describe why an action is scummy, or how it benefits scum: How can you discern the unexpected or stupid from the malicious? > > 1. “Townies never have motivation to act anti-Town, only pro-Town.” This is true, but most often townies acting against town’s interest is more often than not due to people making mistakes, the general ignorance of town compared to the more informed scum, or simply players being lazy (I categorize absenteeism here). Well said. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/135 "2010-08-12T03:32:24Z")
I felt like editing my last post to just say: “@Red, well said” instead of quoting the whole thing ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/136 "2010-08-12T03:40:39Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. Anti-town is not always pro-scum. Not everything that helps town hurts scum. And not everything that hurts town helps scum. By saying that we need to look for anti-town play and lynch it where ever we see it is to hold a weak ass policy, where we spend all our time lynching players who are behaving in a manner that might be confusing or misguided. How could hurting Town not help Scum? How could helping Town not hurt Scum? In a two-faction game, the probability of Town winning is one minus the probability of Scum winning. Therefore, anything which increases Town’s chance of winning must necessarily decrease Scum’s chance of winning, and vice-versa. > [@](#): > > So pretty much I feel that If were to follow your line of thinking, I’d essentially be writing a scum a license to make shit up and vote for reasons which don’t point one way or the other. No, it’s not giving Scum a license to make shit up and vote for null tells. They still have to find behavior that’s actually anti-Town. By contrast, the attitude of “But what’s the Scum motivation?” _does_ give Scum license to act however they want. We’ve had games where the Scum have acted blatantly Scummy and gotten away with it, because people have said that Scum would never want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. > [@](#): > > 2.Looking for scum motivation is helpful. If you cannot describe why an action is scummy, or how it benefits scum: How can you discern the unexpected or stupid from the malicious? The problem is not a lack of ability to find Scum motivation; the problem is that Scum motivation can be found in literally anything at all. > [@](#): > > 1. “Townies never have motivation to act anti-Town, only pro-Town.” This is true, but most often townies acting against town’s interest is more often than not due to people making mistakes, the general ignorance of town compared to the more informed scum, or simply players being lazy (I categorize absenteeism here). Of _course_ poor play of one form or another is most often the cause for Town acting against Town interests… What other reason could there be for Town acting against Town interests? That’s what I said. By contrast, Scum can act against Town’s interests not only by accident, but also deliberately. So all else being equal, the person who’s acting against Town’s interests is more likely to be Scum than the person who isn’t acting against Town’s interests. ---
**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 12, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/137 "2010-08-12T03:42:41Z")
I just realized I did not officially start Night Zero, though it looks like most of you got the idea. **It is now Night Zero.** Talk, speculate, insult, assume, hope, wish all you want. Everyone needs to confirm their Role PM ASAP. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nanook\_of\_the\_North\_Shore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@Nanook\_of\_the\_North\_Shore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanook_of_the_North_Shore)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/138 "2010-08-12T03:46:03Z")
Confirmed. Not wasting any time are we? Peeker, for a name claim, I have to say I’m against it. For starters, Maha has almost certainly given the scum false claims for cover. For another, there are SO MANY possible names in the cannon, that you can’t really draw much useful information from it. Mass name claims mostly work best in games where the cannon being drawn upon has a limited pool of names to choose from, like Lost as an example. LoTR has hundreds, if not thousands of names to choose from, and there’s probably enough “big” names to pass the player count of this game(depending on your definition of big and what parts of LoTR the names were drawn from). Chronos, I’m sort of with you and sort of not. But I gotta say, bringing up “scum would never do that” as a reason why looking for motivations is bad does not help your argument at all. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/139 "2010-08-12T03:56:56Z")
Just got home. Confirmed and going to sleep. I will give you all the Stare Of Doom in the morning. ---
**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 12, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867/140 "2010-08-12T04:02:50Z")
> [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](#): > > Just got home. Confirmed and going to sleep. I will give you all the Stare Of Doom in the morning. So you’re claiming Sauron? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lord-of-the-rings-mafia/549867.md?page=8)