Chronos, so a bigger number on your program equals a more-likely-to-be-scummy person?
Can you run it again, only without zeroing out the dead people? As in, see what SP, Special Ed, and all the other dead people would have scored, if they were still alive but just not posting?
NETA: I just took a look at the source code. My question for you looks like an incredible amount of work, so maybe you should just tell me “no” and move on. 
i think that was how it was run. because plankton tops the charts in both instances and near as i can tell he’s been dead for a while.
but i could be wrong.
**Chronos AND Maha **: How does Chronos’ voting program calculate the parchment?
Ah. And now we see why I hate hot potatoes. One could have the perfect strategy* [with or without a computer program] for the game, just to have it be trumped once they find out that there is a hot potato.
*They never knew about the potato, so to them it was perfect. They put forth their effort, and they soon find it in quicksand.
Quoth USCDiver:
I could see maybe Gollum having the power to determine whether someone was or was not a hobbit, which was all Natlaw ever actually claimed. On the other hand, though, we have Nanook’s investigation which says that Natlaw was Scum. Unless Nanook comes back and clarifies that he actually got a result of “not Town”, or the like, or unless both of them are lying, I don’t think we can have Natlaw as a third party.
Quoth Astral Rejection:
It never occurred to me to try that, and I’m not sure what it would mean, but you’ve got me curious now.
With all the death reveals removed:Total number of possibilities: 6901
0
special ed 1454
Red Skeezix 1395
Drain Bead 1425
Meeko 843
Astral Rejection 672
One and Only Wanderers 1407
Telcontar 1401
Chronos 0
GuiriEnEspana 797
Snickers 916
Chipacabra 750
Pleonast 1530
Inner Stickler 1417
Oredigger/Doctor Who 1371
Nanook 4184
MHaye 1540
HoopyFrood 1357
cucuy 1373
Suburban Plankton 1151
peekercpa 1212
Natlaw 3630
Gadarene 1334
USCDiver 1487
With all other assumptions removed (i.e., the claimed investigations, and the assumption I’m Town):Total number of possibilities: 30464
0
special ed 5677
Red Skeezix 6161
Drain Bead 6287
Meeko 6697
Astral Rejection 5880
One and Only Wanderers 6437
Telcontar 6495
Chronos 6830
GuiriEnEspana 6351
Snickers 5841
Chipacabra 4700
Pleonast 6635
Inner Stickler 6406
Oredigger/Doctor Who 6378
Nanook 6169
MHaye 7048
HoopyFrood 6004
cucuy 6459
Suburban Plankton 5380
peekercpa 6237
Natlaw 6361
Gadarene 6259
USCDiver 6724
And if I also removed the voting information (i.e., have no information at all), there would be 44,275 possibilities, and everyone would have an equal score.
These numbers are posted purely for the sake of curiosity, and I do not recommend that anyone base any decisions on them. It’s foolish to disregard solid information like the alignments of dead players, and including them will always give better results.
Meeko, my program does not do anything with the parchment, unless it somehow ends up giving information about someone’s alignment. But then again, my program also doesn’t take into account the possibility of a Doctor or Roleblocker, again unless they end up giving information about alignment. There are plenty of things in this game that a player might not know ahead of time, and the existence of those things can sometimes mean that what seemed like a good strategy at the time isn’t so good after all. Hot potatoes are in no way unique in this regard.
Oh, and as to the possibility that Natlaw and Nanook are both lying, not only would it have been ballsy for two Scum to try the same gambit, but it would have been even ballsier for one of them to claim Gandalf in the process. There are just too many ways that could go wrong: The real detective could counter-claim and nab both of them, the real Gandalf could counter-claim and nab Nanook (and possibly both of them; Natlaw still hasn’t told us what his name supposedly is), we could find problems in either or both PMs independently of a counterclaim (as we actually did with Natlaw), etc. I don’t see any way that Scum could conclude it was safe to try that, even with a bunch of vanillas outed and several Nights of investigations. Unless, of course, Gandalf were one of their cover names, but I don’t think that’s likely enough to worry about.
Ok, seriously Meeko, calm down. When the game is over, we’ll all sit down and look at the structure. For now, it is pointless to worry about the piece of parchment, the makeup of the scum team and so on. Trust that mahaloth has balanced appropriately and play the game.
I’m not surprised you disagree. You and I seem to disagree frequently on how town powers are best utilized. (E.g. you also disagree with my contention that Detectives are better served confirming town than outing scum.)
Yes. The one I can think of off-hand was Riddler in Arkham Asylum. He was playing his own game where he had to match up a list of players with a list or role names (more role-names than players in the list). Once each Day and Night, he would submit his list, and be told the number of correct guesses. If he completed the list he would steal the win from everyone, and the rest of us would play for a lesser 2nd place win. After the mass name claim (which thanks to the scum cover roles and a mason claiming Penguin while Penguin claimed a mason resulted in him not having a slam dunk win), he became a de-facto investigator. He could tell who was lying about who they were.
There have no doubt been other 3rd-party investigators, but most third party roles don’t need to know who’s who, so they don’t care.
Yeah, but Nanook has revealed him as scum, not 3rd party.
and while i understand the value of confirmed vt at end game eliminating the hidey pool for scum. i’d rather have a town dick rattle off 3, 4 or 5 scum in a row than 3, 4 or 5 vt in a row.
but to some extent it is a glass half full proposition. any results that a confirmed town dick gives are going to be helpful. early on i’d like to get the scum just to cut down on numbers and mis lynches. later on you want the nillers. but you get what cards you are dealt.
thanks for the vote chart skeez. as i have said i don’t really look at those too much except in rare instances:
wanderers :dubious:
but where has cucuy wandered off to? and dr. who who threatened to be a post count leader, what happened?
i mean nat needs to go toDay but i sure don’t want to go down the lurker route in the near future. but in this game, particularily, it seems like a viable scum strategy. just let the heavy weights wear each other out and just sit back and watch.
and skeez the parchment that you have. does it say anything on it or is it just a chunk of paper? and if disclosure of further information is not in town’s best interest, in your opinion, please don’t say anything.
Do you ever read 200 posts at a time?
Vote Nanook
For investigating me and thus wasting it. He should have know I would make a bad claim outing myself if I was scum. And I not even scum!
Also are you claiming Gandalf the Grey or the White?
I’m willing to switch to an Astral lynch since he’s obviously a powerful scum that I’m protecting.
So you know there is a backup doctor then? Or even more with all the power roles revealed.
I don’t think I did but I guess I kinda went with you claiming it at the start of Today?
Why should I tell scum whether he was vanilla or a power role? I didn’t claim himself!
And people really shouldn’t be so suspicious about the investigator claims. What’s up with all this gimme information now! Learn to trust your fellow [del]orc[/del] man a little!
If you put in a fire, does it get hot?
But let’s talk about other things: I don’t think Pleonast would not have blocked and since there have been so few kills I suggest everyone take a closer look at who he voted for - for example peeker. He claimed vanilla so why not block him? Even if he was a town vigilante that would help town (although past results are no guarantee for the future 
).
And here he is totally not subtly claiming that he couldn’t possible be scum since he posts a lot!
“I didn’t claim himself!” should read “He didn’t even claim himself!”.
“Mayor Quimby is soft on crime! He released notorious murderer Sideshow Bob from prison! Vote against Quimby this November. Vote for Sideshow Bob”
oh noes.
*now i lay me down to sleep
i pray the lord my soul to keep
if nat starts channeling ed
i hope that wiki has a huge fucking power outage for the next three days.*
**Speaking for myself, but anyone else feel free to second this :
**
My play is already bad. It doesn’t need the “help” of a hot potato. It’s salt in a wound.
meeko if your definition of a “hot potato” is a game within a game within a game then i kind of like them. seriously, i enjoy trying to figure out how the mods constructed the son of a a gun almost as much as i do trying to figure out who is on the other team(s).
as the group has become a little more sophisticated a little bit of twirl and little bit of zag is really what keeps us on our toes.
compare some of the early dope games to say the conspiracy series or even better yet malazan. i think it is admirable that the current mods look for ways to mess with our minds a wee bit. all the while making it fair, at least on paper.
i mean this is really more like chess than checkers.
Mafia “works” because players interact with each other. Mafia is beaten [Town Win] when players compare what they know [or rather don’t know] with each other. The act of comparison usually leads to PIS and the like. Town wins when a disparity is spotted and the spotting of that disparity is exploited. [Someone finds something “not right” in someone else, That player then points it out, and votes the ““not right”” player.] It creates a disparity with no advantage.
God help us if the parchment is not negligible, and can be used by half of Town [Town Aligned Players], to the detriment of the other half of Town [Town aligned Players]. ** Even if not intended to be, I still maintain that a potato can be used to handshake. **
What are the non-privileged town players supposed to think of a potato? How on earth do they differentiate a Potatoed Town Aligned Player and Scum? Where is the Interaction between Potatoed Town Player and Non-Potatoed Player if the conversation for the cycle is “Contemplate the Potato”?
**
Potatoes needlessly stall the game, in a near 90 degree uphill battle environment. -For What?
**
Power roles are an exception, because it is public knowlege, held consistent between games. A vocabulary is worked out, and rarely changes. This vocabulary is agreed to by all players and mods. It’s public, and well known. Afterall, we are calling Gandalf a “Dick”, and Telcontar was our “Doc”. Even though the LOTR canon does not have those terms. [It has a different label for a similar position, sure.] However, the Mafia canon is default because it works on it’s own. Everything on top of that should not violate this basic layer. **Throwing a ““potato”” into the game in efforts to make a third layer, actually destroys the basic layer. **
**
And why can’t we be told before hand, that there is a potato?** This is the second game in a row, where I have been left out of something. It probably is negligible overall, but it’s the principle. I would LOVE to be where you are on the entire “What is Parchment doing in a LOTR game” but, ARTIFICIALLY I am not allowed to be with you on that. Hence, the “group” is not with you, peeks, I mean, it really is lowest common denominator here, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
I would love for this game to be more Chess like [I would prefer it still to be Magic The Gathering like] but potatoes force some players to only play chess with just checkers. No wait, I now know that there is ““parchment”” , I guess my checkers just got promoted to pawns. But even then, it is futile, because I still need to castle and instead I am stalemated due to insufficient material.
**
The game is not Chess until ALL players never get to promote their checkers. **
ahh, but that is the beauty of mafia and also of chess. there is nothing more rewarding, for me, in chess than check mating with a lowly pawn. there is nothing more rewarding in mafia than being niller and figuring it out. because even niller start to get information after a Day or so. what they choose to do with that information is up to them. they can bemoan that maybe they started out with fewer tools than other folks. or they can get with the program and try to make some hay using their noggin.
different strokes for different folks, i guess.
and just so we are clear meeko i have no clue what the parchment deal is about. i assume it is a mechanism to accomplish something is all i would conclude at this point. for good or evil remains to be seen.
it’s kind of like a game where there are normal masons and i am not one of them. i don’t bemoan the fact that i didn’t get the additional information that they got but just kind of file that away for potential future use during that specific game.