Woohoo!
Congrats to my fellow townies!
(And no, I won’t apologize, Doctor. Town should never be compliant going into endgame unless they are certain that the number of mislynches remaining is bigger than the pool of unconfirmed. Which means, I’m looking at those who aren’t under any heat.)
Boil 'm, mash 'm and stick them in a stew? 
Yay! Go Town!
Great game and great color, thanks Maha.
I think we’ve broken a 12 month streak of scum/PFK wins - a quick search shows the last Town win here was Weird Wild West.
To be more clear: When I got the items, one of them was a crow holding a piece of paper. My first thought was, in fact, that it was for sending messages (a power I probably wouldn’t ever have bothered using), so I asked Mahaloth if I was supposed to write something on the paper before using it. He said that all I knew about how to use the items was that I was to pick an item, and then pick a target for it. So I ruled out the message possibility, and thought that it might be something like the music box from Screamers (which got passed from person to person and told each person the alignment of the previous holder), so I sent it to the vanilla I trusted most, that being Red Skeezix. Then, after I submitted my action, Mahaloth told me that the crow was waiting for something, and appeared to want me to write something :smack:. Since I had nothing in particular to say, and wanted to keep hidden the fact that I’d inherited the items, I left it blank.
On a more general note, Mahaloth, I think you got the balance just about right, though not, perhaps, in the way that you intended. I’m guessing that you counted the Scum team as having 4 and a half members, with Astral counting as half. I think, though, that a secret Scum is actually about the same value as a regular Scum, or possibly a little more: On the one hand, there’s the risk that they might accidentally kill him before they recruit him, but that’s mitigated by letting the secret scum send a kill-recommendation. On the other hand, though, the fact that the Scum don’t know who he is obfuscates their interactions: Even the best Scum players usually interact with their teammates a little differently than they do with Townies, and that’s the main way Town finds them. I’d still say that this game effectively had 4.5 Scum, but it was Sauron who was the crippled Scum role, not Shelob.
Oh, by the way, Gadarene, if you’re reading this: You accidentally mentioned in the non-spoilered forbidden thread that if Plankton had not gotten lynched Day 1, you would have used the crow. What did you plan to say, and to whom did you plan to send it?
There were no potatoes being passed in this game, Meeko.
Only the ones in your mind. 
thank goodness.
way to go town.
i finally get a town win on this board.
in deference to oy.
yeeps and peeps.
I didn’t see when the game started how the Ring could be handled; I was impressed with how it worked out in practice.
I might have made Sauron the roleblocker and Wormtongue the Godfather, though; as it stands, Drain could be active at night after death if Frodo got caught, but so what?
A half-dead sauron could still execute the nightkill, freeing up the other scum to use their powers.
Thank you. My eyes remain intact.
Potato being the term Peeker used, for an item that gets passed around.
Last I will say on it : I accept Mafia as given, an uphill battle that Town can and does, on occasion win. The addition of additional items or tweaks breaks the contract I feel I sign on for at the start of a game. Town has to find the, corners of the game, if you will, and work within them. Generally, they are well assumed. The extra items ammount to finding new corners once you’ve already made plans on KNOWING where the corners are.
Maha:
Would you conscript players into a game again?
I mean, I knew LOTR was … an EPIC game to play in, to be sure, but I felt … left out, not knowing the canon. [I mean, I guess watching the movies once or twice doesn’t hold a candle to you guys.]
It is a big deal. Drain could have continued to execute the kill, while the other scum investigated or blocked.
Not only that, but if the Ring had been lost forever(If Frodo, Aragorn, and Eowyn died OR Gollum got the Ring), then Drain would never be able to be killed fully.
Imagine a scum player that can always do the kill 'til the end of the game.
She would not have counted in the win condition and color would have hinted that Sauron’s spirit remains alive.
But, even speaking as a total Mafia newbie, the whole point is that you *don’t *know where the corners are. You never did, were never supposed to. That’s what makes it a closed game.
Not understanding what just happened does not make you a bad player. Nobody else understands what just happened either. You try and figure it out by talking with the other players. Even then, there’s a good chance you’ll get it wrong. What’s more, it’s not uncommon for it to be irrelevant, like the piece of parchment in this game. The sender didn’t know what it was, the receiver didn’t know what it was, and it didn’t matter anyway.
Chronos, why didn’t you just write “nevermind” on the paper? Were you afraid it would somehow indicate who it came from?
I’m kind of continually approving people over at my mafia board. Just register and I’ll approve.
You can check out previous games if you like, too.
I’ve modded 4 games of my own and we have a 2-2 tie between Town and Scum.
I agree that my role was way too gimped. In a game this size with only one NK, giving me essentially only three Nights to find Frodo (counting the two protections) was a near-impossibility. As is, I thought I would survive until Dawn of Day Six, and on that last Night I had planned to go for MHaye.
In the end, what destroyed the game for us wasn’t necessarily that (although it didn’t help), it was Natlaw being investigated. In the end, his mistake wouldn’t have mattered. I knew my time was limited unless we could somehow find Frodo, and I was playing as if I’d live to endgame, but I knew it was a possibility I wouldn’t make it. After losing SP, and knowing that we’d eventually lose Astral, I knew that Natlaw and Inner had to avoid investigation and survive–we had no other options. I hammered on the Scum board that they were to sell any of the rest of us down the river if they had to. Of course, it didn’t play out that way, but that wouldn’t have mattered–we were sunk the moment his investigation results came back.
Astral Rejection did a FANTASTIC job in his first game. His breadcrumbs were incredible. Seriously, I can’t say enough good things about him. The sad thing is that he got screwed by something that was totally not his fault–he defended one of us on Day One without even realizing it. Ironic, and amusing to later watch people presume that we hadn’t found him until Natlaw made his gambit.
Congratulations town!
Yes, I was worried about the 2 protections. It was not supposed to work like that.
I’m glad that MHaye was never targeted for death at Night.
I do wish Gollum had been activated, though. It certainly would have picked up the last part of the game a bit.
Not sure if Never is the word to use. Certainly Town has to make some progress in order to win. Therefore, they understand some of the corners. Town knew that the game was going there way at the tail end of this thing.
For the second part:
Not understanding what just happened… **It doesn’t feel this way in the least. **
Everyone else “Gets” Mafia. period.