# Lost Mafia/Werewolf/Psychopath **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 10, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337 "2009-06-10T15:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/581 "2009-06-19T16:08:31Z")
Well, that’s just fucking swell. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/582 "2009-06-19T16:09:09Z")
I guess I won’t be making that case. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/583 "2009-06-19T16:10:14Z")
Wow, body count! So, I don’t know about vigilantee philosophy in these online games but, assuming you have the option of refraining to kill, you really should in the early days (odds are vastly in favor of hitting a townie). Optional vigilantees are ridiculously powerful in the endgame, but at the beginning they should keep their heads down. I was hoping tom would elaborate on the point he was making right before he died. oh well :(. My take: He’s right that knowing the status of IF would be very informative but, if IF is innocent, then what we would know is that we know nothing, which would be a very depressing thing to learn after a townie lynch. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/584 "2009-06-19T16:10:26Z")
Two dead. I doubt the Scum would be given two kills in a game like this, and we have been explicitly told that there are no third-parties, only Town and Scum. Which means, pro-Town Vig. If you’re compulsory, oh, well, it is what it is. If you’re not, PLEASE consider keeping it in your pants unless you have a surer target. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/585 "2009-06-19T16:11:46Z")
NETA I see story got here first. Still, as i indicated with my vote yesterday, there is some reason to think IF is scum. Not sure who I’ll be voting for today, though. So much happened late yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/586 "2009-06-19T16:13:03Z")
Oh, man, two dead bodies? That almost certainly means Vigilante, since IIRC Mahaloth said no third parties, and scum having multiple night kills is way overpowered. Anyone disagree with that? So, assuming Vigilante, what do we do about that? I’m normally inclined to let power roles do their thing, but Vig’s can really screw us, as we already see. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/587 "2009-06-19T16:15:40Z")
NETA: Bah, late to the party. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/588 "2009-06-19T16:15:49Z")
So… Can we revisit the idea of a name-claim? I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I wanted to see a few more data points. Now we have, and here’s what we know. We’ve seen three Townie dead. All three were/are what I will call “main characters” and Oceanic 815 survivors: Sun, Hurley, Kate. I am Town, and my name is that of a main character. We know that the Scum were given _post facto_ safe claims. So the big question is this: is it likely that any of the main characters were left out of the original character list? Do we think that the original character list did not include Jack, Jin, Locke, Sayid, or Charlie? Is it likely that the cover names would be of players left out of the original character list, and therefore of comparatively minor characters? Because if it is, a name-claim would be tremendously powerful here. * * * On another note, I think - but can’t be sure - that someone tried to role-block me last Night. Just putting it out there. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/589 "2009-06-19T16:24:20Z")
I’m dead? But I’m far too pretty to be dead! I haven’t even had a chance to sleep with half the Survivors yet… Spoil me Mahaloth. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/590 "2009-06-19T16:24:28Z")
OK, so we obviously have two night-killers. I’m guessing that **Tom** was the Scum night-kill: I think he was one of the least-suspect Townies, so it makes sense for the Scum to target him. **Nanook** , though, has me puzzled… He was pretty low on the radar yesterDay. He didn’t really contribute much to make him a threat to an anti-Town killer, but he also didn’t seem to do anything particularly suspicious to attract the attention of a pro-Town killer (and certainly didn’t get any votes). Any hypotheses? On the topic of **Imaginary Fiend** , there was obviously some case against him yesterDay, and the last-minute vote shift casts additional suspicion on him and the vote-shifters. In particular, it casts more suspicion on him than on the switchers, because it doesn’t make sense for Scum to switch if IF is Town, but it might still make sense for Townies to switch if IF is Scum. All of which is saying that I think there’s a reasonable chance that IF is Scum, and that’s a good reason to lynch him. At least, as things stand right now. I think that, at this moment, the case against IF is the best one, but the Day is young, and there’s still plenty of opportunity for something else to come up, so I won’t be voting IF just yet. And I agree that we should **Replace BillMC** and **Replace paulwhoisaghost** Preferably not with each other. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/591 "2009-06-19T16:28:24Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > So… > > Can we revisit the idea of a name-claim? > > I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I wanted to see a few more data points. Now we have, and here’s what we know. > > We’ve seen three Townie dead. All three were/are what I will call “main characters” and Oceanic 815 survivors: Sun, Hurley, Kate. > > I am Town, and my name is that of a main character. > > We know that the Scum were given _post facto_ safe claims. So the big question is this: is it likely that any of the main characters were left out of the original character list? Do we think that the original character list did not include Jack, Jin, Locke, Sayid, or Charlie? Is it likely that the cover names would be of players left out of the original character list, and therefore of comparatively minor characters? Because if it is, a name-claim would be tremendously powerful here. > > * * * > > On another note, I think - but can’t be sure - that someone tried to role-block me last Night. Just putting it out there. Roleblocker is a fairly standard scum power. Would be comfortable posting the PM you received? No need to if you would prefer not to. My character is decently well regarded, to judge by the wiki. Despite this consistency, I think I have to be opposed to a name claim. Logic: There appear to be (I’ve never seen an episode of this show, mind) a large number of “key” characters. Mahaloth chose 11-13 of those to be the town. He chose 3-5 to be scum. He then went back and found 3-5 good town names and gave them to the scum to claim. There is a bottomless pit of potential metagaming here, partially fueled by such considerations of major Lost geekery, unfathomable mod choices, and random chance. Toss in the potential exposure of power roles and this becomes a hornet’s nest. My bias is that i’ve never seen an episode of Lost and have no desire to turn this game into a research assignment. I’d really rather just play mafia. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/592 "2009-06-19T16:32:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are a few different ways that Scum might go, with their night kill. First, they might choose to go for those people whom are considered least suspicious by Town. If they go this route, then you are in fact more likely to be targeted (assuming you actually are Town). Second, they might try to make a guess as to who has a power role. I don’t think you’ve given any indication of having a power role, so you’d be safe here. Third, they might try going after the people they think are doing the best jobs at hunting Scum: This is often more experienced players, or possibly just those who made shrewd guesses or observations so far in the game. In this case, you’re probably safer than average, due to your inexperience. Finally, they might just pick someone at random, in the hopes that Town will get confused trying to analyze their motives. They probably won’t do this, but it’s still a high enough chance that I don’t think analyzing Scum motives for their night-kill is worthwhile for Town. Well I think we have our answer. This is just great. You mean, we lost Hurley and Kate!? Again, I’m not much for the canon, but, Hurley was the fat one, and Kate and Sawyer go on for bigger and better things, right? \*\* Fck.\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/593 "2009-06-19T16:33:23Z")
I’m on board with a claim at this point. If the fans of the show can confirm that at this point, there have been no big surprises as far as names attaching to roles, I’m having a hard time imagining how **Mahaloth** could have remedied the advantage to town inherent in a claim, once the initial roles had already been given out. Either there would have had to be “obviously” Town roles which weren’t handed out at all, which seems unlikely to me (but I don’t really know how many roles would fit that description so maybe it’s possible), or the roles given to the scum after the fact would necessarily have to be ancillary-type roles. And all a claim has to do is provide, on balance, more information to us than it does disinformation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/594 "2009-06-19T16:37:39Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > There appear to be (I’ve never seen an episode of this show, mind) a large number of “key” characters. Mahaloth chose 11-13 of those to be the town. He chose 3-5 to be scum. He then went back and found 3-5 good town names and gave them to the scum to claim. There is a bottomless pit of potential metagaming here, partially fueled by such considerations of major Lost geekery, unfathomable mod choices, and random chance. Toss in the potential exposure of power roles and this becomes a hornet’s nest. > > My bias is that i’ve never seen an episode of Lost and have no desire to turn this game into a research assignment. I’d really rather just play mafia. That happens to be my bias as well – it was the reason I didn’t say much about a claim until now. I’d rather win by playing. But I don’t really want to lose, either. The operative question, I think, should be, will a mass claim give us, all things considered, a balance of information that is _more likely_ to lead to us lynching scum than if we operate blindly, given what we know about the game thus far? As long as we have multiple people saying that so far, the big name characters are the town names in this game (my understanding of my character is in line with this assumption), I think the safe bet is that the answer is yes. Even if there’s one tricky one, or whatever, we’re still playing Mafia from that point on. We’re just playing with a different set of assumptions and questions. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/595 "2009-06-19T16:40:18Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > I’m on board with a claim at this point. If the fans of the show can confirm that at this point, there have been no big surprises as far as names attaching to roles, I’m having a hard time imagining how **Mahaloth** could have remedied the advantage to town inherent in a claim, once the initial roles had already been given out. Either there would have had to be “obviously” Town roles which weren’t handed out at all, which seems unlikely to me (but I don’t really know how many roles would fit that description so maybe it’s possible), or the roles given to the scum after the fact would necessarily have to be ancillary-type roles. > > And all a claim has to do is provide, on balance, more information to us than it does disinformation, right? Right. Well, there is the concern that a name claim could reveal pro-Town power roles. The problem is that there is really only one obvious player from the canon to serve as Doctor: Jack Shepard. Whoever claims Jack is going to be playing chicken with the Scum from now on. The rest of it, I’m not so worried about. I mean, who’s the logical canon Detective? There isn’t one. Could be Locke, who likes investigating things. Could be Ana-Lucia, who was a Cop off-island. Could be Sayid, the Republican Guard interrogator. Who’s the logical canon Vigilante? Sawyer, who’s a shoot first ask questions later kind of guy? Locke, who threw a knife into somebody’s back? Sayid? Charlie Pace, who was the first character to do a thing that could truly be described as a Vigilante act? Who are the logical canon Masons? Shannon and Boone? Sun and Jin (obviously not them)? Bernard and Rose? Some other combination of characters? I don’t know. Revealing Jack might not be worth the information game, but it might be. We’d end up with a few semi-confirmed Townies and a few promising lynch targets on which to focus our initial efforts. It’s not going to break the game, but it’s likely to help. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/596 "2009-06-19T16:44:52Z")
Story, you just tossed out a lot of names as “obviously town major characters.” Just how many of these are there? Make a list and count it up. if there are 17 or more, a name claim is a really bad idea. If there are less than 10, it may be moderately helpful. If there are exactly 11-14, then we may be golden. I’m just getting the impression that between main cabin survivors, front section survivors, tail section survivors, DHARMA, etc we could have lots of names. Going to be away from the board for a couple hours, sorry to drop out of the convo. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/597 "2009-06-19T17:43:53Z")
I don’t know if this will be answered, but **Do the Scum have a designated killer?** This is relevant if we have a roleblocker: If Scum does not have a designated killer (or a whole host of power roles, which seems unlikely), then a role-blocker doesn’t make sense as a Town power, so we should assume (if **storyteller** is correct and truthful) that the roleblocker is Scum. Incidentally, if this is the case, then revealing the Doctor is even worse than it might be. Ordinarily, the Doctor could leave the Scum guessing as to whether he’s self-protecting or not, but if the Scum have a role-blocker, they can just block the Doctor the same Night they kill him. ---
**Author:** ![AllWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@AllWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllWalker)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/598 "2009-06-19T18:12:05Z")
Damn. Two dead? It is possible that the Scum had a bonus NK up their sleeve, but if they did, it wouldn’t make sense to use it on Night 1, would it? Better off saving it for when they were in a jam or something. It is also possible that it was a proTown voluntary Vig, though why they would target anyone on Night 1 is a mystery. Which, baring some other possibility I haven’t thought of, leaves a compulsory proTown Vig. If this is the case, we should at least discuss the possibility of them claiming so that Town can lynch them. I’m not necessarily advocating that strategy, but it is worth considering. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/599 "2009-06-19T18:23:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Do the Scum have a designated killer?** > > . **No comment.** ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/600 "2009-06-19T18:24:39Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > * * * > > On another note, I think - but can’t be sure - that someone tried to role-block me last Night. Just putting it out there. > [@Telcontar](#): > > Roleblocker is a fairly standard scum power. Would be comfortable posting the PM you received? No need to if you would prefer not to. > > My bias is that i’ve never seen an episode of Lost and have no desire to turn this game into a research assignment. I’d really rather just play mafia. > [@Chronos](#): > > This is relevant if we have a roleblocker: If Scum does not have a designated killer (or a whole host of power roles, which seems unlikely), then a role-blocker doesn’t make sense as a Town power, so we should assume (if **storyteller** is correct and truthful) that the roleblocker is Scum. - I Snipped parts not related to Role blocking. \* \*\* Is there ever a case for a Role blocker to be pro-town? \*\* Wouldn’t Mahaloth give a pm similar to “during the night”, and reveal as much as he could, that your power “fizzled” or some other like verbiage? I am saying, I don’t see why pasting a pm saying a role has been blocked is bad for town, at all. \*\*I would go so far as to say, if a Town receives a PM that is indicative of role blocking, I would say it is Anti-town NOT to post it. \*\* I am not ruling out a scum role blocker. However, Until I see a pm,\*\* I do have to question why someone would go half way here.\*\* (If you claim you were role-blocked, why not post the PM? If you were blocked, but don’t want to post the pm, why bring it up?) And further, I agree, if we have a doctor he should remain silent. **This remains Fishing, even on Day 2** For the most part, I agree with Telcontar. I want to play Mafia, not LOST. How long are we going to talk about canon? Don’t we at some point have to start playing Mafia? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337.md?page=31)