# 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:** 86
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1701 "2009-07-14T16:33:44Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Even if we lynch scum tonight? > > Just as good, I am moving to a new apartment on the first. No. currently an assumption of 4 starting mafia gives us 1 mistake. Not much margin for error though, we really need to kick it up a notch. > [@Meeko](#): > > What is the average win Ratio for Town in Mafia games? Presumably designed to be 50-50, right? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1702 "2009-07-14T16:37:33Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > (Although it’s hard to blame anybody for voting for me at this point, so I’m not inclined to count that as much of a negative in your ledger. You’re lucky I’ve made so many stupid decisions, though, because otherwise it would look a lot like your OMGUS that you can retract at any time **was an easy way to get another townie installed as an early vote-leader**.). If I really wanted to do THAT, I’d’ve voted for **Diver**. Right now we’re in this situation: We can be reasonably sure of **Story** , **Chronos** , and **Meeko**. I freely admit, none are actually confirmable at this time. That leaves us **Telcontar** , **USC\_Diver** , **Scuba\_Ben** , **cardinalfang** , **JimmyChitwood** , and myself. Regardless of who analyzes it, we have between a 33% and 50% chance of catching scum just by hunting that pool–assuming either three or four scum at game start. Regardless of who we lynch toDay, Tomorrow will start us with five unconfirmed and, likely, two remaining “confirmed”. That makes us either 4-3 or 5-2. IF we are 4-3, which is likelier, we’re obviously at LyLo. If not, we’ve got a grace day and a serious concern over how such a small scum team got balanced. \*\*Jimmy’s \*\*making me more suspicious of him with his last post–for example, when he quotes me for snarling at him about “sowing distrust of the vig” and notes my next post is snarking at **Meeko** , he utterly fails to mention that he was second-guessing the vig during the previous night and my snark at \*\*Meeko \*\*was after the next morning when we found out \*\*Meeko \*\*had been gratuitously lying as part of a gambit. Obviously NOT the case of hypocrisy \*\*Jimmy \*\*was attempting to lay out. Yes, I’m on \*\*AllWalker’s \*\*watch list–because I pointed out I belonged there myself! And yes, I continue to realize no one is fully confirmed, so of course I wanted the balance implications of Meeko-as-toughguy examined. Our best strategy, unfortunately, is to regard **Chronos** , **Story** , and \*\*Meeko \*\*as “confirmed”, but we have very little basis for that aside from both \*\*Story \*\*and \*\*Meeko \*\*being un-counterclaimed and a potential breadcrumb. As I posted before, I think the breadcrumb is good enough to make sense. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1703 "2009-07-14T16:42:05Z")
> [@](#): > > BTW, Chronos, you have specifically mentioned Telcontar and Zeriel wrt their PMs, but have said nothing about USCDiver since you smudged him. Why do you believe his PM is suspicious? I didn’t say anything specifically about **USCDiver** at that time because we already had his PM. I asked specifically about **Telcontar** and **Zeriel** because, based on their claimed characters, there was a chance their PMs would be different from everyone else’s, and I wanted to see all the cards on the table. As for **USCDiver** , I think it a bit odd that there would be one and only one vanilla Town who wasn’t on the plane, but that’s only a slight suspicion, especially considering that **AllWalker** was a freighter character too. As I said, it’s not enough to base a vote on. As for whether I’m confirmed, I do have to concede that I could be a godfather or something, since the best evidence in my favor is **AllWalker** ’s investigation. That still means assuming a fairly specific set of circumstances if I happen to be Scum: You’d have to assume that, first, there exists a godfather in this game, second, that I’m the godfather, and third, that I was the presumably single Scum who didn’t do anything last Night (since my blocktection didn’t stop the Night-kill nor the Scum block). Now, I think that this would make me relatively unlikely to be Scum, but obviously, I’m not the one who has to be convinced by it. Vote me if you must, but I do think that there are much better candidates at this point. On another note, I find **Zeriel** ’s OMGUS vote suspicious. I don’t have time to do so right now, but this evening I’ll want to take a closer look at him. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1704 "2009-07-14T16:44:46Z")
**Zeriel** just cross-posted this with me: > [@](#): > > If I really wanted to do THAT [put a Townie in as the vote leader], I’d’ve voted for Diver. And what makes you think that **Diver** is a Townie? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1705 "2009-07-14T19:40:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Zeriel** just cross-posted this with me:And what makes you think that **Diver** is a Townie? I was flippantly responding to Chitwood’s assumption that I was voting as I did to townie bandwagon Chitwood. Given that I don’t know EITHER of them is townie, and both are in fact on my unknown list… ---
**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:** [July 14, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1706 "2009-07-14T20:28:58Z")
That’s both a strange interpretation of what I said and an extremely oblique way to make the point you were trying to make. As I said, I wasn’t making that assumption at all; in fact I came right out and said, hey, can’t blame you for voting for me. But anyway. In the meantime, another day is slipping by, and I don’t want it to be all about me because that’s going to turn out to be bad for town. Can we try to get as many votes as possible on record, say, tonight before bedtime? I think that would definitely be a good development for town if everyone was on record with a healthy amount of time before the deadline. Obviously there’s no enforcement mechanism here, but since everyone has at least been participating in the discussion, I think it’s worth throwing it out there. My assumption, at least, is that it will be harder to manipulate the vote (and more obvious in the end if the vote has been manipulated) if we try to stay away as much as possible from the “Oh, checking in here, been busy, I agree with X, Y, and Z, vote B.” ---
**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:** [July 14, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1707 "2009-07-14T20:51:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I was flippantly responding to Chitwood’s assumption that I was voting as I did to townie bandwagon Chitwood. Given that I don’t know EITHER of them is townie, and both are in fact on my unknown list… If you’re Town, then you don’t know either of them is Town, but then, if you were Town, you wouldn’t be trying to townie bandwagon anyone in the first place. What you’re saying is that if you were Scum, you would know that **Diver** is Town. Well, maybe, maybe not: If you were Scum, you might instead know that **Diver** is Scum. I’m having a hard time seeing how your post makes sense if you’re Town. **Unvote Jimmy Chitwood Vote Zeriel** for what appears to be a PIS slip, and for casting an OMGUS vote. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1708 "2009-07-14T20:54:43Z")
\*\*vote Count: USCDiver(3): Meeko, Telcontar, CardinalFang Zeriel(2): Jimmy Chitwood, Chronos Jimmy Chitwood(1): Zeriel \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1709 "2009-07-14T21:28:50Z")
**Unvote Diver Vote Zeriel** ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1710 "2009-07-14T21:29:55Z")
Call me a Spaz will you? That’s as bad as BillMC voting me as he was. Oh, and you slipped here? Yeah. Chronos, to be sure, you said that Zeriel slipped here, by calling Diver town, right? ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1711 "2009-07-14T21:30:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > for what appears to be a PIS slip, and for casting an OMGUS vote. Perfect Information Syndrome? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1712 "2009-07-14T21:31:15Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > If I really wanted to do THAT, I’d’ve voted for **Diver**. I’ve been trying to figure out how you could mean this without essentially saying you know that I’m town and even after seeing this: > [@Zeriel](#): > > I was flippantly responding to Chitwood’s assumption that I was voting as I did to townie bandwagon Chitwood. Given that I don’t know EITHER of them is townie, and both are in fact on my unknown list… I’m still not sure. It looks to me like Perfect Information Syndrome (ie PIS from Chrono’s similar post). It isn’t much, but it’s enough for me to vote. **vote Zeriel** ---
**Author:** ![cardinal\_fang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal_fang/32/15316_2.png) [@cardinal\_fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cardinal_fang)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1713 "2009-07-15T00:36:55Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > If **pedescribe’s** power would be guaranteed to prevent a kill if he used it on any Scum whatsoever, it would have been game-breakingly powerful. We could have left **ShadowFacts** alive and simply blocked him every Night, eliminating the Scum’s ability to Night kill for the remainder of the game. I can’t imagine a circumstance in which this would make for a balanced game or even a somewhat balanced game. This is what bothered me about **Scuba** ’s case. If your choices for the role mechanics are “block the nightkiller’s action” and “block all scum NK actions,” then the former is the nominal way the role operates and the likely candidate. Why pick the latter and use it to bolster his case for **Chronos**? It just seems weird to make such a stretch to go from “probable” to “confirmed.” > [@storyteller0910](#): > > I don’t mean to take on the role of prosecuting attorney in the case of Town v. Chronos. I just think there’s a lot of buying into the theory that Chronos is confirmed, and nothing we’ve seen supports that confirmation. He is vanilla. We have a statement from AllWalker that may or may not constitute a breadcrumb - and we have the possibility that a role might be able to confuse a Detective (remember, we have two investigators, so a number of hedges against this might be present). Chronos’ insistence on his own confirmation in and of itself worries me tremendously: remember, to win the Scum need only to have us accept one of them as Town. We can lynch every other Scum in the game, but if we guess wrong and accept Chronos as Town when he is Scum, it will mean a loss in the end. Underlining mine. OK, **storyteller** , I may be the densest player here, but you are finally getting through to me. I have gone from anti-\*\*Chronos \*\*on Days 2 and 3 to pro- **Chronos** after **AllWalker** ’s breadcrumbs. I am placing a lot of weight on them, and did not even consider the possibility that his investigation was interfered with. **Mahaloth** , I believe this is a fair question relating to the mechanics of a known power role, and I hope you will answer it: **Would a Godfather-type in this game interfere with a Medium’s investigation as he would a Cop’s?** ---
**Author:** ![cardinal\_fang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal_fang/32/15316_2.png) [@cardinal\_fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cardinal_fang)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1714 "2009-07-15T00:56:45Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > [snip] > > And yes, I continue to realize no one is fully confirmed, so of course I wanted the balance implications of Meeko-as-toughguy examined. Our best strategy, unfortunately, is to regard **Chronos** , **Story** , and \*\*Meeko \*\*as “confirmed”, but we have very little basis for that aside from both \*\*Story \*\*and \*\*Meeko \*\*being un-counterclaimed and a potential breadcrumb. As I posted before, I think the breadcrumb is good enough to make sense. **storyteller** , can you confirm that “Sawyer” ( **Meeko** ) is indeed an unambiguous town name in your judgement? I know nothing about _Lost_, but reading though the [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%22Sawyer%22_Ford) entry leads me to believe he was something of a dick until the third or fourth season. ---
**Author:** ![cardinal\_fang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal_fang/32/15316_2.png) [@cardinal\_fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cardinal_fang)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1715 "2009-07-15T01:19:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I didn’t say anything specifically about **USCDiver** at that time because we already had his PM. I asked specifically about **Telcontar** and **Zeriel** because, based on their claimed characters, there was a chance their PMs would be different from everyone else’s, and I wanted to see all the cards on the table. As for **USCDiver** , I think it a bit odd that there would be one and only one vanilla Town who wasn’t on the plane, but that’s only a slight suspicion, especially considering that **AllWalker** was a freighter character too. As I said, it’s not enough to base a vote on. OK, so your suspicion was based on the fact that his character was not a plane crash survivor, not some PM syntax issue (which would naturally follow from his differing island origins). That is fair enough. > [@Chronos](#): > > As for whether I’m confirmed, I do have to concede that I could be a godfather or something, since the best evidence in my favor is **AllWalker** ’s investigation. That still means assuming a fairly specific set of circumstances if I happen to be Scum: You’d have to assume that, first, there exists a godfather in this game, second, that I’m the godfather, and third, that I was the presumably single Scum who didn’t do anything last Night (since my blocktection didn’t stop the Night-kill nor the Scum block). Now, I think that this would make me relatively unlikely to be Scum, but obviously, I’m not the one who has to be convinced by it. Vote me if you must, but I do think that there are much better candidates at this point. > > [snip] Underlining mine. I had not considered this Godfather scenario until this evening, and I am still a ways from being convinced, but your argument here is confusing to me. Are you back to **Scuba** ’s uber-blocker scenario where blocking one scum wipes out all scum night actions (in this case, the roleblocker on top of the night killer)? Also, what other active night powers does the GF have? I may be misunderstanding how that role works. ---
**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:** [July 15, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1716 "2009-07-15T02:04:58Z")
I’m assuming that the Scum have to choose one particular person each Night to do the killing, and that if the role-blocker blocks that particular person, then the killing is blocked. This is a fairly standard way of doing the night-kill, especially if the Scum also have some active power roles among them-- The same person can’t do the kill and use some other power. As long as there are still vanilla Scum left, this makes little difference, but if we were to get it down to just the role-blocker, then he’d have to choose each night whether to use his role-block or to kill. ---
**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:** [July 15, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1717 "2009-07-15T02:08:00Z")
Oh, and to clarify what I meant before: If we’re down to three Scum as of yesterDay evening, as seems likely, then one of them had to have been the one to make the kill, while another role-blocked **storyteller** , and the third presumably sat idle. The kill went through, and **storyteller** still didn’t get a result, so neither the killer nor the blocker got hit by **pede**. I was targeted by **pede** (or at least, so I say, but nobody has counter-claimed), so that makes it less likely (though admittedly, not impossible) that I’m Scum. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1718 "2009-07-15T02:08:55Z")
Chronos : All of that to say that Story should use his power, every night, regardless? ---
**Author:** ![cardinal\_fang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal_fang/32/15316_2.png) [@cardinal\_fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cardinal_fang)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1719 "2009-07-15T02:16:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and to clarify what I meant before: If we’re down to three Scum as of yesterDay evening, as seems likely, then one of them had to have been the one to make the kill, while another role-blocked **storyteller** , and the third presumably sat idle. The kill went through, and **storyteller** still didn’t get a result, so neither the killer nor the blocker got hit by **pede**. I was targeted by **pede** (or at least, so I say, but nobody has counter-claimed), so that makes it less likely (though admittedly, not impossible) that I’m Scum. What happens when a roleblocker get NKed? Do they get to use their power that night? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337/1720 "2009-07-15T02:24:50Z")
> [@cardinal\_fang](#): > > What happens when a roleblocker get NKed? Do they get to use their power that night? That usually varies by moderator. Some allow all it, some don’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337.md?page=85) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-mafia-werewolf-psychopath/499337.md?page=87)