:eek:
Digger:
You put scum hunting first here.
You are ALREADY 
?! asking for a Mass Claim. We have NO REASON to do this yet.
I don’t think we are anywhere near ready to Mass Claim. I frankly think it is scummy, already, and you are pinging me here.
So, given that. I am just stating a first impression here. Or, let me translate to a phrase I KNOW you are familiar with:
Remove all offers from the table entirely. :rolleyes:
He’s talking about a mass name claim, Meeko (as was Nanook, I think.) Which wouldn’t necessarily alert scum to power roles, depending on to what degree Mahaloth mixed things up.
**
I don’t like this.**
2.If we are simply giving JUST names, wouldn’t that just serve to help players who have watched how many hours of LOST? (5 seasons?) Wouldn’t it hurt people who have not seen the show?
How can Mahaloth be so sure that players won’t need to know ANYTHING about the show, and also support the underlying ideas that you are assuming a name claim would get at?
Crimson had people pulling out Cliff’s Notes and dusting off what they did in Highschool for Scarlet Letter.
SPECULATION* on names was welcomed. It failed (Pearl Anyone?).
Either we Name Claim (My vote for this is NO)
Or
We claim entirely. (My vote for this is No)
**There is no way this idea can benefit players who have never seen the show. **
Mahaloth has stated that it IS different from the show entire. Let us remember, that we WILL bring to this game ideas not expressed in the show.
I would not be against a claim later, MUCH later, but on Night 0 ?
A claim of any description at this point, is too much too soon. IMHO.
To reiterate my not-as-lucid-as-I’d-have-liked-it-to-have-been post a few minutes ago, a mass name claim is really bad idea because it is much too vulnerable to manipulation by the scum. We really need to take the idea off the table.
On a related topic, just how scummy is it to suggest such an idea? I noticed Meeko had an opinion. Anyone else want to discuss?
I’m inclined to say that it would be basically useless, neither pro-town nor pro-scum, assuming Mahaloth took some basic precautions about this – and given that he’s said that the game assumes no knowledge of the show, I’d argue that this was likely. (Specifically, if I were setting this game up I’d randomly assign names to roles as an extra step, before randomly assigning roles to players).
Imaginary Friend:
I agree completely with your comments, and I meant what I said.
However, the added benefit to this, is that Digger made the comment.
The entire “Remove all ideas from the the table entirely. :rolleyes:” is a bit of an inside joke between us. As was the entire “exchange rate of Copper” business earlier.
I know we are very early into this game, Hopefully I can get my humor out of the way early this time. I couldn’t let a shot at the joke pass me by here.
But, something else that JUST occurred to me:
**We are talking about Mass Claim, before everyone has confirmed. Right? **
Yeah. The idea of claiming now is entirely scummy right now.
I think it would be a rather bad idea to treat merely suggesting plans as scummy; we don’t want to create an environment where people are afraid to talk. I’m skeptical of a name claim, but I don’t think the suggestion reeks of clever scum ploy. Also, no one was heavily pushing the idea - i read oredigger and nanook as more brainstorming (O and N feel free to correct me if i’m wrong) - and sometimes even very odd ideas ultimately end up being productive.
Note about my play style: I tend to defend players against cases that I think are weak, even if I don’t have an any particular positive feelings about the players themselves. So it’s not that I especially trust oredigger or nanook, it’s just that I don’t think that this particular thing makes them scummy. This doesn’t always work out well, even if the player happens to be innocent (has flashbacks to the ill-fated Seeker of Truth and Beauty, the cases against angel and spurious george…).
NETA: Ok, so it is Fiend. not Friend. :smack:
My perspective is also that a claim right now is a bad idea. I don’t think it’s obviously anti-town, although I do think it’s anti-game, which is a way more subjective thing and ultimately irrelevant to winning or losing.
To the extent that a mass name claim might help us, I’m not really that turned on by it because it isn’t in the spirit of the game. And that’s to the extent it would help us, which I have my doubts that it would.
I don’t think a mass NAME claim is a scummy idea; probably not a good one, though.
The idea would be to force scum into a lie, so that they don’t have to claim “Evil McEvilpants” as a name – probably by claiming to be someone else (in which case they might be contradicted by a townie who already has the same name). The problem is that the names are in all likelihood all mixed up, so a name claim also wouldn’t really give town any information, and a smart scum (or town player, for that matter) with a name like “Evil McEvilpants” would just point this out.
I was assuming a name claim to be the equivalent of a role claim.
In which case those of us who haven’t a clue about the show wouldn’t be much help to anyone.
Quoth Tom Scud:
It seems like someone suggests a random vote on the first day of every game, and I’ve never understood what good it’s supposed to do. Real votes, even those cast on the flimsiest of bases, generate discussion, but random votes can’t generate any discussion. If you vote for me based on something I’ve said, then I can defend why what I said isn’t so scummy after all, and someone else can point out that they saw scum use that tactic before, and so on: There we have a discussion going. But if you vote for me randomly, what can I say to that? “Oh, no, there weren’t actually twelve runs scored last night”? “It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it”? There’s just nothing to say about it.
Now, the way you’re talking about doing it, with a verifiable event, at least has the advantage that Scum can’t use it to justify a malicious vote, so it’s not actively harmful, but it still isn’t helpful, either. It’s just as useful to Town as not casting a vote at all, and I don’t think I need to explain that not voting is a bad thing to do.
On the subject of a mass name-claim, I see two possibilities: One, the names are assigned randomly, and mean nothing at all in terms of game roles. If this is the case, then claiming our story-names would be no different than me claiming I’m Chronos, and Nanook claiming he’s Nanook, and so on. In this case, a mass name-claim would just be us twiddling our thumbs. The other possibility is that the names are correlated with power roles (I seem to recall there was a doctor on the show, for instance, right?), in which case a mass name-claim would serve to paint huge bullseyes on the Town power roles. So the way I see it, a mass claim, even just of names, definitely has no benefit and might have a significant drawback.
I have received my role PM and am checking in.
Lynch the Lurker - I have no steadfast opinion on this normally I am against it because it is a cop out. you should be able to find someone that is acting suspicious. I suppose if the thing that you find most suspicious is that a normally extremely active player is being unusually quiet, then your vote should go to them. That being said, we all have attacks of real life. So someone’s sudden lack of participation could be something perfectly reasonable and could be temporary. Voting for them could just cause them to feel even worse about not being able to participate in that particular Day and ask to sub out.
Another reason I am against it is because Noob players who get handed a vanilla role are often found to be extremely quiet. Thinking that their best play is to stay out of the way so that the power roles dont waste powers on them.
Now there are conditions under which I am willing to LTL. For example… if I am voting for someone and they become the lead lynch candidate… and claim at the last minute (don’t do this) and claim a power role… I am likely to switch my vote to a lurker unless I have someone else that I find suspicious.
Next topic… PLEASE DO NOT RANDOM VOTE DAY 1. It’s another cop out. It gives you a reason to not be held accountable for your voting record. As it is, the odds are in favor of us lynching town on Day 1. No one is gonna use that as the sole piece of damning evidence for your lynch. Vote for the person you find most suspicious. It’s the only way we are going to win.
Next topic. You don’t have to vote for one of the top lynch candidates. I often hear players saying something like “I don’t really think Player A or Player B are suspicious… but between the two I would be more comfortable lynching Player B… so VOTE PLAYER B.” This is stupid… it shows that you aren’t actually playing the game. The game town plays is to find suspicious actions and vote for those who performed them. Not to worry about what anyone else is gonna think about what you say or who you vote for. That’s the game that scum plays. Scum should be the only players concerned with trying not to say anything that makes them look bad or voting for someone that will not attract attention to themselves. Then again… maybe this is why everyone always thinks I am scum. 
Next topic. If someone is obviously withholding info, they are probably doing so for a reason. So if you think they are town, and notice some underlying tension of them hiding something… don’t say anything. It will only bring it out in the open and bring it to the attention of any scum who may have missed it. This means that if you notice a breadcrumb, consider it, but don’t call them out on it.
Ok… I think thats all for now… let’s have fun!
And we’ve already hit another of my pet peeves: suspecting people for suggesting ideas. Wouldn’t want players to actually discuss strategy, oh no! :dubious:
Come on, people. Throwing something out for discussion is not inherently scummy, even if it turns out to be a bad idea. Meeko, take a breath, already - the game hasn’t even officially started. We need people to post and suggest strategies so we can discuss them, then decide to implement them or not. It’s a big part of the game, and it’s the only way we can reach consensus. So please, can we lay off the breathless suspicion of people for just bringing topics up?
As to the actual mass claim topic: 1. Name-only claim - Given that Mahaloth said “In the opening post to the game I said it is not really close to the canon of the show. Contradictions between the show and the game may exist, so don’t overanalyze the game and show too much,” then I don’t see how we can definitely use the names to determine anything (as much as that would make our lives so much easier). 2. Full mass claim - If someone wants to run the numbers and make a case, I’ll listen. It has worked before, but it needs to be very carefully thought out.
Discussion is awesome isn’t it? There’s some good information being thrown around now.
Let me start by saying I’m not at all suggesting a mass role claim. That would be stupid at this stage of the game, since we know nothing about what roles are out there. At later point maybe, but sure as hell not this early, and possibly never in a fully closed set up.
Name claim is a different animal. I don’t believe for a second that the names were fully randomized. There’s no point in using a specific canon and then just throwing it out the window. Changing things up sure. Exploiting ambiguity in the cannon sure. By this I mean take someone like John Locke. He’s technically a survivor on the show, but I could easily see him being aligned with the Others here. Jack? Kate? Hurley? Sun and Jin? No chance. But full on randomization? Nah, I don’t believe that.
Forcing the scum into a specific name is a good thing. It’s opens up more possibilities of a slip up. Plus, if there’s two people claiming the same name we either bag ourselves a free scum, along with some good voting information, or we trade 1 for 1 and gain even more good information. Keep in mind that during the early and mid parts of the game a 1 for 1 trade is a VERY good thing for Town.
All that said, I don’t think it’s necessary to do so at this time. I think there’s some good early information to be found just within this discussion.
What manipulation do you think they could do? If they claim a name that someone else has, this is a good thing. If they try and google a random name from the show, they’re just asking to get counter claimed, which is again a good thing. And why are you so desperate that we not even discuss it? Are you worried that we’ll go through with it? Why is that I wonder. It makes me suspicious.
As for the name claim… I am against it.
However, where did Mahaloth say that the setup of the characters/roles is different than in the show?
Unless I find that post (this is why I like a separate rules thread… or to have all the rules at the beginning of the thread) then I would suggest that the characters/alignments do correspond with the show.
I would be for us not name claiming, or role claiming. But instead each person stating whether or not their role aligns with the show. This can be easily done even if you don’t watch the show… use wikipedia. It will quickly give you a run down of your character.
I’ll be the first to claim that my character has the same alignment as in the show.
**MAHALOTH, what seasons will this game be spawned from? Just season 1? Or the first two? **
I agree with Chronos on the mass-claim logic.
I wonder if this is a fair question for Mahaloth? Even if he mapped roles to names because *he *understands Lost, would it be gastardly to do so given that he said:
That makes sense if someone has a role and a name that may or may not mean anything to them, but raises the question in a mass-claim scenario where the names become common knowledge and an understanding of Lost gives an advantage.
As aforementioned, I agree with Chronos that this is not a good idea.
Yes, I figured that if random-vote was a good idea, people would have used it in the past, because lynch the lurker doesn’t seem to work very well. Thanks for the arguments against.
Oh… another reason saying whether or not our characters alignment corresponds with the show would be to tell us whether or not there is merit in using a name claim to hunt scum.
If there is a name claim and alignments don’t matter, then scum is just gonna claim their scummy name. If all the alignments match up then naturally scum are either going to claim a name on town side and be counter claimed… or they are gonna claim their alignment doesnt correspond with the show. Either way it is gonna be a bit odd when only 4 people say that their alignment doesn’t correspond, or there are 8 conflicting claims. (Please note here that I am estimating the number of scum at 4. This is not a set number, it does not imply that I know how many scum there are… 4 is a reasonable estimate for this amount of players.)
**Characters are drawn from all seasons of the show, possibly including some who have come and some who have left. **