Mafia: Conspiracy 2: The Cabal Strikes Back! [Game Over]

Y’all, I’ve been thinking about this all of lunchtime.

First, NAF: I get what you’re saying, and I figured that’s where you were going, but I wanted you to say it yourself. Here’s the problem: you’re right. A bunch of votes piled on to you following mine, and in an ordinary game, where the scum have perfect knowledge, I might take that as a vague sign that you might not be scum. But this is not an ordinary game, and the thing that you’re either missing or deliberately obscuring is this:

Whether or not Cookies is scum is actually irrelevant to the question of whether or not you are. Sure, maybe she’s scum of one flavor or another opportunistically jumping on a bandwagon in the hopes of avoiding her own lynch. Absolutely possible. Whether you are scum or not. If she’s (as you posit) the Vampire, and you yourself are Cabal (for example), she has no reason to not pile on you in exactly the way she would if you are a Magician.

So really, saying “Cookies is scummy” is not really an argument against the proposition “NAF is scummy.” But admittedly, my case against you is based on my own gut impressions more than on real analysis, and that troubles me.

Meanwhile, reflection on the subject over the lunch break has left me puzzled on the Scotsman issue. I see two arguments in favor of Omi No Kami:

  1. Meta-game reasoning. If Zsofia is Town (and a Scotsman, no less!), modkilling her would make the third modkilled Townie, which is frankly crippling and would have made the game seem impossible. On the other hand, if she is scum, and she was spared not one but two modkills, giving her a break for extenuating circumstances when consideration was NOT extended to two Townies would seem grossly unfair. Also:

  2. Omi No Kami’s claim to possess the Town’s secret power. It seemed reasonable to me at first. But… I don’t know. We’re well into the game now. Am I to believe that Omi No Kami never, in all this time, has not seen an opportunity to use this power? Not impossible, of course, but I have been working on designing two different games in the last few weeks, so I’ve proposed and discussed a lot of possible powers. I can’t think of one that wouldn’t be best used before Day Six of a game.

On the other hand:

Omi No Kami rode out very aggressively looking to lynch Zsofia. Zsofia, on the other hand, found reasons not to vote for Omi. Now here’s my thought: we’re close to endgame. Survival is going to be very important to the scum right now (obviously, especially for the Vampire). Here’s the problem with a fake claim of Scotsman.

If you false claim Scotsman, and you are believed, and the other Scotsman is lynched… well, you’re in trouble. Because you don’t get the benefit of a delay; the Town gets to find out what’s going on immediately after the lynch, when the other Scotsman doesn’t die. So if we lynch (say) Omi toDay, and he doesn’t die, then we’re going to lynch Zsofia toMorrow. Conversely, a Vicar lynch doesn’t give us information for a full extra day. So the fact that Omi definitely wanted to lynch Zsofia, but that Zsofia soft-pedaled an attempt to go after Omi, makes me lean in the other direction.

unvote NAF

Another vote is coming, before the deadline. It may be for NAF again, and it may go elsewhere. I will not allow a tie to happen. But I want to clear the decks and try to figure this out.

Or because you have no team-mates left. The Vampire most assuredly doesn’t. If we’ve guessed wrong on the numbers, either a Wolf or a Caballero or both might be the last of his/her kind at this point.

And frankly, even if you have a team-mate, why the hell would (s)he defend you right now? You look to be going down in flames; why would a team-mate - who if one exists would SURELY be the last of your faction if you are scum - link themselves to you?

That said, your spirited defense is giving me pause. Perhaps it’s because every other scum we’ve lynched so far has basically given in without a fight.

I think this game is going to kill me eventually.

Fair point. My argument isn’t so much, Cookies is scum so I must be town as it it.

OMFG Cookies is so OBVIOUSLY scum, why are you letting what she has to say about me effect your opinion?

I didn’t play much this game, and when I did it was fairly lightweight until about 48 hours ago. If you want to lynch me for that or for any opinion I have expressed in game I am more or less ok with that. Like I said, I think we have this in a walk, so the mislynch doesn’t bother me so much. But getting lynched based on the argument presented aganist me at the moment kind of hurts since it is built on the foundation of arguments made by someone I am nearly certain is scum at this point.

NET Correct:

Should say

As it is:

  1. I don’t see her as “obviously” scum in any respect. More importantly;

  2. If she is, her motivation at this point is to catch other scum, too. It’s the endgame. If she’s Cabal, for instance, she can’t kill the other scum. She has to ferret them out during the Day and convince us to lynch them. There’s really no reason to disregard her arguments, even if she is scum.

That’s not true, her motivation is to stay alive. Do you not think her responces to me did nothing but twist my words? I don’t know how many times I can say this but…

She took a point I made that was so minor it was litterly in an afterthought post and turned it around so that when you voted for me you said it was because I had been hammering that point. It’s one of the reasons I asked you to take a second look. I hadn’t been hammering that point. Cookies was only saying I was.

This is brutal. Lynch a Scotsman? Lynch a Vicar? Lynch NAF? Lynch Cookies? Vote for myself and put myself out of my own misery?

I will now hope for divine guidance, or something brilliant out of someone else.

Is it tied up?

For the record, you said that you thought Cookies was the Vampire in three separate posts before Cookies said a single word about it.

I think I need a vote count. Back presently with one.

Maybe, but they weren’t posts about her and I had at no point pused for her lynch. She just happened to fit into that space once I had filled out the rest of the puzzle. It was possible that the claimed scottsman is a vamp and cookies is cabal (the idea that I find most likely now).

The other possiblity would be that there were two vigs and no scottsmen, which I find to be so unlikely that it’s silly.

VOTE COUNT

NAF1138 (4) - Zsofia, hawkeyeop, Cookies, Drain Bead
Pollux Oil (4) - NAF, peekercpa, Koldanar, cckerberos
Zsofia (3) - Pollux Oil, Omi No Kami, Wanderers

As far as I can tell, mhaye and I are the only players with no vote.

A tiny craven cowardly little part of me wants to vote for Zsofia and stick mhaye with the final decision.

The question I have been grappling with all Day, besides who to vote for, is this.

How far are each non-Town faction from winning?

The Undead are (it seems to me) quite a way off. There are currently (we believe) one Vampire. There are also two zombies wandering around. To win, then, the Undead have to reduce the number of active players to 4; the Vampire plus three others, and two zombies. Nine deaths take at least three Days, and probably 4. What happens if the Zombies die crumble because Dotchan is dead? The Vampire has to make it to the Last 2; and if they happen not to be hiding behind a dog-collar (something I think quite possible) then that’s a very very difficult task.

The Vampire is now a traditional serial killer, and can be hunted as such. Has been since Night 3.

The Werewolves have two or three members. Their win condition is to reduce the number of non-Werewolf non-Zombie players to their own number. Two or three players means they have to reduce the number of players by 7 or 9, a process which takes 2 to 3 Days. more if they manage to get the Vampire removed. At the least the Werewolves would want to know the Vampire’s name so they can avoid losing a Wolf to the Vampire’s Nightkill resistance.

The Cabal don’t care how many Townspoeple remain, just how many Werewolves and Undead do. In theory, they could win at Dawn Tomorrow.

NAF I reread post 540 and down to the rest of the page. You’re certainly correct that ShadowFacts did attempt to argue against Oredigger’s attack on PO, and that Drain Bead did back him up.

I don’t read that as conclusive that PO is a Werewolf; it seems unlikely in this environment for three players to associate themselves like that, and both ShadowFacts and Drain Bead are experienced players and would know to avoid that. Secondly, I don’t want to kill a Wolf Today. If I did, I’d have voted for Drain Bead. Thus, if PO is a Werewolf, I don’t really want him lynched Today.

I do see the vote surge to which you refer. The pileon came over 5-6 posts. But if there are nonTown there hoping to get you lynched, is it because they think you’re a Magician, or a Cabalist? Really a lot of your actions Today can be explained by your being Cabal just as easily as being Town.

Who to vote for is now the question. I need some painkillers, and a lot more than 20 minutes. I can get the former.

Back very soon.

Last minute reminder: a tie for the most votes results in no lynch.

Or maybe a real Scotsman doesn’t want to screw up and lynch town because she thought she was the only one.

I think, by the way, that we may be close to having the Cabal sneak up and win despite good town lynches.

A fair point, Pleo. mhaye, I think you and I should vote for the same person. I will follow your vote, or vote myself in seven minutes if you have not yet voted.

Oh, crap!

unvote NAF

That should put it on Pollux.

REALLY? Not that I’m not glad to live mind you…I’m just sort of surprised.

NETA - oh, upon letting my brain think a bit, there’s no reason not to also

vote Pollux Oil

A no lynch would be incredibly dumb at this juncture.

I still think you’re scum, but I can’t be sure that anybody else will have time to get a vote in in the next eight minutes. It looks like storyteller, at least, is watching, but let’s not no lynch by accident.