Mahaloth is online and still not posting in this thread. Maybe he forgot about us. OOOPS!
Oh well.
[oog]
GAH! I keep missing the sign ups for these, and I really want to play one; can somebody give me a poke the next time one opens up?
[/oog]
Should be soon. This game should end very quickly. I expect the end of the game by the end of today.
For all I know, the game is already over 
Maybe we should only play these games during the week. We might get better participation.
Sorry for the delay in taking care of things here.
**Mahaloth empties his pockets and produces 5 diamonds.
Mahaloth is eliminated from the game.
Since sacertorte has not recovered all his diamonds, the game continues.**
Here’s my assessment of where we are:
I took the henchman role. Based on what Prof P claims, IRC took the driver, because I buried the agent. (Wolverine deduced this correctly.)
Prof P either is a henchman, as claimed, or took 4 diamonds.
Mahaloth took 5 (confirmed).
Wolverine received a box containing either (5 diamonds and no roles - if Prof P is the henchman) or (1 diamond and the henchman role - if Prof P is a rotten thief). He then either took 4 diamonds or the henchman role and TexCat would have received the box with 1 diamond and no roles.
So it’s either Prof P or Wolverine that took the missing diamonds, and I don’t see a strong way of distinguishing which is which.
It would have been nice to know what Mahaloth was going to claim he received/took, but we now are missing that opportunity.
I don’t see it any differently. It comes down to who to believe. Both have claimed the henchman role and we know there can only be one. I am leaning toward Prof. Pepperwinkle being the henchman only because I can’t believe that both he and **Mahaloth **would have passed up the chance of being the last henchman.
You are correct. I am the henchman. I was the henchman last game, and the Godfather didn’t believe me and look what that got us.
I had considered that, but I was also fairly certain Mahaloth was a Thief so that anything he said would be suspect anyway.
I think that, like Resistance, this game relies on ‘reading’ people and using body language and such to ascertain who is lying. Mafia is sort of like that too, but it seems to translate to forum play better than other games.
Here is the reasoning I’ve been using:
Mahaloth was a Thief by virtue of the fact that he did not chime in and contradict Prof P and Wolverine. If Mahaloth was a henchman or loyal in any way, he should have spoken up. Since he didn’t, I concluded Thief. TexCat is similarly not-a-henchman for the same reasoning, but is most likely to be a street urchin so must be left alone for now.
My plan was to use the number of diamonds recovered to choose between Prof P and Wolverine. If Mahaloth had 5 or more Diamonds, then I would accuse Wolverine. If Mahaloth had 4 or less Diamonds, then I would accuse Prof P.
If one is going to take the role of Thief, I don’t see a good reason to take a minority of diamonds. Since Mahaloth has 5 Diamonds, then that means for Prof P to have diamonds, he would have seen 10, but taken only 4, which I think is less likely than Prof P having taken the henchman role and Wolverine taking 4 of 5 diamonds.
I would have been much happier if Mahaloth had taken 6 diamonds or more, since those numbers would be even more clear, but at this point I have to guess based on what information have; I’m not getting anymore information in this game.
Wolverine, empty your pockets
Of course, if I’m right, then there will be a good reason to take a minority of diamonds in future games. But for now, I’m sticking with the idea that were are all greedy newbies in this game.
See that’s the thing. It’s posts like this that make me want to NOT believe you. It the sort of thing that a lying thief would say, and the fact that you keep saying it makes me want to not believe you.
I’m ignoring everything that Prof P and Wolverine have said and going strictly by the numbers on this one.
Well, you did make the right choice anyway.
**Wolverine empties his pockets and produces 4 diamonds.
sachertorte has recovered all his diamonds and wins along with his Henchmen, HookerChemical and Prof. Pepperwinkle. HookerChemical’s Driver IRConfused also wins.**
I don’t really have time to discuss the game right now, but I will be sharing my thoughts on it tonight. Feel free to share your thoughts on the good and the bad of this game.
Yay.
That was a very terse game. I pretty much based my strategy on Wolverine and Prof P’s answers to my question and Mahaloth’s lack of participation. Not much to discuss really. It seems that all the front end players chose a role and the only players that took diamonds were the players that were required to take diamonds. Even TexCat who could have chosen to take diamonds chose not to.
I think this game, or at least the current players, are biased against thieves. It might be because it’s pretty clear to me that the strategy for playing a thief isn’t quite well-formed yet. It’s much easier to take a role and be honest about the info. Picking the right lie is hard.
It seems to me that an optimal strategy for the players in the first 4 positions is to take all the roles and no diamonds. There is a teeny chance that the player in position 4 could lie and take diamonds, but still, taking roles in the first 4 positions practically guarantees a win.
I was really hoping that the FBI role would not have been thrown out this time. I really wanted to see how that one would be played. I just don’t see any reason that the first person would not pick henchman and throw out the FBI role unless they wanted to try to minimize the number of winners (in which case they could possibly pick henchman and throw out the other henchman role.) It would be nice to get some more players. What is the breakdown on role selection vs. number of players? How many players are needed before Rum is introduced?
The rule about the first player after the Godfather discarding a role is too powerful, IMHO. It might work in a larger game, but with only 7 of us playing it’s a dead certainty that the Agent is going away.
I didn’t think through all the cases, but my quick thought in taking 5 diamonds was to:
(1) minimize the number of diamonds I needed to recover
(2) maximize the chance that HookerChemical would align with me and bury the FBI Agent
I’m not sure if my reasoning is sound though. (1) is clearly false since the number of thieves is around 2 or 3 regardless of the number of diamonds. But I don’t know if (2) is true or not. My thinking is that if IRConfused saw less than 10 diamonds then it would be immediately obvious to him that Hooker took diamonds. I’m not sure if he can deduce diamond taking regardless of if I took 5 or not. I didn’t think about it past that.
There were two roles missing when it got to me so I knew that Hooker was either a henchman or the FBI agent. It did not matter how many diamonds you took.
What might make a small game more interesting would be if the first person had the choice of either taking a role, or taking diamonds and discarding a role, but not take a role and discard a role.
What I mean is that IF HookerChemical took diamonds, then it would be immediately obvious to you that he took diamonds. In other words, if Hooker took diamonds, then you would receive a box with less than 10 diamonds. Since I can only take a maximum of 5, you would know that HookerChemical took diamonds.
I was trying to get HookerChemical to NOT take diamonds, which he didn’t. I have no idea if my taking 5 diamonds influenced that decision or not, but that was my thinking at the time.
I was setting myself up to play honestly (as in my best effort at winning) while putting in the least effort. The best way to do that was to take a henchman so I didn’t have to lie in very creative ways. Discarding the driver or the agent was a toss-up. Discarding the driver meant that I knew how alignments would pan out (2 allied with the Don) while discarding agent meant that I didn’t have to consider people fibbing so as to get caught fibbing. Sachertorte taking 5 diamonds to start further firmed up that position because if I removed any additional diamonds it would be apparent to IRC that I was a thief. Looking back, he had to know I was loyal or the Agent and that Agent isn’t a strong pick for the first player.