Mafia: Evil Dead - DAY/NIGHT ONE

[NAF1138]

Ok, so first things first. Sorry I haven’t been around much. Those of you who know me know that that will change as soon as I am able to make it change (within a day or two max), those of you who don’t…sorry.

So my thoughts.

1. Hi macey. Welcome to the show. You are about as wrong as wrong can be wrt. Pede and how it should be handled and I find your subsequent posts backing out of your suspicion and throwing suspicion onto brewha and hawk to be…wrongheaded at best. Pede was clearly the lynch leader at this point and the Day is nearly over. Would you have rather lynched a mason than have one claim Day 1? No good my friend.

You are also fishing for information on the Alpha/Beta idea. No good as well.

2. It was damn obvious to me that Pede was likely town. His slip wasn’t even a slip. That being said, I don’t think that there is anything scummy about Pleo pointing it out. I think pointing it out was a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes.

3. Thank you to Story for the response. I wanted to see the possibility of scum co-ordination on Day 1 vs. scum staying out of the fray. I am looking back on that right now.

4. It doesn’t look like we are going this way today, but I think that the Alpha/Beta role claim thing is interesting. I am not sure what the purpose of the mechanic is yet and I don’t want us making that sort of claim. I think it’s interesting to see the people who have been pushing for it though.

Macey, Chucara, and Almost Human have all come out in favor of a claim of Alpha/Beta. Macey and Chucara pushing for it a little more than AH. I don’t know what that means, if it actually means anything at all yet. But it’s something to keep in mind.

That being said, I might actually be in favor of a mass claim of some sort a little later on in the game, around Day 3 or 4, but not toDay and not Tomorrow. We need to gather more information before we can risk handing out information of our own.

Back in a bit with a vote and a repost of a post I wrote in another game that will explain (a bit) where I am coming from these days. As of right now I don’t know who my vote will be on. Maybe macey, maybe someone else. I need to finish taking a good hard look at how the votes came out and then see who wasn’t voting. At first blush it looks like there are some fairly wonkey votes out there. I don’t get any of the JSexton votes or suspicion, for example. Same with the Thing Fish votes. So…back in a bit.
(Crap, that took me over an hour to put together. It might take me longer than I thought to get back with my vote post. But it will be today at some point. )

[DiggitCamara]

@macey

Did you guys not think that pedescribe could be lying? As well as scum he could also be a PFK, or there may not be even any masons at all?? It’s not my fault he has outed himself on Day 1, there wasn’t that much heat on him.

And have you read your PM at all? We can compare what info he has with ours. There’s no harm questioning him at all. What? We’re supposed to let all uncontested claims go free!!! What happens if scum makes up a position? You’re going to let them get away with that too?
FOS Hawkeye and Brewha

Well… the thing about claiming mason and lying is that, at this juncture, it’s probably the most dangerous thing scum could do. Right now, the only advantage they have is knowledge. The town’s advantage lies in numbers.

Therefore, any 1x1 exchange at this moment is troublesome to scum and advantageous to town. A false masonhood claim would, at best, turn into a 1x1 exchange.

That’s why no one is questioning pede’s claim.

[Stanislaus]

UNOFFICIAL VOTE COUNT

macey (4) - brewha, hawkeyeop, Hockey Monkey, special ed
Pleonast (2) - JSexton, Thing Fish
JSexton (1) - CometotheDarkSideWeHaveCookies,
Thing Fish (2) - Total Lost, pedescribe
Diggitcamara (1) - Natlaw
peekercpa (1) - amrussell

From the rules:

@setup thread

Whoever has the most votes at the time a game Day ends will be lynched; there is a method of resolution for all ties, but it will not be shared at this time.

The threshold for a lynching is looking pretty low. Given that votes carry over, it looks like quite a few people should be nervous. This is bad, because it brings the risk of early roleclaims (assuming that we’re not collectively so utterly brilliant as to have ID’d the scum on Day One. Speaking personally, I’m quite comfortable with that assumption.)

For what’s it worth, I’m not seeing the scum motivation for **macey’s ** fishing. It looks more to me like someone used to a different mason mechanic adapting to a new one. The fact that he openly admitted he was fishing, and defended it over a number of posts, looks more town in the grip of a Big Idea than scum to me.

[storyteller0910]

EXT THE EDGE OF THE CORNFIELD - LATE AFTERNOON

AMRUSSELL has been speaking.

AMRUSSEL
…looks more like town in the grip of a Big Idea than scum to me.

Cut to POLYDEUCES.

POLYDEUCES
I have to use the restroom

He does. When he returns, he has inexplicably changed gender and looks an awful lot like DOTCHAN.

DOTCHAN
Where were we?

---

dotchan has been substituted for Polydeuces. I will update the official player list later today. Share and enjoy!

[NAF1138]

This is a repost of a rather long theory post that I put together for the offboard game. I am rather proud of it, and I think it sums up how I am approaching mafia these days fairly well. So in the interest of transparency (and ego) I am reposting it. It also speaks to the “Scum would never do that” argument. Because…sometimes scum won’t ever do that. I have made some minor changes to it to keep it timely and readable. But it is 99.9% the same post as in Super Mario Brothers. For new players to the group, everything I reference can be found (with at LEAST a link to the game) in the wiki. Unlike the last game which was bogged down with information, I am actually willing do discuss some of the below in this game if anyone seriously wants to. I don’t know that you will though. But I figured since I hadn’t had much time to post yet toDay that this will give everyone a decent intro to my thought process, kind of the cliffnotes for NAF for those of you who haven’t played with me a lot.

Disclaimer: The following was originally written in response to a direct question, which is why it reads like instructions.

Ok, warning, long mafia theory post ahead. We can take the discussion out of the game if anyone really wants to have a serious talk with me about it, but after this post you will know where I am coming from and either agree with me or not. I am not really interested in arguing the merits of my theories in game though. Again, I am more than happy to talk about any of them out of the game thread.

First, town has to be willing to punish wantonly anti-town play in the early game without fear that they might lynch town. Odds are you are going to lynch town on Day 1, and they aren’t much better on Day 2. You have to let the fear of early mis- lynches go and simply get people to start behaving as pro town as they can, this is so you eliminate a lot of confusing data. When people stop intentionally doing Anti-town shit, the stuff that pops up is easier to manage. It also provides a baseline for vote and behavior analysis. The first couple of lynches are more informational than anything anyway, and early scum lynches are sometimes more of net neutral than anything. (More true of early vanilla scum lynches than other types)
Second, you have to recognize that not every anti-town action is going to be pro- scum, and that every single player in the game will take anti-town actions at some point in time. The only player I have ever seen fail to ever take an anti-town position was zuma in YSI, and only in YSI. Right now I would say that roughly everything posted in the first 4 or so pages of the game has been anti-town. We are not ALL scum, and this is not an atypical start to a game.

Third, you have to recognize that not all pro scum actions will be anti-town. This is where things start to get tricky, but as a general rule we have actually been fairly good at not keeping people alive simply because they are action pro-town. We did lynch Pollux in Marvel Comics Mafia, and that was good. We recognized that even though he played pro-town he was also playing pro-scum, and the pro-scumminess of it all became obvious as endgame came near.

I firmly believe that Pollux’s death in the Marvel Comic game was a sterling example of what I have always said, if you keep scum talking long enough they will have to out themselves. It is not possible for scum to play 100% pro town and win. So promote pro-town behavior but recognize that after about Day 2 you are not looking for people who are acting in an anti town fashion, but rather people who are behaving in a pro-scum fashion. This is harder to see, but you can actually eliminate people from lynch contention as the game wears on because their behavior has been consistently anti-scum. Scum can not play anti-scum in the long run. If they do they lose the game.

This is one of the reasons why I think town should do it’s best to quash lurkers and to smack down fluff talkers early on. Fluff and quiet are a scum’s best friends. But if you force real analysis early and often from players the scum can not hide, because eventually they will have to fudge something in order not to hand the game to town, because scum can not play anti scum long term. The trick is to be able to separate anti-town but also anti-scum, from anti-town but pro-scum. Anti-town behavior gives scum a good place to hide. It is harder (but not impossible) to be pro-scum and pro-town. And it is my feeling that it is impossible to be pro-scum and pro-town long term and stay hidden.*

As for how you tell anti-town from pro-scum, well, there is no one magic bullet sure fire method, and some of it comes down to “I know it when I see it” for me. But at the very least, you always want to ask yourself “if I were scum, why would I do that?” Because, as those of us who have been scum frequently know, it is not possible to post anything as scum without thinking about how it will make you look. You can not post pure, and everything will have some sort of ulterior motive, even if that motive is only to look townie.

So, from the above what I think we as players need is a system that changes with the progression of the game and actually analyzes both raw data as well as behavior. (Because one should not ignore the fact that raw data is also good at scum catching) Town should be working toward town confirmation as much as working toward scum catching. Sort of working from both sides and meeting in the middle. And then, lastly, town should not ever rely on one single action to create a lynch. Good unimpeachable data (from say, a cop) can be used, but never behavior. It is too hard to sort the wheat from the chaff on the basis of a single action. But when you have multiple pro-scum actions, as well as supporting raw data then you have a good lynch.

• so if multiple someones start telling you that your behavior is anti-town, for god sakes knock off that behavior or it WILL be in the towns best interest to lynch you, regardless of your alignment. Sometimes it’s good to lynch town for information, and sometimes it’s good to lynch possible town to keep the record readable. Not a popular sentiment, but a true one.

Ok, so back in a little bit more with a vote. Really, I mean it.

[Natlaw]

With still 16 votes that can be cast, a lot is possible (more realistically 12, since ~4 players haven’t posted yet). I agree with your view of macey and rereading his post doesn’t show other scummy things.

Another thing we should discuss before Night One though: is it a really good idea to talk strategy during night?

Town power roles can benefit from new insights, but so can scum.
A role claim could be risky, since they can be targeted for a night kill right away. Then again a cop could investigate the claim or a vigilante could kill an outed scum right away.

I think during the night lynch result & vote analysis is okay, but it might be better to hold big insights and claim off to the next Day. Everyone should decide for themselves of course, just keep in mind scum will be listening in as well! Anyone else have thoughts on this?

(On preview: if you’re still awake after NAF’s long post :D)

[NAF1138]

@Natlaw

(On preview: if you’re still awake after NAF’s long post :D)

I had a lot to make up for, and not a lot of posts to do it in.

[NAF1138]

Actually I decided I have more to say to this post.

@Natlaw

With still 16 votes that can be cast, a lot is possible (more realistically 12, since ~4 players haven’t posted yet). I agree with your view of macey and rereading his post doesn’t show other scummy things.

Quick question, who are you talking to? Ok, onto what I really wanted to talk about.

Another thing we should discuss before Night One though: is it a really good idea to talk strategy during night?

Town power roles can benefit from new insights, but so can scum.
A role claim could be risky, since they can be targeted for a night kill right away. Then again a cop could investigate the claim or a vigilante could kill an outed scum right away.

I think during the night lynch result & vote analysis is okay, but it might be better to hold big insights and claim off to the next Day. Everyone should decide for themselves of course, just keep in mind scum will be listening in as well! Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Two thoughts:

1. no one should ever claim anything at Night. There is no good reason to do so. There is probably no good reason to vote at Night either, but I could be wrong about that.
2. We should keep talking if we can. Information is what we need and if we don’t keep talking at Night we won’t be able to get enough of it fast enough to outpace the scum. We won’t give them any info they didn’t already have as long as we are careful, but the scum get to talk durring the Day and that is a big advantage. We need to take the same advantage at Night. These Days are going to be awefully short otherwise.

[Zeriel]

sings Traditiioooooon… tradition!
vote dotchan
dun daaaah daah dah–Tradition!
unvote dotchan

Okay, now that that’s out of my system.

I don’t like Macey’s fishing expedition. It’s definitely FOS-worthy.

I don’t like the other fishing expeditions about alpha/beta status–it’s almost certainly something notable game-wise, and to me it seems equal in terms of claimability to a mason claim–that is, town shouldn’t push it until we have a reasonably good idea that it’s to a town power’s benefit to have those claims out there, and said hypothetical powers, be they masons or alpha/beta-specific somethings, are the best judge of that time.

Kinda weird for me to agree with NAF this much. =P

Ergh, lunch meeting. Work and weekend crap in prep for Christmas are munching my time more than expected.

I need to chew on this a bit more.

[NAF1138]

@Zeriel

Kinda weird for me to agree with NAF this much. =P

Yes…it IS kinda weird. :dubious:

I want to see where the macey train is rolling. So I don’t think I will vote for him right now. Instead:
**
vote Chucara**

for fishing also, but being more subtle about it.

[NAF1138]

Um, this line should read:

@NAF1138

Yes…it IS kinda weird. :dubious:
:p;)

I am not acutally suspicious of Z for agreeing with me.

[Stanislaus]

I’m not sure how much worse it is to out a power-role at Night rather than during the Day. They’re going to be targeted at the next opportunity in any case.

Scum always get to strategise at Night; town doesn’t. Giving that opportunity up seems like a shame. In fact, it seems like the more that scum are responding to town, rather than vice-versa, the better off town will be. That’s just a gut response though.

[Natlaw]

@NAF1138

@Natlaw

With still 16 votes that can be cast, a lot is possible (more realistically 12, since ~4 players haven’t posted yet). I agree with your view of macey and rereading his post doesn’t show other scummy things.

Quick question, who are you talking to? Ok, onto what I really wanted to talk about.

Thought I would post fast enough not to quote, but it was in response to amrussell’s unofficial vote count. Since then two players showed up ;).

@amrussell

The threshold for a lynching is looking pretty low. Given that votes carry over, it looks like quite a few people should be nervous.

[Trepa_Mayfield]

@Total_Lost

Just to make this clear - I don’t think Thing Fish is a newbie. He did say that he played in Doperville here:

Thing Fish please correct me if I’m wrong. This is your 2. game on this board, right?

I didn’t say Thing Fish is an newbie. I said Cap’nPitt was a newbie.

@amrussell

I am Jack’s overwhelming lack of surprise.

So, given that scum knew perfectly well that **Pede **was town did they:

a) try to put pressure on him in the belief that he had in fact blown the gaff on a power role or
b) sit back and watch town eat itself

Sadly, I’m more inclined to believe b). That obviously gives us a much bigger pool of players; more depressingly, it means that the behaviour we’re trying to spot is no behaviour. To make it a bit easier, let’s look at players who were posting while the pressure was racking up on pede, but who didn’t address the issue one way or another.

I’ll be honest: I think at least one of the pushers for my lynch was scum. Probably not Pleo, since he backed off, and probably not Buff, because her logic was at least followable. I’m at least moderatly suspicious of AH and Diggit, and highly suspicious of TF (which is why I’m voting for him).

@macey

Did you guys not think that pedescribe could be lying? As well as scum he could also be a PFK, or there may not be even any masons at all?? It’s not my fault he has outed himself on Day 1, there wasn’t that much heat on him.

And have you read your PM at all? We can compare what info he has with ours. There’s no harm questioning him at all. What? We’re supposed to let all uncontested claims go free!!! What happens if scum makes up a position? You’re going to let them get away with that too?
FOS Hawkeye and Brewha

Yeah, this is hella suspicious. There’s no need to get pissy just because you didn’t get to lynch me–I was the vote leader a day from the end of the Day. And mason is the one claim that’s nearly impossible to false claim, simply because:
A)Any real masons will immeadeatly counter claim you (unlike other roles, where staying safe might be more important depending), and
B)You have no-one to back you up. This is death because, even if there aren’t any masons, eventually you’ll need to back up your claim.

So, no, we aren’t letting uncontested claims going free. But we’d be fools to let an uncontested mason claim go to lynch.

And you ask what harm it could do to tell more–what good would it do? None of you could corroborate anything except the other masons, and anything I do say gives another data point to the scum, who have more information to start with, and the kill to take advantage of it with.

I’d vote for you, but I think you’ll go without my help, so consider yourself

Faux-Voted

[NAF1138]

@pedescribe

I’ll be honest: I think at least one of the pushers for my lynch was scum. Probably not Pleo, since he backed off, and probably not Buff, because her logic was at least followable. I’m at least moderatly suspicious of AH and Diggit, and highly suspicious of TF (which is why I’m voting for him).

Wanna help out a guy with not enough time to do things 100% right? Sum up why you are more suspicious of TF than anyone else for me. Since I actually trust you at this point I think it would be particulalry interesting to hear why you think this.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Natlaw…

It wasn’t that I consciously chose to ignore or omit your vote on Pleonast and the potential implications it might have on my case against JSexton, it just wasn’t on my mind when I made my decision.

As you can probably tell from tone of my post, I am not passionately convinced that JSexton is scum such that I am inclined to proselytize with fire and brimstone. On Day 1 I am also much less inclined to include indirect analysis from other players in my decisions. I also found Hockey Monkey’s “me too” vote interesting, and she has since moved her vote onto the building macey wagon.

An argument could be made, similar to my argument against JSexton, that she may have some perfect knowledge about JSexton. If I choose poorly and he is Town, and she knows this, she could have been opportunistically followed up my vote with hers in the hopes of building a little wagon against JSexton. The switch to macey in that context could also be seen as jumping from one opportunity to another that looks more apt to pay off.

Paranoia and WIFOM around every turn.

[Hockey_Monkey]

I was wondering who **Natlaw **was talking to as well.

Ooops, that’ll teach me to read past the “Advertisements”. Grumble grumble, when I get some extra dough I’ll renew my membership.

[bufftabby]

So, I did a quick re-read of the Day, and I’m feeling strange about come…cookies’ vote. I know I’ve heard “vote early and vote often” about a hundred times in my mafia career, and that seems like what JSexton has done. I don’t get the suspicion on that at all. Not only does cookies find him suspicious due to his early voting, it’s the only post of hers (#90) that I’ve seen containing game content. So I’m going to go for a Day One lurker vote, because that vote reasoning just seems to me like she’s reaching. I know Hockey Monkey made a Me Too vote based on that, and I’m shaking an FoS in her direction too.

vote cometothedarksidewehavecookies

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Nothing to say about the lurkers who haven’t even voted?

[brewha]

Yeah, this does seem to be a rather quiet day one.

Anyone got a post count?