[Mafia game] The Realm of Phere

[Askthepizzaguy]

@gnarlycharlie

i’m not sure your vote counts since it’s not in bold.

anyway, is a vote for a zombie legal? if yes, can they actually be lynched?

Yes and yes.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@BobArrgh

choie, your “We have nothing to fear but Phere itself” is extremely interesting. I think that it would be a really horrible twist for an already complicated game, but it does bear considering. That would lead us back to someone’s (possibly Gadarene?) suggestions that we all attack Phere.

“You creatures are dumb as rocks, and less frightening than the worms that squirm beneath them. I am insulted that you believe you could ever hope to defeat me. You maggots need to bring something more to a fight than limp-wristed slapping, but appear to be incapable of it!”

-IC-

[storyteller0910]

@Normal -

– Visor responded to your challenge of his vote on ToeJam. Comments?

Not at the moment. Visorslash is problematic for me in exactly the same way that Special Ed is problematic: many of his posts are short and somewhat cryptic. His reasoning is not always provided. You (and possibly others) have said that he always plays like this, but - much like Special Ed - that doesn’t matter. An impenetrable posting style is a huge problem because in those instances that the player is Scum, (s)he can basically do anything and never get called upon to explain or defend… because “(s)he always plays like that.” I intend to continue making sure that Visor makes his thought processes clear. He has done so, and while I don’t agree with him, I’m satisfied for the moment that he’s answered without a lot of hemming and hawing.

– What do you actually mean by saying that fubbleskag has to negotiate?

Look, he’s third party. I mean, I don’t know this with 100% certainty, but I think it’s really, really likely. Whatever his goal, he’s not going to achieve it if someone kills him or if he’s lynched. His current approach has been to say, “here are the conditions under which I’ll help, and that’s how it’s going to be, period.” I think that’s a self-defeating position to adopt, because if he won’t provide us any value and he seems unlikely to be Town, we really have no reason to keep him alive at all.

I am working out a proposed course of action for fubbles; I’d prefer to put it in a separate post for clarity. But he will have to be willing to negotiate, rather than just make demands, if he wants to survive at all.

[quote[On color: Pizza’s color does mean something, always. The trick – especially in a game where he’s promised to be a bit of a bastard – is to determine what. [/quote]

Perhaps that’s true; I’ve never played in one of his games before. But here’s the thing: I’m not at all interested in trying to hunt for clues in the color. You’ll be wrong at least as often as you’re right, often with very bad consequences, and it’s trivially easy for a moderator to screw with players who are trying to use the color to crack the game.

But if any townie expects me to believe that they are able to control Lord Phere to do stuff, well it’s pretty much getting to the point where I’m going to expect them to claim it. Because right now we have the following list of what Lord Phere has done:

My current working hypothesis is that “Lord Phere” is a game-mechanic, a conduit that performs actions on behalf of some players - either as a purely color-based contrivance or specifically to make them unwatchable/untrackable/unblockable. Thus the triple votes, the attack, the Night kills, the ressurrections: all could be the work of different individual players, whose actions are funneled through Lord Phere (again, either just for fun color or for some mechanical reason). Under this hypothesis, there’s no definitive reason to assume that all of those individual players are Scum. A Townie with a Night kill is not exactly unheard of.

[Normal_Phase]

@storyteller0910

My current working hypothesis is that “Lord Phere” is a game-mechanic, a conduit that performs actions on behalf of some players - either as a purely color-based contrivance or specifically to make them unwatchable/untrackable/unblockable. Thus the triple votes, the attack, the Night kills, the ressurrections: all could be the work of different individual players, whose actions are funneled through Lord Phere (again, either just for fun color or for some mechanical reason). Under this hypothesis, there’s no definitive reason to assume that all of those individual players are Scum. A Townie with a Night kill is not exactly unheard of.

No, but if anyone wants to take credit for it they’re going to need a good story.

[gnarlycharlie]

@Normal_Phase

vote: PetW

Reading Red’s posts reminded me of my issues with him. There was something I wanted to add at one point and never got around to; will do that next before movign on. Need coffee. Damn me for being so lazy toDay.

is PetW scheduled to be modkilled if he doesn’t show up toDay? if so, that may be a waste.

anyone know how many are scheduled for modkill after toDay? they will be likely Town. unfortunately, modkills sometimes have no reveal at all. at least with lynches and NKs we get something.

@Askthepizzaguy

“You creatures are dumb as rocks, and less frightening than the worms that squirm beneath them. I am insulted that you believe you could ever hope to defeat me. You maggots need to bring something more to a fight than limp-wristed slapping, but appear to be incapable of it!”

-IC-

i think it’s useless to attack Phere. it’s likely we need to kill all the scum, however many there are. then Phere reverts to the king and all is well again.

[Weedy]

Rough vote count, only most recent votes counted:

[2] **Believerer ** Suburban Plankton 1892 Gadarene 1783
[2] BobArrgh Believerer 1886 Scathach 1877
Silver Jan Astral 1873
PetW Normal Phase 2039
unvote Tanaer 2008
gnarlycharlie Lightfoot 1987
RealityTrip septimus 1980
Gadarene choie 1968
Mhaye Weedy 1948
**ToeJam ** Visorslash 1937
Pendant:
Mhaye Mhaye 2037
[3] Astral choie 2010 Tanaer 2008 fubbleskag 1902
Visorslash Visorslash 1855
**septimus ** septimus 1820
**Silver Jan ** Silver Jan 1814
**Believerer ** Believerer 1782

[Normal_Phase]

No one is scheduled for modkill today, now that Storyteller is back. RedSkeezix, Mahaloth, lilflower, Believerer (and Storyteller) could potentially be modkilled tomorrow should they not place any further votes, since they each only have one so far. I think everyone else has voted twice.

[Weedy]

unvote

vote ToeJam. I feel like he has said a lot without saying anything, and he seems slippery. I think that puts him at [3]. If he doesn’t go, I would definitely prefer Believerer lynched over BobArrgh or PetW, but these wagons can still change so much that protective voting doesn’t seem useful. If I wake up early enough to change my vote, I might.

[Visorslash]

When is PC?

[Normal_Phase]

unvote
vote: MHaye

I’m going back through looking at PetW’s posts and while I haven’t gotten to the one that pinged the crap out of me yet, so far they actually look townie. facepalm Will continue in case that opinion reverses again and post when done, but it’s starting to get short on time and I think I need to have my vote where it feels best sooner rather than later.

[Believerer]

@Normal_Phase

No one is scheduled for modkill today, now that Storyteller is back. RedSkeezix, Mahaloth, lilflower, Believerer (and Storyteller) could potentially be modkilled tomorrow should they not place any further votes, since they each only have one so far. I think everyone else has voted twice.

ATPG has informed me that I will need two days of not voting to be modkilled. D1 does not count since I am a replacement. D2 still is my bad.

Funny if I should end up being lynched first thing.

[Astral_Rejection]

Pendant to me.

I don’t think I’ve seen this answered yet:

Are items like the pendant useable on targets? Can I submit something like “I want to use the pendant on [X]”? Or do they have effects that activate when I’m the target of some kind of effect? A mix of these options? Obviously you can’t confirm WHAT the items do, but presumably you can answer "are they useable?"

[MHaye]

Some thoughts as I catch up on votes.

@BobArrgh

Astral, I’m sorry to see you get mislynched. I hope we can use your sacrifice properly and nail the Scum.

That suggests to me that Bob knows Astrals’ alignment. I also feel that he’s gloating, just a bit.

I thought of voting BobArrgh, but then came across this from ToeJam.

@ToeJam

Vote Pendant to Zombie Mosier

Vote Naf
for the leveling up w/o contributiing for the last few Days. It’s the best I’ve got at this quick read through, i’ll need to spend more time reading up again over the last Day, but I’m in no shape to really contribute my usual self.

That’s a wasted vote. Seriously.

There are mechanisms to deal with nonparticipatory players, and (since this is Day 3) NAF has not failed to contribute for Days - he didn’t do much Yesterday, true, bit was active enough on Monday. So, nice smudge.

That said, I don’t trust Zombies, and feel like we’ve got a Necromancer now finally in our ranks. Hopefully a “Townie” necro, but to me, it does feel like the obvious “3rd Party Mad Bomber” win condition- create an army of Zombies and take out the Town. So I’m not against Visorslash’s ideas to kill zombies, though I’m more inclined to wait and see if we start to get a zombie problem and to see what happens at night. If we get 4-5 zombies, we may need to thin the herd. but 1-2 or I’m content with right now to just poke with sticks.

This was categorised as wishy-washy, because it is. Voting an item to someone then, in the very next breath, saying you don’t trust them.

[color=blue]Vote ToeJam for inconsistent behaviour.

@fubbleskag

editing is editing.

Not in this game it’s not.

Editing your post is fine, unless you edit a vote in which case it’s a capital offence (iirc).

[Normal_Phase]

Fuck if I don’t like that vote though, Mhaye.

Oh mafia why do you do these things to me.

[MHaye]

For the sake of clarity

@MHaye

Vote ToeJam for inconsistent behaviour.

[MHaye]

@gnarlycharlie

i’m not sure your vote counts since it’s not in bold.

If you look back to the end of Day 2, you will see a discussion on whether non-bolded votes should count. If I followed it correctly, the final ruling was that, as from Today, they would count.

**Oi, you.

Do non-bolded votes count Today?**

[Normal_Phase]

PetW –

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14940127#post14940127 – to Visor, why are you so antagonistic; sign-up thread posts look like arrogant scum

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14942257#post14942257 – visorslash didn’t answer satisfactorily, votes him

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14942260#post14942260 – fixed format

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14946167#post14946167 – went back to look at signup thread, still happy with vote on visor due to timing of his attitude change, also got PM late and was town

Yikes. Honestly all of the above looks very townie to me. It’s not the way I’d think, but still. Anyway, continuing on.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14946172#post14946172 – more explanation, acted like visor himself when he was scum
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14950929#post14950929 – we should attack the demon and need to keep the final vote tally more decisive. also, doesn’t trust gadarene

This is the post that Red Skeezix responded to. I guess I don’t quite see it the way he did, despite that it tends toward the same things that pinged me on his later post. Not sure why.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14950952#post14950952 – on second thought, gadarene thing might be a non-tell

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14950966#post14950966 – accepts point about diffuse attacks being non-productive, reiterates need to work together

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14951000#post14951000 – 3 vote swing can be overcome; can figure out demon thing later if needed

If you click on some of these links you’ll see that PetW’s “we disease” that I commented on later is an ongoing thing with him; and though it is starting to make me a bit nervous, so far it’s not coming off as badly as that one post did. It’s possible it’s just the way he talks.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14951034#post14951034 – clarifies position on coordinated vig attacks to gadarene

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14951040#post14951040 – advocates for vig attacks on gadarene to finish what wasn’t completed on day one.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14951149#post14951149 – this one I STILL can’t freaking parse. I think he was trying to say that Astral and Gadarene would not both have to be scum in order for the scum to lynch Mosier over the pair of them; just one would do.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14956683#post14956683 – wants opinions on using focused vig attacks as a second lynch

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14957123#post14957123 – didn’t mean to take credit for the idea, just wanted more discussion

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14957521#post14957521 – cautions against giving items to fubs; he could booby-trap or something

OK, this one does ping a bit, mostly since I think scum would be a wary of a power like that and don’t think that fubs is scum himself.

And you know, it bugs me inordinately that I still don’t have a clue who’s claiming third party. I swear I’m so open-minded about third parties my brains fall out. Just ask Storyteller. But nobody wants to talk to me. sadface

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14957597#post14957597 – pizza says attacking stuff can be safely ignored, so don’t need to kill demon to win game

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14957606#post14957606 – votes ring to himself

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14958654#post14958654 – the post that pinged the crap out of me. You know, it really does read much less suspicious in the context of all his other stuff. I think he’s just a bit of a bossy-pants, like me.

@PetW

So far the scum have managed to kill 3 of us, and we haven’t lynched a single person yet. We have a 0% chance of finding scum if we continue this way. I propose the following strategy:

1. Vote as normal.
2. Tally votes by the beginning of the last (lowercase) dayparking before nightfall.
3. Agree as a group to place all of our votes on the leader, regardless of personal belief, to create a strong enough majority to ensure a real lynch and prevent a repeat of Day 1.
   We need to get organized.

** Vote Gadarene **: I wasn’t on this bandwagon until I saw his “go get 'ema Town” goodbye. Now he claims to notthe be vanilla, coyly brags about this secret information he has from unnamed sources, yet scum didn’t bother targetting him. My #1last scum suspect for now.

Fubbleskag is my #2, and that’s purely because I think anyone whose primary (and secondary and tertiary, apparently) goals are greed, must not be up to any good. I’m afraid of what he may be rewarded with when he acquires too much wealth. To simply have some merchant-type class who simply wins by collecting X amount of gold seems a little pointless and trite to me. I have a feeling Askthepizzaguy has a twist in there somewhere.

Visorslash is now my #3. I realize it’s in his character to be boastful and abrasive, but I think the degree to which he’s done so is scummy. Also, as I mentioned earlier, his tone seemed to turn in the sign up threads right around the time PMs came out.

OK I’m done now. I was going to continue to the end where there was something else I thought I wanted to talk about, but I see no point now. This post is perfectly in context with everything else he’s said all along. Just a bad read on my part, I think. I’m not prepared to put PetW on the probable-town list, but he’s way back down in the mix again.

Next!

[Scathach]

@ToeJam

And I wanted to see what’d happen if I voted an item to him in terms of the other players’ reactions.

So what did you learn / what did you expect to learn? This seems to be the new handwave for doing anything that draws suspicion “oh, I was just checking for reactions”.

[Astral_Rejection]

@Scathach

So what did you learn / what did you expect to learn? This seems to be the new handwave for doing anything that draws suspicion “oh, I was just checking for reactions”.

I like the thought process behind this question. This needs to be something I remember to ask.

[LightFoot]

@gnarlycharlie

partialy snipped
i don’t think there’s been a game where you haven’t voted for me. how many times have you been wrong? by this time i’d thought you’d have a better feel for my game, especially my town one. fortunately for you, many of us, including me, have been able to control our urges to vote you for your play because we’ve seen it before.

to answer your arguments:

1. nothing wrong with speculating. players do it all the time. how do you know they don’t hold water? you mean i’m wrong on both 5 to 7 and 1? and you know this how?

2. i already explained that. would you care to argue that her vote on fubbles was useful.

3. i didn’t backpedal. i DIDN’T tell her to vote a wagon. quote the post that i did. you’re just twisting my words. i exhorted her to put a vote towards someone who might actually be lynched.

4. the color WAS awesome. anytime a mod puts that much effort to entertain us, it deserves acknowledgment. i bet you thought it was great too but were too chicken to say so because it might seem like gloating or whatever suspicious crap you can call it.

5. eager, sure. ever played with private communication allowed between all players? no? i thought so. if you haven’t and haven’t tried in this game, you’ll never understand. you’ll just be in among those players who think it’s suspicious without actually being able to say why.

even if i believe OMGUS votes are okay, i won’t do it now. you’ve been your usual townie playstyle.

underlining mine. Curious, you have a collection of players that are controlling their urges to vote me?

1. you keep repeating the one Scum theorie and no one was biting ( you have had a nibble or two of late I see)

2.Any vote is useful . I prefer to vote who I find Scummiest – which a player can’t always do- but it does leave a better vote record. But I do hold that each player should vote how they see fit. In some cases it’s the only weapon they have.

3. I see that as a fine line.

4.Interesting way to say that, if you would have included the word ‘colour’ in the post it would have read clearer to your point. * disregarding the name calling or whatever you want to call it *

5.As Scum, I bet it’s awesome. You know who to trust and they don’t. As Town caution rules for me.i’ll just tiptoe for now.
Thanks for your non vote of confidence [grin]