Mafia The Game III: Kinder and Gentler

The Game Room
701

Yeah, I see your point, a completely silent townie provides some camouflage for scum. Death to lurkers!

Um, you with the rope, staring at me, hold off a second…

Seriously, I had a hellishly busy day at work today, and although I’ve been able to glance at the thread throughout the day, I can’t say that I’ve had an opportunity to pay enough attention to detail to form any substantial opinions. I promise to delve deeper tomorrow. In the meantime, though, I will offer one tidbit that I noticed earlier, but had yet to mention:

In post #333 Blaster Master says:

Mafia don’t need townies to be confirmed; they already know who all the townies are. While I can see a townie making this mistake, I imagine the thought would be completely foreign to any mafioso. This is either evidence, or too subtle a gambit for a mind as simple as mine. Anti-FOS Blaster Master.

702

As we have 4-6 mafia left in a group of 18, the odds are that in any group of players between 1 in 4.5 to 1 in 3 are mafia. The way I see it there’s a group of six people who contain one, probably 2 or 3 mafia, based on voting patterns. Unfortunately I’m not sure how to narrow it down, as they all have reasons they should be for or against town, and there are no scum tells.

CaerieD
dnooman
Lemur866
Lightnin
Omi no Kami
Projammer

Any feedback would be useful because I am getting confused. (Scum tells would be prefered - anyone want to volunteer that they are mafia? :slight_smile: )

If their target pick was skill-based, wouldn’t they also be going after Idle Thoughts? NAF may have been picked because most thought he was town and to a degree he was trusted.

Or total failure to defend herself when voted for over 2 days. I’ll be honest and say that was when I started to think she had to be scum, since surely a townie would defend.

Not a good idea now - we ideally need to get scum, and failing that we need information. If you see a scum tell in a lurker’s post, please sing out, but its more likely an active contributor will slip.

There are a lot of reasons why mafia would need to kill confirmed townies, and they aren’t that subtle. As the mafia need the town voting pool to be as large as possible for a long as possible it makes sense to kill off anyone the town won’t lynch.

(e.g. 5 towns 3 mafia 2 confirmed townie total 9
The town’s target pool is 8 (mafia and unconfirmed town) the mafia’s is 7 (town and confirmed)
If the mafia kill an unconfirmed town, the next day the town voting pool is 7 and the dead townie’s votes are confirmed, giving extra info.
If they kill a confirmed town, the town voting pool stays at 8, and the town gains no new info as they already knew the victim was town. )

I’d be suspicious of someone who said the mafia *didn’t * need to kill confirmed townies, but I’m not sure what BlasterMaster’s post tells us about his alligience.

On preview - is anyone else having trouble with the boards being flaky at the moment?

703

I must say, I’m really impressed by all the scenario generation in this game. It seems really smart and helps crystallize things, and above all, I think it might help us avoid a Day 2 disaster. I think that the one lesson I’ve taken away from WWII is that we shouldn’t faction each other off based on similarity of viewpoints at any one given time. We’re really all playing alone, when it comes down to it, and none of us in the town (except, in some cases, the Masons and the Doctor) know whether the player we’re agreeing with is Town or Mafia. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that the infighting gets so bad that the town is doing the Mafia’s work for them.

Anyway, I’ve finally had some time to re-read some of the first day, and I’m adjusting my opinions on some players. Idle Thoughts voted for me at one time, but I still think he’s town. Dnooman looks a lot less suspicious, partly based on the fact that he’s offered up random good advice too many times. Fluiddruid, whom I FOSed (or just generally suspected) earlier, remains a bit shady. Lemur866 looks more trustworthy but doesn’t suspect Lightnin’ (who is my pet Mafia suspect). Nesta makes a great argument about Projammer that at the same time makes me look bad. But in all honesty, I voted for someone, not against another. “Anyone but Projammer,” you say? Not my bandwagon.

Vote Projammer.

I can wait another day for Lightnin’. :slight_smile:

704

Tirial, I just read your post just above mine, and I realized I forgot to say that I was wondering the same thing about Idle Thoughts. I’m actually more and more convinced that NAF’s downfall was only part past-game experience and that his downfall had more to do with his posts in this particular game. It would be really easy for Mafia to dismiss his assassination as fear of a more experienced player and to brush off his actual contributions, wouldn’t it? Plausible deniability. I keep coming back to it. I’m going to scan his posts as soon as I have the time and try to deduce something.

Also, yes, the boards have been squirrely tonight. Just when I finally get some blasted time to post, too!

705

Damn you for being all reasonable and stuff, not to mention correct. I had interpreted Blaster Master’s “confirmed townie” to mean confirmed from the mob’s perspective, not from the town’s perspective. Crap, I feel foolish now – that was just plain ol’ dumb.

Yeah, I had a bit of that myself. The server seemed a bit slow when I was checking my links to make sure that I hadn’t screwed them up.

706

Huh? Your suspicion of me makes just about zero sense. I’m not being aggressive? How many people did I FOS yesterday? Off the top of my head, at least three. Is it not aggressive because I didn’t FOS the other main vote getters?

Has my playing style changed THAT much? You seem to be the only one pointing it out, which leads me to one conclusion: nope. The only thing I can think that’s changed about me is my post count, and that is primarily due to an increase in IRL obligations (being end of semester, sudden increase in work responsibilities, and all).

I find it odd that you’re accusing me of the same thing you accused **Omi ** of doing to you; that is misrepresenting your posts. What I did in fact agree with him on (that I admittedly wasn’t very clear on by merely saying “I noticed that too”), was that I noticed a change in YOUR pattern. I thought your change in pattern was due to you learning from your mistakes; but I’ve changed my appraisal. I think you’re trying to use me as a scapegoat for your percypercy vote yesterday. I think you waited to switch pending a reasoned argument for the bandwagon so you could finally jump on an ensure a townie lynch, and now that you’re caught red-handed, you’re doing your darndest to shrug off the blame.

Similarly, I think you voted Omi because you thought it was a safe vote because he either wouldn’t get lynched or was town (or both). That means that either Lightnin’ or Projammer are also mafia along with you. Since I’m inclined to believe Lightnin’ was just an over-defensive townie, and this is just further circumstantial evidence on the building Projammer wagon and it looks like he’s the most likely lynchee today anyway, I’m going to go ahead and put my vote where I think is the most likely scum,Lynch CaerieD, and give a nice big foamy FOS Projammer to your compatriot.

707

WARNING: Post contains basic musings not detailed analysis.

Why did IdleThoughts play up his experience knowing it would make him a target?
Post 262 Rachm Qoch asks the same question, and it is answered with Post 264 Idle Thoughts says if it happen he was getting “too close with my suspicions” and

[QUOTE=Idle Thoughts]
At least getting killed off first is flattering in the regard that the scum probably see you as a threat.

[QUOTE]

Assuming Idle Thoughts is right that would indicate **NAF1138 ** was seen as a threat and probably close with a guess, which means we need to look at Naf’s posts more closely. Looking at the current post counts, despite being dead on first day, NAF was (and still is) the most prolific player. (56 posts at current time). This makes running through his posts a very big job.

However, the least prolific are **percypercy ** (13, dead, town), **Kyrie Eleison ** (15), **Rachm Qoch ** (17) CaerieD (18) and **Millit the Frail ** (19).

There is one thing I was wondering about - I don’t know about other townies, but I couldn’t stay away from the thread overnight just to see what was happening and if the day had started (then I missed it :smack: ). Is it fair to say that anyone who wasn’t that active overnight may be slightly suspicious, unless they stated they would be away from the boards?

708

If I’m reading that correctly, Blaster Master is saying that Mafia want to kill confirmed townies, not that they don’t know who the townies are. The point is to take out anyone other townies can be sure of, because the more confirmed townies there are, the easier it is to figure out who the scum are. If nobody knows who anyone else is, it’s easier to lead a bandwagon against town. That’s not a mistake. That’s simply understanding how scum would play the game.

You go right ahead and do that, but I heartily recommend that everyone not make the same mistake they did in the last game and assume that my role in the game is any reflection on anyone else. If Projammer somehow makes it through this day alive and I die, don’t assume he’s town just because it’s finally confirmed that I am. I’ve got no alliance going on there and even if I did, as town, I don’t know anyone else’s role. It’s meaningless.

In fact, since so many people seem concerned with how I’ve voted and whether or not it was an attempt to protect those two–which it wasn’t–how’s this: I vote Projammer. But he’ll probably turn up town and now you can claim I was on the bandwagon of two townies, right?

709

Okay, after typing up my last post I started thinking and I figured I’d better throw this out now before things steam too far ahead.

FOSing the people who are posting the least is a bad idea, people. When you average out everyone in the thread there are always going to be people posting less than other people. Lurkers are a problem. Nineteen posts when we’re only on Day 2? That’s not a lurker. There are people who will post a lot and push the game fast and there are people who want to take it a bit slower, but neither group is necessarily scum. Chop off the three with the lowest post counts and then there are a new group of three at the bottom. It’s an endless supply for the Mafia, and all they have to do is rile the townies up by chanting “death to lurkers!” when, in fact, nobody is lurking.

tirial - Your post is what really got me thinking on this topic and you’re rising rapidly in my scumdar now. People who weren’t active at night might be scum? That makes no sense. I was refreshing the page anxiously, but felt no need to make up roleplaying posts about what I was drinking or keep everyone updated on how often I was refreshing. If anything, I’d say scum would be more likely to be active during the night. They’re more engaged in the game than the rest of us at that point.

710

Updated Vote Count

5 – Projammer (SnakesCatLady, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, CaerieD)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)
1 – dnooman (Lightnin’)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)

711

BTW, looking back over the posts, there’s an interesting contradiction in two posts very close together by one member - not a retraction, a contradiction. Would that be a scum indicator?

I’m just curious because everytime I ask about ways we can look for scum, possible scum tells, and whether anyone thinks they are worthwhile some people start getting defensive.

712

What she said.

Rachm Qoch …meeting the day’s fluff quota…

713

Does anybody else notice an erie parallel with day one? We’ve still got more than a whole day to go, and it looks like Projammer is already the Lightnin’ of Day Two. percypercy’s guilt only became evident right before sunset – the question is, who will the votes shift to at the last minute? Who’s the real target?

714

I have a feeling that Projammer won’t escape the noose this time. I’m on the fence as I don’t know if this bandwagon is bringing people out of the woodwork enough; a round where everyone, basically, votes for the same person tells us little. On the flip side I’m not wholly in disagreement with the arguments against Projammer. I just think we need more discussion.

In the meantime, vote Kyrie Eleison for being the low poster (and based on my earlier suspicions of him).

715

If you think it’s an important contradiction then yes, please point it out. Contradictions are an important scum tell, depending on what they are.

716

Yep, duly noticed.

Two questions here: 1) guilt? percypercy was a townie who didn’t post to defend themselves, that doesn’t make her guilty of anything. It makes her lynching a mistake or a deliberate bandwagon - I think the latter.
2) presumably, the votes will shift to whoever the town chooses as we get more evidence. The problem is its easy to make a case and defend it, but unless we get a lot of posters looking at things from different POVs we don’t get enough info to make a good decision.

Well, if you are town, presumably the mafia.

Unfortunately I have 5-6 equally likely suspects and I can make a case for any of them being mafia - whether its the correct case is the problem. Almost everything I’ve got so far is an indicator, or circumstantial.

717

Yeah, point it out. If it’s something, it’s something, but if not, maybe the poster can explain him or herself. It could just be a townie getting confused and changing their mind all over the place, but it could also be scum.

So yeah, as for noticing the similarities between Day 1 and Day 2: We want to do the right thing this time and lynch “Lightnin’” instead of switching over to “percypercy.” Am I right? If the votes start suddenly moving from Projammer to someone else, we are liable to lynch a townie again. Am I understanding you correctly? Because that’s what it means to me.

And I’m with CaerieD on the lurker thing. Lurkers are a scapegoat. And there isn’t much lurking going on in this game anyway.

718

I know I’m not convincing anyone but myself, but, since you’ve already brought up the “Contradictions are an important scum tell”-meme, let’s look at two posts from dnooman:

post #243: “We should only refer to ourselves as town, never anything more specific unless absolutely necessary. We don’t need to narrow down the possible pool of power roles for the Mafia.”
post #495:“Bloody hell. The thought that Lightnin’ might be a mason occurred to me. If he is, and the other masons were those that were defending him, we’re in deep shit.”

So: to justify the crucial vote swing against percypercy, he contradicted his earlier post by guessing that Lightnin’ is a mason.

There are other posts that just serve to increase my suspicions against him, like for instance:

#401: while keeping his vote against **Lightnin’ **he calms him down (at the time, Lightnin’ was freaking out and speaking about not enjoying the game)
And, finally, post #643. In it he gives the masons “advice” to vote at least one tima against each other to delay identification by scum. However scum could read it as “vote at least once against scum to delay identification by town”…

719

I keep coming back to this post. I see only one similar aspect to the current vote count compared to yester-game-day’s early counts, and that similarity is simply an early bandwagon. I have not picked up on any other situational similarities between Lightnin’ and Projammer, and the attempt to correlate them makes me :dubious:. Bandwagons happen a lot, at many different times of the day. With a sample size of 2, I simply cannot swallow such a correlation with any confidence.

As for who my target is, that would be the player I have voted for.

720

(btw: vote dnooman)