Mafia The Game III: Kinder and Gentler

The Game Room
1041

[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Agreed. It’s also arguably the best power role for Scum to claim, in that there’s supposed to be two of 'em. There’s no way for the legitimate Do-Gooders to know that it’s a false claim, since they only know of their own, personal Do-Gooder status.
[/QUOTE]
In fact, it is the only role claim that will not immediately out you as Mafia to at least one person. Masons know their own, and all the other roles only apply to one person.

Plus, it is the only role claim that doesn’t really make sense to claim; once you claim it (if true) it becomes useless. You’re better off just claiming Town and hoping not to get the lynch anyway. There’s nothing that legitimizes a Do-Gooder claim.

1042

As I alluded to earlier, the Do-Gooder has a chance at the one time where lying in a role claim is helpful to the town. Role claim something the Mob would want, and you run a good chance of making them piss away their sole recruitment opportunity. Yeah, they’ll probably kill you for it the next night, but you’ll certainly be well-martyred.

(And thank you, SCL – the results are “inconclusive” until I can get an MRI, weeks from now. Their advice: “Ice it, wrap it, raise it”. My interpratation of that: “Deal with it and limp”.)

1043

I’m off to a baseball game so I won’t be at the computer until later tonight. I’ll be back long before “today” is over!

1044

[QUOTE=Hal Briston]
As I alluded to earlier, the Do-Gooder has a chance at the one time where lying in a role claim is helpful to the town. Role claim something the Mob would want, and you run a good chance of making them piss away their sole recruitment opportunity. Yeah, they’ll probably kill you for it the next night, but you’ll certainly be well-martyred.
[/QUOTE]

It sounds good, but I’m not sure how well it will work. Obviously, if he claims mason, nightwatchman, or mason at least one other person will know he’s full of it. Mason is, of course, the worst option because he’ll get more people knowing he’s lying and thinking he’s scum plus, it might cost the town a mason AND him to prove it…VERY anti-town. For the other two, if no one dies that night, the town has to wonder if they tried to kill him and failed, if he was recruited, or if he’s lying scum.

I imagine the scum would, if a guy claimed doctor, wouldn’t want him recruited, they’d want him dead (he’s useless after being recruited, and a mason seems to make a better recruit). Knowing that if he is telling the truth, he’s almost certianly self-protecting, you probably let him stew and let the town tear itself apart wondering whether he’s the doctor and self-protecting or if he lied to save his own neck. It’s somewhat worse for him to claim night watchman because the doctor, assuming he isn’t outted at that point, will pretty much have to protect him, meaning that the scum will have free reign to kill just about anyone else, potentially including the doctor.

It MIGHT work if the do gooder claimed while well trusted, but why would a well-trusted townie claim; wouldn’t it look VERY fishy? If he’s ready to hang, he’s not well trusted.

IMO, the only time a townie lying is beneficial to the town is if he pretends to be vanilla. Anything else will either serve to make him look suspicious (likely resulting in a townie lynch) or incidently affect the doctor’s protection and/or trust (possibly resulting in him not protecting whom he should).

1045

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
It sounds good, but I’m not sure how well it will work. Obviously, if he claims mason, nightwatchman, or mason…
[/QUOTE]

ARGH… I even previewed. It should say “doctor, nightwatchman, or mason…”

1046

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
IMO, the only time a townie lying is beneficial to the town is if he pretends to be vanilla. Anything else will either serve to make him look suspicious (likely resulting in a townie lynch) or incidently affect the doctor’s protection and/or trust (possibly resulting in him not protecting whom he should).
[/QUOTE]

The only instance you seem to have missed is if a Dogooder claimed to be the Detective (I mention it because with Kyrie gone this strategy won’t work anymore). In which case, there is a chance that the mafia would try to recruit them the next night.

Problem is this is high risk as it might give away the real detective.

1047

[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
I’m off to a baseball game so I won’t be at the computer until later tonight. I’ll be back long before “today” is over!
[/QUOTE]

It’s friday already?? :confused:
It’s either that or it’s going to be one hell of an extra-innings-game!

1048

I have been covered up with work since the last “day” and took the little Jammers to a movie last night so this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit and get caught up on the thread since my previous post. And since I still have to pack to go out of town tomorrow, this one is pretty much going to be all my thoughts thrown out until I get back Sunday afternoon. By which time it will be game night (I think).

Yes, I have posted some quick replies in other short threads that looked interesting in the moments I could get here. SDMB is an addiction so we all have to get a hit where we can. I’ve been two hours getting caught up here and I still need to go back and reread.

I voted no-lynch “yesterday” because my prime suspect was out of town and unable to defend himself. vote Lightnin I didn’t vote dnooman because I was about 90% sure he was town.

I went ahead and took my role claim to avoid lynching and because the way people keep looking at me, I’m about the least likely recruit candidate playing. I was a null role from day one.

I’m not going to vote for fluiddruid simply because I haven’t looked at her hard enough to decide and I’m not going to vote the bandwagon.

Seems fairly obvious that I survived the night for just the purpose I seem to be fulfilling. Muddying the water and keeping you from looking at other people.

Was I Kyrie’s breadcrumb? Dunno. Same as everyone else. I could be.

I’ll try to look in later tonight and again in the morning if I get a chance.

1049

[QUOTE=tirial]
The only instance you seem to have missed is if a Dogooder claimed to be the Detective (I mention it because with Kyrie gone this strategy won’t work anymore). In which case, there is a chance that the mafia would try to recruit them the next night.

Problem is this is high risk as it might give away the real detective.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps, I’ll have to give it some thought. Regardless, I only bothered to really analyze on relevant situations. It might be useful for a future game, but I don’t want to muddy the waters here too much worrying about it.

Still, just on my cursory thoughts, you’d have to be really careful about what results you “reveal” to be your investigations, and whichever ones on which you’re wrong, will broadcast to those people that you’re lying. Plus, when the real detective does die, if the scum were smart to wait it out a bit, knowing that might be a do-gooder scheme, you’re almost certainly dead on the next lynch.

However, unlike the other roles, the detective could be useful to the mafia for locating other power roles, so that probably outweighs the negatives. Maybe we can figure it out if it comes up in the next game.

1050

I’ve been thinking over the whole fluiddruid debacle and have finally pinpointed what it is that bugs me about it. A vote for fluiddruid is hinged on the belief that the scum are stupid.

At this point I doubt there’s any saving her, but if you assume that Projammer and fluiddruid are both scum, as several of you apparently do, you’re assuming that the Mafia just put a big neon sign over the head of one of their own. There was a bandwagon against Projammer. They could have picked a lot of people who voted for Projammer if they were going to kill based on accurate finger pointing, but they didn’t. Instead, they killed somebody who voted for fluiddruid…who had only one other vote. If fluiddruid were scum, why would they do that? Because somebody accurately identified one of their own? Then why not kill SnakesCatLady instead, since she started it? By taking out Kyrie they drew attention to that vote. Everybody knows we analyze everything that the dead said on their last day, to try to figure out which triggers they pushed. The Mafia would expect the last person the dead voted for to become a potential target, especially if that person only received one other vote.

If you assume that Projammer is town but still think fluiddruid is scum, then that still doesn’t make much sense. By taking out a high-profile player who’d been pushing for the vote against Projammer they could have cast yet more suspicion on a townie, and misdirected it away from fluiddruid. Instead, it seems more like this kill was designed to draw attention towards fluiddruid.

I don’t know who anyone is in the game aside from myself and the dead, but I’d be awfully surprised at this point if fluiddruid turns up scum. But if I’m wrong, then I imagine it won’t be too long before I’m lynched for defending her. I’d have to be scum then, because the Mafia like to get attention by ardently defending one another, right?

1051

I’ve only got 5 mins before a meeting so I’ll keep this brief, but I could not disagree more. I’d already answered most your your points when they were raised by others, however in summary:

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
I’ve been thinking over the whole fluiddruid debacle and have finally pinpointed what it is that bugs me about it. A vote for fluiddruid is hinged on the belief that the scum are stupid.
[/QUOTE]
No its based on the belief they were unlucky. If they had known Kyrie was the detective they’d have recruited. Instead, by killing him they drew attention to his breadcrumb. I think they thought they were killing a townie who was putting pressure on one of theirs.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
At this point I doubt there’s any saving her, but if you assume that Projammer and fluiddruid are both scum, as several of you apparently do, you’re assuming that the Mafia just put a big neon sign over the head of one of their own. There was a bandwagon against Projammer. They could have picked a lot of people who voted for Projammer if they were going to kill based on accurate finger pointing, but they didn’t. Instead, they killed somebody who voted for fluiddruid…who had only one other vote. If fluiddruid were scum, why would they do that?
[/QUOTE]
Get rid of the only person accusing him with any certainty, perhaps? Projammer if he is scum has been hit by multiple votes on Day one and two and now - something of a lost cause to defend perhaps. Also the mafia would be well aware after the Projammer/dnooman debacle yesterday that Projammer would still be under suspicion today.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
Because somebody accurately identified one of their own?
Then why not kill SnakesCatLady instead, since she started it?
[/QUOTE]
Because she voted once, no one was listening to her and she never defended the vote. Kyrie on the other hand seemed definite and defended. Given more time he could have got fluiddruid lynched.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
By taking out Kyrie they drew attention to that vote. Everybody knows we analyze everything that the dead said on their last day, to try to figure out which triggers they pushed. The Mafia would expect the last person the dead voted for to become a potential target, especially if that person only received one other vote.
[/QUOTE]

Yes as happened with NAF - oh wait it didn’t. NAF voted for Omi no kami. Why should we be expected to follow Kyrie’s vote up any more than we followed up NAF’s. We are only following it up because Kyrie was the detective - a fact that neither the town nor the mafia knew before he was killed.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
If you assume that Projammer is town but still think fluiddruid is scum, then that still doesn’t make much sense. By taking out a high-profile player who’d been pushing for the vote against Projammer they could have cast yet more suspicion on a townie, and misdirected it away from fluiddruid. Instead, it seems more like this kill was designed to draw attention towards fluiddruid.
[/QUOTE]
Attention easily deflected if not for the fact the Kyrie was the detective…which the scum didn’t know. Projammer would still be under suspicion.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
I don’t know who anyone is in the game aside from myself and the dead, but I’d be awfully surprised at this point if fluiddruid turns up scum. But if I’m wrong, then I imagine it won’t be too long before I’m lynched for defending her. I’d have to be scum then, because the Mafia like to get attention by ardently defending one another, right?
[/QUOTE]
If I am wrong I am pretty certain I will be lynched. However, as well as possibly being the breadcrumb, Kyrie makes a very good standalone case aginst fluiddruid.

Also, rather than trying to knock down the case against fluiddruid based purely on whether or not he was the breadcrumb, please can you answer Kyrie’s points from the previous day, which make fluiddruid look pretty suspicious regardless?

1052

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
At this point I doubt there’s any saving her,
[/QUOTE]
Either you aren’t reading the thread or that is deliberate misdirection. On Gadarene’s last count the vote was 6 fluiddruid, 4 Projammer - I now make it:

6 – fluiddruid (tirial, SnakesCatLady, Idle Thoughts, Rachm Qoch, nesta, DiggitCamara)
5 – Projammer (Lightnin’, Millit the Frail, Hal Briston, Lemur866, Cookies)
1 – SnakesCatLady (CaerieD)
1-- Lightnin (Projammer)

fluidruid hasn’t voted, so at the moment it could easily end up on a coin toss again. Then it would only need one more vote for Projammer to get her off the hook.

I note you are still voting for SnakesCatLady.

1053

Kyrie’s reasoning in #813 is pretty good, I’ll admit. But I’m not convinced that this was the breadcrumb. In almost every single post she makes that day there is a reference to “choosing which townie to lynch” in regards to Projammer and dnooman. That, to me, implies that she probably investigated one of them.

I think she had good reasons to vote for fluiddruid, but I just can’t comprehend the Mafia drawing so much attention to one of their members purposefully. If fluiddruid was the breadcrumb, from the Mafia’s point of view it would have made more sense to off somebody else. They, not knowing that Kyrie was the Detective, shouldn’t have gotten overly concerned by the vote for fluiddruid. I’m sure all of the Mafia have had a vote at least once by now and there have probably even been very good arguments against them.

Right now, my gut is telling me that we’re looking at a townie who made some mistakes. I could be wrong, but it’s all I’ve got to go on.

On preview: tirial - No, that’s not misdirection. Since I think there’s a chance that Projammer was Kyrie’s breadcrumb, I’m not willing to hop on that bandwagon. I think everyone’s suspicious of sudden vote changes at this point anyway, so I’m not expecting to see the votes shift suddenly today. It might come down to a tie, though.

1054

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
Kyrie’s reasoning in #813 is pretty good, I’ll admit. But I’m not convinced that this was the breadcrumb. In almost every single post she makes that day there is a reference to “choosing which townie to lynch” in regards to Projammer and dnooman. That, to me, implies that she probably investigated one of them.
[/QUOTE]

Isn’t it more likely Kyrie would have seperated the one she knew to be town from the other one? Literally there are no references to one without the other. Mixing what she suspects about one player in with another she knows about would be to assume Kyrie was stupid. If it was the breadcrumb I’d have expected at least one mention of “I find A more suspicious than B”, but there aren’t any.

The other post to check is (from memory) p819 where Kyrie says he had voted for fluiddruid while aware of the argument against - which does rather hint that he had a very good reason to do so. If he was the detective, what could the reason be?

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
I think she had good reasons to vote for fluiddruid, but I just can’t comprehend the Mafia drawing so much attention to one of their members purposefully. If fluiddruid was the breadcrumb, from the Mafia’s point of view it would have made more sense to off somebody else.
[/QUOTE]

As mentioned (again) the mafia didn’t know fluiddruid was the breadcrumb because they didn’t know Kyrie was the detective. From their POV (assuming fluiddruid was scum) they would have seen an isolated townie building a case against one of theirs, with little support.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
They, not knowing that Kyrie was the Detective, shouldn’t have gotten overly concerned by the vote for fluiddruid. I’m sure all of the Mafia have had a vote at least once by now and there have probably even been very good arguments against them.
[/QUOTE]

Except that Kyrie was building a good case against fluiddruid while everyone else was looking at Projammer and Dnooman - a townie who isn’t following the herd is always a risk. If Kyrie had been around to continue to build the case the next day, we would still be looking at fluiddruid now - without him it was likely to be dropped. The only reason it wasn’t dropped was because Kyrie was the detective, which the mafia didn’t know when they decided to kill him.

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
Since I think there’s a chance that Projammer was Kyrie’s breadcrumb, I’m not willing to hop on that bandwagon. I think everyone’s suspicious of sudden vote changes at this point anyway, so I’m not expecting to see the votes shift suddenly today. It might come down to a tie, though.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know. But with the current vote situation, either could be going down without a great change in votes.

And I’m not voting for Projammer even though I still think he’s scum, because
a) the bandwagon was started by Lightnin’ who I pretty much don’t trust after the rush vote earlier,
b) I think we need to find out if fluiddruid was the breadcrumb, and if we vote Projammer today our chances of following the breadcrumb up tomorrow drop (it would be easy for the mafia to take out one of the main investigators on that tonight, or to take out Blastermaster or, if you were correct, Projammer if they were the crumb).
c) I think its possible that the mafia didn’t target projammer because they thought he would be doctor-protected as a confirmed townie, or that he was going to be lynched the next day anyway (he’s had a bandwagon a day so far) rather than that he was scum. I’d give it slim odds admittedly, but marginally more chance of being town than I’d give fluiddruid.

1055

Okay, I’m here to cast my vote between the top three candidates between whom I’d not mind seeing any of them swing:

fluiddruid is the most likely breadcrumb and I’m loathe to let that slide. She was on my suspiciometer on day one, but my other top candidates started looking much more suspicious on day two. Because both NAF and Kyrie were pursuing her hard, it looks like it’s either a brilliant ploy by the mafia in framing her that has been two nights in the making or a terribly unlucky one in getting entangled with killing the detective who had voted for her. OTOH, what bothers me is that we haven’t seen a defense post and, based on game two, she has about a high probability of being either a pro-town power role or mafia.

Projammer strikes me as the most weaselly of the bunch. Each day he’s had a bandwagon, and so far he’s barely managed to escape each one and I’m loathe to let him escape a third. His persona has changed drastically in the last game day. His role claim bothers me for the obvious reasons we’ve previously discussed meaning he is essentially no better than a townie now (not that I can see the scum recruiting such a suspicious fellow anyway). However, what did occur to me is that knowing there are two do-gooders, if/when he’s verified through death, it WILL make the second do-gooder role-claim meaningful because it will be knowably false by at least one other citizen.

CaerieD strikes me as the most scummy of the bunch; unfortunately, based more on intuition than evidence. Maybe she just has a different approach, or maybe she has information the rest of us don’t; but it definitely strikes me as an act. I’ve been very suspicious of her since yesterday, and think she’s a safer vote for being scum; however, I’m loathe to throw my vote that way because it’s essentially no better than a no-lynch vote at this point (barring a fluiddruid role-claim).

Lightnin’ is somewhere between **Projammer ** and CaerieD in my mind. He seems to be putting on an act AND somehow has managed to slip out of the wagon. I feel like he’s the safest vote because he’s also already claimed vanilla townie IIRC. Unfortunately, this is also essentially a no-lynch vote AND the only vote on it is Projammer; I’m loathe to associate myself with him.

So what’s my conclusion? Vote fluiddruid, pending a convincing defense post. If there is a role-claim, of which I wouldn’t be surprised, in the event of a rush to avoid a lynch of a potential power role without analysis, I’m also fine putting my stamp on Projammer (or one of the other two even). Either way, I suspect we either find out we’re really on to something, or if we have to completely rethink it all.

1056

Updated Vote Count

7 – fluiddruid (tirial, SnakesCatLady, Idle Thoughts, Rachm Qoch, nesta, DiggitCamara, Blaster Master)
5 – Projammer (Lightnin’, Millit the Frail, Hal Briston, Lemur866, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)
1 – SnakesCatLady (CaerieD)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)

Ten hours until nightfall. By my calculations, two players haven’t voted: fluiddruid and Omi No Kami.

1057

Well, I guess for me it all comes down to this.

I’m not going to write an impassioned plea for people to save me. Ultimately, I think the decision’s been made and appealing to emotions doesn’t help the town (particularly if it works).

I guess I just have to ask this, again: Does it make sense for a “breadcrumb” post to be a public, frequent accusation against a poster?

There are good alternate theories as to who else could have been the breadcrumb. I know it wasn’t me, but honestly all of my thoughts on the subject have been pretty much hashed out by myself and other posters (particularly CaerieD). It seems completely unwise for the Detective to so adamantly support a lynch, in repeated posts, for someone who has come up Mafia. As I’ve said, this is far more a loaf of bread than a breadcrumb. What if he hadn’t been killed in Day Two? Wouldn’t have this sort of reveal of his investigations only have gotten him killed?

Let’s face it: Kyrie Eleison didn’t expect to get killed, the Town didn’t expect to lose the Detective so early and the Mafia most likely didn’t expect to get him either. I think that Kyrie Eleison was ultimately a safe choice for a strong, reasonable player (in the same vein as NAF) without real ties to the Mafia to be incriminating.

A lot of people have gut feelings about me. That’s hard to defend against but I can’t really blame you guys for it. Still, look back at all of your past posts - look at your trust lists, your suspicious lists, and the lists of those you trust now; how much have those changed?

Today, you basically have a choice between two candidates. It’s hard for me to sum up myself, to look from the outside looking in. But, I look at Projammer; someone who has avoided lynches for two days and likely to make it three; someone who voted No Lynch last round, which is always bad for Town; someone who ruined their presumable Do-Gooder claim needlessly when he could have just claimed Citizen; someone who has been pretty good about avoiding us this round and avoiding having any comments or meaningful votes on the record as much as possible lately. I’ve had mixed feelings about him myself but in the end I have to vote Projammer. After all, I know I’m town and there are a lot of reasons to vote for him after his conduct today.

I’m on the town’s side. Either you trust me less or you trust Projammer less. That’s ultimately up to you guys.

Good luck.

1058

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
CaerieD strikes me as the most scummy of the bunch; unfortunately, based more on intuition than evidence. Maybe she just has a different approach, or maybe she has information the rest of us don’t; but it definitely strikes me as an act. I’ve been very suspicious of her since yesterday, and think she’s a safer vote for being scum; however, I’m loathe to throw my vote that way because it’s essentially no better than a no-lynch vote at this point (barring a fluiddruid role-claim).
[/QUOTE]

Well, since it looks like you’re warming up the gallows for me for the next Day, I figure I’d better address this now to save some of my more important defense for then.

I don’t have any information that the other townies lack. I’m as clueless as anyone here, but I am very clearly coming at it from a different angle than everyone else, and that’s probably my biggest mistake. I seem to be a little out of step with the rest of the townies no matter what I do.

The reason I have a different viewpoint on all of this is because I’ve been approaching the game from a role-playing perspective, like I’d mentioned before. Right now I’m setting up a political intrigue plot for a steampunk game I’m running and I realized that my methods to keep the players guessing weren’t too dissimilar from some of the things I think that the Mafia are doing. If this was a tabletop game and the Mafia were my NPCs, I would have them doing what I’ve outlined in my analysis in order to prolong the players’ confusion for as long as possible. It seems to fit what I’m seeing. Maybe I’m horribly wrong, but I know how utterly random people can be and how difficult it is to second guess what they’re going to do. The best thing you can do is bait them to do what you want them to do, which is what I believe is happening here.

I don’t know, though. I could very easily be wrong. Or maybe they do just that sometimes and I’m only wrong on this particular case with fluiddruid. Chances are good if I am wrong I won’t get the chance to be right the next time around, though.

1059

Okay. Due to night coming up soon, I figured I’d make one of these too while I still can.

People I’m most suspicious of and think are probably scum(reasons why can be found in my past posts):

fluiddruid
CaerieD
Millit the Frail
tirial

People I’m suspicious of mildly to medium (reasons being vibes, intuition, subtle postings/wordings, etc):

Rachm Qoch
SnakesCatLady

People I’m mostly neutral toward/Don’t have any idea one way or another (could be scum, could not be. I have no idea really. Some of these I have been suspicious of earlier but it’s since faded however I’m not counting anything out):

Projammer (despite everyone else having strong suspicion of him)
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
Lightnin’
nesta
Lemur866

People I actually think/feel may be pro-town:

Hal Briston
Blaster Master
DiggitCamara
Omi No Kami

Person (of current players) I’m convinced is pro-town:

Idle Thoughts

1060

You forgot to include NAF, percypercy, dnooman and Kyrie Eleison in your “definately town” category.