Mafia The Game III: Kinder and Gentler

[Blaster_Master]

@Idle Thoughts

This is interesting. This is about the third time you’ve said this. That you don’t think recruitment happened. What makes you so sure? What are you basing it on? I’m curious. The only way you can even begin to know one way or the other (or have any strong leads, as it seems like you may have) is if you’re the Doctor, Night Watchman or Mafia. Cause then, if it’s a protown role, you know it wasn’t scum and if it was the scum, they know it wasn’t anyone for the town and the roles know it was either the other or the mafia.

I’m not suspicious of you for these outlooks, however I’m curious why you think it’s not possible that they could have recruited someone.

Here’s the crux of my idea here. Right now, we have precisely zero confirmed living townies (I’ll ignore the do-gooder for a moment). Let’s say they recruited someone last night. Yes, they’re up one player, but that player is only moderately covered by the last 3 days worth of posts without the knowledge they would become mafia. However, if the town waits until at least a couple people become either confirmed, or HIGHLY trusted, it will have the same effect as recruiting now, but their cover will be much deeper.

Let’s examine a near-worst case scenario. Let’s say it’s near the end game with one mafia left, two masons (who’ve claimed to save their necks), and two townies. If the mafia still have their recruit left, if they pick a mason then, then no one could conceivably vote for the mason, and the votes will be spread between the two townies and the one mafia, easily guided by the well hidden mason. Or, in the same situation, the mafia recruit a fairly trusted, but non-outted townie in the same cluster, then use the likely recruit scenario (from no death) to put a lot of doubt on the masons as likely being a 1/2 chance of either being scum. Granted, the latter is more of a gambit, and likely not to occur, the first one, I think would be a smart play, and I think they know this.

Compare that to a recruit now. As a supposition, let’s say that you were recruited last night, you only have your last three days of posts as added cover, compared to a claimed and confirmed mason. But if it came down the same the same situation, where you, me, and another were unconfirmed, and there were two claimed and confirmed masons, I be hard pressed to vote for one of them over you.

I’m not sure how much sense I’m making, but essentially, I think their best strategy, by far, is to wait; thus, I’m mostly certain this is apparent to them and that they’ll most likely stick with it. But, I could be wrong… do you disagree?

[DiggitCamara]

@Idle Thoughts

This is interesting. This is about the third time you’ve said this. That you don’t think recruitment happened. What makes you so sure? What are you basing it on? I’m curious. The only way you can even begin to know one way or the other (or have any strong leads, as it seems like you may have) is if you’re the Doctor, Night Watchman or Mafia. Cause then, if it’s a protown role, you know it wasn’t scum and if it was the scum, they know it wasn’t anyone for the town and the roles know it was either the other or the mafia.

ummm… what?

Neither Doctor, Watchman nor DoGooder would know they were involved.

The only ones who know whether they were thwarted (or succeeded in recruting) would be scum.

[Lightnin]

@DiggitCamara

Lightnin’ has been the one who has brought less to the game, at least to this point. His only burst of participation came when the tide was turning against him. So, in my mind, he has tried to save himself by hiding as much as possible. And that, in my mind, makes him scum. Vote Lightnin’

So the reason you suspect me is because I’ve tried to defend myself when I’ve been suspected? Doesn’t that seem a bit… circular?

[Blaster_Master]

@fluiddruid

Please. No matter what the accused does, generally, we’ve suspected them. To one person, what seems an adequate to another will seem to another like being overly defensive; a lack of defense will seen by one as guilty or another as a sign that they are innocent.

Nobody who has been made a suspicious candidate - not Lightnin’ nor myself nor any of the previous lynchees - seem to be able to find ANY way of becoming “less suspicious”. Once the suspicion is there, people can see it in ANYTHING. Just like we saw in dnooman and projammer.

In the end, if you look at the way the game has been played, we have incorrectly lynched a townie every single night so far. And, each time, regardless of their defense (being very different each time), we have seen no pattern. People are defensive when rightly OR wrongly accused.

Not one person, once having racked up serious votes, has managed to become trusted or even be taken off the short list for future lynching, despite the town’s 100% failure rate on lynches.

Fair enough. I have been in that situation before and, if you are innocent, I understand your frustration. Regardless I still want to see you provide some pro-town incite, and some evidence based defenses. A good place to start is with tirial’s questions earlier. I think they’re inclusive of my curiousity as well.

What I’ve learned so far based on my poor voting record is that we need to start from scratch and start analyzing data. Can scum have tells? Absolutely. But I’m not confident at all that the usual suspects that keep getting batted around are the ones we need to suspect. If anything, we are lynching people based on convenient reasons, and people are deflecting suspicion away from themselves onto others whether they seem to be Town or Mafia.

This is a self-defeating strategy for Town. In short, we continue to lynch based on poor criteria. Even if we are lucky and lynch scum, it will have told us nothing!

Why are some players still using strategies that have failed every time they have been applied so far? We are being bamboozled into making poor logical decisions.

Okay, I’ll play along. I’ve made it clear for a while now who’s topping my scum list, and I’ve done the best I can to make a case for them. Right now, you’re on top of just about everyone’s list. Give us an alternate target, and good enough reasons, and maybe the town will change its mind. What’s your opinion on the other top vote getters? If you are in fact town, these appeals to emotion alone aren’t going to be very helpful in keeping you alive.

[Blaster_Master]

@Lightnin'

So the reason you suspect me is because I’ve tried to defend myself when I’ve been suspected? Doesn’t that seem a bit… circular?

…? He’s suspicious of you because most of your contribution has been self-defensive. You’ve provided little analytical input.

[Omi_no_Kami]

@SnakesCatLady

Interesting tidbit for consideration: Omi no Kami had voted for fluiddruid yesterday, then unvoted and never voted again, nor has there been a post from him/her since that unvote.

Hey all. I just got back from being out of town… I’m still reading the thread, so if I say anything that ends up being stupid once I’ve read the whole thing I’ll post to correct it. To explain the unvoting though, I basically out-thought myself. I was quite sure that fluiddruid was scummy when the day began, not due to any single smoking gun but simply as a result of a bunch of small circumstantial things I mentioned when I accused him. As the day went on, however, I started wondering if it wasn’t possible that fluid was yet another innocent townie, and that I was playing right into the (unacceptably clever) mafia’s hands by coming out so strong against him.

So since my evidence wasn’t particularly driving, and since I don’t trust gut feelings on their value alone, I decided to unvote until I had something better to contribute.

[Omi_no_Kami]

@Lemur866

Since no known power role player is among the living, the most likely scenario is that the doctor is protecting himself. Protecting anyone else is foolish, even if they are 99% certain another player is town, the doctor is 100% sure that the doctor is town…and since the doctor is a power role, protecting the doctor means the doctor can’t be killed. The doctor really only has a choice about who to protect later in the game when players have claimed roles and the doctor strongly suspects that the mafia will whack that one particular player. But since our detective is dead, the doctor has no reason to protect anyone except himself.

I have to agree with this; our best-case scenario is that the mafia wasted their recruitment on a do-gooder, but I doubt this is the case: the mafia’ve shown themselves to be fairly canny players this time around, and I doubt they’d be foolish enough to agree on recruiting at a point when it didn’t serve an explicit goal: we have no confirmed townies, like others have said, no confirmed masons, no confirmed power roles, and no dead mafia. As I recall, the following circumstances tend to be the most ideal for the mafia to recruit in:

1. There’s only one mafia left in the game (unless gadarene has a vendetta against the scum, there’s no way they started with just one player).

2. Town has confirmed a special role (mason/doctor/whatever). We don’t have anything close to a confirmed good guy.

3. Scum are 99% sure they’ve identified a power role (doctor or mason. Unlikely considering the way the game has gone so far, but something to consider.)

It seems like almost everything has gone the mafia’s way thus far, and as such I can’t see them squandering their lead with a weak use of their recruiting ability.

[DiggitCamara]

@Lightnin'

So the reason you suspect me is because I’ve tried to defend myself when I’ve been suspected? Doesn’t that seem a bit… circular?

Nope.

What I’m saying is:

1. that you barely have posted except to defend yourself
2. that your defense has mostly been “…but…but…but… I’m not scum!”

And most others who have been forced to defend themselves and their ideas have done so to a minor or major degree.

[Omi_no_Kami]

@Blaster Master

I’m of the mind that fluiddruid is pretty much a done deal for this day. If she’s town, the mafia will just sit back and let her get lynched, laughing at us. If she’s mafia, they know to stay away from trying to protect her because otherwise they’ll look suspicious. With that in mind, I want to use this as an opportunity to garner as much information from her death as possible.

I’m not sure of anything in this game, and it seems like the scum would be far too intelligent to do something this blatant… but I find it mildly suspicious, how you seem to be advocating that we write fluid off and spend the rest of our day talking about what we’ll learn by killing her. Am I misinterpreting something here?

I think she’s dirty just as much as the next guy, but going too quickly is only going to tighten the noose…

[CaerieD]

Since Projammer turned out to be a Do-Gooder after all, I’m a little less certain of fluiddruid being town. The final defense from Day 3 was fairly weak and vague as well, which makes me suspicious. That could be somebody with a power role who feels making the claim isn’t worth it, I suppose, but I’d think anyone with a power role would start singing at the eleventh hour. She didn’t even come right out and say she was a Vanilla Citizen. She was just sort of vaguely pro-town.

In the end, Kyrie was right about dnooman and Projammer both. They couldn’t both be breadcrumbs since there was only one night for investigation and why would the Detective lump one confirmed townie in with one unconfirmed townie while trying to give hints? It’s still possible one or the other was the breadcrumb, but I’m thinking that Kyrie may have been right about dnooman, Projammer, and fluiddruid. If so, the scum may have thought they were looking at a Mason, able to make seemingly lucky guesses based on having a smaller pool of suspects. That would be why they offed Kyrie then, they assumed that having so many lucky guesses after only one night implied Mason rather than Detective. They’d off what they thought was a Mason before any further suspicion could be cast, thinking that they could safely save their recruit for when they found a more likely Detective.

I’m curious to hear what fluiddruid has to say about tirial’s questions.

[tirial]

@Omi no Kami

I’m not sure of anything in this game, and it seems like the scum would be far too intelligent to do something this blatant… but I find it mildly suspicious, how you seem to be advocating that we write fluid off and spend the rest of our day talking about what we’ll learn by killing her. Am I misinterpreting something here?

I think she’s dirty just as much as the next guy, but going too quickly is only going to tighten the noose…

I think the issue is that yesterday Fluiddruid escaped the noose at the last minute in favour of Projammer, who turned out to be town. As there is a chance that fluidruid was the Detective’s crumb (and if she isn’t then we have a confirmed townie) lynching her would currently give more benefits (and has more solid reasons behind it) than going after someone we have a weaker case against.

Therefore, I think the reasoning is that the longer day proceeds, the longer we have to gather information and hope other potential scum make slips. As stated, Lightnin is currently my number two suspect, but I am not going to vote for Lightnin when I think there is someone more likely to be scum right there.

[Idle_Thoughts]

@fluiddruid

Ummm, let’s be straight here. I voted for Projammer in a two-man race where the other person was me.

Let’s say I was scum. Sure, it makes sense to vote for Projammer.

But let’s say I’m town. It still makes more sense to vote for Projammer and save myself, because I’m 100% sure I’m town, and I’m not 100% sure he is! This is especially true if I’m a power role!

Besides, you were ardently against me from the beginning, far before this “evidence” has been stacked up. And, soon enough, you’ll be accountable for that.

Very true and good points.

However, by now, the suspicions I had of you from the beginning have steadly grown, and now it’s nothing less than a freight train. Before I had my suspicions but they weren’t more than anyone else. The biggest thing was being mentioned by the detective in such a strong and firm vote (especially in post 819).

And even though your valid points ring true in your vote for Projammer, it could be the first case is true and just happened to work out that way (and make you have those good points in this post).

My vote stands for now.

[Idle_Thoughts]

@Blaster Master

I’m sorry, I’m not understand your point here. What do you mean by “killed accidently”? Do you mean killed when they thought they really should have recruited?

Yeah.

Let me put it another way or explain better. I would think that the mafia would want to recruit people who have power roles. Namely the Masons, Doctor, and Night Watchman. It would help them out greatly.

Thing is, unless someone claims, they don’t know who is who…and I was saying I think it would be best for those roles, if anything, to be killed at night by the mafia (who don’t know they’re killing off someone they’d recruit if they knew what he/she was). A bit better said now?

Cause let’s face it, letting any of those fall into the hands of mafia would be pretty bad. The players would be turning on their own team and it would give the mafia an advantage they don’t need.

I just hope that the no-kill night we just had wasn’t already someone going over that may have had a role.

[Idle_Thoughts]

@Blaster Master

I’m not sure how much sense I’m making, but essentially, I think their best strategy, by far, is to wait; thus, I’m mostly certain this is apparent to them and that they’ll most likely stick with it. But, I could be wrong… do you disagree?

Post snipped.

Well, slightly. But that’s only because I guess my frame of mind is to never count anything out.

[Idle_Thoughts]

@DiggitCamara

ummm… what?

Neither Doctor, Watchman nor DoGooder would know they were involved.

The only ones who know whether they were thwarted (or succeeded in recruting) would be scum.

Correct me if I’m wrong but the Night Watchman, at least, would have to know places to patrol? At least I surmise that from: A. the host naming two or three different locations so far when night ends and B. how the NW would be able to do his/her job.

So if it was the Night Watchman who intervened, would they not know it was them and not a recruit?

(unless, on the offchance, both happened the same night)

[fluiddruid]

@Blaster Master

Fair enough. I have been in that situation before and, if you are innocent, I understand your frustration. Regardless I still want to see you provide some pro-town incite, and some evidence based defenses. A good place to start is with tirial’s questions earlier. I think they’re inclusive of my curiousity as well.

Fair enough. I am working on a lengthy response. As I’m at work, I’m not sure when it will be posted (I’m trying to re-read the bulk of the thread) but I hope it will clear things up if only a little.

[Lemur866]

@Idle Thoughts

Yeah.

Let me put it another way or explain better. I would think that the mafia would want to recruit people who have power roles. Namely the Masons, Doctor, and Night Watchman. It would help them out greatly.

Thing is, unless someone claims, they don’t know who is who…and I was saying I think it would be best for those roles, if anything, to be killed at night by the mafia (who don’t know they’re killing off someone they’d recruit if they knew what he/she was). A bit better said now?

Cause let’s face it, letting any of those fall into the hands of mafia would be pretty bad. The players would be turning on their own team and it would give the mafia an advantage they don’t need.

I just hope that the no-kill night we just had wasn’t already someone going over that may have had a role.

Except from the Mafia’s point of view, the Doctor and the Night Watchman are just as good dead as they are recruited. Their only power is to protect players during the night, if they are recruited their powers are useless to the mafia. They essentially turn into vanilla mafia instead of power-role mafia.

The only really dangerous recruitment is if the mafia get the detective. If that happened we’d be screwed, luckily for us we know that can’t happen now. :smack:

[Idle_Thoughts]

@Lemur866

Except from the Mafia’s point of view, the Doctor and the Night Watchman are just as good dead as they are recruited. Their only power is to protect players during the night, if they are recruited their powers are useless to the mafia. They essentially turn into vanilla mafia instead of power-role mafia.

I disagree, although respectfully.

If I were mafia (and that’s an IF, folks :p, however what good are pro-town people in this game if we can’t try to THINK like mafia?) I’d think that any status would be good. If they haven’t revealed them selves yet (so they could later, while being scum, and not have anyone able to say no way) but ESPECIALLY if they did role claim.

[Lightnin]

@DiggitCamara

Nope.

What I’m saying is:

1. that you barely have posted except to defend yourself
2. that your defense has mostly been “…but…but…but… I’m not scum!”

Well, sadly, that’s all you’re going to get from me from now on. As I said, I’ve given up on trying to defend myself. I’m not convinced that it’s possible, at all, to defend oneself in this sort of game, especially if you’re town; because if you’re town, you’re basically defending yourself against the combined mafia. Defense is a losing game, and I’m just not going to try anymore.

If I get lynched, so be it.

[Lemur866]

@Lightnin'

Well, sadly, that’s all you’re going to get from me from now on. As I said, I’ve given up on trying to defend myself. I’m not convinced that it’s possible, at all, to defend oneself in this sort of game, especially if you’re town; because if you’re town, you’re basically defending yourself against the combined mafia. Defense is a losing game, and I’m just not going to try anymore.

If I get lynched, so be it.

But see, I don’t think this could be true. Or, if it is true, then the mafia are playing a really dumb game. If the mafia are all ganging up on one innocent townie after another, then all we’d have to do is see who got lynched, see who voted against them, and vote against those that voted against dead townies.

Remember that the mafia doesn’t care which innocent townie gets lynched, as long as it isn’t a mafiosi. And even if a mafiosi is going to the noose, they still can’t collaborate too hard, because they’ll expose themselves.

So they lay low. This has the disadvantage for us that it’s hard for us to find them, but has the advantage to us that they can’t cooperate without giving themselves away.