Mafia The Game III: Kinder and Gentler

The Game Room
1321

[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
Millet the Frail says “Fluid hopes that when she is killed, SCL will fall to the bottom of our lists because she was set up by a Mafia member.”

So I am suspicious enough of someone to hold my vote there for three days, and that makes me mafai? I think you need to choose another line of reasoning, because that one makes you look not only scummy, but scared scummy.
[/QUOTE]

That’s just a scenario. I’m throwing ideas out there. I’m just saying we can’t totally discount you as scum just because you and **fluid **appear to have it out for each other. If you really do, I’m on your side, remember, because I’m planning to vote for fluiddruid today.

Also, I did say yesterday that you had deflated my suspicions somewhat. I had neglected to account for your three straight days because I was trying to cover all the bases from fluid’s side. Sorry.

And yeah…I won’t deny that I’m scared all right, but I’m not scummy!

1322

[QUOTE=CaerieD]
Would you be willing to point to some posts that illustrate what you’re talking about here?
[/QUOTE]
Ok, the premise I am working on is that, assuming the mafia tried to kill someone, they currently know who and that they failed. Therefore they will want to know why - whether the nightwatchman blocked or the doctor protected someone, and especially whether the doctor self-protected as that means they have found a power role. The town doesn’t need to know any of this, because it can only help the mafia. Ideally we should be giving them as many options as possible and confusing the issue as much as we can.

Therefore anyone seriously digging into the issue of whether the Doctor self protected, particularly without checking other options is more likely to be scum.

There’s a flurry of posts at the beginning, which don’t give out too much information. SnakesCatLady 1117 posts “the doctor saved one of us” but no detailed analysis or notes that the mafia could use. (It could be a fishing expedition, but frankly she’s a better player than that). Blastermaster P1128 - The analysis is good but last paragraph worries me: saying outright that it was likely the Doctor self protected only gives the scum more information and your analysis to consider. I posted 1133 to try to encourage the townies to throw out some FUD - keeping the mafia guessing is always good. I think Millet had the same idea in 1134 and threw some more options in the way. P1138 Blastermaster goes back to the self-protect idea, then progresses to possible town-confirms in 1139. There’s nothing particularly incriminating that I can see so far.

There are a couple of posts from Diggit Camara 1154 (options but no analysis) and Blastermaster 1158 which don’t look like fishing and are kept rather vague.

Then Lemur866 Posts 1166. Note the discussion had shifted to masons and recruitment, he goes straight for the doctor and whether he self-protected. He noticeably neglects all the conversations and Blastermaster’s posts above explaining why the Doctor may protect others and that the Nightwatchman has a better chance of blocking.

He debates briefly with **Idle Thoughts ** on the matter, but Idle Thoughts allows for situations where the doctor might not self protect.

P1197 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. "
This is wrong as Idle Thoughts pointed out in the post below. If the mafia find either they can remove their ability to protect the town.

Although Lemur866 investigates the Nightwatchman next, that wouldn’t be as damaging as if he managed to confirm whether the doctor self-protected or not.

Did I mention I’d been looking fairly closely at Lemur866?

[QUOTE=Gadarene]
Hi.
[/QUOTE]
On preview however, there’s this really suspicious chap who’s just wandered in…

1323

Frankly I think that this line of questioning is not beneficial to Town. We’re really only helping Mafia sort out what exactly it meant by their kill - whoever that may have been - being blocked.

What difference does this make to us? We don’t want to ID the doctor, we don’t want to help Mafia. I’m surprised we’re going down this path.

1324

[QUOTE=fluiddruid]
Frankly I think that this line of questioning is not beneficial to Town. We’re really only helping Mafia sort out what exactly it meant by their kill - whoever that may have been - being blocked.

What difference does this make to us? We don’t want to ID the doctor, we don’t want to help Mafia. I’m surprised we’re going down this path.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not looking at who blocked their kill or if they killed. I’ve said everything I have to say on that subject. I am looking at the people who really tried to dig into it and find out info that could not conceivably be useful to the town, but that would help the mafia find a power role.

It is possible to do this without helping mafia or IDing the doctor, by looking at the trends in the posts, rather than worrying about who protected what, whether a block was in place or a recruitment occurred.

If it provides new leads, and sensible posters won’t provide analysis of the theories presented, just the content trend, I don’t see any reason not to investigate it. After all we seem to be stuck on the usual suspects at the moment.

[QUOTE=fluidruid]
We’re really only helping Mafia sort out what exactly it meant by their kill - whoever that may have been - being blocked.
[/QUOTE]
By the way, fluidruid, how do you know it was a kill and not a recruitment?

1325

[QUOTE=tirial]
By the way, fluidruid, how do you know it was a kill and not a recruitment?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know what fluid is thinking, but I think the mafia would have to be absolute idiots to have recruited last night. We’re killing townies left and right and, as far as we know, still flailing around in the dark. We won’t be sure that we’ve hit upon something until we manage to snag a bona fide mobster. If the mafia are recruiting at this point, rather than waiting until the endgame where a recruitment would throw the game into serious havoc, I can only imagine that they’re trying to speed the game up by increasing the- oh, wait.

Ok, so there’s a fairly unsettling thought: we’ve been pretty good at coming up with good reasons to hang innocents so far. Furthermore, I think fluid was looking shakey even at the end of the last day: what if, just to throw us further afield, the mafia recruited a townie (fluid or someone else) that they were fairly sure we were going to lynch? We’ve proven to be extremely good at following red herrings to their bloody, demoralizing conclusion, and the mob could’ve recruited as a ploy to throw us further off the trail: even if we only wasted one day deciding on someone we conclude to be suspicious from today’s impending lynching, that would be two extra kills for the mob (one false lynch + the nightly hit).

On that note, could we ask Gadarene for another official player list please? I’d like to remind myself how close we are to losing our majority vote.

1326

The link in post #1320. And in this post, come to think of it. :slight_smile:

1327

[QUOTE=tirial]

Then Lemur866 Posts 1166. Note the discussion had shifted to masons and recruitment, he goes straight for the doctor and whether he self-protected. He noticeably neglects all the conversations and Blastermaster’s posts above explaining why the Doctor may protect others and that the Nightwatchman has a better chance of blocking.

He debates briefly with **Idle Thoughts ** on the matter, but Idle Thoughts allows for situations where the doctor might not self protect.

P1197 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. "
This is wrong as Idle Thoughts pointed out in the post below. If the mafia find either they can remove their ability to protect the town.

Although Lemur866 investigates the Nightwatchman next, that wouldn’t be as damaging as if he managed to confirm whether the doctor self-protected or not.

Did I mention I’d been looking fairly closely at Lemur866?

On preview however, there’s this really suspicious chap who’s just wandered in…
[/QUOTE]

Except I don’t think I am wrong. The argument was that a Doctor or Nightwatchman was better off killed than recruited. But the mafia isn’t able to use their powers, once recruited they have no powers. Or is the argument that recruiting a doctor or watchman has the dual function of recruiting a vanilla mafiosi and removing a town power role? OK, I agree with that. But take 4 these scenarios, where the mafia picked their target without knowing roles:

  1. Mafia recruit vanilla townie, and next turn kill the doc/watchman
  2. Mafia recruit doc/watchman, next turn kill vanilla townie
  3. Mafia kill vanilla townie, and next turn recruit doc/watchman.
  4. Mafia kill doc/watchman, next turn recruit vanilla townie.

Given this, scenarios 1 and 3 give us one extra day of doctoring, but that is irrelevant because the only thing that matters is that 2 and 4 is where they targeted the power role. If they target a power role, either for death or recruitment, it is just as good for them and just as bad for us.

So how did I get it wrong?

1328

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Except I don’t think I am wrong. The argument was that a Doctor or Nightwatchman was better off killed than recruited. But the mafia isn’t able to use their powers, once recruited they have no powers. Or is the argument that recruiting a doctor or watchman has the dual function of recruiting a vanilla mafiosi and removing a town power role?
[/quote]

Not really. Here is my thoughts of it.

Okay, which is the more tricky, wily, and strategic thing to do if you’re mafia and want to win (again, if WE hope to win, the protown must be able to think like mafia too)?

On one hand, they can shoot in the dark or, based on any signs or hints they may have, choose someone hoping they are the Night Watchman, the Doctor, or a Mason. That person is then killed off and, like you said, no use to the town side anymore.
Congrats Mafia, you are still one up.

Ahhh…BUT, instead of just killing someone off who has a role, would it not be better and more clever (for the scum) to wait and either:

A. Wait until someone makes a true (true in the factual sense of the word, since there will always be doubters. I mean true as it, it REALLY would turn out to be true) role claim and have most believe it, nobody able to refute it and THEN recruit that person.

B. Take a stab or guess with recruitment and hopefully get a power rule (that was, thus far, not claimed) and then, if that person (now scum) ever is in danger of being lynched can say what they are and have most believe it and nobody able to refute it.

Or even C. Wait until someone makes a true (see above) role claim and, after I post this, NOT recruit them and have everyone think, the next day, that that power role was recruited and lynch the really innocent person and do the mafia’s job for them by killing off their own, Night Watchman, Doc, Mason, etc.

ALL THREE of those would, I think, be much more clever and helpful for the scum side then just killing off a power role and having it be not used. Because in that case, the pro-town would still be able to use the death to help their side.
So, in the face of any of those three: Congrats mafia, you are now one number stronger AND you have everyone either fooled with a former power role (in cases A and B) or distrusting in power role player (in cases C).

There is, of course, D, which could be that they recruti someone they know or who happens to have a power role and that person is suspected from the start to be no longer who they are and have a quick lynch happening..but even then, it’s just what you pointed out. Dead, it’s useless. But at least there’s a CHANCE of misleading with recruitment.

Now…did I do well with explaining it all there? I’m asking non-sarcastically cause, reading it over, it all sounds confusing but makes sense to ME. I can try to say it better if anyone still doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

1329

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Except I don’t think I am wrong. The argument was that a Doctor or Nightwatchman was better off killed than recruited. But the mafia isn’t able to use their powers, once recruited they have no powers. Or is the argument that recruiting a doctor or watchman has the dual function of recruiting a vanilla mafiosi and removing a town power role? OK, I agree with that. But take 4 these scenarios, where the mafia picked their target without knowing roles:

  1. Mafia recruit vanilla townie, and next turn kill the doc/watchman
  2. Mafia recruit doc/watchman, next turn kill vanilla townie
  3. Mafia kill vanilla townie, and next turn recruit doc/watchman.
  4. Mafia kill doc/watchman, next turn recruit vanilla townie.

Given this, scenarios 1 and 3 give us one extra day of doctoring, but that is irrelevant because the only thing that matters is that 2 and 4 is where they targeted the power role. If they target a power role, either for death or recruitment, it is just as good for them and just as bad for us.

So how did I get it wrong?
[/QUOTE]

You left out the fact that a recruited doctor or watchman can roleclaim as such, without any townie knowing if the claim was true, or if the role-claimer is townie or turncoat. I can only begin to imagine how that would throw things into disarray.

1330

[QUOTE=Idle Thoughts]
Now…did I do well with explaining it all there? I’m asking non-sarcastically cause, reading it over, it all sounds confusing but makes sense to ME. I can try to say it better if anyone still doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
[/QUOTE]

Obviously it makes sense to me, and probably a lot more sense to others than the way I put it.

1331

Maybe but yours was short and sweet which is what I think most would prefer. :slight_smile: I always tend to be pretty wordy.

1332

Yes, except my contention is that a watchman or doctor role-claim is useless. Suppose a scum claimed this role. Should the real watch/doc counter-claim? No, because that outs them to the scum. Therefore, we can expect any such role-claim to go unchallenged. And then what?

Suppose we beleive the role claim enough to refrain from lynching the guy. Well, if they’re scum then the scum throw a party. If it’s true, then the scum whack him next turn. Either way, dead power-role. Only twist is if the scum don’t whack him, then we assume it was a false role-claim and lynch the claimant, only to find out he was telling the truth.

Since these role-claims are not subject to counter-claim, they’re useless. Well, as you say, the only good thing is that one player can be sure that a false role claimant is scum. But aside from that?

1333

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Yes, except my contention is that a watchman or doctor role-claim is useless. Suppose a scum claimed this role. Should the real watch/doc counter-claim? No, because that outs them to the scum. Therefore, we can expect any such role-claim to go unchallenged. And then what?

Suppose we beleive the role claim enough to refrain from lynching the guy. Well, if they’re scum then the scum throw a party. If it’s true, then the scum whack him next turn. Either way, dead power-role. Only twist is if the scum don’t whack him, then we assume it was a false role-claim and lynch the claimant, only to find out he was telling the truth.

Since these role-claims are not subject to counter-claim, they’re useless. Well, as you say, the only good thing is that one player can be sure that a false role claimant is scum. But aside from that?
[/QUOTE]

You’re making an awful lot of assumptions here based on…well…nothing.

First off you say that nobody would claim otherwise if a scummy member made a false claim.

I say that’s hogwash. If scum claimed to be the Doctor, the real Doctor could say who they were no problem without fearing they’ll be killed off as they could just protect themselves.

If scum claimed to be a Mason, well, there would be THREE people of their own faction who would know they were bullshitting.

And if scum claimed to be the Night Watchman; well, I can only speak for myself if I was that, but I’d out myself against it and take my chances at night with the choosing. Cause even if the person is killed that night, a clear scum person would be found for the next days Lynch. So a false role claim is just stupid.
Secondly–and this goes back to what I said above about the Doc protecting themselves-what makes you SO SURE that the mafia would be able to kill a power role successfully? In two cases, they have chances to avoid death. In the other (Masons), the scum in question would still have three votes for them in the day and have three people vying for their death.
Sorry, Lemur866, but the last few posts of yours, in combination with tirial’s observations and points are really making me look at you different. You were on my suspicion list from the beginning but had since faded. You’re slowly creeping up it again with all of your very weird outlooks and thoughts.

1334

[QUOTE=tirial]
By the way, fluidruid, how do you know it was a kill and not a recruitment?
[/QUOTE]
Please. If the Mafia are dumb enough to recruit this early - without any known Masons, other power roles, or even known townies to choose from - they’re stupid and we might as well throw all strategy out the window. The whole bonus of a recruitment is that we can never fully trust “known” townies as we don’t know who’s been turned. Why do so now?

But that’s why a role claim comes in so handy for scum. Ultimately, if someone claims the Doctor or Night Watchman accurately, their days are numbered. Once the scum know who Doctor is and who Night Watchman is, it’s just a matter of time before both are gone.

1335

Updated Vote Count

5 – fluiddruid (Idle Thoughts, tirial, SnakesCatLady, Blaster Master, Omi No Kami)
1 – Lightnin’ (DiggitCamara)
1 – SnakesCatLady (fluiddruid)

The day ends in approximately eleven hours.

1336

Only seven votes? Well, there’s no need to worry about rushing the clock now, since we’re getting down to the wire. And I’m not letting the day go by without getting a vote in.

Vote fluiddruid.

I’m still not convinced by her argument (though it’s definitely a good one), and it looks like I’m in good company.

1337

CaerieD, Come to the Dark Side…, Hal Briston, nesta, Lightnin’, Lemur866, Rachm Qoch - we need to hear from you. I am not asking anyone to jump on one of the three players who already have votes, but we need to hear who you are suspicious of and why. Not voting is not a good idea, in my opinion.

1338

I’m going to have to vote FluidDruid.

Yes, I know- I said that I was starting to suspect Blaster Master. However, all that has been is a gut feeling- going back over the posts, I couldn’t find anything in particular which definitely indicated guilt.

CaerieD, on the other hand…

Day One, final tally- voted to lynch percypercy (town). Remember- this is before the Mafia has had a chance to organize their strategy.

Day Two- voted to lynch Projammer, switched to dnooman, but then abstained when the vote came down to Projammer and dnooman, both town. Why keep your vote in the hat when you don’t really care who wins?

Day Three- initially voted to lynch SnakesCatLady, but then switched over to Projammer when it looked like FluidDruid was going to be lynched.

What’s this mean? To me it looks like CaerieD is Scum… however, this also indicates that FluidDruid is Scum as well.

Since our goal is to clear the town of Scum, and FluidDruid is leading the votes, I’m going to throw my vote in on FluidDruid as well, but I’m also going to FOS CaerieD as well.

1339

I’m gonna have to go ahead and vote fluiddruid.

My first thought was that killing Kyrie was a bluff…kill the guy who fingered another townie to throw suspicion on that townie. But considering that Kyrie turned up detective, and considering that there’s no way the scum could have known that. Kyrie’s accusation was weak when she was alive, and if she’d have been a vanilla townie we could have just brushed it off. This is what the mafia would have expected. Except Kyrie’s “I know fluiddruid is scum, but I’m not sure about dnooman or Projammer” post backfired now that we have pretty good reason to suspect Kyrie investigated fluiddruid.

If fluiddruid ISN’T scum, then we’re pretty much out of leads, although SnakesCatLady would get a FOS from me. As I said before, I haven’t had much suspicion of Lightning, nor any reason to develop such suspicion. So even though he’s on everyone’s FOS list, he’s not on mine.

So fluiddruid it is.

1340

Woohoo! I was wrong about the voting deadline! Well, I’m not about to waste my writing efforts from last night, so I’ll just paste 'em in here:

Ok, back to the now.

First off, yes, I’m going to vote fluiddruid. It’s slightly bandwagonesque, but it’s far and away the safest vote right now – the 'ol scumdar is pinging into the red when pointed at her.

Problem is, the 'ol scumdar has been acting like it needs new batteries lately.

I (jokingly) posted recently about flinging darts at a dartboard with the names of “under the radar” players to pick voting targets. If fluiddruid turns out to be town, then that will become less of a joke.

I was thinking about the game while cleaning the house yesterday – specifically how little notice I’ve been getting – no votes, I don’t even think a FOS has been put my way. “Very good”, was my first thought…“people are being smart about it…I’m town, and people realize that”. Then it hit me – people don’t necessarily realize that, I’m just one of those players staying well under the radar. With the exception of the past two/three days, I’m playing this in the exact manner that scum would want to play it if they want to remain hidden!

(Gotta run to the doc’s office in a few minutes, so I’ve got to condense my last few thoughts on this)

If fluiddruid swings, and turns out to be town, then it’s going to be crunch time – we’re going to have to assume that the scum are keeping very low profiles, nothing more than a little stab of flame-fanning here and there. It’ll be time to take a careful look at the posts made by those the in bottom third of post-count totals to the thread (and yes, I’m very aware that I’m in that group).

Ok, gotta run – more later.