# MAFIA: The Road to Canterbury - Game Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 21, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807 "2012-06-21T01:57:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 62
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1221 "2012-08-20T15:36:42Z")
Sorry for all my yammering. I’ve been following the game with passing interest and had so much to say and no place to say it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1222 "2012-08-20T15:38:57Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > So, in thinking about the game, our scum hunting efforts failed pretty hard, and not for lack of effort or not playing the game. > > What could we have done better to find scum? Mental Guy was all but invisible to me, and Inner Stickler was as well. Well, when I’m scum, I try to play as much like town as possible. Pretty much every single suggestion I made, I truly believed would be advantageous to town. I do this, despite the fact that I would be making it harder for my team to win, because I can count on town coming up with convoluted reasoning to not do half of the good ideas. (This is not a slam. I get played by scum just as much when I’m town. Scum have a better idea of what general mechanics are in play. Town as a whole does not and can work itself into a tizzy about what’s allowed and what’s not.) ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1223 "2012-08-20T15:40:18Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Sorry for all my yammering. I’ve been following the game with passing interest and had so much to say and no place to say it. 🙂 It was killing me that after I died, I assumed there was a thread where you and some other people were kibbitzing and I couldn’t find it. My favorite part is the post-mortem and it never lasts as long as I would like it to. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1224 "2012-08-20T15:43:53Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I remember the discussion from my “let’s play mafia better” thread, where some were arguing that the game really does come down to chance, if both teams play roughly average games. Is that true? Are scum _too_ hard to find in a well-played game? If I recall correctly, I said in that thread that players need to recognize the strong element of chance in these games that don’t get acknowledged enough. My point was players should not stress themselves out too much about being right or wrong since there is a strong element of chance. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1225 "2012-08-20T16:07:15Z")
My criticism of myself, and Town generally, was that it’s more important than we realise to follow-up on cases. I voted for Suburban, and dropped it. I voted for Inner, and dropped it. I voted for Babale and dropped it. I also voted for a lot of other people, including fubbles and gnarly for no good reason other than sudden self-doubt. But I did find scum and then drop them way too easily. I think especially we should have seen after TexCat’s lynch that Inner was likely scum, and that Suburban’s \*terribly \*reasoned vote for TexCat made him top candidate to be scum too. But we didn’t follow up on it at all. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1226 "2012-08-20T16:12:46Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > I voted for Suburban, and dropped it. I voted for Inner, and dropped it. Heh. I noticed that too. That and a general feeling that you were atypically all over the place. It made me think you were scum, but with that whole investigation thing I was all WTF?! Super confusing. I even tried convincing myself that you were cloaked (1. you’d be a good scum pick, 2. you’d be a good investigation target), but the MHaye thing put that craziness away. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1227 "2012-08-20T17:07:31Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Actually, in my opinion, the fact that Mental Guy was invisible to you should have been the biggest indicator that lynching him might be a good idea. Why do you think MentalGuy was invisible to you? Because he WANTED to be invisible to you. The players that “act scummy” are invariably town because _townies don’t care how they are perceived_. I call play like MentalGuy’s “clean nosers” and I like them better dead. I think my problem was that I tried this reasoning, but on the wrong person. It’s why I lynched gnarlycharlie. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1228 "2012-08-20T17:31:08Z")
Yes, that was part of the problem with this game. There were a lot of town players who weren’t moving the game forward, so **MentalGuy** didn’t stand out. **stanislaus** confused me as well on Day 3, with the voting spree, based on the alignment of unknown players. Before that I though he played very well, but I wasted a lot of effort thinking of him and **fubbleskag** as potential scum-buddies. ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1229 "2012-08-20T18:42:45Z")
[QUOTE=TexCat] Are there spoilers available? Was I anywhere close with my guesses on the 4 scum? Ugh. I guess someone has to be the first to die. ☹ Scum picking their own team is interesting, but you would think that at some point people would realize that scum wouldn’t pick me, scum wouldn’t advocate for no-lynch (and I firmly believe that would have been best!) At some point the scum wouldn’t do that actually means that scum wouldn’t do that. [/QUOTE] My message to storyteller upon my death. 😛 Who was the original scum and how were they picked after that? Did I miss that somewhere upthread? And congratulations to Hal! Well played. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1230 "2012-08-20T19:24:46Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > I think my problem was that I tried this reasoning, but on the wrong person. It’s why I lynched gnarlycharlie. Forgive my cluttered mind, but wasn’t gnarlycharlie a claimed investigator? Didn’t he ‘double up’ on Stanislaus after the first investigator claim? That’s what I think happened, though I could very well be wrong. But if my memory is correct, that is anything but a clean nose. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1231 "2012-08-20T19:56:52Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > Who was the original scum and how were they picked after that? Did I miss that somewhere upthread? \*\*MentalGuy \*\*was the original Scum. He picked me at random. I picked **Babale**. I figured Town would assume Scum would pick ‘well known players’, so I decided to not do that. Babale seemed to be a competent ‘newbie’, so I figured he’d be a good choice. Babale picked **Inner Stickler**. I assume it was a more or less random choice, given that he hadn’t been around long enough to have formed much of an opinion about any of us. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1232 "2012-08-20T20:13:36Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Forgive my cluttered mind, but wasn’t gnarlycharlie a claimed investigator? Didn’t he ‘double up’ on Stanislaus after the first investigator claim? That’s what I think happened, though I could very well be wrong. But if my memory is correct, that is anything but a clean nose. Yeah, but town never plays a perfect game. Case in point, he was town. Another example: I totally bought Babale self-protecting in a naive misunderstanding of who he should use his power on. I seem to struggle telling the difference between honest if poor decisions by town, and scum making silly plays to ironically avoid attention. So, while you’re right that gnarly’s play was sub-optimal, it wouldn’t have led me to correctly lynching scum. Babale’s play was equally sub-optimal, but I dropped that line of questioning. I tried just going on how he felt to me (something I rarely do), and got burned. So I was less willing to vote for anybody else by the same reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1233 "2012-08-20T21:09:41Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > Yeah, but town never plays a perfect game. Case in point, he was town. Another example: I totally bought Babale self-protecting in a naive misunderstanding of who he should use his power on. I seem to struggle telling the difference between honest if poor decisions by town, and scum making silly plays to ironically avoid attention. > > So, while you’re right that gnarly’s play was sub-optimal, it wouldn’t have led me to correctly lynching scum. Babale’s play was equally sub-optimal, but I dropped that line of questioning. > > I tried just going on how he felt to me (something I rarely do), and got burned. So I was less willing to vote for anybody else by the same reasoning. You misunderstand. I’m saying that gnarly’s play was not designed to make himself invisible (like Mental Guy). His doubling up made him stand out, not disappear into the shadows. Earlier, you had compared MentalGuy and gnarlycharlie and I’m pointing out that gnarlycharlie’s play was nothing like MentalGuy’s. His ‘mistake’ made everyone notice him and discuss him. This was an indication of his TOWNNESS not scummyness. My definition of a ‘clean noser’ is someone who is avoiding controversy. Someone who doesn’t do ANYTHING suspect or wrong. I think ‘clean nosers’ are scum. My point is that I didn’t consider gnarlycharlie a clean noser because his investigation created controversy and spotlight. His nose was not clean. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1234 "2012-08-20T21:12:38Z")
Oh, gotcha. I did misunderstand you. Yeah, I should have been more suspicious of MentalGuy. He hadnt voted in an entire day, and posted so little towards the end that he was just totally off my radar. Which, I admit, is a serious hole in my game. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1235 "2012-08-21T08:25:05Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Yes, that was part of the problem with this game. There were a lot of town players who weren’t moving the game forward, so **MentalGuy** didn’t stand out. > > **stanislaus** confused me as well on Day 3, with the voting spree, based on the alignment of unknown players. Before that I though he played very well, but I wasted a lot of effort thinking of him and **fubbleskag** as potential scum-buddies. My voting spree was a response to your first para - I felt the game wasn’t moving forward, so I tried to get things moving by putting more people under pressure. However, I went too far - there’s no pressure in being one of half a dozen votes from the same person. ---
**Author:** ![gnarlycharlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@gnarlycharlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarlycharlie)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1236 "2012-08-21T09:34:14Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > I was shocked that the two town investigators both investigated Stanislaus. I vaguely recall there being discussion of splitting the group up to avoid overlap. What happened to that idea? It was a good one! you were stunned? i was flabbergasted. i purposely recommended the other investigators to target within the group that lynched **Visor** so there wouldn’t be a crossover but it didn’t happen. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > It only occurred to me much later, so I didn’t bring it up - would it have been good strategy to get the investigators to claim and investigate each other D1/N1? that didn’t occur to me. that would have been interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1237 "2012-08-21T13:50:59Z")
The problem was **gnarly** , no-one had any reason to trust your suggestion, not knowing your alignment. And even if they did scum could have exploited it by deploying the cloak in that direction, hence my warning. That was the problem with any coordinated investigation strategy. Scum knew which investigators were genuine, so could exploit it better than town. > [@Snickers](#): > > And at least someone was certain I was town, so that’s a win for me! (Thanks, **Alka**.). I was only confident after the **fubbleskag** flip. You found a problem in my case against him, which was a good bit of play with no obvious scum motive. Town works best when we can pool observations and thoughts. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > My voting spree was a response to your first para - I felt the game wasn’t moving forward, so I tried to get things moving by putting more people under pressure. I tried to encourage participation in other ways, but all I got in return were some pretty lame votes, which I couldn’t possibly argue against, forcing me to claim. We were at cross-purposes this game. I liked your case on **Inner Stickler** , but let my suspicions of **fubbleskag** sway me too much when he voted with you. You accused me of defending **gnarly** , which in a round-about way was true. I had my own night action PM to look at, and knew the claims implicated **fubbleskag** or no-one. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1238 "2012-08-21T14:03:40Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > The problem was **gnarly** , no-one had any reason to trust your suggestion, not knowing your alignment. And even if they did scum could have exploited it by deploying the cloak in that direction, hence my warning. That was the problem with any coordinated investigation strategy. Scum knew which investigators were genuine, so could exploit it better than town. This kind of thinking is a huge detriment to the town. Suggestions should be evaluated on their merit and not whether or not the player is Town. Town players have suggested bad ideas plenty of times in the past. Alignment doesn’t make the suggestion good or bad. Game after game, Town handcuffs itself because “Scum could do X” or “what if Y happens.” > [@](#): > > I had my own night action PM to look at, and knew the claims implicated **fubbleskag** or no-one. Generally, I would caution players relying on secret information too much. While you may have been right (or wrong) the problem is no one else has that information which makes your actions look more suspicious. Also, I think players tend to over emphasize the importance of their own night action result. I don’t know the specifics of your case, but my guess is that given the choice of fubbleskag or no one, the real probability of fubbleskag being guilty was relatively small, but since the data presented itself as fubbleskag or no one, the mind inflates it towards 50-50. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1239 "2012-08-21T14:30:22Z")
Storyteller - what did you think of the game? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807/1240 "2012-08-21T14:35:40Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > This kind of thinking is a huge detriment to the town. Suggestions should be evaluated on their merit and not whether or not the player is Town. Town players have suggested bad ideas plenty of times in the past. Alignment doesn’t make the suggestion good or bad. Game after game, Town handcuffs itself because “Scum could do X” or “what if Y happens.” I think you misunderstand here sachertorte. **gnarly** tried to direct the other investigators to avoid overlap. That’s the part town couldn’t trust. The issue of investigative strategy is separate, and has nothing to do with who proposed it. In theory, it pretty much nulls out. By agreeing an investigation strategy, the risk of overlap is eliminated, but the scum could have deployed the cloak more intelligently. In practise, the investigators weren’t acting randomly, so the risk of overlap was higher. > [@sachertorte](#): > > I don’t know the specifics of your case, but my guess is that given the choice of fubbleskag or no one, the real probability of fubbleskag being guilty was relatively small, but since the data presented itself as fubbleskag or no one, the mind inflates it towards 50-50. No-where did I say the probabilities were equal. The salient point in this case is that **fubbleskag** changed a detail of his claim after **gnarly** made his PM public. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807.md?page=61) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mafia-the-road-to-canterbury-game-thread/625807.md?page=63)