MAFIA: The Road to Canterbury - Game Thread

[Snickers]

I’m with Enderw24 - I don’t agree with the reasoning behind pardon the lynch leader, if Visor has been recharged. It lessens accountability and gives scum a place to hide, and I don’t like it. “I’m voting, but I don’t really mean it” isn’t a place a townie should be.

Vote gnarlycharlie

He pinged me earlier, and I haven’t been able to shake it. And his claim seems opportunistic - fubbleskag claims in post 384, then several people (me included) lend their weight to it (Stanislaus even confirms it, but you have to take that with a grain of salt ), then he makes his claim in post 411. The text of his claim reads strangely; it seems as if he’s guessing at what story would say. Forex, there’s no need for story to include that last line; in his PM gnarlycharlie acknowledges that it’s his first and only action. And if the other claims and PMs are to be believed (which I’ll grant that there’s no reason to do so), story hasn’t included that information elsewhere. It also doesn’t include any caveats about the cloak of lies. I can overlook one discrepancy, I guess I can’t overlook two.

In his vote for me way back in D1, he mischaracterises me as thinking that investigations are only valuable if they reveal scum. I don’t think that, and I never did. Neither did I think that late investigations don’t suffer from the same issues as early ones. Look at post 105, my direct response to the first time he raises these questions. Either he’s not reading or he’s trying to build a shoddy case just before EOD without jumping on a wagon (a case that he hasn’t bothered to update since).

While I still don’t think his “slip” about the cloak was a tell, in that discussion and in other posts he seems to know (rather than assume) that the cloak is in play.

All these together, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s scum trying to hide.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Snickers

I do think he’s misreading fubbleskag’s post 217 - in my mind, fubbleskag wrote this as a response to Hal’s “goddamn, Snickers!” and not with Ender in mind at all.

I think that’s unlikely, as it comes 3 minutes after his unvote of Ender, and in a consecutive post. If he was referring to Hal here, he never gave a reason for unvoting Ender at all.

@Suburban_Plankton

I’ll grant you that perhaps I read too much into your statement “I’m inclined to ignore Mahaloth and KellyCriterion for the time being”…but nowhere did I say we should lynch either of them Today…only that we shouldn’t “ignore them”.

I was just explaining my position, not commenting on yours.

@Suburban_Plankton

There are a number of problems with your statement here that “Neither are obvious picks for the scum team, as they are vote magnets”:

All true, I’m aware of those problems. Regardless, that still leaves a slightly less-than-average probability that they are scum. Unfortunately, that’s all we really have to work with on them.

[Mosier]

@Enderw24

Right now, we are not 100% guaranteed that

1. Visorslash is the Pardoner
2. Sinjin chose the Restorative as his power
3. Sinjin used the Restorative on Visorslash
4. Visorslash, power now restored, will use his power on today’s lynch
   There are those advocating “hey everyone, go ahead and lynch whoever you want to. It’s all good!” No. It’s not all good. ALL FOUR of those need to be true and even then, it may not be good strategy. I find your assumptions to be really suspect and I’m wondering why you’re leading us down that path.

MentalGuy, Hal Briston, Mosier, I’m looking at you.

This is an iPhone post, so quoting multiple posts isn’t really possible. My problem with the above post is that you are claiming I said the exact opposite of what I actually said. What I said was that we can’t be careless today just because we’re pretty sure Visor can pardon the lynch.

What we should do is approach today asking ourselves, “who do we want to confirm,” rather than the normal, “who do we think should die?” it’s a subtle difference. I don’t want to kill Babale, but I do want to investigate him. The lynch/pardon is literally the only possible way to get a 100% accurate confirmation without killing someone.

1. Visor is the pardoner. He voted for himself. That case is closed, far as I’m concerned.
2. Sinjin chose the restorative. Otherwise, he would have announced the target for his truth serum thingy. There’s no other way he could have coordinated an investigation on his target.
3. Sinjin used the restorative. We were told as much. There is no reasonable target for the restorative other than the Pardoner, since nobody else who’s power is known can be 100% confirmed town.
4. Visorslash MUST pardon today’s target. If he doesn’t, scum will certainly kill arguably our strongest role power. There is no other reasonable play.

Therefore, I’m quite certain today’s lynch will be pardoned and confirmed as either town or scum.

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Mosier

1. Visor is the pardoner. He voted for himself. That case is closed, far as I’m concerned.
2. Sinjin chose the restorative. Otherwise, he would have announced the target for his truth serum thingy. There’s no other way he could have coordinated an investigation on his target.
3. Sinjin used the restorative. We were told as much. There is no reasonable target for the restorative other than the Pardoner, since nobody else who’s power is known can be 100% confirmed town.
4. Visorslash MUST pardon today’s target. If he doesn’t, scum will certainly kill arguably our strongest role power. There is no other reasonable play.

Therefore, I’m quite certain today’s lynch will be pardoned and confirmed as either town or scum.

You make good points here. I think that 1-3 are pretty much unarguable, even if they are not all absolutely confirmed.

The wild card in this is #4. There are two potential problems here.

First is that your opinion of what another player “must do” may be different from theirs. Just because it seems blindingly obvious to you doesn’t mean that everyone sees it the same way. Second, and probably more significant in this case, is that **Visorslash **happens to be preoccupied with personal business at the moment, so there is no guarantee that he will return in time to do anything.

[Alka_Seltzer]

Even if Visorslash has been recharged, there is no guarantee the lynch leader will be pardoned. As I read the role, The Pardoner has to target a specific player, and the power only works if they are the vote leader. Visor isn’t very active right now for very good reasons, so he could easily miss the opportunity. That was another reason I didn’t like the late lynch-wagon yesterDay.

sinjin also had other options. She could have recharged an investigator, thinking Visor was likely to be killed. If the investigator happened to be scum, they would have gained a power that would be useless to them, and be given the problem of having to fake a second claim. A living player would have had to confirm sinjin’s use of the restorative.

[Enderw24]

@Mosier

My problem with the above post is that you are claiming I said the exact opposite of what I actually said. What I said was that we can’t be careless today just because we’re pretty sure Visor can pardon the lynch.

Thing is, I’m not certain. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that Visor can pardon today’s lynch. That still doesn’t mean it’s a certainty he has that power, nor is it anywhere near a certainty that he’ll use his power today if he does have it.
My problem, and it wasn’t just with you Mosier, is that too many players were not only failing to analyse the probability of all 4 things occurring, they were acting as if the consideration didn’t even need to be made. Of course Town will pardon tonight’s lynch and of course it’s the correct thing to do! Now where’s that rope?

It’s really not that simple, and those glossing over the details are making me very suspicious.

[Suburban_Plankton]

Regarding the Visorslash/Pardoner issue, I think we can sum things up this way:

There are three questions we need to ask ourselves Today:

*Can *Visorslash pardon somebody Today?
*Should *Visorslash pardon somebody Today?
*Will *Visorslash pardon somebody Today?

At this point I think the answers are, respectively: “Probably”, “Maybe”, and “Who knows?”

So what we need to do Today is not select “the Player we want to Investigate”, or “the Player we want to confirm”, but rather “the Player we think is most likely to be Scum” . We need to approach Today the same as any other Day. If Visor uses his power to prevent the lynch, then we deal with the situation as it plays out, but we can’t afford to assume that he’s going to do anything. And we can’t afford to give anyone the excuse “I only voted for him because I wanted him to be ‘confirmed’ by Visorslash”.

[Snickers]

@Alka Seltzer

I think that’s unlikely, as it comes 3 minutes after his unvote of Ender, and in a consecutive post. If he was referring to Hal here, he never gave a reason for unvoting Ender at all.

So fubbleskag’s post 217 is a response to Ender’s reasoned, in no way explosive post 208? After fubbleskag said in post 187 that he intended to review his vote on Ender assuming Ender ever responded? I see fubbleskag’s unvote as being satisfied with Ender’s subsequent response (the aforementioned post 208) and his “are people with ‘this is bullshit’ responses town or scum” comment as a response to Hal’s kaboom (complete with italics) and not as any response to Ender. You disagree; we cool. You’re right in that he doesn’t give any reason for the unvote, he just does it.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Snickers

So fubbleskag’s post 217 is a response to Ender’s reasoned, in no way explosive post 208?

No, I think it’s a response to Ender’s post #130, which is his initial reaction to fubbleskag’s vote.

[Babale]

Additionally, you voted for me because you wants me “confirmed”, but Visorslash voted for me too. How do you know that HE doesn’t want me killed, and therefore will not pardon me? Assuming he even CAN? I think you know this, and are trying to get me killed. Thats understandable if you actually think I’m scum, but you claim you don’t. So which is it?

[MentalGuy]

@Hal_Briston

I can get behind this idea. He’s certainly pinged me, so I’m fine with the move. If he’s town, woohoo, getting another confirmed would be sweet. If he’s scum, then we have a no-brainer toMorrow. The only problem would be him turning up scum and then that no-brainer becoming a “no-discussioner”, but we can cross that bridge if we need to.

Vote Snickers

This vote seems very opportunistic to me. Obviously, I was voting for Snickers because I thought she was the most likely scum (pending my reread, which unfortunately, I have not completed yet). I would like to have Snickers either lynched or confirmed. But I was not advocating everyone just jump on her wagon. I still expected players to make their own cases or at least explain why they agreed with others. This vote has put Hal high up on my suspect list, especially if we find out that Snickers is Town.

@Snickers

Wow, that’s a crap vote. First off, both gnarlycharlie and MentalGuy are voting me for stale reasons - they haven’t built any sort of case on me beyond their D1 cases, which were weak then and are now moot anyway.

Why would my case be moot now? I voted for you for the specific way you reacted to an accusation against you. Nothing you do after that can change the way you reacted then. I am not the best player at finding scum, but on the times that I have found scum, it was often for one specific post where they did something that betrayed them.

@Enderw24

Right now, we are not 100% guaranteed that

1. Visorslash is the Pardoner
2. Sinjin chose the Restorative as his power
3. Sinjin used the Restorative on Visorslash
4. Visorslash, power now restored, will use his power on today’s lynch
   There are those advocating “hey everyone, go ahead and lynch whoever you want to. It’s all good!” No. It’s not all good. ALL FOUR of those need to be true and even then, it may not be good strategy. I find your assumptions to be really suspect and I’m wondering why you’re leading us down that path.

MentalGuy, Hal Briston, Mosier, I’m looking at you.

Maybe I should have explicitly stated this, but I was not advocating that players just lynch anyone. I still think they should vote for the players that they think are most likely scum. I agree that it is not 100% that Visorslash has another pardon (though I do think it the most likely case) and I would still like to see what other players think about each other.

@Suburban_Plankton

MentalGuy said “While reading and getting caught up on today’s play, though, I decided I was going to vote for Snickers. His response to Stanislaus just seems too focused on the wrong things, like he is trying to distract from the real issues that Stanislaus had with him.”

…

All of those are fine reasons for voting someone on Day 1. But they’re not all that great on Day 3. You’d think that something would have come up in 2+ days of play that would be worthy of comment over “I’ll go ahead and vote for the same guy yet again”.

I don’t understand why if I think something is indicative of scum on Day 1, why it would not still apply on Day 3. Yes, other players have said and done things, but on first read nothing has stuck out to me as much as that Day 1 response has. As I go back and review I might find something more suspicious, but if I don’t I have no problem sticking with a Day 1 action as the basis for my vote.

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Babale

The arguments against Hal are actually fairly convincing. I don’t like multivotes, so I will remove one before EoD, but to now, Vote Hal. The reason I didn’t pick up on this myself is that I haven’t been rereading the thread from day 1, so Hal’s about face wasn’t clear to me.

Exactly which arguments do you find convincing, and what “about face” are you referring to?

[Mosier]

@Babale

Additionally, you voted for me because you wants me “confirmed”, but Visorslash voted for me too. How do you know that HE doesn’t want me killed, and therefore will not pardon me? Assuming he even CAN? I think you know this, and are trying to get me killed. Thats understandable if you actually think I’m scum, but you claim you don’t. So which is it?

I have explained before exactly why I’m certain today’s lynch will be pardoned. In fact, I’m sure enough of it that if you aren’t the lynchee, I hope I am. Like I said before, I don’t have a positive scum lean on anyone, except you.

[Inner_Stickler]

Which is better, I wonder, to confirm a town player or expose a scum player but be unable to lynch them until the next day. Certainly the Shipman could vig them but still, that would resolve at the same time as the NK. I wish I could do the math.

[fubbleskag]

@Snickers

I’ve done a re-read through Alka Seltzer’s posts, and I’m not seeing the case on him. I do think he’s misreading fubbleskag’s post 217 - in my mind, fubbleskag wrote this as a response to Hal’s “goddamn, Snickers!” and not with Ender in mind at all.

@Alka_Seltzer

I think that’s unlikely, as it comes 3 minutes after his unvote of Ender, and in a consecutive post. If he was referring to Hal here, he never gave a reason for unvoting Ender at all.

@Snickers

So fubbleskag’s post 217 is a response to Ender’s reasoned, in no way explosive post 208? After fubbleskag said in post 187 that he intended to review his vote on Ender assuming Ender ever responded? I see fubbleskag’s unvote as being satisfied with Ender’s subsequent response (the aforementioned post 208) and his “are people with ‘this is bullshit’ responses town or scum” comment as a response to Hal’s kaboom (complete with italics) and not as any response to Ender. You disagree; we cool. You’re right in that he doesn’t give any reason for the unvote, he just does it.

@Alka_Seltzer

No, I think it’s a response to Ender’s post #130, which is his initial reaction to fubbleskag’s vote.

To be clear, my #217 was about Hal, not Ender. I did not explicitly state my reason for unvoting Ender, sorry for any genuine confusion that may have caused.

Alka’s case against me is wrong, and I’m not convinced it’s purposely so, but this last part of his exchange with snickers doesn’t make any sense to me…

[Babale]

@Mosier

I have explained before exactly why I’m certain today’s lynch will be pardoned. In fact, I’m sure enough of it that if you aren’t the lynchee, I hope I am. Like I said before, I don’t have a positive scum lean on anyone, except you.

Well, I’ve also explained why I’m concerned. Here is an incomplete list of reasons why the Pardoner may not Pardon today’s lynch:

1. We’re wrong about Visorslash being the Pardoner, or having his power back.
2. Visorslash is the Pardoner AND has his power back. However, he decides not to Pardon because he wants to trick the Scum into thinking his power is truly used up, so that he may whip it back out later.
3. Visorslash is the Pardoner and has his power back, but decides that the current lynch target isn’t worth the use of his power.
4. Visorslash is the Pardoner and has his power back, but due to his family death misses the deadline to turn in his vote.
5. Visorslash is the pardoner and has his power back, but forgets to use it.
6. Scum pick and use the Spear on Visorslash just before End of Day.
7. Scum have picked and used their power block item on Visorslash some time in the past, and he didn’t tell us about it/he doesn’t know about it.

There’s lots of other things that could go wrong. Maybe it’s LIKELY that nothing will go wrong; maybe it’s a 51% chance, for example. Do you think it’s a good idea to have a 49% chance of lynching someone who is Town?

Now, I understand what you’re saying about having a Scum lean on me. That makes sense. In that case, you should keep your vote on me. You’re totally wrong about me, but obviously me telling you that doesn’t mean anything, so you’re right to vote for whoever you think is Scummy. But don’t give me or anyone else BS about not REALLY wanting to kill me, because voting for a lynch is voting for a kill, however “likely” it is that I’ll just end up being Confirmed instead.

@Suburban_Plankton

Exactly which arguments do you find convincing, and what “about face” are you referring to?

Well, one of the arguments that convinced me was yours:

@Suburban_Plankton

But of all the votes on him Today, the one that really pings me is Hal’s.

First, if Snickers has pinged Hal, Hal has certainly never made that apparent. I can only find two posts all game where Hal even mentions Snickers, both back on Day 1: Post 210 where he is upset with Snickers’ mischaracterization of him, and his very next post, Post 245, where he apologizes for his reaction. Since that point, not a single mention of Snickers until now.

I was also not pinged by Snickers, and thought it odd that he has so many votes on him; but I really didn’t think much of it. Then, while reading your post, I realized that Hal claiming that Snickers had been pinging him while he’d never mentioned said ping before is odd. I went back and did my own fact check, and lo and behold, you were right: Hal really did mostly ignore Snickers until now. While I don’t feel quite as strongly about Hal as I do about Alka, I thought his behavior merited a vote, temporary or not. I’m still planning on reexamining both votes, mind you.

Alka has posted a bit since my vote, and didn’t seem overly Scummy, but Alka also didn’t make up for the ping I felt earlier. It’s still there, so I can’t remove that vote yet. Hal hasn’t posted at all, and that seems fairly Scummy.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@fubbleskag

To be clear, my #217 was about Hal, not Ender. I did not explicitly state my reason for unvoting Ender, sorry for any genuine confusion that may have caused.

OK, thanks for clearing that up. So why did you unvote Ender?

[Alka_Seltzer]

I’m going to claim. There are downsides to me doing so, but I’m vote leader and I want to speak more freely.

[QUOTE=storyteller0910]
Welcome to the game, you are The PhysicianIn all the world, there is no doctor of medicine more skilled and accomplished than you. Unfortunately, this still means a lot of leeches and astrology – the country where penicillin will be invented hasn’t even been invented yet - but when one has the plague one takes what one can get. Unfortunately, your current journey is a pilgrimage, not a business trip; you’ve left the majority of your tools at home. You have room enough in your pack for exactly one item to carry with you on the trip to Canterbury; during Night Zero, you will choose which of the following two to bring along. Thereafter, you may use the item at your discretion.

*(1) Emergency Kit: If you choose to bring along this item, once per game you will have the option to provide medical attention to any TWO players of your choice, protecting them from harm. Only poison (see Scum Tools) can circumvent this protection, though you yourself can always be blocked.

(2) Antivenom: If you administer this serum to any player, (s)he will be immune to death by poison (see Scum Tools). You may dose a player with this even after (s)he has already been poisoned, and if you do, the poison will not harm him or her.

NOTE: Whether you choose to bring along the antivenom or not, as long as you are alive you will see the signs at Dawn if any player is poisoned in the Night.*
[/QUOTE]

(You get the nice formatting by replying to the PM, then cutting and pasting it).

I chose the Emergency Kit. The Antivenom is superficially the more powerful item, but the scum have a simple strategy to defeat it - hold off using the Asp’s Venom until The Physician is dead. And if they were concerned about The Physician, they might not even choose the venom. The Emergency Kit is a better fit for my playstyle, be active and try to make myself a target.

On Night 1, I deployed my power, with surgical precisions (since this is Middle Ages medicine, to within an inch or two, accompanied by a lot of screaming, and then they pour hot tar where your leg was.***)

[QUOTE=storyteller0910]

[QUOTE=Alka Seltzer]
Actually, scratch that please.

Given that Visorslash is confirmed and he’d be a perfect target for The Canon to use The Restorative on, I’d like to protect Visorslash. This is a bit conservative (the scum probably won’t target him because of deathtrap\watcher issues), but it would give us the chance to semi-confirm The Canon if Visorslash gets his power re-charged, and ensures The Pardoner gets another shot. I might also get semi-confirmed if a watcher looks at Visorslash and he doesn’t die.

Reading the rules again, I’m not sure if I have two protections available, or if I have to use both on the same night.

If I have two protects I can use at any time, I’d like to protect Visorslash and save the second. If I have to use both protects in a single night, I’ll protect Visorslash and myself.

Alka.

[QUOTE=Alka Seltzer]
I’d like to self-protect tonight please. I just hope I’m being enough of a nuisance to the scum side for them to consider me a threat. If any of them are town, fubbleskag’s unvote, Suburban Plankton’s attack and immediate u-turn and gnarlycharlie putting me on a list of players less likely to be scum should have caught their attention.

Alka.
[/QUOTE]

[/QUOTE]

Your power did indeed require you to protect two players on the same Night. You used it as requested to protect yourself and Visorslash, and you now have no power remaining.
[/QUOTE]

I changed my mind over what to do after hearing From **MHaye **and **Enderw24 **that **Visorslash **was indeed 100% confirmed, and after reading Hal Briston’s post about how if Visor claimed The Canon might be able to use The Restorative on him.

There is a good chance my double protect is the reason for the kill-less night. I’m guessing no town blockers acted, as they would have claimed by now with their target, and they would have been worried about hitting investigators (in this setup, even that could have worked to our advantage, if we knew The Momento was out of play). Obviously, I don’t know if any other protectors were active, and they probably shouldn’t claim at this point. The scum choosing no-kill is unlikely but can’t be completely ruled out.

Notice that my PM also explicitly says “and you now have no power remaining”. There are now 5 claims on the table, 2 with this and 3 without. As I said earlier, moderator inconsistancy is quite likely. If you’re voting for gnarlycharlie on the basis of this, you should think again. If you have other reasons, then fine.

** - Shamelessly stolen from Terry Pratchett.*

I’m not sure if any of the votes against me are scum motivated. I don’t particularly enjoy prodding players, but the gamestate demands it. Town can only win if scum are put under pressure, and forced to make decisions.

[Alka_Seltzer]

A few observations on players.

Inner Stickler - No actual content posted since he was nearly lynched for active lurking yesterDay.

fubbleskag - Not sure what to make of his response right now.

Stanislaus - Played a very good first couple Days, but the voting spree toDay makes me a bit twitchy.

MHaye - Slight scum lean. Some good posts, but only seems to produce anything when under pressure. Unlikely to be a scum partner with Ender, as the position he took against Mosier would give Ender a problem when claiming.

Snickers - Made a good point about the players still hanging on their Day 1 cases against her. It’s natural that they would remain suspicious, but the important question is, are they looking elsewhere?

[storyteller0910]

VOTE COUNT - Wednesday, 7-11

Alka Seltzer (4 votes) - Stanislaus (510), Tengu (515), Mahaloth (517), Babale (526)

Snickers (3 votes) - gnarlycharly (499), MentalGuy (507), Hal Briston (513)

Babale (3 votes) - Stanislaus (483), Visorslash (490), Mosier (522)

gnarlycharly (2 votes) - Stanislaus (483), Snickers (541)

fubbleskag (2 votes) - Alka Seltzer (489), Visorslash (490)

KellyCriterion (2 votes) - fubbleskah (491), Enderw24 (493)

Hal Briston (2 votes) - Suburban Plankton (536), Babale (539)

Inner Stickler (1 vote) - fubbleskag (491)

Mahaloth (1 vote) - Enderw24 (493)

---

Day Three will end between 1 and 5 PM Eastern tomorrow (Thursday, July 12). At the moment, it appears to be anyone’s hanging.