MAFIA: The Road to Canterbury - Game Thread

[gnarlycharlie]

i’m following the logic for Suburban claiming to be the Prioress. i’m wondering why the Prioress though. there were a number of unclaimed roles. did scum plan to NK whoever counterclaimed? IIRC, the Prioress could self protect. it leads me to believe that the Bloody Spear is in play.

if someone other than Stanislaus claimed Prioress i would be still suspicious of him. but because it’s unlikely that Mhaye is lying, and Stanislaus was investigated as non-scum, i believe the latter is town. if that is the case though, it does not say anything about the former’s alignment.

[Astral_Rejection]

Here’s the thing. If Stanislaus was scum, and MHaye was scum, and Suburban was scum all together, Stanislaus would have IMMEDIATELY counter-claimed Subs. We lynch Subs, Stanislaus gets the biggest mountain of town cred ever, and he and MHaye coast their way to victory while town mislynches over and over. Be honest, we wouldn’t consider those two again for the rest of the game.

There’s no reason for scum NOT to counterclaim each other in that circumstance. From their perspective, Subs was undeniably going down. There wasn’t even a glimmer of hope, despite what Suburban said in his dying post. Stanislaus is one of our best mafia players. If he was scum, there’s no way he wouldn’t realize staying silent would draw heat.

Besides, if they were all scum, what’s the point of false claiming if you aren’t after the pot of town cred for busting it?

There’s still the outside possibility that MHaye is scum, but I’m willing to let him slide for now as well. He’s been pretty far off my radar.

Also, for now I’d like to Unvote Hal Briston. Saw the bit about him counting against the scum win condition. That’s something we need right now. I think we have three mislynches then? I think it would be best if he didn’t use his kill toNight, though. He could confirm scum, but I think if he hits town, we’re back to two mislynches.

[Astral_Rejection]

You know, I’m not 100% on that last bit. Could somebody do the math for me real quick? I’m supposed to be looking busy at work right now.

[RyJae]

What are the drawbacks to lynching MHaye, (only if Visor has his power of course) No matter the outcome of his alignment the game just got easier.

I am an advocate of if he has the power to use it not on just any lynch candidate but only on someone like that who can sorta confirm someone else. So either way it is a plus town.

tldr I wouldn’t want him to use it on Babale, myself, Ender anyone else since that would only confirm one person, if you get what I mean.

[Astral_Rejection]

The only drawback I can think of is that we haven’t hunted scum with our lynch votes, even if MHaye turns out to be scum.

What I mean by that is that the vote record will be useless. If everybody just agrees to vote for MHaye, regardless of how we feel about him, the votes will shed no light on who else might be scum. However, confirming two players might outweigh this.

Besides, do we know if Visor can re-use his power? This might be a moot conversation if he can’t.

[Hal_Briston]

Quick hit as I’m just skimming the past few hours of posts while I have a minute (more through reread tomorrow), but I won’t be hitting anyone tonight. I’m looking to hit scum with my remaining kill, and scum are protected tonight.

[Stanislaus]

@Enderw24

1. If Prioress were Town, Suburban would be taking the Hail Mary of claims. I mean, he’d have to know someone would stand up and say “yeaaaaah, no. He’s lying. I’m Prioress.” And if we trusted the second claim (which we almost certainly would have with you), it wouldn’t have helped Suburban at all. But if Prioress is scum, now Suburban’s got a chance of making his claim work.

What chance? Seriously, what were the chances that a simple role-claim would get him off the lynch? We’ve had this discussion since Day One - role claims have no evidentiary value whatsoever. As you could see - nobody went for it.

2. Scum may not have the bloody spear.

But on the other hand, they may.

I don’t understand what point you’re making here. Yes, there was uncertainty about the spear. Given that, I decided to play safe. You suggest that you might have gambled. Fine. So what?

3. Even if scum did have the bloody spear, there’s no reason to specifically target self-protective roles like Prioress above any other player, especially when the Prioress may have already used its power! Seriously, think about it. Even if scum knew you were Prioress they still don’t have no way of knowing whether your power is active or not. So, again, why target you?

Because they have no way of knowing whether my power is active or not.

Suburban had to claim a healing role in order to explain why he wasn’t dead from Hal’s kill. He may have picked Prioress at random, or had a more specific reason. Regardless, the necessity of that claim created a potential silver lining - the chance to draw out a protective role. I decided I wasn’t going to offer that opportunity up.

[quote]
4) So Suburban the scum is on a runaway vote. He’s going to get lynched. He has the bloody spear. He really really really wants to target the Prioress. All this follows from your line of reasoning. And he knows that there are four players left unclaimed. So why didn’t he use the bloody spear yesterday?

[quote]

Maybe he didn’t have it to use. It’s easy to say that now that we know it wasn’t used. At the time of course, we lacked that knowledge and that’s the basis on which I was operating.

Seriously. Let’s look through this all. You sit there quietly while he claims your role. You do this because you say you didn’t want to get impaled by the bloody spear. But there’s no proof that scum has the bloody spear and there’s no proof that scum would target the Prioress above anyone else. But if scum wanted to, he’d have like a 1/4 or 1/3 chance of hitting Prioress just by guessing.

I know there’s no proof! Of course there’s no proof. But given the complete lack of proof one way or the other I had to make a decision.

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that it was the right decision. Suburban got lynched. And yes, I was annoying the hell out of my wife by checking the vote count a lot, so that if Suburban started losing votes I could claim. But as he didn’t, I didn’t. Result of my decision: SP still got lynched. I didn’t put myself at risk of the Spear. Scum didn’t get a read on a healing role.

Of course now, we’re all out. For reasons that still, frankly, escape me. To wit:

Look, if you’re scum, I’m assuming that Suburban probably did his claim without discussing it with any other Scum and you’re scrambling to come up with a retroactive rationale that makes some kind of sense. But unfortunately it doesn’t.

Why would you make such as assumption. Scum had real-life days to strategise around SP’s lynch. What makes you think they didn’t discuss a claim? And if they did - which they did - then they would very quickly have seen the flaws in stripping a team mate of their claim.

I’ve been holding off voting for you, even after your weird vote against fub a few days ago, simply because it seemed so improbable. It still does. Look, we know Fub was town and he said you’re not scum. So the only way for you to be scum is if both you and MHaye are scum, someone picked the Cloak, you’ve used the Cloak on yourself, you were then chosen by a Townie to be investigated, and MHaye could come in to corroborate the truthfulness of Fub (and gnarly’s) result.

That seems just so improbable. Not impossible. but improbable. Which is why I’ve held off for so long. But I guess now I’m looking for a better explanation.

Which is?

As you say, it’s very unlikely that I’m scum. But you think that’s more likely than my deciding not to risk the Bloody Spear. Really? You think it’s more likely that scum didn’t discuss how to handle Suburban’s need to claim? And that I’d go along with that plan, even as it became clear that the claim itself hadn’t actually helped Suburban?

[Stanislaus]

Looking at Ender:

This has been mentioned before -

@Enderw24

I’m back from vacation. Huzzah.

Interesting non-turn of events. There are three possibilities on what happened that immediately occur to me, though they’ve already been brought up by previous posters.

What I find really interesting is how on D1, everyone was telling all three investigators “for God’s sake, investigate on N1!”
Now D2 dawns and the build up seems to be “For God’s sakes investigators, don’t tell anyone about your investigations on N1!”

• but here was the follow up:

@Enderw24

Well I haven’t done an analysis of who said what when , but I think we’d find something revealing if we look at those who advocated for all investigators to investigate N1 and compare it to those who are now advocating that investigators not say anything.

For instance, if you’re currently advocating that investigators not reveal themselves and on D1 your position was for investigators to not investigate (either all of them or any of them), that shows a pattern of wanting town to remain in the dark.

If, if, if. Ender never went back to find out what patterns were there. It makes this seem more like mud-flinging than an honest attempt to find Town.

This:

@Enderw24

Thanks for this role claim. I have nothing to claim of my own, though I’m inclined to support your claim. I think Stanislaus is Town.

was Ender’s response to fubbles’ claim. A response which manages to snuggle two Town players at once, pretty much baselessly.

Then the vote on TexCat - a vote which helped save Inner:

@Enderw24

I’ve been suspicious of TexCat since before my post in 350. I think my concerns haven’t been adequately addressed. In fact, if anything, more evidence has arisen to highten my suspicion.

1. For the second day in a row, there’s a good possibility TexCat will end the day with multiple votes. This time for both gnarlycharlie and Inner Stickler
2. Inner Stickler’s vote looks like Tex is just voting for the second highest vote getter in order to force a tie.
3. Both Inner Stickler and TexCat voted for each other. Now, there’s a possibility that both are scum and are trying to go for a no-lynch but this seems risky than other options that wouldn’t increase either of their vote counts. A more likely scenario is that only one of them is scum and if that’s the case I choose Tex.
4. Visor, the only 100% confirmed town, selected Tex right from the start. Even with no explanation, this alone should be of value.
5. TexCat’s vote of Inner didn’t come with any good explanation other than, as I said before, bandwagon jumping.
6. The accusations Tex made concerning others, gnarly in particular, seem weak.

Obviously some are more substantial reasons than others. But on the whole I’m convinced that **TexCat **needs to go.

2. and 5) are the same point. 4) is meaningless. 6) is unsubstantiated. 1) is based on what might be the case in the future. 3) Ignores the possibility that both are town - a possibility that was in fact not the case.

This smacks of post-hoc rationalisation, padded to look better than it is.
vote Ender

[Visorslash]

@ Hal

Sounds good then.

[COLOR=“Red”]Unvote; Vote: Ender[/COLOR]

[Visorslash]

I’m finding it harder to believe that Stan and MHaye is scum. I refuse to discount it, but its not likely IMO.

I really want to lynch RyJae as well, will take a look at his recent post and reply.

[Visorslash]

@RyJae

Have you ever played this game, or anything similar? I only ask because that right there makes it seem like you have not. Scum do not tend to defend one another, it almost makes it like a clique that town can quickly and easily win using as soon as one scum is offed. Seriously, just because you’re confirmed town, does not make you more knowledgeable than the rest of us. The only thing we have going for us with you being confirmed is we know you have no ulterior motives.
As for the Stan being pretty much confirmed, please do not spread that. It is completely false. Unless I am mistaken, this is based on supermans er Hals word that the cloak isn’t in play. I admit that bigger fish are left to fry though, I just don’t think saying that helps town in any way.

 I don't like Babale not using their power yet, that is odd, considering the suspicions they where gathering in the past. As a town they probably should have used it quickly to avoid the loss of a power if they where town and got mislynched.  I am trying to think through the brain of Babale and after I read some more I will make my vote for whomever I find to be the scummiest other than my gnarly friend. Who I am already quite certain is a scum.

Ah, found it. You certainly seem a bit cranky. The roll eyes smiley would normally be appropriate here, but for the sake of civility, I’ll leave it out. Yes I have played this game before. I haven’t played that many games, but I’ve played around 50. Scum do not tend to defend each other? I call bullcrap on that one. In games where I’ve been scum, and when others have been scum, I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, and it does work sometimes. Your point is completely invalid. One scum fair enough, but two is seriously pushing the boundaries as believable. Stan is a lot more confirmed then you.

Your last sentence says that you think gnarly is scum, yet you want to vote for someone else? That’s a bit weird.

Honestly, if I could turn all the votes onto you, it’d be good for the town.

[Visorslash]

Vote: RyJae

[MHaye]

On lynching me.

The advantage to Town of lynching me, and one that I have been aware of since the game started, is that when I die my alignment is revealed in a way everyone can trust; thus you would know that you can trust my claim. In the specific circumstances we have here, that would confirm Stanislaus as town in everyone’s minds - which means the Brotherhood probably won’t want to kill me until after Stan is dead.

On the gamestate - we currently have ten living players (if I’ve counted right). That means we split 8 - 2, and six of us need to die in order to hand the Brotherhood the victory.

On Hal.
When I first read his claim, my reaction was “He’s lying.” It seemed to me that Hal was claiming that his role involved a contradiction of the rules.

Having gone back and actually read the claim and rules side-by-side, I realised that my initial reaction was unfounded. In my new-found objectivity, I reviewed the rules and wincons again, and realised that the Town wincon only cares about the Town eliminating the Brotherhood. So Hal’s claim moves into plausible territory.

Since then a kill that doesn’t fit with the colour of any known tool or role has occurred, so I’m inclined to move him into a more trusted category. Also, Storyteller didn’t include any reference to “threat to Town” in the Town wincon - we have to eliminate the Brotherhood. So there’s no winstealing PFK in this game. So, I’m not voting for Hal in the immediate future. Time enough to deal with him later if he shows signs of backstabbing us.

That leaves me with placing a vote on one of the other six; Astral Rejection, Babale, Ender, gnarlycharlie, Mental Guy or RyJae. I’m going to look at some or all of them before voting, starting in a few hours - I do have rl obligations to attend to.

[MHaye]

I appear to have left out a thought re lynching me.

Evaluation of whether it is worth lynching me to confirm my role should assume that I will actually be killed, rather than expecting the Pardoner has another use of his power available. Thus, look at the gamestate assuming I am lynched (2 Brotherhood vs 7 Town, two confirmed), compared with 2 vs 7 with one confirmed and a usable Vote record from Today (making the worst-case assumption that we mislynch), and ask yourself if it’s worth giving up hunting the killers for the difference.

[RyJae]

@Visorslash

Ah, found it. You certainly seem a bit cranky. The roll eyes smiley would normally be appropriate here, but for the sake of civility, I’ll leave it out. Yes I have played this game before. I haven’t played that many games, but I’ve played around 50. Scum do not tend to defend each other? I call bullcrap on that one. In games where I’ve been scum, and when others have been scum, I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, and it does work sometimes. Your point is completely invalid. One scum fair enough, but two is seriously pushing the boundaries as believable. Stan is a lot more confirmed then you.

Your last sentence says that you think gnarly is scum, yet you want to vote for someone else? That’s a bit weird.

Honestly, if I could turn all the votes onto you, it’d be good for the town.

Civility? Now we want to use it

As for not voting for gnarly why would I make the same vote that gets nothing accomplished? I have pointed out why I do not do that. To make it easier I will say so again, when I die and turn up town people will have more to go on if I do not just hammer on ol’ gnarly. They won’t have to think I have ulterior motives, and can possibly read the same things I did in the same manner and see the possible slips, mistakes.

The best way I can “prove” I am not scum is actually by being a sub, Alka did not leave for any reason other than lack of other players involvement he never stopped posting here. A scum loves a disinterested town.

[Hal_Briston]

Back at work, which is “catch up” time. First up, current vote chart:

Enderw24 (3 Votes) - [del]Visorslash[/del] (920-939), [del]Astral Rejection[/del] (953-969), [del]Babale[/del] (957-962), MentalGuy (959), Stanislaus (988), Visorslash (989)

MHaye (2 Votes) - [del]Visorslash[/del] (967-989), Hal Briston (968), Enderw24 (971)

Hal Briston (1 Vote) - [del]Astral Rejection[/del] (908-982), Babale (934)

Stanislaus (1 Vote) - Enderw24 (971)

RyJae (1 Vote) - Visorslash (992)

Babale (0 Votes) - [del]Visorslash[/del] (939-967)

[Hal_Briston]

Updated Player List w/claimed roles and actions

Claimed
5. gnarlycharly - Friar - investigated Stanislaus N1 - result: S is non-scum
6. [del]Alka Seltzer[/del] RyJae - Physician - protected self & visor N1 - no kill?
11. Enderw24 - Nun’s Priest - watched Visor N2 - no activity
18. MHaye - Clerk - checked Cloak N1 - Cloak not in play
19. Hal Briston - Chaucer - gained Shipman power - attempted NK on SP N4 (SP lived) - killed Mahaloth N5
4. Babale - Monk - power unused
9. MentalGuy - Cook - attempted to block Snickers N2
12. [del]Tengu[/del] (now known as Kamino Neko), replaced by Astral Rejection - Merchant
3. Stanislaus - Prioress (investigated as non-scum by fubbleskag, while MHaye says the Cloak of Lies is not in play)

For All Intents and Purposes, Claimed
13. Visorslash - Pardoner -Pardoned self D1

Dead
**7. Texcat - Miller - died with power unused
10. sinjin - Canon - used potion - presumed Restorative, presumed on visor
14. fubbleskag - Man of Law - investigated Stanislaus N1 - S reported non-scum
17. Snickers - Knight - used action - presumably drew attack
16. KellyCriterion - Shipman - power unused - apparently claimed by Hal
15. Mosier - Summoner/Seraph - watched SP N1 - no activity. Watched Babale N4

1. Mahaloth - Squire - presumably killed Inner Stickler N5 - killed by Hal N5
2. Suburban Plankton - Reeve (claimed Prioress) - didn’t die N4 (despite claimed but unverified attack)
3. Inner Stickler - Parson
   **

[Astral_Rejection]

One of the things I love about my vote chart is that you can visualize patterns very easily. It gives you a sense of the flow of voting. Something about Enderw24’s votes jumped out at me as I was checking his history.

Day 1, he had an early vote in for Snickers, which he later switched to lynch leader Visorslash.

Day 2, he had an early vote in for Snickers, which he later switched to lynch leader TexCat.

Day 3, he gets an early vote for Mahaloth and KellyCriterion, and late in the day, in fact the last vote activity of the Day, he unvotes Mahaloth. Interestingly, this is the Day Snickers gets night killed.

Day 4, he doesn’t vote until late in the Day, where he piles onto KellyCriterion.

Day 5, he doesn’t vote until late in the day, where he voted for gnarlycharlie.

So, here’s what I’m seeing, based solely on this pattern. I’m completely and utterly ignoring his stated reasons for voting or unvoting in most of these cases; that’s something I’ll consider later when I’m not on my phone. Right now, I’m just interested in the pattern.

Day 1 & 2, he gets an early vote in. Then, late in the day, he settles into the lynch leader.

Day 3, he gets his early votes in, but unvotes one of them right before Day end. Neither are the lynch leader, so why the unvote? If you disagree with the lynch, your goal is to show us where we went wrong, where you think we should be looking. An unvote right before the Day ends makes it look like you don’t want that vote to show up on an official Day end vote count.

Day 4 &5, his pattern changes. No more early votes. No more switches. That change by itself is interesting, but (again, without looking at his states reasoning) it seems very suspicious to me that he was late to his own target. He unvoted Mahaloth the Day before to show how suspicious he thought KellyCriterion was. So, now that we’re lynching KellyCriterion, he jumps on board late?

I have little to say about him avoiding the Suburban train. Normally I’d assign a tiny bit of town cred for that, but it doesn’t outweigh the rest of his suspicious activity.

Vote Enderw24

I’ve expressed suspicion of him before, others have interesting cases, and I’m just about positive this is who I want lynched toDay. Later today, I’ll re-read the votes I’m calling out to make sure I haven’t missed something crucial.

[Hal_Briston]

Some points on a catch-up reading:
Re: Ender’s use of PM for communication:

I thought it very strange, since it’s generally verbotten, but when I saw that it was done, my first thought was the same that he posted here – that storyteller’s “no restrictions” edict must extended to PMs between players.

Minor point, but I wanted to put it out there.

---

@RyJae

Unless I am mistaken, this is based on supermans er Hals word that the cloak isn’t in play.

The fact that I had nothing to do with the claim of the cloak not being in play aside, I feel the need to mention this:

God damn, do I hate lines like that. It’s like when you see nutbags make comments about “Osama OOPS I mean Obama”. Nothing in-game regarding that…just chaps my hide a bit.

---

@storyteller0910

THE VOICE FROM THE SKY OR POSSIBLY A NEARBY LOUDSPEAKER ACCEPTS YOUR CONTRITION. AS PENANCE, HOWEVER, YOUR DUCK WILL BE CONFISCATED.

Well, there goes my idea of trying to nightkill the duck.

---

@MentalGuy

Can you give your reasoning for being fairly certain there is scum in that group? Why are gnarlycharlie, Ryjae, and Enderw24 excluded?

Because at the time, “that group” (Babale, MentalGuy, Astral Rejection and Stanislaus) were the four who had not yet claimed.

---

@MHaye

On lynching me.

The advantage to Town of lynching me, and one that I have been aware of since the game started, is that when I die my alignment is revealed in a way everyone can trust; thus you would know that you can trust my claim. In the specific circumstances we have here, that would confirm Stanislaus as town in everyone’s minds - which means the Brotherhood probably won’t want to kill me until after Stan is dead.

That’s all fine, but one thing I’m coming away uncertain about: Are you ok with your own lynch as a pro-town information discovery move?

@MHaye

On Hal.
When I first read his claim, my reaction was “He’s lying.” It seemed to me that Hal was claiming that his role involved a contradiction of the rules.

Having gone back and actually read the claim and rules side-by-side, I realised that my initial reaction was unfounded. In my new-found objectivity, I reviewed the rules and wincons again, and realised that the Town wincon only cares about the Town eliminating the Brotherhood. So Hal’s claim moves into plausible territory.

Since then a kill that doesn’t fit with the colour of any known tool or role has occurred, so I’m inclined to move him into a more trusted category. Also, Storyteller didn’t include any reference to “threat to Town” in the Town wincon - we have to eliminate the Brotherhood. So there’s no winstealing PFK in this game. So, I’m not voting for Hal in the immediate future. Time enough to deal with him later if he shows signs of backstabbing us.

You, sir, are a goddamn genius.

---

@RyJae

The best way I can “prove” I am not scum is actually by being a sub, Alka did not leave for any reason other than lack of other players involvement he never stopped posting here. A scum loves a disinterested town.

Ohhhh, nononono…I don’t like metagaming, but that won’t fly. I’ve been keeping soft track of subs over the last couple of games I’ve been in, and one thing is clear: Scum sub out way more often than town.

I try not to let that get in the way of critical thinking when I’m playing, but a defense of “I’m town because I’m a sub” won’t fly.

[Astral_Rejection]

I’m town because I su…

(sees post above)

/innocent whistle