You know, it would be hilarious if the secret role were the Autolycus, and the person who drew it had to TRY to get themselves lynched 
Depends.
Therefore: he can throw posts the Oracle’s way all Day long.
Actually, a “random vote” might be an excellent strategy.
'nuff said.
I’m going to agree here that the non-believers are basically a non-factor as Diggit said. Your basic vanilla non-believer is the same role as a believer. The Alchemist doesn’t seem to have much power. He doesn’t even block reliably. Maybe he can use his “scientific knowledge” to make liquor for us instead of gold since this seems to be a dry town. (Harumph!) The Psychopath will only be activated if targeted. A 1 in 30 chance right now, so I’m not worried about him right now either. Their best strategy would seem to be to play as vanilla town and go for a town win. For some reason I was under the impression that there would be as many vanilla non-believers as believers. I see that others don’t think so.
This isn’t really the post I wanted to quote, but I was having a hard time finding the exact post I wanted (not that I looked all that hard).
First off, I am going to go out on a limb and defend Mad here. I don’t think he was being inconsistant. It doesn’t look good that he got his facts wrong, but I am not getting a strong scum vibe off that particular mistake.
And I just finished a re read, and he is right. CJ’s initial post is super scummy. I agree that even with the exception, saying that “no one looks too scummy to me right now” is a big tell. But on top of that CJ’s first post has not only the one scum tell that Mad already pointed out, it also has the “awe shucks” technique being employed. A second scum tell.
This isn’t enough to hang him (dunk him), but it is enough for him to get my vote for now.
Vote Clockwork Jackle
I am unable to make the connection between the Apprentice knowing who the Oracle is, and the idea of a random vote being a good idea. 
It wasn’t the mistake, but the over-reaction that made me initially suspicious. Clockwork Jackal didn’t even properly point a FOS, but Mad accused him of revenge voting and put in a vote himself.
The only thing that’s keeping me from casting a vote for Mad at this point is that Clockwork Jackal’s first post IS actually suspicious; especially the way he half-heartedly nitpicks at Zeriel’s use of pronouns. I withhold judgement, however, until he comes back to defend himself.
That makes sense. I guess I am just used to that being Mad’s playstyle, because it didn’t even register as an over reaction to me. Just struck me as Mad being Mad. Weird, I didn’t realize I was doing that. It is surprisingly hard not to bring history of past games (good and bad) into this.
Something to watch out for I guess.
Holy Nairu, people. I step away from my desk for a couple of hours, and y’all decide to snort all of the SDMB hamsters’ meth.
About the investigative strategy…
How about they both randomly select targets until either consensus deems otherwise, or either of them decide to rogue because they’re sick of our collective deafening “guidance”?
I didn’t read anything in the rules about this being a dry town. I think Hal Briston just made that up…maybe because he’s afraid of liquids…afraid of liquids…hummmmm .
looks at Hal suspiciously
Well, here’s one possible scenario under which it would be problematic; it is far-fetched, and I am emphatically not saying I think this is what’s happening, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
Hypothesize that sachertorte is scum. Unknownst to us, but knownst to him, the random distribution of scum just happened to place all of the Cultists, with the exception of the Prophet, among players 16-30. We follow his plan. The Oracle is now completely hamstrung - (s)he’ll never get a scum reading, even if (s)he survives 15 days. The Apprentice might, but we’ll be disinclined to lynch anyone on the Apprentice’s say-so alone, and there’s a very good chance of a few players incorrectly cleared. Bada bing, bada boom, bada our investigators are essentially worthless.
But that’s only part of the problem.
The way I see it, this game is entirely about information. At the outset of the game, the scum collectively have a lot of it and the town collectively has virtually none. That’s the point of the game - can the scum leverage their superior information to overcome our superior numbers? The way to maximize our chances is to make sure that the scum gets as little additional information as humanly possible. What information can we keep out of their hands? Well, ideally, the identity of the power roles, of course. But also the way the power roles will act. By “directing” the power roles in their night activities, we’re taking away one of the few secrets we collectively still have. In M2, one of the best things that happened to us (the Mafia in that game) was when the town decided to put the Vigilante on a leash. Before that, the Vig was a wild-card, an unknown quantity to us - we had no idea what he’d do from night to night, and therefore no way to adapt our strategy. Once the town leashed him, they handed us precious information about how he would behave, who he would kill, on a platter.
FOR THE RECORD: I believe that the power roles should act independently, following their own noses and their own hunches. Don’t give the Cultists more information about their activities than they have already (or give the Cultists a chance to help guide the pro-town power roles during the Day, which they most surely have if we keep giving them direction.
Furthermore, all of this talk about the power roles is a huge, huge mistake IMO. First of all: we’re sitting here talking about how the Oracle can find the Apprentice, blah blah blah; power roles have tells, too, and the scum will be looking for them as eagerly as we’re looking for scum tells. Look at what we’re doing right now: discussing the Apprentice in detail, giving him or her a chance to slip up and show his or her hand, instead of talking about who might be scum, and giving the scum chances to slip up. This is a horrible plan, because it clouds the discussion and benefits no one but the bad guys.
And on that note: by all that is holy, if we start spending forty percent of our Days generating page after page of posts analyzing the math associated with the Apprentice, I will lose it. It does not matter even a little bit if the Apprentice has a 53% chance of being right or a 65% chance of being right. Battling about minutiae like that will waste a lot of time and words, and it misses the point of the role. The Apprentice, like the Beat Cop in M2, is most useful as partial, not complete evidence. If a player comes up scum on an Apprentice reading, our best bet is probably to lynch that player, particularly if it’s early in the game; we have a much poorer than 50% shot of nailing scum at this stage left to our own devices. At the moment, a reading of town from the Apprentice should probably not mean much. Later in the game, think of a scum reading as having exactly the same weight as a “scum tell;” it’s not definitive, but it can be added to a case in the presence of other evidence.
Now, please, please, please, can we start talking about who might be scum instead of about how the Oracle can find the Apprentice, or what have you?
Pretty please?
Why? Seriously, why? Do you feel you should be above suspicion?
Yes. And if you were scum you would have done exactly the same thing. "acknowledged your mistake - " but left your vote to stand.
Of course it does! It’s not as though you said, “I like turnips,” and he turned that into your saying, “Britney Spears is the most talented singer in the world.” You said that talking about the composition of the game is a scum tell - something scum would do. It is perfectly reasonable to infer from this that you think talking about the composition of the game is not something the town should be doing. Why else throw out a remark that is bound to chill discussion of that issue (no one wants to exhibit a “scum tell”)? And if you don’t think it is something we should be doing, it is perfectly reasonable to further infer that you think the subject is not valuable. Which is what CJ said. And obviously his inference wasn’t so unreasonable, because it was correct. Flimsy.
“Scum tells are not gonna be by the book?” The only reason for anyone to think of this as a scum tell is because you’re citing a (virtual) book as your source. If you’d care to make an actual argument as to why what CJ said was a scum tell, have at it, but if you’re going to use the book as the only basis for your vote, best not to complain when someone points out that you’re not really adhering to the book.
Because I’ll hazard a guess as to why saying “no one looks scummy” is often seen as a scum tell - because saying that is so plainly an effort to avoid alienating another player. It’s my “making friends” theory of Being Effective Scum; tell all the townies they look like townies and they’ll trust you. What CJ did - no one looks scummy except Hal - is not just “one little thing;” it’s fundamentally different, in that it DOES express suspicion of someone. Not indicative of towniness on CJ’s part, but not the same as the scum tell you are citing.
If you insist.
Next topic on the menu: What is the “secret role” all about? Do you think Autolycus got it? How can we find out what it is all about?..
d&r
Snipped.
What makes you so sure of these numbers? I’m curious.
What a wonderfully fluffy post. I can’t honestly say that I’ve contributed much towards actually finding scum, but I think this type of post by SnakesCatLady is the type of post we should try and avoid. It feels to me like someone trying to fly under the radar, but not willing to not post at all. The fluff post isn’t even followed by a post of substance. FOS SnakesCatLady
storyteller makes a good point about my possibly choosing which half to send the Oracle on a wild goose chase, but to that I would say two things support my theory:1) Blaster said the roles were assigned randomly, the probability of the set 1-15 having no cultists is quite small. 2) The oracle confirming town is not a waste. M1 was won by the overpowering number of confirmed town in the game.
In summary, I would like the Oracle and Apprentice to choose for themselves what they want to do. They don’t have to follow the plan. Look at the arguments, pros, cons, and make the decision for yourself.
storyteller is also correct in pointing out that we’re getting a bit off track, and I apologize. Like I said, I love analyzing games and talking about theories and strategies. It’s going to be hard to keep that under control for me, because I find it fun. And ultimately this exercise is for fun. But to put things on a better track, I reiterate my FOS SnakesCatLady.
Um, ok…so why bring it up in the first place? Are you at least backing away from the idea of random.org, because I gotta say, you still haven’t addressed my points as to why I think that’s a phenomenally bad idea that can only, only benefit scum.
You know what I don’t need? You know what that is? I’ll tell you what I don’t need. A Day One smackdown between Mad and storyteller, because I am absolutely terrified about backing one horse at the expense of the other when it comes down to those two. My biggest concern is that one reason Mad is voting for CJ is because
but when it’s pointed out that Mad said CJ said something CJ did not say, Mad dismisses it with
and
as if that just makes it go away. If it’s enough to dunk CJ…?
Because there are three Non-Believer roles and seven Believer roles.
Hey, I don’t mind fluffy posts. They keep the game somewhat more lighthearted. Plus, Hal’s assertion that this is a dry town concerns me as well. Concerns me muchly. :dubious:
storyteller, didn’t Clockwork Jackal say Zeriel was supicious, rather than Hal, in his earlier post?
That doesn’t necessarily follow, since we don’t know the numbers of people with each role. Similarly, there are ten roles with special powers of some sort, and three without any, but that certainly doesn’t mean that players with power roles are a clear majority!
By all means, let’s not have a good time and enjoy the game. Let’s all wait around for someone to post something of substance.
You go first.
Wow, a guy leaves work, goes the gym and comes home, eats dinner, does some tech support for his parents, and BAM page 8? I would like to reiterate that I will be gone from this Friday evening until Monday evening. Please don’t give me to much homework :).
Anyway, this post is one reason I was hoodwinked by storyteller in M2. So reasonable, damn you man! n all seriousness I agree with a lot of this post, ok all of it, particularly the whole math point, lol.
This strikes me as odd, considering his earlier posts, he votes for USC Diver, post 221 and then unvotes him post 248 with no posts from USC Diver in between the 2 .
I just really don’t get how Pleonast’s vote for USCDiver was a bootstrap for discussion when the person he voted for never came in and said anything, yet he still unvoted rather quickly.
As far as I can tell the only thing that happened in between these actions was NAF vehemently arguing against any sort of random vote.
Pleonast is not the only one to have done this however.
here in post 225 DiggitCamara does the random vote thing for Cookies. In all fairness he says its tradition. Ok, maybe, I don’t know about the tradition thing. I did not follow M3 or the pirates game at all. I was burned out (and somewhat annoyed with myself <again damn you story! lol>) from M2. Still its odd, particularly when he unovtes in 251 . Again with Cookies having said nothing.
To me these actions are a LOT more suspicious then MtS voting for Jackal. My FOS is pointed.