Yes, yes he did. I have absolutely no idea why I thought it was Hal. Sorry, Hal. Maybe it’s cause you frickin’ killed me in the last game.
This is a very good point. Pleonast, care to respond? Diggit?
I went back to trace this whole Clockwork Jackal /** MadTheSwine ** thing, and here’s what I found:
-CJ says that everyone so far does not look scummy, except for perhaps Zeriel and her(his?) unfortunate choice of “town” versus “us.”
-Hal speculates on distribution of roles amongst players.
-**MtS ** states that such speculation, as well as CJ’s observation of no one looking guilty at the moment, could be read as a scum tell.
-CJ points out that he DID post an example of what he thougt was scummy, and suggests a FOS towards MtS for discouraging Hal’s speculation, when such speculation could be important.
-MtS accuses CJ of twisting his words AND of revenge voting, and votes for him. He also says that he never said role-distribution was not important; just that encouraging discussion over it is a scum tell.
-I point out to MtS that **CJ ** never voted for him in the first place.
-MtS acknowledges this but keeps his vote.
I still think that CJ’s original post looks suspicious, but I also still think that MtS seemed a tad to eager to vote for CJ, even after he realized that CJ never voted for him. CJ’s supposed “twisting” of MtS’s words doesn’t seem that crafty to me, either - is it really that farfetched to read “X is a scum tell!” as an attempt to dissuade people from doing X?
So, two questions:
Clockwork Jackal, are you going to defend yourself? You already have two votes for you.
MadTheSwine, what, exactly, are you basing your vote for CJ on?
I have gotten at least one first Day vote in every game that I’ve played (2 town, 1 scum), and the justifications have pretty much all been tongue-in-cheek. Actually, if I’m remembering correctly, at least one tongue-in-cheek vote popped up a few Days into one of the past games (when I was a townie). I freely admit that I have not done any post-mortem analysis as to the orientation of any of the folks casting such votes, and I really don’t want to. Please don’t make me. I’ve got my hands sufficiently full with this thread, so I’m loathe to go snorfing around in the old ones.
I will say (in keeping with the healthy skepticism that I advocated earlier), that while there are “traditional” precedents for voting for me in such a manner, that doesn’t mean Diggit isn’t trying to dress scummy motives up in traditional garb.
I don’t know why, but in my minds eye the traditional garb I’m seeing is a kilt and tam.
Whew… ok I’m here. Just wanted to say off the bat, I’m new to Mafia. I began following M3 and the Forbidden thread on about Game Day 6 or so. So I will admit I know little about complex strategies.
Sorry to be coming in so late, but I was working all afternoon and it took me 3 hours (!!) to catch up in the last 5 hours of strategery.
I agree with stimulating discussion as opposed to all out random voting, particularly when there is little information. Even if that means randomly voting for players to lure them out (thanks Pleonast, but I’m the springboard kind of diver not the SCUBA type; if that helps y’all keep me separate in your minds from Scuba_Ben).
My thoughts so far:
Too much discussion of what happened in previous games. I understand that there is a lot of experience to draw off of in those games, but I wasn’t a participant in them and don’t have the hours it would take to read through all of them. Also this is a different game with many new and different roles. So while I think it’s important to discuss strategy at some level, I’d like to avoid too much 'let’s do it this way because we did that in M1 and it worked!"
Regarding splitting the duties of the Oracle and Apprentice (which I don’t think is a good idea in the end), I haven’t run the numbers, but it would seem like a bad idea for us to split their populations evenly if they aren’t even players. In other words, the Oracle is 100% and the Apprentice is (initially) 50% so it would seem like a better strategy to ‘give’ the Oracle 67% of the players to investigate and the Apprentice 33%. The Apprentice could investigate the same players multiple times and could make stronger conclusions based on the results.
In the end however, I agree with sachertorte that getting too bogged down in discussion of strategy now could be counter-productive. I’m enjoying watching y’all deconstruct each other’s posts at this point and will hopefully pick up on some scum tells as the game goes on.
For now though (since I’m still bitter),
FOS at Hal Briston
for making a last minute deal in Haggle and moving from last to first and stealing my victory! I was hoping this was going to be a Mafia themed game so I could make some kind of Mafia related accusation, but I guess I’ll have to say he must have made a deal with Sekham to win that game.
Keep in mind everyone, there’s still 4.5 days until the end of the Day.
Regarding the investigatory branch:
I agree that we should not try to openly control the oracle or the apprentice. There is a small risk of a wasted investigation if they act independently, but chances are good that they are both trying to investigate someone who seems worthy of investigating. In the rare case of overlap, I’ll happily take the prospect of having two trails to follow since neither trail will be easy to identify (assuming they’re hiding clues cleverly.) And, as was just mentioned by storyteller0910, limiting the choices of pro-town special roles gives the scum useful information that we could have easily held from them. (This seems an important enough point that I will likely trust storyteller0910 for quite a while now for bringing it up.)
Miscellany:
Here’s an analysis regarding Idle Thoughts that I want to put out there. Folks should comment.
Post 292 is the source of the following quotes.
This smells, I dunno, … thin. It’s like he wants to sound like he’s churning over the possibilities while trying not to commit or take attribution. “I conclude A. However, not-A is good, too. Also, other people are really saying all of this, not me, so, uh, nothing to see here.”
The next bit of #292 is fairly free of content, though it again smells like it’s supposed to look like it has some. (Perhaps that’s just your style, Idle Thoughts?)
Then, regarding the killing of lurkers:
Idle Thoughts, could you explain what you mean by “easy out” to scum? The first two sentences (“just as bad” – as what?) seem like a handwavy attempt to suppress the idea of killing under-the-radar players. It seems to me that scum lurking is an established strategy. While there will certainly be veteran scum who are skilled enough to post a lot without giving much away, I think some scum will certainly fly low. (And, if I may meta-game for a moment, it is also reasonable since they have no time off; they may naturally take it easier in the days.) I’m not sure why you want to switch out likely scum rather than kill them dead. (I’ll admit I haven’t thought through the numbers aspect of this.)
FOS: Idle Thoughts
HazelNutCoffee, I’m a him. Either that, or MrsZer is VERY charitable in feeding my delusion.
Not a big deal, but please try not to use Red or Blue for FOSing. In the future, it may lead to me miscounting votes which could be bad.
I think the nominal color for FOS has become Dark Orange, but obviously, that’s up to you all.
That said, if you need my attention, like for a vote count, just to make it standard (as in the rule set), it’d be nice to know that Green means I need to respond.
I’ll take your word for it. 
Lurking is not necessarily a scum tell, but it does make you look suspicious. Either way, it’s probably not a good strategy - whether you are scum or townie, you certainly don’t want to give everyone else a cause to doubt your faith. Plus, the whole point of the game is social interaction. It’s no fun when people lurk!
I think what Idle Thoughts meant is that automatically suspecting lurkers make it easier for scum to lead bandwagons for drowning townie lurkers without raising suspicions.
Looking over my notes, the unofficial vote count so far looks like:
Clockwork Jackal: MadTheSwine[COLOR=Black], NAF1138[/COLOR]
MadTheSwine: storyteller0910
USCDiver: Pleonast
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies: DiggitCamera
I included the un-votes as well. Sorry, haven’t been keeping up with the FOSs.
I’ve received a few PMs with various questions about the Apprentice Role, I will try to clarify the process.
First, a “correct” reading is whatever the Oracle would read as specified in the rule summary or the chart that panamajack posted.
Here is how I will process the Apprentice’s investigation. Say he wants to investigate PlayerX. First, I flip a coin (it starts out unbiased at 50%, but if/when his accuracy improves, the coin will be biased to land on heads at the appropriate rate). If it comes up heads, I return exactly what the Oracle would read off of PlayerX. If it comes up tails, I will take all living players (including the Apprentice himself and PlayerX), stick them in a hat (metaphorically speaking) and pull out a player and the Apprentice will receive whatever the Oracle would have read off of him. If the player investigated is the Avatar, this process is skipped and he receives the appropriate response.
Essentially, this means that incorrect responses are more likely to come from the more prevalent roles versus being uniformly distributed like it was in M2.
Also, upon the death of the Oracle, the process changes such that when the biased coin comes up tails, the Apprentice will receive no reading.
Finally, if/when the Oracle discovers the Apprentice, even though he is under his tutelage, they will not be able to discuss strategy at night (he’s too busy teaching him, afterall).
With regard to the Crusader, if he attempts a kill, regardless of whether if succeeded or failed, he will enter the next Night in a “just killed” status and thus he will only have a 50% success rate and he will also be able to opt out of killing.
To preempt a potential question, with regard to biased coin flipping, I thought Random.org had it, but apparently not. Thus, I’ll simply generate a random integer in an appropriate range and set a threshold (eg, 60%, between 1-10, if it’s 6 or less “heads” otherwise “tails”).
Clockwork Jackal - ( 2 ) - MadTheSwine NAF1138
MadTheSwine - ( 1 ) - storyteller0910
Vote History
Pleonast - Vote - USCDiver - 221
DiggitCamara - Vote - ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies - 225
MadTheSwine - Vote - Clockwork Jackal - 244
Pleonast - Unvote - USCDiver - 248
DiggitCamara - Unvote - ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies - 251
storyteller0910 - Vote - MadTheSwine - 281
NAF1138 - Vote - Clockwork Jackal - 344
I apologize that it’s a little sloppy, I’m still working on getting it to format well with a simply copy and paste from my spread sheet.
Some general thoughts before bed:
On Lurking: Lurking is a legitimate strategy, and I will call people out for it. However, with this many people in the start of the game, lots of people may appear that they are lurking when in fact they aren’t. We do have some inexperienced players in the game, and when I was new at this, I was a little afraid to post. Lurking will come into play moreso as we progress. I will be more suspicious of people who post much but say little, as I feel this is a form of lurking. Again, with this many people, it is hard to wade through fluff posts. I will be trying to post with more content and try to address several things in one post. I agree that we should be light-hearted and have fun. Jokes and smileys should abound. If you won’t be around for a significant period of game time, please let us know.
On Random Votes: Already we have a lot to pick through and FOS people for. My vote today will be based on something I think is suspicious.
On Bringing Up Previous Games: I’m against using someone’s style or posts from a previous game as a basis for a FOS or vote. I can certainly see where comparing someone’s playstyle could be advantageous, but players like myself are developing their style, and unlikely to be parallel to previous games. My posting habits in the Pirates game changed significantly over the course of the game as I got my footing. That said, I will try not to even bring up previous Mafia games at all. As someone else noted, not everyone wants to wade back through other games.
General Advice for Newbies: Post like you are going to die. If you are thinking something and don’t let the rest of us know, then we can’t draw any conclusions when you die. Death for a townie is not to be feared. Above all, have fun. This game is a lot of work, but it’s fun work. And when you can do it at work, it’s even more fun. 
Yeah, a lot of people put me on “FOS” last game for this too. Me, I don’t get it. I’m actually trying to keep my mind open to all possiblities. How is that so weird to people? It’s not that I’m trying not to make any solid thoughts right now…it’s just that I’m making observances and thinking aloud and trying to keep all possibilities open.
Because if a lurker happens to be pro-good, how easy would it be just to gang up on them for the reason “well, they’re lurking” and bump them off?
Just as bad as what NAF was saying (it was who I was quoting, by the way) about how bad he thought voting randomly is.
And I remain in the belief that if there are under the radar players, it’d be better, I think, rather than vote for someone who may be busy or not able to take the time to defend themselves, to sub them out instead.
Funny you say likely scum. What about likely town? As far as I can tell, lurking didn’t become a play until last game.
Snipped mucho.
Boy do I hear you. I do this too, too much sometimes. 
Okay. I read it and took it as there are at least three/seven of regular, in general types of each side. Not nessacarily ones with roles.
Snipped.
Yeah, I don’t know why this is but it just seems like people so easily do this all the time. Either that or they say things like “well town would NEVER do/say things like this!” and assume that every REAL pro-good player would act alike.
Not a lot or often, but it happened a lot in the last game, I noticed.
Here’s the format I’m planning on using. If anyone has any suggestions to make it more useful for you, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
** Clockwork Jackal ** (2) - MadTheSwine, NAF1138
** MadTheSwine ** (1) - storyteller0910
** Voter - Action - Votee - Post **
** Pleonast ** - Vote - ** USCDiver ** - 221
** DiggitCamara ** - Vote - ** ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies ** - 225
** MadTheSwine ** - Vote - ** Clockwork Jackal ** - 244
** Pleonast ** - Unvote - ** USCDiver ** - 248
** DiggitCamara ** - Unvote - ** ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies ** - 251
** storyteller0910 ** - Vote - ** MadTheSwine ** - 281
** NAF1138 ** - Vote - ** Clockwork Jackal ** - 344
Hi guys,
I need to be subbed out. My boyfriend’s mom was in some kind of car accident this afternoon. They said it was minor at first, but now they’re saying something about punctured lung or lung damage or something, so my BF has flown down to NC to be with her, and I’m waiting here with the dog to hear more details. I’m a fucking wreck right now, and I don’t think I’m in any shape to play this game.
Blaster, I hope you can find someone to sub in for me, thanks for letting me play, for however brief it was.
Thanks guys,
Clockwork Jackal
I’m sure I can speak for everyone here in hoping she gets well soon and that we’re sorry you have to leave so soon.
I have already PMed the sub list. The first to respond will get the spot.
Jeez… 8 pages already? This may have been a mistake to embark on this 
I jotted down a few notes
random voting: I’ll just say I see nothing wrong with it to start the game out and start discussion, but I’m not going to get into any distracting arguments about it or judge someone one way or another based on it.
MHaye, post 258:
Holy crap! Should we talk about the weather in here? Putting pressure on people through accusations and votes is how we catch scum. And you won’t respond even if it means you get lynched? If you’re town, you don’t want to get lynched and should respond if you’re in trouble. I’m not a fan of this cavalier attitude.
sachertorte: post 262
Sing it, brother. I too will be suspicious of non-voters this game. It’d be way too easy for scum to sit back and let a few misguided townies lynch someone they know to be innocent, and have no blood on their hands towards the end. We need as much information as possible, and everyone needs to go on the record as to who they want lynched each day.
Mtgman’s strategy of actually lynching someone randomly: Others have stated the obvious flaws in this strategy, and I don’t think there would be many here who would actually subscribe to doing such a thing.
Storeyteller, post 350:
Interesting, especially after all the crap I took regarding BM’s “choice” of who to vig in M2. I think I’d rather have the Oracle and apprentice make the ultimate decision of who to investigate. I guess there isn’t anything wrong with recommendations, but those could be scum-influenced.
Finally, I too would like to hear from Pleonast and DiggitCamera regarding the points Queuing brought up in post 360
[OOC]Clockwork Jackal, I hope she’s okay. We’re sorry to see you go, but don’t worry about it - it’s just a game, and in the early stages at that. :)[/OOC]
pours another cup of coffee and waits for someone to post something incriminating
I’m still trying to figure out the analyses, and I am still stuck with three possibilities for this first Day:
- Find a bandwagon and join it. (Not a good idea, I won’t learn anything from it.)
- Vote at random. (Not a good idea, I won’t learn how to read posts from it.)
- Vote for none of the above. (Very not a good idea, as people have already stated their willingness to hunt down people who don’t vote.)
Hopefully by the time we reach the end of the Day, I’ll have learned enough to do something slightly more useful.
Meanwhile, what worries me strategy-wise is, as previously noted, the Oracle and Apprentice will ID the Cultists only as Nonbelievers, not as confirmed scum. That’s going to be a limiting factor.
In other news, a follow-up:
Nobody’s perfect 