I second that. The best thing is to kill (very) likely scum. The next best thing is to kill off players about whom it will be hard to gain information, given that we’re going to kill somebody.
NAF, I’ve been posting every break I get, which are necessarily going to be on my lunch breaks and very later at night EST.
I’m actually going to FOS NAF1138 because I’ve got ten posts (counting this one) on this thread since game started, maybe not as many as the major players in the O/A discussion, but enough I was considering that I was talking too much and needed to pipe down and let some other lurkers come out.
I mean, so out of the 350 posts or so since game start, I’ve had 10. My “fair share” is 11-12ish (since there’s 30 of us).
I mean, I’m concerned about lurking as a scum strategy too, but I’m personally more concerned with the few names I haven’t seen ANY posts from.
Yes, which is why the Apprentice should make no attempt to draw the Oracle’s attention.
In fact, I think the only useful thing the Apprentice can do is to expose the Avatar (this is the only one that is a guaranteed accurate read).
And yeah, what SnakesCatLady said–this is my first on-board game of Mafia(alike), and it’s WAY different than the in-person version I’m used to.
I tried to run through the possible scenarios and I think my head just exploded. An absolute maximum of four kills are possible (if somehow the Avatar is burned after the Psychopath is activated, and the Crusader makes a successful kill on the same night). Anything other than four kills could mean any number of things, particularly as the nights progress. If we just go for the first night:
No kill possibilites (11 possible combinations):
Crusader
- fails/does not attempt kill
- attempts kill but blocked
- attempts kill and activates Psychopath
Cultists - attempt kill but blocked
- does not attempt kill
- attempts recruit
- attempts kill and activates Psychopath
One kill possibilities:
Crusader succeeds, Cultists fail (for any of the aforementioned four reasons)
Cultists kill, Crusader fails (for any of the aforementioned three reasons)
Both fail, Avatar burned
Two kill possibilities:
Both Crusader and Cultists succeed. Psychopath not activated.
One succeeds, the other fails (for any of the above reasons), but the Avatar was burned.
Three kill possibilities:
Both succeed and the Avatar was burned.
Don’t ask me to calculate the probabilities of each happening. There are three possible blocks and all of them have varied success rates, which make things somewhat complicated, to put it mildly. The only comfort we have, I suppose, is we’ll know the Avatar’s identity after they are burned, which will narrow down the possible scenarios.
Does anyone know what happens if the cultists attempt to recruit the Psychpath?
Snipped.
In the other game, I and others always seemed to list all the things each circumstance COULD have been and then just went with and chose the most likely of them all after a bit of discussion and analyzation. Really, that’s all I can see could be done.
That’s just it. There can’t. It will never be truly random because it’s NOT truly random for everyone. I don’t see how what you’re saying here COULD be the case.
Snipped and bolding mine. Or that one was successful and the other awaked the Psychopath. Or that one was successful and the other was blocked by the Alchemist.
I think it’d be MORE useful strategy to ask BM if he could, instead, maybe tighten the rules on lurking or subbing out if lurking too much. Really, the way this game is played and goes, there should be no reason why people couldn’t make at least THREE posts a day in it. I know that sometimes things come up and people get busy and real life interferes, but then why bother signing up if you can’t commit to at least three posts a day? Even if they’re just to weigh in and give quick thoughts about current discussions, at least it’s something and gives the rest of us stuff to use for or against those players themselves too. People like Auto though, and Captain Carrot, they haven’t even posted once since the game began.
It’s in these cases, then, that I’m more for subbing (or heavy laying on to post and get making up for it) rather than voting. But that applies to anyone not having posted yet (which they seem to be the only ones who haven’t made even ONE).
:dubious:
You know, this gets me. This really, really gets me. You have EIGHT "FOS"s at all of them? You’d be fine with killing them all, one by one, just to “discourage” them? Why are you automatically thinking they’re scum? How do you know? Surely there can’t be eight cultists? Because that would mean we’re all screwed from the onstart.
I just seriously don’t get this thought process. Like I’ve said before, I think serious lurkers should be leaned on by BM and subbed out if still not able to make the needed number of posts a day. But voting and killing off and heavy suspicion just based on not posting? Maybe they’re lurking. But maybe they’re not. Who really knows? You and I and anyone else surely doesn’t know save for themselves. I just think that’s really fast to go after (or at least start making a case against) people.
I’m all for calling out lurkers and people who aren’t posting…for example, see my mentions of Auto and C Carrot who haven’t posted yet since the game began but who both seemingly have been on (according to their last online time) since. But subbing first, if needed, voting out later.
Wow, nice at-the-same-time-post there, HazelNutCoffee. It wasn’t there when I previewed, haha.
C’mon, slowpoke. Keep up. 
I just realized that there is also the (admittedly very small) possibility that a no-kill could also happen after the Avatar was burned, since we have three potential blockers.
We’re been casting suspicious looks at lurkers, but I want to know what happened to MadTheSwine. He posted a lot yesterday but has been rather silent today.
I really think lurking should be discouraged. In an IRL game it doesn’t matter if you stay silent because people can still read your reactions to the game going on around you, but online all we have to go by is each other’s posts. If you are innocent, you are not helping the town at all by keeping silent.
[off-game]You know, the longest topic ever on here is the topic “a” which got up to 5,000 plus posts.
But thing is, with Days in here lasting five regular days (at least until it’s down to 20 players) and Nights two,…and this topic is already passed 500 replies just two regular days into the first Day…I really think this one has a good chance of setting a new record for most posts in the SDMB history. NAF MII almost did it, and his, I don’t think, even had Days lasting as long as BM is having them last.
That being said, I wonder what will happen if we seriously start to get up there with posts. Like when/if (however I think it’s more of a “when”) this reaches, say, 4,500, will the mods want to shut it down and have us start a part two of Mafia V? What if it DOES surpass “a”? Again, I think, if any, this topic has the best chance of doing that.
Just some late night thoughts from Idle Thoughts.[/off-game]
Yeah, that is a bit wonky…but shrugs…I can only speak for myself. Me, I have no life. I’m on at all hours of the day. 
Sometimes I sit in here and refresh it and wonder why anyone isn’t posting second by second and then need to remind myself that they, unlike me, have lives.
At any rate, this is true.
Well, I’ve caught up. Rather than post numerous little remarks in several posts, I’ll post a big, stream of consciousness Idle Thoughts-style message, this one time only. I’m composing this as I review the thread, so topics are roughly in thread-order.
First, on the MadTheSwine & Clockwork Jackal kerfluffle: CJ’s initial post does actually ring kind of scummy to me; it’s a bit too “oh, whatever shall I do, I just don’t know” for my taste. I can’t really offer any justification for it, but I do know it’s not as scummy as it might seem. None of you know that, though, so you’ll have to make of it what you will. To the other point, I think it seems a bit disingenuous to fault someone for interpreting “X is a scum tell” as discouraging X. So, to sum up, no MtS hate on the first count, but a little bit of suspicion on the latter one.
I do not understand why some people seem to believe this, but I now know that it’s a dangerously seductive idea. Is a team win somehow lessened by having to share it with a larger team? A win is a win; why needlessly exclude anyone? Why do you seem to be encouraging division among the non-cultists? How can this be a good thing?
Also, no scuba gear in the blessed pool, thank you. (That joke has to have been made somewhere already, but I must have overlooked it.)
On sachertorte Oracle/Apprentice scheme: First, I don’t want to revive the discussion, but I feel compelled to at least comment on it since it was such a hot topic. Having participated in the M3 lurker thread with sachertorte, I’m not at all suspicious of his interest in game mechanics. His manner here is entirely consistent with his manner there.
However, I’m quite skeptical of this particular stratagem, as it suffers from two problems that I think he could have been aware of: First, any publicly agreed upon division of the players will result, over several days, in two players planting breadcrumbs and making references more frequently to players in one group or the other than would be expected by chance. Second, there’s a fair chance that the Apprentice could be expected to object to any division that makes it unlikely that he’ll be investigated. As it happened, everyone pretty much objected, but had there been only a few objectors, they would have made a nice pool of candidates for Apprentice hunting. So I’m a little bit suspicious of sachertorte as a result.
Eh? Would that the scum were silly enough to actually jump aboard a wagon with such weak justification. How simple it would be to detect them! The object is to dunk cultists, not to save believers. Bring on the bandwagon!
Certainly not! As nice as it would be were it possible, how smart is it to bet that one Oracle will notice this subtle message while a handful of cultists will overlook it? This suggestion is likely to get the Apprentice killed, and is easily the most suspicious thing I’ve seen so far. Vote Hal Briston.
Obvious they’re not all scum. Obviously some of them just forgot they had a game to play. But, I’d bet the farm that there are one or two scum in there. And I would rather kill off a player that was never going to reveal information about him/herself if the odds that (s)he’s scum is 2/8=25% or so. And, I wouldn’t really suspect the zero-posters (whom you seem to be defending the most) – they’re probably just not playing. No, I’d suspect the “soft” posters who pseudo-lurk but are clearly present in the game.
Could you explain why you are defending the lurkers so much. I’m still not seeing your argument. Of course, one clear reason would be if you were scum. Is it that you know that NAF’s list has, say, four scum in it? Are you worried that we might end up with a 50% chance of hitting scum through a strategy of suspecting the below-the-radar players? … or better than 50% by passing over clearly absent players for more “active” lurkers?)
While I tossed out loose FOSs at the list (which was mostly in support of NAF’s “calling them out”), I’ve still only got one Official Color Coded[TM] FOS pointed, and it remains.
On another note, I’m not going to post it here, because I’m happy to leave it be, but perhaps some other time some other place I’ll describe the following, because I think it’s pretty neat: I’ve got a way for the apprentice to identify himself to the oracle with exactly zero information revealed to other players now or in the future. It’s provably information neutral regardless of future revelations. The scheme is based on public key cryptography. Again, I’ll share it some other time, but I couldn’t help mentioning it because I’ve been trying to come up with something all evening.
d&r
[off-game]
If nothing else, it’ll get my embarrassingly low posts/day up. I wouldn’t think vBulletin would have any problem maintaining one long thread versus two smaller ones, but I agree: we’re likely to test that theory with this one!
[/off-game]
that’s not a typo: provably. I realized that it might get read as the much weaker “probably”. If I could edit, I would have changed the wording to make it clearer. Okay, seriously this time, I’m done.
But you just said in your last post that it’s “Eight FOSs”? All I don’t understand is just how not posting is a ring of suspicion with you.
While I’m not as gung-ho as you, I’d keep my mind open to it. But you seem to be saying you’re fairly sure of yourself. This is just what I don’t get, which is combined with this:
The key word in there is “lurkers”. This means players are watching and following the thread along yet not posting. But how do you know this is what they’re doing? I’ve seen only two that chimed in accounting for their actions so far. What of the others? I don’t understand why you’re calling them lurkers. You don’t know if they’re lurking or if they just haven’t had the time to even read this topic yet. Do you see/get my point yet? Yet you’re all ready to vote for them, saying:
Then how would SUBBING THEM OUT and finding another player who WILL and WOULD reveal information about him/herself be any worse? :dubious: I just really don’t get this, but I guess the feeling is mutual with you.
If I were scum, wouldn’t I, by the same token, just let you sit back and take those chances since there’s a half chance you’d knock off someone I’d want you to? Even if you go by that being the case, which I’ll even conceed since I like keeping ALL POSSIBLITIES OPEN all the time, why would I do that? How smart would that be to have someone who was scummy trying to keep other scummies in the game. I’d think they’d be a bit smarter than that, myself.
I just don’t get why you’re so for killing off people who aren’t posting. Note, I didn’t use the term “lurking/lurkers” there. If they aren’t posting, or were but aren’t as much anymore, then obviously there must be good reason for it. And while it very well COULD be: They’re scum,…it could also be any other number of reasons and could mean that even if you DID start voting for them and encouraging others to do so that they still wouldn’t be able to post in their own defense.
Seriously…what if that was the case? Would you still be for it? Let’s all go in on trying to rout out people who aren’t posting as much as see if it’s because they’re really scum or because they might have a high power role and might be afraid of saying or revealing too much. And if we accidently kill off the Priest or Oracle…well heck, at least we discourged them from not posting, right? :dubious:
Come on. Are you at least starting to see what I’m saying? All it is is that if someone’s not posting, I just don’t see automatic vote and trying to kill them off as being good, that’s all.
Well, that’s fine. I can’t say it’s not the same for me.
Yeah, you better duck and run. 
Actually, I think sachertorte would post that way whether or not he is town, as that is the sort of discussion he is interested in. I’m interested in it too, but so far it hasn’t really helped the town.
Yes, I haven’t posted much yet, mainly because I haven’t got much useful to contribute. The minimum contribution we can expect from everyone is a vote together with justification - anyone who fails to vote, or who gives unconvincing reasons, is worthy of a strong FOS.
Posting in and of itself is something useful to contribute. Simply voting isn’t going to be very helpful, even with justification. Posts don’t have to be profound. Agree, disagree, speculate, suspect, react - just please post so we have more stuff to work with here!
Scum certainly aren’t the only ones capable or likely to jump on bandwagons against townies. And I was not advocating against bandwagons…or random selections. I was, in fact, pointing out that one variety of random selection (FOSing) carries with it less inherent risk for town than the other random option (voting), especially during the early Days when odds are already skewed towards us dunking town.
I want to clarify this, since the misunderstanding appears to be my fault in my wording. If the Avatar is lynched, the revenge kill will be a Day kill NOT a Night kill. That is, the random death will occur simultaneously with the lynch prior to the Night beginning. Further, because it is a Day kill, it cannot be blocked by the Priest, Disciple, or Alchemist because their abilities are only usable at Night.
To address another rules question, ALL roles, regardless of what is in their description may converse in the thread at Night. The parts about the Priest being in prayer, the Oracle in a ritual, the Monks in a vow of silence, etc. was just my attempt to use color to explain why they couldn’t strategize at night with people they trust, like the Cultists can. IOW, from a storyline POV, all of the Night discussion, drinking, celebrating/lamenting occurs in the evening hours after the dunking and before bed, and all Night actions and Night discussion happen when everyone is sleeping. Sorry if I confused anyone with that.
I haven’t seen a post since day start from **Autolycus ** or Captain Carrot; however, the day is only 36 hours into the allotted 120. Now, we have to also remember that this thread grows quickly and that is a daunting task; that is, it may take only a couple minutes to post in another thread, but it could take an hour or more to catch up, and then even more time to compose a useful post.
What I will ask is, if you want to discuss lurking in the game, please encourage them to post through in-game methods. If you think someone is legitimately not participating, please PM me, and I’ll look into it. That said, I don’t think not posting for a 36 hour period is necessarily a lack of participation, as it could be any number of real life circumstances. However, I will keep my eye out for them over the rest of the Day and prod as necessary.