Mafia V: The Cult of Sekham

The Game Room
601

[QUOTE=Pleonast]
Yes, votes are cheap! Especially on Day 1. Why wouldn’t they be? There’s almost no evidence to go on at this point. Players should be open to persuasion and changing their vote. That’s how we’ll build a consensus.

Players ignore the context of votes at their own peril. In fact, mis-interpretation of previous votes is a typical scum tactic. So always check why someone voted; don’t be overly swayed by simple vote summations.

Why should Townies be reluctant to vote?
[/QUOTE]

You and I have disagreed on this point so frequently that I am tempted to ignore it as a difference in philosophy.

I just want to point out, when this game is 80 pages long the town probably will not be checking context from Day 1 clearly. This is just a fact. We need to keep the voting records clear. People shouldn’t be afraid to vote, but voting for no reason is bad. It just makes things confusing later on. Don’t be shortsighted about this.

602

[QUOTE=Pleonast]
(Color removed.)

Over-reaction, much? We need votes. Why does that bother you? Townies have nothing to lose by voting and changing their vote. Only scum need to second-guess and strategize how they vote.

Of course we should have a consensus. Would you rather we dunk someone who has only a handful of votes? That would be easy for the Cult to manipulate. And why should we wait to vote? I’d rather see the consensus develop over a few real-life days instead of being crammed in at the end of the Day. Rushed voting is easy to manipulate, too. (Although, I never have much free time on the weekends, so I do have an out-of-game reason to hurry it along.)

I’m not the only one who’s complained about the discussion over Town power roles. Are you saying I shouldn’t voice my dislike of that discussion? And if I think the discussion is scummy, why shouldn’t I vote to make a point? And if I find someone else more scummy, I shouldn’t vote for them?

I’m playing straight-forward–putting my votes where I think the scum is. I even made a nice list of who I suspected and reasons why. So everyone can see exactly where I stand and why. If all of the Town did that, our odds of catching an actual Cultist will improve dramatically.

As I’ve said before, votes aren’t valuable. It’s the analysis that it is. Please criticize the reasoning behind my votes, but voting freely is not a scummy trait.

As for “muddying the waters, discouraging discourse, and priming the pump for future manipulation”: the only discourse I’m discouraging is that over Town power roles. I’ve already stated my case against that. And it sounds like you want to discourage voting, because other than that, my posts aren’t that different from anyone else’s.
[/QUOTE]

While lacking my usual dose of smileys, my tone was intented to be light and humorous ribbing.

People will vote when they’re ready to vote. It is the first Day. The worst Day for all of us to try and make good choices, especially the newbies.

And on preview, I see that Mgt and NAF have already hit on my other points (value of CAREFUL investigator theory, desire for voting history analysis that doesn’t require a MySQL database, especially only on Day 1, etc ), so I will leave it at that.

603

[QUOTE=storyteller0910]
You’re right that was way more cryptic than it needed to be. :slight_smile:

My sense was that you gave considerably more leeway to Malacandra than to ArizonaTeach in your assessment of their actions. In other words, Az did something that you regard as a “major” (which I will interpret as being synonymous with “obvious;” if this is an unfair equivalence, feel free to say so) scum tell. He got your vote.

But you say that Malacandra wouldn’t be dumb enough to make a “stupid” - again, read as “obvious” mistake if he were scum.

In other words, why is Malacandra’s “stupid” tell so quickly dismissed while AzTeach’s “major” tell earns your vote?

Am I reaching? It’s possible. But it’s worth putting it out there, I think.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry it took me so long to get to this one Story. The game is moving faster than I am.

I have trouble with thinking what Mal did was a scum tell, because if it was he was basically waving a flag and saying “look over here, I am scum.” It just seemed so…obvious. I read his post and my initial reaction was, “wow Mal that was a major slip up.”

And then I thought about it. If I was scum, would I ever ever make a post like that? No. Never. You were scum Story, would you have? I am guessing no. It is just not a thought out post. And to me that says townie more than scum. Town posts without thinking like that, scum never do.

604

I’m trying to resolve the differences between those who would rather talk strategy, and build analytical methods to help everyone play a strong game, versus those who are going off instinct and saying we should be searching every byte for some sort of tells. I’m arguing the side of the strategists, and putting forth the case that if we get caught up in the tactics then we’ll lose the strategy. It’s fighting battles but losing wars because we don’t have a good idea of which battles to fight and why. I’m arguing for teamwork and a strong shared strategy. This helps us because, if it’s a good strategy, we’ll do well, and if someone acts contrary to the strategy it’s an indication they’re working towards another goal or have different information(the former would be a Cultist, the latter would be a Monk, or one of our more informed pro-town roles).

Enjoy,
Steven

605

[QUOTE=Mtgman]
I think the best strategy is for the Oracle and Apprentice to stay alive as long as possible and do a big reveal after a few Day/Night cycles(after which they live only as long as the Priest can protect them). Dropping breadcrumbs, while nice, is risky too.
[/quote]
I agree with this. And is why we should not discuss those roles at all. There’s too much risk that one of them somehow drops a crumb that alerts the Cultists.

I don’t see anything wrong with discussing what the nighttime results or the Cult’s power roles. We may get them to slip up. But we need to avoid tunnel vision and delude ourselves into thinking we can predict their tactics.

Uh, Day 1’s dunk is the matter at hand. We need to decide. Yes, there’s plenty of time, but we want to avoid a rush at the end.

I see three approaches to the Town’s action today:

  1. Completely random dunk–no information gained, and tricky to implement anyway. Likely to be a Town kill, but could be a Cult kill.
  2. No dunk at all–no information gained. No chance of a Town kill, but no chance at a Cult kill.
  3. Form a consensus. Likely to be a Town kill, but could be a Cult kill. The Cult can manipulate us, but if they do, we may catch on to them. On a later Day, more likely. Voting alone doesn’t help the Town that much. Talking alone doesn’t help us either. We need to do both. And then on a later Day, the survivors can go back and see who voted for who. And what votes stank and what scum made mistakes.

As someone said, we’re here to find Cultists, not protect Townies. Getting the Cultists (and hence everyone) to talk and vote is how we’ll do that.

606

[QUOTE=NAF1138]
It is not unvoting that is a scum tell, it is placing a vote and then backing off at the first hint of conflict. It plays into the theory that fluid postulated and that I agree with, scum will post and vote but try to stay out of the towns way. It’s the best way to stay under the radar.

You are reaching like crazy with the OMGUS payback idea.

As far as Clockwork goes, I was not about to have an early vote on someone that wasn’t in the game. It isn’t fair to the person taking over the role. Sorry that is how I feel. It is a strike against Kyrie in my eyes, and if Clockwork had subbed out at the end of the day I might feel differently, but there are other scum out there.
[/QUOTE]
Oh for crying out loud. Are you seriously putting a time limit on how long it should take after people defend themselves before anyone’s allowed to unvote them? Two hours and multiple posts isn’t good enough? Should we wait three hours? Four? What about when it’s almost time to lynch? Anyone who unvotes after a role claim without waiting the prescribed NAF waiting period is automatically suspect, even thought he ignored the same things for other players, including himself (remember, “that’s just the way I play” from NAF dismisses any type of bizarre behavior, unless you say it, in that case it’s a tell)! Everybody get that rule? You know, speaking of the pirates game, zuma (scum) went after me (mason) with a similar focus and similar inconsistencies in explanation and voting and got found out in the end.

Upon preview:

[Quote=NAF1138]
I read his post and my initial reaction was, “wow Mal that was a major slip up.”

And then I thought about it. If I was scum, would I ever ever make a post like that?
[/Quote]
Not showing the courage of your convictions, eh?

607

[QUOTE=Queuing]
I have to say, NAF I find this:

Very odd as well, considering both Pleonast and Diggit Camara did the samething, I called them on it, and nary a peep from you.

[/QUOTE]

I think that I have addressed the rest of your post already Queuing. As far as what you think Pleonast and Diggit did. I frankly didn’t notice you calling out Diggit about that behavior. Repost it and I will tell you what I think. Pleonast has already stated that he thinks this kind of posting is best for the town. I disagree, but since it is a part of his stated strategy I can’t say that I can read this sort of behavior one way or the other.

Also, the game is moving fast, I can’t always support every position I come across. I think I may adopt Idle’s long stream of conciousness posting style because trying to keep up this way is wearing my out, and keeping me from work.

608

[QUOTE=ArizonaTeach]
Oh for crying out loud. Are you seriously putting a time limit on how long it should take after people defend themselves before anyone’s allowed to unvote them? Two hours and multiple posts isn’t good enough? Should we wait three hours? Four? What about when it’s almost time to lynch? Anyone who unvotes after a role claim without waiting the prescribed NAF waiting period is automatically suspect, even thought he ignored the same things for other players, including himself (remember, “that’s just the way I play” from NAF dismisses any type of bizarre behavior, unless you say it, in that case it’s a tell)! Everybody get that rule? You know, speaking of the pirates game, zuma (scum) went after me (mason) with a similar focus and similar inconsistencies in explanation and voting and got found out in the end.

Upon preview:
Not showing the courage of your convictions, eh?
[/QUOTE]

You are twisting my words and getting pissy. Stop it, it won’t help.

609

[QUOTE=Mtgman]
I’m trying to resolve the differences between those who would rather talk strategy, and build analytical methods to help everyone play a strong game, versus those who are going off instinct and saying we should be searching every byte for some sort of tells. I’m arguing the side of the strategists, and putting forth the case that if we get caught up in the tactics then we’ll lose the strategy. It’s fighting battles but losing wars because we don’t have a good idea of which battles to fight and why. I’m arguing for teamwork and a strong shared strategy. This helps us because, if it’s a good strategy, we’ll do well, and if someone acts contrary to the strategy it’s an indication they’re working towards another goal or have different information(the former would be a Cultist, the latter would be a Monk, or one of our more informed pro-town roles).

[/QUOTE]

Assuming that there is some kind of strategy that all of us can agree is a good one (which, judging by this thread so far, isn’t likely to happen), making it so that acting contrary to the strategy means one is either scum or a power-role doesn’t seem like a good idea at all. Particularly since the scum all know each other, and we don’t.

610

[QUOTE=Mtgman]
Why should a townie be reluctant to vote? Because they don’t want to be jumped all over by various people picking apart their stated reasons. Intellectually they may be able to understand it’s just a game and we’re talking strategy, but it sure feels like a conflict and conflict is not comfortable. The whole “Vote and justify it to my satisfaction or else you’re scum” vibe some posters are giving off is really disconcerting. We’ve got a couple real life days left here. Also, experienced players really should know better than to get this hyped up over Day 1’s dunk.
[/QUOTE]
I guess I expect players to get over their inhibitions and just jump in. Townies have nothing to fear by being dunked. At least I don’t have any fear.

Cookies, NAF, Queuing, I guess it is down to a philosophical difference. The voting record is important, but I’ve never liked simple summaries (of votes, smudges, posts made, etc). I think it lulls Townies into ignoring the real evidence–why votes were made vs the stated reasons. This is a social game, not a numbers game.

611

To HazelNut’s point, I think that neither daily consensus in votes or long-term consensus in strategy will be coming out of this group any Day soon. Both are nice, utopian ideas, but not likely until this mob of our’s has a few dead bodies floating around to think about. Until either (or both?) scenarious emerge as likely, I for one will try to be practicing tolerance towards whatever paths everyone takes towards better coordination.

612

:smack: I forgot the tolerance part.

Unvote Pleonast. But you’re stuck with my FOS Pleonast.

613

[QUOTE=Pleonast]
I guess I expect players to get over their inhibitions and just jump in. Townies have nothing to fear by being dunked. At least I don’t have any fear.

Cookies, NAF, Queuing, I guess it is down to a philosophical difference. The voting record is important, but I’ve never liked simple summaries (of votes, smudges, posts made, etc). I think it lulls Townies into ignoring the real evidence–why votes were made vs the stated reasons. This is a social game, not a numbers game.
[/QUOTE]

I’ll add my idea to this: to me the most important factor is different. I tend to look at scenarios and to expected (and observed) reactions of players to one scenario.

It served me well during M3.

614

[QUOTE=Pleonast]
I guess I expect players to get over their inhibitions and just jump in. Townies have nothing to fear by being dunked. At least I don’t have any fear.

Cookies, NAF, Queuing, I guess it is down to a philosophical difference. The voting record is important, but I’ve never liked simple summaries (of votes, smudges, posts made, etc). I think it lulls Townies into ignoring the real evidence–why votes were made vs the stated reasons. This is a social game, not a numbers game.
[/QUOTE]

I really want to agree with you Pleo, and in a perfect situation I think I would support your play style. But I think it ignores the realites of the game. Come day 8 or 9 when we are on page 87 people just aren’t going to do a total re read. They should, but they won’t. We need to keep that sort of thing in mind.

That being said, I would like to hear more of what Mtgman thinks our group strategy should be. He is slowly starting to convince me that he might be right or at least there is something in what he is saying that might be usefull. Simply playing the numbers I don’t think is the way to go. But a uniform town strategy might highlight the scum better.

615

I’m getting worried about the current argument between NAF1138 and ArizonaTeach. The fact that they’re arguing so much (and so hard, see #608) leads me to suspect that at least one of them may be scum. But I don’t have enough of a read to suspect either one yet.

My reasons: Either they are on the same side and trying to convince us they’re not by escalating the argument (which means they’re monks or scum), or one of them knows which side the other is on (which, here on Day 1, probably means scum, small chance of Disciple or Apprentice).

Now I have to go check the other popular targets from the previous page.

616

[QUOTE=NAF1138]
I think that I have addressed the rest of your post already Queuing. As far as what you think Pleonast and Diggit did. I frankly didn’t notice you calling out Diggit about that behavior. Repost it and I will tell you what I think. Pleonast has already stated that he thinks this kind of posting is best for the town. I disagree, but since it is a part of his stated strategy I can’t say that I can read this sort of behavior one way or the other.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, no problem. Here you go:

This is where I first mention it, but I don’t name names

here I name names

I agree with Pleonast about it being a social game. I also agree with NAF about the realities of the game is that context will probably be lost. I don’t agree that a unified policy needs to be agreed upon, so I disagree with mtgman.

And NAF, since I provided my posts can you now show me where you think Arizona did the same?

617

After further review (and going back to page 11), Malacandra in #546 has a worse-than-random reason for voting; e could have voted for anybody on the same logic of “if you turn out scum, it supports my claim for being non-scum.” I’d like to see some experienced analysis of eir position.

618

[QUOTE=USCDiver]
I’m getting a little tired of your vague disparagements of my intelligence, sachertorte. From what I know of you in previous threads, I know you’re probably being a numbskull because that’s who you are and not because you’re scum in this game. I feel that you probably have a modicum of intelligence and wouldn’t be so obtuse as to out yourself so fabulously.
[/QUOTE]

I think your remarks are entirely inappropriate. I haven’t insulted anyone or called anyone stupid. I’ve called myself kinda dumb because I’m not seeing what most everyone else does. How does this insult you? I don’t see where I’ve insulted your intelligence. I saw a flawed argument (yours), and I’ve pointed it out. This doesn’t make you stupid. If I thought you were stupid, I’d ignore you entirely.

619

I hope I don’t get jumped on for this, but I really don’t understand how we can get a “unified town strategy” going. Even if all the townies agree to it and abide by it (whatever it is) the scum is going to sabotage it.

In the only other game of this type I have played online, I didn’t always have a strong reason I could articulate as to why I thought a certain player was scum - but I was sure they were and I was right. If I have that sure a feeling again I will vote that way again. If it gets me dunked so be it.

I have stated my reason for voting for sachertorte - because he seemed likely to get the Oracle or the Apprentice exposed. Since he has backed off that course I am more likely to change my vote. When I find someone more worthy of it.

620

[QUOTE=NAF1138]
You are twisting my words and getting pissy. Stop it, it won’t help.
[/QUOTE]
Words twisted? No. I honestly don’t see any other interpretation. My reasons for unvoting were entirely valid, and stated, and yet you said unvoting quickly is scummy. I have no idea how to look at it any other way.

Pissy? Maybe. I get that way when I’m accused.

Now I see that defending myself is giving others a vibe. Fantastic.