Mafia V: The Cult of Sekham

[Hal_Briston]

@Hal Briston

Judging by his post, I’m thinking that USCDiver mixed up the Avatar with the Psychopath.

Actually, I guess that should say “judging by your response to his post…”.

After actually reading USCDiver’s post, I see that was not the case at all. I get a demerit.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Sweet Nairu. I haven’t even had any coffee yet and already there are more posts to wade through.

I shall return with (admittedly questionable) insight. After my coffee. ducks into the local cafe

[Hal_Briston]

@HazelNutCoffee

After my coffee.

Any particular flavor?

[sachertorte]

I don’t think the Avatar’s tempering of scum votes is a good thing. I think its bad, because it throws out of whack past experience on how scum might vote. We really don’t know how scum will react to the presence of the Avatar and even the experienced players won’t know for sure how scum will react and vote. How less likely will it be? I don’t think we can know that.

Furthermore, does making scum less likely to vote for scum make it harder to dunk scum? I’m not sure if this is true, I’m just asking. It seems like a bad thing.

The Avatar makes scum behavior different. And different is bad because we don’t have experience in identifying behavior under these conditions. Basically everything about the Avatar is bad, which now that I say it makes this post seem utterly silly.

[Queuing]

@sachertorte

• Telling me I shouldn’t expect those that discussed plan#2 to be held accountable. Then holding DiggitCamara accountable for plan#2.

I never said anything of the sort. I said your whining about others not being held accountable was not useful. Then I showed why some people might be more inclined to go after you rather then Diggit camara, or myself for being the originator and an initial supporter.

@sachertorte

• Furthermore Queuing supported DiggitCamara’s plan originally. How can Queuing of all people use a plan he supported as reason to vote for DiggitCamara? How is this logical? If Queuing himself looked at the plan and thought, ‘yeah, that doesn’t suck,’ how can he blame DiggitCamara for thinking it was a viable plan too? How can Queuing excuse his own blind spot and at the same time hold DiggitCamara accountable for the same mistake? Inconsistent!

I did not use the plan itself as any reason to vote for him. I used the proposal timing of said plan. Not the plan itself. In correlation with his random voting and unvote. The only thing inconsistent is your reading comprehension.

[Blaster_Master]

@Scuba_Ben

I double-checked that; I’m asking about the reverse case: Could the Apprentice mis-read somebody else as the Avatar?

No, a reading of Avatar is guaranteed to be 100% correct. Here’s the relevant quote from the rules:

Further, because of the great evil flowing in your veins, the Oracle and Apprentice will make no mistake identifying you and cannot mistake anyone else as you.

ETA: I see MHaye already drew up the approrpriate quote.

[Hal_Briston]

@sachertorte

The Avatar makes scum behavior different. And different is bad because we don’t have experience in identifying behavior under these conditions.

But doesn’t past experience dictate that the scum will behave differently anyway? If you look at their voting patterns from each game, you see they’ve always changed up their behaviour.

Now, eventually they’ll have to behave in a way that we’ve seen before, but we won’t know about until it’s already come to pass. Adding the Avatar to the mix just makes for another factor that no one knows about – not us, not the scum, hell, not even the Avatar himself. All we can do is play things out as usual*, and hope that when the Avatar finally goes off, he takes one of his buddies with him.

(*Note: This, of course, will change if the Oracle/Apprentice happens across the Avatar. Personally, I have no fricking clue how they should handle that one)

[sachertorte]

@Queuing

The only thing inconsistent is your reading comprehension.

Insults are neither appreciated nor necessary.

@Queuing

-it was he who posted the 2nd Oracle/Apprentice plan. While he has not kept on about this plan, like a couple other people, I seem to recall that this idea was thrown out there once the discussion of the other plan had seemed to die off. This cause further plan discussion, including the divide and conquer plan rearing its head again. I admit I was caught up in this discussion again, as were other people. IMO I believe it is time to STFU about great plans to solve this game once and for all. It ain’t going to happen. We have had 2 plans proposed both shown to be severely flawd, and a mammoth post or 2 from someone who also loves the idea of a cohesive plan.

You seriously expect me or anyone else to read these statements and conclude that it was the timing of the plan and not the plan itself as the reason for your vote? The first statement is “it was he who posted the 2nd Oracle/Apprentice plan.” The only part that even hints at timing is the last clause of the second sentence, “I seem to recall that this idea was thrown out there once the discussion of the other plan had seemed to die off.” ‘seem’ You expect me to believe that you’re voting based on what you seem to recall? You didn’t go back and check?

My reading comprehension is fine, thank you. If you wanted to state DiggitCamara’s timing as the reason for your vote, you would have said something like, ‘DiggitCamara proposed the second plan when discussion was finally dieing out.’

Nice try at trying to change the meaning of your words after the fact though.

[Blaster_Master]

Two Days left. A total of 22 Votes.

** sachertorte ** (3) - SnakesCatLady, MonkeyMensch, fluiddruid
** Autolycus ** (2) - Fretful Porpentine, ArizonaTeach
** Clockwork Jackal / Kyrie Eleison ** (2) - MadTheSwine, Zeriel
** Hal Briston ** (2) - Kyrie Eleison, zuma
** MadTheSwine ** (2) - storyteller0910, HazelNutCoffee
** NAF1138 ** (2) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Autolycus
** Zuma ** (2) - Malacandra, Captain Klutz
** ArizonaTeach ** (1) - NAF1138
** DiggitCamara ** (1) - Queuing
** Idle Thoughts ** (1) - Pasta
** Malacandra ** (1) - Pleonast
** Pasta ** (1) - Idle Thoughts
** Pleonast ** (1) - Hockey Monkey
** Queuing ** (1) - sachertorte

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Every game is a completely unique mix of rules, experience levels, observations (and sometimes baggage) from past games, and last but not least…individual brains and personalities. All of these moving parts require some getting used to, and nowhere is that more obvious than during Day 1.

As has been repeatedly stated elsewhere, the investigators are in no way required to comply with any discussion/conclusion/debate regarding their roles. There has been a lot of such discussion, by many people, and it is only Day 1. Imho, Day 1 is WAY too early to consider repeated commentary on apparently pet topics as a suspicious pattern.

And frankly, I have to wonder just how much insight into the nuances (particularly the limitations) of these roles we’ve gained so early in the game as a direct result of these conversations?

I certainly have learned and realized quite a bit, and I don’t think I’m the only one. And before anyone comes chiming in with a “Exactly! And what if you’re scum?!? That means the scum is learning too!! Oh noes!!” just know that I’m talking purely from a role-understanding perspective, something which we ALL need for ALL roles in order to have a good, fun game.

Enough with the sanity, let’s move onto the paranoia…

Vote Kyrie Eleison

Why? Because of my gut reaction to some of Clockwork Jackal’s early comments (not enough on their own to comment on them at the time, but were included in my decision), and this exchange:

@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies

If memory serves, I was at least partially involved in that M3 “early game” random voting conversation as well, as a town player, and I leaned more towards Blaster’s views both then and now.

Ymmv on all of what I’m about to say.

Mine is not an “all or nothing” perspective. There are subtleties that need to be examined.

Random voting vs random FOSing: I personally have a higher comfort level with random FOSing during the first Day than random voting. Why? Because a FOS cannot be the gateway drug to a bandwagon, whereas a vote can be.

Ice-breaking: Poking sticks at people prompts them to post and gives us all fodder for actual analysis. As of typing this post, we’ve had at least one allegedly random vote, and I guess what you might call an allegedly traditional vote ( at Diggit), neither of which bother me much, aside from the bandwagon potential that they carry.

Always remember to interpret all things with an extra dose of skepticism: It is indeed possible and probable that the scum will be voting and FOSing and trying to say that such things were random. It is also possible and probable that the scum will pounce on opportunities provided by allegedly random selections made by others, whether they were legitimately random or not.

All that being said, I think that the random topic discussion is healthy, as is (informed) use and interpretation of truly random votes by those who are not confident in any other selection method.

@Kyrie Eleison (quoting only the blue portion above)

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!

@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies

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.

@crickets chirping

…

This just strikes me as a scummy hit-and-run out of context twisting of my words, and it gets you my vote.

[Scuba_Ben]

@Revered GM Blaster Master

** Autolycus ** (2) - Fretful Porpentine, ArizonaTeach
** Clockwork Jackal / Kyrie Eleison ** (2) - MadTheSwine, Zeriel
** Hal Briston ** (2) - Kyrie Eleison, zuma
** MadTheSwine ** (2) - storyteller0910, HazelNutCoffee
** NAF1138 ** (2) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Autolycus
** Zuma ** (2) - Malacandra, Captain Klutz

I’m going to have to cast a vote in the next few hours, as I won’t be online again until some time on Sunday. I’ve decided to review what I can, then pick one of these people to vote for - so that those of you who will be around tonight and tomorrow have multiple leading vote candidates to choose between.

My current inclinations:

Autolycus hasn’t said anything useful that I’m aware of.
Kyrie Eleison subbed in mid-Day, I don’t have an opinion on him or Clockwork Jackal. So I’m unlikely to vote for him.
Hal, Mad, and NAF I need to review.
Zuma took a vote and I don’t think has defended emself. I think I should be concerned about that.

[Scuba_Ben]

Added after post (I had to stop myself from editing the post): I see that Come…HaveCookies voted for Kyrie Eleison in #750, so I will have to check updated vote counts before I finally vote.

[Queuing]

@sachertorte

You seriously expect me or anyone else to read these statements and conclude that it was the timing of the plan and not the plan itself as the reason for your vote? The first statement is “it was he who posted the 2nd Oracle/Apprentice plan.” The only part that even hints at timing is the last clause of the second sentence, “I seem to recall that this idea was thrown out there once the discussion of the other plan had seemed to die off.” ‘seem’ You expect me to believe that you’re voting based on what you seem to recall? You didn’t go back and check?

You can believe what you want, the truth is what I stated. I didn’t re-read the thread. I was placing a vote, and I was explaining my reasons. I don’t care what you believe to be honest, all I can do is state what I believe.

@sachertorte

My reading comprehension is fine, thank you. If you wanted to state DiggitCamara’s timing as the reason for your vote, you would have said something like, ‘DiggitCamara proposed the second plan when discussion was finally dieing out.’

I did say that. Sorry if my writing style is not to your liking. I stated my 2 reasons to vote for Diggit.

@sachertorte

Nice try at trying to change the meaning of your words after the fact though.

Huh? I didn’t try to change anything. I admitted that I tentatively supported the plan. I gave my reasons for voting for Diggit. I stated them in a way you seem to disagree with. Well that is your prerogative. I am glad you have stopped talking about your plan though.

I am leaving in 45 minutes, and that will be it for my participation. My vote stands.

[Hal_Briston]

Hey Scuba_Ben, you are aware that everyone on that list having multiple votes means exactly nothing in determining whether or not there are any actual scum on there, right? I mean, you pull a list of six players, and you’ve got decent enough odds that there will be a cultist in there, but no guarantees.

Just thinking maybe you should go with who you actually think may be scum from the full list of players, rather than from a Day One list (which is pretty much as close to a random assortment as you can get).

I realize you’re under a time constraint here (hell, I’ll be making a vote later today for the same reason as you – my weekend access drops off heavily), but I’d be hesitant to limit your pool of potentials.

[MonkeyMensch]

First things first: Good morning.

I was joking about filtering my thread read, hence the nice smiley at the end. I don’t even know how or if you can filter threads, and I don’t care. I was kidding.

sachertorte, with respect to your request to re-read your previous post #633 I went back and re-read it. In it you admit to perhaps going on too long about a bad possible first day stratagem. That very thing is part of my suspicion.

That having been said, it’s halfway through the first day and there’s not a ton of info yet.

And I hope there’s no confusion between Hockey Monkey and MonkeyMensch.

[NAF1138]

Just checking in:

Work is blowing me away today (playing catchup from yesterdays meetings) and I haven’t been able to keep up with the thread the way I had hoped to. I will do a total re read at lunch and hopefully have more thoughts.

Also, my participation on all weekends is going to be limited. It won’t be non existant, but if you ever wonder why I suddenly start posting only once a day once Friday evening hits, it is because of that.

(my girlfriend isn’t a fan of me playing the game while I am home with her, she wants to go on walks and have picnics and stuff. :rolleyes: )

[Mtgman]

@Hockey Monkey

First of all: Ugh, that made my head hurt.

Second: That’s no fun! Sitting back and letting a couple of people do all the work isn’t in the spirit of the game.

Third: I think there are other roles that you have forgotten that can screw with the whole scenario, namely the Alchemist and the Psychopath. If the Alchemist inadvertantly blocks the Oracle or Apprentice, your plan gets all screwed up. Or if the Crusader or Cultists activate the Psychopath, same thing.

Fourth: The Oracle or Apprentice (or Nairu forbid) both could have already given themselves away in the kerfluffle of discussion surrounding them. If so, and the Cultists have a bead on them already, then the whole plan is moot.

Lastly: I don’t think voting No-Dunk is good for the town. There are no voting records or associations to examine later in the endgame.

I picked this post to respond to as it was one of the most succinct in its objections(which were shared by others). I think we’ve probably all had enough of the uber-long conversational type posts by now. So I’ll keep this one relatively short and answer point by point.

1. Sorry

2. You’re right. It’s not fun. I apologize. I tend to treat games as puzzles versus processes. Something that has a definite end state that you can achieve if you manipulate the various parts just right. Game theory backs me up by saying every zero-sum game is solvable, but that only speaks to the possibility of doing so, not the wisdom of doing so.

3. The brief outline of a theoretical game I posted(and it was brief compared to the space a real game takes up :)) was not meant to be comprehensive. There are hundreds of deviations it could take along the way. Still, I think the town is smart enough to compensate, as long as the majority share a unified vision of where we’re going. This was probably my other major mistake in trying to put the scenarios together. There are multiple win conditions and the individual groups(Non-Believers, Crusader, Psychopath) may not be willing to throw in with the vanilla townies and give up their chance to achieve their own smaller group win(c.f. Hal’s behavior in MIII). So getting the consensus necessary to put a plan like this into effect is improbable enough to make it moot.

4. True, but that’s hardly within my control. They could give themselves away without any help from me. If anything I think the chatter about the Oracle and Apprentice would help hide them because they can talk about it and blend in. When someone brings up a role out of the blue, and starts asking questions about it, it raises suspicions. Why do they care? Why do they want to know? Fern Forrest was tagged as the serial killer in MII because he/she had asked questions about the role and done some theory about it. That, combined with a bad reading from the Beat Cop, ended up lynching Fern(who was town).

Lastly. Regardless of the level of detail I had worked the No Dunk strategy out to, I assure you it was never meant to be anything more than a theoretical to jumpstart discussion. It was in response to storyteller0910’s question to me in post 622

@storyteller0910

How can we gain information with a better confidence level than that obtained through analysis of posts? I am willing to admit that just because I can’t see how it can be accomplished doesn’t mean it’s not possible to accomplish, but so far you haven’t given us anything that I see as having practical utility. Give me an example, just one, of how we’re going to obtain definitive information (beyond that supplied by deaths and/or power roles), and I’ll consider your point.

So I worked up a way for the town to, theoretically, play more methodically until the information was obtained. I didn’t feel constrained by the “beyond that supplied by deaths and/or power roles” bit because I never claimed those wouldn’t be elements of an overall town strategy. I do find it curious that he included that caveat, and I find his strong reaction to my meta-analysis annoying(particularly the repeat characterization of it as really bad for the town).

Still, the point has been made, by numerous people. Enough with the meta-gaming, and it’s time to move on with the real gaming. I’ll work on some of that this afternoon and be back with a vote or a FOS. Deal?

Enjoy,
Steven

[Hockey_Monkey]

@Mtgman

4. True, but that’s hardly within my control. They could give themselves away without any help from me. If anything I think the chatter about the Oracle and Apprentice would help hide them because they can talk about it and blend in. When someone brings up a role out of the blue, and starts asking questions about it, it raises suspicions. Why do they care? Why do they want to know? Fern Forrest was tagged as the serial killer in MII because he/she had asked questions about the role and done some theory about it. That, combined with a bad reading from the Beat Cop, ended up lynching Fern(who was town).

Hee, that Beat Cop was me. :smack: I still feel sick to my stomach every time someone brings it up, but the fact that people remember the whole clusterfuck is kinda cool. Like a Defining Moments in SDMB Mafia History kinda thing.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Ow. I just burned my tongue on my coffee. ← grimace of pain

Hal, funnily enough, I don’t particularly like hazelnut coffee. I drink Caribou’s Columbia roast. I hope that particular brand is not on your scum tell list.

NAF, it’s all good. We all have our days, and this game seems to stress us all out more than is healthy.

Er, I know I said I’d bring insight after coffee, but I’m still torn. I guess the Day ends Sunday afternoon? Argh. Where in Nairu’s name is MtS?

Some random thoughts:

I don’t see what good it’s going to do, worrying about the Avatar. The only situation in which anything can be done about it is IF the Avatar is about to be lynched and either the Oracle or the Apprentice knows it. (It’s silly for either of them to role-claim simply for the purpose of revealing the Avatar until the risk of someone getting Avatar-killed is imminent.) If the Oracle and or Apprentice knows that the Avatar is about to be lynched, they’re just going to have to make a judgement call - depending on who is voting for the Avatar (a power-role townie, for example), how much information the Oracle/Apprentice has (enough to make a role-claim worthwhile?), and how many townies we have left (can we absolutely not afford to lose another one?). It might be better just to take the risk of an Avatar-voter being killed rather than having the Oracle or Apprentice blow their cover simply so a townie can live. But again, it really depends on how the game plays out, and worrying about it now isn’t really getting us anywhere.

I see that sacher has racked up the most votes so far. I’ve said this before, but if sacher IS scum, he’s either being very clever or very reckless in painting such a large target on his back on Day 1.

My suspicions of zuma still stand. Off to re-read for more clues. I am such a masochist.

[Mtgman]

@sachertorte

Please do. Tell me if you find anything in coordination that makes the town over reliant on the results. Also, I think that if you missed that non-believers and cultists yield the same readings, then you should be open to the possiblity that Mtgman might have as well. I didn’t, but I don’t think the existence of Millers affects the coordination plan.

No, I didn’t miss that part. I just don’t consider three non-believers an unacceptable level of collateral damage. If we had complete Oracle results on everyone, right now, we’d have probably nine or ten “Non-Believer” results. Six to seven of those are Cult. So if we find ten Non-Believers, and we dunk them all, we still get a 2:1 Cult/Townie ratio. This is far, FAR, better than any Mafia game has done thus far.

storyteller0910, can you explain this to me please? In post 712 on page 15 you said

@storyteller0910

Whoa. I think I missed this fact [Cultists and Non-Believers having the same result when investigated]. This is of enormous and fundamental importance. Depending upon the number of non-Cult non-believers included in the game, this completely eliminates (or, at least makes phenomenally unlikely) the possibility of a purely Investigator-driven victory.

Yet in post 659 on page 14 you said

@storyteller0910

Again, assuming: (1) the Oracle isn’t night-killed along the way; (2) we haven’t mis-identified nonbelievers as Cultists and killed them instead of the actual enemy; (3) the Apprentice investigations are anything like believable (and they’re not; none of them are probitive and the first few as likely to clear a Cultist or hang an innocent as the reverse).

Regarding your item #2, if you believed, until post 712, the nonbelievers would investigate as town, how could we mis-identify them? You covered the uncertainty about the Apprentice’s results in your item #3, so the logical conclusion is you were talking about the Oracle’s identification results in #2. So in post 659 you seem to understand how a Non-Believer will investigate, but you are suprised by it in post 712. Some clarification if you please.

Enjoy,
Steven