Scuba_Ben, I have no idea what you are talking about here. I have not read "meltdown in any of **Queuing’s ** posts.
Ok, trying to catch up here…
You’d think so, but that’s exactly what got me killed in Mafia III. I proposed, and my cohorts agreed, to kill my biggest critic. After all, it would just be too obvious, right? Nobody ever goes after their biggest (and, essentially, only) critic.
Well, I didn’t count on him being a Detective, which didn’t help, but for the most part people just jumped on the most obvious answer anyway.
I’m a bit puzzled by this, frankly. Of course we should try to understand why scum does what they do; they don’t choose people randomly! It is only through their acts that we know them.
I agree with this, as “consensus” typically means “we will single out people who don’t agree with us” or “we will pressure people into voting with the bandwagon” when taken on as a motto (it works heavily in scum favor). That said, it’s still extremely scummy to simply say “I’ll vote for who I think is scum” even when said person has no other votes, and do that day after day. It’s just too easy for scum to do that if the main suspects are town, and avoid being scrutinized.
In reference to my statement that “The best (or, perhaps more accurately, easiest) way for scum to succeed in the early game is to simply stay off the radar altogether. Make weak or no assertions, vote little, suspect little, post innocuously and avoid suspicion.”.
Sorry I missed your question originally but thank you for reminding me. I’m not sure what you mean by “train the newbies” but my point was that we should put ourself in scum’s shoes for the purposes of finding scum. In past games, I have seen town go awry by creating rules for themselves that tend not to work. This would include:
A. Anyone who voted for a bandwagon is suspicious!
B. Noone who voted for a bandwagon is suspicious, because scum figures that we will figure A.
C. Third vote = scum!
D. Talks a lot = scum!
E. Lurks = scum!
F. Casts suspicion at others too much = scum!
G. Fails to cast suspicion = scum!
H. Asks about strategy = scum!
I. Asks about power roles = scum!
J. Votes for town = scum!
K. Votes for scum = scum!
And, even moreso, the fact that the person who says more will give you more reason to disagree with them, tending to flag active players more, rather than less active ones.
In addition to that, I think my advice will ring true if I end up dead, and just don’t have a lot more information to give at this point other than advice. And, chances are, most townfolk will end up dead sooner or later. One way or the other. Pessimistic perhaps, but true.
But, to NAF’s point:
I can’t really argue that I couldn’t be characterized based on how I phrased scum should act. I am, but it’s not a strategy, it’s just sort of happening. I think you guys are right to suspect me, and I’ll try to reform my ways and post more. As I mentioned earlier, it’s real life related - my boss is on vacation this week, leaving me alone at the office, and my sister threw a bridal shower for someone yesterday (at my house, that I had to help her with). Plus the holiday, plus we took the dog out of town to get spayed… yeesh. Since the end is in sight, I won’t ask for a sub. But that’s the reason, such as it is.
Plus, if I was trying to go for the ideal scum strategy, my biggest criticism of myself would be to not have voted for Malacandra so early. I would have hemmed and hawed, and appeared to be a weak player, and then have tried to put my vote on a candidate I didn’t think was seriously likely to get hung. Either that or I would have unvoted by now. But, I don’t see a stronger contender yet.
Oh, and just for the long-term record:
I officially suspect Malacandra for being a bit overdefensive and flighty.
I kinda-sorta suspect Kyrie, Autolycus, and SCL, double so if Kat turns out innocent or nonbeliever. All three have nothing major that I can point out, but SCL and Auto are both striking me as being very very quiet (note, this is also why I voted for fluiddruid) and Kyrie just makes my head itch on a subconscious level.
**NAF1138 ** is lower on my radar these days, but still visible.
Just to clarify, since I can’t edit: My point about all the “rules” is that the game gets complicated but people want things to be simple. It’s so much easier that way, even if it’s not true. Thus, scum survives best (in a general manner) by not being too extreme in any particular direction. That being said, wise scum will make sure they’re not all following the same strategy, and make sure that some of them talk more, some of them talk less, etc. so that when one dies, Town will be distracted by saying “Poster X acts like Poster Y and Poster Y was scum! Lynch Poster X!”
I’m currently doing a reread before voting, which I’d like to do before I get too tired to think. I thought I’d take a break from reading and post my findings so far.
To those people who are asking “why zuma?” I say : why not? Does the first Night kill have to be deliberately selected?
The answer to that is a resounding No! It is not mandatory to pick the first night’s kill. Doing it randomly throws a spanner into the works. The town will look for reasons, and if the only reason is the roll of a die (or however it’s generated) then they’re going to waste their time asking “why?”
That doesn’t mean the Cult couldn’t have picked zuma for a reason; I just want people to consider all possibilities, and one of the possibilities is that there was no reason.
Just one point that did come to my notice. In 1031, Fluiddruid was arguing with Pleonast that vanilla townies (ie those not Cult aligned) have no reason to worry about get-out-of-dunking-free cards. That may be true, but it’s also true that townies need to put up some fight or the Cult will steer them onto the sacrificial altar one by one. I think it’s important that the townies get their suspicions out there before they get drowned.
I’m going to go back and take up where I left off. I haven’t forgotten Pasta’s voting for me – I’ll give it attention when I get there.
Well I tried posting this about an hour ago but the boards were down.
This makes sense mostly…I guess the thing with me that didn’t make sense was just how you couldn’t have done that, yet still kept your vote where it was since it wouldn’t have changed anything. That way you’d have still gotten out all your suspicions for others to see if you ever kick the bucket and IF you really are town, and not look so odd changing your vote right at the last minute…
Not really. I just didn’t see the point, personally, either way. But then again, you’re right, no harm in it either seemingly. At least not yet.
Some snipped.
Ah, but therein lies the bit of trust one would have to put on your part. Since nobody knows, for sure, you’re town save for youself (if you really are)*, it’s hard to put faith in it right off.
*(unless you REALLY are town and also have a power role that would grant someone else knowing you are town)
Two things here, for the first, I actually say good. I thought there were a few things off with some of his posts myself, but not as much as others did seemingly and I wasn’t ready to vote for him either. I always said in this game that if one isn’t sure then why not vote for someone who is in no danger of being lynched (or dunked in this game)? And for the second part of that, admittantly this is true…but I think it applies to things in general and not just me, doesn’t it? I seem to recall there being a term for that…about how when someone’s in the mindset of something, that everything they see seems to validate it.
I certainly hope that’s not the case here, but if it is, I’ll try to self check. For the record, I’m not as suspicious of you either as I was on Day One, but that’s mostly like you said…that I think our definition of lurking was/is different. In any case, I guess time will tell.
This was in reply to Hal about M3 subs…and I seem to recall zuma also replaced Omi No Kami too.
Hahah, okay, I gotcha. Thanks for clearing it up. And you all thought I was weird for looking at avatars in M4!
Putting my two cents in…I’ve seen both scum and town do this before, so I honestly couldn’t tell you, but it IS something that usually trips my wires a bit. Things like what you posted and “it’s so random!”/“I don’t know who to vote for!” type comments always make me think that someone is trying too hard to make it seem like it’s a total shot in the dark. Especially if it’s early in the game. I’ve voted for people in the past who have done this, so yeah, I tend to think it’s shady too, but again, to be fair, I’ve seen people who’ve said that turn out to be town…so while I’d, personally, take it with some radar pings, I wouldn’t use it too strongly against someone. At least not anymore.
I think it’s a bit of both. Of what you said and NAF said. I found this topic mostly dead all day on the fourth…and also, even now that it’s picked up again, I find myself reading every post in here and seeing what else hits me, but I find myself remaining the same in my suspicions. Nothing else has struck me so far so I don’t really know what else to comment on without just posting for the sake of posting. : p
Speaking of that, though…there are some players who are really not posting at all. Auto seemed to be around a lot on the last Day but hardly at all this Day. Cometothedarkside has been posting some, but doesn’t seem to put much in her posts and it just seems to be here and there. And like others have said, fluiddruid was a strong player in the other games, and even though she’s said she’s just been busy, it just seems unlike her. And we all already know about MadtheSwine.
Mind you, NONE of these are suspicions, at least from me, but it just seems like more and more people not posting that much and not giving the rest of us much to work with or go on. It just seems to be a general problem with the game, however I don’t know of a good way it could be helped or fixed. : /
None of the above have tripped my meters at all, but it’s hard not to use posts in any way you can when there’s not many posts forthcoming.
[off-game]And, combined with the behavior of the above, it makes me believe that the mafia type games may be getting a bit tiring for some and might need a break here and there. This is my third game in a row and I find myself pretty exhausted sometimes from having to think so much and reason/logic things out.[/off-game]
Snipped heavy.
True, but like you just said, he happened to be the Detective. Just bad luck there, but not nessacarily bad strategy.
The Mafia has absolutely no incentive to throw away a targeted kill, just as Town has no incentive to go “What the hell, let’s all just roll the dice and see who comes up snake eyes!”
The speculation about why people have done what they have done in this game is the only asset of Town. Discouraging this as a flippant discussion is scummy at best, MHaye.
Oh, and I don’t see any reason to change my current vote right now. I only have two players so far that have giving me strong vibes for a Day and a half (about equally) and my vote is on one of them already. None of the talk thus far has given me any second thoughts yet, and really, there hasn’t been that much posting to help or worsen either case, so I dunno.
But I’m happy with it for now and will hold pending further info/insights.
You can ponder this, if you wish, but it is not the case. When finding it difficult to devote enough time to truly catch up on a game, I will at least try and post something. As for my hesitance to put too much analysis on our Day 1 bandwagon, that would be a combination of two primary factors: a) it is only Day 1, for crying out loud, and b) I have a bad track record for town-killing bandwagon analysis. I had tried my hand at it in M3, but all I managed to do was suspect a bunch of townies and possibly curse Nesta into eventually being recruited.
Do you mind explaining why you “kinda-sorta suspect” only three of the four players who have voted for Kat? Fretful Porpentine was the first player toDay to vote for her, yet doesn’t raise your suspicions at all? That seems a bit odd to me. I know it will look suspicious of me to have voted for Kat if she turns out to not be Cult. However, that is the risk of the game.
I also find it very odd that Hockey Monkey would overlook the 7 players who already have votes to place the first vote for Fretful Porpentine - listing as one of the reasons for that vote the “one-off” vote FP placed on Nava. So you are doing the same thing you think is suspicious when someone else does it?
I’m not really seeing anything from Queuing that is inconsistent with his persona in earlier games. I was absolutely dead-on SURE that he was scum at the very end of M2, because I got the same kind of vibe from him that you’re describing here, but he wasn’t.
So … are we supposed to not TALK about one of the few solid pieces of information we have at this stage of the game? That seems counterproductive, to say the least.
And what if the Mafia have no particular reason to kill anyone? A random first kill can throw people who look for reasons right off.
Did you miss this paragraph?
No-one had raised the question of whether zuma was chosen at random, probably because the culture of the Dope is heavily biased towards rationality. I merely took the blinkers off.
The Cult[sup]1[/sup] could have picked their hit at random. I concede that they very probably did pick zuma for a purpose - whatever it was. And it’s unlikely in the extreme that they’ll settle for random choice in subsequent Days. But you cannot rule out that they went random just to sow confusion.
[sup]1[/sup]I’m not ruling out the possibility that the Cult did not kill and that zuma was offed by the Crusader. I just consider it far more likely that the Crusader was the one who did not kill.
I lost my connection to the boards for a while, so I’m popping in briefly to up my FOS to a vote: Vote Kat on the strength of ArizonaTeach’s rapid defensiveness.
If I get back online before Dusk, I may reevaluate.
Perhaps you should have read my entire quote, or not snipped it in such a way as to remove the context. The rest of my sentence explains why I find it suspicious.
As addressed before, the day is not over. I can see how it can be viewed as doing the same thing, but there have been others who have expressed suspicion of Fretful’s actions. I am the first to vote for him, but I may not be the last. As I said before, I may change my mind if more compelling evidence comes to light in the next few hours. I don’t consider a vote to be a one-off or throw away until the day is done.
There’s just under a day left as it stands. There’s a total of 16 votes cast.
** Kat (repl. ArizonaTeach) ** (5) - Fretful Porpentine, Autolycus, SnakesCatLady, Kyrie Eleison, Scuba_Ben
** Malacandra ** (4) - Pleonast, fluiddruid, sachertorte, Idle Thoughts
** fluiddruid ** (2) - Zeriel, NAF1138
** Fretful Porpentine ** (1) - Hockey Monkey
** Hal Briston ** (1) - Queuing
** MHaye ** (1) - Pasta
** MonkeyMensch ** (1) - DiggitCamara
** Pleonast ** (1) - FlyingCowOfDoom
On further reflection, because nearly half the players have yet to vote perhaps because they are still on vacation from the Fourth, and because the boards were down for a few hours during prime time today, I am reconsidering extending the Day by 24 hours.
Would anyone like to weigh in on whether or not this will be helpful or disruptive? I’ll probably have a final decision on that by tonight.
Thanks for the explanation. I realize that my question sort of singled you out, but that wasn’t my intention. I was just curious per earlier discussions about consensus with Pleonast.
I’d rather keep it as is. It’s my impression that many American-based players are more active during the week, which means that pushing Nights into the week cuts down on their participation. I also have personal reasons (I’m not giving up my D&D game for this, which means I’d miss the close of Day).
However, if the majority want more time, I’ll roll with it.
I’m fine either way.
Doesn’t matter to me. If people want it extended, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine.