Mafia V: The Cult of Sekham

The Game Room
1561

Thoughts on various players

Malacandra - likely town. I believe that the events of Night 1 are best explained by Mal being town (see #1264).
Mal didn’t vote in Day 2. He explained this in #1440, which looks very genuine (I thought some of his Day 2 postings looked like a man resigned to his fate).

Malacandra got 2 quick votes at the start of Day 2. One was from Pleonast, with the “heads I win, tails you lose” comment. This looked reasonable at first glance, and his immediate vote looks to be his style (he also had a quick vote at the start of days 1 and 3). His day 3 vote (#1442 ) is also for Mal, the justification being that “There’s been no reasonable defense”. I’m not sure what to make of this. However, Pleonast has hardly posted in Days 2 and 3, perhaps trying to keep off the radar. I’m suspicious of Pleonast.

Fluiddruid - cast the second vote for Mal on day 2. The vote was justified by ‘everyday townies have no real reason to worry about “get out of dunking free” cards’ (#1031 ). To me, this looks like it was trying to start a bandwagon.

Idle Thoughts - leaning town, for his decisive pursual of Kat. This may instead have been a clever ploy, arranged during Night 2, but I don’t think that’s very likely.

Hockey Monkey put in the last vote for Mtgman on Day 1, when Mtgman was already well in the lead. It seems unlikely for scum to needlessly join a townie lynch, so I am leaning toward Hockey Monkey being town (of course, you can also look at it as a brilliant scum move in order to avoid suspicion etc…)

Sachertorte - leaning town. Looks to have the town’s interests at heart.

Nava - no idea. Nava hasn’t posted much, partly due to timezone issues (hey, I’ve got timezone issues too!)

For my vote, it is between Pleonast and Fluiddruid. I will vote Fluiddruid

1562

Y’know, Queuing, now that you’ve done that I’m going to have to re-read Scuba_Ben’s stuff more carefully. I’d been mostly ignoring him and a few others because I’d seen them post but they weren’t following lines of reasoning that I was concerned with, but your list seems to indicate he’s not reasoning much at all.

Then again, my most recent re-read has me suspecting Hal Briston more again, due to the timing of the voting on Mal and mtgman (to my own annoyance, I had been counting his death as bad, but not TOO bad because of the difficulty of determining good non-belief from bad by any means other than dunking–not to mention the flak I’ve been getting over my later vote.)

I’m gonna have to chew on this a while. Lynched non-believers might provide more clues than I’d initially thought, because scum almost have to vote on them as though they’re townsfolk (since scum can’t differentiate them from townsfolk just as the O/A can’t differentiate them from scum.) but townies are not going to be as upset about their deaths so people won’t analyze them as much.

I’m, of course, lending weight to my own death here since I’m also primarily suspected based on my somewhat pivotal vote on mtgman, but I’ve already explained my reasoning for that vote in post 1551

Yeesh, and I thought I wasn’t going to have time today. Stupid busy-waiting on meetings to happen.

If I were forced to vote right now, I’d have to roll a die, because Hal Briston, Scuba_Ben, NAF1138, and Hockey Monkey are all looking possible to me for reasons stated upthread. At the same time, I’m wondering if I should bite the bullet and vote now (and risk being accused of bandwagon-starting) or wait until I’m sure of what I want to accomplish with a vote (and risk another mtgman-vs-ArizonaTeach situation that’ll get me killed tomorrow).

This game is radically different here on the SDMB, that’s for sure.

1563

My last bit of discussion about staying alive is probably suspiciously scummy, at that. Whether or not people want to think of me as a newbie player who’s getting inappropriately nervous about dying (and I don’t think we can afford to be cavalier about “take one for the team” town deaths) or as a scum who’s playing up his over-defensiveness as a WIFOM strategy, that’s up to them.

1564

I like Queuing’s analysis of Scuba_Ben. I had also been getting a sort of ‘posting a lot but not saying anything’ vibe from Scuba_Ben, but hadn’t had the chance to do a deeper analysis to confirm my suspicion. Also, I need to note that I think I’ve been confusing MHaye and Scuba_Ben so either they are both ‘not saying much’ or I’m just in a state of confusion. Queuing’s look at Scuba_Ben at least makes me think I’m at least only half confused.
Anyway, I like Queuing’s look at Scuba_Ben. My suspicions of **Queuing **are fading.

My list of people I wouldn’t mind dunking today include:
NAF
Hockey Monkey
Scuba_Ben

I’m most suspicious of NAF, but if there’s little support for dunking NAF, I’ll back A Hockey Monkey or Scuba_Ben dunk. (Of course if others give analysis on another candidate, I’ll consider alternatives).

Personally, I think this game is kind of screwed. MonkeyMensch is still a no-show; MadTheSwine has posted a little bit but not much substance yet, and many *many *others haven’t participated much in day three.

Day Three Post Count up to post 1557:
Auto (Diggit) 4
Captain Klutz 7
Cookies 4
fluiddruid 3
FlyingCowOfDoom 3
Fretful Porpentine 5
Hal Briston 7
HazelNutCoffee 9
Hockey Monkey 9
Idle Thoughts 9
Kyrie Eleison 9
MadTheSwine 8
Malacandra 3
MHaye 7
MonkeyMensch 0
NAF 19
Nava 3
Pasta 2
Pleonast 3
Queuing 17
sachertorte 12
Scuba_ben 6
SnakesCatLady 6
USCDiver 9
Zeriel 26

** Of course some of those with more than 5 posts might be posting fluff or padding the count in some other way. I didn’t check for content. But I think this many players posting so little is very bad for the game. (I’m not even talking pro-town or anti-town, just from a game flow/operations perspective).

I know there are reasons for lack of posting. I’m sure there are *very *good reasons for some people not posting much, but with 3 people with 4 or 5 posts and 7 people with 3 or less posts… it messes up the game.

In looking at this list, I’m inclined to knock **NAF **off my dunk-today list simply because he has a presence in the game.

1565

I too am still suspicious of Hal Briston. I do not want to vote for him know though. Based on his spreadsheet however. Currently he is being useful. It is my idea to go after people based on 2 things. 1 of these, and the most important is whether or not I think they are scum. The 2nd is how useful they are being to the cause of the Believers. Hal is being more useful then either Monkeymensch (where my vote lies as there has been no decision in regards to him being subbed or not) and Scuba Ben.

1566

For what it’s worth, I think this explanatory post is much scummier than what you posted initially. But then again I already think you are scum, so maybe I am biased. :dubious:

[off topic]you said that the SDMB version is very different, how so? This is just curiosity on my part, I mostly play meat space versions also but have read many games at mafiascum. Just interested to know what other people think about the version of the game we are developing here.[/off topic]

1567

That’s practically tautological – yes, they are innocuous if innocently made, as that’s pretty much the definition of innocuous. I wasn’t prepared to assume that they were innocently made, though. I thought that his remarks were worth noting, and pointed them out for consideration. I don’t know why you take exception to that. You intimate suspicion, but you’re not very explicit about it.

You did reference only one quote, and in so doing, you made it appear that I was attempting to find fault with Idle based on a single, “innocuous”, remark. This is a small thing, but it bugs me – it, along with your choice of loaded words, and your failure to draw any sort of conclusion, strike me as dishonest. You acknowledged that you read the original post, so you were aware that there was more to it than your post represents.

To be clear, I don’t think that anyone who reads this:

would fail to think that that my post concerned anything other than a single remark by Idle, unless they were already aware of the context, or bothered to review it. And I note that there’s not cite that would easily allow them to perform such a review. Is it fair of me to say that you knowingly misrepresented what I had said?

1568

Not staying off the radar, I just have little new to say. Malacandra is still the most suspicious to me, followed by MonkeyMensch. I’ve stated my reasons (for Mal 1004, and for Mensch 1442), and don’t see a point to endlessly repeating them. I’ve been going back and reading others’ posts, but don’t see enough to make a case against anyone else.

A couple people have voted for me, for apparently ill-defined suspicious behavior. I’ve stated my reasons for all of my votes and I have no defense other than I think I’m acting in the Town’s interest. They don’t. And while I disagree with their assessment, their suspicions don’t seem unreasonable enough for me to be suspicious of them.

Since I have little time to follow along on weekends, I’d prefer people would get their votes in today. Hopefully we can get a consensus on who to dunk by this afternoon. I’d rather avoid a late minute rush to vote and corresponding quick bandwagons and/or role claims.

1569

I don’t think your analysis is overly biased, but I will point out that bias probably pointed you into the direction of Scuba_Ben and motivated you to investigate his history. Also, I’d say that Scuba_Ben is probably not the only player with the modus operandi you attribute to Scuba_Ben. That doesn’t absolve Scuba_Ben, but I think it gives perspective to what we’re facing here.

1570

I’ve gone over storyteller’s posts through about 750, and here’s what I’ve found significant so far:

In #281 and #351, there’s a dust-up with MadTheSwine.

In #362, aks Pleonast about their vote on USCDiver; I think I missed Pleonast’s reply. On the other hand, by #483, this had triggered Idle Thoughts interest in Pleonast.

In #582, goes after Mtgman for discussing the math of night kills.

In #589 and #593, finds problems with NAF1138’s vote on ArizonaTeach for NAF giving leeway to Malacandra but not to AZTeach.

In #712, has a change of outlook upon realizing that Cult does not ID as Cult, and hits Mtgman’s plan.

From these, I believe that MadTheSwine and NAF1138 are probably not Monks; Mtgman has been shown to not be a Monk. I base this on my conjecture that the Monks, forming a trusted group, probably want to not reveal each other early in the game.

Those pages also cover the early discussion of the Oracle and Apprentice. When I was skimming those posts, I had an insight that I don’t think was brought up earlier: The Cultists ID as Nonbeliever, and the Prophet IDs as Believer – but the town’s power roles ID as such. Therefore, investigations of people that reveal power roles will be 100% reliable for the Oracle. At some point, certainly not toDay, sharing a list of people of known power roles will be useful, as it will add people to the trusted group.

The other point that jumped out at me in those early pages was how weak my posts were in Day 1 and likely much of Day 2. If it’s that obvious even to me, I can barely imagine how it appears to everybody else. I hope I’ll be doing better next week.

1571

Um…so why are we trying to figure out who the monks are? I understand you may not think that is what you are doing, and eliminating possible monk claims is a noble endevor, but let the monks look out for each other. We don’t need to out them or cover for them.

1572

As well as to the “primary target for a scum kill” group. A spectacularly bad idea, if you ask me. The only time the Oracle should make public his findings is A) if he’s uncovered a large group of “non-believers” (some of which are bound to be scum), or B) if he’s about to be lynched. Obviously, if B is the case then he’ll have to role-claim, and hopefully the Priest is still around to move from self-protecting to Oracle-protecting.

Still, it would have to be very late in the game for it to be a good idea for him to start naming names on the power roles.

1573

sachertorte, looks like you knocked some folks out of the woodwork to come back and actually post. =) I’m curious as to whether you have any opinions on Hal Briston, myself–otherwise, my current suspicion list looks close to yours.

Well, I’m still holding out on declaring you scum, but like sachertorte, I wouldn’t mind seeing you dunk. Consider it halfway mutual. =P

[offtopic]The mafiascum newbie games and meatspace games are so fast, relatively speaking. There’s less chance here of a dominating personality driving the discussion like in meatspace. The mafiascum newbie games don’t have nearly the room for error this game does, and with only seven people to keep track of it’s a lot easier to hold the whole game in your head. Meatspace games have an entirely different set of scum tells for me, like bandwagon-starting rather than bandwagon-joining.

Half my problem playing here is that my suspicion posts are all over the map because I forget about people I’ve been suspicious of. This is why I personally love sacher’s suggestion to self-summarize.[/offtopic]

1574

I am wondering more and more about Mad the Swine. In post #1410, I made a comment that he had not been heard from for a few days. He immediately came back with a post that quoted what I said and then said “Hi”. So he is definitely reading the game but doesn’t seem to be contributing much to it. Post #1423 he says that he was "going to’ investigate a player based on something said on Day 1, but that player has been killed so he is off to Plan B. Post #1426 asks who the “noob” players are in the game. Post #1429 talks about the “third vote” and Hal Briston’s play in M4. Post #1435 says he prefers to be addressed as Mad rather than MtS. Post #1509 is a response to a question about his vote for ClockworkJackal in which he referred to the FOS placed by CJ as a vote. He still believes CJ’s “no one looks scummy yet” is a scum tell. Post #1528 gives the reason he voted for CJ over Hal Briston (he had been responsible for Hal’s death twice previously) and that he regards a FOS to be as important as a vote.

In summary of Mad, he seems to be participating a bit more in the last day, so I’m going to hold off on him.

On to Captain Klutz. I mentioned earlier that I had not noticed any posts from him in the last 7 pages I had read. He responded by saying he had posted on pages 22 and 23. So I went back and looked over those pages. On page 22, post #1100, he comments on Idle Thoughts “I’m not doing anything at night” post. On page 23, post #1103, he discusses the possible whos and whys of zuma’s death in response to a post by Queuing saying that the who wasn’t important, but the why was. He goes on to say that zuma’s death did not ease his suspicions of Malacandra. Post $1104 is a another response to Queuing concerning the Crusader. Post #1106 uses an exchange between myself and Zeriel (concerning repeating things other players have brought up in order to leave information at death, even if I have not disovered or uncovered any information I thought was new) to say “Okay” and that he is male. Post #1136 un-FOSs storyteller after accepting the explanation of a memory lapse. Post #1264 he lies his suspicion of Malacandra to rest. He also writes that sachertorte “feels like town”, asks auto to come out and play, says that he has doubts about Kat but wants to give the sub a chance. He goes on to say that he is most suspicious of Kat but since he wants to give the sub a chance to play he will vote for auto and if that looks like a throwaway vote “so be it”.

Since I was the one who brought up his lack of posting, I wanted to clarify that he had posted where I thought he had not. It was just prior to the events which brought him to my notice.

Now that I have been fair, I vote for Captain Klutz. I think he is scum, and that the Arizona Teach vote for Zeriel was intended to draw attention away from him.

1575

Quick note:

I’ve been a slow poster toDay. This is due to two things. (1) Work jumped up and bit me this week. Should be better in the weekend. (2) The “homework” thing I think really dragged the thread to a halt. Pointed discussions have been replaced with synopses with no particular raison d’etre. The next content I am expected to post is my homework, and that just doesn’t excite me much, so I haven’t jumped at the opportunity to blow an hour that way. (If someone else wants to do a Pasta workup…) I’ve already done two such workups on other players, but it was in context: something I feel is way more useful. When that amount of effort/thread-length is devoted for a targeted reason (such as “I think I might vote for this person; lemme make sure” or “I have no idea who this person is; lemme find out” then it’s useful, and sharing the research can be helpful to others, but it can also be passed over as well.

1576

Nonononono. This is about the worst thing the Oracle can do. It tells the scum exactly who to target, and it means that the Priest and Disciple will be well-nigh useless for the rest of the game, because they’re too busy self-protecting to get anyone else’s back. The Oracle and Apprentice should ID power roles ONLY as “Believer.”

I was dithering between Zeriel and Scuba Ben before, since I’ve outlined my reasons for suspecting Zeriel before but I thought Queuing’s analysis was very convincing. This pushes me over the edge. Vote ScubaBen.

1577

Assuredly. The only possible Town gain from identifying the Priest and Disciple is in knowing not to lynch them - that hardly counterbalances the big round target on their back. Once the Oracle knows who the Priest is, the Priest should be harder than most to lynch as you would hope that the Oracle and Disciple should be able to help keep someone ahead of the Priest in the dunking race. The poor bloody Disciple’s not so blessed, of course. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately the two people I’m most suspicious of are the ones who’ll look like OMGUS votes on my part. I’ll have to see if I can come up with some sort of a case.

1578

Blaster, a Mafia 5 question: what happens if the Psychopath is recruited? (This is actually 2 questions, for recruitment before and after being triggered)
And if they are triggered after being recruited, what happens? (this can’t happen now due to the loss of the Crusader, but I’m still interested)

The Psychopath will lose all powers upon begin recruited. If he is unactivated, because he didn’t know he was the Psychopath, neither will the Cult until his death. If he is activated, he will lose his Night kill ability (similar to if the Crusader, Oracle, or Apprentice was recruited). In the last case, he wouldn’t have been activated, he simply would have died.

Also, I’m not quite sure about the win conditions for the Psychopath: the Psychopath wins if they are alive at the end and there are no Believers or Cultists remaining. Do the Non-Believers also win in this case?

If the Psychopath is unactivated, he wins as a regular Non-Believer. If he is activated, he must remain alive and the Non-Believers must equal at least 50% of the town population when the Cult is eliminated. If the Psychopath wins, all Non-Believers (excluding Cult, of course) win with him.

1579

Any word from the Monkey man? If not I would like a sub, we have enough people who are only barely playing as it is.

1580

I am currently looking for a sub.