# Mystery Mafia -- Game Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 17, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025 "2011-08-17T14:03:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TimeLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@TimeLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeLady)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/41 "2011-08-17T15:56:33Z")
> [@Dancecat](#): > > there is one thing in this post that makes me want to vote you, and another that makes me want to tempclear you. i’ll lean towards tempclearing if you can tell me which is which. temp clear because i said that i was an awesome wolf, and voting me because i made a whole post that didn’t really add anything of value? ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/42 "2011-08-17T15:56:54Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > Woo hoo, it’s finally started! Neat. > > And to jump right into things, I’m not getting the votes on **Mykbot** at all. Maybe you guys play with each other enough that you’re on some meta wheels-within-wheels level, but **Mykbot** ’s “soft-clear” statement, while not well justified IMO, seems like an odd early gambit for a Wolf to make. Frankly, I’m a lot more suspicious of people eager to jump on an easy vote than I am of people who make casual statements of questionable logic about who is and isn’t wolfish. Eh, I’m an early and often kind of guy. There’s no penalty to changing votes, and until the first one is out there, there’s no real incentive for anyone to say anything useful. ---
**Author:** ![TimeLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@TimeLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeLady)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/43 "2011-08-17T15:58:08Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > I understand the strategy here, but I’m not seeing how it would be terribly effective. Looking at the more standard roles, here’s what would happen if you targeted yourself: > > Doctor: You protect yourself, most likely with no notification. No help > Investigator: You learn about your own role. Your role is confirmed (more or less) > Blocker: Either you block yourself, in which case you receive no result, or you are told that you cannot perform your action. No help in the former case, and little help in the latter (or would you be able to figure out your role through process of elimination?) > Vigilante: You kill yourself. I suppose that’s one way to learn your role, but it’s not the most useful. > > More ‘complicated’ roles will created more complicated scenarios, but it would seem that would make it even harder to figure those out. > > Now you have more experience with this particular setup than I do, given that you have played it previously, but it seems to me that targeting yourself has a slim chance of revealing anything, and an almost equal chance of killing yourself. Am I missing something obvious? you really should have targeted yourself last night, last game the seers got a n0 peek (therefore, they would have peeked themselves seer) I disagree that targeting yourself is good from now on, at least for tonight, because it’s better to at least narrow down your options via whether you get a peek tonight, something random happens or you kill someone. ---
**Author:** ![Dancecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Dancecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancecat)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/44 "2011-08-17T15:58:11Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Ok, so my first thought is that we need to start keeping a running tally of who has targeted who. > > Since no one knows what any power is yet, I don’t actually see a downside to keeping such a list. We (town) need information and we need it fast, but we also need to make sure not to clutter up the game with bullshit misdirection. The game is too large and is going to move too fast. > > Last Night I targeted Peeker. I used [Random.org](http://Random.org) to select my target. :eek: you see no downside to keeping such a list? really? ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/45 "2011-08-17T15:59:00Z")
Well, I’m known for usually (more often than not) role–claiming on Day one. A lot of good that’s going to do me now. : p > [@MykBot](#): > > Word everyone. If you’re reading the Mystery Mash that Gad linked in the OP I’m CPHoya. I’m pretty sure all of the following are from the other board: > > crackedquads > dancecat (HiFi) > episkey (JimHalpert) > krayz > mykbot (CPHoya) > Silman > **Special Ed** > TimeLady > > I may be missing one or two. Bolding mine. Not sure if Ed plays over there regularly or not, but he definitely originated from here. I’m the one who got him hooked on this crazy game (a fact he probably despises me over now). > [@MykBot](#): > > Or put differently, every single thing about that post oozes good guy, so he gets to be left alone today. This is seriously going to confuse me if most of the 2+2 players play like this. The fact that you think it’s all right to give someone (anyone) a free pass just because you agree with what they say. If this game has taught me anything, it’s to never trust anyone. Under any circumstances. So saying you’re going to “clear” anyone (even softly), makes me itch. This thing happen often over on yours? **Oh, and Lightfoot is female, everyone.** ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/46 "2011-08-17T16:00:51Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I note that the tiebreaking mechanic, at minimum, DOES result in the death of one of the top candidates. This means that forcing ties is not a blatant scum tell like it has been in the past few games here. Huh, why? I was thinking the opposite (though with nothing like your ridiculously-long scum-induced time threshhold from last game) – what townie would ever want to hand it over the random gods to decide? Even I (and I can get pretty vehement in my opinions at times) don’t know that I could bring it on myself to do that. A couple of things that have been bouncing around in my head since the rules went up: – giving only one target each mostly precludes redirectors, busdrivers, and the like from being in the game. Variations where one end of the switch is fixed as yourself should be possible. (Any action (or some specific action) aimed at your target hits you instead, for instance, or any action aimed at you hits your target.) – self-targeting for the purpose of finding out your role should, I think, be useless in almost all cases (not to mention risky) – mentioning what you’ve done, if you have a role that returns results: Keep it in your pants early on unless you have a good reason not to. I think that anything that encourages a lot of actions aimed at the same player benefits scum more than town in the early days, as they will be much better at cross-referencing information than the town will be. And on a personal level I would greatly appreciate a few clear days before having to weigh claim and counterclaim all over the place. Only a single result from night zero is a bit disappointing, I was expecting more than that. It is good to know the options are limited to night-action-affecting powers only, and somethign else that jumped out of my head as I was writing this sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/47 "2011-08-17T16:01:00Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > This is seriously going to confuse me if most of the 2+2 players play like this. The fact that you think it’s all right to give someone (anyone) a free pass just because you agree with what they say. If this game has taught me anything, it’s to never trust anyone. Under any circumstances. So saying you’re going to “clear” anyone (even softly), makes me itch. > This thing happen often over on yours? **MODERATOR NON-NOTE** No, over there everyone’s all rainbows and puppies and tells the truth all the time. 🙂 /Moderator Non-Note ---
**Author:** ![TimeLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@TimeLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeLady)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/48 "2011-08-17T16:01:27Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Around here, we have a lot of analytical players, so giving generally good advice isn’t much of a tell one way or the other. (I figured what soft-clear meant :p) It wouldn’t be the first nor the last time we’ve had a scum do that–hell, I know of more than one player who’s claimed to have not read their PM at all until middle-late Day One or Day Two, specifically so they can play convincingly as pro-town. ugh, we have those sorts of players on the other board (that claim they haven’t read their PM). Really super annoying, try to policy lynch them. We have a sort of rule that if someone is only providing “Useful” posts and not making any reads, then they’re probably a scum, because they’re saying things without saying anything at all. But it is true that Mykbot is known for making a lot of villager reads for very thin reasoning, but he does reevaluate, it’s not set in stone. Anyway, I personally am not giving lightfoot any town points for making that post, though not giving her any scum points either. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/49 "2011-08-17T16:01:33Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > Woo hoo, it’s finally started! Neat. > > And to jump right into things, I’m not getting the votes on **Mykbot** at all. Maybe you guys play with each other enough that you’re on some meta wheels-within-wheels level, but **Mykbot** ’s “soft-clear” statement, while not well justified IMO, seems like an odd early gambit for a Wolf to make. Frankly, I’m a lot more suspicious of people eager to jump on an easy vote than I am of people who make casual statements of questionable logic about who is and isn’t wolfish. Uh huh. Not to be totally\* patronizing here but…what did you learn from the last game you played in? Jumping on the easy vote is only half a tell, it can either be townie or scum. It’s the inconsistencies in thought process that you want to look for. That being said, you have, once again made my early Day 1 won’t be voting for list. The last time I said that I led the lynch against you about 24 real life hours later, so watch your back. \*I am shooting for like 65% patronizing.😉 ---
**Author:** ![MykBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@MykBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MykBot)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/50 "2011-08-17T16:01:56Z")
Seriously though, what wolf decides “you know what would be an awesome way to get clear, I’m gonna make up a potentially useful to some small degree but _completely ridiculous_ suggestion for people to follow and post it asap”? It would just be super weird. Plankton: That’s why I said targeting yourself last night was smart. Now that all the power roles are presumably live, I think targeting yourself is on the table but it’s obviously riskier. In the first game I targeted myself, got nothing, then targeted someone else, got nothing, then targeted myself AGAIN because I was obviously not dangerous, still got nothing. . .I ended up never even knowing what the hell my role was doing. I do think the boards play very differently. I’m gonna wind up with a list of everyone’s player name and most of those players I will post a read of, from which I will probably POE (process of elimination) some semblance of an accurate state of the game and of most players’ roles. I don’t see any reason _not_ to make my reads public. It’s a game based on information asymmetry, I don’t intend to increase the asymmetry. ---
**Author:** ![special\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@special\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/special_ed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/51 "2011-08-17T16:02:03Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > Woo hoo, it’s finally started! Neat. > > And to jump right into things, I’m not getting the votes on **Mykbot** at all. Maybe you guys play with each other enough that you’re on some meta wheels-within-wheels level, but **Mykbot** ’s “soft-clear” statement, while not well justified IMO, seems like an odd early gambit for a Wolf to make. Frankly, I’m a lot more suspicious of people eager to jump on an easy vote than I am of people who make casual statements of questionable logic about who is and isn’t wolfish. **Vote: Giraffe** Reasons later, when I make them up[sup]1[/sup] ```auto 1 An inside joke, I have no reason. I just like to watch him squirm. ``` ---
**Author:** ![TimeLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@TimeLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeLady)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/52 "2011-08-17T16:02:28Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > **MODERATOR NON-NOTE** > > No, over there everyone’s all rainbows and puppies and tells the truth all the time. 🙂 > > /Moderator Non-Note I’ve got a lovely collection of people going if you want to join me… ---
**Author:** ![LightFoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@LightFoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LightFoot)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/53 "2011-08-17T16:03:55Z")
> [@MykBot](#): > > Sorry about calling you a dude lightfoot. It happens all the time:) no worries ---
**Author:** ![Dancecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Dancecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancecat)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/54 "2011-08-17T16:04:18Z")
**vote NAF1138** ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/55 "2011-08-17T16:04:30Z")
> [@TimeLady](#): > > you really should have targeted yourself last night, last game the seers got a n0 peek (therefore, they would have peeked themselves seer) Wouldn’t it have been better to peek someone else roleblocker (or whatever)? You know what you are, _and_ you know what someone else is. I don’t get why anyone would self-target, even last night. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/56 "2011-08-17T16:05:04Z")
> [@Dancecat](#): > > **vote NAF1138** Howdy darlin! Let’s dance. Sup? ---
**Author:** ![MykBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@MykBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MykBot)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/57 "2011-08-17T16:05:29Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > Well, I’m known for usually (more often than not) role–claiming on Day one. A lot of good that’s going to do me now. : p > > Bolding mine. > > Not sure if Ed plays over there regularly or not, but he definitely originated from here. I’m the one who got him hooked on this crazy game (a fact he probably despises me over now). > > This is seriously going to confuse me if most of the 2+2 players play like this. The fact that you think it’s all right to give someone (anyone) a free pass just because you agree with what they say. If this game has taught me anything, it’s to never trust anyone. Under any circumstances. So saying you’re going to “clear” anyone (even softly), makes me itch. > This thing happen often over on yours? > > **Oh, and Lightfoot is female, everyone.** Sorry, I have a recollection of a Special Ed from our board too. My mistake. Regarding the blue: just every day of every game ever played. Going theory of almost all of the best players over there is it’s much easier to find villagers than it is to find wolves, so when you find a villager you just pocket that read and begin narrowing the field of potential wolves. Finding villagers is really easy, imo. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/58 "2011-08-17T16:06:09Z")
> [@TimeLady](#): > > I’ve got a lovely collection of people going if you want to join me… :eek::p:dubious: If I hadn’t ended up coming back as a zombie in that game, I think your suicide cult would have traumatized me for life. Instead of, y’know, only traumatizing me for a month or so. ---
**Author:** ![Dancecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Dancecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancecat)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/59 "2011-08-17T16:06:22Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Howdy darlin! Let’s dance. Sup? wanna answer the question I asked you yesterpage about revealing the targets of night actions? ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025/60 "2011-08-17T16:06:27Z")
A question for our new arrivals: How long is the Day/Night cycle on average at the ‘other’ board? I get the sense that it’s fairly short compared to here. In this group, 5-day ‘Days’ and 2-day ‘Nights’ are the norm, at least lately. If there is a significant ‘cultural difference’, that will likely manifest itself in different strategies toward voting and case-making. It might be a good idea to keep such differences in mind (assuming they do in fact exist) before we get a bunch of people voting for folks simply because their playstyle is radically different that what they expect, and therefore ‘Scummy’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mystery-mafia-game-thread/593025.md?page=4)