# Random Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 18, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942 "2010-03-18T21:47:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 48
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/941 "2010-04-05T00:54:15Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > If blue doesn’t mean town there’s not much point to playing the game. We just kill each other until somebody says one team wins? > > To put it another way, what can we do with this possibility other than discount it utterly? I don’t see how town can be served by speculating about this. And why are you so quick to absolutely discount the idea that the results on Freudian were tampered with? Not only do you dismiss it, but you are discouraging town from discussing it? That’s going to win my vote. Once again, **vote: Jimmy Chitwood** ---
**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:** [April 5, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/942 "2010-04-05T00:55:16Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > And why are you so quick to absolutely discount the idea that the results on Freudian were tampered with? Not only do you dismiss it, but you are discouraging town from discussing it? That’s going to win my vote. > > Once again, > **vote: Jimmy Chitwood** Um, did you actually read Jimmy’s post? And if so, why did you so clearly fail to understand it? ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/943 "2010-04-05T01:01:24Z")
umm… yes i read it. And yes I saw that he refers only to town being blue, not to the results on Freudian, but then he does try to stop discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/944 "2010-04-05T01:04:05Z")
Now that you’ve scratched that itch, let me ask a question that just popped into my head and I definitely didn’t ask already: what can we do with this possibility other than discount it utterly? ---
**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:** [April 5, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/945 "2010-04-05T01:05:38Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > umm.. yes i read it. And yes I saw that he refers only to town being blue, not to the results on Freudian, but then he does try to stop discussion. So, basically: 1. You read his post 2. You directly stated that his post said something that it clearly did not. 3. You voted for him for what his post did not say. 4. You stated that he clearly wanted to stop discussion of Freudian when clearly he said nothing about Freudian. 5. When questioned, you imply that because a discussion of town=blue is likely to be fruitless, Jimmy therefore wants to dismiss all discussion including that of Freudian Is that an accurate summary? ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/946 "2010-04-05T01:11:10Z")
It looks to me like Jimmy discounted the blue meaning town part of my discussion, hoping to discount everything I said. He doesn’t comment on the tampered results part and then quickly tries to discourage discussion. And after “scratching”, Jimmy still doesn’t comment on Freudian. Yet, if the Freudian results were tampered with, it makes a tremendous difference in the vote analysis. It certainly makes the OaOW voters look scummier, and this is exactly what I think Jimmy is trying to avoid and doesn’t even what us to consider. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/947 "2010-04-05T01:17:13Z")
TexCat, he dismissed the suggestion because it’s just not workable. Giving the scum the ability to manipulate the cardflip would be horrifically unbalanced. One of the basic premises of this game is that the Town trades numbers for information. If the information we get in that exchange is unreliable, how are we to win? ---
**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:** [April 5, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/948 "2010-04-05T01:18:57Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > It looks to me like Jimmy discounted the blue meaning town part of my discussion, hoping to discount everything I said. He doesn’t comment on the tampered results part and then quickly tries to discourage discussion. > > And after “scratching”, Jimmy still doesn’t comment on Freudian. Yet, if the Freudian results were tampered with, it makes a tremendous difference in the vote analysis. It certainly makes the OaOW voters look scummier, and this is exactly what I think Jimmy is trying to avoid and doesn’t even what us to consider. OK, just 2 points, then I’ll let other people chime in 1. When you make 2 or more distinct points in a post, expect people to comment on just part of the post. Not commenting on the other part is perfectly normal. Jimmy made what appears to me to be a valid point about your comment regarding blue=Town. 2. Since 16 people voted for either OAOW or Freudian and a dead person voted for Mahaloth, I would think there is 100% certainty that Scum voted for Freudian or OAOW. 3. Your comment on the Scum having the power to make Freudian appear Town when she was really Scum isn’t worth considering. This is a newbie friendly game. I can’t imagine sachertorte put a mechanism like that into the game. If you wish to pursue that, then make a case. Don’t expect other people to comment on something that isn’t even worth considering. 4. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/949 "2010-04-05T01:20:21Z")
Oh, come on now. I “still didn’t comment on **Freudian**?” What on earth do you want a comment about? And hey, why **Freudian** exactly? If somebody’s got the power that makes the moderator lie to us, why not everyone else’s reveal too? Maybe they were all scum. Why don’t _you_ want to talk about that, huh? ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/950 "2010-04-05T01:27:12Z")
I see some of your points Ed. I voted Jimmy yesterday and my vote is going to remain on him for now. I just can’t seem to come to grips with both OaOW and Freudian both being town. Regarding your first number 2, that’s what’s bugging me. Why didn’t one or two of the scum take the opportunity to vote for a fellow scum? Why did they all jump on one of the townie bandwagons? It doesn’t make any sense unless either OaOW or Freudian were scum. ---
**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:** [April 5, 2010, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/951 "2010-04-05T01:29:46Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > I see some of your points Ed. I voted Jimmy yesterday and my vote is going to remain on him for now. I just can’t seem to come to grips with both OaOW and Freudian both being town. Regarding your first number 2, that’s what’s bugging me. Why didn’t one or two of the scum take the opportunity to vote for a fellow scum? Why did they all jump on one of the townie bandwagons? It doesn’t make any sense unless either OaOW or Freudian were scum. Anyone voting for someone aside from OAOW and Freudian would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Just as Town was motivated to not spread out the votes like before, Scum was motivated to blend in. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/952 "2010-04-05T01:39:09Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > I see some of your points Ed. I voted Jimmy yesterday and my vote is going to remain on him for now. I just can’t seem to come to grips with both OaOW and Freudian both being town. Regarding your first number 2, that’s what’s bugging me. Why didn’t one or two of the scum take the opportunity to vote for a fellow scum? Why did they all jump on one of the townie bandwagons? It doesn’t make any sense unless either OaOW or Freudian were scum. Why not? As it stands every single scum’s day 2 vote is perfectly meaningless; voting for anybody other than the two main candidates would have not only drawn attention to the scum voter, but to the scum votee as well. Why bother cooking up a diversionary vote (and draw Town’s attention to a teammate) when scum’s objective is perfectly achieved by simply hiding? You thinking this doesn’t make sense really isn’t making any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/953 "2010-04-05T03:07:46Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > 1. Having been wrong about OneandOnly(still a stupid move by him, I think), I still suspect Tom Scud first because of his terribly lame vote for Freudian. > > In fact, I don’t mind getting a vote in early. So, I will. > > COLOR="bleach"Vote Tom Scud/COLOR > > Same case as I made yesterDay, but even stronger now we know Freudian was town. You know, I made a fairly comprehensive response to your vote yesterday, referencing three of Freudian’s votes and her terribly lazy justification of her vote on OaOW (who also was Town oh by the way). I’m trying not to OMGUS you, but I’d like to think there’s more than this to your vote. In other news, I’ve hardly looked at this thread over the weekend. Bad Tom. I’ll try to (1) go back to the TexCat thing I noted late Yesterday and (2) actually have something productive to say tomorrow, probably tomorrow evening. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/954 "2010-04-05T13:50:11Z")
\*\*TexCat \*\*, you had better explain to us just why you think in a game billed as “relatively standard” and “Newbie friendly” that you think there’d be a mechanic to alter the cardflips (something typically seen only in Gastard games). For that matter, I’m not convinced that the identification of \*\*story \*\*as “detective” is 100% sure, either. I had a thought as to falsely claiming my own name and PM since I was listed as “lover”, which is a semi-typical power role name, but nothing in my PM indicates I’m anything of the sort–perhaps \*\*Story \*\*had the same thoughts and went through with it to avoid the pain of having “detective” as his title and no powers (almost certainly resulting in an early lynch or NK). _flips a coin_ **vote Tom Scud** for the “overnight thread” slip from yesterday. (if it’d been tails, it would have been continuing the **Drain Bead** vote trend for the same old reasons) I will be happy with either of their lynches today and will shift vote accordingly as necessary. Briefly, I don’t believe we need any other evidence than “overnight thread” in a single-threaded game. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/955 "2010-04-05T14:48:39Z")
**zeriel** , if I were to be modkilled right now and flip Town, would you think differently of **Tom** ’s slip? It seems like the only way that would make sense as a slip is if he were discussing something with me in an “overnight thread,” and while you might not know he wasn’t, _I_ certainly know he wasn’t, so I don’t find it as significant as you do. Hence my question–if I were confirmed to you to be Town, would your vote change, and why or why not? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/956 "2010-04-05T16:01:43Z")
I’ve certainly seen games before where two Townies were vying for the lynch, both with a lot of votes. It’s not extraordinary to think that might have happened here, too. And when coupled with the card flips, we’re to the point where not only is it not stifling discussion to dismiss the possibility that one of them was Scum, it’s actually stifling discussion to _not_ dismiss it. To paraphrase a quote I heard once, if it turns out that one of them actually was Scum, then the appropriate response is to lynch the moderator. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/957 "2010-04-05T16:15:01Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > **zeriel** , if I were to be modkilled right now and flip Town, would you think differently of **Tom** ’s slip? It seems like the only way that would make sense as a slip is if he were discussing something with me in an “overnight thread,” and while you might not know he wasn’t, _I_ certainly know he wasn’t, so I don’t find it as significant as you do. Hence my question–if I were confirmed to you to be Town, would your vote change, and why or why not? As far as I’m concerned, the slip is independent of your alignment – it’s not that he necessarily was referencing something you said in any hypothetical “overnight thread”, it is that he even said “overnight thread” as though it were separate at all. You don’t need to be scum for him to have made that slip. ---
**Author:** ![TexCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/texcat/32/9041_2.png) [@TexCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TexCat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/958 "2010-04-05T17:21:23Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > \*\*TexCat \*\*, you had better explain to us just why you think in a game billed as “relatively standard” and “Newbie friendly” that you think there’d be a mechanic to alter the cardflips (something typically seen only in Gastard games). I guess I don’t have enough experience to know what is standard and what is gastardly. I know that godfathers usually investigate as “town”. I didn’t see it as such a stretch for the flip to show “town” somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/959 "2010-04-05T17:53:46Z")
A role that comes up differently on the flip is called a Death Miller, and is usually considered quite gastardly. See the Screamers game for an example of a Death Miller REALLY screwing with people’s heads. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942/960 "2010-04-05T18:08:25Z")
> [@TexCat](#): > > I guess I don’t have enough experience to know what is standard and what is gastardly. I know that godfathers usually investigate as “town”. I didn’t see it as such a stretch for the flip to show “town” somehow. What Drain Bead said, but typically Godfathers investigate as town but death-reveal as scum. The issue is that if we don’t have accurate information on whether someone is scum or town at death, then we can’t make viable decisions. The only false death reveals I’ve ever personally seen were in explicitly Gastardly games. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942.md?page=47) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-mafia/532942.md?page=49)