# The Crimson Glyph (Werewolf/Mafia/Psychopath) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 24, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271 "2009-04-24T22:16:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/461 "2009-05-04T15:53:44Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > ::grumble grumble:: Okay, okay, it’s just huckleberry juice! > > Laced with acid. And mine is just water, really. When is Dawn? ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/462 "2009-05-04T16:20:50Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > And mine is just water, really. > > When is Dawn? > [@Meeko](#): > > Yeah. Man I don’t know, without my night cap, I think the night is going to feel 8 times as long. 😉 Tuesday, Noon EDT. I believe. Hence my joke. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/463 "2009-05-04T16:36:32Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Tuesday, Noon EDT. I believe. Hence my joke. Yep. Who can sleep with all this tension in town! I can’t wait for Morning! ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/464 "2009-05-04T16:40:31Z")
I am mixed on the feeling of talking at night as well. I may not know much about Mafia, but I think there is at least one truism in Mafia as in Haggle: Talk is very, very cheap. Actions speak. \*\*Yet, the strange thing is this, Because 50%+ of us can not act at night, (Assuming just “vanilla” townies.) the conversion rate on “Talk” more than doubles at night. \*\* During the day, we can say one thing, and then take it back, if we need to. Yet, because we will not see actions that scum take, we do not know at what point they will act in the night. Therefore, no amount of NETA will save us. You can probably only say one thing at night. Because the scum will judge you immediately, and act on it. For me, for Tonight, this risk is too great. I have something I wish to say, but Tommorow is good enough, and that has the added benefit of being after night choices, so I could Pre-NETA if need be. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/465 "2009-05-04T16:49:47Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Because the scum will judge you immediately, and act on it. For me, for Tonight, this risk is too great. > > I have something I wish to say, but Tommorow is good enough, and that has the added benefit of being after night choices, so I could Pre-NETA if need be. And if the scum read this and decide to shut you up before you get the chance to say this?:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/466 "2009-05-04T17:18:34Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > And if the scum read this and decide to shut you up before you get the chance to say this?:smack: And if the scum want to get Meta for a second, and off you instead? :smack::smack: And if they want to totally make my brain explode, and get Meta^2 :smack::smack::smack: Excuse me while I go pick up my brain. I think I might find pedescribe’s brain as well. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/467 "2009-05-04T17:47:33Z")
Yeah… after all the headslapping I end up feeling like we should probably not treat the Night as different from the Day in terms of what we talk about. I think the Night strategizing feature is somewhat anti-Town and hope Ped took it into account for balancing purposes; I like having a period of quiet to review the previous Day’s events. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/468 "2009-05-04T17:51:58Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > That’s an excellent point. Now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, that could be case of scum gloating. That isn’t a scum tell that comes up often in SDMB games, but apparently it’s a big scum tell on mafiascum. **[NAF](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9592411&postcount=202)** is the one who introduced me to it: (Can’t figure out how to meta-quote your NAF quote). I’ve never heard of that, but then I don’t play on any other sites because of firewalls. On this site, it actually seems customary to express some emotional reaction to the lynch result before going on to analyze…I was actually quite surprised that I was the first one to offer condolences to **George** and thought people were being kind of rude by not doing so…perhaps they were afraid of being seen as “gloating”. Anyway, if anyone is thinking that was scum gloating on my part, I would ask you to remember that I was publicly opposed to the **Spurious** lynch back when he only had four votes. ---
**Author:** ![Telcontar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Telcontar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telcontar)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/469 "2009-05-04T18:21:45Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Yeah… after all the headslapping I end up feeling like we should probably not treat the Night as different from the Day in terms of what we talk about. I think the Night strategizing feature is somewhat anti-Town and hope Ped took it into account for balancing purposes; I like having a period of quiet to review the previous Day’s events. I think it’s actually slightly pro town. Night talk gives the town member who is going to die tonight a chance to comment on the lynch result. It might matter later in the game; i certainly wanted to say something after the lynch the night I died in my last game (turns out that I would have been wrong, but the principle stands). Personally I don’t have much to say until we find out who died and (maybe) get some sense of what other night actions might have occurred. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/470 "2009-05-04T18:27:12Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > I think the Night strategizing feature is somewhat anti-Town and hope Ped took it into account for balancing purposes; I like having a period of quiet to review the previous Day’s events. So, you tend to agree in principle to my idea that the town talking at night makes the value of talk more than double - for better or worse? I think I understand what you mean about the balance. I mean, if you are on board with my notion that talking at night can’t be good if you piss off a trigger happy scum. Yet, If we both assume that is the case, then I can get on board with the balancing aspect. And it scares me to think about powers needing that much balance. However. you assume two things: 1. A given level of power that matches what the “town can talk at night” power gets at. This isn’t a normal Mafia game, but that still doesn’t mean that Ped balanced it out, either by accident or design. 2. We can have meaningful conversation on the first night, before Dawn of day 2. I think early on it was obvious that Spurious was going. **There is no difference here, in this instance, than if we killed him a second before the results of the first night choices.** For Tonight, talk now is of very limited value. We are still in quicksand. We are still guessing. We can only begin to see how to move AFTER dawn. If we die tonight, we die tonight. We have no clue what Town power roles are out there. Talking only tips our hand further. This game still feels locked down, because it is still locked down. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/471 "2009-05-04T18:28:33Z")
NETA : ostracized Spurious not killed him. You knew what I meant. ---
**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:** [May 4, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/472 "2009-05-04T18:47:41Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. We can have meaningful conversation on the first night, before Dawn of day 2. I think early on it was obvious that Spurious was going. There is no difference here, in this instance, than if we killed him a second before the results of the first night choices. For Tonight, talk now is of very limited value. Yes, everyone knew that **Spurious** was going to be ostracized, but everyone did _not_ know what his role would turn out to be. We have hard information now that we did not have before Nightfall, and we can discuss that information now. And the bit about the Scum reacting to our night talk is a red herring. They presumably have the same amount of power to do the same amount of harm with or without us talking. Remember, your individual life doesn’t matter, only your team, so saying something that gets you killed is not a bad thing, since if you hadn’t, some other member of your team would probably have gotten killed instead. OK, it’d be a mistake to claim a power role during the Night, but I don’t think there’s any reason anyone would want to do that anyway, and even toMorrow morning is probably too early for that to be a good idea anyway. ---
**Author:** ![BillMC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@BillMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BillMC)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/473 "2009-05-04T19:24:25Z")
> [@special\_ed](#): > > \ > It seems that Ostracization is a voluntary removal from the game. I would guess the choice is up to the player themselves. This seems to be the biggest open question - what the heck is ostracism. If we look at the dictionary definition: [ul] [li]a method of temporary banishment by popular vote without trial or special accusation practiced in ancient Greece [/li][li]exclusion by general consent from common privileges or social acceptance[/li][/ul] it does not mean death - so the person is excluded from Town. **Pede** has hinted that an ostracised player has a choice to make. So a hypothesis - is it plausible that choice is to leave the game or remain…if they remain and have been excluded from Town - non-Town - i.e.scum. Which would mean that if we execute someone the last person to vote becomes a Sinner, if we ostracise someone and they dont go voluntarily, they become a blackheart. I guess we will find out in the Morning ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/474 "2009-05-04T19:26:51Z")
**pedescribe** didn’t say that the ostracized player can’t speak, right? Can they still partake in discussions? ---
**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:** [May 4, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/475 "2009-05-04T19:31:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Which would mean that if we execute someone the last person to vote becomes a Sinner, if we ostracise someone and they dont go voluntarily, they become a blackheart. Again, this would give the Town almost no chance of winning. Many people are assuming that each of the lynch methods is to the benefit of a different faction… Well, which one is supposed to be beneficial to Town? ---
**Author:** ![paulwhoisaghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e5b9ba/32.png) [@paulwhoisaghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulwhoisaghost)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/476 "2009-05-04T19:35:17Z")
\*\*Jesus Pede… clean out your inbox … You can’t receive any more PMs until you do. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/477 "2009-05-04T19:36:56Z")
> [@paulwhoisaghost](#): > > \*\*Jesus Pede… clean out your inbox … You can’t receive any more PMs until you do. \*\* Fix’d. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/478 "2009-05-04T19:39:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Again, this would give the Town almost no chance of winning. Many people are assuming that each of the lynch methods is to the benefit of a different faction… Well, which one is supposed to be beneficial to Town? Well, if we lynch someone and one of us becomes a sinner, then can we break even? Like, I suck at the math portion of this game, but can we calculate how many people we need to successfully kill without losing too many innocents? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/479 "2009-05-04T19:44:57Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, if we lynch someone and one of us becomes a sinner, then can we break even? Like, I suck at the math portion of this game, but can we calculate how many people we need to successfully kill without losing too many innocents? No. Even if we lynch perfectly in this scenario, we can’t win if every lynch results in a townie becoming a sinner. We can’t possibly eliminate the sinners, because even if we lynch a sinner the net result is one fewer townie and one more sinner. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271/480 "2009-05-04T19:46:20Z")
NETA: The same number of sinners, of course. The sinners lose a member to the lynch but gain the recruit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crimson-glyph-werewolf-mafia-psychopath/494271.md?page=25)