I disagree whole-heartedly.
In the beginning of the game when scum have no idea who the power roles are and only know who scum are/aren’t, heavily split voting is a great thing. It provides a large number of datapoints that can become significant later. Especially when people start switching votes. The likelihood of getting scum on day 1 is slim, so better to get a lot of datapoints in exchange for a townie death than only a few.
It’s so strange to not play on the SDMB for a while and come back and see that they have changed the way the game is played over here. It feels a bit like things have taken a step back in terms of town play.
That said, I am willing to go out on a limb and say with near certainty that both Meeko and Story are town and that neither of them will be killed by scum at any point in the game*…so town really does have a fighting chance.
*Meeko won’t get killed because he is Meeko, and Story won’t because town is finding him suspicious for playing logical mafia.
I don’t think that it’s as much that the town has taken a step back as much as it is that there are a lot of newer players who just don’t have the experience we do. It’s a lot like games like Werewolf or M2: there are a lot of players who are still figuring out how to play, with a couple of veteran players sprinkled in.
Yeah, I didn’t mean that to come off as condecsending as it sounded. It’s just that I expect this level of play over at Giraffe Boards (almost all new players) and it took me by surprise that I am seeing such similar play here. It’s kinda cool that the game goes on even without the people who were around from the start and it’s kinda funny to see people hassleing story for making totally pro town suggestions.
I agree on Meeko, but Story? He was a big part of a last minute switch from scum to town. Granted it isn’t really Story’s style to be that boldly scummy, but I don’t see confirmed town there. Note: I don’t know that I.F. is scum, but I’d be stunned if he wasn’t. He reminds me of my desperation in marvel to kill you in trying to avoid a mass claim.
If I’m town I’m pushing for a full role claim tomorrow. Mahaloth tried to fix his error, but a mass claim is still going to be very pro-town. The scum got fake names, but they were after the fact. Unless Mahaloth specifically left out major characters, and there is no reason to think he did, they are going to be add-ons. Thus, I was pretty confident Sun was a legitimate claim, since it unlikely she would be left off the original list. Same with Locke, Jack, Sawyer etc. Nikki on the other hand, well that sounds like someone added. I believe a mass claim will create enough quasi-masons that town could win regardless on any power roles.
I am saying story for purely metagame reasons. I think he has a few tells that I have picked up on. I don’t know if I am right yet, but I strongly suspect I can tell when he is not scum. Good call on IF though, I think you might be right about that one.
Yeah, agreed about the name claim idea also. I just finished watching the first four seasons in marathon from and I don’t know Nikki off hand. Was she the actress from that soap? Either way, a mass name claim won’t tell you who is scum but it will likely tell you who is town.
Also, town didn’t use it, but there seems to be a peculiarity to the phrasing of the vanilla PM that might have (at one point) allowed town to create a masonry. I strongly suspect that point passed somewhere around the time Mahaloth fixed the mass claim problem though.
My suspicion of Story is mostly an expectation that he would pick-up on what we have picked up on, nothing really more than that.
Yeah. She was the one with Pablo who got buried alive.
Right right. Ok, good then. I also find it less than likely that she would be vanilla town, if she was in the game at all.
That may be another weakness of the name associations; everyone’s assuming all the top tier players are definitely town, and any more obscure players are going to seen as cover names for scum. In the event of a mass claim, I’ll go ahead and admit that yes, that would be pretty pro-town. It all depends on how clever Mahaloth was in mixing up the names. If he went back and gave scum cover names, I don’t think they’d be so obvious. I don’t think “Nikki” is guaranteed scum.
FWIW I still seem to be the only one who thinks Imaginary Fiend isn’t scummy. I think if someone had posted something along the lines of Rysto’s list, I would have backed off, but it seemed like arguments against IF were based on emotional appeals, and I still didn’t think the merits of a mass claim outweighed the loss. It wasn’t that big a deal to me until it got made into a reason to consider someone scum.
Was I really that scummy?
Yeah, but the game isn’t about finding guaranteed scum, it’s about finding possible scum, and probable town. At least in the early Days like this. You have to figure out how to sort players by how likely it is they might be scum and Mahaloth has already more or less gone ahead and said that he screwedup giving out the names. So, yes it’s possible that he didn’t put Jack into the game right at the start, or Locke, but it’s less likely. By the same token if someone claims to be Ben, I wouldn’t believe them if they then said that they were town.
But it shouldn’t ever be about just one thing. The name of the game for town right now is generating as much information as possible as quickly as possible without telling scum anything that they wouldn’t already know if possible.
I think your refusal to claim was a mistake. You should have claimed and probably before Story asked you to. I don’t know that you were that scummy though.
If Mahaloth thought about this potential problem before the game started, I’m sure he would have mixed up the names well. However, after the game starts he could only use names he didn’t already use. So to believe a scum can claim Locke would mean that originally he decided not to have Locke in the game. I just don’t him having left out any of the big town players. Leaving out Nikki from the original set-up seems much more likely. Not guarantee, but pretty likely.
Step back for a moment and consider how a scum would play this. We know that a mass claim originally aided the town more than the scum given Mahaloth’s actions. We likewise know that scum started out with scummy sounding names and no decoy names. Town wouldn’t know what information was available to the scum originally, but scum would pretty much known they were screwed. Now, if you are a scum how would you play it? You could argue in favor of a mass claim knowing it would screw you, remain neutral and hope for the best, or argue against it to prevent it. Since, town wouldn’t have any reason to know which option would be most beneficial to the scum, you could take any of the three paths and still look like a townie. So wouldn’t you argue against the mass claim if you were scum? I know I would. I.F. was the most vocal opponent and thus the mostly likely to be scum. It wasn’t until the fix that the town would know what path the scum needed to take.
Was I really that scummy?
[/QUOTE]
Not to me, but that isn’t always the best barometer.
Well. I was kind of hoping to draw a first-turn night kill. Hope it was a scum kill and not a mis-placed vig.
Oh, btw, Chronos is totally scum.
Oredigger is either scum or a town power role - check out his 97. The only way he would be confused about whether everyone had names is if he was not vanilla town.
I’m vaguely surprised. I’m not usually one killed early. And here I was all ready to push for a name claim again, just like story suggested, and like I see some people in here suggested. It seems we all came to the same conclusion. I wonder if that had something to do with my death, since I was pretty forcefully pro-claim Yesterday.
Ah well, toss me a spoiler please. I’d offer to be a sub, but I didn’t really enjoy doing it the last time I did.
BTW, question for the more experienced observers: was I over-the-top with my IF prosecution? In general, in what ways was I acting noobish that I should re-think for next time? Should I have mentioned my Chronos suspicions in my dying post?
Um, did he just soft claim a power role? Or did he get some sort of cryptic message about 'a vaguely protective feeling?" He’d better elaborate or he’ll be a good target for tonight’s kill. He’s too smart for that kind of slip though.
I didn’t notice anything specifically that I would mention working on for next time. You should have mentioned your Chronos suspicions at some point before you were killed. Getting that stuff on the table is the best thing town can do. Should you have done it in your goodbye post…no. That’s generally frowned upon. You are dead and getting to even say goodbye is a courtesy given by the mods.
Also, Telcontar, if you are town (and I am not at all certain you are), playing mafia means playing to win. You use whatever tools are available to give your side an advantage. Stating that you “Don’t want to turn the game into a research assignment” as the reason why you are against the name claim is wildly anti-town.
I don’t see that as a soft power role claim necessarily. There are many mods who will tell you if you were roleblocked or otherwise visited by another power. But I do think that Story should pony up the PM that lead him to believe this was the case.
I meant in my 5-minutes-to-Dawn post.
Ah heck with it.
Spoil me, please.