# Thundercats Mafia Gameplay Thread \[Game Over\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 21, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228 "2011-04-21T14:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Red\_Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/41 "2011-04-22T12:04:22Z")
A couple of points: 1. Proposing/discussing plans is not really a scum tell, even if under scrutiny they turn out to be anti-town. (Although, some times scum does this, but I’ve never seen it to be a reliable scum tell.) 2. Day 1 is not the time for plans. We have no reason to trust the source of any plans. And no other supporting information to validate/repudiate any possibility of plans. Except in a possibly game breaking scenario, Day 1 plans are usually aren’t worth the electrons they are printed on. Despite the fact that this is a smaller game, we aren’t in the mid-game yet. We have no lynches or mislynches or votes to discuss. Furthermore, glowacks post is troubling to me: it’s half smudge and half fishing expedition. The entire post reads like a scum trying to come up with justification for a vote, but not wanting to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Plus the whole “Tom is either a mason or a scum”. It’s a false dichotomy, based on the assumptions that he’s putting forward. Why are you so concerned if he’s a mason or not? Furthermore Glowacks’s is ignoring the most likely option, that Tom simply didn’t think about all the ramifications of his plan, and it doesn’t imply anything about the role or alignment of Tom Scud. **vote Glowacks** ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/42 "2011-04-22T12:31:34Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > However, my vote’s going on **Giraffe** for now. I will count this as a vote in this instance, but please remember that votes should be on a new line and include the word ‘vote’. For example: **vote fluiddruid** ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/43 "2011-04-22T12:38:11Z")
Tom Scud 2 Glowacks 1 Giraffe 1 Votes will be final when Night 1 begins on Monday at 10am CST. Votes cast today, by player (in post number): 1. Astral Rejection - Giraffe (39) 2. glowacks 3. Pleonast 4. Zeriel - Tom Scud (37) 5. Mahaloth - Tom Scud (34) 6. Normal Phase 7. special ed - [del]Pleonast[/del] (33) 8. Red Skeezix - Glowacks (41) 9. Giraffe 10. pedescribe 11. fubbleskag 12. Tom Scud 13. Sir T-Cups 14. Wolverine ---
**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:** [April 22, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/44 "2011-04-22T13:23:43Z")
Astral: 1. Tom later adds that he is now re-thinking his plan, which sounded like a back off(or downplaying anyway). 2. He also throws in “moving on” and tries to change the subject a bit later. I’m leaving my vote on Tom for the time being. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/45 "2011-04-22T15:22:05Z")
> [@Red\_Skeezix](#): > > A couple of points: > > 1. Proposing/discussing plans is not really a scum tell, even if under scrutiny they turn out to be anti-town. (Although, some times scum does this, but I’ve never seen it to be a reliable scum tell.) > > 2. Day 1 is not the time for plans. We have no reason to trust the source of any plans. And no other supporting information to validate/repudiate any possibility of plans. Except in a possibly game breaking scenario, Day 1 plans are usually aren’t worth the electrons they are printed on. Despite the fact that this is a smaller game, we aren’t in the mid-game yet. We have no lynches or mislynches or votes to discuss. > Furthermore, glowacks post is troubling to me: it’s half smudge and half fishing expedition. The entire post reads like a scum trying to come up with justification for a vote, but not wanting to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Plus the whole “Tom is either a mason or a scum”. It’s a false dichotomy, based on the assumptions that he’s putting forward. Why are you so concerned if he’s a mason or not? Furthermore Glowacks’s is ignoring the most likely option, that Tom simply didn’t think about all the ramifications of his plan, and it doesn’t imply anything about the role or alignment of Tom Scud. > > **vote Glowacks** I said that’s how I see it, not what is absolutely true. It’s true that it’s possible that he’s a vanilla or something and didn’t consider the ramifications of his plan. I was mainly giving information on why his plan was not as anti-town as others were saying. There were two votes on Tom just before I posted, for reasons I really don’t agree with, and giving my logic behind not agreeing with them. That is, my post was giving reasons why if Tom had thought out what he was talking about, he’s isn’t necessarily scum. If I’m smudging and fishing, that’s because I really don’t have any idea about who the scum are and felt I should be giving my input on the current situation. If that’s typical of scum, then I guess I’m always going to be doing things typical of scum. Would I have been better off just lurking, posting fluff, or saying things I didn’t believe? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/46 "2011-04-22T15:26:29Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > **Vote Tom Scud** > For the obviously stupid and pro-scum idea of the vanilla claim…and his quick back-off once it was attacked. Can you explain why you think **Tom** is more likely to be scum? It’s not obvious to me why their idea is stupid or pro-scum. And it’s even less clear to me why suggesting an idea is stupid or pro-scum. **vote Mahaloth** 1. For jumping on a player who suggested an idea. Scum prefer the town talk less. Discouraging players from stating their ideas prevents the town from effectively planning. 2. For not explaining why the idea itself is scummy. All the players commenting on **Tom** ’s suggestion find some merit to it, but not enough to justify the risk. Calling something “obvious” is avoiding explanation, an easy way for scum to reduce scrutiny. > [@Zeriel](#): > > Ugh, been holding off on reading the thread until there was something here. Huh, admitting to lurking. > [@](#): > > Initial vote: vote Tom Scud for a blatantly anti-town claiming plan, especially with his additional comments about trusting earlier claims and ostensibly not considering the idea of scum cover identities. Another player voting someone for advocating an idea. Why do you think scum are more likely to suggest this? Scum like to hold back, not attract attention by suggesting things. Your vote is giving other players the message “don’t suggest anything that could be construed as anti-town or pro-scum, and make sure you think of everything because anything missing means you get votes”. And that is a message that scum would love town to get, all the while you cover your tracks by claiming the idea was anti-town. And you haven’t even justified why it’s “blatantly” anti-town. **vote Zeriel** 1 & 2) For the same reasons as **Mahaloth** , stated earlier in this post. 3) For admitting to avoiding posting. Scum don’t like to stick their necks. An easy way to accomplish that is waiting until someone else has done so and then attack them. And a lesson from the last game. One of the scum suggested an idea that was pro-town and did so because it was pro-town (to gain some credit). But discussion of it was shut down by players who didn’t think so. The town as a whole therefore didn’t get a chance to realize how useful the idea was. The scum who suggested it quietly dropped, because the town not wanting to figure out what’s useful or not was no loss to scum. The lesson is rarely are ideas obvious and shutting down the discussion by voting players who are pro-active enough to suggest them hurts the town a lot. > [@](#): > > Let’s pretend we already had the drawn-out argument over whether a on-its-face potentially valid plan that is actually pretty scum-favoring is a voteable offense. Since we did. And the latter position caught you in that game. 😉 Let’s not replay past games, but any idea I advocate in a game thread is one I believe is pro-town. That I turned out to be scum was happenstance. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/47 "2011-04-22T15:31:26Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > The effects of Tom’s plan can be seen as anti-town. Not considering using town cover was an egregious mistake on his part. Why should the moderator have bothered with cover roles when there are generic vanillas for scum to claim? Since cover roles were not addressed in the rules, I find their existence rather unlikely. If scum were told which roles were not being used, that seems to be a bit of an unfair extension of their information advantage. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, so perhaps the fact that he didn’t address this point could be seen as a mistake in some sense, but I don’t see it as a particularly egregious one. He could have just assumed the above argument was obvious and didn’t need to be stated. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/48 "2011-04-22T15:38:22Z")
NETA: I found the suggestion Astral made that a scum could just make up a robotic bear name as a named-vanilla claim unlikely to be used by anyone else. I would consider anyone using such a name not included as examples as not making a named vanilla claim, as it’s effectively the same as claiming one of the other generic vanillas. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/49 "2011-04-22T15:41:05Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > However, my vote’s going on Giraffe for now. > > His first post, quoted in its entirety above, is pure fluff. He’s not even close to building a case, and he’s already hemming and hawing over how difficult day 1 is. We know. We’re playing the same game. I was reading the thread on my phone earlier today at work, and this post instantly jumped out at me. It feels all kinds of scummy to me. Well, then just lynch me now, because I’m never going to confine myself to posting nothing but perfectly-worded and extensively thought out posts. I do a lot of thinking aloud, which you seemed in favor of at the start of your post. I think it’s stifling to call that scummy. > [@](#): > > His second post is quite a bit meatier. He tackles the maths of Tom Scud’s plan and decides that there’s about a 40% chance of lynching scum on day 1. Shit, that’s fantastic! That’s better odds than you see for the vast majority of mafia games. And then he ignores the ramifications of his projections. He says that by Day 3, scum have a substantially increased chance of hitting the doctor and cop. That’s true, but then we always know that the risk goes up as the game goes on. We have a cop so that they can hopefully confirm town or reveal scum. By day 3, they can give us two results. The cop’s investigation targets also get better as the game goes on, because of the shrunken pool. Plus, our lynch gets substantially better-targeted as well. Overall, I’d say his math suggests we’re in a HUGELY better place after a vanilla claim, because we will never lynch power roles (they’d claim), further decreasing the hiding places for scum. Instead of smuding me for making a case you disagree with, how about you lay out a quantitative argument for why a vanilla claim is so much better for Town that I must be scum for arguing against it. Not vague handwavey statements about stuff we “always know” but an actual argument. And in case you missed it in the sign up thread, note that that I’ve only played four games before this, most with fairly significantly different setups from each other. So if there is in fact a glaring logical fallacy in my argument, don’t overlook the possibility that it’s because of dumbness rather than scumminess. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/50 "2011-04-22T15:45:56Z")
**Pleonast** : Only one active vote at a time is allowed. Please pick one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/51 "2011-04-22T15:49:24Z")
Ah, **Pleonast**. I could replace your Day-One play with a very small perl script and not lose anything. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/52 "2011-04-22T15:50:49Z")
**Fluiddruid** , THANK YOU for shutting that down. The multi-vote thing in games with only one vote chaps my hide seven ways from Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/53 "2011-04-22T16:17:27Z")
**Non-player post** [The forbidden thread is over here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=605747) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/54 "2011-04-22T16:17:39Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > **Pleonast** : Only one active vote at a time is allowed. Please pick one. 🙂 It’s up to the rules. Is the first vote counted, or the most recent? > [@Zeriel](#): > > Ah, **Pleonast**. I could replace your Day-One play with a very small perl script and not lose anything. Thanks! I try my best. > [@Zeriel](#): > > **Fluiddruid** , THANK YOU for shutting that down. The multi-vote thing in games with only one vote chaps my hide seven ways from Sunday. I want to make clear who I think should be lynched and why. It’s up to the moderator to decide which votes count. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/55 "2011-04-22T16:17:52Z")
> [@Astral\_Rejection](#): > > And yet, he says it’s “not without benefit for town,” which is a fancy way to totally downplay any possibly benefits, and suggests we don’t do it. For day 1, this feels like a solid place to leave my vote. I don’t get this. In what way does making a an argument about the trade-offs involved in the plan indicate a scum leaning? Just because it might be something that a scum might do? Are we only “allowed” to make extremely firm arguments as town, even if we don’t believe them? Can we not say exactly what’s on our minds, along with the thought process that led to them? I’m not saying that the analysis was 100% complete, but it wasn’t like he did pages worth but forgot one point that made it all moot. The calculation needed to figure out a naive estimate of the change in win percentage given a claim is quite involved, particularly because we don’t have a clue what the role distribution is or even have any idea about their probability distribution. The calculation was pretty quick and simple, and showed exactly what the problem with the vanilla claim was. I’m with **pedescribe** that I think 4 scum in 14 players would be heavily in the scum’s favor and necessitate a large number of power roles that would be hard to balance around a mass claim, especially given the lack of scum power roles besides godfather. I’m inclined to believe a minimum of power roles for Town and 3 scum, and would think that scum who knew only 3 of them existed would want a mass claim because there’d be so little for Town to claim it would be of little benefit to them and tell the scum exactly who to go after. That’s not to say there aren’t 4 scum, but I see significant scum motivation for the pushing of a mass claim in the case I find more likely. Finally, Astral was all about supporting Tom’s supposedly bad plan because of how much talk helped Town, and goes to make a really long post to show just how much he’s thinking about he’s helping Town. But it includes a vote on Giraffe precisely for speaking his mind and giving his input, even if it wasn’t complete, and deciding that it was more scum-like than Mahaloth’s vote which provided very little in the way of justification. **vote Astral Rejection** ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/56 "2011-04-22T16:19:27Z")
Not an edit: Last paragraph should open: “Finally Astral was all about being supportive of Tom despite his supposedly bad plan” ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/57 "2011-04-22T16:40:36Z")
After responding to **Astral** ’s post, I went back and reread my argument and found a typo, which I’ve indicated in bold below. 4/9 should be 4/11 (the 3 Vanilla case). > [@Giraffe](#): > > Without said claim or any obvious scum tells, Town has a 4/14 = 29% chance to correctly choose a scum player to investigate or lynch. If 3-4 Vanillas claim, that goes up to around 40% ( **4/9 or 4/10** ). Since most comments on the number have scum have favored the case of 3 scum over 4, I’ll go ahead and post those odds: Starting odds to lynch one of three scum = 3/14 = 21% Odds w. 3 claimed Unique Vanillas = 3/11 = 27% Odds w. 4 claimed Unique Vanillas = 3/10 = 30% Again, we’re assuming a scum won’t sneak in as a claimed Unique Vanilla and that the choices are essentially random, i.e. no scum tells to guide the selection. The scum odds w. 3 scum: Starting odds to NK a power role on Night 1: 2/11 = 18% Odds w. 3 claimed Unique Vanillas = 2/8 = 25% Odds w. 4 claimed Unique Vanillas = 2/7 = 29% Here we’re assuming two Town power roles and only calculating the odds of scum to target a power (i.e. ignoring a self-protecting Doctor.) These numbers don’t really change the case I made initially, but since I challenged **Astral** to quantify his assertion that my case was glossing over the pro-Town advantages of a Day one UV claim, I figure it’s better to use numbers we can both agree are reasonable as a starting point. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/58 "2011-04-22T16:57:24Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > It’s up to the rules. Is the first vote counted, or the most recent? In this case, there is no “first” or “most recent”. Two votes in one post are two simultaneous votes – they are both posted to the board in the same instant. Multiple votes are invalid, so you have no valid votes. The specific relevant portion of the extended rules is this: “Invalid votes, such as votes for dead players or **multiple votes** , will be discarded.” The second line, “Please unvote prior to placing a new vote or the new vote will be ignored”, only comes into play if you make a valid vote then later vote again. In that case, the second attempted vote (and any subsequent) is ignored entirely as invalid; it is as if they did not occur. This is intended to encourage people to properly and unambiguously unvote and to keep track of their votes. Invalid votes will not be counted on the official tallies. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/59 "2011-04-22T17:26:38Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Thanks! I try my best. This is exactly why you come across as scummy–mechanistic, rules-based play is scummy. Period. It leaves us no method to evaluate you, since you can say “I always follow these rules, scum or town.” > [@](#): > > I want to make clear who I think should be lynched and why. It’s up to the moderator to decide which votes count. Fortunately **fluid** is handling it properly (and hat tip to her for having it in the rules), but this type of voting can also confuse the crap out of the voting record in any case where the official vote count posts don’t note it as two separate votes in sequence. You can just say “Vote X, and Y and Z are also acceptable candidates”, instead of doing a thing that is both against the rules and has the potential to make official count posts not reflective of actual events. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228/60 "2011-04-22T17:33:39Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > I figure it’s better to use numbers we can both agree are reasonable as a starting point. In other words, the Unique Vanilla claim plan gives a tiny advantage if there are three scum and fewer than three UVs, and a tiny detriment if there are 4 UVs, assuming random play on all parts and that scum can’t meaningfully influence the town vote. Those are both, historically, very bad assumptions. I also don’t think we can assume that we have 3 scum. I have seen games with worse balance than 4/14 scum, and that doesn’t even count the idea that we have no idea what power roles might be out there. In my opinion, any strategy that implicitly or explicitly depends on having 3 scum, prior to our definitive knowledge of how many scum there actually are, is prima fascie an anti-town plan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thundercats-mafia-gameplay-thread-game-over/579228.md?page=4)