# Werewolf a game Part 2 (this time with MAFIA!) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 26, 2007, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565 "2007-03-26T16:47:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 185
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3681 "2007-05-09T00:42:16Z")
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong] After Pygmy’s lynch, both Brewha and Lakai say the equivalent of “I suck at this game.” After Aguecheek’s lynch, someone said something similar to “This one is all yours, I was never convinced that Aguecheek was mafia.” Who was that? [/QUOTE] I found this one, by searching for **Aguecheek** ’s name–[page 69](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8521058&highlight=aguecheek#post8521058), but it’s totally unhelpful. It was [cowgirl v2.0](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8521080&postcount=3410). ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3682 "2007-05-09T00:44:10Z")
SBS: I think brewha would be brilliant because his antics ever since he stepped up participation in this thread have been nothing short of completely crazy. If you act this crazy I just don’t see you as scum. The scum have played to well to all of a sudden have one of their members go batshit crazy. Kat: See above. I that is why I think he is town. That being said he still is acting somewhat crazy now. He is always so damn sure and acts like its obvious and he is ever so brilliant. This is a text based medium however, so I shouldn’t read to much into it I suppose, but his posting style bugs me. Its frankly arrogant and annoying in this game. Due to voting patterns I FOS Fretful however. I just don’t see Kat leaving PR to die when another choice is there. I know you claim that the beat cop is worse then useless brewha, but frankly I don’t give a damn what you claim, and I will not vote for Lakai when I still think there is a better choice. FOS: Fretful Brewha (I just don’t know about him) Lakai and Kat Then the rest, and if one of them turns out to be scum then dammit, they win. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3683 "2007-05-09T01:39:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Someone recently posted that they’d looked at the voting patterns between Brewha, Lakai, and Pygmy, and basically said they couldn’t make sense of it. Does it become any clearer now we know Pygmy was mafia? That would be me, and … not really. All I can make of it is that **brewha** is either a) very confused; or b) trying on purpose to make everybody else very confused. I’m leaning scum on **brewha** and town on **Lakai** , but I don’t feel very confident about either of those. ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3684 "2007-05-09T01:51:34Z")
[QUOTE=Queuing] SBS: I think brewha would be brilliant because his antics ever since he stepped up participation in this thread have been nothing short of completely crazy. If you act this crazy I just don’t see you as scum. The scum have played to well to all of a sudden have one of their members go batshit crazy. Kat: See above. I that is why I think he is town. That being said he still is acting somewhat crazy now. He is always so damn sure and acts like its obvious and he is ever so brilliant. This is a text based medium however, so I shouldn’t read to much into it I suppose, but his posting style bugs me. Its frankly arrogant and annoying in this game. Due to voting patterns I FOS Fretful however. I just don’t see Kat leaving PR to die when another choice is there. I know you claim that the beat cop is worse then useless brewha, but frankly I don’t give a damn what you claim, and I will not vote for Lakai when I still think there is a better choice. FOS: Fretful Brewha (I just don’t know about him) Lakai and Kat Then the rest, and if one of them turns out to be scum then dammit, they win. [/QUOTE] So I read through my post and I can see how I come off batshit crazy. I just saw the town taking a bad turn and I was pretty much think out loud. I should have composed my thoughts and just made one clear post. The bonus is that I know have a better read on everyone that argued with me yesterday. Of course the bad news is that everyone else thinks I’m off my rocker. You wanna lynch Fretful? A OK fine by me. See above. If you can find a scenario where Pygmy Rugger gets lynched with the mafia being unable to stop it and the remaining mafia being other than Lakai and Fretful Porpentine, I will be happy to hear it. I’ve been wrong before, just show me how I’m wrong this time. ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3685 "2007-05-09T02:11:57Z")
It’s my theory, I’ll do the support work. Please just read this without thinking “Great here comes another crazy ass rant”. Here’s how the voting ended up: 4- Pygmy Rugger - (StarvingButStrong, Kat, Queuing, Storyteller) 3- Lakai - (brewha, Pygmy Rugger, Pleonast) 1- brewha - (Fretful Porpentine) 1-StarvingButStrong - (Lakai) The only way that Lakai lives without being scum is if all three people that voted for him are the last three mafia. Pygmy Rugger is but I think that was to make him look innocent if the lynching went through. I voted for him, so lets say in this instance I am scum. Pleonast voted for him, and after last night we are 100% sure that he was not scum. So, since at least one of the three that voted for him is town, at least one mafia did not vote for him. Another mafia had, he would have had four votes and would have at least tied for the chance of a toss up. IF you are willing to believe that I am not mafia, that means that two mafia could have voted for him and swung the vote his way. The only reason the rest of the mafia did not vote for Lakai is that he is one of them. I should just skip the scenario that assumes that I am town, since few people believe me at this point anyway. But I had one vote for me. If the person voting for me were town, the three mafia could join that town vote and at least tie the vote. The only way they could get the majority vote is if one of the people that voted for Pygmy Rugger were mafia. That way PR gets one less (3) and I get a total of four. I die. The reason I didn’t is either because I’m mafia or because the person already voting for me is. Lets look at SBS. Exactly the same scenario exists if he is town. If the person voting for him is town, the three mafia could join that town vote for a total of 4 and at least tie for a chance at the lynch. Or if one of the poeple voting for PR is mafia, they could switch to SBS, the other two join the one townie that is voting and SBS gets a total of 4 votes while PR gets only 3. The only way that SBS lives is if he is mafia or if the person voting for him is. Here’s what I can conclude. Lakai is mafia. The person that voted for me is mafia. The person that voted for SBS is mafia. All of the people that voted for Pygmy Rugger are town. I challenge anyone to prove me otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3686 "2007-05-09T02:24:28Z")
I will admit that right now I don’t have an answer for you, brewha. That doesn’t mean I agree with you however, or am sold on the idea that Lakai is scum, and you and/or kat aren’t. I am not sure if the scum would have been willing to try this but we must remember they cannot talk throughout the day and things happen during the day that they may not be able to react to. The last couple of days the town has switched very suddenly in the last few hours and maybe the scum were hoping that would happen again. Maybe that is why you unvoted PR. Or maybe its as you say. I don’t know, and your credibility is low with me (and it isn’t just because of yesterday, I have found your reasoning suspect a lot since you became more active, I realize you probably think the same of me). I admit that your explanation as to why you unvoted PR and when you did it the time does possibly match up. The clock did start at 1216 and you unvoted at 1223. However you did switch your mind pretty damn quick. You voted for PR at 1133. Less then an hour and you come up with a whole new theory? Do you see how this has harmed your credibility? Votes are crucial right now, as you yourself have pointed out, yet you throw them around like candy. This is just another hole in your gameplay. Right now FOSing is just as good as voting. Top that off with an appeal to known (now) scum yesterday [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8546910&postcount=3603) and then your appeal to authority (pleonast) and well…its hard to get behind you, you know? I will change my list however: Fretful Porpentine brewha/Lakai/Kat We have lost to a worthy foe if its SBS. We have lost to an absolute brilliant player who could teach intrigue (fitting as well as I think you might be a teacher?) if Storyteller is scum. We have lost to a blithering idiot if I am scum because that means I can’t even read NAF’s PM properly. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3687 "2007-05-09T02:25:57Z")
grr, stupid me didn’t preview, the above post was meant to answer the post where brewha quoted me. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3688 "2007-05-09T02:26:42Z")
[QUOTE=brewha] Can anyone explain to me a situation where Lakai is not mafia and yesterday’s vote goes through anyway? [/QUOTE] Yes. I can. Let us hypothetically imagine that two of the voters for **Pygmy Rugger** were the two remaining scum. In this hypothetical, **Lakai** is town. Now further imagine that two minutes before the deadline, our two other scum switch votes from **Pygmy** to **Lakai**. **Lakai** dies, and we learn that he is town. _The game does not end there._ The following Day, the town looks at the situation and sees that two players made a last minute switch that got a townie killed. What do we do? We lynch one of the switchers, of course. He/she is Mafia. We lynch the other switcher. Mafia. We lynch **Pygmy Rugger**. We win. By winning the short term battle - getting **Lakai** killed in place of **Pygmy** - the Mafia would have lost the game. I am not saying that I think your theory is without merit; I _am_ saying it is not the airtight certainty you are trying to present it as being. We need more than this. Do you have other reasons to suspect **Lakai?** Reasons having to do with his voting patterns, and more importantly to do with his logic and reasoning? Because so far, I can’t really find anything one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3689 "2007-05-09T02:34:21Z")
I admit that **brewha** ’s scenario is very tempting, and makes sense. I am, however, still very suspicious of him and so I don’t know if I buy it or not. I can completely understand why **Fretful** voted for him yesterday. Hell, I would have switched my vote to him, if that wouldn’t have brought **Pygmy Rugger** down to a tie vote. Damn, this is as bad as Day Two. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3690 "2007-05-09T02:36:03Z")
“Sitting ever so patiently waiting to hear who storyteller thinks is scum” ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3691 "2007-05-09T02:44:25Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910] Yes. I can. Let us hypothetically imagine that two of the voters for **Pygmy Rugger** were the two remaining scum. In this hypothetical, **Lakai** is town. Now further imagine that two minutes before the deadline, our two other scum switch votes from **Pygmy** to **Lakai**. **Lakai** dies, and we learn that he is town. _The game does not end there._ The following Day, the town looks at the situation and sees that two players made a last minute switch that got a townie killed. What do we do? We lynch one of the switchers, of course. He/she is Mafia. We lynch the other switcher. Mafia. We lynch **Pygmy Rugger**. We win. By winning the short term battle - getting **Lakai** killed in place of **Pygmy** - the Mafia would have lost the game. I am not saying that I think your theory is without merit; I _am_ saying it is not the airtight certainty you are trying to present it as being. We need more than this. Do you have other reasons to suspect **Lakai?** Reasons having to do with his voting patterns, and more importantly to do with his logic and reasoning? Because so far, I can’t really find anything one way or another. [/QUOTE] Good, theres a scenario. I don’t buy it, but it is plausible. If the other two mafia were smart, they would have just switched the votes around so that everyone but Lakai had two. 2 for me, 2 for SBS, 2 for Pygmy. Or they could just drop their votes all together and not vote for pymgy. He goes down to 2. Lakai gets lynched with the remaining three and everyone else say oops, wrong guy. The only way they couldn’t drop the vote count for PR is if all the PR voters were town. Please don’t read this as me saying ‘ha, you’re an idiot’ I want to find a situation where my theory is seriously flawed. If anyone else likes StoryTellers scenario more than mine, let me know. We got plenty of time to figure this out. I have other reasons for voting Lakai, I’ve been voting him for the last three days - maybe four. I did a whole post synopsis pointing to his guilt. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3692 "2007-05-09T02:52:00Z")
You are forgetting that the mafia do not get to talk during the day. A concentrated effort of vote switching as you suggest would be hard to pull off without a lot of people all of a sudden changing votes, and drawing suspicion to themselves. Kind of like what you did. Pleonast could do it because he was 100% confirmed town. You, and no one else, is. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3693 "2007-05-09T02:55:28Z")
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong] Huh! I never made the connection to not being able to consult during the ‘night.’ But, hey! I was the first to spot a major tell by Suburban Plankton and posted about it vehemently (though I ended up not voting for him due to timing problems) AND I just went all out to get Pygmy hung. Why would a Mafia do either of those things? [/QUOTE] I am ashamed to admit that I had a vague idea that either you or **Fretful** were the one to have fingered **Suburban Plankton** initially, but couldn’t muster up the courage to go plowing through the thread again trying to figure out which. Now I’ve looked it up, and see that it is the case. Given that fact, I think you join **Queuing** at the bottom of my suspicion list. It’s not so much that you voted **Plankton,** nor even that you started the nominal bandwagon on him (?); I think scum will vote for and bandwagon other scum. It is the fact that you publicized the tell out of nowhere, when no one was really even paying attention to **Plankton** at the time. I can’t think of a good reason why Mafia would be essentially the first person to even mention another Mafia as a target. So, I’m going on the assumption that **StarvingButStrong** and **Queuing** are town; if I’m wrong about either, then this is going to go poorly, but I have to start somewhere. > [@](#): > > Lakai (due to Brewha’s efforts to swing votes his way) I don’t really think that **brewha’s** obsession with **Lakai** is definitive proof of anything. If **brewha** is Mafia, then **Lakai** is most certainly town. If **Lakai** is Mafia, then **brewha** is most certainly town. The third possibility is that both are town. This situation seems unresolvable. **brewha,** however, seems to be getting a pass and should not. He voted for **Pygmy Rugger** early yesterday and then, when the votes started piling up on **Pygmy** , bailed on that bandwagon and began frantically trying to keep us from lynching **Pygmy.** He has also formed an elaborate theory today that is predicated on the assumption that \*any Mafia on the **Pygmy** bandwagon would bail on it in a frantic attempt to keep us from lynching **Pygmy**. \* In other words, he has been suggesting all Day so far that scum would do _exactly what he did._ I have struggled to understand why **brewha** has not grasped why the Mafia wouldn’t abandon ship - why he thinks jumping off **Pygmy** in an attempt to save him would be the Mafia’s only play - and maybe it’s because it’s the play _he,_ as Mafia, chose himself. I don’t know about **Fretful** or **Kat** , or even really **Lakai.** I guess if **brewha** is indeed Mafia as I suggest above, **Lakai** is almost surely not. If I’m choosing between those two players, I can’t figure out a reason to vote for **Lakai** over **brewha.** So I guess my list goes like this (most to least suspicious): brewha Lakai StarvingButStrong Queuing with **Fretful** and **Kat** TBD. Right at this moment, if forced to vote, I’d vote for **brewha.** Before I vote, though, I want to go back and read up on my two remaining mystery guests (Kat and Fretful), to see how they fit into all of this. But these are my at the moment thoughts, for what they’re worth. This game is hard. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3694 "2007-05-09T02:57:59Z")
But are you a teacher? I mean come on! I waited patiently and everything! ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3695 "2007-05-09T03:03:06Z")
[QUOTE=Queuing] But are you a teacher? I mean come on! I waited patiently and everything! [/QUOTE] For about two minutes this post confused me mightily, as I missed the post in which you asked the question in the first place. No, not a teacher. I’m a medical writer for a small but notorious pharmaceutical company, and a freelance writer of more creative-type stuff. My wife’s a teacher, of fifth grade band. The degree of patience, decency, and confidence with which she approaches her workday astounds me. I would be terrified. ---
**Author:** ![Queuing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Queuing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queuing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3696 "2007-05-09T03:09:45Z")
Oh. dammit then. There goes the whole trust thing. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3697 "2007-05-09T03:36:10Z")
4- Pygmy Rugger - (StarvingButStrong, Kat, Queuing, Storyteller) 3- Lakai - (brewha, Pygmy Rugger, Pleonast) 1- brewha - (Fretful Porpentine) 1-StarvingButStrong - (Lakai) Well at least we know there isn’t four mafia guys out there. If there were four, that would mean one person that voted for PR is mafia and could have switched their vote toward me to end the game. The only way this doesn’t work is if the four mafia are me, PR, brewha and Fretful Porpentine. Which is unlikely because then none of us tried to point the FOS on a town, except for me with about 12 hours left to go. So there were less than three, and now about two or one. That is all I could come up with. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3698 "2007-05-09T04:50:28Z")
[QUOTE=brewha] Can anyone explain to me a situation where Lakai is not mafia and yesterday’s vote goes through anyway? If there were 3 mafia left, they all three knew that Pygmy Rugger was mafia. They knew that they’d be down to 2 if he gets lynched. They could have easily switched votes to Lakai and lynch him instead. Why didn’t they? Lakai is mafia. I was going crazy yesterday because I was sure that if the town was split, the mafia would get an easy lynch. Because if half the town voted mafia and half voted for town, the mafia would pick the town and all vote for that person. The thing I didn’t expect was the the town would be split a different way. Half the town votes for mafia the other half votes for another mafia. This is the only thing that could have happened that would not result in a townie death. If someone can poke holes in my theory other than the fact that a beat cop exonerated Lakai, please tell me. [/QUOTE] Okay, how about this case: the three Mafia were Pygmy Rugger, Fretful, and Brewha. (Meaning the other six were town.) Pygmy had four ‘town’ votes - SBS, Kat, Queing, and Storyteller. Lakai had one ‘town’ vote - Pleonast plus two Mafia - Brewha and Pygmy. What can this particular Mafia trio do to save Pygmy? Well, Brewha could beg and plead for some of the townies to switch their vote from PR to Lakai. He did, but no soap, and the deadline was approaching. What then? Well, Fretful could change his vote to Lakai, possibly citing the uselessness of leaving it as a singleton, resulting in a 4-4 Pygmy/Lakai tie, and they could hope that chance would save Pygmy. Except as soon as Fretful voted for him, Lakai would HAVE to switch his vote from me to Pygmy just to save himself. And given how precious each townie’s life is right now, that wouldn’t be a selfish act, merely what he needed to do to preserve his own, known to be town, life. Result: Pygmy hangs anyway, and a huge focus of suspicion fall on each and every one who DIDN’T vote for PR. Probably especially on Fretful for his last minute jump. So what should Fretful do instead? Why, vote for anyone other than Pygmy or Lakai. (He shouldn’t vote for Pygmy to leave open the chance that Kat would be swayed at the last minute to jump to Lakai.) And he’d get bonus points for voting for fellow mafia Brewha – a distancing vote that costs nothing. Which explains the final vote count we had, doesn’t it? Mind, I’m not saying I have a deep belief that Brewha and Fretful are the last two Mafia. Brewha just asked if someone could poke a hole in his theory that it \*\*had \*\* to be Lakai and Fretful, and I believe I’ve just done that. There may be other trios that work out similarly, I quit when I hit this one, it only taking one counter example to kill a theory. I’m sorry, Brewha! It would be really nice to have it cut and dried. However, there are two even bigger problems in relying on reasoning like this. First, it requires that the Mafia all play impeccable games, always making the perfect logical moves – but is that reasonable? Yes, they get to conspire at night, but whatever plans they have can be upset when the Townies do something unexpected. In the post above, Brewha mentions how he was totally surprised when the town vote was split between ‘two Mafia.’ Well, couldn’t the Mafia have been equally caught by surprise when 4/5ths of the townies stubbornly insisted on voting for a particular mafia? It was a surprising show of solidarity, unprecedented by the town before this. Once it happened, each of the Mafia individually had to decide what to do, and try to guess what the others are up to and coordinate their efforts in an ‘invisible’ way. Not exactly a easy thing to do. The mafia are just as human as the townies – they can easily miss the ‘correct’ move under time pressure and deprived of the chance to discuss. Second, you’re totally focusing on a single play. A sensible player has to look ahead and see what the consequences are. For any of the Mafia - whoever they are - staying unsuspected is FAR more important than saving any single other mafia. So losing PR reduces them to two? So what? They still get to kill a townie each night. Better two mafia still hidden among some townies than three mafia and four townies who KNOW EXACTLY who the mafia are and will string them up one by one for the win. # All in all, this theory of yours is either a honest failure or a really nifty way to encourage the town to lynch Lakai. You did, after all, want us to go after him instead of his ‘co-mafioso’ Fretful, right? So, if you actually are a Mafia, you would manage to get townie Lakai lynched, and then what? At worst we manage to lynch you the following day. But Fretful? Why, he might even really be a mafia, but since you yoked him to Lakai, and then Lakai proved town… So, so many twists and turns. How paranoid can we be? How paranoid do we need to be? Just had another thought, and I refuse to rewrite the above to fit it in properly: Actually, the situation against PR was even worse than 4 out of 5 townie votes. Pleonast said he would switch his vote if it looked like PR was not going to be lynched, and why wouldn’t the mafia believe him? So, why didn’t Pleonast simply shift his vote at the time he made his post? Well, my guess is that he was waiting to see if anything ‘interesting’ happened. Like votes suddenly shifting onto Lakai at the last minute… And knowing that Pleonast was watching would make it even less likely for a Mafia to take a risky vote shift that was even more likely in vain. Oh, and come to think of it, I think the results would be very similar if the Mafia were Brewha, Pygmy and Kat: if Kat jumped from PR to Lakai, then Lakai would shift to PR, and so would Pleonast, and again the Mafia would have thrown a spotlight onto one of themselves in a vain attempt to save another. Wow. Very long post. Is there a size limit? ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2007, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3699 "2007-05-09T05:11:41Z")
Or, IOW, what StoryTeller said, and a lot more compactly. I have GOT to learn to preview instead of hitting submit when I take a looong time to write a post. :o ---
**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:** [May 9, 2007, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565/3700 "2007-05-09T05:35:13Z")
I didn’t even have time to get my last drink at the bar! I guess it’s good I didn’t have anything further to say… 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565.md?page=184) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/werewolf-a-game-part-2-this-time-with-mafia/397565.md?page=186)