Mini 551- Mod Abandoned

[Shanba]

Hi people, hi Xyl, hi CESc, hi Elias, hi all the rest of you wonderful people who I'm sure will make excellent companions on this journey of deception and intrigue.

Now, if you'll excuse my somewhat whimsical opening, I will deign to give you my thoughts on the game.

The Sensfan wagon is a red herring. There's very little point in lynching him today. If he's scum, the PR and the cop claim combined create a dangerous minefield for him in days to come. I can think of at least 3 things that could happen which would blow him out of the water, and other things which will make his life considerably more difficult in days to come. Xyl's situation of him being continually left to skate by simply won't happen. And, if he's town, getting a few investigations is a good thing.

Besides, it's unhealthy to have all the discussion centred around one issue. I am suspicious of Joubert. He's not exactly bandwagoning (the latest votecount showing him voting for Sensfan is wrong) but he is much more guilty than SensFan of the discuss game theory and don't really attack anyone tell. I also feel that this posts are designed to give maximum flexibility in his attacks. And his suggestion for another cop to inestigate sens is just bad, though I'm inclined to put that down to bad game theory rather than malicious intent.

[Shanba]

Vote: Joubert

Hlpful thing, voting...

[Shanba]

But there's no actual harm in giving him another day. If he's really the cop, shouldn't we let him have at least the first night to investigate?

There's some benefit in giving him a night to investigate... but I'm not going to trust his results unless, and until, he is lynched and comes up town.

As for the harm in giving him another day if he is scum, it's really simple. If he's scum, we lynch one scum by lynching him either today or tomorrow. But if we lynch him today, tomorrow's lynch will be made with more information and fewer players to choose from, so we have a better chance of lynching a

second

scum in those two days.

Meh.

I see what you're saying but I don't think it carries enough weight to make the lynch worth it. Even if we lynch a townie today we get plenty of information.

[Shanba]

I see what you're saying but I don't think it carries enough weight to make the lynch worth it. Even if we lynch a townie today we get plenty of information.

We get information, but we can't use it tomorrow, because we'll be lynching SensFan tomorrow. Or do you mean that we shouldn't lynch SensFan at all?

Oh, I see what you mean.

Well, I don't see it as a done deal. I think it's likely that SensFan will be lynched tomorrow, but I don't think it's necessarily the case.

[Shanba]

Well, I don't see it as a done deal. I think it's likely that SensFan will be lynched tomorrow, but I don't think it's necessarily the case.

That's why we need to lynch him today. I'll go even crazier if I have to put up with a second day arguing over such an obvious scum.

That's a risk I'm willing to take.

@Joubert: you mean, my post about why I suspected you doesn't count as a reason?

[Shanba]

The possibility of a roleblocker actually makes this a very safe claim. If he really is cop, he's going to get roleblocked every day from here on out. He doesn't need to provide any more information than a vanilla townie. If he's mafia, he's going to claim the same. I see no reliable test of his claim unless we get lucky and mafia doesn't have a roleblocker, especially no test of his claim which does not involve a lynch. This is not a long game, people. Assuming three scum and one kill a night, we only get three mislynches, and that optimistic. Passing on a very likely scum in favor of a confirmation plan which relies both on the mafia not having an rb and that will take at least two days is completely ludicrous.

Simply bringing up this possibility has severely weakened the plan of not lynching him. There's no guarantee that there is a mafia roleblocker in the game. The majority of mini normals do not have mafia roleblockers. Besides, we are not confirming him solely based on his results. They are one of a number of things he could confirm himself with: investigation results, trackers/watchers, broken prs, being blocked by a town blocker but still claiming a result, being counterclaimed at a later date by a cop who has guilties on other players too.

If he claims to have been blocked tomorrow, I will be very suspicious. Not to mention, there will be no point keeping him alive anyway since he wouldn't be getting the results we kept him alive for.

It's 3 days assuming we don't lynch any scum. I'm slightly more confident in our scumhunting abiities than that. You're creating difficulties that aren't there. Do you really think it's unhealthy to have extra discussion day 1? Before people came out and stated they weren't convinced by the wagon, we would have gained almost no info from the lynch. We would have reached tomorrow and said, well, now what? Especially if he is town.

Yes, I am defending him. I don't think the case against him is watertight. I can definitely see a mod like Khelvaster (no offence, but your modding display so far has not convinced me) wording the pr in a vague way so that he can use both. Also, though Xyl is right about his contributions being underwhelming, others have also undercontributed, and they're not doing it through a straw, as it were. I'm not thrilled by him as a lynch candidate.

@Sens: Suspecting you is not scummy, defending you is not townie. Get over yourself. If you found jerub's post scummy, why vote joubert?

[Shanba]

Um, if that's the case, why are you

now

voting him?

[Shanba]

(Elias - one of the reasons I thought he was a bad mod was because there was a crush nightless that was run that Jdodge complains about on scumchat and a crush nightless which Khelvaster modded. I've discovered that they aren't actually the same game, so you can strike that from the record.)

Korts - why did you feel the need to restate that now?

Joubert - why did you go after Cavebear and not the others pushing your lynch?

[Shanba]

Unvote vote: lovo16

This is a compromise vote more than anything. Slap me with a wet fish if Sens comes up scum, but I don't see it. I've tried, but I just... don't.

[Shanba]

diejoubertscum

die

[Shanba]

Ok. It pains me to say this, but I think I was wrong about SF. I could see a setup with one cop, but I honestly can't see the PR in such a setup - an all roleblocker setup is a gimmick already, and adding another gimmick goes against my sense of setup aesthetics. Oh, and I am indeed a roleblocker.

I think that the presence of so many roleblockers here is another mark against SensFan. It's worth leaving him alive (if he's scum, he'll reveal himself pretty quickly), but we definitely shouldn't just follow his result for today.

This, however, is wrong in just about every detail. SF has claimed a guilty on another player. I don't see a miller or a framer in a setup like this (and even if there is one, it's a fairly low chance that SF hit the miller/framee rather than the scum), so the odds are very firmly against both being town - and with the possibility of a breaking strategy we can even get away with lynching both of them so long as we get the pairings right. As such, the correct play is to lynch first jerub (so we avoid losing a potential cop) then if he turns up town, lynch SF.

Xyl, honestly - leaving him alive but not following his results is just about the worst option. Why did you think it would be a good idea?

(I also like this plan because I dislike jerub's reaction to the revelation)

[Shanba]

So we're all roleblockers except SF. Glad that's settled. What to do with the remaining three night actions, then? (Mine, Shanba's, Ting =)'s.) I'm starting to think it might not be all that relevant, but it's good to get it out there either way. Reveal popcorn style, vote who goes first? Or everyone who's already revealed votes on order of revealing? Or everybody vote on order of revealing?

We definitely should reveal them. Maybe we can't learn anything now, but when we learn a few alignments it may be possible to work out who made the kill/who can't have made the kill later on in the game. I don't think it's particularly important which order we do it in - it would be incredibly farsighted scum who could manipulate this to his advantage. That said, there may be something I'm overlooking.

[Shanba]

I do have a page on the wiki with all my games linked, for the curious minded. I think it's been updated semi-recently.

If there were equal chances of both SF or myself being scum, then the position you're advocating actually makes some sense. I'm just completely floored that you actually consider that to be the case. Have any of you ever found another PR in a mini-normal, much less one which would paint a giant target on effectively the only power role in a game? Or the quick jump from SF's wagon to lovo's? SF is quite literally the most blatant scum that I have ever seen in a day 1 ever, period, end of story. Read the thread, and stop being idiots.

And you need to calm down and consider that winning the gamer goes beyond your own survival, if you are town. We at the very least another lynch - even if you are not scum and we lynch you, it is not game over, and if that were the case, we would

100%

lynch sf tomorrow. So you can stop shouting over and over "lynch sensfan" - if you're town,

that's going to happen whatever

. Now please, stop concentrate on more important things - like, for example, roleblocking pairings. If we get them right, we've all but won.

Xyl, honestly - leaving him alive but not following his results is just about the worst option. Why did you think it would be a good idea?

I'm seriously considering the no lynch option. No lynch repeatedly, and when he has results on everyone, lynch him and see if he was a cop.

Hm. That's an option I simply hadn't considered. But with 9 rbers alive we can't make neat pairings, so we'd either have to lynch or have an unblocked rber.

I really like the idea of no lynching, actually, even witht he unblocked blocker. We should start discussing pairings, too.

@everyone: Please state one pairing between two players you would like and also who you would prefer to be paired with. Personally, I'd like to see CESc and Jerub paired and want to paired with joubert myself.

[Shanba]

Can I just state how uncomfortable I am with doing it randomly like that? I'd much rather use the information we have to improve our chances above random.

[Shanba]

Ok. Good, cool, dandy. I blocked no one - I missed my night choice.

[Shanba]

Wow.

How have I not been replaced yet?

If I was prodded, which I think I was, it was so long ago I don't even remember it.

However. I am here now. Hello Battle Mage. Should I be worried that I was largely in agreement with the assessment you just gave before you gave it?

You see, my problem is this: the more I think about it though, the more the idea of a cop in this setup feels broken. Given that with x number of confirmed townie we can 100% win this game, and given that a cop's primary purpose is to reveal innocents rather than find scum (think about probabilities), there's an incredible synergy here for the town. It almost breaks the game, and where it doesn't, it makes it incredibly swingy.

There's something else too. Reading through my posts, I realised that while I gave reasons that the attack on him was bad,

I never really gave any reasoning for him being town.

And that's the crux of it. He's actually pretty, well, neutral. [flip-flop] I've though about it again, and I don't buy the PR argument (I can easily set up a potential role PM/timeline which would lead to the results shown in this thread, and I don't think a PR is too unusual for a mini normal,

especially

given that the mini normal defies my idea of normal anyway.)[/flip-flop] Jerub... well. Aside from the "he doth protest too much" thing, I don't have anything on him either.

But there's

another

side to this. Yeah, that's right. This is getting positively non-euclidean now, but something else strikes me (perspective is a wonderful thing, and my absence gave me that, if nothing else useful - while away, I can't get drawn into the detail) -

#
# Certain setups which satisfy all of the above might still be better suited as theme games. Examples include Texas Justice, NYPD Mafia, and Hospital Mafia, in which all the innocent roles were the same. The setups of these games fit the guidelines outlined above, but their experimental nature makes them more suited to be run as theme games.

The problem with NYPD and Hospital Mafia (Texas Justice to a lesser extent) is the incredible ease with which they are broken. Hospital mafia was breakable by having a protection chain - if the chain was broken, then the person who should have protected them

must

be scum, because otherwise that player would have protected them. I just can't fathom anyone making the same mistake with an all roleblocker game - especially as it should have been reviewed by an experienced mod before being played. Now, I could see it being played if there were fixes, things to stop it being broken - in which case, suddenly, A) the cop no longer has the synergy and B) jerub confirmed becomes less useful, because we can't break the game with him anyway.

So in otherwise, I'm sitting on the fence side of indecisive. However... I think Sens is slightly more likely to be scum, but jerub is the better lynch anyway.

[Shanba]

Ugh. This is going nowhere, fast. I still believe that a claimed cop day one should be kept alive for information purposes, but since these sorry excuses for wagons don't seem to be going anywhere, I'm prepared to throw in the towel on this particular issue to get the game moving again. It's not like the guys currently voting SensFan hasn't had enough opportunities to toss their votes around, amirite?

Unvote
Vote: SensFan

Now to see who's willing to hammer. Might prove interesting. And to see if SensFan has some parting comments. If his PR is indeed fake, now would be a good time to share, I think. :)

this is a peculiar vote. It could be reluctant bussing, but if Sensfan is town, it looks more like an attempt to revive a dying wagon.

FoS: Cavebear

But, uh, either way you still think he's scum?

[Shanba]

Battle Mage, it seems like the only thing you want to do is to beat the system from the outside... This is boring...

eh? i want to confirm a proveable role. Im no more attempting to break the game than you kids were with that poncey circular RB thing.

Clearly, Battle Mage is worried about plans that are good for the town. DIESCUMDIE.

Ahem, excuse me...

FoS: BattleMage, for no apparent reason...

Are you trying to achieve something with this or are you just filling up space? I really, really want Joubert dead.

However, in more pressing matters... I think, on balance, jerub is the play. From a purely risk vs reward assessment, it's better not to risk the cop lynch. That's how we decide every lynch in the end, risk vs reward - is the risk of lynching x worth the reward? Yes is the answer almost every time, but balancing the two is essential - Sensfan is a high risk, low reward lynch whereas jerub is a low risk medium reward lynch. Or something like that.

Vote: jerubbaal

I'm sorry, but you have to die. That's -1 now, btw.

[Shanba]

unvote

I thought we had agreed already?

[Shanba]

CESc - stumping was ok in Tree Stump mafia at least partly because each player was equivalent - apart from their stumping powers, they were all townies. Here, part of the trade off we are considering is one of a number of roleblockers against a potentially game winning cop. This is why the argument to save Sensfan is potent, despite his poorish play - his role is much more valuable than Jerub's, if he is telling the truth. Having him break his PR is, yes, much better than lynching him outright, but still worse than lynching Jerub outright from a risk/reward perspective.

[Shanba]

Risk-reward? Derfderf.

If you can't say that the chances of SF being scum are much higher than mine, you're not reading the thread. And the reward is exactly the same - we win. I can't believe you're all still not thinking properly.

Explain to me how we win if we lynch SensFan and he is scum. Go on.

[Shanba]

for the record, please don't insult my intelligence. If I am doubting your alignment, it's because there is reasonable room for doubt. So. Please, I am waiting.

[Shanba]

If SF is scum, I'm confirmed, CES is confirmed, and Korts is confirmed. Scum can't kill. We systematically lynch all the unconfirmed. Game over.

I am not insulting your intelligence by calling out an error in your logic. Don't make it personal.

(As a sidenote, saying "derf derf" whenever someone doesn't agree with you tends to make it)

Anyway, there are some crucial things that your logic overlooks.

1: CESc and Korts are not confirmed. The possibility that scum knew or were told that the setup was an all roleblocker one is too great to overlook. Whenever such a game is run on scumchat, first priority is making sure a massclaim doesn't clear half the town or out a scum who didn't realise this was the setup. If scum did know, then it simply becomes a matter of who claimed first. Furthermore, it is possible CESc worked out that it was an all roleblocker setup from the comments at the time. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

2: You yourself would not be confirmed, just as Sens is not confirmed if you turn up scum. It would be a fairly neat gambit to claim his own scumpartner as scum - I have myself considered such a gambit before, but I've never had the opportunity to put it into practice. Regardless, the possibility is there.

3: The possibility is still there that scum have something in their arsenal to protect against breaking strategies, say an unroleblockable godfather (not a role I've seen before, but there's always a first time).

Note that 2 means that you being scum is not an autowin for town either, but it is still a greater reward to have a semi-cleared cop than a semi-cleared roleblocker.

[Shanba]

1. I consider the odds of 1 occuring approximately zero, especially as SF claimed cop. He wouldn't have claimed cop if he knew the scenario.

Hmm. You have a point here. Ok, I'll grant you that if SensFan is scum then scum probably weren't warned about the setup, and korts/CESc are very very close to cleared. (99.999%)

2. SF and myself being gambitting scum at this point would be patently idiotic. It would result in a dead scum either way, which locks down the scumkill, which is the only chance they have to win right now. This rests on the assumption that there is someone with a brain on the scum team, which isn't an absolute certainty, but I think you can admit I would have recognized this if I were a scum.

Here, however, I disagree. If you were both scum, it would essentially be a bussing move - something that is not that uncommon in mafia. I once bussed both my scum partners day 1 of a mini and went on to win the game because the town convinced themselves that there was no way I would do that as scum. If Sensfan is scum, then sacrificing a scumbuddy is just about his only chance of survival - you coming up scum would mean he could live a long time yet. And if he gets lynched, then town will think it unlikely he picked a scum partner to try to get lynched, and you may well live a while.

How does a dead scum lock down the scumkill, for the record? I must be having a "derf" moment, cause I don't get it.

3. Actually a valid point. I hadn't considered this. Regardless, the situation is similar with either an extra cop or roleblocker. If they have a gf, cop wouldn't do us much good at this point anyways. There can be any number of hosers for any role, so I think the best thing we can do here is consider the play of the people here and make the best decision about who is scum.

The situation is not similar with an extra cop as opposed to an extra roleblocker, for the simple reason that your worth is diluted by the large amount of roleblockers already present in the game. All an extra roleblocker is, essentially, is another warm body for the town - anything he could do another roleblocker could do anyway. An extra semi-cleared roleblocker, however, would be useful for avoiding scum being matched together - that's about its only worth.

[Shanba]

I'm back, and my opinion hasn't changed.

We

must

force SF to break his PR.

SF's refusal to do so up until this point has proven his guilt in my eyes. Because of the f'ed up game, everyone here has gotten too emotional too see that getting SF to break his PR and then lynch accordingly is the very best play right now.

Emotional my dear fellow? Emotions have nothing to do with it.

That said...

after my last exchange with jerubbaal, he's looking stronger town to me than he was before. Oh the infinite vagaries of my mental processes. The more likely jerub is town, the greater the risk in killing Sens is reduced. Ris/reward again. Yet which is the correct option. Argh. I can't think properly. Perhaps I should not be posting with a headache. Perhaps I shall stop typing now. That's a good idea. I'll do that.

[Shanba]

Asking SF to claim is pointless, as I've already explained. As long as the alternative is lynching jerubbaal, asking him to claim is worse than the alternative/lynching jerubbaal if SF's town, and won't happen if he's scum. It would only be relevant if the alternative was to lynch him; then it would be in his best interest to get himself modkilled if he's town. Right now, it's not.

Last I checked, consensus was that jerubbaal - and not SF - was the lynch today. Has anyone changed their minds?

Imat, ting =), Battle Mage (and Shanba) - you're the ones not voting atm. Why not?

If there isn't a majority voting for jerub's death, which there isn't, as you freely point out yourself, then there isn't a consensus.

Has anyone made a case on jerub yet? If not, I may do so myself sometime later this weekend in order to draw a comparison between the two and settle my thoughts.

[Shanba]

I currently see two options - lynch me or make SF break his PR. If he refuses to break his PR, he must be scum and we lynch him.

This is correct.

[Shanba]

Rather, all other options are inferior.

[Shanba]

I currently see two options - lynch me or make SF break his PR. If he refuses to break his PR, he must be scum and we lynch him.

The problem is, he may not be able to do it. Or maybe he doesn't know how. I don't know either. Anyways, I'm against this kind of play...

This post fails at making sense.

Let me explain. Say I have a PR which is "You may not post use the letter e in any of your posts." If I was asked to break my post restriction, I could simply post: "Eddie the elephant", or something like that. You'd have to be really, really thick to be unable to break a PR.

[Shanba]

I guess I'm a swing vote then?

Fun times...

[Shanba]

/me sighs.

Sooner or later I'll have to commit to a position. There's no point delaying it any longer.

Vote: SF breaks his PR. I think that now constitutes a majority.

[Shanba]

@CES.
I know, but there's no reason we can't be cautious. Whether it's SF lying or jeru, it covers all our bases. It's not like we're under a time limit.

Alright, I like this proposal with the caveat that if anyone dies after we no lynch, we abandon the plan.

[Shanba]

Weak, weak, weak. If we leave SF unblocked, we lose a townie. We've been over this before. If he says that he will die with three breaks, we should have him break it three times. He's changing his story.

Which, if true, is fine at 10 alive. 10 alive is worse than 9 alive in all situations with one killing group.

[Shanba]

Thing about no lynch is, well, we don't lose anything. 10 alive is actually worse odds than 9 alive.

[Shanba]

You and Kort are nowhere near 100 % confirmed and repeating that doesn't make it true.

Good God. If, for one second, we could all stop standing around being caustic and convinced in any argument simply because it was ourselves that made it, and eprhaps be willing to compromise, to look through other people's eyes, we might actually reach a decision some day. I'm pretty sure argument through repetition is a fallacy. Maybe if you read my posts you'd see I'd already stated several reasons why I don't believe you and Korts are confirmed - it's in one of my responses to Korlash. Then, if you're not convinced, you can point out flaws in my logic. If I'm not convinced, I can point out flaws in

your

logic and we can have a discussion, rather than a clash of personality.

CESc, let me just say, that you are by no means the most guilty of this.

[Shanba]

I read you, CESc, but I don't know why I do anymore. It's so dull and repetitive. And negative. Be optimistic, for heaven's fucking sake!

This is a prime example of an unconstructive post - both sides are just as guilty. What do you expect to achieve from this except to further antagonise CESc? If you're both town, won't the scum just use this division to try and turn the town against itself? This game is frustrating.

I also am increasingly certain that Joubert is scum, but that's another question.

[Shanba]

sorry, jerubbaal.

His descent into complete and utter uselessness.

[Shanba]

Note:

It's better to couple confirmed townies with scummy people, rather than leaving them unblocked, I think.

Ho hum.

If we don't leave a semi-confirmed townie unblocked, who are we going to leave unblocked?