Open 101 - Two of Four - Game over before 712

[Ripley]

Sorry, wasn't around at the weekend.

Vote: veerus.

Random.

We can ask for a deadline extension if the thread is busy. If it's dragging, the deadline's a good thing.

[Ripley]

I was thinking about possible partial claim strategies, though I hadn't thought of this one in particular - maybe because I never played a game that was known to have a miller before.

If we do this, I'm not sure the approach you've used of just asking a miller, if any, to step forward, would necessarily be the best. By "the best" I mean the approach most likely to present the scum with problems. But I haven't thought about this in any depth yet.

[Ripley]

ThAdmiral - here is exactly what you said:

By the way - millers (if any) should claim now.

I think that is generally the best play, although people are welcome to dispute.

I got from this, maybe wrongly, that your use of the word "generally" was an indication that this miller business was not an unfamilar situation to you and that you'd either played in or read previous games where this strategy (having the miller, if any, claim) had been used. It certainly doesn't read to me as if this is something you had just thought up. Also the way you kicked off with "Millers (if any) should claim now" seems like a pretty clear instruction, even when followed by a note that people are welcome to dispute, as opposed to, say, "Shall we discuss the strategy of having millers claim now?"

Can you clarify please? Have you seen this claim strategy used before, or did you just think of it?

[Ripley]

If there's a miller, a D2 claim may not be a bad idea though I'm still not sure I would agree with the merits of it without having a cop in the set up.

Well, we may well reach the start of Day 2 without knowing if there's a cop in the setup, so what do the rest of you think of this plan?

One of the claim-related thoughts that's been going through my mind is that it might be better on Day 1 to have a player who reaches L-1 claim either "townie or "not townie" rather than claiming a specific role.

If scum claim a power role (for the sake of convenience I'm including "miller" in this) they stand to gain some pretty useful information going into night 1. Either there is no counterclaim in which case they have narrowed down the possible role combinations from 6 to 3, and know specifically that the claimed role does not exist, or, if there is a counterclaim, they have smoked out the power role of their choosing before night.

From the town's POV, we would not be able to catch scum in an immediate lie but (a) there is a 50% chance we wouldn't be able to do that anyway and (b) there's a good chance a scum false-claiming will be caught soon. It only takes one genuine power-role to be exposed for the remaining (genuine) power-role to know the scum was lying, and it only takes one more "non-townie" claim for a genuine non-townie to know one or both was lying.

[Ripley]

Kaiveran, I'm having a hard time understanding your post. You seem to think my plan was offered as an alternative to Silver's, but it's a completely different thing. We could do neither, one or both. Also you seem to believe - "If everyone wimps out and claims townie, we're no further than where we started" - that I was suggesting

everyone

claim townie or not townie, where in fact what I suggested was, specifically, that a player at L-1, and therefore in a position where players normally claim, should claim townie or not townie.

I also think we should assume that protown players will tell the truth; your analysis assumes that they will lie in all kinds of circumstances. up to and including pretending to be a cop who has found scum. Why on earth would a protown player do that?

To go back to SilverPhoenix's suggestion of asking for miller claims at the start of Day 2. Kaiveran seems to expect 2 claims, or even 3. (I personally don't believe town would (or should) lie or that both scum would claim miller.) One downside of leaving this to Day 2, if we plan to do it at all, is that if both scum survive Day 1 they have the chance to confer and decide which, if either of them, should claim. Whereas if we asked for miller claims now, the scum have no chance to collaborate; nor at this stage do they have any idea which of them would be most likely to attract a cop investigation. So there is something to be said for making them commit themselves now.

[Ripley]

I'm still here, though the lack of interest in the game is pretty discouraging. I've given my thoughts on both miller claim strategies, have suggested a claim strategy of my own that hardly anybody replied to, and am at a loss to know where to go from here. If people don't want to post, and continue to post as little as possible, it's just going to be another dreadful game dragging its sorry corpse along with prods and threats, and I'm already in one of those.

The one thing that caught my eye since my last post was this from veerus:

Hopefully Zazier will bring some discussion to the thread because unless something comes up, I'm totally for lynching a lurker.. This game is going nowhere fast.

mod: who have you prodded recently?

(this will give us a list of our lurker targets)

What is your definition of a "lurker" that you're totally up for lynching? Do you mean someone who isn't posting at all? In that case isn't it sensible to assume they've dropped out and get them replaced? Why do you need to enlist the help of the mod in determining your targets? In a game of this length it's hardly a chore to scroll up and see who hasn't posted. Do you think having people named by the mod would legitimize your tactic? Do you care if a player has been prodded and if so why? Would you be more, or less, enthusiastic about lynching a player who had been prodded?

Zazier, you said on Monday you'd post more thoughts tomorrow. What happened to those?

[Ripley]

I don't care if veerus was on L-1. For one thing I think he's the scummiest player. Given the funeral pace of the game so far, I'm all in favor of actions that might stir some activity. We have a deadline just 11 days away. Maybe veerus might up his game, or claim, and things would start to happen.

Something

needs to happen.

[Ripley]

I've given my thoughts on both miller claim strategies, have suggested a claim strategy of my own that hardly anybody replied to

I think the problem was I didn't understand your strategy. Could you explain it again?

What I suggested was not a mass claim, but that if a player one vote short of being lynched should claim, as people usually dom in that position, then they should, if claiming a power role, not specify the power role being claimed. They should just claim "power role" or "plain townie".

ZazieR's plan is one I'd thought of myself. It has a huge downside, which is that it tells the scum exactly who the power roles are going into N1, information we won't necessarily have ourselves, without necessarily increasing our odds of hitting scum (the actual odds depend what the scum do).

However ZazieR has a point that if we do this day 1 the scum have to take a decision very early in the game and before they've had a chance to discuss. (I made this same point earlier with regard to the miller game strategy and why it might be better to do that Day 1.)

There's another factor to take into account, though, which is the nature of this game. People are posting as little as they can get away with, it's slow, dragging and deadly dull. And in my experience a game that starts off in this way almost never improves. If a replacement joins and starts off being active and enthusiastic, they're soon dragged down by the lack of interest of the other players, and either start playing like the existing players, or else leave in search of a better game.

There are two arguments arising from this:

1. Games of this kind are almost always won by scum. The town needs to make an effort to win; if they are not, scum need do almost nothing and the game generally falls into their hands almost by default.

2. It will be particularly difficult to decide on a lynch by normal means, ie by examining people's posts and voting records, looking for clues, inconsistencies etc. There's hardly anything to work with. And we have a deadline in one week. At this rate the deadline lynch will be pretty much random.

Therefore in these exceptional circumstances I might actually support a mass claim in randomised order, or by having the most suspicious claim first and then pick the next, etc. I see precious little hope of anything more useful happening between now and deadline. It might not be the optimum strategy in a game with a reasonable level of posting, but this game does not have that. And the scum were likely to win anyway. So why not liven things up with a mass claim? It would at least add some much-needed interest to the proceedings. It might give the scum some stress as they realise they have to commit themselves long before they are ready to, and with no helpful discussion from with their scum buddy. I like to give scum stress. At present they're having the easiest possible time of it. They only need to make a couple of non-committal posts twice a week, with deadline drawing ever closer, and the likelihood of it arriving without anyone having a clue what to do. So yeah, in this particular case I'd be up for a mass claim - only claiming "power role", not the specific role. Can't be any worse than the current stagnation.

[Ripley]

axle135, if you have useful thoughts to post about the mass claim issue please go ahead and do so. The only real argument against posting such thoughts is the one that sometimes it is difficult to think aloud without alerting scum to a course of action that might not otherwise have occurred to them, but it's easy to overestimate that risk. Scum can talk at night; our only opportunity to talk is during the day, and fear of doing that leads to bland contentless posting or the kind of reluctant non-posting that has characterized this game so far, and which makes it so easy for the scum to hide.

I think it's safe to say that this is an awful plan, and I will vote for anyone who either claims or continues to push massclaim.

The problem with threats like this is that they tend to close down discussion. How can you discuss anything when only one view is allowed and anyone arguing the other side is under threat of being voted simply for expressing their view? Already we can see how axle135 has felt it necessary to state he isn't "pushing the issue" although it seems he has things to say about it.

And if you are an innocent and believe anyone "pushing" the mass claim must be suspect, surely you would learn more by waiting to see exactly what people do have to say about it, rather than frightening them off with threats of a vote?

[Ripley]

How, if at all, was the question of having a miller claim resolved? Two strategies were offered: 1. a miller should claim immediately, 2. a miller should claim at the start of Day 2. What do the new players think about this issue?

We want discussion. This game has been lacking in discussion for a good portion of its existence. But we don't want to discuss things that are useless. There is no debate... and I'm sorry if you think that's too harsh.

There is no debate about whether or not massclaim is good for us

.

Clearly there is a debate as long as at least one player disagrees with this. You state that we want discussion, but you have not suggested any other topic for discussion. And your entire post ignores the question of why you would wish to shut down discussion rather than, presumably, learn useful information from the posts people made on the subject. If you believe a course to be so unilaterally disastrous, is it not interesting to watch and see who supports it?

As someone just said, right now scum would hit a PR 40% of the time...

Assuming we lynch a townie without managing to expose a PR along the way scum would hit a PR N1 50% by chance alone, assuming no successful intervention by a doc or RB.

and massclaiming makes that 100% likely.

No, because the massclaim technique advocated was not one where people claim a

specific

role, and so the scum could not take the obvious route of disposing of the doc, if present, while the doc, if present, would have their chance of protecting a power role much improved. With an original 50% chance of there being a doc this is significant. If the case against a massclaim is as overpowering as you state, you should not need to massage the figures.

And with all this agonised talk of losing power roles, we have to remember that amongst the useful roles we have to include the possibility of a miller.

I'm not supporting a mass claim in its current form because the quantity and quality of posting has greatly improved. However if it reverted to the previous standard, and the strategy to mutterings of "let's lynch a lurker" I would reconsider that position. I've actually spent a fair bit of time trying to think of variations on the mass claim that are better than the current proposition, and will continue to do so.

Now, I don't think that Ripley is scum for disagreeing with me. I don't even think that veerus is scum for hopping on me. But I do think that I should Vote:Thadmiral for right now... call it gut.

It's curous that you make no mention at all of ZazieR who has been by far the strongest advocate of the massclaim.

It seems ThAdmiral is troubling more than one gut. veerus also in Post 108 has a problem with ThAdmiral that he seems not quite able to put his finger on. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it would be helpful if you could be a bit more precise, as is usually possible with "gut" votes and comments if the owners of the guts are willing to think about it a bit.

[Ripley]

I thought ThAdmiral's case against veerus was better made than any case made against ThAdmiral himself.

Alright, at this point, either ThAd is scum and his buddy is really reluctant to hammer, or he is town and both scum are already on ThAd's wagon.

It's possible that he's town, one scum is on the wagon and the other is nervous about hammering and hoping a townie does it. With deadline approaching fast that would be a reasonable expectation. It can be tricky to hammer as scum, especially if you haven't previously expressed much suspicion of the player.

Could the players not presently voting give us some idea of your voting intentions?

[Ripley]

Mod

: is the deadline 12 midday or 12 midnight?

[Ripley]

fos: CarnCarn

for creating a counter-wagon.

What do you mean,

creating

a counter-wagon? You had 2 votes already. Almost anything CarnCarn could have done was less scummy than voting for you. He could have lain low until after deadline and blamed Christmas commitments. He could have voted one of the players currently on 0 votes - almost bound to be totally useless the day before deadline. He could have posted without voting at all. The only other choices he had that I can see are to vote for you or to lynch ThAdmiral.

Putting someone at L-1 with mere days before deadline is not scummy.

"Mere days" ... what does that mean? It's wonderfully vague, but I think a reasonable person would think "mere days" meant a very few days, four or five at most and certainly less than a week. Your vote actually came nine days before deadline. But it's not just a question of that, it's also the nature of the vote itself. You'd previously muttered something about a post of ThAdmiral's not feeling quite right to you - so useful to have this totally vague comment in place ready to subsequently fill out, or forget about, according to how things developed. Then once TCS put ThAdmiral at L-2 you were all at once able to work out what it was about ThAdmiral that you didn't like, and it was so overwhelming that you were willing to put him at L-1 on the spot, despite, as you note yourself, the other two voters having voted him with even less cause than you did.

I've been neglecting this game. Please forgive me. Or lynch me. Whichever suits you.

There is a third option, which is that if you're not interested in playing this game you could leave. Nobody's forcing you to play, and there's never a problem getting replacements on Page 6.

I don't think lynching TCS is such a bad idea, but impossible to organize at this late stage, and I'm sure he was aware of this when he chose the timing of his post.

[Ripley]

I will be gone from Dec. 26-30, so I guess it's okay to replace me if need be, but please P.M. me if you decide to do so. However, it's possible that where I'm going will have WiFi.

Just noticed this from axle125. So I guess we're not going to be getting a vote from him. I'm counting this as a serious black mark against axle. He knew full well when the deadline was and has very conveniently (for him) left for a break that includes that deadline without voting.

I'm a roleblocker. If I survive the day, I plan to block either CC or TCS.

If you're a roleblocker, why the heck are you helpfully informing the scum who you intend to block, and who therefore is quite safe to do the NK without fear of being blocked???

[Ripley]

I'm a roleblocker. If I survive the day, I plan to block either CC or TCS.

If you're a roleblocker, why the heck are you helpfully informing the scum who you intend to block, and who therefore is quite safe to do the NK without fear of being blocked???

Not only that, but if the other scum is not me/TCS then they can no-kill and get a mislynch tomorrow. This assumes veerus is actually the roleblocker and not faking, which is actually quite possible since scum would hate having a RB in the game. What a coincidence that he would claim RB, now, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a counterclaim.

It's not really that likely. veerus may be telling the truth; if he's scum there may not be a RB; you and I have posted since he claimed; it's highly unlikely that we'll hear another word from axle or TCS till Day 2.

ZazieR is right, we need a claim from ThAd. Disappointed in the activity from axle and TCS at the point.

Really I'm starting to wish we could lynch one of those two (axle/TCS)....

ThAdmiral, if you're going to claim the time is now.

[Ripley]

Only just seen the thread re-opened, so haven't absorbed these posts in detail yet.

veerus: your logic is that TCS is the only other suspect apart from CC because he's the only one you think might have deliberately no-killed?

CarnCarn dies, then veerus does if CarnCarn is town.

veerus could be confirmed today if we roleclaim, which I think is probably the right way to proceed, with the people under most suspicion going first. But this is just a suggestion.

axle135, are you back and ready to continue playing?

[Ripley]

Also, I'm VERY MUCH against a massclaim at this point. A miller wouldn't gain us anything. A cop will only out himself when he's found the other scum (on the off-chance that it isn't TCS/CC) and there's no reason to do so sooner. And a doctor is protecting me every night (or he should). Why out the roles that will win the game for us?

If a doctor was protecting you then your roleblock may have been irrelevant. I was actually rather surprised CC didn't raise this possibility, since he's (obviously) claiming he didn't try to kill anybody. Wouldn't it look to him, if innocent, that a doc protect was a possible reason for the no kill? Surely it's at least as likely as a deliberate no-kill by scum?

Anyway, veerus, what are you so worried about? You are almost certain the scum is either CC or TCS, so if we lynch CC today and you block TCS tonight, the power roles would be quite safe. I'm still in favor of claiming, though not the way axle said. Just draw up an order, with most suspicious claiming first, and have people claim their role in that order. I think we'd go best from here with all information in the open.

[Ripley]

Why is there such a movement for a massclaim anyway? All it does is outs the other PR.. What are you trying to accomplish and what information do you think would be helpful at this point?

I'm not going to start getting into one of those deep micro-analyses that simply spells out to the scum their best option if they hadn't worked it out already, and I really suggest nobody else does either.

However, it is safe to say that if we have a cop present the cop is known, since they haven't claimed, to have an innocent result on a living player. If we don't lynch scum and the cop dies tonight, we'd really regret losing that result. I guess we could take precautions by having everyone say "If I'm the cop and I die, X is innocent". But I still prefer to roleclaim.

...but if everyone agrees on a massclaim, I suggest we do it popcorn style (first person to claim names the next, etc).. i.e. I should go first since I already claimed.

Why

do you suggest that way? What is about that method that you think is better than the one I suggested, where we all draw up the order as a group?

[Ripley]

CarnCarn - did you make up your mind yet whether you're in favor of roleclaiming? You said you were going to think it over.

[Ripley]

Having 2 confirmed isn't enough... we need at least 3 or I don't think it's really worth it.

You said in Post 173 you were all for the mass claim. Have you changed your mind now?

Okay, well, if we don't want to massclaim, then let's all get on theCarnCarn wagon and veerus will block me tonight. Without the further information that a massclaim would provide, the fact that CC got blocked and there was no kill makes him the logical choice.

I want to mass claim. You wanted to mass claim. We're still waiting to hear ZazieR and CarnCarn's views on the subject, and I'd suggest we don't rush into anything before they've given their opinion. veerus is the only person to be clearly opposed to claiming.

[Ripley]

Not claiming and lynching CarnCarn works fine if CC is scum. So even if that’s the most likely scenario, it’s the scenario where he’s innocent that we have to look at.

If he’s not, and veerus blocks TCS, look at how we’re placed tomorrow.

If nobody dies, we will not know if TCS was blocked, if veerus is scum and just repeating the previous night’s trick of no-killing and blaming his fictional blockee, or if someone else is scum and no-killing knowing veerus is blocking someone else.

If somebody dies, TCS is cleared but we still don’t know who the last scum is. They might no-kill to try and implicate veerus.

If we have a scum that was bold enough to no-kill last night there’s no reason to think it mightn’t happen again.

By claiming now we do at least have the opportunity to establish veerus as innocent. However likely we think that is, as things stand we aren’t sure.

I’m going to go ahead and claim a non-townie role. You surely have to believe me. If I were scum, there is absolutely no reason for me to draw attention to myself when I’m under no particular suspicion. I could just sit here quietly while CarnCarn, and then probably TCS, gets lynched.

So- anyone else going to claim?

[Ripley]

I don't get it.. what's "non-townie"? Are you saying you're the other power role?

Yeah, but it seems so weird including a miller in the category "power role". I'm claiming a non-vanilla role other than RB.

Since CarnCarn is under much more suspicion than I am due to the claimed roleblock on him and the lack of a NK, I think it's reasonable to ask that CarnCarn claim his actual role before I do. It's now certain from my POV that the remaining scum is CC or veerus as was likely from day start). Which has removed my main concern about the game.

[Ripley]

Luckily I am the cop.

Vote CarnCarn

.

ZazieR, CarnCarn is saying this about the thread being opened early in order to make his claim sound more convincing by sounding like a roleblocked power role. The thread may possibly have been opened before he sent a choice, because he was roleblocked, but if so it was his choice of NK as scum, not his investigation as cop. I sent in my choice Dec 31 4.28 pm my time, got a reply 8.08 pm my time and the thread was opened 3 minutes later. I investigated axle135 who was obviously innocent.

But none of this detail really matters any more since with two claimed cops you now have a straight 50/50 choice and time to lynch both.

[Ripley]

I'd actually convinced myself I'd given myself away as cop with my concern over the cop getting NK'ed with an innocent result. So I was surprised when that was your actual claim. Though I think you'd made it almost impossible for yourself to claim doc by never raising the possibility of the no-kill being a doc protect.

[Ripley]

Day 2 I thought it was at least 80% probable that CC was scum but I was troubled by how we'd be left on Day 3 in the event that we lynched him and he was innocent. I was particularly haunted by the idea that TCS had deliberately no-killed, and thought in that case he would probably win unless we claimed. As a cop with an innocent result I knew we would have a 100% win with a mass claim if the scum didn't claim or if they claimed cop. If CC was scum he'd be in a real fix; if he claimed miller he would as he said almost certainly be lynched, a doc claim wouldn't be believable because he hadn't mentioned doc protect, and if he claimed cop he'd lose because I was the cop. I pushed for the claim by group-agreed order because I was sure veerus would insist CC and TCS went first, and I would have tried to make sure ZazieR, the only other possible scum, went ahead of me.

Congrats btw to veerus whose instincts were absolutely right throughout.

[Ripley]

I'm still not sure why Ripley kept his *random* vote on me the entire day 1 especially after TA started making mountains out of mole hills.

It was an originally random vote that got converted to a serious vote - not so unusual in a game of this size. I thought that was clear from my posting, sorry if it wasn't. No way would I have left a purely random vote in place approaching deadline.