Antrax Returns: Game Over.

[the silent speaker]

Seventeen living, and two killing groups -- three if Gambino means mith and electra were from a mafia that didn't get in a kill. Mod, can we get clarification on that? Are the Gambinos mafia?

Regardless, there's only one possible course of action for now:

Vote: Antrax

. Welcome back to Mafiascum!

[the silent speaker]

Nineteen living. Why can't I count?

[the silent speaker]

This Antrax-IS thing bemuses me. Are they just putting on the show the peanut gallery wants to see, or is there something more sinister? I thought IS's initial question made little sense, since (a) there are at least two kill groups, maybe three, so somebody didn't kill Antrax for reasons other than he's their ally anyway, and (b) since this is the Antrax-returns game, maybe they simply felt it would be unsporting to kill him night 1 of the game in his honor.
But I can't see how anyone would think Antrax's reason for voting him is all that strong. He's perfectly entitled to vote with it -- it is day 1, after all -- but he basically just managed to spin "why didn't Antrax die?" into "I am mafia and deliberately avoided killing Antrax and you all are too stupid to guess!" How on earth could mathcam with a straight face pronounce that good logic? If IS meant to say the second thing, he'd have just come out and ... actually, that sounds a lot like something IS would say.
Anyway, mathcam wasn't even doing anything on the basis of Antrax's logic, so why did he feel the need to mention it? And now he basically claims, with no pressure. This is very weird.

[the silent speaker]

I can't argue that logic.

You can't argue with that logic because there isn't a logic to argue with. Mneme, Quailman, IS and MGIA all leapt onto the jadesmar wagon in very quick succession. That will bear remembering, I think. The latter two are being upfront about hey, bandwagon, *jumps*, but

FOS: mneme and Quailman

for dressing up their bandwagon jumping as reasoned votes. I'd also like to point out that if mathcam

is

setting up for a fake claim, lynching jadesmar before he makes it only tells him how to fake his claim properly when the time is right. (Of course, if he isn't, then a jadesmar lynch will be a good move, probably.)

[the silent speaker]

His posts just make me more and more sure he's mafia.

This seems to imply that you weren't and aren't 100% sure about IS, but your certainty is less uncertain than it was based on posts IS has made since your last. Is that a fair statement, Antrax?
mathcam: you still haven't answered my question. Why, since you weren't working off Antrax's logic, did you feel it necessary to mention it when posting a vote based on nighgt results?

[the silent speaker]

I thought Antrax made a fair point with respect to IS and though I would concur with him. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.

I was wondering why you felt it necessary to concur with him in that post particularly, seeing as it had nothing to do with the rest of your post.

Antrax, it was a simple question. Why so incensed?

[the silent speaker]

I don't like filler posts. Yours simply said nothing, at length.

Hardly. I was fishing for responses from you, so I could get a feel for how scummy you are or aren't. I didn't get quite what I was looking for, but I do believe I have what I needed to find. Vote stands, but is no longer random.

[the silent speaker]

I'm curious, Cadmium -- out of all the people you cited for pushing cam to claim, why did only Flying Dutchman warrant a FOS?

[the silent speaker]

I'm not accusing you of anything, Cadmium. I'm asking questions. Sorry if they're awkward for you. No, wait, not sorry. Intrigued and suspicious, those are the words.

Rereading your post, I think I see what you mean, though. You were FOSing FD not for pushing a claim but for being selective in who he criticized for it.

Again I have to ask: if you find FD's selective criticism suspicious, why FOS only him and not the people he is ostensibly protecting? Why leave people like rite and mneme unFOSed?

I don't see why following someone day one who's vote isn't "entirely random" is worse than bandwagoning a random player.

Because blindly following anyone who says their vote isn't entirely random makes it almost too easy for the mafia to lead the town by the nose, and blindly following anyone leaves few to no clues that can be followed up on the next day. You

know

this, Cadmium. What are you playing at with comments like this?

[the silent speaker]

"I think Antrax is scum because..."
"... he identified which kill was made by IS, something that if innocent he would have no way of knowing."
Happy now?

[the silent speaker]

(then again,

you did shoot mith on night 1

, retro must be back in style or something).

Bolding mine. How do you know that it was mith IS killed?

And if you know IS killed, why didn't you vote for him?!

I don't. Nor do I know he didn't kill. My point was that you not only named IS a killer, you identified which kill you were blaming him for. And that, even if you're right and he

is

a killer, is something you have no business knowing.

[the silent speaker]

If I were mafia, I would probably claim something.

Or you might make a careful non-claim, which has the advantage of being impossible to be caught out in a lie in, and try to sell the town on "if I were mafia, I would try and claim something". After all, if it's so obvious that mafiosi

must

claim, they'd all be banking on that and refusing to. This is classic WIFOM, and your eagerness to try that gambit speaks volumes. After repeated pressure to claim, your continued refusal earns you an

unvote: Antrax, vote: jadesmar

and sayonara.

[the silent speaker]

Holy carp. Six votes already? I'm suspicious of Antrax for my own reasons, but six votes in twelve hours? On day

2

? What are you people smoking?

[the silent speaker]

Well, while Antrax could well be scum, I think it's a safe enough bet that he isn't scum with Yaw or mathcam. If so, lynching Yaw will give us more than just Yaw, if he's scum; it will give us information on Antrax too. Townie Yaw increases the chances that Antrax is scum; scum Yaw tells us what family Antrax can't belong to, which will help us piece together the town later. Gambino Yaw gives us the above plus data on how the town is built.

Vote: Yaw

and let's see what happens now.

[the silent speaker]

The defense of Antrax by TSS, would suggest the are affiliated...

I suppose this also explains why I was all for lynching Antrax yesterday?

and it is clear to me which is the better choice.

Is it? Does the speed of the bandwagon cause no worry in your mind? It causes some in mine. And I

do

think Antrax is quite likely scum, as per yesterday. This by no means clears Yaw, and still less the rapid bandwagon-jumpers.
Mathcam, I had a good reason why lynching Yaw potentially gave us more reliable information than lynching Antrax, but at 11 PM it isn't coming immediately to mind. It might have been as simple as lynching Yaw leaves us with someone who is marked as probable scum irrespective of what Yaw was, and the info from the Yaw lynch comes on top of that, whereas lynching Antrax gives us the same info about a complete unknown hence is less valuable. But that last sentence might also only be making sense right now because of the aforementioned 11 PM, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

[the silent speaker]

First, mathcam, can you tell us whether whatever you got on jadesmar pointed more toward his being associated with mith's death, more toward his being associated with Electra's death, or neither association more than the other?

Yaw:

The only thing I can find in your posts to suggest an actual reasoning is that I analyzed the night kills in responding to Jaguar, yet by labelling me a Gambino you're implicitly agreeing that my analysis is accurate.

1. I don't recall mentioning your analysis of the nightkills to Jaguar anywhere in my posts.
2. Nowhere did I label you a Gambino. I gave three possible outcomes to your lynch, one of which was that you turn out Gambino. Frankly, I am beginning to think that is less likely than the others.
3. Even if I had labeled you a Gambino, how does that implicitly agree that your reasoning is accurate?
4. Even if for the sake of argument we conceded that I labeled you a Gambino and implicitly agreed with your reasoning on Antrax, how does that make you not scum (before Antrax claims as much for the Gambinos in broad, by claiming to be one and a doctor)?

I want all the scum gone, not just Antrax, not just you (if scum you are). I see before me a bandwagon which is almost certainly shot through with scum. By quickly voting, I would only be playing into their hands. By setting up a counterweight, we have two bandwagons to sift through, not just one poor one, and the

dramatis personae

of each informs our conclusions about the other. (In particular I am suspicious of MMCL for FOSing me for refusing to vote for Antrax, when he wasn't voting Antrax himself.) Additionally, we get our information on Antrax who has apparently been poked by some kind of role, rather than on Yaw who nobody has given us anything extra on.
I'm not wedded to the idea that you're scum. But it is at any rate an alternative for people than just piling onto Antrax, which is something Quailman also lamented the absence of. Why is people's discussing whether or not they find you scummy bad, Yaw, if you aren't worried they'll find what you want kept hidden?

[the silent speaker]

What I really don't need is detailed info like the type tss wants.

I didn't think I was asking for detailed information. I don't want mathcam to tell the nature of his role or the nature of his info. I only want him to say this: his first night, did whatever he got on jadesmar point to involvement with mith, with Electra, or with neither above the other? What it was, or how it does the pointing, is irrelevant to that and I quite agree that he should keep it to himself for now.

The bit about the Gambinos being town because they're real is a definite possibility. But then, with two kills of Corleones, we have three scum (and therefore fictional) groups. Any speculations on other fictional groups who might be in this game, preferably not from

Godfather

or

Sopranos

? With two different fictions contributing, it's likelier that the mod would have chosen each name from a different source rather than two and one.

[the silent speaker]

why do you list "Gambino" as a separate category from "town" and "scum"?

Because at the time, whether the Gambinos were town or scum was still up in the air.

Well, since there are only four possible outcomes we know of to the lynch of any player at the moment (Gambino, Corleone, Soprano, or something else), that isn't particularly informative, nor does it say anything about me.

Of course it doesn't, not by itself. The point is in what ramifications each possibility in turn has, not the existence if the possibilities themselves.

So far we haven't seen anybody not being a Gambino, Corleone or Soprano and with that reasoning it would stand that Yaw would be scum.

There's mathcam, unless you think he's Corleone.

[the silent speaker]

We've got a fairly powerful set of roles running around, since two kills have been blocked; this means either 3 blockers or 1 blocker getting lucky, especially if Antrax is correct that he's never been targetted.

Three? Why not two? Two if you're counting Dr. Antrax as a blocker, since he says that his choice of mathcam prevented a kill.

FOS: mneme and Quailman

, mneme for the above and his weird response to mathcam's info, and Quailman for his funky unvote-revote of Antrax. It smacks of someone looking for any excuse to off a guy.
Oh, and the reason for mathcam's doubt is that the Gambinos

are

a mafia family -- in real life. It is possible that the pro-town game Gambinos are marked as "members if a mafia family" for that reason, but only mathcam knows what he got for the Soprano jadesmar, who was not a member of a RL mafia family. Or it's possible that Antrax is lying through his teeth, or even that mathcam is, but after the claim, I think it's rather sharply diminishing returns to lynch Antrax. Either we lynch a half-bulletproof doc or we expose a remarkably successful investigation role, not so?

[the silent speaker]

For what it's worth, in the just-finished Mafia 25, I was a mafia doc.

Unvote: Yaw, vote: mneme. FOS Nanook, Yaw, Quailman and CoolBot

. I was interested in lynching Yaw partly because I looked at him funny, but in good part also because lynching him would give a disproportionate amount of info. Lynching Antrax does not give us a disproportionate amount of info, emphatically not so, and much of the info that it does give us will be far more helpful to the scum than to the town. Like Tigris and Jaguar, I am really starting to be bothered by all the people who are agitating to lynch Antrax for no reason. Mneme's recent post asking for all Gambinos to claim, and his continuing ignorance of anything Antrax has to say, pushes him over from looking-at-funny to I-think-he's-scum.

You claimed IS targeted you because you protected yourself and IS expressed surprised you stayed alive.

This is actually the exact opposite of what Antrax claimed in re IS. He said that he did not prevent a kill by self-protecting -- i.e. that IS did not target him -- and therefore when IS came out swinging against him he assumed that IS had made his opening strategy one of leaving Antrax alive and trying to get him lynched for it.
This Bandwagon that Wouldn't Die is seriously disturbing me. I think there is a very, very high chance that three or maybe even four out of Yaw, FD, Quailman, Nanook and mneme are scum.

[the silent speaker]

One third of the town is not voting. Can we get some votes, people? It's not as if thee's any dearth of possible suspects here.

[the silent speaker]

We're early enough in the game that there's no advantage to letting scum live.

... I assume you mean that sometimes with multiple scum it's to the town's advantage to pit them against each other, because otherwise the implication that we should leave scum alive late is incomprehensible to me. Thing is, if we kill him now, then when it gets to later and maybe it

would

be to our advantage to have him around, we won't have the option anymore because we killed him early. (And again, if you think it wouldn't be to our advantage to have him late either, "it's early enough in the game" makes no sense at all.)

I had a whole long review of the thread taking notes and then it did a weird thing and my attempts to fix it only made it go poof, but one of the things in it was the curious note that Yaw has denied being Gambino, and his last post implies that he has no name at all. That means that, if Antrax is telling the truth, Yaw is lying, and a Yaw lynch will give us a new name plus either nail scum directly or give the lie to Antrax's claim that the Gambinos are good guys. If Antrax is indeed telling the truth, that name will be our third killing faction, and we haven't lost our doctor to get it; if it doesn't seem to be our last killers, and it isn't Corleone or Soprano (my notes indicated that it wouldn't be, but with them lost in the ether I won't swear to it) then Antrax will be lynched without further ado. What's more, if it

is

Corleone against my notes, then a scum group is gone. Not so with Antrax;if he had a name we haven't heard of he could have just used it, no need to lie and claim Gambino. Thus lynching him potentially costs our doctor and will not guarantee the new name among our one scum in two. (If they are both scum, which is certainly possible and would explain a few things, then we lose nothing lynching in either order and might as well take out the one with the new name first. The gain is smaller, but the loss goes to nil.)

There was more on Yaw, but alas I don't recall it offhand. I will probably vote him later, but am withholding my vote for now to give him a chance to share his last name without dying for it, plus some residual suspicion of Antrax. Yaw is quite right when he says that Antrax's appeal to me sounds like he wants me to off anybody and he doesn't care who so long as it isn't him.

What do we gain and what do we lose with the respective lynches? If we lynch Antrax, and he's scum, we gain one scum dead, but not of a new family, and we lose that the scum groups have a clearer picture of how mathcam's role works, with one result and outcome pair now in public domain. If we lynch Antrax, and he's town, we gain some measure of obscurity retained by the cop and some understanding by the cop of what his role does -- the scum will have some too, but less as mathcam will have not only the result that went wrong but the result that went right -- as well as certain knowledge that the Gambinos are good guys and we need to look elsewhere for our third scum, and that Yaw is lying and scum (probably the aforementioned third group); we lose a doctor who could protect himself and was told whenever his protection availed. If we lynch Yaw, and he's scum, we get one scum dead, probably of a new family, and we retain obscurity for the cop; Antrax can keep, whichever he is, and there are no losses that I can see. If we lynch Yaw, and he's town, we lose a townie or pro-town role, but we gain certainty that Antrax is lying and can be safely lynched tomorrow. Have I missed anything major?

[the silent speaker]

For now, Yaw, I want to know what name the mod gave you. As far as legitimate arguments go, if Antrax's role claim is true, that's a legitimate argument in my mind both for you being scum and for him not being. That's a fairly significant if, but lynching him straightaway takes a needless risk to my mind.

[the silent speaker]

Stubborn, Yaw. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Your name would give away little or nothing to the scum, and it would let us assess the likelihood of "Antrax Gambino, doctor". Jadesmar was stubborn about not revealing his role too.
Basically, if Antrax is telling the truth, Yaw is lying, and there is no guarantee that if Antrax is lying Yaw is telling the truth. Thus we have two viable options: 1. Lynch Antrax. 2. Lynch Yaw.
1a. We lynch Antrax, and he's scum. We gain: one scum, of a family we already know exists. We lose: obscurity for mathcam, since the scum will be privy to one of his results which proved effective as well as the precise outcome. We neither gain nor lose: information on Yaw.
1b. We lynch Antrax and he's town. We gain: certainty that the Gambinos are good guys. Certainty that Yaw is scum. Mathcam retains some obscurity since while the scum will know what went wrong only mathcam will know what went right. We lose: A cop who could self-protect and is told when his protection saves a life. A day.
IMO the net cost of 1b, all things being equal, exceeds the net gain of 1a.
2a. We lynch Yaw and he's scum. We gain: one scum dead, likely either of a family not previously identified or of a family down to one member. Evidence, in the form of the name provided, with which to further assess the likelihood of "Antrax Gambino, doctor". We lose: nothing.
2b. We lynch Yaw and he's town. We gain: Certainty that Antrax is scum. We lose: whatever Yaw's role is. One day.
IMO the net gain of 2a plus the net cost of 1b far exceeds the net gain of 2b plus the net cost of 1a.
Antrax's role seems a bit overpowered, but there does seem to be precedent for such things. His claim explains mathcam's results. Aside from that there hasn't been brought any reason

not

to accept his claim at face value temporarily, save for suspicious-looking play on Antrax's part. I'll freely grant that there's plenty of that, but I for one am not willing to risk losing a powerful doc role on nothing but suspicious-looking play. And I have to wonder why you're so insistent on it. The only way I can think of for you to

know

Antrax is lying is if you're Corleone and didn't target mathcam. Actually, if you're Corleone, that would explain why you subtly directed attention away from IS with your "he can't be tracked through his own behavior" line. And today you picked up right where he left off with your attack on Antrax...
It's probably too late to affect anything, but

unvote: mneme, vote: Yaw.

[the silent speaker]

Well done caps. Yaw, I assume it was you who ordered the hit on me? Well timed; I was all set to see to it that you be lynched the next day. In fact, I think I tried to kill you without waiting for daybreak.

What mechanics were in place to keep every night from being a bloodbath? I assume there were some, and the fact that the first two nights saw only one family each lose members gives me some guesses.

What did jag have beside the double vote (and why did it never get noticed in earlier vote counts? I'm sure she must have voted for someone.) to compensate for being one townie among twenty scum?

[the silent speaker]

I was actually very surprised that the non-Capones didn't, once the setup became clear, say "ok, look, we're all mafia here, but the capones have lost 1 member to our 2-3.

I wondered that myself. It wouldn't even have required admitting to anything; just say, "Hey, there's only one dead Capone and four dead Gambinos. That means three Capones left, right? We have to string a Capone up or we go down." Of course, I was dead by that point, and if I hadn't been, I'd have been pushing a Yaw lynch hard so it wouldn't have been true anyway, but yeah.