Mini 696 ~ Scum o' the Sea ~ Game Over

[Ythill]

You haven’t even gotten the mainsail at full mast when a glance around shows that springlullaby has vanished. She appears at your side a moment later with a bottle of the captain’s famous rum. You know you’re risking his wrath by drinking it, but it doesn’t seem to matter at this point. Springlullaby makes her rounds, bottle feeding the two remaining crewmen until they are reeling.

Just before he passes out, Xtoxm notices that the cook isn’t drinking. And that the cook is Asian. And… wait a minute… is that a ninja sword?

The sixth watch ends with no lynch!
The ninja (springlullaby) wins the game. She was aberrant, and intent on killing all pirates.

Well, that was quick. It’s interesting that the game ended up dependant on whether SL could get a post up today before the two obv-votes rolled in. Congratulations to springlullaby. She played marvelously, and a few mistakes from the mutinous crew gave her the upper hand. I’ll post roles and night actions soon.

And seeing as i've made a save, and we double scum lynched, that means town has been fucked ever since that NL...

Not really. If you had lynched SL first and Huntress second, you would have won easily.

[springlullaby]

Huh, you made a save? Who did you save?

[Xtoxm]

[springlullaby]

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

[springlullaby]

Lol, that was easier than I expected, I thought the CL was still alive, and had to make the right decision upon killing Goat or Xtoxm to avoid being killed myself as I had prime kill power.

[Xtoxm]

Not really. If you had lynched SL first and Huntress second, you would have won easily.

No, cos she'd have just used her power if we tried to lynch her. Would have gone to night, 2 more scum kills...

[springlullaby]

Nah, if you lynched me, I was dead the day after because my power is oneshot.

[springlullaby]

And I would probably have targetted Huntress to avoid being killed, so that would have been me, Clock, Xtoxm, and Goat. And I would have been lynched easy.

[Xtoxm]

Only if one of you killed the other scum, which never happens when scum know the other scum.

[Xtoxm]

Lol, that was easier than I expected, I thought the CL was still alive, and had to make the right decision upon killing Goat or Xtoxm to avoid being killed myself as I had prime kill power.

Like I said...Man-At-Arms is a land unit.

[springlullaby]

No, Huntress pretty much knew I was SK, and I knew she was cult. I think had she lived she would have targetted me to get rid of the concurrence, plus I was breathing down her neck pretty hard.

I would have targetted her because I could let the cult live and outscum me.

Of course I didn't know the CL was already dead.

[springlullaby]

*couldn't

[springlullaby]

Oh by the way, I could make the day go into nolynch only before the hammer. So I kinda have been refreshing this page like mad.

[Goatrevolt]

That's what I get for being in class...

[Goatrevolt]

I'm disappointed. I thought we had the game wrapped up yesterday. I figured Xtoxm would get NKed and then I would be able to fairly easily convince Clockwork to vote for SL.

I'll wait until I see the setup, but 3 mafia with the possibility of recruitment + SK + neutral survivor seems pretty harsh for the town to overcome.

Huntress, why did you shoot Crywolf?

[Xtoxm]

She beat me and i've been on here all day, revising for my exam tomorrow...Though I don't think the mechanic should work like that anyway...

[Xtoxm]

I'm disappointed. I thought we had the game wrapped up yesterday. I figured Xtoxm would get NKed and then I would be able to fairly easily convince Clockwork to vote for SL.

I'll wait until I see the setup, but 3 mafia with the possibility of recruitment + SK + neutral survivor seems pretty harsh for the town to overcome.

Huntress, why did you shoot Crywolf?

Yeh, it does seem pretty harsh, (I think it's 1 CR, 1 SK, 1 Surv) I guess if CR dies early it's incredibly town sided, and there were a fair few officers...Me, EA, you, Mili, CR...Traitorous bastard EA, town coulda won if he'd stayed...

[Goatrevolt]

From the town perspective, it makes a lot more sense to kill the guaranteed cult member before the SK, based on the possibility of cult recruitment. I think lynching huntress was the right move yesterday based on what we knew.

Also, if Jebus was the recruiter, then the mafia had to start with 2 members. He died night two and CR declined night 2, meaning he only could get in 1 recruitment for there to be the 3 members we encountered.

[Xtoxm]

Oh yeh...Well, pretty much my thoughts too, plus I thought CW may have been SK given the semi-reveal.

[Goatrevolt]

I knew CW wasn't the SK based both on her play, and based on the way Ythill was revealing players. He revealed dead cult as "Mutinous scum" and I assumed he would reveal other scum (SK) as "(descriptor) scum." CW wasn't revealed as "scum" so it was safe to assume she wasn't.

[Ythill]

Role PMs

First Mate

You are the

first mate

, the lead officer. Each night you may PM me the name of one player. In the morning, you will know that person’s rank and title but not his alignment.

You are armed with a saber.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Quartermaster

You are the

quartermaster

, the officer in charge of discipline and peacekeeping. Each night you may lock one player in the brig by PMing that player’s name to me. Your target will be immune to all night actions but will also be prevented from using his own night power, if any. You may not lock yourself in the brig.

You are armed with a whip.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Helmsman

You are the

helmsman

, the officer in charge of steering the ship. On any one night, you may steer the ship into a storm by PMing me of your intent to do so. On that night, all players will be prevented from using their powers. This is a one-shot ability.

You are armed with a dagger.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Boatswain

You and your partner Jebus are planning a mutiny. You may speak with your faction at night in a dark corner near the bilge pump (URL removed). Each night, one member of your faction may PM me the name of a player in the following format

kill:playername

. That player will be killed; the player who sends the PM will be the killer.

You are the

boatswain

(pronounced

bos’n

), the officer in charge of maintaining the ship and her rigging. The common sailors aboard the ship answer to you. On any night that your faction does not kill, you may PM me the name of a player in the following format

recruit:playername

. If that player is a

sailor

, he will immediately join your mutiny. If that player is a loyal officer, he will be told of your request (but not your identity) and will then be allowed to choose sides. You can use this ability as often as you like, but will only successfully recruit once.

You are armed with a hammer.

You are mutinous. You win whenever the mutinous players comprise a majority of the crew, or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM.

Ninja

You are a

ninja

posing as the cook, the officer in charge of maintaining the galley. Each night you may send me the name of a player in the following format

kill:playername

. That player will be poisoned and die before conducting any night actions.

At any point during one day, you may post

open the rum

in the thread. Your post will signify the beginning of twilight and no lynch will occur that evening. You must do this before the hammer vote. This is a one-shot ability.

You are unarmed.

You are aberrant. You win the game only if you are the sole survivor.

Please confirm by PM.

Barber

You are the

barber

, the officer in charge of hygiene and medical care. You are familiar with common pirate wounds. Any time a player is killed you will be informed what weapon was used on him.

As the medical officer, you are also fairly adept at saving lives. On any one night, you may PM me the name of a player, that player will be immune to night kills. It will be subtly revealed in the flavor that the player was protected, but your identity will not be revealed. You may only use this ability once.

You are armed with a scalpel.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Man-at-arms

You and your partner Erratus Apathos are planning a mutiny. You may speak with your faction at night in a dark corner near the bilge pump (URL removed). Each night, one member of your faction may PM me the name of a player in the following format

kill:playername

. That player will be killed; the player who sends the PM will be the killer.

You are the

man-at arms

, the officer in charge of the powder cache. You are armed with a flintlock, the most powerful weapon on the ship. If you are lynched, the person who hammered you will also die.

You are mutinous. You win whenever the mutinous players comprise a majority of the crew, or nothing can prevent the same.

Please confirm by PM.

Sailor

You are a common

sailor

, a seaman recruited from some distant port. You have no special abilities but you are tough and the captain respects you.

You are armed with a marlin spike.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Parot

You are the captain’s

parrot

, a cherished pet procured on a distant tropical island. You can talk, but not very well. You have no special abilities.

You have a post restriction, you are limited to two words per post, with the following exceptions. Votes, unvotes, and FoSes do not count towards your total. The word “squawk” does not count towards your total, neither do the phrases “pretty bird,” “yo ho ho,” or “fetch me rum.” So long as they are an exact, unbroken quote of another player, words in block quotes do not count against your total.

Compound words, acronyms, and hyphenated phrases only count as a single word if they are common usage examples, including examples that are common on mafiascum. Back to back posts will be considered a violation of your post restriction if you seem to be using them to get around the restriction.

If you fail to adhere to your post restriction or if you mention it directly, you will be modkilled. If you are unsure whether or not something is allowed, please ask before posting.

You are unarmed.

You are loyal. You win when all threats to the captain have been eliminated.

Please confirm by PM.

Powder Monkey

You are a fated

powder monkey

, an expendable gunner that was forced into service by a press gang. You have no special abilities.

You are unarmed.

You are indifferent to politics and more concerned with survival. You win if you are alive at the end of the game. Please note that activity requirements will be strictly enforced.

Please confirm by PM.

Adjudication Notes

There were only three pieces of important information not available in at least one role PM...

(1) One-shot actions were consumed if blocked. I left this out so as to avoid revealing the possibility of a RB. This game was balanced on the idea of being swingy, especially in the endgame. The sheer number of one-shot abilities was designed to give every faction the chance of having a secret one-shot game-changer left after mass-claim. However, I knew that having every one-shot play out would be a bit too much, so I made blocks consume them and used a fair amount of blocking in the set-up.

(2) The quartermaster will block the helmsman if there is a conflict. I left this out so as not to reveal the presence of a second roleblocker. I read some threads on full-blockers vs. one-shots and agreed with the consensus. And it's a good thing I decided beforehand because it came up in-game.

(3) Recruit attempts cannot be blocked. I left this out to avoid revealing the possibility of a RB and of a recruiting dynamic. This was a last minute fix just before the game started. I ran some numbers and realized that the scum could play perfectly but still lose their advantage because of unlucky timing. I also thought about the fact that blind recruiting already had so many possible fails (not loyal, not an officer, a loyal officer that says no) that immunity to the block was a much-needed balance. This one came up too, though it ended up being moot when the offer to change sides was refused.

One other adjust from the original set-up was the parrot. Originally I had two powder monkeys who would win if one was left alive, but I thought that it would hurt activity levels and I also suspected that the extra alignment confirmation would make the survivors too valuable to the town: a severe town advantage after mass-claim that would surely lead to an alliance of the two factions, especially if one powder monkey was already dead. I pulled one powder monkey and then I was in a predicament. Adding another sailor threw off the recruitment balance, adding scum was not acceptable without completely revampng their roles, and adding another loyal officer would have made the town too powerful. Instead, I figured that a PRed vanilla townie with a plainly sensical theme could be used as a pawn by all of the factions without throwing off the balance and would make for an interesting discussion subject straight out of the RVS. It's good to be right!

One last thing. I read Xtoxm's disappointment that the SK had a one-shot no-lynch ability. I think the inclusion of that ability was important to give her a chance against two over-powered factions. The main intent behind that ability was to give a prudent SK the win in a prisoners' dilemma tie. It was counter-balanced by two one-shot abilities that could have made it moot and, interestingly, the endgame included both of those town players.

Goat could have answered SL's "haha, no lynch" with a "haha, no night phase" as long as SL targeted you. You could have answered her "hah, no lynch" with a "haha, Goat is protected" as long as she targeted him. And both of you, together, could have made her win impossible. Except that both of you had expended your one-shots before the endgame. So, yeah, patience won the game.

Night Actions

Night One

Militant locked Gremwell in the brig.
Springlullaby poisoned Tekkactus.
ClockworkRuse investigated Erratus Apathos (officer, boatswain).
Erratus Apathos recruited Springlullaby (failed, not Loyal).

Night Two

Militant locked ClockworkRuse in the brig.
Springlullaby poisoned Jebus.
ClockworkRuse tried to investigate crywolf20084 (blocked).
Erratus Apathos tried to recruit ClockworkRuse (opted to remain loyal).

Night Three

Militant locked Goatrevolt in the brig.
Xtoxm protected ClockworkRuse (one-shot expended).
Springlullaby tried to poison Goatrevolt (blocked).
ClockworkRuse tried to investigate Goatrevolt (blocked).
Goatrevolt tried to steer the ship into a storm (blocked, one-shot expended).
Erratus Apathos recruited Huntress (successful recruit expended).

Night Four

Militant tried to lock Xtoxm in the brig (preemptive kill).
Springlullaby poisoned Militant.
ClockworkRuse investigated Goatrevolt (officer, helmsman)
Huntress stabbed Crywolf20084 with her marlin spike.

Night Five

Springlullaby poisoned Clockworkruse.

Comments

Day one was an early demonstration of SL's savvy. If you read back, you'll see her make a clear effort to get MM modkilled and it worked. SL got away with it cleanly and had already established herself as a worthy SK.

The original scum didn't say much of anything in their night-talk thread and I think it seriously hurt their game. The scum faction was set up to gain an incredible advantage if they played the strategy perfectly, but they hardly talked strategy at all. With the way their roles were set up, they should have been fishing for loyal sailors while performing NKs. A mass-claim was in their best interest because it revealed sailors and exposed the ninja. A weapons claim, of course, would spell certain doom for them and require the Man-at-arms to protect his partner by getting himself lynched.

So, the blind recruit attempts on N1 and N2 probably hurt the mutiny more than anything else. Although SL targeting Jebus with the NK was another blow from which they were unlikely to recover. When EA finally recruited a sailor on N3, she had already claimed her weapon. Then he got himself lynched. Huntress never had a reasonable chance to win, but she gets an A for effort. And I am pleased that she took the alignment change so gracefully.

SL did a great job of avoiding both the NK and the noose. She had the D1 modkill and a great N2 kill. Her N4 choice was excellent as well: any other kill would have left Xtoxm locked in a cell, which would have kept him from getting a weapon result on the scums' only kill. Which, of course, would have almost guarenteed a D5 SL lynch.

The town played better than the scum, IMO, but there were a few problems that kept them from the win. If someone had seen what was happening on D1 and jumped to MM's aid, it would have helped. The no lynch should not have been allowed to happen. And, though I believe Goatrevolt was the townie with the most accurate view of what was going on in the game, his insistance on finding scum before SK may have been the single factor most responsible for the town's loss.

Poor crywolf didn't deserve to die. She played well. Her only mistake IMO was where she claimed that she was vanilla but not a sailor, and she managed to recover from that one quite well. I don't think anyone was expecting Huntress to NK her. I know I wasn't, but Huntress explained the reasons and they made sense.

Anyway... that's about all I can think of right now. Questions? Comments? All feedback is appreciated.

[Ythill]

Xtoxm, look up pirate crew and/or pirate officers on google. Man-at-arms is a naval title as well as a land-based one. On land, it is a synonym for soldier though it often suggests a mercenary rather than a loyalist. On ship, it is the keeper of the powder key.

[Xtoxm]

I did think the MM lynch was bad in the sense I thought he was town, but I didn't read anyhting from it and it's understandable, I didn't realise the extent of the rescrition. He was either designed as a mislynch (almost certainly on D1), or unintentionally became, and I don't like that at all - Apart from any balance issues, it's not fair on the player that gets it...I think restrictions should be in some way workable...

I don't agree with the lynch SK before Cult thing, you should always want to get rid of Cult before an SK. I think that was the right desicion.

Used my action to early? I strongly disagree. It was, like N3 or N4, that is hell late for a town one shot ability to be using it. I guess Mili was trying to protect me with the RB, not realising i'd lose the ability. I didn't realise I would ahve losed an ability in that scenario either, the way you said it worked in the PM. I thought of it as a kind of morning thing, not an action at all.

Given how many roles there were in this game that I hate, I really enjoyed it...Survivor, SK, and CR's (the mafia here i'd call a cult, with EA as leader). I'll be honest, if i'd been recruited in Huntress's position, I would not have reacted well. Probably something like "fuck that I got recrutied last night".

Yeh the NL was horrible...I think that just came about cos too many of the players were too inactive...SL, Mili, CW all have low contributive lurky playstyles. I don't think a harsh NL forcing unextendable deadline like that was necessary, especially with how much NL hurts town in this game...Overall I do think it was very hard for town to win this, and the game did start with 4 scum...I don't care what you say, Surv is anti-town scum.

Given the types of roles there were, especially a Cult, I think it would have helped town to have full reveals...Cults are deadly enough when they're public from the start...Though I guess only 2 or 3 were recruitable...

I disagree with the mechanic in SL's role; I think it should be implemantable after a hammer, I find a rush to post first or similar situations wuite farcical, and i'm ultimatley glad SL beat us to it, given she had the ability.

I didn't intend for this post to be full of criticism, but I think it's turned out that way...I'm just giving my views on it...I may or may not be skewed in certain ascepts by the fact I lost, and I

hate

losing when I get into something and really want to win it.

I'd like to reiterate that, while it was on, I did really enjoy this game, definatley the most i've enjoyed a mafia game in a long time...But ultimately losing takes some of the fun out for me...Atleast for the time being until I get over it anyways.

Xtoxm, look up pirate crew and/or pirate officers on google. Man-at-arms is a naval title as well as a land-based one. On land, it is a synonym for soldier though it often suggests a mercenary rather than a loyalist. On ship, it is the keeper of the powder key.

Ah ok. I actually did use several Pirate dictionary's to look up what kind of roles were/what to expect, and I didn't find a M-A-A anywhere, along with the fact that in Age of Empires the M-A-A is a unit producable at the Barracks, a decidely land foot soldier...

Although the reminding me of this has given me an idea to to maybe run an AoE game sometime...Dunno how i'd base it around though, or if it's too late seeing as the game came out in like 1996 or something...But I love AoE2!!

Also, this is the biggest single post i've made in ages, and it's not even in game, lol.

[Xtoxm]

Oh, and I was planning to use just pirate talk when I replaced in, but I scrapped it...I think I recall the game being in a crucial postion, and I had a lot to say...Shame

[Xtoxm]

I should be revising instead of doing this...