Mafia 33: Checkmate - Game over!

[Fuldu]

I was going to grumble about a lack of information starting with day, but I just realized that the way this game is set up, a random bandwagon has better than even odds of hitting someone we want to get rid of (the half of the players that are of the opposing color plus whatever mafia happen to be in my color).

vote: operaman

[Fuldu]

BJ, do a Google search for {"baby jesus cry"}. It's a fairly common jokey way to say something is bad: X makes Baby Jesus cry. It was popularized as a joke by

The Simpsons

, "Lies make Baby Jesus cry," but I don't believe it originated there. I can't have been the only person here other than Yaw who got the joke.

More productively, I think the IS bandwagon is scummier than the BJ bandwagon. Not that either is more likely to hit scum than the other, but IS is a more valuable player and, all other things being equal (which right now they are), I'd rather have him around than BJ. But when IS does show up, I'm sure he'll have some choice words for those voting him.

Even though he voted on the BJ bandwagon, The Shadow's suggestion that IS is an option because he "doesn't talk at all" doesn't sit well with me, either. I mean, the game is only a day old.

unvote: operaman; vote: The Shadow

.

[Fuldu]

I don't know, Pie. In RPS, which admittedly had a different mechanic, the first team to lose a member got targeted for the rest of the game, until they became kingmakers in the endgame. I think the mafia (there IS only one mafia, right? Not one Black mafia and one White mafia?) could go a lot of directions with color information, but the *town* will most likely target the color who is down in the standings. At least I would (and did, in RPS, before you take that as an admission of guilt).

As the mod of RPS, I wouldn't recommend using it as an exemplar for anything. For one thing, it has a very different mechanism than this. For another, without going into too much detail (since the game isn't over yet), it isn't working out at all how I had expected. Third, in RPS targeting one opposition and targeting the other are mutually exclusive goals. Here they need not be, since there are going to be players who are both mafia and of the opposing color.

I think whether it's worth lynching a player of your own color depends entirely on circumstance. If your color has a substantial lead, then it isn't as critical to worry about that and more important to try to whittle down your mafia. Remember, the mafia don't care about color except in so far as they can use it to their advantage. They're just trying to get rid of everyone who isn't in their mafia. If you avoid lynching them because of color issues, you're doing them a favor and not yourself.

So, if you aren't sure a bandwagoned player of your color is scum, maybe you should give them more opportunity to prove their alignment than you would in a regular game, but they shouldn't get off the hook entirely.

[Fuldu]

Well, Nanook, day-start games are generally better candidates for no lynch, so I don't think it's a completely unreasonable suggestion, but for the time being, I'd prefer to see what information we can gather and then choose where to go from there. I'm learning things about the participants in this game and would like to continue to do so. Maybe I'll learn enough to be comfortable with a lynch, maybe not. But I suspect that I probably will, meaning it's too early to be considering a no lynch with any seriousness.

[Fuldu]

Off-topic, but worth mentioning. The best way to deal with the "No posts exist for this topic" is just to not worry about it. Don't post something just to get a post at the top of the page. It isn't a big deal. Just hit the Back button on your browser and click the next-to-last page of posts and everything that has been posted to that point will appear. I personally find the "Just posting to get the thing fixed" solution to be substantially more annoying than the problem.

If the mod wants to try to fix the problem permanently, he should PM jeep about it, once. He has many more important things to deal with, but I know this glitch annoys him as well and when he has time he tries to fix them. It doesn't always work, but he does make an effort.

[Fuldu]

Since we still have a good chance for a kill to be positive for us no matter how it goes, I'm going to trust IS on this one. If Yoko isnt scum then the color matter still factors in. In any case if Yoko isnt scum, then IS will have some explaining to do.

I like the Coron vote, but I find the above more concerning. First, it appeared after people had begun declaiming IS as a fraud. Second, despite saying that he is going to trust IS, there's no Yoko vote.

vote: StrykkerVerde

[Fuldu]

Now that AndrewS has fixed the The Shadow color question, it doesn't seem like they split 2/2 anyway. So, while it may still be a mafia and SK of each color, the 2/2 split we thought we had doesn't provide any evidence of that.

[Fuldu]

Don't get me wrong, I like the bandwagon on SV. I started it, after all. But I'd hardly say that it's based on concrete evidence. My initial vote was just gut, as well, but his response to IS seemed scummier than Coron's to me. Then, as others have pointed out, the overzealous OMGUS vote didn't help his situation any. These are still all just gut, but I do think it's a good case.

So, that said, I appreciate the support hiab, but the way you've presented your support makes me suspicious that you're just trying to find an excuse to pile on.

FOS: help im a bug

[Fuldu]

Hmm... got it. That makes sense, I guess, but it was a confusing choice of words.

[Fuldu]

I'm not sure you would necessarily want to verify in this way, SV, and with a town that is half pawns plus scum it likely won't work, but you could always indicate who you blocked last night and ask them to verify if they can. That seems more effective than calling on the other Rooks to verify.

[Fuldu]

Dranko, can you verify having been blocked? Whether yes or no, don't explain why, because that provides scum with information and we don't need it to draw conclusions about SV.

[Fuldu]

The opening post hasn't been updated yet, but I believe this information is correct: 21 players remaining, 11 black & 10 white.

With five kills, I have to assume one of them was a vig (and if that was you who hit Nanook, good job). I mean, two mafia and two SKs seems reasonable, but an additional scum on top of that? That's just out of control.

With Nanook's death we also see that scum are getting investigative results, so we should be wary of cop claims. Not dismiss them altogether, just be aware that scum can claim cop and actually be telling the truth.

I have some suspicions I'd like to pursue, but I want to see how the day starts before I go into that.

[Fuldu]

I'm pretty sure that Nanook was hit by a rival scum group or a big, as revenge was witten on his dagger.

Whereas I'm pretty sure that Nanook was hit by a rival scum group or a vig because that's pretty much the only options for how people get night killed. Unless you're using 'scum group' to exclude SKs, but I don't buy that argument.

In fact, I'm pretty sure there's not much of anything to read into the kill types. Between the two nights, we've had three stabbings (one of which had a message to go with it), four shootings, a landmine, and a mace. It's certainly possible that different members of the scum teams have different kill methods, but this just looks like AndrewS is writing it to suit the overall flavor of the game. Besides, only one of those kills, the mace, is something I'd really associate with a particular chess piece.

[Fuldu]

Hmm. We have six people listed dead on the first page, and five from last night. Doesn't that mean there are only 21 still alive, and therefore we only need 11 to lynch? We really need the master list to be updated.

Unless there's something odd with that aspect of the game setup, yes. AndrewS forgot to change the alive and dead numbers after the lynch and then calculated the number of living players (and the lynch requirement) off those wrong numbers. Not that we have a bandwagon anywhere near 11 to make it worth worrying about, but 21 living players is definitely correct.

[Fuldu]

At IS's behest, I've looked through olio's posts and see three mildly scummy comments:

Also, what's wrong with fast lynch on day one?

IS, are you a cop or is Yoko a hunch?

Do you really think that when it takes 14 votes to end a day, you and your vote only will be the one that'll decide is someone gets lynched? In my opinion you're playing cautious in a situation where there's really no need for that and that is scummy.

The first and third speak to a playstyle that lacks deliberation, while the second speaks to either digging for dangerous information or a complete lack of awareness of IS. That said, while

I

disagree with the playstyle exhibited by 1 & 3, it's exemplified by IS, so it's hard to see how

he

would find that scummy. #2 is either scummy or stupid, but I'm not yet enough inclined toward scummy for a vote.

[Fuldu]

I did notice the sudden emergence when you called him out, though of course that couldn't have been part of your rationale for the vote. Similarly, you jumped on olio as a bandwagon (which, I'll admit, is even thinner than the one you're pushing) formed on you. By the same token, you have only a couple more posts than olio.

My view is that most of these arguments are, at present, weak, especially coming from you IS. But olio has presented at least one genuinely scummy behavior (asking you to claim cop, if appropriate), so I don't disagree that it's worth looking into. I'm just not ready to vote on it yet.

[Fuldu]

I'm still with Yaw on the kills explanation. I think the kill types and story are just being woven together by AndrewS to sound like a war story.

That said, I did just have one idea that I'm going to throw out to see if anyone can make it work. The Black King was killed Night One. Perhaps killing a king gains the killing individual/team special sniper kill(s) the following night. This still seems unbalanced (though less so, since it's only going to happen, at most, twice), plus it means that in actuality several kills were prevented last night, meaning it could have been much uglier than it was. Like I said, I don't think it's right, but maybe someone else can come up with a plausible explanation that builds on the basic premise.

[Fuldu]

...in the eyes of over-cautious player, yes. Did you hate it when the first day went so fast, even though there were so many posts?

A little bit, yes. The number of Day One posts was fine, though hardly "so many" in a game with this many players, but I nearly always prefer a deliberative lynch to one simply to end the day, even Day One. Baby Jesus was not a deliberative lynch. Keep in mind, also, that caution is a sizable piece of the reason I'm not voting for you.

while the second speaks to either digging for dangerous information or a complete lack of awareness of IS.
...
#2 is either scummy or stupid, but I'm not yet enough inclined toward scummy for a vote.

You mean scummy = asking if IS is cop or not, stupid = lack of awareness of IS, right? With no offense, do you mean I'm stupid when a) I don't realize IS has extra-ordinary scum-finding skills, b) I don't know how IS plays or c) did I just read that wrong?

A little bit of b), but mostly that, if you aren't scum, then not realizing that asking a cop to out himself on Day Two of a game this size (especially after a doc's death the preceding night) is pretty stupid.

[Fuldu]

Then I read on and the thought hit me, what if someone is either preventing Sycko from speaking, or his role disables him from speaking for some reason or another.

We haven't seen any evidence of a role like that and the structure of the game suggests that there would be other players either subject to the same restriction or able to cause the same restriction. I doubt there's any posting restrictions in this game.

Furthermore, I think sycko's lurking is probably just an indicator that he's neglecting/forgotten about the game, not that he's trying to hide. That doesn't mean he's not scum, and his inactivity means I certainly won't be sad to see him gone, but if he had scum partners, don't you think they would have prodded him into action between yesterday and today? Eliminating dead weight who might be scum is a decent strategy if we don't have any other leads, and I haven't up to this point today.

I'll have to reread the iammars posts. My impression of him generally has been that he makes a lot of short, largely vacuous posts. I hadn't noticed anything substantially different from that in this game. That said, I wasn't looking for ties to Nanook, so I'll check again with that in mind.

I doubt I'm going to derail this sycko bandwagon at this point. As I said, I'm unconvinced he's scum, but I can't deny that he's been useless. But I'd much rather see a lynch based on an argument than a lynch based on a lack of alternative.

[Fuldu]

Well, olio, looking back I see that even as yesterday ended I still had one complaint against you. Asking another player, especially IS, to out themselves as a cop in order to verify the validity of a lead is either bad play or scummy play. While you responded to my characterization of it as stupid, which I'll admit was an unnecessary rhetorical choice, you never responded to the substance of the argument.

The only thing I would add to that is that your vote for sycko without any explanation or justification looks like blatant bandwagoning by someone who doesn't really care who gets lynched. You weren't the only one to do it, but you're the only one who did who already had a mark by their name.

vote: olio

[Fuldu]

Asking another player, especially IS, to out themselves as a cop in order to verify the validity of a lead is either bad play or scummy play.

How is this not clear, olio? You asked IS to identify himself as a cop entirely on the basis of his typical 'So-and-so is scum' rhetoric. Outing cops is not pro-town play.

[Fuldu]

What do you do when somebody says "x is your scum" on their first post day one?
What do you do when IS says "x is your scum" on his first post on day one?

I have same answer on both questions. How about you?

My answer to the first question is generally "Urgh. I hope they're just pushy and not a cop. Cops shouldn't come out so obviously Day One."

My answer to the second question is generally "Oh, IS is in this game."

Fuldu, why didn't you see nothing wrong in vikingfan's question? Because it wasn't direct?

Now this is a legitimate complaint. I can't say whether I noticed it at the time, but I had definitely forgotten about it in the meantime. I'll have to go back through and check to see why yours stood out and his didn't.

[Fuldu]

Okay, olio, you caught me. My actual response is "Urgh, IS is in this game," but that's not a very nice thing to say.

In response to the other question (regarding vikingfan) that I promised to look into, it looks like I cut him some slack because he made up his mind that IS was a cop with a result, voted on it, and then backtracked and asked IS about his "result" once he (vikingfan) was pressured to explain his behavior by Yaw. This isn't great play and seems a little scummy for different reasons now that I look at it in that way, but his asking because he was being confronted is different from your asking out of the blue.

But, because the total vikingfan story does seem suspect now that I write it out, I'll

FOS: vikingfan

.

[Fuldu]

I disagree, SpeedyKQ. I think it suggests a disinterest in who you choose to lynch, which is more commonly a scum trait than a town trait. It isn't enough for me to vote on, but if we keep going without any other leads (or activity at all), I think it's than nothing.

[Fuldu]

"

better

than nothing" that should say.

[Fuldu]

Not that I disagree with you about warpdragon and olio, BJ - in fact, I place them above Iammars on my scummy list - but what made you select the two of them from the 2 of 3 list?

[Fuldu]

A claim would give us 1/4 confirmed innocents (The king would pretty much have to claim "white pawn").

...The king, though, being a color cop, would have alot more information. The queen would also be safe, as the king can save her.

I, personally, am for it. I really think the town needs to start taking risks if we want to win this.

Some problems with this argument:

If, as suggested, the king claims white pawn, we'd have 1/6 confirmed innocents, not 1/4, with the two confirmed both being black.

It isn't clear how doc protections work in this game, but the queen would be by no means certain to be safe. We've had 3-5 kills every night. In many games, doc protection only prevents 1 kill.

Why does the color cop have so much more information? If we claim, who's going to lie about their color? With the split even, it's to everyone's advantage to tell the truth about that. The king isn't going to catch anyone out that way unless a member of the white mafia tried to claim black queen.

...

That was my first thought. Except that, if you look back at what I have in the first paragraph above, it becomes to the advantage of all the non-confirmable black players (bishop, knights, and pawn) to consider lying about their color. If everyone tells the truth about their color, we have six uncertain white players, of whom we think three are scum, and four uncertain black players, of whom we think three are scum. Given those odds, my vote would go to one of the uncertain black players (barring a noteworthy queen result). And given that, those four players (including the pawn) all have an incentive to lie about their color.

Two options for claiming, then: We claim as suggested and insist that the real black pawn tell the truth. This puts the black scum in a bind. If they all claim white, then that's another confirmed innocent. If more than one person claims black pawn, we lynch one of them and either find scum or find the pawn, in which case we know all other claimed black pawns are scum.

Or, we just have the queen claim, give all results, have the unclaimed king protect her and hope for the best. If the queen is going to claim either way, it isn't obvious how much is really gained by doing the rest of it. If her claim is going to be disputed, then we can put the two of them to the test and if it isn't, then we can work off her results before we decide whether to go on with the rest of it. Yaw obviously suspects BJ is the queen. I've been burned by BJ's aggressive behavior before, so I'm warier, but if a BJ queen claim goes unchallenged, then I'll happily lynch Crola without having to worry about any of the rest of it.

Both of these, as I've pointed out, put the queen at risk, the second probably even more so. The second doesn't put the rook at risk, and with many scum and few power roles left, a roleblocker is a good person to have around. The second also doesn't put as much of the color issue into play. Neither of these options is without risks, but pie's point that it's late enough in the game that risks may be necessary is an important one.

[Fuldu]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to

just

have the black pawn claim. That puts the black mafia in a bind before they even know who the queen is. They either grant us the confirmed innocent by not counter-claiming, or they give us a pool from which all but one person is scum to draw lynches out of. If two or three players claim black pawn, then I'm quite comfortable not having the queen claim at all and simply trying to decide which of the pawn claims to lynch on the basis of past behavior.

If we were to go ahead with this, I'd recommend a variation on a standard mass-claim procedure. One person starts, but instead of claiming they simply say "black pawn" or "not black pawn." Then they pick who goes next. That helps to prevent scum from getting to make their decision at the very end of the list.

[Fuldu]

Crola, pick someone to go next.

[Fuldu]

That's the whole point, roland. If they don't, we get a confirmed innocent; if they do, we narrow our field to look for scum substantially. Look at it this way, in a mini, why would mafia claim cop if someone else had already claimed cop? They'd do it to create confusion. It isn't quite the same here, but we're forcing them decide between creating a dangerous situation for themselves and allowing us a confirmed innocent.

And the reason we're doing it with the pawn is that there's no serious danger in having everyone know who the pawn is. They don't have any powers, so we aren't revealing an important role to the scum. We could do the same with the queen (and maybe should, but I'm not sure of that, yet), but that involves revealing a power role, which isn't to be taken lightly. If we do get scum to fake a claim in this process, then there's no reason to proceed to talking about whether the queen should come out.

[Fuldu]

Well that wasn't at all what I had expected from the pawn claims, but it worked out nicely. I think our best course of action going forward is for the three pawns to decide between them who we're going to lynch and the rest of us will follow their lead. BJ's right, the odds are quite good, but the fact that he's just as likely to be scum as any of the rest of us makes me hesitant to follow his lead. I'd rather go with the confirmed innocents.

[Fuldu]

See, this is silly and amusing. What's 3/7? 42%. So if you block randomly, there's a 42% chance it'll stop a kill. Those are pretty good odds, no? Way more than the 25% chance you just pulled out of your ass without any logic. Did you think nobody would do the math?

Besides, you're a vig. If you actually thought I was scum, wouldn't it be better to just night kill me? Or anyone else you thought was scum? 42% chance, remember.

actually there is a 5/6 chance you are knight or bishop. I'm guessing since Pie wants you roleblocked, he planning on vigging another in the 5/6 group. (

Fuldu, Lt. Origen, PookyTheMagicalBear, rolandofthewhite, Save the Dragons, Yaw

)

I love how BJ has not so subtly gone from 5/7 with a list that includes himself to 5/6 with a list that doesn't include him. We know you're claiming rook, BJ, but that doesn't make it true.

[Fuldu]

Yaw wasn't vigged because the white king has a different set of preferences than you do, BJ, and protected him. There's only one way that I can win this game, and that's if everybody else kills one another during some night. And for that, I need the killing parties to be balanced and I need the non-killing parties to be dead. I color investigated Yaw early on, so I know he's white. 3 black scum and 1 white scum isn't balanced. 3 black scum and 2 white scum means that tonight they'll be shooting at each other. The queen, as well. I'll tell you right now, if we lynch Yaw, I'll be protecting the other white scum (I found them last night), and if we lynch them, I'll protect Yaw. Otherwise, I don't intend to protect anybody tonight. It's not in my best interests.

Now, the three dead pawns was unexpected. It puts me in a better position than I had figured to be. I'd be perfectly happy to lynch black scum today, or to lynch the rook. But I won't be voting for Yaw.

[Fuldu]

Oh, the upshot of that that I didn't mention is that if you are actually the rook, BJ, (and I believe that you are) it's not in your interest to be voting Yaw, either. Unless the queen, the rook, and the remaining white scum all get very lucky tonight, killing Yaw today pretty much assures a black scum victory.

vote: Lt. Origen

- He's black scum.

[Fuldu]

It's not that I'm not interested in hunting scum, BJ, it's that I'm interested in hunting everyone pretty much evenly. So today I'm interested in hunting black scum. If we lynch black scum today, it would be a waste for you to block me, I won't be protecting anyone at all, because I'll want you all to kill one another. It was only if we lynched white scum that I was going to protect white scum. I'm not protecting the queen because at this point she's just another killing party, as far as I'm concerned. I can't win while she's alive, and I can't get rid of her except either through lynching or (easier) by telling scum that it's not in my interest to protect her at night, so do what you will.

As for why I would want to lynch the rook, it's a fair question. The thing is, as I've noted, the only way I can win at this point is to go to sleep and wake up the only living person. To do that, I have to create a situation in which there are as many kills as there are other players. The rook adds a player without adding a kill, so as long as you're alive, I can't possibly win. The best I could hope for is that we'd be the only two left and tie. That's a possible outcome, but not one I can see myself aiming for. If I think I can get more people behind lynching you, I'll do that, but right now, it seems more likely that I'd get a majority behind lynching black scum.

[Fuldu]

Not really, BJ. Yours is the best alliance anyway. You and the queen are allied, obviously. It's in your best interest to lynch black scum today, because otherwise they'll likely be in quite a strong position tomorrow. As it is, it'll take all five of us to lynch one of them today. So I want to help with that, Yaw wants to help with that, and the other white scum wants to help with that. It's in all our interests to see Lt. Origen lynched today. The open question is what happens tonight and I think that's too difficult to predict.

So you'll probably figure out who the other white scum is without too much difficulty. Unless one of the black scum wants to keep Yaw, the rook and the queen guessing by helping lynch Lt. Origen. I promise not to tell.

[Fuldu]

pie: you're willing to consider the notion that scum have doctor powers but not the notion that some of them might turn up innocent to investigation? I'd reconsider your assessment; I assure you that I am the white king.

As for your proposed tie, I have two reasons I don't intend to go for it, aside from the inherent lameness of aiming for a tie when a win is still possible.

a) in order for this tie to work, I have to keep the only other pro-town player other than you alive, the rook. The rook can win if he keeps you alive and gets rid of the scum. The rook can continue to block scum from killing as that process continues, making the possibility of getting them to kill you much more difficult. I'd rather let them kill you tonight and sort out who it's best to side with tomorrow.

b) I don't especially feel like allying myself with someone who is trying to muddy the waters about who's on what side at this stage.

As for Yaw's not getting vigged, I'll say it again, since BJ, pie, and Yaw all seem to have missed it. I protected him last night. If the rook blocked Yaw and the queen killed Yaw, that would mean that white would only get one kill, black would get two, and we could easily have ended up with a substantial black majority today. There was no way I could have hoped to win under those circumstances. I couldn't do anything about the roleblock, but it was in my interest to prevent Yaw's death so as to have a closer balance to create this situation today. It actually worked out better than I'd hoped, which means I won't need to do it again tonight. And, as I've said, I won't, because it isn't in my interest to protect anybody tonight. You should all feel free to kill who you want.