Mini 210: Secret Ballot Mafia- The Ballotbox is Closed!

[ChocoCid]

What would happen if the doctor targeted someone who got targeted by a nightkill? Would the kill be stopped then the doctor killed? I think knowing this would help us.

[ChocoCid]

Okay, I wasn't aware of that. That would explain the lack of a second kill... although two kills a night seems like it'd be powerful in a 12-person game. I could see there being no SK.

[ChocoCid]

The thing is, if everyone is open about your vote it makes it painfully obvious for the mafia to see where to place their vote to lynch someone who wouldn't otherwise be lynched.

Also, saying who you're going to vote for goes against the spirit of the secret ballot, so

FOS: Astronaut

.

[ChocoCid]

I think that the secret nature of the ballot gives an inherent advantage to the Mafia, so I think that there are a large percentage of information roles among the townies- along the lines of 2 cops and 2 docs, I would imagine, as well as a vig.

[ChocoCid]

#


# If no player has a majority after all votes are in, a run-off vote takes place between the two top vote getters. Everyone votes again in the run off, but you can only vote for one of the two options, or abstain.
# If a tie occurs, mafia votes will be considered tie-breaking. If mafia votes aren't sufficient to break a tie, it will be broken by roll of the die.

So basically once we decide to vote, it's highly unlikely we get a majority, so the top two will be a runoff, and since we can't discuss during that voting period... Hm.... this is going to get real interesting, real fast.

There's 12 people in the game, probably 3 or 4 of which are mafia.
If they all set their vote on someone from the night before, that would mean the town would need 4-5 votes on two different scum to keep a townperson from being in the runoff, which is going to be impossible to get.
4 mafia=8 votes for town, and if we split the votes 4/4 that means the runoff's going to be between 2 mafia and 1 townie AT BEST.
Of course, 7 on one person is going to be even harder, as that would need 7/8 or 7/9 of the non-mafia people to get a lynch

Yeah, this voting setup is ridiculously in favor of the mafia.

[ChocoCid]

The problem is, that information is particularly useful for the mafia, as they know who the second-most-likely candidate for a lynch is and can get a quick and easy runoff, and with tiebreakers in their favor...

We're just going to have to find someone who looks scummy and try to lynch them, it seems, and see what sort of strategy the mafia is using. I'm wondering about how many power roles there are for us- I can only see us winning if the power roles find scum and let the rest of us go after them.

I'm not sure that having them all claim right now wouldn't be such a bad idea, but then again we are already short a doc, and setting the mafia up an easy night 2 kill on a power role can't be a good thing.

[ChocoCid]

Exactly. I can't see any lynch today being a good idea unless a power role is willing to step forth with information and someone can confirm said power role. Even so, that allows for mafia hijinks.

I'd call for "no lynch" and let the power roles have another night to get things figured out, as that's probably the best way to get a lynch. The problem is, doing so gives the mafia one more nightkill, which means it'll be that much harder to get the near-unanimous vote we need.

Our best bet is to get a runoff and hit the right person in said runoff. The problem with that strategy is there is literally nothing to base our voting on at this point... unless someone with a power role thinks there's another doc that's around to protect him? Of course, the power roles may not even have any information on scum yet at this point.
I can't see us winning this one when we're already in the hole, because if we have no doc, we're in trouble. If we do have another doc, we might be able to pull this off.

[ChocoCid]

However, if we do have a doc, then that doc claiming would be a boneheaded move.
Unfortunately, without a claim from the doc, nobody else knows if it's safe to claim themselves.

VIZZINI

Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I'm not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK
(And now there's a trace of nervousness beginning)

You've made your decision then7

VIZZINI

Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

MAN IN BLACK

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

VIZZINI

Wait till I get going! Where was I?

MAN IN BLACK

Australia.

VIZZINI

Yes -- Australia, and you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK
(very nervous)

You're just stalling now.

VIZZINI
(cackling)

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?

(stares at the Man in Black)

You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong. So, you could have put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard which means you must have studied. And in studying, you must have learned that man is mortal so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Awesome scene.

Fixed your quote tags. --Jere

[ChocoCid]

Uh... what the heck messed up the quote tags?

[ChocoCid]

And ChocoCid: First you suggest a mass claim day 1 and next you start talking about a no lynch?

Shall I refer you to the following?

However, if we do have a doc, then that doc claiming would be a boneheaded move.
Unfortunately, without a claim from the doc, nobody else knows if it's safe to claim themselves.

I'm not suggesting it, I'm saying the possibility exists, and the right meta-meta-meta-metagame thinking would imply that it's the correct one.

DEPENDING on the number of power roles we have, a "no lynch" would be correct, but only if you go up one level of metagaming. I'm really just thinking out loud, rather than suggesting it. I honestly don't know how we're supposed to find scum WITHOUT some sort of power role capable of doing so.

[ChocoCid]

Also:

I'd call for "no lynch" and let the power roles have another night to get things figured out *snip* The problem is, doing so gives the mafia one more nightkill

also:

a power role is willing to step forth ... Even so, that allows for mafia hijinks

I'm both suggesting the strategies and shooting them down. How is that scummy?

[ChocoCid]

Well, that means we're going to have an insanely long day 1 until we figure something out.

[ChocoCid]

Sounds reasonable, but who's suspicious right now?

[ChocoCid]

I've said it once already that making your vote public is sort of against the spirit of this whole thing, though.
The whole point of the secret ballot is that it's... well, secret.

MOD

, clarification on something.
If the vote goes to a runoff, will there be a discussion period for us to talk about who's going to be lynched?
Also, if it goes to a runoff, will "no lynch" votes be accepted, in case we seem to have 2 townies up for vote?

[ChocoCid]

Okay, that makes sense, and yet makes it as hard as possible to get a good scumlynch.

We've got 11 now, and assuming one nightkill that means...
mislynch, nightkill =9
mislynch, nightkill=7

2 mislynches can get us in a situation where either we're one more mislynch away from losing or have already lost, depending on the # of scum.

I honestly don't see how we are supposed to get started here.

[ChocoCid]

I've already got an FOS on astronaut, and feel the need to reiterate it.
He looks scummier than before just for trying to make me look scummy, and I in fact feel strongly enough about this to call for a

VOTE NOW

.

That's only 1 in 6, so it's really not that much pressure anyway.

[ChocoCid]

I'm mafia for saying it looks like it's going to be hard to find scum? The hell?

FOS: mathcam.

the game is probably well-balanced, so let's not go out of our way to circumvent that balancing by coming up with insane plans.

So what would you suggest we do then?

[ChocoCid]

Goddamnit, that's twice now I've managed to screw up tags.

[ChocoCid]

chococid, i dont think we've played in very many (if any) games together, and i think your trying too hard.

This is exactly my second mafia game. That explain it?

[ChocoCid]

Speaking of being without access, I'm going to be at college orientation for the next 2 days, and won't be back until tuesday.

I guess the majority wants visible votes, so I'm willing to go along with that. I'm telling you, I'm not scum- lynching me is going to be a bad idea, as I could seriously help out in the lategame.

I was really only against the public vote because the whole point of the game is that the vote is secret- doing otherwise is sort of neutralizing that, which I now realize actually helps the town, as we can try to figure out who's lying.

[ChocoCid]

You've gotta be kidding about that.

I'm tossing around ideas about the game and various potential strategies, not fingering any players or doing anything that's scummy in general.

Throwing out a strategy that's normally stupid in an ordinary game isn't necessarily a scummy play in a game with an unusual twist that isn't in role-based form.

If I'm

really

under pressure to lynch, I suppose I could claim, but I don't think that's a good idea to do at this time as it would set me up as a nightkill target if no juicier target presents itself.
I'll just say it's a non-cop information role and leave it at that. Hopefully that'll be enough to satisfy everyone for now, and I'll claim fully if people request it, although I hope that's not going to be necessary.. I'd rather not die night one, or be responsible for a nightkill by having the doc waste his protection on me. My role is extremely minor but does exist.

[ChocoCid]

I don't think there really is that much evidence yet, which is why I haven't really been saying anyone's scummy- I mean, I have an idea who I'd vote for if 5 other people suddenly went "VOTE NOW"- but I don't have anything concrete.
That's why I've been talking about the game setup more than the other people in the game- to this point. We're getting to the point where several people are saying stuff that looks vaguely scummy, and I realize I'm guilty of a scum tell if "crackpot theory=scum", as is Pariah, but... bah, I might as well toss another one out there, although I'm merely going to point out a quote.

im really too lazy to try and figure out hard evidence, but the cops on tv get away with it so why cant I?

Why do I think that if you get under pressure a few days from now you're going to claim and point that out as evidence that you were hinting at it beforehand?

[ChocoCid]

At this point if I had to vote it'd either be KingEnigma or Astronaut. I don't really think Astronaut is scum at this point, but KingEnigma is not looking too good to me right now.

[ChocoCid]

At this point if I had to vote it'd either be KingEnigma or Astronaut. I don't really think Astronaut is scum at this point, but KingEnigma is not looking too good to me right now.

[ChocoCid]

KingEnigma strikes me as trying to half-ass it.
He's saying that you and I are scummy but he's not really committing to it. That's a scum tell from what I've seen so far.

Astronaut: I think you meant "undisclosed", and I am well aware of your concern. However, I'm sure there will be nightroles appropiate to the secret nature of the ballot. We could very well have vote manipulation by the mafia, for instance, so someone could say "yeah, i'm voting for <foo>" but their vote actually ends up going to <fie>. That would then end up altering the votecount, which the mod already said isn't public. Hm, not sure if that's TOO troubling, but it's certainly something to think about. On the other hand, there's bound to be a townie role related to voting as well. I'm not sure precisely how it'd work yet.

At this point I think I've analyzed the game more than the other players. Of course, it's only day one, so there's not that much to analyze FROM the other players yet.

It seems that people were going after me for analyzing the game, and that pariah got some of that same backlash before me.

[ChocoCid]

That interests me, there. Why do you say that? KingEnigma looks like he's saying I'm scum and I'm saying he looks like scum. Are you saying we're scum trying to lynch each other?

I'm a little confused at that in general.

[ChocoCid]

Ah, okay.

I really, really don't want to be forced into a roleclaim, guys. If you keep pressing me like this I'll have to.

[ChocoCid]

I'm fine with putting enigma up for vote, although I would prefer not to be the one opposite him on the gallows.

[ChocoCid]

If King's so confident then why doesn't he add his name to the list of those calling for a vote? Whatever's going on, we need to wait on ogre's replacement anyway.

[ChocoCid]

Then shouldn't you wait and try to find out if people have the helpful night actions before you go and lynch them?

[ChocoCid]

My top 3 are:

1. Astronaut , King Enigma (tied)
3. rajrhcpfreak

The more this goes on the more I like the "everyone vote for one person" strategy, as it seems to be the best way for us to stop the scum from screwing with the vote today.
I've seen several people saying Astro and KE, so would I be correct in assuming that one of those two is going to be our vote?
The "third" is split between three people, so I think we can safely ignore that for the time being. (Of course since I seem to be part of the third-place split, it's also to my benefit to do this anyway, as I don't want to be lynched )

So... Astronaut or KingEnigma, right?

[ChocoCid]

Astro, nobody's going to wagon me right now, so could you please stop trying?
I'm not "eager to wrap things up", I'm trying to make sure that I was understanding who everyone's in favor of voting for.

From what I've seen so far the list looks like this:

1. KingEnigma
2-5: Astronaut, ChocoCid, rajrhcpfreak, Pariah in varying orders.

Is that right?

Anyway we have to wait on a replacement or something unless we really want to move ahead without doing so. I'm not really sure of whether or not there's precedent for that sort of thing, so I'm not going to comment one way or the other on that idea.

[ChocoCid]

I thought the mod was trying to replace ogre?

[ChocoCid]

I honestly don't know. I would think a replacement would be found already on this site, to be honest.

[ChocoCid]

I'm not pushing anyone here, but I find it somewhat odd that people are saying stuff like "the following people look scummy:" and yet nobody's calling for a vote.

Obviously that can't be a scum tell because there are far too many of you who aren't calling for a vote, but it's just something that strikes me as odd.

Do you lack confidence in your thoughts that much or are you just waiting to see what everyone else does?
(general question to everyone who has posted a "top three" list and hasn't said "vote now" yet)

[ChocoCid]

Makes sense to me.

[ChocoCid]

I'm going to move astronaut down on my list to a third place position. He's hounded me a bit unnecessarily, but isn't that scummy outside of that.

KE is still extremely scummy and using craplogic to justify his "no roleclaim" stuff, so:

1. King Enigma
2. raj
3. Astro

[ChocoCid]

I'm okay with voting for Raj if that's what everyone else is calling for. I'd personally prefer to vote for KE, but I agree that unifying behind one lynch is the best thing to do today.

[ChocoCid]

Yeah, I'll confirm that I'll vote raj.

[ChocoCid]

At this point I'd like to suggest that everyone take a pause and let the replacement give his thoughts?
Perhaps that would be a good idea? Also let him say whether or not he's going to vote for Raj.

[ChocoCid]

I agree with mathcam on this point- I don't like the idea of changing gears to someone who was completely ignored to this point. Day 1's gone on for quite some time already and if almost all of us are suspicious of Raj we should vote for him so that the scum can't screw with the voting.

[ChocoCid]

I take it that we will be lynching Raj today, as nobody seems to show any sign of changing their mind.
Since it's been nearly a month for this day 1, can we please vote now?

[ChocoCid]

That makes it five. Someone else needs to say "vote now" so we can lynch Raj and get this marathon day 1 over with.

[ChocoCid]

Wait... did the mod give us a hint as to who the scum was?

and the scum as well who started it!

Now who was the first person to finger raj?
Unless I'm mistaken, Someone was it, post 80, followed by Pariah and Mathcam.

Now, I'm not entirely sure on whether death scenes typically have game hints, or if that's just flavor.

[ChocoCid]

Hell, looking at my own posts, I look either scummy or stupid for the first few pages.

Unfortunately I tended to post in a stupid manner over the summer break (any misetings member could tell you this) and i'm looking scummy for it now (as well as having 2 banned accounts over there).
I can't make up for it now except with good play, so I intend to try to do so, which is going to be necessary because right now the mafia is up 2-0 on us.

[ChocoCid]

More people should used watched topics, obviously.

[ChocoCid]

That's a pretty fair assessment, I guess, but you also have to realize that having only one-two people say "let's go ahead and vote" isn't really that big of a deal, as it would have taken 4 more to actually start the vote and the same thing applies as in normal mafia- if the scum is stupid enough to all go "VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE" right then (note: 4 scum seems kind of high, but i'm just using this as an example anyway) the town's going to pretty much be set from that point on, so it's really not a big deal.

Your point would be a lot more valid if it had been 4 or so people doing it, but I'll accept that assessment at face value.

Without really knowing what went on last night other than "townie killed", I don't see much to go on other than what's posted in this thread, and we have no way of knowing who didn't follow the majority.

[ChocoCid]

You also have to realize that I was incredibly active and could unvote at pretty much any time in case I thought things were going the wrong way.
I can understand your suspicions of me because I was of the opinion that telling everyone your vote is against the secret ballot, but of course anyone can lie about it so I guess it really doesn't matter and I probably was wrong to be so vehement about it. At the current point in time I'm still suspicious of KingEnigma for pretty much all the reasons everyone's stated for being suspicious of him.

[ChocoCid]

Cam, your logic is sound, but obviously WIFOM logic takes over there.
"If choco's not scum, the scum should have killed enigma to make choco look suspicious"... yeah.
Failure to roleclaim strikes me as suspicious, King, but I'm willing to ignore it if you are willing to actually try to THINK for a bit and find out who ELSE is scum.
Even if I'm scum, you should be trying to find out who the other scum are.

[ChocoCid]

I'm aware of that, cam. The arguments that solely fall apart with any amount of WIFOM are probably the best ones to stay away from.
King, if I had (hypothetically) been eliminated from the game yesterday as scum, who would you consider scum today?
I'm trying to figure out what your position is on "everyone-but-cid" here.

[ChocoCid]

Sigh... I saw this coming a mile away. I'm not scum, but I don't think anything I do at this point is capable of changing your minds.

[ChocoCid]

Yeah, I had to leave to do stuff earlier, and I was in a rush, so I didn't even think about claiming.

(on the plus side, I actually have a mousepad now, and my hair no longer looks like a bird's nest)


I'm a votecop, pretty much.
I target a person and find out who they voted for the previous day.
SpeedyKQ was somewhat suspicious yesterday, so I targeted him, finding out that he voted for raj.

[ChocoCid]

Yeah, I had to leave to do stuff earlier, and I was in a rush, so I didn't even think about claiming.

(on the plus side, I actually have a mousepad now, and my hair no longer looks like a bird's nest)


I'm a votecop, pretty much.
I target a person and find out who they voted for the previous day.
SpeedyKQ was somewhat suspicious yesterday, so I targeted him, finding out that he voted for raj.

[ChocoCid]

Or I could be scum trying to set up a townie death.

Or, you know, I could actually be teling the truth.

[ChocoCid]

That's just it, my ability is kind of useless when votes are out in the open.

[ChocoCid]

Yeah, but Raj was a townie, so even the mafia would have voted for him. It was useless last night, that's for sure.

[ChocoCid]

It's a lot more useful if people are really keeping things secret, though, as you can see a vote that may be completely unrelated to the bandwagons or whatever.
With all the votes being in the open, it makes this role nigh-useless, which is why I was pushing so hard day 1 to keep the votes secret.

[ChocoCid]

Is there a possibility that KingEnigma has a role that forces him to go dead-on after another player? A lyncher role or some sort of posting restriction put on him by the mafia or something like that?

[ChocoCid]

That's a small enough ability that the mod could give to a mafia player without making them too powerful.

Yes, but keep in mind nobody else has claimed, and the two people who have died are (apparently) vanilla townies. Logic would dictate that the secret nature of the ballot gives an advantage to the mafia to begin with, and if all that's been killed so far are vanilla townies, it's fairly reasonable to assume that the overall powerlevel of the town is low (few power roles, in other words).

Also, how much sense is it for the mafia to spy on votes? It makes more sense as a town ability than a mafia ability to me.

[ChocoCid]

Cam, are you implying that we lynch KE today, or find someone other than the two of us to choose? I'm not entirely clear which direction that sentence implies...

[ChocoCid]

A probable mislynch, that's what. There's still 2-3 mafia out there who get to screw with the vote if we do that.

[ChocoCid]

Considering the low activity level of this game, plus the fact that the weekend is OVER (it's late at night sunday right now), I don't think your weekend plans will be affected in any way by this game.

[ChocoCid]

Astro, if you randomly vote tonight and i target you and you die tonight, you've essentially wasted your vote.
If I die tonight, you've wasted your vote.
If there's any roles that mess with the vote, someone could change your vote to something else and I'd have the actual vote, you'd have a wrong thing, and I get lynched tomorrow for not having the right vote.
If you're mafia, you've just gotten a townie lynched and you might even be able to worm your way out of it. I really,

really

don't like this idea.

It makes sense on the surface but too much can go wrong with it.

As for lurkers, Ibaesha and Someone are the two people whose posts are farthest back in the thread.
STD has lurked, but he's even got it in his signature that he's busy and has showed up more recently than those two. We've gotta make a decision fast though, deadline's tomorrow.
I get a feeling we're going to have a split vote and end up having to choose between two people at twilight.

[ChocoCid]

I don't think we have time to discuss something. Maybe the best bet is to let everyone vote their suspicions and see who the two people are who come up for lynch? That could give us some clues... of course, it could end up with a dead townie as well, so that's probably not the best idea. We can't really do much with deadline being tomorrow IRL unless this thread gets insanely active, in which case mod retracts deadline anyway.