Newbie 871 - Game Over Town Win

[Ether]

I was utter crap here. Wrote off both scumbags fairly early, and then I fell apart completely on Day 2: nothing made sense anymore, and I didn't recover. Ugh. (For what it's worth, I wasn't intentionally giving off cop tells, or even thinking of the possibility--but this is like the third game where my play inadvertently got on the scum's radar as such. For Patrick, too. He

knows

my track record on that. So that's cool.)

The rest of you did good, though. Patrick was indeed a dirty rotten despicable filthy no-good degenerate immoral wicked horrid loathesome sinful vile murderous hateful foul thesaurus abhorrent detestable shameless indecent evil contemptible and all-around bad guy, and I'm glad you brought him to justice in the end.

[Yankee]

Heh! good game guys, that is a town win

Sorry if I played a bad game, but It was not intentional.....

[Zorblag]

@Yankee, congratulations again on the win, I'm glad to be sharing it with you. I'll talk a bit about your play when the official result gets in but I didn't mean to seem as harsh as I might have with my last couple posts. If that was the case then you have my apologies.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Patrick]

Well done guys. I was not optimistic about winning today. I'll talk a bit more about why I entered this endgame anyway and other stuff in general when I get home from work.

[Incognito]

<3 Zorblag and Yankee!

Very nice job, you two. I kept up with this game pretty intently once I died and had a really bad feeling that the game would be won by the scums (Ether's inactivity, the Tyrope lynch... stuff like that). I was glad to see that it didn't quite pan out the way. After I died, I thought Patrick was likely one of the scums even though I had written him off by the end of Day 1. I really was way too confident in that RayFrost-lynch and when Patrick began to back it, I wrote off my early bad vibes about him and just assumed he was probably town. When Ray flipped town though, I thought the end of Day 1 votecount made Patrick look particularly bad since I had no reason to mark off my other town reads that were on the Frosty-wagon (Tyrope, ksen, and boberz). So I would've probably pushed Patrick if I was still alive under the assumption that at least 1 scum was on the wagon. I could only hope I would have caught on to ksen too eventually.

I was very impressed with boberz's play, and I was afraid that the modding and general inactivity might drive him away from MS. Oh and at the start of Day 2, I probably would have checked off Yankee as obvtown not because of anything

he

did but because of the modding mistake starkmoon made when she nearly had Concerned take his spot -- I figured that that player spot probably couldn't have taken a Night action since starkmoon seemed to replace the spot after the Day re-opened. So he was likely Vanilla.

@starkmoon:

thanks for modding and everything, but I really think you should consider running less games at the same time from now on. There were quite a few errors in vote counts, replacements, game thread titles (the thread says Day 4 right now when it should be Day 5 and this wasn't even the first time that happened), and potentially allowing players to read players' alignments through your modding (mod WIFOM).




All in all, good game everybody. If anyone has any specific questions for me, you can ask here or shoot a PM to me OR on the rare occasion, find me on AIM (Ether will probably laugh at this one but psh).

[ksen]

Good job town.

This was a fun game and I enjoyed playing with everyone.

[McGriddle]

I thought I did pretty good identifying both ksen and Patrick as scum

[Patrick]

This one had a frustrating number of "what ifs" and what I saw as missed opportunities for us to win. Starting at night 2, I thought there was a good chance Ether was a cop. I also had a nasty feeling boberz might be a doctor from his play that day, and also because I saw him online checking his inbox immediately after the Tyrope lynch (he was in no other games). I wanted to shoot at Ether because the risk from her running around as a cop the next day was more scary than the risk of the nightkill failing, which did at least tell us that the powerole was a doctor and not a cop.

On day 3 I considered claiming doctor to try and get boberz lynched, especially after he himself claimed vanilla. I literally almost *headdesked* when I saw ksen's claim (sorry) and I think if he'd posted that before I claimed vanilla then I'd probably have gone for the doc claim instead. Based on what Zorblag said on day 4, it might have worked. Zorblag replacing in was a real spanner in the works too; I think if Annachie had stayed, we'd have won.

Last night I considered pretty much every possible action. I knew that the McGriddle nightkill would worry Zorblag, having read Tofu Mafia, but had to hope it wouldn't be enough to turn his opinion around completely. I expected Yankee would end up voting me because I saw it as almost inevitable than I'd be arguing with Zorblag that day, trying to make a case for why Yankee might kill McGriddle, with Zorblag explaining why he felt it unlikely. Yankee had played a fairly OMGUSy game and I wasn't counting on his continuing support, though I didn't expect him to suspect me for being alive (and now that you know I'm not lying, I would still recommend against using that kind of reasoning.) This was what I thought about the other options:

1) Kill Zorblag and try to get McGriddle to lynch Yankee. I didn't particularly like this because I felt McGriddle wouldn't listen to arguments and wouldn't take into account the WIFOM from the nightkill being in my favour.

2) Kill Yankee. This just seemed like a worse version of (1).

3) Kill nobody. This is probably the alternative I considered the most. I was afraid it would be seen as the move of an experienced player, and also afraid someone might look at my past two games as scum and see that I did the same thing in those situations. I also thought the town would no-lynch and force me to make another decision.

It seems like the minute I killed McGriddle the game was probably lost. I don't think I did anything particularly scummy on the last day or that I could have forced the interpretation of why Yankee might kill in that way down Zorblag's throat any further than I did. Zorblag played very well and avoided getting tunnel visioned. At every step I had to try and guess what he was thinking.

boberz also played a very good game on the whole, though I think he went wrong on day 3 and played too flippantly. He figured out it was me and ksen but never really made a convincing case for it, which meant his view wasn't really listened to after his death. I also think the fakeclaim was unecessary here and could have turned out badly. Lying about his role just seemed like it took some information away from the town but nothing from the scum because he'd already made it reasonably obvious to us from his play that he was the doctor. But well played overall. Better than 99% of first timers.

I have to echo the comments about the modding; it was rather annoying to see people semi-clearing Tyrope because of mod not paying attention like that. I do hate playing as scum so I can't honestly say I enjoyed most of it, but thanks to all involved for making it a clean game and a close run thing. It would have been awesome to play with you guys in a town role.

Edit:

I thought I did pretty good identifying both ksen and Patrick as scum

I never remotely considered trying to save ksen on day 4, and think as town I'd have wanted to take it more slowly than I did. Someone being obvscum doesn't necessarily mean that they should be lynched immediately: see Zorblag's comments.

[Patrick]

http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/3j8NTVeK4e7SQ

[Ether]

find me on AIM (Ether will probably laugh at this one but psh).

*laughs*

[ksen]

Would an experienced player mind giving me a quick critique?

Thanks.

[starkmoon]

Patrick 2 Yankee, Zorblag

Yup you lynched your last scum... well done an all.

This is the last game I'm gonna mod for a while. Somehow, as at the moment everything is verrrry quiet when I sign up to mod, but I swear Murphy is watching these boards and ready to hurl the excreta and the wind machine the minute I start running games.

Incog, points taken, could you PM me or something for a chat about things I should have avoided.

[Patrick]

I have some in the QT, but with the claim: the thing to think about is what the likely positives and negatives will be from claiming. Of course, being scum doesn't mean we can read their minds, but you can try to predict what will happen and what scumgroups people will go after. The problem with the cop claim was that there weren't any real benefits from it. It was town knowledge that scum knew whether or not a cop existed, so not being counterclaimed wasn't going to count as a point in your favour. On the other hand, the details of your claim attracted suspicion because investigating Incognito for the reasons you gave on night 1 didn't seem to follow from what had been discussed that day, and because you put Yankee third on your list after claiming to have found him innocent (though I think this latter point was overblown). There was also the problem that it reduced our room to maneuvre because it ruled out several scum pairings that still looked plausible, and made it much harder for us to lynch Yankee. I know you did it with good intentions, but trying to draw attention away from me in that situation doesn't work; there was no reason for boberz to stop finding me scummy just because you'd made a dodgy looking claim. I don't think the pressure on me was that great at that point anyway, it only seemed to be boberz who was buying into it.

Aside from that, there was the active lurking thing I pointed out which you improved as the game went on. I'm coming to realise more and more that as scum it's fine to blend in and go unnoticed in the early stages, but later on you need to have some protown points in your favour or you risk being busted by process of elimination. On day 2 I thought you judged very well when to post and when to stay silent; on the whole that was probably our best day. I had to smile when I read boberz's list that had us both at the bottom.

[Incognito]

ksen: I agree with a lot of what Patrick mentioned above. Also, you probably should have just run the idea by Patrick in the QT during Night 2 before deciding to just do the claim completely on your own. He's a very experienced player, and he probably could have helped you shape your claim better than you did and prepared you for what you might expect when you did claim.

That actually reminds me that nobody really pointed out the following when ksen decided to claim:

Incognito (IC):

High level of activity and has been actively involved in scumhunting. I think Incognito is most likely town.

I guess it's possible for a Cop to completely flip his opinion of a player during a single Night, but I would have thought someone might have at least pointed this out. Especially since the reads he claimed to have on the two other experienced players (especially Patrick) seemed somewhat shakier than the read he claimed to have on me during D1.

Incog, points taken, could you PM me or something for a chat about things I should have avoided.

Yeah, I'll shoot a PM to you now.

[Patrick]

I couldn't think of any very plausible investigation for ksen to claim for night 1 since his opinions barely changed between days 1 and 2. I had played on day 2 deliberately leaving myself the option to claim cop with an innocent on ksen, but that was only really meant for scenarios where a real cop claimed and needed to be discreditted.

[Incognito]

One 't' in "discredited". :P

...which reminds me, I totally need to sig this:

I don't know enough about strict grammar rules to know whether it's correct or not.

And you call yourself an Englishman!

[Patrick]

That was never a slip. What was he smoking o_O

[Incognito]

Eh, it's a slippery slope. I think a Pat-town would have probably said "we" there. The scum in ya was being selfish.

[Ether]

I'd have definitely used the first person. Having said that, I tend to be the rough one who sets newbies on edge, and Patrick tends to be the charismatic one who has to then bail me out.

[boberz]

Cheers for the praise and advice guys. On my eratic day 3 play. As I said to incog I knew it was probably wrong to force the claim, and certainly wrong to just shout stuff at people in an angry ill thought through manner. I apologise. I was, as incog guessed a bit fed up at the inactivity of people, I was very busy for a period but made an effort to post regularly even so (btw ksen, that if we're the only originals left was a shockingly scummy post btw).

A couple of things:

my fakeclaim towny is reallly common in f2f games i play (in fact it is assumed that anyone claiming towny could be almost anything) so i didnt think it was a big deal. I wont do it again.

Compassionate killing happens a lot, but maybe that is because i play with close mates.

I saved ether btw on every night, except when ksen claimed cop, just in case. Another thing, i expected to be able to save myself when i reread the rules that night i was annoyed. I thought everyone knew i was doc anyway really.

And Patrick i kind of had you and ksen as my stronges tin game, but annachie was seriously close. I kept swapping him into partnerships. My original accusations on you patrick was all just testing out my town read on you, then you reacted so strongly and didnt respond to my best point (i forget it now) and i thought scum.

[Patrick]

My original accusations on you patrick was all just testing out my town read on you, then you reacted so strongly and didnt respond to my best point (i forget it now) and i thought scum.

If this is true, I hate to think how you'd have felt about my reaction if I'd been town. Although I have tried once or twice to fake anger, I'm milder as scum.

[boberz]

it was true, so i got a tad lucky then. That said good game all and thanx everyone.

[Zorblag]

So here are some thoughts about the game from my perspective:

It sounds like I don't have to say anything more about the townie claim from boberz as he's acknowledged that it's a difference between the style he's used to and what would probably be expected here. That's actually exactly why we've got newbie games around; to hit that sort of thing in an environment where they might be expected. A couple threads in the Mafia Discussion forum that might be of interest regarding that particular issue though would be Policy Lynching in which some of the most recent thoughts from the community on the issue are and Newbie Game Rules of Thumb which is a recent project of mine trying to establish what it would be a good idea to warn people not to do in their first games that might come up. Other than that I was pretty pleased with boberz's play.

I complained some about Yankee's play throughout the game. The biggest problems that I had were that it didn't feel like I could ever see a good reason for his suspicions for anyone other than Ksen (which in turn made the ones for Ksen feel particularly convenient for a potential bus.) The dismissal of much of what I was trying to figure out on Day Four as WIFOM was a bit irritating as it seemed to be lumping just about any attempt to analyze what people had said into a useless speculation category when that's one of the best tools that town has to try to catch scum. Fortunately, Yankee was pretty consistent with his play which allowed for my final read. It's also really handy that he followed through with his suspicions on Ksen as I'm not completely sure that I would have been as convinced as everyone else that he was fake claiming.

I talked with McGriddle during the game and it felt like he was listening to what I was saying towards the end. Now that the game is over I'll reiterate that there really wasn't any great reason to think that I should be town and Patrick should be scum based on my typing alot at the end of Day Four and Patrick not having voted. I would have done the same thing as scum and he would have done the same thing as town. I probably even would have stopped and tried to explain what the problem was with that particular set of reasoning if I'd been scum; it makes me look a bit better because people assume that scum somehow lose the ability to be reasonable when they get their role PM and someone else probably would have pointed it out later anyhow.

As a rule of thumb you shouldn't clear someone as town just because they're being helpful and they seem to be looking at all the other players. A lot of that boils down to play-style rather than alignment. It's probably a mild town tell but scum don't have any explicit reason not to do it. Similarly, sometimes town are particularly unhelpful and tunnel terribly (often on other town.) It's a good idea to try to get a feel for an individual player before deciding if that sort of behavior has any meaning for a given game.

I don't have particularly strong opinions about Ksen's play. I like how he treated Patrick as when I went back to look for connections it wasn't hugely clear who his partner would have to be. I agree that having more game specific content rather than hypotheticals at the start of the game would have been a good idea. I was also expecting him to self hammer once it was clear that he was scum in order to cut off conversation on day four. That he didn't probably let me establish my attitidue towards Yankee as strongly as I wanted to (and let me get set for being suspicious of Patrick when I wasn't killed Night Four) and it let me have a useful conversation with McGriddle.

Town should almost never self hammer in a newbie game. Scum on the other hand have a good reason to if it will cut off useful conversation when the outcome of the day is clearly going to involve their lynch anyhow.

I think that Patrick might have had a better chance at the win by trying to switch over to attacking me on the final day rather than trying to get me to stick with Yankee. Doing so would have completely tipped me off but that didn't really matter so long as he could do a better job of convincing Yankee than I could. That's just some Monday Morning Quarterbacking from the other team though; in his place it's entirely possible I would have made exactly the same move he did. I know that I would also have given serious consideration to a no kill option and that I might have felt just a bit better about a McGriddle/Yankee end game than he ended up feeling but I think his reasoning there was pretty sound overall.

I need Ether to teach me how to get people to think I'm a cop when I'm really a Vanilla Townie. When I managed to get killed or lynched in a game town is 9-1. When I survive or get endgamed town is only 3-11. I usually don't make these decisions correctly it seems but town does just fine after I've been removed from play.

I did enjoy the game and I look forward to seeing all of you around in more games in the future. Thanks for the fun all!

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[boberz]

One last thing.

Annachie you promised to explain exactly why you quit this game. Can you do this, because it really screwed with me.

[Patrick]

I think that Patrick might have had a better chance at the win by trying to switch over to attacking me on the final day rather than trying to get me to stick with Yankee. Doing so would have completely tipped me off but that didn't really matter so long as he could do a better job of convincing Yankee than I could. That's just some Monday Morning Quarterbacking from the other team though; in his place it's entirely possible I would have made exactly the same move he did.

In general I wanted to keep you as more of an option than I did (and not just day 5), but the problem was Annachie just looked town to me and I was already having to fake stuff on him that I wouldn't have done as town (in contrast to people like RayFrost and Yankee who I genuinely thought looked scummy). I thought it would be difficult to argue for Annachie being partnered with ksen, and you didn't make any mistakes that I thought I could latch onto.

I actually was glad that ksen didn't self hammer because at the time I think all we had was McGriddle suspicious of me and Zorblag not having gone either way. It seemed to me if I killed McGriddle then it would have looked even worse for me than what happened in the game. I would have preferred to have a longer day to allow for me and Zorblag to get McGriddle to agree with us, but I thought he'd just see it as stalling in an attempt to save ksen.

Annachie you promised to explain exactly why you quit this game. Can you do this, because it really screwed with me.

This.