926 A Game of Thrones Mafia - Over.

[The Inquisition]

i have a bad feeling for Ned..

vote: Raivann

[The Inquisition]

Let's be frank, guys. The characters in a game of thrones are a mod's dream against the mass claim. The characters are complex and their "goodness" is largely dependent on the point of view.

Say Tyrione claims. What does that tell us? Nothing. Catelyn? Nothing. Robert? Nothing.

The only plausible entirely "good" people are the Stark kids (possibly not even Sansa -- remember this is Game of Thrones and not the entire series).

Even if we do think of some people who are good, faraday is too good a mod, I think, to not provide safe claims to the mafia or confuse us with a non-traditional alignment.

Mass claims are just a way for scum to not get counter-claimed on a name when they're getting lynched.

[The Inquisition]

The thing about nameclaiming is that while I don't think it'll help us decide alignment, it may well out power roles. I find it far more likely that Faraday has given major characters power roles and more minor ones vanilla than I do that we can guess anything about alignment from a name claim. Obviously outing power roles is negative at this point.

This said, I don't get the impression Kinetic is anything less than sincere, and simply being wrong about the correct strategy is not necessarily scummy. Rather, I think Bogre's "easy vote" is scummy, along with his response to kinetic "getting annoyed" at bogre's non-confirmation. I don't put any stock in the idea that the last to confirm is scum, but it's not an unreasonable RVS vote, and I think bogre picking up on it may well indicate a nervousness that he may have actually made a tell... especially from someone wearing a scum hunter badge.

Therefore:

unvote

vote: Bogre

[The Inquisition]

if we name claim it should be done in a pre-determined random order.

[The Inquisition]

EBWOP: And not by order in list

[The Inquisition]

My bad. I had actually made a post yesterday but the internet went down and it was lost in the tubes.

I'll vote yes to the name claim if for no other reason than I think it'll make the quasi-role play thing more fun.

[The Inquisition]

My bad. I had actually made a post yesterday but the internet went down and it was lost in the tubes.

And your post yesterday said what? Anything other than the quasi fun established by name claiming?

xvart.

No. But this is what frustrates me about strategy, claim, etc. discussions is that it leads to those who continually whine that it's not scum hunting. It'd be a fair charge, but in my experience it never, ever actually manages to up the level of scum hunting. Rather, it merely makes the game seem more like a slog which tends to reduce the actual activity of the game.

The tactic, if you are honestly frustrated by the lack of scum hunting, is to make a concerted effort to do so yourself

without

mentioning your frustration. People will tend to follow and respond to what you're doing. Just saying, "scum hunt more please" accomplishes little.

So is your charge against Kinetic and Sea anything more than they're pushing a name claim? are you sure that this is actually scummy in any way?

[The Inquisition]

mod: I'm on V/LA this weekend.

If it's to me by tomorrow morning, I'll get to my name claim. If it's not, then you may have to wait until I'm back home to get mine. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this serves.

[The Inquisition]

back from V/LA.I'll catch up soon.

[The Inquisition]

oh, and my claim is Samwell Tarly

[The Inquisition]

I'll consider that question, Raivann, but I think it's worth it to claim now so that people know what's up. I don't know if we have two mafias, an SK or a vig, but I was hit last night with a shot. Fortunately for me, I can take two bullets without dying before my "armor" wears off.

Reading up to put the kill in context.

PS. Sad to see Syrio go. He's almost as badass as Arya.

[The Inquisition]

Also, sorry Inq.

You have armour? Samwell Tarly has armour? Explain the flavour please.

There's not a ton in the way of flavor on it. I'm in King's landing (yes, sam is in king's landing) because the night watch have a stake in what's going on (yes, it says this despite the watch being neutral and supposedly not playing favorites in the game of thrones). As a precaution I'm wearing armor. Then it goes into my abilities. That's it.

[The Inquisition]

1-What changed between this:

The thing about nameclaiming is that while I don't think it'll help us decide alignment, it may well out power roles. I find it far more likely that Faraday has given major characters power roles and more minor ones vanilla than I do that we can guess anything about alignment from a name claim. Obviously outing power roles is negative at this point.

This said, I don't get the impression Kinetic is anything less than sincere, and simply being wrong about the correct strategy is not necessarily scummy.

And this:

My bad. I had actually made a post yesterday but the internet went down and it was lost in the tubes.

I'll vote yes to the name claim if for no other reason than I think it'll make the quasi-role play thing more fun.

So you thought the nameclaim was a bad idea strategically...but when people started agreeing with the idea, you changed your mind because it would be fun? Even though we were already out of the roleplay stage? Are you kidding me?

2-Why did you reveal that you have another bulletproof shot? There is no protown motivation for doing so.

Aak, I wanted to question Buttonmen, but now I have to leave for work now.

These are fair questions:
1. I reconsidered. First, I put it in context with my own power role, which is not something obvious given my name. That led me to believe that power roles were not necessarily logically linked to a player's character. Thus, the advantage of name claiming was larger. Also I was honest when I said I thought it'd be more fun simply from a atmosphere point of view.

2. I thought it even money that a vigil was actually shooting at me, and I want to discourage wasting the bullet on me. Furthermore, I generally think full-claiming is preferable to trickle-claiming. I've been in too many games where a player not claiming his full role because he believed there was something about it that was best left undiscovered actually came to bite the town in the posterior.

Bulletproof townies don't usually have additional abilities.

I don't have additional abilities. I have flavor text that explains I have armor. Then I have a section that actually details my "abilities."

---

So now let's get to my beliefs.

I believe Seacore is scum. Here's why: I think most town members when faced with a ridiculous "no lynch" vote will see it as VI play. This is because for helio to be scum it asks for two things to exist at once: (1) Consider that a no lynch would be good for scum and (2) Not realize that no one is going to bite on a no lynch and it will cast suspicion on him.

Please note that Seacore's vote, unlike the majority of those finishing off Helio, was made

before

buttonman's claim.

Seacore knew the way things were going and knew that Buttonman was heading for a lynch or a power claim. Seacore wanted to dissassociate himself with whatever that outcome was, so he moved to the safest alternative -- safest but not wisest.

And that's what it boils down to. Seacore has spent the vast majority of his very active day seeming helpful without providing actual help. This, to my mind, is the very essence of scum detection: someone who is aiming to have the appearance but not motive of being town.

Finally, take note that when Seacore places his vote on helio that he does so saying that it will either be a scum or a VI lynched, good for the town. He's already setting up the mitigating circumstances for his vote.

I'll be honest, Seacore had me fooled at first. I thought he was actually

too

eager a helper to actually be scum. Scum don't usually like to be noticed as much as he has. But on balance, Seacore seems our best option.

Vote: Seacore

I call Mac town.

I call Bogre still scum.

I call xvart town.

[The Inquisition]

Sigh. Let's summarise this. "Don't pay attention to how much Seacore looks town, he's actually scum."

Actually if you want to summarize what I said in a somewhat flippant way, it would be this: I thought you were so scummy you were town but then decided you were just scummy. So, actually the opposite of what you've said.

Samwell Tarly gets Bullet proof and "abilities" (note, not just 'an ability, but "abilities") and Renly and Syrio get vanilla, no abilities at all? That seems unfair. - Note, this 'out guessing the mod" piece of argument wouldn't be enough on it's own, but I think in addition to the rest, it's a fair call.

My abilities are (1) bulletproof (2) voting. But before we get into this absurd "please take the attention of me" argument, please take careful note of the sample role PM:

Welcome to A Game of Thrones Mafia! You are

Robert Baratheon, Innocent Aligned

You won at the Trident and were a good if somewhat lazy King. Now you're dead, so I'm not sure why I'm even writing your flavour. It's not like you can read it, is it? Still for this pm you're a vanilla townie.

Abillites:

Vote

You may vote during the day.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats to your Kingdom have been eliminated.

What do you guys think that Seacore is really arguing in the above quote anyway?

Because think about it. An argument about the "fairness" of what roles go with what names? All of this seems very desperate. There's nothing fair or not about it. A lashing out without any real purpose. The only thing he says with any real traction is:

Inq, does Sam count as a major character? Bulletproof is a power role.

I'm not sure I would not call him a

primary

character, but unlike Syrio and Renly, he's a point-of-view character.

In any case, take a good hard look at Seacore's last post and think to yourself if that doesn't sound like a prematurely cornered scum.

[The Inquisition]

EBWOP: er. messed up my post a bit. Where it says "above quote" it means the Seacore quote above the quote on the Role PM. Where it says "real traction" i had intended to include the part about changing my stance on claiming, but that quote is actually not from Seacore.

[The Inquisition]

All this brings a question, Seacore: if you're actually a VT, shouldn't your role PM say "abilities"? I don't like using role PMs as a cause for action, but you'll reap what you'll sow.

I imagine that Seacore ALSO has "abilities" in his, but since his include more than one ability (e.g. roleblocking and mafia kill), he assumed that it was plural because there were two or more. So his assumption made it possible to make this.

The only other possibility is that Seacore carelessly made this claim against me (that my role says "abilities") without actually reading his own role PM.

This seems pretty damning to me, but then again I though Seacore was scum already.

[The Inquisition]

It's not usually worthy of note to say you have the ability to vote, but since you made a point of the ability abilities thing, I told you exactly what there was.

A full claim is not meant to be a pseudo-copy and paste job. It's just meant not to hide some of the aspects of my role.

I was asked to talk about flavor. Who was I asked by? You.

[The Inquisition]

What's your point? That I talked about flavor text there? So what?

[The Inquisition]

Trying to

seem

helpful is as reliable an early game scum-tell as I know. Helping town obviously isn't a scum-tell. Trying to seem like you're helping town with little regard as to whether you actually ARE, however, is. And it stood out to me at the time, but I dismissed it because of it seemed too scummy to be scum, but I now believe I was wrong.

[The Inquisition]

If you have specific questions you think are relevant, please pose them. But I'm not about to get into a point-by-point battle with you. It's not helpful to town to have exploding posts as it just inspires lurkerdom from many and skimming from others.

[The Inquisition]

Possible V/LA from Tomorrow (thursday march 11th) to monday, march 15th. I'm going skiing and I don't know how good the internet will be there.

Just putting this up before I forget. I'll take another look at the game before I go though.

[The Inquisition]

i'm here. catching up and posting asap.

[The Inquisition]

The two M's seem sincere to me. Bogre seems attractive enough for how much he's posted, but it seems silly not to let his replacement get involved.

I think there's a question to be asked about Buttonman. Unless we can figure out a way to confirm him otherwise, we're always going to have a big question about him, and he's never going to get a result. He's either going to be roleblocked, or when the day comes that we lynch their roleblocker, he'll be shot.

So that brings up a question. He's only valuable to us insofar as he draws the roleblock. That may be somewhat valuable, but I think more valuable is lynching hin, finding his alignment, and avoiding outing any power roles senselessly early.

Still, lynching him isn't nearly as valuable as lynching Seacore. Seacore has already claimed VT, so we 99% wouldn't be lynching a power role already, Seacore is scummy as all-get-out, and I think we'll gain some further insight into the game otherwise.

I'm already voting him, but just to make it clearer:

vote: Seacore

He remains our best lynch target; I just hope good sense prevails.

[The Inquisition]

getting to this as soon I have a moment today. Been busy playing catchup at work since my ski trip.

[The Inquisition]

This is unusual, but given that if true Raivan's supposed kill should theoretically go through immediately, it's just the mod's absence that keeps it from happening, i'm going to do an if/then thing. I just don't think that raivann's gambit (if he's lying) of playing the deadline should be rewarded just because of a mod's absence (not his fault obviously)

IF Raivann's day kill went through:

vote: thebuttonman

IF there is no day kill:

vote: Raivann