/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[Plum]

Hoopla: I'll give you credit for thinking outside of the box or something, but no. Just no. Potentially giving the scum two extra kills aimed at some of our most useful players is really not something I like to contemplate, basically ever. So with a no PR claim agreement it might or might not come into play (if we're willing to risk it on something that'd be substantially luck-based). But I think choosing it mainly to remove WIFOM/Paranoia in the PR claim is bad. Scum have pretty limited powerrole claim options anyway, given the nature of the setup. We can adopt a no PR claims sort of thing if we feel like it anyway - the benefits of your plan, assuming we really don't want Janitor, are approximately the same as a Roleblocker/Rolecop combination with a no PR claims policy, except that the scum don't have the slender but very plausible chance at eating away at our powerroles with extra bullets. Unless I'm reading the thing incorrectly, the Assassin's shots can be used separately or together, which means that two good guesses by the scum = instant death for the Town.

Look at it this way - it's not individual roles which are necessarily bad options, but combinations where the roles complement each other and make them stronger than the sum of their parts (with one important exception):

- Rolecop is a fairly safe option with Janitor, but kinda stinks with Roleblocker (because they can find and block powerroles who haven't been outed, or block an outed powerrole who may be protected by a Weak Doc while killing a powerrole found by the Rolecop) and is absolute suicide with Assassin.
- Assassin is flat out of the question. That's the exception.
- Janitor works fine with Roleblocker and with Rolecop, basically. I'd probably lean towards Janitor + Rolecop over Janitor + Roleblocker. Ehhhhhh. Maybe not; it depends if we're more worried about scum finding and killing PRs who haven't been outed or screwing us over when we want an outed one to come through big. And because the last depends on stuff like protection we may well not even have . . . I guess I'd go Janitor/Roleblocker.
- Roleblocker is horrendous with Assassin and, as above, bad to team with Rolecop.

EDIT: mith disagrees with me about Rolecop/Roleblocker having synergy or not. Explain, mith?

[Plum]

I think you guys are seriously overestimating the power of the assassin role. For one, it can't be used to end the game/give the mafia a majority. And since its only a 2-shot, the only real threat of an assassin kill is after a PR claim, or a less than a coinflip (probably) chance of the assassin guessing when it gets close to endgame, if it even lives that long. Putting an assassin in is not riding off the PR's as unvaluable. We can still get PR information, except we have to expect that once a PR claims, it will be killed. Note that after a PR claims, they're usually killed or RBed anyways, in most games.

Note that after a PR claims, usually only the PR is killed that Night, not a PR and someone else as well. Just because the Assassin can't be used to auto-win the game for scum doesn't mean it can't reduce the number of mislynches we have available. And unlike Vig kills (which have been cited in this argument as similar and are considered good because they reduce the pool of lynch candidates), the extra kills will be on the scum's terms, not (basically) on ours. Vig kills have been known to do more than reduce the pool of lynch candidates. They've been known to - strange as this sounds - kill off scumbags on occasion. In any case, the extra kill the scumteam gains from an Assassin with a good target (for whatever reason - as mith showed, there will be times when a no-PR claim is stupid but with an Assassin chosen anyway, viable alternative methods don't present themselves) is going straight onto the most useful Townie they can think of. Probably someone

not

in the lynch pool at all.

Rolecop is in my mind not as bad (though actually it does get worse if it lasts long enough) - it may direct scum at PRs, but it won't ever give them an extra kill or ever reduce the number of mislynches we have. People who've suddenly gone all anti-Janitor (a role I don't think is quite as inherently bad as many people seem to, but still probably worth avoiding. Depending on a lot of factors, some of which will be out of the control of just about everyone in the game, it could be mostly harmless or - slim chance - really bad. So I wouldn't mind avoiding it) think about this: a Janitor may rain on the parade of one lynch, but an Assassin can take away our extra mislynches. Lynches are still what we'll need to win the game. I'm really not interested in handing a few over to the scum for free.

[Plum]

I'm not sure I see the connection between your criteria and where people are located, ooba. I'd love to hear how you square DGB with being town, even if you just mechanically try to apply those criteria you listed.

Forgot to add - I cannot see scum ever gambitting like that ... Puts a lot of pressure on her at the start of the game. The only probable trade-off is that Janitor was hammered. In fact if I was scum, I would have probably lurked it out until Assassin was hammered too and then declared gambit at start of D1 to increase payoffs of move.

DGB does this stuff regardless of alignment. You're one to talk about suggesting original things, keeping a low profile, or agreeing with massclaim, just by the way. I was doing a bit of a reread and then my browser crashed, but your first post smelled strongly regurgitated material and the rest haven't been stellar on that count. And you managed to comment on massclaim without saying anything either way by merely discussing which roles we should give in the case of massclaim. If I were using your criteria - which are decent starting points given the information we have at this point - I'd have to put you in the scum category there.

The switch from lets massclaim to massclaiming is bad as a function of the snipes with mith is bad. The push for assassin/rolecop under very, very weak logic is extra bad. Add in a dash of secret gut reasons (TM) and we've got us a stew.

Hero's arguments for Assassin/Rolecop (easily the worst synergetic combo even given a Hider claim) remind me of Rhinox's arguments that Assassin is good because it reduces the lynch pool the way a Vig would. AARgh. I may join you thar, still don't have a full hold on the game, too many people with too many wallposts makes for mediocre recall. I'd rather vote for the player who would fit on his own scumlist right now.

VOTE: ooba

[Plum]

V/LA through Saturday Night - me and Pom

Am not seeing ooba over DGB. At all. More to come.

[Plum]

Vanilla Townie.

UNVOTE:

VOTE: ooba

/still ticked off that the DGB wagon failed.

[Plum]

Yeah 'cept you appear to be the Moriarty in this equation, huh?

[Plum]

Okay so. We have too many of my Townreads left, but that's okay because a game recently ended in which that also happened. Lo and behold it was because someone got on there for mediocre reasons including what appeared to be early attack != bussing (I actually don't think he knew whether the guy was even on his team or not).

FATE and MITH keep their slots. mith for backwards attacking (that is, DGB's behavior towards him as opposed to his behavior towards DGB). Fate for being obvtown DESPITE BREAKING MY HEART YESTERDAY ENCOURAGING HH LYNCH FOR THE LULZ .

PF is the only guy here I

haven't

had a strong townread on at some point and the slot hasn't really done

anything

I can remember really liking much this game. Maybe I'm biased, but for a while PF mosquitoed me with an ambivalent read blurring into the spectrum of suspecting me, which smacked a bit of a desire to set me up as a mislynch later in the game if it became feasible while not pushing anything too controversial or out of place in the meantime to earn scrutiny.

SPY
IAM

SPY might've been bussing ooba yesterday, and despite my desire not to go all paranoid about my townread on him

not

having had a scumbag on that wagon would be weird. Possible, I suppose, but. If there were one, he's easily and by the most likely guy on that wagon to be a busser.

IAM

wasn't

on ooba yesterday and pushed hard for the HH wagon and the early attacks on DGB did initially leave leeway to push Rhinox over her

and

to dismiss suspicion on DGB if he managed to push Rhinox to lynch when Rhinox flipped Town.

That whole sequence from 1938 to 1944 is icky. SpyreX looks worst, but I don't like that Fate goaded him into switching. On the other hand, what does scumFate gain from going so hard after scumooba? Maybe he thought HH would go down anyway (which is what happened, but it didn't seem likely until the very end; if HH had voted ooba instead of throwing himself on his sword in an endgame maybe we lynch ooba and go some way toward clearing HH).

That said, scum don't seem to know who the Vig is/outside chance that all their Roleblocking power has been used up already (but unless we assume that they went with a Roleblock-blindly Night 1 strategy,

after

the Hoopla gambit resulted in a completely wasted Janitor power). That means that if ooba had been lynched, we'd be like as not looking at:

ooba lynched Day 5

CTD (or other Townie, I guess) killed Night 5
HH killed Night 5

And by between 2-4 votes on the ooba wagon there was next to no chance ooba would get away without being lynched

or

Vigged (PF pushing an almost certain HH/ooba scumteam thar seems to be reinforcing that in case HH got lynched, and he never did move his vote to ooba even when the guy was in hammer range, amirite). Not going after ooba/pushing HH would be counterintuitive for IAUN scum given the above but. WIFOM late at night disagrees with me.

I haven't read everything yet that occured over the past few days but I

was am

considering voting ooba. I may be willing to drop the hammer once I'm all caught up, though there is one thing I'd like to say first

WAS/AM? HUH?

SPYREX? DAMMIT I DON'T LIKE MY HEART GETTING BROKEN TWICE IN ONE GAME SO. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW.

PF/SpyreX would be my first be because of all that plus onescum on/one scum off ooba and one scum on/one scum off the my Townlist makes more sense than both off ooba (IAUN/PF) or both on my Townlist (IAUN/SPYREX). But that's a bit aesthetically biased. AND HAVING SAID THAT

ekiM (1) -- Ellibereth
VasudeVa (3) -- Seraphim, ooba, SpyreX
ooba (6) -- Papa Zito,

VasudeVa, Plumegranate, Rhinox,

Kmd4390

, ekiM

DrippingGoofball (1) -- mith
Seraphim (1) -- SaintKerrigan

PAPA ZITO SCUM RIGHT HER

(when was ooba the leading wagon I don't remember that...)

I'd like to buy this because it's

also

aesthetically pleasing, and that's confusing me, but I'm waiting for the special on 'after IAUN and PF post WHOOOOOSH'.

One down.

One to go.

And then we can get our awesome on.

LET'S GO, IAUN.

[Plum]

Oh Ill shoot your buddy tonight mith. I OWE TOWN.

SpyreX if you don't post reactions today before the lynch scene you get a bullet.

Spy wtf? You........ YOU?

SpyreX? What about ME?

Hope I didn't break your heart there, Fate <3. For what it's worth, I was freaked out that you had me figured out or something back there while waiting for the promised Epic Post, and even after that I wasn't sure if it wasn't something aiming to catch me loosen my game.

Mith, you didn't deserve that; you played very well this game and it was sheer scum opportunism back there.

[Plum]

Honestly, the VT claim was used because I didn't feel like getting into a one-for-one with a Townie PR when I was the Roleblocker, which is what a claim would have done . . . that said I did

not

expect the move to get such a positive response. Chalk one up for 'scum can claim VT too, especially in a semi-Open game', yeah?

[Plum]

*sigh* gg fruitsisters. didn't see it coming.

Plumegranate twins get MVP as far as I'm concerned. Why'd you guys wait so long to hammer?

Because I went to bed about a quarter hour before PokerFace's mith vote (and thank goodness, as I'd have kept myself up another hour at least waiting to see stuff and possibly playing with Fate after that, which would have made for one super-tired Plum today, as opposed to mildly tired Plum today) and also, though my school computer account is now much less restricted, it still - less often, but occasionally - blocks random pages of games. Including the last two pages of the game and the reply page during my lunch break and the reply page was still locked at around 5 p.m. during my online video-based AP Physics class, so even though I knew we were at L-1 . . . yeah.

Am glad that we got lucky with Trackers and Vigs (made up for the nullified Janitor and then some), given it was my idea. SpyreX gets credit for the no-Kill Night 1, though it was a bit up in the air as the Night passed what we would do, I'm glad we took a deep breath and did it. Also glad we saved the Roleblock, or Day 6 would have been much more tricky. Actually, we did a good job distributing the roles - I did last the whole game and SpyreX was in more danger but. Though of course my survival is credited heavily to the DGB claim gambit.

Fate: Well, on the glass half full side, you did one HELL of a job keeping your Vighood secret. Neither SpyreX nor I had any clue it COULD be you and it would have screwed us over in 3-player LYLO like that. I did tell Pom on the bus home, before I hammered, that your confirmation bias was partly based on the desire to be the extreme hero who convinced everyone to lynch obvTown mith-scum for the win.

SO NEXT TIME.

SPYREX. IF I CALL YOU SCUM FOR ANY REASON IN ANY GAME I'M NOT BACKING DOWN.

NO MATTER WHAT.

This is something I discovered when I loosely followed a game and saw someone mark Spy as scum there. I was barely skimming, but to me he was obvscum. Obviously there's some degree of confirmation bias there as well, but my point is that if Spy is at all scummy it's the equivalent of extremely scummy for the average calibration of play.

@Whoever: Plum was ruled as obvtown by CTD (who ended up dead), and by no one THINKING for a moment that VT was the CLAIM to make by a roleblocker scum (instead of tracker to draw CC).

Just to reiterate: This.

[Plum]

Oh Fate, I meant to ask you - what was this?:

"PLUM

omg you didnt. Yes I think you did. No Plum no... she's laughing so hard right now.

So hard.

I'll shut her up."

You had me freaking out when I saw that. The tinfoil hat exploded.