Good Omens Mafia! Game Over.

[mneme]

Um. Hi there. I've read page 1 and page 28, and will try to catch up tomorrow.

[mneme]

Not really 100 caught up (I've read the last three pages and the first 8), but I know enough of what's going on to

vote: Peachy

.

[mneme]

Apparently so.

[mneme]

eh -- I'll have to look over tomorrow's action to verify.

[mneme]

This works well enough, I guess, and the reshow saves me from having to reread.

vote: Genocide

[mneme]

I'd like a *vote count*

[mneme]

unvote

without a vote count, and with people popping in and voting for no reason except peer pressure, I'd rather reserve my vote for the moment.

[mneme]

I'm in much the same boat with esme -- I'll be gone from Tuesday night until August 21st, though I'll have my net-accessable cellphone with me (but I'm going to Britain).

[mneme]

Fabricating a mason claim on the theory that your "partner" is idle isn't a play anyone would reasonably do. I just don't belive it, though i'd like to see a replacement for pitbull. The only way I could see this working out was if Blackberry had a "silence" ability.

If anything, if Fudlu didn't had a very strong "claim", I'd be very suspicious of how he was pushing this.

[mneme]

Fudlu: the problem is, lynching Blackberry without a replacement destroys information -- we could either change the probability of blackberry being scum pro/con or link another player into him, which could not be a bad thing. So yes, there's a lot of resistance to supporting a lynch which arguably destroys info.

[mneme]

Fudlu: the problem is, lynching Blackberry without a replacement destroys information -- we could either change the probability of blackberry being scum pro/con or link another player into him, which could not be a bad thing. So yes, there's a lot of resistance to supporting a lynch which arguably destroys info.

[mneme]

Good morning!

"Warlock" was presumably a sundry.

First thought was, of course, that dog shit == Dog, but Dog is dead. Seems unlikely, therefore. Same wierdness as the fish kill, perhaps?

Pooky, do you have anything?

[mneme]

Fritz: War might have been blocked or tried to kill someone doc-protected.

But yeah, I think that's a good place to start.

[mneme]

Sounds good to me.

vote: electra

[mneme]

Flay: he just claimed, if accidentally. This feels like a warning offense, but it depends on how kind Potolet is feeling.

Given the nature of the slip, I very much doubt he's scum. But if the mod is feeling cranky, we may find out shortly.

[mneme]

Oh, ok, my bad. That makes much more sense.

-is- the prevailing theory that blackberry+fritzler = THEM?

(or, as I assumed from the "don't talk about our role", ADAM and Dog, depending on whether Dog is part of the Them mason group).

[mneme]

Pookie: AFAIK, -only- the player in question is enjoined not to discuss their role -- anyone else can do so.

Presumably, mason groups are an exception to this rule (ie, it breaks immediately if masons can talk about their fellow mason's rule is, so mason presumably must hold fellow mason roles as closely as their own), but I thought that speculation on roles you had no knowledge of was always fine?

[mneme]

Hmm. If the prevailing theory is that they are heaven people, I think they're scum trying to pull the same trick WB, myself, and Thoth tried (unsuccessfully; damn the mod for making all scum affilation punctuation different from mason punctuation; we were so close, and WB for going idle!) in Asterix mafia.

heavenscum are an even better lynch than lurkers.

unvote
vote: Fritzler

[mneme]

Esme: this has been a pretty slow game, and Fritzler wasn't behaving suspicous before. Given the correction on the speculated role combined with the wierd behavior today, I think he's a better bet than a lurker.

[mneme]

esme: no, I'd misremembered which mason pairs were believed to be which.

[mneme]

It's ok with me; I'll hop back on the bandwagon then.

<b>unvote
vote: electra</b>

[mneme]

gah. lemme try that again...

unvote
vote: electra

[mneme]

Fritz. Very true.

Where is a mneme when we need one? (oh, right, he's already replaced in

[mneme]

O..o

[mneme]

Mr. Flay: I have at least some faith that there's a reason for them, even if we don't know what it is.

Still 7 to lynch, since we're twelve, so that modkill oddly made it harder to lynch, not easier.

[mneme]

Dunno. Posting restriction, maybe -- don't remember the Americans in the book.

Should re-read one of these days.

[mneme]

Tactix: take what time you need.

-then- throw the vote on Electra.

[mneme]

Flay: I love you too (I nearly always replace into my games, so if you hate replacements...)

[mneme]

unvote

Welcome, Darq.

[mneme]

Fudlu: it's true. But at what point does the lack of info gain become less relevant than the probabily or possibility that they're scum?

[mneme]

It's pretty clear they aren't killers -- the primary reason to believe they aren't scum (well, I suppose we might be misattributing the "fire" deaths to Hell, thinking about it, but one assumes the demons -are- evil, whereas we really don't know about Heaven.

It is, of course, possible to be scum without being a killing group, but I think a cult is unlikely, and most other possibilities even less so.

[mneme]

Not really. Ok with darq. Ok with esme too.

vote: darq

[mneme]

Flay: She (darq) claimed vanilla townie earlier

[mneme]

Masons aren't a good investigation tonight -- their too likely to get revealed via getting killed (thus clearing the other mason, most likely). Better to investigate one of us non-mason folks, either finding a guilty person or making the town block larger.

[mneme]

bleah. my fingers can't spell and frequently homphone. s/their/they're/

[mneme]

Good morning!

Yes, please reveal.

[mneme]

Hmm. -If- we've still got a living doc, I think you may be right that we're better off with a lurker hunt for now, followed by a larger reveal in a day or two.

vote: subtletactix

[mneme]

I think alko is more likely than esme -- esme instigated the GH bandwagon.

Sorry for the idleness over the weekend, but I was off filking.

Also, people seem to have misread alko's posts -- he was saying he was in his reading of the book as far as Sunday. The proximity to his discussion of claims made this more confusing than it seemed, but he was clearly talking about the book.

vote: alko

[mneme]

Fudlu: townie.

I'm leaning toward eme.

[mneme]

Nothing for a day...

Are people just waiting for someone to make the first vote before committing, or is there something more to discuss?

[mneme]

Obviously -if- it's either esme or pooky+me, we should lynch one of pooky+me.

If it's pooky + me, it's lynch or lose.

If it's -just- esme, we can afford to lynch wrong today, lose a townie tonight, and still have 2 votes left to vote Esme off with.

That said, -are- those the only possiblities? If Esme (or Flay) are scum, are there any partner possiblities for them?

[mneme]

re GH: things stalled, I got off the wagon because it didnt' seem like it was going anywhere but there wasn't another good place to put my vote. Then things picked up before I was paying attention and (correctly) lynched GH.

[mneme]

Hey, it's only been a day since I posted. We'll see.

[mneme]

Here's my problem:

1. I know I'm not paired with Pooky.
2. I know I'm not paired with esme.
3. If I am scum, presumably, Pooky is scum...but since I'm not, I can't really buy that as an argument. However, just because I'm not scum (I'm not) doesn't mean that Pooky is -not- scum -- he could be just playing a deep game (frex, he could be a mafia cop, and have decided to single me out as innocent in order to make sure that his partner would win).

Lemme look at the list again:

Mneme: Either scum with Pooky or not scum at all.
Mr. Flay: No info?
Esme: if scum, has outed a fellow scum-mate (GH). Seems unlikely.
Fuldu II: Not scum. Mason.
PookyTheMagicalBear: probably not scum (proven cop). If scum, is a mafia cop.

How sure are we of Mr. Flay?

[mneme]

I'd like to know that too -- but yes, I'm here, the weekend having ended.

[mneme]

Fudlu: flay or esme.

[mneme]

Eh. Or Pooky -- I keep forgetting that Pooky has found both Flay and myself innocent. If Pooky is guilty, one of us could be guilty. If he's innocent, than Esme must be our last scum (presumably, hastur).

Here's my problem:

I'd assume that if hell had one godfather, it would be Satan.
But Pooky is right that another godfather possibility is Sister Mary.
If pooky is scum, one of the people he investigated and found innocent may be scum.
But another possiblity is that an "innocent" person is actually an evil, investigation-immune Sister Mary.
If so, I don't really see much distinction between esme+flay (I know I'm not scum) and pooky+flay.

But...the common pattern there is "flay."

[mneme]

Flay: it was a 5 day holiday, yes. And a weekend. Not all that surprising.

Esme has been harping on my "avoiding talking about roles". But I haven't -- I've certainly avoided speculating on my -own- role (because that's, you know, against the rules), but I've tried (not always successfully) to keep up with speculations on other roles and use such speculations.

The fact is, however, that the sprirt of the rules involves trying to play mafia, rather than work around the restrictions which are, after all, intended to avoid having us use the roles to solve the game rather than our mafia solving skills. So for the most part I've tried to do this.

[mneme]

Esme: you are discounting the idea that you are one of the scum -- something you've been consistently ignoring. If you are one of the scum, since you have not been investigated, then only one scum needs to be either pooky or investigation-immune.

Since the argument is esme-as-scum vs esme-not-as-scum, this seems like a very silly thing to ignore.

[mneme]

Ok. Let's try this, then.

vote: esme

[mneme]

Great game, people. Pooky was -so- MVP this game; I don't think I'd have survived without him.

Though even I admitted at one point during that last day that -if- there were two scum, pooky was the most likely way that could happen...but somehow, enough smoke got into the air (and Pooky did look -so- harmless) that that never quite got taken as gospel...which I was somehow just as happy about. The thing was, -if- I wasn't scum, there were better possiblities than Pooky. After all, he'd only investigated one of the other two players, and so it was likely esme+someone else. Naturally -if- I was scum, Pooky was (and I was, and he was), but...

Very fun game; very complicated setup.

[mneme]

Oh, one thing. God/Metatron are described as "masons" but they have a recruit ability. How's that work again? I don't know how it interacts with the game.

[mneme]

Ok, and so...the apocalypse happens iff the Horsemen survive to get their deliveries?

[mneme]

I think the no reveal rule was primarily to finally, have at least -one- theme game where the entire bloody game didn't revolve around the players manipulating the roles and figureing out who the bad guys where by catching conflicting/false role claims or elimination.

There's a lot to be frustrated in, frex, Monkey Isle (where the first two days ended with a lynch-scum-by-claim-conflict (ok, the funny part was two different scum claiming a three headed monkey, but...)).

I suspect the best two ways to do heavily themed games are either:

No claims. People find out the setup as people die, and can't try to guess the setup in advance. Occasional modkills to make the point.

Open roles. People are assigned roles at the beginning of the game, and those roles start out revealed. However, good/evil groupds are assigned completely separate of the theme roles, so one can't look at the roles and try to divine alignment or aliegence.

The third way -- "mess with expectations" has been tried with some success -- I remmeber being told about a Harry Potter game where the Gang of Three were mafia. But it seems of limited use to me; why play theme when you aren't playing the theme? It ends up playing wifm with the mod, which is...interesting.

The fourth way -- have a game with so many characters that it's hard to game, is possible, but seems to have issues; these tend, more than anything, to not feel like you're playing a themed game at all.

[mneme]

For open roles with random groupings, you have to come up with reasons for the grouping after the fact -- ranging from conspiracy to alien pod people. The fun factor there is that people can actually play their roles without fearing (much) giving up their identies.

Should look at RD.

I was overbashing the fourth way, but it realy does cut down on your choice of theme, and is the method that most easily leads to problems, since a game the GM -thought- was open enough that nobody would guess their roles can get broken due to miscalculation.