Mini 1090: Of Rogues and Curses ~ Game Over

[Vi]

On another note, the inability of dead QT denizens to sympathize with live townies, especially toward the latter stages of the game, never ceases to amuse.

Fair enough when you put it like that. And I'll admit to starting it with a four-scum theory that was as accurate as my death via natural causes (and knowing about it ahead of time). So we can both take it as a learning experience, etc.

[Uite]

One has power over a thing when they speak it's true name, which is why some cultures have dual naming system with a true name and a nickname precisely to deflect this kind of magic.

This has got to be the most well-reasoned post-game whining I've ever seen. To your credit, Zorb wasn't sure it counted until I said so. Another judgment call from me but I think I made the right one.

This is actually something I personally feel very strongly about. I almost always avoid using nicknames, though I will at times abbreviate. Reading my iso this game will back that up; I've virtually always referred to him as Zorblag, with only one exception. I won't dispute your ruling, but it does taste somewhat sour.

This didn't help either:

@Vi:

Been dying to say this. The crone could have been exploited to give you day-long, two-way communication if the two of you had used your one post to establish the manner by which you planned to use vote-movement to communicate. Judging by the comments in this QT, it might have have allowed the town to avoid the inHim lynch.

That's awesome, if true. I'd probably lean towards the latter. It seems to me like he could provide a lot more commentary through votes, especially regarding changing reads, if applicable. Would he be able to do multiple votes and/or unvotes per post, as a way of communicating?

[gandalf5166]

In fact, just having a dayvig that you can only give to town is bad enough, forget the fact that he gave it to crypto.

[Ythill]

Oops, missed that.

To address the nickname thing, my reasoning was this... I didn't want the "by name" designation to be semantically binding. Rather than a flavor-oriented ritual, the designation was chosen as a way of clarifying to whom the targeted person was speaking. So, for example, if he'd said something to or about Zorb but didn't say who it was referring to at all, I didn't want to try and make that determination. However, a VOTE: Troll was sufficient by the rules, so there's no reason beyond semantics that "Troll" shouldn't count as a name. Noting here that you could have raised a similar semantic problem with my use of "address" but, altogether, I believe that I interpreted the spirit of the rules accurately.

If not, well, now you have someone to blame for your loss...

[xvart]

Extremely well played, Troll. My hat is off to you.

I played terribly in this game, and to be honest, I'll admit that gandalf's daycop of Troll really threw me for a loop. Knowing that Troll was scum I didn't know how to respond so I just kind of waited for a while and at the time of my first post I don't think I ever recovered.

As for my claim, it was pretty terrible; but I kind of put myself in a corner with my comments about gandalf and Mariyta, and when I realized I was going to have to claim eventually I knew I couldn't legitimately claim a VT (a point against me not playing the long game and only playing in the moment). Then when Vi posted the thing about the "unique" I decided my best bet was to try and run with it. I didn't even think about the implication of delayed actions vs. instant actions (another failure of only playing in the moment).

My other comment was I don't believe Troll and I synergize well as scum partners, but that could only be due to my poor play to begin with. It seemed that Troll was clearing people as town all over the place and they were people I wanted to attack or thought would make good mislynchs later on down the road. Finally (and this is probably just sour grapes in my mind) but I was pretty frustrated that Troll hammered me when there was a town driven wagon on Mothrax at the time. I feel that lynching mothrax would have been a safe play due to everyone else driving that wagon and the events leading up to my lynch relevant to mothrax. But I can't complain too much about that since Troll did pull off the win.

Good game, everyone. Sorry my standard of play was pretty poor.

[xvart]

I nominated this game for best flavor text.

[Vi]

My other comment was I don't believe Troll and I synergize well as scum partners

Troll deliberately doesn't synergize with scumpartners.

[xvart]

My other comment was I don't believe Troll and I synergize well as scum partners

Troll deliberately doesn't synergize with scumpartners.

Yeah, I kind of got that feeling based on some of the early D1 commentary. I've never played with someone as a partner that is so free in clearing people as town, and I didn't even know how to comment on his play because of that.

[Ythill]

Thanks xvart.

As a side-note to the flavor, the real-life Ungrika clan is known for its musicians. Hence the two minstrels.

Another thing wrong with your claim: you might have considered that, in a game called "Of Rogues and Curses," where your buddy has a

remove curse

ability, there's probably already a thief. Just sayin.

[Vi]

My other comment was I don't believe Troll and I synergize well as scum partners

Troll deliberately doesn't synergize with scumpartners.

Yeah, I kind of got that feeling based on some of the early D1 commentary. I've never played with someone as a partner that is so free in clearing people as town, and I didn't even know how to comment on his play because of that.

Clearing Townies is great for scum... if you plan on reneging on those clears later.

[Vi]

*does a little searching*
Also I did not expect this game to be based on actual clans. I'm impressed.

[gandalf5166]

*does a little searching*
Also I did not expect this game to be based on actual clans. I'm impressed.

Same here.

[Ythill]

All the gypsy names were traditional too.

Did you get the line about the irony of the Fortune Teller's name? Aishe means, "full of life."

Drifting by in her mourning robe, Aishe considers the crowd and the dais, the players and their dramas. She considers her exit and the irony of her name and yet, though her death is looming, her feet neither tremble nor falter on the path.

[Vi]

All the gypsy names were traditional too.

Did you get the line about the irony of the Fortune Teller's name? Aishe means, "full of life."

Drifting by in her mourning robe, Aishe considers the crowd and the dais, the players and their dramas. She considers her exit and the irony of her name and yet, though her death is looming, her feet neither tremble nor falter on the path.

Unfortunately, I don't have contact with any of my Hungarian relatives... in part because most-to-all of them are dead.

[Vi]

(Finishing thought)
So I'm basically just a Gypsy In Name Only.

[Zorblag]

Well, first off, thanks for the fine modding Ythill and the good game everyone else. I am pleased with how few replacements were needed.

I didn't expect to win this game at all after xvart was lynched (I agree with him that it was a pretty poor lynch but it's also what I'd do most times in a situation where I think he'd die the next day (and I did think that here) and I could potentially get someone off my case because only an idiot would bus that hard (which I did for a tiny amount of time with Crypto when it was important.) I also thought I had the game in the bag going into Day four and had almost convinced myself that the curse was a red herring. I expected whichever member of the town had it to come after me hard when I made my claim that I could remove it which was supposed to give me a chance to go one on one with them and hopefully take them out or at the very least give xvart the information he needed to work around it in the future. I wasn't expecting it to be a day vig that didn't get brought up till two days later. Once inHimshallibe's claim was out it was a series of things falling either for or against me based on the setup and town play and it ended up being quite the rollercoaster ride. Bi-polar is a pretty decent description of how I took it in the quick topic.

On the whole I'd say my play this game was mediocre. It was (just barely) good enough to get by but I could have done a number of things better.

@Ythill, revealing the remove curse was at least in part to try to get the curse out in the open so that I knew what I'd be playing against. It might have gotten me killed but I work better with information than without. I also think I had to make the reaction to the eventual claim about how I did. I needed to be the one who identified what was going on with the curse as it's clear that I would have sorted it out quickly; I was screwed at that time anyhow so I went in all the way because scum really shouldn't do that.

The hammer on xvart actually was an accident. I believed Vi's L-2 post. I was expecting someone else to hammer shortly and I would have hammered if it was L-1 but I didn't know I was hammering when I put down the vote.

Lurking is only a bad thing for scum if the town are going to call you for lurking; as it was there were a number of times when my not being about shook a bit of attention that I needed shaken. In particular I'm thinking of how I misjudged how Uite would react to my posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the early game. I could tell that I needed to give him time to get hooked somewhere else even if I had to use one of my prods to do it. I was also a bit busy and might not have found time for the game but this didn't seem like a town that was going to punish lack of presence so I was willing to use that.

The flavor for the game really was very good. As far as balance goes, there were probably more weapons on both sides that the other team wouldn't have a great way to see coming than I prefer but that's probably more an indication that I should stick to open and semi-open games (or possibly normals) as I think the mechanics were all OK for a theme game. I tend to prefer simpler games that I've got a better chance of figuring out and then using my expectations of but that's a playstyle thing for me.

I actually did think of using the ability to control votes as a communication system; I asked inHimshallibe if the dead would be able to talk together when one of them was voting or some such thing because, were I town I would have wanted that power to get used with a system of communication we developed from this side of the grave. At the time I thought he had to pick between those powers and could only use one. In any case, when he didn't answer my question I decided that this was one thing that I didn't have to help the town with (unlike lynching my partners, realizing that mothrax could now clear people, etc ...)

@crypto, the busses looked as convincing because it's pretty arguable that neither were necessary. That ended up giving me just enough room at the end but I probably would have been better served by not intentionally knocking out my partners. If I'm going to bus a partner I'm going to do it with enough force that I might be able to get something out of it later. A half-assed bus just loses you a teammate while gaining nothing in exchange.

I was however particularly happy to see that you picked up the seed that I tried to plant about how inHimshallibe should have claimed the vig ability earlier to try to draw a night kill.

@VP Baltar, among the unpleasant surprises that I got this game the earliest was seeing that I'd be up against both you and Vi as town. I do think that you know my scum meta (though having said that, my town games start pretty slow as well so I'm not sure that you'll be able to tell the difference sadly) and one of these days I hope that we'll be on a functional town team together. I will however say that my plan at the end of the game would have led to a town victory if it had been followed (and if I didn't have the obfuscation on mothrax to throw sand in the eyes of reason at the last minute and a love potion to keep tanstalas in check.) I probably would have come up with about the same thing as town and I'm not convinced that it was a particularly terrible way to go about things.

@Uite, I did wonder about the nickname thing as well and had explicitly asked about it prior to it coming up in the game. As someone else who really doesn't use nicknames much at all (or even shortened versions of names) in the game itself it was a bit worrying. In this case though the magic should have worked fine from a flavor point of view. It wasn't me that the spell was being cast on, but tanstalas. It makes a lot of sense for him to fall in love with the person he thinks of as Troll even if it isn't actually my name.

@Vi, my frustration at backing off wagons after someone claims was pretty genuine. I put a bit of extra emotion into it just because people find that to be a town tell but I was tired and the lack of a lynch in both of the cases I was going on about did strike me as absolutely the wrong moves in a frustrating way that I didn't think this game should be putting up with. If we weren't ready to lynch we shouldn't have gotten the claims. In both cases, once the claims had been given we should have been lynching. If I didn't believe that pretty firmly I wouldn't have felt the need to get Exe lynched over something along those lines.

I also wouldn't say that I deliberately don't synergize with partners so much as that I don't deliberately synergize with partners (and also happen to have a style that doesn't synergize with most by default.)

@xvart, I don't blame you at all if you were irritated with me when you got lynched. I pulled this out but not by a lot and there's a pretty decent chance we would have been in better shape (i.e. less susceptible to events outside my control) had I lynched mothrax. I do think that you're a pretty competent scum player and when I was claiming the remove curse ability I definitely had it in mind that I might be handing the game off to you with a bit more information (or if I did it well one less threat) in exchange for my death.

For this particular town it felt about right to rule out lynches. It's what I've been doing in my newbie games lately as town and it felt like those who keep track of me would probably be slightly reassured to see me doing it here (probably no one was keeping track of me but I am pretty self centered so I wasn't going to rule it out.) As Vi said, it's pretty safe to call people town early if you're willing to go back on those reads later. Most of those I was calling town were the ones I thought would be valuable as mislynches later so it was better to take them off the table as early lynches. Sadly, apparently I'm unwilling to do that for partners as scum but, on the plus side, that's just one more way you'll be able to catch me and my partners in the future.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[VP Baltar]

I probably would have come up with about the same thing as town and I'm not convinced that it was a particularly terrible way to go about things.

It's not really your plan that I think sticks out as scummy. It's something I think I've picked up on in posting style between when you are town and when you are scum. Obviously, I have no plans to reveal this at this point in time because I'd actually like to win a game against you at some point.

[Ythill]

The hammer

was

accidental? LOL. No wonder it seemed so convincing.

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, you did win a game against me. Reverberation essentially counts, right?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Ythill, oh yeah, and I really don't deserve any credit for choices of night kills. They were pretty much all forced as far as I could tell. I considered other options just because I like to make sure I'm not missing anything too vital (Vi can attest to that I'm sure) but the kills needed to be done how they were.

Out of curiosity, what would the thief steal from me? Would it have blown my brewer story? I figured that was the fake claim that was designed with me in mind of the list that you provided but that was just a guess (and I didn't know about a thief when I made it.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[VP Baltar]

A victory against you I actually had something useful to do with

[Zorblag]

Yeah, that Sotty7, she's the dangerous one. You should be on the lookout for her instead really.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[VP Baltar]

I can beat doors for policy lynches on both of you! But don't worry, I plan to elbow drop her asap in Locke Lamora's upcoming WWE large.

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, ohhh, careful about that. She and I just got called Hulk Hogans of mafia scum in a newbie game; clearly she's ready for the wrestling. Actually, didn't she and Zachrulez meet on a wrestling forum somewhere?

Also, the best part of you having a meta on my scum play is that you no longer have to bother with the policy lynches! Hurrah! I really am sometimes useful as town (despite what you've seen from me.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Vi]

Lynch Troll the Cult Leader first, and then if Sotty still looks unreadable lynch her next.

Interestingly, this game takes Troll off of the very short list of people who have only seen me as scum.

She and I just got called Hulk Hogans of mafia scum in a newbie game

I'm sorry, I can't visualize this.

Please provide a picture to help me with this.

Actually, didn't she and Zachrulez meet on a wrestling forum somewhere?

Yes they did.