Mafia 74: Minimally Flavoured - Game over!

[Xylthixlm]

Vote: OhGodMyLife

because I can.

Let's get the bandwagon on him rolling as soon as possible, so we have time for the traditional two or three bandwagons before deadline.

[Xylthixlm]

We're bandwagoning YOU, not ME.

[Xylthixlm]

What the hell is going on? Wonderful way to start off the game, guys!

I, personally, find the first day to be completely useless. It's happened many times: tons of discussion, just to get back where we started, and in the end we all just vote for no lynching.

On the first day, I think it'd be best to not lynch at all. If we just take out a random guess, we could end up hurting ourselves in the process.

I'm not voting for it just yet, to see if any discussion can be born from this; but seriously, stop voting randomly for idiotic reasons.

Ah, but no lynching doesn't tell us anything interesting when we analyze the votes on day 3,159. No lynch doesn't come up scum or town. No lynch doesn't react to the pressure.

I agree in general that lynching today is more likely to hit town than it is to hit scum; but the threat of lynching gives us so much information that we can't afford to throw it away.

At least, that's the theory as far as I can tell. I'm more used to night start games...

[Xylthixlm]

If we just randomly lynch on the first day, we at least have a chance of hitting scum. (assuming there's 4 mafia, obviously that's a 4/18 chance).

I would assume 4 mafia + a serial killer, myself.

[Xylthixlm]

All this productive discussion is good, but we need more votes on OGML to go with it.

[Xylthixlm]

Erhm, exactly my point. If we choose to lynch someone randomly, with the odds of 3-4/18 being mafia, there's a pretty good chance that we'll lynch one of

our own people

. If we skip the first round and only lose one of

the town

instead of two, then we can keep

the town

living longer.

All I'm saying is that we shouldn't vote or lynch randomly. It'll most likely effect

the town.

Someone is trying too hard to appear protown.

Unvote, Vote liamcool

[Xylthixlm]

No, I'm the one that said that, not liam.

Oops! Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

Unvote, Vote egruntz

We now return you to your regularly scheduled pointless argument.

[Xylthixlm]

egruntz is trying very hard to be helpful to the town.

[Xylthixlm]

egruntz is trying very hard to be helpful to the town.

Sometimes a player that appears to be trying too hard to help the town, actually

is

trying to help the town. I get the feeling this is the case with Egruntz. There has been much make of his seeming "newness", yet he tells us he has played before. Mafia playing up newbie tells to gain a bit of FoI is ploy that has been used before.

Currently my highest suspicions are Disciple Slayer and Egruntz.

So in summary: You think egruntz really is trying to help the town, but you also think he might be mafia.

[Xylthixlm]

Fixed:

Sometimes when two players take opposing veiws other players assume that one MUST be a mafia and one MUST be innocent.

You forgot the possibility they might both be mafia and appear to have differing opinions in order to distance themselves from each other.

Unvote

Vote: Disciple Slayer

the Village Idiot

I refer you to his generally unhelpful posts in this thread and this game (http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6636) where he manages to also be a retard. Also he seems to be lynched a lot on Day One so let's not break the trend!

This is jumping out at me. The way a player plays in one game doesn't neccesarily reflect the way they play in another. Someone who is very aggressive in one game might take a backseat in another. I would throw a vote on, but DS is admittedly playing fairly stupidly for now, just randomly throwing votes on people for the sake of "bandwagoning". This might be as a result of the Chrissie holidays but it is still just plain annoying when you're trying to get a hold on who is mafia.

FOS: Mills

FOS: DS

[Xylthixlm]

Bandwagoning is a null tell until we know some alignments.

[Xylthixlm]

By the way, where did the other votes on egruntz go?

[Xylthixlm]

DS and Mills, stop fighting each other and vote egruntz.

[Xylthixlm]

We have a fixed deadline and I really don't want to rush a lynch in the last week before it hits.

[Xylthixlm]

Oh, and I'm also really curious to see if DS and/or Mills will do what I tell them.

[Xylthixlm]

We have a fixed deadline and I really don't want to rush a lynch in the last week before it hits.

And it's better to rush a lynch now?

No, and I think you're smart enough to know that's not what I'm pressing for.

[Xylthixlm]

But I could be wrong.

[Xylthixlm]

Games in the New York forum can have a few unusual roles mixed in. Lyncher is extremely unlikely though (it's not fair in a game where people won't expect it).

I was operating under the assumption that we only had the basic newbie roles from the wiki. Is this incorrect because I will need to look at players in a whole different light.

Why would you need to look at players in a whole different light?

[Xylthixlm]

... and how exactly will we get useful information without a bandwagon?

[Xylthixlm]

Some people are posting but not giving any opinions.

Dark Ermac, Sangy: who do you think is scummiest so far? who do you think is least scummiest?

[Xylthixlm]

I did a quick reread, and I'm not happy with how Bookitty jumped on egruntz for mentioning the term "No Lynch". egruntz wasn't really pushing for one, he just mentioned it. It seems like the sort of thing scum would do on day one: push for a mislynch on someone for nothing at all, really. So therefore,

UNVOTE

VOTE: BOOKITTY

I think you mistyped "Yet more bandwagoning".

unvote; vote Disciple Slayer

[Xylthixlm]

egruntz, do you think we should ever lynch without certain information that someone is mafia? If so, when? If not, how do you expect to win?

[Xylthixlm]

Chances of town winning in an 18 player game with 3 mafia and no power roles, assuming all lynches are totally random: 20%

Chances of town winning in an 18 player game with 3 mafia and no power roles, assuming nobody is lynched: 0%

[Xylthixlm]

Sufficiently bad idiots can be antitown without being scum.

[Xylthixlm]

The current discussion is going in circles, I hope all the lurkers are going to post in the next day or two. Now, my impressions.

egruntz: Raising nolynch day 1 is a newbie tell. Deliberately giving off newbie tells when you aren't a newbie is a scum tactic. Getting all defensive about it is just weird.

Disciple Slayer: Shouldn't be in 8 games if he's not going to actively participate in all of them. Lurking is a scum tactic, and I accept no excuses for it.

Mills: Seems townish. I don't see the case against it, really. (And Mills? You need an avatar and gender icon, please, or I'll keep calling you "it".)

Snaps_the_Pirate: More thinking, less typing, please. I can't find your actual ideas, especially when they change halfway through the post.

The Fonz: Seems to know what he's doing. Amount of contribution is positive for the game. Vote is in the wrong place though.

Bookitty: Same as The Fonz.

I will be happy voting either egruntz or Disciple Slayer; I'm on DS now because he has the bigger bandwagon.

[Xylthixlm]

This puzzled me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job at expressing my thoughts.

You are using six times too many words.

[Xylthixlm]

And in any case, in my mind an antitown player is one whose survival makes a town win less likely. So I'd argue with 'we're not out to lynch antitown players.'

I endorse this product and/or service.

[Xylthixlm]

Panzerjager, you haven't left an impression yet.

[Xylthixlm]

Phate, only if they contain useful content rather than saying the same thing three times.

[Xylthixlm]

Post 81.

Being day one, everyone seems normaly suspicious, except Disciple Slayer who I am very highly suspicious of, and Egruntz who has only a wee bit more suspicion because he MAY be playing up newbie tells, but I am not convinced he is. Basicly what I was trying to say is that I feel he really is tring to help the town, but his actions bear watching. What I should have said in the above post is:

My highest suspicion is Disciple Slayer, and I will be keeping a close eye on Egruntz to see is he continues to play the clueless newbie

[Xylthixlm]

I'd like to hear more out of you that just one liners

Pretend I wrote a 20-line post and then summarized it for you.

Lets leave the stupid people alone and go after the scummy people, shall we?

I said what I have to say about the scummy people. Should I repeat it?

[Xylthixlm]

Sufficiently bad idiots can be antitown without being scum.

I have a request for more wordiness about this, so I'll justify it in more detail. I didn't do so at the time because the argument it was part of was nothing but a distraction; what's the point of posting a detailed analysis of something irrelevant? So I threw in my conclusion, and went back to looking for scum.

Feel free to skip the rest of this post if you aren't OGML.

First, definitions. I define "scum" as anyone whose win condition is mutally exclusive with the town's, including mafia, serial killers, and more obscure groups like werewolves or cults. I define "antitown" as anyone who will raise the town's chances of winning if they are lynched, regardless of win condition.

Someone who is a danger only because they could get themselves lynched is not antitown. In that case, all the town loses is a day's lynch; and the town would lose that anyways by lynching them, so doing so does not raise the town's chances of winning. Normal idiots fall in this category.

However, a

sufficiently

bad player - in the sense of bad for the town - can first lead to a mislynch of a townie, and then lead to a mislynch of himself. The classic example of this is someone who randomly lies and counterclaims a protown power role. In this case you're worse off than if you just lynched the idiot in the first place. No, this doesn't come up often, but it has happened.

Another case which comes up in some bastard modded games, but is not relevant here, is the townie who has a power which helps the scum. The consiglieri is an example of this.

In conclusion, it

is

possible to be antitown without being scum. The bar is rather high, but it's not impossible. I have no evidence that anyone in this game is that bad. I'd much rather lynch a scummy player than an insufficiently bad idiot who wasn't scummy. On the other hand, in the case of a tie, it's probably better to leave alive the person most likely to be helpful in the future.

[Xylthixlm]

Mills, that isn't what you said in post 192.

[Xylthixlm]

I'm sure Disciple Slayer will show up to defend himself, he posted in another game earlier today.

[Xylthixlm]

We're almost halfway to deadline, a bit over 2 weeks left. Hopefully we'll get a flurry of replacements, this pace is worrying me.

Disciple Slayer is scummy

and

his lack of activity is hurting the town. I hope that he will start being more active. If he doesn't, I think lynching him has a better than average chance of catching scum. I'm happy with my vote.

The being annoying, lurky, and offensive thing is just who he is.

I'd rather not metagame someone who I haven't played with before. Even if your metagame is correct, I don't see anyone else with a higher chance of being scum; and in the case of a tie I'd rather lynch the annoying, lurky, and offensive player. It's harder to tell if they're scum, they don't help the town as much, and if they're town they're more likely to be mislynched later.

[Xylthixlm]

Disciple Slayer is most likely to be scum.
Disciple Slayer is more likely than not to be town.
These two statements are not mutually exclusive. You should be basing your vote on the first, not the second.

[Xylthixlm]

Happy scumday Panzerjager.

curiouskarmadog's post 181 is making me suspicious. Instead of providing a justification for his vote, he attacks Mills for pointing it out. He is afraid people will think he's scummy. If the reason is scummy, not admitting it is even scummier.

FoS: curiouskarmadog

[Xylthixlm]

Dark Ermac, what do you think the chance of Disciple Slayer being scum is?

In a game this size I expect about 25% of the players to be scum. That means that if you lynch a totally random player, your chance of lynching scum is about 25%.

Any

player with a higher chance of being scum is a better lynch than that - even if you have a 2 in 3 chance of being wrong.

[Xylthixlm]

Not exactly. I think his actions are suspicious, but I think scum would need to be awfully stupid to go so obviously against the grain. Really, I want opinions on that- I hate to play the 'newbie' card, but I haven't really seen enough games either way to know how valid that opinion is. It makes logical sense to me, but in the world of Mafia, it might not necessarily be the case, if that makes sense.

The end result of this logic is that you allow the scum to get away with very scummy things because they would be "awfully stupid" to do them. It's best to go after the people with the highest frequency of scumtells first. We don't have much information yet, so even minor tells can raise a person greatly in that order.

In general I consider 3 kinds of tells:
Tells caused by the difference in objective between town (searching) and scum (hiding); for example, lurking or only making uncontroversial contributions
Tells caused by the scum knowing who is scum and who is town; for example, jumping on the townie out of two bandwagons
Tells caused by the scum deliberately trying to manipulate the town; for example, arguing for a bad move like nolynch

None of these are necessarily conscious. Given two possible actions, scum will have more of a tendency to one because they're scum. Any act that hurts the town is scummy, even if the person who did it had a good reason.

[Xylthixlm]

My scumlist in order:
Disciple Slayer
curiouskarmadog, for voting Mills for a scummy reason then not saying what it is
Dark Ermac, for suggesting random voting then arguing against voting the scummiest people
egruntz, for advocating nolynch and general strange play

[Xylthixlm]

Why Disciple Slayer?

Bandwagoning, bandwagoning, promising to give a reason then not giving one, voting Bookitty for an untrue reason.

[Xylthixlm]

The

most charitable interpretation

of Disciple Slayer's actions is that he's town but doesn't care about the game and just wants to get someone lynched.

[Xylthixlm]

Here's where you lose me. Since scum will never actually be able to convince towns to no-lynch D1, there is no possible advantage to scum in advocating it, plus it gets you attacked and draws attention to yourself. About the only reason scum might do this is because towns know this, and they want to wifom themselves into looking town.

If doing action X is better for scum than for town, then perfect scum will suggest action X more often than townies will, with the difference (the tell) depending on the expected benefit. Real scum tend to do such things even more than perfect scum do.

[Xylthixlm]

If scum never do it, then it is not a tell. If it's not a tell, there is no penalty for doing it. If there is a benefit and no penalty, then scum will do it.

[Xylthixlm]

The benefit of pushing nolynch is extremely small, so the associated tell is also extremely small... with optimal play. Real scum don't play optimally.

[Xylthixlm]

No. It's not small. It's nonexistent. Pushing nolynch actually has a negative average payoff for scum.

Do you think that town players act irrationally by considering scummy something that scum don't actually do, or do you think that scum players act irrationally by doing something with a negative average payoff?

[Xylthixlm]

Oh, and as long as people are here arguing about this, how about answering Mills's last post too.

[Xylthixlm]

xD. Meant:

We should not be lynching antitown players. We should be lynching proscum players.

You are not using those words in the way I use those words.

[Xylthixlm]

What do you think of the inconsistencies in Mills' reactions that I pointed out earlier?

I don't see them.

[Xylthixlm]

You don't find it odd that Mills attacked Dark Ermac pretty strongly on a semantics issue, and then defended him on a much more telling one?

Hmmm.

Both are sematics issues. Scum are less likely change their minds than townies. Mills's behavior says nothing until we get more info.

[Xylthixlm]

I'll put that logic on hold for now.

[Xylthixlm]

I did a reread of the last few pages, with notes.

My read of Mills went from protown to undecided in the last 3 pages. His appeals to emotion and personal attacks aren't helpful.

Mills's unvote was unnecessary. Disciple Slayer was only at 5 by my count. It's better to keep the pressure.

Eteocles, you'd better read the whole game. Disciple Slayer dug you a very big hole.

hasdgfas, were you voting Disciple Slayer because he's an idiot or because he was scummy? If the first, why? If the second, why unvote?

Phate, I can't figure out what post 307 is referencing. Maybe you meant Mills's unvote but you responded to that in post 300. Explain.

Bookitty claims she didn't think egruntz was scum when she voted him, but at the time she called has actions "scummy". Not a contradiction, but it makes me suspicious. She later threatened to vote Mills or Disciple Slayer for reasons unrelated to scumminess in post 136.

I still don't understand the reason for Bookitty's attack on Mills in post 260. There's a lot of words, but it comes down to "Something isn't adding up here." The defensive overreaction only came after Bookitty's attack.

[Xylthixlm]

Whether you think it's a major issue depends on how you interpret Dark Ermac's post. "Semantics issues" are like that.

[Xylthixlm]

Mills's defense of Dark Ermac was "I was able to convince myself that it only sounds that way". Definitely a semantics issue.

[Xylthixlm]

I see one issue which Mills thought was important but you think is just a misinterpretation, and one issue which you think is important but Mills thought was just a misinterpretation. Why is Mills more inconsistent than you?

[Xylthixlm]

No, I see your point now. Thanks.

[Xylthixlm]

Mod: What time zone is the deadline?

[Xylthixlm]

Since posting has slowed down, and in the interest of moving towards consensus, could everyone please check in. If you are voting for DS, who else would you be willing to lynch (as say, a second or third preference). If you are not voting for DS, who would you want to see lynched? If you are DS, could you please post something.

This needs more answers.

[Xylthixlm]

We're 4 days from deadline. Our two lynch candidates have both been replaced. Antithesis hasn't had time to catch up, Eteocles has had 8 days. I hope Antithesis contributes before deadline. Even if he doesn't, I'd rather lynch Eteocles.

Everyone needs to read the game and post before we hit deadline. Continued stalling only helps the scum.

[Xylthixlm]

I don't like the eteocles wagon. It feels contrived, and I think there's a good possibility it's scum-driven. I really didn't find DS that scummy, just stupid. The Mills wagon is much better.

How do you explain Eteocles's lack of posting?

[Xylthixlm]

confirm vote: Eteocles

FOS: Bluehost

[Xylthixlm]

3 days to deadline. Nobody has enough votes for a deadline lynch. I will consider anyone not voting at deadline to be voting "no lynch".

[Xylthixlm]

Panzerjager has now gone from FOSing everyone on DS to calling DS 5th scummiest and back.

I also notice she didn't mention the possibility of a serial killer, despite bringing it up earlier.

Something isn't adding up here.

FOS: Panzerjager

.

[Xylthixlm]

Honestly I was just trying to include everyone in that post, and finding someone 5th scummiest is not really that bad.

In other words, you just wanted to distance from Disciple Slayer, and didn't actually think he was scummy.

[Xylthixlm]

I know the argument against Panzer is weak. Still, I've got my eye on her.

A bit under 52 hours to deadline.

I'd put DS/Eteo at about 40% lurker scum, 60% absolutely useless townie. That makes him a better choice than any other candidate, and much better than no lynch.

[Xylthixlm]

Rishi, Dark Ermac, sangy, liamcool, Mills:

Do you think that it would be better to lynch today as opposed to not lynch?

Is there any specific player who you think would be a better lynch for today than no lynch at all?

Why are you not voting anyone?

[Xylthixlm]

So you don't want to no lynch, but you don't want to lynch Eteocles, and you don't want to lynch anyone else either. What

do

you want?

[Xylthixlm]

Mills is gone.

I cut and pasted from the votecount, so I blame any errors in the list on our mod.

- oops. fixed.

[Xylthixlm]

I have consistently stated my belief that Disciple Slayer was scum. His actions make zero sense if he was a townie.

He was in so many games that it's possible he didn't remember if he was scum in this one or not. That also might explain his lack of attention to the game. It doesn't explain why his replacement disappeared too, though.

[Xylthixlm]

Dark Ermac: In other words, you're afraid to tell us who you think is scummy, because doing so might make you look scummy. That's pretty scummy in itself.

[Xylthixlm]

I plan to take a hard look at Dark Ermac, egruntz, and Panzerjager tomorrow.

[Xylthixlm]

I was trying to eliminate the other scum group from day 1, and it got me nightkilled.