Newbie 533: MafiaTV - Episode 1 - Finally Over!

[Thorbjorn]

I just want to note, I think it's worth writing off the "distancing" claim against me. JDodge and Tarhalindur both voted each other near the beginning of the game. So if I'm guilty of distancing, he's just as guilty. And I've already explained my reasoning for the premature lynch of TGC.

JohnCataldo, it's your call now.

The only true words in his entire post.

[JohnCataldo]

I'm here! I've been vacationing in New Zealand, and occasionally checking into things but there wasn't much to check into.

As I've apparently been 'awarded' with the game winning/losing vote, I'm going to do some re-reading.

If either of you want to point out ways in your play has been consistent with your cop-ness & investigations (or the other player's NOT being consistent), that's what I can think of that may help me decide.

Thorbjorn claiming first

is

a sign in his favor, but hardly conclusive. (If Thorbjorn was scum, he'd be randomly picking Tarhalindur as the cop to name as scum, and Thorbjorn would just lose if it turned out I was the cop. Of course, there are tells for copness.)

[Thorbjorn]

I remember reading on the wiki once that it is a newbie cop tell if you push to get more evidence before making any votes. For what it's worth, which isn't much IMO. But I did kind of laugh about that when that was the reason that I got accused of distancing from JDodge since I IGMEOY'd him instead of voting.

I have been looking through Tarhalindur's posts and this is what I found:

Day 1

Post 7: Slightly less than random vote.
Post 22: Switches vote to JDodge.
Post 32: Further Explanation of vote in Post 22.

Day 2

Post 48: Implicates me in scum pair. Implicates small suspicions on everyone else. Tell me, if you're a cop, who did you investigate night 1? I suppose you could always claim you were roleblocked. If you do though, I'll be two for two on predicting your actions
Post 51: Expresses feeling JC is town, asks for a prod on SoftIce.
Post 55: Votes me, no explaination.
Post 76: Provides the evidence to his vote. Note that this is after most suspicion has switched frm me to TGC.
NOTE: in this gap, TGC showed back up.
Post 86: Tarhalindur puts a HoS on TGC and threatens to vote if he doesn't claim.
Post 90: More TGC threat and request for prod.
Post 96: Mod Prod
Post 108: contentless
Post 111: Mod Prod
Note: I hammer TGC
Note: Mr. Flay graciously aids in making our lives work again.

D3

Post 123: Counter-claim.


Okay, basically to sum it all up Day one he does literally nothing but vote JDodge and provide a little bit of explaination.
Day two, he votes me until the tides turn on me and ride the TGC wave with lots of threats but no real action.

JC, you yourself said that it would be suitable to set some sort of a deadline beyond which TGC would be lynched. A good month later when our mod had given up on us, I went through with it. Tarhalindur's only claim to townhood is "leading" an assault on JDodge, though in truth all he did was vote, explain his vote, and dissapear until he was dead. He has done very little to benefit the town, and it could easily be said it would benefit him as scum as well.

JohnCataldo. If you desire, I will also go through my posts to try and determine the townaciousness of them. Though, when I have more time. Maybe later tonight or tomorrow.

[JohnCataldo]

I vote at the end of this. So if you just want to see who won (Tarhalindur and Thorbjorn), you could skip to the end.

I was initially going to quote some things and question some things. However, I finished a reread of the entire game with a focus on Thorbjorn and Tarhalindur, and I'm convinced enough that I doubt anything either of them would say would sway me (having seen Thorbjorn's new latest response since my last post).

Second order of business: JohnCataldo touched on this one already, but let me reiterate - Cop, if you have a guilty, CLAIM. A Guilty today wins the game for the town.

This is said really strongly for someone who is the cop.

Of course no one seems more genuine to me than JohnCataldo. His tactics are elegantly based on where we can go to give the town the best advantage, and not on what keeps townies, like himself, alive. Tell me, John, in my position, what would you have done? Would you stand behind the lynch?

This (and similar posts around then) implies a trust of me at the time that supports his claimed cop result. Furthermore, the strength with which he said it is consistent with knowing he was cop. If he (as cop) had died Night 2, a re-read would

probably

convince people that Thorbjorn had an innocent result on me, which may have been the point of his saying it the way he did.

as for the IGMEOY, I wish I had just voted. And I'll probably lead hard on voting in the next game I'm in. But this is my first game and I was trying t be cautious

Thorbjorn

was

a bit waffly and cautious early on (my analysis, not just his words). This is a cop-tell: Newbie Cops may tend to avoid voting early until they have 'hard evidence' (compared to most players, who will never have it). (I see now Thorbjorn pointed this out himself.)


Further posts lead me to believe Thorbjorn's play was quite consistent with his claims.

That said, Tarhalindur has NOT played poorly this game, or in a way that strongly contradicts his claims or posts. But his claims just require more `bad luck` for him. Both his claimed night's of investigations were useless (he investigated Major, who died that same night, and then happened to be roleblocked). This would be consistent with Tarhalindur's actions. But it's also consistent with scum play, and also requires multiple `coincidences` that negate the night investigations. Essentially, Tarhalindur's claim has a low probability of actually being What Happened -- not because of Tarhalindur's posts, but just because of statistical odds.

Additionally, even if I assume that Thorbjorn is scum and decided he had at best a 50% of pointing at the cop and went gung ho in that direction (and if Thorbjorn IS the scum, then bravo, I think you chose the right strategy, especially since it's convinced me). So that would be about a 50% chance that Thorbjorn was just throwing the game away.

As far as posting goes, I can find numerous minor/medium indictments of both Thorbjorn and Tarhalindur, and I'm frankly not great at figuring all of those out. (i.e. Posting on day 1 was enough to make me quite suspiscious of Thorbjorn and trusting of Tarhalindur!) Sadly, there wasn't much from TGC or Yvonne to really decide me either way (now that they are both confirmed townies).

In the end, it's mostly Tarhalindur's claim that's deciding me: It fits too neatly as scum trying to claim right now, and is a bit 'against the odds'. If Tarhalindur just got unlucky as the town cop, then I gotta say the entire town has got unlucky too.

Also, I'm still in NZ with somewhat infrequent internet access, and this game has gone on long enough! I'm convinced

enough

to finish this.

vote: Tarhalindur

[Thorbjorn]

WOOOOO! GO TOWN!

Awesome. I had a wonderful time playing with you JC. Tar, it was a pretty good attempt. Really you played well, and had things played out any differently you guys might have won. The whole just offing JDodge thing right away was an interesting play that left me confused. Really if I had been smart, I would have investigated you night one like I was originally thinking. So, good game everyone.

[Thorbjorn]

Oh, and as soon as Mr. Flay chimes in with the endgame results, I'd love to hear from Tar about the reason for his night choice last night. I mean, I understand I wasn't really target number one for being a cop, but it was a pretty big coincidence that you killed one person, role blocked the other, and left me out all together.

[JohnCataldo]

Good game, guys. I had fun, if at a slow pace.

Much thanks to everyone for playing / moderating, and especially to Mr. Flay for carrying the game onwards towards the horizon.

As my first (and still only) ever game on mafiascum, I had fun, though it was even slower than I expected it might be (having read a few other games and realizing that they sometimes got quite slow). And I contributed by being away, but it didn't seem like it mattered a whole lot at the time. In some ways it seems like the success of mafiascum.net (which brings in lots of players) may sometimes hurt it (since many of those players drop out or stop playing for long periods, etc.), so in some ways smaller sites with smaller populations are more `dedicated` to the community and playing. But once I'm back in the swing of things (out of my vacation) I'll likely join another game (or two!)

[JohnCataldo]

And FWIW, I really did think Tarhalindur played quite well throughout the game. *Possibly* he could have fingered Thorbjorn as cop, but prior to Night 2, Thorbjorn was the most suspicious player still alive (so I could see wanting to leave him alive, at the least).

[Thorbjorn]

I've been trying to figure out how to improve my play. For one, I've decided not to be afraid to throw my vote around a little. It can always be retracted and it can be put to good use every now and then. Also, I wish I had let TGC claim... well.... TGC's replacement anyway. Was my D3 play alright? I had it planned out for a couple weeks to do it this way, and I figured it was my best option in my position.

[Mr. Flay]

Final Vote Count of the Game:

Tarhalindur - 2 (Thorbjorn, JohnCataldo)

Thorbjorn - 1 (Tarhalindur)

Tarhalindur's death finally puts an end to the tension and suffering of your small town, for he was the last threat present.

Tarhalindur,

Mafia Roleblocker

, was lynched Day Three.

Town wins!

Thanks for holding on to the bitter end, guys. JohnC's decision-making strategy was pretty good there, especially wanting to get input from both sides. I can't fault tar though, he did the best with what he had to work with...


The pace of this game was

glacially slow

, but not at all what I would call typical. Part of that was Iammars getting overwhelmed and not always prodding when he should have, but a lot of that falls on the players. I always expect my players to post a total of

at least

as many posts in a 24-hour period as there are players alive (hence the green line), and you guys just were not doing a good job. Nevertheless, Town pulled out a win, probably helped by JDodge dying D1.

[Thorbjorn]

Thank you so much Mr. Flay for your help in our game. I was pretty dismayed with the rate of play too. But I'm glad we managed to pull it together in the end.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Last Post.