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[Voltgloss]

Welcome to Mafia VII: The Annual Nose-Stealing Competition!

If you would like a link to the spectator discussion QuickTopic, please send me a PM.  Thanks.

The Game Is Over - Mafia Wins!
Players Signed Up:
1 - Robz888 (DEAD; killed Night 1 - Town Jailkeeper)
2 - Eevee (endgamed - Town Vanilla)
3 - Galzria (DEAD; lynched Day 2 - Town Vanilla)
4 - Young Nick (WINNER - Mafia Goon)
5 - manda2014 (DEAD; lynched Day 3 - Town Vanilla)
6 - timchen (DEAD; killed Night 2 - Town Vanilla)
7 - Captain_Frisk (DEAD; lynched Day 1 - Town Vanilla)
8 - shark_bait (endgamed - Town Vanilla)
9 - pingpongsam (WINNER - Mafia Rolecop)

Mafia Ruleset

Game Rules:

General Gameplay and Etiquette:
1. You may not quote private Moderator-supplied information (either real or fabricated) of any kind.  Paraphrasing (for role claims, etc.) is acceptable.
2. There is to be NO personal communication outside of the forum postings unless your role PM specifically allows it.  Mafia members may communicate at night and during the confirmation stage.
3. If you have a role with a Night action your choices are due to me by the posted deadline (generally 48 hours from Night start).  If I do not receive your choice via PM by the posted deadline you will forfeit your actions.  In case of multiple submissions, the last valid one before the deadline will be used.
4. Roles with Night actions will not be able to submit an action on Night 0 (i.e. during the confirmation stage).
5. Any player with a Night action may instead submit a “No Action” PM to let the Mod know that you do not want to perform your expected action that Night phase.
6. As a general rule you should aim for one post every 48 hours, minimum, to keep the game moving.

Voting, Deadlines, and Player Death:
1. A simple majority (rounded up) of all living members must agree on one person for a lynch to occur prior to deadline.
2. Once you have reached a simple majority no further unvoting will change someone’s fate.  Further votes will also be ignored.
3. Once a player is lynched the game enters twilight until I post a death scene; all players including the one who was lynched may continue to post during twilight.
4. Please submit votes as: Vote: PlayerName.  Votes will NOT be counted if they are not bold or do not follow this syntax!  Obvious abbreviations or nicknames will be counted so long as they are unambiguous.
5. Please submit vote revocations as either Unvote: PlayerName or Unvote. Unvotes are not necessary before changing votes.
6. You may Vote: No Lynch - a simple majority of these vote types are required to send the game to Night phase without a lynch.
7. This game will generally have 2 week deadlines.  If a player or No Lynch does not have a simple majority at deadline, no lynch will occur, and the game will go into night.
8. Once you are killed (either via lynch or night kill) you may no longer post. This means that you do not even get a “Bah” post. The dead in this game are silent.
9. Do not edit or delete posts.  We don't want some players having more information than others.  If you want to clarify posts, feel free to double post.

Miscellaneous/Mechanics:
1. Bold, blue text is reserved for the Mod.  No invisible/small text is allowed, nor is cryptography.
2. If you have an issue/problem with the game, please PM the Mod privately.  Do not post issues/complaints in the game thread.
3. The Mod may make mistakes - please point out any mistakes gently.  Mistakes will be corrected where possible, but sometimes mistakes are made that cannot be reversed.  These will stand as final to be commiserated over after the game.
4. Please bold all requests to the Mod so that they don’t get missed.
5. Prods of missing players will be issued automatically after 72 hours of no activity or upon request after 48 hours of no activity.  A prodded player has 48 hours to respond or risks replacement.  A player who has been prodded 3 times is subject to replacement without further notice.
6. Rule violations will be dealt with according to their severity, up to and including a Modkill.
7. If you anticipate being unavailable for more than a 48-hour period please post a notice to that effect in the thread.  Treat this game as a commitment.  Be considerate – don’t leave us hanging.

The Golden Rule:

Please remember that this is a game and your main objective is to have fun! Be considerate of each other, don’t get personal, and enjoy the game.

Helpful Links:

• Main Wiki Page
  
  
• Newbie Guide
  
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
  
  
• Commonly Used Abbreviations
  
  
• Mafia Theory

Game Setup
Game Setup information:

The setup used for this newbie game is one of the ones given below. The setup is randomly determined, but is one of the 6 given here:

1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 5 Vanilla Townies, Sane Cop, Doctor.
1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 5 Vanilla Townies, Sane Cop, Jailkeeper.
1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 5 Vanilla Townies, Doctor, Jailkeeper.
1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 6 Vanilla Townies, Sane Cop.
1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 6 Vanilla Townies, Jailkeeper.
1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Rolecop, 6 Vanilla Townies, Doctor.

There will always be two mafia players and seven town players.

Here are all the role PMs that can be in the game:

-----------------------------------------

Mafia Goon
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Mafia, a Mafia Goon.

Your partner is __________, a Mafia Rolecop.

You may speak with your partner during the pre-game and night phases at this QuickTopic link: [QuickTopic link].
(Any other communication outside of the thread with any other players is prohibited.)

Each night, you or your partner may send me the name of a player you would like to kill.

You win if the Mafia comprise at least half the town, or if nothing can prevent the same from happening.

-----------------------------------------

Mafia Rolecop
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Mafia, a Mafia Rolecop.

Your partner is __________, a Mafia Goon.

You may speak with your partner during the pre-game and night phases at this QuickTopic link: [QuickTopic link].
(Any other communication outside of the thread with any other players is prohibited.)

Each night, you or your partner may send me the name of a player you would like to kill.

Each night, you may also send me the name of a fellow player. You will be told their role name.

You win if the Mafia comprise at least half the town, or if nothing can prevent the same from happening.

-----------------------------------------

Town Doctor
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Townie, a Town Doctor.

Each night, you may send me the name of a fellow player. You will protect that player from death.
You may not target yourself.

You win when all of the Mafia are dead.

-----------------------------------------

Town Cop
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Townie, a Town Cop.

Each night, you may send me the name of a fellow player. You will be informed if that player is town or mafia.

You win when all of the Mafia are dead.

-----------------------------------------

Town Jailkeeper
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Townie, a Town Jailkeeper.

Each night, you may send me the name of a fellow player. That player will be protected from death, and will perform no night actions. 
You may not target yourself.

You win when all of the Mafia are dead.

-----------------------------------------

Town Vanilla
Welcome to Mafia VII!

You are a Townie, a Vanilla Townie.

Your weapon is your vote.  You have no night actions.

You win when all of the Mafia are dead.

-----------------------------------------

TO CLARIFY, I AM NOT A MODERATOR OF F.DS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM.  IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS GAME, I AM MODERATING THAT THE RULES ARE FOLLOWED AND HIDDEN ACTIONS ARE COMPLETED PROPERLY.

[Voltgloss]

Role PMs will be sent shortly.  Please confirm in-thread that you have received your Role PM.

The game will begin later this afternoon/evening (forum time) after at least 8 players have confirmed in-thread.

EDIT:  All Role PMs have been sent.

[Galzria]

Confirmed

[Young Nick]

Confirm

[manda2014]

Confirmed

[Captain_Frisk]

/Confirm

Galz is not a noob.

[Galzria]

/Confirm

Galz is not a noob.

Yes I am! Shh!

[timchen]

Confirmed.

[Robz888]

Confirm.ed.

[eHalcyon]

So this is the newbie game, right?  I hope all the newbies are unlynchable bulletproof.

[Young Nick]

Peeps needa check in. I want to get started!

[pingpongsam]

Confirmed

[shark_bait]

Confirmed

[Voltgloss]

That makes 8 confirmed, so let's get this started up!

------------

Autumn.  A time of Harvest, celebration, and good will amongst all.

Which makes it all the more aggravating for the Mafia to have picked autumn to sneak into your sleepy little Hamlet. 

It was the local Fortune Teller who predicted their arrival first.  Telling the Tournament champion's future, she turned over the Death card, the Mafia card, and the Nine of Noses.  All the more puzzling as her standard pack didn't even have a Death card.

And then your noses all turned up stolen.  Someone suggested lynching the local Jester, because that's always a great idea.  But when they went to his hovel, they found him sprawled on the floor, a sharpened Horn of Plenty having been used to ignominious - and fatal - effect.

The Mafia are amongst you.  They have your noses.  Will you get your noses back?  Or die, noseless and forlorn?  Only time will tell.

Day 1 Start!

Not Voting {9}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, Young Nick, manda2014, timchen, Captain_Frisk, shark_bait, pingpongsam

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[Young Nick]

Uh, I'd say this nose theme...it's...it's interesting?

[timchen]

Let's start talking!

frisk, how do you manage to write so many lengthy posts while being SK yourself in MIV? That is something quite remarkable! Also, I still don't understand why you shoot axxle n3.

[Young Nick]

So many noses. First order of business:
Who's Jewish?

(please don't hate me for stereotyping)

[Voltgloss]

Uh, I'd say this nose theme...it's...it's interesting?

It's from the Cornucopia box flavor.

[Captain_Frisk]

@

frisk, how do you manage to write so many lengthy posts while being SK yourself in MIV? That is something quite remarkable! Also, I still don't understand why you shoot axxle n3.

Hey!  In front of a real keyboard now - so I can respond.

First your question: I speak english, and can touch type - so banging out long posts isn't so hard.  I also work in front of my computer most days, so i have good opportunities for big posts.

Second: Can't discuss M6, but playing Serial Killer was not substantially different (for me) than playing town.  I always wanted to scumhunt, and most of the time I wanted the mafia to die.

Third: Mafia IV discussion belongs in the Mafia IV Thread

Fourth: I really enjoyed how you opened this thread with a very subtle reminder to everyone how I was able to play scum so effectively.

Vote: timechen - because i believe in early voting - but this is the first time in any game that my first vote had anything resembling an argument behind it.

[timchen]

Ok, I'll follow my MIV question over there.

You know, the hard thing is not to compose a long post like that. I also have a few long posts when I was arguing with WW. The problem is, given the additional information you have, the willingness to spend the time writing things you know are just BS... that is, in all honesty, beyond me. I admit I didn't check back to see how many points you have made has assumed someone else as SK, but I think there is at least some.

Hmm, were you trying to shift the focus from the scum-playing effectiveness to language and computer abilities?

I'll follow suit.
Vote: Captain_Frisk

[Galzria]

Checking in, but out at dinner/watching baseball game at bar. Am lurking on mobile.

[Captain_Frisk]

OMGUS!

Responded to timchen over in M4 discussion.  Going to go watch movie with wife.

As for scum playing effectiveness - I still lost... I couldn't even convince them with a LEGIT serial killer cliam... uggh.

So I see 3 new players - Manda, Young Nick, and shark_bait.  How many of the other games have you followed?

[manda2014]

I started following Mafia right at the beginning of Mafia III, and I followed III and IV really closely. I went back and read a little of I and II, but I'll admit I didn't get all the way through either of them. I'm following Role Madness right now and super excited to finally be playing!

[Galzria]

I started following Mafia right at the beginning of Mafia III, and I followed III and IV really closely. I went back and read a little of I and II, but I'll admit I didn't get all the way through either of them. I'm following Role Madness right now and super excited to finally be playing!

I've seen Manda lurking ALL of the Mafia threads, quite often. (S?)He should be quite informed on how this show goes.

[manda2014]

I started following Mafia right at the beginning of Mafia III, and I followed III and IV really closely. I went back and read a little of I and II, but I'll admit I didn't get all the way through either of them. I'm following Role Madness right now and super excited to finally be playing!

I've seen Manda lurking ALL of the Mafia threads, quite often. (S?)He should be quite informed on how this show goes.

She

[Young Nick]

I lurked most of I and II. I briefly looked over the others, mostly at the final days and post-game commentary.

[Robz888]

I started following Mafia right at the beginning of Mafia III, and I followed III and IV really closely. I went back and read a little of I and II, but I'll admit I didn't get all the way through either of them. I'm following Role Madness right now and super excited to finally be playing!

I've seen Manda lurking ALL of the Mafia threads, quite often. (S?)He should be quite informed on how this show goes.

She

Ah, a confirmed female. Unlike Cayvie, who is an unconfirmed female.

Playing the original setup again should be interesting. The key thing here is for the power role people--whoever they are--to be on their toes. It's pretty self-explanatory, but the Cop wants to investigate the suspicious people. Like, if we lynch Galzria first round, and he flipped town, the Cop might consider investigating the person who most strongly pressed for Galzria's head, or the person who gave the death blow, or something. Or the Cop might conclude that the mafia wisely stayed off this town wagon to gain credibility, and then you would investigate someone who stayed away. The Cop wants to keep his/her identity a secret, but you have to weigh that at some point if you have info that helps us, it's wiser to say. That way a possible protective role knows to help you out, and you don't carry any secrets to your grave.

Doctor is very powerful, and a little easier. Protect the people who are vulnerable--the other power role, if he/she exists and you know who it is--but be smart about it. If you think the mafia thinks you're saving X, you don't actually need to save X. Remember that it's super important to keep your identity a secret. The only person you can't protect is yourself.

Jailkeeper should also protect the vulnerable, but if we are down to one remaining mafia, the Jailkeeper is even more effective as a person who can jail the mafia and stop the kill. In the first Forum Mafia game, I was the Jailkeeper. By process of elimination, I was pretty sure who the last mafia person was going into the final night. I jailed him, preventing his kill, and the next morning I knew exactly who the mafia was.

[Eevee]

Checking in here! On ipad still, so cutting this short: I dont like what timchen is doing, but not FOS'ing yet because even though I think its scummy, it might not be mafia because iirc he has been like that in every game.

And +1 to what robzie said, town power roles are HUGE in this setup. A thing to remember: we will likely have mafia claining them too.

Oh and I really like having a (confirmed) woman on board

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-1

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (1): timchen

Not Voting {7}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, Young Nick, manda2014, shark_bait, pingpongsam

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[pingpongsam]

It is certainly interesting to know what PRs exist up front. I think it makes analyses much more clear and gives some direction to decision making even if actual role holders remain unknown. It certainly appears to my relatively unexperienced eyes that Town has the starting advantage so we need to use this advantage to make an early ID on one of the scum. The question is how best to do this.

The obvious perfect D1 play is to have the Doctor protecting our Cop while the Jailkeeper protects a VT. Coordinating this play early while maintaining secret identities is the trick but as each day passes we will either randomly lose our PRs or the scum cops will ID them and take them out systematically. In this way JK begins as the most expendable PR. However, if we manage to knock down one of the scum the JK suddenly has the ability to ID the remaining scum member just by randomly selecting him to stop night action. Each day our Cop IDs one of us as Town the JK narrows his list of random picks.

So, in summary, Town has an advantage and played well can easily maintain it even if scum manage to hit a PR each night but coordination of the needed information will be paramount. With this information in play I'm not entirely sure a D1 lynch is such a great idea but I am entirely open to an opposing view. A D1 Town lynch seems to be sacrificing the advantage entirely too early while we seem to keep a significant night action advantage with 3 night actions to the scum team's 1. It would be a real travesty to accidentaly mislynch one of our PRs.

So, based on this early analysis I am
Vote: No Lynch

[Captain_Frisk]

Umm Sam.  We don't have all of the prs.  We have at most 2, and possibly only 1.  I'm on iPad, but no lynch is a terrible idea.

[pingpongsam]

Did I ever tell you the part about where I failed reading comprehension but aced essay writing?

Unvote

[Young Nick]

Also...we aren't going to mislynch a PR because worst case scenario is that they claim before they get hammered. Obviously an outed PR is worse than a closeted PR, but in general both are better than a dead PR. Or...

closet PR>outed PR>dead PR

[pingpongsam]

I place no faith in claimed PR's in the face of the noose.

[Eevee]

I place no faith in claimed PR's in the face of the noose.

It gives us a ton of information (basicly, either the guy is legit or scum. VT's never fakeclaim).

[manda2014]

Posting from iPhone and busy with family for the next several hours. I'll be reading but probably not posting anything terribly long until much later, but checking in now to say two things:

1) this has already been said, but I'll go ahead and reiterate: no-lynch seems to me like a really bad idea. With only a couple power roles, all no-lynch does is give the mafia a chance for a head start. And, as Young Nick already stated, if it becomes necessary, a power role can always claim. Not the best situation, but much better than killing them off.

2) I agree with Eevee that timchen's posts seem a bit off, but this early, that doesn't necessarily mean much. Early voting may be good to get conversation going, but I'm really wary of trusting initial reads.

Longer post coming this afternoon, I'm sure.

[pingpongsam]

I place no faith in claimed PR's in the face of the noose.

It gives us a ton of information (basicly, either the guy is legit or scum. VT's never fakeclaim).

Oh, I agree but I still place no faith in the claim at the time. Scum or Town will both claim to save their necks. The analysis after the fact is where the faith is properly placed.

[pingpongsam]

1) this has already been said, but I'll go ahead and reiterate: no-lynch seems to me like a really bad idea. With only a couple power roles, all no-lynch does is give the mafia a chance for a head start....

Strongly agree, my analysis and early vote were based on a flawed comprehension of the starting game state. A lynch is strongly desired with any of the possible starting game starts outlined in the Mod post.

[Eevee]

I place no faith in claimed PR's in the face of the noose.

It gives us a ton of information (basicly, either the guy is legit or scum. VT's never fakeclaim).

Oh, I agree but I still place no faith in the claim at the time. Scum or Town will both claim to save their necks. The analysis after the fact is where the faith is properly placed.

Well, placing no faith is certainly stupid. Town wont lie to save his/her neck, and we certainly arent lynching anyone who claims until we have investigated the situation some. Yes, that means last minute claims will always buy scum at least one day but nothing can really be done about that, lynching power roles is catastrophic for town. Its also pretty hard to make a believable PR claim (you often have said or done something earlier to make it not believable).

[pingpongsam]

I think maybe you are confusing "placing no faith" with "refusing to lynch". I find the 2 mutually exclusive.

[Young Nick]

Could you flesh out your thoughts a bit more, pingpongsam? You really won't not lynch the person who claims before there's a hammer?

So if you are going to hammer someone, their claiming will do nothing to prevent you?

[Robz888]

It is certainly interesting to know what PRs exist up front. I think it makes analyses much more clear and gives some direction to decision making even if actual role holders remain unknown. It certainly appears to my relatively unexperienced eyes that Town has the starting advantage so we need to use this advantage to make an early ID on one of the scum. The question is how best to do this.

The obvious perfect D1 play is to have the Doctor protecting our Cop while the Jailkeeper protects a VT. Coordinating this play early while maintaining secret identities is the trick but as each day passes we will either randomly lose our PRs or the scum cops will ID them and take them out systematically. In this way JK begins as the most expendable PR. However, if we manage to knock down one of the scum the JK suddenly has the ability to ID the remaining scum member just by randomly selecting him to stop night action. Each day our Cop IDs one of us as Town the JK narrows his list of random picks.

So, in summary, Town has an advantage and played well can easily maintain it even if scum manage to hit a PR each night but coordination of the needed information will be paramount. With this information in play I'm not entirely sure a D1 lynch is such a great idea but I am entirely open to an opposing view. A D1 Town lynch seems to be sacrificing the advantage entirely too early while we seem to keep a significant night action advantage with 3 night actions to the scum team's 1. It would be a real travesty to accidentaly mislynch one of our PRs.

So, based on this early analysis I am
Vote: No Lynch

As you've later realized, this doesn't work because we don't know which 2 of the following 4 roles we have: 1 Jailkeeper, 1 Cop, 1 Doctor, 1 extra townie.

If we knew that we had a Doctor and a Jailkeeper, the winning strategy is actually known: the Cop should reveal himself immediately, and the Doctor should stay quiet and protect him. But because we don't know this, everyone should remain quiet. And we probably should lynch, or at least try to lynch, in order to gather info for Night 1 and Day 2.

If I seriously doubt that the lynch target is scum, I will not kill for the sake of killing someone. But that's just how I play. Most people seem to prefer killing anybody over nobody on Day 1, and I can understand that.

[Robz888]

In the above paragraph, I actually made that confusing. The line that reads "If we knew that we had a Doctor and Jailkeeper" should read "If we knew that we had a Doctor and Cop"

[Young Nick]

Well, someone has to do some accusing so that someone else gets defensive so some actual talk comes of it. Until then, we all sit here, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

So I'll start things off, just to get people thinking.
I'm wary of the experienced players. Namely Robz, Galz, Frisk, and Eevee. More so than anyone else Robz because he has already had two "coaching" posts. I understand he's teaching us the ropes and such, but I want to make sure no one starts to blindly follow everything he says once we start getting into accusations.

I guess I'm saying I want everybody to form their own opinions and not just listen to the experienced players. If one or two of the aforementioned four are scum, they could "coach" us to their own victory.

So, I'll give a super-premature vote, my first ever in a Mafia game: Vote: Robz888

[Captain_Frisk]

That last time RobZ gave helpful advice - he actually was giving helpful advice.  Most of what he put up there is easily search able on the interwebs.  Basically - the recommended setup for noobs was Doctor + Cop vs. Mafia... until some bright people broke it.  With the random setup, the cop can't claim because he doesn't know he will be protected, and it keeps things interesting.

I much prefer the RobZ approach to helping newer players understand the game than say the popsofctown approach, in which he called the rest of his teammates idiots.

I'm going to throw a finger of suspicion your way - because hoping that everyone disregards accepted strategy is a pretty scummy wish.

[Galzria]

I haven't said a whole lot thusfar, so let me at least take the time to mention what I look for in scum:

They have very little incentive to lie. Unless they come under extreme pressure, they're likely to play very similar to town. Everybody is going to start getting vibes from everyone else and it's not difficult to tuck yourself away as scum. Hmm, perhaps I should be more clear:

As town, the 8 people around you are all equally as suspicious to start the game. When you accuse someone, there is... A natural amount of hedge, of, "I really don't know". It's often accused that hedging is a scumtell, but in reality they know for certain that their accusations can't miss (town). Because of this, there's a lack of natural incentive to hedge. So I like to look for people who's "I'm really not sure" comes across as disingenuous. It's a lot harder to force feelings that should just be natural.

That said (and moving back into the first paragraph), unless they are under pressure, scum won't lie very often. If/When they start to attack someone it's usually because that person has done something to appear scummy. I use Hedging as an example above for this reason. "You suspected X, and now you don't?" - "You voted for Y when it was "safe", then unvoted when he got extra votes? lolscumbuddies" - etc. They're arguments that are easy to make, but they aren't really scummy behaviors. As town, don't let yourself get drawn into making bad, or irrelevant, arguments - and be on the watch for Mafia doing so.

They may have the advantage in that they can't be wrong, but we can use that to our own benefit. Mafiahunt, don't scumhunt. I also like to look for where actions don't meet words. Someone who indicates a desire to act one way, then doing another.

...And, this post really lost it's flow. That's what happens when you write every other sentence after some sort of distraction. Oh well. I think the gist of what I'm saying comes through. Mafia have a huge advantage in how "not to apper scummy" over the town, so it's important to find Mafia trends and behavior, not scummy trends and behavior.

[Young Nick]

What I'm trying to say is that D1 is helpful advice, but D2 he might abuse the fact that we trust him. Clearly what he has said so far is helpful. But maybe it won't always be. Mind you, I'm mainly trying to stir up discussion. When, or should I say if, he gives a good defense showing how and why he won't do what I am afraid he'll do, I'll gladly unvote. Until then, vote stands.

[Galzria]

(The third paragraph above switched from referencing town, to referencing scum after "it's accused hedging is a scumtell...)

[Captain_Frisk]

Oh - @Young Nick - sorry if my tone is a little harsh.  RobZ is always scummy as heck - and I'm a big fan of early voting as a discussion starter.  I'm not a big fan of casual voting as lynches near.

[Young Nick]

@Galz (and kinda C_F), could you explain the difference between scum and Mafia?
Mafia means Mafia, I figure.
But scum just means someone who is lying or being otherwise deceitful?

[Robz888]

At the risk of doing more coaching, "scum" means "not aligned with the town." All mafia are scum, but not all scum are mafia. A Serial Killer is scum, for example.

"Scummy" behavior is a synonym for "suspicious" or "indicating that you are a mafia/SK affiliation".

[Galzria]

@Galz (and kinda C_F), could you explain the difference between scum and Mafia?
Mafia means Mafia, I figure.
But scum just means someone who is lying or being otherwise deceitful?

Scum, or scummy behavior, is basically like... Suspicious. People who make you raise your eyebrows and go "wait a second...". Hedging (showing uncertainty) is a very scummy behavior, but it's not necessarily a Mafia one (which was my point before). The Mafia actually have an easier time of not appearing suspicious because there is a natural level of confidence in their play. Thus their uncertainty is forcedand possible (if difficult) to pick up.

[Robz888]

Nick, I don't think I'll be able to mislead the newbies via coaching. Galzria, Frisk, and Eevee should be able to point out such behavior. And as for everybody else, I'm sure you're smart people. I'll just come off looking like Pops in MIV if I try to play referee. So those first two posts of mine were just pointing out info that I think was important, especially given PPS's confusion.

But I don't mind that you have voted for me, either.

[Young Nick]

Defended and thus backing up my claim.

Unvote

Again, I don't mind guidance, as long as you aren't accusing while "coaching."

[Galzria]

Where's Fuzzy (Eevee)?

[pingpongsam]

I find coaching a pretty pro-town thing to do because it minimizes confusion and because as a new player I can use it.

I personally find Robz coaching in this game to be the most town vibe I've received. Galzria's backup coaching is vibing good as well.

Young Nick's early vote feels kind of scummy but it certainly jives with new play and just trying to get things started so I'm letting it slide... for now.

Captain_Frisk's quick FoS for just getting the game off the ground, however... well, that feels the scummiest of all the plays so far so I point the Fos at C_F.

[manda2014]

Coaching, in and of itself, is very pro-town I think, given that this is a newbie game. What I think we really need to be careful of, though, is letting the more experienced players run the show. It's one thing to give advice/information on things such as what various terms mean or how the various available roles work, but it's not a long jump from trusting robz, galz, etc. on generic game advice to sub-consciously trusting their analysis and intuitions because of their experience. IF any of them are scum (and this is not an FOS), they know this and won't hesitate to use it to their advantage. That's not to say coaching is bad, obviously; the whole point of a newbie game is so less experienced players can learn to play in a game that's a little less intense than, say, Mafia IV.... just be careful not to let yourself trust everything someone with experience says.

[manda2014]

I place no faith in claimed PR's in the face of the noose.

It gives us a ton of information (basicly, either the guy is legit or scum. VT's never fakeclaim).

Oh, I agree but I still place no faith in the claim at the time. Scum or Town will both claim to save their necks. The analysis after the fact is where the faith is properly placed.

Well, placing no faith is certainly stupid. Town wont lie to save his/her neck, and we certainly arent lynching anyone who claims until we have investigated the situation some. Yes, that means last minute claims will always buy scum at least one day but nothing can really be done about that, lynching power roles is catastrophic for town. Its also pretty hard to make a believable PR claim (you often have said or done something earlier to make it not believable).

Trusting a claim (or at least, not lynching the claimer) this early is the best move. Like eevee said, lynching a power role, ESPECIALLY this early, could spell disaster for the town. Towards the end of the game, when the town is in crisis. This may not hold true. If the town had ignored DSell's fakeclaim in Mafia IV, they very well might have won...

[Young Nick]

manda says my thoughts better than I do. The subconscious trusting is the point I was trying to get at. I guess I don't see coaching as pro- or anti-town. It just feels...neutral. Like something I would have read off the wiki page.

[manda2014]

manda says my thoughts better than I do. The subconscious trusting is the point I was trying to get at. I guess I don't see coaching as pro- or anti-town. It just feels...neutral. Like something I would have read off the wiki page.

Exactly. It's when it goes beyond something you could find on a wiki page that everyone really needs to be on their guard.

[shark_bait]

Just wanted to say, yes I'm here.  I've been moving to a different apartment all day.  I'm rather exhausted now, will be around more tomorrow.

[Young Nick]

Yeah, I'm not going to be able to consistently post during the week. Maybe an afternoon post and/or a few night checks, I guess.

[manda2014]

Man, after following IV and seeing how fast posts accumulated there, this feels soooooo slow. Not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but it's gonna take some getting used to. XD

[Galzria]

I remember playing M-II and thinking how blazingly fast it moved, and how much information there was to compile on the final day. Boy how times have changed! This is such a relaxing pace now.

[Galzria]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

[Galzria]

Wow. Mixup. Eevee or Timchen* (don't have multiple games on the mind)

[Robz888]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

Oh, I remember getting yelled at for doing this, Mr. Galzria.

[Galzria]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

Oh, I remember getting yelled at for doing this, Mr. Galzria.

I never yelled at you! I said that I don't think it's anywhere NEAR as effective on the forums as real life. It's not my preferred method, but it is a method. I just have yet to see anything of value come from it. Doesn't mean it isn't worth trying however.

[manda2014]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

Oh, I remember getting yelled at for doing this, Mr. Galzria.

I never yelled at you! I said that I don't think it's anywhere NEAR as effective on the forums as real life. It's not my preferred method, but it is a method. I just have yet to see anything of value come from it. Doesn't mean it isn't worth trying however.

Hey, anything's worth trying! And I got a chuckle out of it, at any rate.

[Eevee]

Where's Fuzzy (Eevee)?

I'm here. Not much to say yet, timchen is the only one who has stood out to me. You seem to attack me one way or another in every game we are in together, why is that?

[Galzria]

Where's Fuzzy (Eevee)?

I'm here. Not much to say yet, timchen is the only one who has stood out to me. You seem to attack me one way or another in every game we are in together, why is that?

I don't trust Pokemon.

Anyway, wait, I attacked you here? Edgy a bit? I asked where you were...

[Captain_Frisk]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

I thought you and I agreed only to bus me only if I had some real suspicion.  This is way too early.

[Galzria]

Hey Frisk, when you were planning you're pregame strategy with your partner, what did you guys determine to be the best course of action? While you're answering that, wanna tell me if your teammate is Eevee or Cayvie? I'm honestly not sure.

I thought you and I agreed only to bus me only if I had some real suspicion.  This is way too early.

[Captain_Frisk]

How many emoticons do we need to get RobZ to vote?

@Pingpongsam - regarding early voting - here's my thinking (should be similar to what I've said in previous games).  This is a viewpoint that RobZ and I do not share.

Pointing the Finger of Suspicion on day 1 is pretty damn useless.  It provides 0 pressure to the person fingered.  Even if all 8 people here are FOSing me, I don't care.  I'm not going to roleclaim. 

However, if 4 people are VOTING for me, then I'm in a completely different position.  I'm panicked - 1 more person and I'm dead.  It also provides a bunch of information.  4 people have basically gone on record saying "Frisk is so scummy that I'm comfortable with him dying".   In an ideal world, I would want everyone to get up to 4 votes real votes and claim... then you have all sorts of good information... but there's just no way to accomplish this - because the pressure doesn't exist without the thread of being lynched.

So - at least in the games I've been in (this is my 5th, but only 3 are actually finished) - there was an early silly stage... in which we voted on people for no reason.  Then eventually someone said something that someone else thought was scummy and we moved on to some real discussion. 

Now - once we have some votes on people, or we're on day 3 or so, then voting is very dangerous - and the FOS becomes much more useful.

[Eevee]

Where's Fuzzy (Eevee)?

I'm here. Not much to say yet, timchen is the only one who has stood out to me. You seem to attack me one way or another in every game we are in together, why is that?

I don't trust Pokemon.

Anyway, wait, I attacked you here? Edgy a bit? I asked where you were...

Yeah edgy, apologies. Wrote that post in a hurry, didnt mean to come off that butthurt. However, what i meant to say was "I'm getting a vibe you generally dont trust me" which apparently is true. Okay.

I never know what to say day1 before anything has really happened. I do realize its important to post just to make something happen, but I dont much believe in the "Galzria, how did you feel when your role pm said its mafia time?" method either so.. :/

[Eevee]

In an ideal world, I would want everyone to get up to 4 votes real votes and claim... then you have all sorts of good information... but there's just no way to accomplish this - because the pressure doesn't exist without the thread of being lynched.

That is a TERRIBLE thing to wish if you are a townie. In an ideal world, we would force all our power roles to claim on day 1?

Its so majorly fuqqed up I dont even consider it a scumslip but maaaan!

[pingpongsam]

Pointing the Finger of Suspicion on day 1 is pretty damn useless.  It provides 0 pressure to the person fingered.  Even if all 8 people here are FOSing me, I don't care.  I'm not going to roleclaim.

In my mind the FoS is just a call for the FoS'd to respond to the FoS; which you did... so apparently it works pretty well even on people who claim it provides 0 pressure. It was certainly not intended as pressure to roleclaim.

Now a scummy response to a FoS might deserve a vote. The scummiest thing you said in this particular FoS response was that you'd like to see all the Town roles claimed D1 and I don't see how that it is possibly Town positive. I don't think such an absurd idea deserves a vote... yet.

[Captain_Frisk]

In an ideal world, I would want everyone to get up to 4 votes real votes and claim... then you have all sorts of good information... but there's just no way to accomplish this - because the pressure doesn't exist without the thread of being lynched.

That is a TERRIBLE thing to wish if you are a townie. In an ideal world, we would force all our power roles to claim on day 1?

Its so majorly fuqqed up I dont even consider it a scumslip but maaaan!

So let me walk you through my thinking there.  Lets make some general assumptions that you favor a directed lynch (because then people had to provide a reason) over a random lynch, and a random lynch over no lynch.  Agreed?

When we execute a targeted lynch on Day 1 - we'll make it up to L-1 and the following things can happen:

1. Mafia quick hammers before a claim is possible.
2. Town hammers self (I wouldn't include this as a possibility, but it has happened in these forums before)
3. Mafia is being lynched and claims power role. 
4. Mafia is being lynched and claims VT
5. Town is being lynched and claims VT
6. Town is being lynched and claims PR.

The general thinking is that you don't lynch PR -> so there's no reason for mafia to claim VT.  What ends up happening in this scenario is that we force roleclaims until we hit a VT - and then we end up lynching vanilla town.

If we stop lynching VT claims (because its obvious that they are VT at that point), then that starts to let Mafia claim VT and get away with it, which then means that the outcome of lynching is just that we're outing PRs.

End result is - the more people we near lynch - the more information we get regarding bandwagons.  We can't plan to near lynch multiple people though, because this reduces the value of the information obtained from the wagon and claim.

[Galzria]

Where's Fuzzy (Eevee)?

I'm here. Not much to say yet, timchen is the only one who has stood out to me. You seem to attack me one way or another in every game we are in together, why is that?

I don't trust Pokemon.

Anyway, wait, I attacked you here? Edgy a bit? I asked where you were...

Yeah edgy, apologies. Wrote that post in a hurry, didnt mean to come off that butthurt. However, what i meant to say was "I'm getting a vibe you generally dont trust me" which apparently is true. Okay.

I never know what to say day1 before anything has really happened. I do realize its important to post just to make something happen, but I dont much believe in the "Galzria, how did you feel when your role pm said its mafia time?" method either so.. :/

I felt great! I love being Ma...
Oh, wait. You weren't asking me? *Ahem*Disregard!

In all seriousness, no, I don't naturally distrust you any more than anybody else. To that effect however, I DO distrust you just as much. Most people like to start a game with null reads on everybody, but I like to start with everybody as "more likely scum than town" because letting anybody become "pro-town" in my eyes can be dangerous.

I also (read D1 M-III) like to focus on the Veterans D1, because they are a semi known quantity to me. Robz I know takes the opposite approach, scrutinizing the new players. Both methods have some track record of success. In my post to CF, I grabbed your name, and Timchen's (after lolCayvie). It certainly wasn't personal however.

[Captain_Frisk]

Now that I've played with some of these jokers a few times, I tend to suspect the experienced players more - because man, if its a 2 n00b mafia, hopefully that will be evident extremely early.

That said, this game isn't especially "hard" - most of the obvious bad plays are obviously so - and the rest is WIFOM.  Even playing as serial killer in my 2nd game game didn't strike me as especially challenging.  I totally would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for glooble random block.

[Eevee]

I felt great! I love being Ma...
Oh, wait. You weren't asking me? *Ahem*Disregard!

In all seriousness, no, I don't naturally distrust you any more than anybody else. To that effect however, I DO distrust you just as much. Most people like to start a game with null reads on everybody, but I like to start with everybody as "more likely scum than town" because letting anybody become "pro-town" in my eyes can be dangerous.

I also (read D1 M-III) like to focus on the Veterans D1, because they are a semi known quantity to me. Robz I know takes the opposite approach, scrutinizing the new players. Both methods have some track record of success. In my post to CF, I grabbed your name, and Timchen's (after lolCayvie). It certainly wasn't personal however.

"More likely scum than town" seems like a terrible approach. I thought you were all 25% to be mafia before the banter began, now the numbers would be slightly different (timchen and galzria at 30% or something like that, my reads are quite nonexistent still). Why would you disregard simple math? Almost seems like a mafia trying too hard to look like town..

Focusing on veterans makes a lot of sense. And I dont think its personal as in actually personal, but wondering if its personal in the mafia meta kind of way. 

[Captain_Frisk]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

[Galzria]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

I don't mean "odds of being", I meant that I, say, assign everybody an equal -5 value to start, where 0 is neutral, and then keep tallies of how they play. I very much think it's a GOOD idea not to let people become trusted too much. For one thing, look at who's been scum in games past, and how they've been read by the town:

Me in M-II, Yuma (to an extent) in M-III, Glooble for much of M-IV, Yuma for M-V...

I'm not saying "persecute the trusty reads", I'm saying that I see greater value in not letting people get to that point in my eyes. It's been proven poor town play to trust to dearly.

[Eevee]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

I don't mean "odds of being", I meant that I, say, assign everybody an equal -5 value to start, where 0 is neutral, and then keep tallies of how they play. I very much think it's a GOOD idea not to let people become trusted too much. For one thing, look at who's been scum in games past, and how they've been read by the town:

Me in M-II, Yuma (to an extent) in M-III, Glooble for much of M-IV, Yuma for M-V...

I'm not saying "persecute the trusty reads", I'm saying that I see greater value in not letting people get to that point in my eyes. It's been proven poor town play to trust to dearly.

yuma seems to play mafia masterfully.

I dont know, my approach is trying to find people I can trust (because it helps to read at least some analysis that isnt mafia polluting my mind) and then constantly re-evaluating the situation to see if they did something scummy. I feel my town-radar works quite well (quite well meaning a lot better than my mafia radar).

[Captain_Frisk]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

Damn - I was kindof hoping for a stronger reaction.  I thought about quick apologizing when I saw how much more dickish it looked than I wanted it to - and then I decided that riling you up in the game could only be a good thing.

[manda2014]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

I don't mean "odds of being", I meant that I, say, assign everybody an equal -5 value to start, where 0 is neutral, and then keep tallies of how they play. I very much think it's a GOOD idea not to let people become trusted too much. For one thing, look at who's been scum in games past, and how they've been read by the town:

Me in M-II, Yuma (to an extent) in M-III, Glooble for much of M-IV, Yuma for M-V...

I'm not saying "persecute the trusty reads", I'm saying that I see greater value in not letting people get to that point in my eyes. It's been proven poor town play to trust to dearly.

yuma seems to play mafia masterfully.

I dont know, my approach is trying to find people I can trust (because it helps to read at least some analysis that isnt mafia polluting my mind) and then constantly re-evaluating the situation to see if they did something scummy. I feel my town-radar works quite well (quite well meaning a lot better than my mafia radar).

Trying to find someone to trust seems to me to be a really dangerous approach, because scum is going to be trying very hard to LOOK trustworthy. I mean, I'll trust my own reads but I'm never going to 100% assume I'm right. If you don't take everything anyone says with a grain of salt, there's too much danger of assuming the person you got a town read on initially is still town and you'll end up being scum's best friend.

[Galzria]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

Damn - I was kindof hoping for a stronger reaction.  I thought about quick apologizing when I saw how much more dickish it looked than I wanted it to - and then I decided that riling you up in the game could only be a good thing.

Sorry, redo:

How dare you insult me?!? My math skills are perfectly fine! Who ever said anything about not being able to be Theater AND be good at math!? Rage! Rage! OMGUS vote on Captain Frisk! Gaaar!

Better?

---

So you admit to being willing to bus D1 if it seems necessary?

[manda2014]

Pointing the Finger of Suspicion on day 1 is pretty damn useless.  It provides 0 pressure to the person fingered.  Even if all 8 people here are FOSing me, I don't care.  I'm not going to roleclaim.

In my mind the FoS is just a call for the FoS'd to respond to the FoS; which you did... so apparently it works pretty well even on people who claim it provides 0 pressure. It was certainly not intended as pressure to roleclaim.

Now a scummy response to a FoS might deserve a vote. The scummiest thing you said in this particular FoS response was that you'd like to see all the Town roles claimed D1 and I don't see how that it is possibly Town positive. I don't think such an absurd idea deserves a vote... yet.

I like the idea of a little early voting just to shake things up, because it's considerably more pressure than the FoS, and, scum might panic and make a mistake. Early wagons I think are really dangerous--we don't want to out power roles. No one's gonna claim at 1 vote, but I don't think we want to get to L-1 without more time for analysis.

[Eevee]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

I don't mean "odds of being", I meant that I, say, assign everybody an equal -5 value to start, where 0 is neutral, and then keep tallies of how they play. I very much think it's a GOOD idea not to let people become trusted too much. For one thing, look at who's been scum in games past, and how they've been read by the town:

Me in M-II, Yuma (to an extent) in M-III, Glooble for much of M-IV, Yuma for M-V...

I'm not saying "persecute the trusty reads", I'm saying that I see greater value in not letting people get to that point in my eyes. It's been proven poor town play to trust to dearly.

yuma seems to play mafia masterfully.

I dont know, my approach is trying to find people I can trust (because it helps to read at least some analysis that isnt mafia polluting my mind) and then constantly re-evaluating the situation to see if they did something scummy. I feel my town-radar works quite well (quite well meaning a lot better than my mafia radar).

Trying to find someone to trust seems to me to be a really dangerous approach, because scum is going to be trying very hard to LOOK trustworthy. I mean, I'll trust my own reads but I'm never going to 100% assume I'm right. If you don't take everything anyone says with a grain of salt, there's too much danger of assuming the person you got a town read on initially is still town and you'll end up being scum's best friend.

That came out wrong. I meant to say I disagree with galzrias method of actively trying to avoid trusting anyone. I dont find a problem with getting a strong town vibe from someone and then listening to that people a little more than others when deciding who to lynch or what to do. Not ruling out the chance of anyone being mafia ever, but playing the  percentages (I assign in my head).

[Captain_Frisk]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

Damn - I was kindof hoping for a stronger reaction.  I thought about quick apologizing when I saw how much more dickish it looked than I wanted it to - and then I decided that riling you up in the game could only be a good thing.

Sorry, redo:

How dare you insult me?!? My math skills are perfectly fine! Who ever said anything about not being able to be Theater AND be good at math!? Rage! Rage! OMGUS vote on Captain Frisk! Gaaar!

Better?

---

So you admit to being willing to bus D1 if it seems necessary?

Much better.  As for your question - I'm not sure.  With regard to life in general I would say that I like to keep as many options open as I can.  I don't have any tatoos, and I'd never put those earlobe expanding plugs in my ears. 

So - strictly speaking I would have to answer - "Yes, if I were mafia, I would be willing D1 if it seems necessary."  Anyone who says anything else is either lying or not thinking things through.   

I would probably prefer to avoid it (since killing your own partner also limits your options in the future).  In this particular game - it seems like a really bad idea.

Why - what is your partner planning on doing when you are near lynched today?  Are you fishing for good ideas? 

[shark_bait]

I've been rather quiet so far.  Here's my opinion on what's happening.  There has been a lot of "coaching" and "advice" from some of the veteran players.  I really don't think as of now, we can glean much from that.  Whether they are scum or town, it is beneficial.  If they are scum, they gain credibility by "helping" the town.  If they are town, they help the rest of the town understand the best course of action.  So with that said, I'm inclined to trust them for now.  But at some point, us noobz need to propose some ideas and see how those vets respond to try and determine where their loyalties lie.

[Galzria]

Interesting - I read his "more likely scum than mafia" not in the literal sence (i suspect that everyone is 55% likely to be mafia) but rather that everyone had a higher than expected chance to be mafia (say - 30%) as a way of keeping himself on his toes.

Plus - I think Galzria said he's done alot of stage acting in the past or something to that effect.  He's probably bad at math.

Yes to your first point, lol @ your second.

Damn - I was kindof hoping for a stronger reaction.  I thought about quick apologizing when I saw how much more dickish it looked than I wanted it to - and then I decided that riling you up in the game could only be a good thing.

Sorry, redo:

How dare you insult me?!? My math skills are perfectly fine! Who ever said anything about not being able to be Theater AND be good at math!? Rage! Rage! OMGUS vote on Captain Frisk! Gaaar!

Better?

---

So you admit to being willing to bus D1 if it seems necessary?

Much better.  As for your question - I'm not sure.  With regard to life in general I would say that I like to keep as many options open as I can.  I don't have any tatoos, and I'd never put those earlobe expanding plugs in my ears. 

So - strictly speaking I would have to answer - "Yes, if I were mafia, I would be willing D1 if it seems necessary."  Anyone who says anything else is either lying or not thinking things through.   

I would probably prefer to avoid it (since killing your own partner also limits your options in the future).  In this particular game - it seems like a really bad idea.

Why - what is your partner planning on doing when you are near lynched today?  Are you fishing for good ideas?

I'm always open to new ideas, and understanding the psyche of Mafia (scum) players not named Galzria (I know his thoughts!) seems to be beneficial as far as meta-gaming goes.

Now, anything I say (and you, or others) turns into WIFOM. I might say it, but will I do it? This is the crux of my "actions meet words" mafiahunting technique, which is why I like getting definitive statements one way or another. If we lynch scum, I can look back on your statement above when considering if you might be Mafiosi #2.

To clear up the first paragraph, when talking about how "Mafia Galzria" thinks, I'm strictly speaking in a meta-game sense. I'm pro-town aligned here.

---

Pingpongsam:

What are your views? Are you willing to bus your Mafia partner D1?

[pingpongsam]

I kind of wish I was Mafia because a) I've not gotten the opportunity to play that side of the fence yet and b) catching suspicion and heat as a Townie has got to be tougher than catching the same heat when you really are the dirty bastard they all say you are.

I'm pretty averse to D1 lynching because my experience to this point has been it produces terrible results with no useful information after the fact. I'm sure it can happen in other ways but my experience dictates you don't kill someone just to see which way they flip, you kill someone because you have damn good reasons that are all your own to believe they are Mafia.

[timchen]

Guys (and ladies): stop arguing and just vote for frisk to test his own theory!

[shark_bait]

Vote: Captain Frisk

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-2

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait

Not Voting {6}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, Young Nick, manda2014, pingpongsam

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[Captain_Frisk]

Way too long without posting in here.

@Shark_bait - would you like to explain your vote?

[pingpongsam]

Way too long without posting in here.

@Shark_bait - would you like to explain your vote?

Why should he? You suggested it.

[Eevee]

Way too long without posting in here.

@Shark_bait - would you like to explain your vote?

Why should he? You suggested it.

Well, the pressure is much more.. pressing (?) if you give the accused some reasons for your vote.

[Captain_Frisk]

Not to mention that voting without reasons is pretty damn scummy.

[pingpongsam]

Way too long without posting in here.

@Shark_bait - would you like to explain your vote?

Why should he? You suggested it.

Timchen placed the 1st vote specifically because Frisk proposed we get each person to L-1 to force role claims. Sharky cast the next vote almost immediately thereafter so it appeared to me there was no need for further clarification. I found the 2 votes to be rather self-explanatory. I don't agree with the method so I won't be joining the wagon on these grounds but I can certainly understand how the wagon is forming considering Frisk provided the genesis for it.

Well, the pressure is much more.. pressing (?) if you give the accused some reasons for your vote.

[pingpongsam]

Way too long without posting in here.

@Shark_bait - would you like to explain your vote?

Why should he? You suggested it.

Well, the pressure is much more.. pressing (?) if you give the accused some reasons for your vote.

Timchen placed the 1st vote specifically because Frisk proposed we get each person to L-1 to force role claims. Sharky cast the next vote almost immediately thereafter so it appeared to me there was no need for further clarification. I found the 2 votes to be rather self-explanatory. I don't agree with the method so I won't be joining the wagon on these grounds but I can certainly understand how the wagon is forming considering Frisk provided the genesis for it.

[Captain_Frisk]

Ummm - you might want to go back and read timchen's vote against me.  You did provide a reason that tim might have voted for me... if his vote was cast on the last page.  But his vote is much much further back.

[Eevee]

Not to mention that voting without reasons is pretty damn scummy.

Yeah, it sort of implies you have secret reasons and who has those? Thats right, mafia does.

[timchen]

If I have not voted for frisk earlier I will vote for him now. The reason, however, cannot be revealed before he is at L-1 and makes his roleclaim.

[Captain_Frisk]

Not to mention that voting without reasons is pretty damn scummy.

Yeah, it sort of implies you have secret reasons and who has those? Thats right, mafia does.

The counterargument here is popsofctown - who never wanted to explain his thinking at all.  I was kindof shocked when he flipped town in M4

[Captain_Frisk]

If I have not voted for frisk earlier I will vote for him now. The reason, however, cannot be revealed before he is at L-1 and makes his roleclaim.

Side note: I desperately want you to be mafia so that I can actually beat you at a game.  I'm still ashamed about our 2011 championship matches.

[pingpongsam]

Ummm - you might want to go back and read timchen's vote against me.  You did provide a reason that tim might have voted for me... if his vote was cast on the last page.  But his vote is much much further back.

Okay, you are 100% correct. I hallucinated timchen's vote as being above Sharky's. Sharky appears to have taken the ball Timchen held out and run with it which is somewhat scummy in my opinion provided there is no reason other than an invitation.

FoS Sharky

[shark_bait]

Reasons for voting for Frisk:

First - It seems like a little pressure on someone isn't a bad thing per your theory about near lynch's yielding information.

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

[Captain_Frisk]

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

Pretend for a second that someone else had written that.  What would you read into it?

[pingpongsam]

Vote Sharky

This guy is placing votes in order to propagate the perception that he is Town something not needed when actualyl Town.

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-3

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (1): pingpongsam

Not Voting {5}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, Young Nick, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[timchen]

@frisk: we should play some more dominion! Didn't see u often on iso nowadays...

I don't understand sharkbait's second reason. But it does not read scummy to me, unless he is saying both of u are scums, and he can look better by voting for you. And then your previous line is coaching?

Ouch.

[shark_bait]

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

Pretend for a second that someone else had written that.  What would you read into it?

*facepalm*

But in all honesty, I would know for sure that they weren't PR.  That would just be stupid for a PR to do that.  According to Pings, apparently if you're town, you don't need others to know that, so anyone reading this would think that I'm Mafia trying to fly under the radar under the guise of town. 

*facepalm*

[Captain_Frisk]

@frisk: we should play some more dominion! Didn't see u often on iso nowadays...

I don't understand sharkbait's second reason. But it does not read scummy to me, unless he is saying both of u are scums, and he can look better by voting for you. And then your previous line is coaching?

Ouch.

Yeah - my rank is falling due to lack of play.  Mafia has been taking my worktime diversion, and diablo 3 has taken my eveningtime diversion.  Summer time, nice weather, yardwork, etc. etc. etc. etc.

[Eevee]

@frisk: we should play some more dominion! Didn't see u often on iso nowadays...

I don't understand sharkbait's second reason. But it does not read scummy to me, unless he is saying both of u are scums, and he can look better by voting for you. And then your previous line is coaching?

Ouch.

Yeah - my rank is falling due to lack of play.  Mafia has been taking my worktime diversion, and diablo 3 has taken my eveningtime diversion.  Summer time, nice weather, yardwork, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Sounds so familiar. I was at my all time high rank (44) before I found mafia. Now I dont even know where I am because I log in so rarely but guessing its something like 40. Should really enjoy iso when we still have it.. :/

[Young Nick]

I am with Eevee and C_F, but come on guys, let's keep this mafia-related.

Having said that, I have to run and thus am hoping to get a longer post out later in the evening. I've been quiet, I know.

[shark_bait]

Sounds so familiar. I was at my all time high rank (44) before I found mafia. Now I dont even know where I am because I log in so rarely but guessing its something like 40. Should really enjoy iso when we still have it.. :/

Yes!!!  B/c the current beta is still slow and tedious.  That's it for my off topic contributions.

[Eevee]

I am with Eevee and C_F, but come on guys, let's keep this mafia-related.

Having said that, I have to run and thus am hoping to get a longer post out later in the evening. I've been quiet, I know.

Thats fair, but I actually think off-topic can be useful (if done in moderation). Like now we know both me and Frisk care about mafia enough to make us play a lot less dominion. Okay, probably not useful, but you know, it might be? If frisk says "whatever I dont want to play this stupid game anymore, lynch me if you want" when facing heat, I'm going to assume its a mafia trying to trick us rather than a legitimately frustrated townie. If we see frisk online on iso when someone claims cop and not unvoting, we can maybe deduct he is mafia and tries to fake not noticing in time? Note: I'm not saying these are likely scenarios or necessarily bulletproof reads, but trying to prove a point.

@shark_bait
I think town power roles actually have a lot of incentive to try to look town, they dont want to be forced to claim (especially not in this setup). That statement still looks scummy as hell though.

[timchen]

Why is sharkbait's statement scummy?

[manda2014]

Wow, lots of new stuff since I last got on, and I'm VERY confused by Sharky. Casting a vote in a post with LITERALLY no other content and then, when prodded, providing reasons that are tenuous at best...

Reasons for voting for Frisk:

First - It seems like a little pressure on someone isn't a bad thing per your theory about near lynch's yielding information.

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

...seems really scummy to me. Still, I'll hold off on voting for a little bit. Maybe it's not scum play, and it's just really unhelpful town play. (popsofctown, anyone?)

[manda2014]

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

Pretend for a second that someone else had written that.  What would you read into it?

I really, really don't understand this reason at all. 1) How does voting for Frisk give you a reason for people to believe you're town?

Why is sharkbait's statement scummy?

2) If you get lynched and you flip town, it hurts the town because we're down a player, but it also provides us with information about who's mafia (by analyzing the wagon, etc.) so, you know, you should be willing to sacrifice your own ability to play to help the town win. Chances are that the first lynch will hit town anyway. IF YOU'RE SCUM, HOWEVER, you getting lynched DOESN'T both help and hurt the mafia; it only hurts. So when the pressure turns to someone who's scum, they DO need a reason to point to to prove that they're town. That's why it's scummy.

[timchen]

Sorry, I still don't understand. I understand mafia usually do not want to be lynched. (but he might actually want to do so if it creates a cover for his partner!) But townies usually do not want to be lynched as well unless he can be sure that his wagon consists fully of mafia. And how does this have anything to do with Shark_bait's statement?

[Galzria]

Captain_Frisk, would you vote for Shark_Bait?

[Captain_Frisk]

I am thinking about it.  Will post more from pc tonight.  I have played dominion with sb before.  He isn't a doofus.

[Young Nick]

I am thinking about it.  Will post more from pc tonight.  I have played dominion with sb before.  He isn't a doofus.

Maybe not a doofus at Dominion, but that clearly is not pertinent to a game of Mafia. Either way, I'm holding off on thinking poorly of him until he gets a chance to try to defend himself again.

[Captain_Frisk]

Ok - so I'm at a PC now.  Shark_bait isn't just not a doofus @ dominion, he's an excellent player.  He's ranked #31 today - and a good chunk of that is because his uncertainty is high.  Give him 3 more levels if his uncertainty was +/- 7, and he's a top 15 player.

I am alot less likely to buy a "noob" defense from someone who has demonstrated extreme skill at any primarily mental activity.  It's actually the same reason that my vote is still on timchen.

[timchen]

Did I act like a noob anywhere in this game? 

[Captain_Frisk]

No, it's my respect for you that is causing me to overread into smack talking during RVS!

[shark_bait]

Alright, time for me to talk.  Let's hope I don't have to stuff a sock in it again.  My vote for Frisk came in response to timchen's call for action.

Guys (and ladies): stop arguing and just vote for frisk to test his own theory!

Frisk's Theory

So let me walk you through my thinking there.  Lets make some general assumptions that you favor a directed lynch (because then people had to provide a reason) over a random lynch, and a random lynch over no lynch.  Agreed?

When we execute a targeted lynch on Day 1 - we'll make it up to L-1 and the following things can happen:

1. Mafia quick hammers before a claim is possible.
2. Town hammers self (I wouldn't include this as a possibility, but it has happened in these forums before)
3. Mafia is being lynched and claims power role. 
4. Mafia is being lynched and claims VT
5. Town is being lynched and claims VT
6. Town is being lynched and claims PR.

The general thinking is that you don't lynch PR -> so there's no reason for mafia to claim VT.  What ends up happening in this scenario is that we force roleclaims until we hit a VT - and then we end up lynching vanilla town.

If we stop lynching VT claims (because its obvious that they are VT at that point), then that starts to let Mafia claim VT and get away with it, which then means that the outcome of lynching is just that we're outing PRs.

End result is - the more people we near lynch - the more information we get regarding bandwagons.  We can't plan to near lynch multiple people though, because this reduces the value of the information obtained from the wagon and claim.

timchen was already voting for Frisk so it seemed natural to continue down this path thus "testing his theory".  If people had continued to pile on the Frisk band wagon, worst case we force a role claim as Frisk describes in his theory.  Regardless of what the claim is, WE GET INFORMATION.  My eagerness to start (almost) lynching was due to my thought of, "Hey, I'm not a power role, I don't need to worry about suspicion coming on me because I'm not special."

Now I realize that the statement above also sounds very scummy.  Yes I am aware that I'm saying don't lynch me b/c I'm town.  Frisk noted my mental capacity and I'll try to use that.  I completely realize that there is a large freight train about to rail down on me.  I only ask this, that you take a few detours and put pressure on multiple people.  More pressure = more information.

[Galzria]

 

Ugh. Well.... Hum. I know how Pops would react at this time.

[shark_bait]

Ugh. Well.... Hum. I know how Pops would react at this time.

I'm pretty sure I know how he would have reacted regardless of what I said or didn't say.  In his eyes, I don't know if I could have said anything redeeming.

[Galzria]

Ugh. Well.... Hum. I know how Pops would react at this time.

I'm pretty sure I know how he would have reacted regardless of what I said or didn't say.  In his eyes, I don't know if I could have said anything redeeming.

It's...not that.

You just claimed, and that's bad for town. Because you're either scum, or town. And if you're town, scum now know not to shoot you at night, thus increasing their odds of hitting a PR.

[shark_bait]

Ahh... gotcha.  I apologize for my poor play.

[Captain_Frisk]

So Galz - and this is a theory question - so go ahead and lynch me after -

But if claiming is bad for town - what is your ideal scenario (lets assume for one minute that you are town)?

[Galzria]

Ahh... gotcha.  I apologize for my poor play.

No, don't worry too much. This is a learning game after all. Just, future reference.

[Galzria]

So Galz - and this is a theory question - so go ahead and lynch me after -

But if claiming is bad for town - what is your ideal scenario (lets assume for one minute that you are town)?

Yes let's.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Claiming (in general) is negative all the way around:

Town claims PR: Scum knows the claim is likely true, so can take Night Actions accordingly.
Scum claims PR: Town must unvote, consider, and likely let the claimee live. If there's a counter-claim, yes, the scum dies but again, so does the PR (most likely).
Town claims VT: Depending on the situation, you should lynch them anyway - At least a PR isn't being lynched, and you've got to keep the Mafia honest (from making this claim)
Mafia claims VT: See above.

In VERY few situations do you claim anything if you're not L-1. Let's assume S_B is telling the truth and is town. His claim was accidental and not under pressure. So we don't lynch him. Instead we lynch somebody else. We've already decreased the size of the pool to 8, increasing the odds we force a PR claim; see above for the problem with that. But let's assume we hit another VT (remember, hitting scum falls under PR claims). Now we go into night with 1 VT dead, and 1 known. Add 2 Mafia, and that leaves a 20% per role that scum lynch something important. The longer you can keep your PM under wraps - even just a VT PM - the better it is for town.

[timchen]

Galz, I don't agree. It depends on the setup. Say in the extreme situation when there is no PR at all, if a townie can prove himself a VT it is definitely an advantage to the town. It is roughly equivalent to a NK, as mafia has to NK him to recover. In the current setup we have to weigh between this effect and the increase of the chance for the mafia to find PR. I feel like it is still a good deal to claim if we have only 1 PR, as the chance increase for them to find PR is less than the chance increase for us to find them. And I feel in the current setup it is beneficial to the town if we can exchange a PR death with a mafia lynch?

Speaking of the PR. What do you guys think is the most powerful? It seems to me that cops is the one that stands out.

[Robz888]

This might be a good time to mention that Sharky is one of only two people on this forum (the other being Ednever) who I have met in real life.

Sharky and I are twin brothers.

(Just kidding! That's a Mafia IV joke.)

But yeah, we do know each other; we both went to an IRL Dominion tournament last month. He's cool, and definitely a very smart person.

[Robz888]

Galz, I don't agree. It depends on the setup. Say in the extreme situation when there is no PR at all, if a townie can prove himself a VT it is definitely an advantage to the town. It is roughly equivalent to a NK, as mafia has to NK him to recover. In the current setup we have to weigh between this effect and the increase of the chance for the mafia to find PR. I feel like it is still a good deal to claim if we have only 1 PR, as the chance increase for them to find PR is less than the chance increase for us to find them. And I feel in the current setup it is beneficial to the town if we can exchange a PR death with a mafia lynch?

Speaking of the PR. What do you guys think is the most powerful? It seems to me that cops is the one that stands out.

Nobody should claim unless they are L-1... unless they have some good info they learned from using their powers. Revealing was a mistake on Sharky's part, but it's one everybody makes, and continues to make in every game we play, so no worries.

Cop is the most powerful role, but Doctor and Jailkeeper are also extremely powerful particularly in the endgame.

[Young Nick]

I guess I am just not so sure that S_B's VT accidental claim is what it seems. It would be quite cunning for a newbie to pretend to make a slip such as that and then apologize as other players tell him it's OK because its a newbie game. I mean that, along with his other comment (#108) about if the pressure shifts to him just kind of strikes me as someone playing it unnaturally dumb. Like too dumb. I am close to voting for him.

This is where I use FoS, when I am pre-voting. So FoS: Shark_Bait. A real vote is likely to come soon.

[Robz888]

I guess I am just not so sure that S_B's VT accidental claim is what it seems. It would be quite cunning for a newbie to pretend to make a slip such as that and then apologize as other players tell him it's OK because its a newbie game. I mean that, along with his other comment (#108) about if the pressure shifts to him just kind of strikes me as someone playing it unnaturally dumb. Like too dumb. I am close to voting for him.

This is where I use FoS, when I am pre-voting. So FoS: Shark_Bait. A real vote is likely to come soon.

I actually don't like this. It looks like testing the waters of voting for me. Like you are saying, "I want to vote for this person, but I fear doing so will draw attention to me. So I will announce my intentions ahead of time and move slowly toward the vote. This way if the vote becomes a bad idea, I don't have to do it."

That's how I read this move.

[shark_bait]

Sharky and I are twin brothers.

(Just kidding! That's a Mafia IV joke.)

What?!?!?!  Should I have been lurking that Mafia game?

[Robz888]

Sharky and I are twin brothers.

(Just kidding! That's a Mafia IV joke.)

What?!?!?!  Should I have been lurking that Mafia game?

To explain, frequent Forum Mafia player Jotheonah and recurring player Glooble are twin brothers. Prior to the start of MIV, they explained that they knew each other IRL, but they waited until the middle of the game to do a full claim--after I accused them both of being mafia. After they claimed, I decided the fact that they were twins was making me see them as a scum team when in fact they were just genetically team-ish.

Glooble also claimed that Jo was town, and Pops said that we should trust Glooble's read on Jo, since they were brothers. I disagreed. Eventually we lynched Jo, who was innocent. We never lynched Glooble, who was mafia.

This Forum Mafia historical moment is brought to you by the Robz Channel. "You'll feel great when you tune in to the 8!"

[manda2014]

I guess I am just not so sure that S_B's VT accidental claim is what it seems. It would be quite cunning for a newbie to pretend to make a slip such as that and then apologize as other players tell him it's OK because its a newbie game. I mean that, along with his other comment (#108) about if the pressure shifts to him just kind of strikes me as someone playing it unnaturally dumb. Like too dumb. I am close to voting for him.

This is where I use FoS, when I am pre-voting. So FoS: Shark_Bait. A real vote is likely to come soon.

I actually don't like this. It looks like testing the waters of voting for me. Like you are saying, "I want to vote for this person, but I fear doing so will draw attention to me. So I will announce my intentions ahead of time and move slowly toward the vote. This way if the vote becomes a bad idea, I don't have to do it."

That's how I read this move.

See, I disagree. It seems to me much more like your own policy of not wanting to toss votes around, but wanting to wait and only vote once when you're sure of where you want to leave your vote. What Nick is saying about S_B seeming like too much of a n00b makes a lot of sense to me. Still no vote from me for now, but I'm definitely suspicious.

[manda2014]

This Forum Mafia historical moment is brought to you by the Robz Channel. "You'll feel great when you tune in to the 8!"

Also, it's really too bad that the +1 button is gone. This deserves one for sure.

[Galzria]

I guess I am just not so sure that S_B's VT accidental claim is what it seems. It would be quite cunning for a newbie to pretend to make a slip such as that and then apologize as other players tell him it's OK because its a newbie game. I mean that, along with his other comment (#108) about if the pressure shifts to him just kind of strikes me as someone playing it unnaturally dumb. Like too dumb. I am close to voting for him.

This is where I use FoS, when I am pre-voting. So FoS: Shark_Bait. A real vote is likely to come soon.

I actually don't like this. It looks like testing the waters of voting for me. Like you are saying, "I want to vote for this person, but I fear doing so will draw attention to me. So I will announce my intentions ahead of time and move slowly toward the vote. This way if the vote becomes a bad idea, I don't have to do it."

That's how I read this move.

See, I disagree. It seems to me much more like your own policy of not wanting to toss votes around, but wanting to wait and only vote once when you're sure of where you want to leave your vote. What Nick is saying about S_B seeming like too much of a n00b makes a lot of sense to me. Still no vote from me for now, but I'm definitely suspicious.

I'm not sure that I particularly share yours and Nick's suspicion of S_B, but I do like this call on Robz. I mean, it's not EXACTLY the same, as Robz wouldn't say "I'm close to voting" (actually, he has a FEW times), but by and large "FoS now, Vote later" is pretty textbook Robz.

So: Robz, what gives? You really take issue with the way Nick handled that?

[Robz888]

I guess I am just not so sure that S_B's VT accidental claim is what it seems. It would be quite cunning for a newbie to pretend to make a slip such as that and then apologize as other players tell him it's OK because its a newbie game. I mean that, along with his other comment (#108) about if the pressure shifts to him just kind of strikes me as someone playing it unnaturally dumb. Like too dumb. I am close to voting for him.

This is where I use FoS, when I am pre-voting. So FoS: Shark_Bait. A real vote is likely to come soon.

I actually don't like this. It looks like testing the waters of voting for me. Like you are saying, "I want to vote for this person, but I fear doing so will draw attention to me. So I will announce my intentions ahead of time and move slowly toward the vote. This way if the vote becomes a bad idea, I don't have to do it."

That's how I read this move.

See, I disagree. It seems to me much more like your own policy of not wanting to toss votes around, but wanting to wait and only vote once when you're sure of where you want to leave your vote. What Nick is saying about S_B seeming like too much of a n00b makes a lot of sense to me. Still no vote from me for now, but I'm definitely suspicious.

I'm not sure that I particularly share yours and Nick's suspicion of S_B, but I do like this call on Robz. I mean, it's not EXACTLY the same, as Robz wouldn't say "I'm close to voting" (actually, he has a FEW times), but by and large "FoS now, Vote later" is pretty textbook Robz.

So: Robz, what gives? You really take issue with the way Nick handled that?

Mhm, this is definitely true, but there are 2 things.

1). His tone is different than mine. I rarely use the convention "FoS", for one thing. I don't know. His was too sneakily official. When I am close to voting, but not ready to vote, it's usually because I have something to think about, and I note that. Or I have some hangup I express. He did not do that. Just a subtle difference, to me.

2). Really this technique--that I do use all the time now--originated as a way to tactfully vote for Morgrim when I was mafia (alongside Galzria! in MII). Now it's part of my gameplay style, but it existed at first because I was mafia.

[Young Nick]

First thing's first...my name's not Nick. Nick Young is just the chillest NBA player around these days. So yeah, Young Nick is just Nick Young backwards.

Relating to mafia...
I thought for the first 3 pages that FoS meant Full of Shenanigans. I just learned what it actually meant very recently! I'm not really a huge fan of it, and was not that into PPS using it, but it seemed an appropriate time to use it. I don't have a particular hang-up other than the fact that there really haven't been that many posts. So I try to glean as much as I can from the few we have.

As for Robz's second point, I totes notice him subtly hinting how that's a scummy technique. Don't think I don't see you

[Young Nick]

And, I stand by what I have said about S_B so far.
Vote: Shark_Bait

[manda2014]

I'm not a huge fan of the FoS. It just seems unnecessary to me. I mean, really, do we need a quasi-official convention in between "oh this guy/girl seems scummy" and a vote?

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[Eevee]

Ahh... gotcha.  I apologize for my poor play.

No, don't worry too much. This is a learning game after all. Just, future reference.

Isnt everyone going to be claiming VT at this point? Some people like to ask others "whats your role" in the RVS, surely everyone always just answers "vanilla ice baby"?

I'm not buying the noob defense from anyone in this game. The setup isnt confusing and all of you seem to have a good handle on things.

[Captain_Frisk]

We had this debate in MIV... Jonah did the same thing... and we all decided that it was in fact a roleclaim.

It's possible that its a false claim - but I'm pretty sure that it would have been orchestrated by someone like RobZ or Galz.

[Captain_Frisk]

I'm not a huge fan of the FoS. It just seems unnecessary to me. I mean, really, do we need a quasi-official convention in between "oh this guy/girl seems scummy" and a vote?

It's useful when you want to officially go on the record as suspecting someone while you are voting for someone else, or if you want to indicate your willingness to vote for someone when voting is dangerous.  (Say there are 5 people left and 2 mafia - a single misvote can end the game)

[pingpongsam]

I beleive there is a difference in claiming to be Town and claiming a specific Town role (VT, Doctor, etc).

It is customary for everyone, including the scum, to converse as if Town. It is entirely a different matter to specify your role in Town.

[Captain_Frisk]

My eagerness to start (almost) lynching was due to my thought of, "Hey, I'm not a power role, I don't need to worry about suspicion coming on me because I'm not special."

I beleive there is a difference in claiming to be Town and claiming a specific Town role (VT, Doctor, etc).

It is customary for everyone, including the scum, to converse as if Town. It is entirely a different matter to specify your role in Town.

PPS - he claims he isn't a power role - thus process of elimination indicates that he is claiming to be vanilla town.

[pingpongsam]

My eagerness to start (almost) lynching was due to my thought of, "Hey, I'm not a power role, I don't need to worry about suspicion coming on me because I'm not special."

I beleive there is a difference in claiming to be Town and claiming a specific Town role (VT, Doctor, etc).

It is customary for everyone, including the scum, to converse as if Town. It is entirely a different matter to specify your role in Town.

PPS - he claims he isn't a power role - thus process of elimination indicates that he is claiming to be vanilla town.

I am acutely aware of this fact. To be explicit, I consider his move to be a roleclaim.

[Captain_Frisk]

Galz - why are you lurking today?  How long have you been waiting to be mafia paired with a newb so that you could early claim VT and have it look like a n00b mistake?

[pingpongsam]

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

A recap on the standing votes:

Frisk vs Timchen is a baseless RVS where timchen threw the first punch and Frisk countered with his own. Nothing to raise the eyebrows here.

Sharky's vote on Frisk is equally baseless in terms of the vote indicating any real suspicion towards Frisk. The vote was made apparently as an effort to get a wagon rolling.

PPS and Nick's votes on Sharky are directly related to the fact that Sharky seemed overeager to get a wagon rolling and  then followed with some comments that were unequivocally scummy.

So, as I see it, the only votes on the table that are based on scummy behavior at this point are the votes on Sharky. I believe there is no doubt why those votes rest there.

What I would like to hear is why those not voting at all and those RVSing view the Sharky behvaior as innocent.

I have further questions but I think if people actually start talking they will answer them so this post is a call to get some action in here and also to challenge my ideas surrounding where my own vote is currently parked.

[Galzria]

Galz - why are you lurking today?  How long have you been waiting to be mafia paired with a newb so that you could early claim VT and have it look like a n00b mistake?

Yeah, I know. I didn't expect an ACTUAL newb to beat you to the claim though, so disregard that plan.

[Captain_Frisk]

A recap on the standing votes:

Frisk vs Timchen is a baseless RVS where timchen threw the first punch and Frisk countered with his own. Nothing to raise the eyebrows here.

I love messing around during RVS - but my vote against allfail is not pure RVS.  I think there's a legit chance that he is scummy.  He's the one who counter OMGUS voted.

[timchen]

@PPS: I can agree that the overeagerness to jump on a wagon is a scummy behavior. But I still don't see why his following comment are scummy. They don't make sense to me (unless frisk is his partner), but I still yet to see why it is scummy. So your saying that it is unequivocally scummy is incorrect.

[timchen]

Oh, and frisk is right. He voted me first then I OMGUSly voted back.

[Galzria]

PPS:

I try my best to vote Mafia, not scum. Voting against S_B is basically saying "I think you're Mafia, involved in an advanced Gambit". Even if it were true, it's not worth pressing today, since we may have investigative roles that can uncover the truth.

To further that thought, the fact that there might be a Cop at ALL should be enough of a deterrent to Mafia to try that sort of Gambit. It's WAY to easy to backfire, ending in a town win.

So: I'm inclined to trust the play as being what it appears. A new player learning the game. We've all been there, and that's what this game is for.

[Captain_Frisk]

Oh, and frisk is right. He voted me first then I OMGUSly voted back.

Stop trying to buddy up to me.  I'm not your friend, guy.

So - I think that SB's claim would be advanced scum play.  I wouldn't expect to see it in this game.  Early claiming VT is probably "anti-town", but I'm going to write it off as newb play until additional evidence suggests otherwise.

(a?) Manda - who are you considering investigating tonight with your rolecop powers?

[manda2014]

@shark_bait, how many games have you followed?

Also, nice try Frisk And yeah, it's Amanda.

[shark_bait]

I have followed 0 games.  This technically is my second game, but only b/c RM1 started a little less than a day before this one.

[timchen]

Stop trying to buddy up to me.  I'm not your friend, guy.

Scumslip! How do you know you are not my friend? Why can two townies not be friends? And a townie won't know whether the other is a friend or not. If you are that certain I am not your friend, the only possibility is that you are mafia.

[pingpongsam]

PPS:

I try my best to vote Mafia, not scum. Voting against S_B is basically saying "I think you're Mafia, involved in an advanced Gambit". Even if it were true, it's not worth pressing today, since we may have investigative roles that can uncover the truth.

Excellent perspective: Unvote

[Eevee]

@PPS

a) i tend to not throw my vote around lightly unless i'm scum. i'm too paranoid of mafia hammering an unwanted lynch through / i just really want to keep the hammer option on someone i know to be town (myself).

b) s_b's roleclaim business clears him in my head somewhat, not nearly comfortable enough to vote. you seem very eager to lynch him?

[manda2014]

Stop trying to buddy up to me.  I'm not your friend, guy.

Scumslip! How do you know you are not my friend? Why can two townies not be friends? And a townie won't know whether the other is a friend or not. If you are that certain I am not your friend, the only possibility is that you are mafia.

Friendship is dangerous. We can't KNOW who's town. We're all wary allies at best.

[Captain_Frisk]

Stop trying to buddy up to me.  I'm not your friend, guy.

Scumslip! How do you know you are not my friend? Why can two townies not be friends? And a townie won't know whether the other is a friend or not. If you are that certain I am not your friend, the only possibility is that you are mafia.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/165191/im-not-your-friend-guy

[pingpongsam]

@PPS

a) i tend to not throw my vote around lightly unless i'm scum. i'm too paranoid of mafia hammering an unwanted lynch through / i just really want to keep the hammer option on someone i know to be town (myself).

b) s_b's roleclaim business clears him in my head somewhat, not nearly comfortable enough to vote. you seem very eager to lynch him?

I am fail to see how being the 1st vote and then soliciting challenges to my own vote is broadcasting eagerness to lynch. I'm never reluctant to throw down an early vote. As a wagon builds I am much more reticent to cast a vote.

[Young Nick]

I still don't like how many (namely C_F and Galz) are so willing to write off S_B's play as a newbie move. Maybe he hasn't lurked here, but it would have been simple enough to read up on Mafia (the game, not allegiance) strategies and tactics and thus devised that claiming VT might be his best bet. As C_F said, he is not a doofus.

I respect Galz's point that we should vote Mafia not vote scum, but, well, this early, scum implies Mafia to some extent. I don't know if I agree with him saying that (assuming there is a Cop and S_B is a Mafia false-claiming) it is a bad move by S_B. All S_B has to do is convince the Cop, and then he's off the hook.

[Captain_Frisk]

Reasons for voting for Frisk:

First - It seems like a little pressure on someone isn't a bad thing per your theory about near lynch's yielding information.

Second - It gives me a solid reason for people to believe that I'm town if the pressure switches to me.

I still don't like how many (namely C_F and Galz) are so willing to write off S_B's play as a newbie move. Maybe he hasn't lurked here, but it would have been simple enough to read up on Mafia (the game, not allegiance) strategies and tactics and thus devised that claiming VT might be his best bet. As C_F said, he is not a doofus.

I respect Galz's point that we should vote Mafia not vote scum, but, well, this early, scum implies Mafia to some extent. I don't know if I agree with him saying that (assuming there is a Cop and S_B is a Mafia false-claiming) it is a bad move by S_B. All S_B has to do is convince the Cop, and then he's off the hook.

If you were mafia - would you be as bold as to come out and say something as obvious as #2? 

Also - according to his profile - he is from holland, so Hij waarschijnlijk beter dan andere talen spreekt hij Engels spreekt.

[shark_bait]

It's Holland.... MI.  Not the Netherlands.

[Captain_Frisk]

That's not nearly as fun.

[pingpongsam]

If you were mafia - would you be as bold as to come out and say something as obvious as #2? 

I don't know, the mods have not seen it fit to provide me a Mafia role to date. The implication is that you would not which has a possible subtext that you, yourself, are Mafia.

[Captain_Frisk]

Where is RobZ?

[Robz888]

Where is RobZ?

Right here.

[Captain_Frisk]

Where is RobZ?

Right here.

Well - hey then.  Would you be interested in talking about the game?

[Robz888]

Where is RobZ?

Right here.

Well - hey then.  Would you be interested in talking about the game?

Sure.

Sharky's role claim was a newb mistake, not a plot by a super intelligent mafia. That doesn't mean his claim is true--he might be a mafia person who just thinks that what you do when somebody accuses you is full claim VT. It's not a sophisticated mafia plot though. I lean toward he is what he says he is.

[Captain_Frisk]

Announcement - I'll be travelling starting Thursday night through Sunday.  I'll of course be lurking via phone, and I'm still working on Friday - so I"m not totally afk.  I will be going to a beer tasting Saturday night - so I'm hoping to have my votes in and uninfluenced by tasty microbrews well in advance.

[Captain_Frisk]

Oh - voting isn't due until 7/28.  Never mind then.

[Galzria]

Announcement - I'll be travelling starting Thursday night through Sunday.  I'll of course be lurking via phone, and I'm still working on Friday - so I"m not totally afk.  I will be going to a beer tasting Saturday night - so I'm hoping to have my votes in and uninfluenced by tasty microbrews well in advance.

/Jealous

Post updates in the appropriate topic.

[Captain_Frisk]

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/

[pingpongsam]

I asked for explanations as to why people viewed Sharky as innocent and I got 3 decent responses from Galzria, Robz and Frisky.

Young Nick maintains that Sharky is a dirty bastard despite everyone else's unwillingness to take such a strong stance. I respect this and the question was thusly never directed to Y_N.

Frisky says a noob defense isn't good enough but maintains that timchen is scummier so there lies his vote.

manda is suspicious but apparently won't vote until a wagon is underway which I'm finding slightly scummy.

eevee remains suspicious but also wants to retain his vote but something about how he worded it I find less scummy than manda's motives.

PPS voted on obviously scummy behavior but was willing to rescind his vote because he sees the wisdom in Galzria's analysis and also Robz read on the situation. PPS loves to put votes to see some pressure applied and wishes others would do the same.

Sharky hasn't put up any suspicion on anyone but has sure as hell rolled in the mud of his own accord. if I were a town shark_bait I'd be staying low and if I were a mafia shark_bait I'd either lay low or try to push the heat in a different direction. neutral read.

Robz has said he is suspicious of Young Nick for basically doing the same as manda and eevee in being suspicious but withholding vote. Y_N responded by casting a vote which he maintains on what I perceive to be solid grounds and which seems to be supported by manda and eevee although not without votes which should, in Robz argument make those two people suspicious.

I've got nothing but Town read from Galzria the whole game.

timchen seems willing to start a fray but no one really wants to play this game it seems. no read on timchen at this time.




Sooo.... out of all that I gather that manda deserves the closest scrutiny. She seems to have a very strong technical grasp on the game which is great for town if she's town. Unfortunately most of her paly has been neutral in terms of applying pressure or providing any real feedback. With such technical grasp but such low key play I'm beginning to wonder what manda's real alignment is.

[Robz888]

PPS, do you consider yourself a "crazy" player?

[Captain_Frisk]

I can concur that manda was stalking Mafia IV quite a bit... I kept seeing her and wondering if she was someone else's alt account spying on the game without giving away their online presence.

[pingpongsam]

PPS, do you consider yourself a "crazy" player?

In M-VI I am a nutcase. The cast is too large, it moves too fast and most everyone's acumen is too high relative to my complete lack of experience.

Here, the cast is much smaller, most folk's acumen is at or below my own and things are certainly moving slowly enough for me to keep up.

So, for this particular game of Mafia I would classify myself as mostly sane. It is quite understandable that my behavior in M-VI would lead you to believe otherwise.

All that said, I am apparently a bit more willing to place votes just to elicit reaction which makes me more of a cowboy than most in here to date.

[Captain_Frisk]

So PPS - are you suggesting that we start voting for Manda - or is there something you'd like to hear from her?

[pingpongsam]

I want to hear from her.

Hell, I want to hear from anyone, really. Let's hear others' thoughts on manda or anything else I've said.

[manda2014]

Sorry I'm just now getting around to posting. Crazy busy last night and I just got off work. I feel bad that I haven't been posting on here maybe as often as I should. But RL stuff has been a bit crazy the last couple of days. Aaaaanyway... as to not having voted or posted much analysis yet, in all honesty I haven't had a chance to sit down and really do much in depth analysis. Right now my suspicions, as I said before, still rest on Sharky, but I'll post a better analysis and perhaps a vote later tonight after I have a chance to really sit down and look at things. I don't really like to throw out votes at random. As to "stalking" Mafia IV, I promise I'm not anyone's alt account. I know DSell IRL, and he's the one who told me about f.ds and about Mafia and I decided I'd follow his games; nothing sneaky about that.

[Captain_Frisk]

I know DSell IRL

Then you are scum by association?

[manda2014]

That would make loads of sense, if it had any bearing on the PMs Volt sent out XD

[Robz888]

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

Just tossing out ideas, do we think both scum are voting right now? They probably aren't voting for the same person, if they are both voting.

Maybe 1 scum among the nonvoters? From my perspective, that's Galzria, manda, and Eevee. But even if you throw me in, that's 1 scum out of 4. Much better odds than 2 out of 9.

[Captain_Frisk]

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

Just tossing out ideas, do we think both scum are voting right now? They probably aren't voting for the same person, if they are both voting.

Maybe 1 scum among the nonvoters? From my perspective, that's Galzria, manda, and Eevee. But even if you throw me in, that's 1 scum out of 4. Much better odds than 2 out of 9.

Are you worse at math than Galz?

1/4 = 25%
2/9 = 22.22% 

A modest improvement, but not "much better" odds.

[Robz888]

Are you worse at math than Galz?

Yes

1/4 = 25%
2/9 = 22.22% 

A modest improvement, but not "much better" odds.

I was being vaguely sarcastic.

[Captain_Frisk]

RobZ - what do you think about Galz not voting yet?  He isn't one to avoid RVS like you are.

[Galzria]

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

Just tossing out ideas, do we think both scum are voting right now? They probably aren't voting for the same person, if they are both voting.

Maybe 1 scum among the nonvoters? From my perspective, that's Galzria, manda, and Eevee. But even if you throw me in, that's 1 scum out of 4. Much better odds than 2 out of 9.

Are you worse at math than Galz?

1/4 = 25%
2/9 = 22.22% 

A modest improvement, but not "much better" odds.

 

[Robz888]

RobZ - what do you think about Galz not voting yet?  He isn't one to avoid RVS like you are.

I don't know. This game's simplicity compared MIII, MIV, MV, and MVI is jarring, frankly. I am basically at a loss for how to proceed.

[pingpongsam]

RobZ - what do you think about Galz not voting yet?  He isn't one to avoid RVS like you are.

I don't know. This game's simplicity compared MIII, MIV, MV, and MVI is jarring, frankly. I am basically at a loss for how to proceed.

It's a good thing the game was seeded with some experience so there would be a lead to follow.

[Robz888]

RobZ - what do you think about Galz not voting yet?  He isn't one to avoid RVS like you are.

I don't know. This game's simplicity compared MIII, MIV, MV, and MVI is jarring, frankly. I am basically at a loss for how to proceed.

It's a good thing the game was seeded with some experience so there would be a lead to follow.

Ha! I like this.

[Captain_Frisk]

Where is my +1 button?

[Eevee]

Sorry I'm just now getting around to posting. Crazy busy last night and I just got off work. I feel bad that I haven't been posting on here maybe as often as I should. But RL stuff has been a bit crazy the last couple of days. Aaaaanyway... as to not having voted or posted much analysis yet, in all honesty I haven't had a chance to sit down and really do much in depth analysis. Right now my suspicions, as I said before, still rest on Sharky, but I'll post a better analysis and perhaps a vote later tonight after I have a chance to really sit down and look at things. I don't really like to throw out votes at random. As to "stalking" Mafia IV, I promise I'm not anyone's alt account. I know DSell IRL, and he's the one who told me about f.ds and about Mafia and I decided I'd follow his games; nothing sneaky about that.

Okay, I was reading through the stuff and manda's apologetic tone here screams scum to me. In general a townie is doing the best he/she can to help town, where mafia is trying to do the bare minimum (to look like town).. and I read the post below as manda being worried she is starting to look like she isnt helping and apologizing for that in a "i really am trying though!" kind of way. In my experience townies dont feel they owe anything to town, but mafia sort of does (need to do something in order to not show their true colors).

Vote Count 1-4

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): pingpongsam, Young Nick

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Eevee, Galzria, manda2014

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

Just tossing out ideas, do we think both scum are voting right now? They probably aren't voting for the same person, if they are both voting.

Maybe 1 scum among the nonvoters? From my perspective, that's Galzria, manda, and Eevee. But even if you throw me in, that's 1 scum out of 4. Much better odds than 2 out of 9.

I think neither of the mafiosos voting atm is super unlikely (so by this logic, in the group of robz, me, galzria and manda2014, there is one mafia or no mafia at all). Wouldnt rule out both voting already, but I too think one voting one not voting is the most likely situation.
I'm starting to feel I always play town too cautious and should be more active as a scumhunter so Vote: manda.

[shark_bait]

Consider the following regarding the SBD (shark_bait debacle).  Three people know more information than everyone else.  Me... and the Mafia.  Let's assume that these are mutually exclusive (i.e. I'm not Mafia).  Therefore, the 2 Mafia, know that I am NOT Mafia, something that the town doesn't know.  What better guise for the mafia than to not trust me.  By not trusting me, they are donning the appearance of town.  I don't think both would do something like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them took this approach.  There have been 2 people thus far who showed an initial very distrusting stand towards me, PPS and Young Nick.

[Captain_Frisk]

Is this fuzzy clearing out of the "not voting" bucket to avoid RobZ suspicion?

[Galzria]

RobZ - what do you think about Galz not voting yet?  He isn't one to avoid RVS like you are.

I don't know. This game's simplicity compared MIII, MIV, MV, and MVI is jarring, frankly. I am basically at a loss for how to proceed.

Actually, I am! I've been greatly working on not just randomly voting during RVS! Look at D1 for... erm... well, needless to say, I voted after Robz did in a certain other game!

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-5

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (1): Young Nick
manda2014 (1): Eevee

Not Voting {4}: Robz888, Galzria, manda2014, pingpongsam

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[manda2014]

In my experience townies dont feel they owe anything to town, but mafia sort of does (need to do something in order to not show their true colors).

The second part of this makes sense. Of course mafia need to look like town if they want to survive. However, while town players don't NEED to actively work to prove themselves to be town (as I've said previously, sometimes a townie may end up having to "take one for the team" to provide the town with some critical info; this isn't an individual game), they DO "owe something to the town." They ARE town. It's their duty to help get rid of the mafia and save the town. So I AM sorry if I've not been as helpful as I could have/should have been.

[pingpongsam]

Consider the following regarding the SBD (shark_bait debacle).  Three people know more information than everyone else.  Me... and the Mafia.  Let's assume that these are mutually exclusive (i.e. I'm not Mafia).  Therefore, the 2 Mafia, know that I am NOT Mafia, something that the town doesn't know.  What better guise for the mafia than to not trust me.  By not trusting me, they are donning the appearance of town.  I don't think both would do something like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them took this approach.  There have been 2 people thus far who showed an initial very distrusting stand towards me, PPS and Young Nick.

Why would you equate a call for scrutiny scumminess? What reasons have you provided for anyone to trust you; shouldn't we all be distrustful of one another? Why do you choose to deflect attention to others rather than answer the concerns already directed towards you?

[manda2014]

Consider the following regarding the SBD (shark_bait debacle).  Three people know more information than everyone else.  Me... and the Mafia.  Let's assume that these are mutually exclusive (i.e. I'm not Mafia).  Therefore, the 2 Mafia, know that I am NOT Mafia, something that the town doesn't know.  What better guise for the mafia than to not trust me.  By not trusting me, they are donning the appearance of town.  I don't think both would do something like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them took this approach.  There have been 2 people thus far who showed an initial very distrusting stand towards me, PPS and Young Nick.

I don't really see how the mafia looking distrustful of you would make them look like town. They're going to end up voting for someone (most likely), and it seems to me that, generally, the people who start up the wagons get the bulk of the suspicion when that person turns up town.

[Young Nick]

Consider the following regarding the SBD (shark_bait debacle).  Three people know more information than everyone else.  Me... and the Mafia.  Let's assume that these are mutually exclusive (i.e. I'm not Mafia).  Therefore, the 2 Mafia, know that I am NOT Mafia, something that the town doesn't know.  What better guise for the mafia than to not trust me.  By not trusting me, they are donning the appearance of town.  I don't think both would do something like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them took this approach.  There have been 2 people thus far who showed an initial very distrusting stand towards me, PPS and Young Nick.

So, S_B, should C_F assume one of (or both of) you and timchen are Mafia? Or what happens if three townies each get two votes on them? Then by your logic there should definitely be three Mafia. I understand that when someone votes for you, you want to think that they're Mafia, but the odds are not in your favor in that regard.

[Captain_Frisk]

I would like to hear more from timchen - what is your read on the game currently?

[shark_bait]

I don't really see how the mafia looking distrustful of you would make them look like town. They're going to end up voting for someone (most likely), and it seems to me that, generally, the people who start up the wagons get the bulk of the suspicion when that person turns up town.

A wagon against me has very VERY legitimate claims due to the way that I have posted.  So if they do get a successful lynch on me and if I do turn up town, they base their vote on the nature of my posts thus detracting from the fact that town was lynched.

Why would you equate a call for scrutiny scumminess? What reasons have you provided for anyone to trust you; shouldn't we all be distrustful of one another? Why do you choose to deflect attention to others rather than answer the concerns already directed towards you?

I just wanted to raise a point that assuming I'm town, mafia could act accordingly and start a relatively safe wagon due to the nature of my posts.  To address you assertation of me deflecting attention rather than answering concerns, in complete honesty, I don't have any clue how to address them.  My first few mafia posts here were rather "on the fly" and I didn't think very much.  This was especially true of my vote on Frisk where I read timchen's previous post and within 10 seconds, had thought to myself, "Hey, why not get things started?"  I guess one thing I can say is that currently, you have no reason to trust me whatsoever, but perhaps a lynch on me/cop investigation can make these past few pages be read from my point of view. 

So, S_B, should C_F assume one of (or both of) you and timchen are Mafia? Or what happens if three townies each get two votes on them? Then by your logic there should definitely be three Mafia. I understand that when someone votes for you, you want to think that they're Mafia, but the odds are not in your favor in that regard.

I don't think Frisk should assume that timchen or I am mafia.  It depends on the context of the votes.  i.e.  Scummy vs. Baseless.  I seem scummy, so votes against me were purposeful and directed and not without reason.  Other votes, like the one's on CF are not grounded in fact, thus should not be taken in the same light as the votes placed against me.  Not to say that a mafia wouldn't do something like that.  I just want to point out that I don't think 2 votes on someone automatically equates one of them as being mafia.

[manda2014]

Sharky's most recent post seems to me to give off much more of that mafiapologetic tone that Eevee was talking about with regard to me. When that is added to all the other scummy behaviors he's exhibited that coouuuuld be excused as newbie mistakes (claiming, questionable logic in defense of his vote against Frisk, etc.), I'm inclined to think that he's mafia using his newbie-ness to his advantage than town making genuine mistakes. From what I've seen following mafia, the "I'm new guys, don't shoot" defense isn't tolerated long, and I don't think it should really work here either.

Vote: shark_bait

[timchen]

I would like to hear more from timchen - what is your read on the game currently?

My read is stuck at MVI right now. need some time to switch...

[Young Nick]

Not that I have time for a long post, but I do understand how S_B sees the votes on him as different than the votes on C_F. Or I guess the nature of the votes is different, I should say. I am going to point out the obvious and strongly suggest that no one else votes for S_B to prevent a quick-hammer. In fact, as a precaution until I get back and can post more,

Unvote

[pingpongsam]

Sharky's most recent post seems to me to give off much more of that mafiapologetic tone that Eevee was talking about with regard to me. When that is added to all the other scummy behaviors he's exhibited that coouuuuld be excused as newbie mistakes (claiming, questionable logic in defense of his vote against Frisk, etc.), I'm inclined to think that he's mafia using his newbie-ness to his advantage than town making genuine mistakes. From what I've seen following mafia, the "I'm new guys, don't shoot" defense isn't tolerated long, and I don't think it should really work here either.

Vote: shark_bait

Interesting read. I took it all as pretty innocent and  apparently, Young_Nick did as well. Your use of the word "Mafiapologetic" is both humorous and offers an interesting lense to reread the post. You stated that wagon starters get the bulk of the suspicion when the lynch flips town. Then you acted on your original intuition and cast an early vote on Sharky.

As a Mafia move it is ballsy (esp for a female) but potentially dissonant enough to disarm the D2 scrutiny. As a Town move it is also fairly solid because as Town you can sustain further scrutiny without error. As a Mafia move it gets you out of the laconic stage that was causing me and possibly Robz (by virtue of his statement) to be suspicious. As a Town move it galvanizes other Townies to act on shared suspicion.

My god, it's the WIFOM.

I have some reservations about the notion that a Mafia would throw in the towel so easily. Sharky's attitude is in-line with a VT role as claimed in that losing him doesn't mortally wound Town and it provides a new lense for us all to peer through. Mafia only has 2 members (if I got the damned intro info right this time) and a single loss is a mortal blow.

More WIFOM, argh.

For now, I'm willing to reconsider Sharky's response through your interpretation and, combined with the early faux pas, Vote: Shark_Bait again.

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-6

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (2): timchen, shark_bait
shark_bait (2): manda2014, pingpongsam
manda2014 (1): Eevee

Not Voting {3}: Robz888, Galzria, Young Nick

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Lynch deadline: Saturday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. forum time

[Captain_Frisk]

timchen - still waiting for your read here.

[Young Nick]

Back at a computer. Nothing new.

Vote: Shark_Bait

[Robz888]

I don't like the Sharky bandwagon. Time to start a new one.

Vote: Pingpongsam

[Galzria]

I don't like the Sharky bandwagon. Time to start a new one.

Vote: Pingpongsam

How... Unusual of you?

[Captain_Frisk]

This is indeed unusual.  I too was planning on changing my vote.... but not to pingpongsam.

[Robz888]

I don't like the Sharky bandwagon. Time to start a new one.

Vote: Pingpongsam

How... Unusual of you?

I know. I like to be spontaneous.

[shark_bait]

My actions have garnered quite a bit of discussion already, no need to keep this up.

unvote

[Captain_Frisk]

So RobZ - would you like to explain your vote?  My current read on PPS is of the "mislynch waiting to happen" variety.

[Robz888]

So RobZ - would you like to explain your vote?  My current read on PPS is of the "mislynch waiting to happen" variety.

We'll never know for sure unless we lynch him.

[Captain_Frisk]

That is a good argument.

[timchen]

Ok. Catching back up. Since the players here are not too many I can actually do a list!

shark_bait: slightly scummy. If were scum I will lynch frisk next.
frisk: mostly neutral, but I am still curious on he pointing out #2 in shark's reply. See below.
eevee: no read. lurking.
manda: slightly town. Young Nick's accusation does not make sense to me.
Robz: lurking.
PPS: if I have to choose an obv. town except myself it is my choice here.
Young Nick: neutral for now.
Galzria: another obv. town, not as obvious as PPS though.

So the main thing I see here is still how people react to the #2 comment from shark. Personally I only find it illogical, not scummy. Again I would be very glad if someone can point out how that comment is scummy. The fact that frisk "coaches" and shark immediately listens looks really bad from my eyes. I don't have strong reads on any others, but from the posts Galz and PPS are the most likely townies to me.

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-7

timchen (1): Captain_Frisk
Captain_Frisk (1): timchen
shark_bait (3): manda2014, pingpongsam, Young Nick
manda2014 (1): Eevee
pingpongsam (1): Robz888

Not Voting {2}: Galzria, shark_bait

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

[Captain_Frisk]

The #2 comment is scummy (in my mind) because as other people have pointed out - townies don't need to be concerned with the perception of whether or not they are town.

The argument is also illogical (why would voting for me make him appear to be town), but the fact that this is something he is concerned with is scummy.

If you are lynched as VT on day 1 - you are providing a service to the town.  This isn't something I fully understood in my first game, and why I'm willing to give him a 1 day pass.  Nobody wants to be lynched - especially in their first game.

Vote: Manda2014

[Young Nick]

The #2 comment is scummy (in my mind) because as other people have pointed out - townies don't need to be concerned with the perception of whether or not they are town.

The argument is also illogical (why would voting for me make him appear to be town), but the fact that this is something he is concerned with is scummy.

If you are lynched as VT on day 1 - you are providing a service to the town.  This isn't something I fully understood in my first game, and why I'm willing to give him a 1 day pass.  Nobody wants to be lynched - especially in their first game.

Vote: Manda2014

Well, getting lynched as a VT is online providing a service to the town if it inspires good discussion. Considering this, I could see how he does not yet want to be lynched... there hasn't been THAT much conversation thus far.

On another note, could you explain why you vote Manda?

[Captain_Frisk]

Manda lynch is panda lynch?

[Captain_Frisk]

Seriously though - i felt that her vote on SB was pressured when she was called out for not voting - and I think she's read enough mafia to really have a sense that shark_bait's play is more likely noob than scum.

[manda2014]

Heading to jury duty right now, so no time to post. I'll be around this afternoon, though.

[Captain_Frisk]

Guilty!

[Young Nick]

Hey! I'm at jury duty right now hanging out in the juror's lounge playing iso. If I didn't have wifi I probably would have killed myself out of sheer boredom already.

manda you wouldn't happen to serve in DC by chance would you?

[Galzria]

Whoops, realized I'd neglected this thread for a day.

So I'm a bit torn. I stand pretty strongly by the fact that even the potential presence of a cop should be enough to deter a Mafia S_B from even attempting a Gambit like claiming VT. Even if a Mafia S_B decided to try it anyway, he should at least be given the night for a cop to confirm/deny his claim.

That said, I'm a little wary of the people still pushing for his lynch. Drawing from experience however, it's usually town that pushes bad wagons along with their votes. Back in M-II, when Robz and I were new scumlings, he pushed hard for Morgrim with his voice, while only adding his vote at a later time. I also didn't climb aboard until late, denouncing many of Robz's arguments as "straw-man" cases. That said, I chose to apply pressure elsewhere by placing my vote on bozzball. Incidentally, the choice of bozzball was that (aside from his nature as a player), his vote was not on Morgrim - so I could tie them together as partners.

Why is all of that relevant you ask? Well, because I'm not convinced that there is scum voting for S_B right now. There have been a few reasoned arguments, including my own why he should live to see the night at the least. It would look rather scummy to ignore those, and continue to think S_B is scum. But I'm here to find and lynch Mafia, not scum.

So, I'm looking at Eevee, Robz, Captain_Frisk, and timchen.

Eevee: Not normally a lurker. FoS Fuzzy. Come play.

Robz: Also lurking, but in a lot of games. He is mixing up his playstyle,, which could be to throw a former teammate (me) off his scummy tail. Or he could be genuinely interested in trying new things.

CF: He makes a lot of sense. Almost too much sense. Alright, I can't hold that against him, but I COULD see him and Timchen working as a team. Their RVS OMGUS votes could have been preplanned. I mean, who would expect scummies to come out playing towards each other like that? ME! That's who! Still, that's about all I have to go on at the moment.

Timchen: Matches much of what's said about CF, except that his overall play has given me a slightly more negative vibe. Not to mention (and this is really, personally unfair - but it's how I feel) anybody who reads me (or anybody else) as "obvtown" gets a huge FoS from me. Not only do I detest the term, I find it MUCH more in the repertoire of scum than town. Scum need friends. Town needs to stay on it's toes. Timchen is definitely highest up on my list, but still not high enough to vote yet.

Oh, and let's not forget me! Hi! I'm not voting S_B, but I'm not scum either! My role PM proves it... Unless this is a Bastard Game...?

So: That's where I'm at. Thoughts?

[manda2014]

I WISH I was in DC. Alas, I'm wasting away in Texas.

Anyway,

Seriously though - i felt that her vote on SB was pressured when she was called out for not voting - and I think she's read enough mafia to really have a sense that shark_bait's play is more likely noob than scum.

I was planning on voting soon anyway. I'd already stated a few times that I found Sharky's play to be suspicious, and I decided I might as well vote. Could it be noob play? Sure, but it still feels really scummy to me. What Galz says (and I realize this is a reiteration of an earlier point) about not just lynching people because they read scummy does make sense, and I'm not certain I'm going to leave my vote on Sharky; perhaps letting him survive the night could provide us with some more information. But, for now, my vote rests.

I'd also like to point out that Robz's play seems really strange to me... from what I've read, Robz, you're NOT spontaneous. A lot of WIFOM in this though... I'd tend to think that Robz wouldn't do anything out of character like that to draw attention to himself if he were scum, which may mean that he is scum and he knows we'd think he wouldn't change it up if he were scum and is using that to his advantage, etc. I'm not very suspicious yet, but it's enough to keep me interested.

[pingpongsam]

I think it might be a mistake to assume Town has a cop. Also, I don't quite understand how a Town cop could communicate alignment without divulging his/her role.

What we know is that there are only 2 Mafia and one of them IS a cop. If  Sharky is one of those members then there is a 50% chance he is the cop. We, on the other hand, potentially have 2 PRs and their identity would be wholly protected if we did nab the Mafia cop. Going out on an equally precarious limb as presupposing we have a Town cop we can presuppose we have a cop AND a doctor. If we pop the Mafia cop the first night the Town cop is free to divulge identity for the Doctor to protect and then Town's scumhunting capabilities are on steroids.

So, looking at this strictly from a risk vs reward analysis the question becomes whether or not the potential reward of getting Mafia's cop before the 1st night begins is worth the potential downside that Sharky flips Town which would still provide good information.

That said, I concede that if Sharky is scum but not the cop then we are better off hunting for their cop not only to neuter the PR capabilities of the scumteam but also because Sharky appears to be a fairly craptastic Mafia. I don't know what Voltgloss' Alignment/Role selection process was but I'm guessing he would have paired a noob with one of the more experienced people to comprise the Mafia team. If Sharky is the noob and not the cop role then finding the experienced cop player would be the the best possible lynch. However, by virtue of being the more experienced player they are not going to be hanging out there for easy pickings. They might be lurking... They might bus their teammate... I really am running out juices on this post at this point because I too easily drift down all the logical branches.




All that said, this idea of lynch mafia not scum sounds great coming off the keyboard but exactly how is that accomplished? When is scummy behavior too obvious to be actually scumtell? What is a Mafiatell versus a scumtell?

[Voltgloss]

I don't know what Voltgloss' Alignment/Role selection process was but I'm guessing he would have paired a noob with one of the more experienced people to comprise the Mafia team.

Roles and alignments were distributed entirely randomly.

[pingpongsam]

YaY, a logical corridor I can now ignore!

[Captain_Frisk]

All that said, this idea of lynch mafia not scum sounds great coming off the keyboard but exactly how is that accomplished? When is scummy behavior too obvious to be actually scumtell? What is a Mafiatell versus a scumtell?

I have never been able to get an answer to this question.

[Galzria]

All that said, this idea of lynch mafia not scum sounds great coming off the keyboard but exactly how is that accomplished? When is scummy behavior too obvious to be actually scumtell? What is a Mafiatell versus a scumtell?

I have never been able to get an answer to this question.

O is the only one who's ever left a Mafiatell, in M-IV. Every other person who has ever been lynched due to anything (read: "scummy behavior") other than direct PR influence has been town. Every single person.

Like, it's rather scummy to still be pushing a S_B lunch at this point. But that doesn't make you all high Mafia suspects.

[Captain_Frisk]

Yeah - some movement in here.  Who do you find scummy Mr. Zria?

[Eevee]

All that said, this idea of lynch mafia not scum sounds great coming off the keyboard but exactly how is that accomplished? When is scummy behavior too obvious to be actually scumtell? What is a Mafiatell versus a scumtell?

I have never been able to get an answer to this question.

Well, scumplay is accidental bad townplay, mafia play is always intentional. Our job is to figure out if the guy who messed up is sincere in his apologies or just sorry he got caught.

I'm sorry I've beem lurkish. I've actually been online and reading, just finding it hard to find anything to say. Galzrias assessment "scum isnt voting for s_b atm" feels super far-fetched, dont really agree you can now that.. unless you are scum obv.

[Galzria]

Yeah - some movement in here.  Who do you find scummy Mr. Zria?

I believe I covered that not two posts ago?

[Captain_Frisk]

so you throw up 3 fingers of suspicion, but no voting, no active scum hunting etc.   Is this game too vanilla for you?

[Captain_Frisk]

so you throw up 3 fingers of suspicion, but no voting, no active scum hunting etc.   Is this game too vanilla for you?

I'm guilty of a pops of ctown - this is directed @ galzria.

[Galzria]

so you throw up 3 fingers of suspicion, but no voting, no active scum hunting etc.   Is this game too vanilla for you?

Awfully defensive?

I'm not as liberal with my vote these days. Go back and look at my history throughout more recent, or even ongoing games. Some people like to throw it around, but I'm becoming more and more lenient with it, voicing my suspicions first.

As for not scumhunting, I disagree. I narrowed the field based on intuition and previous games. Much like M-III, and as I've indicated before, I like to scrutinize the Vets first before the new players, because I have a notion going in about what to look for in their playstyle.

The fact that most of the four I listed have been flying well under the radar wasn't lost on me either - as that's consistently been where the scum lie in games past.

So I looked at the behavioral patterns of those four. Very brief, but focused on what stood out to me. f.DS has a great tradition of persecuting town for "scummy" behavior, and letting the Mafia get by without a second glance.

I'm interested that you take such abrupt offense to my methods.

[Captain_Frisk]

Oh - sorry Galz - I totally missed your mega post. 

[Galzria]

Oh - sorry Galz - I totally missed your mega post.

[Eevee]

Oh - sorry Galz - I totally missed your mega post.

Hmm yeah? Could be scum realizing its mistake, could be a legit "I missed a post there" moment. *C_F's mafia % goes up a bit in my head.*

[Captain_Frisk]

I truly just missed the post @ 12:15 forum time.  When i refreshed after lunch I saw Manda's note about jury duty in texas, the mod's note on randomized roles, and just kept reading from there.

[Young Nick]

@PPS: I have no idea how you would go about hunting for role=cop instead of goon. Especially D1 where (to my knowledge), the role-cop has not even had a chance to investigate, so the two are on equal footing. It seems like a shot in the dark. Also, I am going to go ahead and discard the idea of assuming we have a cop and doctor. It'd be nice for that to happen, but let's face it, it's not all that likely, and you only discussed that coupled with a correct D1 lynch. That's a lot of hypotheticals to consider.

@Galzria: I like what you have to say except that I would imagine the cop might want to investigate someone else. We know a decent amount about S_B due to his number of posts, but there are, as you state, plenty of lurkers. If we have a cop, we shouldn't assume S_B will be the target of investigation if he even makes it to tonight. Overall, this is the cleanest argument I've heard for not voting S_B so far.

[Eevee]

Yeah, not settling for vanilla mafia is just crazy talk. How about we be the first (?) game of mafia in f.Ds that lynched mafia of any kind on day 1 first..

[Young Nick]

Maybe this should go in Puzzles and Challenges, but what's the fastest way for Mafia or Town to win in any of the six current set ups?

My answer: Night 1: Lynch Mafia and have other Mafia night-kill himself/herself.

[Voltgloss]

Vote Count 1-8

Captain_Frisk (1): timchen
shark_bait (3): manda2014, pingpongsam, Young Nick
manda2014 (2): Eevee, Captain_Frisk
pingpongsam (1): Robz888

Not Voting {2}: Galzria, shark_bait

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

[Grujah]

Maybe this should go in Puzzles and Challenges, but what's the fastest way for Mafia or Town to win in any of the six current set ups?

My answer: Night 1: Lynch Mafia and have other Mafia night-kill himself/herself.

Got faster:
Both mafia get modkilled D1.

[Young Nick]

I was assuming no inactivity or other behavior to warrant mod-killing. :/

[pingpongsam]

Sharky isn't voting. Sharky is, effectively not counter attacking or defending self. Somehow I find this oddly not Mafia. For a 2 person team and a 60% wagon I'd think there'd be a struggle, some diversion, something.

Unvote

I'd like to read the remaining people voting Sharky so I pose this question:

If you were truly VT and had made some grave slips that could be leveraged by scum against you what would you be doing in the face of a growing wagon on you?

[timchen]

If you were truly VT and had made some grave slips that could be leveraged by scum against you what would you be doing in the face of a growing wagon on you?

I thought this is an interesting question! But as a VT, you probably have nothing to slip anyway. So, if you are reasonable, explain what others deem suspicious in a reasonable way. And if the town is determined to lynch you, I guess, not much you can do. Personally I will try to organize my suspicions and make a final speech before lynch. 

Not that speech would be particularly useful to the town though. I would say most of the time the guess from a single VT hostile the whole town is pretty far away from truth. But just in case I luck out I can brag afterwards.

[manda2014]

If you were truly VT and had made some grave slips that could be leveraged by scum against you what would you be doing in the face of a growing wagon on you?

Hmmm I like this question. And I have to say I agree with timchen: if you're town, you have nothing to feel guilty or defensive about. I'd just explain my actions as best I can and, if I get lynched, I get lynched. As I've said before, sometimes you have to take one for the team. Obviously I'd rather stay in the game, but if I'm lynched and the wagon gives the town more information, then oh well.

[Young Nick]

I agree with the question posed by PPS and the answers to it, but I still can't help but shake the thought that this is just advanced play. It seems like S_B is just letting himself slip out from under our scrutinizing noses (see what I did there, eh?) by not posting and playing like he's not concerned. Yeah,  there's a good chance that he could be VT, but if he is town, it doesn't even seem that the cop would feel the need to investigate him at this point.

I have a similar question for all of you guys. If you were the cop, would you feel a need to investigate S_B tonight if he is still alive? If not, who would you investigate instead?

[Robz888]

I think the Cop should probably investigate me or Galzria or Frisk. That way he/she knows whether they can trust our veteran reads.

[Eevee]

I think the Cop should probably investigate me or Galzria or Frisk. That way he/she knows whether they can trust our veteran reads.

In general I'd be wary of people instructing the cop. Especially if they say "veteran players" and forget to include one veteran player (me).

My suggestion for the cop: Give it some thought and do what you feel is the best for town.

[Eevee]

I think the Cop should probably investigate me or Galzria or Frisk. That way he/she knows whether they can trust our veteran reads.

In general I'd be wary of people instructing the cop. Especially if they say "veteran players" and forget to include one veteran player (me).

My suggestion for the cop: Give it some thought and do what you feel is the best for town.

The cop = any power role we might have.

[Captain_Frisk]

I think the Cop should probably investigate me or Galzria or Frisk. That way he/she knows whether they can trust our veteran reads.

Just to be clear again - i'm hardly a veteran.  I've actually never successfully lynched scum.

[Galzria]

I think the Cop should probably investigate me or Galzria or Frisk. That way he/she knows whether they can trust our veteran reads.

Just to be clear again - i'm hardly a veteran.  I've actually never successfully lynched scum.

You'll have a hard time succeeding in this game then, won't you?

[Captain_Frisk]

It's so demoralizing to lynch town.  You in M3, RobZ in M5, everyone in M4.