SFS, you realize that RobZ and I didn't have daychat right? We couldn't exactly undo it. if i backed off, it would have been bad, because it was (or should have been) clear that Robz and I were not masons. At that point scum has the advantage (they know that masons are 2 out of 3) and the VTs are still clueless.
Of course I realize you don't have daychat, if you're town. I was worried that you were mafia!
I am open to the notion that it should have been obvious that you two were not masons. Hey even I knew you weren't a mason. I am open to the notion that you could not have backed off, without looking scummy. Hence, it could have been a bold scum gambit. So bold it would be ridiculous to try it, which is what would make it work. Now from my perspective as an IC, once you guys (as mafia) sold that idea, how would you play the game? Well, you'd never back off (which you never did - we were still discussing claiming well after the actual claims and just about up to the D1 deadline) and you'd make sure that no chinks developed in the armor. What would that look like? Well, one of you could keep screaming "if you lynch me, don't lynch the other one". That's way too obvious to be mafia, right? I coupled that with some meta about another player, and went Damn, this is a HUGE possibility. It was very distracting, at best, and at worst it seemed anti-town. The fact that it turned out ok, or that the math justified it, is, to me at least, irrelevant.
By the way, for ZM8, I'm not removing the masons. I'm hoping to have at least one or two newbies, and between the mafia QT and the mason QT, they would have a good chance of having some in-game guidance. Roles will still be assigned randomly, of course, but 2 daychats is twice as many as 1.