Discworld Mafia is go!

[Strago]

Okay, so a pretty crappy Day/Night 1, saved only by the amusing fact that the scum took out the SK, which is better for us than it is for them. I feel bad for starting the effort against EvilTom as early as I did, since - looking back on it - I think it was just a result of his personality that made him go into defensive mode, which of course just made him look worse. The only solace I can really draw is that A) he was only vanilla, and B) he could have ended up being a Super-esque figure during Day 2 or 3, diverting our attention from real scum for even longer. Bleh. Can't believe we lost a Cop, though. Well, at least we didn't lynch him? -_-

At the moment, my gut is guiding me toward one suspect. And that's Cmdr_King. Let's take a look at what he's done so far, shall we?

Page 1, is the third or so joke vote to show up, votes against the Rat. Roughly as innocuous as any joke vote, though it has occurred to me that a similar attitude was almost very bad for a townie Andrew in previous games (SuikoMafia, specifically), so it's not inconceivable that this could be a strategic scum move.

Page 3, the Cmdr makes his "pointless analysis" of where the joke votes have been landing so far. Huh. And then votes for CPU because he's been ignored thus far. Unvotes his almost immediately, since CPU actually posts, and Cmdr says that's all he wanted. Seems reasonable enough. Votes VSM to try and get him to talk more. Also in the post where he makes these votes, he presents the following:

Hm.  So, at this point, Strago, Smodge, Corwin, Excal, VSM, and Bobbin haven't had anyone voting for them.  A neat factoid for my own future reference, perhaps.

I can't decide whether this is the act of a townie trying to broaden the scope of discussion, or a dungeon dimension creature trying to spread doubt in every possible direction. Much like his post previous, it presents a lot of "data" without any actual analysis. Heck, without any way to productively analyze it. This sort of thing looks to me like a show of trying to help without actually risking much by doing anything.

Page 4 is Cmdr's tiff with VSM. This is probably the best-looking thing that the Cmdr's done thus far, to me, since VSM has been pretty much a null contributor up to this point.

Page 7, Cmdr pops up again with an incredibly... lukewarm agreement with the pressure on Tom. Here it is:

My my.  Suddenly so very lively in here.  It would seem that once again, Dread Thomas has found himself under the notorious Day One Gun.  Admittedly, the passing reference to No-Lynch is an understandable and useful flag, so really he's probably the best target so far.

He's already treating it like it's destined to be, more or less. This sort of attitude makes me slightly nervous, in a situation like this.

Page 9, here is the Commander's post:

... wait.  A role claim without a name claim?  In Discworld?  That just don't even make sense!  Are you... trying to get yourself killed her, Dread Thomas?  I'm seriously beginning to wonder.

Okay.  Now, at this point... Otter's actually in plausible danger of modkill if he's just opting not to talk.  As such, it's reasonable to think that he's got some reason, be it real-life (seems unlikely, he does bounce around in chat a bit) or role-related (perhaps he has a zombie-like restriction on posting and wants to save it?  Too early to form a solid speculation).  Thusly, even if we opt to ignore Tom's death which, I don't think he's the best choice of LAL target.

Now, CPU has a perfectly legit excuse... but as seen in FFT Mafia, legit excuses are excellent for scum, so should he be scum he's very dangerous in the long term.  Meanwhilst, unoriginal is, not unlike Nitori, just lurky by nature, so if we decide to go easy on CPU for now he seems the logical target.

That said, I don't really feel the need to lead a charge on either at this moment and it seems a good time to await further arguments.

Bold mine. Please keep in mind that this was posted about nine hours before Day 1 was scheduled to end. How is this "a good time to await further arguments," exactly? This seems like precisely when one would want to start ruffling other feathers if one was not happy with the imminent lynch of EvilTom.  And if the Cmdr isn't actually interested in pursuing CPU, Nitori or Otter, then that post is essentially devoid of content.

Then, of course, there's page 10, where the train for Tom starts building up in earnest, and Cmdr_King is right on there at the prime scum moment, where ideally nobody will think anything strange of accepting that Tom is more or less dead already. Of course, Cmdr seems to have been holding this attitude for quite some time before he actually drops this very comfortable vote. He also says that he's voting because he'll be at work later, "until deadline hits," which is one of those "perfectly legit excuses" for quick decisions that are, as Cmdr said himself, so dangerous in the hands of scum.

Yeah, all this is certainly enough for an early vote against the Commandant. ##VOTE: Cmdr_King

I also think it's worth noting that Cranbud, in his attempt to root out lurkers during Day 1, never so much as mentioned Kilgamayan, who for the majority of that Day did absolutely nothing. And even when Kilga did leap into action, all he really managed was to voice reservations about lynching Tom when it was obviously way too late to stop it (I did sort of a similar thing when Captain K was going to get strung up in the WoT game, now that I think about it) and then place a vote on our Cop. Yeah, not a great track record. Neither one of these guys looks great to me right now.

[IhatethisCPU]

Urgh.

Dead serial killer is good, I suppose.  Probability alone means QR was more likely to hit Town than Scum (and how!  Vimes, dead?  Flavor-wise, that would be Town's deathknell).

I'd like a bit of explication on the Serial Killer role, though, since I haven't seen it at work very often.  Did QR likely know Tom was Town, in which case her jumping on the wagon and attacking him at some length and depth was the equivalent of a Scum-led train?  If so, that *somewhat* alleviates the suspicion on the Tom voters.  I understand we can't know exactly what she could know in this particular game, but how does it *usually* work?

Anyway, dead cop is very, very bad, especially since he never had the chance to investigate even one person.

The person I want to turn to here is Unoriginal, who has barely done anything and also failed to vote yesterday. I believe he said he was going to read over the topic, so I'd like to see what he gets from it.

Other people I'm looking at are Kilga/CPU for doing largely the same thing, but they were better about it if only slightly. (Kilga came in near the end, CPU at least voted). I'd like to hear from all three of these people today, hopefully.

##VOTE: Unoriginal

CPU did at least vote - for a person who flipped Town, near the end of the day.  Not saying this is a huge scumtell or something (Principle knows Tom did himself no favors as the day wore on), but voting for the wrong person doesn't seem to me hugely better than voting for no person, if not outright worse.

I'm going to continue to

##VOTE: IHateThisCPU

at least for the moment.  Posting "sorry I'm lurking but" and "go ahead and prune me" are... not really productive for Town.  The latter especially seems like a decent Scum gambit: pretend to be a willing martyr so people don't lynch you.  And yes, I'm fully aware of the irony of ME saying that after the Suikoden game, but a) it was probably a bad idea there and b) I had a very specific reason for doing it relating to the bevy of power roles we had available.  Here, it's at best the same "bad Town play" as Tom - and unlike Tom's play, it would be at least decent for Scum.

So, CPU: Please take the next time you have access to post whatever thoughts you can on the situation, rather than to apologize for your lack of content!

...While I do appreciate you, Taishyr and Corwin being willing to assume that I'm at least a somewhat competent Mafia player...

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you all horribly. I just go by past precedent, and am completely incapable of reading scum-tells logically, unless they're really horribly blatant. Like super in the NR mafia, and I was half convinced he was just a distracted townie. >_>'

Oddly, I've found that precedent (along with rampant paranoia, and I'm totally serious here.) tends to work better than logical thought for town. Mostly because I've also found that scum are better debaters, since they know whose on their side, and what they have to do to win. Along with the fact that they just have to convince a few of the weaker players to see things their way to move things along.

And I'm going to disappoint Taishyr further, by waiting until I see what Otter thinks to try to post useful content.

[Unoriginal]

I didn't vote day one because my options were either to either toss a meaningless vote on someone random or Hammer Tom, neither of which were particularly attractive options.

As for lurking?  I'm a lurker by nature.  If I don't have anything meaningful to say, I generally remain quiet.

[Yakumo]

Corwin, I'm not missing the point, that IS my point.  Your only defense of that vote is that it didn't put him in immediate danger.  Maybe it's just me, but piling on votes during the joke phase without even a casual mention of the wagoning is a touch odd.  Bandwagoning is a reasonably common way to deal with day one, but it's also common to say that's what we're doing.  That said, this is a flimsy thing to work with and I don't want to start a shouting match over it, so I'll leave it there.

[Yakumo]

Unoriginal, I know you know better than that.  That's a horrible attitude.  If we all waited until we had something of substance to say before we talked, we would never say anything.  Also, you basically just said that you are going to continue lurking and expect that to fly?  Hell no.  That's worth a vote right there, to try and get you playing if nothing else.  That's a totally anti-town attitude.

##Vote: Unoriginal

CPU: This applies to your fatalism as well.

[Cmdr_King]

Strags: My gut feeling was that Tom, as in previous games, is just a jumpy fellow who draws attention to himself and totally overreacts by nature, and thusly was probably town despite the misplays.  As such, I was hoping someone would post between the time I said "wait for more arguments" and when I had to leave for work, since I wasn't really getting enough vibes off anyone to really try and make a case.  This didn't happen, and I didn't want to end the day with my vote uselessly strung out on a complete non-target.  *shrug* That said, you're right, legit excuses are still a good screen and shouldn't be taken as a free clear.
Well, really, nothing should.  That's really one of the truisms in this game.

As for data... well, nothing had happened yet.  Like I said before, I was hoping putting out data would draw attention and maybe get the game onto the next phase, although Tom's flambouance did this to a far greater degree as events turned out.

That said, there's looking like no shortage of targets presented so far.  Uno and CPU for fatalistic lurking, Corwin for various reasons, Soppy because he really sounds like he's finding reasons for Corwin to be guilty, VSM for being so reluctant to really join the game despite posting... but honestly I can't look at any of them and say "Yeah, they're probably scum", a new feeling for day two.  Blargh.

[Excal]

Alright...  I have to admit, I didn't see Quiet Rain's role coming, or at least that we'd be lucky enough that it'd be pruned out this early.  That said, I am greatful for it, and just hope there haven't been any trick roles stuck in, a la Delita.

Now, on to the meaningful contributions.  Those who died yesterday and today didn't really leave us with much in the way of clues.  But, that doesn't mean we're bereft of them.

Now, I've not got too much time at the moment, so I'll look at who voted Tom (and possibly Smodge), when and why later.  For right now, I'm just going to call to task the people who look to have been lurking.


Low Post Lurkers

Otter is on this list, sure.  But that's mostly because he still has to be.  I fully expect him to come out swinging soon now that he's acknowledged the game.   (Of course, if he manages to keep this up for a while based solely on reputation, and actually is scum, I think I'm going to be very, very embarrassed come end game.)

Now, next up comes CPU, who hasn't said much of anything.  He claims it's because he doesn't have time/connection.  Honestly, I can sympathise with that claim.  What I cannot sympathise with is the fact that you don't use your limited time to say anything.  The only posts we've seen from you so far seem to be claims that you can't talk that often, and that you'll accept it if we do anyways.  And that, that looks scummy, because you're trying to use a dearth of quantity to excuse a lack of quantity.  Look at Tai if you want an example to show you wrong.  Either way, this stance of yours makes you look bad.  But not as bad as...

Unoriginal.  You've got four posts.  The first was to vote for yourself.  The second, to celebrate the joke phase being over, was to unvote yourself.  The third I can't remember.  And the fourth...  is to say that we shouldn't expect anything from you?!

##Vote: Unoriginal

Honestly, as worrying as some of the other behaviour around here is, that's basically asking us to ignore perfect scum activity.  And as such, it demands a vote.

Kilgamayan is, as pointed out before, one of the chronically quiet ones.  He made an attempt on Page 11 though, with two posts of decent material and thoughts.

Nitori is the only other one from this crowd that stands out to me.  Except, he's making more of an effort than usual to be counted and be helpful.  So, speak up and be heard, Nitori.  There's a lot going on, and little excuse to be silent.


And with the quiet people gone, there's the people who gab a lot, and say next to nil.

I wasn't going to open with Cmdr King, but after Strago's lovely little summary of what he's done, I'm not sure it's something that can be helped.  I had been having vague suspicions of you before, and he basically crystalised everything into something concrete.

VSM is another person who manages to look like he's trying to avoid low post count while also avoiding content.  His one really useful post came late in the day, and it's basically an examination of the scenarios around voting for Tom which comes out very inconclusively.  There's also one other thing I'm wondering about.  You said recently that making lists is a good strategy for scum.  I don't see the benefit for scum over town myself, so I'm curious as to what led you to this conclusion.

And Sopko I'm going to mention here specifically because of what Tom pointed out.  You made a stink over QR because of something nebulous, and then you didn't say much when you went after Tom.  And now you're trying to paint your strike on QR is a good light?  Even though she'd have no more reason to want Otter dead than anyone else?  Same with the trying to tie associations between Tom and Corwin, in a scenario where Tom's alignment has no bearing on Corwin's. 

[IhatethisCPU]

*Sigh*

Vote for me, idiots.

##Vote: IhatethisCPU

This way, you lot get rid of someone who could honestly care less about how this ends, and the scum have one less red herring.

[Shale]

Oh for the love of Christ don't do this. If you're going to play, fucking try to care about the game. This is twice in a row you've taken all of two days to give up. If you want to get modkilled it's your own damned business, but I'm not going to waste a day killing you.

Otter: Still waiting on you to contribute something. Unoriginal, too.

Excal: Why doesn't QR's flip put Sopko in at least a somewhat better light? He went after someone who turned out to be anti-town, and there's no way it was a scumbus.

Strago: I see your point on CK, to a degree. I can easily rationalize any one or two of those as a townie hesitant to do something stupid on Day 1, but all of them together look like deliberately dancing around without doing anything decisive. I think you might have a better point on Kilga, though. I used the same trick, a bit more forcefully, when Fnorder was getting railroaded in my first game.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

*Sigh*

Vote for me, idiots.

##Vote: IhatethisCPU

This way, you lot get rid of someone who could honestly care less about how this ends, and the scum have one less red herring.

:sigh:

I am just starting a new job that requires a considerable amount of concentration and creativity; I can't be on that often, to the point I almost pulled out.  But you know what?  I *didn't* pull out, and having not done so I *obligated* myself to *play the freakin game*.

If you're going to pull nonsense like this, then PM the mod and ask for a Modkill rather than dragging the game down and, at best, making us waste a day killing you.

[Excal]

Because I don't see any advantage in QR going after Otter.  Especially when, from the little I've seen of her posts, it seems entirely in character with who she is to be a bit snarky from time to time.  What this looks like is Sopko jumping on something that may, or may not, have been real, and trying to claim credit for what was, essentially, a lucky guess.

[Unoriginal]

Sigh.  By "meaningful" I meant anything at all, pretty much.  If I try to force myself to say something, like I did in the last post, it usually comes off wrong and/or leaves a bad impression.  It generally takes me a while to form opinions, and I've mostly been trying to buy a while to think things over(and doing a spectacularly bad job at it).

And yes, I am trying to stay under the radar(and doing a horrible job of it), but I have my reasons. 

To be somewhat less vague, while I was told I was vanilla, I rather strongly suspect I have a hidden on-death role I'd prefer to not have trigger at the wrong time.

[Carthrat]

Wow.

Either Unoriginal is *really fucking ballsy* or a total newbie. Unlike EvilTom, his play isn't giving me such a strong scummy vibe, but it's still... bad. Also, if you were told you were vanilla, you may as well keep that assumption until you have an explicit reason for thinking otherwise. Way to roleclaim otherwise; the 'does action on death' role is one you want to keep *secret*, for crying out loud. Metagaming from flavour text is bad mmkay.

And now CPU is voting for himself, and calling us all idiots. What the fuck? I only have one vote, and I want to kill scum with it. Look, I might be being hypocritical here, but suddenly what Corwin said about ignoring sucky players looks a whole lot better.

Anyhow. Corwin, Soppy and Shale are people who have actually been talking who I'd consider for a vote right now. Corwin because of his odd way of putting words in my mouth and a few arguments early on that didn't really make sense; Soppy for not even knowing *how* to make sense, and Shale for cleverly disguising a lack of opinion in a few paragraphs of posting.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Sopko

Excal: Why doesn't QR's flip put Sopko in at least a somewhat better light? He went after someone who turned out to be anti-town, and there's no way it was a scumbus.

On the one hand, there's no way it was a scumbus; on the other hand, I don't see any way for Scum to have known QR wasn't town, either, so it could be Scum attacking someone they believed to be a townie and trying to get a mislynch; we do have some significant evidence that the scum saw QR as a townie and a dangerous one - out of all of us, they killed her.  And, I still don't agree with Sopko's interpretation of QR's post as an attack on Otter.

But then, the main thing I get from Sopko is that I *don't understand his thought processes;* don't get his take on QR's post, don't get his take on Corwin.  This came up in the last Mafia game we were both in, and he turned out Town.  As such, I'm not inclined to trust my judgment of him.

Otter

Has now posted.  But still hasn't done more than explain his absence.  I sympathize with his excuse for day 1 lurking and it seems backed up with metagame information, but that doesn't apply now.  As the lolcats say: I can has content?

Unoriginal

I do understand your desire to avoid making rush judgments, and respect it, but you have to participate to at least some degree.  Perhaps your rush judgment, however ill-advised, would randomly fall on Scum and spook them into doing something to make others suspicious.  At a bare minimum, it gives others a better way to judge YOU, which means you're less likely to smokescreen.*

But a softclaim (an admitted guess, no less?) with no nameclaim?  That helps absolutely no one, especially not yourself.  Especially when you attach a vaguely threatening implication to it!  I daresay that if you for some reason suspect yourself of having such a role, you should keep quiet about it and hope to use it against the enemy!

##FOS: Unoriginal

My vote stays on CPU out of a mixture of distrust and disgust, but Unoriginal is climbing the ranks.

* This paragraph assumes Unoriginal is Town and WANTS to help Town; obviously if that's not the case, it doesn't apply.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I only have one vote, and I want to kill scum with it. Look, I might be being hypocritical here, but suddenly what Corwin said about ignoring sucky players looks a whole lot better.

Couldn't disagree more!

If you decide to 'ignore sucky players' like Corwin suggests, then you're giving those players a pass.  Let's say CPU *isn't* a sucky player.  If he WERE Scum, he could trade on exactly that kind of attitude to get away with not posting ANY content.

[Carthrat]

Yeah, I know all that. I'm wishing that I just didn't frigging have to pay attention to them more than anything.

[Yakumo]

Otter, my patience with your excuse is going to run out if you haven't posted something substantial very, very soon.

[Veryslightlymad]

VSM is another person who manages to look like he's trying to avoid low post count while also avoiding content.  His one really useful post came late in the day, and it's basically an examination of the scenarios around voting for Tom which comes out very inconclusively.  There's also one other thing I'm wondering about.  You said recently that making lists is a good strategy for scum.  I don't see the benefit for scum over town myself, so I'm curious as to what led you to this conclusion.

It's a smoke screen. A good scum could post the list and look like they're trying to help town, although, really, I'm not sure -how- such a list actually helps town, but the general idea is that it does. Thus, posting one as scum looks like you're actually doing something with real content. I'm not sure I buy it.

To make my posting record EVEN WORSE, I'm going out tonight. I'll hopefully be back around 3 AM.

[Cmdr_King]

*shrug* I'll be honest.  I haven't made a SIGNIFICANT post so far in the game.  To this point, I haven't found anything really pinging my interest, so the most I've been able to do is post observations where I have them, put what thoughts I have out there, and see both if anyone else is in parallel thought tracks and how they react to it.  People reacting to you can be evidence too, although at the moment it still looks like a legitimate case, not a conspiracy.  Of course, THAT'S evidence too.

Hmph.  Is it out of line to suggest that Uno should just make a full role claim, given his oblique statement earlier?  If he's telling the truth it could be vital information, and the potential for negative consequences should he die is almost as much a lure for scum as an outright roleclaim, barring a bomb effect.  That said, the precise nuances of roleclaiming are ones I oft ignore, so second opinions here are welcome.

All that preamble done, I was staring at the final votelist for Day 1 for a while and decided to glance at an irregularity, Kilga's vote for Smodge.  Odd because every other vote was on either Tom or Otter, who both had fairly legit cases.
Now, Kilga's stated reasoning for this move was not liking the Tom train and wanting his vote elsewhere.  Cool enough.  But why Smodge?  Well...

- Smodge, for trying (or at least seeming to try) to break the joke vote phase incredibly early with fairly poor reasoning

And I can't help but wonder what the hell he means by that.  I mean, he voted for the guy in a vacuum, usually that requires something even on day one, right?  So this is what seems to be the post in question.

Hmm, Finali, CPU and Otter are yet to post.
Well, seeing as he's first on the list that hasn't posted.

##Unvote: Yakumo
##Vote: Finali

Might as well Vote for the Lurkers, they can never be good for town, start typing you 3, even though its joke-vote stage, still nice to know if your even there.

Followed by:

It's hardly lynching them for it, it requires 10 votes, 2 isn't even close, basically its aim is to put a minor amount of pressure on them so when they wake up/get home and see they have a vote or 2, it may encourage them to comment even if it is a line or 2.

After a series noting that he was putting the second vote on Nitori.  Now, looking at this, I can't help thinking both "That's... pretty much a joke vote, first guy on the list that hasn't posted yet", then "... also a pretty innocent comment".  Really, how's that the least bit suspicious?
Admittedly, the knowledge that he was in fact Sam Vimes might be influencing me to see him as more innocent than he might have been at that time, but I don't think so.

So Kilga!  Care to explain?

(Though Honestly?  I'm REALLY waiting for Otter to damn well post.  Whatever he says, there will be valuable info therein methinks, regardless of his alignment or role.)

[Sierra]

Another day, another scumhunt...on the second morning the citizens took to pointing fingers at the quieter residents, recalling that those killed the day before had been among their more vocal members. Soon the focus of their scrutiny was the one called Unoriginal, who dealt with this as well as one might expect given that he was, in reality, a walking chemical factory whose main self-defense mechanism was spontaneous combustion:

He exploded. Quite catatrophically, too. The blast took out the Guild of Fools' guildhall and most of its membership, which all agreed wasn't such a bad turn considering how things could've gone. After a bit of spectating, the citizens were prodded into forming a bucket chain (albeit, in desultory fashion) to douse the flaming wreckage...and then they returned to the business of eyeing each other warily and hurling accusations.

Unoriginal, aka Generic Swamp Dragon, Draco Vulgaris (Town-aligned, Ghost), was modkilled at the player's request. And no, flavor-text aside, he wasn't a bomb.

With fifteen alive, it takes eight to lynch.

There are 26 hours until the deadline.

[Carthrat]

Well, there we go.

##Vote: IHateThisCPU

[Shale]

Wait, there we go what? What does him quitting have to do with CPU?

[Nitori]

Re: Strago/Cmdr_King. I never really noticed the tone of CK's posts, and it does seem like he was happy enough to let Tom go to his doom. Then again, Tom did kinda seem doomed by that point, so it's a little hard to say either way. It certainly doesn't make CK look good at all, although it could just be a

Re: Soppy/Corwin. Soppy's indicated suspicions of Corwin before, and there are reasons to be suspicious of Corwin at this stage, as have been stated. I'm not incredibly certain of where he gets his viewpoint of Soppy's behaviour, though, since I can't really see where 'Soppy's already made up his mind.".

Man, CPU. You're not doing a lot to break the label that's been put on you. Flagrantly giving up like that really hurts town since we end up essentially down a number and are distracted by it.

##VOTE: CPU

[Carthrat]

Well, Unoriginal is dead. Time to attack the next totally non-helpful guy.

[Yakumo]

Blargh.  Why did he have to go and do that?  That's just what we need, our ranks getting thinned out because people don't want to play the game they signed up for.  And CPU's getting jumped on for basically the same reason, which makes sense but still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Mrf.