Touhou Mafia - Main Topic

[OblivionKnight]

There's an important distinction here - if he claimed slowcop or any other particular cop, then there'd be plenty of room for thought and counter-claim and doubt.  But claiming just a cop is very...general.  There can be multiple cops in a game (an insane cop and a slow cop, for example), so just claiming cop is very safe.  If he had said sanecop and someone else was already a sane cop, then there'd be more room for doubt.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Slowcop/rolecop are much rarer variants than traditional cop (and also much less compelling defensive claims for scum to use, and rolecop in particular requires an actual power role to fake), and on day 1 no standard cop would know their sanity.

My main reasoning is that, if he claimed "cop", that's general - there can be multiple cops in a game.  What the cop is told they do varies, I'm under the impression. 

If he had said rolecop or something specific as a coverup, and someone else knew they were that other cop (again, specifics vary by the game as far as I know), then there would be more challenge to them.  Super did something similar in the NR mafia, claiming the exact same cop Meeple did (unless I'm mistaken).  That...well, it kicked his ass and Meeple's, but the point stands - had he said cop, if might not have been as pressured (he could have more easily made up cover-ups, "I wasn't told anything other than 'cop' in my flavour text").

Generally saying cop is a better cover-up than saying "rolecop", is what I'm trying to say.   

[OblivionKnight]

DAMN YOU LACK OF EDITING

People probably would be more likely to not lynch a person claiming cop than if they claimed vanilla, due to people generally desiring to keep around power roles as a reliance factor.  Claiming a cop would help a lot with preventing a lynch, scum or town, with that logic.  Claiming a specific cop works too, but you run the risk of claiming the specific type of cop that someone else was told (if they were given that much info), and therefore could incriminate yourself - either side you're on.  A smart scum could roleclaim the same thing and use it against you, while a smart townie who was that role could use it to fully murder you.  A more general claim is harder to kick down like that.

Basically!  Tom's claim is late, but it's a good claim for either scum or town to make while trying to save their asses, which means that it can't be fully trusted (like most things in mafia!).  Just because someone claims a town role that's powerful doesn't mean that it should be believe, as, like I just posted with several post of walls of text, it can be a great shield.

[VySaika]

I think I get where OK is coming from on that line of logic. Wouldn't have twigged on it myself, but I suppose it makes sense.

Still gonna wait a bit longer on Tom, but if he hasn't shown, I'll go ahead and drop it before I leave to pick up the kid in a few hours.

[Corwin]

OK's post here: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=329.msg4558#msg4558 and resulting ones seem to ponder on roles, specifically cops, which is bad, just bad. Shale responds to him in the next post, and for the life of me I cannot see the benefit of town discussing openly what kind of cops they might have, how many and any other details. What next, debate on who is the likeliest candidate? Yeah, definitely something to return  to in the future, if more suspicion mounts. Hard to say as of yet, but it did draw interest... I see Gate's commenting on it briefly as well. That whole line of inquiry/analysis just rubs me the wrong way.

Ciato:

Buuut the reason that it dominates discussion in all these games is because we allow it to.

I tried following that same train of thought before, but really, I find the other argument more compelling. When someone always gives off scumtells, the moment you excuse it is the one you'll get burnt. And taken farther... since some people just lurk more, should they be excused? Then Nitori wouldn't have been found out in Discworld, barring a cop investigation. Once we get into the mindset of 'oh, it's just the way X plays, let's excuse their tells and bad play' we'll start losing games.

[Shale]

Uh what? That was discussion of cop claims as scum cover.

[OblivionKnight]

What Shale said.  That discussion was entirely me musing that the cop claim could very well be scum cover, and how it could affect things. 

Which is a possibility. 

I was discussing it theoretically - I'm not asking anyone to come claim they're cops to counterclaim against Tom.  That would be completely idiotic.

It's posible the cop claim could be a scum cover, and musing over why that could be is not a bad thing.   

[Corwin]

It didn't look that way to me, since it seemed to be a way to open the stage for more debate on cops. Anyway, I should follow my own advice and not go there. Always possible I misunderstood the original intent, but I can see it developing into what I mentioned just the same.

[Shale]

Of course it's bad to just start discussing power roles out of the blue, but Tom's either a claimed cop or scum making a fake claim to try to save himself from the noose, and seeing as the scum already know which it is, there doesn't seem to be much risk in discussing the believability of the claim. If anybody'd started trolling for other cops, then yes, I'd be on board with your objection, but that didn't happen and I didn't see any inroads for it.

[mia~]

Shale: I don't think that a pressure vote = semi-random vote. As for retracting them, why should I have left a vote on Ciato or Andrew when they're speaking and the point of pressure votes is to encourage them to speak?

[Shale]

I don't think he is lurking either, but I do think there are some people who are lurk-ish. For now, ##Vote: Ciato. Talk moar? ;_;

It's semi-random in that you just pick a lurker and toss a vote at them without really needing any particular reason to pick that lurker. With those being the only votes you've cast, and a dearth of substance in your posts, you're talking an okay amount without actually having to take positions on anything.

[Tonfa]

Vote stands despite Dread Thomas's claim. There really is no good way to test its believability, and I cannot bring myself to trust it that much. Misstep is possible (heck, it's always possible, barring very very specific circumstances) but no better options seem to exist (I see nothing incriminating in OK's line of discussion, and on the other hand, on Corwin's jump to it)

[mia~]

Shale:
The first comment in that was about Strago very early in day 1 when I was removing my jokevote from him. For Ciato, at the time I voted for her, Otter = Has much pressure to appear, Andrew = Has much pressure to re-appear, Ciato = I forgot she was playing. It's wrong to pressure vote for someone when you want to hear from them? I put pressure on her because there was none on her yet and she hadn't spoken in about the same amount of time as Andrew, who was picking up flack. Then Ciato and Otter spoke, but Andrew had not so I switched pressure vote to him. Also, I think it's obvious my position atm is that Tom needs to be punched in the face. I've said already why I didn't hammer him too.

[Shale]

I didn't say anything you did was wrong, just that you hadn't done very much.

[AndrewRogue]

Could you guys quit voting me while I'm asleep?

Looking over this and catching up on random mafia, so give me a few.

[Ranmilia]

##Unvote: Dread Thomas
Just got home, bigger post forthcoming, don't hammer a cop claim day one people!

[VySaika]

And we have an unvote. Which is the other reason I announced intent rather then just dropping the hammer.

I need to go get the sprog soon, but I'll look forward to seeing the posts from Alex and Andy when I get back.

Kilga(or anyone with a better head for time then me): how long left until deadline?

[Shale]

A little under three hours, I think.

[AndrewRogue]

Caught up. Misinterpreted a quoted thing as a vote on me. Composing post now while I eat lunch.

As Alex says though, don't hammer a day one cop claim.

[Ranmilia]

Okay so yeah. 

Are you all completely nuts?

There's no case on Tom except for the usual Tom-play, which, while usually enough for day 1 lynch and certainly nothing to support, is nowhere NEAR good enough to override a cop claim.  You do not hammer a cop claim day 1, especially in a large game.  I want to vote for everyone I've seen saying things like "We can get along without a cop" and "Claiming vanilla cop is more suspicious than claiming a crazy flavor of cop."   To the former, I have no response except that bloody Psyduck emoticon, to the latter, I see the line of logic but it's quite false, see Super in NR.

Unfortunately that's a lot of people.

Geez.

So we have an Anonyvote on Strago, too.  And Strago... is attempting to save himself from the block by throwing doubt on Tom's cop claim?  W...hy? 

Cop is one of the most valuable town roles.  Yes, it's a great claim for scum day 1.  No, that still does NOT MAKE IT WORTH HAMMERING A DAY 1 COP CLAIM.  Pretty much ever.  Especially not when we have a large game.  Give a scum claiming cop enough time and they'll hang themselves with lies.  The risk of losing a real cop is not worth it. 

This is really common sense to me.  I might think otherwise if there was a better scumcase on Tom, but there... isn't.

What there IS is Strago trying to lead people down this path of lynching the cop claim, which I wouldn't ordinarily think scum would be silly enough to even try, but with so many people buying into it and my apparent poor head for what the DL will and won't buy into... o_O

##Vote: Strago Udongein Inaba

If you're scum trying to hammer the cop day 1, awesome.  If you're not, my apologies, but it's preferable to having the possible real cop deadline-lynched, and your pushing to lynch a cop claim is equally if not much more scummy than anything Tom's done. 

This actually goes for *everyone* still pushing Tom, of course, but Strago looks like the only possible choice to actually divert the lynch at this point.

asdajfgajgfafagfasafha hammer cop claim what are you thinking

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mmm. Definitely agree with Alex here. I didn't really think that it was an especially outrageous thing, but now that Alex draws attention to it, I can see why he feels how he does.

There are really two options. If he's really a cop, then scum have trouble nightkilling him because of his ability to lightning rod arguments (thus removing their smokescreen) or he can potentially clear someone even if he gets lynched at a later date.

##VOTE: Strago Consideration of one's one safety over the good of the town.

[Ranmilia]

Also want to say that I agree with Shale's post on Patchucloud, and was actually going to post something similar myself.  Her later posts have just been raising my "noncommittal lurker" hackles for some reason.  Though she did post that she wanted to hammer Tom, which is hardly better.

[Nitori]

Dammit, Alex does make sense even if I don't really buy the claim...and I didn't buy it based on gut instinct; after reading that post, I realized there's no real definitive proof (yet) that his roleclaim is false, and I'm not hot on Tom's case at all. The part that really makes me agree with Alex, though, is the size of the game. Even if Tom is scum in this scenario, he has plenty of rope to hang himself with. I also don't think that Strago is the scummiest person here, but it's too close to deadline to really do anything but ##VOTE: Strago. He acknowledged it and went back on it...it does feel a bit strange now, especially since one of his reasons (we just finished a game with a TON of cops!) isn't really valid.

[AndrewRogue]

I'm going to second Alex's thoughts once more.

Yeah, sure, we can get along with a cop. But why on earth would we do that when we don't really need to? We hammer Tom now, we get either dead scum or dead cop. If we wait, we can (potentially) later confirm his actual alignment and deal with him, all without smacking down an (uncountered, might I add) cop claim?

Again, everything going down on Tom is... Tom being Tom.

Patchcloud... is setting off alarms with me. Snuck out early lurker votes, has since been dropping suspicion and what have you... without actually putting anything down.

Strago... is in a tough position, so I'm tempted to cut him some slack on his vote. Bleh.

QuietRain is standing out to me (beyond the OMGU and general train against me thing) as being unusually aggressive. Change in style tends to imply not being part of one's normal role, so...

Smodge... has disappeared since the shitstorm, hasn't he?

Of all my current suspects, however, Patch is setting off the largest alarms next to just gut feeling regarding QR. So...

##Vote: Patchcloud (while there is a little time to try and get her [him?] to talk)

[Chisa]

Okay, I may have spotted something.

When I voted for Tom, I made a mistake in my analysis.  Tom wasn't mentioned only once in those 17 posts.  Smodge and El Cid also brought him up, although they didn't consider the matter voteworthy.  On my latest reread, I noticed my mistake.  I also noticed that Strago brought up my example as, in his words, the best reasoning for the Tom vote.  Now why would someone single me out for good thinking when I screwed up, as a check of the thread could indicate?  This...looks like a more substantial scumtell than the Tom thing, which I didn't originally feel that good about anyway.  Although I'm still suspicious of Tom, if he's lying scum, then he's bound himself to his Suikop claim, and we can bust him if he makes a wrong move.  And if he's actually a cop, yay cop.

##Unvote: Tom
##Vote: Strago

[QuietRain]

Unlike a good majority of people, I am not removing my vote.  Now, I do conceed the logic backing up Alex' assertion that killing someone who claims to be a cop has it's problems and is, in general concept, a bad idea.  What I do not ascribe to is the theory that Tom will do us any good as a cop even if he is one which I am still not sure that I buy.  The way I've always played mafia and will continue to play mafia is to vote for the person who seems scummiest.  I will not give a free pass to scummy behavior because someone yells cop.  Tom's ability to smokescreen the scum with his behavior has cost us in previous games and it's already begun here.  So, my vote will stay until someone seems scummier to me than him.

The sudden pile on Strago is more than a little odd and I will hope for everyone jumping on the last minute train's sake that he turns out scum.  Because if not, I'm going to focus my attention on that train tomorrow.  because if he is town, than at least one of the folks on that train is likely scum.