VtM:M - Vampire the Masquerade Mafia

[Shale]

Yeah, I'm definitely not arguing with double lynchings. Suffice to say Touhou changed my perspective on letting power roles work over the long term.

[IhatethisCPU]

>_>'

Actually, the "well done" bit was an Eddie Izzard reference, and not meant to show how I feel his roleclaim.

Eh, I don't feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other. We've got two kills today, and, in exchange, scum'll probably kill Carth in his sleep tonight. We just need to make the best of what we can get before our honourable Prince makes his kill.

...Hmm. Shale, this is going to sound odd, but... what's your gut say right now?

[Shale]

It's mainly wondering where OK is.

[AndrewRogue]

*cracks neck* I'm not posting IC this game. You can all take your d10s, your vampires, your dots and your masquerade and  [something fittingly clever here] on them! d20s, dragons and swords forever, and such.

Anyhow, while I find myself a little wary of Carth at this juncture (just because he can dayvig doesn't mean he's our friend nor does his claimed identity clear him either), the fact is... well. It is hard to turn down the fact that he appears to be being open and honest with us and appropriately putting his kills at town disposal. Given that this pretty much puts him under close town scrutiny for the rest of the game, I'm certainly content to let things go at the moment.

VSM... mrm. While he does have a point about game tendency (lots of DL games breakdown in the end as a series of mass roleclaims and piecing things together), the problem with that train of thought is that... well... that isn't the way Mafia is supposed to go, for starters. Theoretically, a good game should be almost entirely social and not come down to mass roleclaims. So counting on that is, essentially, counting on the game being broken. The wait attitude is also a bit dangerous. While town obviously shouldn't rush to each lynch... we are on a time limit to catch the scum, so we need to be aggressive and take them out. Lynches tend to be our only weapon, so when we have something else (ala daykills) they need to be used.

Still, I'm tempted to give VSM a break here and count it as general (if a bit misguided) concern and instead go the LAL route...

##Vote: OK

Might be work, might just not be posting. I wait to hear!

[QuietRain]

And with Mr Cake's post, I think I can rule him out as the most lurkery lurker we've got. 

##Unvote Mr Cake

And moving it onto our next most lurkery lurker ##Vote Sir Emptiness

[Ranmilia]

Argh, you people.  If there was such a thing as antivoting extensions, I would do it.   This is more than enough time for day 1's, especially since discussion is already chugging away. 

REMEMBER

DEADLINES ARE THERE TO HELP THE GAME KEEP MOVING

NOT TO SET A LENGTH ON DAYS.

TOWN SHOULD REACH LYNCH CONSENSUS WELL BEFORE DEADLINES, NOT SEEK TO MAXIMIZE TIME USED PER DAY.
The DL in general keeps getting into this mindset of lynching as close to deadline as possible, vigging in the middle of the deadline day, etc.  Stop it.  Seriously.  Cast votes and come to a decision on who to lynch/vig.  It really does not take that much time when we actually do it rather than sitting around and waiting for other things to happen.  Rat should vig when there's a reasonable consensus on whom to kill.

One of the few things that disturbs me more than this is El Cid making the extension a scum/town political issue for this game, threatening Excal and voting Otter over it.  This is the most significant development so far, aside from Rat's claim, and I'm not liking it at all.  The whole business of extensions and timeframes shouldn't be politicized into a specific game, especially not this one where we've got a double lynch and an instant jump to serious votes.  This strikes me as a more likely initial scum position than anything else so far.

##Unvote: Corwin
##Vote: El Cid 


So CPU shows up and... casts a serious vote for petty revenge from a past game, and approves of early roleclaims in the general sense, rather than the specific case of a dayvig?  I shouldn't need to explain how terrible the first thing is, and the second... Prince Rat is right and good to claim dayvig, but that is the exception, pretty much any other roleclaim is detrimental to town.  This is... not the best way to erase a record of skeptical play in other games on CPU's own part.  I would normally vote him at this point on the basis of poor play -> death, but seriously bringing in vendettas from other games is beyond the pale.  So to speak.  Please say something useful and fast.  Or ask for modkill.


Like Ciato said, regarding Prince Rat, I don't see how the discussion of him being possibly not-town is helpful at all.  Could he be not-town?  Theoretically, although I strongly doubt it.  What should we do if that is the case?  ... nothing, as long as he's performing such a valuable service to the Camarilla and we have no other reason to believe he's nontown. 

[IhatethisCPU]

Hmm, alright...

Since I know/hope you'll be keeping us posted regularly on how you're gut's feeling, and thus giving us a idea, dubious as it may be, of to who not to go after. I tend to trust you and QR's mental judgement, though.

...I'll talk to Tom, Alex *Changed your name back, I see.*. Chances are I'll be snowed in at home for the next couple of days, and I won't be able to post during the next couple of days, in any case. Would've done it earlier, but he seemed to have his hands full trying to get replacements, and rebalancing the game. >_>

In hindsight, I should've mentioned it during that period of time, so he wouldn't have one problem after another.
 

[Shale]

Argh, you people.  If there was such a thing as antivoting extensions, I would do it.   This is more than enough time for day 1's, especially since discussion is already chugging away.

Tom said early on that you can, so...do it if you feel that way?

[Shale]

Also, personally I want an extension because it would avoid the entire serious portion of the day taking place between when I went to sleep last night and when I get home from work this evening. With the day 1 startup time factored in, you're talking about a "day" less than 24 hours long, which means people's schedules start to seriously impact if they can participate at all. That's not an idea I like.

[Corwin]

This has a bit of 'me too' in it, but I really think an extension for this particular day 1 should be considered on its own merits, Alex. The day is shorter than the others, we needed some time to get used to the idea of reaching a decision much earlier due to dayvig, etc. Yes, that may not be the best way to play mafia, but are you seriously expecting a complete change in public opinion over the course of a single game? With 72 hours, we get roughly 36 hours of daylight per segment, which is quite enough time for a post, response, and post back between wacky US/Oz/my timezones. Less than that, and any serious discussion would likely be one-sided, with people from one single timezone and freaks that can't fall asleep commenting and having the last word.

[Ranmilia]

Shale's second post there answers his first as to why I'm not objecting.  I can see which way the wind's blowing on this one, and schedules are indeed a valid point.  I'd just like to break the habit of everyone sitting back until deadlines are nearly upon them - which itself results in all serious discussion taking place within the last hours to deadline, and isn't a terribly good thing for town, either, despite appearances.  It is best to ignore deadlines altogether and make decisions in a timely fashion.

[QuietRain]

I completely agree with the above comments from Corax and Doctor Davidson.  While I do NOT think that every day should be extended, a Day 1 where we have a new element being added in of a daytime vig, it's something we'll want to give that bit of extra attention to.  Once we start getting into the swing of things and have 3 deaths (and hopefully no more than that) to look over on Day 2, I think we'll be able to actually power through our thoughts in the alloted time without too much trouble.  Right now we want to get 2 of those 3 votes to give us the best information we can (which for a Day 1 is going to be a cr**shoot as always...but).

And for the record, I also agree VERY strongly with Fluffytails that waiting on a deadline is innane.  We need to focus our conversations better and start getting our lynches in order much more early in each "day".  The more we drag things out, the more chances we give to scum to obfuscate and to fabricate.

[Otter]

I wake up and we're a little over (EDIT: under, now) five hours to Rat-deadline, it looks like.  And Cid's voted for me over my absence since last night and my "Don't take extra time for granted" policy.

Alex, we can subtract Extension votes with anti-votes.  I'm personally kind of put out by the overwhelming "Let's vote Extend first, while sort of sitting around waiting for our extra time to come around so we can make the decision right at the end again" attitude because, as I've already said, we need to hammer before freakin' deadline or we lose our lynch and that is unacceptable.  Even more to the point, there are people who stand out already, for lurking if nothing else.  I'm not anti-voting right now because I sort of see Shale's point about the first "day" being less than 24 hours for people who didn't know it started or something, but we cannot make "Hmm, okay, nothing's going on, let's vote Extend to put it off till later" a habit.

There's a temptation to OMGUS Corwin and/or El Cid for, respectively, voting me for being around and voting me for not wanting a time extension.  Alex covered the Cid issue pretty well in my mind, as well as CPU, who... is playing so phenomenally poorly that I think he must not realize we're out of the jokephase.  In which case he needs to read the actual topic and realize that we don't have time for that.

##UNVOTE: VSM

At the same time, though, going after the remaining low-content types looks as good or better than those options to me.  I'm removing my VSM vote because, even if I disagree with him and don't see how it's useful to hate on Rat if he's serving as a town tool anyway, he was actually posting opinions and being involved.  Culling lurkers is always an early (and late) priority of mine, so let me take a look at the options there.

...Actually CPU is a pretty good one.

Since I know/hope you'll be keeping us posted regularly on how you're gut's feeling, and thus giving us a idea, dubious as it may be, of to who not to go after. I tend to trust you and QR's mental judgement, though.

In addition to the stuff Alex mentioned, we've got him asking for Shale to give him his personal gut opinions, because he trusts him.  Oh, and QR too.

What.

Do I need to talk about this?  If he's being serious, then he's saying Shale and QR can influence him without so much as a shred of reasoning if they tell him they "feel" a certain way.  This otherwise flawless strategy is obviously a tad subject to the possibility that one or both of them is scum who would obviously steer him wrong on purpose.  Maybe he's lying (a bad start) and trying to get them to give themselves away, or something, but then why'd he select those two in particular to troll for opinions that might damn themselves?  I'm not even okay from the beginning with the part where he asks specifically for a "gut" opinion, like he's unwilling to hear a case if it's built around actual evidence.

That and the fact that this is pretty much the sum total of his contribution to the game, content-wise?  Yeah, I don't really need to be convinced further right this second.  Get better really fast.

##VOTE: CPU

[Shale]

Also, he's asking for my gut. Not to get too overboard with the "I suck" thing, but...I suck.

[QuietRain]

Just to clarify, I think that was the point, though, Doctor.  He was saying that by listening to who your gut said was bad, we'd know who NOT to go after.

[Ranmilia]

Re: Namechange - A couple of people were sad about my becoming Ran, Touhou's over, I changed it back, ehhh.  Who knows what will happen.  Fluffytails works as well as anything, though.

Re:  Deadline behavior.  So, day 3 in Touhou.  At the start of the day, I played the good little townie and warned everyone to use their time wisely and don't dally till you hit two deadline crunches.  Town proceeded to do exactly that.  First deadline crunch was minor but there.  When I woke up after the QR vig and saw Corwin on the block, I was sure he was a goner, but the lynch on him just wasn't pressed, wasn't hammered, and we got some time to turn it back around and cast doubt on Nitori.  And sure enough the second deadline crunch hit and we managed to push through the lynch on the real doctor.  Town's behavior with regards to deadlines and timing and hammering lynches was pretty much directly responsible for letting Cor momentarily slip off the gallows.  Happy time for scum, though promptly ruined that night, but that's a story for another time.

Re:  Who to vig.  The difference between a vigkill and a lynch is that with the dayvig we (presumably) get the flip to work with immediately and get to discuss and lynch again before night.  So given a choice between a case on an issue and a perfunctory bad play/lurking kill, I'd rather vig the former and lynch the latter, just in case the flip actually gives us something to go on.  I'd like to point Otter towards my comments on El Cid and CPU, and my reasoning for not voting CPU right now, as well as CPU's response.  Glaring as CPU's play may be (or Berliner, I suppose he is now), I feel that he (and OK/Andrew) would make suboptimal dayvig choices compared to a case with an issue where we might glean some flip info.

[QuietRain]

Now, onto the issue of what he said in and of itself, I agree with the water mammal.  Do NOT let anyone's comments sway you like that until you are certain in your own mind which side they are aligned with.  I will argue just as logically and methodically and with as much passion if I'm town or if I'm scum.  This is just how I play the game.  The only things that change are who I target and why.

[IhatethisCPU]

PMed Tom.
Stop talking about me.

[Shale]

*beats head against desk*

STOP DOING THAT.

[Shale]

I didn't even get to call you a jelly doughnut! So many opportunities lost.

[AndrewRogue]

You know, I do want to talk about that briefly, because it brings back memories of PW Mafia.

Does anyone here remember the whole affair where we tried to turn around a lynch train and get a new target in the last 15-ish minutes of play?

Do you realize how stupid and uncool this is in board games?

While using most of the alloted time can be a good move, arbitrarily waiting until the end of the day, especially on days like day one, is silly and, most importantly, it makes defensive roleclaims very difficult, because not only might you not be able to actually get them off/do anything about it, but you also run the risk of hitting the deadline because you can't reorganize a train. Add in the conflicting schedules and it just gets worse. No votes are bad. Losing out on roleclaims is bad.

[IhatethisCPU]

Sorry, that was rather rude. Think of it this way, now you can focus on good players with a goodish amount of time, without that massive trainwreck from the Discworld mafia. >_>'

Also, Otter/everyone else: I haven't played well once in my career as a Mafia player. There was that horror of a game, elsewhere, that I was the last scum standing, but it's best to pretend that never happened. ^_^'

...I'm hoping that seoncd comment meant that you're familiar with Eddie Izzard.

[Smodge13]

Ugh i forgot how much time serious Mafia took up.
Dropping the attempt at flavor posting because the posts take me a lot longer to make and time is more of a concern (work + travel 12 hour days = bad).

Currently Ringing scum warning bells to me are the following
Otter
El Cid

LaL is tempting honestly, where the hell is OK?, however Otter was given lenience in Discworld with no posts for 1 day, so i'm willing to give OK a bit of time before puttting my vote there.

Otter - Vote for CPU, without even a mention of OK on the grounds of LaL + minor evidence, its not much to go on but day 1 there's never much.

El Cid -

Smodge: VSM "lacks a sense of self-preservation" for criticizing Rat? I disagree. If any one of us sees something suspicious, they should share it with the rest of us. You think he looks bad just because of who he's attacking?

Could be OMGus spurring this, however it seems like an attempt to make me blow up, with lack of Tom around it is possible scum could try it as a tactic, but seems like he's making a mountain out of a mole hill, then again day 1 not much to go on he may be thinking along the same lines as me.

Otter of all people saying it's best to cut off discussion early and go straight to the kill, in this kind of situation? That doesn't sit right with me.

This argument here doesn't sound right, many of us know of Otters Overaggressive play, which we haven't seen in a while, yet you complain that he wishes to jump straight to the kill?.
Following that same line of thinking shouldn't then Alex be suspicious because of his urging us to make decisions?, yet once again not a single mention of him.
Seems to me like Cid is attempting to push arguments on to particular people, but not applying that same logic to others.

##Vote: El Cid

Now im off to work, next post in either 6-7 hours or 13-14 hours dependant on how long my lunch break is.

[Luther Lansfeld]

CPU, just try it for more than a little while. You'll have to put up with a little heat and trying doing things, but isn't that how Mafia is? I encourage you to at least attempt.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Also, you'll never get better if you don't try to see a game through!