Mini 980 - Trader Mafia (Game Over)

[AlmasterGM]

Sup kiddos.

I will be reading tonight and posting tomorrow.

See you then, hopefully this thread is good.

[AlmasterGM]

Page 4

I highly approve of Zajnet's move. The town has the power of more money on its side. We aren't going to win by sitting and let it collect interest. We should be using it as a weapon to deny scum the opportunity of purchasing anything.

Page 5

The breaking strategy is obvfail. I apologize on behalf of the previous person in my slot for that disaster.

Page 6

Jack rolefishes for the double voter, and then tries to make it look like it's Andrius's fault. Then it turns out he has the DV. I was going to say scum points for Jack, it turns out he has it, so nevermind. VV says he doesn't want to talk about the setup. In a game of this type, that makes no sense.

Page 7

Jack says VV is scummy for being quiet and contradicting himself. I strongly agree. VV suddenly has time to answer questions now that the wagon on him is building steam.

Page 8

NavyCherub compares VV to SPS and says SPS is contributing less. I don't like this read because even if SPS is contributing less, VV is still obviously scummier. Seems like an attempt to deflect.
Zajnet puts "pressure" on VV. Scum points for Zajnet.
VV is posting lots now, except none of it is goodposting. Scummy.

Page 9

Jack is scum.

He needs more votes.

I just bought a second one. Or are you offering to lend me yours?

Quoted because I LOL'd.

Page 10

NavyCherub points out that pickpocket is mostly a scum ability. I agree that it seems to attract scum, but keep in mind, if it hits scum from town, it pwns them. Remember, you take their NK that they blew all their money on OR you hit the team that probably wired all its money into one pool to try and buy NK but got outbit by the other team.

Page 12

VV gets right on the Farside counterwagon. The entire VV wagon goes away. Wtf. Farside needs to post moar, but I don't think she is intentionally trying to hide.

Page 13

Farside wagon dies. How predictable :eyeroll:. Andrius makes a really, really bad catchup post. People call him out for it. I agree it was bad, but I think VV is worse. I also don't like the people on the VV wagon at all. VV is getting on any wagon that isn't his, I don't like Jack's playstyle, and I don't know what fishy is contributing to this game but I can't really pick up on anything. The only person I don't mind is SK, but he seems to just be doing whatever Jack tells him.

##Vote: VV

Lots of setup spec in this game and not much breakage. At the point where it seems to also be happening at the expense of game-related content, I think it should slow or stop unless its absolutely relevant.

[AlmasterGM]

@ AGM: Andrius is also one of my higher suspects. That's why I'm willing to lynch him now over VV and save VV for a later day.

Why do you think Andrius is scummier than VV?

[AlmasterGM]

I admit to using my crappy post for finding scum. So sue me.

I don't get it. How did making a crappy post help you find scum, specifically?

While wagon hopping is in fact scummy, the fact that there is no other wagon(other than myself) is a little predicament. I'm mostly trying to make the most of my vote here, do you prefer that I withhold my vote and not give you any information?

Vote hopping is what actually withholds information. We don't know who you'd prefer to lynch because it's clear you're just getting on whatever counterwagon you can find.

Of course, I am interested in survival and there is no way I can BS to help town at this point given the semi-open nature of this game. Any self-respecting townie will not let themselves be mislynched.

The point isn't that you can't defend yourself. Remember, though, that a vote is a dangerous tool. You are endorsing the lynch of pretty much anyone so long as it isn't you. This doesn't help the town and seems really scummy.

VV's last post has decent content, but for some reason I still get a gut scummy vibe from it - like he went out and made it specifically because he knew people were yelling at him for not scumhunting. idk, though.

[AlmasterGM]

I'm confused as to why Andrius needs to claim. There were a lot of roles purchased and the scum can't have them all (hell, they probably don't even have half), so I don't see why he's more likely to be scum just because he bought something. Plus, last time I checked, rolefishing was bad?

[AlmasterGM]

##Unvote: Andrius
##Vote: Zang

Andrius confirming he has a role makes him more likely to be town. Moving on to the lurking man with the empty words.

Uhh, so what was the point of that?

SK: I think you have a role. If you don't claim that you have a role, you're scum.
Andrius: I have a role.
SK: Ok, you're probably town. Moving on...

If he's mafia, he's obviously just going to agree with you, so you gained no ground there. All this appears to have done is placed an extremely large flashing arrow over the head of our PR.

Vote: SaintKerrigan

[AlmasterGM]

Ugh:

##Vote: SaintKerrigan

[AlmasterGM]

UGHHHHHHH. TAKE 3.

##Vote: SaintKerrigan

[AlmasterGM]

If you are scum and someone says to you, "If you do not claim PR, I will unleash a case against you," what do you do?

You claim PR. And, because you started with a lot of money, you probably have one. So you can't even be called out for lying later.

Mission: Accomplish Nothing: Accomplished.

[AlmasterGM]

Wrong, actually. There is one role I'm positive Andrius is not, and it's one of the roles that is definitely in scum hands. Of the remaining five roles, I think two of them are in scum hands. Thus, mathematically Andrius has a 40% chance of being scum. I could still lynch on those odds, but there's other people that need my attention right now, so they're getting it.

You are completely avoiding the question. Fine, we now have some "40% chance of scum" number (which isn't even actually mathematical legitimate because it is based on what you "think" and not actual number crunching). You don't want to lynch on it, I don't want to lynch on it...so what did that buy us, exactly, other than the outing of a PR?

[AlmasterGM]

I gave you the answer I wanted you to know. Anything else I may or may not have been trying to do, you don't need to know.

So, basically, you were rolefishing and you have no legitimate excuse whatsoever.

I like my vote.

V/LA until Monday.

[AlmasterGM]

Back.

Regardless of how the math works out, what SK did was still scummy because he didn't draw any implications from it. If he was like, "claim now" and then used that claim to draw a conclusion, then it'd be fine, but nothing like that happened. For all effective purposes, we are still at square one with Andrius, except now the scum know he bought a PR.

[AlmasterGM]

SpyreX replaces Farside22

oh god

[AlmasterGM]

@SK - WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL US WHAT THE MOTIVATION AND/OR REASON IS INSTEAD OF BEING SO DAMN ENIGMATIC.

[AlmasterGM]

The winner in the "doing nothing" race by a tiny margin is NS. Zang is actively not paying attention and that bothers me but, of the three, he's my iffy one.

Zang never does anything, there is nothing new here.

[AlmasterGM]

This guessing game is so stupid, I'm not going to try and speculate on what you are thinking so I can then speculate on Andrius. Either its too hard to figure out and your "speculate" point is stupid, or its easy, I'm stupid, and the scum have already figured it out, meaning your "speculate" point is stupid.

P.S Did I mention it was STUPID?

[AlmasterGM]

...why would scum CLAIM scum?

##Unvote; Vote: Zajnet

[AlmasterGM]

...what?

[AlmasterGM]

Random thought: If the endgame comes down to one person from each scumteam, would the game end in a draw?

If you are town this doesn't even apply.

Oh wait, you aren't. So it does.

EVERYBODY IN THE CLUB, GET ON THE ZAJNET WAGON.

[AlmasterGM]

Why did you go from unvote to vote?

[AlmasterGM]

Alright, we need a lynch and it's a Friday afternoon. Activity levels are going to be nil starting in a few hours. Even if there was an alternative candidate, there's no way they would pick up enough steam in time. So, even though I have other preferences, I'll...

##Vote: Nobody Special

[AlmasterGM]

Dear SK,

All the hate from yesterday is forgiven. I love you now.

Sincerely,

AlmasterGM

P.S. To everyone else: we NEED to put the Masonizer ability in town hands. Since we know SK has investigation immunity, we can't mess up with it and masonize secret scum by accident. The Masonizer will claim that they have purchased it and get some Doc protection. They can then confirm their target in the morning and we will have +2 townies. I have some money I am willing to wire away (or people can wire to me) so we can get this.

[AlmasterGM]

##Vote: Andrius

[AlmasterGM]

I'm going to go do a read soon, but for the brief moment, I can:

1) Confirm I got pickpocketed.
2) I don't think we should wire SK money. If he has Doc, he's going to be a NK target. Getting him out of debt is not a huge priority. We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket.
3) I think SK's list of likely scum is a really good place to go, esp. from my POV - since I know I'm town, I basically see 3 scumbags sitting in plain view.

[AlmasterGM]

Alright, so as a starting point for my scumhunting, I used SK's list.

SPS

AGM

Nopoint
Fishy

I figure it's a decent place to look because 1) it's well empirically grounded, 2) his move last round was pretty friggin protown, and 3) even if he is scum, there's still another group out there, so he still has an incentive to hunt and not spew lies.

Fishy would be the last choice of mine for lynchage. He seems to be making a decent attempt to make relevant analysis and post reads. The only thing that gets me is a gut feeling that his read seem a bit ... forced. This could just be confirmation bias since he's on the list to begin with, though, so I want to let him live for today.

next is Nopoint, who just replaced in so is a tad tough to read.

Annnd finally, we have the big kahuna, Steam-Powered Shovel. This is my preferred lynch today for a few reasons. First, he vote hopped so much I got dizzy. And he said he was doing it too, which is probably why he got away with it for a while, but in retrospect that's just not acceptable. Second, he went into hypertunnel mode on SK and I now think SK is town, so that's sketch. Third, a lot of his posts are pretty short and lacking in real in-depth analysis. Finally, a lot of what he does just doesn't make sense. Like FOSing SpyreX. Wut.

##Vote: SPS

Also, in the non-hunting world of the game - Like I said before, I'm sitting on a pretty big hunk of cash with no debt, so I'm going to try and give the scum a run for their money on the nightkill. Depending on what other abilities they bought, I may or may not win, but I think I can come pretty close. If anyone wants to help me out with that by wiring any small amounts of money you have left, that'd be nice. And, if I win, I'll give the shots up to the democracy or, if apt, not use them at all.

[AlmasterGM]

Also, @Fishy -

I don't. He could be scum. I think he's more likely to be scum than you, actually. I just think SK's list is a good place to start a lookin.

[AlmasterGM]

Also, protip to whoeverse in charge of the Fed now:

DO NOT ACTIVATE IT BEFORE THE NEXT BID ROUND IS OVER. Yes, there are more town than scum, so town will get more net $$. However, scum also know who each other are. This means they can safely wire themselves the cash and end up with a block of at LEAST $400, plus whatever other assets they have on hand. Unless the town plans to wire their money to a trusted townie player to combat this, which is risky, we would be completely locked out of our ability to win stuff from scum.

[AlmasterGM]

Here is my proposed plan. Please comment because, if accepted, we will need to move quickly.

1) "Quicklynch" a no-lynch. There's no NK, so it won't hurt anything.
2) Masonize me, I become confirmed town.
3) Everyone wires me $$$ so I can win NK.
4) Town gets the NK's and we have at least 1 confirmed townie (myself).

This plan fails if and only if the same scumteam has purchased both arsonist AND firefighter and burns it all to get rid of me, in which case town still wins because they blew $350+ dollars to kill a single person when they could have sat back and eventually nuked the entire game.

[AlmasterGM]

yayyyyyyyyy

[AlmasterGM]

We can't do it anymore the plan anymore because FISHY went ahead and just blew the ability on his own time. Woop dee doo.

[AlmasterGM]

Alright so we've got scum. I guess it was worth it then, good job Fishy.

Regarding quicklynch, here's the dilemma - I am currently winning the Nightkill. However, if the scumteam challenging me for it has two players on it, they will get more net money during the night than I will, and will thus be able to outbid me on it. So, unless people plan to help me out via wire (which I doubt, since I asked before and nobody jumped on it), I'd rather not.

Obviously, though, you don't know I'm town, so the decision for you to weigh is "chance of Almaster being town and controlling NKs in the future" vs "stopping one NK now."

[AlmasterGM]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Do you have any cash on hand or just abilities?
Do you have any debt?
Are you currently bidding on the second round of NKs?

[AlmasterGM]

If I win the NK, I can just use it to blow nopointinactingup's brains out later. So I'm not really concerned about letting him live temporarily.

What is of critical importance right now is that we know Mafia Team B currently has arsonist AND is vying for the second NK ability (since nopoint is in debt and bought a ton of other stuff). If we do not win this NK from Mafia B, WE PROBABLY LOSE THE GAME. They will have two killing abilities and, barring some incredibly lucky doctor shots followed by some lucky lynches, will stab us in the face and waltz away with a win. The bid is currently up to 297 and it didn't get there on its own, so unless somebody else comes out and counterclaims being a townie bidding on the NK, you know for a fact that I'm telling the truth about being town and trying to win it from them.

Money. Now. Please.

[AlmasterGM]

LMAO two players claiming scum in one day? This game is megawin for the town.

Soo since we've got reps from both sides...whose trying to outbid me?

[AlmasterGM]

Guys, one of them has arsonist and the other has firefighter ... and I'll bet you anything that person with arsonist ISN'T one of the two clowns claiming today. If we quicklynch both of them, we're giving the mafia two free kills. At least.

OTOH, if we quicklynch, we will almost certainly win the NK because there will only be one of them (and thus no money transfer) versus mine plus Zajnet's wages to outbid. This might not be needed, however - I'm currently winning the NK, and so the scum might simply be out of money.

Personally, I think not lynching and trying to win the nightkill is a better move. If we get it, I can shoot one of them and save a townie from the arsonist.

P.S. Zajnet, I know you only have $5, but every little bit helps.

[AlmasterGM]

1> I'm not a clown, I was involuntarily busted. SFS sure is a clown though
2> Have you noticed it is possible for the town to loose tomorrow if you quick lynch a Mafia A today?
3> Have you considered that SFS has already wired all his money to his partner to bid for the NK?
4> How do we know you are not Scum B and won't shoot the town in the head?

1>true.
2>not if I win NK and kill SPS.
3>Yes, it's possible I am simply going to win. I just want to be sure.
4>You don't know with absolute certainty. However, you can be pretty sure because of this reason: There are clearly two people bidding on the NK - otherwise, it wouldn't be up to 297. I am the only one claiming to be a townie and offering to let the town control the kill. So, unless there is secretly another townie out there bidding on it and not claiming it OR I'm bidding against my own scumpartner (not likely at all), then I'm town. Also, I think I've played a pretty protown game, so I don't see why you would go out of your way to think I'm scum.

[AlmasterGM]

FUCK, I just PM'd the mod to check my bid and I am losing the nightkill.

LOSING. THE. NIGHTKILL.

Since nobody seems to have any extra money to spare, I suggest we go into super duper quicklynch mode. Otherwise, we will die.

[AlmasterGM]

--Bid on nothing Round 1 (well, my predecessor didn't)
--Got pickpocketed N1
--Bid on Gunsmith Round 2, won it. No loans needed, it didn't sell for much.
--Investigated SpyreX (came up blank)
--Investigated Zang (came up blank)
--Took out a loan for $296 total (300% of my total cash, $74)
--Bid it all on the NK in Round 3 and failed to win.

[AlmasterGM]

How did you go from having only $5 to having $122 to bid on deadline setter (a completely pointless ability, btw)?

[AlmasterGM]

Ooook so why did you waste that on DEADLINE SETTER when we could have been winning the NK?

[AlmasterGM]

Like I said before, I got confused and was wrong, I wasn't winning, I only bid $296 and am losing.

[AlmasterGM]

Well, hammer came down so I guess it doesn't matter anyway until tomorrow.

Hopefully we can get the second lynch in REALLY quickly ... before bidding ends on the NK so we deny scum the opportunity to shoot.

[AlmasterGM]

I have to admit, quicklynching was prreeeeeety stupid.

[AlmasterGM]

Fishy is 100% the last scum. I have the gunsmith ability; I investigated him last night and he has a gun.

[AlmasterGM]

SLAM DUNK, gg scum.

Now we just need to decide who to lynch first.

[AlmasterGM]

The math adds up, I assure you. If there's any question, I'm sure it's a mistake and can be resolved.

Also, if I'm scum, who was bidding against me on the NK, hmm? My own partner? How would we afford arsonist, a second NK, AND the ability to bid against one another?

If anything, Zang is just messing up. I got pickpocketed again last night, btw.

[AlmasterGM]

If I were fishythefish, I would quickhammer right now because "I'm right" and the opposition is wrong. Also, according to your plan, I would quickhammer and use my dubious night abilities to waltz to victory.

Fortunately for you, I'm town, so I will do no such thing.

[AlmasterGM]

Just make sure they don't unvote to the same person. Otherwise scum can quickhammer.

In fact, I don't even endorse switching votes. You shouldn't have voted in the first place (like me), but now that you have, fishy is a safe spot. He has the NKs.

[AlmasterGM]

##Vote: Fishythefish

@SK - Stop being dumb and go back to being town. I didn't instahammer because I thought it might be possible that nopoint had possession of the arsonist and lynching him first would be the optimal move. Clearly, however, people are bloodthirsty for conspiracy and somehow think I could be the last scum despite ALL evidence pointing to the contrary, so fine, let's press the fast forward button and win this shit.

Mod, lynch scene pl0x.

[AlmasterGM]

Also, @nopoint:

If you had helped me win the NK, I would have considered slaughtering the rest of the town and happily ever after'ing with you.

Unfortunately, you instead chose to help the other scum who aren't even on your team.

WRONG MOVE. NOW YOU WILL DIE.

[AlmasterGM]

MINI 980 TEAM TOWN 4EVER.

"Where scum claim being scum since 2010. Because we're just that good."

[AlmasterGM]

Holy shit SK you are about to throw the game. I didn't fucking vote Fishy because we NEED to kill the arsonist, as he has the potential for two kills, and I thought MAYBE, just MAYBE there was the off-chance that it could be nopoint and we would lynch him first.

WHAT IS THE SCUM MOTIVATION FOR HOLDING BACK THE VOTE ON FISHY. WHAT IS IT. TELL ME. I'M DYING TO KNOW.

Also, if I'm scum, answer me this:

Who bid against me on the NK?

My partner? Yeah, we totally had enough money to bid 300 on the arsonist AND Gunsmith AND Governor (which I just won, and you know that for a fact because nobody is gonna counterclaim it except maybe Fishy, which he probably can't even do because the math won't work out) AND all the other abilities we supposedly have AND THEN ALSO bid AGAINST EACH OTHER on the NK FOR ALMOST $300!! And to conclude this brilliant plan, we had SPS reveeeeal himself so I could later fake an investigation against Fishy. Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

[AlmasterGM]

damnnit i am so mad at you right now i had to make this second post because one post just WASN'T ENOUGH

[AlmasterGM]

God, fortunately my vote was the hammer and so the lynch is locked. And, since

I

have the governor, I sure as hell won't be stopping it.

I shall let the moderator prove that I am right.

[AlmasterGM]

The only person not fully thinking things through is you.

I got outbid on the NK and nobody would send me money, so I bid on governor instead. WOOSH.
Me not voting for Fishy does absolutely nothing to conceal or not conceal my alignment. WOOSH.

It was nopoint, actually, who gave me the idea to bid on governor. I did it because, like nopoint said, if Fishy won it, he could use it to buy himself a free night and potentially win the game. I submitted the bid at the last second and won.

But ultimately, none of this matters. You keep making it sound like I'm playing with guesswork. He has a gun. He's scum. There's no margin of error here. The mod is going to show up and lynch his sorry ass. And then we are going to be sitting here with 4 townies and nopoint.

Unless, of course, he has arsonist or nightkill, in which case it's 2-3 townies and nopoint and we still win.

[AlmasterGM]

##Vote: nopointinactingup

[AlmasterGM]

Many thanks to zoraster for modding and to all the players for a fun game!

My comments are these:

1) I completely agree that the way debt works needs to be entirely redone. If you take out debt at the beginning, you will probably never be able to pay it back. Near the end, you can max out your debt with almost no repercussions, as the game will be over before bankrupcy strikes. I think a good solution to this problem would be to make debt work more like credit cards - if you don't make the full payment by a certain deadline, you have to pay a minimum payment plus interest that would constitute a large portion of wages.

2) I also agree that the game was too focused around math. As someone who hates and is bad at math, this was annoying. I am unsure of how to correct this, though; in a financal game, math is bound to be an issue, and it IS a key method that can determine who is lying and who is not (especially in the endgame).

3) Finally, while I thought the modding was well done, I agree that, in a time-sensitive game such as this one, the moderator needs to be very on top of the situation. If town is trying to quicklynch someone before the bidding period ends but it takes the mod a day to show up, that puts a huge damper on the town's plans. To combat this issue, I would suggest "modifying time" retroactively so that any time spent in twilight doesn't count towards game time. That way, the players are never penalized for any moderating delays.

Thanks again!