Mini 1477: Bang! Mafia (Game Over)

[The Rufflig]

Greetings!

Reading now. Anything I should know about?

[The Rufflig]

This isn't my first round up, JS. I know it isn't yours either. So, let's ignore the troll bait for the moment.

----

idk reads right now i have to get back into actually reading this game

pretty much jacob is just bothering me and looking like scum trying to redirect to me since people say there are discrepancies about him

@Marquis: What about Jacob is bothering you? I haven't read the whole game yet, but I haven't seen any suspicion from you on his slot previously. Possibly more on target, what discrepancies is Jacob avoiding or trying to shrug off? Coupled with your "I have no reads", why is it wrong for JS to be putting a spotlight on you?

[The Rufflig]

I'm up to page 40. I should be done with my read through tomorrow night. The lot of you aren't very talkative today.

[The Rufflig]

Ok, I see.

So, we can safely assume:
1) Saki was watching Majiffy
2) Penguin_Alien was healing Majiffy
3) Amrun used a Bang! card on Majiffy

PeregrineV agreed with Saki's demand for certain players to divulge their night actions early on. So, PeregrineV was either watching or was there with a scum buddy for other reasons (the player list would have tipped him off to Saki's watching). PeregrineV is not aligned with Amrun. Amrun wouldn't have forgotten to list the name of his scum buddy in his watcher claim. This leaves PeregrineV as a town watcher or a renegade. If you think renegade, do you think there is more than one renegade? If there was a renegade buddy there, what were the two of them doing (no damage to Majiffy)? The lack of a buddy there implies watcher. Conclusion: PeregrineV was watching Majiffy.

Jacob Savage seems unlikely to be aligned with Amrun. If he was aligned with Amrun then Suki's list should have tipped him off to what was up. Jacob wanted PeregrineV to claim first - was this an interesting coincidence or did JS already know where PV went that night? It's a pity that Suki spilled the beans about where all four of them had been spotted before JS claimed who he tracked. If JS had claimed who he tracked prior to Suki's disclosure, his tracking claim might have been easier to judge. JS is not likely to have shot at Majiffy. So what was he doing there?

[The Rufflig]

Hmm, perhaps I was a bit hasty with assumption #3.

Suppose Amrun was there for a different reason. Perhaps Amrun was there to roleblock, redirect or otherwise mess with the sheriff (someone who has played the game is welcome to comment). This would free Jacob up to use a Bang! card on Majiffy. Jacob Savage: renegade?

[The Rufflig]

no i had no reason to trust his deputy claim when he got pretty much everyone as town but me

But you did have a reason to trust it!

Barrel investigation says DrDolittle is innocent. Which, I was wondering if I was wasting my barrel on confirming DrDolittle wasn't playing us with the deputy claim, but after ^ I'm kind of glad I did.

[The Rufflig]

I might. Apparently, Amished missed it too even though he has read that page.

[The Rufflig]

Oh, it wasn't the only mention of it, either. Seriously, it's not like PA's investigation was only mentioned that one time by one person. It just means we have players not reading the thread - I'm always a bit suspicious of players skimming.

Penguin_alien is town for backing up doolittle's op inves.

if he is telling the truth and PA is as well that means 4 cop investigations on one night?

PA has inno on Dr Dolittle.

If PA is scum, she could still inno Dr to get towncred.

I stopped looking for references at this point. There could well be other mentions.

[The Rufflig]

The only conclusion you made from that exchange was that night actions are unreliable? Ugh. PA's verification of DrDolittle should have led to some quick alignment scenarios.

1) DrDoolittle is town
PA is town verifying or PA is scum verifying

2) DrDoolittle is gambiting scum
PA is collaborating scum or PA's investigation got clobbered by functional godfather.

Gambiting scum runs the following risks (top 3):
a) No town power roles -- there was no guarantee that there were any other town power roles besides sheriff because of the card mechanic.
b) Counterclaim.
3) "Cleared" townie revealed as scum.

PA's alignment can not be determined solely by this exchange. However, DrDolittle was highly likely to be town from all of this.

---

@JacobSavage: Could you claim your actions for the other nights as well?

[The Rufflig]

It shouldn't take this long to check, Jacob.

@Pitoli: Still sorting things out - I'll get back to you about Marquis.

Working hypothesis:

1) Power Roles may make card actions in addition to their named role:
DrDolittle used his role ability to gain 1 investigation. DrDolittle had a barrel card of the correct suit to gain 2 more investigations.

2) Scum have Power Roles as well - guessing Bus Driver (Stagecoach driver?) and godfather (simply because of the possible number of investigations). (Ninja?)
Most likely the scum also have a Bang! they can use without using up a card. Bus Driver is based on a theory.

Theory:
Jacob is indeed the town doctor. The scum bused DrDolittle and Saki last night. The scum shot at Saki which got transferred to DrDolittle. Jacob's protect got transferred to Saki. Renegade used Bang! on DrDolittle and got transferred to Saki. Result: Saki (I) received a damage report last night which stated that I took no damage. Possible theory buster: anyone else out there who received a damage report but took no damage? Second theory buster: Jacob is lying (I need those actions, Jacob!).

[The Rufflig]

Just for clarification though, when you speak of a renegade, is that scum or is that a third party? Because Amrun's flip says mafia outlaw, nothing about a renegade. Also, since I would expect scum to get cards as well as a "kill" night action it would be possible to have more than one action and could be truthful about something.

I'm leaning towards third party. I read the wikipedia entry and third party would make a better fit theme wise. It is certainly possible that this is multiball scum, but I doubt it. The cards hold a lot of power for town use, but they don't seem as useful for scum other than giving them a cover. It's possible that the scum can use cards for different things than the town. For example, a scum might be able to use a barrel investigation to make himself immune to investigation that night. There is too much power in these cards to make a balanced game without giving the scum some ways to counter it. I would not outright reject results though - consider them a hint unless otherwise contradicted by more traditional methods.

[The Rufflig]

You don't think Jacob's pushing of Marquis without giving a basis meets your burden of proof? Jacob is the only one who took Marquis original ofc I shot DrDolittle seriously. Jacob knew where Marquis went last night and forced Marquis to admit it. What other reason was Marquis going to give for being there?

Reason #1 - I watched DrDolittle. We ask: who visited him?
Reason #2 - I used a heal/protect on him. We ask: Why did he die?
Reason #3 - I tracked DrDolittle. We ask: Why? As a claimed cop, he would have told us who he investigated each night.

I'd appreciate your view as to why Marquis is not scum, Sheriff.

[The Rufflig]

I'm disappointed in you, Jacob. What is the holdup on your night actions?

[The Rufflig]

why is it that other people always get to claim multiple actions like dolittle using both inspect and miss cards, and now jacob claims he both used a protection card on dolittle and at the same time a track card on me??? we only get 1 choice of card, it makes sense that scum get more card choices at night to even out the fact that we all pretty much have PR powers

A player taking multiple actions at night can not be justified as equaling scum. DrDolittle's flip proved this. We have to use our own judgment on whether a player taking multiple actions is either a town pr or scum.

Second, miss cards are not played by the player. They are used automatically as a reaction to a Bang!. Consider the miss cards as a one shot bulletproof. Thus even a VT could use more than 1 card per night.

[The Rufflig]

N2 Protected Majiffy,

Bingo! That's the one I was looking for, but I needed you to confirm it.

[The Rufflig]

I was fairly sure that was what you meant. The "last night" referring to N2 instead of N3. "This night" referring to N3.

Absent any other evidence or theories, I will not support a JacobSavage lynch today.

[The Rufflig]

Bang!

VOTE: Marquis

[The Rufflig]

I'd like to make a claim.

Retroactive damage sucks, Equinox!

Apparently, I did take damage night 3 after all. I was shot at again last night to boot (four nights in a row and counting).

[The Rufflig]

Vote Count 5.0

Not Voting: Amished, killerjester, JacobSavage, Majiffy, penguin_alien, PeregrineV, pitoli, Saki

Harumph! Saki replaced out, Equinox.

Oops! Fixed. (Equinox)

---

Amished: tracked N3 by JS (went nowhere), tracked N4 by me (went to kj). Cleared by two independent players.
killerjester: investigated N4 by Amished (innocent)
JacobSavage: investigated by DrDolittle N1 (innocent)
Majiffy: self-cleared D1
penguin_alien: not cleared
PeregrineV: investigated by DrDolittle N1 (innocent)
pitoli: investigated by DrDolittle N1 (innocent)

Saki

The Rufflig: not cleared

Assuming a three man outlaw team only PA and myself can be scum. The trouble is that I'm not scum. At least one of the innocents must be wrong.

[The Rufflig]

What if it's a two-man outlaw team? :/ After all with renegade it's three scum total.

Let's do some quick and dirty calculations. Let us assume the card mechanic is completely balanced and all investigations are true for the moment. We have an innocent child, a town cop and a town doctor on our side. The scum have flipped a vanilla sk and a vanilla goon. What 1 scum role would balance this out? I have no answer.

The card game doesn't appear balanced, though. The scum have only managed 1 nk in 4 nights.

Lets assume there is only 1 scum left. Marquis claimed shooting DrDolittle. KJ was shot at twice (no one has claimed those shots). My slot was empty N3. Which means penguin_alien is the only player that could have made the shots on kj. The trouble is that would make me town and I also claim to have been shot N3 (no one has claimed this shot(s?) either -- I took 2 damage). We immediately run into a problem - that is too many unclaimed shots for one outlaw. Consider DrDolittle's death again -JS claimed he was protecting DrD. Taking into account the lack of kills on any other night, the outlaws probably had a hand in bringing down DrDolittle. I can't make a two player Outlaw team work. Can you?

[The Rufflig]

Actually, I was the one who shot Saki during Night 2 - not Night 3 as I think you said.

I was shot at again last night to boot (four nights in a row and counting).

So:
N1: shot by killerjester - Miss! card used
N2: shot by pitoli - Miss! card used
N3: shot by ? - 2 damage taken
N4: shot by ? - not claimed

[The Rufflig]

I took two bullets N3 (one shot Missed) but nothing last night.

[The Rufflig]

Although Amished isn't "cleared" I really don't think scum would try to shrink the already-cramping lynchpool at this point in the game with an inno investigation on me. Additionally, since I didn't take any damage it's unclear what

else

he could have been doing at my house (unless I was protected by someone else?)

There is one scenario that works with Amished being scum, but it is unlikely. You would have to be Amished's partner, Amished visited you to heal you with a saloon card. In such a scenario, you would also have had to lie about taking damage on N3. As no player has admitted to shooting you, Amished being there to heal/protect you is dubious.

Amished paired with me doesn't work as your N3 damage could not be explained.
Amished paired with penguin_alien does not work either as both of our N3 damage could not be explained.
killerjester paired with anyone besides Amished doesn't work because of Amished's investigation of killerjester.

BTW, do you have any night actions that you wish to declare? I believe the only one that has been revealed is your N1 action. I won't press the issue, if you decide to decline.

[The Rufflig]

So ... everyone is waiting on PeregrineV then?

---

If there are no other objections to my logic then I'm back where I started. penguin_alien and I are the only ones left unless we discard the innocents. I've given some reasons why this pairing isn't likely, but I can't offer anything truly concrete.

---
Setting aside innocents, here are some of my thoughts

Amished: Has not harmed anyone nights 3 or 4. Unless he can systematically elude trackers, he is likely town.

killerjester: I can't really tie him to anything scummy or particularly townie.

JacobSavage: I did not like his claim that Saki was lying about N2 - JS knew darn well that he was present. That is a fairly big red flag. DrD's death also becomes difficult. However, if JS is scum, then why didn't Majiffy take damage N2? Unless Amrun and JS combined could only do a total of 2 damage, then penguin_alien's alleged protect of Majiffy would be insufficient to keep all damage away from Majiffy. I have some suspicions of this slot.

Majiffy: This is one innocent that I can not set aside.

penguin_alien: If JS is the town doctor, then p_a could have been present to shoot at Majiffy. However, he was fairly quick to claim DrD was town by barrel investigation - not much reason to do so unless DrD caught a false innocent on a scum partner. Ehhh...

PeregrineV: I'm not happy with PeregrineV's activity level. However, I keep thinking about D3. DrD claimed scum on Amrun. Peregrine did not immediately vote Amrun, but instead asked what happened to Majiffy then supported Saki's demand for claims. I'd wager that PeregrineV was looking for a possible 2nd scum on Majiffy. There is a slight chance that PeregrineV was trying to find a different lynch target to save Amrun. However, he isn't likely to have pushed that lynch towards JS if JS was his scum buddy. Since JS isn't buddies with PeregrineV (also 3 scum on Majiff and no damage done???) then we can add in JS' track on PV. PV only went to Majiffy and not to Drd (who was shot at -- Miss! card used). PV is likely town.

pitoli: Even if the outlaws knew that there were Renegades in the game, I find it hard to believe they would use an investigation card to find out who it was. Probably town.

[The Rufflig]

Not to my knowledge.

Name	N1 Action	N2 Action	N3 Action	N4 Action
Amished	shot penguin_alien	-	none	investigate killerjester
killerjester	shot Saki	-	-	-
JacobSavage	none	protect Majiffy / track PeregrineV -> Majiffy	protect DrDolittle / track Baezu -> - / track Marquis -> DrDolittle	-
Majiffy	none	none	shot JacobSavage	-
penguin_alien	investigate DrDolittle	Heal Majiffy	-	-
PeregrineV	-	watch Majiffy	-	-
pitoli	-	shot Saki	investigate Marquis	-
The Rufflig	none	watch Majiffy -> Amrun, JacobSavage, penguin_alien, PeregrineV	none	track Amished -> killerjester

Dashes mean that I don't have any information.
bubbajack N1 shot pitoli
DrDolittle N1 investigated PeregrineV (role ability), pitoli & JacobSavage (club card on both). N2 DrDolittle investigated Amrun.

[The Rufflig]

That would be "Swords of Revealing Light".

[The Rufflig]

@PeregrineV:

Please come back! Everyone has had a chance to post since your announcement. They are all waiting on

you

.

[The Rufflig]

Damn, I hate being wrong.

VOTE: PeregrineV

[The Rufflig]

Wow! Two guilties right off the bat. I guess I should throw my own 2 cents in - here's a teaser:

Sorry, to be more concise, I'm confused at your question, killer, because I did not visit JS's house last night.

I did!

[The Rufflig]

So, penguin_alien, might I ask why you were so quiet about your "guilty" result? pitoli and killerjester were fairly eager to mention their guilty results. Assuming you have a reason for waiting that leads to another question. If you actually had a guilty result, wouldn't you have said something earlier when the second guilty was laid at your feet? It seems to me that would have been the time to bring up the possibility of false results. Three guilties on three different players should have immediately thrown a red flag in your thought processes. That is when I would have expected to see the faulty investigations argument raised.

VOTE: penguin_alien

---

I wish I could say that I used binoculars last night, but I didn't have one - I used a barrel to re-check JS. I was pretty sure someone else would check p_a. I received an innocent result -- like I needed it given the flip in the thread.

I wasn't shot at last night, which was one pleasant surprise.

[The Rufflig]

Or to put it another way, look at pitoli's reaction to penguin_alien's claim. He immediately questioned three guilties. We didn't get that sort of reaction from penguin_alien at what I would describe as the appropriate time.

[The Rufflig]

Either you or JacobSavage was lying about your night 2 action, because PeregrineV didn't shoot! If you were both telling the truth, Jacob would have absorbed one shot at DrDolittle and you would have absorbed a second shot at DrDolittle. Even if one of you was blocked, it would take more than 1 shot to get through to DrDolittle who took damage! There had to have been a second scum shooting.

[The Rufflig]

Heart

[The Rufflig]

Hearts are sane?? Who knows? For all we know it is the suit the mod shows at the end of each day that determines true readings or false. Mod showing a black card could mean red cards played give true results. Mod showing a red card could mean all investigations come back innocent regardless of suit played. We've yet to run into a false guilty, though.

So, it rather comes down to
1) killerjester or Amished is scum
2) The Rufflig or penguin_alien is scum

That means today is potentially mylo. As I'm under suspicion, I suggest that Majiffy and pitoli decide which set they wish to lynch from today and what order to declare. pitoli and Majiffy have the luxury of claiming last.

Everyone good with this arrangement? Any divergent suggestions?

[The Rufflig]

Rufflig, did nothing else happen to happen to you last night? I can say I'm not guilty all I want but hopefully I can prove it.

Acknowledged.

I wasn't shot at last night, which was one pleasant surprise.

The second pleasant surprise was receiving healing.

[The Rufflig]

I didn't take any damage. I threw a saloon on pitoli last night.

[The Rufflig]

I threw a saloon on pitoli last night.

Wtf does that mean?

Huh. I guess you haven't drawn a saloon all game. pitoli is correct. A saloon (off suit) heals 2 points of damage.

Anyway, we have two suspects and two lynches available. I'm ready to vote! If you'd like to go through the formal claim process, please pick a suspect.

[The Rufflig]

Oh last night mm. I'm not sure (if KJ is the last scum) how two people could have been damaged. My guess is there's a special card that hits multiple people (Dynamite from the original card game comes to mind as a possibility), or else something significant with the suit.

Last night watched majiffy 9only Jacob visited), used shot choice to shoot Rufflig over Majiffy.

Best guess: a Bang! was used on majiffy and a shot choice was used to damage Amished.

[The Rufflig]

Well, that was fun. It's nice not to get clobbered by a game tilted too far towards the scum once in awhile.

majiffy seemed to gain a 6th sense of what card he needed to play on who. pitoli was obviously townie and I'm surprised he survived.

It's hard to say what would need to be tweaked if this was to be run again. After day 2, everything started going wrong for the scum. The Doctor may have been too powerful, but the town ended up needing the extra time to lynch all 5 scum. In spite of everything, the scum did reach a mylo on day 6, but they weren't able to pull it out. The town mislynched twice and on day 6 the scum could have won with a third. So ... ? The scum needed to be able to make 1 or 2 more kills earlier on? So perhaps tone the doctor down to preventing 2 damage. The mason ability needed to be cut with a cop and all the barrels flying about.

After day 2, every day another card (or two) pointed towards scum. There probably should have been a hand limit in play possibly a max of 2 or 3 cards. The players can only draw cards up to their hand limit - that would have cut down on the number of town friendly cards entering play each night. Either that or tweak the scums' defensive abilities. Or possibly tweak the cards to be a bit less reliable. The cards creating a mislynch would have made them a less dependable tool to the town and given the scum a bit more wiggle room.

Overall, a complex system can be difficult to balance correctly, don't be hard on yourself for taking a chance on a new mechanic that didn't quite end up balanced. New mechanics help keep the game interesting. So, please keep them coming.