California Trilogy: City of Angels - Off Stage (Game Over)

[Gaspar]

As IH once said, fishing involves some degree of subtlety. But since I miscounted the number of votes on Krew, I'm cool with putting him back on 4.

Unvote
Vote: KY Krew

, Zwet, [Seraphim, Thok], [Rawr Hydra, ShadowLurker, GoofballsandBaloons], [Orbots, Elmo, Bagel Eating Cowfrog], No Lynch, Gaspar

[zwetschenwasser]

overgeneralization...

[Bagel Eating Cowfrog]

Your current thoughts on the KY Krew wagon vs. the zwet wagon would be much appreciated.

Both are good wagons and we would switch over to the KY wagon if needed. However, as of now, I still see no reason why zwet isn't scum and he has not done anything to show me otherwise. You brought up a point that if zwet was scum then he would've been bussed like crazy by now, but that doesn't have to be the case. Every game I've been in with you, you focus in on bussing and distancing to a ridiculous extent and I don't think either happen as much as you say they do. Yes, they will happen in a mafia game at some point but I think you exaggerate it. Keep in mind, I don't think you're scum because of this but just reconsider not being as close-minded.

-dahill

[MrJellyLee]

Replacing Seraphim. This is MrJellyLee’s lesser half, PJ. I will put this at the top of my posts since the bottom of our posts are apparently reserved for voting.

I will start with my observations of the scenes (since it is shorter):

I think John Locke is lying about his consequence. From what I understand, the motives given to people were

random

– what if his consequence of “being turned from an innocent to a non-innocent” was given to somebody who was already not innocent? Additionally, changing alignments does not seem the type of thing Mr. Grey would reveal as a consequence. Granted, I have not seen anything Mr. Grey has directed beyond Verbose 2.

Given that consequences are revealed, however, I am confused. It seems that players have no incentive to

lie

about their consequence, because their lie would presumably be quickly exposed if they managed to convince people to vote with them.

Therefore, I am very skeptical about Valentine for not giving any information, and I have to wonder (i) if there is some gag order in play, or (ii) if Valentine would rather avoid being shown to be a liar by not saying anything. There is no point in being an

Advocate

without any information, and I think Valentine has information that is not being shared.

Summary: I think both Advocates are probably lying or avoiding lying by saying nothing, and I find that scummy.

~

1.) Now that I have read how the game works (that the decisions On Screen set up an “endgame”) I am doing some rethinking. It seems to me that since we will have

seven scenes

and an endgame of

seven players

, that each scene is determining a role or a mechanic for the endgame.

John Locke might be telling the truth because flipping alignment will put the town closer to “worst set-up” for town. I will give it thought. I still see absolutely no reason why Valentine is not giving information, though.

We have to remember that scum probably do not care whether they are lynched so long as (i) they can guarantee something bad happens for the town in the endgame, and (ii) they believe that they can keep at least three of themselves alive after seven scenes.

Therefore,

we need to lynch scum

in order to

prevent

the scum from "sacrificing" themselves in order to assure something bad happens in the endgame. (I guess this somewhat obvious, but I feel it has a different twist on the normal need to lynch scum).

Pre-post Edit: Mr. Grey seems to be telling us some information about alignments in the “jobs” section, so now I think John Locke’s claim seems more likely that I thought before. I still think Valentine is scummy, though: I see no reason to withhold information.

2.) Basically our job right now is to get the scum down to 2 members as quickly as possible, or if the time calls for it, to make sure the town stays above 6 members by the end of the seventh scene (which may require tactical No Lynches, but I am leery on trying to guess how many people are town and how many are scum, especially if alignments can indeed flip).

3.) I disagree that the Scene One choice is “random”, as Gaspar claims. I think both Advocates were given some information, and that each route changes the endgame in some manner.

4.) Wow, scary thought: can’t a scum Director just make sure at least three scum live at all times by keeping them on screen?

Pre-Post Edit: Forgot about the Stuntman. Also the assistant director can fire the Director. Crisis averted.

And wow, that just led to another scary thought. We basically want a good mix of town and scum for each thread, as otherwise the scum can take control and either (i) secure a mislynch in this thread, or (ii) secure a bad decision On Screen.

5.)

Question at large

: Was everybody able to read

all

the rules of the game prior to being put On Screen?

6.) This post seems to have turned into analyzing the set-up over scum-hunting. I will hopefully get to that soon, and it may take another reread.

7.) I think it silly to consider sending KY Krew On Scene when they are currently (at page 11 here) one of the top choices for a lynch. If we think we are lynching scum, I find that more important than making sure the current On Screen players understand our codes.

~

I’m beat. I will try to reread both threads tomorrow and find where my vote is going.

Tags removed. Please use bold only for voting. - Mod

[ShadowLurker]

Shadow, I think you should have been more cautious with your vote on KY.

What does this even mean? Have you been paying attention?

---

MJL: The On Camera setup contains everything but the sample role PM, the script, and the list of jobs.

Everyone checked in Off-Stage before going On Camera, and they were told to read the rules. However, some have forgot it seems or never read them at all.

[zwetschenwasser]

Exactly what I said, SL.

[ShadowLurker]

My vote on KY Krew was a random vote that ended up being a good 'un. How should I have been more cautious about it?

[zwetschenwasser]

I was under the impression that your vote put KY at L-2.

[Mighty Orbots]

Welcome to the game MrJellyLee, looks like you're nicely caught up already. In theory people on camera had a chance to read the rules. In practice it does seem a bit iffy.

ShadowLurker's vote was the very first on KY Krew and, as he said, it hasn't changed.

At this point KY Krew has had a chance to do something useful and I haven't seen it happen. Given that zwetschenwasser's vote would apparently be on KY Krew if it were to be cast I'm going to consider them at L-1 and say I'm ready for the claim most likely followed by my vote for them.

That means that I think that zwetschenwasser is going to be around tomorrow as our Director of Photography. Might Orbots is going to be on camera in scene two and I don't know who will end up with the stuntman job so I'm going to work with the assumption that we have to do all of our communicating next scene through zwetschenwasser. I would have liked zwetschenwasser to propose a plan (as I said earlier) but since he didn't here's what I want to see happen.

The advocate will be picking one of three doors, another of the three will be revealed as a bad choice. That will leave one good door and one bad door; the town will get to choose to switch to the one the advocate didn't pick or stick with the one they picked. Clearly this is based on the game from Let's Make a Deal and is supposed to remind us of the Monty Haul Problem. It isn't the same as the one selecting the door in the first place (the advocate) will have knowledge of which door is leads to the good option but we might as well go with that theme.

I want to see a picture of a car from zwetschenwasser when those off stage are done with their discussion, have made their lynch and they think that those on camera should keep the door the advocate picked.

I want to see a picture of a goat from zwetschenwasser when those off stage are done with their discussion, have made their lynch and they think that those on camera should switch to the other door.

Car = done and stay. Goat = done and switch.

zwetschenwasser, do you understand this? Does that system work for you?

Everyone else is welcome to chime in as well.

Should I get pulled off camera by the stuntman I'll use essentially the same signals only in the form of Cake songs instead of pictures.

"Stickshifts and Safetybelts" by Cake = done and stay.
"Sheep go to Heaven (Goats go to Hell)" by Cake = done and switch.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[ShadowLurker]

Have you been paying attention?

That was elmosaurian.

[zwetschenwasser]

My apologies then. All those comments >>> elmosaurian

[Mr. Grey]

Vote Count:

6 to lynch.

KY Krew: 4 (elmosaurian, Gaspar, GoofballsAndBaloons, ShadowLurker)
zwetschenwasser: 2 (Bagel Eating Cowfrog, Mighty Orbots)
GoofballsAndBaloons: 1 (Thok)

Not Voting: 4 (KY Krew, MrJellyLee, Rawr Hydra, zwetschenwasser)

Current Condorcet Winner:

KY Krew

To view the complete table of pairwise results, put the following information into this form.

1,Bagel Eating Cowfrog
2,elmosaurian
3,Gaspar
4,GoofballsAndBaloons
5,KY Krew
6,Mighty Orbots
7,Rawr Hydra
8,MrJellyLee
9,ShadowLurker
10,Thok
11,zwetschenwasser
12,No Lynch

1:11>5>7>2=3=4=8=10>6>9>12>1
1:5>3>11>1>4=7=8=9=10>6>12>2
1:11>5>8=10>4=7=9>1>2>6>12>3
1:5=11>9>1=2=7=8=10>3=6>4>12
1:1=2=3=4=6=7=8=9=10=11=12>5
1:11>5>7=8>4=9>1=2=3=10>12>6
1:1=2=3=4=5=6=8=9=10=11=12>7
1:1=2=3=4=5=6=7=9=10=11=12>8
1:5>11>7=8>3>1>10>12>6>2>4>9
1:4>5=7>8>1=6>9>12>11>2=3>10
1:1=2=3=4=5=6=7=8=9=10=12>11

[MrJellyLee]

PJ posting.

1.

MafiaJin

I doubt MafiaJin saying “your [sic] ignoring a win condition” is a “slip” of having knowledge about alignments other than Innocent / Something Else. Somebody would only

say

that with actual knowledge of an alternate win condition if they thought

everybody

had that win condition. I am leaning towards considering it to be an editing problem, but I would like to see MafiaJin explain that comment at the next opportunity.

I am more concerned that MafiaJin apparently had chosen who was going to be on camera so quickly (although I don’t know if Mr. Grey required a quick choice). Clearly MafiaJin was not being completely random, as MafiaJin avoided putting in actors who can already post in-thread, so I have to wonder about the rationale.

Gaspar focuses too much on the “to make sure there is a townsperson” reasoning (which I agree is not well thought out) from MafiaJin at the expense of ignoring other reasons offered by MafiaJin’s other half, namely:

You can still read my posts I will be posting. And you can read my vote in the decision as well as anyone else that will be on camera. I assumed a decision is more important or at least equally important to a lynch reading the rules (if we win decisions we can no lynch to day 7 to get to endgame under best circumstances; if we are lynching badly we can no lynch to salvage endgame still).

Also the assistant director was forced into the first scene. Its important for him to be able to read me. As long as he thinks I am innocent ( and is innocent himself) he should let me stay as director. If this job gets put in scum hands in later scenes they can force 4 innocents into a scene to shorten the majority needed etc etc.

MafiaSSK posted the “to make sure there is one townsperson” reason while Sajin posted the above. I think two heads agreeing on the same conclusion for different reasons is not farfetched. However, I am not convinced that the additional reasons were not just tacked on after the fact.

Overall: Moderately scummy, but I am nowhere near as convinced as Gaspar seems to be.

2. I do not think voting Mr. Grey will help us in the least. Our job is to lynch scum. I would only vote Mr. Grey as an alternative to No Lynching, but there might be a possibility that Mr. Grey counts as an “Innocent” for the purposes of 5 Innocents being alive to trigger endgame, so I would rather not.

3. Unlike elmosaurian, I do not think focusing on discussion of game mechanics is inherently pro-town. It is necessary to some degree to get everybody on base, but scum can talk of game mechanics as much as town. In fact, I think scum would

rather

focus on game mechanics over scumhunting as long as possible.

4. What do other people think about Valentine? I have seen opinions about Talilan, Hewitt, and MafiaJin as players “On Screen” but that is about the extent of it.

5. On screen, I think Valentine is scummy; (s)he actively suggests that they do not know the consequence of driving, and I highly doubt that.

I think it is likely that some players forgot the Script once On Screen. I, for one, originally had this post prefaced thinking that Mr. Grey never actually

said

Scene One had a good choice and a bad choice, and I only deleted it after having rereading the Script post. This might be the reason for Talilan’s and Hewitt’s posts (which suggest that there might be worse alternatives than having an Innocent flip to being non-Innocent, something I am quite skeptical about to begin with). However, I also do not think John Locke was being “vague” as Talilan claims.

But

seeing as my first reaction upon replacing and reading the On Screen thread was that John Locke was lying, I tend to think others may have had a similar thought-process; in other words, if John Locke is scum and lying, then he might actually have a “good” choice and is trying to make it appear to be blatantly bad; perhaps the "bad" choice is something like "Role #1 is: Townie" (which can be arguably seen as

good

in that it is not seemingly

bad

) where the good choice might have been "Role #1 is: Cop". Seeing as Valentine is not saying at all what the consequence of her driving the bus is, I am inclined to be skeptical about the conclusion being as foregone as the two Advocates suggest.

6. Overall, I dislike elmosaurian’s focus on mechanics and attempted justification for thinking mechanics-based posts are protown. Thok seems too distant, and I can't even recall any opinions from him right this second. I think a couple players are more likely to be town than a random player (as I suppose is shown in my Concordet vote) but I am largely unswayed about most players so far.

Vote: elmosaurian

, Thok, [Bagel Eating Cowfrog, KY Krew, Mighty Orbots, Rawr Hydra, Shadow Lurker, zwetschenwasser], Gaspar, GoofballsAndBaloons, No Lynch, Mr. Grey, MrJellyLee

[KY Krew]

A PMBJL sandwich, how excellent.

zwetschenwasser - you've said it twice now, but what specific points that I made were "nonsense," and why do you think this?

[MrJellyLee]

PJ posting.

I had one of those "thoughts in the night" that made me realize the following cannot be true:

2. I do not think voting Mr. Grey will help us in the least. Our job is to lynch scum. I would only vote Mr. Grey as an alternative to No Lynching,

but there might be a possibility that Mr. Grey counts as an “Innocent” for the purposes of 5 Innocents being alive to trigger endgame, so I would rather not.

I sincerely doubt this can be the case, precisely because if Mr. Grey being alive allows the game to continue past 5 Innocents + Mr. Grey, then it is possible for the game to get to 4 Innocents + Mr. Grey, and I truly doubt Mr. Grey can be chosen as a player for the 7 person endgame.

The same rationale goes the other way: I do not think Mr. Grey can count as [Something Else] precisely because it would allow the game to get down to 1 Something Else + Mr. Grey.

Needless to say, I now -- even more so -- am convinced that trying to lynch Mr. Grey is a waste of time.

[GoofballsAndBaloons]

Needless to say, I now -- even more so -- am convinced that trying to lynch Mr. Grey is a waste of time.

We haven't a clue what the continued presence of Mr Grey means in this particular game.

Without information, we are unable to form an idea on whether lynching Mr Grey is or isn't a good idea.

The real question is, "do we leave him be, or do we decide to lynch him and hope for an interesting surprise?"

Now, the town is in a majority, so this is the town's decision to make. Unless the scum knows something we don't. No one is really pushing for it, so if the scum knows anything, it's that lynching Mr Grey not in the scum's favor. Otherwise there would be an impetus to push for it. It's a mega-huge "IF." MO did bring it up enthusiastically, but got no traction with anyone else - so his is an individual effort, not a group one. Either no one knows anything, or the scum believes lynching Grey might help the town.

-DGB

[GoofballsAndBaloons]

Questions for JellyLee:

(1) Why is Thok so high on the list? I can think of reasons, but I want to know yours.

(2) What are your thoughts on zwet and KY Krew? Since you elected to vote off-wagon, I'd like to know why. Scum often likes to hide off-wagon.

-DGB

[Mighty Orbots]

Apparently I'm too wordy and get ignored. Let's try shorter versions:

@ KY Krew: Claim now or you get my vote.

@ zwetschenwasser: Do you understand the following picture signals for tomorrow and will you be ready to send them:

Picture of a car: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera stay with the door the advocate picked at the start.

Picture of a goat: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera switch to the door the advocate didn't pick at the start.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[MrJellyLee]

PJ posting.

(1) Why is Thok so high on the list? I can think of reasons, but I want to know yours.

Thok is high on my list because he feels like a commentator and not a player. In my experience (which admittedly has not included Thok in a long time) Thok is usually somebody I actively remember being in a game – here, after reading the game twice through, I did not really recall anything Thok had said whatsoever. After reading his posts in isolation just now I honestly can’t find anything in particular that makes me lean scum or town; it seems to be more of an ‘overall impression’ thing.

(2) What are your thoughts on zwet and KY Krew? Since you elected to vote off-wagon, I'd like to know why.

I do not know enough about zwetschenwasser’s meta to really say if his play here is inconsistent with his play as town. Here, I have found his posts unimpressive, and not helpful or of maximum utility (see: his picture post On Screen), but so far I have not gotten a feeling his posts are more likely to have been written by scum than by town.

KY Krew has also been somewhat unhelpful, but I do have some very old meta on raj and InHim that tells me that raj is prone to OMGUS (I know that happened in Committee Mafia, although he was scum in that game) and InHim often has his own sort of agenda. I also believe that both generally post less than I would like.

I do not really think ShadowLurker has information on KY Krew being “99% Mafia,” and if he claims to be serious then I am not going to consider it unless I have an explanation -- this is because if we lynch KY Krew and he flips Innocent, ShadowLurker will have pretty much washed his hands of responsibility by his emphasis that there is a "big gap" between 99% and 100%. If you

really

think somebody is

that

likely to be scum, then I would think you would do a whole lot more to get them lynched than what ShadowLurker has done. Usually my strongest cases get to

maybe

65% certainty, so having something at 99% would be incredible and I can't imagine I would be doing anything but jumping up and down and screaming for blood.

I think the wagon on KY Krew started from a mixture of (i) ShadowLurker’s comment, (ii) KY Krew taking a long time to post in the game and being generally absent, and (iii) KY Krew’s reaction to ShadowLurker’s comment. I think the wagon has largely held weight because of the mentality of "a wagon exists, ergo it is good vote". None of those reasons really persaudes me to think KY Krew is actually more likely to be scum than a random person.

Scum often likes to hide off-wagon.

Tempted to bump you up on my list for this comment. Known fact: scum are “often” (read: always) either on-wagon or off-wagon.

[GoofballsAndBaloons]

Picture of a car: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera stay with the door the advocate picked at the start.

Picture of a goat: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera switch to the door the advocate didn't pick at the start.

That's probably not confusing for troll, but it might be for humans. How about a picture of a sitting dog for "stay" and a picture of a a wall switch for "switch?"

-DGB

[GoofballsAndBaloons]

Thanks PJ.

Do you happen to have an opinion on Gaspar? What do you see with fresh eyes?

-DGB

[MrJellyLee]

PJ Posting.

Given that consequences are revealed, however, I am confused. It seems that players have no incentive to

lie

about their consequence, because their lie would presumably be quickly exposed if they managed to convince people to vote with them.

I may have jumped too quickly here, depending on the answer to this question:

Question at Large

: Did the town know that the consequences of the Scenes would be revealed prior to Mr. Grey making that clarification in the On Screen thread?

I ask because if Advocates

did not know

that lies would be revealed until Mr. Grey made that clarification, then that changes the entire situation. Mr. Grey made his clarification in Post 35 On Screen, and I think Mr. Grey made that post because he was specifically asked if consequences would be revealed. I am seriously wondering if Valentine was that person who popped the question, because if so, it definitely strengthens my theory that Valentine is trying to avoid lying by being vague.

That said, I actually do think now that the Town should choose to follow Valentine. If the consequence of that is very clearly

bad

, then I think it is safe to assume that at least John Locke is probably lying scum, and that there is a good chance that Valentine was scum squeezed into a situation where the best thing to do was to say pretty much nothing that could catch her in a lie. I think if the consequence of following Valentine is bad, a rebuttal would be along the lines of "Yes that was bad, but clearly not

as

bad as John Locke switching alignments."

In case it is not clear, I am coming back around to my original thought that both Advocates are scummy, but I am willing to wait and see what the consequence of following Valentine is.

~

Pre-Post Edit: DGB, I put Gaspar as slightly more likely to be Town in my Concordet list, if that tells you anything. I generally do not like to explain why I feel players are town unless I feel it is necessary to avoid that player being lynched, but I will say that although I disagree with some of his main points (especially against MafiaJin), he appears to be genuinely scum-hunting and I am not catching any whiffs of a bad motive behind his posts.

[Mighty Orbots]

Picture of a car: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera stay with the door the advocate picked at the start.

Picture of a goat: Done with discussion/lynch, those on camera switch to the door the advocate didn't pick at the start.

That's probably not confusing for troll, but it might be for humans. How about a picture of a sitting dog for "stay" and a picture of a a wall switch for "switch?"

The car and the goat are a tribute to the Monty Haul problem scene two is clearly based on but whatever. As long as those on camera know what the pictures will mean it doesn't really matter what they're going to be. If zwetschenwasser doesn't like those particular ones he can pick new ones.

I do not really think ShadowLurker has information on KY Krew being “99% Mafia,” and if he claims to be serious then I am not going to consider it unless I have an explanation -- this is because if we lynch KY Krew and he flips Innocent, ShadowLurker will have pretty much washed his hands of responsibility by his emphasis that there is a "big gap" between 99% and 100%. If you really think somebody is that likely to be scum, then I would think you would do a whole lot more to get them lynched than what ShadowLurker has done. Usually my strongest cases get to maybe 65% certainty, so having something at 99% would be incredible and I can't imagine I would be doing anything but jumping up and down and screaming for blood.

But ShadowLurker wasn't saying that KY Krew had a 99% chance of being scum. The 99% comment and the vote for KY Krew were unrelated. I know because it was confusing so I asked:

Hmm, a couple quick questions for now.

ShadowLurker, apparently you didn't want to talk about (your vote? your problem with 99%) but were the vote for KY Krew and the 99% comment supposed to have any connection at all?

Thok, why put some of the names in brackets like that on your list?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

Completely unrelated.

The 99% thing first turned up when Gaspar said that he was 99% sure that Count de Morcerf was town which ShadowLurker was reacting to.

Question at Large

: Did the town know that the consequences of the Scenes would be revealed prior to Mr. Grey making that clarification in the On Screen thread?

I ask because if Advocates

did not know

that lies would be revealed until Mr. Grey made that clarification, then that changes the entire situation. Mr. Grey made his clarification in Post 35 On Screen, and I think Mr. Grey made that post because he was specifically asked if consequences would be revealed. I am seriously wondering if Valentine was that person who popped the question, because if so, it definitely strengthens my theory that Valentine is trying to avoid lying by being vague.

It wasn't clear in the rules before the scene started and I was the one who asked for the clarification (after both advocates had already given their positions on camera.) As I said in Post 148 of this thread it was ambiguous but I was pretty sure from my reading that it was going to be the case that the result of the decision would be learned at the end of the scene. When I gave my advice to do what the advocates said if they agreed where everyone including those who would be on camera could see I failed to mention that so that in case both advocates did turn out to be scum they wouldn't have a reason coming from me not to out themselves by both giving the wrong advice.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[KY Krew]

OK, so I've botched things up pretty royally.

When I was agreeing with Valentine Wiggin driving, I was using some extra information. In my attempts to be more productive, I've been reviewing all my information, and have found, to my chagrin, I was mixing up my information.

You may recall an earlier post where I stated ckd will have to be lynched. That was from my initial read with this extra information fresh in my brain. My initial plan was to jump in and correct everything after I'd given my share of scumhunting, which I also noted in that post.

Somehow, in the shuffle of me feeling pressure to post every day, this information got shuffled as well.

I HAVE to get onstage in time to relay this information and help the town On Camera vote correctly.

[Mr. Grey]

Double Take

Mr. Grey is intently watching the action unfold on camera when his assistant leans over and whispers in his ear. He turns past her, looking at one of the actors chatting off "stage", and sits in silence for a moment deep in thought. Finally, he nods.

"Fine. I trust the crew is up to the task? Our most diehard fans will notice the change, of course, but then they're the ones most likely to grasp the deeper meaning. Tell camera one to get a shot of that bird up there while we swap them out."

Mr. Grey glances again at the actors not in the current scene, then turns his attention back to the highway set.

---

KY Krew uses the Stuntman ability to switch Roles with Talilan.