Mini 199 - Time Travel Mafia, Game Over!

[SinisterOverlord]

The thing that scares me most about this setup is non-revealing of roles on death. Seems we'll be in a state of constant cluelessness.

Mm. Depends on how the game plays out... but it looks like there's a good chance we don't know we're doing well until we win - or badly until we lose.

I also note Mr Stoofer's vote ain't random. Leads me to suspect he may have info we don't. Care to explain?

[SinisterOverlord]

Yeah, read it. Okay, so it coulda just been a random vote without the random, it coulda been an attempt to start of more discusion, yeah.

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't have info. It still could mean he's a cop or a scum or whatever. You'll notice I didn't go OMGHEHASINFOVOTESOMEONE, I'm not saying he definitely has info. I'm saying it's a possibility, and asking him to say more on the topic.

[SinisterOverlord]

I'm not trying to imply all starting votes should be random. I was raising the possibility that this one wasn't, hopefully to get more information from Mr Stoofer on it. If it was random, then fine, we move on to other things, but on the chance it wasn't I don't want to miss whatever it means.

[SinisterOverlord]

Huuuh. Not lurking, people. Just... being cautious. Considered. Not saying the first thing that comes into my head. You know?

In any case, I'm gonna

Vote: Someone

. It's not OMGUS or anything, but rather my strongest suspicion right now. I'll give you reasoning in my next post (and there will be a lot less time between posts this time).

[SinisterOverlord]

Okay. First, post 8. Excessively complicated plan, that confused me a great deal, multiple readings not helping much. Now I got it, but the problem is thus.

The reason we'd doing this is to prevent mafia getting revived and having their way with killing who they want. There's a big assumption there - that the mafia get revived. That should only be able to happen if they get nightkilled - thus, there's the assumption there's a SK, which is quite possible but by no means certain - and then a doc goes back to protect them.

IMO, Docs should only go back to protect townies from nightkills. Yeah, we might not get some power roles, but better to not risk reviving antitown players.

So the only case in which this plan would have a point is if a doctor stuffs up, basically. I consider it an attempt to make the players focus on the mechanics of the game and not the task at hand; figuring out scum.

Post 28:

For all practical purposes, Mr Stoofer's vote was exactly the same as a random vote. What does the word "random" do for a post? Don't we assume that a lone vote in the first non-mod post of the game is random? And if Mr Stoofer was a cop with information, could he not be hiding it behind a random vote, just as easily as a non-random vote? Mr Stoofer obviously wanted it to be assumed a random vote, as he did not specify it wasn't. All this witchhunting about random/non-random votes only serve to madden me.

What gets me about this is that Mr Stoofer random voted Someone. We didn't know if it was a random vote or not. Now Someone's fervently arguing that it was 'obviously' random. Now if we assume for a moment here that Someone's scum, there's a possibility that Mr Stoofer's got info on him but is trying to be subtle about it, as we didn't know at this stage that it was definitely random. Wouldn't the best thing for him to do be to try and dismiss it as nothing? If he did so but then Mr Stoofer came out with his results, at least he'd have forced a cop claim for his scummates to pick off.

Now this turned out not to be the case. But his reaction was a little too... strong.

Post 55:

However, now that Mr. Stoofer mentions it, it may be better to use FOS's instead of votes until we choose a lynch target.

For reference purposes -

I think we should follow the voting strategy suggested by Someone in post 8; using FOS's as proxies for our votes, and then piling on the votes close to deadline.

So because he thinks we should use FOS's, it may be better. Why? You say it would be better, but there's no reasoning. Piling on votes quickly only advantages the mafia - something that happens quickly is usually to their advantage, not the town's. It's also a common scum tactic for when there's a deadline to get who they want lynched.

Since a majority doesn't mean a lynch, I've got no problems with using votes liberally. It allows everyone to see easily exactly where I stand, as votes are tallied by the mod but FOS's aren't, and means things don't have to move very quickly.

And I re-iterate, we assume that it is a random vote, since if he was a cop he would have came out...and he obviously didn't have much reasoning, as it was the first post of the game.

Again, not neccesarily. You assume if you wish. I prefer not to make such assumptions. He could've been trying to be subtle about it, as I said earlier... direct suspicion as the result of an investigation without coming out, which usually is fairly certain death. And, you don't need reasoning if you've got an investigation result.

However, in this game, plain townees are not just expendable, it is actually an advantage to the town to have them lynched. This is because they get confirmed on death.

No, no,

no

. It is

never

to the town's advantage to have protown players dead, unless we're playing Suicide Mafia or something to that extent. Yeah, it's better than normal if they get NIGHTKILLED -

not lynched

- cause they're confirmed town and we can revive them with a protect. But lynching, the only way to get em back is for them to have less of a majority - chances are that'll be pretty hard to make happen, if not downright impossible.

Now granted, he retracts this later, says it wasn't thought through. However, it still stinks. I don't think a protown player would have arrived at that, even thinking it through very little. I think it was a not-thought-through attempt to get townies lynched, since I don't think it could've been arrived at from any other direction.

Post 69:

The problem is, sometimes it would be advantageous for the town to lie (ie in our scenario). It is not true that pro-town characters are always advantaged by telling the truth.

This is true. However, scum need to lie all the time. Town need to lie occasionally. As was said about Lynch All Liars, it's power lies in it's simplicity. Yes, if you find a lie sometimes it will be town. However, you've got to play the percentages sometimes. Town can cope with a single loss better than the scum, for the most part, and there's a much better chance that a liar will be scum than just any randomly selected player.

I'm actually with Someone about the finding some people more scummy than others thing. While I don't exactly have a scientific method for it, I have a general idea of who I think to be innocentish and who I think to be guiltyish.

Post 92:

I'm looking for posts by sinister overlord, and not just of the "I'm here, but I'm not going to help" variety. At least some analysis, please.

When have I said anything like that? My posts have been few, granted, but they've to date been either discussing the possible randomness or not of Mr Stoofer's vote, or my previous post where I voted you and promised this post.

Anyway. That's what I think, at least. I hope I didn't bore any of you with the length of that.

[SinisterOverlord]

I consider it an attempt to make the players focus on the mechanics of the game and not the task at hand; figuring out scum.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment: figuring out the mechanics of the game is essential if we are going to win, since our ability to "figure out scum" isn't going to help us much when we can't confirm our suspicions. What are we going to do after we lynch someone and we aren't told whether they were scum or not.

What, you think that if we come up with a clever plan mathcam's going to go "Congratulations!" and tell us everyone's alignment? Yeah, we can come up with this, that and the other plan, but that plan's useless if we don't revive any non-townies. It's not going to help us tell who's scum and who isn't, it's not going to save the lives of the town players and it's not going to make bleeding cups of coffee. All it does is keep us talking about it, tying up the time left until the deadline so we have less time for discussing who's scum.

[SinisterOverlord]

Sorry. Many shifts at work. Just got in, it's past 1 in the morning and I'm too tired to post a decent post. I'll be back for a proper post in about 10-12ish hours.

[SinisterOverlord]

Okay. Sorry about the lack of the promised post. Stuff happened... a bit with my internet, and a bit with real life issues, meaning I didn't have the ability or time for a proper post.

Secondly, mathcam, I voted Someone back in post 109.

In any case, I'm gonna

Vote: Someone

.

Now, to respond to Someones' response to my attacks;

Try to read some of the posts we've made, SO. There HAS to be an SK or some alternative killing force. There is no assumption there.

We know someone was killed last night. This means that a killing group either doesn't time travel or chose not to. Says nothing about multiple roles. If I'm misinterpreting what you were referring to, please point it out to me.

Also, what keeps mafia from being revived? I think it's you who's making the assumption...better safe then sorry, no? The only person who would want not to follow my plan is scum...

The only way reviving would work that it wouldn't normally due to the mechanics of the game is a back-in-time doc protect. The only other way I can think of someone being revived is a more 'normal' reviver role - and either a) they're on the side of the town, and so SHOULD NOT REVIVE NON TOWNIES, or b) are mafia revivers, which is an extremely powerful role - but I'll admit not out of the question.

Yes, I agree, docs should not go back and protect power roles...However, this is not the opinion of the whole town. Unless you suggest that everyone in the town is SURELY as good as attentive as me or you, there's the possibility of a screw up. Again, the plan is a backup measure, just incase something happens.

I prefer this as a backup plan. If a non-townie is revived for whatever reason, we lynch them.

Argh. Completely not true. If Mr. Stoofer had info on me, me dismissing it doesn't make it go away, does it? Mr stoofer would still come out...and I would still get lynched...

But, as I said, you would've at least forced a cop claim, whereas he might've been able to get you lynched without claiming if it wasn't dismissed.

What??? This is completely out of context. Firstly, note that it was Mr. Stoofer's idea, and not mine to do so. I was just assuming that was the better plan was to FOS. As you may have noted, there were no objections to the FOS plan, which means that most of the town agreed with it at the time...why am I the only one to be singled out?

Okay. Firstly, Mr Stoofer did gain suspicion from me for this, but so do you for agreeing with it easily. And yeah, there were no objections at the time. That by no means means that it's agreed with, that's an assumption right there. And foremost, you're 'assuming that the better plan is to FOS' to quote you. You're agreeing with this because you think the town agrees. That's classic scumminess... just agreeing with the town, attempting to lie low on that issue, at least, not actually going 'Hey... that's actually pretty stupid' and picking up on that.

The logic of witholding your vote is this: if we're going to follow the plan cleanly, we're going to have to have everyone unvote whoever they're voting for at the end of the day. Now, for me, that's no problem since I log in almost every day. However, as you can see at mafiascum, everyone is not as active as us. If we had been using votes, I'd be willing to bet that there are some people that would have not been able to get back to unvote. It gives scum an excuse to leave their vote hanging on an innocent. The less people voting aimlessly, the better, IMO.

I'll concede you do have a point here... though the only case in which I can see us needing to change votes quickly before the deadline is if new information comes to light at the last minute, which is improbable but possible. So I'm prepared to be more cautious with my vote if I survive this day and night, cause given my difficulties of late there's no guarantee I'll be able to change my vote at the last minute, and no vote's better than one on a protown. Though I don't think the votes are as aimless as you suggest... I certainly think mine right now is in the right place.

With regards to the 'it's an advantage for townies to be lynched' issue - I'm guessing you responded to my attack in the same way I formulated it - going through everything in order, responding to each thing as it comes up.

And I'll accept your explanation on the topic, and withdraw my attack on that particular remark.

You haven't. It's just, thats the general attitude of a lot of lurkers here at scum. I'm sorry for categorising you as so. Clearly I was wrong.

Thank you. Though I realize the irony of this, that you said this and then I go and give a short contentless post and not post for days. Again, I'm sorry for that.

The plan is not useless if we don't revive non-townees. It also prevents other weird goings on like scum leading two or three alternative bandwagons who aren't really scummy, and then killing the main one.

I think we have enough decent players in this game that unscummy bandwagons wouldn't happen. And even if this does take place; scum make a false bandwagon then kill the main one - then we'd have an excellent lead on said scum.

Fishbulb, re my somewhat aggressive post on The Plan; while it may seem hypocritical to talk about this, one scum tactic is lurking, not attracting attention, letting everyone else point fingers at each other and lynch each other. The Plan gives them something to talk about, so they can say effectively nothing of consequence yet look like they're contributing.

[quote="Mr Stoofer]While I actually agreed with a lot of what SinisterOverlord said, I too found it interesting that SO had so much to say. He obviously had lots of thoughts in the game so why didn't he share them earlier? [/quote]
I didn't pick up on all of that as it was posted. Some of these things drew my attention to Someone, and with my attention on him I noticed more things as I wrote my initial attack.

I'm mostly bothered by his attacking Someone for his stupid comment. My experience is that obviously stupid statements aren't scummy, but those most eager to pounce on them are.

Wow. Speedy managed to say what I was trying to say for like 3 humungo-posts in like three lines.

Yeah, scum would joyfully jump on a town slip. But a town player should just as joyfully jump on a scum slip. If you care about winning this game, if you want to win, wouldn't you take advantage of what you saw as a big slip by your opponent in a heartbeat?

Now, I still don`t quite understand the 6/3 strategy, but as most people seemed to agree that it was a good plan, and you`re all more experienced than I, I`m going to assume its good. All I really got was the obvious; that the votes were to be separated into one main(6) and one secondary(3) bandwagon. If somebody could explain the concept to me a bit further though, I`d appreciate.

Here's the deal. Since 1) scum may be able to travel back in time for their kills and 2) the person with the most votes at deadline is lynched, then what could happen is Person A has 6 votes, everyone else has none. Scum B, who was dead, privately votes for Person C, who is protown. Then, if they can kill Person A with their nightkill before this day, so those 6 votes are null and void, and bring Scum B back from death, all the votes for this day are the one Scum B vote on Person C, so the timeline changes so Person C is lynched, and the mafia got a free lynch.

Hm. It seems this was already answered. Oh well, I'll leave this here anyhow. Doesn't hurt.

Mr Stoofer goes from agreeing with my large attack to attacking me. Going with what he sees as the flow much?

Similarly, Someone goes from [/quote="Someone"]I'm looking foward to your response. I don't think you're scum, just town that didn't really think through the posts you made.[/quote] to

I just think SO is more scummy

with very little in between. And furthermore, in post 117 he unvotes me, and I haven't seen him revote me since, so why is his vote on me?

What the hell, I'll advocate a no lynch in all circumstances unless we're confident enough that someone's scum that we want them dead. The mafia kills are going to give us more information than lynching (since we know the mafia aren't going to kill their own members), and the doctors can revive the people who were killed--we can't do that if we lynch a pro-town player.

We will win this game by eliminating the scum. Either we can rely on possible vigs guessing well, or we can rely on educated guesses. I prefer the latter, myself.
A no lynch allows the scum an extra night to kill someone else. True, we get more information. However, I think that a cop who may be killed gaining information is not worth an additional protown death.
Yeah, we could lynch a protown player. That's just the risk you take playing this game. That's the point of the game - try and figure out who the scum are with deduction, logic of just gut instinct - and lynch them before they kill off the town. Yeah, we won't know if we made the right decision or not, but that doesn't mean we can afford to let them pick us off.

So for now, my vote stays on Someone, but a big

FOS: Mr Stoofer

. He's my second suspect by a narrow margin.

Heh, more irony. The way things are shaping up, even with all I said against The Plan, looks like I'll end up contributing to making it happen, even if it's not deliberate.

[SinisterOverlord]

Yeah, I see why. Okay... doesn't mean I don't suspect you still, though.

Unvote: Someone, Vote:Mr Stoofer

And,

1. Why not? Do you agree or dissagree with this statement: If there is only one mafia group, everyone who is killed by them are innocent.

What about possible protown killing groups? That'd mean we've only got one 'evil' group, per se, but we could still have (hopefully) scum nightkilled.

[SinisterOverlord]

Mm. Two things spring to mind... one, only one kill again... I wouldn't go so far as to say as we've only got one killing group just yet, but if one or two more nights go by with only one kill...

And two, as SpeedyKQ said, why Quagmire? Only thing I can think of is that Mr Stoofer is scum as we surmised, and they're trying to revive him by killing off all who voted for him before the vote happened? Such a plan would only be good for endgaming us, as if this happened and we weren't endgamed we'd just lynch him again...

Hmmm.

[SinisterOverlord]

Nox, can you point out where Quagmire suspected me? I can't see any traces of it, going through the thread.

What I see related to him is a general lack of posting early on, an attack on him by Fishbulb over a misunderstanding, agreement with me about Someone, and finishing with agreeing with us over Mr Stoofer. Now it could be that he was killed because he was the least active, or by your logic, it could mean Someone's scum. He attacked Someone, but he wasn't the chief attacker - assuming Someone is scum, killing his chief attacker (me) would at this stage draw significant further suspicion towards him, so he kills a lesser of his attackers, or something like that.

And I agree that we were probably right about Mr Stoofer, as well.

[SinisterOverlord]

Hm.

With regards to Gaspode's thougts on me, I see the point you're making, just don't feel it's terribly valid. 'If I survive this day' - I was sticking out and under a fair amount of suspicion, so I might've been lynched. 'and night' - saying 'I might be nightkilled' is not a big 'HEY LOOK AT ME I'M TOWN', IMO. What if someone who had me as their primary suspect was a vigilante? Town or no, I'm dead. What about SK's, or an alternate mafia? It'd only be saying 'HEY, I'M TOWN' if we knew there to be only one killing group.

Well, given the closeness of the deadline, I will claim. I'm a saboteur (spelling?). I can nullify the time-travelling portion of one target's role, causing that action to happen on that night instead of another.

So far, both nights I've targeted mole. I found it interesting the first night that I targeted him, and there was a kill that night, so I tried again the following night - but there was a timetravelled kill, and no non-timetravelled kill last night. So mole is probably not antitown - but he may be, if he's one of a scum group and another sent the kill in last night.

I'm undecided as to what to do with my vote for now... I'll hold off a little longer.

[SinisterOverlord]

Okay. With regards to the spelling, I was just doing it from memory. Now I have checked it now, and I was correct, but I just didn't check with my PM. Gaspode, you say [/quote="Gaspode"]there have been way too many spelling problems and similar issues in mafia games for you not to have checked your post for that. [/quote]
I can't say I've ever seen that happen that I can recall, to be honest. And besides, if I were faking the claim, wouldn't it be just as easy to run a spellchecker as to check my pm? I don't belive this could be reasonably interpreted to mean anything, other than that I can be a tad lazy at times.

My role doesn't time travel at all. I target someone every night, their action reverts to the same night.

And with regards to the time fuel, I don't know. My role states that I replace their time fuel with normal fuel... so maybe I put the time fuel they were going to use with their existing stocks of fuel, and so they don't lose any fuel, or maybe I don't give it back (IMO, more likely) and they lose that fuel anyway.

[SinisterOverlord]

Hm, yay. I'd prefer to win alive, but this works, sorta, too...

EmpTyger: I picked mole again. I'd a theory that the killing happening on the first night (and not later, which is what I'd expect to take place) meant that I mighta hit scum, so I tried again on mole: if there'd been another kill that night rather than later, I'd take it as fairly good evidence of mole's scumminess. But there were no kills occurring on that night, so that theory proved fruitless.

Still, good game, all. And thanks for the game, mathcam.