Mini 836: Commie Mafia (Game Over)

[Cyberbob]

I had a heap of fun with this game. It kind of sucks to have lost almost entirely because of that massclaim but these things happen.

[Raskol]

Fuck Yeah!

Hoopla played a great game---if it hadn't been for the mod pm thing I probably never would have figured her for Cyberbob's partner. Getting caught out on something like that has to suck.

Both our surviving scum did a great job of keeping the discussion off themselves that day, and it really made things difficult. They were both basically untouchable until the massclaim. That kind of situation is never any good for town, and I tried to open things up a bit but I was only able to get charter and SC to bite.

Looking back, I'm really kicking myself for not trying harder to drag the others more into the discussion. By the end of the day I was feeling a bit uneasy about cyb/hoopla/mathcam simply because they were hanging back and I couldn't get a solid read on them (except for the town read I had on Hoopla from her play before I replaced in, and those reads are never good for me), but I knew if I brought it up it would be painted as a scum ploy and get me lynched, so I couldn't do anything. I also wish I had tried harder to save SC after my last minute turnaround on him, but maybe it was better I didn't as that probably would have meant a Danny lynch, which would have been bad in hindsight.

I don't think I played terribly well, but I don't think I played as badly as a few people have said either. In the end my goals for the day were accomplished (surviving, generating content, turning some attention on some players besides the easy lynches, and helping at least one person I thought was town to not get lynched), so I'm not too disappointed with myself.

Anyway, I think congratulations go to Danny on this one for the town side.

[Kublai Khan]

Notes from Mod:

First off, I think that the scum team did an excellent job. Up until Day 3, CyberBob and Hoopla were far removed from just about everyone's main scum list and they looked like they were about to cruise to an easy victory.

Their first roadblock was the influx of new players. The replacement of CoCo, Vaya, & le Chat basically changed the entire landscape of the game in one fell swoop and what were once lynchable townies were replaced by really good pro-town players. It's kinda surprising to note that they were the 3 surviving pro-town roles left standing.

As some of you may have suspected, the new setup was thrown together quickly after I realized I screwed up. Oman helped me by suggesting that I tweak an existing open setup. I started with Weak M.D. setup as a base and beefed it up.

The scum team was strong and had potential to make 2 night-kills. But they grew considerably weaker whenever a member was picked off. Peabody may have just been a Goon, but after he was lynched, it forced the remaining two mafia members to give up one of their extra abilities to make the kill. Since the roleblocking abilities was more immediately helpful, the anti-doctor ability never got used.

I agree with CyberBob's comment in the Green Room where he thought he & Hoopla over-fakeclaimed. A townie claim might have made the difference. Also, I'm surprised that they didn't go along with the no-lynch idea. They could have potentially gotten 2 kills at night to win the game (though DDD's vigging of Hoopla or CyberBob looked to be a given). Still, could have had another day with a 3 person endgame.

In retrospect, I'll probably remove the "notification about being blocked" from future setups. For some reason it made Debonair Danny DiPietro's roleclaim legitimate, which was a bit weird since there wasn't any corroboration from any other townie. At the time I included it, I figured it would create town confusion over how a doc's protection failed without being blocked.

The Coward role was more of a commuter than a hider. I regret the confusion. I probably should have listed the role mechanics upon death, but I made a decision early on, then stuck with it.

[charter]

Good work town, especially Danny.

Also, lulz at Serial's crackpot theory, sorry about that. Turns out it was pretty good.

I'm actually pretty surprised town won this game, but whatever, congrats.

I think you guys (Cyberbob/Hoopla) botched with the claims, had you both claimed vanilla, you would have stood a better chance of mislynching, in my opinion. Just curious, but why bus Peabody day one like that?

Thanks for modding Kublai.

[SerialClergyman]

Well, congratulations town!

Also, commiserations mafia - I think you all played well, but particularly Hoopla and Cyberbob. There was very little about their play that indicated mafia to me.

I think this game has been a very interesting experience to me. I had cyberbob as a gut scum read from D1, but as soon as I talked aobut it a bit I lost it because I think he adjusted his play mildly. I also thought Hoopla was town D1 so I can't claim that I was particularly strong in my reads.

But the key thing as I went on in the game was deciding that I wouldn't find scum with 'scumtells' and 'scummy play'. I have no idea how to hunt for scum using scumtells and I'm surprised there are people who do. I find so many tells on just about everyone at one point or another I jsut go around in circles.

I'm genuinely proud that if I'd had my way from the end of D3 onwards, we would have won the game. I probably would have lynched charter, but I couldn't find a reason to clear him and I thought he was the most likely to be scummy out of the three, particularly when he said he was shaping up to vote me while I was voting raskol with him.

But aside from that, I had the scumteam pegged, and even though it's an unorthodox way of hunting, I think the holistic approach with a few key assumptions is definitely the way I'm most effective. It's essentially how I felt in the /inv. It's very frustrating to scum, because they haven't put a foot wrong yet still have the finger pointed at them. It takes away a lot of their control. In order to be classified as town they'd need to do something heavily agaisnt their win condition, like mathcam's shifting the lynch away from coco vs vaya. This puts them in a difficult position.

I'm not sure how much my theory affected the town thinking, the massclaim really caused the win, I think, but I think it made it easier for people to suspect bob and hoopla - it wasn't so outlandish a situation because there had already been a feasible theory showing how they could be scum. People like DDD had a pretty clear path once the claims came down.

The one major problem with my play was a lack of confidence in my thinking and what that meant. I was scummy all game and that gave me no capital to spend when I was trying to get my theory up. I knew halfway through detailing it I'd never convince anyone, I just looked too scummy to trust.

As it was, Peabody dying early meant the scum never used their 'kill a doc-protected' ability, which would have given them a fair bit more firepower. After that, they just couldn't get past the massclaim minefield.

And thanks to KK for a fun setup and solid modding.

So well played, bad luck, and congrats town on a great decision in lylo. A very close game and a very fun game for me personally.

[SerialClergyman]

Hehe yes, I have a special message for you in the green room, charter

[SerialClergyman]

Any chance of that scum QT link, btw?

[Cyberbob]

Just curious, but why bus Peabody day one like that?

Initially I wasn't planning to carry it through to a lynch, but when I looked at things objectively I realised that if I were town I would probably have acted in exactly the same way towards him. I couldn't find a way to get off his wagon without looking scummy later on when he died (IMO he was never going to make it to the endgame), so I just kept on pushing.

Honestly, we didn't put a whole lot of forethought into our play (it mostly went into our night actions) - or at least I know I didn't. Things just sort of happened as they happened, and as long as there were objectively viable town lynch targets (thankfully there were) it all somehow worked.

[Cyberbob]

Any chance of that scum QT link, btw?

Sure: http://www.quicktopic.com/43/H/4Kt45DK83iF

[Cyberbob]

Oh, and I 200% agree with Kublai about the replacements screwing things up for scum. DDD and Raskol were majorly let off the hook when you consider that they replaced le Chat and CoCo respectively. It really made things a lot harder for us, because we were pretty much counting on those two being the focus of suspicion for the rest of the game.

[Hoopla]

Rats, I'm used to losing (I haven't won since January), but I have a pretty hollow feeling from losing this. We COMPLETELY botched our last day - we had deliberately planned matching actions to try and get a mislynch, and I thought my JOAT play was kind of believable. But we came unstuck when two other powerroles claimed before us. I don't know why we didn't change, when we had the advantage of claiming last, but we certainly didn't think that last day through at all compared to our other play.

This was one of the most mentally draining games I've played, and I hope other mini normals don't steal as much of my time as this one did. Perhaps that's why losing this so extravagantly is annoying, because we had so much time invested in it. Oh well, I have lots of other comments to make, but thanks Kublai for the creative set-up. I did have fun.

[SerialClergyman]

Thanks for the QT - your code was fantastic.

Bad luck Hoopla - I saw your post in another thread somewhere talking about your losing streak and it actively put me off suspecting you early

[charter]

Hahah

Wow - forget no lynch or massclaim, lynch charter now please.

Doc with hot nurse? Rubbish! And comign from the scummiest player left? Rubbish!

And why was he softclaiming about WANTING to do a massclaim when he had no worthwhile information? Rubbish!

And he pushed Cathart becasue he thought the role claims clashed? Despite the fact he'd spent most of days 1 and 2 pushign for Cathart's lynch BEFORE a claim? Rubbish!

I actually said I got the same role to try and get NK'ed since I was playing so bad.

Serial, my one piece of advice to you is never unvote a selfvoter. Vote them twice as hard. When you unvoted, I immediately assumed you were scum and didn't consider an alternative.

Off to read the scum QT.

[SerialClergyman]

Also Hoopla, reading your QT reminded me again and again how genuinely insightful you are. As I said during the game, in discussions about setup and structure and theory I think your opinions were excellent and really well thought out, so much so that I thought it was a scumtell that I rarely got that feeling about your scumhunting!

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Serial, my one piece of advice to you is never unvote a selfvoter. Vote them twice as hard. When you unvoted, I immediately assumed you were scum and didn't consider an alternative.

And you would've lynched a townie, now granted that wouldn't have been so bad since he was vanilla as well, but it would've put me in a bad spot if endgame hadn't broken the way it had.

My scum reads sucked, but just as importantly my town reads were good and I managed to keep them alive to narrow the rest of the suspect pool, but frankly it came down to scum overclaiming in the massclaim which allowed me to just lower my proverbial horns and chase down Cyberbob and Hoopla.

[Cyberbob]

Also Hoopla, reading your QT reminded me again and again how genuinely insightful you are.

QFT

[Raskol]

I find it hilarious that charter is still giving the kind of advice that would have hurt our chances of winning, just to avoid admitting he was wrong. The fact that he told SC to change his play because he, charter, had a stubborn-stupid reaction to it is just mind-boggling.

[SerialClergyman]

Yeah - if we'd have lynched raskol we'd quite possibly have lost the game due to DDD's tunnelling. I made the right call, but upon review, possibly the wrong policy. I have a dirty feeling of sacrificing a strong site-wide policy for the sake of winning one game, but nonetheless I read that it was legitimate, especially given how few partners he could have had, and the read was right (and I was tunnelled pretty hard on raskol).

Mind you, if we'd lynched charter I would have been turned on the next day and we'd have lost there as well, but so it goes.

Something I'd say as a general piece of advice, is changing your mind isn't scummy, dammit. Neither are people who look confused or a vote hopping. Usually that's a sign of genuinely struggling with the game.

DDD, you were obvtown to me, which is good, but your tunneling on your first read despite massive, gamechanging posts from me was both frustrating and dangerous. If cam hadn't died we might ahve been in trouble.

But your decision at the end was top notch, I'm defintiely glad there was no real push to lynch Socrates, one of the only two vanilla claims left.

[SensFan]

I don't know the context, but from what I gather, charter is 100% right. If someone self-votes, you vote them and don't unvote until they swing.

[SerialClergyman]

I find it hilarious that charter is still giving the kind of advice that would have hurt our chances of winning, just to avoid admitting he was wrong. The fact that he told SC to change his play because he, charter, had a stubborn-stupid reaction to it is just mind-boggling.

No, that's unreasonable.

I think the underlying point from charter is that you can't allow self-voting to be regarded as a legitimate tactic. It's just not, and shouldn't ever be in a townie's arsenal. It's like Lynch ALl Liars - townies need to trust that other townies won't lie.

Some things, like preserving a site-wide dismissal about self-voting, may be more important than one player in one game.

[Kublai Khan]

I hate to say it, but I probably would have voted Raskol at the time, too. More so when he was teasing the self-hammer.

I think you knew you'd get lynched for the mind change SerialClergyman. But the game turned out better for your lynch. It was an incredibly good self-sacrificing pro-town play.

[Raskol]

Wrt the self-vote: I'm glad I did it, even if it's not the kind of thing I'd ever do again. It's not the kind of thing I expect to be able to get away with in 95% of games, but it was a good thing for this one.

In the situation we were in at that point, I still think it was a good play. I was in a position where my flip would be worth something, and with the players online already voting for me, I was pretty sure I wouldn't get hammered. I checked the people not voting for me who were willing to, and none of them had a habit of being online at that time of day. None of them seemed to be aggressive or reckless enough to do a quick hammer on me without some further discussion either, so I considered it a pretty safe call, in fact.

Of course I couldn't let on that I didn't think I'd get hammered as that would have lowered the impact it had.

I can understand the point about policy, but part of me thinks the most important part about knowing the rules is knowing when they can be broken. I get the feeling that some people pay too much attention to the letter of the law without thinking about why those laws exist.

One thing I will chance, though---in future games, I will be giving my preliminary immediate town reads when I replace in, though. Not because I think it's a good idea, but because my reason for not doing it really isn't worth all the stink that some people are apparently willing to raise over it.

[Hoopla]

I've explained my reasoning for swapping to DDD. I've explained why Raskol probably isn't the best lynch. I'm getting tired of whenever someone gets close to lynch, someone jumps up and decides we need another 5 pages of debating about the same things.

You seem upset with me because I'm not taking an overly controversial position. Here is my controversial position then: I've had enough of talking, and I think a lot of others are too. Mini Normals should not run for 60+ pages. I'm going to vote DDD, and I'm not going to bother analysing the recent 2 pages or so of debating. I could be persuaded to vote SC because I think his theory is bogus and a distraction from the Raskol/DDD wagons. Please can we lynch someone.

For what it was worth - I was genuine here, and would have probably posted the same thing as town. We were going nowhere, and it was doing my head in trying to sift through all the latest arguments. The reason why I backed off so much and let it happen, is mostly because it was discrediting SC's theory and causing players to tunnel in on each other.

--

Throughout most of the game I saw SC as innocuous and certainly not a threat at all. His case was decently convincing, and I probably would have been a lot more open to explore it if I were town. I'm kind of surprised he got lynched on Day 3 - I just wonder how different things could have been if we went after DDD harder and got a claim out of him then. SC, you have way too much energy and enthusiasm for this game. Just wait a couple of months and you'll be sluggish like the rest of us.

--

The replacements really turned the game on it's head, and I felt trapped in my previous suspicions I outlaid. I couldn't go after Socrates or Raskol based on night actions, but didn't have much on anyone else. I think such active, canny replacements was a big part of us not pulling off an easy win.

--

Hey kublai, did you ever find out who Haramafuji was?

[Raskol]

So anyway, my point is that it's stupid to simply say that one should always react the same way to a particular action regardless of the circumstances.

[SensFan]

If you are voting yourself, anyone that doesn't immediately vote you is massively scummy. Clearly, assuming you're Town, its in the Town's best interests to lynch you (or you wouldn't be trying to get yourself lynched). If you're not Town, its in the Town's best interests to lynch you.

It could be LyLo, with 3 confirmed-sane Cops claiming an Innocent on you, and I'd vote you in a heartbeat if you self-voted.