Mini 1072 - Battle of Alcatraz

[Copper]

Okay, first things first. This will be a quick game. Every day with have a ten day deadline. That means we don't have much time for goofing about.

I'd like to discuss the game first, because I think we need a competent strategy for how to come at it.

1.) The mafia in this game are attempting to break out of prison. The rumors going around are that they will do this by breaking out enough prisoners to start a riot. Prisoners will be told when they are freed but not by whom. When all the prisoners are freed the riot will start and the Battle of Alcatraz will begin and the jail will fall.
2.) All Prisoners start off the game in the "imprisoned" status. This is a special status that works the same as being jail-kept in other mafia games, such that the player can not be targeted by any abilities. Players may only be freed while in this state.
3.) I am Fate, the all powerful and omnipotent philosophical entity. I am also Warden of this prison, and should anyone make any mention of their cell being unlocked, I will execute them on the spot and put the prison on Lockdown.

• Prisoners are seemingly both townie/mafia roles depending on their jailed status. Apparently there is at least one mafia member who is either "on the outside", as it were, or at least one member who has the ability to tunnel out or pick the locks in some way.
  
• The scum may or may not have a nightkill. We shouldn't assume either way, but it's very possible that they do not.
  
• No one is allowed to tell when it is they're freed (this sounds pretty subjective... we'll need to keep an eye on this one).
  
• The scum with the ability to open jail cells may or may not be told if their action was successful.
  
• The scum may or may not have the ability to communicate. Given the Prisoner PM, I'm thinking at least the Prisoners cannot talk amongst themselves/their freers.

Mod

, what exactly does a "Lockdown" do to the game? Also, are there any other triggers for this besides someone revealing their freed status?

My first thoughts are that we approach this game is that I'm thinking Prisoners with some means of breaking themselves out ought to claim their powers. Even if you die you should still win (as long as town wins of course, but you giving yourself up will help that tremendously). I'm still considering how this mechanic should change our approach to the game, but role flips will undoubtedly be the most helpful information at this point.

[Copper]

I see both of your points, and I agree we should probably at least let one lynch go through before doing anything severe. My thinking is that if you have an ability to free yourself as a Prisoner, you'd want to be lynched early so that you could, one, still win with the town, and two, hurt the scumteam. I'm just trying to think outside the box a bit, but I'm willing to concede that, as Exe says, a lynch will be extremely helpful in learning the setup.

Additionally, I want to talk with my other heads a bit more. I feel like there's going to be a key for the town to play this game optimally though. Anyways, food for thought.

Vote: nopointinactingup

for not acting up.

[Copper]

So what happens to the guy that gets lynched? Is he out of the game or free?
On the other hand, I don't believe set-up speculation at this period is pro-town because scums have more info than town at this point of the game.

Vote:Spyrex

This post holds little Irony. However I did speculate on the setup and said the same thing... Now thats Irony .

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'd like some clarification on this vote:

So what happens to the guy that gets lynched? Is he out of the game or free?
On the other hand, I don't believe set-up speculation at this period is pro-town because scums have more info than town at this point of the game.

Vote:Spyrex

Like Spyrex, I think setup speculation can be either good or bad for the town, depending on context. But let's suppose I was to believe that set-up speculation was universally scummy. If I had to pick my top three "setup speculating scum", Spyrex wouldn't be on the list. He's very carefully avoided any mention of the game mechanics. How does the claim "setup speculation is scummy" lead to a vote on Spyrex?

[Copper]

I agree with Spyrex. Posting a line of reasoning and then voting directly after it universally means that you are voting for that line of reasoning. Surely, if nopoint had intend that vote to be random at the outset, he would have posted a jokey pseudo-reason, or even just the tag "RVS vote". Not only that, but why cast a random vote if you have a scumtell you believe to be valid in this game? Granted, there's no clear scum motivation for what nopoint just did, but someone who lies for bizarre reasons is always an excellent candidate for scum.

Sadly, as we voted nopoint earlier, we are denied the pleasure for voting for him now. The reader is welcome - indeed, encouraged - to imagine us voting for nopoint here.

[Copper]

I'm liking RC's analysis in post 72. It feels sincere, albeit a bit misguided. The reason I say this is because I feel both wagons (nopoint/Exe) have their share of players (Exe, Budja, CoolDog) sheeping their way onto them. I don't particularly see something as damning in Exe's case as I do in nopoint's case (although it should be stated that these are both D1 wagons and should be viewed within that context).

@nopoint voters: nopoint is just too easy guys. The speed of which the wagon built up worries me too. What more, look, we have exe, cooldog AND budja on that wagon.
Come on copper and spy, we have obvscum in Exe. Let's get this one done first, and then move on.

[...]

@Spyrex: Just LOOK at the people on that wagon, and tell me that it is one that is in the town's best interest.

I'm not sure what to think of these appeals. Personally I don't like either of them. Budja was no longer on the nopoint wagon when she made this post, and the whole post feels too much like, "let's just get this over with". There's a valid alternative wagon in nopoint, and there's no reason why Exe should be the sole wagon to get votes. I, for one, think having the two wagons compete has already sparked some eyebrow raising.

Exe's doing a lot of defending himself and not a lot of scumhunting.

Didn't he just start a wagon on CoolDog? This feels very forced and inattentive.

This is Kat's post, for RC and Spyrex. Nowhere in my post did I claim I was town.

This is awkward and desperate sounding, and it feels like Exe is overreaching a little bit. He has since clarified this point, but when he originally framed it in this way, it really didn't sit well with me.

I need to talk to the other heads, but I don't think we are short on potential lynches today.

[Copper]

Budja, why is it that every post you make looks extremely fake to me?

I don't want to give a top three because I need more input from the heads, but, personally, Muffin, nopoint, and Budja are all bad news to me.

[Copper]

Apologies for Copper's general lack of impact. Due to a variety of circumstances, Copper was reduced to a single head for most of the game day. This is not a crippling problem, because all of our heads are perfectly competent. However, I (and I make no excuses, I am the primarily negligent head) was not even reading the game. As such, the posting head was hesitant to give a top three in thread.

We're all full strength now, and we've found quite a few powerful tells that seem to have been missed in the thread. Some of these points will be relatively old, but they need to be brought to light.

Our posistion is that

Exe and budja are scumbuddies.

The first problem we had with Budja is this vote. It's an odd switch from a random vote to nopoint. His next vote makes it even odder.

Exe's 78 was the first one that put the idea of Budja and Exe being scumbuddies strongly in our minds. Exe FoS's Budja and loudly suspects him, but keeps his vote. Not scummy on it's own - but it led us to a prediction. I was reading the thread for the first time, and I said, "I bet next time he switches his vote, it's not to Budja. It seems like a case of vote: townie, FoS: scumbuddy."

Exe 94 was pretty much exactly what we expected to see. In 78, nopoints actions were scummy enough that Exe said, basicially, "I'd love to vote for Budja, but I think nopoint is more scummy." But now, suddenly, he's playing hunt the lurker, going after the easy vote. No mention of Budja in sight.

Posts 78 and 94 are about half a page and four hours apart from each other. How legitimate do you think 78's suspicion of Budja really was?

In post 109 we see him once again curiously neglecting Budja when mentioning his "scumhunting."

Budja's 132 looks awfully like he's trying to deflate a wagon on his scumbuddy without actually refuting it in thread.

The

initial

case of Exe was good and he did

begin to flail

(as Muffin pointed out well) but all

Kat's yelling

has done is distract.

Ah yes, the

initial

case was all well and good, but Kat's yelling is distracting. As though because Kat was distracting, this wagon is no longer worth considering. If I believe X is scum for reason Y, and someone brings up an irrelevant point Z, that doesn't make Y any less potent. And yet, Budja is trying to sell us the idea that the Exe wagon STARTED well, but has stagnated and is old. He's sitting on the Exe wagon, but this post is clearly from the perspective of someone who wants to get off it.

The apex of the absurdity comes from Exe's 223. Budja, who has so completely fallen off the face of the earth, is suddenly re-mentioned by Exe. Why? Because he wants Budja to state a "case" on him - last. It's fairly obvious what this is. Exe has finally committed to being lynched, and he's making sure his scumbuddies get proper bus credit. Budja's vote, after all, was simply "unvote, vote: exe". He even takes pains to mention the order he wants cases in. I've literally never seen that before, and the painfully obvious explanation is that he wants Budja to have two more cases on him to reference as he writes his own bus-case.

Also, if I were to chose the order that people voting me were to justify their votes, I'd pick the early wagon voter with no explanation first. If you ISO Budja, he has never explained why he's voting Exe. I applaud Exe for trying to help his scumbuddy, but his heavy-handed way of going about it has damned his scumbuddy even more.

Assuming we are dealing with a three person scumteam, the most common for this size of game: who's the third scumbuddy? Obviously, if we're wrong about one of Exe or Budja, it's back to the drawing board. If we're correct, though, we have a couple more tells to throw in to the fire. List's like this written by scum tend to have two townies and one scum one them.. Exe's "ordered cases" post could easily have one or both of his scumbuddies in it. If I had to pick the last member of the scumteam, I'd put my money on either Mcgriddle or Muffin. Cooldog doesn't strike me as the type to pull a 255 on a scumbuddy. This is all speculation better suited for day three, of course.

Becaue of Spyrex's claimed hammerlust, we'll refrain from voting for the moment so the town can comment on this analysis.

[Copper]

Earlier today you were full of righteous indignation. If I was wrong, it would only strengthen your resolve to catch the scum presumably infesting your wagon. But instead, me calling your actions with Budja obviously scummy has made you apathetic. I wouldn't expect to see apathy if you had a town flip to throw back in my face. I'd expect the same righteous fury of earlier today.

You wanted to hear Budja's reason for voting you, and I have revealed this to be a feeble attempt to enable a bus, and now you don't want it posted. You want us to lynch the scummy sheep on your wagon, but how are we to know which ones to lynch without them posting their reasons for voting? As a townie, you'd want those reasons more than ever. As scum, you want to quickly end the day before you get your buddies into even more trouble.

Self-vote and end this farce, or continue stammering out information on your scumbuddies. I don't particularly care which.

[Copper]

I understand that self-voting is usually a terrible deal, but you have to understand the rules change when there's a sure wagon. Luckily, you posted after Exe's 235, so I am free to explain the whole process because it has served it's purpose.

Firstly, this accusation:

still hoping to get a no-lynch if possible if nobody else will vote him.

is simply silly. Exe is being lynched today, without question. I would mark myself as fairly obvious scum if I didn't vote Exe before deadline, and he'd get lynched with or without me.

Now, in regards to your breaking it down:

1. If he's town and you're town, you have NO reason to tell him to self vote. If he does, it's anti-town, plain and simple, on both of your parts.
2. If he's scum and you're town, you have NO reason to tell him to self vote. It wastes discussion time. This evens out as deadline approaches.
3. If he's town and you're scum, you have EVERY reason to tell him to self vote. It'll makes him look bad and anti-town even after he flips town.
4. If he's scum and you're scum, you have EVERY reason to tell him to self vote. It wastes town's discussion time.

Your 1 and 3 are pointless. No non-VI townie is going to self-vote themselves because the person accusing them told them to. Indeed, the ultimatum "self-vote or keep stammering about your scumbuddies" was done partly to give him a last shot to contribute if he was a townie. My 232 made it abundantly clear that if he was a townie, it'd be great for him to actually get the cases he asked for. Of course, waffling back and forth would make him and Budja/Muffin/McGriddle look scummy, but

that wouldn't matter.

Exe is getting lynched today, and if he a townflip waiting for us, he'd go for what looks scummy but helps town after his flip confirms him.

You may notice he still doesn't want those cases.

So, that being settled, we were looking for more information on whether or not Budja really is his scumbuddy. That's why we phrased it like so:

Self-vote and end this farce, or continue stammering out information on your scumbuddies.

Leaving Exe two options:

Self-vote

: As you said, this would "waste discussion time." But it would also make discussion time unnecessary. If Exe self-votes, he's claiming scum. More importantly, I would consider this claiming scum with Budja. For him to not want to "stammer about his scumbuddies", he'd have to be pretty rattled that he already gave up a whole lot on his scumbuddies. The only reason we didn't vote in 229 is because we were seeking more information on the Budja and Exe connection. A self-vote would give us all the information we needed; more "discussion time" would be pointless.

Keep stammering about his scumbuddies:

Because he didn't self-vote, we're getting more reactions from Exe. If he was scum but not with Budja, I'd expect him to say "okay guys, post those cases after all." If he was scum with Budja, and didn't take the self-hammer, then probably the best thing for him to do is to remain completely silent. He did neither, but instead pleaded that we hunt the scummy people on his wagon while being absurdly careful not to name any names. This is more information that will be very useful tomorrow, and we wouldn't have gotten it without turning up the pressure.

Exe:

who are the scummy people on your wagon?

[Copper]

Ok, I will concede the point that those are pretty much his only two options at this juncture.

But that doesn't change the fact that it's still ridiculously scummy for you to ask him to self-vote.

We would have gained more information than we lost if he had self-voted.

I can't exactly fault you for your suspicion, though. Nine times out of ten, a deep distrust of those doing, requesting, or even mentioning self-votes is appropriate. But missing a day of discussion with a sure wagon over our heads means far, far less than missing, say, a week of discussion with the days lynch still a mystery, especially when a self-vote tells us so much about the game-state.

[Copper]

At this point, I'm only waiting on Exe's answers to 236, 237, and 239 (all essentially the same question) before voting. (Unless, of course, he lets out yet another scum slip worth pursuing.) Once someone is a sure lynch, the reactions of everyone besides the lynchee tend not to really matter. As such, even with an extended deadline, I don't think that dragging out the day any longer would be beneficial to the town. The night will give Budja's replacement a chance to read in peace, and the rest of us can take a break without having to check in the thread to say we're "down with whatever." That being said, if someone else has a reason they want to continue the day, I'll gladly hear it.

[Copper]

There we go. On the off chance you're town, Exe, thank you for post 251.

If Exe flips scum, I still think Budja/Nikanor is a good candidate for second buddy. My instincts tell me Muffin as third buddy based off of 251, but speculating that far in the future is a bit specious. It'll be a subject for the Copper QT tonight.

Vote: Exe

(L-1)

[Copper]

Yes, it's very easy to bus your scumbuddy when they're going to get lynched anyway, we get it.

[Copper]

Yes, it's very easy to bus your scumbuddy when they're going to get lynched anyway, we get it.

Sorry Copper, Exe isn't my scumbuddy.

Then why are you in such a rush to build a case on him? He's been good as dead for a long time now. You'll notice that Spyrex, who has strong suspicions of him, found nothing worth mentioning in his latest post. Why? Because his scum suspect is going to die no matter what he does. There's no need to rush in and further build a "case" on a dead man - unless, of course, you're trying to grab some bus-cred before it's too late.

[Copper]

This is another head. I hate to make Copper look schizoid and schizophrenic, but while I agree with most of 229, I have one major disagreement. That post said:

Cooldog doesn't strike me as the type to pull a 255 on a scumbuddy.

I didn't agree, but I didn't raise too much of a fuss because I agreed on Exe/Budja and I could voice my speculation on the third scumbuddy D3, when it would be actually relevant. However, Cooldog's 239 is so absurdly scummy that I cannot let the day end with Copper's official position being "Cooldog is kinda townish."

Exe's three scumpick list has Cooldog on it. Cooldog's ISO 5 seems extremely paranoid and fearfully scummy. His ISO 6-8 posts are explicit defenses of Exe. His ISO 7 in particular seems to read "I want to switch votes, but RC just said vote hopping was scummy so I'm not going to."


Cooldog's ISO 23:

@all, I hereby worn you guys that if exe is lynched and he is town I will not be on that wagon…

sounds scummy regardless of what Exe flips. It's either explicit scum defense of a buddy or explicit scum defense of a townie for free town-cred.

After our post 229, in which we commented that Cooldog's heavy-handed defense on Exe seems unlikely to be coming from a scumbuddy, Cooldog responds with this:

Exe is a bad lynch, but I want to know who he thinks is scum on his wagon. And also Exe, if you are a vengful townie who would you kill?

We wrote a large, fairly comprehensive post on why we think Exe and Budja are scumbuddies. Cooldog did not at all address that post at all. Instead, he continues to call Exe's wagon a "bad lynch" without saying a word about our case. And why would he? We mentioned that we think his blind defense of Exe seemed townish. There's also his last sentence, which seems to be asking Exe, "Who should we nightkill tonight?"

Overall, cooldog seems like a much stronger candidate for scum with Exe than Mcgriddle or Muffin. If Exe is town, Cooldog's buddying is still fairly suspect, but not quite as damning.

[Copper]

Exe is still more likely scum than cooldog. The single scummiest thing cooldog posted, that motivated me to post that last post, was:

And also Exe, if you are a vengful townie who would you kill?

This strikes me as a transparent attempt to ask for a night-kill target, and that is obviously dependent on Exe being scumbuddies with cooldog. Our case on cooldog is admittedly less dependent on associative tells than our case on Budja, but neither one is so compelling that it should precede an Exe lynch.

[Copper]

No one killed, hmm... Cult game anyone?

What exactly do you mean by this?

[Copper]

CoolDog, what about the other point? About knowing Exe's alignment? You seem to be turning a blind eye to it.

Nikanor, I think that seems like the most reasonable suggestion yet.

[Copper]

I'd also like to know what Copper thinks about Exe flipping town. You haven't said anything about the flip yet you've posted twice since.

We made our thoughts on this clear on D1. Our case on Nikanor/Budja is severely crippled, while our suspicions of Cooldog are less hampered.

@Cooper: Twice players half the action?

Apologies for our lack of posting. We were waiting for ReaperCharlie to make connections, and felt it was best to have as little presence in-thread as possible during that time. It wasn't our plan to abjectly lurk, but we could not find anything worthwhile to say that wouldn't influence ReaperCharlie.

Due to the fast-approaching deadline and disparate wagons, we will reveal this information now, as we feel our chances of lynching scum today are minuscule as it stands.

We have role information that ReaperCharlie is a member of the Crimson Angels.

We want to give as few other details as possible due to the unique mechanics of this game. The Warden is watching.

This is an extremely low-pressure town, and I doubt scum are feeling the pressure to bus. I am fairly certain, then, that nopoint is a townie. We welcome more input on the gamestate - hopefully we should have more analysis before night falls.

VOTE: Reapercharlie

[Copper]

Also, I strongly suspect this is not a cult game, and think that those proposing such are likely scum. This would seem to point to CoolDog as a scumbuddy of ReaperCharlie, particularly with Reaper's coaching post 338. However, I want to talk with my fellow heads more before drawing associative tells - we're all feeling a little less certain after that surprising Exe townflip.

[Copper]

There are problems with coming "fully clean." Remember that the Warden will modkill for specific offenses. As well, part of our roles power is contingent on it's secrecy.

I am curious as to what "shenanigans" RC is referring to that could potentially give us a false result.

[Copper]

That's L-1. I don't want to lynch until we hear from Reaper about what could give me a false result.

[Copper]

EBWOP: Also, the claim post and all subsequent posts have been a single head. We would also appreciate the chance to come to an internal consensus on scum and town reads and post them in thread before the lynch.

[Copper]

We are one head short of a full complement, but with deadline approaching we'll post our reads now. If the other head arrives before the hammer they might input more, but you no longer need to feel the need to spare the hammer, Spyrex.

We believe RC is scum because of role information.

We believe Cooldog is scum with him. As said previously, Cooldog's certainty of Exe town was odd. His interactions with Katsuki smack of scum trying to denigrate their attacker instead of showing why they aren't scum. His cult suspicions also seem to have been a deliberate ploy to mislead the town with Reaper's help.

We believe that Katsuki, Spyrex, and nopoint are town. The wagon on nopoint seems like a mislynch pushed by Reaper, and a belief that Cooldog is scum would naturually suggest Katsuki is town. Spyrex has been aggressively pushing for clarity and called out Cooldog on his cult suspicions.

We believe Nikanor is likely town, because he posted a very clear analysis showing there is no cult, and it appears that the scum had a plan to mislead town in believing there was a cult.

We also believe that, with Cooldog being very vocal about being off the Exe wagon, the wagon distribution is likely to be two scum on and one scum off.

Exe (7):

Katsuki

, Muffin,

Nikanor

, McGriddle,

ReaperCharlie

,

Copper

,

SpyreX

As such, we think the third scum is likely to be Muffin or Mcgriddle. Our personal preference is Muffin, particularly because of this post:

Well I've re-read everyone in ISO and my vote is pretty comfortable on Exe right now, though I have others I'm keeping an eye on.

Not reading the thread carefully

He also seems to be wavering on who to vote for.

LOL nice calling OMGUS. That's terrible scumhunting. Omgus is a crap tell.

Way to use the slight confusion in game mechanics to hide your lack of desire to commit to scumhunting.

Scum are still scum. As far as we know, a lynch is still a lynch. Stop creating excuses and hunt for scum.

Scum AREN'T still scum because if their nightkills don't die, there doesn't have to be any rhyme or reason to their choice of targets, esp. since the players targeted cannot discuss their freed/unfreed status. Stop trying to obfuscate the issue.

hiding behind meta wifom

More AtE than I can count.

"If their nightkills don't die" seems to betray an understanding of the setup Muffin shouldn't have.

So, to summarize:

Town: Copper, Spyrex
Likely Town: Katsuki (contingent on Cooldog-scum), Nikanor, Nopoint
Neutral: Hinduragi, TheButtonmen, Mcgriddle
Likely Scum: Muffin
Scum: ReaperCharlie, Cooldog

[Copper]

@ Copper: Still waiting on what 'role information' you have. Does my role explain what you think you know?

...

P.S. I'll be back Monday. Please don't lynch me until then, if at all.

Your roleclaim is false, it would not mislead us if true, and the deadline is Sunday.

[Copper]

Very surprised that Kat was the SK and not nopoint. I must say, that was a severe failure in activity throughout.

I don't see how Hindu being a godfather matters at all? We were the only investigative role and we could have put two and two together had he unlocked our cell.

Honestly, I can't say I'm extremely proud of the town win. Hindu and Kat both failed horrendously, and Cooldog was fairly obvious scum. ReaperCharlie might have won if Cooldog had been the one to unlock our cell - while he had tied himself to Cooldog with the cult accusations, just simply showing up would have probably give him lynch armor.

It's hard to get a feel on the set-up when damn near everyone flaked out and failed.