Two-Headed Mafia 2 - GAME OVER!

[petroleumjelly]

Sonnuva diddly, it's MBL! <3

Our vote looks fine to me, I got a good feeling it landed on scum; you have impeccable judgment, as usual. Just make sure you don't go staining the carpet, all we have around the house is Febreze.

[petroleumjelly]

Oh, for Pete's sake. Half the reason I signed up for this game (even though I feel overloaded on games) is because I know I have a partner who can make up for my lack of posting and vice versa. I'll comment on this game when I find time, but it's fairly low on my priority list game-wise.

[petroleumjelly]

Ugh. This game is basically 34 heads all spamming. I think this game would be less spammy if every pair of players simply had used a dual account. *sigh*

In any case, here are the people I am suspicious of individually (since I can’t be bothered to remember who is partners with who while reading) after forcing myself to sift through this stuff.

1.) Eon. It is pretty clear while reading his posts in the “view all” section that Eon’s purpose today has pretty much been to spam. Eon has failed to give any suspicions even though it is clear he has no troubles with posting and reading the thread.

He was overdefensive when Ibaesha placed a “vote” (which was actually a FoS at the time) on Re2fan (his partner). When confronted with this, Eon said he was “only joking” and that he simply wanted to “hit Re2fan”. Not only does that seem like a slight backpedal, but right now, Eon seems much more concerned with not receiving votes than he is about actually hunting for scum.

2.) Re2fan. Much the same as Eon. This is another person who seems much more concerned with whether or not he has votes as opposed to whether or not his vote is actually on scum or not. The fact that Re2fan is actually partnered with Eon tells me that I know exactly where my vote will be going after I am finished with this post.

3.) TheStatusQuo. Firstly, the “ughhh, this is so confusing post” struck a chord with me. Complaining about something being confusing does not make anything

less

confusing. Also, in my experience, people who act overly confused are often scum who are simply using the confusion as a smokescreen to go unnoticed (of course, townspeople often do this as well, but they usually at least offer something to help with the confusion while doing so). Mostly spammed up until lately, where TSQ FoS’s and votes Mini Neo/Sprontalic:

Uh...So you say you're completely confused, and don't know what's going on, and then in the same breath go on to place a vote? That seems kind of odd to me. Odd enough to

FOS: Mini/sprontalic

… but the reasoning is almost precious. When people are confused, in my opinion, they should do something to lessen the confusion (such as voting), which is something TSQ

did not

do, but instead chose to spam. Being confused and voting is something I do not find suspicious in the least, and since TSQ upgraded her FoS to a vote based on this reasoning, I am quite happy with a:

Unvote: ChannelDelibird/Ziliu, Vote: Eon/Re2fan

, and

FoS: TheStatusQuo

.

[petroleumjelly]

Funny what the "all posts" function can do sometimes. Of the recent suspicions, I actually have to agree most with Mgm. I went over both Bird1111's posts and ShadowLurker's posts in isolation and in context.

Bird1111

: Little content added to the game, and jumped on the Eon/Re2 wagon as it was gaining steam.

ShadowLurker

: Began the game with the style of irrationally pursuing one pairing (H2 and TMH), and then when this was responded to, tried to call it 'overdefensiveness' (which I disagree with: the wagon itself was not well-reasoned, and that was exactly what TMH pointed out). Since that time, that has been SL's one and only "good reason" to vote for H2, I don't even agree with it, especially when I don't think "overdefensiveness" is even a very large scum-tell. It might be something worth

poking

at, but it is

not

worth a continual push for a lynch, as has been displayed by ShadowLurker. His latest posts are him simply disagreeing with people, and I can probably bet money that he will later quote this entire post and say something to the effect of "I disagree".

If anything, SL has been pretty much been a broken record this game, saying the same thing over and over, hoping others will eventually pick up the tune and play it for him.

Unvote: Glork/Mastermind of Sin, Vote: Bird1111/ShadowLurker

.

I have also reread the Eon/Re2 pairing (which was where I placed my first serious vote of the game), and after I actually forced myself to stop and comprehend the collective posts (since they never read naturally for me), I can actually agree with MBL's assessment that he has at least been giving reasoning lately, and has been questioning other people as to their reasoning for votes. My early-game suspicion on them has dropped them back down to average suspicion.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, writing this post as I’m rereading this game… and man, I forgot exactly how much spam was in this game. Yargh.

My other head seems to have gone to bed. Oh well... I disagree with meta-gaming, by the way, since Glork is always a pretty much unpredictable person.

I don't like the Eon wagon either. He plays like this everywhere.

I do not support meta-gaming. But in other games I'm in with him, he also irritates me a whole lot (as I'm sure I'm irritating him). I can't help but let it influence my judgement since his hyper-defensiveness is very consistent. But I've tried not to have too much an impact on my decision.

These seem somewhat contradictory. Would you explain whether or not you consider these types of statements (i.e. “they always play like this”) as metagaming, SpectrumVoid?

While I’m reading, I’m noticing Ibby/Fritz going after Eon/Re2 a lot very early in the game (with Fritzler using his “know how I know you’re scum?” line), and a direct interrogation from Ibaesha on Eon, and this type of interaction continued until about page 15. Now that Day Two has started, Eon/Re2 are speculating that Ibby/Fritz might have died because SpectrumVoid killed them. I usually don’t bother with the WIFOM “who would kill so-and-so?” game, but I am marking the possibility that Eon/Re2 is the culprit trying to pin the nightkill on the next most convenient person.

This comment in particular:

poor ibesha =[ /never liked doctors

Bothers me. It seems like we had a lot of people talking about how the nightkills were pretty bad, but Re2 lamenting Ibby after having been

attacked

by Ibby on Day One is not sounding very genuine to me. Also, the fact that Ibby/Fritz were not even a Doctor is just confusing.

Also, I don’t know if anybody else is catching this vibe, but it looks to me like Glork/MoS are coaching Eon/Re2 as the game is progressing. Whenever Eon/Re2 starts to get themselves in trouble, one of them seems to come to the rescue in some way (by either giving a distraction, or directly explaining something for them). As it is, I actually agree with Sprontalic’s original assessment on Eon: I thought his way of answering the two nightkills problem was fairly scummy, despite his “explanation” afterwards.

great.

So we have 3 competing wagons...

This post has been noted. The three wagons at the time were Eon/Re2, Lordy/SpectrumVoid, and Bird1111/Shadowlurker. TSQ’s vote was on Lordy/SV at the time. This is simply to note a possible Eon/Re2 + TSQ/UT pairing for later, since this is exactly the type of post I forget about.

In general, the four pairings of Eon/Re2 (aided by Glork/MoS), Lordy/SV, and TSQ/UT are sticking out the most to me, although it’s rather jumbled around, since there seems to be quite a lot of contention between these four pairings alone… I would wager that there are probably two-three scum (not necessarily of the same alignment) in this list.

I’ll go with a:

Vote: Eon/Re2

. I still think their interaction with Ibby/Fritz yesterday was pretty bad (I would urge others to read it over again), and they still never really went to much lengths in finding scum. Now on Day Two, instead of looking for scummy things, they seem to be instead looking for scum based off the

nightkills

, which strongly implies to me that Eon/Re2 may have been part of a group (or the person) responsible for the death of Ibby/Fritz (which is only compounded with Re2’s “lament” over Ibby). The possible slip about killing groups is practically sealing the deal for me.

Sorry this post isn't more organized, just writing as I was thinking.

[petroleumjelly]

Actually thats stupid, IF I would be scum i wouldn't KILL ibby seriously she is the one who got some protective words about fan and me in the end. So why would we kill her?

Yos2 already addressed this. There are multiple reasons you might have decided to kill Ibby/Fritz.

I love how people attack me and fan for my post i did, i told That thing to explain 2 KILLS and yet people attack us for that. Yeah, indeed why not to vote against EON and FAN when you have the chance. Right people =]

Firstly, the fact that you are Eon and Re2fan has nothing to do with why I am pursuing you. I am pursuing you because I think you are scum, and scum need to be lynched.

And the way you answered the problem of two kills was scummy. Let me go over it again:

Seriously scums did direct hit on doctor and cop. And im kinda sure that was pure luck from both killer. But how would scum and SK know that ibby is cop?

This implies knowledge of the set-up (particularly, the presence of a Serial Killer). When pushed on this point, you respond:

2 Kills? Well i cant say for sure if its SK it can be Vigilante or something i just told it like to explain 2 kills.

I tried to explain 2 kills, and by SK i ment "Serial Killer and Vigilante"
Plus seriously Ibaesha acted pro town and i think only SK and Scums would target her.

Now you say that you meant Serial Killer AND Vigilante when you originally said SK. And I

do not believe that

, which leads me to believe you are scum trying to backpedal. I think you were trying to widen your scope so you wouldn't get in trouble, but it really only made it worse.

Further, as soon as Day Two opened, the two of you start with:

Okaaaay this is very very bad.
Hrm well Glork heh its kinda interesting, everything you told is like "Lets hang those 2" But lets remember what Ibaesha told, im going to sound scummy but SHE WOULD DEFINATELY check spectrumvoid.
Glork so why dont you add them to suspect list?

This quote. Basically: "Ibby died, and she was attacking SpectrumVoid! So SpectrumVoid should be a top suspect!". This leads me to believe you killed Ibby/Fritz so you could start off the day with this exact argument.

Of course i think ibby would check Void because she clearly told "I prefer to lynch bird, but i also prefer to hang void that eon" and lets not forget ibby is good player.

So now you are appealing to other players in general. "Ibby is a good player, and she preferred a SpectrumVoid lynch over an Eon lynch! So we should go after SpectrumVoid!"

Also, I should adjust my last post, where I noted a possible TSQ/UT and Eon/Re2 pairing, which after a reread of Day Two, no longer seems very plausible (considering TSQ is going after Eon fairly hard). I just wanted to formally scratch that theory off for the time being.

petroleumjelly/spectrumvoid/statusquo

You are all threating me and eon too much without tryng to see from our point of view, and i'll be glad to send anyone of you to hell when the time comes.

I have read your posts from multiple views. And after the post where Eon tried to widen the definition of SK to mean "Serial Killer OR Vigilante", and the posts where Eon pushes on SpectrumVoid

solely

because of the death of Ibby/Fritz, I am thinking your "point of view" is that the two of you are looking at this game from the eyes of scum.

Vote stands.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm. I always seem to forget about the specifics of this game easily, probably because of the inordinate amount of non-content early on.

In any case, I think a couple of my opinions were deleted, specifically one where I noted that I think Glork/MoS have been acting as a sort of "protector" for Eon/Re2, which I find rather disturbing (as in, whenever Eon/Re2 come under fire, one of the two of them always seems to bring up a new topic of dicussion, or they directly try to quash the suspicions on Eon/Re2).

FoS: Glork/MoS

.

I will, however, need to discuss this game with MBL, since the two of us have (unfortunately) very different opinions on the state of the game (at least as of about a week ago). In particular, I don't believe he fully agrees with our vote being Eon/Re2, but I am not 100% sure on that subject. We'll get back to you on that.

[petroleumjelly]

Unvote: Eon/Re2fan

.

This game deserves a reread, and it seems like every time I brace myself into doing just that, the site crashes. I will be busy this week up until around Friday, at which time I will try to solidify my suspicions, and perhaps dig up a few things I have previously overlooked. Until that time, I would rather not have my vote on somebody when I can only vaguely recall why I was voting them in the first place.

[petroleumjelly]

The search party quickly found TSS/Yosarian2 dead with multiple bullet wounds in the same alley where Pablito/STD had been found.

I had originally thought that "multiple bullet wounds" (as were found with the death of StD/Pablito) could have been multiple scum groups, but this leads me to believe these deaths are due to one scum group with many members (probably 2-3). The "single shot" is likely a Serial Killer.

I will need to reread this game with the information we have gained since yesterday. Hopefully with fewer players, there will be less spam and more substance. I should have time this weekend, since I only have two more finals to go.

[petroleumjelly]

I will need to discuss this game more with MrBuddyLee. But first things first:

Unvote: Bogre/TheManHimself

. I agree that neither of these players have added much of significance, but when considering their last posts (Nov. 13 and Sep. 24, respectively), even

if

they are scum, they probably won’t be doing much killing anytime soon, seeing as they don’t even seem to be here. MBL and I simply had a conversation the night before saying that we wished there weren’t as many lurkers and non-contributers, so I assume that’s why he moved his vote to Bogre/TMH in the first place.

That said, I am also unimpressed by the Pooky/Adele posting record. I could see my vote moving there later in the day if they continue to post little of substance, but I am not comfortable placing somebody at Lynch -1 when we are still missing probably half the players in the game.

In fact, I am wondering if the following pairs have done anything for the past night:
1.) Bogre/TMH (last posts Nov. 13 and Sep. 24)
2.) CDB/Ziliu (last posts Nov. 12 and Sep. 24)

Of course, the fact that these pairs don’t seem to have been here doesn’t “clear” them per se, but I do doubt that either of them have sent in a kill specifically (although this does not rule out a scum group sending them to do a killing, or something).

I think I quite like a

Vote: Armlx/Nightson

. At first I figured Nightson must have posted a decent amount of content since it appeared he had quite a few posts, but most of his posts, after reading them in isolation, don’t add much to the game. If anything, it appears to me as if Nightson is trying to give the

appearance

of contributing. Armlx seems to be completely absent, but it only takes one-half of a team to be around in order to send in a night action.

[petroleumjelly]

Hehe. That made me laugh.

And eh, I dunno, MBL. I remember reading through Amb's posts on Day One, and sympathizing with the amount of spamming that has gone on this thread (although in my experience, this is probably the

worst

game [other than ScumChat Mafia] I have seen in terms of spamming). I tried to kick the game into gear a couple times, but it never seemed to do very much.

And of course when I try to get something going on somebody today who

should

be able to respond instead of needing replacement, I get an FoS from Adele. Gotta say, this game is rather uninspiring.

Nevertheless, I'll see if I can't force-feed myself to read this game over again sometime soon.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm.

MBL and I discussed this game for a few minutes the other day (that seems to be the most time I can ever squeeze out of him - grrr) on AIM, and he speculated that Amb may be feigning disinterest in the game whilst actively playing so as to stay under the radar for "posting" without giving all too many suspicions (instead hiding under the guise of bandwagoning people until the game is small enough so that there won't be so much spamming). Not sure if he wanted me to post this, but it certainly seems like a definitely possibility, and I have been rolling that marble around in my head for a while now that it has been brought to my attention.

However, since Amb has promised a reread, I am more than willing to see what (if anything) he comes up with, and then go from there.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, this game sucks. I might go for a lynch Pooky/Adele just for the heck of it at this rate, even though I don't think they are the most likely pair to be scum at this point. And since I haven't seen MBL on AIM for ages, I'll have to ask what he thinks of that in-thread.

[petroleumjelly]

this bandwagon against me and my beloved other head is absurd!

FoS: Pooky

Here's some food for thought, Pooky. Who do

you

suggest we bandwagon, then? The combined record of yours and Adele's voting record is as follows:

Day One

Vote Nobody

Day Two

Vote Nobody

Day Three

A "random vote" on Klebian

The two of you have been completely useless. If you don't want to be wagoned, suggest an alternate wagon with an explanation, and try actually

voting

. The town doesn't have much of a shot at winning of townspeople don't even bother to vote. Your "random vote" does not do much for me, seeing as Klebian/spectrumvoid were the people who started the wagon on you in the first place, so if anything, your first vote in the game (which came on Day Three), which you purport to be "random" looks like simple OMGUSery.

[petroleumjelly]

I don't think there is a "case". I conversely don't think there was ever a "defense". For lack of movement as well as general interest in the game, however, I will:

Unvote: TSS/Nightson

, and

Vote: Pooky/Adele

. You are now at Lynch -1. I suggest a claim at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Agree with above. The combined posts of Pooky/Adele are pretty much "sorry I'm lurking" and "don't lynch me". This game has been running in place for what feels like the last month, and since every time I reread this game I pretty much just see spammage, I figured I would

make

something happen, especially as the mod has recently threatened a deadline.

Now you vote for us because nothing's going on to your satisfaction, and think we should claim when there's no case against us? I'll leave it up to Pooky whether we claim or not, but whichever he picks, your last post looks scummy as Hell. You don't care about a good lynch; you just wanna attack whoever's weak.

I do care about a good lynch: I've been searching for one since the beginning of the game. I'm surprised to see this coming from you, seeing as you have declined to vote for the first two days (read: not caring about a good lynch), and your first vote of the game (on Day Three) was "randomly" on the person to start the wagon on you, and now your first "real" vote simply looks like OMGUS.

[petroleumjelly]

Ugh. Time for a wake-up call.

Vote: Amb

for now; this could be moving pending responses. Question time.

1.) Spec/Kleb, do you have any useful results for us?

2.) Amb, why did you never get back to us on your reread? And how did you somehow forget that you were voting for Pooky/Adele before you tried to vote them again after they were already lynched?

3.) CES/Mgm, why did you vote for Pooky/Adele after you already

knew

they were lynched? Why exactly were you voting Bogre for the entirity of D3?

4.) Glork/MoS, the two of you seemed to have been very eager to post early in the game and spam, but have petered off since. Why? I am seriously thinking the two of you are trying to avoid the thread as of late.

5.) Lowell/Spront, do you intend to keep touting the fact that you are purposely lurking in this game? Why have you even done so to begin with?

6.) CDB/Zindie, your pairing in particular has been extraordinarily inactive for the past Two mafia days, and in fact for the past two months. If it isn't obvious, I have a difficult time reading non-posters. Zindie, don't you love me? I was hoping to see an analysis from you sometime yesterday.

7.) Nightson/TSS, I have been getting the feeling that your most recent posts have had little substance whilst trying to appear to be substantive. Could you give me your top two suspects with a reasonable explanation for each, and who you think is most likely to be town?

[petroleumjelly]

I'd still like those people left to answer questions, please.

Unvote: Amb, Vote: Glork/MoS

.

[petroleumjelly]

<-- Is trying to do criminology reading/homework. *shakes fist*

Well, I seem to have been slacking on my game notes (although I do have the voting patterns from D1 and D2, just not finished from D3), but I don't believe anybody who is alive has claimed anything, nor has any prior information claimed about them. So far as confirmedness goes, about the only person I have marked as town besides MBL and myself are spec/kleb.

[petroleumjelly]

...If you're a third cop, and you're confident that you're sane, just come out and state it directly, along with any living innocent results you have...

This reads as an admission of scum to me. A townsperson would have said "If you're

claiming

to be a third cop who

purports

to be sane..." etc.

There are 2-3 Mafiates

and a Serial Killer out there, it seems.

Really? What in particular makes you think there are up to 3 mafia scum left? MBL and I had a brief discussion on this last night, and decided that balance-wise, 4 mafia v 1 SK seemed heavily weighed against the SK to an extent that we thought it unlikely.

[petroleumjelly]

Even then, the odds do not favor 3 Mafia and 1 SK in a 17-player game, unless the scums have some significant perks to even things up

or the town is having to deal with insane cops/docs.

You answered your own query. The other two Cops probably had sanity issues, which were supposed to lead to confusion of results, as well as possible counter-claims, all of which would help to "even" the game, as you say.

Do you care to speculate on "scum perks" while you're going to bring up the subject?

I'm surprised that a player normally as cautious as you, PJ, would press for the notion of there only being two scum left. It definitely makes me wonder if you're a dirty scumbag who just wants to see the day end with my face ground into the dirt.

Blah, blah, OMGUSery. I have not lost my cautiousness, or else I wouldn't have forced MBL to discuss the 4 mafia scum possibility with me last night (which I have, in fact, already mentioned). Nice try, though.

[petroleumjelly]

Actually, at this point I would suggest a massclaim

so my partner(s) will know whether or not it will be safe to kill spec/kleb tonight.

And lol. Now for a real quote:

... (unless we get lucky and get some serious crosskill action on this coming night... which I do *NOT* want to see happen).

Freudian Slip? Why

wouldn't

you want to see cross-killing? That would be the best possible thing that could happen at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Scums with abilities (such as a Mafia Roleblocker), investigation-immunity, or nightkill-immunity.

1.) Mafia RB is extremely unlikely, or else I would wager spec/kleb would have been role-blocked last night
2.) I will grant the possibility of GFness
3.) You think there are UNNK mafia against a SK? Doubtful. Forcing a SK to lynch mafia instead of having the ability to NK them, once again, is unbalanced.

[petroleumjelly]

Hum. Just got back from classes... interesting development.

Unvote: Glork/MoS

. I have no qualms to extending this day: we already have one confirmed scum (whether he is bluffing SK or actual mafia is up in the air), so we might as well search for a second (or possibly third) scum while we're in day and have the time. We should not allow for the possibility of Glork/MoS to hammer themselves or another player until we decide to end the day.

However, I don't get to ask claimed scum questions very often, so I will definitely take this opportunity. I realize that Glork/MoS could lie like the Devil in responding to these, so I won't be giving the answers an incredible amount of weight, but I see no harm in asking, and potential benefits to be gained:

1.) Explain all of your nightkills
2.) Why did you originally push the agenda of 4 possible mafia, while now reverting to 3 mafia plus a "possible traitor"?
3.) Does your mafia have any collective quirks?

I might have more questions later if I can think of some, but these were the first things that came to mind.

[petroleumjelly]

Bah. Figures.

[petroleumjelly]

Well, not technically, CES. MBL and I have been throwing around possible set-ups, trying to decide what is/is not likely. Since this game started with 17 players, it's a bit difficult to decide.

If

Spec/Kleb are Cult of some kind, the town wouldn't necessarily be screwed. I've seen enough Cult Leaders act like Cops (without ever claiming information whatsoever, as they are doing in this game) that I have become very weary of such a possibility. If you would like a few examples, check out WoT Mafia (where I damned well

should

have lynched Tamuz the Cult Leader, who claimed a very vague information role) or Random Mafia (where Ibby managed to push a lynch because she had failed to recruit flyingm00c0w).

And

if

that is the case, that would mean they tried to recruit Pooky/Adele N2, and Glork/MoS N3, meaning they would have one live recruit from N1.

Furthermore, if there is a Cult this game, that does make it possible for there to be a 3-person mafia group. It should further be noted (MBL and I are discussing this possibility right now, in fact) that there is not a Serial Killer in this game whatsoever, but instead a Forced Vig, whose purpose is probably to lessen the chances of a Cult getting too large too quickly.

In light of this, I would like spec/kleb to claim to exact nature of their information, as well as their night choices. I don't want to get screwed over by a cult

again

if I can help it.

[petroleumjelly]

In fact, while I am on the subject. For those of you who are (as of yet) unaware:

I really hate cults. I do not think they should be in mafia games whatsoever.

If

there is a Cult, and

if

they have even had a passing fancy of recruiting MBL and myself, I promise this to you: I

will

rat out that cult. This might be against "the spirit of the game", but I think cults are much more against the spirit of the game than any other role. Having somebody be town for four days in a row (seven/eight days in WoT), and then magically converting them to scum pisses me off.

Thought I should throw that out there are fair warning.

PPE: CES, try to think about more possibilities than what you think is "the obvious". If you have noticed, the SK/Vig has been targeting people who

lots

of players believe have an annoying playstyle. Namely, Fritz, Coron, DGB, and then Fritz again. If there is a forced Vig, going after general lurkers and people who could easily be scum because of their general unreadability and unhelpfulness is not altogether a bad strategy. It's not like the Vig

would know

that they are targeting Cops and Townies (I would consider the Vig to be the "single shot", if such wasn't made apparent by my posting), so you can't really use that as an argument against the possibility.

I would also imagine that the Mafia would definitely be pushing the SK agenda, whilst not considering the possibility of a Vig.

[petroleumjelly]

The question is: what do we choose to believe? We don't know the sanity of the dead Cops. If they weren't sane, then voidybuns/klebby is probably talking the truth. If they were both sane, then I have trouble believing voidybuns/klebby is town.

On the other hand, three cops could be necessary to balance 4 Mafia/1 SK in this kind of setup.

Now, if there's a forced vig, there could be a Cult. But, then, I'd say, 3 Mafia+Cult, and two Cops plus a forced vig.

The problem with all of this is that we don't know the full town set-up: there may as yet be unclaimed power roles which would help to explain the balance of any given possible set-up for scum groupings.

As it is, I can't see three cops being "necessary" for a 4 Mafia/1 SK game (as you suggest), because there

should

have been a crosskill somewhere along the line in that case. Since I have seen mini games with 3 Mafia/1 SK (and in fact, they are becoming quite common), and that this game has 5 more roles than a mini game, I would think that

at least

one of the Cops would have had some sort of sanity issue. Furthermore, I just find it hard to believe that there would be 4 mafia v 1 SK, unless that SK had some really stellar upgrades (such as UNNK and investigation immunity, or perhaps unnighttargetability for a forfeited kill, etc).

I do agree, however, that if there is a Cult at all (which is by no means even assured), that we are much more likely to be dealing with a Forced Vig and

not

a SK, seeing as that would necessitate that the game began with 5 scum,

but

with the very real possibility of the number of finishing scum increasing to 6, 7, or 8 (in a 17 player game)! However, a Vig (even a forced Vig) taking out scummy players would help to weed out cultists, I would imagine, while the Cult would be able to effectively search for scum through failed recruits (as would be the case with spec/kleb here, if this is true), thus making the necessity for information roles decrease.

I have noticed klebian posting in many other games today, and yet pointedly ignoring this game ever since the possibility of him being cult has been brought up. A note: You shouldn't need to have to talk to your partner whatsoever in order to claim your role, how you got your information (and on what nights), and why you chose the people you did to gain that information. I will not believe, at this point, that spec/kleb are not working with some sort of inside information.

[petroleumjelly]

I'm not seeing Cult myself, though. It's possible, looking at the game, but I would've expected at least one dead Cult member by now.

Pay more attention. If spec/kleb are the Cult Leader, then they tried to recruit Pooky/Adele N2 and failed, and tried to recruit Glork/MoS N3 and failed. That means they only had a successful recruit on N1, meaning there would only be two cultists in the game. It is entirely possible for the cult to just be plain missed so far as nightkills go.

Furthermore, you seriously need to at least glance over WoT Mafia. That was something like a 30 player game, and over the course of seven days and eight nights, not one cultist was nightkilled or lynched, even though the Cult Leader claimed to have some sort of information, and two of the cultists had claimed information roles (i.e. what you would think would be excellent nightkill targets for scum). A game with 17 players missing a maximum of two cultists for three nights and three days is more than possible, so far as I am concerned.

And since I have now seen spectrumvoid post in other games, while pointedly ignoring this one, I am really starting to think MBL and I have hit the nail on the head. If they are a Cop (or some other legit role), they should have no problems coming to the thread.

If spec/kleb come up cult at this point, Zindie, you are starting to look like a likely cultist along with them, of those left in the game.

[petroleumjelly]

Klebian, I see you looking at threads in the Theme Park forum. Come post with us, eh?

[petroleumjelly]

To be honest, if your claim is correct, that only bolsters the chances of a Vigilante.

Gunsmiths are supposed to be a

weaker

form of a Cop, specifically because they do not know whether or not a person who has a gun is scum, or a Vigilante (or possibly a Cop, depending on how the mod works). They are often put into games when there is a Vigilante, so that when the gunsmith gets a "gun" result, they cannot be

positive

that that person is actually scum, but may in fact be pro-town.

If there is no Vigilante, that would essentially make you two a Sane Cop (unless cops are investigated as having guns, which we don't know), which goes back to the problem of having three Cops.

What have your results been for each night?

[petroleumjelly]

Reasons for investigations?

[petroleumjelly]

How much did you talk with SpectrumVoid on N1? I just want the general direction of your discussion, please.

[petroleumjelly]

I don't get this cult speculation. You're saying that a cult leader would fail a recruitment and thus conclude that his recruitment is scum? How does this follow? Well, I guess, I should ask, what happens when a cultist tries to recruit scum? I've only played in one game with cult, and that was on another forum, and when cult recruited scum, a cultist died... But I guess it's not the same on this forum? (Just a note: the mod of that game is a regular player on these forums as well)

Apologies that I didn't answer this sooner, I thought I had.

I have seen quite a few games with a Cults on this forum, and I currently cannot think of a game where a Cult died for trying to recruit scum.

When cults try to recruit scum, they are often told that their recruitment failed. I would say that 70-80% of the time, that is because the person they tried to recruit is scum. The cult then usually tries to act as if they have an information role of some sort in order to lynch the failed recruit, which in turn makes them look more likely to be town, while also giving them another night of recruiting. If you would like examples of Cult Leaders acting like they have information because of failed recruitments, see:

1.) ScumChat Mini Mafia: This post, where Logicticus the Cult Leader tried to get me lynched (I was SK, as it happens) because he had failed to recruit me on Night Two.

2.) Wheel of Time Mafia: This post, where Tamuz the Cult Leader tried to get a wagon on Flay (who was scum), because he had failed to recruit him on Night Zero. He claimed more information

again

in this post, after he had failed to recruit Yosarian2 (who was scum) on some night. I won't look over the entire game to see if there were other instances.

3.) In Armlx's Random Mafia, Ibaesha the Cult Leader (at some point: I didn't read the game personally, so I am not sure where it is) pushed to lynch flyingm00c0w (who was scum) because she had failed to recruit him.

There are more examples of such things, but these were the first three that came to my mind.

[petroleumjelly]

Curious.

I would like examples from you, CES.

[petroleumjelly]

I have done some quick and dirty background investigating into Courk's modding habits. I looked at all of her games she modded at Grey Labyrinth. For the games that were large enough to include a cult (hence, I will not include Two-Headed #1, as that only had 6 roles), here were the results:

1.) Football Mafia, first game modded. No cult.

No gunsmith.

2.) Clue Mafia, second game modded.

Cult

. There was a random chance that a cultist might die for a failed recruitment; scum were included in roles which could not be recruited, and they also fought with a Recruiting Masonry.

No gunsmith.

3.) Dating Game Mafia, third game modded.

Cult

. The cult could only recruit townies, and did not die for failed recruitments.

No gunsmith.

4.) Mafia MMV, fourth game modded. No cult.

No gunsmith.

5.) Star Trek Mafia, fifth game modded.

Cult.

Cult did not die for failed recruitments.

No gunsmith.

6.) WW2 Mafia, sixth game modded.

Cult.

Cult did not die for failed recruitments. There were quite a few weird roles in this game - but

no gunsmith.

For those interested, 2-Headed Mafia #1 also did not contain a gunsmith, but I would expect as much in a 6-role game anyways.

I would say Courk has a fair chance of throwing cults into games, and rarely kills off cult members for failed recruitments. She also has never used a gunsmith role, unless she has modded games elsewhere.

[petroleumjelly]

Note:

If there is a cult, I would say Mgm/CES are the more likely the cultist at this point (as opposed to Zindie). He has tried to rush the lynch on Glork, downplayed the possibility of a Vig, tried to quash the discussion on Cults, and made two separate (and untrue) arguments as to why there it is not likely for there to be a cult ("cults are not common" and "the norm is for cultists to die for failed recruitments"). Since first-time Mods almost never use a cult (simply because they cannot gauge how it will affect the game), I would say Courk is very much more likely than the average Mod to include a cult in any given game.

MBL and I originally were wondering if he was mafia scum for all his play this game, but I could see him as cult scum as well. He's probably just plain scum, although I'm not sure which kind.

[petroleumjelly]

Also (MBL and I are talking now), this game has very simple roles. Cop. Cop. Doctor. Role-Blocker. Townies. Regular Mafia. I am really not buying "Gunsmith".

Oh man, this game is so busted.

*goes off to do a jig*

[petroleumjelly]

Jelly, I'm not really downplaying the possibility of a vig, as I'm essentially asking for any vig to claim. If you really believe there's a vig, that point of view will only be confirmed, no?

Are you seriously saying cults are common? I wouldn't say so. Especially with smaller games(including this one, it's only 17 players). And I said "I see dying when attempting to recruit scum as the standard.", which I do. Your misrepresentation of my second argument is noted.

I must admit that the 66% cult rate in Courk games is unsettling, but I'll stand by my point of view that lynching Glrok is a better move without a vig claim. The 0% gunsmith rate doesn't mean that much to me. It doesn't get used that often, but I'm sure Courk knows the role. I don't intend to lynch kleb on this evidence.

I get the feeling you're trying to scare the town into doing the wrong things, jelly, with the cult thing.[/quote]

1.) You tried to downplay it until it was obvious I was not going to curl up and go away.

2.) I agree that the prior lack of using certain roles does not mean it will never be used by a given mod. But Courk seems extremely more likely to use alternate investigatory roles (I saw her use a Tracker quite a few times, for example) over a gunsmith. I mostly looked for gunsmiths to see how Courk deals with gunsmiths investigating Cops, but there were obviously no notes on this subject since Courk has never used ones.

3.) I am not necessarily advocating that we lynch spec/kleb. I would definitely like to see them respond. I am simply making sure that the town is aware that (especially with

this

Mod) a cult is a very real possibility, and that if it is anybody, it is most assuredly spec/kleb, and I will not lie that the more I think about, the more I think this is the case.

[petroleumjelly]

^ Agree with MBL. We are probably much better off lynching Glork/MoS today, as this will not even change the number of kills (unless he is SK) since there is at least one more mafiate. Either the Vig/SK or the Mafia will probably be taking out spec/kleb.

If

they come up cult tomorrow, then this discussion will have been all well and good. If they do not, then there would be no harm done, since it would not have changed the outcome of today's lynch, and in all probability, the scum were probably going to kill spec/kleb tonight either way. Furthermore, if there is in fact a mafia group of 4, then we would be better off lynching GlorkOs in any case, so I think lynching them is the correct move in any situation.

The only thing this discussion has done is made sure that we are covering our bases. Even if we turn out to be wrong, I will not regret having done it.

[petroleumjelly]

If you're so sure we have a cult and a vig, then why don't get the vig to claim?

1.) It's the Vig's choice
2.) If the Vig claims, they could:
->

A.

Get culted
->

B.

Get nightkilled by scum (while the scum hope Vig targets cult, I would imagine)
3.) I would rather force scum out into the open as opposed to a useful town role

[petroleumjelly]

1.) I would suggest that nobody even bother to read Glork/MoS's posts. They are clearly scum who see an opportunity to live another day and will say whatever they have to in order to save their skins.

2.) As I have said before (and I will say again), Glork/MoS is still the correct lynch today. I am currently thinking they are mafia scum (and hence have at least one partner who can still kill), although it is possible they are SK (I find this unlikely by this point, however). This will still leave two nightkills (one Vig/SK and one Mafia) which can potentially crosskill, or hit cult. I consider both of those plusses.

3.)

THe mafia havent managed to nuke a single cult member to date, and we havent managed to lynch one. Either the 'cult' is very inactive in it's recruiting abilities, or we are very unlucky. 9 Deaths out of 17 players, that would make the cult so potentially big that it would be an all out Cult vs Mafia game. That doesn't appear to be the case.

I have gone over this already. If spec/kleb are cult, they would only have had

one successful recruitment

. How do people keep reading over this point? That would mean they were successful N1,

failed

N2 on Pooky/Adele (hence calling them scum the next day), and

failed

N3 on Glork/MoS (hence calling them scum the next day).

Once

again

, look at WoT Mafia. This seriously cannot be this difficult. Just look at the first page, and the nightkills. That game had 30-31 players (not all the players are on the first page, since some of them "disappeared"). The game ended with 7 players. 4 of them were cultists. About 23/24 players

died

, and the

town never once lynched cult, and not one cultist was ever nightkilled the entire game.

Two cultists living past three nights and three days, then, is quite possible so far as I am concerned.

[petroleumjelly]

No. You have to understand that it's not even guaranteed there is a Cult at all, and this could just be MBL and I being overly paranoid. I would just rather have our bases covered, since we clearly have the opportunity to do so. Better safe than sorry, so far as I am concerned.

We lynch Glork/MoS. This does a number of things:

1.) The Mafia will have either 1 or 2 members left. It will be in their best interests to kill spec/kleb; and this would frankly have been the case whether or not we had this discussion in the first place. Either spec/kleb are Gunsmith (which means we did right by lynching Glork/MoS anyways, as it would definitely have been worse to have lynched a Gunsmith), or they are Cult (which does our lynching for us).

2.) The Vig/SK's best interest would also be served by trying to either kill any remaining mafia scum, or any likely cultists (or if somebody crosses the realm of being a likelihood in both categories). If they hit mafia, that will either eliminate the mafia group, or leave one left alive. If they hit Cult, then spec/kleb will also be dead, with the possibility of a final cultist roaming about (which will have been recruited that same night, N4).

In other words, all the scum will probably try to take each other tonight, which will work to our advantage. I would rather lynch a confirmed scum then a

possible

scum. The downside, obviously, is that

if

spec/kleb are Cult Leader, they will get one final night to attempt a recruitment. Either way, the town really can't afford to mislynch at this point, no matter which type of set-up we're dealing with.

[petroleumjelly]

^ My "no" was directed at Nightson, obviously. Zindie posted while I was still typing.

[petroleumjelly]

And so Nightson, too, sees the light. Town should win this game simply because scum can't afford to leave other scums alive.

Vote: Glork/MoS

. They are now one from lynch. I think this discussion was fruitful; guess we'll see whether or not it was right tomorrow.

[petroleumjelly]

Damnit, the Mafia and SK/Vig both targeted spec/kleb. What rotten luck. But in any case:

*high-fives MBL* We

knew

that gunsmith claim sounded completely wrong. Tch.

Pretty sure one of CES/Mgm, Amb, or Zindaras/Skruffs were culted N1. Deciding what happened last night is almost impossible, although MBL and I were thankfully not recruited. It might be possible that the cult failed to recruit last night as well, by targeting either some sort of scum, or alternatively, a power role (this is applicable if the cult could only recruit townies, as is true in some set-ups).

I am thinking CES/Mgm are the most likely N1 recruit. I won't bother WIFOMing myself into wondering who was culted last night.

Vote: CES/Mgm

.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm.

I think there were only 3 Mafia to start off the game. I find it highly unlikely that the town was

supposed

to rely on cross-killing just to win. We would have to lynch up to 4 Mafia members, as well as (realistically) anywhere from 1-4 cultists, plus a possible SK, in a game where there was probably only going to be a max of 7-8 days. That does not seem feasible to me.

I have been contemplating as to whether or not it is to the town's advantage to have the Vig/SK come out. I don't think the town has a very good shot at winning unless we force the scum to cross-kill.

What I Think is Left in the Game

1 Mafia
1 Vig/SK
1-2 Cultists

I say we try to lynch Cult today. Notably:

Unless there is only one cultist left, in which case they arent a concern at all. (

1 single cultist can only tie with town

, and will still lose to scum, in which case they will have to try and out the scum as best they can).

The underlined portion is wrong. Cults win once they control 50% of the town, and I believe that was also how Courk used them.

After we lynch cult today, there will be 5 players left. The Mafia and SK/Vig will kill, bringing the town down to 3 players tomorrow (just enough for a final lynch). Those nightkills will then have a very good chance of hitting Mafia, SK/Vig, or a cultist. I think the town has a fair shake (at the very least) in getting a cross-kill of some sort. Since scum have incentive to kill opposing scum, I think there are strong chances there will be 2 town and 1 scum by D6, which is the best scenario town can hope for at this point, I think.

- Note: "Piling up on the wrong player" seems like an incredibly misleading phrase. The cult can't afford to jump on CES/Mgm if he is not cult, because the SK/Vig and/or Mafia will simply kill those cultists. Same for if there are 2 Mafia (which I doubt anyways). Scum are essentially paralyzed at this point because they have to worry about

other

scum.

[petroleumjelly]

To answer that:

I won't bother WIFOMing myself into wondering who was culted last night.

It is honestly a crapshoot.

1.) Cult could try to recruit experienced players who they think will carry the game for them (i.e. Pooky/Adele + MoS/Glork)
2.) Cult could try to recruit people who are likely to survive long into games (this often includes lurkers, people difficult to lynch, or people who are rarely night-killed)
3.) Cult could try to recruit people they like (people they are likely to get on with, as you say)

And there could be other factors. This is why I hate cults. You cannot use past game-play in order to find

cultists

, since anybody recruited was, at one point, town.

[petroleumjelly]

As much as I think CES/Mgm are the correct lynch, I will

Unvote: CES/Mgm

for practical reasons. I doubt there would have been any jumping in any case, but better safe than sorry.

[petroleumjelly]

Oh, don't you dare try it, Zindie. You don't know me well enough, apparently. Try taking a glance at my past games with cults, my reactions afterwards towards cults, and my player statistics page (specifically where I talk about my dislike for cults). This is certainly not the first time I have held this position, and it will not be the last. It is not an indicator of my alignment. For example:

If there is a cult, I will be

extremely

unhappy. I

hate

cults with a passion. I think they ruin mafia games: how do you find cultists except through sheer luck? All efforts made at clearing townspeople are shattered by just the existence of a cult, and people who were once playing for the town win suddenly switch win conditions to destroy the town. And if there's an argument I hate to see, it's "say, I'll recruit you so you'll win with me if you don't lynch me". It disgusts me.



... and although that wasn't completely relevant, I thought I would get it out there. But just to make sure: If I am culted, with an 80% certainty, I will sell out that cult. So don't even think about recruiting me.

You can be suspicious of me for whatever other reasons, fine: but

that

one does not hold.

[petroleumjelly]

Kleb/spec aren't dumb enough to recruit me. I very rarely make it to endgame.

Oh? How often do Pooky or Glork/MoS make it to endgames in large games? Bad argument.

[petroleumjelly]

The difference between this game and others is that, in this game, you're paired with someone else. I'm simply wondering if you would do the same if MBL disagreed.

MBL wouldn't have a choice. He knew the risks before he agreed to partner with me.

Let's get people posting. Lots of info out here.

[petroleumjelly]

Skruffs asked that question, CES. And Skruffs is partnered with Zindaras.



Too blatant of a mistake to be scummy, however, seeing as there was no way you weren't going to get called on it.

[petroleumjelly]

Well, that still doesn't make sense, CES.

SpectrumVoid and Klebian

also

tried to feign ignorance as to how a cult works. They were the Cult Leader. I wouldn't universalize that reasoning.

[petroleumjelly]

Lowell, how well did you read Wheel of Time Mafia?

[petroleumjelly]

*sigh*

I am still waiting for MBL to return so I can speak with him. We didn't get too much discussion done during the last night, except for what I have generally posted at the beginning of today. We pretty much decided that if spec/kleb turned out to be Cult Leader, that CES/Mgm was our best guess at who would have been culted N1, and also that there was probably only 1 mafia left as well as a forced Vig/SK, while leaning towards the Vig. Alternatively, we decided that if spec/kleb were in fact a Gunsmith, there were likely 2 mafiates left, which probably would include either Amb or CES/Mgm, and probably some other person that we had previously not paid enough attention to.

I still think CES/Mgm has the greatest chance of being scum (I can see him both as Mafia or Cult at this point), so that is probably where my vote will end up today.

I would like to hear something substantive from Lowell/Spront.

[petroleumjelly]

Stupid appeals to pity. *sigh*

Well, to be fair, that was just what MBL and found the most likely after the game went into night initially, so I haven't really critically examined your posts since the game reopened. I will make a case for you to respond to, although I will clearly need to reserve more time for this game, especially since one wrong lynch probably guarantees a town loss.

But if you turn out to be cult, I seriously might cry. I am

so

tired of losing to cults, and this game would be especially painful since MBL and I managed to figure it out before it could catch the town by

complete

surprise. Cults do not deserve pity.

In fact, I will try to (when I find the time) make a list of the top two people MBL/I think could be mafia, the top two people MBL/I think could have been recruited N1, and the top two people MBL/I think could have been a (possibly failed attempt) recruit from N4. I would encourage everybody to do the same sometime soon.

[petroleumjelly]

One question, PJ. I know you dislike Cults, I've seen that for now, but, from a metagamin perspective, I'm interested in reading a game where the Cult got outed by one of its members. Have you ever outed a Cult befoe?

I have been in two finished games which had cults. I'll just give synopses of both games (which you can check on for verification if you'd like).

1.) ScumChat Mini Mafia, found here. In that game I happened to be a Serial Killer (which probably won't do anything to help how people view me in this game, but tough noogies), and the town learned that there was a Cult on Night Two due to me nightkilling a cultist, so the cult was never traditionally "outed" by anybody.

As it happened, the Cult Leader [Logicticus] had tried and failed to recruit me on Night Two, but probably didn't want to go after me on Day Two because if I could get him lynched instead, the Cult would have lost immediately. I don't quite recall how I crafted my fake-claim, but I think "bandwagoning" let me "Doctor protect" people, and "posting in CapsLock" let me "protect people from Cult".

Anyhow, the Cult Leader tried to fake-claim a "1-Shot Day Investigation" on me on Day 4 to get me lynched, and at the time, his partners were Maz Medias and Fritzler. Not only did I completely tear apart the "1-Shot Investigation" claim and expose him as Cult Leader, but I caught both the other cultists in one fell swoop, and even though the cultists could have forced a No-Lynch, one of them [Fritzler] hammered his own Cult Leader when he realized the day was lost.

It turned out I had a "back-up" Serial Killer, which Fritz/Maz failed to recruit on Night Five, but Fritz also had a role-block ability which he used on me. He then offered to recruit the remaining townie to the Cult if they would lynch me, which they did. So I got lynched and lost the game.

2.) My other game with a cult was Wheel of Time Mafia, found here. In that game, I was Rand Al'Thor, a town Vigilante. That game, very unfortunately, was a "no reveal" game, which in turn caused me to dismiss the possibility of a cult multiple times (since not revealing who dead cultists are would be serious bastard-moddery). It turns out that even though some 23 players died, not one cultist ever died (even though Macros assured me they would have been revealed as a cultist if they had, though I'm not sure I believe him). Needless to say, I was completely taken aback when I was told the game was over with 7 players alive and that a cult of 4 members had won, and I was quite pissed.

As I noted earlier, in that game (as well as ScumChat Mini Mafia, and

this

game), the Cult Leaders claimed exceedingly vague or ill-flavored investigatory roles. I realized this to be a disconcerting pattern for Cult Leaders to have non-explained information in other games as well (such as Ibaesha in Random Mafia, which I only really know about because I conversed with Ibby on a regular basis).

So to answer your question, I have

not

really outed a cult before, although I do try to keep it in the back of my mind as a possibility. As soon as MBL expressed the same concern (except on a serious note, instead of idle speculation), I took a second look at spec/kleb's actions during the game and decided that they

really

fit the bill of how I would expect a Cult Leader to act after they have failed a number of recruitments.

***

I'll have to look at the exact numbers for lynching v nightkilling, but at a cursory glance my thoughts were pretty much as follows:

If we lynch a killer today, that leaves only 1 kill for tonight (unless there are two Mafia), which will leave us with 4 players tomorrow. If there is a second scum killer and we don't lynch them, the town loses. If there are two cultists and the second killer doesn't kill the other, the town loses (since there will be 2 cult, 1 killer, 1 town).

Putting the town with 4 players tomorrow and 1 live killer seems like a horrible move for town. I think the town is much better served allowing for the killers to kill each other or a second cultist, leaving the town with

3

members tomorrow. In that case, we will hopefully have 2 town v 1 killer, or 2 town v 1 cultist. I think that's the best we can hope for, but again, I suppose I can look at the numbers in more detail later.

[petroleumjelly]

^ As a note, since I may have misinterpreted your question:

1.) In ScumChat Mini Mafia, all the cultists constantly protected their Cult Leader and other cultists (except for when Fritzler gave up and hammered his own Cult Leader,

but

with the knowledge that he could just role-block me anyways).
2.) In Wheel of Time Mafia, all the cultists constantly protected their Cult Leader and other cultists (as two of them had investigatory roles, and essentially fixed their results so as to essentially "clear" the Cult Leader and themselves).

[petroleumjelly]

Question for Zindie:

You seem to favor Option #2, which is:

2: Lynching killing scum would then require the other killing role to attempt to kill Cult. There's a chance of there being 2 Cult and a chance of there being 1 Cult. The killer won't be able to take the chance of there being 2 Cult and thus will have to look for Cult to kill.

Okay, so this leaves the town with (assuming Killer hits Cult):

2 Town
1 Cult (or Town)
1 Killer

In that situation, we would have to lynch the Killer D6. Then night would pass with nothing. Then we would have to lynch the Cultist D6.

Your plan involves the town lynching a Killer today, having the second killer kill Cult N5 (note: if this fails, the

cult wins

), lynching the second Killer D6, and lynching the last Cult on D7. Chances are this will be next to impossible. If we lynch in the wrong order D6 (i.e. the cultist before the Killer), we lose. If we lynch a townsperson, we lose. If we lynch wrong today, we lose.

*****

I think the town is better served trying to lynch a Cultist today.

If one killer hits the other, but the second hits Cult, then there is guaranteed to be no more cultists left, and there is only 1 killer left against 2 townspeople. This gives the town a very good 1/3 shot at lynching the remaining killer and winning.

If one killers hits town, and the other hits Cult, there are no more cultists, and we are left with a 1 townsperson v 1 killer v 1 killer. In that situation, the town will No-Lynch, and the killers will be forced to try to kill each other. If they are successful, the town wins.

If both killers kill each other, there will be 2 townspeople v 1 Cult. Again, a nice 1/3 chance at lynching correctly.

If both killers hit different townspeople, then we are probably screwed

unless

there was only one cultist to begin with. This means it would still be possible for there to be a Prisoner's Dilemma of 1 Townsperson v 1 killer v 1 killer, where the town will No-Lynch hoping for the killers to kill each other.

If both killers target the same person, this clearly throws wrenches in the numbers, but these possibilities are

much

more town-oriented that trying to lynch a killer today.

[petroleumjelly]

In general, I agree. Cultists are insanely difficult to lynch, simply because before recruitment, they were pro-town.

However, I do think somebody was recruited to the cult on Night One (or else spec/kleb would have had a third "X is scum" accusation), so we

should

be able to analyze people's play from Day Two, Day Three, and Day Four to search for one cultist. If there was a successful recruit on Night Four, there is really not much we can do but hope we lynch that person through happenstance, or hope that they are suddenly pushing a subtle pro-cult agenda today which could tip us off.

I have been considering mass-claiming for a while. What do others think about this? This could feasibly help us pinpoint scum of some sort. Even if this catches us killing scum, say, that will in turn narrow down the choices for possible cult-scum.

[petroleumjelly]

^ And an obvious side note, if we nail a killing scum in this way, the town is only put in that much more control of the situation.

[petroleumjelly]

Yeah, there's a dice function somewhere. I can find it if we decide we want to use it. We should probably make sure everybody is fine with a mass-claim first, though.

[petroleumjelly]

Might as well return the favor.

Could you link me to games where you've played with Cults, Zindaras? I probably won't be able to even look at them for a week or two, since I can hardly afford to read the games I'm already playing in, but if you could give a short synopsis of each game I would appreciate it.

What is mostly making me wonder is the fact that this Cult seems to have a 100% success chance on townies, which is very much broken, in my ever-so-humble opinion.

Oh man, I have to agree with MBL there. I've read your explanation, and I don't think it holds.

FoS: Zindaras

.

Cult Leaders are often not told when and why their recruitments fail. What it comes down to is what spec/kleb

thought

was the reason for failed recruitments.

From the interactions between spec/kleb, I don't think they really "knew" whether or not Pooky/Adele was scum. Read back on Day Three. Klebian, from the blue, votes Pooky/Adele and calls them "scum".

But.

When spectrumvoid gets to the thread, she is hesitant, decides that she has to talk to her partner before going any further, and claims that "what makes you think we're lynch-voting?".

This tells me that spectrumvoid was probably aware that a failed recruitment didn't necessarily mean "scum", and that klebian probably did not.

For all they knew, they could have failed recruitment because they were role-blocked. Either way, I sincerely doubt they had 100% confirmation.

Also, I encourage you to look at WoT Mafia. Tamuz the Cult Leader could only recruit certain townspeople (specifically non-channeling females and some males, I don't remember the exact criterions), and he was not told of when and why he failed recruitments. Despite not knowing if failed recruitments lead to scum, he still claimed results on failed recrtuitments during the day. Simply because that might not seem optimal to you doesn't mean other players won't do it.

MBL and I will need to talk.

[petroleumjelly]

^ I should reword that. I know what I was saying, but I can see how somebody might think "when" and "why" are redundant when I was trying to make two different points.

Tamuz the Cult Leader... was not told

ahead of time

when he would fail recruitments, or why he would fail recruitments (such as whether or not he was role-blocked or simply failed to recruit).

[petroleumjelly]

"Not helpful"?

I will make a case for you to respond to, although I will clearly need to reserve more time for this game, especially since one wrong lynch probably guarantees a town loss.

I said

yesterday

that I would make a case against you, and that I would do it when I had time to read through the game. I have not had time to read through the game over the course of the past day.

There is no deadline. There is no reason to rush. I will get to it when I get to it. As it is, your early posts (up to probably mid-day 3) are completely useless and almost impossible to "attack", which I am sure you are aware of, since all you did was bandwagon. The biggest reason I think you could be cult is your reaction to the proposal of a Cult Leader yesterday. I wouldn't imagine a cultist would be incredibly enthused in having their Leader being called out when they are so close to lynching somebody they failed to recruit. The fact that you continually pushed the Glork/MoS lynch instead of calling for discussion is probably what bugs me the most. It seemed like you were trying to veer me into other directions.

If there's still a cult leader, then the town doesn't stand a chance in hell,

so there's really no point in taking that possibility into account.

False (as I noted), since there would have been 2 failed recruits.

Jelly, I see dying when attempting to recruit scum as the standard. Really, there are too many "if"s for me to seriously consider a cult currently.

Patently false, as I pointed out before, and as CES admitted when he could come up with one example for this.

I must admit that the 66% cult rate in Courk games is unsettling, but I'll stand by my point of view that lynching Glrok is a better move without a vig claim. The 0% gunsmith rate doesn't mean that much to me. It doesn't get used that often, but I'm sure Courk knows the role. I don't intend to lynch kleb on this evidence.

I get the feeling you're trying to scare the town into doing the wrong things, jelly, with the cult thing.

Despite the fact that Courk uses Cults quite often and has never used a Gunsmith, CES ignores my case. He then follows up by (from what I see) trying to scare me away from continuing the discussion on a possible cult, while doubly trying to paint me as scummy for suggesting a cult.

After I voted Glork/MoS, you say:

Yay! Jelly has common sense! (This is a good thing.)

That is completely stupid. I never

once

advocated trying to lynch somebody who "might" be cult over a confirmed scum in Glork/MoS. I was going to want to lynch them pretty much no matter what happened, and I made that abundantly clear. This looks like an attempt to make it seem like I was somehow being unreasonable in trying to discuss the possibility of cults, and that in doing so, I was not excercising "common sense". Unlike you, I wanted to make sure the town had a good discussion instead of just lynching.

Upon the beginning of today, all you have to say is:

I'm town, guys, honest. I feel dumb(I hope PJ's scum, it'll make me feel better about myself.)

Which is no explanation whatsover. The information was laid out for you yesterday, and yet you continually resisted (while making bad arguments for the contrary position) and tried to paint me as scummy for even suggesting the possibility of cult. Now that it turns out MBL/me were absolutely right, you still started the day by trying to make us look like scum.

Imagine

why I just might think you were culted on N1.

Mgm, would you mind posting here? I have seen you post elsewhere on the forums.

[petroleumjelly]

^ That's a lot of games. I need to get working on a case brief due in less than two hours, so I will read your post later.

As for the Tamuz no-reveal scenario (although I wouldn't expect you to know this), Mastermind of Sin (not Macros) had made the dead list in the first post. I don't recall the deaths exactly, but he put two players in green (to signal town) and one player in red (to signal scum), although exact roles were not revealed, so we did, in fact, think that alignments were revealed to the town at that time, and it was during that Day One where Tamuz claimed that we should wagon Mr. Flay-scum. Sometime later in the game, Macros took away the colors, and we were no longer told player alignments.

[petroleumjelly]

I just re-read PJ's posts to check whether he had made it clear who he wanted lynched Yesterday. He had not. He only made it clear moments before the lynch, so I say my mistaken view that PJ wanted spec/kleb lynched is very much understandable.

Post 935 also caught my eye. In hindsight I realize that that post may well have been meant as a sort of "shush, stop talking silly Glrok"-post.

Considering I never voted for spec/kleb but instead poked them with questions, I thought it was pretty clear I did not think lynching them (simply on the suspicion that they

might

be cult) was an optimal move. I suppose I can see where you're coming from, but it's generally hard to lynch somebody when:
a.) There is a separate, confirmed scum; and
b.) You don't even bother to vote for them

And I am going to need to see an explanation for your take on my Post 935. I was trying to get Glork to

talk

more, so that I might be able to finger his partner(s). How did you get the impression I was "telling him to 'hush'"?

Amb, why did you want Nightson to claim in particular?

[petroleumjelly]

We had confirmed scum in Glork/MoS yesterday (Day Four), Frustian, since they had claimed. There was pretty much no way the town was not going to lynch them. That's essentially why I find it somewhat difficult to believe that CES would seriously believe I was trying to push for a lynch on kleb/spec when they only

might

have been scum, and based to a theory (cult) which we had no evidence of at the time.

[petroleumjelly]

How closely did you read Glork's posts, CES?

Look at Post 933, and then tell me I should have asked Glork "why he thinks you are the SK" in Post 935. From what I can tell, he is trying to present a "process of elimination" explanation. If I had asked him to explain why he thought you were SK, I guarantee he would have just said something like "try reading my last post".

The fact is, Glork seemed to be in a "talkative" mood, so I figured I might be able to take advantage of that and get him to answer a question or two. In retrospect, I wish I had asked the questions one at a time instead of all at once, since he would have less time (while responding) to think about changing his answers or realizing it would probably be stupid of him to have answered my questions. If I had managed to get him in a direct conversation with me, I may have been able to get him to slip up or reveal something.

Glork might be a 'good player', but everybody makes mistakes: as you can see, I caught him making a mistake when responding to the "investigation" from spec/kleb (he certainly didn't respond like an innocent townsperson would), and I caught him on a second mistake (or at least I think so) with his wording of "I do NOT want to see [cross-kills] happen". There was no guarantee that Glork would keep/stop talking simply because I asked him questions. I would have felt

considerably

stupider if I had

not

tried to ask him questions. Better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.

[petroleumjelly]

Limited to no access this Friday/Saturday.

Also, MBL, seriously you are never on AIM. Please try to be on sometime this Sunday; I think we need to talk.

[petroleumjelly]

I have like half an hour before I leave for Mock Trial, so:

Let's see the sequence of posts in question.

Post 933 by Glork, where he postulates that CES is SK.

Post 934 by CES. CES had an opportunity here to ask Glork any questions he wanted. So what does he ask?

Do you really think I would kill Ibby? I'd totally kill DGB and Coron, but certainly not Ibby. I might kill Fritz, but not twice.

This question was not going to do

anything

. 100% guarantee that Glork's response was going to be "Yes". And for all we know, Glork was trying to distance himself from his partner in that very post by accusing CES of being the SK (which may in turn cause a SK purposely

not

target CES hoping that they would be able to lynch him instead, assuring that CES lives through the night).

I had just come back home from classes (as you can read) when I made Post 935. Question #3 wasn't the smartest thing to ask in retrospect, but my other questions had potential for receiving an answer. I didn't exactly have a full day to sit down and determine what questions Glork was most likely to slip up on: I read the thread and posted what I thought.

I think you are really trying to stretch to make MBL and I look like scum here. Accusing somebody of "hushing another player" by

asking questions

is about as dumb an accusation as I've seen. I can see how MBL thinks you are trying to manipulate things (which I am agreeing with) to your advantage.

[petroleumjelly]

Since I

know

I was in no way trying to tell Glork to "hush", you can't seriously expect me to think there is any merit in your "argument" whatsoever. I was trying to get more information out of him -- I frankly don't care if you are trying to construe it to mean I was actually trying to get him to "shut up", because it's not true.

If it weren't for the fact that I would like to catch another scum before the day is through, I would vote you right now. Pretty sure you're either the N1 Cultist or a remaining Mafiate right now.

Don't lynch anybody before I'm back, if you please.

[petroleumjelly]

And would you mind giving defenses that

aren't

WIFOM, if you're going to make a defense at all? It seems like you are constantly saying things like:

1.) Do you really think a Cult Leader would recruit

me

when they could recruit somebody better / more awesome? Do you think kleb/spec are dumb enough to recruit me?
2.) If I were scum, do you think I would have underestimated your diligence?
3.) Do you think I would lie to you about that sort of stuff [failed recruits]?
4.) Do you think I would kill Ibby?
5.) Do you think I would so blatantly argue against Cult possibility as Cult?

I don't mind WIFOM as a defense when used sparingly, but when it starts stacking like this, it is a cause for concern.

[petroleumjelly]

Wow, not many posts since I was gone.

Nobody hammer, please. This definitely includes MBL, especially seeing as we

still

need to talk. Sheesh. I don't see a point in not searching for other scum while we have the time.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, just talked to MBL (a modern age miracle) for about a half hour on AIM. We both agreed that CES is the correct lynch today, so we're good so far as that goes. But he doesn't think it is overly helpful (or at least as helpful as I had thought) to bother trying to search for a "second scum", since the chances of that being successful will have a lot to do with the alignment of CES. We have differing views on who could be Cult/killers on the extreme off-chance that CES is neither.

Also, he thinks that even if we

find

a second scum, other scum could purposely leave them alive as lynch-bait and try to kill a townsperson instead, thereby enhancing their own chances of not being lynched themselves. I'm not sure I agree with it completely, but I can reasonably see it happening.

I suppose somebody can hammer if they want, but I don't think I can personally lay one down just yet.

[petroleumjelly]

Lowell, how about instead of us telling

you

whether or not you should do something, you actually read the game and decide for yourself? You've been playing in this game long enough that you should know what's going on by now.

For example, who do you think is mafia (since you leave this completely open in your post)?

[petroleumjelly]

PJ because he feels off somehow, as if he's not really that interested in winning the game for the town.

Where do you get that impression? I believe we have already caught CES-scum, and I'm the person who has been calling for people to slow down instead of lynching as quickly as possible. I think (although MBL disagreed with me the other night) that if we can nail a second scum today, the town could potentially get scum to crosskill each other, which is precisely what I think we are going to need in this game.

In fact, I think it's time for MBL and I to make our suspicions more apparent.

Cult: CES, then Zindaras/Skruffs (and if a second Cultist with Zindaras, probably Lowell)
Mafia: Nightson/TSS, or CES
SK: Amb
Town: Lowell/Spront, PJ/MBL

CES pretty much looks like cult to me at this point. I can also easily see him as a (final?) mafiate. His interactions with Pooky/Adele (which included not voting for them until after they were lynched) and Glork/MoS (trying to have them lynched quickly, while also being called "SK" by Glork, which did not look very plausible to me) all support such a theory. Either way, I am fairly convinced with CES being Cult, but as I stated earlier, my opinion on who is what changes depending on the alignment of CES.

If CES is not Cult, then Zindaras almost

definitely

is. Zindaras pushed a

very

bad agenda today, one which would drastically help a Cult (by trying to lynch players with killing abilities: anybody should realize that the town is

going

to need a crosskill or two in order to win this game). Further, if CES is not Cult, that is pretty much the only person Zindaras has even considered to be Cult and has pushed on the entire day (while even most recently stating that he does not have a case). At the end of his latest post, he throws on Lowell as being a possible Cultist even though directly above that he talks about the possibility of Lowell being "cleared" if his question was serious.

Nightson is probably a (the) remaining mafiate, based off of small vibes here and there. He jumped on the speculation of spec/kleb being Cult yesterday immediately, and tried to push a lynch on them over Glork/MoS. Further, in mid-game, Glork/MoS tried to push a very weak case against Nightson, which Nightson then responded to, and then the whole interaction was dropped altogether. As I stated somewhere earlier, it almost looks as if Nightson was actively lurking for much of the early game: he was posting, but none of those posts really included content.

I have been back and forth on Amb the entire game. I am fairly confident he is either a forced Vig or a SK, but I'm just not sure which. All the kills make sense when put into context. Consider:

We have a whole bunch of people showing their faces, pretending to look townlike (or genuinely being townlike, whichever), without saying anything. But day 1 is always like this. So I'm quite happy to fast bandwagon to get through the crap that flies around. Day Ones make mafia boring, because no one wants anything controversial. The controversy causer tends to get lynched. Anyone speculates about the setup - they "must" be scum. They get lynched. Etc. So yes, I will push for a fast day 1 so the game doesnt become boring. At the very least pressure can be applied and dissipate just as fast.

This is where MBL and I noted that Amb seems to show annoyance with gameplay he considers to be "stupid" in general.

Incidentally, I cannot think of a sane reason for scum to target Fritzler on account that even when he is town he inadvertently helps the mafia consistently.

Here is the first indicator of SK/Vig. Amb tells the town that he doesn't think scum would target Fritzler specifically because Fritzler can inadvertantly help scum. This is the perfect crumb for anybody wanting to claim forced Vig: "I was forced to kill somebody, so may as well be somebody who could screw up the game for the town". Amb is killing somebody he thinks has a stupid playstyle which is harmful to the town.

The above posts were arguing over Vig/Mafia/SK etc, and I was more alluding to the fact that its too early to base decisions on the death. I don't like spelling things out in posts because if I am right in any piece of reasoning then others should be able to see it as well.

Again, Amb leaves open the possibility for Vig over SK.

2. There is no guarantee the game is going to carry on in its present state. I don't want to see it abandoned, but

the quality of play needs to go up.

Another indicator that Amb is willing to off people who do not have a "high quality" of play. Coron/DGB had added pretty much

nothing

to the game, except to repeat (without any substantive reason) that "we should lynch GlorkOs". Another playstyle which can be harmful to the town, and therefore, another useless player offed in the night.

And of course, the third player to hit the dust was,

again

, Fritzler. It has already been made clear that Amb considers Fritz a liability to the town, which again meshes with my theory that Amb is the type of Vig who would willingly off players he considers to be useless or detrimental.

A vig claim would guarantee any "vig's" death overnight, unless you want someone to claim doctor as well? So I agree with PJ and whoever it was that said the vig should only claim if being voted. Forced or not, I would imagine a vig would be upset about hitting 2 cops randomly, whereas an SK would be rather happy.

I imagine this was said because it is true: either Amb is just really unlucky with nightkills, or he is SK. I can honestly see both, given the game.

* Because 3 is too small and unlikely, and 5 would mean 3 alive now and the game is only at day because

they have to find the other killer.

In which case its going to be a no lynch or a townie lynch anyways.

Again, specifically avoiding mentioning a SK directly.

2 Mafia

1 Other killer

2 Cult
1 Town

Yet another indicator that Amb believes we are not necessarily dealing with a SK. The spec/kleb kill could still make sense from a forced Vig perspective, since it was incredibly likely that the remaining mafiate(s) would target spec/kleb whether or not they thought spec/kleb were Cult, simply because two scum had already been caught by them. By additionally targeting spec/kleb, Amb would assure that the town did not get any smaller than it had to now that we were visibly approaching endgame.

And yes, for those wondering, this is why MBL and I have been so back and forth on the possibility of a forced Vig v SK. We have been wondering about who would make those particular nightkills since about N2, and we decided that Amb was the likeliest person (although since we considered him as a possible Vig, we did

not

want to draw the mafias attention to this fact: the town has a much higher chance of winning if a Vig/SK is left alive to kill scum during the night).

[petroleumjelly]

^ The above should obviously read SK/Vig: Amb.

[petroleumjelly]

Wow, that looks like a staged argument if I ever saw one.

Zindaras and Skruffs, the two of you are partners together, and of the same body - why did you hold that conversation ("There's this many cult" v "No, there's this many!") in-thread instead of by PM or via AIM?

When people do unnecessary things like

that

when there are clearly better alternatives, I tend to think there's an underlying reason for doing so. You both knew you were both on Mafia Scum at the same time, and you both knew you both had access to each other.

Glad I held off on the CES-lynch: I think Zindaras/Skruffs are probably the better choice. Not only did Zindaras push a pro-cult agenda today, but now Zindie + Skruffs are having a completely unneccessary in-thread argument specifically about the cult, for which the purpose seems to be to make them look like they are, in fact, not cult.

Vote: Zindaras/Skruffs

. I might switch to CES later if I feel as if it will be necessary to get the game moving along, but I'm starting to wonder if CES is a mafiate and you are a cultist.

PJ/MBL are the SK. I'm guessing all the "serious chats" between you are about how to proceed as you try to work out a way to endgame us all and pull off the upset. Whatever. The town clearly needs you for now to have any chance.

You need to get yourself out of this mindset. I would definitely wait for Amb to come back to the thread: I am fairly good at reading power roles, and not only did I think Amb was a SK/Vig by the beginning of Day 2, but MBL also thought the same thing. I cannot see another player in the game who would make those nightkills (Fritz/Ibby, Coron/StallingChamp/DGB, Fritz/thestatusquo (and finally spec/kleb) other than Amb.

Now, I

have

been trying to get scum to want to kill each other tonight, yes: and that's because I think that gives the town the best chance of winning (see: analyses). Scum normally cannot win with other scum groups alive, so if the town can get them to eliminate each other at night (since they risk losing by

not

going after other scum), the town will be the faction that benefits the most. Note my earlier analysis on why it is best to lynch a cultist today, and the actions the town should take in order to best secure a win depending on the night results. I have been trying to play in the town's best interest as much as possible, as opposed to pushing agendas which will achieve the opposite result.

[petroleumjelly]

WHAT?

I

haven't rebutted the fact that you weren't pushing a pro-cult agenda? Yeah, let's look at your posts real quick.

Post 1068, pushing a lynch on non-cult scum. Post 1070, after being told you were not considering all the knowledge we have, you still pushed a lynch on non-cult scum.

I rebutted your push in Post 1075]Post 1075. Only until this was gone over in explicit detail did you stop pushing your idea. So yes, I would say you were pushing a pro-cult agenda.

Response to your second question: that's when you send Skruffs a PM telling him his "theory" makes no sense, or talk to him over AIM. If you get him to change his mind, he can say as much in-thread. The fact that you dramatized it (with such things as "whacks with newspaper" and "eat newspaper") makes it simply look like you two were

bantering

, and that there was a purpose behind that banter.

[petroleumjelly]

BOOYA.

Would you mind unvoting CES for a short time, please, Amb? The town should be able to win this if we play it just right.

Oh man, I haven't even finished reading your post, I am that pumped.

[petroleumjelly]

Also, apologies if I outed you before you wanted to be known, Amb. I was seeing quite a few people say that they (for whatever reason) thought I was a SK, and the last thing I wanted was to be nightkilled by the Mafia because they thought the same.

Read over your post a few times, and I am fairly certain I believe your claim: it helps that I've been anticipating it for about half the game, of course. I think your POA looks fine from where I'm sitting: if things fall into place, the town will hopefully have 2 town v 1 scum tomorrow, which is pretty much the most we can ask for at this point.

PPE:

My position is not that Skruffs "slipped up": my opinion is that the two of you arranged that slip up, specifically for the purpose of putting on a show to make it so the two of you look like you haven't been culted. The wording of your posts and the general banter I read between them supports this. Of course I can't have cold, hard facts: this

is

a subjective game. I have to read deeper than what is on the surface. I sense fakery in your posts, and I'm calling the two of you out on it. Call it gut if you like.

[petroleumjelly]

Whatever you say. One of the reasons

I

signed up for this game was so I could talk to somebody out-of-thread while the game was in Day. That's not something you get to do in other games, and I enjoy being able to bounce ideas on who is scum off of MBL, since we often both see different things which lead us to similar conclusions.

[petroleumjelly]

1.)

Thanks for claiming, Vig : I would take a very VERY serious look at PJ's defense of CES and the way PJ has haphazardly tried to get pro town players lynched through the whole game. I personally feel that nightson isn't scum: I now think it's PJ and CES. That's my honest feelings about it. I thought before PJ Might be an overexcited vig but this kind of confirms as mafia, to me at least.

Please show me where I "defended" CES, Skruffs. The most I have done is ask people to not

rush

, because that is how towns lose games. I want to make sure as many scum as possible are killed tonight, and that the town will be able to lynch any remaining scum correctly tomorrow.

2.)

Take a look at PJ who's been trying to get non-killing roles lynched (which in the end will make it easier for the mafia, not the town, to win).

Are you daft? I explained in explicit detail why lynching a Cultist today gives the town an extraordinarily larger chance of winning this game than lynching a killing role would. See my Post 1075. This is, in fact, the second time I have had to reference this on this same page, and the last time I referenced it was responding to your partner, Zindaras. I appreciate that it appears as though you have not been reading my posts. I have a logical and reasoned basis for why I am searching for the scum I am searching for when I am searching for them, and I have shown how this gives the town the best chances of winning.

3.)

Personally I am not going to go after whoever the cultists are, because, the town needs the cultists to vote with them today. Vig + Townie + Cultists > Mafia

BING!

Wow, everybody should read this.

Not only has Zindaras pushed a pro-cult agenda, but now Skruffs is pushing a pro-cult agenda, and neither of them has even given a reasonable argument as to why this should be so. Together, they have tried to get the town to think there are either no cultists or one cultists remaining, as if that suddenly makes the cult less dangerous (and this was done through unnecessary argumentation in-thread). I am now 85% sure that Zindaras/Skruffs are cult.

Confirm Vote: Zindaras/Skruffs

. CES could still be scum,

but

I am not as confident of him being cult scum in particular as I am of Zindaras/Skruffs, being cult scum.

We need to be sure we avoid a situation tomorrow where it is possible for there to be 1 cult v 1 Mafia v 1 town [that is not a Vigilante], since the town cannot win in that situation. We need either 1 Cult

or

1 Mafia, and not both. One of these groups

must

be eliminated before tomorrow.

[petroleumjelly]

Actually, Skruffs, your post is making even less sense. I think you are starting to spray accusations around. Consider:

I would take a very VERY serious look at PJ's defense of CES...

This makes no sense from any position.

1.) Skruffs has stated that he believes CES to be Cult. If I am defending CES, then he must believe CES is my partner, which would then make

me

cult. Not only is that preposterous given my stance on cults in general, but it is further preposterous in that MBL/I were the people to catch the Cult Leader to begin with, and furthermore.

2.) Suppose Skruffs instead thinks I am defending CES because we are both "mafia". In this case, I would be pushing a "lynch a cultist" agenda while trying to lynch CES (which is the oddest form of a 'defense' as I have ever seen).

And if he is contesting that CES and I are of different alignments, then saying I am "defending him" makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I am beginning to think we lynch Zindaras/Skruffs today (who I am almost positive will come up cult). Amb will kill CES/OTU tonight (who I am almost positive is one of cult or mafia: I can't decide which, but either way, this should eliminate one scum group). This will either end the game immediately, or there should be at most one scum left tomorrow against two townspeople.

[petroleumjelly]

That doesn't even make sense, TSS.

Where do you think the second nightkill is coming from?

[petroleumjelly]

Oh, god. I have a really bad feeling MBL and I have already lost here. Most likely scenario is that one of you is Cult, and the other of you is Mafia. What a sucky way to lose.

This game deserves a reread. I still feel like CES has the greatest chance of being the last mafiate (as explained yesterday), but this is certainly not the time for hasty votes. I will be presenting cases for each of you to respond to so that I can hopefully try to make the best possible choice.

If either of you would like to claim Cult or Mafia, feel free to do so, and I will vote on the basis of which of the two of you I feel has

earned

a win more. I might let MBL do that, in fact, since I know I am biased against Cults, but I will try to vote objectively on which of the two of you has played the best game from your given positions.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, time for some comparitive analysis. I'll separate this into two posts. MBL, feel free to add anything you want next time you log on if you feel I missed something.

1.) {Lowell, Sprontalic, MiniNeo}

->

A.)

Lowell:

Bad: Lowell has been actively lurking for much of the game (and has shown little to no shame in doing so). He did not vote for either Pooky/Adele nor Glork/MoS. He acted "surprised" when called scum by Glork/MoS (either feigned or he was not paying attention to the game, both scenarios which are unpleasant).

Good: However, to combat the 'not voting for mafia' point, Lowell has also not really voted anybody in general for the past few days: so it is not simply the mafia, but everybody else. Furthermore, Lowell passed up the chance to hammer CES yesterday, as well as a chance to be on the Zindaras-wagon yesterday. Hard to see a scum doing that so close to endgame. The lack of knowledge about how a Cult works I can see as a possible non-Cult tell (although I haven't truly decided on that one). Despite not paying attention, Lowell had a non-scum response to MoS when called scum (his first thought was "insane" or that MoS was "joking", instead of implicating himself like Glork did).

->

B.

Sprontalic

Bad: Also did not vote for either Pooky/Adele nor Glork/MoS (however this is likely due to the fact that he stopped posting on Dec. 12). The line "craplogic is better than no logic" pinged my scumdar slightly, but nothing big. [Small note: There is a section where Sprontalic unvotes spectrumvoid because "he doesn't remember why he was voting her", which is a

slight

Cult-tell. Even if this is true, that would still necessarily make CES the mafiate].

Good: Very active early in the game (shows interest). He consistently uses his own reasoning by which to vote people (instead of simply barning other people's reasoning or voting without a reason at all). He had many of the same vibes as I did (such as on H2/TMH and Eon/Re2) which tells me he probably was not fabricating suspicions (townie tell). Poked other players (by asking for prods) to keep the game moving.

->

C.

Mini Neo

[Pretty much nothing to say here. No substantive posts.]

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, now for the other half.

2.) {CES, Mgm, OTU}

->

A.

Cogito Ergo Sum

Good: Asked Glork to explain who he thought the Serial Killer was. Seemed very positive that cross-kills would happen in order to help the town. Made sure Zindaras was aware of extra kill when Zindaras was doing his endgame analysis in order to decide what type of scum was best to lynch. Pointed out to Lowell that he need not listen to MoS.

Bad: Lurked for pretty much the entire first three days of the game, and only became active when it was clear something was happening (most notably, when the mafia started to get caught by spectrumvoid/klebian), which strikes me being selective with his attention to the game. He was late in voting for Adele, and the purpose of his vote looks more like an attempt at distancing more than anything. After Glork was caught, CES immediately tries to end the day as fast as possible ("let's run him up!" and so on). The fact that Glork called CES the SK could be a possible distancing tactic. Used multiple WIFOM defenses so as to not look like scum. Tries to play down the possibility of Cult, and when even showing an acceptance of it, his first reaction is for the Vigilante to claim (!!!???), which was in no way good for the town since Glork/MoS were definitely the lynch for that day, and revealing the Vigilante would not have helped the situation. Gave two misconceptions about Cults (firstly that they are very rare, and secondly that they die when they fail recruitments). Also tried to up-play the possibility of a gunsmith, even though Courk has never used one in any of her games. Tried to make me look silly by saying "Jelly has common sense!" when I in know way pushed a lynch against Glork/MoS. Instead of defending his actions, he has mostly gone with lines such as "I am town" and "Try harder". Tried to use WIFOM in why he would not be a recruit target. Continually stuck to voting one person yesterday without really taking other things into consideration. He tried to make a weak case for why the town should "rush" (which is completely preposterous: the town is much better off sitting and thinking than rushing without thinking). His comment that I was "trying to get Glork to hush" by asking him questions makes absolutely no sense, and looks like a very weak attempt at casting suspicion.

->

B.

Mgm

Good: Has some pretty good reasoning for his votes early in the game, even though he is not originally from Mafia Scum. Asked for people to restate their cases instead of simply hopping onto bandwagons. Correctly stayed away from the possible "Ibby result" on Day Two when talked about by Eon/Re2.

Bad: Although he consistently said Sprontalic was "firmly on his scumdar", he later votes for Eon/Re2 on Sprontalic's reasoning. He follows Glork's suggestion at unvoting Eon/Re2 early in the game (I would expect they were planning on keeping Eon/Re2 alive for a lynch later in the game, or something). He peters out late in the game without giving reasons but instead promising to read back (though I will attribute this to the crashes and not scumminess).

->

C.)

Over the Under

[Like Mini Neo before this, OTU has no substantive posts from which to get a read off of].

[petroleumjelly]

Wow. The bads definitely outweight the goods for CES there, whereas the goods slightly outweigh the bads for Lowell/Spront. Pretty sure I know where my vote will be going, unless something really drastic happens.

I doubt it matters, but would the two of you mind claiming? As I stated yesterday, MBL and I are Townies.

I won't place a vote until we hear from Lowell.

[petroleumjelly]

*Bump* for Lowell.

Remember that there's no rush; feel free to ask MBL/me or CES/OTU questions.

[petroleumjelly]

Firstly, unless you are jerking my chain and are voting as I'm typing this, I now know that you are not mafia (or else you would have simply voted off CES by this point). You still might be Cult, but if that's the case, I can't win anyways.

Secondly, to be fair, CES came into the day 'suspicious' of MBL and I, not you. Although I agree CES has been fairly opportunistic, that particular reason is untrue.

Now, for your question:

A question. If its townie, cult, mafia remaining, wouldn't the cult and town tie if we kill the mafia? I thought only a cult leader could convert someone, and there woudn't be a nightkill.

In my experience, these are how things play out:

-> If one cult and one townperson are left, even if the cult can no longer recruit, the cult wins.
-> If one cult and one mafiate are left, the mafia wins.

Even though a remaining cultist (I would assume) cannot convert anybody else, the cultist would win against one townsperson: cults traditionally win when they control 50% of the town, regardless of whether or not they can still recruit.

So essentially (in case this is what you're getting at), if you're Cult and you lynch the mafiate today, you win. And likewise, if you're actually town and you lynch the mafiate today, you also win, and so will the rest of the town!

[petroleumjelly]

Here's another question for both. What makes you guys so sure its not SK, mafia, and townie (in which case, I agree I'm screwed)?

The chances of that being the case are extraordinarily small. We have had two nightkills each night. Glork verified on D4 that his scum group was responsible for the "multiple gunshots" kills, by trying to use the "single gunshot" to find a SK. Yesterday, Amb claimed to be the Vigilante, and took credit for all of the "single gunshot" kills. If there is a SK remaining, they must necessarily have chosen

not to kill

every single night (or alternatively have had kills blocked/docced, etc).

Also (as obvious as this is going to sound), MBL and I are Townies, so if there is a SK and Mafia left, it can only be between the two of you [CES and Lowell]. In addition to there being no evidence whatsoever of a SK

and

a Vigilante in this game, I am doubting you're scum at the moment (unless you are Cult trying to make sure you lynch mafia, of course), so I can pretty safely discard that possibility.

I should be around for about another half hour.

[petroleumjelly]

Have you read my Post 1225, Lowell? I'm assuming you were in the middle of typing your response to CES as I was submitting my own response to you.

[petroleumjelly]

In my experience, these are how things play out:

-> If one cult and one townperson are left, even if the cult can no longer recruit, the cult wins...

[petroleumjelly]

*sigh*

As you wish. I'll finish my claim, then.

I was not lying about what role I was given: MBL and I began the game as Townies.

Much to my dismay, however, we were recruited on Night Four by spectrumvoid/klebian. I argued with MBL, and he convinced me to go for the win even though I hate cults very much (specifically, he said to go for the win if spectrumvoid/klebian died: I told him that if they

didn't

die, I would push for a lynch on spec/kleb anyways).

I got minimal discussion with spectrumvoid/klebian the other night, and from my understanding, the Cult can only recruit

townies

. All the targets they have claimed were actually true. They could not recruit StD/Pablito on N1 because the were a Doctor. They could not recruit Pooky/Adele on N2 because they were scum. And they could not recruit Glork/MoS on N3 because they were scum. They successfully recruited us last night because we are a Townie. Since the Cult Leader died, the cult can no longer recruit.

I will be perfectly frank: you have already lost the game. The cult wins when it controls 50% of the town: I have already verified this with the mod. Also, if you would like to check on Courk's past modding history, she is consistent with having Cults win when they control 50% of the town. CES is the final mafia.

If you lynch me, CES will win along with Pooky/Adele and MoS/Glork (and to be perfectly honest, I don't think

any

of these players have in any way "deserved" to win). If you lynch CES, MBL/me and spectrumvoid/klebian will win. If you No-Lynch, CES will kill one of us and win with the mafia.

Apologies for putting you through this, but I was rather hoping to get you to vote CES without having to claim. Feel free to take your time, I realize exactly how sucky your situation is at the moment.

[petroleumjelly]

*"Last night" of course means N4.

[petroleumjelly]

Lowell, please to God don't use dice for this.

Read the game. Who deserves the win more?

1.) The Mafia, who have played terribly. Even though they consisted of some of the "best" players of the site, they simply rolled over and died when spectrumvoid/klebian called them out. The only reason CES is still alive right now is because MBL and I did not hammer them yesterday. They couldn't even find out who the Vigilante was, even though MBL and I were able despite having had no game information whatsoever!

The only reason CES was able to take out the Vigilante at all was because I realized I was becoming a target for a mafia-kill, so I realized I had to out Amb in order to veer the nightkill away from me.

2.) The Cult, who have by all means played exceptionally well. Nobody suspected spectrumvoid/klebian of being Cult Leader except for MBL and I, and that was only after they had successfully managed to catch two separate mafiates for the town. They have only gathered such a small following through bad luck:

three failed recruitments in a row

is devestating, and yet they have managed to get one of their cultists (me) to endgame; a commendable task. As much as I am disgusted at having been culted despite my threat, they made the best gameplay choice: recruit the person who caught them.

MBL and I have been on the money practically this entire game. If you still want to use the dice function, I could probably found out how to do it, but I ask you to vote based on dessert rather than randomness.

[petroleumjelly]

I need to go classes. I'll try to post later today if it will help aid your decision.

[petroleumjelly]

<In the process of leaving>

Confirm Vote: Cogito Ergo Sum

.

That doesn't even make sense. Where did last night's kill come from, genius?

[petroleumjelly]

CES, give it up. You're not fooling anybody. Criminy.

[petroleumjelly]

You keep forgetting one little twist: the fact that you're mafia. I guarantee Lowell isn't going to let that tidbit of information slip by him.

Lowell cannot win this game no matter which way he votes, so I'm not sure why you are still bothering to make it appear like he actually "has a chance" of winning. He does not.

It would have been insanely easy for me to lie and say:

1.) "Yes, you can tie with the cult"; or alternatively, that
2.) "Cultists have a 50% chance of recruiting once the Cult Leader is dead, so vote CES and I'll try recruit you!"

... but I'm not that type of player. The fact is, the Cult wins once we control 50% of the town. I won't bother trying to sugar-coat Lowell's situation.

I suggest you suck it up and do the same.

[petroleumjelly]

No sense talking to a broken record. You're just repeating yourself over and over.

Actually, I may as well ask you a question to point out the stupidity of your constant denial:

Please enlighten me as to your theory on how spectrumvoid/klebian never once was able to recruit even one person after having four separate chances to recruit somebody. Trying to call me mafia and you town is basically saying exactly that must have happened.

[petroleumjelly]

I admit that objectively 1 cult, 1 mafia, 1 town is likelier than 1 mafia, 2 town, but that doesn't matter.

The 1 cult, 1 mafia, 1 town scenario always entails a town loss. 1 mafia, 2 town, gives the town a chance at victory. Even a 1% chance, although I obviously think the odds are objectively significantly higher, at there not being a cultist justifies the Djelibeybi-lynch.

The fact that you keep referring to "objectively, the set-up could be X" is really obviating the fact that you are mafia. Townspeople do not talk about "objective" stances on the game: they talk about

what the game is

.

This is NOT an objective game. Information is given away by how people act, what people say, and how people play their roles.

The facts are:
1.) I am Cult, and I was recruited on Night Four. Before that (days One through Four) I was a Townie.
2.) You are Mafia, and you are trying to appeal to "objective stances" which somehow give Lowell a "chance at winning", when he in reality has no chance whatsoever.
3.) Lowell is some sort of townsperson, and no matter which he votes, he loses.

The only person you're trying to fool here is Lowell, because I have zero doubt that you are Mafia. Hopefully he realizes that

you're

the one trying to play him at endgame, whereas I am being as straight-up as possible about my role and the situation he is in.

I think MBL put it best. You are trying being manipulative even when your role is obvious.

[petroleumjelly]

I hate this game. So very much.

[petroleumjelly]

Also, I will point out that the irony of this is staggering. I'll let the lynch scene speak for itself, I suppose.

[petroleumjelly]

Was there anything I could have done to allow the game to run smoother, considering the site down time and number of replacements?

You could have modkilled some random townsperson. For some reason, that never seems to happen when

I'm

scum.

What did you like about this game?

Might answer this later.

What didn't you like about this game?

Too many ways to catch or kill three lowly mafiates.
1.) Sane Cop
2.) Insane Cop
3.) Role-Blocker
4.) Cult Leader (acts as Cop)
5.) Vigilante

Was the "Day X starts on this post" list in the first post useful?

Not for the game while I was playing it, but it helps for those who want to read the game later. I would suggest you do it in the future, if that's the point of this question.

Was there ever a point when you thought one player was suspicious, but you didn't feel that way about his or her partner?

Not really relevant here... we killed the people we were thought were SK on nights 1 and 2, and by that time we realized Amb was either SK or Vigilante, and that he was killing off worthless townspeople, so we left him alive.

Was there ever a time you found your other head to be scummy?

Well, I

did

keep getting this funny feeling that he was scum for some reason.

Did having a partner affect your usual playing style?

Yes. MBL and I tend to disagree on many things. When he was actually around to talk to, we had some odd conversations which effected our posts and timing of posts.

Did you enjoy having a partner, or did you see it as a hassle?

It was enjoyable in a way, but a hassle in another. Problems come with the fact that you start to get into the mentality of "meh, my partner will get to it" and then nothing gets done. I am positive this is what caused 30 pages of spam.

Did you ever delay posting so you could check something over with your partner first?

Not as much as I would think. I mostly used it as a pretense to think about what I actually wanted to post. Whether or not I talked to MBL never really changed whether or not I would have posted things.

How often did you talk to your partner during days? During nights?

MBL is lazy. He never talked to me unless he had to.

Any improvements you can suggest about modding in general?

I might suggest people using dual-accounts; having to remember who was partnered with who was very confusing, and made rereading the thread a constant headache.

For players with abilities: Did having a second head significantly affect your choice of targets?

Not really. It was the other mafia members which changed the choices. If I had my way, we would have killed spectrumvoid/klebian on Night Three instead of Thesp. All the other choices I would have kept the same regardless of partner.

[petroleumjelly]

I will not quote night conversation. However, here is how things went roughly in my mind:

Night One:

StD and Pablito are bickering with each other in-thread. I had considered using this as scum in order to draw an investigation towards me {since I figured we had some sort of investigation immunity}. This led me to believe Std/Pablito were doing something similar, and thus likely to be SK. I had them killed.

Night Two:

I actually don't quite remember how we came to decide on killing TSS/Yos2. Probably because TSS was suspicious of Glork, and we didn't want him to expand on those thoughts. Also, they were rather difficult for us to read, so better off with them dead.

Day Three:

I watch as Pooky-Adele do absolutely nothing to stop their lynch. I am thoroughly disgusted, especially since neither of them ever contributed to night discussion.

Night Three:

I told scum-buddies that Amb was very likely the SK/Vig, and that spec/kleb were likely a third Cop or a Cult Leader with a failed recruit. I wanted to kill spec/kleb. But Glork was worred about Thesp catching him. So once again, we do what was in the best interest of Glork.

Day Four:

I watch in exasperation as Glork-MoS follow in Pooky/Adele's footsteps. Neither of them had ever really contributed to night discussion either, except to suggest we kill people who were suspicious of

them

. How ironic that they get called out as scum by the very person I wanted to kill, and the best they can do is roll over and die. Once again, I am disgusted. Also at this point I become very ticked that I was given "high-profile" partners, since that greatly increases the chances that we will either be investigated, a cult recruit target, role-blocked, or killed by SK (since we couldn't be sure if we were dealing with SK or Vig).

Night Four:

I cross my fingers hoping that the SK/Vig kills CES/Mgm, or somebody equally scummy, while we clearly had no choice but to kill spec/kleb.

Day Five:

A doozie of a day.

With six alive, suspecting I am up against 1-2 cultists and a Vig/SK, I had to play this carefully. I originally wanted to lynch CES, but I saw one of two endgame scenarios if that were the case:

A.) Zindaras, me, Lowell
B.) Nightson, me, Lowell

I couldn't risk Zindaras being in the endgame, considering I had slim chances of getting him to vote for Lowell. I would have liked to bring Nightson to endgame, but I figured Amb would kill him and leave me with Zindaras (which was confirmed in that Amb killed Nightson N5).

So instead of lynching CES, I changed directions and decided my best chances lie in lynching Zindaras, which would leave one of the following:

A.) Nightson, me, Lowell
B.) CES, me, Lowell

... both of which were acceptable, especially since CES was easy lynch-bait considering he was dead-wrong on about everything possible the entire game.

I even had a nice story to go along with this in the event that I felt it necessary to claim cult (as it happened), but alas I never got to make that post. It would have been something like:

It should be very clear why I changed directions on D5 and decided not to lynch CES. It was clear to me that he was Mafia. And it was further clear that lynching him would lose me, the final cultist, the game.

If CES had been lynched, I would have been a single cultist left in a game with 3 townies and 1 Vigilante. The Vigilante would kill overnight, the town would lynch somebody D6, and the Vigilante would then finish me off N6, so that I lose no matter what.

So - I needed to rid the town of the killing roles during the night instead of during the day. As such, I outed Amb (who was obviously the SK/Vig) so that CES would be forced to kill him overnight (hence leaving me alive). I also made sure that Amb would kill one of CES or Nightson overnight (hence leaving me alive). This would ensure that I was left in endgame with a maximum of one killer [CES] who I could lynch, or possibly two townspeople, one of which would probably be scummy enough that I could lynch them.

Blah blah...

I feel this is a very undeserved win for the town overall. They didn't really catch scum on their own whatsoever, and they were completely clueless as to the set-up the entire time. They constantly allowed themselves to be led through lynches, and even the Vigilante was under the thumb of the mafia after we recognized the pattern of killing.

Overall, not a happy game for jelly. Yet another testament that I doomed to lose as scum.

[petroleumjelly]

I agree with Glork. You might be better off avoiding games with me in the future, there, Lowell.

Also, Lowell, you once again aren't thinking about the game from MBL/my perspective. We had to assume Worst Case Scenario: that there was a Cultist left. We decided that if anybody, it was going to be CES recruited on Night One [who would then direct spec/kleb to try to recruit Pooky/Adele on N2 and Glork/MoS on N3].

We were afraid that

CES

was going to claim cult, and use either:
1.) "Town can tie with cult"; or
2.) "There is still a X% chance I can recruit you, so vote PJ/MBL"

So in order to counter-act that, I claimed Cult before CES could, knowing that would necessarily make CES look like Mafia.

[petroleumjelly]

<- Points to male sign in gender.