Thespival Mafia (Denouement)

[mith]

/confirm

[mith]

Blah blah random votes blah.

Random votes are the devil. (We've got to kill the devil...)

Alright, first things first. The Jester should come out so we don't lynch him or her today. That's in everyone's best interests, right? Except the Mafia's. Jester, if you get lynched today, you lose. So you should come out now so that doesn't happen.

Hopefully the Mafia won't pretend to be the Jester, that would totally screw up this plan.

Mafia, did you follow all that? Don't pretend to be the Jester. MeMe? Got it?

Pooky, what do you think of the random voting so far?

[mith]

Including that random votes are the devil?

Are you admitting to being an instrument of the devil?

[mith]

Uh huh. "Seriously" indeed. As if revealing your satanic ways is a laughing matter.

Why hasn't the Jester come out yet? I would like all townies to say "I understand that the Jester should come out, but I am not the Jester". That way at least if the Jester fails in his or her civic duties we can safely call him or her a terrible player, rather than leaving a chance that he or she just missed the obvious strategery.

I understand that the Jester should come out, but I am not the Jester.

[mith]

(Mafia, you shouldn't make that statement. That would just confuse the Jester, and we'll all lose.)

[mith]

...

Are you trying to convince some poor innocent into thinking they should claim jester falsely? Best tactical move for everyone except the Mafia?

Tally could be scum trying to deny us the power of the Claimed Jester. Remember:

If you're the Jester, claim Jester.
If you're an innocent, claim Not Jester.
If you're MeMe, claim Mafia.
If you're Mafia but not MeMe, act confused because I didn't tell you what to claim.

It's that simple. Best play all around.

[mith]

While we wait for the Jester to come out and put himself into a winning position, another discussion:

We have fixed three-week deadlines in this game. I would suggest that by the end of the first week, everyone should have made a

non-random

vote, and that by the end of the second week we narrow things down to two-four top suspects. That leaves us a full week to decide between those bandwagons, or even go a completely different direction if something drastic happens.

I've seen towns with fixed deadlines play the "wait until just before deadline to do everything game", and it is almost always a disaster. Let's make the best use of our time in this game.

[mith]

FOS: Captain Bandwagon

More obvious scum confusion tactics. Jester, don't pay any attention to him, claim away. It's the clear best strategy. Just read my other posts. If you're unsure, ask and I'll clear anything up.

[mith]

We don't want to lynch him today. We want to lynch Mafia. Duh. The Jester claiming will help us lynch Mafia, and will keep him or her from losing the game today. It's quite simple.

The plan aims to simultaneously increase the win percentage of the town and the Jester, by screwing over the Mafia. Obviously.

[mith]

Thanks, Pooky. It was getting frustrating arguing about it, and I just didn't have the time to put together such a detailed and ironclad case.

If the Jester doesn't claim after that, we can only assume he or she is trying to lose.

[mith]

Did you read Pooky's post at all, GS?

[mith]

"You win if and only if you are lynched on any day except the first."

If the Jester is NKed, the Jester loses.

FOS: Greasy Spot

. More Mafia confusion.

Tally, I could. But Thesp might not be happy about it.

[mith]

Greasy Spot, are you the Jester, or not? I think you are either the Jester or Mafia, and will be pushing for your lynch. If you are the Jester, you should claim now before you lose. I'd rather catch some scum than lynch you - it is in both your best interests, and mine as an innocent.

[mith]

Obviously, we'll have to see if anyone else counterclaims. You might still be scummy scum scum trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works. But if no one counterclaims, absolutely.

[mith]

(It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway:

DO NOT LIE if you are innocent. Aside from the general Lynch All Liars metagame practice - and you will be found out if you lie, sooner or later - it completely screws up the plan. The real Jester will counterclaim you, we'll assume that one of you is scum, and BAD THINGS will happen.)

[mith]

I see you have failed to answer. Are you scum?

[mith]

Are you the Jester or not? This is not a difficult question. We have conclusively shown that if you are the Jester you should say so, and that was before my threat of lynching you. Obviously if you are innocent you should say that too. The only reason for your waffling is if you are scum and aren't sure what to do. So, I ask again: Are you scum?

[mith]

Vote: Greasy Spot

I don't think he's the Jester (rereading - he would've known his own win condition if he were), and I think he would've

said

he wasn't by now if he were innocent. I think we've got our first scum.

[mith]

(Jester should still come out, though, so as not to be killed by the Mafia or any lone gunman types we might have out there. See Pooky's excellent post if you are unconvinced.)

[mith]

Don't say I didn't warn you.

tyhess is a False Prophet to the idol of the Fake Green Card Couch. The true disciples of the couch are showing our power, and we demand your blood.

[mith]

GS, the Jester's role says he or she wins if

and only if

he is

lynched

on a day

other than the first

. Being nightkilled means that he or she

does not win.

[mith]

And you still haven't answered whether or not you are the Jester, even now that you have been logically lubed.

I am very happy with my vote. All hail the couch!

[mith]

Cool. Let's lynch Greasy Spot then.

Still waiting for the Jester to come out, but I guess there's still quite a few that haven't posted yet.

[mith]

It could be that I've caught me some scum.

Why are you voting MoS?

[mith]

FOS: Dani Banani

I really dislike people (semi-)random voting when they have actual suspects.

[mith]

That's 7 on GS. I would suggest no one else actually vote for him until everyone has checked in and the Jester has claimed.

I don't mind a quickish day 1 lynch, but we should make sure we get any important information we can first. If you're cool with the GS wagon, post something like

Cool with the GS wagon: yo.

[mith]

Hm.

I typed out some thoughts, but then I decided I would rather let some other people comment on this first. Particularly tyhess. So I'll post my thoughts later. But it is definitely worth discussing.

[mith]

Gah, I should really preview when I get distracted in the middle of a post.

FOS: Iammars

as well.

Eesh, I'm running out of fingers in this game.

[mith]

This dice tag voting needs to be stopped before someone does it again. Ever.

Way to avoid responsibility for you actions, MoS. Are you scum with Dani?

[mith]

Never in a game of Mafia has one been as innocent as I am now.

But you already knew that, scum.

[mith]

Huh.

I checked another old dice tag, and it has changed too. I am guessing it has something to do with the server upgrade. But why that would affect the dice tags... beats me.

[mith]

It wasn't a move, just an upgrade to the current server.

Anyway, I believe MoS's roll was real. That doesn't change the fact that dice voting is a Deadly Sin of Mafia.

[mith]

For bookkeeping purposes:

Not the Jester:

mith
PookyTheMagicalBear
MeMe
Captain Bandwagon
petroleumjelly
hasdgfas
Iammars
Talitha
Greasy Spot (scum)
QuickBen
Holy

Posted, but haven't confirmed or denied being the Jester (possible scums, possible confused/misguided Jester):

wolfcrier
Dani Banani
tyhess
curiouskarmadog
RossWilliam
al_kohaulec
Mastermind of Sin

Slackers (possible Jester):

Battle Mage
Dark Ermac
Fletcher

[mith]

Attacking people != the totality of your actions.

And I think you're scum mostly because of your actions

before

that post. That, and because you're scum.

[mith]

Just a heads up: Michelle is in town this weekend, so I will be ignoring you lot for the most part from tomorrow afternoon 'til Monday. I'll be on in the morning to see if there's anything I need to respond to or comment on.

[mith]

The List™

(bow, you fools!)

:

Greasy Spot (Confirmed Scum)
tyhess (False Prophet)
MeMe (Instrument of the Devil)
Dani Banani (Instrument of the Devil)
Mastermind of Sin (Instrument of the Devil)
curiouskarmadog (IGMEOY)

Possible Jesters, assuming the Jester is not a BAD PLAYER:

Battle Mage
Dark Ermac
Fletcher

[mith]

Right. Now that there has been some discussion on this (which I will analyze later, no time now):

I am with pj on this. tyhess shouldn't recruit. Even in the "tyhess is confirmed innocent that we are somehow able to keep alive" scenario, taking away votes from unconfirmed players doesn't do us any good - if it is in the town's interest to stop people voting, there are other ways to do that (pseudovotes and the like - we decide on a lynch before we start voting, so there is no danger of a hastyvotefromatownieleadingtoaquicklynch).

Really, the only reason tyhess should recruit is flavor. And since the one true Couch is here to provide that, the False Prophet needs not spread his message of lies and deceit.

[mith]

Once again, the Jester claiming helps the Jester AND the Jester claiming helps the Town. There is no contradiction here, because there is a third side: the Jester claiming hurts the Mafia. Having someone we know to be not-Mafia helps us in our Mafia hunting, obviously.

The Jester needs to claim

ASAP

, because with every post that passes, there is more and more chance that the scum will realize that the Jester is unsure or a moron, and will jump in with a fake claim. A fake claim from the Mafia would absolutely devestate the plan.

Battle Mage, you haven't actually said whether or not you are the Jester - only that you weren't claiming to be. So, as with GS, I will ask you directly: Are you the Jester?

In other news, there are still 8 players not voting at all, and I would guess that at least a couple of the other votes are random (too lazy to check). We are now five realtime days into Day 1, and I once against strongly suggest that

everyone make a non-random vote by the time we hit the one rt week mark

. I will be looking closely at anyone who posts before then but doesn't vote.

[mith]

Mine and Pooky's views are not at odds. We discussed this extensively at Thespival. We are merely presenting our views in different ways, to help convince the Jester. That the Jester hasn't claimed already strongly suggests the role is among the two who have not yet posted content at all, but having people confusing matters by posting things which are clearly not well thought out can't be helping, and leaves open the possibility that someone is misguided and isn't sure they should claim.

[mith]

If they are your favorites for lynching, why are you not voting for either of them?

[mith]

We also don't want to give too much away to the Mafia. They may not know the correct strategy for this type of game.

Overall, the Jester claiming now is a clear advantage for the Town and Jester, and a disadvantage for the Mafia even with perfect play from them - but if they don't know what they're doing, it's even worse.

I need to look through later at the responses, see who has been trying to mislead the Jester into staying hidden. And also see who the slackers are who haven't placed a non-random vote yet.

[mith]

Everyone be sure to read this post.

What MeMe said. If you think something is a trap, don't point it out until everyone has a chance to fall for it! Sigh.

Anyway... I think everyone has now denied being the Jester. So I suppose it's time to move on.

This was absolutely a trap. You see, when we played the Jester setup at Thespival, there was one small difference: the Jester won when lynched Day 1. There, the strategy presented here clearly applies. The Jester should come out to avoid being nightkilled, and the Town should encourage it so that we eliminate one suspect

and also so that we avoid all the WIFOM drama involved when we know someone is trying to get themselves lynched

.

What actually happened was that we got screwed over by scum claiming Jester, and then ended up lynching the Jester straight away because we thought we were safe lynching the scummiest player.

Here, we have a day where it's safe to lynch the Jester, and I was trying to take advantage of that.

Not so much to trick the Jester so we can lynch him/her! That doesn't help the town.

But to trick the Mafia into thinking they're about to get screwed over and the only way out of it is to fakeclaim Jester. If someone had claimed Jester, there was a better than average chance of them being scum, given that the Thespivalites understood the strategy considerations and know that

best play for the Jester is to claim Day 2

, so if any of them are the Jester they (correctly) waited.

Anyway. Hopefully the Jester truly does understand the strategy involved in playing the role and will come out tomorrow. In the meantime, we have plenty to analyze here. My vote remains on GS for now, as his reaction was clearly the most scum-like, but I need to comb through the responses in detail.

[mith]

Battle Mage repeatedly saying the word "trap" - and, to some degree, MeMe responding; though as I said I agreed with her entirely, having someone else just use the word tainted the project - killed any chance it had of working on the Mafia, and I didn't want to Jester to leap to the conclusion that the trap was meant for him/her and be so paranoid by our deception that he/she fails to make the correct play of coming out tomorrow.

I still like GS as scum. And MeMe is my number two, purely on vibe - I'm going to have to read her posts again to see if I can put my finger on anything.

[mith]

At Thespival:

al_kohaulec
Dani Banani
Fletcher
Mastermind of Sin
MeMe
mith
petroleumjelly
PookyTheMagicalBear
Talitha

Not:

Battle Mage
Captain Bandwagon
curiouskarmadog
Dark Ermac
Greasy Spot
hasdgfas
Holy
Iammars
QuickBen
RossWilliam
tyhess
wolfcrier

[mith]

Bah. ~shakes fist at MeMe~

[mith]

As far as I am aware, Captain Bandwagon is the only alt in this game, and was not at Thespival.

[mith]

I already know who you are. The "as far as I am aware" part was referring to the other players, who I have no reason to believe are alts but don't know for certain.

[mith]

Is getting married a scumtell?

I'm flying today, and will be jetlagging/MIThunting tomorrow and Sunday. I'll try to make a post before the end of the weekend, though.

[mith]

FOS: hasdgfas

Random powers for getting other people to say a word isn't at all thematic, and doesn't seem like Thesp's style. Seems more like a UPick claim. Bleh. I don't like it.

(See previous post regarding V/LA. I'll try to catch up later today, depending on how the puzzling is going and whether I go out later.)

[mith]

I agree with BM on the Appeal to Emotion... that last sentence especially rubs me the wrong way. I don't want to be lynched

at all

, because I am an innocent and my being lynched hurts the town. I don't understand bringing up how many scum there are -

especially when we innocents don't know how many there are

- other than as some sort of scare tactic.

GS, my vote on you has nothing to do with your newbieness, or whether you were at Thespival, or anything outside of this game. It is entirely based on your reaction... not even your reaction to the trap itself, but to the follow up interrogation.

Your defense is essentially saying "but I didn't

know

I wasn't supposed to react that way", which is, of course, not the point. The point is that you

did

react that way, and fell into a weak version of the trap. You didn't outright claim Jester, as I was hoping the Mafia would, but you did react in a way that makes me strongly suspect you are scum.

hasdgfas: Let me get this straight. Is it correct that you only get your "random night ability" if you get the town (or some part of it, I don't care about the details just yet) to say [word] AND if you stick to your mostly mute restriction for the day? Is it also correct that you are willing to wait on people saying [word] until tomorrow? (Two yes/no answers, please.)

(I haven't quite finished catching up. If there's a question directed at me I missed, I'll get to it later (or repost it).)

[mith]

What pj said (that's exactly where I was going with this).

I want a full explanation from hasdgfas, or I will be moving my vote to him. Right now, I don't buy his claim.

[mith]

I'm still not convinced by hasdgfas's claim. It doesn't fit the Thespival-theme (we didn't have any such roles, nor is there a Jack-of-all-trades card in my deck), nor does it fit what I know of Thesp's style.

That said, I'm not sure why he would've started with the [word] thing if it was

completely

fabricated.

I'm going to do some research on this. For now, I remain more convinced that Greasy Spot is scum, so my vote will remain there.

[mith]

Yeah, DGB... you said a lot of things. You've really got to stop taking the one thing you got right as validation for your flawed theories.

(But while we're congratulating ourselves for guesses that ended up being right while having no affect on the outcome, of the 9 players who were either on The List™ or who I FOS'd, I hit all five Mafia.)

Well played, math. I was following along the last few days, and while I wasn't anywhere near sure who the scum was (much less that there were two!), I figured if mathcam was scum he would pull it out. No shame in it, ladies, he's just that good.

I didn't have a partner. I actually breadcrumbed this in one of my posts (I had a townie called the Lone Gunman Mason in one of my GL games once), but I didn't expect anyone to notice it.

Looking forward to the details on the setup.

[mith]

Eesh!

[mith]

Me being alive instead of pj certainly would have changed things, nightgame-wise; quack wouldn't have had any reason to suspect he was the quack, and I would've had two innocent results on me. (I would've gone after you, cow, for what it's worth.)

cow, why did you decide to go after CKD when you did? I guess there was suspicion on you guys and you had the numbers to afford a bussing, but you were a mislynch away from a win. Claiming a cop result on pretty much any of the innocents would probably have won the game immediately - you only had to convince one innocent you were legit.

[mith]

And BM, your "obvious" case on MeMe was rubbish. She didn't/wouldn't replace out of a game because people were suspicious of her, whatever her alignment.