'The Lost Boys' Mafia (Cry Little Sister, it's OVER!)

[cicero]

Sigh. You can't answer a question without an insult, can you? I'm gonna stick with the heroes. I've given good meta evidence. We should use it.

[cicero]

Dasq should always be under suspicion, but not based on my Flay research. Based on my Flay research the focus should be on people with the names of heros from the movie. Not villains.

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I disagree. On a face level, you're right. Play a Marvel Superheroes mafia, and scum Magneto might have been told that Spidey isn't in the game and is a safe-claim. He's less likely to have Green Goblin as a "safe" claim. Nothing wrong with that reasoning.

However, in this game we already have proof that the Lost Boys group of the film

can

be innocent. As such, there's no reason a bad guy couldn't either be one of us, or told one of us is a safe-claim. It's not a classic safe-claim in that if it were claimed early on in the game it would attract the same suspicion that got Fonz lynched D1, but it does have the core element of being a safe-claim: that it is indistinguishable from others like it which are pro-town.

So, as I've said before, I don't think myself or the other Lost Boys of the movie should be given a free pass. I would actually be quite surprised if every single one of the movie vamps started off innocent.

I dont think you vamps all be given a free pass either. For example, as much as I've liked your play Dasq, God of Wine deserved a noose quite a while ago in many people's minds. Lots of the vamps seem scummy (Hi, Crub!) so I wouldn't be surprised to see the badguys mixed throughout a bit. Remember as much as we like to talk about "The" recruiter, we have no direct evidence that there IS only one recruiter.

Yosarian floated the idea of a gang of "lost boys". One scenario I'm considering is that the bad guys are say, one or two claimed vamps and a godfather with a hero safeclaim. Another has a godfather with a safeclaim, ectomancer as the scum roleblocker, and maybe a third (but this requires Mariyta to be lying, insane, or suffering). In addition, we always have that hackerhuck/battlemage outside chance. Nothing on earth makes me more nervous then when battlemage shuts up for a while.

Overall though, we are narrowing things down and the untested people are the good guys and I think, based on Flay-meta, that the big chief kahuna bad guy in this game will have a good guy safe claim. It doesnt matter if there are bad guys that are townie. In a cult game there would need to be very few scum to start with. This is a 19 player game. Normal amount of scum would be, what, 4? 5 at most? So the lost boys cult probably started with 1 or 2. Maybe 1 guy with, dare I say it, a lynch immunity, like Setael suggests.

It doesnt therefore follow that the "Max" figure would be stuck without a hero safeclaim. Flay has said he likes doing that AND it fits the Max flavor. (I also think Flay would be amused by a Lucy/Max duality). It certainly isn't a sure thing, but it's the best chance we have at the moment imho.

Note: I would be more than happy to lynch a surf nazi or a beach bum

if a major role from the movie was missing

, but other than Max himself, everyone is present and accounted for. I was actually watching for a hole in the cast list. As it is there isnt one so I think the bad guy used his safe claim. Personally I think that bad guy is probably named Mastermind of Sin, but I'm definitely happy to explore runners up since

Mastermind of Sin has to be the Frog Brother's problem

.

[Dasquian]

Pooky's Surf Nazi is Mod bait to the town. As I said, Pooky could simply have claimed to be a 4th beach bum. I give you that he could have chosen that role himself, but I have my reservations.

Hrm. As much as I am liking voting Pooky, this rings very true and the main reason I have for pressuring him is his lurkiness, not his role claim.

Unvote Pooky

.

More back and forth between cicero/Ecto, which I can wholeheartedly say I am quite tired of. Ecto is needlessly obtuse in answering direct questions, then cicero gets the wind up him about it. Gut feeling says that they're both town (cicero certainly moreso), so I tend to put the whole repeated conflict down to being something we could do without.

The absence of a true doctor makes sense if we have a pure cult game, where cult kills are not the primary route to victory (and are presumably restricted in some way, perhaps as simply as the likelihood of a bite victim accidentally offing a cult member).

I think both mason pairs are reasonably trustworthy. I also tend to believe the other power-role claims such as Mariyta's and Sudo_nym's (although not without reservation).

Currently I'm suspicious of the largeish group of generic claims, Lost Boy claims, and also the Emerson claims. I believe MoS' claim

could

be entirely true, but I didn't like his explanation (2938):

However, it seems as if the town has spoken, so I'll claim. I have lynch immunity. The flavor behind this is that both sides in the movie had reason to keep her alive. Max, as the leader of the vampires in the movie, is in love with her and wants to make her into a vampire, and the non-vampires obviously want to protect her from him. Neither side wants her to die.

It's perfectly thematic with the

movie

, but I'm not sure how thematic it is with the game. For a start, the Lost Boys aren't all vampires, and the flavour claims that Max is the bad guy (not unreasonable, but still something we don't know for sure!).

Secondly, this is about lynches. I'm not sure wanting to protect Lucy from the vampires is a thematically solid excuse for lynch immunity, as lynches are about the mob taking a risk and possibly getting it wrong. I can see why Max's love would protect her from night-kills (he steps in and calls the dogs off), but there's nothing to suggest she's any more loved by the town (excepting Sam and Michael!) that would make her less likely to fall victim to an angry mob. It doesn't add up.

Counter-argument: this wouldn't stop a determined mod. If Flay wanted to put a lynch-proof townie in this isn't a totally unreasonable character, but it seems a little loose. Given we already had a generic mayor character, I'm sure a lynch-proof role could've been a local judge or something.

Onto AniX and Yos: both are claiming Emerson, non-vampire brothers. This is actually fine! It's worth noting that with the fiction of the film not having happened, there's not a whole lot of difference between the two characters. They're just two normal brothers, neither of whom got bitten. This puts them in the same camp as all the other Lost Boys.


So all of this doesn't actually narrow my list much. We have:

Beach Bums - cicero, Setael
Surf Nazi - Pooky
Emerson brothers - AniX, Yos2
Lost Boys - Arafax, Dasquian, Crub
Passive abilities - Sudo_Nym, MoS
Masons - TinVision, Sir.Laggalot, BattleMage, HackerHuck
Power-roles - Ectomancer, Mariyta

The masons, power-roles, and myself go straight off the list. Sudo_nym seems like an OK claim to me, reflection on Pooky's claim gets him out of the front-line for now, and I find cicero quite townie, so they're off too. Everyone else is fair game, as far as I'm concerned. Gut feeling list, scummiest to least scummy:

MoS, Crub, Setael, Yos2, Arafax, AniX.

Vote: Mastermind of Sin

. I appreciate the previously-made arguments that this lynch might not be tactically optimal, but it's still where I'm currently most comfortable with my vote. It also occurs to me that in a game where NKs are less frequent and so the town is more dependent on lynches than usual, threatening the town with a possible no-lynch carries more clout than usual.

[cicero]

I dont get it. I appreciate a symbolic MoS vote to compel the Frog Brothers to vig him but there's no way we should try to lynch him. I certainly believe he has a lynch immunity, if he says he does. Regardless of alignment. Are you really suggesting we should purposely No Lynch today?

Can you explain this more?

It also occurs to me that in a game where NKs are less frequent and so the town is more dependent on lynches than usual, threatening the town with a possible no-lynch carries more clout than usual.

I feel like there should be a "therefore ___________" statement.

[Yosarian2]

I certainly believe he has a lynch immunity, if he says he does.

Why do you believe that?

I can't imagine a cult recruiter or anything remotely like a cult recruiter having lynch immunity. Too unbalanced; the town could hypothetically figure out who the cult recruiter was, lynch him, and then still autolose because the lynch failed and he recruited again that night. It just seems unfair. If MOS was really a cult recruiter, or the member of a recruiting cult group or something like that, then he's probably lying about being lynch immune.

Of course, it's also possible he's telling the truth about his role but was recruited at some point and is scum NOW.

[Dasquian]

Sure, cicero.

I meant that if you're scum looking for a plausible fake-claim which will make you unlikely to be lynched, one which would deprive the town of a lynch is a good one. In this particular game, we are getting far less information from every night than usual, which means such a claim makes the idea of lynching it extra-unappealing.

I am happy to look for another lynch if the Frog brothers agree to vig him overnight, but as it stands, I think the claim may just be a complete fabrication. With no huge degree of certainty I accept that there is a greater risk than lynching, eg, a plain townie.

[cicero]

@Yos, no offense, but I'm getting the feeling you have started to skim this game more than read it. You missed my whole post on why your flavor is suspect, and now you are asking me why I believe this when I'm not the first one to say it. I believe it for the same reason that Ectomancer said he believes it. Go to the dropdown menu and read his post 360 and 364. Consider me having said QFT.

As for the balance argument, refer to what Setael said in her (drop down) post 80. Lynch immunity would be a very good ability for a CR to have to get past day one in the one CR scenario. Also, if he's recruitable the whole unfair to town thing exists anyway. We need to be careful about balance speculation since we simply dont have enough info. All you super experienced guys could stand to be constructing game models based on what we already know. If you cant then we dont know enough. And if MoS is lying altogether then it's definitely execution time.

@Dasquian - makes sense, but frankly, any way I look at it the correct play is to vig MOS and lynch someone else. I have no interest in risking more No Lynches in a cult game.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Currently I'm suspicious of the largeish group of generic claims, Lost Boy claims, and also the Emerson claims. I believe MoS' claim

could

be entirely true, but I didn't like his explanation (2938):

However, it seems as if the town has spoken, so I'll claim. I have lynch immunity. The flavor behind this is that both sides in the movie had reason to keep her alive. Max, as the leader of the vampires in the movie, is in love with her and wants to make her into a vampire, and the non-vampires obviously want to protect her from him. Neither side wants her to die.

It's perfectly thematic with the

movie

, but I'm not sure how thematic it is with the game. For a start, the Lost Boys aren't all vampires, and the flavour claims that Max is the bad guy (not unreasonable, but still something we don't know for sure!).

Secondly, this is about lynches. I'm not sure wanting to protect Lucy from the vampires is a thematically solid excuse for lynch immunity, as lynches are about the mob taking a risk and possibly getting it wrong. I can see why Max's love would protect her from night-kills (he steps in and calls the dogs off), but there's nothing to suggest she's any more loved by the town (excepting Sam and Michael!) that would make her less likely to fall victim to an angry mob. It doesn't add up.

Except that we've already seen that a lot of the roles take their flavor from the movie. Not all of them (townie vamps, although even that flavor can make sense from the movie, and the cop who didn't do much being a real cop, and Ecto), but the Frog Brothers, Star/Laddy, and Grandpa all have abilities based on the flavor of the movie. Since the game *is* themed after the movie, and we already have examples of there being *some* correlation, I don't see how you can argue that the "theme of the game" is separate from the "theme of the movie".

As for lynches, you're right about that, but I always interpreted it to be that the main characters on both alignments in the movie wanted her alive, so they could exert some control over her lynch, even though

technically

, those roles/players don't have that control in the game. I *still* think that Max is the most likely cult recruiter, so he would exert his control over the whole cult as far as flavor goes regarding my role, anyways.

Counter-argument: this wouldn't stop a determined mod. If Flay wanted to put a lynch-proof townie in this isn't a totally unreasonable character, but it seems a little loose. Given we already had a generic mayor character, I'm sure a lynch-proof role could've been a local judge or something.

But why throw in a random generic character if you can fit the flavor to a named character? In fact, why throw in Grandpa as a bomb if you could just insert a generic character in his place? I don't see how Grandpa is a more secure claim in the reference frame of the

game

, which you seem to think is completely different from that of the

movie

. If you have so many problems with my claim, why are you not making the same objections to Grandpa?

[Crub]

I'm trying really hard not to come to the conclusion that Dasquian has been recruited.

unvote; vote Yos

[Ectomancer]

Here is my best defense for MOS:

MOS
Sudo
Peers

What do those 3 have in common? They all punish for a mis-target in one form or another, against one faction or another (or both). Peers punished the town, Sudo is neutral, and MOS is a bit of a neutral as well.

I like to think that Pooky also falls into this category as well, as Surf Nazi is a name I would have lynched on Day 1 or 2, before we got confirmation of a cult from Mariyta.

That is essentially why I believe these 4 claims. It is the feed that can help a cult get well established before we figure out what is going on.

My other bit of belief for MOS, and why I dont even think we need to Vig him tonight, is I felt he bumbled about a bit with his claim. I dont think he was trying to hide anything, or gain time, or whatever and look scummy as a result of it. He's an experienced mod. If he needs to give a smooth "townie" delivery of a claim, he can pull one off, I'm certain. So I dont think he is faking these "conversations" with the mod, I think he is town and doesnt know and so is asking.

[Ectomancer]

EBWOP: 3 claims. I of course believe Peers...

[Yosarian2]

@Yos, no offense, but I'm getting the feeling you have started to skim this game more than read it. You missed my whole post on why your flavor is suspect,

No, I do understand that. I had misunderstood you, I thought you were trying to imply that one of the "name characters" is probably scum based on some Flay metagame, and that didn't at all fit what I know about Flay, but you were actually trying to say that one of them might be a safeclaim. The latter argument does make a little more sense, although it still goes a bit farther in trying to outguess the mod then makes me comfortable, especally considering the poor record we've had of outguessing the mod so far this game. In any case, whatever validity the argument may have had was probably lost after you made it, since after that point scum could have just claimed beach bums while townies would continue to have to tell the truth.

and now you are asking me why I believe this when I'm not the first one to say it. I believe it for the same reason that Ectomancer said he believes it. Go to the dropdown menu and read his post 360 and 364. Consider me having said QFT.

Ecto didn't quite say that, though. He mentioned that MOS might be scum telling the truth, but you seem to be assuming MOS must be telling the truth, which isn't the same thing.

As for the balance argument, refer to what Setael said in her (drop down) post 80. Lynch immunity would be a very good ability for a CR to have to get past day one in the one CR scenario.

Eh...not really. Lynch immunity dosn't help a scum much on day 1, the town can just re-lynch him the next day. But it totally breaks a game open at endgame, and in a way that seems pretty unfair to me.

Also, if he's recruitable the whole unfair to town thing exists anyway.

Ah, but it dosn't. The town loses anyway if they lynch a cult recruit in lynch or lose, because then the cult just recruits again, and now they have half the members of the town and win. The only way a town could even theoretically win at that point is if they instead lynch the cult recruiter, and if the cult recruiter had 1-shot lynch immunity then even that becomes impossible, and that just seems wildly unfair. A cult recruit with 1 lynch immunity isn't nearly as bad, though, because once the town kills off the recruiter or recruiters then we have all the time in the world to find and kill the cult recruits; and if it takes 2 days to lynch one of them at that point, no big loss.

[Yosarian2]

I'm trying really hard not to come to the conclusion that Dasquian has been recruited.

unvote; vote Yos

Um...any rational reason why you're voting me, or are you just trying to sneak onto a growing bandwagon here, Crub?

[Dasquian]

I don't see how you can argue that the "theme of the game" is separate from the "theme of the movie".

I'm not; it's just that your role flavour fits a more straight-down-the-line interpretation of the movie than we're apparently dealing with, which sent off warning bells. Your rebuttal is fair enough.

As for lynches, you're right about that, but I always interpreted it to be that the main characters on both alignments in the movie wanted her alive, so they could exert some control over her lynch, even though technically, those roles/players don't have that control in the game.

But how would that actually play out?

- Max, various cultists, Michael, Sam, the Frog brothers and some beach bums all vote you. Lynch majority is met...
- Flay posts a death scene: "You all decide you didn't want to do it after all. It's night!"

I mean, OK, maybe Michael and Sam's votes don't count because they don't want to lynch their mum (even though the players aren't told this is the case). Maybe Max and the cult's votes don't count for a similar reason. But why would random other characters quail at lynching Lucy? We're stringing people up here, compassion for our fellow man has been replaced by mistrust and fear.

I'm trying really hard not to come to the conclusion that Dasquian has been recruited.

Want to elaborate on this? I'm rather interested in what you have to say since you're reasonably high up my scum list anyway.

What do those 3 have in common? They all punish for a mis-target in one form or another, against one faction or another (or both). Peers punished the town, Sudo is neutral, and MOS is a bit of a neutral as well.

Of course, that works against MoS too. Having seen a number of claims which trigger on a lynch/NK, the precedent has been set for those roles being in the game making a lynch-proof claim "fit in" more easily. And if he's such the experienced player as you say, he could well have the smarts to send Flay a PM asking him to reply when he got it, to help fake bumbling around.

[Mr. Flay]

Fifteenth Vote Count of Day Four:

Mastermind of Sin - 4 (Yosarian2, HackerHuck, Sir.Laggalot, Dasquian)

Yosarian2 - 3 (Mastermind of Sin, cicero, Crub)
PookyTheMagicalBear - 2 (Mariyta, Setael)
AniX - 1 (Battle Mage)

Not Voting - 6 (PookyTheMagicalBear, AniX, -TinVision-, Sudo_Nym, Arafax, Ectomancer)

With sixteen left, nine votes will be needed to lynch.

[Ectomancer]

As for lynches, you're right about that, but I always interpreted it to be that the main characters on both alignments in the movie wanted her alive, so they could exert some control over her lynch, even though technically, those roles/players don't have that control in the game.

But how would that actually play out?

- Max, various cultists, Michael, Sam, the Frog brothers and some beach bums all vote you. Lynch majority is met...
- Flay posts a death scene: "You all decide you didn't want to do it after all. It's night!"

I mean, OK, maybe Michael and Sam's votes don't count because they don't want to lynch their mum (even though the players aren't told this is the case). Maybe Max and the cult's votes don't count for a similar reason. But why would random other characters quail at lynching Lucy? We're stringing people up here, compassion for our fellow man has been replaced by mistrust and fear.

I think this is nitpicking. The role does fit perfectly with the movie. There were essentially 2 factions, humans and Vamps. Neither would have killed Mom.

[Dasquian]

I get why vamps wouldn't kill mom. Max in particular would be protective of her in particular.

I don't get why mom would be less likely to get strung up by an angry mob than anyone else. Clearly the town don't want to lynch an innocent Lucy Emerson. But nobody wants to lynch an innocent Dwayne, Marko, Star, Laddy, Michael, Grandpa, etc, etc either.

Do the town of Santa Carla all really really love her or something?

[Ectomancer]

In game we have an angry mob, in movie we have people who, as a general rule, dont go around killing other people. It's flavor, it doesn't have to be a neat package in both worlds.

[Setael]

I'm starting to agree with Ecto's points about Pooky. It makes sense that there'd be at least one surf nazi in the game that, if pressured early and forced into claiming that, we'd likely have lynched and then I can definitely see them coming up town and us saying "Oh. I guess the surf nazis aren't the mafia group." Kind of reminiscent of Fonz's lynch when we discovered the named vampires aren't all bad guys. So for now I'm willing to

unvote

Pooky.

Now that I'm ruling out Pooky, I think the CR is either Yos or Dasquian. In fact, I think one of them is the CR and the other has been recruited but hasn't killed yet and is therefore suffering somehow. After Dasquian's MoS vote which is effectively a subtle way to push a No Lynch imo, he has earned my vote. If necessary to avoid a no lynch, I will join the Yos wagon closer to deadline, but I think Dasquian would be a better lynch. The cult would be highly motivated to vote MoS today as it will likely lead to a No Lynch and no information for the town, and Dasquian's MoS vote looks the most opportunistic.

vote: Dasquian

[cicero]

Heya Yos,

I dont want to make people read a big post by post again so this is brief and your quotes are truncated to bare minimum. Just want to say that I disagree with pretty much everything in your last post.

...but you were actually trying to say that one of them might be a safeclaim.

There is no effective difference until the character is dead.

In any case, whatever validity the argument may have had was probably lost after you made it, since after that point scum could have just claimed beach bums while townies would continue to have to tell the truth.

But I didnt spell it out until AFTER the mass claim. I did mention it once a long time ago, I think (although I might have deleted that post) but it doesnt matter because

all the main characters are present and accounted for

. If a safe claim person had claimed beach bum or surf nazi one of the main chars would be missing. They arent.

Ecto didn't quite say that, though. He mentioned that MOS might be scum telling the truth, but you seem to be assuming MOS must be telling the truth, which isn't the same thing.

You are misquoting Ecto. Both of us maintain the same position which is that the most likely scenario by far is that MoS is telling the truth about his role ability. He may be lying but it is quite unlikely and if so is grounds for removing him from the game in any event. (Ecto, like you, says Mos is more likely to be town, however.)

Eh...not really. Lynch immunity dosn't help a scum much on day 1, the town can just re-lynch him the next day.

It helps him to get at least one recruit. We in fact specifically speculated about him having some such immunity earlier in this game if you'll recall.

The only way a town could even theoretically win ... if it takes 2 days to lynch one of them at that point, no big loss.

Either way LYLO isnt where the town thinks it is and they lose. I do agree that a CR with lynch immunity is worse than a recruit with it. Either can result in the town being screwed, however. And besides we wont really know when we're at LYLO now will we.

[cicero]

@setael - I forget. What was your reaction back when I was arguing that MoS and Anix both did things in furtherence of a No Lynch and that Yos made the right noises but didnt commit?

[Dasquian]

In game we have an angry mob, in movie we have people who, as a general rule, dont go around killing other people. It's flavor, it doesn't have to be a neat package in both worlds.

Where does a bit of mod license stop and a sloppy scum fake-claim start, though? Am I the only one who thinks MoS' claimed flavour background is a little shaky? Genuine question.

I also agree with the plan to vig-kill MoS rather than lynch him but I need to know the Frog brothers are on board first - TinVision, Sir.Laggalot?

As for Setael - I'm obviously not in favour of a no lynch, though I am in favour of taking that risk. You can interpret it how you want though I think if you're throwing accusations of opportunism around, you can have one yourself. You've made a CR shortlist of Yos2 and myself without actually explaining why (except to say you "agree with HH", which is a nice vague get-out), and are now riding the "zomg no lyncher" argument to a vote on me.

HackerHuck divided what I see as a fairly murky list of unconfirmed vanillas + extras into "believable" and "the rest" by his own opinion. He didn't do it in the way I would have, but that's fine, they're his opinions. You said "I agree with HH's list." What, all of it? Maybe you'd like to be more specific about who and why, because

that's

the important bit.

[Battle Mage]

ok im here. need to catch up though.

Unvote, Vote: MoS

[Yosarian2]

Heya Yos,

I dont want to make people read a big post by post again so this is brief and your quotes are truncated to bare minimum. Just want to say that I disagree with pretty much everything in your last post.

...but you were actually trying to say that one of them might be a safeclaim.

There is no effective difference until the character is dead.

There certanly is. Flay would never make a game where one of the good guys was just randomally evil for no reason, a safe claim is quite likely.

Ecto didn't quite say that, though. He mentioned that MOS might be scum telling the truth, but you seem to be assuming MOS must be telling the truth, which isn't the same thing.

You are misquoting Ecto. Both of us maintain the same position which is that the most likely scenario by far is that MoS is telling the truth about his role ability. He may be lying but it is quite unlikely and if so is grounds for removing him from the game in any event. (Ecto, like you, says Mos is more likely to be town, however.)

I was trying to make the distintion for a simple reason; I might be willing to support a lynch on MOS today, if the theory behind it was something like "if he's the cult recruiter then he's probably lying and the lynch will probably kill him; if he's pro-town then he's probably telling the truth and the lynch probably won't kill him", and if that was combined with some kind of detailed in-game (that is, not flavor based) case for why he's supposed to be cult.

The only way a town could even theoretically win ... if it takes 2 days to lynch one of them at that point, no big loss.

Either way LYLO isnt where the town thinks it is and they lose. I do agree that a CR with lynch immunity is worse than a recruit with it. Either can result in the town being screwed, however. And besides we wont really know when we're at LYLO now will we.[/quote]

But a cult recruit with lynch immunity does NOT change where the lynch is, IF the town's already found and killed the cult recruiter or recruiters.

The basic premise of any cult game is that the town has a chance to win if they can figure out and lynch the cult recruiter or recruiters fast enough, and then go back and find the recruits later. Making the cult recruiter lynch immune....I just can't imagine how that could possibly be balanced.

[Ectomancer]

ok im here. need to catch up though.

Unvote, Vote: MoS

\
Ok really, why do you do this?

"I dont know what's going on, but here's my freaking vote anyhow!!"

Seriously.